|
Earth Day
All of us are creative in some way. We create poems and gardens, comfortable homes, solutions to problems, we knit and build things. I believe that we are surely inspired to create because our Creator plunked us down into the middle of an astonishing creation, planet Earth. April 22 is Earth Day, but perhaps it’s more of a day to repent than to celebrate. Yet, even with daily reminders of all that’s wrong, please don’t forget to be awed by God’s handiwork, because that awe might be our best hope for change.
Splendor and honor and kingly power are yours…for you created everything that is, and by your will they were created and have their being, so we’ve been singing during this season of Easter in the opening canticle (after the processional hymn and collect). Change begins with very small steps, whispered ideas, vague hopes. Those are the things that fuel the real work of making things better. If peace begins with loving your neighbor, perhaps changing the habits that cause us to abuse God’s creation can begin with song. A small, crazy idea, but I believe there is power in singing about what we believe.
Sunday’s choral offerings celebrate the renewed life of this Easter season. We’ll sing about Eden and stars, the beauty in God’s creation, and the sweetness of spring. At 11:15 the choir will sing a setting of this poem by George Herbert:
Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright,
The bridal of the earth and sky;
The dew shall weep thy fall to-night,
For thou must die.
Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses,
A box where sweets compacted lie;
My music shows ye have your closes,
And all must die.
Only a sweet and virtuous soul,
Like season'd timber, never gives;
But though the whole world turn to coal,
Then chiefly lives.
All ends. All dies. The sweet day, the sweet rose, the sweet spring. Evening dew signals the end of day, a rose’s roots are buried as in a grave, and spring, like music, has its cadence (closes). But the soul lives, like seasoned wood that eventually turns to coal, giving hope that it burns on to provide warmth and light for the next generation. George Herbert speaks across the centuries, giving us beautiful words that teach us to appreciate these fleeting spring days, this fleeting life, and this fragile earth, our island home.
Sonya Subbayya Sutton,
Interim Director of Music
| 
