Nordic
Contemplative Evening Prayer
Fourth Sunday of
the month, 6:51 pm
September – November & January – Spring
2007-2008 theme:
Exile & Return: Held in the Embrace of God
January 27: Illumined by the Steady Radiance
February 24: Alt Som Er Kommer Igjen: Everything that
Is Comes Again
April 27: Choose to Bless the World
Evening Prayer
liturgy has been the usual prayer of people since the days
of the early Christian church. This liturgy, along with
Morning Prayer, attunes us to the holiness of time. We
participate in these daily rhythms, praising God for the
sun’s rising and a new day, thanking God for all the day has
brought at day’s end. We gather to celebrate the sacred
mysteries of our lives in the context of the mystery
of God. Nordic Contemplative Evening Prayer at Pilgrim bends
the liturgical components of Evening Prayer, keeping the
general structure and intent in-tact.
In the same way that the Celtic contemplative service,
developed at Pilgrim, seems indigenous to our neighborhood
and city, so also is this Nordic service. Nordic roots, of
course, run deep in the Twin Cities, this state, and the
whole upper Midwest region.
Ruth MacKenzie: Ruth is a well-loved singer and
composer, whose artistic compass has led her into many
arenas of creative and performing challenges. Most recently,
the needle of that compass has led to revisioning fairytales
and myth for the stage using music, dance and narrative,
creating powerful theater. Ruth MacKenzie’s adaptation of
Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen was produced
by The Children’s Theatre Company of Minneapolis in 2002 and
given Number One in the Top Ten plays of 2002 by the St.
Paul Pioneer Press. Her smash hit, Kalevala: Dream of the
Salmon Maiden, was produced for the third time by the
O’Shaughnessy Auditorium of St. Paul in 2001, and it was
previously produced by the Southern Theater and the Guthrie
Lab. Last year, MacKenzie completed work with Ragamala Music
and Dance Theater on Bhakti, a performance based on the
words and music of Hildegard von Bingen (a twelfth-century
nun) and Andal (a ninth-century Indian mystic). She is now
working with Joe Chavala and the Flying Foot Forum on
Mjollnir, (a performance of song and dance based on
Icelandic creation legends), and she returns to CTC as
composer/lyricist for this fall’s production of Hansel
and Gretel. As a folk and blues singer, Ruth MacKenzie
has performed throughout the United States and Europe. She
has received numerous awards, including the 2004 McKnight
Fellowship for Composition.
Lisa Berg: who created the Word section for
tonight’s service, is one of the members of the Laurel
Poetry Collective, a group of 23 poets and artists committed
to publishing affordable and beautiful books and broadsides.
With the encouragement of that group, she started to explore
the idea of being a public poet, with one result being her
book Coming Back to the World. At Concordia College
in Moorhead, she received degrees in Religion and
Scandinavian Studies and enjoys revisiting and expanding
some of what she learned there by writing and gather-ing
words for the Nordic service. Since 1994, she has owned the
Blue Moon Coffee Cafe in Minneapolis (which is very close to
St. Paul), where everyday she is able to experience the
desire and reality we all have for community and gathering,
another kind of “in-common.” Of Pilgrim, she writes: “I know
I am fortunate to be a member of Pil-grim Lutheran Church.
The opportunity to write and hear words in worship is
humbling. More so, feeling the foun-dation of this
congregation built by so many people in the past, the
ongoing movement to continue to welcome all people to
contemplate and respond to the creation and creator, and the
great desire in this church to know you and you and you,
here and not-yet-here...I know this is one of the best parts
of being alive and in community.”
Dan Prather: Dan is a 7th grader who loves music. He
sings in Pilgrim’s Junior Choir, plays the cello and is
following in his brother’s footsteps, both by singing during
Nordic Evening Prayer and by singing in the shower. He’s an
energetic guy, who loves to bike, hike, run, and play with
friends, and be helpful. He also likes telling good jokes
and hearing good jokes, though his definition of “good”
often is different from his family’s.
Carol Tomer: Carol 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! Growing out of
that Swedish experience and her own Norwegian roots, she
delights in lifting up Nordic symbols, such as the lysglobe,
and the uniquely haunting melancholy of Nordic music, as
well as creating new texts for the beautiful folk tunes that
haven’t yet found their way across the ocean into our North
American worship scene. Last summer she returned from
sabbatical, during which she researched Nordic liturgy and
music, worshipped in Norwegian churches, and hiked some of
the restored medieval pilgrimage route to Nidaros, the
cathedral in Trondheim. Some of
her interests in liturgical outreach began while she served
as pastor of Holden Village, a retreat center in those
northwest mountains, known for being a creative worship
“laboratory” and committed to daily community worship. There,
she was able to bring her concern for those who live
prophetically, yet with some sense of exile, at the edge of
the Christian tradition, a concern that was nurtured during
study at Harvard Divinity School. She has also been the
co-creator of the Celtic contemplative communion service
that is offered monthly at Pilgrim.
Rachel Ulvin: Rachel, a Twin Cities native, has been
playing the classical violin since age four. In 1988 her
family acquired a Norwegian Hardanger fiddle during a trip
to Norway. A few years later, Rachel began playing the
Hardanger fiddle and is now an active member of the Twin
Cities Hardingfelelag (group). The Twin Cities
Hardingfelelag practices and performs traditional Norwegian
folk music for a variety of audiences. They studied under
master fiddler Olav Hegge from Valdres, Norway. In the fall
of 2004, Rachel won a scholarship to study the Hardanger
fiddle at the Ole Bull Academy in Voss, Norway. In June 2006
the group will make its first trip to Beitostølen, Norway to
participate in the annual Landskappleik, a competition in
dance and Hardanger fiddle. Rachel also plays in the
Minneapolis Civic Orchestra and regularly freelances on both
the classical violin and the Hardanger fiddle. After
graduating from the Carlson School of Business with a major
in marketing, Rachel is currently the manager of a local
auto rental and leasing agency. Rachel enjoys a variety of
music, including blue-grass, Scandinavian, and Appalachian.
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