classical music from Haiti - a video of 5 piano pieces by Ludovic Lamothe

For more on this Haitian composer and pianist:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludovic_Lamothe
http://chevalierdesaintgeorges.homestead.com/Lamothe.html

Haitian classical music event

October is Haitian Creole Month.

I had no idea.

I discovered this when I was looking at some of the articles on Romel Joseph (see previous post) and searching for him under Haitian classical music.* Apparently there are celebrations not just of the language, but also of the culture of which it is a part.

Tomorrow, Saturday, October 17, there is a free performance at the main public library in Cambridge, MA. There are works by some names I recognize. I do wish I could be there! You can see the post on the library Facebook page, dated 10/14/15. On another site I found the following brief description:

Discover Haitian Classical Music
Discover historic and contemporary Haitian classical composers like Jaegerhuber, Racine, Perrault, Dauphin, and our host, Gifrants! Free!

I also note that there is a celebration in the same location on Halloween from 10-4. Nothing to do with Halloween itself, but for those not preparing for trick-or-treating, it looks like a marvelous opportunity.

Now, if you are further away from me in the Chicago area, never fear, there is a concert of Haitian classical music coming up there on November 8.

Haitian classical music concert in Chicago 11/8/15

Here is the Facebook event page description:

This event is free! Free-will donations benefit the Haitian American Museum and Crossing Borders Music. 

The Haitian American Museum of Chicago and Crossing Borders Music present great, seldom-heard Haitian composers spanning from the early 20th century to today. The performance will feature works that celebrate Haitians' resilience and culture, such as early 20th century German Haitian composer Werner Jaegerhuber's Quartet in C Minor. Jaegerhuber wrote the work late in his life following an aneurysm that partially paralyzed him. In its dramatic conclusion, he quotes a traditional Haitian Vodou melody, "Soley oh", which speaks of darkness and despair as well as the light of the sun. Also featured will be Robert Durand's String Quartet, on which the composer worked every day for nearly 30 years. Julio Racine's Quartet #2 and Gifrants' Konfyolo showcase "rara", a style of Haitian music featuring bamboo horns playing lively, interlocking rhythms. Gifrants' works Unbreakable Faith and Fantezi Kreyol show the composer's commitment to celebrating the music of Haitian peasants and, in Unbreakable Faith, the remarkable resilience of the Haitian people. This performance will be the Midwestern premiere of Unbreakable Faith and Fantezi Kreyol.

- - - - - - - 

*More on Romel Joseph:

Another link I discovered:
Romel Joseph and what good is classical music, anyway

A picture from an Orchestre Philharmonique Sainte Trinite concert in Port-au-Prince in 2011, celebrating the 40th anniversary of its founding and the 50th of Les Petits Chanteurs (who are also out and about touring right now)

Romel Joseph - a slide from notable moments and people series on the history of the music school given during the concert
Yes, yes, I did in fact take a picture of a slide...

While Sr. Claire Marie was telling me about attending his various graduations, I found out that he got his undergraduate degree from the University of Cincinnati, where my mother did her grad work and where my nephew is currently studying. More ties. 

I'll leave you with a dose of cuteness - Romel's daughter Victoria, now an excellent violinist, playing in a recital at the age of six.

Romel Joseph

Sr. Claire Marie's cousin, violinist Romel Joseph, died in Haiti this past week.

Romel Joseph, left, a Juilliard-trained violinist, lost his wife, their unborn child, and his music school in the Haiti earthquake of 2010. Two years later, he practiced for a concert, with his children, Bradley, center, on the piano, and Victoria, right, on violin. The family has raised money to help build a school of music in Port-au-Prince for children.

MARICE COHN BAND Miami Herald file

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/obituaries/article38114070.html#storylink=cpy

Violinist Romel Joseph, survivor of Haiti earthquake, dies at 56 

obituary (minus headline and photo) in the music section of Le Nouvelliste, the major newspaper in Port-au-Prince

As Sr. Claire Marie told me, his funeral was held today at the Cathedrale Sainte Trinite, Port-au-Prince, the cathedral of the Eglise Episcopale d'Haiti. On the Facebook page of the New Victorian School, the bilingual academic and music elementary school which he founded and directed, his daughter Victoria, also a violinist, confirmed this, saying,

"As you know already, Bradley and I are incredibly saddened to officially announce the loss of our beloved father, educator, violinist and Founder of The New Victorian School, Romel Joseph. As he is remembered, it is our hope that the focus not be on his passing but to the endless service he has given to his community and many around the world.

With the love and admiration for children and music education, our father embarked the ambitious journey of making his dream a reality. Without a doubt, the spirit of survival and resiliency that he demonstrated in the 2010 earthquake will continue to live in us and all the children in The New Victorian School. As a result, our 200 current students have embraced his vision at the school by marking its 25th anniversary beginning January 1, 2016. More than his professional and musical accomplishments, he is measured as a devoted husband, father, friend and teacher. "

I wish I had heard him play myself. I am glad to have been able to meet him, however briefly, back when I was living in Haiti. He came to Holy Trinity Philharmonic Orchestra concerts, so there was opportunity for me to be introduced.

This is a recently posted video of one of his concerts in Holy Trinity Music School's Salle Sainte Cecile, which is - was - attached to Holy Trinity (Episcopal) Cathedral in Port-au-Prince.  Holy Trinity Music School was founded by our own Sr. Anne Marie, and Romel studied there, so there is yet another connection with us.



Romel Joseph's beautiful music and all his other achievements are all the more impressive when one learns he had a lifelong visual impairment. Clearly, it didn't stop him from using his gifts. As a child, he attended St. Vincent's School for Handicapped Children in Port-au-Prince, founded by Sr. Joan; Sr. Claire Marie, too, is a graduate and taught there for a while before becoming a sister.
Ecole St Vincent - Facebook page
Centre St Vincent Pour Enfants Handicapes - Facebook page

As is mentioned above, he survived the 2010 earthquake in which he lost his wife and unborn child and spent 18 hours buried in rubble, keeping himself together by mentally playing concertos.

As a world-class violinist, he received media attention when, finally rescued, he was flown to a Miami hospital. As a result, Stevie Wonder sent him two of his keyboards as encouragement and so that he might practice and strengthen his fingers as he recovered.

Can you imagine breaking your fingers if you were a professional violinist? Obviously he also played keyboard - Sr. Claire Marie tells me, "he could play any instrument" - a wide variety, in any case.

And he did play again, despite cautions from doctors who thought this might not be possible. Furthermore, as he also vowed, his school was rebuilt and continues its work.
http://www.npr.org/2010/01/23/122900781/wife-school-lost-in-quake-violinist-vows-to-rebuild

Romel Joseph, founder of The New Victorian School in Haiti, and his daughter Victoria perform at the Aventura Cultural Center in Miami on Jan. 8. It was Joseph's first performance since last year's earthquake.
Neil Oxenburg/Courtesy of Victoria Joseph via NPR
Quake Crushes Haitian Violinist's Hand, But Not His Spirit (NPR 2011)

Romel Joseph, a blind violinist who survived the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti after spending 18 hours pinned under concrete, played the violin at the rehabilitation center at Jackson Memorial Hospital in March 2010, just a few months after treatment. Alexia Fodere For The Miami Herald http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/obituaries/article38114070.html

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/obituaries/article38114070.html#storylink=cpy

And here he is in 2014 with his daughter Victoria, playing a mini concert at the Miami hospital where he was treated following the earthquake.

Please keep his family, loved ones, and students in your prayers. 

If you wish to do something to honor his memory, you could post a memorial here: https://www.facebook.com/RomelJosephMemoriesTribute

You could also, I am sure, donate to his school (links above),
to the Holy Trinity Music School where he first studied the violin
http://www.saintetrinitemusique.com/
Ecole de Musique Sainte Trinite Facebook page  
http://singwithhaiti.org/
or to Instrumental Change, a non-profit organization begun by a friend of mine that brings musical instruments to and otherwise supports a number of music programs in Haiti (including Holy Trinity Music School).
http://www.instrumentalchange.org/
Instrumental Change Facebook page

an intercessory prayer of Lancelot Andrewes

Today we remember Lancelot Andrewes, chaplain to Queen Elizabeth I and one of the scholars on the committee that put together the King James translation of the Bible.  He was especially known for his life of prayer. 



INTERCESSION

And I have hoped in Thy mercy
from everlasting to everlasting.
How excellent is Thy mercy, O Lord;
If I have hope, it is in Thy mercy,
O let me not be disappointed of my hope.
Moreover we beseech Thee,
remember all, Lord, for good;
have pity upon all; O Sovereign Lord,
be reconciled with us all.


Give peace to the multitudes of Thy people;
scatter offences;
abolish wars;
stop the uprisings of heresies.
Thy peace and love
vouchsafe to us, O God our Saviour,
the Hope of all the ends of the earth.




Remember to crown the year
with Thy goodness;
for the eyes of all wait upon Thee,
and Thou givest them their meat in due season.
Thou openest Thy hand,
and fillest all things living
with plenteousness.





Remember Thy Holy Church;
from one end of the earth to the other;
and give her peace,
whom Thou hast redeemed with Thy precious blood;
and establish her
unto the end of the world.


Remember those who bear fruit, and act nobly,
in Thy holy Churches,
and who remember the poor and needy;
recompense to them
Thy rich and heavenly gifts;
vouchsafe to them,
for things earthly, heavenly,
for corruptible, incorruptible,
for temporal, eternal.

Remember those who are in virginity;
and purity and ascetic life;
also those who live in honourable marriage,
in Thy reverence and fear.

Remember every Christian soul
in affliction, distress, and trial,
and in need of Thy pity and succour;


also our brethren in captivity, prison,
chains, and bitter bondage;
supplying return to the wandering,
health to the sick,
deliverance to the captives.

Remember religious and faithful kings,
whom Thou hast given to rule
upon the earth;
and especially remember, Lord,
our divinely guarded king;
strengthen his kingdom,
subdue to him all adversaries,
speak good things to his heart,
for Thy Church, and all Thy people.
Vouchsafe to him deep and undisturbed peace,
that in his serenity
we may lead a quiet and peaceable life
with all godliness and honesty.


Remember, Lord, all power
and authority,
our brethren in the court,
those who are chief in council and judgment,
and all by land and sea
waging Thy wars for us.

Moreover, Lord, remember graciously
our holy Fathers,
the honourable Presbytery, and all the Clergy,
rightly dividing the Word of Truth,
and rightly walking in it.

Remember, Lord, our brethren around us,
and praying with us in this holy hour,
for their zeal and earnestness-sake.
Remember also those who on fair reasons are away,
and pity them and us
in the multitude of Thy pity.


Fill our garners with all manner of store;
preserve our marriages in peace and concord,
nourish our infants,
lead forward our youth,
sustain our aged,
comfort the weak hearted,
gather together the scattered,
restore the wanderers,
and knit them to Thy Holy Catholic Apostolic Church.

Set free the troubled
with unclean spirits,
voyage with the voyagers,
travel with the travellers
stand forth for the widow,
shield the orphan,
rescue the captive,
heal the sick.


Those who are on trial, in mines, in exile,
and upon all pour out Thy rich pity,
in whatever affliction, necessity, and emergence,
remember, O God;
and all who need Thy great mercy;
and those who love us,
and those who hate;
and those who have desired us unworthy
to make mention of them in our prayers;
and all Thy people remember, O Lord, our God,
and upon all pour out Thy rich pity,
to all performing their requests for salvation;
and those of whom we have not made mention,
through ignorance, forgetfulness,
or number of names,
do Thou Thyself remember, O God,
who knowest the stature and appellation of each,
who knowest every one from his mother's womb.


For Thou art, O Lord, the Succour of the succourless,
the Hope of the hopeless,
The Saviour of the tempest-tost,
the Harbour of the voyager,
the Physician of the sick,
do Thou Thyself become all things to all men.

O Thou who knowest each man and his petition,
each house, and its need,
deliver, O Lord, this city,
and all the country in which we sojourn,
from plague, famine, earthquake, flood,
fire, sword, hostile invasion,
and civil war.

End the schisms of the Churches,
quench the haughty cries of the nations,
and receive us all into Thy kingdom,
acknowledging us, as sons of light;
and Thy peace and love
vouchsafe to us, O Lord, our God.




Remember O Lord, our God,
all spirits and all flesh
which we have remembered, and which we have not.
And the close of our life,
Lord, Lord, direct in peace,
Christianly, acceptably, and, should it please Thee,
painlessly,
gathering us together under the feet
of Thine elect,
when Thou wilt and how Thou wilt,
only without shame and sins.

The brightness of the Lord our God be upon us,
prosper Thou the work of our hands upon us,
O prosper Thou our handiwork.


Be, Lord,
within me to strengthen me,
without me to guard me,
over me to shelter me,
beneath me to stablish me,
before me to guide me,
after me to forward me,
round about me to secure me.

(located first in book pp. 78-84; text searched for, located, copied and corrected from http://www.ccel.org/ccel/andrewes/devotions1.txt)

Haiti-Dominican Republic tensions still high

I've just been reading The Dominican Time Bomb, an article in the New York Times Magazine by Jonathan Katz. He's written a book about Haiti I've been meaning to read, and he's reported from the DR over the years, so when he writes about the crisis there, he's not coming from an uninformed background. 

We've been hearing lately about the threat of mass deportations. Under pressure, the Dominican government put it off. Certainly Haiti isn't ready to receive an influx. The thing is, all this isn't just about people sneaking over a border in hopes of finding work, though it includes them as well. This is about families of Haitian origin who have been in the country for a long, long time. Some of them have no recent ties whatsoever to Haiti. Basically, anyone born there who might have had an irregular situation in the family back to 1929 - yes, 1929 - has to prove their citizenship or be deported. If you look as though you might be Haitian, that's you. It might not be as complicated here because it isn't as hard to get a copy of a birth certificate. There, if you were born in a rural area, you might never have gotten one. In, say, the 1930's. Meanwhile, your grandchildren are thoroughly Dominican, but if you can't find yours or never were issued one, the whole family is just gone. 

New York Times article excerpt (Jonathan Katz)

This I had heard before. However, this article gives a lot of history, and I hadn't heard all of it. I knew tensions had been high for years, decades. I had no idea of the extent of it.  Look at this:

But the intensity of the hatred and violence long directed against Haitian immigrants and Dominicans of Haitian descent in Medina’s country — and against anyone black enough to be confused for either — is staggering, like something out of Mississippi in the 1890s, or Europe before World War II. In February, a Haitian shoe­shiner was lynched and hanged from a tree in a public park in the nation’s second­largest city, Santiago, while a crowd across town burned Haitian flags and chanted: “Haitians out! If it’s war they want, it’s war they’ll get!” Other victims identified as haitianos have been lynched in the past year for alleged infractions such as robbing a convenience store and burning a Dominican flag. Dominican newspapers are filled with cartoons depicting people of Haitian descent as bug­eyed, big­lipped golliwogs babbling Spanish in heavy dialect. When I lived in Santo Domingo, there were bars that openly denied entry to blacks, a practice that apparently persists.

I hadn't pictured that. I knew there was no respect, no love lost there, but this? This is deeper and longer standing than I had imagined.  

As I type this, I am aware of our own current situation in the US. I don't just mean immigration, legal or illegal.  I'm talking about burning churches - over a half dozen in this past week or so since Charleston, and very little attention has been paid (versus, say, a week's coverage of a burned CVS in MD).  I did find a useful PBS article on several arsons among them. Some have definitely been arson, some not, some we don't know. But that's like a church a day, starting from the time of the Charleston massacre. We can't point fingers at the DR without also taking a hard look at our own culture and policies.

All of which doesn't change the fact that this is bad. We've stopped having demonstrations about that - Charleston interrupted those, as I recall, in great part, and certainly derailed my attention - but the problem hasn't gone away. It's gone into a short-term hiatus in terms of the mass deportation planning, but I gather it's still in the works. 

But although attention elsewhere has moved on, the threat to hundreds of thousands of people in the Dominican Republic has not gone away. Dominican officials are clear that mass deportations are still planned. Fearing violence, at least 17,000 people with ties to Haiti have chosen to flee the country on their own, provoking fears of yet another humanitarian crisis in Haiti. In a gleefully Orwellian turn, Dominican authorities responded by offering a “free bus service to take migrants to the border.” They say at least 1,000 people have been transported so far.

Presime told me he hasn’t gone to work since the deadline passed for fear of being separated from his daughter. “Immigration could come looking in the middle of the night and surprise us,” he told me by phone. “It is insanity.” For people like him, who have no family or support on the other side of the border, the Dominican Republic is the only home they can imagine. If the bomb does go off, there will be nowhere for them to go.

Please pray for the Dominicans who don't even know Haiti and will be sent there, and also for the Haitians who started a new life once and are coming back to a country in even more dire straits, in many cases. Pray for the Haitian government as they try to handle this and for the Dominican Government, that they not deport their own people. And pray for all of us, that our hearts may be changed through the mercy and grace of God into what they were intended to be.

when being nice isn't enough

Today at the convent we’re celebrating St. Peter and St. Paul (transferred from yesterday).  I was asked to find the short non-scriptural reading for the Noon Office to go with a portion of the scripture for the day. When I found it, it spoke to me about so much of what we’re living in.  Peter and Paul were so very different, yet we celebrate them together.  When I think of all the issues we’re working through as a church and as a country, it seems a very appropriate feast to model our learning to live together.

 

a Byzantine icon of St. Peter and St. Paul

Here is the reading I found. It’s the first few paragraphs of a sermon I found online.

Homily on the Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul Sunday June 29th 2008

By a monk of the Orthodox Monastery of St. Tikhon of Zadonsk

 Today the Church sets before us the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul: the two mighty pillars of the Church; St. Peter, the Apostle to the Jewish Nation, and St. Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles. When we venerate the icon for this feast, we often see Peter and Paul embracing one another in fraternal (brotherly) love. They both certainly were different people with different temperaments. They both ministered to two mutually opposed groups of people (the Jews and the Gentiles, i.e., the rest of the world.) And they both certainly had their differences, recalling when, to use St. Paul's words, he (Paul) at one time even “withstood (or opposed) Peter to his face, for he was to be blamed” (Galatians 2:11.) In spite of this apparent tension, however, we see today within this feast an example of how we are to live with each other in the Church. Certainly, as people from all walks of life, we will have differences. We are all different people with different needs. However, today's feast shows us that the Church is first and foremost a place where God's love reigns (as the Lord said, the world will know us by the love we have one for another.) It is this love from God that enables us to overcome our interpersonal difficulties and it is this love that reminds us that with God all things are possible, and hence, when Christ commands us to “love our enemies” it is with the full knowledge that it is His love and grace that will empower us to do so. God doesn't ask us to “like” our neighbors and enemies, He commands us to “love” our neighbors and our enemies, a task which is far greater and is not predicated on how we feel but it is a choice: it is a conscious decision on our part to will the highest good for everyone we come into contact with. Love is therefore a choice. It is how we choose to act/respond. The great Saints Peter and Paul exemplify to us that even if we are different and even if we have disagreements, we can still live and work together in the Church and we can find reconciliation one to another through God's grace and love, that is, if we are willing. Often times the only thing that stands in the way of us being truly reconciled one to another is a conscious choice to be humble and to say with heartfelt meaning to those who offend us the two words that literally BURN the devil: “Forgive me.”

http://sttikhonsmonastery.org/files/Sermon-for-Sts.pdf

Love is hard work.  Love is a choice.  Thanks to Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wind in the Door, this is not a new idea. (What do you mean, you haven’t read it? Go do so immediately.)

And love isn’t about being nice. 

That one took me longer to grasp.

How many times I have heard my mother’s voice echoing in my head: “Why can’t we all just be nice to each other?”  What a difference it would make. 

And yet it’s not enough. Trying to do that, just that, is better than nothing most of the time – except when it’s not.  Just ask me about the dangers of mistaking niceness for love or for holiness (or so it looks to me in retrospect) and thus making things worse by not dealing with them right away.  

Case in point: hate groups. 800+ of them in the US at last count.  In 2015. Really.  Here’s a tweet I just saw that illustrates this.  (No idea who the original poster is, but he sure has a point.)

I used to think the racism problem was in the past… too many cheerful grade school books ingested and a sheltered childhood will let you believe such things until they smack you in the face. Apparently thinking people should know by now isn’t enough. Thinking that people will be able to see how false their assumptions are through simple logic isn’t enough. Being nice isn’t enough. Sometimes you just have to tackle things head on and get to work, or nothing will ever change. It's not the way to popularity, but that's not the point. Even Jesus didn't always manage to speak in such a way as to be well received. Looking at the Gospel reading for this coming Sunday (Proper 9B) reminds me of that yet again.

Being nice doesn’t always work in the best of situations, for that matter, though I usually expect it to. “We just thought if we were really, really nice they would like us,” I heard someone say. In a church context. It didn’t work. This is counter to all my childhood assumptions.

Apparently, however, it’s not just my family. 

*   *   *   *   *  

One thing I do appreciate about my parents is that they aren’t often threatened by argument. I don’t mean nasty arguments, hostility, opposing camps. Thank God I don’t remember that from them. I mean spirited discussion of issues where, when you set out your case, you expect an answer. My father was really good at explaining why he’d made a decision or why anything was the way it was. And he wasn’t afraid to admit he was wrong. From him I learned the value of sticking with an argument until there was clarity, or as much resolution as was possible. Even if it took years (women’s ordination – that one went on for well over a decade).  

Essentially: This is what I’m thinking. Come back at me. Not with guns blazing, but with a real argument about why you think something else is better. You might be right. I’m listening.  I still have a lot to learn.

Most of us do.

We know this. I know this. I’ve experienced it. And I still can’t always do it.

How do we engage in argument without having a fight instead? Without automatic retreat into “being nice” (and avoidant) or into polarized camps shouting at each other? 

I just read the most fabulous post on this by Anthony Baker of the Seminary of the Southwest. 

Here’s the opening of it:

Hospitable Language

June 29, 2015 Seminary Southwest

What is an argument?  “Argument is an intellectual process,” says a frustrated client at the Argument Clinic in a Monty Python sketch.  “Contradiction is just the automatic gainsaying of any statement the other person makes.”

“No it isn’t,” is John Cleese’s inevitable reply.

Among the Episcopalians gathered in Salt Lake City this summer, there will likely be a good bit of both argument and contradiction.  In fact, argument, that “intellectual process ”that seeks to persuade by connecting grounds to conclusions by way of strong warrants, is an essential theological task that often gets swept aside because we associate it too quickly with contradiction, contentiousness, or any of the other ugly directions that disagreement sometimes takes.  Arguments seem inhospitable.  Sometimes a necessary evil, but never an act of hospitality.

I believe this is the wrong way for Christians to feel about arguments.  Arguing is theologically important because when we affirm our faith in the Word made flesh, we are reminding one another that the eternal truth became humanly followable in Christ.  Not that we can fully comprehend it, of course.  But we can follow it, as the disciples followed Jesus, opening their eyes and ears to the life and love that he revealed to them.  Jesus is something like God’s argument, presented publicly so that we can gather round, ask questions, make challenges, and ultimately say, “Yes, I can follow that.”

What I appreciate just as much or even more is the careful explanation of the connection between this kind of argument and hospitality:

Far from being an inhospitable response to difference, an invitation to follow an argument is a kind of linguistic hospitality:  I respect you enough that I will place my conviction within a carefully crafted line of reasoning.  Rather than try to manipulate you with verbal tricks or posturing, or let you speak your mind and then take the floor from you, I will invite you to challenge my premises, question the strength of the warrant I offer, and meet my reasoning with an argument of your own.  This, again, is modeling the hospitable descent of the Logos in the incarnation.

Creating well-formed arguments, and following them, is hard work.  Much harder than either nodding passively or rushing to “an automatic gainsaying of any statement the other person makes.”  But, then, no one ever said hospitality of any sort was an easy task.

http://www.sowingholyquestions.org/hospitable-language/

There’s more in my head: recent SCOTUS decisions and accompanying reactions, the massacre of Charleston and half a dozen churches burned in the short time since, and the General Convention of the Episcopal Church (#GC78), which is currently meeting and prayerfully arguing about many things, including hot-button issues and its own continuing structure. However, it’s past time to stop writing this, at least for now.

My prayer is that we all learn to listen. Listen, argue, listen, argue, and remember that arguing actually involves listening and thinking, not just reacting. And praying, in this case. 

Please pray with me. Pray for all of us in this country. Pray for all at General Convention. May God help us to engage in honest, loving, fruitful, thoughtful, prayerful discussion, that God’s will be done.

Presiding Bishop-Elect's sermon to Episcopal Youth Event 2014

Yesterday we elected a new Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church. And I am THRILLED with our choice.

I'll post more later, but I wanted to share with you the sermon I heard from him last summer when I was chaperoning the Diocese of Massachusetts' delegation to the Episcopal Youth Event.

"If you love Jesus, it will change your life."

I love a bishop who gets to the point!

So listen. And rejoice with me and the church. Pray for the Holy Spirit's guidance for Bishop Curry as he prepares for this new position (which he will begin on All Saints Day, November 1). And pray for the work of the General Convention as they continue to meet during this next week.