Trenton Music Makers

Monday, January 16 at 6:00pm
at Trinity Church

Trenton Music Makers will give a community concert at Trinity on Monday, January 16 at 6:00pm, in honor of Martin Luther King Day and the National Day of Service.

The concert follows the growing tradition among El Sistema-inspired organizations throughout the United States, celebrating the spirit of youth empowerment and community service that the holiday encompasses. They are inviting the audience to lean into the holiday’s significance by contributing non-perishable foods, or a monetary donation, for another of Trinity's ministry partners, Arm in Arm.

Trenton Music Makers, launched in 2015, is a five-day afterschool orchestra for Trenton students in Grades 1-12, and is the sibling program of Music for the Very Young and Trenton Children’s Chorus. The orchestra includes string and percussion majors, daily orchestra rehearsal, small-group instruction, theory, improvisation and chamber music, together with academic support, hot meals, and transportation from selected schools. The Trenton Music Makers Orchestra has performed with the Princeton Symphony Orchestra, with local and regional partner organizations in Paterson, Newark, Union City and Camden, for the Greater Trenton annual awards and the Mill Hill Historic House Tour, and as onstage guests of the NJ Symphony. They are members of the El Sistema NJ Alliance, and national partners of Carnegie Hall Play USA.

Faith & Justice Book Group

Mondays, January 30, February 6, 13, & 20
6pm to 7:15 pm on Zoom

OUT OF THE SUN
On Race and Storytelling
by Esi Edugyan

Esi Edugyan is the author of the internationally bestselling and award-winning novel “Washington Black”, and other fine novels.

OUT OF THE SUN are her essays for the esteemed Canadian Broadcasting Massey Lectures, broadcast on CBC Radio in January of 2022. This book asks us to consider: “What happens when stories normally at the margin gain centrality. How does that complicate who we are, as individuals, as nations, as human beings? Through the lens of visual art, literature, film, and the author’s lived experience, OUT OF THE SUN examines Black histories in art, offering new perspectives to challenge us.”

Please join in our Zoom Book Group 6pm-7:15 pm, Mondays, January 30, February 6, 13, 20.We are sure to have some lively conversation about the book, and how it informs and intersects with our Christian faith.

Contact me, the Rev. Joanne Epply-Schmidt at epplyschmidtj@trinityprinceton.org to signup, and I will send you the link.

OUT OF THE SUN is available at local libraries, or special order at local bookstores, and online sellers.

Way of St. Paul to be Rescheduled, Andrew Davison Interviews Kara Slade on CTI’s Theology Matters

Way of St. Paul to be Rescheduled

The Way of St. Paul program that was scheduled for Saturday has been canceled due to the fact that Canon Droste came down with Covid. It will be rescheduled for early next month. Stay tuned for more information!

Andrew Davison Interviews Kara Slade
on CTI’s Theology Matters

Also, I recently recorded an interview on my book and the theology of time with Andrew Davison of Cambridge University and CTI — and part of our Trinity family! You can listen to it here:

Beyond Resolutions: One Word

— BEYOND RESOLUTIONS —

If you’re like me, you come to January 1 every year with a fistful of good intentions. This year, I tell myself, I really will fix all my bad habits at once! And of course it never works. We all struggle with the ways that the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak, as St. Paul says. Or the ways that we do what we do not want to do - again, one of Paul’s struggles. The deformation of our will is part of our fallen nature. But at the same time, that doesn’t mean it’s impossible for us to change. I invite you to read Curtis Hoberman’s article below, and to join me for the next two weeks in the Adult Forum as we talk about ways to grow in virtue and holiness of life in ways that go beyond the futility of New Year’s resolutions. I’ll see you then!

The Rev. Cn. Dr. Kara Slade, Associate Rector

— ONE WORD —

Curtis Hoberman

Forget resolutions. What is your one word for 2023?

What is the one word that will lead you, guide you. encourage you, and propel you for this year?

I was introduced to the idea of one word in an F3 workout in Philadelphia in late 2018, prior to the start of F3 Princeton in April 2019. The F3 Brother from Charlotte who led the workout that day shared the impact it had in his life in giving him clarity of mind, focus on direction, and help in his interpersonal relationships.

In each of the last four years I have had one word: 2019 – Integrity; 2020 – Fearless; 2021 – Hope; 2022 – Fortitude. In each year, my one word has challenged me to be a better person, to be a man of prayer and of action and to grow in resilience and durability. Little did I know on the choice of “Fearless” in January 2020, how I would be challenged every day to be “fearless” after the middle of March with the onset of the pandemic. My faith in God grew very much that year, as I sought to “live by faith, and not by sight.” (2 Corinthians 5:7).

The process to discover your one word:

1. Prepare your heart. Take the time to shut down the media sources around you and disengage from them. Allow yourself time of quiet reflection: What do I need now? What is in the way? What needs to go?

2. Discover your word. Ask God for discernment of your word. In my case, it occurred to me at unlikely times, yet I sensed immediate confirmation. “That’s it. That’s my one word.” Sense the confirmation of the Holy Spirit within you with your one word. Be alert to be ready to recognize it and receive it.

3. Live your word. Live it out and be stretched by it as you live it out. You may easily see immediate opportunities to live out your one word (low-hanging fruit”) and difficult areas of application of it can come later. Own your word. Personalize it. Internalize it. Create visible reminders of it. Share your word with your “stretch team” (close family and friends), the persons who stretch you and can help you grow. Give them permission to check in with you on progress or challenges in living out your “one word.”

My One Word for 2023: PREPARE

As an older guy, I have been delaying taking actions to prepare for the future, and my dear and loving sister, Nancy, has gently prodding me to take these actions. (Last will and testament, the “everything notebook” of accounts and locations of important items, the preparation of my preferences for the memorial service, etc.) With the word “Prepare,” I want it to move me to take action.

At Trinity Church, we started this process as a church family in year 2020, but our efforts and attention to it withered out with pandemic that year.

Let’s try again…

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. (Jeremiah 29:11)

This Terrible Joy

Jay DeFeo, The Annunciation, 1957/59.

Why do you leave the ordinary world, Virgin of Nazareth… / Why do you fly those markets, those suburban gardens, / You have trusted no town with the news behind your eyes. / You have drowned Gabriel's word in thoughts like seas / And turned toward the stone mountain…to the treeless places.

— Thomas Merton

On the fourth Sunday of Advent this year, the Lectionary tells us the story of Jesus’ birth from Matthew’s gospel: “When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” While Luke gives us our familiar nativity scenes of manger and shepherds and friendly animals, Matthew confronts us with the reality of a what a surprise pregnancy meant in Jesus’ time and place: shame, ostracism, and as our reading says, “disgrace.” But what Matthew’s and Luke’s accounts share is that the angel of the Lord appears to announce God’s plan for the world, a plan that is set into motion because Mary said “yes.”

At this point in Advent, as we look towards Christmas, we are in the time of Mary, the time of the Magnificat. In Luke’s gospel, we rejoice as we hear Mary’s joy, in what C.S. Lewis famously called “a terrible song,” meaning a “dreadful, frightful, and fearsome” song.  The Magnificat shakes the foundations of all we know, or all we think we know, as Mary reveals that the cosmic events she’s gotten caught up in are nothing less than the pivot of the ages. God visits Mary and Joseph with news so stunning it would take the rest of their lives to understand it all. The reversal of wrenching circumstances, the lifting up of the lowly, the exaltation of the humble that Mary sings about shows us that this is how God works.

Christmas is a time to rejoice in the glory of the Lord, but it’s also a time to be confronted by the very human reality of the story of Jesus’ birth. Neither Mary, nor Joseph, nor Jesus, are two-dimensional figures acting out a sentimental tale. They are real people, caught up in the most real situation possible – the situation of God’s action towards us in the Word made flesh. It is a time of awe. It is a time of joy.

May the blessing of our newborn Savior
be with each of you this season,

The Rev. Cn. Dr. Kara Slade, Associate Rector

All I Want for Christmas

Allan Rohan Crite (1910-2007)

I love Christmas music. I’m one of those people who could listen to it all year long. Deck the Halls, Silent Night, O Come All Ye Faithful, Joy to the World, I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas, and of course, everyone’s favorite … All I Want for Christmas (Is My Two Front Teeth).

Well, maybe that’s not your favorite, but I have been thinking about the song because, frustratingly, I can’t get it out of my head. As a result, I’ve been pondering over and over that since I have my two front teeth … What do I really want for Christmas? To ask for more “things” seems ridiculous. I already have all that I need and, in fact, more than I need.

Amid this pondering, I came across a beautiful Advent poem by Saint John of the Cross, whose feast day is December 14.

If you want, the Virgin will come walking down the road
pregnant with the Holy and say,
“I need shelter for the night.
Please take me inside your heart, my time is so close.”
Then, under the roof of your soul,
you will witness the sublime intimacy,
the divine, the Christ, taking birth forever,
as she grasps your hand for help,
for each of us is the midwife of God, each of us.
Yes, there, under the dome of your being,
does creation come into existence eternally,
through your womb, dear pilgrim,
the sacred womb of your soul,
as God grasps our arms for help:
for each of us is His beloved servant never far.
If you want, the Virgin will come walking down the street,
pregnant with Light, and sing!

— Advent Poem, St. John of the Cross

In these holy days, if you want … the Virgin comes, the Holy comes, God comes, Light comes, Love comes and says, “Please take me inside your heart, my time is so close.”

What do I really want for Christmas? I want a heart that is open and ready to receive the Holy One and within my soul “to witness sublime intimacy, the divine, the Christ, taking birth forever, as she grasps [my] hand for help, for each of us is the midwife of God, each of us.”

That’s what I say that I want, but when the Virgin comes “walking down the road pregnant with the Holy and [says], ‘I need shelter for the night. Please take me inside your heart, my time is so close.’” Will I say — Yes? I pray I say — Yes!

Advent Blessings,

The Rev. Paul Jeanes III,
Rector

Expectancy

In the expansive realm of religious belief, there are so many Biblical stories into which we can delve, about which we can debate, stories we can research and refute. Passages of Scripture one can exaggerate, de- mythologize, or critique historically, literally, structurally, or theologically. Verses which inspire one to moralize, spiritualize, or from which to extrapolate great apothegms.

And then there is this beautiful narrative we are preparing ourselves to tell — One special child’s birth. A marvel. A puzzlement. A story of breathtaking proportions that no amount of the usual rhetoric can undo: The child is born, the angels sing, and every day people gaze on the newborn face of God. The prophecies of Isaiah are fulfilled. The promises of archangel Gabriel have come true. The Messiah, the Christ has been delivered into the world by a young woman in an unassuming spot.

What a curious way for the Almighty God to behave. What a modest means to move the world towards redemption. God in flesh appearing as a helpless baby boy bundled up on a bale of hay. Not much of an entrance for a Savior, is it?

So I have to wonder, Why do we need these days of Advent to abide in anticipation of this story we long to tell? What is it about these days of waiting that have the power to shatter and rebuild our whole world of faith? What is it that the coming of a newborn baby Jesus can do that God Almighty can’t?

Perhaps we need time to anticipate His birth because it promises us a new life. Jesus will redefine humanity by living within it from his very beginning. Perhaps we need time to accept that the Holy One promised to us will be born of a woman in absolute humility. Might this impress upon us the vulnerability of holiness, and the sweetness of God?

There was a time when Jesus was entirely dependent on human beings to come into this world, survive in this world, and that time has not come to an end yet.

As Mary carries the child, it is we who are expecting. Expecting the disruption and radical rearrangement that the birth of any child brings — reassessment of our priorities, of our beliefs about what is important, our beliefs about who is important. Expecting to love, really love, — painfully, poignantly, powerfully love — the sacred nature of all humanity with a delight and joy unlike any other. Expecting reason to hope for ourselves, and all that we cherish. This Advent may our hearts abide in Hope and may our Spirits stand transfixed, expecting. Expecting to recognize that our attention to all that which is Holy is most urgent.

The Rev. Joanne Epply-Schmidt, Associate Rector

Advent Wreath-making