During the terrible reign of darkness that was Nazi Germany, a "model ghetto" was set up in Terezin that would come to house 15,000 children ages 8-15. Fewer than a 1,000 of the children would survive. Even more heartbreaking, this children's prison camp contained a large percentage of artistic, creative kids - some of whom left behind brief glimpses of the profound gifts that never made it to maturation. Included in these artistic testimonies were sketches and poems. Composer Charles Davidson went on to set a few of the poems to music.
On Monday night, the North Carolina Boys Choir stopped in Owensboro as part of a two week tour throughout the South and Midwest. They came prepared to sing many pieces - pieces from Bach, Mendelssohn, Rutter - and the final portion of their performance contained one of the Terezin poems as composed by Davidson. It is simply called Birdsong:
Birdsong
He doesn't know the world at all who stays in his nest and doesn't go out.
He doesn't know what the birds know best, nor what I want to sing about,
That the world is full of loveliness. When dew drops sparkle in the grass,
And earth's a-flood with morning light. A blackbird sings upon a bush
To greet the morning after night. Then I know how fine it is to be alive.
Hey try to open up your hearts to beauty, go to the woods someday
And weave a wreath of memory there. Then, if tears obscure your way,
You'll know how wonderful it is to be alive. To be alive!
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Neither Hot nor Cold
"We are too Christian to enjoy sinning, and we enjoy sinning too much to be real Christians." - Anonymous
Saturday, June 16, 2007
Chi-town
From my brief stay with Andy LaDow in Chicago. The first picture was a piece outside the Contemporary Art Museum of Chicago. The next couple of pics (and the last one) were of "The Bean" in Millenium Park, which I was clearly fascinated with ... and one other picture of a classic Chicago symbol. I also saw 4th Presbyterian and ate at Lou Malnati's ... mmmm ... sausage layer and extra cheese.
Wes
Wes
So Long
Goodness, gracious it's been a while. For two straight weeks the Kendall's have been a discombobulated bunch - traveling to and fro, Milwaukee, Chicago, Indianapolis, Louisville ... and good ol' Owensboro.
Today we were at Church Hill Downs in Louisville taking in the thrills of horse racing six stories up - watching the horses thunder around the mile of dirt and fence. It was hot ... again. Good Lord, it has been hot for the whole month of June.
I officiated two funerals this past week - both for persons I had never spoken to in my life.
And Monday begins my first ever true VBS experience. Argh.
So much to say ... no way to find the words or enthusiasm to do so.
Wes
Today we were at Church Hill Downs in Louisville taking in the thrills of horse racing six stories up - watching the horses thunder around the mile of dirt and fence. It was hot ... again. Good Lord, it has been hot for the whole month of June.
I officiated two funerals this past week - both for persons I had never spoken to in my life.
And Monday begins my first ever true VBS experience. Argh.
So much to say ... no way to find the words or enthusiasm to do so.
Wes
Monday, June 04, 2007
300 Acres & 300 miles
300 acres of woodlands, a log cabin, a pond, two dogs, three deer, a turkey, one rope swing, and some good Foster's ... stir it up and you get one heck of a brief retreat from the (small) city of Owensboro.
Anna and I were kindly invited to join another couple out in Ohio County (east of Owensboro) on Saturday afternoon. After thinking about it for two seconds, we said, "hades yes!" It was grand. We enjoyed a wonderful meal prepared by our host (meatloaf, ceasar salad, mashed potatoes, asparagus and fresh bread) out on the wooden porch, listening to bird song and the subtle chirp of crickets. To top it off, we enjoyed some great cheesecake (two slices for me ... hehe) and a bottle of Red Truck wine (a white from Sonoma County).
Yes, it was all incredible, and I give such good thanks to be together with those friends ... in that place.
One thing also stuck with me ... that time, that place, they were inconsequential to the rest of the "world" in the sense of productivity or importance. For all intents and purposes, for an evening we had disappeared, dropped off the world or gone into some Bermuda triangle in between Louisville, Indianapolis and Nashville - an abyss devoid of art and entertainment, politics and religion, industry and commerce, just a wide space of creation and us under the darkening sky. Some people may be frightened by such isolation, by such a lack of relevance. Not me.
....
Anna takes off tomorrow for an art fair up in Milwaukee. She is going to take a class in precious metal clay - learning how to craft and bake clay into jewelry. Somehow this clay is transformed through refining into valuable metal. I envy her opportunity to see definitively and artistically the Refiner's Fire.
....
I'm going to stay around for two days - hopefully finishing up a sermon for Sunday and getting Wyatt's bedroom painted (yes, we are notoriously bad for doing house improvements in any timely fashion).
....
Then, I'm off to Greencastle with Anna's dad and on to Chicago Thursday to catch up with Andy LaDow - an incredibly gifted, humorous and satirical friend. He's being kind enough to see to my visit.
....
Friday I venture on up to Milwaukee to rejoin my wife and son. That same day we'll pack up the xA and travel the great distance back to Indianapolis for my mom's wedding this upcoming Saturday.
....
Sunday: back in Owensboro ... to preach and hopefully tend to a garden in our own backyard.
....
By the end of it all, those 300 acres are already going to be a distant memory, and I will shortly be in need of another stay in anonymity.
Wes
Anna and I were kindly invited to join another couple out in Ohio County (east of Owensboro) on Saturday afternoon. After thinking about it for two seconds, we said, "hades yes!" It was grand. We enjoyed a wonderful meal prepared by our host (meatloaf, ceasar salad, mashed potatoes, asparagus and fresh bread) out on the wooden porch, listening to bird song and the subtle chirp of crickets. To top it off, we enjoyed some great cheesecake (two slices for me ... hehe) and a bottle of Red Truck wine (a white from Sonoma County).
Yes, it was all incredible, and I give such good thanks to be together with those friends ... in that place.
One thing also stuck with me ... that time, that place, they were inconsequential to the rest of the "world" in the sense of productivity or importance. For all intents and purposes, for an evening we had disappeared, dropped off the world or gone into some Bermuda triangle in between Louisville, Indianapolis and Nashville - an abyss devoid of art and entertainment, politics and religion, industry and commerce, just a wide space of creation and us under the darkening sky. Some people may be frightened by such isolation, by such a lack of relevance. Not me.
....
Anna takes off tomorrow for an art fair up in Milwaukee. She is going to take a class in precious metal clay - learning how to craft and bake clay into jewelry. Somehow this clay is transformed through refining into valuable metal. I envy her opportunity to see definitively and artistically the Refiner's Fire.
....
I'm going to stay around for two days - hopefully finishing up a sermon for Sunday and getting Wyatt's bedroom painted (yes, we are notoriously bad for doing house improvements in any timely fashion).
....
Then, I'm off to Greencastle with Anna's dad and on to Chicago Thursday to catch up with Andy LaDow - an incredibly gifted, humorous and satirical friend. He's being kind enough to see to my visit.
....
Friday I venture on up to Milwaukee to rejoin my wife and son. That same day we'll pack up the xA and travel the great distance back to Indianapolis for my mom's wedding this upcoming Saturday.
....
Sunday: back in Owensboro ... to preach and hopefully tend to a garden in our own backyard.
....
By the end of it all, those 300 acres are already going to be a distant memory, and I will shortly be in need of another stay in anonymity.
Wes
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