We're Meeting Thursday, February 28, at First Presbyterian Church

Although the ice storm kept us from meeting last Thursay, we'll see each other tomorrow evening in the Parlor Room at First Presbyterian Church, 7:00 p.m. During our last meeting, we discussed Chapter 4, "The Psalms as Psychological Tools" (38-48) in Cynthia Bourgeault's Chanting the Psalms; tomorrow evening we'll take a strong look at Chapter 5, "The Psalms as Soul Music" (49-58). This is an especially exciting chapter in which Bourgeault contends that "the real power of the psalms lies in their uncanny ability to awaken the unitive imagination." Be sure to come and explore that provocative possibility!

By way of additional announcements, here are several more notices:

1. By visiting Journey with Jesus, you'll find Daniel B. Clendenin's commentary on this coming Sunday's lectionary readings notably insightful. Highly recommended! (And aptly so in light of our reading St. Andrew of Crete's The Canon)



2. If you've been singing the psalms with one or more of the psalms tones made available several weeks ago, good for you! Tomorrow evening we'll take a small step forward and learn how to sing a psalm with a "double tone." Singing a psalm with a double tone will help you "sing joyfully to the Lord" (Ps. 33.1) and "sing to the Lord a new song" (Ps. 33.3) as "you sing and make music" (Ps. 57.7) to the Lord.

3. Last Wednesday's Taize service at The Episcopal Church of Our Saviour was profoundly beautiful, deeply contemplative in spirit. The parish provides an evening meal at 6:00, and the service begins 6:30-ish. All are welcome every Lenten Wednesday for food and worship together.

4. On Thursday evening, beginning at 7:00, we'll spend an hour in discussion and study and then come together in Evening Prayer at 8:00.

5. Finally, this, posted by Susan Doubet, OSB, on February 4 at Light through Stained-Glass Windows (a site which I've added to our list of interesting and helpful blogs):

Here's a lovely excerpt from Thomas Moore that might be something to consider for the Lenten season. Surely beats giving up candy...it might not make us thinner, but it will make us more whole and holy!

Silence is not the absence of sound. That would be to imagine it negatively. Silence is a toning down of inner and outer static, noise that occupies not only the ears but also the attention. Silence allows many sounds to reach awareness that otherwise would go unheard--the sounds of birds, water, wind, trees, frogs, insects, and chipmunks, as well as conscience, daydreams, intuitions, inhibitions, and wishes. One cultivates silence not by forcing the ears not to hear, but by turning up the volume on the music of the world and the soul.