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Celtic Contemplative Worship

Second Sunday of the month, 6:51 pm
September through Spring

2007-2008 theme:

Exile & Return: One People Gathering on God’s Earth

January 13: O Light that Followest All My Way

February 10: Soul of Earth, Sanctify Me

March 9: Christ in Mouth of Friend and Stranger

April 13: I Who Have Died Am Alive Again Today

Celtic Christianity refers to a spirituality that characterized the young British church from as early as the fourth century A.D. Although pushed out to the Celtic fringes of Britain after Augustine of Canterbury's Roman mission in 597, it has always managed to survive in one form or another, usually on the edges of formal religion. One of the leaders of the Celtic Christian movement was St. Aidan, Abbot of Lindisfarne, known for his concern for the poor and strangers, who died in 651 A.D. (The starting time for these worship services commemorates him and also happens to be our area code!)

In our Celtic worship, we draw many prayers and texts from the Carmina Gadelica ("the songs and poems of the Gaels," reaching back as far as the 6th century) and from Scotland’s Iona Community. We also incorporate prose and poetry from a wide variety of sources, including the work of our own very talented members. The prayers and readings address more than the transcendent and ultimate questions that most religions define; they also address the mysteries and challenges of everyday life, such as the uncertainty of the near future, the crises of present life, and the unknowns of the past. The Celtic style of contemplative prayer used in this worship is known for engaging imagination through visual and spatial imagery, as well as emphasizing the life of God within creation.

Artistic Leaders

Dick Hensold: plays Northumbrian small-pipes, Swedish pipes (säckpipa), Medieval great-pipes, recorder, seljefløyte, low whistle and string bass. The foremost Northumbrian smallpipes player in North America, he has taught workshops in the United States, Canada, and Northumberland. He keeps busy with weddings and funerals, and he is much in demand as accompanist, studio musician and theater musician. He is Pilgrim’s composer-in-residence for these Celtic services.

Michelle Kinney: plays cello and has recorded, performed and toured throughout Europe and the United States with some of the most respected innovators in new music today. She has also been on the Celtic music scene for many years with Susan McKeown and the Chanting House, appearing on many recordings and making several tours of Ireland.

Peggy Larson: is a jazz singer, voice teacher and choral conductor. She lived in the Netherlands for 25 years, where she was active in jazz and world music, both teaching and performing. Here, she is active as a choral director, leading the Earthtones Women's Choir (world music), PAUMC Sanctuary Choir, and teaching voice. Along with a private practice, she is teaching at the McNally-Smith School of Music in St. Paul and at MCTC in Minneapolis.

Suzanne Swanson: was drawn to Pilgrim Lutheran Church by the Celtic service. She is the author of House of Music, a full-length book of poems published by the Laurel Poetry Collective. Her work has appeared in literary journals, most recently, Water-Stone. A psychologist, she specializes in working with issues in pregnancy, postpartum and mothering. Proceeds from her new chapbook, What Other Worlds: Postpartum Poems, go toward the work of the Childbirth Collective and Postpartum Support International.

Carol Tomer: came to Pilgrim in 1999, after serving as a pastor in far-flung places, including the Cascade mountains in the upper left hand corner of the U.S., Seattle, Pennsylvania, and Stockholm, Sweden. While serving as pastor of Holden Village, a retreat center in those northwest mountains, known for being a creative liturgy “laboratory” committed to daily community worship, she was able to bring her concern for those who live prophetically, yet with some sense of exile, at the edge of Christian tradition, a concern that was nurtured in part during study at Harvard Divinity School. Her interest in the rich contributions of the Celtic Christian past and present was fed by time in Scotland and England in 1995, researching and experiencing alternative worshipping communities, including the Iona Community. In addition to the Celtic Service, she has brought her interest and experience with things Nordic, enriched also by her recent Nordic sabbatical, to the development of Nordic Contemplative Evening Prayer, which has been offered monthly on Sunday nights at Pilgrim since September, 2004.

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