February 8, '09

Folk - Here's the line-up for next week, the 8th. Check it out. I'll be back from vacation Thursday night and will see you all Sunday morning.

You'll play all of the music by yourself. I'll step in to do the theme song and the liturgical pieces.

Ensemble: FULL
Alyssa (Keyboard, Voice)
Jerry (E. Guitar, Voice)
Kristen (A. Guitar, Voice)
Tom (B. Guitar, Voice)
Wendy (Voice)

- - - - - - - -

Gathering Song – "Lord, I Lift Your Name on High" (G)
Opening Songs:
- "Better Is One Day" (E)
- "God of Wonders" (G)
- "We Are Transformed" (C) (Eric)
Closing Song- "You Are Worthy Of My Praise (I Will Worship)" (G)

Hope you're all quite well - E.T.

NOTE: Eric will play the "liturgical" songs. Ex: "Song of Praise", "Offertory", "Alleluia Verse". If/when a "setting" is adopted for the Celebration service other instruments will be worked in as they are needed/as it is appropriate.

February 1, '09

Folk - Here's the line-up for this week. Check it out.

Because i'll be out of the office for most of next week I will post the line-up information for February 8 later this week. No later than Friday. Check back then for instructions.

If you've any questions let me know!

Ensemble: EAGLE
Alex (E. Guitar, Voice)
Eric (A. Guitar, Piano, Voice)
Jerry (E. Guitar, Voice)
Tom (B. Guitar, Voice)

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Gathering Song – "My Redeemer Lives" (E)
Opening Songs:
- “Peaceful Easy Feeling (Amazing Grace)" (D)
- "We Are Transformed" (C) - THEME SONG - NEW!
Communion Songs:
- "Wash My Feet" (D) (Eric)
- "Let My Words Be Few" (G)
- "Humble Thyself" (Em)
- "There Is None Like You (w/ refrain of "Let My Words...")" (G)
Closing Song- "Lord Reign In Me" (C)

Hope you're all quite well - E.T.

P.S. - If you've never listened to Dead Can Dance...check this out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Do5vj3D-OD4

NOTE: Eric will play the "liturgical" songs. Ex: "Song of Praise", "Offertory", "Alleluia Verse". If/when a "setting" is adopted for the Celebration service other instruments will be worked in as they are needed/as it is appropriate.

A Righteous Prayer

This is a day of history, but we ought not dismiss the history of our faith which declares one unmoveable truth: Jesus is the Man, the Son of God, the Way of Salvation, and there is no other. We submit to the kings of this world but trust in God alone.

This prayer is an adaptation of the prayer composed by Archbishop John Carroll, the first Archbishop in the United States, for the inauguration of George Washington in 1789.

Almighty and eternal God,you have revealed your glory to all nations.God of power and might, wisdom and justice,through you authority is rightly administered,laws are enacted, and judgment is decreed.

Assist with your spirit of counsel and fortitude
Barack Obama, the President of these United States,
that his administration may be conducted in righteousness,
and be eminently useful to your people over whom he presides.
May he encourage due respect for virtue and religion.
May he execute the laws with justice and mercy.
May he seek to restrain crime, vice, and immorality.
Let the light of your divine wisdom
direct the deliberations of Congress,
and shine forth in all the proceedings and laws framed
for our rule and government.
May they seek to preserve peace, promote national happiness,
and continue to bring us the blessings of liberty and equality.
We pray for Christine Gregoire, the governor of this state,
for the members of the legislature,
for judges, elected civil officials,
and all others who are entrusted to guard our political welfare.

May they be enabled, by your powerful protection,
to discharge their duties with honesty and ability.
We likewise commend to your unbounded mercyall citizens of the United States,
that we be blessed in the knowledge and sanctified in the observance of your holy law.
May we be preserved in union and that peace which the world cannot give;and,
after enjoying the blessings of this life,
be admitted to those which are eternal.

We pray to you, who are Lord and God, for ever and ever. Amen.

January 25, '09

Here’s the line-up for this coming week. The Youth will bless us with their leadership. The "Adult" group will come together on February 1 in the "Eagle" formation. Stay posted for more info. If you have any questions let me know. I hope that you're all quite well - E.T.

Ensemble: YOUTH
Alex (Voice, Guitar)
Charlie (Vocie, Bass Guitar)
Diana (Voice)
Eric (Voice, Piano)
Kelsey (Voice)

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Gathering Song - "Blessed Be Your Name" (B)
Opening Songs:
- "Every Move I Make" (G)
- "How Great is Our God/How Great Thou Art" (A)
- "Change It Up" (G) - (Eric and Alex)
Offering - "Heart of Worship" (D)
Closing Song - "How Can I Keep From Singing?" (G)

NOTE: Eric will play the "liturgical" songs. Ex: "Song of Praise", "Offertory", "Alleluia Verse". If/when a "setting" is adopted for the Celebration service other instruments will be worked in as they are needed/as it is appropriate.

Adult Choir Performance Schedule (w/ Songs)

Here's the 2009 Performance Schedule for the Adult Choir @ Peace. All dates and titles are subject to change.

January 25 – “Our Father”
February 22 – “Deep Fountain” (Special Guest: Samantha Chapman)
March 15 – “Ave Verum Corpus”
April 5 (Palm Sunday) – “A Lenten Walk”
April 10 (Good Friday) – TBD
April 12 (Resurrection Sunday)
– “A Golden Alleluia”
– “Go Now In Peace”
May 10 – “Fount of Every Blessing”
May 31 (Pentecost) – “Veni Sancte Spiritus” (Taize)
September 13 (Rally Day) – “A Sunday School Celebration”
October 4 – “Walk Worthy”
October 25 (Reformation Day) –“Lift High the Cross”
November 15 – “Kyrie Kanon” (Women Only)
December 6 – “Candle of Peace”
December 24 (Christmas Eve)
- TBD
- “Gentle Mary Laid Her Child”
- “Night of Silence”

If you have any questions direct them to Eric.

January 18, '09

Worship Team – Here’s the line-up for this coming week. If you have any questions let me know. I hope that you're all quite well - E.T.

Ensemble: DOVES
Eric (Voice, Guitar, Piano)
Kathy (Voice)
Lynea (Voice)
Missy (Voice)
Margaret (Keyboard)
Tom (Bass Guitar)

- - - - - - - -

Gathering Song – "Your Love is Amazing" (G)
Opening Songs:
- “Meet with Me" (A)
- "Your Love, oh Lord" (E)
- "Change It Up" (G)
Offering - (Instrumental - Eric)
Communion Songs:
- "Jesus, Name Above All Names" (C) (Eric)
- "Draw Me Close" (G)
- "Breathe" (G)
- "Sanctuary" (C)
Closing Song- "Step by Step" (G)

NOTE: Eric will play the "liturgical" songs. Ex: "Song of Praise", "Offertory", "Alleluia Verse". If/when a "setting" is adopted for the Celebration service other instruments will be worked in as they are needed/as it is appropriate.

A Homily Worth Reading

Folk - The following is a homily written by Fr. Ryan, head priest of St. James Cathedral in Seattle. He preached this homily on Corpus Christi Sunday of 2008. I keep a copy of this in my mailbox at church and read it often. Fr. Ryan is truly a shepherd to the people of St. James and Seattle at large. Enjoy.

I’ve often thought we should have a contest to see who could come up with the exact number of crosses and crucifixes in the Cathedral. I’ve never done the count but I know this much: there are a lot of them. They are everywhere! And among them are some very special ones. Did you know, for instance, that the cross we use as the processional cross during Advent and Lent – the one with the blackened figure of Jesus on it – is a survivor of the Cathedral’s arson fire of 1992? At the time of the fire, it was hanging over the vesting table in the sacristy. Nearly everything else in the sacristy was destroyed by that fire, but not the corpus on that cross. It merely turned coal black. Kind of a resurrection story. It’s in the chapel this morning in case you’d like to see it.
And then there’s the glass cross that hangs in the chapel during the Easter season, although it, too, is in the chapel today. The glass cross is another resurrection story. It is made of shards of glass rescued from the sacristy’s old stained-glass windows, all of which exploded outward during that same fire of 1992. The morning after the fire, a Holy Names Sister on our staff, Margaret Evenson, was on her hands and knees in the dirt outside those windows, painstakingly salvaging every piece of glass she could find. Later, an artist assembled those random shards into a stunningly beautiful crucifix.
Then there’s the great processional crucifix over there that leads the procession on many of the great feasts of the Church, including today’s. That crucifix sat on the Cathedral’s old high altar for 45 years when the altar was at the far east end. Now it’s in our midst and approachable, and I, for one, am always deeply moved when I see it coming down the aisle, raised high above our heads, leading the way, lighting the way, reminiscent of the column of cloud and the pillar of fire that guided the chosen people on their way through the Red Sea to freedom.
The cross is as it should be at St. James Cathedral: prominent and clearly triumphant -- the paradoxical cross that is both instrument of torture and trophy of victory. Of course, it is not the cross itself that is triumphant: it is Jesus Christ who is triumphant, and his triumph, his victory, is unlike any other. His victory came about not as victories usually do – by force meeting force, power striking back at power. No, his victory came about precisely when he refused the use of power – when he allowed himself no defense whatever, becoming completely vulnerable, the plaything of evil, “sin itself” to use St. Paul’s words. Like Isaiah’s Suffering Servant, he was a lamb led to the slaughter, a sheep before the shearers, silent, opening not his mouth. Or to use the words of an ancient Christian hymn in today’s reading from Philippians, “He emptied himself, taking on the form of a slave.”
One of the Eucharistic Prayers says this in yet another way: “For our sake he opened his arms on the cross.” No one opened those arms for him, he opened them of his own accord in an act of perfect freedom – as if to say: here, and only here is the power that can overcome evil. Not hatred, not force, not violence of any sort, but love freely given! And so, my friends, the triumph of the cross is really the triumph of non-violence, the triumph of vulnerability, the triumph of love.
How, then, are we to explain our history – our bloody and often vengeful history – we who claim to be followers of Christ and who call his cross triumphant? How indeed? Even a cursory reading of two-thousand years of Christian history is a sorry tale of blood shed in causes both noble and disgraceful, a tale that, no matter how we tell it, too often bears little or no resemblance to the story of Jesus.
The story of Jesus is the strongest possible argument in favor of non-violence. In fact, a good case can be made to read his story and the entire Christian gospel as a call to do as the earliest Christians did: to renounce the use of force, not to defend it. I know that sounds simplistic, especially in the world in which we live, and I’m not proposing it as a political philosophy or a blueprint for statecraft. I know very well that from the time of St. Augustine in the fourth century, the Church has developed sophisticated arguments to justify the use of force and killing under certain conditions, but I also believe that every argument that we make to justify the use of force must take into account the fact that at the very heart of our faith is the One who could have fought back but didn’t, could have called up legions of angels but didn’t, the one who walked the road to Calvary, opened his arms on the cross, and spoke words of forgiveness for his tormentors and executioners.
Whatever we believe about the violent use of force – about wars, just or unjust, provoked or preemptive or, for that matter, about the state-sponsored killing that is capital punishment, we Christians must do our thinking and form our consciences with one image squarely in our line of sight: the image of the cross – the cruel instrument of torture and death made holy and triumphant by the One who could have struck back but didn’t.
Today, we look at our world (pick your place!) and we see appalling violence, vengeance, and endless retribution, and we find ourselves asking, “Where does it all end?” And, of course, the answer is that it doesn’t end, and it never will end – not as long as violence continues to be met by violence. As Christians, the cross is our answer, the triumphant cross of Jesus Christ! Or, better, Jesus Christ is our answer – Jesus whose death, while it looks like total defeat, is really the path to life and peace, the only path to life and peace!

January 11, '09

Hey guys – The music last Sunday was excellent. You all played and sang so very well. Thanks for your hard work. I have a couple notes to go over Thursday night but I look forward to this coming week and worshipping with you again. See you Thursday at 6:30! Hoping you're all quite well - E.T.

Ensemble: FULL
Alex (Voice, E. Guitar)
Alyssa (Voice)
Eric (Voice, Piano)
Jerry (E. Guitar or Bass if Tom is absent)
Kristen (A. Guitar)
Tom (Bass)
Missy (Voice)
Wendie (Voice)

- - - - - - - -

Gathering Song - "We Will Dance" (D)
Opening Songs:
- "Come, Now is the Time to Worship" (D)
- "Here I Am to Worship" (D)
- "Change It Up" (G)
Offering - (Instrumental - Eric)
Closing Song - "Days of Elijah" (Eb/G Shape – Capo 3)

NOTE: Eric will play the "liturgical" songs. Ex: "Song of Praise", "Offertory", "Alleluia Verse". If/when a "setting" is adopted for the Celebration service other instruments will be worked in as they are needed/as it is appropriate.