Happy New (Church) Year! Although November 30th marked the first day of Trimester 2, Sunday, November 29, marked a more important day in our life together at Immanuel. The Season of Advent, meaning "coming" in Latin, is upon us. Advent wreaths can be found in each classroom helping mark this time of waiting to celebrate the birth of Christ, and our waiting for the final coming of our Jesus, who will bring us into His kingdom.
Integral to the life of Immanuel students is the annual cycle of remembering events in the life of Jesus and marking time with unique celebrations. We give thanks for these intentional rhythms and the opportunity to be united with Christians from times past and in the future. Be sure to ask your child about our Advent traditions and look for a small book that came home today (one per family) called, A Simple Explanation of the Church Year. Here you will find short descriptions of major seasons and festivals of the Church Year along with suggestions for incorporating Church Year traditions into your family life.
If you're looking for Advent resources, these may be helpful:
The Family Read-Aloud Advent Calendar
November was a busy time, and we are thankful for the many ways our community showed love and service towards our neighbor. As we expanded our traditional “Day of Service” to a month-long effort from our entire school community to showing love for our neighbors through acts of service, we partnered with Christ House in Old Town to collect food to prepare 50 Thanksgiving Meal Kits, collected hundreds o pounds of food in a month-long food drive, and shared love and service to our neighbors all month long in and out of school. It brought us great joy to see the many ways our students and families participated in these activities.
Once again, we’re sharing our "What we're reading..." Blog , with what we hope is a variety of inspiring, thought-provoking or intriguing materials. It is our hope that these pieces continue to help to shape our ongoing conversation about how we create and build our culture together at home and at school. We would love to hear your thoughts in the comments below as you read these!
Thank you for your continued partnership, and for engaging with us in these ongoing conversations and for sharing items you have read that may be inspiring to others in our ILS community! Please feel free to share a link in the comments to email us any time!
Develop a Music-Making Culture at Home - Mrs. Marie Greenway Prelude to Postlude: CPH Music Blog
“Music-making doesn’t have to be serious. It can also be hilarious.
If you teach music in any capacity, think about the times it has most brought a smile to your students’ faces. For me, it’s when ridiculous silly songs and silly voices are used. Take for example the song about the tree in the wood. You know the one: “The nest was on the branch and the branch was on the tree and the tree was in the hole and the hole was in the ground …” Even my most reticent third graders will break into a giant grin and start singing heartily when that song is in the lesson plans for the day. They think they are just having a good time. I know that they are learning to sing and to love music.
Music in the Home
I can help these students begin to love music when I show them how much fun music is; however, if you are a music teacher or church musician, you know that you have a limited influence on the children you educate. The little amount of time you have with your students each week is important, but it cannot replace the amount of time children spend in their homes with their parents and families. When the parents and school are on the same page, the school merely supports the work the parents are doing in raising their children. When the parents and school are not on the same page, though, the hours a child spends at school are not enough to instill in that child that which we might wish him or her to know.
In order to know and to love music, children must grow up with it in their homes. Yes, singing hymns should be a priority for any household, but children should grow up surrounded by music-making of (nearly) any kind. Children will imitate those things adults do that look fun. When an adult, especially a parent or primary guardian, expresses joy in music-making, the child will quickly catch on and grow to love music.”
The Skill of Hospitality - L.M. Sacasas, Breaking Ground
“Long ago, in the mid-1990s, between stints as governor of California, Jerry Brown hosted a talk-radio show called We the People. The show featured an eclectic set of guests including Noam Chomsky, Gore Vidal, and Allen Ginsberg. On March 22, 1996, however, Brown aired a remarkable conversation with two guests one would hardly expect to appear on a politically oriented talk show: the philosopher of technology Carl Mitcham and Ivan Illich, a scholar and social critic best known for his wide-ranging critiques of industrial society in the early 1970s.
We no longer live in the early 1970s, or the mid-90s for that matter. We live in what can seem like a different world altogether, marked chiefly by the rise of digital technologies, which appear to raise very different issues than those raised by the industrial-age tools and institutions that were the target of Illich’s critical acumen. Nonetheless, in this interview, and in his larger body of work, Illich offers us both a trenchant and a helpful diagnosis of our social disorders as well as glimpses of a way forward. Illich’s diagnosis remains pertinent because he saw better than most the deep-rooted and ultimately theological sources of our disorders. The path forward, he suggested, and that he embodied in his practice, was the path of hospitality. As he put it to Brown, “I do think that if I had to choose one word to which hope can be tied, it is hospitality.””
Six Myths About Christmas Hymns - Rev. Dr. Jon D. Vieker, CPH Blog
“It starts the day after Halloween. In some places, even earlier. I’m talking about the Christmas songs that permeate our commercial soundscape this time of year. From shopping malls to big box stores, from smartphones to the gas pumps, the signature sound of Christmas is song.
And it’s no wonder. Two millennia ago, Christmas itself began with a song. The angel’s announcement to the shepherds was followed by the first Christmas hymn: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom He is pleased!” (Luke 2:14). The church hasn’t stopped singing since, and even the world finds itself singing along.
But where did our Christmas hymns come from? Why do we sing them? How are we to understand them? What follows are six “myths” surrounding the hymns we sing at Christmastide.”
Joseph the Father - Edward Naumann, The Lutheran Witness
“There are no accidents in God’s plan for our salvation. He planned and executed everything perfectly for the salvation of mankind. At just the right time, God sent His Son into the world, to be conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. God chose Mary for the special privilege of being the mother of His Son Jesus, and He chose Joseph for the special privilege of being Jesus’ adoptive father.
It was not necessary for Jesus to have an earthly father. He could have been raised by Mary without the assistance of Joseph. Nevertheless, God chose that the events should take place as they did. And God always chooses the best way.
When God arranged for Joseph to become the adoptive father and guardian of our Lord, He put in place a beautiful symmetry for us to consider: The Son of God became man, and the adopted son of a human father so that the sons of men might become adopted sons of His heavenly Father.
In other words, God planned that Joseph should fully adopt our Lord Jesus and raise Him as his own son, so that we may have in Joseph an example of sonship by adoption, a demonstration of the manner by which God fully adopts as His own children those who believe in His Son.”
Come, Lord Jesus - Peter Leithart, First Things
“The Bible ends with a small Advent liturgy. The Spirit and the Bride say, “Come.” All who hear echo the prayer and say, “Come.” Jesus assures his people, “Yes, I am coming quickly.” The response to that assurance is another prayer: “Come, Lord Jesus.” Maranatha—an Aramaic word meaning “Come, Lord”—is the last of the Spirit’s prayers, harmonized by the Bride. Scripture leaves us eager for the Lord’s arrival.
Advent is also the Bible’s first word. As soon as Adam and Eve are cast from Eden, they begin longing for the promised Seed of the woman who will be sent to crush the serpent’s head and readmit them to the garden. Advent is the Alpha and Omega hope of Scripture, humanity’s first and last prayer.
Revelation’s Advent liturgy is a dialogue of lovers that sums up the tangled story of Yahweh and Israel. Yahweh the Bridegroom comes to his Bride, rescues her from Egypt, weds her at Sinai, adorns her with the treasure of nations, conquers a land for her. But Israel keeps turning to the gods of the nations. At times, the Bridegroom withdraws, but he always comes back. In the end, he comes in person, but the leaders of Israel—friends of the Bridegroom who are supposed to guard the Bride—clamor for his crucifixion. But love is stronger than death. From the grave, the Bridegroom, a relentless Lover, hears the prayer of the Spirit and the Bride and returns.
Throughout the story, the Spirit who is the Passion of God speaks through the law and prophets, calling the Bride back to her Husband. Over time, she learns that her bliss depends entirely on the coming of the Bridegroom. Yahweh does come. He comes to Sinai, his glory dwells above the wings of the cherubim, he comes to Abraham and to Moses, to David and the prophets. ”
The Heart of Music- Sir Roger Scruton, The Imaginative Conservative
“I grew up in post-war Britain, at a time when people were beginning to treat the radio as a daily companion, when long-playing records were edging their way on to the market, and when the American songbook and ballroom dancing were rapidly giving way to blues and rock and roll. But the old forms of musical education had not yet been driven out of our schools or our homes. The piano was a common sight in the ordinary living rooms on our street, and I learned to play as a matter of course. We sang in the church choir, and also in the Gilbert and Sullivan operas that were staged in our school. At Christmas we were all invited to the town hall to participate in a spontaneous performance of the Messiah, in Mozart’s version; and later, when Chuck Berry and Muddy Waters made their stunning debut on the air-waves, I joined with my friends in an attempt to simulate their sound on drums and strummed guitars. I valued no lessons at my school so much as the optional course on harmony and counterpoint from our music master, and the O-level examination in music required us not merely to answer learned questions on the set pieces for study (a Bach cantata, a Berlioz overture and the Sibelius violin sonatina), but also to compose a three-part fugue on a given theme and to continue a few bars of music “in the same way.””
In Praise of Hospitality - Travis Copeland, CIRCE
“Wonder is one of the great delights in literature. It is invoked when a reader must struggle to distinguish between the imaginative and reality. One of literature’s wonders is its ability to draw attention to ordinary things with new alluring light. Long walks, small conversations, little annoyances and desires, and hospitality’s eating and drinking are all wonderfully common things in literature. The stuff of everyday life draws our imaginations into the larger tale. It does this not by teaching us to cook, offering a manual on how to have brief side-conversations, or extending vague and ordinary advice, but instead by invoking a deep longing for a fuller life. Because of this, anyone who practices hospitality does so through the higher desire for friendship, wisdom, and love. It irrigates the relational deserts of our lives with a vision of hopeful companionship, because it lifts our eyes and elevates the sacramental nature of the table. Food will inevitably attend all of us throughout our lives, and even the best table is accompanied by an eschataglogical longing for perfect peace and intimacy with those who accompany it. What better way to pursue virtue, friendship, and a literary life than to offer a renewed longing and vision for the ordinary magnificence of the table in both life and literature?”