the light of understanding

Dear friends,

1. Please remember to set your clocks on Saturday night as we 'fall back' this week.
2. We will meet in the choir room at 9:30 a.m. on Sunday.
3. We will sing LORD, HEAR OUR PRAYER (purple sheet), YOU NOW ARE SORROWFUL (movement V from REQUIEM by Brahms), AND I SAW A NEW HEAVEN, and Jeremy's arrangement of O GOD OUR HELP IN AGES PAST which will be handed out on Wednesday night
4. Streaming AND I SAW A NEW HEAVEN (above) would probably help us all sound more heavenly this weekend. :)

Last week at rehearsal I read a prayer from St. Hilary from the 4th century which Becky shared with me.

Almighty God, bestow upon us the meaning of words,
the light of understanding,
the nobility of diction
and the faith of the true nature.
And grant that what we believe we may also speak.

While I'm uncertain that St. Hilary had any notion that this would inspire music ministry in 2009, I find a great deal of inspiration here. I will share tomorrow evening the recording of your singing GREATER LOVE HATH NO MAN from Sunday's service. I think you will come to find that you can not only technically understand the words, but that you can sense from your singing the MEANING of those words. Diction is more than just learning how to pronounce things and to do it together as a group-- which, in itself, is a GREAT accomplishment that few fail to regularly achieve. Diction is about communicating the meaning of the words we pronounce together as a group so that the sounds of the words themselves carry meaning and radiate message. I sense that we are beginning to experience the power and presence that this kind of singing and artistry and communication can bring. We can never take for granted how meaningful any given offering we make to worship can be for someone who, for whatever reason, needs to hear it! Here is an e-mail I received this morning:

Our twin daughters, Emalyn Julia and Addison Grace, were baptized on
September 13. It was a very special day for our family but you and the
Plymouth Choir made it even more special with the beautiful arrangement of "This Little Light of Mine".

When Barb visited with us earlier that week, she shared with us an interesting way of thinking about baptism;
that we are all born children of God and baptism turns on the light of
the Holy Spirit. So when the Choir began singing, This Little Light of
Mine, I'm Gonna Let It Shine ... it was an expression beyond words of
the joy we felt that the light of the Holy Spirit was shining bright in
our daughters.

I love that she says, it was an 'expression beyond words.' May this be our goal and our gift to share, one blessed note at a time.
TT

Dear friends,

Thank you for another terrific Wednesday! I look so forward to each and every time that we come together, and I continue to be grateful for the gifts that each of you bring to our choir community. This week we learned a lot of notes, and our brains and voices were certainly challenged as we unpacked a lot of difficult but beautiful repertoire.

I mentioned on Wednesday night, somewhat in jest, that we are allowed to take our music home with us and that we may feel free to spend time with it between Wednesdays and Sundays and Sundays and Wednesdays. I think a lot about the gift you bring to me and to one another and to God each time you enter the choir room and sanctuary at First-Plymouth. There are so many things we could choose to do in this busy world-- and a lot of the choices would be good! You choose to be in the choir, and that is a blessing to everyone involved-- other choir members, directors, congregation, composers, television audience, and Creator. I fervently hope it is a blessing for you as well!

Let's celebrate that, but let's also think more deeply about what could change if we invested even more of ourselves in the choir experience than the schedule of times we are together. I heard my mentor say once, "God never asks for the skinniest calf."

If we use an analogy of a sport: the athlete is required to attend all the "rehearsals" and "performances" for the team, or he or she would sign out for absences-- not unlike choir! In between "rehearsals", though, the wise athlete who seeks to offer his best in his time with the team "rehearses" in the weight room, studies 'scores' in the playbook, looks at videos of past 'performances.' It is possible for the athlete to just do the team stuff, and allow talent to fill in the gaps. But the whole person is more deeply engaged and fulfilled when the personal commitment to individual preparation accompanies a unified commitment to group process. The whole grows even as the individual grows.

Let's get back to reality for a moment, though-- singing in the choir already takes a lot of time away from our families, our jobs, our hobbies, our sabbath. How can we give more? Well, let's challenge each other to experiment in some subtle ways before we assume that we are already offering the 'fattest calf.'

• Let's try spending 20 minutes on Thursday reviewing the trickiest passages we experienced on Wednesday.
  
• If we miss a Wednesday, let's spend an hour throughout the week studying the music that was rehearsed-- if we can't play the piano, we CAN read the text in rhythm, and we CAN figure out important words to emphasize, and we CAN think about how to speak the words more clearly.
  
• If we are struggling to sing one of the high notes or some shadings of the vowels, let's spend 10 minutes a day in our shower or car, experimenting with some of the vocalises we sing in choir.
  
• If we know all the note and rhythms and expression markings cold in every piece we are singing, let's spend 20 minutes reading the texts of the pieces, and pray with them to find the message that the piece brings us personally.
  
• Let's play the Anthems here on the blog as we e-mail or tweet, or check our facebook page, just to immerse ourselves in the beautiful music and poetry we are blessed to sing each week.
  
• Let's find ways to make music a part of our daily life, which makes church a part of our daily life, which makes community part of our daily life, which makes God part of our daily life. My guess is that, before long, the skinny calf will be bulked up, and each of us will feel more fully alive as we invest even more of ourselves in preparing a richer, fuller gift to give to our Giver.

Some practical reminders:

• We will assemble in the choir room on Sunday at 9:30 a.m., robed and ready for another wonderful service. Our repertoire this week is LAMB OF GOD and GREATER LOVE HATH NO MAN. Both of these, as well as most of our other repertoire for the semester, can be streamed here on our blog. Jeremy and I hope you will join us in being grateful to Becky Shane for making this wonderful resource available for us all!

• Jeremy and Scott have warmly welcomed all of us to an open house at their beautiful new home this Sunday, beginning at 3:00 p.m. I am so sorry that I will be enroute to a concert in Nashville and have to miss this gathering. I hope you all have a wonderful time, and I will be thinking of you for sure!
  

• Be sure to find out this week every place your choir buddy has lived. At next Wednesday's rehearsal, we will offer a prize to the choir member (and his or her buddy) who has lived the farthest from Lincoln.

Finally for today, I leave you with a beautiful reflection by one of our choir friends.

"I'm enjoying choir so very much, Tom. Wednesdays are typically my most stressful and tiring day of the work week, and it is sometimes difficult to drag myself to rehearsal. But once I am there, I am always glad for the effort and reinforced in my decision to make the commitment. It's easy to drop the concerns of the day and reverse any lingering grumbly demeanor when we begin each rehearsal with such joyous and buoyant enthusiasm! I see this choir beginning to blossom into something much more than it was before. There has been a palpable and remarkable shift in the energy and aura of the group. The improvements in beauty of tone, confidence, vocal cohesion and more sensitive singing are already obvious to participants and listeners alike. It's satisfying to be a part of that transition, and healing to experience the reality of that possibility."

May we all find a little more of the joy and healing that we share each Wednesday night in each and every day! : )

TT

Dear friends,

Thank you for another wonderful rehearsal last night-- certainly a highlight of another week at First-Plymouth. I just read an e-mail from one of our basses who said, "It could have gone on longer as far as I was concerned." Another choir member told me last night that she broke down in tears of joy watching us sing on the World Communion Sunday broadcast of Reach Out and Live. At the trustees meeting a few moments ago, there were more than a few testimonials lifting up the joy that our music has brought to the community over this past month. And I mentioned last night about the men's group I attended commenting on a new sensitivity and communication that is infused in your singing. We have many reasons to be thankful for a truly blessed beginning in our ministry together. We've done A LOT this month-- it's been a busy time, full of rich experiences and growth through challenges. We have been rewarded handsomely for the efforts and energy we have contributed.

Thanks to many of you who have signed up to sing at the funeral service on Saturday morning. The family has requested that we sing Halle, Halle in our most joyful fashion as well the Lord Bless You and Keep You, both of which we have sung recently. We will also sing a piece that two of our choir members have created-- Deanne Hyde wrote the text, and Jack Rinke the music. We will gather at 9:00 in our robes on Saturday morning so that we have plenty of time to prepare all of this beautiful music.

Sunday morning we offer our support to the children of our congregation on Children's Sabbath. We will assemble in the choir room at 9:45 to sing DAY BY DAY, IN LOVE YOU SUMMON (purple sheet), the CIRCLE SONG, and Jeremy's beautiful arrangement of CHILDREN OF THE HEAVENLY FATHER. The Youth Orchestra will play with you, and the K-2 Plymouth Singers will sing in worship, some for the first time ever. If you happen to be able to come a bit early on Sunday to worship at the 9:00 service, I would love for you to hear the 3rd-5th grade Choristers sing the morning scripture as well. The It is so important that we adults encourage our children and youth, offer them our thanks for their contributions to worship. We need to remind them that we welcome them in worship not just because they are cute or because we cognatively know they need to be there once in awhile, but because they sing or play on our behalf. They help us to pray, they illuminate scripture for us, and they help us to hear God's voice in a very special way. They can praise God just the way they are, and their praises and prayers and anthems can inspire us to sing with more thankful and grateful hearts. Consider spending a moment with a Chorister, a Youth musician, or a Plymouth Singer before or after service this week to offer them your gratitude and thanks rather than applause and praise. If we start to build relationships between and among the different musical ensembles and support one another as worshipful, servant musicians, our music ministry will be a stronger, more faithful body, and we will all be more richly blessed!

I often hear Jeremy say, "It's another week at First-Plymouth." One translator could hear that as, "O my God, there is so much work to do EVERY week-- nothing is ever simple." But we embrace that instead to realize: "It's another week to have the opportunity to experience the gift of God's presence among us in this beautiful, loving, dynamic community."

It's another week at First-Plymouth. Make haste to be kind. Be quick to love. Give thanks. SING!

Peace.

TT

Dear friends,

Thank you again for your spirited, joyful singing and dancing from our World Communion Sunday celebration. Your presence inspired those gathered to worship-- enough even to join you in singing and dancing, and God was no doubt delighted to hear a new wave of praise from First-Plymouth. Tonight, we turned the page and returned to a more European, traditional repertoire. If we can sing this art music with the same authentic brilliance, conviction, vitality, and spirit that we did HALLE HALLE and DIDE TA DEO, we will rediscover some of the sometimes overlooked treasures in these good old tunes. We continue to strive for that balance of vocal freedom and contextual awareness that allows our unique voices to be instruments serving the music and its message, rather than forcing the music to serve the needs of our unique voice. We can all be very proud of how far we are coming along as an ensemble, and tonight we continued to connect-- Amen! We're on a path from good to great-- it's a long path, but so far what an uplifting journey!

This weekend is a Choir Holiday as we can enjoy singing in the pews with the congregational choir, led by the varsity men's chorus from UNL. Without the pressure of preparing anthems for Sunday, it is a good week for us all to spend some extra time with some scores of our upcoming repertoire, maybe while streaming some of the pieces on the blog. The more we individually prepare ourselves for rehearsals togethers, the more we can collectively benefit from our rehearsals together. There are so many layers to ALL of the music we are blessed to sing-- we can never get to the bottom of it all-- but we can get deeper and deeper in if we dig and dig, rather than just skim the surface. If we bring our best fruits to the rehearsal rather than just whatever happens to be on the shelf, we can have such a beautiful meal altogether. What a talented, gifted choir we are! The only thing that enables us to reach (or prevents us from reaching!) our amazing potential is the discipline that we bring to our work and to our ministry. The more we individually grow, the more we collectively grow. That is a wonderful blessing, and a true opportunity!


On a slightly less philosophical note, here are some newsy items and challenges for the week:

1. Remember to let Sarah Gauger know if you can help with the book sale, and let John Reinert know if you can help with the chili cookoff.

2. Be sure to congratulate Jay Colwell and Enoch Ulmer for earning high marks at the recent NATS (National Association for Teachers of Singing) Competiton. HOORAY!

3. Let Jeremy know if you have any discomforting issues with your present choir robe.

4. Thanks to John Casey for donating a new sound system to the choir room.

5. In your prayer time this week, pray for your choir buddy-- whether you think they need it or not! Just think of how awesome it is that we will all be praying for each other. Prayer is a wonderful gift that we can give and receive at the same time.


Grace and peace to you all, and thank you for continuing to be "church" to me and to one another.
TT

Dear friends,

Thank you for a lively and fun rehearsal tonight. I look so forward to our collaboration this weekend with the Choristers, Chorale, soprano sax, steel drums, percussion, and flute as we celebrate World Communion Sunday and offer the congregation a glimpse of what church sounds like in many distinct places all over the world. We will sing in Latin and English, and will sing melodies that come from Jamaica, the Caribbean, Mexico, Trinidad, and Nigeria This helps us all remember that God created the whole world and inspires music making in the whole world-- not just Lincoln and Nebraska and America and Europe.

See you Sunday morning in the sanctuary at 8:00 with your bright colored tops. It will be a colorful day-- to be sure-- at First-Plymouth!

TT