<html><body><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>Part 2 for Sunday.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><br></span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>Bob</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><br></span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>Savall’s thoughts play into this too, no matter that they may seem to be contradictory. The musician speaks to examining what’s really, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:
normal"><u>REALLY</u></b> in the centre of our being. Savall suggests that we may need to question what we thought was unchangeable.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>By all means, go back to the music that speaks of our ancestors, but look to see how this integrates us with the present. It’ll be different for each one of us. The music through which God speaks may not be the same, even for two people growing up in the same community or family. They may find strength in different melodic strains.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>No matter – we look at the hearts of our lives and, without fear, we begin to discover how what gave comfort at onetime may be integrated, drawn together, into the new lives we enter each day.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>Has the geography changed? Has the climate changed? Has the natural world brought to us frightening realities?</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>Think about the melodic spark planted by God as part of the way that we image and reflect God. Think about how God’s gift of music helps us reharmonise in ways we might never have imagined. And <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>DON’T</u></b> be afraid. I am with you, God says, every evening, every morning, no matter what. You and I will be together in the concert of life.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>Or are we afraid of having to risk giving up what Jordi Savall suggests is so important to us? So much presses in on us every day, yet God speaks through such signs as roasted lamb and unleavened bread; so much presses in on us every day, yet God reaches out to lead us through water that might well drown us, and desert heat that may dry and suffocate us. God reaches out, night after night and day after day, to implant soothing lullabies of hope, and speak to what is most important, most necessary for us.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>It’s been incredibly hard for some of us to get up morning after morning to see and smell that almost-suffocating blanket of smoke, and the persistent heat. Or to turn to any form of news dissemination and hear about Harvey, and Irma, and Jose, and Katia – and who comes after Katia? Who will the “L” visitor be who fragments our lives and makes us afraid that everything is changing, being destroyed?</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>Weather used to be something about which we could joke and laugh, or occasionally vex, if we were trying to get the hay in.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>Now it means thousands upon thousands, both across this land and around the world, have to put themselves in danger to make sure that others may be safe.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>There’s <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>SO</u></b> much that troubles us that it can become too easy to forget what lies at the core of our being, the melody of life itself.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>I can’t remember all of it, but I heard, the other day, a philosophical speaker talk about the fact that in the deepest part of each of us lies what are our core values, our core memories, and this will <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:
normal"><u>ALWAYS</u></b> be there. No one can take this away from us. No one can change or spoil this, unless we ourselves. It’s simply a matter of accessing this which is central to the lives of each of us.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>Of course, it may look and sound different to you compared to what I and others experience But this is natural. We all process things differently. If there’s one thing we remember about The Episcopal Church it’s that no two people are compelled to think alike or else be driven out.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>Yes, there <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>ARE</u></b> a few basics – belief in God as Trinitarian; belief in Jesus as God, the second person of the Trinity; belief in the power and will of God to forgive and renew, and to be vitally present to us in our lives.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>Of course, we are invited to take part in the same worship, listen to the same stories, share, above all, share in the same meal. But the hymn we all sing may resonate with our inner melodies quite differently. Even the Bread and Wine which we eat and drink, the same chemical composition for all of us, may touch us and assure us of the experience of Love in quite unique ways.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>This is as it should be. Jesus said, This Bread, this Wine, is for all. But He was astute enough not to try to define it any further than that, other than that it was His Body and Blood, knowing how much all of us need different things on different days. The only constant we require is the rooted memory of Love.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>Whenever we become knocked out of balance, by what we see out of the window, or what we hear on the news; whenever we feel our hearts beating faster because so many people are at risk for just as many different reasons; whenever we seem to withdraw within ourselves because of craziness, or insensitivity, or natural and unnatural disasters; whenever we are taken aback by the self-less offering of their lives and resources of all those who step in to protect, to serve, to rescue those for whom life has become in credibly difficult and hazardous; whenever any of this happens, you and I, along with everyone else, must remember that we CAN access that melody of Life which is at the centre of our beings. We can all listen and be calmed, be reassured, be reconnected, as God said to the Hebrew people, that this day, that every day, will be a day of remembrance, a festival to the Lord, a celebration of Love and compassion; that a piece of lamb, a scrap of flat bread, contains within it the power to awaken hope in the Presence of God.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>I talked of the fact that this is neither a society nor a culture that is Christian. This isn’t an invitation to rush out as hot-headed crusaders, though. As Brother David put it, “</span><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(32, 32, 32); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>It is as if we are on a moving walkway. If we do nothing, we will simply be carried along by the materialism and consumerism of our culture. We have to be willing to turn around, to walk against the flow of the culture, to push back against the assumptions and values of a nation that refuses to see that its actions are having and will continue to have severe consequences for the entire world.” <sup>2</sup><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"></b></span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>Remember that difficult comment in the midst of the prayers at the Seder, when the Festival to the Lord is celebrated as the people were commanded. Remember when the leader says words to the effect, “But our safety brought about the death of others. Our lives are bound up with others, even our most cherished beliefs.”</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>Listen to the music in our faith. Listen to the music in the words of scripture. Listen to the promises given and to the responsibilities inherited at our baptism. In the midst of every storm, listen and know that our music is still playing.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'> </span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>NOTES:</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'> </span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style='margin: 0px; line-height: 115%; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>1</span></span></span></span></span><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">“Jordi Savall: The James Naughtie Interview”.</i> BBC Music Magazine, January, 2014. Page 36.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'> </span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>2</span></span><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(32, 32, 32); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>“Turn Around”</span></i><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(32, 32, 32); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'> from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">“Brother, Give us a Word”</i> 30<sup>th</sup> August, 2017, by Br. David Vryhof, SSJE, <a href="https://www.ssje.org/word/"><font color="#0000ff">https://www.ssje.org/word/</font></a> </span><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></p></body></html>