Tag Archives: poets

G-AWE-D

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Epiphany 5B, 4 February 2024. The Very Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

  • Isaiah 40:21-31. Lift up your eyes on high and see: Who created these? [Yes!]
  • 1 Corinthians 9:16-23. In my proclamation I may make the gospel free of charge.
  • Mark 1:29-39. So that I may proclaim the message.

O God of wonder, 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.

I’m going to interrupt my preaching on the Gospel of Mark this week to spend a few moments to talk with you about our Hebrew Bible lesson from the fortieth chapter of Isaiah, because it’s one of my favorites. Actually it’s Second Isaiah, which is what Chapters 40 through 55 get called, because they were so clearly written at a different time by a different author than the first thirty-nine chapters or the last eleven. The writer of Second Isaiah might be considered the great poet, rather than the great prophet. This writer never once refers to herself as a prophet. I imagine her words might have come to Jesus’ mind sometimes, especially when he was able to find a deserted place to pray while it was still very dark. Continue reading →

You are abundantly blessed.

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Sunday in the Octave of the Feast of All Saints, Nov. 6, 2022.  The Very Rev. Pamela L. Werntz.

Daniel 7:1-3, 15-18. As for me…my spirit was troubled within me.
Ephesians 1:11-23. So that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you.
Luke 6:20-36. Love your enemies.

Merciful and generous God, 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.

Today we are observing All Saints’ Day in the Church, because today is the Sunday within the Octave or eight days starting November 1. Today we are also observing Pledge Stewardship Sunday at Emmanuel Church, the day we set aside to encourage everyone who wants Emmanuel Church standing and thriving to make a commitment to financially support this parish in the coming year, to provide for clergy and other staff. I don’t think of Pledge Stewardship Sunday as a deadline as much as a lifeline for the coming year. We will be facing some significant financial challenges in 2023, so we would appreciate your generosity more than ever! The same amount given as last year will not go as far because of inflation, so if you are able to give more than you did last year, your giving would make an even greater difference. Continue reading →

Look up at the stars and see Who!

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Epiphany, 5B, February 7, 2021. The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz.

Isaiah 40:21-31. Lift up your eyes on high and see: Who created these.
1 Corinthians 9:16-23. I do it all for the sake of the Gospel, so that I might share its blessings.
Mark 1:29-39. Everyone is searching for you.

O God of Blessing, 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.

Our readings for today raise more questions than they give answers, but that’s okay with me because I love the questions. Our first reading, from the 40th chapter of Isaiah, follows the famous plea from God for comfort and consolation for a people who have been devastated and who are despairing.

“Comfort, comfort my people,” says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem and call to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is more than fully paid…In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in a desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all people shall see it together. God is going to gather up the lambs and carry them and gently lead the mother sheep.

What we hear today in Isaiah is the last part of a tender overture to an opus of consolation, a love song written to bring relief to people who had been far from home, in exile in Babylon for more than half a century.
Continue reading →

1994

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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 →

1988

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  • June.  Organist Michael Beattie joined Emmanuel Music for rehearsals in our Music Room of Peter Sellars‘ version of Mozart’s opera Le Nozze di Figaro, which played that summer in the PepsiCo Theater in Purchase NY.  Craig Smith conducted; Frank Kelley sang the part of Basilio; Jayne West, the Countess; and Susan Larson, Cherubino.
  • In her “Peace Pentecost” sermon at our Cathedral Church of St. Paul, poet Denise Levertov (1923-97) emphasized the connection between contemplation and action:  “If we neglect our inner lives, we destroy the sources of fruitful outer action.

    Thanks to U. of California Press for this image.

    But if we do not act, our inner lives become mere monuments to egotism.” At Emmanuel she founded a Peace Group to foster the links between spiritual thought and action among her fellow parishioners.

Earlier in the decade she had been attracted to Emmanuel by our social-justice activities, beautiful music and liturgy, and rector Al Kershaw, who counseled her.  “He assured her that doubt was part of spiritual growth and the darkness she encountered might increase her sense of dependence and lead her to God,” says her biographer Dana Greene citing Denise’s diary entry for June 13, 1988.

Denise’s father, Paul Philip Levertoff (1878–1954), born in Belarus, an early proponent of Messianic Judaism, took holy orders in the Anglican Church and preached wearing an alb with a tallit and kippa.

The Rev. Paul Philip Levertoff

In 1922 he become director of what is now the London Diocesan Council for Work among the Jews and edited its quarterly journal, The Church and the Jews. He was a prolific writer on theological subjects in Hebrew, German, and English and translated into English the Midrash Sifre on Numbers (1926) and the Zohar  (1933).

See also:

  1. Dana Greene.  Denise Levertov:  A Poet’s Life.  Urbana IL:  U. of Illinois Press, 2012.
  2. Denise Levertov.  Making Peace.  Breathing the Water.  NY:  New Directions, 1987.
  3. Donna Hollenberg.  A Poet’s Revolution: The Life of Denise Levertov. Berkeley: U of California Press, 2013.
  4. Paul A. Lacey and Anne Dewey, eds.  The Collected Poems of Denise Levertov.  NY: New Directions, 2013.
  5. Paul Philip Levertoff. Love and the Messianic Age.
  6. Timeline: 1994

 

1966

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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.

See also Timeline of Jazz @ Emmanuel & this Timeline’s entries about Kershaw: 1956, 1963 & 1969.

The Rev. Al Kershaw & Dizzie Gillespie. Thanks to MetroWest Daily News for this image.

1925

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May 12.  The poet Amy Lawrence Lowell died young of a cerebral hemorrhage. She had been born in 1874 to our parishioners Katherine Bigelow Lawrence (1832-95) and Augustus Lowell (1830-1900). Many members of the Lawrence and Lowell families attended Emmanuel.  Her partner Ada Dwyer Russell was the subject of many of her romantic poems.  A volume of her complete works was published in 1955.  She is buried in the Lowell plot (#3401) on Bellwort Path in Mt. Auburn Cemetery.