A claw-footed bathtub sat in the reading corner of my kindergarten classroom in Durham, North Carolina. It was filled with needlepoint pillows whose velvet backings were sumptuous and smooth. Each morning, our teacher gathered us in a circle and wrote one name on the board, the name of the “child of the day.”
For as long as I can remember, I’ve been interested in numbers. No, I’m not a mathematician. Not even close. It’s more about being aware of the frequency with which I see them and what’s weighing heavy on my heart at the time. Most mornings I wake up at 2:22, 3:33, or 4:44 a.m. It
Travelling as non-choristers with the Calvary Choir to Durham, we are now into the sixth day of the residency and are grateful for our time thus far. From 16 to 80 years old, the Calvary group is a delightful mix of the serious, the hilarious, the adventurous, and the cautious. The first evening meal found us singing
Today was our “dumb” day at Durham, which means that we did not sing, but did get to see a goodly bit of northeast England today. We experienced the Holy Island of Lindisfarne, where St. Aidan came from Iona to found a monastery. We were told in no uncertain terms that we were to leave
“What a joy walking is. And to walk with old friends multiplies the pleasure a hundredfold.” — Bill Bryson, author and Chancellor of Durham University (2005-2011), in The Road to Little Dribbling (2015)
It was a morning of walking for some of us, as we climbed aboard our two buses and headed for Housesteads Fort at Hadrian’s
So, what is a choral residency anyway?
Nobody we have met on this trip, outside the choir world, seems to know what it is, so I thought that might be a good place to start.
Eric and I have explained to folks who ask about it like this: choirs, mostly from the United States, are
“Hi, my name is Wesley and I’m a news junkie.”
I don’t know exactly when my need toknowtook over my life. Maybe it crept in slowly, an extra headline here, a breaking update there; until one day I found myself startled awake by a New York Times notification, curled up next to my beloved iPhone like it was
There’s a lot that’s not helpful floating around my social media feeds, but not too long ago, Roseanne Cash just about reached through the screen and preached straight into my heart.
First of all, don’t you love it when Jane Austen and Roseanne Cash
by Nathan Brasfield, Director of Youth and Community Ministries
One of the reasons I am glad to be an Episcopalian is that I am given liturgical space every week to participate in the Eucharist and to consider what it means for me on any given day. Theologians who think about this sort of thing at length have termed how
During Lent five years ago, our lives and world were jarred in ways we may not yet comprehend. Five years may be too soon to grasp how the COVID-19 pandemic has made us a changed people. We may never fully understand the subtle and not-so-subtle ways our lives have been transformed by what we went