A New Day is Coming!

I just listened to the tail end of a radio piece entitled "The Silencing of St. Andrew's". This was not about the St. Andrew's I serve; it was about an Anglophone congregation in rural Quebec that had dwindled to less than a dozen members and could no longer sustain itself. The region's demographics have changed to predominantly Francophone. The building was being de-consecrated by the archdeacon. A huge lump came to my throat and I nearly cried. The last few faithful of this congregation were facing a great loss and my heart ached for them.

There seem to be some parallels to St. Andrew's Winnipeg. We have, by far, more than a dozen members but we are not growing. We are facing changes. Our new minister begins in a few days' time! We will be relocating in the not too distant future. These are exciting times and while I look forward in anticipation of what God will do, my emotions seem close to the surface occasionally knowing that things will change and that I must be open and ready to change as well. Your prayers, my reader, would be much appreciated as this new chapter begins.

A new day is coming! Praise God!

Thanks be to God

In my last post, I wrote about an often sung Thanksgiving hymn. Today's hymn uses a traditional Welsh tune, AR HYD Y NOS (better known as "All through the night"), and newer words written by Fred Pratt Green copyright in 1970. You can read all the text by going here. When preparing for the service on October 10th, I checked to see what alternate harmonizations I had to enhance the service. I found a very nice setting by Martin Setchell in Last Verse Extravaganza for Organ (pub. by Kevin Mayhew Ltd. in 2001) that seemed to work well. I was a little puzzled by 2 discordant measures until I realized that the words in this part of verse 3 were: "for the truths that still confound us...thanks be to God." What great harmonic writing! And what an unusual thing to be thankful for - something that confounds us. Or is it so unusual? It is reassuring to me to know that I serve a God who is greater than I and that humans will never know or understand everything in our world.

Thanks be to God!

...For our wants to be supplied.

Today is Thanksgiving Day in Canada. There are many wonderful hymns for harvest thanksgiving and the one that opened St. Andrew's worship yesterday was Come, Ye Thankful People, Come. I always think of my Dad when we sing this because he told me once that he had heard Alberta farmers sing "All is safely gathered in ere the winter storms begin" when their crops were buried under snow and still out in the fields. At choir practice on Weds. that came up in conversation and a couple of the guys figured it was in 1959. That storm hit the whole prairies it seems.

Funny how you can sing a hymn time after time and something new will grab you on a certain occasion. I did remember Dad's story this year too, but what really got my attention was the line, "God, our Maker, doth provide for our wants to be supplied." - Not just our needs, but our wants! We have so much to be thankful for!

High King of heaven, my treasure Thou art

One of the reasons I began this blog is that I enjoy writing. When I was a teenager, I made a little money writing poetry and short, inspirational pieces and it was always so exciting to get that cheque in the mail! I might have pursued writing as a career except that the passion of making music took over and I knew I couldn't do without music in my life.

On my recent trip to Calgary, it was a thrill to meet an author whose work I've read and learned from . Pictured below (L-R) are author Donna Fletcher Crow, me and Donna's daughter, Elizabeth who lives in Calgary.


Donna lives in Idaho and arrived in Calgary around the same time as I did for a family visit and a book signing this coming Saturday. My sister, Sharon, told Donna about my concert at Grace Presbyterian and I was excited to learn that Donna, Elizabeth and a friend were able to come hear me play. There's much more to it than meeting this author whose work I enjoy. Donna writes historical fiction and I learned when reading The Fields of Bannockburn and Glastonbury (the history of Christianity in Scotland and England respectively) that the Celts had many small kingdoms whose monarchs would come together to elect one to be King over all. His title was "High King". Applying this knowledge to the hymn "Be Thou My Vision" gave the words a whole new meaning for me! Donna came to me after the concert and thanked me for my words and shared that she too would never sing this hymn the same way again.

I believe that when we learn more about the hymns and songs we sing in worship, we strengthen and enrich their meaning and our own praise as well.

A Weekend in Calgary

I thought it would be fun to post a few photos on my blog from my weekend in Calgary, Alberta which was Sept. 17-19, 2010. For those who were at one of the events, you can share the memories with me. If you weren't there, maybe this will whet your appetite to come to a concert in the future!



The picture above was taken at Grace Presbyterian Church, Calgary where I played on Friday evening. What great acoustics to play in!



I believe this is the first selection after intermission, "O Come, O Come Emmanuel". The second half of the program was a musical journey through the church year. It began and ended with Advent.


On Saturday, my friend, Jean, took me out to Canmore to the mountains. It was glorious!

Do you see those Rockies in the distance?

We're getting closer now!

The Three Sisters

Sunday morning I played at Trinity Church of the Nazarene in Calgary. They meet in the Orpheus Theatre on the campus of Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT). It was a blessing to me to be part of the worship service, to learn a new worship chorus, and to teach the congregation there something new as well.

Here I am speaking about the 2 solo pieces I played: You Are My Hiding Place and a medley of Open the Eyes of My Heart and Be Thou My Vision.

All in all, a wonderful weekend filled with good music, good friends, and God's creation!

Excitement's in the Air!

My musical brain is just full of great melodies these days. I have been practising up a storm because ... ta da! On the weekend, I'm travelling west to Calgary, Alberta to play twice. One is a solo concert (Friday evening at Grace Presbyterian Church) and the other will be during the Sunday morning celebration service at Trinity Church of the Nazarene. I am so looking forward to connecting with old friends and making some new ones, as well as playing the music which reaches deep down to my soul and speaks to me. I know that it also speaks to those who listen because some of you have told me of your personal experiences. Thank you so much for that. To God be the glory!