Church of the Holy Comforter | September 28, 2023

In this issue:

Music Events Calendar
Chorister Opportunity
Poetry by Barbara Maniha
Jack Warren Burnam on Why Choir Matters

An Update from Kathleen

As many of you may know, earlier this summer I was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML). I’ve had several rounds of chemo given in the hospital to reduce the cancer cells lurking in my bone marrow to get below a certain threshold making me eligible for a bone marrow transplant. The transplant would be at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, and our older son John would be my donor. It’s good to have a 21-year-old son!

The transplant process will have us living in Baltimore for 60–90 days as I adopt John’s immune system and blood type. Timing of the transplant is dependent on several factors, but we hope it can occur as soon as possible.

Generally, I have felt well during the chemo. The big negative is that it's been about 65 days in the hospital—and all the associated dislike around that situation.

Please continue to keep David and me in your prayers! Right now we are praying that the latest chemo is successful and I meet the eligibility requirements for the transplant.

– Kathleen Kelley

Bookmark this link and sign up to receive regular updates on Kathleen’s blog, written with her trademark sense of humor.

Concert Series Kicks Off with Wonderful Woodwinds

Mournful horn, beautiful oboe, soulful bassoon…how often do you get to hear them live? Holy Comforter is thrilled to present the Sunderman Wind Quintet of Gettysburg College on October 8 at 4 p.m. Among other works, the quintet will perform “Three Nature Walks” by Reston-based composer Alexandra Molnar-Suhajda. You can meet Alexandra and the performers at a reception after the concert. The Holy Comforter Concert Series is brought to you by fellow parishioners as an offering to God and the community. Admission is free, donations are welcome.

Upcoming Music Events at Holy Comforter

Oct. 1: Choral Evensong sung by the Holy Comforter Choir, 5 p.m.
Oct. 8: Holy Comforter Concert Series presents the Sunderman Wind Quintet, 4 p.m.
Oct. 14–15: Voce Chamber Singers, choral music by Black Americans, 7:30 and 4 p.m.
Oct. 21: The McLean Symphony, Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto and Dvorak Symphony No. 8, 7:30 p.m.

Spots Available in Chorister Program

Did you know that Ed Sheeran, John Legend, and Katy Perry all sang in choir as kids? We can’t guarantee you’ll become famous by joining choir, but you’ll make friends, help lead worship, and have a great time. You’ll get one-on-one musical training from Dr. Kelley and Miss Lolly, and serve God. The Chorister program is open to boys and girls in 2nd through 12th grade. Choristers rehearse on Thursdays from 5 to 6 p.m. and sing on Sunday mornings with the Adult Choir. No previous musical experience is required. More information is available HERE or contact Dr. Kelley.

A Glimpse of Grace in the Rain-Drowned Woods

The late Barbara Maniha was a prolific poet, among her other gifts.

We pay tribute this month to longtime choir member Barbara Maniha by sharing one of her poems. Barbara died Aug. 1 after a long illness at the age of 81.

Barbara and her husband Ken joined Holy Comforter in 1978. In subsequent years she served as Vestry member, Sunday School teacher, Safe Church educator, and soprano in the choir.

“For Barbara and for me, the shared mission of the music ministry and the friendships of the people who shared that ministry became important parts of our lives,” said Ken, a longtime member of the bass section.

Barbara began singing regularly with the choir in the early 1990s. She was a cherished friend to many choir members. This fellow soprano recalls her kindness, elegance, and sardonic comments on current events.

Bass Chris Jones described Barbara as “an amazing person” who helped raise two grandchildren in the family’s Reston home late in life, after a career that included supervising scores of mental health professionals at Northwest Center for Community Mental Health in Reston and founding the first battered women’s shelter in Fairfax County.

Moreover, Barbara was instrumental in the development of the Diocese of Virginia’s Safe Church policies, along with the curricula used to train clergy and laypeople in preventing abuse of children, adults and elders.

“She was in it for the sake of others,” Rector Jon Strand said in his homily at her September 16 funeral. And son Gregory: “She was always very generous with her love.”

Barbara’s poetry often depicted a beloved home in rural Massachusetts where she spent summers throughout her life. “The Drowning Summer” recalls a moment of grace in the woods during a summer bedeviled by continuous rainfall.

Farewell, Barbara. We miss you.

– Kate Beddall

The Drowning Summer

The first two corn crops drowned

As infants, the third is sickly.

For frogs new subdivisions are found

In puddles that fill usually dry roads.

Windows drip and the floors

Sweat. Nothing feels really dry,

And going out or in each door

Requires a war with its sticking.

The only ones with real cause to celebrate

Are the mosquitoes. We fear this is the year

By which their historians will calibrate

The beginning of a world conquest.

Is this the season of Saint

Noah? The one the gods must

Truly love the best? His quaint

Tale real, are we abandoned to floods?

Bored with being prisoners to rain

We walk in woods now swamps; our

Footsteps sink well marked in mud, retained

With those of deer, and occasional bobcat.

A tiny salamander, sleek amber colored jewel

Slips silently across the foot-stepped muck

And unexpectedly it is clear that this cruel

Summer is to some life-giving: grace.

– Barbara B. Maniha

Last Words on Lincoln

“We have a unique responsibility to preserve and nurture the treasure of our own tradition—an authentic gift of the Spirit.”

Holy Comforter Choir guest organist, Christopher Reynolds; guest Music Director, Jack Warren Burnam; and the Rev. Canon Nick Brown, precentor of Lincoln Cathedral; in front of its high altar, July 23, 2023.

Choir members who sang at Lincoln Cathedral this summer begin this program year with all that we have “seen and sung, lived and learned, engraved upon our hearts”—to quote Ann’s sending prayer. One such engraving is the inspirational final message we received from Guest Music Director Jack Warren Burnam, shared below with his permission.

Dear friends,

I want to say again how profoundly grateful I am for the gift and privilege of this memorable week spent with you, witnessing the remarkable level of mutual care you have for one another, and your deep commitment to your mission. During our final Saturday night “thank you” dinner, I touched briefly on a question that has long preoccupied me: why do we have choirs at all? The New Testament makes no mention of choirs, and for that very reason some Christian traditions—notably Quakers and strict Reformed sects—historically have excluded choirs and musical instruments from their worship. Why do Episcopal churches have them? I suggest three reasons:

First, a choir is a paradigm, a vivid expression of the nature of the Church. St. Paul compares the Church to a living organism, composed of diverse limbs and organs that work together for the good of the whole body [see 1 Corinthians chapter 12]. Our Book of Common Prayer expresses this unity-in-diversity by assigning specific liturgical roles to bishops, priests, deacons, readers and others. In this same way, the individual members of a choir, with their variety of gifts and skills, work together to create an offering far greater than any of them could make on their own.

Second, choirs support the song of the whole congregation—most obviously, when the choir leads the congregation in singing hymns and service music; but in a less obvious but even more vital way in rehearsals and individual preparation and study, where singers are constantly acquiring the knowledge, skill, and experience that will carry the Church’s song into the future.

Third, Choral Liturgy is a distinctive aspect of our Episcopal heritage. The Anglican Choral Tradition is one of unsurpassed richness, depth and diversity. While we honor and are enriched by other worship traditions, I believe we have a unique responsibility to preserve and nurture the treasure of our own tradition—an authentic gift of the Spirit to us, and through us to all of God’s people.

And that, my friends, is what a choral residency in an English cathedral is all about. We’ve experienced an encounter with the beauty, heritage, and potential that goes under the heading of “Choir,” with all of the time and effort we pour into it. If you’ve brought home a heightened understanding of your role, in a context that feels broadened and extended through time and space, then together we’ve accomplished the most important goal of our time in Lincoln.

Thanks be to God.

– Jack Warren Burnam

For more information about the choir pilgrimage, check out the Lincoln Cathedral blog.

If you or someone you know is interested in participating in any of the music programs at Holy Comforter, please contact David Kelley, Minister of Music. Church of the Holy Comforter is an affiliate of the Royal School of Church Music in America.