When we met last July in Chapel Camp, Emmanuelites said that they would welcome learning more about resources related to repair, reconciliation, and reparations. Last week, we offered a glimpse of Diomass’s journey on the topic. We’ve begun to explore other dioceses’ postings about discussions and/or commitments to ongoing processes and approaches to restoration and healing. We are gradually learning, too, about other local churches’ processes of inquiry and action in this regard. Continue reading
Tag Archives: publications
Chapel Camp Devoted to Repairing the Breach
Our Chapel Camp on July 30, 2023 was devoted to a discussion of our study and thoughts about the Church’s moral obligation and opportunity to engage in reparations. This responsibility rightly involves a relational approach that includes, but also goes beyond, focusing entirely on cash payouts toward addressing ongoing economic, educational, and health inequities.
Our Rector and other parishioners gathered to share initial thoughts on how we might, during sabbatical time this fall, offer resources to broaden our understanding of the moral and spiritual dimensions of reparations. To begin, our vestry discussed Luke 19:1-10, the story of Zacchaeus.
In addition, here are two resources recommended to vestry members during our introductory conversations:
- Jarrett-Schell, Peter. Reparations: A Plan for Churches. New York: Church Publishing, 2023. = How churches might engage in discerning their role in repairing the breach.
- Kwon, Duke L., et al. Reparations: A Christian Call for Repentance and Repair. Brazos Press, a division of Baker Publishing Group, 2021. = How people of faith might learn more about the history, moral necessity, and urgency of reparations.
We will continue this column as our exploration continues and will include other voices from our congregation.
–Mary Beth Clack, Cindy Coldren, Pat Krol
Published in This Week @Emmanuel Church August 30, 2023; Sept. 7, 2023
2021
- 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 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.
2020
- March 7. 10th anniversary of our 12th rector’s installation. On its eve, we feasted with dinner, speeches, poetry, and song. Thanks to the efforts of our deacon The Rev. Robert Greiner, Mayor of Boston Martin J. Walsh proclaimed it Reverend Pamela L. Werntz Day. Pictured in the banner of this post are Pam Werntz, Amanda Grant-Rose, Rebekah Rodrigues, Joy Howard, Grace McElroy-Howard, Laura Simons, Bob Greiner, Rabbi Devon Lerner, Gennifer Sussman, The Rev. Tamra Tucker, and Jaylyn Olivo.
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The Rev. William Blaine-Wallace
June 28. Our 11th rector, the Rev. William Blaine-Wallace, read for Chapel Camp from his book When Tears Sing: The Art of Lament in Christian Community (Maryknoll NY: Orbis, 2020).
- July. Before he left to study at Virginia Theological Seminary, our Candidate for Holy Orders Joshua Padraig (Paddy) Cavanaugh compiled a liturgical customary, an illustrated manual which is used by our Altar Guild in its preparations for services throughout the year.
- Oct. 21. Parish Operations Manager Kevin Neel set up our YouTube Channel and with video equipment bought by Emmanuel Music, Brad Dumont and Matt Griffing began to livestream our services.
- Nov. 1. A Saint for All Saints, a conference about the legacy of our own saint, Pauli Murray, organized by a committee led by Jr. Warden William Margraf, was held via Zoom. The Rev. Dr. Yolanda A. Rolle, Episcopal Chaplain of Howard University, whom we sponsored for the priesthood,
The Rev. Dr. Anna Pauline Murray
moderated a panel comprised of Assoc. Dean Melissa W. Bartholomew of Harvard Divinity School; the Rev. Dr. Cameron Partridge, rector of St. Aidan’s Church, San Francisco; and the Very Rev. Dr. Kelly Brown Douglas, Canon Theologian of the National Cathedral and Dean of Episcopal Divinity School at Union Theological Seminary. Please see our page for the program and more.
2019
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.
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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.
2004
Ball team with The Rev. Sara Irwin (front left), The Rev. Bill Blaine Wallace (back row, orange shirt) & Emmanuelites
June 4. Boston Globe reported that The Rev. Dr. Willliam Blaine-Wallace had performed same-sex marriages despite The Rt. Rev. Thomas Shaw‘s proscription of such in the wake of a Massachusetts Supreme Court ruling in May, which had made them legal.
June 20. Boston Globe quoted Bill Blaine-Wallace, who supported the Rev. I. Carter Heyward in her retirement from out diocese saying, “I want the wider community to know that a straight priest and mainstream parish are participating in constructive disobedience.”
July. Our vestry endorsed our rector’s disobedience with a statement, “Support for Same-Sex Marriage”.
Summer. Emmanuel fielded a team* for an interfaith wiffle-ball match on the Boston Common with First Church (Unitarian Universalist). Behind them are Polish freedom fighters in a sculpture called The Partisans, which has since been moved to the intersection of Congress & D Streets.
Rabbi Howard A. Berman
Bill Blaine-Wallace invited the nascent congregation Boston Jewish Spirit to hold its services as guests at Emmanuel. Rabbi Howard A. Berman became Rabbi in Residence. The first meetings of what would later become Central Reform Temple were held in our library.
*If you know any missing members of this line-up, please advise us: archivist@EmmanuelBoston.org.
- Back row from the left: Margo Risk (seated), ??, Donald Langbein, Jimmy Tirrell (straw hat), ??, Bill Blaine-Wallace, Marianne Iauco & Mary Blocher
- Front row: Sara Irwin, Kelly Reed, Hugh Doherty?, Victoria Blaine-Wallace & David York.
2001
Roof and other post-fire repairs began.
Dec. Under the editorship of Nelina Bachman Emmanuel News was published with its new name, Voices.
1988
- 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:
- Dana Greene. Denise Levertov: A Poet’s Life. Urbana IL: U. of Illinois Press, 2012.
- Denise Levertov. Making Peace. Breathing the Water. NY: New Directions, 1987.
- Donna Hollenberg. A Poet’s Revolution: The Life of Denise Levertov. Berkeley: U of California Press, 2013.
- Paul A. Lacey and Anne Dewey, eds. The Collected Poems of Denise Levertov. NY: New Directions, 2013.
- Paul Philip Levertoff. Love and the Messianic Age.
- Timeline: 1994
1963
The Rev. Alvin L. Kershaw became our ninth rector. He had previously served as rector of Christ Church Episcopal Church in Bowling Green, Kentucky (1944 – 1947); Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in Oxford, Ohio (1947 – 1956); and All Saints Episcopal Church in Peterborough, New Hampshire (1956 – 1963).
1960
Centennial was celebrated. Emmanuel Church, 1860-1960: The First Hundred Years, compiled by Harriet Allen Robeson, was published by the Vestry. See its introduction and appendix. For its chapters about the tenures of particular rectors, please see these years: