Virtual Lenten Small Group session 2

I facilitated a "virtual" Lenten small group this year. "Something music- or art-related," was about all I had to go on. I decided to keep it simple: select a lectionary Bible verse and then curate a piece of classical music and a piece of visual art to go with it. I created a weekly video in which I introduced the Bible verse, music and art piece. With each video I provided links to listen and view the art and music I emailed the link to that to all the participants. Their "participation" in the group consisted of viewing my video and then exploring the music and art piece on their own. I encouraged participants to use the comment section of each of my videos to share their reflections, whether they were on the Bible verse, music or visual piece. Ultimately it seemed to go well. There were some humps getting everyone comfortable with the format, but most everyone managed to get involved eventually.

One of the participants is a visual artist, retired now, but still quite active with his work. Once the small group was announced, along with the format, he said he would offer his reflections on the Bible verses in the form of a piece of his own visual art. I thought this was very cool. I placed his image files in my photostream and put links in the video comments for everyone to click through and view.

Below is his first reflection (week 1/session 1 was an overview with instructions and without links to other art). I'll share his other work in separate posts.

 

 

Neighborhood Nativity

 One of the most innovative things we have done during the pandemic is re-imagining our Christmas live nativity. In years past one event or another on a Sunday evening in Advent has concluded with an an outdoor live nativity scene. We cast it this year as a stand-alone event off campus. We adapted our perennial children's Christmas Eve service to provide a script, recording children we might normally use in a live setting. We recorded the same sequence of songs in that service with a solo child singer, in lieu of congregational songs. Instead of a single locale, we created 5 locations among our in-town church families. We recruited those same families, or in a couple of cases some non-family members to portray characters from the nativity story. We created a CD of the narration, songs, and some other brief liturgical elements. We created scenes at the five homes, including costumes and props. Folks picked up a CD from the church facility and then drove around town on a prescribed route to view the scenes while listening to the narration and songs in their cars. We had about 100 cars over the 2-hour course of the event. The response was quite favorable. Below are some shots.

The first stop was "the innkeeper and Mary and Joseph."

 Next up was the angels...

Next up were the shepherds in afield. We hired live animals for this stop.

The magi were next. We purchased inflatable camel costumes for this trio of boys and simply told them to have a good time.

The last stop was a complete scene. We asked a large family in our congregation to take this on, figuring they would have the personnel to cast a fairly complete scene. They did! We had planned to let them borrow our scale-model creche scene, but the kids wanted to create their own, including animals, fake and living!

There are years I seek to provide a certain level of authenticity to the live nativity scene, and ask persons to remain in character. Since our congregation had been apart for 9 months at this point, we let those strictures fall, and encouraged everyone to wave and smile and chat with one another from a distance, the better to enjoy the experience. It was a wonderful event. We liked being in the community, and even when we are able to be back together, we may re-cast this yet again and make it bigger and better.

Visuals for Advent 2020

 Here is a hodge-podge of images from our visuals during Advent 2020. I made the iron frame back in summer to hold fabric. In Advent it held a wreath and globes that represented candles and/or stars. Early on the frame was bare, but I added black fabric as a base to keep things from showing through between the sides. This first shot shows what the wreath with lights looked like (before the black fabric).

This is the "candle" side. Youth made these globes a couple of years ago for a youth Sunday. I was really delighted I had held onto them. Each one lights. It doesn't quite show but there is a fairy light curtain behind the blue fabric. There is also a glittery toile type fabric in front of the sheer blue piece. The lights glistened through with a  pretty cool effect. For Epiphany I changed the blue sheer fabric to gold lame'. It was very dramatic.

Our big group project was this outdoor Advent wreath. We were slow getting all four panels finished so their installation was staggered. But the final effect was good. The hassle was getting the battery-operated strands turned off and on. The central candle in each panel was on a solar control.

These candles we paired with this large star. A guy into metal-working in our congregation made it. It went up the few days between Advent 4 and Christmas Eve. It's lit from below. About 6 feet across.

I saw a picture from another church that did this and promptly stole it. The green boards are a bit too narrow (I forgot about the fickle nature of lumber measurements). But this was about 3/4 through the season. We took in a huge amount of food for our local ministry partner.

Advent 2019

This is from Advent 2019. I had this on Facebook but never got it here. Our alternative worship space is set for a dinner at the moment, but this is the visual installation for Advent-Christmas, a representation of "immanence" with stars coming near to the earth. This is three hues of toile fabric, with small lights interwoven. A group of youth made the stars several years ago.

 

Singing during a pandemic

"How can we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?"  The words of the psalmist are hauntingly relevant for us these days. The people of God making this cry in Psalm 137 had been dispersed from their homes and cast into a culture of non-belief in the God of Jacob. Familiar sights, sounds and smells were gone. All hope seemed lost. There was, it seemed, no balm in Gilead for their suffering bodies and spirits. They longed to sing, but the words wouldn't come out.

One of the first things I heard as the pandemic was unfolding several weeks ago, and we began to shelter at home away from friends, family and routines, was, "I miss singing together." Indeed some of the most creative energy I witnessed in response to the pandemic revolved around trying to make music with other people in the midst of isolation. We heard tales of Italians leaning out their balconies to sing in the evenings. We have heard of neighborhoods in the US where persons clap and bang and stomp at sunset as an expression of solidarity, and a testimony against all that is drear.

And then we heard grim reports of choirs that met for rehearsal with one symptomatic person, only for germs to spread on the very breaths of music. We've heard perhaps that singers, as they release music from their bodies, are also  potentially "super-spreading" germs.

In the midst of such gloom and despair, and in the midst of such confusion over what is safe and what is harmful, how can we sing the Lord's song? My response, indeed, "how can we keep from singing?" We were designed to give praise to the Creator. We can barely take a breath without vocalizing a hum. It is our creaturely nature to transform vowels and consonants into pitch and rhythm.

Our music-making will look different for a while. But whenever we create music, our pulsing voices join the universal music of the spheres. Singing together in a visible, corporeal way will be suspended for a time. But we know intuitively that corporate music-making continues: mountains sing, trees clap their hands, rivers roar. So I remark every morning that the birds still sing (especially one particularly boisterous robin outside my window); my music making joins theirs. Somewhere around this tremendous globe, someone is singing with me.

This is a gloomy time for those of us who make music, especially those who find great meaning in making music in smaller or larger ensembles. The people of God have at many points in history found themselves in similar situations. This is just a season. A new and glorious morning will come: I'm rehearsing even now for that glad day.

Pentecost 2019

We went with something of a variation on a theme this year. We've used toile hung from the ceiling in the sanctuary before, but it was more abstract, from point to point.

This year I used a central nexus for the fabric, so the long pieces shot off in various directions. It was hard to get the rack centered and level at height, but the end effect was fine.

We also used toile for the lectern and pulpit paraments, and one of our member's large stained glass made a return appearance.

In the fellowship hall I went with a single strip of toile from ceiling to floor, and then laid more fabrics on top of it to continue under the table all the way to the lectern/podium.

Fabric strips on the table puddled on the floor. The idea was to symbolize the flame engulfing all of the liturgical furniture.

Post-Easter installation

We have based our Lent-Easter worship loosely on resources from Sanctified Art, "cultivating and letting go." After letting go during Lent, we are now cultivating! This installation is simply brown butcher paper taped and hung in our narthex. There is a Bible verse from Galatians (5.22-23), and a simple question: what will you cultivate this season? One week in and there are few leaves popping out.