Pastor Don's Ponderings

Yesterday Nancy and I were blessed with the privilege of attending a Belleville Masterworks Chorale Concert at the Russel E. and Fern M. Hettenhausen Center for the Arts on the beautiful campus of McKendree University in Lebanon, Illinois. Saying the concert was fantastic would be an understatement, yet the entirety of the concert is not what caught my attention. As a part of the concert, the Masterworks Chorale had invited internationally acclaimed operatic soprano, Ms. Christine Brewer, to perform with them and, as she delivered a most memorable performance of George Gershwin's, Summertime , the thought crossed my mind, "I wonder if Gershwin ever imagined the incredible instrument of Christine's voice singing this beautiful and powerful piece?" In the time between then and now, that thought has been mulling around in my mind. Written in 1935 as a part of the opera ' Porgy and Bess' ,   Summertime  is sung by Clara as a lullaby to her baby - and its melody is...

I have learned a few things from the land, not everything, but a few things, enough that just looking at this picture taken during a moment's reprieve from Fall tillage while overlooking the pasture and creek just to the South at sunset, causes me to mull over a couple of those things: If you are so busy making a living you don't have time to occasionally enjoy a beautiful sunrise or sunset, you need to stop what you are doing and start making a life which savors such gifts. No one knows when the sunset we observe becomes the sunset of which we are a part. Watch how beautifully and majestically creation does it, then try to do the same each day on your journey. The most beautiful of sunrises and sunsets often includes a variety of clouds which reflect both light and color, so why are we surprised when clouds come into our lives? Perhaps they are the necessary precursors of memorable new beginnings just waiting to happen. From where I am in life, crossing the creek in ...

I love the photography of my friend and colleague, Fr. Jerry Schweitzer, who resides in Northern Indiana. He publishes a daily meditation which includes his photographs and, truth be told, most days I find myself just looking into the pictures he provides and imagining my place in each setting. Jerry, and so many others like him, have the God-given capacity to see with God's eyes, to intuitively capture a moment, an event or an environment, and then invite others to marvel with them at the sight. This scene holds me fast . . . On the shoreline of Lake Michigan, at a place where once someone sat and took in its beauty and power, where a fence divides the land to the place where the waters cannot be divided, and where under snow and blustery winds there still resides the vestiges of summers past: The windswept grasses tell their tales and shifting sands reveal their secrets. Here we meet ourselves. Here we see our reflections. Here we tremble, not for Winter's wind, but fo...