James Crim was my great, great grandfather.  He was a Moravian, born in (Winston-) Salem, North Carolina in 1823.  Some fifty-seven years earlier, his ancestors had founded this religious town, which, by the time of his birth, had grown into one of the most distinctive in America.

One Holy Week when I was very young, my Grandmother Louise loaded me into her silver Buick station wagon with a bucket, scrub brushes, several cans of Ajax cleanser, and fresh flowers for a trip to "God's Acre," the (Old) Salem Cemetery.  On that day, as I scrubbed James' flat, white marble tombstone, she told me of this man she knew as her grandfather and this people the world called Moravian.  I left with images of a man and a Germanic people who valued precision in skilled trades, joyful music, and an "Amish-like" community centered in the values of home, education, work, and faith.

In James' day, all males in the Salem community (age 8 until married) lived in the Single Brothers' House.  Here, like a monastic community, they lived, studied, worked, prayed, and ate together.  Here, over a lathe, in the tin shop, or with leather tools, old men cared for boys, incarnating the presence of Christ for them as they grew into men.  Here "spiritual fathers" gifted young boys with the grace to become men who lived ready for Christ's return in glory. 

Throughout the year the Single Brothers' House is open for tours.  In Advent, it hosts the Candle Tea, a multisensory "Love Feast" celebration of Jesus' birth and the time of Parousia when God will be "all in all."

The Candle Tea is immensely popular, drawing some 10,000 visitors during the first two weekends of December each year.  All the proceeds are used by Home Moravian Church to spread the good news of Jesus and to care for those in need throughout the world.  Here are made the beeswax candles we use on Christmas Eve.  Sugar cake is served with special coffee that has been boiled in a copper kettle with sugar and milk.  Participants view the Putz, an elaborate two-room nativity consisting of hundreds of figures and buildings.  But my favorite part is the antiphonal singing (between a child soloist and the congregation) of Morning Star, a special Moravian carol that expresses the Advent hope of Jesus' birth fulfilled in his triumphant return:

     Morning Star, O cheering sight! Ere thou cam'st, how dark earth's night!
Jesus mine, in me shine; in me shine, Jesus mine;
fill my heart with light divine.

Morning Star, thy glory bright far excels the sun's clear light.
     Morning Star, thy glory bright far excels the sun's clear light.
Jesus be, constantly, Constantly, Jesus be
More than thousand suns to me.

Morning Star, my soul's true light, tarry not, dispel my night.
     Morning Star, my soul's true light, tarry not, dispel my night.
Jesus mine, in me shine; in me shine, Jesus mine;
Fill my heart with light divine.

The morning star is the brilliant celestial body that rises in the early morning darkness to announce the arrival of the sun each day.  May Jesus, God's bright Morning Star who knows no setting, dispel the darkness of our age and burn in each of us now and always.  Come, Lord Jesus!

J. Derek Harbin, rector