September 19th, 2012
A Small Green Patch is now accepting compost drop-off at the lot at 340 Bergen, between 3rd & 4th Avenues, every Sunday from I-4 PM and Tuesdays from 6 PM to dusk. They ask that we please drop off ONLY during compost open hours.
It is recommended that in order to avoid odors, we store food scraps in the freezer or refrigerator, and to minimize waste, we store scraps in a reusable container (no plastic bags will be accepted).
What we can bring: fruits, vegetables, coffee grounds & filters, tea bags, egg shells, flowers, houseplants
Don’t bring: meat, fish, dairy, fat, bones, greasy food scraps, coconuts, pet wastes, coal or charcoal, compostable plastics, or pesticide treated material.
September 19th, 2012
Squeezebox is a place for our Song Leaders, as well as congregants, to learn the songs we sing at St. Lydia’s.
Here are the parts for “Comfort, Comfort Now My People,” our final hymn for November and Advent. Links for the sheet music and recordings of the four harmony parts are below.
This hymn has a nice, bouncy feel to it. The rhythmic patterns and accents are somewhat unexpected (part of the fun), so I recommend you start by learning the melody (soprano) line first before taking on any of the other harmonies. Each line has fun little rhythmic moves and the tenor and bass lines have a number of melodic leaps in them, so know that it might take repeated listening and practice before you start to feel completely comfortable. The harmonies and rhythmic counterpoints really help the piece come to life, so your learning will prove rewarding.
As always, the featured harmony in each file is panned to the left, with the other three voices panned right. For purposes of these recordings, the first verse has been harmonized. When we sing it at a service, we’ll sing the first verse in unison and break out into harmonies on the second verse. To assist you in hearing the change from the melody line to the harmony parts, each file starts with the final phrase of the melody.
Have fun!
Comfort Comfort Now My People — sheet music
Comfort, Comfort Now My People — soprano
Comfort, Comfort Now My People — alto
Comfort, Comfort Now My People —tenor
Comfort, Comfort Now My People — bass
September 19th, 2012
Squeezebox is a place for our Song Leaders, as well as congregants, to learn the songs we sing at St. Lydia’s. Our final hymn for October will be “God, Whose Giving Knows No Ending.” Links for the sheet music and recordings of the four harmony parts are below.
As always, the featured harmony in each file is panned to the left, with the other three voices panned right. For purposes of these recordings, the first verse has been harmonized. When we sing it at a service, we’ll sing the first verse in unison and break out into harmonies on the second verse. To assist you in hearing the change from the melody line to the harmony parts, each file starts with the final phrase of the melody.
Happy singing!
God, Whose Giving Knows No Ending — sheet music
God, Whose Giving Soprano
God, Whose Giving Alto
God, Whose Giving Tenor
God, Whose Giving Bass
September 15th, 2012
Squeezebox is a place for our Song Leaders, as well as congregants, to learn the songs we sing at St. Lydia’s.
Listen to the
Ordinary Time Table Acclamation we’ll be using during Ordinary Time (the Autumn months as well as the time between Christmas and Lent) to sing our Eucharistic Blessing at the table. This blessing, written by Emily Scott, has lots of fun possibilities for harmonizing.
September 15th, 2012
Squeezebox is a place for our Song Leaders, as well as congregants, to learn the songs we sing at St. Lydia’s.
We sing this piece from Zimbabwe, by Alexander Gondo as a gathering piece. The original text is in in Shona, but we’ll sing the piece in English. Listen to Come All You People Lydia’s as we’ll sing it at St. Lydia’s, or to this version recorded by the folks at Iona that blends Shona and English, and gives a taste of drumming patterns we might emulate.
September 15th, 2012
Squeezebox is a place for our Song Leaders, as well as congregants, to learn the songs we sing at St. Lydia’s.
We sing “Christ is Our Guiding Light” as a lamp lighting hymn. It’s a beautiful round, written by Rev. Eric Law of the Kaleidoscope Institute, and published in Music By Heart. Listen to “Christ is Our Guiding Light” to learn to teach it, or to learn the fun descant line.
September 14th, 2012
Read Emily’s latest sermon, “Strange Thoughts; Long Letters,” on her blog, Sit and Eat. Two great pastors, two beautiful letters, both written from behind the bars of a narrow cell.
September 13th, 2012
Emily recently did this interview with Bianca Swift for Issue 168 of NY Spirit magazine.
A Visit with Emily Scott, St. Lydia’s Pastoral Minister
A new kind of Christian worship is on the scene in New York. This one doesn’t take place on Sunday mornings in a church, but instead sitting around a dinner table in a Zen center located in Brooklyn. The focus is on prayer, scripture, sharing, and appreciating life through the body’s five senses. We were curious about this alternative approach to religious worship and connected with Emily Scott, St. Lydia’s Pastoral Minister.
Bianca: Can you quickly describe St. Lydia’s for readers?
Emily: At St. Lydia’s, we gather every Sunday evening to share what we call a “Sacred Meal.” We cook a big meal together, then bless the meal with an ancient Eucharistic Prayer that we sing together. Our worship takes place around the table as we share the meal: we read and explore scripture together, offer prayers, and sing. At the end of the evening, everyone works together to clean up.
Sharing a meal together is a practice that has its roots in the earliest days of the church. In the Bible, we read of Jesus breaking bread with his friends and saying, “This is my body.” For the first few centuries of the church, Christians gathered on Sunday to share a full meal. Those who had much to give shared food with those who had little, and bread was blessed and broken. Over the years, the practice of sharing a meal became more and more symbolic, gradually becoming what we see in most churches today.
At St. Lydia’s, we’ve returned to the practice of sharing a full meal with one another, and have found that it’s fed and nourished us, spiritually and physically.
Bianca: What can you tell us about the beliefs you explore?
Emily: We have this phrase at St. Lydia’s, “practice before belief.” Instead of trying to figure out what it is that we believe — trying to capture it and write it out on paper — we try to simply practice faith. That means showing up for Dinner Church, singing and praying, being in communion with others, even if you’re not sure what it all means. We trust that God works through our worship to draw us closer, to change us and be revealed to us. We’re very comfortable with doubt at St. Lydia’s, and see it as a healthy and active part of our lives of faith. Sometimes we’ll read a scripture passage and someone will say, “I really can’t get on board with this.” Other times, folks will speak about feeling like God is absent in their lives. It’s all a part of the seasons of our relationship with the divine.
Bianca: You call St. Lydia’s progressive. Can you explain?
Emily: I think the most important thing about St. Lydia’s being a progressive church is that we are not only inclusive of, but affirming of a full range of expressions of human sexuality. I believe that God created us as embodied people, which means that we inhabit bodies made of flesh and blood. We desire connection and relationship with one another. We crave intimacy. No matter how we’re called into relationship with one another, be that a relationship between two men or two women, or how we’re called to express our gender identity, God has made us just as we are, and blesses our impulse to love and honor one another with our bodies.
Check out the rest of the interview here.
September 12th, 2012
Ingredients from Garden:
Chard
Tomatoes
from Fresh Direct:
shallots
green onions
lemons
tomatoes
Directions (each item is a separate task that can be delegated):
PREP
- Boil a big pot of water for corn
- Put bread in: turn oven on to “350 convect bake”, take bread out of plastic, put bread directly on rack in oven, set timer on oven for 30 mins
- Chop shallots and green onions
- Drain and rinse garbanzo beans
- Wash and roughly chop chard
- Slice tomatoes (in half for small ones, quarters for bigger ones)
- Slice and juice lemons
- Shuck corn and break each cob in half.
COOK
- Heat ¼ cup olive oil in a large pot. Stir in shallot and green onions; cook until soft and fragrant.
- When shallots/onions are soft, stir in garbanzo beans, and season with salt and pepper; heat through.
- Place chard in pan, and cook until wilted. Add tomato slices, squeeze lemon juice over greens, and heat through.
- Boil corn for 5 mins, in batches if pot is too small.
SERVE
-Cut butter sticks in half and put out on small plates on tables.
-Serve beans in a big bowl on island–have one person from each table bring plates and serve after we sit down.
-Have two volunteers bring corn around tables to serve.
–Prepared with our help by Wendy and Melissa and Maria on September 2, 2012
September 12th, 2012
by Gwendolyn Brooks
And if sun comes
How shall we greet him?
Shall we not dread him,
Shall we not fear him
After so lengthy a
Session with shade?
Though we have wept for him,
Though we have prayed
All through the night-years—
What if we wake one shimmering morning to
Hear the fierce hammering
Of his firm knuckles
Hard on the door?
Shall we not shudder?—
Shall we not flee
Into the shelter, the dear thick shelter
Of the familiar
Propitious haze?
Sweet is it, sweet is it
To sleep in the coolness
Of snug unawareness.
The dark hangs heavily
Over the eyes.
–Read at St. Lydia’s on September 9, 2012
