MUSIC BOX
Katherine Edison, soprano
Robert Armstead, bass-baritone
Melinda Coffey Armstead, piano & organ
Chapel Concertino for All Souls’ Day
Hymne à la nuit . . . Jean Philippe Rameau (1683-1764)
Litanei auf das Fest Aller Seelen . . . Franz Schubert (1797-1828)
Bist du bei mir . . . Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel, arr. by J. S. Bach (1685-1750)
Allerseelen . . . Richard Strauss (1864 – 1949)
Beim Schlafengehn from Four Last Songs . . R. Strauss
Musical Interlude
Komm, süsser Tod BWV 478 . . . J. S. Bach
Offertory
Come, Blessed Savior . . . Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921)
Communion
Agnus Dei from Petite Messe . . . Léo Delibes (1836-1891)
Dona Nobis Pacem . . . 16th C. Canon, arr. by Hal Hopson
Postlude
Passacaille in G minor . . . G. F. Handel (1685-1759)
Mark Twain said that he did not fear oblivion, because he had already tried it for billions of years before he was born and found not the slightest inconvenience from it. And while that’s not exactly a dark view, most of us view the tapestry of life and death with more hope. Yet it may be a serviceable backup for those moments when our faith may momentarily lose traction. You may think of it as a bridge over the abyss separating one solid continent of belief from another. Not that all of us have such lapses, but I think all of us have known those who do.
But this All Souls’ Day Sunday we face the practical issue of what time really is, when it changes under our feet by one hour. We can’t define it, but we can measure it, and we know it when we feel it. Einstein could tell you how it gets tangled up with space when you change your point of view (to another frame of reference). But he didn’t bother to tell us what it really IS.
I think the time change today has something do with the twenty three degree tilt the earth’s axis makes with the perpendicular to the ecliptic, and to the fact that the southern and northern hemispheres rotate in opposite directions. Hence the international date line. Take your questions about it somewhere else, as I’ve exhausted my rage to explain.
