Inner Light, Inner Life in Charles Addams

One of the best Christmas presents Mom and Dad gave me was an oversize collection of cartoons by Charles Addams, My Crowd, (1970). This big book was the prize of a collection that included small paperbacks Monster Rally, Addams and Evil, and Homebodies, the book I "read" literally to pieces in the days before I could even sound out the words.

A Christmas-themed cartoon from 1947 reproduced giant-sized in My Crowd both fascinated and disturbed me. Addams referred to it in correspondence with The New Yorker as "Boiling Oil."

While I could see the humor in the Family's upside-down ethos, I also felt strong sympathy for those cheerful neighbors and for what they're about to experience. I was in there with them all. Addams cartoons often have that effect on me, and I'm not the only one.

His biographer Linda H. Davis explains how Addams layered his inked outlines with washes that gave his darks and lights a solidity and texture not seen in the line drawings we're used to. She writes that Addams made his Family's house real:

The Family mansion, into which you felt you could step, was constructed of splintery wood worn to the softness of velvet. Bent over his drawing table hour after hour, Wolff's pencil (then brush) in hand, Addams drew every wooden shutter, every carved baluster and warped floorboard, every silky strand of web, creating a fully realized world. Wednesday's room was decorated with a wallpaper border showing a scaly prehistoric creature in happy pursuit of a bat-child. (95)

With "Boiling Oil," Davis writes, "Addams's feeling for his subject and his mastery of technique reached sublime new heights: in the steam rising at an angle from the bubbling pot; in the shawl Morticia clutches against the winter night; in the bars of indoor light filtered through a shuttered window onto the snow." Cartoonist Ed Koren notices the "half circle of light which is mirrored by a circle of molten lead [and] the footprints in the snow ... a wonderful touch" (Linda H. Davis. Charles Addams: A Cartoonist's Life. Nashville TN: Turner Publishing, 2021).

Those "bars of light filtered through" window shutters are incidental to the story of the cartoon, but essential to establishing the reality of that house. What's going on in that room, we wonder.

I've written before how Addams cartoons are at the heart of some of my earliest and warmest memories:

I could spend quiet hours peering into his cobwebbed corners, imagining what lurked down dark halls, finding little faces [spying from] the black space behind shards of cracked windows. Bliss was to watch ["The Addams Family" TV sitcom] before bedtime on Friday nights, to lay my Addams cartoon collection Homebodies on the bedside table, and to wake before anyone else in the house Saturday mornings to leaf through those drawings, admiring their skill, making up my own stories about them.
(from my blogpost Rediscovering Charles Addams' Family in a Musical)

Vermeer has the same effect on me. The gradations of light from windows reflected on walls, sleeves, goblets, and a certain famous earring make his paintings live. Like Addams, he was often pulling us into a story - the young woman reacts to receiving a letter, for instance; a young woman seems to be startled by someone behind her; a maid is day-dreaming. Like Addams, most of his interiors are rooms of just one house, probably his own. An art historian did painstaking calculations to prove this from the fixed relationships of windows, floor tiles, and doors. Only props and furniture are re-arranged like a stage set. (Hans Koningsberger. The World of Vermeer, 1632-1675 (New York: Time/Life Books, 1967).

Both artists tantalize us with glimpses of other spaces through doors and shutters half-open. I see an analogy between writing and these side-channels that bring such life to the works of these two artists. Even in the Bible, where the action is often simply, even starkly, delineated, an odd detail fixes the story in our minds: the seven sneezes of the boy that Elisha brings back from death, or whatever it was that Jesus scrawls in the dirt -- and the tense silence -- before he answers a mob bent on stoning the woman accused of adultery.

Once you've seen Addams or Vermeer, their settings become part of your mental furniture. In dreams since Mom died over a month ago, I've explored long hallways, a shadowy basement, high-ceilinged spaces in need of repair, cobwebbed alcoves. In the dreams, not unpleasant, this house somehow belongs to me, though I can't recall making any mortgage payments. Somehow, I'm supposed to move Mom and Dad into this space. The levels, the many rooms, dillapidated, so much like Addams's house, give me a feeling of responsibility -- so much to repair, so many spaces to furnish -- and an excitement that comes with creative possibilities. 60 years after I fell in love with that Addams house, it's a metaphor for life now that Mom, Dad, uncles and aunts, the grandmothers, even the old teachers are gone: it's all up to me, now.

More on Vermeer I wrote in 2006 about an exhibit that juxtaposed Vermeer works with those of his contemporaries. At first, I was disappointed. Then:

In peripheral vision, I glimpsed the first Vermeer in the exhibit, and chills started at the back of my neck. I approached. What was the difference? Style, subject matter, and true-to-life drawing -- these were all the same. But Vermeer's paintings seemed to glow from the inside. I felt there that I was seeing not just a slice of life, but that it was reaching out to me.

See Vermeer, Updike, and Poetry Editorial]

Wake Up, Dead Man: Whodunnit Comedy with Heart

Commenting on the grandiose architecture of a church, the young priest tells a visitor, "You can almost feel His presence."

"Whose?" asks the visitor. Uncomfortable pause. "Oh."

The young priest, Father Jud Duplenticy (Josh O'Connor), has been accused of murdering his superior Monsignor Wick (James Brolin) during Mass. The visitor is Detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig), convinced at their first meeting that the young priest isn't a guilty man pretending innocence, but an innocent man who appears to be guilty. About religion, though, Blanc is dismissive: "God is a fiction."

Cracking Blanc's attitude to religion is a story that underlies the plot in this third whodunnit to feature the detective, after Knives Out and The Glass Onion.

The sacrament of confession punctuates the plot five times. The first confession is played for laughs as Father Jud hears TMI from Wick. In a replay of that situation, the young priest fights back, confessing that he has snooped around to learn all the ways that Wick is abusing his power over his followers. Once a boxer, Fr. Jud has sworn to fight for Jesus with his hands open in love, not with fists. His resolve is tested.

Confessions four and five are spoilers, but number three is the heart of this funny, macabre murder mystery. It has nothing to do with whodunnit, and there's nothing funny about it.

It happens in a phone conversation with Laurie, office-manager at the excavation company that unsealed a crypt. Who ordered that work? Blanc wants Fr. Jud to find out ASAP. But Laurie seems to be in a chatty mood, and Fr. Jud listens patiently while Blanc rolls his eyes.

Suddenly, Laurie stops. When we hear her again, she's sobbing, and Fr. Jud takes the phone and confession to another room. It's after dark by the time Laurie accepts forgiveness and finds the information they needed, but Blanc's attitude has changed. "You're really good at this!" he tells his young client.

What Blanc has learned carries over into a key decision he makes during the Big Reveal that usually caps tales of this genre.

As much as I laughed and thrilled to all the old mystery tropes - long shadows, a creepy crypt, a sudden storm, and an impossible "locked-room" murder - it's Fr. Jud's solemn and loving pronouncement of absolution to those who desperately need it that I've taken away from the movie. I'm tearing up now, a week later.

The Joy of Singers & SINNERS

When the lights came up after the credits for Sinners, the elderly black man beside me, who had seen me gasp, laugh, and cry throughout the movie, said, "So, I suppose you're a blues man?"

"I am now," I replied.

It's true: to my collection of hundreds of recordings, I've recently added the first two blues albums, both by Buddy Guy, the revered singer-guitarist who appears late in the movie. I've been listening to them over and over, beginning to appreciate what I've been missing.

Sure, Sinners tells a story of vampires who crash a party at a Mississippi juke joint during the Jim Crow era. They do make a bloody mess, bringing a whole new meaning to the phrase "sundown town." But the tentpoles of this film are music and dance, and, like Blues songs about tough life, the overall effect is joy.

The first words of the movie are voiced by a woman who tells us about music's power to open a door between our world and the spirit world, between past and present, between good and evil. Take that as the thesis sentence for the movie. We will hear the blues, and we will also hear Irish folk music from another race of down-trodden people.

Then there's the character Sammie. The charismatic actor Michael B. Jordan was the draw to this movie, playing both "Smoke" and "Stack," Sammie's uncles. But it's Miles Caton as Sammie who stole the show. Sammie's a teenager, son of a preacher who forbids him to play guitar or sing the blues. Sammie's uncles think he might be a good singer for the opening bash at their new juke joint. So it's sort of an audition when, riding shotgun beside his uncles, he strums guitar and sings. The fullness and maturity of the sound from this deferential, unimposing young man is so unexpected that his uncle gasps, turns to gape at his passenger, then smiles broadly. That was my reaction, and others' too. Caton is now hailed as the "breakout" star of the movie.

Caton admits in an interview that he got the part before he understood SINNERS is a vampire movie.

His is the voice that cracks open the spirit world. Like songs in the best musical theatre tradition, the words of his blues number are very specific to his story:

You threw me a Bible on that Mississippi road
See, I love you Papa, you did all you can do
They say the truth hurts, so I lied to you
Yes I lied to you
I love the blues

It starts as voice and guitar, but ramps up to a surreal dance number. As the camera roams the dance floor, the dancers seem unfazed when they're infiltrated by musicians and dancers from Africa, China, past and future (there's a rap DJ with turntable).

Then a trio of white people ask to be invited in. They're musicians, too, says their spokesman Remmick (Jack O'Connell). He says they're not Klansmen: "We believe in equality." What that really means is, every new vampire joins a "community" of vampires who share Remmick's mind -- including his accent and movements. The trio sings a little ditty about eating a man. Smoke and Stack turn them away, but they lurk in the woods and pick off guests who leave the party, one by one.

Soon, Remmick has enough vampires to make up the cast of Riverdance, and that's what they do. He leads an Irish dance tune, "The Road to Dublin," and the chorus encircles the club doing their Irish jig.

At this point, I was laughing and crying -- one, because it was so incongruous to see blood-smeared black people jigging, and, two, because it was both outrageous and fitting -- perfection!

The film score by Ludwig Göransson is nearly continuous -- bluegrass or blues guitar playing behind images when not accompanying voices. Songs performed by women in the cast express their tangled relations with Smoke, Stack, and Sammie.

Director Ryan Coogler has made a great movie that busts out of one genre to another: music is at the heart of this horror movie. You can watch SINNERS for the thrill of a bloody horror suspense film, and find yourself exhilarated by the season's best musical.

Tom Stoppard and Me

The one thing left on my bucket list is to write a Stoppardian play. That would mean a comedy with characters whose dialogue would mix their personal stories with some intellectual controversy in a collage of images, literary allusions, and scholarly research. A prominent critic said that Stoppard disguises simplicity of thought with complexity of form.

I tried to write my Stoppardian play, but never got beyond the brainstorming stage. It's probably a mistake to start with the form and not with a subject of interest. Anyway, he died today, so he'll never see my homage, should I ever write it.

Regardless, I loved what I read and I liked what I saw.

Bruce Davison, actor on stage and screen, starred in the Duke Players' production of Stoppard's Travesties for which I, a drama major 20 years old, was props manager. Davison was Duke's artist-in-residence that year, around 1980. I felt honored when the actor inserted "Scott Smoot" into a list of names during a performance.

The earth moved for me the first time I saw a play of Stoppard's that I could understand. It was a one-act take-off on Agatha Christie's plays that he called The Real Inspector Hound. Mid-way, the phone rings and just keeps ringing. A theatre critic who has chatted loudly with a colleague during the first half of the play gets annoyed and climbs up onto the stage to silence the phone. From that point on, every line and stage movement is practically a repeat of the first half of the play, only it all means something new with this different character.

Stoppard performed a similar feat in his screenplay for Russia House, which opens with a story told by Sean Connery, heard three times, verbatim. Each iteration comes with images of the events from a different angle that upends our understanding of what Connery describes.

Watching both of these works, I was awestruck and delighted. I felt the ground drop away, in free-fall. I'm always grateful to Stoppard for that experience, unparalleled.

I got that same feeling from Arcadia, a play much more substantial, joyful, and meaningful than Hound. My first time watching it, I didn't get it. The truth is, live performances of Stoppard's plays were rarely as strong as the ones I imagined while reading them, when I could make marginal notes of cross-references, puns, and epigrams. A Broadway production of Jumpers, a play I had read with acute pleasure, was especially disappointing. When the action was happening on stage, I missed so much that I had caught on the page.

That's more or less my experience with other Stoppard plays. Below are links to my blogposts about Stoppard's works:

• Stoppard's The Hard Problem: Dramatizing Thought
• Rosencrantz and Guildenstern: Still Kicking How do we gain when Stoppard crosses Hamlet with Waiting for Godot? Let me count the ways!
• The Invention of Stoppard reviews The Invention of Love, Stoppard's favorite of his own works. I saw it on Broadway and later read it closely. Stoppard eluded me, but I do think my essay about the show hits on something great: the playwright known for verbal virtuosity achieves his greatest emotional effect with just "Oh."
• I read today (Stoppard's death) that he thought Arcadia was his best play. Me, too. I wrote about it in Math and Tenderness.
• I tried to appreciate Stoppard's suite of plays called The Coast of Utopia about the intellectual developments of the 19th century that led Russia to totalitarianism. I didn't succeed. Or maybe, Stoppard didn't. You Had to be There.

I may some day post notes I wrote longhand on Every Good Boy Deserves Favor, The Real Thing, Professional Foul (a teleplay), Travesties, and Night and Day.

When I studied at Oxford in the summer of 1980, the lords of British theatre were Stoppard, his buddy Pinter, and their less-revered-but-more-popular colleague Peter Shaffer. I wrote about the other two when they died:

Playwright Sees God: Remembering Peter Shaffer with a lot of attention to Equus and Amadeus.

A Moment of Silence for Harold Pinter

Premieres by young composer Nathaniel Davila

Young composer Nathaniel Davila presented a recital of original works Sunday night November 9. Although he is a baritone, he has sung Tenor with St. James parish choir for two years. I and many other members of the choir were there.

In Scott Hall of KSU's Bailey Arts Center, we heard live performances of several chamber works by Nathaniel. The theme of the recital was a question, "How do you express character in music?" In a three-movement work for piano, cello, and bassoon, Nathaniel played with the notion that time changes character while character also changes our perception of time.

We also viewed a short film Distance for which Nathaniel composed the score. The story is about a relationship interrupted when the partners are separated for a summer. The director used split screens to show the action, so Nathaniel created parallel themes. Like parallel lanes of a north-south highway, the characters' themes moved in opposite directions: not a good sign for their relationship!

Another piece featured a choir singing vocalese in close harmony over, and sometimes against, a tonal background created by instruments.

At the conclusion, Nathaniel thanked Dr. Black. "I have learned so much from St. James," he said. In the photo, he's pictured at the piano, surrounded by members of the choir.

Remembering Mom

Frances M. Smoot
Educator, Dancer, Runner
November 5, 1934 – November 6, 2025

Frances Smoot died in her sleep one day after her 91st birthday. She was born Frances Lee Maier in 1934. Throughout her childhood in Cincinnati, she danced ballet and tap, continuing to dance in the annual revues at Walnut Hills High School. There she met Tom Smoot, a “bad boy” who reformed under her influence. She finished her undergraduate degree in Education at the University of Cincinnati, and married Tom in 1955. Over the next seven years, their family grew by three children, daughter Kim and sons Scott and Todd. They lived in Champaign-Urbana, Pittsburgh, and Chicago before settling in the Atlanta area in 1969.

Once the youngest child Todd reached middle grades, Frances started her career as a teacher at Holy Innocents Episcopal School in Sandy Springs in 1972. Soon, she was leader of the third-grade team. After she earned a graduate degree in Educational Administration, she instituted the school’s summer program, directing it for twelve years. At the celebration of her retirement from Holy Innocents in 2005, she surprised the faculty by handspringing up onto the stage to accept her plaque.

Frances also became an entrepreneur. With friends, she purchased properties to rent or resell. She managed a pool of writing tutors that she called “The Write Connection.”

Tom and Frances traveled the world. From Alaska to Peru, Iceland to Italy, Egypt to South Africa, Australia to New Zealand, and India to China, Tom and Frances covered every continent but Antarctica. Her brother Jack Maier and sister-in-law Blanche often accompanied them on their travels. Closer to home, Tom and Frances flew in a hot air balloon and parachuted from a plane. Tom made photo collages of their many adventures, keepsakes that Frances treasured.

Frances and Tom went to great lengths to support their children. When son Todd joined his high school’s track team, Tom and Frances both began to train as well. During the 1980s and 90s, Frances competed in Atlanta Track Club events, often winning her age division, being the only contestant.

While Frances was a consummate cook and entertainer for social occasions, the grandest party of all was a surprise to her. Years in advance, Tom invited guests to her 60th birthday, and they came from as far away as Italy. He rented the top floor of an Atlanta skyscraper, and led her to believe they were going to a friend’s retirement party.

Shortly after Frances retired, she and Tom followed Todd to Valdosta to be close to their grandchildren Raymond Craig and Mary Alice. They continued to race, supporting Todd’s business promoting track events, and they were active in Valdosta’s First Presbyterian Church. They also rescued Sassy, a miniature Doberman Pinscher who had been slated for euthanasia. When Tom died in 2010, Frances wrapped up affairs in Valdosta and returned to the Atlanta area in 2012. At Winnwood Retirement Community, she made friends and kept active walking with Sassy to the end of the dog’s life. During this time, Laura Robinson of Visiting Angels became her daily companion and friend.

In 2018, she moved to memory care at Arbor Terrace, where she was a bright and lively presence. A director there observed that her schoolteacher instincts kicked in, as she encouraged others in warm but firm tones to participate in conversation. With Laura at her side, she never felt alone during months of COVID-19 lockdown.

As dementia progressed, Frances forgot how to walk and talk, but she maintained a regal bearing and sense of humor. Some of the staff at Arbor Terrace referred to her as “The Queen.” During a visit when she hadn’t opened her eyes or said a word, Scott chatted with the nurse who was feeding her. When he rose to go, he said, “Ok, Mom, nice talking with you.” She stopped chewing and said, distinctly, “Yeah. Right.”

Link to Mom's Memorial service, with livestream and a PDF of the service bulletin

More about Mom

• I worked through a range of feelings after Mom's diagnosis. All my articles are linked in a one-page overview at Dementia Diary. I hope that this page may be of help to others who are shepherding a loved one through the same dark valleys.
• Articles about Mom in the context of generations of my family are linked to a page I call Family Corner.

Dementia Diary: Sarcasm

Mom is now in a full-fledged nursing home because they accept Medicaid. When I have visited, she has smiled, she has nodded, and she has opened her mouth when I've held a fork full of Sloppy Joe or beans or rice to her lips. But she hasn't spoken. She has kept her eyes closed.

I spent some time with her Friday, chatting with the young woman who often feeds her mid-day. After awhile, I said, "Okay, Mom, I'm going home, now. Nice talking to you."

She said, distinctly, "Yeah. Right."

[I've posted stories and pictures since Mom's diagnosis in 2012. I've curated links to those stories at my page Dementia Diary. If you're dealing with a loved one's dementia, you may find useful tips and comfort there. ]

[A favorite photo from late 2019, just before the pandemic -- when Mom was still walking and conversing. A sharp drop-off followed in the months after, when only her Visiting Angel Laura Robinson could cross the quarantine boundaries around her.]

This was my Last Visit to New York

Well, I've said that before, in 2010, and again last March. I've seen all I want to see, and I like my routine at home with my lovely old dog, and I look forward to my next colonoscopy more than my next flight. Still, in case I ever go again and want to remember what I learned, or in case I never go again and just care to savor the experience I had, here's what I want to remember:

A bag of peanuts is not worth $300. Using Google.flights, I compared prices for round trips at my preferred times, and found Frontier Airlines for $300, half what was listed for competitors. Buying my ticket was like playing a video game, because offers popped up at different places on my screen, to choose a seat, to carry on a small suitcase, to have more leg room. Each offer required lightning-fast reflexes to admit, deny, affirm, reject. For all the stuff that my no-frills ticket lacked, the flight was fine. I had the window and an empty seat beside me going up, and my friend Susan was beside me going home. So my round trip ticket was only 2/3 the cost of my seat at the Metropolitan Opera, and all the underwear and black tee shirts I needed were able to fit in my laptop bag with room for regulation-sized hygiene products and a book of crosswords. I win!

Frick 'n' Friday. Susan and I took off from Atlanta around 2:30 and arrived in just enough time to check in at the Empire Hotel and hail a cab to reach the Frick Gallery for our reservations 6:30-8:30. We arrived at 7. I didn't expect a musical welcoming committee, but attractive young staffers greeted us in a chorus line. This was evidently a regular Friday evening occasion for art and music. We toured several rooms, serenaded by a couple of young men who played jazz bass and saxophone from music on their phone screens. They were stationed in a central courtyard while Susan (a painter) and I wandered through the surrounding rooms. They got special applause from the crowd and some words of encouragement from me when they played a gorgeous ballad by Monk, "Ask Me Now." Are you guys from Juilliard, I asked. "We wish," they laughed. To my question, the bassist said he had no regrets about not choosing the harmonica, as he struggled to lift his instrument to the exit.

You can love 18th Century Art, too. Mr. Frick had great taste, we thought, as his collection includes many pieces by Whistler and early impressionists. We like a lot of dramatic and opulent 17th century stuff, too -- Frick has lots of Rembrandts. But the 18th century has left me cold.

My takeaway from the Frick was how much I enjoyed the rooms devoted to the 18th century. A portrait of British General Burgoyne by Joshua Reynolds captured so much nuance of personality! We both disliked some "blobby" cloth in the backgrounds, but came to realize that these were like stage curtains gathered up to reveal the backdrop. So our subjects were star actors in front of blatantly artificial natural scenery. There were little domestic dramas in several Vermeers, too. I took a photo of Susan, herself a painter, between a Vermeer (drama: what's in the letter that the smirking maid reads to her startled mistress?) and a Rembrandt. Thanks to Android and AI, it was a cinch to erase another guest for an unobstructed view.

The two of us enjoyed a Goya piece that gave a lot of attention to the woman's face and hardly any detail to the torso. We had both known Hogarth from disgusting etchings of London debauchery, but we liked a Hogarth painting of a smiling woman with her frisky dog. We enjoyed noticing that the features in the face of a girl and the cat at her hand were very similar. "This is a fun room," I told my phone, and "I'm enjoying the 18th century for the first time."

Everybody ought to have a goal. Saturday morning, with nothing else on our agenda, we visited the former home of my hero Stephen Sondheim (see my page of postings devoted to him and his work). So many nights in sleep I've dreamed of finding myself in that home on "Turtle Bay" close to the river. There was no bay, and the only turtles were figures in the wrought iron gates. But I was so excited to be on the street where he lived. Fun fact: My dad's business partner Alfredo owned the property.

Take a jacket. We walked across the street from our home, the Empire Hotel, to see the opera THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF KAVALIER AND CLAY. An hour after the show, we dined a few blocks north of Lincoln Center at Chama Mama, a Georgian restaurant. The temperature was balmy, but the first breaths of a vicious Nor'easter made it chilly for those of us seated on their terrace. Still, we enjoyed bread with a variety of pastes made from walnuts mixed with ingredients such as yams, beets and other plants.

My Time of Day is the Dark Time. Before sunrise the next morning, I walked to Columbus Circle, where cooks stocked their food trucks. I saw one man ordering breakfast from another, and I enjoyed how pigeons crowded a rectangle of light cast by one truck's service window, munching seeds that the chef threw where he could watch the birds as he prepped food for the day. Except for those men and a couple of cars, I had New York to myself. I thought of Frank Loesser's favorite song from his own musical Guys and Dolls, a recitative for the gambler "Sky Masterson" that begins, "My time of day is the dark time / a couple of deals before dawn...."

Noon Departures are Easier. Delays (which we had) are less dreadful when you know that you'll still be back in time to feed dinner to your dog.

Distler's tiny masterpiece

[Editing the weekly church newsletter The Bells of St. James, I've added "Grace Notes," weekly highlights of music that the congregation can expect for the coming Sunday. Here is the first installment, after some improvements.]

A theme of the liturgy for this Sunday, the 17th after Pentecost, is how we in the Church must do our work even while others may reap rewards. "Don't lose heart," we read in Habakkuk. At a discouraging time, Paul lays hands on Timothy to rekindle his heart. Jesus asks rhetorically if servants deserve any special reward for doing just what they're supposed to do.

The hymns we'll sing amplify those themes. Hymn 3 describes serving God from sunrise to bedtime. Hymn 541 expands the meaning of its title, Ora Labora, that work is prayer, "a high calling [even] angels cannot share." In Hymn 704, Samuel Sebastian Wesley writes music for his uncle Charles Wesley's words that ask God to light a candle "with celestial fire" in our hearts.

A favorite of many priests is Hymn 312, composed for the 1940 Hymnal by David McKinley Williams. In words from ancient Syrian liturgy, the poet prays that God will "Strengthen for service...the hands that holy things have taken" in the Eucharist, and will keep the tongues that sang "holy" in church from speaking any deceit. There are verses for ears, eyes, and feet, too -- the whole body of Christ!

The anthem "Praise to the Lord, the Almighty" is a setting of the familiar tune, Hymn 390. We're told to remember, when discouraged, that God "reigneth," and "thy heart's wishes hath been granted by what He ordaineth."

In this anthem, German composer Hugo Distler (1908-1942) has written an a cappella version of the hymn that sounds light as a Renaissance motet, but it's crafted with 20th century techniques such as changing meters and tricky syncopations. Distler's intricacies are playful: on the words "music" and "joyful," voices rhapsodize with flourishes of notes squeezed in to the phrases without adding a single beat to the familiar song. On the word "resound," the low voices make an echo. They toll the last word like ponderous tower bells, while the high voices chirp like birds.

"A masterpiece doesn't have to be a big dramatic number," said music director Bryan Black. "A masterpiece can be like a precision-engineered pocket watch."

Living out the motto ora labora, Hugo Distler expressed intense religious faith in his work, for which the Nazi regime labeled his music "degenerate." Suddenly lost without a career, threatened to be drafted into Hitler's army, he ended his short life in despair. Thankfully, he left behind the gift of his joyful music.

Softening Opposition to Hard Church Music

(for our church newsletter) On his way from the parish hall to church Sunday mornings, Bob Kuzniak frequently sings his favorite hymns and songs of the Big Band era. He likes music to be "uplifting."

So he voiced some doubts about our use of unfamiliar service music by living composer Gerald Near. It wasn't uplifting, he said; it doesn't have a tune.

I pointed out that Near is emulating ancient chant. Bob appreciates the difference in chanting. Instead of fitting words to a tune, the composer of chant elevates the text, sometimes stre-e-tching syllables for emphasis. A communion hymn for a recent service was like that, "Where true cha-a-rity and lo-ove dwell" (Hymnal 606). Unlike tunes, made of repeated phrases with chords and a beat, a chant is all melody. Our word "melody" derives from meli, the Greek word for honey, for such music flows and is sweet, even when (especially when?) expressing solemnity or sorrow.

Bob conceded that some songs are uplifting even when they don't swing like the Spiritual that the choir sang last week. There's a piece Bob loves, with instruments playing chords under a flute melody. It all builds slowly to a high point, then falls. It's not a tune, but it's very musical and uplifting.

Gerald Near, from the web site for the PRM program Pipe Dreams

This week, by coincidence, the choir's anthem follows that same trajectory, reaching a climax at the text "They shall mount up with wings as eagles" (Isaiah 40:31): the voices rise while the chords in the organ add glorious color to the eagle's flight. Guess who wrote it? Gerald Near!

Bob also conceded, as we'll be singing this music through late November, "I'll get used to it."

Still, for Bob's sake, I've started sketching out service music that we might use in the future, based on Glenn Miller tunes. But we have to wait 16 years until Miller's songs go into public domain. Until then, you can imagine the Gloria to the tune of "In the Mood," and "Sanctus" á la "Moonlight Serenade."

[For more on the subject of church hymns, see my essay O Praise Hymn (10/2012)]

Atlanta Ballet's "Balanchine and Peck" Uplifting

This is what I've been missing all along. Everyone else who filled three tiers of Cobb Energy Center already knew: at the ballet, you are amazed and delighted to see a company of men and women exert their finely-honed bodies in runs, lifts, leaps, twirls, falls, each move precisely fit to music and to what the others are doing.

But I've always been a word guy, looking for narrative and ideas, who has always scoffed at ballet for what it lacks. But watching the Atlanta Ballet Company last Friday, I felt delight, amazement, and gratitude all the way through.

The first act was "Emeralds," a portion of the larger work "Jewels" by classic choreographer George Balanchine. To the sweet, aromatic pieces by Fauré, combinations of male and female dancers suggested romance and friendship. Without a story, without ideas, with only the title and green fabric to suggest a theme, I read the movements as characters enjoying themselves by enjoying each other.

The second act was "In Creases" by choreographer Justin Peck, who choreographed Spielberg's film West Side Story in 2021. Two pianists seated upstage at amplified grands played musical patterns by Glass while the company played with spatial patterns. Again with joy, these dancers criss-crossed, lifted, rolled, advanced, receded, circled. Sometimes, briefly, the dancers seemed to be pins or pistons in a machine. Once, dancers took turns high-stepping over their fellow performers in a way reminiscent of a football drill. These incongruities made me laugh every time -- before the image dissolved into something new.

Act Three was Balanchine's telling of the familiar parable of "The Prodigal Son," to music composed for the ballet by Prokoviev. Here, I was intrigued by the economy of the storytelling. A young man at a fence repeats a pair of energetic hand movements that suggest beating a drum and going out beyond the gate. Two sisters and the solemn father (costumed with long gray beard and robes) draw him into prayer, seated in a circle, heads bowed. But the young man rises, hands two serving men some clay jars, and bids them follow as he leaps past the gate.

He arrives in a land of males whose clothing and baldness made them look reptilian. The young man buys their friendship and falls (literally) for a statuesque temptress wearing a tall helmet like Nefertiti's. When the jars are empty, he's beaten and stripped. Crippled, he claws his way across the floor with a staff. When he collapses at the home of the father, the sisters summon the old man.

Only now, thinking back on the simple-looking movement that ends the ballet, I realize what strength and control was required for (SPOILER) the young man to climb up onto the old man's chest and hang there curled up in fetal position. The father wraps his arms around the boy and turns to take him inside the house.

Light fades slowly; former dance skeptic dissolves in tears.

Passage to India on a Bicycle

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[Scott Smoot in central India, virtually, at the Pillar of Ashoka. ]

Since September 2024, I've biked 2600 miles on trails around Atlanta. On the map of my virtual tour of the world, that distance takes me from The Red Sea to central India. The bike in the photo is new, purchased this month when myriad worn out parts failed near Narrow Path Bicycles, located along the narrow path that I've taken to Stone Mountain most warm Saturdays since August 2009.

Since 2020, my bike rides have covered mileage between places I've lived or loved. Though I've never set foot in India, I do have three strong long-lasting connections to the place.

First, with friend Julia Chadwick, I taught the history of India to seventh graders in a World Cultures class for many years. India was my favorite unit because I got to talk about Gandhi, Buddha, and a Hindu holy text that I read and admired, the Bhagavad-Gita.

This pillar of Ashoka unites all three. Ashoka came to power through war, but then he imposed "Ashokadharma," rules that replaced warrior culture, animal sacrifice, and superstitious ritual with values of kindness, truth, social justice, and non-violence. For this reason, Ashoka is often seen as a precursor to Gandhi.

Second, I was hungry then (ca. 1988) for more and more minimalist music. My favorite recording was Satyagraha, the opera by Philip Glass that tells the story of Gandhi as a young lawyer in South Africa uplifting Indian immigrants. The story advances through Gandhi's early years, but the text is drawn entirely from the Bhagavad-Gita. A key line is one that I've memorized, more or less: "for the athlete of the soul, pleasure and pain, success and failure, are the same." I Invite you to read my reflection on the opera.

Lastly, I taught dozens of students of Indian descent in the middle grades at St. Andrews Episcopal School in Jackson, MS and at the Walker School in Marietta, GA for 40 years. Whether the class was about history, literature, music, or drama, every one of them was unfailingly courteous to me and to classmates, hard-working, curious, and willing to try anything I suggested.

I remember a jumble of names and faces of students from families of Indian descent. Here are the names I remember, some of them family names, some of them given names: Arjun, Arun, Ajit, Agrawal, Amit, Anuja, Anu, Chakravorty, Desai, Gautam, Goel, Gupta, Hisamuddin, Kushboo, Malav, Maya, Nair (Piya Nair wrote one of the most meaningful nice things about me on Facebook -- "In his class, I always felt seen"), Nikhil, Nikhil Moro (an adult friend), Neil, Patel, Rana, Raju, Rahul, Ravi, Sahil, Sanjay, Singh, Srinivasan, Subramony, "Ticha" (nickname for a little guy who turned into a collegiate bike team athlete and helped me to develop as a cyclist), Vijay, and Yanik. I remember all of your names with gratitude and a smile.

PS - After I posted this, the alumni magazine from St. Andrews arrived featuring Alumnus of the Year, "Ticha" Patel. He's in his mid-50s now, but I recognized his smile before I read the name. At the dinner in his honor, last year's winner Arjun Srinivasan introduced him as doctor, lawyer, and entrepeneur, "giving all parents nationwide another reason to be disappointed in their children."

Miles YTD 1795 || 2nd World Tour Total 20,845 miles since June 2020 || Next Stop: 2000 miles to Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon, in Vietnam.

←← | ← || Use the arrows to follow the entire tour from the start.

Weapons at the intersection of horror and fun

Weapons left me grinning. It was satisfying, not just for delivering thrills when bad guys emerge from unexpected places, but for a neat puzzle where all the pieces click together in a way that serves justice. The climactic spectacle is both a surprise and just what you wanted, both horrifying and exhilarating.

No spoiler, here: what's great in the movie is all in the trailer. In the trailer, we hear that children from one teacher's classroom left their homes at 2:17am and that they have not returned in a month. We see children run, arms outstretched, through dark suburban streets. We see one distraught parent (played by James Brolin) trace lines on a map of the neighborhood from each front door to the last location captured by doorbell security cameras, and we can see at a glance that their multiple lines intersect at a single point.

A cool thing about the movie is that multiple storylines also intersect at one point. We go over the same basic period of time from different characters' points of view, all intersecting at the residence of one outlandish character. This approach helps us to be deeply invested in the different characters before the climax. We are especially sympathetic to the teacher, that father, and the young boy left behind.

The extreme violence (some brains, some dismemberment), doesn't feel disturbing, being all part of this puzzle-constructed game. What does disturb is the resonance with real-life school shootings and their aftermath, those makeshift shrines of stuffies and flowers and the raw emotions when parents confront authorities.

Before the movie, we got previews of several upcoming horror movies. It was a dismal warm-up act. None of them generated the curiosity of the puzzle presented in Weapons.

Atlanta exclusive: Being in Atlanta gives me some proximity to film-related activities, as much of Weapons was filmed here. So the girl friend of a friend of mine took this photo at the wrap party. Viewers of the movie will recognize the cake for its uncanny resemblance to the character Aunt Gladys.

Atlanta Ballet's Rite of Spring reminds teacher of playground

The Atlanta Ballet packed the orchestra and first balcony on Valentine's Day with two pieces that reached me as no other ballet has done.

A piece to music by Bach fascinated me at the time. Bach's music is so abstract and steady: How do you make dance without a dramatic story? Writing this months later, I'm afraid I don't recall more detail than that. But the draw for me that night was the other dance on the bill.

Stravinsky's head-banger The Rite of Spring has pumped up my heart rate since I was a teen. I'd never heard it live, and the arrangement by conductor Jonathan McPhee for a reduced orchestra did not stint on those eerie effects (high bassoon, bird song, sharp contrasts of volume and texture) and the violent ecstasy of those pounding chords and unpredictable jabs.

But the dance that embodied the music affected me strongly -- and everyone speaking excitedly during our exit. The choreographer Claudia Schreier, in a video played before the dance, says that she alluded to other versions in her new version. I wouldn't know: being a word guy myself and no dancer, I've paid little attention to ballet in my 65 years.

But I taught middle school for 40 years, and recognize in this Rite of Spring the energy, neediness, and cruelty of early adolescence. There were runs and leaps, dances in circles, packs of dancers chasing others: typical playground activities.

Like middle school, where the bodies of males and females are not differentiated yet, the differences between the sexes were blurred by diaphonous loose-fitting tunics. Males going with females would suddenly push them away -- so middle school, so cruel.

The most painful moment for me was an almost comical movement. Imagine a playground of children, legs stiff and wide apart, standing in a circle around a girl who has been knocked on the ground. In sync, they all hop a bit closer, then a bit closer.... It was awkward and incongruously menacing.

Despite the energy and athleticism and the power of synchronized movement, there were signs of insecurity and pain. Elbows pinned high at an awkward angle; slouching movements; sudden falling and rising. Some stage images called to mind gang warfare in West Side Story, while others brought to mind the undead in films. Stage fog and vines encroaching from the ceiling added to the zombie effect.

I consulted a review by by Robin Wharton, Arts Atlanta, Feb 12, photos by Shoccara Marcus.

Theology for Breakfast: Forward Day by Day May June July 2025

Every morning I read the scripture assigned by the Episcopal Book of Common prayer, then relax into a short reflection on those readings offered by a different writer every month for the quarterly Forward Day by Day. Every quarter I've culled highlights. See my responses going back to 2013.

May 2025 - Reflections by Fr. Neil Kumar Raman Rector of Grace Church in Haddonfield NJ, Fr. Raman reports that he is a double bassist and that he loves to cook South Indian food.

Raman tells of a visit to a beautiful church in Poland built under USSR's oppressive atheism, one brick at a time over a period of 20 years. Townspeople would each lay a single brick at the end of their day's work. Raman compares this approach to that of a mentor who made a habit of writing a thank-you note every day. Think of a "brick" to offer God each day - "a cup of coffee, a held door, the opportunity to make a left turn at a stop light." He asks, how are you building your life as a disciple, brick by brick?

A different small church embarrassed Raman by "a generous act of giving" (James1.17) making him and his friend the guests of honor. Awkward, yes, and awe-inspiring. "We drove back in silence."

Were it not for Raman, I might have continued to overlook the significance when Jesus says to his disciples, "Let us go to the other side" of the Sea of Galilee. People on the other side were not Jews. This was an invitation to reach out to communities likely hostile to Jesus and his disciples.

At funerals, we take comfort in a line from Romans 14:7-8, "Whether we live or die, we are the Lord's." In context, Raman points out, the emphasis isn't on someone who has died but on the way we LIVE with each other, fearless even of death.

When Jesus says, "Let not your heart be troubled," he still bears the wounds of his Crucifixion ordeal. Faith does not insulate us from pain.

And I'm always grateful for anyone who highlights Luke 12.25, "Can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?" Raman even worries that he's worrying. Humor counteracts the toxin of worry.

June 2025 - Reflections by Sarah Shipman Responding on Trinity Sunday to the eighth chapter of Proverbs, Shipman teaches that "wisdom" in ancient Israel was about preserving order. In this chapter where Wisdom is personified as a woman, there's another side to wisdom: "We would do well to be reminded of the beauty and blessing of wonder an imagination, of the joy that comes in waiting for the Spirit to guide us to the truth. May we, like Wisdom, adore all God's marvelous deeds and be ever mindful that we are part of creation and charged with its care."

July 2025 - Reflections by Roger Hutchinson The writer has written elsewhere about his ADHD, anxiety, and bouts of depression. These topics inform his reflections on Scripture, too.

For July 4th, he chose a line from Hebrews 11, "they were strangers and foreigners on the earth...seeking a homeland" (v.13-14). Recalling his transient childhood (11 "homes" in 17 years), he asked what "home" really means. I took that idea to mentor training with Education for Ministry, and the theological reflection took off! He ends with the idea that we must be "home to ourselves."

Reading that "something like scales fell from [Paul's] eyes," Hutchinson is reminded of a lesson learned during a mental health crisis, that passive "looking" is not the same as active "seeing," which is an art to cultivate. The lesson comes up again after Psalm 50.11, "I know every bird in the sky." Hutchinson took walks to get out of the house during COVID, and noticed more birds each day. When he got a better camera, he took photos and learned to appreciate these fascinating creatures. "I took comfort in the psalmist's promise that God knows all the birds of the air... and God knows me."

He admits that he often yawns during a recitation of the Lord's Prayer (Luke 11.1), but "not because it's boring." Rather, these familiar words give him peace. He asks what we remember about learning the Lord's Prayer.

On Johann Sebastian Bach's birthday, the Psalm includes this wonderful line: "Wake up my spirit, awake lute and harp; I myself will waken the dawn." Hutchinson's appreciation of Bach is crowned by the fact that the composer inscribed his work with the phrase, "To God be all the glory." Hutchinson asks how we can praise and honor God through creative work - writing, knitting, designing, woodworking. I'd add, writing poetry and blogs.

The Glow of Transfiguration

Yesterday, the Feast of the Transfiguration, I read Bible stories of Moses and Jesus, their faces glowing after encounters with the Lord. I imagined the glow of Jesus as any boomer would -- radiation, an eerie emanation, or maybe a force field.

Then my little dog Brandy sat beside me, eyes glowing with her gratitude for the home I provide and her anticipation of whatever wonderful thing might happen next.

Later, at the church office, we had visits by some little ones recently baptized at St. James, Wells and Tomas. They, too, looked as if each new sight was a delightful surprise.

I wonder if the glow of Transfiguration has less to do with something that we see in a holy person, and more to do with how they see the world? The glow we see is a reflection of the glow that they see when they look at creation through the frame of wonder, love, and praise.

[This commentary was first printed in the church newsletter that I edit, The Bells of St. James.]

The Joy of Spider-man: Poet's second take on Miles Morales

In 2023, poet / author Jason Reynolds published his second Spider-man novel Miles Morales: SUSPENDED and I didn't wait to buy and read it. But I've waited until now to write about it. I've re-read it, and have decided to accentuate what I love and to keep my reservations in reserve.

As a boomer, I was surprised this century to learn that the Marvel Universe had expanded. The Spider-man I grew up with was a white teen named Peter Parker who gained super-powers from a radioactive spider's bite. Now we learn about parallel universes where other young men and women have that same experience. In 2016, I read the YA novel by Jason Reynolds, Miles Morales: Spider-man about a 15-year-old boy in Harlem whose father is African-American and whose mother is Puerto Rican. He's a scholarship student in a mostly-white private academy in Manhattan. The novel, which I read in ten-minute intervals during my 7th graders' "drop everything and read" period, inspired one of my best blogposts ever.

In Miles Morales Suspended, Reynolds continues the story. Miles is suspended from class for participating with friends in a protest against white supremacist history being taught at the school. With an assortment of classmates, including his crush and a nerdy library assistant (secretly possessed by a supernatural entity), he's stuck in a room with two proctors and a pile of work to do. Each teacher has sent him an assignment to make the young man reflect on his own character through subject-appropriate metaphor. For example, reminding Miles how brown bananas emit ethylene that turns nearby yellow bananas brown, the Chemistry teacher asks Miles to reflect on times he may have been a yellow banana or a brown one.

While this set-up locks the action into one classroom and one school day broken into one-hour periods, it also gives Miles (and Reynolds) lots of opportunities to take flight in verse. Miles discovered poetry in that first novel. In this one, most of the action is interior, and a lot of the lines in this book don't reach the right-hand margin.

Still, my favorite part of the book takes place during the night before the day of his punishment. When his jovial roommate Ganke is fast asleep, Miles suits up and goes to the window. Pausing to look at the lights of the skyline, he imagines "all the stars that were supposed to be there had fallen, and now sparkled much closer to the ground" (44). A deep breath, and then he jumps -- into some of my favorite poetry in the book:

AIR begins "When I'm in / the air / I feel // free. Like something / someone / has // let go of." By the end of the poem, the lines have led Miles to wonder at himself: "I feel / like I can / let go."

In the next moment, he literally lets go, free-falling before he shoots a web. For an exhilarating paragraph, we experience Spider-man's web-slinging from the inside, as he leaps from building to building, soon landing at the top cables of the Brooklyn Bridge. He sees the lights of Times Square from a distance, and there follow some memories of that place, including an incident when he chased down a pickpocket to retrieve an old man's wallet -- and left the desperate thief with money from Miles's own pocket.

That section is so vivid and joyful that I've remembered all its details since the book was new.

I reopened the book this week because I heard Jason Reynolds on NPR. The format of the interview show is to ask famous people a personal question drawn from a deck of cards. I didn't catch the question, but he gave an endearing answer. He's taking care of his elderly mother these days, "bathing the only Creator I have ever touched, the vessel who gave me everything I have become." Determined to "maintain her dignity and comfort," he says to her, "I'm going to help you transition ... after you taught me to be bold."

His Miles Morales, too, expresses love and gratitude for family as he struggles to be as good as they want him to be.

There's probably a psalm for that

(This article appeared in this week's issue of The Bells of St. James, the newsletter that I edit for my church St. James Episcopal, Marietta.)

We appreciate a note that Betty Berry sent this week about the 10:30 service Sunday. She writes, "The choir sang of murmuring doves. Meanwhile in a bush near our sanctuary window, a nest full of doves rejoiced in their own way: lively and loudly. Quite special." (For the words, see #513 in the 1982 hymnal.)

A verse that we sang on Sunday also connected to a member of our parish choir, Dr. Walter Ligon. We sang Psalm 16, which contains this line, from verse 6: Indeed, I have a goodly heritage. That verse is inscribed in Latin on a medallion that Walter obtained during a visit to the chapel of St. Leonard in his ancestral place of origin, Newland in the district of Malvern, Worcestershire, England. He polished the medallion Monday and brought it by the office. His ancestors left there during the Civil War -- not the American one, but the one with Cromwell in the 1640s. He would love to sit and tell you the story!

Lanie Baxter shared this photo she took during her recent travels of an ancient replica of the still more ancient Book of Kells. The replica is preserved under glass.

The "illumination" of the gospels by the beautiful images calls to mind Psalm 119.30, The unfolding of your words gives light.

Sue Hannan, away visiting family, sent photos from where she's staying in the Finger Lakes region of central New York state. One scene calls to mind Psalm 65.8, You make the dawn appear on the earth and the sunset shout for joy.

Another book of songs in the Hebrew scriptures gives an apt response to Sue's second photo (inset), Flowers appear on the earth and the season of singing has begun (Song of Songs, 2.12).

Mother Mariclair took the selfie below when she visited the Altar Guild's coffee last Saturday. Showing up hours and even days before a service, they prepare for regular Sunday worship and special occasions, such as Wednesday's funeral for Billy Akins. Psalm 122.1 comes to mind, I was glad when they said to me "Let us go to the house of the Lord."

Did you know that your phone can play all of Psalms in a 30-day cycle at the Forward Day by Day website? The magazine's director says that he has been listening to the whole collection every month for a couple of years, now, and it's made a big difference in his life. I'm giving it a try, listening to psalms and the other readings for the day while I go about my morning routine.

Pray like Wolves

Right now, in time zones around the world, there are Episcopalians with prayer books open to morning prayer, or to services for noonday and evening. They're in church, or they may be in small groups, or they may be at home alone, perhaps, like me as I write this, with a dog at their feet.

Prayers from a book aren't valued in some Christian traditions. Many believe that prayer should be spontaneous.

But I'm comforted, even awed, by the thought that fellow Episcopalians, in all their circumstances, pray the same words, silently or aloud. At communion, I sometimes think how my kneeling, my holding up of my hands, and my sipping the wine, join me to churches across the country, across the sea, and even across centuries.

Can prayer be spontaneous and come from within? We know that it can. Can such prayer meander and become a kind of personal performance? We know that it can. Our church leaves room for spontaneity within a frame of carefully prepared prayers.

For me, our ritual prayers call to mind, not a flock of sheep and a shepherd (root meanings of congregation and episcopal), but wolves.

In the Bible, wolves are vicious and fearsome, except for that wolf in Isaiah that lies down with the lamb. Jesus warns his disciples that they go into the world as sheep among wolves, and he says to beware false prophets who are "wolves in sheep's clothing."

Our culture has a different outlook on wolves. Because we hunted wolves almost to extinction, they have official protection. Except where they prey on domesticated animals, wolves have our sympathy, too. They've become symbols of strength, self-reliance, and pack solidarity. We've made wolves into team mascots and namesakes for super-heroes.

Wolves' baying at night may sound mournful to us, but no study has conclusive answers to why they do it. The wolves may be expressing belonging or may be psyching themselves up for the hunt. Maybe they're expressing hunger. Whatever they express, they're like my little terrier mix when she barks with the neighbor's Pomeranian at twilight, having a great time.

It's remarkable that wolves match each other's pitch and rhythm. Whether they're with the pack or alone far away, they're on the same page.

The nightly ritual of the wolves came to mind during a theological reflection in my Education for Ministry seminar (EfM). A participant shared her story from her teenage years of how a beloved member of her close-knit summer camp cohort had committed suicide during the winter. The young woman relating the story told us that the old friends gathered in silence, finding no words for their feelings. Without a word, they rose and began to walk up the hill. It just felt right, she said, to hike to the camp's waterfall, as they had done many times before. Arriving at the place, they still said nothing. Then, spontaneously, they re-enacted a ritual familiar to Episcopalians from Holy Week: They washed each other's feet.

Like wolves, they were each alone inside their own thoughts and feelings, and yet together in this ritual.

The young woman, looking back, says there was mournfulness in this, and loss, but also a shared knowledge that they were serving each other in a way that goes back 2000 years. This shared action, though wordless, was instructive, and transformative.

Church should be more than a place to learn lessons, a place to meet like-minded people, or even a place to ensure our own salvation. Whatever the wolves are doing, raising their voices as one from their distant places, we also are doing as we kneel, hold hands up in supplication, confess together, and pray together -- from the same page.

Prayer - to - Square: Moving Church back to the center of town

Sunday, Jan Wilsden celebrated her 90th birthday with her family. She and husband Derek grew up in a place and time when the village church was literally at the center of everyday life. The church spire could be seen from everywhere (inspiring!) and bells rang for prayer morning, noon, and night. Would we all be more mindful of what Mo Mariclair called the abundance of God's love if we could all put St. James at the center of our lives that way?

Actually, St. James does still stand at the center, at least on Saturdays. Like the village markets of olden times, the Marietta Farmers Market sets up every Saturday morning where the sounds of our tower bells reach the stalls. Parishioner Susan Rouse has done the bulk of her shopping there for many years. It's a community, she says, where farmers, chefs, and discerning consumers all know each other. And it's all blessed by the bells of St. James.

After worship services, parishioners who don't go home right away can sample an abundance of good things, many of them family-friendly. This past week, as I came out of the Polk Street gate, I saw Jessica Reynolds and Matilda returning from an excursion via the Mountain-to-River Trail (M2R). They were passing by the striking works by professional artists and art students, all local. Some of the works are beautiful, some are surprising, all are intriguing.

If it's history that interests you, go down hill from the railroad tracks to the home of our church's founder William Root. Keep going, and you'll find our St. James Cemetery, where Root is NOT buried, because his wife disapproved of Episcopalians. To find where he's buried, go to the Marietta Cemetery located along the M2R trail not far from where the Reynolds ladies are standing. (I've walked my little dog that way many times.)

Mid-way there's the Marietta Museum, where grandparents might enjoy showing grandkids the toys and record players of the remote 1960s, and the 1940s-vintage kitchen that's just like their grandma's.

Then, there are opportunities for exercise. One Sunday, I saw a parishioner in track clothes running from our Polk Street lot towards Kennesaw Mountain on the M2R. I had just seen him dressed in his Sunday best at the hospitality hour. With a change of clothes, he used St. James as a base for his run. Inspired by his example, this past Sunday I brought my road bike and cycling shorts for a thirty minute round trip to the battlefield park. (See photo below) Another time, I'll leave from church to explore the way to the Chattahoochee River. (Call it Narthex-2-Spandex)

When we start our new series of Wednesday Family Game nights, consider coming to our regular Evening Prayer service, 20-30 minutes long, playing games until 8, and then strolling altogether to Marietta Square for ice cream at Sarah Jean's, a couple of doors away from the space where William Root ran his pharmacy, now housing a bakery.

And think of how you might invite neighbors or co-workers for worship and a stroll into town. Call it Prayer-2-Square.

This article was written for The Bells of St. James, the newsletter that I send out every week.

It's a Wrap

The bucks that stopped here are moving on. ("Dear Buck," said Lanie Baxter, "we will miss you!")

All the portraits of shady-looking lawyers have disappeared.

With them go the 2019-vintage desktop computers, boxes of fake legal documents, South Carolina lawbooks with the shelves that bore them, and heavy ornate furniture. Also gone are yard upon yard of thick cables, the trucks and cranes that filled our parking lots, and sheets of plastic wrap that protected our carpets when filming crews came in.

In other words, the filming of The Murdaugh Murders has finished. This week, the post-op crew removes the set pieces and restores our walls and halls to their ante-Murdaugh condition.

The Last Day I was at church before 7a on Friday for the last day of filming. Jim Chester relieved me around 10a. Bill Eubanks was here that evening from around 4p to 8:39p when the director yelled, "It's a wrap!" Bill wrote in an email that there was "much applause and hooting."

The end came not a moment too soon, according to Bill, since the thermostat had been re-set to cool the actors and crew who were crammed into our conference room with hot lights. "I won't say it was cold," Bill wrote, "but we pulled everything out of the kitchen freezers and huddled inside to warm up!"

The production wrapped early despite an unwelcome interruption. All work suspended when the fire alarm went off. Only later did Bill discover why: the Fire Safety Officer had unwittingly set off the system himself. Andrea Keener, member of both our church and the studio team, was relieved to hear it: "At least we know none of the crew was trying to get to recess early!"

The very next morning, a crew that Bill re-named "Tony and the Divine Dustbusters" came in to prepare the church for services. They cleared walkways, vacuumed, mopped, and wiped surfaces.

The Sequel Wednesday, film crew, actors, costumers, and even caterers came back for a single shot. All they needed was a train to blow past "Alex Murdaugh" at the crossing.

Marietta police closed a lane on Polk Street, crew kept their equipment ready, and the actor waited in a vehicle with the appropriate 2019 South Carolina license plate.

(Photo: At noon, Angel was optimistic that a train might show up before dark. It didn't happen.)

But our train, having delayed or interrupted numerous scenes throughout this project, didn't make an appearance.

Angel, the site manager, explains that Homeland Security regulations prevent the studio from seeing the schedule for trains.

L-R, Jim, Erik, Bill, Lia and Andrea. The studio awarded Jim a badge for his stunt work, for the film day in March when he took a dive out of a doorway.

On Thursday this week, Jim, Bill, Building Superintendent Erik Linso, the studio's site manager Lia Towers, and location scout Andrea Keener met for a walkthrough of our campus inside and out. They know each other well after sharing many 16-hour days. They compared church furniture and decor to photographs made in January. They also checked on floors, ceilings, walls, doors, walkways, landscaping etc. to list items for repair, cleaning, and painting.

Then this adventure will be over for good. "Unless," Sue Hannan wondered. "What if Murdaugh wins an appeal?" Stay tuned. Know any good news items about goings-on in the parish? Share them with me at the communications desk.

[This is this week's "Pulse of the Parish" column for the Bells newsletter of St. James Episcopal Church, Marietta GA]

Life on a Movie Set

Every day this week, from as early as 5:30a to as late as 11p, the Parish Hall was crowded with actors donning costumes and getting made up. Both parking lots were full of trucks and cranes. Dozens of men and women hauled things up and down the halls. [This is from the newsletter I edit at St. James Church, issued April 24 in the week following Easter Sunday]

The Marietta Daily Journal staked out St. James, reporting when "a dark van" left the premises, but no one on the crew would open up about what exactly was happening inside.

PHOTO: Life on a movie set: your Communications Director on Tuesday took a selfie near the elevator. The air was thick with smoke -- and drama!

Our Lawrence Chapel made a great setting for the funeral scene. That's artificial sunlight: the sky was dark. When the double doors open during a dramatic confrontation, it's not a parking lot you see on screen, but green hills and blue sky.

For parishes less accustomed to the film industry, all this activity might be very exciting. For the people of St. James, it's just another movie week.

But it was the film crew who got excited when a bird flew in the double doors by the parish hall. He took a tour of the halls before resting in the parlor, which had been set up for a scene.

Work was suspended for this emergency. The little guy bumped his head and left a little smudge of blood on the ceiling tile. He was dizzy awhile, but recovered and flew off to the nave. Someone played bird calls on their phone, hoping to entice him out the double red doors.

The story is picked up there by Lucia Bird (no relation), who was in the nave with Flower Guild cleaning up after Easter services:

He/she seemed to enjoy flying back and forth from the loft to the wall behind the altar. Several times he lighted on the children’s cross. Finally, with the back and side doors open, he flew to the pews and hopped one by one to the last row and flew out the double doors.

Do you remember a few years ago, the bird that explored the nave during services for Pentecost? We wondered if it was a sign from the Holy Spirit. Sign or not, we are blessed by birds, as we read in Psalms 84:3-7, "The sparrow has found a home where she can raise her young, even by your altar, O Lord."

Theology for Breakfast: Forward Day by Day Feb - Mar - Apr 2025 + Breaking News!

Every morning I read the scripture assigned by the Episcopal Book of Common prayer, then relax into a short reflection on those readings offered by the quarterly Forward Day by Day. Every quarter I've culled highlights. See my responses going back to 2013.

Breaking News: Today, the author from Forward's January 2021 issue becomes the Rector of St. James, Marietta, the Church where I worship and work. She's The Rev. Mariclair Partee Carlsen, and I wrote an appreciation of her daily meditations years before I knew she would one day be my priest and my boss. See Comfort Food from Forward Day by Day.

February 2025 - Reflections by Nikki Mathis The writer is rector of her Episcopal church, "wife and mother to 4-legged and 2-legged kids." She often finds an angle on Bible stories that I've missed before, particularly in regard to helping people to feel their own value.

• Gal 3.28 is the famous phrase about how in Christ "there is no longer slave or free, male or female," but Mathis cautions that "everyone is equal" is different from "everyone is the same," and we all need to appreciate the differences.
• Jesus listens to the Syrophoenician woman after he initially rebuffs her, listening with respect, and is moved to act on her behalf.
• Mathis asks if we ever strike out in irritation when we're overwhelmed by personal crises and world news. Exasperated with the disciples, Jesus asks, "do you not yet understand?" With "yet," he implies that he's sticking with them even if they don't get it.
• He called Peter and Andrew from their fishing boat, without first interviewing them. He could imagine what they would become in his relationship with them. Us, too.
• Mathis sees that James and John aren't looking for power so much as reassurance that they will be okay in the time of trial to come. Jesus gives them a chance to commit to "rise to the challenge" and assures them, they will. We, too, should hear how people are often asking, indirectly, for reassurance that they're okay.
• Seeing how the crowd is annoyed by the blind man who calls to Jesus for help, Jesus stays put and tells those same people to bring the man forward, thereby enlisting them as partners in the cure that follows. Us, too.

Mathis's takes on these stories illustrate Maya Angelou's observation, "People will forget what you said, they will even forget what you did, but they will never forget how you made them feel."

Reading Mathis in February prepared me for a chance meeting that month with a former student at a local food court. He called out, "Mr. Smoot???" I didn't know his name, how many years had passed since I'd taught him, or what subject that might have been. But I could (and did) say, "I've lost all the details, but I have a lot of strong positive feelings -- that you are courteous, curious, kind, and funny." He took a selfie with me "because no one will believe I saw you." I hope that means I made him feel valued, too.

Some other passages stand out in Mathis's writings.

"Blessed are those who mourn," Mathis quotes, for they have experienced love. Their mourning is a blessing. Mathis adds, "don't think" you win if you're the "one who mourns fastest" and "gets over it."

Mathis recalls being enthralled by the language of the Episcopal liturgy, so like the Arthurian fantasy books she read as a little girl. Yet the sonorous "prayer of humble access" also brought her close to God. "My little girl self still catches her breath at the thought."

The story of the widow brings the observation that she's giving her all, while everyone else is giving God a 10% tip.

In childhood, Mathis memorized Psalm 134, all two verses. Telling us of occasions when those words spoke to her, she observes, "What we pray when we pray together as a community forms us... I'm anchored... not only by the words said... but also by the power and presence of God experienced each time they are prayed."

March 2025 - Reflections by Tyler RichardsHe's an Episcopal priest at St. Anne's Episcopal Church in DePere, Wisconsin. Also, he's a birder, vocalist, and gardener, with wife and daughters.

When Hebrews tells us to pay attention, Richards notes the average adult's attention span is now only 8.53 seconds, so "Some of you will have stopped reading by now." I can relate to how the Sanctus bell brings his wandering mind back "to attend the mystery."

About humility, Richards says, "It's one thing to be zealous for God. It is quite another to inflict that zealotry on others." When you take God into "the marketplace," he writes, don't forget "God is God, and we are not." Also about witnessing, he remembers how the TV lawyer Matlock used to "crack" witness testimonies. Every day, Christians are on the stand about Jesus. He warns that, while we're not taken to court for our beliefs, we still are being scrutinized.

Richards tells about the first time he left his daughter at Preschool, how he could think of nothing else but her all day. Like the father of the prodigal son, like God. (And, I'll add, like me last month when I was in NYC away from Brandy.)

April 2025 - Reflections by Owene Weber Courtney The director of Christian Formation at St. John's in Jacksonville, Courtney has an educator's knack for clarifying the text with another story or image.

When Jesus says he's the shepherd who stands at the gate, I've always pictured a "gatekeeper," i.e., one who excludes the wrong kinds of sheep, people, whatever. Courtney says that the shepherd would lie down across the narrow gate so that any predator had to cross him first. Jesus is not excluding, but offering protection.

Responding to Acts 2.36 ("They were cut to the heart" with regret for killing Jesus), Courtney illustrates repentance with a familiar anecdote about the priest in a French village who excluded the body of a Protestant soldier from the church's graveyard. His comrades buried their friend as close as possible to the cemetery wall. But when they came to pay their last respects the next morning, they couldn't locate the site. The priest, who had been unable to sleep, repented his ban, rose in the night and moved the wall to include their friend. "Repentance," Weber quotes another source, "is moving beyond the mind you have."

A couple of meditations stand out because they don't offer answers to distressing questions. Isaiah's poetry imagines restoration, good news for the poor, sight to the blind, prisoners released from dungeons. "We struggle more to believe that God's plan for this hurting world will be enacted." Then, she responds to a bit of the letter 1 John 2.14, addressing "young people" who are "strong." Courtney observes that young people are missing from the churches nationwide. She hears from them, "They are tired of being lectured or sung to all the while not having a chance to ask questions, disagree, and engage" She has no easy answers, but holds on to John's statement that young people "are strong and the love of God abides in them."