–October 17, 2004
OPENING WORDS – Co-ministers
Barbara: Good morning. I am Barbara Wells ten Hove, co-minister of this church with my husband Jaco. We add our welcome to all of you.
Jaco: 50 years ago this very day, October 17, 1954, a group of Unitarians gathered in a University of Maryland building in College Park for the first service of what was to become the Paint Branch Unitarian Universalist Church. For 50 years now, this congregation has provided a liberal religious voice and presence in Prince George’s County and the state of Maryland.
Barbara: Today we celebrate the first of four services that are planned to honor our 50th anniversary as a church. Next Sunday, we will recognize the many Movers and Shakers, including three of our former ministers, who have made this church into what it is today. On Oct. 31, the service will honor the role Social Justice has played in shaping this congregation, plus Jaco will preach a sermon titled, “Wrestling Less with Angels than with Prophets.” And on Nov. 7, our celebration culminates with an appearance in our pulpit by the Rev. William Sinkford, president of the Unitarian Universalist Association. Each weekend includes activities beyond the Sunday service. I note in particular today’s concert featuring many notable Paint Branchers. Please join me at 4pm today for a musical feast.
Jaco: It is appropriate that we begin this month long anniversary celebration with a service that honors the Art and Spirit of Paint Branch. For the past five decades, poets and artists, musicians and dancers, singers and actors, have graced our lives with their creative spirits. The powerful spiritual gifts that artists bring to religious community are real and significant. This church is a special place because there have been so many talented artists among us.
Barbara: As we gather today in a community of all ages, let us sing and rejoice. And sing Allelu for the glorious spirit that flourishes whenever good people come together in worship.
FLAMING CHALICE DEDICATION – John Bartoli
Last year I bought a card that entitles me to a ten percent discount for one year on all purchases at a local bookstore. It costs ten dollars a year but I usually spend more than enough to make up for that cost. I was buying a book in that store the other day and using that card. The cashier scanned my card and told me I only had 24 days left on my year’s subscription. But don’t worry, he said, it will only cost five dollars for a senior citizen like myself to renew the card.
That was the first time someone had assumed I was a senior citizen without asking. And I’m sure it’s not going to be the last time. I was at first taken aback and even slightly insulted, not because he had assumed I was older than I looked but because he had pretty well nailed my age correctly. I was ruminating about the sad state of getting older for the next week or so. Then I had lunch with my brother, who, by the way, is older than me, and he had a different take on the subject of senior citizen-hood. Anywhere he goes, restaurants, bookstores, department stores, gas stations, he always asks for and insists on getting his senior discount. I think he feels he’s earned the rights to his years and now he wants to get some of the benefits due him.
These are two very contrasting points of view about the aging process. I compared them with our church and its anniversary that we are beginning to celebrate. Yes, we’re fifty years old this month. Yes, we’ve been around a long time. Yes, we can look worn out and used up here and there. But, we’ve accomplished a lot in fifty years. It’s time to enjoy those accomplishments and look forward to the future. And our future sits among us today. Our children, our youth. What will the next fifty years bring for them? And what kind of a message should we give our younger folk who are just starting out in our community?
So, with apologies to Dr. Seuss, and in honor of our salute to the arts today, I have adapted a piece of his to underline the importance of the threshold on which we sit and to preface the lighting of our chalice, the symbol of our community.
Oh, The Places We’ll Go!
Congratulations to us!
Today is our day.
We’re off to Great Places!
We’re off and away!
We have brains in our head.
We have feet in our shoes.
We can steer ourselves
Any direction we choose.
We’re on our own. And we know what we know.
And WE are the ones who’ll decide where to go.
We’ll look up and down streets. Look ’em over with care.
About some we will say, “I don’t choose to go there.”
With our head full of brains and our shoes full of feet,
We’re too smart to go down any not-so-good street.
And we may not find any
We’ll want to go down.
In that case, of course,
We’ll head straight out of town.
It’s opener there
In the wide open air.
Out there things can happen and frequently does
To people as brainy and footsy as us.
And when things start to happen,
Don’t worry, Don’t stew.
Just go right along.
We’ll start happening too.
OH!
THE PLACES WE’LL GO!
So…
Be our name Buxbaum or Bixby or Bray
or Mordecai Ali Van Allen O’Shea,
We’re off to Great Places!
Today is our day!
Our mountain is waiting.
So…let’s get on our way!
THE ART OF MOVEMENT – Pat Tompkins, Arts Committee
I would like to begin with a quote attributed to Moliere: “All ills of mankind, all the tragic misfortunes that fill the history books, all the political blunders, all the failures of great leaders have arisen merely from a lack of skill in dancing.” Mmmm interesting to ponder in this election season.
I don’t know if I would go that far, but I do know that for almost as long as we have existed as a congregation, dance has been a valued and important part of our community here at Paint Branch.
In the early 1960’s, Alane Atkinson and Nancy Tankersley formed the first dance group. It was a group designed to give people the opportunity to respond in individual ways to different musical styles and rhythms. It became part of those busy evenings in our first new building which included sculpture, pottery, painting and music.
As the congregation has grown and evolved, dance has found new forms of expression for us and so we have continued to dance. Sometimes it has been only a few of us sometimes it has been all of us.
We have danced purely for ourselves, to experience responding to music and rhythm in our own unique ways. We have spliced together musical recordings to create accompaniment to dances we ourselves have created. We have danced in costume recreating Renaissance steps accompanied by the recorder group.
While the dance groups have provided particular program moments, we have all joined hands as a congregation . In sometimes chaotic, but always joyful circles we have repeated patterns we’ve learned just that day. We have danced together in the glen, at the end of our June outdoor service and before our annual picnic.
We have danced at Buck Lodge Junior High School, after the skit and story, and just before our Christmas dinner. We have danced together at the Adelphi Mill and in this very room in celebration of milestones in the life of our congregation. We have danced to honor the arts. We have danced to celebrate holidays. We have danced just for the pure pleasure of being together.
Lillian Lee, one of the earliest participants in that first dance group, notes that she was pleasantly surprised to find that a church would consider offering opportunities to develop all facets of the human spirit.
Speaking personally, I find that dance has given me an outlet for expression which goes beyond words. It has helped me to know my own body in ways that were invaluable when illness came calling. It has challenged me while learning new steps and has rewarded me with great feelings of accomplishment when music and movement have blended to create a satisfying moment in time.
I would like to invite Lillian Lee and any other members of that first dance group to stand And if you have ever been part of one of our dance groups, I invite you to stand Thank you.
And now, in our 50th year, in this place where we experience a religion which encourages us to learn and evolve, we are uniquely privileged, even among Unitarian Universalist congregations, to have dance as part of our liturgy. The Chalice Dancers, led by Sharon Werth, add a wonderful dimension to our worship services.
Dance continues to play an important role in our lives as individuals and in the life of our community as part of our religious expression. This place, this religious institution, this wonderful Paint Branch continues to offer us in words adapted from the writings of Anne Morrow Lindbergh, “growth, and freedom in the sense that dancers are free, barely touching as they pass, but partners in the same pattern.”
CHORAL DANCE Siyahamba trad. S. African
The Paint Branch Chalice Dancers,Sharon Werth, director
THE ART OF WORDS – John Bartoli
Words have always been important to me. I have spent many hours arranging and rearranging them on a page to get them just right. I marvel at the power of words when spoken at just the right time and in just the right voice. Paint Branch has always given me an outlet for working with words, whether it’s writing skits for the canvass or sharing stories with the Writer’s Group or listening to new poems at a “Poetry Out Loud” session.
For fifty years words have played a key role in the life of Paint Branch. Here in this place I have heard words that had the power to inspire and to uplift, to make laugh or to make cry, to stimulate the thinking process or to excite the spiritual heart. There are words that are packed with meaning or packed with feeling or packed with both. But in addition to stimulating the mind, it is the music of words, the sound and sense of them used creatively that has the power to transport me to a place where I get nourishment for my soul as well.
In 1979, Walker and Emily Dawson wrote a history of Paint Branch covering our first 25 years. In 1994, Betty Allen added a supplement that listed the highlights of what had happened in the subsequent 15 years. In reading through both, I find that our community never seemed to be without a drama group, or a writing group, or a poetry group. Currently we have the Paint Branch Players, the Writer’s Group, and the Poetry Out Loud group-all people who share their love of words.
The art of drama at Paint Branch has run the gamut from a simple reading of a script at a meeting, to a night of fully staged one-act plays, to a service whose sermon was a play written by one of our members. Pat Tompkins and Stan Baer along with Al Lowry are some of our dramatic connections with the past and present players, and Robin Walbrook and the Paint Branch Players are the latest incarnation of this willingness to “show off” our talents.
The Writers Group has been around for at least 12 years, meeting once a month to share each other’s writing. Stan Baer, Emily Nutku, and Marj Donn were some of the founders of the group. Meribel Blanchard, a former church administrator, has had two novels published by an online publisher.
Poetry Out Loud still meets to share their love of great poetry of the past or to show off a few lines of their own. Thanks to Betty Allen and the golden-voiced Loren Broc for starting the Poetry Out Loud group those many years ago and to Margaret Warner for keeping that flame going.
Other participants and major players in that group include: Anne Etkin, who for many years has shared the title of resident poet with Meg Waugh, who in the past has produced two anthologies herself in addition to presenting more than a few services on the subject. And let’s not forget our recent “An Ode to the Arts” service that featured the refreshing insights of one of our newer poets, Heather Raffa.
In the few minutes I have I cannot possibly do justice to the creative use of the word here at Paint Branch so we are going to concentrate on poems I have found in a number of poetry anthologies that I borrowed for this service. The latest is Anne Etkin’s anthology called “Cycles of the Year” preceded by “A Harvest of Poetry” from a service in 2003 preceded by a 1999 anthology called “Poets of Paint Branch/Sharers of the Dream” with some 21 authors and 83 poems. Then I have two wonderful anthologies of Meg Waugh’s poetry from 1981 and 1979 but the real bit of history is this “Paint Branch Anthology” from 1977 containing 15 poets and 89 poems.
Today, Leo Jones and I will read a sample of these poems. I picked each one because I felt they showed our strong connection to the creative use of words and because they used our buildings and grounds as metaphors to describe our feelings about our community.
PROSE AND POETRY — Various Paint Branchers
Read by Leo Jones and John Bartoli
This Word by Meg Waugh (1979)
I think
this word
should be sentenced to death.
Why not all these words?
All have betrayed.
They never let me explain-
anything.
Sometimes one answers up for another!
Regularly they make me foolish.
There’s no way to make them stay in line
or know what they’re doing.
They’ve been around so long they’re wise!
They will say what they want to say
no matter how you frame it.
The question is
how to sentence words.
But what luck!
It is election year!
Even those who do not choose to run
making speeches.
How fitting that words
should fall into the mouths
of politicians.
The Buildings of Our Church by Anne Etkin
I. College Park
We rented in tempos at Maryland U.,
Where our thinking was high, though our quarters were mean,
Where our speakers spoke under a ‘No Smoking’ sign
And over the wails of a coffee machine,
Where each Sunday’s equipment to use in R.E.
Was stored in the crawl-space down under the floor
(To stand up straight was to bang your pate;
My noggin is still sore!)
But still these buildings gave a place
Where eager minds could meet their need,
Where hopes could sparkle, thoughts could soar,
From old unyielding dogmas freed
II. Paint Branch
This lovely woodland came our way,
And splendid R.E. building, too;
Our purse was flat, so that was that:
Instead of two buildings, just one had to do.
And still that building gave us space
To sorrow, think, create and play,
And-feeling welcome, warm at heart-
Give help where we could see a way.
III. The Meeting House Speaks:
“My friends, you see a quiet place
In woodland. I provide a base;
But what you’ll be and what you’ll do
is plainly up to you.
“Still, every Sunday morning,
Come sun, come snow, come rain,
I’ll call the questing people in
And send them forth again.”
Entering Paint Branch by Elise Atlas (Oct. 1995)
I cross the wood bridge
Beneath the tall trees
And am encircled with peace
New Church, Old Church by Betty Allen (1991)
Welcome house-
Make no mistake,
You are not yet our home.
Lofty and beautiful and new-
The climax of our lengthy dreams so long deferred.
No agonies, no trembling, no despair
Have hallowed you.
No questing souls have tentatively crossed
Your threshold.
Only a little step divides you from our past,
The place we’ve left, which loves and tears
And triumphs made a refuge,
Long our dear home.
So as we marvel at your gracious height
And resonance,
Receive our memories-
Let them be a bridge
To tie us to the lovers and the friends
Who were, who are, who shall be in these places,
In spirit and in flesh made one.
The Window Wall at Paint Branch Church by Anne Etkin (1999)
I watch through the window the woods and stream,
As the seasons come and go;
And from moment to moment they hardly seem
To change, for change comes slow.
From bud into leaf and from vigor to mold
Move the trees in the rain and sun;
The stream that was stilled by the winter cold
In the spring will laugh and run.
Oh, changing unchanging the seasons unfold
Oh, changing unchanging the long years unfold,
Bringing shadow, bringing sun.
PBUC (1977) by Betty Allen
Here be a wood of wideness
Verdure deep-
Space for all dreams
Pillow for quested sleep
Ladder of light-for our star-wending feet.
THE ART OF THE EYES – Jane Trout, Arts Committee
Visual Arts at Paint Branch has a long, rich and unusual history. These artworks that you see around you are by current and past members and friends who are a part of that history. Let me tell you a little about it now.
During the 70s, Sy Gresser and Dorothy Lewis led a painting and sculpture group, which is still talked about as an exciting experience. There was a photography group and a group of people who met for life drawing led by Dorothy Lewis. This group had a model, a young woman who came each week. She told her mother that she was “going to do Church work.” Another group met for wood working in the home of John Ditman. He is the person who designed and built our pulpit and the risers for the choir from some trees that had grown on our property. Visual artists have also designed covers for the orders of service, concert programs and auction brochures. One aspiring sculptor made a nearly life sized head of an elephant in paper mache as part of a costume for an R.E. program held in the glen. I recall this vividly because my husband, Dave, was the hind part of that elephant.
A tradition of exhibits of paintings, drawings, photographs and other visual arts began in the Kelley Room around 1969, when a local artist, Elinore Behr, began putting up shows which were changed every three or four weeks. Others who have worked on organizing these exhibits were: Dorothy Lewis, Betty Allen and Meribel Lavell, Ed Scullen, Susan Van Ost, Ann Sutherland, Gary Irby and myself. There may even be others I have missed.
One other person who should be mentioned as a bright light in the visual arts field at Paint Branch is Dan Sutherland once a student in our R.E. Program, because he applied for and received (from the Unitarian Universalist Association) a Stansfield Scholarship to study art. He eventually completed his Masters of Fine Art at Syracuse University.
If I have mentioned your name, please stand now and be recognized.
You might wonder how visual art has enhanced the religious life of this church. Artwork has for a long time been a part of our warm, friendly and caring environment, providing the background for Sunday services, weddings or memorial services. It gives members a chance to increase their appreciation, understanding and enjoyment of a variety of kinds of artwork and has often been a subject of lively conversation. Exhibits may help us live our principles by developing awareness of the need for social justice or inspiring respect for the web of life.
Exhibits have introduced our church to others who may know very little about Unitarian Universalism. We have provided a venue for new artists to display their work in a caring environment. Art is a means of communication and a large part of it is about feelings-those the artist is trying to convey and those aroused in the viewer. Artworks can point up the struggles of the artist to find harmony within. Art encourages viewers to see the world with new eyes, to find meaning and value in the ordinary and familiar and also in unexpected places.
THE ART OF SOUND – Barbara W. ten Hove, co-minister
One can hardly speak of religion without acknowledging music and the significant role it plays in the lives of people of faith. In every culture in every time, some form of music has found its way into the spiritual lives of humans. From powerful drumbeats, to mystical chanting, to full voice chorales, to the strumming of a guitar-music has been one of the most powerful ways to express the deepest longings of our hearts.
Here at Paint Branch, music has, from the very beginning, been a central element in the worship life of this church. I am told that when the first Paint Branch pioneers gathered at the University of Maryland to listen to All Souls Unitarian minister, A. Powell Davies, speak through the telephone wires, they heard not only his stimulating sermons but the whole service, including the excellent music.
Perhaps this is why, when the church had its own minister and no longer listened to the All Souls services, a music director, Jean Mohr, came on board to make sure that music would continue being a part of the congregation’s experience each week. A choir formed and pianists emerged to make sure that singing of all kinds added beauty to the worship. For 50 years, this commitment to music and its role in the life of the spirit has continued unabated at Paint Branch.
Early this fall, I took a moment during choir practice to ask the choir members to each tell us how long they had sung in the choir and why it was important to them. The answer to the first question was wide-ranging; there are members of the choir who have been a part of it for decades and a few who only joined this year. The answer to the second question-why choir is important-was powerful to hear. Almost without exception, people spoke of how making music together helps to create community and how connected they feel to each other. They also spoke of how singing for the congregation in worship is a powerful thing. They know that their music touches you, and that matters.
And as one of the ministers who have served this church during its 50 years, I can assure you that it matters to us as well. Music has the power to make potent ideas come alive, and allows profound feelings to emerge.
I remember a few years ago, when Dan Abraham was music director, he had us learn a song cycle based on writings from children who were at the Terezin concentration camp during WWII. Joined by the UU Church of Silver Spring, then led by Paint Branch member Donna Simonton, we sang words of horror, grief, pain, and hope-and the whole congregation sat in stunned silence at the end, profoundly moved. As much as I love preaching, I know that sometimes music can get a message across far better than any sermon.
Music is also a significant way of building community and reaching across the generations. Just this fall, our choir chose to sing for the wedding of Elizabeth Yanowitch and Andy Myrup and for the memorial service for Manuel Pereira, husband of choir member Nancy Boardman. Folks in the choir understand that we are there to do more than just make music. As a church choir, we also come together every week to be reminded that we care for each other in large and small ways that really mean a lot.
Music also can speak to people of all ages. Over the years, children and youth have found ways to make music a central part of their Paint Branch experience, from the various children’s choirs to the Paint Branch philharmonic. In recent years, David Chapman has done a marvelous job of including music by young people in our weekly worship. Do you remember the beauty of youth group members Cara Snyder and Colin McCoy singing “Seasons of Love” from the music Rent just last month? It was stunning.
There is so much more I could say about the wonderful gifts music has brought to this church throughout the years. But, let me just say one more thing. For many of us in our lives, the bulk of the music we hear is recorded, and generally by professional musicians. It is becoming increasingly rare for amateurs to make music, and even rarer for people who aren’t musicians to participate in the act of making music. Here at this church we offer people a chance not only to hear terrific music created mostly by people who play and sing only for the sheer joy of it, we also sing together-all of us-at least twice each week. For some of us, the weekly singing of the hymn “Spirit of Life” is the highlight of our service. Today, when we get to that part of our worship, listen as well as sing. The musical spirit of Paint Branch lives in all our voices and the singing of that song is a blessing each week.
Throughout our history, Paint Branch has brought a creative and beautiful spirit to life in community. And our music has been a central avenue for us to express our joy, sorrow, despair and hope. There are so many people who have made this so, but let me take just a minute to thank a few who have made a real difference in the 50-year history of our church. Some of these wonderful musicians have died; others could not be here. But if you are here, as I call your name, please stand and remain standing. After I have called all the names, let us thank these good folks with our applause.
I begin with the pianists: Albert Herling, Deni Foster, James Basta, Judy Olson, Frances Martin, Jackie Walpole and Thomas Pandolfi. And next, the wonderful music and choir directors: Jean Mohr, Dixon Redditt, Robert Holloway, Daniel Abraham, Kerry Krebill and our current music director and pianist, David Chapman.
On behalf of the church, I thank you all for the tremendous gifts you have brought to Paint Branch.
Bob Holloway, still an active member of our church, was music director longer than any other. To honor his role in the important history of this place, David Chapman asked Bob to choose a piece of music and lead the choir to sing it. Bob chose the wonderful “Choose Something Like a Star,” with words by Robert Frost and music by Randall Thompson.
CHORAL ANTHEM Choose Something Like A Star R. Frost, R. Thompson
Conducted by Robert Holloway, former music director, Deni Foster, pianist
CHOOSE SOMETHING LIKE A STAR
0 Star (the fairest one in sight),
We grant your loftiness the right
To some obscurity of cloud –
It will not do to say of night,
Since dark is what brings out your light.
Some mystery becomes the proud.
But to be wholly taciturn
In your reserve is not allowed.
Say something to us we can learn
By heart and when alone repeat.
Say something! And it says, ‘I burn.’
But say with what degree of heat.
Talk Fahrenheit, talk Centigrade.
Use language we can comprehend.
Tell us what elements you blend.
It gives us strangely little aid,
But does tell something in the end.
And steadfast as Keats’ Eremite,
Not even stooping from its sphere,
It asks a little of us here.
It asks of us a certain height,
So when at times the mob is swayed
To carry praise or blame too far,
We may choose something like a star
To stay our minds on and be staid.
-ROBERT FROST-
CLOSING WORDS
Barbara: As we move deeper into our celebration of 50 years together as a congregation, we give thanks for the beauty of art, and the power it has to move and touch us in so many ways.
Jaco: We acknowledge the many gifted poets, artists and musicians who have blessed our community with their creative visions. May we carry their legacy with us into the next 50 years.
Barbara: And as we sing together our closing hymn, may the song’s poetry and music remind us of the ways each of us may give voice to compassion and justice not just in this special place, but wherever we may go.
SOME OF THE CREATIVE SPIRITS WHO HAVE CONTRIBUTED TO THE ARTS MINISTRY AT PAINT BRANCH OVER THE PAST 50 YEARS:
- Music/Choir Directors
- Jean Mohr
- Dixon Redditt
- Robert Holloway
- Daniel Abraham
- Kerry Krebill
- David Chapman
- Writers/Poets
- Emily Nutku
- Betty Allen
- Marj Donn
- Anne Etkin
- Meg Waugh
- Loren Broc
- Poetry Out Loud group
- Musicians/pianists
- Albert Herling
- Deni Foster
- Thomas Pandolfi
- Jackie Walpole
- James Basta
- Judy Olson
- Frances Martin
- David Chapman
- Visual Artists
- Sy Gresser
- Dorothy Lewis
- John Ditman
- Elinore Behr
- Dorothy Lewis
- Ann Sutherland
- Gary Irby
- Jane Trout
- Dance Leaders
- Dan Sutherland
- Alane Atkinson
- Elizabeth Yanowitch
- Nancy Tankersley
- Ed Scullen
- Larry Warren
- Susan Van Ost
- Sharon Werth
- Betty Allen
- Meribel Lavell