John Harbison; photo credit: Julian Bullitt
John Harbison dedicated to our benefactor Priscilla Rawson Young his memorable setting of 1 Corinthians 11:23-5 as “Communion Words“, which we sing with his other service music in Lent.
James Primosch composed “Meditation for Candlemas”, first of several motets based on the poetry of Denise Levertov, who attended Emmanuel in the 1980s. It was sung in our service on Feb. 1, 2015. Here is the text of “Candlemas” from her collection Breathing the Water (NY: New Directions, 1987). Continue reading
Constance visited us in Oct. 2017
Constance Hammond was elected our first woman (junior) warden. After ordination in our diocese, she served as rector of St. Stephen’s Episcopal Parish, Portland OR (1990-98) and then as rector and priest in other churches in the Episcopal Diocese of Oregon Since 1998, she has been a practitioner and instructor in the Healing Touch Program. See also: 1986.
Why in the face of the devastating rejection at the Louisville General Convention of last October, 1973–a rejection which Bishop Paul Moore of NY has called the violation of the very core of their personhood–[have the women seeking ordination to the priesthood] only increased their determination to enter the higher levels of the clergy?
Then paraphrasing Isaiah 53:3, she prophesied:
I believe that these women are in truth the Suffering Servants of Christ, despised and rejected, women of sorrows and acquainted with grief. They are answering to a higher authority than that of the political structures of our Church, and in the fullness of time God will sweep away those barriers and free the Church to carry forward its mission of renewal as a living force and God’s witness in our society.
* Reprinted in Daughters of Thunder: Black women preachers and their sermons, 1850-1979, Bettye Collier-Thomas (NY: Jossey Bass, 1998), pp. 240-44. Please see also About Pauli Murray and our Timeline entries about her: 1951,1970, 1973, 1977, 1985, 1987, 2012 & 2015.
Start your day with Robert J. [Lurtsema] says Priscilla Young’s T-shirt.
For more about PR Young, see: 1909, 1939, 1942, 1973, 1994 & 2000.
Thanks to Radio Corporation of America for use of this image.
Jan. 14. The Rev. Alvin L. Kershaw served as master of ceremonies for the first Boston Globe Jazz and Blues Festival, held at the Boston War Memorial Auditorium (now the Hynes Convention Center).
April 24. More than 500 people attended a jazz service with Al Kershaw presiding. Trumpeter Herb Pomeroy and his sextet played saxophonist Edgar (Ed) Summerlin‘s “Liturgy of the Holy Spirit”, with text based on the Eucharistic Prayer of Hippolytus (c. 217 CE) and adapted by the New York poet William Robert Miller.
The Rev. Al Kershaw & Dizzie Gillespie. Thanks to MetroWest Daily News for this image.
The Rev. Alvin Louis Kershaw‘s album Introduction to Jazz was released by Decca Records. According to the guide to his papers donated by his widow Doris to the U. of Southern Mississippi’s McCain Library and Archives, the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) had invited him to speak in February 1956:
on the subject of jazz, an area in which he was considered something of an expert. In the meantime, [he had become] a contestant on the television quiz show The $64,000 Question, where his expertise in the field of jazz helped him to win $32,000. In an interview after the program, he alluded to the possibility of donating a portion of his winnings to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) to aid in the battle against segregation. When word of this reached Mississippi, the Rev. Kershaw became the target of a firestorm of criticism, which eventually led to cancellation of his scheduled visit to Ole Miss.
Our archive has a copy of the record, which contains “Selected recordings of great jazz stylists, with historical data and musical analyses” and these tunes:
December 13. Celebration of our 75th Year
The Rt. Rev. William Lawrence, D.D., Bishop of Massachusetts (1893-1927). Photo credit: WikiCommons
Our fifth rector, The Rev. Dr. Phillips Endicott Osgood, said in his sermon: “We are stewards of an inheritance, interpreters of a tradition”. Organist Dr. Albert Snow composed an anthem for the service. Bishop William Lawrence praised our first four wardens:
For more detail, see Boston Globe, Dec. 14,1936, p. 4: “Bishop Lawrence in Tribute to Early Emmanuel Wardens. Services Celebrate 75th Birthday of Church. Dr. Osgood Views Future”.
Seated on the right at his desk in our Emmanuel Room is Dr. Osgood with The Rev. Ivol Ira Curtis (center), who became Bishop of Olympia.