Days 4 and 5-Hymn Society

Yesterday was a good day. A highlight for me was lunch with Hal and Martha Hopson---I think he will come do a workshop for the district on encouraging the congregation to sing, and singing the psalms, probably next spring. I also shared with him my opinion (fancy that) about something he had said in his workshop the day before. He had said something like "everyone in the congregation will know this"- I tried to make the point that hopefully there will be somebody there new who may not know---I think I used the somewhere out there theme. He very much understood what I was saying. We also had a great hymn festival last night on the parables of Jesus. Some texts were new to me with beautiful tunes helped me to approach some things differently about the parables.

One of the overwhelming experiences I had at the Hymn Society conference was the Annual Meeting yesterday afternoon, in a classroom that held a packed house of 175 people. Among those 175 were Brian Wren, Michael Hawn, Carleton Young, Michael Joncas, S.T. Kimbrough, Carl Daw and Austin Lovelace, whom I thought was deceased, but is very much alive. If you want to look in the back of the current UM Hymnal or The Faith We Sing or if you go on line and google these folks, you'll notice there are several hymns and choral anthems by these persons. Dr. Lovelace is one hoot of a 90 year old, has a scholarship that he offers each year and had a lot of fun. I remember the first time I encountered a hymn probably about 1971) in the 1964 hymnal God Is My Strong Salvation which I believe is set to an old folk tune--I memorized it. I loved it and still do, even though it is not in the current hymnal. I sang it all the way through to myself this morning during my personal devotions. Why is it that I remember this hymn and yet no day goes by without me losing something of importance and not remembering where I put it? I know--short term memory loss....

Here are some flower pictures I took around the chapel and the carillon, which I may say more about sometime soon. I took these at noontime today.