There were so many great moments at Sola-San Antonio. Here are a few:
1. Thursday Matins – The Te Deum set to Gustav Holst’s majestic "Thaxted" (LSB 941). That’s a keeper!. As someone put it, "We looked down on heaven on that one." To steal an apt phrase from one of my members, it made you "heavensick," that deep longing for home where we already are in Jesus. I wept. Wow!
2. Homiletic line of the week: "Walking on water with Jesus is not the big deal; drowning in water with Jesus is." Or words to that effect. Yeah, we’ll be borrowing that line.
3. Best youth response to a question: When posed with a picture of the Twin Towers under attack on 9/11 and a depiction of Jesus on the cross and asked the question, "What is the same and what is different about each of these pictures?" a young man replies, "One is about people dying to kill their enemies; the other is about God dying to save His enemies." The teacher is humbled before the student.
4. Memorable moment: A lengthy hallway conversation with a young man over how best to talk about their beliefs, he Lutheran, she Roman Catholic. What stands out for me is a young man who wants to talk serious spiritual stuff with his girlfriend! If only I could get my premarital couples to do the same thing.
5. Touching moment: Singing "Happy Birthday" to Pr. Borghardt’s daughter Sophia. Pr. Borghardt has written eloquently on Lady Sophia’s story here. Every day is a gift of grace.
6. Cool moment: The African Lake house at the San Antonio Zoo. Chilled down to a comfortable 72 degrees for the sake of the great African rift lake cichlid exhibit. Relief from the heat! For those of you who have never been there, San Antonio has a terrific zoo. Great bird collection.
7. Visual image: Kids, kids, and more kids. Kids and pastors hanging out, talking theology, goofing around. Kids being kids, testing the boundaries, pretending not to have a good time and smiling large under apathetic eyes. Kids wearing Sola! t-shirts hearing about grace alone, faith alone, Scripture alone, Christ alone. Kids daring to be Lutheran in a world that dares you not to be Christian. I call them kids but they’re not kids. They emergent adults, apprentices, the rising generation. We’re teaching them how to use the tools correctly and constructively. Scripture, Confessions, Hymnal. I’m hopeful. Grace abounds.
I have read both Sola posts. The first I heard about Higher Things was that it was ‘those confessional pastors trying to replace NYGs.’ Well, as I have learned more about HT, I am more and more convinced that HT has the right attitude toward the youth of today. It seem, just like everything else, we are trying to ‘dumb down’ everything. Higher Things is giving our youth the foundation they need. Thank you for your work in this calling.
Higher Things sounds great! Glad you enjoyed it. A friend of mine from Austin was there with her daughter’s youth group.
I know that THAXTED tune of which you speak. It is in the new WELS hymnal supplement paired with the text of “Jerusalem the Golden” (CWS 728). When we heard it for the first time on Ascension Day, it was so moving that I couldn’t even sing. “Heavensick” is a great descriptor for that feeling.
I’m going to have to part ways with you on Thaxted. To me, that setting sounds overbearing and pretentious. Maybe I have just been overexposed to Holst as a composer, or listened to the Planets Suite one too many times.
There is a good video of said Te Deum here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w883u8hoGBk
Of course, when it comes to matters of music, your mileage will vary.
Wikipedia has a nice round-up of stuff to know about the tune. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thaxted_(tune)
Anne Porter expresses “heavensickness” quite nicely. (Thanks to Jani via The Writer’s Almanac for this poem.)
Music
By Anne Porter
When I was a child
I once sat sobbing on the floor
Beside my mother’s piano
As she played and sang
For there was in her singing
A shy yet solemn glory
My smallness could not hold
And when I was asked
Why I was crying
I had no words for it
I only shook my head
And went on crying
Why is it that music
At its most beautiful
Opens a wound in us
An ache a desolation
Deep as a homesickness
For some far-off
And half-forgotten country
I’ve never understood
Why this is so
Bur there’s an ancient legend
From the other side of the world
That gives away the secret
Of this mysterious sorrow
For centuries on centuries
We have been wandering
But we were made for Paradise
As deer for the forest
And when music comes to us
With its heavenly beauty
It brings us desolation
For when we hear it
We half remember
That lost native country
We dimly remember the fields
Their fragrant windswept clover
The birdsongs in the orchards
The wild white violets in the moss
By the transparent streams
And shining at the heart of it
Is the longed-for beauty
Of the One who waits for us
Who will always wait for us
In those radiant meadows
Yet also came to live with us
And wanders where we wander.
I can understand Rev. Klages’s reaction to the Thaxted tune. It is almost over-the-top, but I think it can work for special occasions. It first struck me as sounding like a movie soundtrack that I couldn’t quite place. I researched it later and found that I hadn’t seen any of the movies that the Planets Suite has been used in, so it wasn’t too hard for me to switch my mental association from movie soundtrack to grand hymn tune.
Love that Anne Porter poem! The way music hits me sometimes is, “If heaven is like this, that would be good enough.” And yet, it will be even better.
Rev. Cwirla,
Thankyou very much for your highlights posting–especially #3, which now will lead me to forward your blogpost here to his parents. (Btw, who was that pastor who made that Peter drowning in the water comment in his sermon? I want his manuscript!!) And yes, that Holst- based Bender arranged setting of the Te Deum was a tearjerker. Definite Wow! factor for sure. (Gotta give it to those Anglicans on musical composition.) Props to Rev. Kind on the Xylophone(?) for that piece, along with the organist, instrumentalists, and choir. And watching the Organist jump like two rows of stadium seats to return from conducting to the organ was a definite Wow! factor as well.
Now I wish I could say this wasn’t a highlight, but it literally was a “high light”, part of a restaurant sign hanging too low along the Riverwalk path downtown, that I inexplicably walked right into as I was consumed in light catechetical conversation my youth, opening a big gash in my forehead, blood gushing down my face. If nothing else, the look on the Restaurant owner’s face (fear of litigation?) was priceless. I perhaps could’ve used a couple stitches, but why bother with my ugly mutt of a face? Just ice and antiseptic please. (Suppose it serves me right for skipping out of Thursday afternoon sessions to give my youth a taste of San Antonio. lol)
Anyways, the highlight for me, my chaperone and hopefully all our youth was your In-Depth series on “Answering the Atheists.” You were a delight to listen to Rev. Cwirla. God made a very kool confessional soul when he made you! Thank you for your service! (Soli Deo Gloria)
I have a 20 stitch gash over my left eye from a light post incident in high school. Nothing bleeds like a head wound. 34 years later it looks like a fencing injury. Character.
This is cool! Memorable Moment #3 is the current masthead for the Boar’s Head Tavern. Nice!
http://boarsheadtavern.com/
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