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This Week at St. Matthew's
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Cold Chills
The devil is no fool. He can get people feeling about heaven the way they ought to feel about hell. He can make them fear the means of grace the way they do not fear sin. And he does so, not by light but by obscurity, not by realities but by shadows, not by clarity and substance but by dreams and the creatures of psychosis. And men are so poor in intellect that a few cold chills down their spine will be enough to keep them from ever finding out the truth about anything.
"The Seven Story Mountain" by Thomas Merton pp.29-30
Becoming Conscious
There is nothing easy about becoming conscious. My own life was much easier before I knew about the deeper meaning of choice, the power of choice that accompanies taking responsibility. Abdicating responsibility to an outside source can seem, at least for the moment, so much easier. Once you know better, however, you can't get away with kidding yourself for long.
My heart goes out to people who are working hard to release their negative attitudes and painful memories. "Just tell me how, and I"ll do it," they say to me. We are forever looking for the easy meditation, the easy exercises, that will lift us out of the fog, but consciousness doesn't work that way. Ironically, there is a simple way out, only it's not easy: Just let go. Let go of how you thought your life should be, and embrace the life that is trying to works it's way into your consciousness.
So many people struggling to find their way are in that necessary but confusing state of waiting. A part of each of them is eager to allow the Divine will to direct their lives, yet they remain tormented by the fear that they will lose all comfort on the physical plane should they actually surrender to it. So they are held in a waiting position until they are strong enough to release that fear and embrace the deeper truth that "all will be well" -
- not "well' by our definition, perhaps, but certainly by God's.
"Anatomy of the Spirit" by Caroline Myss p.257
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Service Music for This Week
Opening Voluntary
Praise To The Lord
by Dale Wood
Processional Hymn 180
He Is Risen
Responsorial Psalm 30
Verses 1-13
Sequence Hymn
I Hear The Lambs A-Cryin'
tune Levas
Offertory Anthem
I Bless Your Name
Elizabeth Goodine
Communion Hymn
Spirit Song
Recessional Hymn 182
Christ is Alive
Closing Organ Improvisation
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Vita brevis, Longa ars
(Life is Short, Art long - Hippocrates)
"O God, whom saints and angels delight to worship in heaven: Be ever present with your servants who seek through art and music to perfect the praises offered by your people on earth; grant to them even now glimpses of your beauty, and make them worthy at length to behold it unveiled for 'evermore; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen"
The organ console sat on the outer edge of the choir loft high above the congregation where I sat on a hot, sweltering Sunday in Dallas. We were halfway through the sermon when there was a gasp on the left side of the congregation. I looked below and saw one of the most beautiful sights I have ever beheld. One of our most elderly and sainted couples sat in their usual place and she was gently leaning her head on his shoulder and he had draped his arm around her shoulder. By all appearance she had drifted asleep right there during the sermon!
The priest paused mid sentence and waited quietly in the pulpit. Within a few moments two paramedics quietly rushed down the aisle to their row and with the aid of those around them - the "sleeping" woman was laid on the gurney and whisked away. In our customary orderly fashion the priest picked right up where he paused and the folks in the pews resumed their dazed expressions.
I was completely overcome and burst into tears - I had just witnessed my first death in church. It was so quiet, so peaceful. That precious couple seated in church side by side with her head resting on his shoulder.
My first thought was of myself and what a perfect way to leave this earth...
All of the poignancy of life and death and faith all rolled together on a pew in church.
The dear woman merely had a seizure and did not die - but that event got my attention in a way that nothing has before or since. Theology may fade, the hymns may become meaningless and trite, the liturgy may be lifeless and mechanical but the image of that event is etched in my heart. It is a reminder that nothing is ever as it appears and that our perceptions of life and love and all that is real are so shallow and incomplete.
Lord, help me to never take one single moment of life for granted. Help me to shift my eyes away from the mundane and trivial toward my personal moments of beauty and hope and transcendence. Make my heart soar with love for others and grant me something completely spontaneous each and every day. amen
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Adult Sunday School Class Continues New Discussion
Come join our weekly Adult Inquiry Sunday School class that meets each Sunday morning at 9:30 AM in the Parish Hall. The class is growing and is a very interactive discussion of topics that concern our lives as the people of God.
This week the class continues their new study from a book entitled "Same Kind Of Different As Me".
Please join us and help enrich the lively discussion and insights as we continue this new study.
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Thank You!
 Rick & I would like to offer a heart felt thank you to all who helped make the concert with the Pampa Civic Chorus a beautiful night of worship and music. We would like to especially thank the St. Matthew's Vestry, Altar Guild, Mother Linda, Jan Ragsdale, Mark Lang, Sue & Hall Cree and Natalie Reeve. Without your help and continuous support Rick & I could never be able to do what we do.
The evening of passionate music was a true joy and a transcendent experience. We were able to get a great recording of the concert and have posted MP3 audio clips of each song on our website at www.RnRFusion.com and will soon be posted on St. Matt's new website due to be online next week! To listen to the evening's music and hymns click on the following link: Pampa Civic Chorus Performs the Faure Requiem.
Be looking to hear more from the Pampa Civic Chorus this Summer, Fall & Christmas Season.
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The Sounds of St. Matthew's
 You can listen to complete audio recordings of Palm Sunday night's service featuring the Pampa Civic Chorus performing the Faure Requiem. You can also listen to a few clips from week before last's AM service (3/28/2010) as well as clips from past services online by clicking one of the following links: |
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Rick & Russ' Blog 
at RnRFusion.com
Visit Our Homepage
by Russ
If you have not visited our home page at RnRFusion.com lately stop by and experience moments as they are captured each week in our live worship services. What you hear as you visit our site through the media player at the top of each page at RnRFusion.com are the original arrangements and compositions that Rick & I are creating each week in service to our little church in the Texas panhandle, St. Matthew's Episcopal Church in Pampa, TX. Although we have our fingers in so many pies we make our service music for St. Matthew's our top priority each week. We are having a blast while breaking through the barriers of church music with our special "fusion" of great literature, original compositions and improvisations in the use of the historic Mohler Pipe Organ and the Yamaha Motif Synthesizer.
We are very grateful to the people of St. Matthew's for allowing us to express our hearts of worship through our spiritual and musical gifts.
Rick & I have experienced leading worship and making music in the largest evangelical churches in the state of Texas, but they do not compare to the beauty, tranquility and aesthetic spiritual depth that we have the freedom to experience at St. Matthew's through our weekly musical offerings in service to God and the dear people of St. Matt's.
We hope that you are blessed by what you hear. To hear the corporate musical expressions from the congregation of St. Matthew's.....(click here to read more of what you can find at RnR Fusion)
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We would love to invite you to participate in a weekly discussion with Rick & Russ through their blog at www.RnRFusion.com.
We hope to engage our fellow worshipers in thoughtful discussion on many topics concerning worship, religious and humanitarian issues. Just click on the above web address link or logo and join in the discussion. You can contribute comments by filling out the form on the blog page at the bottom of the post. Let us know what your thoughts are on the subjects discussed about in our blog. Our discussions will be fun as well as provocative.
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Sounds of
St. Matthew's You can listen to clips from last Sunday's service by clicking on this link:
WORSHIP MUSIC CLIPS
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St. Matthew's Worship Ministries
Rev. Linda Kelly, Rector - Rick Land & Russ Tapp, Musicians
St. Matthew's Episcopal Church 727 W. Browning, Pampa, TX 79065
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