Bach • Schütz • Handel

July 28^th every year • Saturday 28 July this year

Here's the worship bulletin cover collage I designed in City of History for our weeknight liturgical celebration of The Fifth Evangelist, Johann Sebastian Bach; anchor image is Ben Shahn's portrayal of Bach based on Elias Gottlieb Haussmann's famous one. Formally and officially this commemoration's mostly – but not exclusively – a Lutheran thing. Long ago I heard of a novel about a (Roman Catholic, of course) Pope who loved Sebastian Bach's music so much he wanted nothing more than to canonize him as a saint of the RC church, but Bach's being protestant was more than a slight impediment. Only Bach for my collage? Always the liturgy geek, since I followed both Sunday and sanctoral lectionary propers, I kept saying, "Bach, Schütz, Handel" to the pastor, who kept insisting back, "Bach!" Finally I got we'd be officially celebrating only JSB that evening.

Prelude Music Planner observes, "In a delightful example of musical ecumenism, Schütz (a Lutheran) received funding from the Landgrave (a Calvinist) to visit Giovanni Gabrieli (a Catholic) at St. Mark's Basilica, Venice, where he studied organ, composition, improvisation, and probably substituted for Gabrieli at mass." These days that kind of flexibility and interchangeability is super-common, pretty much a given, but was close to unheard of until the papacy of John XXIII.

I suggested JSB's commemoration may mostly be a Lutheran thing since Bach himself was a Lutheran Protestant, yet The Wonder-filled Wikipedia tells us, "the liturgical calendar of the Episcopal Church remembers Bach annually with a feast day on 28 July, together with George Frideric Handel and Henry Purcell." Not sure if G.F.'s surname needs to be spelled Handel or Händel in which context?!

Porch Story :: Blogoversary 16

Sixteen Years

• It's Wednesday—Porch Story Day! Host Kristin Hill Taylor's about Adventuring Together; I'm writing about my 16 year blogoversary that happened on the middle day of July – the 16^th – but all of July is the anniversary. Beginning a blog at any time qualifies as open-ended adventure; even when I've been discouraged, I easily can admit I've written about a variety of ideas and events, posted excellent photographs and amazingly imaginative art. Every day is a theological, practical, and psychological watershed because {of course} every moment is a new beginning, but clearly I'm at a major intersection I can't keep ignoring or rationalizing. How. Some. Ever. This is about desert spirit's fire's Sweet Sixteen Year, so specifically during the past dozen months?



July 2017 – July 2018

• I've done something for each of my usual annual celebrations of World Rivers Day, World Water Day, Earth Day, the Day of Pentecost, World Oceans Day... check the links list at the end of this page! I've continued an illustrated activities summary for each month and meteorological season; I've blogged many of my Amazon book reviews.

• On 02 December 2017 I last played the Five Minute Friday free write—I never intended to quit FMF and still consider myself part of their community, but after 7 months? For a long time I used Kristin's own Porch Stories topic as an almost weekly writing prompt, but that declined, too. I realize those aren't obligations, contests, or competitions, but has my functional level declined so radically I cannot do those simple things, or have I subconsciously decided the effort's not worth the return? Both/and?

• #Write31Days2017 31 Days of Celebrating Place highlights year sixteen! I'd long wanted to blog more about places I've lived, visited, and loved, and I did it with thirty illustrated posts. There's one more guest post pending; when Malinda writes about Myrtle Beach, I'll create an eBook of the series.

What Else?

• Not directly blog-related but very bloggable, over the past five or six months I've been printing and organizing my notebook portfolio. I've loved creating a natural & botanical series that frames and presents my {natural, botanical, and related} art far better than a simple pdf of the drawing or painting. So what's the summer 2000 scrapbook-style page? You can't acknowledge what you don't change. Didn't I recently quote Eric Andersen's "It's not the time but just the dreams that die?" I constantly remind myself people have seasons; despite outward appearances, no one spends 24/7 optimally productive. I know what functional is, and this sure ain't it. What about the summer 2000 scrapbook page I've even printed to include in my current portfolio? Summer days, summer nights, blueberries, blackberries, a hint of real community, an overwhelming sense of a full future. I know the future holds more adventures, because that's always the style of journeying in trust with the God of Great Surprises... God of Resurrection. {Was "God of Great Surprises" one of Corita Kent's phrases?}

Two Naturals & Botanicals

• Pointillist Beach Scene – original is watercolor / crayon resist.


• Sky Horizon – this is the full original watercolor version of one of my signature suns.

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Independence Day 2018 FB Status

Happy 242nd, USA!
Be free & brave!
Welcome the stranger.
Live justice.
Rock righteousness.