Tag Archives: building

2023

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1 Feb.  The US Mint announced that The Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray and four other women will be honored on quarters next year as part of its American Women Quarters series, celebrating the contributions of women to American history.

Peter & Margaret Johnson

5 Feb. At our annual meeting, Peter Johnson and Elizabeth Richardson retired from our vestry. He or his wife Margaret had served continuously since 1985, and Elizabeth for twenty. Peter was senior warden for two rectors:  William Blaine-Wallace and Pamela Werntz.  He was project manager for renovations of our back wall (see image above) and facade.  While becoming a Master Gardener in 2018, he assumed responsibility for our garden and continues to serve on our Building Commission.  Elizabeth, who served as a vestry member, clerk of the vestry, and junior warden, continues to serve on our Communications Commission and History & Archives Commission.

9 July. We celebrated the feast of our own saint, Pauli Murray.  Our rector preached about Murray’s ordination and significance for The Episcopal Church and justice in the United States. Murray’s niece Rosita Stevens-Holsey spoke after the service and signed copies of her book Pauli Murray: The Life of a Pioneering Feminist and Civil Rights Activist.  A statue of Murray sculpted by Artist-in-Residence Ted Southwick was installed in a niche on our Sanctuary pulpit.

September.  The Rev. Dr. Martha Tucker joined us as Interim Priest while our rector began her 3-month sabbatical.

The late Walter Jonas chatted with his friend Philip Henry weekly in our Parish Hall.

Nov. 10.  Walter Jonas, chair of our Care Commission, died at the age of eighty.  After earning a masters degree from Harvard Divinity School (HDS), he had been ordained a Unitarian Universalist (UU) minister and served two churches. He came here for our music and stayed to become a beloved parishioner.  During the Covid pandemic he was a founding advocate for the Emmanuel Center’s  Zoom groups for studying biblical languages.  He joined its Latin group, which was led by the Rev. Susan Ackley and her son Andy Cabell, with the help of another masters student at HDS, Carolyn Beard. He brought its current leader Peter Bonis, whom he knew at the First Church (UU).

December 1. On Rosemary Harbison‘s birthday we celebrated John Harbison’s 85th birthday (Dec. 20) with dinner and music in the Parish Hall.

Happy Holidays

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Last Friday at Boston Warm, we had a party: there were red-clothed tables, a community-decorated Christmas tree, a Christmas movie, hand-decorated cookies, all of it. It was such a joyful and relaxing moment as a community. As always, my favorite moment was our Uno game (shout out to Junior for winning four games in a row)! I’ve often found that when we play Uno, the game brings us together, and there is tangible relaxation in the atmosphere. We can all focus on flexing our skills. Overshadowed by fun and friendly competition, our differences are minimized. This focus on play is also part of what makes drama therapy effective.

Continue reading →

A New Commandment?

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Easter 5C. 15 May 2022.  The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

Acts 11:1-18. The spirit told me…not to make a distinction between them and us.
Revelation 21:1-6. I am making all things new.…To the thirsty I will give water as a gift.
John 13:31-35. I give you a new commandment, [in order] that you love one another.

O God of all, grant us the wisdom, the strength and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

We are deep into Eastertide, and our scripture lessons and our cantata lesson today describe the visions of Peter, John of Patmos, and John the Evangelist, and Bach’s vision of peace and joy, comfort, calm, and quiet at the last. We’re also giving thanks to God for the five decades of the gentle and inviting presence of Stephen Babcock as chief usher and greeter. For more than thirty of his fifty+ years at Emmanuel, Sunday after Sunday, no matter what the weather, Steve stood just outside of the massive doors of a daunting stone structure in the first block of an intimidating location to offer graceful welcome. The vestry has named the doors to our west lobby “The Babcock Doors”, and just before we exchange the Peace today, we will dedicate and bless them. Continue reading →

2022

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  • Rector blessing doors with Holy Water20 May.  The Rev. Pamela Werntz blessed the Babcock Doors to the Sargent Lobby at the rear of our sanctuary, where head usher Stephen Babcock welcomed congregants to our services for fseveral decades.  Assisting her are subdeacon Karen King and the Rev. Robert Greiner, with Stephen facing his doors. Although our rector had lifted our mask mandate for the Covid pandemic earlier, vulnerable congregants and many of our musicians continued to wear them.  See also: Timeline 1997.
  • May.  Vaughan Sherrill joined us as Parish Administrator.  She is a great-granddaughter of Henry Knox Sherrill, who was ninth bishop of our diocese, twentieth Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church, a founder of the Episcopal Church Foundation, and President of the World Council of Churches.
  • Sept.  Our rector became dean of our diocese’s Boston Harbor Deanery.
  • 11 Dec.   The Chorus of Emmanuel Music sang parishioner Sid Richardson’s Magnificat, which they had commissioned for Gaudete Sunday. Listen to it on our YouTube Channel.
  • Our puppeteer Sara Peattie published on Amazon’s Kindle platform 68 Ways to Make Really Big Puppets.

Ha Ruach, Ha Kodesh

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Proper 5B. June 6, 2021

1 Samuel 8:4-20; 11:14-15. We are determined to have a king over us.
2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1. So we do not lose heart.
Mark 3:20-35. Whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit can never have forgiveness but is guilty of an eternal sin.

O God of glory, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

I hope you heard our Deacon Bob’s sermon last week for Trinity Sunday. If not, I encourage you to go to the YouTube recording of our service on May 30. Bob had my rapt attention as soon as he mentioned three-tab file folders! I’ve been thinking all week about how much my sense of well-being has to do with my documents, paper and electronic, being neatly filed and easily retrievable. And the Church has a long history of trying to label and contain and define the mystery of the Divine. Bob reminded us that the Holy One doesn’t fit in file folders or books or whole libraries, or bricks and mortar or wood frames or even bread and wine. The Holy One cannot be reduced to words or equations, and certainly not things.

Continue reading →

2021

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  • 1 Jan. Orbis Books published When Tears Sing: The Art of Lament in Christian Community by our 11th rector, The Rev. Dr. William Blaine-Wallace.
  • 21 Jan.  Boston Sun article by Seth Daniel, “Made for This Time: Surprisingly Emmanuel Church Was Engineered for COVID-19”, discussed the efforts of Michael Scanlon and Julian Bullitt to monitor air quality throughout our building, which was designed in the time of tuberculosis.
  • March.  The Rev. Tamra Tucker and our rector formed two mixed groups of parishioners from common cathedral and Emmanuel to follow The Episcopal Church’s Sacred Ground dialogue series on race and faith.
  • July 6.  Beloved parishioner Ann Taylor Roosevelt died.  She endowed our Taylor Fund for Theological Education in memory of her father, The Rev. Charles Lincoln Taylor, who served as Dean of the Episcopal Theological School in Cambridge MA from 1944-1956.
  • July 29.  Kevin Neel retired as organist and parish administrator par excellence.
  • 26 Sept. We celebrated the retirement of Pat Krol, who had served as Executive Director of Emmanuel Music and greeter since 2006.  We funded the cantata and dedicated in her honor these doors, which she held open every Sunday while our choristers and liturgists to processed into the Sanctuary.
  • 31 Oct.  Memorial service for The Rev. Dr. David J. Siegenthaler (1926-2020), former priest in charge, was held in our well-ventilated sanctuary.  After leaving Emmanuel, Dr. Siegenthaler had served as rector of St. John’s Episcopal Church, Duxbury MA, and then as archivist at the Episcopal Divinity School, where he taught for four decades.

2019

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29 January.  We celebrated John Harbison‘s 80th birthday in our Parish Hall with some of his jazz songs, a piece composed by Michael Gandolfi with libretto of Lloyd Schwartz‘ selections from John’s recently published book What Do We Make of Bach, and a tower of cupcakes wheeled in by Pat Krol, Executive Director of Emmanuel Music.

John Harbison at the piano provided by M. Steinert & Sons with Don Berman, Lynn Torgove, Pat Krol, and singers of Emmanuel Music.

  • Thanks to a generous grant from the City of Boston’s Community Preservation, Commission restoration work on our Newbury St. façade began under the direction of Vestry member Peter K. Johnson.  The multi-year project involved repair and refinishing of five sets of doors with their tympana, masonry work for our central entrance and several staircases, and roof work to prevent ice dams.
  • cover of book on Bach

    Craig Smith directing our orchestra with Lorraine Hunt Lieberson on viola; Don Wilkinson, Paul Guttry et al. in the chorus.

    Pendragon Press published Bringing Bach’s Music to Life, a compilation of Craig Smith’s program notes for 24 cantatas, edited by Pamela Dellal, in its series of Monographs in Musicology.

Made by God

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Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 20A, September 24, 2017; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

Exodus 16:2-15. In the evening you shall know that it was the LORD who brought you out of the land of Egypt.
Philippians 1:21-30. Live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ.
Matthew 20:1-16. Are you envious because I am generous?

O God of Our Priceless Sacrament, grant us the wisdom, the strength and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

It is becoming something of a tradition to begin the Emmanuel Church cantata season with Anton Bruckner’s Locus Iste. This place was made by God, a priceless sacrament; it is without reproach. The Emmanuel Music choir always makes it sound to me like the piece was written for this worship space. Anticipating today, I had the words stuck in my head all week. Is it true? What does it mean that this place was made by God? What does it mean that it is a priceless sacrament, profoundly sacred? What does it mean that it is without reproach? Continue reading →

2006

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  • July 3. Mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson died.
  • Pat Krol arrived from the Boston Symphony Orchestra to become Executive Director of Emmanuel Music and an ex-officio member of our vestry.
  • Parish Administrator Kelly Reed hired Sid Richardson as the youngest of several event sextons.
  • Fences designed by David Polando were installed by DeAngelis Iron Work with funding from the Edward Ingersoll Brown Fund and the City of Boston.hardscapeMeditationWest253