A Psalm and A Meditation for All Hallows Eve 2013

All Hallows Blessings to You All! 

Two things ....

The first is a traditional piece of music for the feast of All Saints...

The second is a little hard to explain.  It's a video by Glen Scrivener, Church of England minister, poet and lover of the King James Version of the Bible.  He has a wonderful web site called King's English.  What's below is Halloween: Trick or Treat.  This is a rhyming explanation of what Halloween is truly about .  I find it wonderful and watched it twice through...Very nicely done..Have a look and see what you think!


De profundis  (Out of the deep...)





Psalm 130 is a traditional offering for All Hallows Eve and here is a very beautiful version by the
 choir of Kings College Cambridge, under the direction of Sir David Willcocks.  This dark lament, a Penitential Psalm, is the De profundis used in liturgical prayers for the faithful departed in Western liturgical tradition. In deep sorrow the psalmist cries to God (1-2), asking for mercy (3-4). The psalmist's trust (5-6) becomes a model for the people (7-8).

Text:

130 De profundis

OUT of the deep have I called unto thee, O Lord : Lord, hear my voice.
2. O let thine ears consider well : the voice of my complaint.
3. If thou, Lord, wilt be extreme to mark what is done amiss : O Lord, who may abide it?
4. For there is mercy with thee : therefore shalt thou be feared.
5. I look for the Lord; my soul doth wait for him : in his word is my trust.
6. My soul fleeth unto the Lord : before the morning watch, I say, before the morning watch.
7. O Israel, trust in the Lord, for with the Lord there is mercy : and with him is plenteous redemption.
8. And he shall redeem Israel : from all his sins.


The second --

Who Lives on Jesus Street?

Here is a great interview with Suzy McCall - founder of LAMB..Read and be inspired.  Suzy embodies freedom in Christ in a way that not many folks do...she truly does follow the Lamb wherever he goes...

Meet Suzy McCall, an American missionary in Honduras. The obedience of this one woman from South Carolina has radically changed the lives of thousands of people in Central America and the United States.

Suzy is the founder of The LAMB Institute, offering hope for new life – both spiritual and physical – in Flor del Campo, the slums of Tegucigalpa. LAMB serves up generous bowls of the Gospel of Christ, seasoned with unconditional love, to every soul passing through its doors. She lives out her ministry motto: follow the LAMB wherever he goes. Now, after only two decades of existence, LAMB operates a school, a children’s home, a safe house, a micro-loan program for cottage industries, and a teen outreach program for young boys on the streets.

The rest is here    (This link will take you to Pringle Franklin's Blog Living on Jesus Street)

Binding up Scattered Leaves

Dear St. James Santee Family and Friends,

“Media vita in morte sumus” – In the midst of life we are in death –is the title and first line of a Latin antiphon probably originating in France around 750 AD.   Luther made use of it as did our reformer, Thomas Cranmer, and it appears as an antiphon in the Book of Common Prayer.  It certainly expresses well the sense of sudden dislocation we feel when someone we love has died. 

In times of shock and grief, life and time itself seem to go on pause.  Quite often this happens in a sudden way.  In the silence, one becomes aware of the way the light is falling or of the sound of birds singing around us.  Time has slowed.

 Gradually, though, this gives way to the sense that life has gone on after all – babies are still being born, the buzz of classroom learning continues, factories still are producing and the mail is still being delivered.  At this point, we find ourselves drawn back to life itself and the necessity of choosing to live.

          The choice to re-embrace time and life can be made more easily when our hope for the future is glimpsed.    John Donne, English divine and writer (of “No man is an island” fame) contemplated mortality and hope at length.  Below is a passage I have found especially helpful in these past weeks of grieving the death of my father.  It is from his Mediation 27… (Emphasis mine)

 “….all mankind is of one author and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated. God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice; but God's hand is in every translation, and his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again for that library where every book shall lie open to one another.”

         I look with hope to the day when all of the scattered pages are gathered and for grace-filled eternity spent in that “library where every book shall lie open to one another.”  Until that blessed day, my prayer is that we will love one another very, very well in the time we are given.

Blessings,   Jennie+