Trinity Commons A Quarterly Parish Publication + Advent + Christmas + Epiphany + 2018
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Welcome to the Commons There is something appropriate and poignant about watching this new quarterly parish publication arrive for the seasons of Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany, times when we reflect on and celebrate God breaking into and being born into our world. See for the past nine months, we have been incubating this idea. This all began with our rector Scott, who wondered how we might take the obvious and abundant gifts and talents demonstrated in our parish-written Lenten daily devotional and give them a place to flourish. The result is the publication in your hands, Trinity Commons. This quarterly offering replaces our monthly newsletter, which really had become primarily a calendar of parish events. Now, there’s nothing wrong with that, and readers will still see all the current activities and ministries opportunities listed here, but we’ve also opened these pages up to reflect, deeply, on our common life, common worship, and common mission together at Trinity. This publication unites our ministries of communication and Christian formation. It’s a place where we can share our community’s wisdom, deepen our understanding of our par-
ish and its people, and dive into the meaning behind our events, ministries, worship, and outreach. Our next issue is already being planned. It will include Lent, Holy Week, and Easter. We are looking to expand our cadre of writers and editors. The commitment isn’t overwhelming. Expect to be assigned and to contribute at least one or two articles per year as we move forward. As this first issue was an experiment and a pilot project, we kept our team relatively small. They were wise, talented, and patient! I give thanks for this group of writers, editors, and collaborators who partnered in this launch, including the writers whose bylines you’ll see and the editors and advisers you won’t: Cynthia Bright, Susan Covington, Carole Hedden, Ralph Simpson, and the incredible Ken Wilson who made these offerings look beautiful on the page!
Trinity Episcopal Church 60 Church Street + Asheville, North Carolina 28801 828-253-9361 TrinityAsheville.org
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NOT A B-SIDE SEASON Exploring the rich music and tradition of Advent
By Erwin Gunnells
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hristmas is coming— Christmas with the magic of our three Christmas Eve services: the candlelight, the greenery, the rich aroma of straw and excited children at 3:00 and of perfume and whiskey at 11:00; Christmas with the glorious processional “O Come All Ye Faithful” and with “Silent Night” in the dark. Many of us get chills that come at no other time.
Before that day, however, comes Advent—not the “B” side, not the forgotten stepsister, but an ancient and meaningful season
with its own traditions. It is Advent, not Christmas, that marks the beginning of our church year. Advent music is old and lovely and full of meaning to our faith. The texts deal with the themes of Advent: preparing the way for Jesus; the coming of light to darkness; the fulfilment of promises, birth, anticipation. Traditionally, each Sunday has a different focus carried out in the readings and music. The first Sunday has a judgment theme, perhaps harking back to the days when Advent had a strong penitential character. The lesson from Luke tells us to “be alert at all times” for the Son of Man “coming in a cloud” to shake the foundations of the world. We are urged to beware; we are reminded that the promised birth has another, inherent, promise: Christ’s second coming, when we will be called to account. “Wake, awake, for the night is flying” goes one beloved hymn. The anthem that day will be a
contemporary piece, a new setting of “Kindle a Light” by Richard Lloyd. The text repeats that “Christ is coming in judgment and peace.” On the second Sunday, St. Nicholas appears, figuratively, and, at Trinity, literally, (or at least representationally) as the famous Bishop of Myra. On his day, December 6, children in many countries find their shoes filled with gifts, leaving Christmas as a religious celebration. The choir will sing the “Kyrie” and “Sanctus” from Haydn’s St. Nicholas Mass. Haydn probably wrote the Mass in honor of the name day of his patron, Prince Nikolaus Esterhazy, on December 6, 1772. Listen for the lilting melodies and joyous spirit. Joy is the theme for the third Sunday. The time is getting closer and excitement is building. The anthem, a setting of “The King Shall Come When Morning Dawns” is pretty exciting because it is brand new, the winner of the 2018 Sewanee Church Music Conference Choral Composition Prize. Our choir director, Sharon Boone, heard it there and got it for us. The text is ancient, a translation of a Greek hymn.
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many months ago, and rehearsing started in August. It is no small task to choose music that is theologically sound, appealing on many levels, provides variety within the season, and has artistic integrity. In addition to using professional reference sources and specialized aids, Sharon makes a close reading of the Scripture to find just the right piece. What a gift of music we have inherited! Advent provides a rich and diverse body of work, old and new, simple and sophisticated. There are some chills waiting there, too.
The fourth Sunday is devoted to Mary, who, after all, must have been full of anticipation for a number of reasons. In the New Testament reading, the Song of Mary triumphantly magnifies the Lord. The anthem is “There Is No Rose” by Graham Ellis, a British composer. The medieval text has been “done” innumerable times since the 15th century; our choir has sung several versions. The imagery of the rose, Mary, is lovely: “in this rose conteyned was/Heven and erthe in lytyl space.” Planning for these services began
Lessons & Carols
From the horrors of war, an Advent tradition was born Getting ready for Christmas can be an ordeal; physically, mentally and spiritually. The busyness in our world is almost hostile to peace and goodwill. Often expectations are disappointed and hopes frustrated. So what do you do? Drinking heavily is not the answer. For many millions across the world, the service of Lessons and Carols brings the quiet joy we so long for. This most famous carol service is not an inheritance from the early church, or medieval masses, but was created in reaction to the savagery of the First World War. When Dean Milner-White of King’s College, Cambridge, returned from his duties as an Army chaplain, he knew from personal experience that his students and their world were irrevocably altered by the carnage they had witnessed. Worship, along with other aspects of life, needed to be different.
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and used by churches all over the globe. The nine lessons and the prayers always remain the same, although the carols change.
at a glance WHEN: Sunday, Dec. 9 TIME: 5:30 pm WHERE: Trinity Featuring the Trinity Chancel Choir and the Smoky Mountain Brass Quintet
He found and adapted a service that showed, in his words, “the development of the loving purposes of God… through the windows and words of the Bible.” The Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols was held first on Christmas Eve, 1918, and every year since, now broadcast to an enormous audience on radio and television and internet. It has been adapted
Today huge crowds line up and some may camp out for days to get entrance to the King’s College service. It always starts, as ours does, with “Once in Royal David’s City”, sung by one of the boy trebles. He is chosen at the last minute, stepping out just as the carol begins, in response to the director’s beckoning finger. At Trinity, we give the soloist a bit more notice, and you don’t have to bring a sleeping bag. We do use the same lessons and prayers and some lovely music to invoke the same deep peace and simplicity, holiness and comfort. It’s a great Christmas present to give yourself.
- Erwin Gunnells
Dressed in Our Christmas Best A behind-the-scenes look at Trinity’s breathtaking decorations In every issue, we take a peek behind the scenes at one of the many ministries that make our worship so vibrant. by Erwin Gunnells
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hat a madhouse! Every year on Christmas Decorating Day, Trinity presents a Brueghel-like scene
of teetering ladders, huge buckets of greens in sloshing water, tarps, chicken wire and bricks, and dozens of helpers eddying randomly with clippers or sprigs of holly. There is unladylike language when the magnolia branch falls yet again, and much chattering and laughing from the diverse group that turns out for the day. It is a lovely and companionable time, when you may be hoisting a wreath to someone you have never met, critiquing an arrangement, searching for the Magi in the basement, or sweeping trash, all in the same half hour. Dressing Trinity in Christmas finery is one of the most pleasant events of the year. It starts in October (and even earlier some years) when someone volunteers or is talked into leading the process. Both Flower and Altar
Guilds meet together to hear the creative concept, see sketches, and sign up for one of the sixteen stations that are adorned, from the highest windows to the Undercroft. Starting before Advent, the pickup truck (Guild members are multitalented) begins making trips to gather the twelve door wreaths for Advent, then the 24 for Christmas, as well as roping, candles, moss, and other materials. It is always different and always fun. Each year the Nave is more beautiful than ever. Each year is breathtaking, inspirational, and harmonious. The pickup drivers, and the ladder-climbers and the magnolia-arrangers manage again to create beauty, and stick greens in chicken wire to the glory of God.
Christmas by the Numbers
7 small windows and two large in the Nave and 3 elsewhere 1 lectern and 1 pulpit 9 ½ feet along the back altar 1 font 12 pew candles 3 creches 6 arches, with 20 feet of garland roping between each Redwood Chapel Church of the Advocate Porches, doors, and hallways
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The Feast of the Nativity at Trinity Church december 24 - christmas eve
3:00 pm
Christmas Pageant and Holy Eucharist Come to this beloved service where our children will lead us in the dramatization of the story of Jesus’ birth. The Alleluia and Jubilate Children’s Choirs will be singing. All children of Trinity, their friends and any young visiting family members are welcome to participate in the pageant. All children should be at Trinity by 2:30 p.m. to claim a costume. This service will conclude with Holy Eucharist and it will include the famous carols of the season.
Nursery Care will be provided. 5:00 pm Choral Prelude to the 5:30 Holy Eucharist with brass quartet, soloists, instrumentalists and the Trinity Choir. 5:30 pm Holy Eucharist and Blessing of the Christmas Creche This service is a traditional Christmas service of the Holy Eucharist. Trinity’s Adult choir will lead traditional carols of the season along with a brass quartet, other instrumentalists, and the Trinity Choir. Anthems will include O Saviour so sweet by Bach, A sound of angels by Tye, When Christ was born of Mary free by Archer, and This Christmas night by Williamson. Nursery care will be provided. 10:30 pm Choral Prelude to the 11:00 Identical to 5:00 pm 11:00 pm Holy Eucharist and Blessing of the Christmas Creche Identical to the 5:30 pm service Nursery care will not be provided at this service.
Incense will be used at this service.
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december 25 - Christmas Day
10:00 am
Holy Eucharist with Carols
The quiet of Christmas morning is experienced with deep joy at Trinity. This simple celebration of the Holy Eucharist will include carols. If your schedule allows, and you are “over� the crowds of Christmas Eve, this service may be for you.
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LOSS AND GRIEF TAKE NO HOLIDAY How to help during hard times by Rebecca B. Work
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he holidays are meant to be a joyful time. For many, however, it is a sad reminder of a past or recent loss. Loss can take many forms: loss of a spouse, sibling, close friend, child, pregnancy, pet, divorce, serious illness of a loved one and more. Feelings of grief are more intense during the holidays. Family oriented events occur over a long stretch of the calendar year: Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s Eve and Day, Epiphany, Valentine’s Day and Easter. These can serve as reminders of what has been lost. It is an emotionally difficult and often a very lonely time. Regardless of when or how long ago the loss occurred, grief can rise with renewed intensity when triggered by a particular event, as a holiday. The grief process is individual and knows no time constraints; there is never a loss exactly like one’s own. Still, many find it difficult to know what to say, how to act or ignore the loss altogether. It is easy to pretend bad things have not happened to our neighbor or
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© ImagoGestalter
friend. Extending concern and understanding lets that person know you care. Begin by simply acknowledging the loss. Say “I’m so sorry about your husband’s sudden death.” Or, “I don’t know what to say right now, and want you to know I care.”
someone during the holiday season can have a positive impact on how they move through their grief going forward. You can make a difference.
Of course, there are things not to say:
• “I know how you feel.”
(Really? Are you in my body? Then you can’t know how I feel!) • “You are young and healthy. You can have another baby.” (Do you not understand? It is this baby I wanted.) • ”It is God’s will.” • “It’s for the best,” or “Everything happens for a reason.” You can help with acts of kindness and caring. Include them in some of your family’s activities as baking cookies, making an Advent wreath, decorating or inviting them to attend church with you. These may seem like small things. And yet, every gesture shows someone cares. Being there for
Other things you can do
• Write a note, send a card,
send an email. It is never too late to acknowledge a loss. • Make a date to share a meal, take a walk together. • Listen without advising. • Be open to talking about the loss; take your lead from the grieving person. • Ask HOW you can help. BE SPECIFIC: schedule a meal, grocery shop, do errands, and more. • Keep your promise.
A Reason To Come Home Finding Relevance At Church by Randy Siegel
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’ve recently returned to the Episcopal Church at a time that many are choosing to leave. As someone who’s spent the better part of his career in marketing and public relations, I’m curious why overall church attendance continues to decline. To find some answers, I polled several friends. Their answers weren’t surprising: “I consider myself spiritual, but not religious. I don’t need church to find God.” “Church isn’t relevant to my life.” “I feel like a hypocrite reciting those long prayers. To be honest, most of the words I don’t understand or believe.” I get it. For more than twenty years, I, too, left the church. Raised in the South, church was a Sunday morning ritual and an important part of my youth. That said, church did little to enhance my relationship with God. That changed when I went away to Camp Sequoyah down the road in Weaverville. Taking solitary hikes in nature, I found a god with whom I could relate. Not the vengeful Zeus-like god of the Old Testament, or the New Testament god who would allow His only son to be put to an excruciating death, but a god who loved me so much that He (She) gave us a world so beautiful that it literally took my breath away at times. As I look back, I realize that my early Christian education failed me. I had a string of medals for perfect Sunday school attendance, but I had little understanding of the Bible, the church, and what
it really means to be a Christian. One of my earliest memories is studying the Noah’s Ark story in second grade Sunday school. My practical and analytical mind couldn’t make sense of any of it. How could Noah get all those animals on one boat, and what about the poop? When I questioned my teachers, no one gave me a solid answer other than the importance of faith. Twenty years later, I attended a weekly Bible study on the gospels led by one of the priests. Again, my analytical mind couldn’t process the stories, and once again I was told to have faith. I see now that I had no context for how these stories could be relevant to my life. How much richer my church experience would have been if I had been introduced to other world religions and taught about the power of myth and metaphor. How I would have benefited from understanding that since the Bible was written by humans, it’s normal to find inconsistencies and prejudices. How I would have enjoyed each Bible story knowing the context of the time in which it was written, and how I would have delighted in knowing that the Bible has practical advice for how to live my life. Finally, how freeing it would have been to know that the Bible was not as much about what Richard Rohr calls “sin management” as it is about proclaiming God’s unwavering love for creation. The church can also introduce us to new ways of seeing the Bible, the Trinity, being with God and each other, and self-discovery. Let’s explore the Bible’s many layers
and what they might mean for our lives. While it’s impossible to capture the Trinity in words, let’s try to convey a felt sense of its importance to our spiritual life. Let’s support each other’s growth by exploring and supporting a daily spiritual practice, and let’s take that spiritual practice into the world so that we can love others as Christ taught us. Finally, let’s recognize the movement toward self-discovery as a movement toward God and design Christian education programs that address each age and stage of life. To paraphrase a saying, if you keep on doing what you’re doing, you’ll keep on getting what you’re getting. If the church is to survive—and bring others, such as myself, back to its fold—it must attend to the psychological and spiritual growth of its parishioners by crafting Christian education programs that help expand our thinking, embrace our wholeness, and come into union, reunion, and communion with God.
Reading the Bible Literately (Not Literally) An Epiphany Series January 6 - March 3, 2018 Led by Ed Bleynat and several other Trinitarians, this enlightening series for Epiphany will plumb the depths of Scripture, exploring how genre informs and enriches the story of God set down in our sacred texts.
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Gathered, Formed, and Sent The Missional Thread throughout Trinity History
By David Henson
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ake almost any of the major humanitarian organizations in the Asheville area, and there, at the very beginning, stands a Trinitarian. Throughout its long and storied history, Trinity has filled a quiet, unassuming, but deeply transformative role in this city and for some of its most marginalized people. In many ways, it is a thread that unites all of Trinity’s history. From its earliest days to its current life, this parish has been a place where Christians have gathered together in worship, been formed by the sacraments, and sent forth to make a profound and lasting difference in the community. Take Mission Hospital. There, in its earliest moments as a flower ministry to the sick, are Trinitarians and other Church
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Street congregants. So the next time you get lost on one of the many flower-themed wings of the labyrinthine hospital, say a prayer of thanksgiving for Trinitarians and others whose ministry literally blossomed from a bouquet of flowers into this engine of healing and employment in our region. Under the leadership of its first rector, the Rev. Jarvis Buxton, Trinity established in 1870 the first school for African Americans in the city in the basement of what is today St. Matthias. The next time you check out a library book? Think of the Trinitarians who helped lay the groundwork for the first public library in the city. Later, in 1969, Trinity’s undercroft became the site of the first food and clothing exchange for an organization— Asheville Buncombe County Christian
Ministries (ABCCM) — that would become perhaps the major humanitarian services operation in our area. Trinitarians have been on the ground floor of the area’s Habitat for Humanity chapter and now regularly organizing Episcopal builds. Members of Trinity were the driving force behind a local Meals on Wheels chapter in Asheville. A little-discussed connection, though, is Trinity’s embrace of Pisgah Legal Services, an organization that works with a variety of issues, including being the region’s primary advocate for housing and immigration issues. While Trinity regularly funds Pisgah Legal and hosts its events, this parish was also there at the very beginning when Trinitarian Frank M. Parker, married to Dorothy Acee Parker, and others Continued next page
Continued from page 10 started the advocacy group. And perhaps the most well-known example of this gathered, formed, and sent ethic at Trinity is its deep involvement in the Church of the Advocate. Though a diocesan ministry, Trinity provided a muchneed host site and Trinitarians have been and continue to be deeply involved both financially and in volunteering each and every Sunday. The latest iterations of this historic theme at Trinity are the numerous young adults, raised up here in our youth group, who have gone on to transform both the Church and the world, from Alan Yarborough, who has worked with people across Latin America and now
mission at christmas
• A tithe of our Christmas
offering goes directly to Church of the Advocate and Trinity Place • Volunteering for Room in the Inn Dec. 16-23 • Women’s Dessert and Decorate with COA Nov. 25 3:30 pm
works with The Episcopal Church in the Office of Government Relations, and Elizabeth Bleynat, who is working her second stint as a missioner caring for merchant
marines in Hong Kong, to Jared Grant, who is wending his way toward ordination, and Megan Cox, who has founded a new diocesan young adult service corps in the area. Time and again, from its earliest of days to its current ones, Trinity has been a place for disciples to gather in worship to explore faith, to be nurtured and embraced by its community, and to be sent out to expect and to make a difference in the world. It makes me wonder, with excitement and expectation, as is fitting for the season of Advent, what’s next for this parish, its members, and its mission to Asheville and beyond?
The Redemption of Time Leaning into the Liturgical seasons by David Henson
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y the time you read this, it will already be Christmas. At least, it will be in every retail space in the nation. In fact, as is often noted, Christmas seems to come earlier and earlier each year. Our city’s Christmas parade now marches downtown streets a week before Thanksgiving, and this year, I was stunned to see Christmas decorations popping up on shelves in early October. Walk down one aisle and it’s October with pumpkins and skeletons; walk down another and
it’s December with candy canes and skeletons. It almost feels like the retail version of a wormhole, a rip in the fabric of time. Now, I don’t intend to be the liturgical season police. We all have different family traditions around this time of year! But the ever-earlier celebrations of Christmas did make me wonder about the differences between our civil calendar and our Christian one — what each one promises and how each shapes the way we perceive and mark time differently. In our society, our Christian
calendars of celebration, contemplation, and penance have been warped into seasons of consumerism. As soon as the Christmas wrapping paper is discounted on the Second Day of Christmas, the candy hearts and paper cards for Valentine’s Day begin to appear, followed quickly by St. Patrick’s Day shamrocks and leprechauns, chased by Easter’s bunnies and candies. Then, it’s on to Mother’s Day bouquets, Memorial Day sales, Father’s Day ties, Fourth of July fireworks, back-to-school sales and Labor Day clearances. Halloween begins in September, Thanksgiving in October, Christmas in November, if not sooner. Our civil, consumer calendar offers us no break in the buying season, no chance to Continued next page Page 11 trinity commons
Continued from page 10 reflect, to pause, to celebrate, to truly linger over a feast, much less the twelve days of feasting our Christian calendar invites us into at Christmas. As liturgically minded Christians, we shouldn’t overlook how our calendars dictate our lives. After all, we are busy, time-oriented, calendar-centric people, myself included. But within this culture, the calendar — time itself — serves mammon, and it’s easy to get caught up in its seductive current. This is the quiet challenge and transformative nature of the Christian calendar. It offers us a chance to resist absolute
conformity to the timetables of consumerism, even if it’s just on a Sunday or for a season. In allowing the seasons of our faith to supplant the seasons of our shopping, we can perhaps resist our monetary timetables, the notion that our months are actually billing cycles or that our weeks are meted out in paychecks rather than in meals with our families, memories with our friends, worship with our faith communities. Of course, we need reminders to help us. It’s why we make Advent wreaths, to encourage us
to slow down and light a candle in the dark. It’s why we might try to leave the decorations up in our homes a little bit longer, even if we can’t make it the entire 12 days of Christmas. Even if we can manage to slow down just a little, that liturgical pace might just redeem some of this season and ease its demands. So let us be in the moment and let Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany fill you with expectation, joy, and wonder. Cultivate these liturgical seasons, or better yet, let them cultivate you!
Common Calendar
Nov. 25 & Dec. 2 - 8:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m. Loaves & Fishes Market (First Presbyterian)
Dec. 2 - 9:30-10:30 a.m. Advent Wreath Making and Intergenerational Lesson in Tuton Hall Sundays in December Write letters to the Homebound in hallway to Tuton Thursdays in December - 12:15 p.m. Organ Recitals for Advent at Noon featuring the Church Street Organists Dec. 6 Sharon Boone Dec. 13 Jeremy Roberts Dec. 20 Corey Powell Dec. 9-Dec. 23 - 9:30-10:30 a.m. Short Stories for the Season, Sundays in the Conference Room - Lynne Diehl Dec. 9-Dec. 23 - 9:30-10:30 a.m. Love is the Way, Sundays in the Undercroft
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Dec. 9-Dec. 23 - 9:30-10:30 a.m. Parents in Conversation Unreasonable Expectations and Advent, Sundays in the Clark Room Dec. 9 - 12:30 p.m. Young Adult: Second Sunday Lunch Out, Catawba Brewery Dec. 9 -5 p.m. Middle School Christmas Party at the White home Dec. 16 - 5:30 p.m. Advent Lessons and Carols Dec. 16-23 Room in the Inn Dec. 24-25 (see page 6) Sunday, January 6 - 10:45 service Feast of Lights and Burning of the Greens
