Old South Summer 2008 Reporter: articles, stories, life, Old

Golden Thread at the Jaffa Gate into Jerusalem

JERUSALEM REFLECTIONS
by Quinn G. Caldwell and Nancy S. Taylor
from a sermon preached on April 6, 2008 upon their return from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land with photos by Nancy Richardson. (See Full Photo Journal Here.)

Pilgrimage

“I give you the end of a golden string.
Only wind it into a ball.
It will lead you in at Heaven’s Gate,
Built in Jerusalem’s wall.”

With these four lines, poet William Blake captures the heart of the mystery, conundrum, and glory that is Jerusalem.

In Jerusalem, the golden string of God’s love is wound into a ball that takes in the whole city. It leads down narrow alleys and up minarets. It burrows through layers upon layers of white limestone pavement and old houses, through doorways of third-century churches and ancient tombs. It runs through convents and synagogues, across valleys, along sacred ways, and up to high places. It leads past archeological digs, through thirty-nine different destructions of the city—and thirty-nine different rebuildings. It snakes its way through tradition and history, past the places where Abraham heard God’s call to sacrifice Isaac, where the great Temples of Judaism stood, where the prophet Muhammed (peace be upon him) took his famous night journey through the heavens. The golden cord winds and knots and spirals and doubles back on itself endlessly among the white stones of the city, touching sacred place after sacred place. From a distance, the whole place seems to be wound around and shining with God’s love; up close, it seems to be nothing but God’s love all tied up in knots.

And all along this thread: pilgrims, Christians and Jews and Muslims, seeking to follow the golden thread down paths their forebears have followed to the deep and ancient places. Pilgrims make the trips they do and follow the threads they follow for many reasons. But in a way, every pilgrim journey is about the same thing: acting out the journey from creation, through life and death to heaven and an encounter with God, and on to new creation. The journey on which the pilgrim sets out is an attempt to crystallize his or her own, larger life journey in the smaller pilgrim journey, and to meet God and form oneself for the larger journey through the taking of the smaller one.

And there is no place, no place anywhere, that crystallizes the experiences of the peoples of our God more than the city of Jerusalem, the third holiest city of Islam and the holiest city for Christians and Jews. As most of you know, Nancy and I, along with church members Elaine Huber and Nancy Richardson, have just returned from a pilgrimage to that place. An important part of any pilgrimage—perhaps the most important part—is the return, the coming back to normal life and the telling what you what seen and heard. So now, Nancy and I want to share with you some of what we have seen and heard, a few of the moments or places that captured for us the deepest truths of what that place is like, and what it has to teach us about life with God. Be warned: it is very early to have discerned all that these things mean, and so we will not do too much meaning-making in what we have to say today. Rather, we offer some simple snapshots, and will trust time and the Holy Spirit to do the rest.
– Quinn G. Caldwell

View of Jerusalem from Mt. of Olives (photo by Nancy Richardon)

Walls. The pilgrim approaching Jerusalem is met by walls: ancient, immense, golden walls of limestone. Ten feet thick and rising to heights of 50 feet, these walls enclose the Old City of Jerusalem.

Entering through one of its noble gates, the pilgrim is confronted by yet more walls. Springing from the outer walls, like a great river’s tributaries, are numerous secondary walls … walls that define and separate the city’s quarters: separating the Jewish Quarter from the Muslim Quarter from the Christian Quarter from the Armenian Quarter.

These tributary walls contain each Quarter’s neighborhood with its signature music, smells, cuisine, houses of faith, shrines, shops, religious costumes and customs. The pilgrim, embarked upon a journey of discovery, burrows deeply into each Quarter in turn … there to smell, taste, touch, listen and look for the different faces of God.

Sooner or later, the pilgrim makes his or her way to the greatest wall, the Western Wall. Ancient and immense, it humbles all who approach it. Gathered from the four corners of the earth, pilgrims swarm beneath it. We form a colorful, chaotic, wild, cacophonous assortment of humanity: from the ultra-orthodox to the ultra-modern. We, who have nothing else in common but our hunger for God, gather here to pray, to sing and dance, to read quietly, to chant loudly, to sway and to wail. Then, with bare fingers, each works into a crevice, cranny or crack a tiny bit of paper… entrusting to this wall our solemn intercessions.

For, in fact, the secret of this wall is that it is not a wall at all. It is a window, a door, a gate, a mail slot … a postal route to heaven. This wall is a place of access, a bridge between earth and heaven, human and divine, longing and assurance, supplication and fulfillment.

Outside of the Old City, the pilgrim confronts a quite different wall … a recent wall. Guarded by heavily armed Israeli soldiers, it is over 400 miles in length and 32 feet high. It is all concrete and barbed wire, studded with surveillance towers and the occasional checkpoint. Like so many places in Jerusalem it has more than one name. The Israelis call it “the Security Fence.” To the Palestinians it is the “Segregation Wall.” Whether you see it as a wall or as a fence, as protection or as degradation, as a peace-keeping enterprise or as a foot on the neck of the Palestinians depends on who you are, who you know, whose stories you believe, and on your own experiences of fear and safety. – Nancy S. Taylor

Map of the Old City and division into Quarters

Church of the Resurrection (photo by Nancy Richardson)

The Church of the Resurrection. The Church of the Resurrection (sometimes called the Church of the Holy Sepulchre) stands near the center of the oldest part of the city. The entrance is tucked in a quiet courtyard, almost impossible to find unless you know where to look. It stands on a site that many, maybe even most, theologians and archeologists believe is very likely the place of Jesus’ death and burial. It is the most important site in all of Christianity, and it is a complete…train wreck. One walks through the low, ancient door and is immediately overwhelmed by a sense of disorder, confusion, tackiness, and a distinct lack of holiness despite the heavily incensed air and the overabundance of religious images and accoutrement.

Beneath hundreds and hundreds of golden and silver lanterns (which may sound pretty but are not), tour groups rove madly, snapping pictures and only half-listening to their group leaders rattling off dates and facts. If you wander around long enough to find it, you will discover that the original tomb of Jesus was destroyed centuries ago and has since been replaced by a hideous masonry kiosk kept from falling over on one side by steel I-beams. If you find it, you will discover that the traditional rock of Golgotha is encased in glass and dramatically lit from below; it looks like a diorama in a natural history museum. Nevertheless, if you wait in line long enough, you can have the opportunity to kneel down on the floor, crawl under an altar, and stick your hand blindly through a gilt-edged hole to touch the top of what might or might not be the place where Jesus was crucified—and you will then be allotted ten seconds to pray before a grumpy monk yells at you to make room for the next person. The church is shared by seven different world and local denominations, who pretty much sort-of get along with each other most of the time, but whose internal bickerings occasionally break out in fisticuffs among the monks and clergy, and are bad enough that to avert trouble, the keys to the building have been held by a local Muslim family since the days of Ottoman rule.

It is a train wreck, and it is perfect. You cannot walk into that place without recalling the words of the angel on Easter morning: “He is not here.” You cannot walk into that place and not long and long deeply for the grace of God to transform this world. You cannot walk into that place and not be reminded that even our best, most faithful strivings fall short of our best intentions and the glory of God.

I walked in and was shocked, and offended, and confused. I wanted beauty, simplicity, nobility, serenity, joy—not darkness, smelliness, crowds, rudeness, and tackiness. Then a friend reminded me that when God came to us, God came to the human world, which is layered, imperfect, crowded, smelly, complex, and ultimately unsatisfying, and it is in that world, not a perfect world, it is using the stuff of that world, not a perfect world, it is by loving that world, not a perfect world, that God saves us all from both our best and our worst strivings. So as a reflection of the heaven we all hope to one day attain, the Church of the Resurrection, the holiest church in the holiest city in the world, is a complete train wreck. But as a reflection of the real world God loves beyond all reason, loved enough to enter into even though she could have chosen to turn her nose up at it, as a reflection of the locus of God’s most powerful act in history, it is perfect. – Quinn G. Caldwell

At Galilee, photo by Nancy Richardson

The Galilee. Our pilgrim band departed from Jerusalem and headed north for the Sea of Galilee. It was here and in the surrounding villages – in Capernaum, Magdala, Tiberias and Nazareth – that Jesus was formed, grew up and exercised his ministry. It was here that Jesus walked on water, stilled a storm, taught from a boat, preached the Sermon on the Mount, uttered the Beatitudes, fed 5000, and, in a tender post-resurrection appearance to his disciples, grilled their breakfast on the Sea’s shore.

In contrast to the sun-scorched limestone of Jerusalem, in contrast to the forbidding Judean wilderness through which we had just traveled, the Sea of Galilee is framed by a verdant apron of brightly colored flowers, as well as groves of olive, almond, lemon and date palm trees.

As we approached Galilee we were greeted with a riot of perfumes and colors: lavender, rosemary, jasmine, cistus, oleander and tamarisk, and blossoms of reds, pinks, yellows and oranges. The Sea itself is blue and shimmering under the bright sun. The entire area is alive with song birds, parrots and wading birds.

Sitting on the Mount of the Beatitudes, a gentle hill overlooking the Sea of Galilee, we read aloud the Beatitudes and reflected on the natural beauty with which Jesus was accustomed. This was his playground and workshop. Here were the scented air, the thriving sea, the fertile soil, the song birds and jumping fish, the quiet places that fed his soul … and, which at that magical moment, were feeding ours. – Nancy S. Taylor

Basilica of the Annunciation, photo by Nancy Richardson

The Church of the Nutrition. In the middle of all the fertility of the Galilee is Nazareth, Jesus’ hometown. In the middle of Nazareth is the Basilica of the Annunciation, a gorgeous modern church built over the cave traditionally venerated as Mary’s childhood home and the place her task was announced to her. And next to the Basilica stands the house of worship with the best name ever: the Church of the Nutrition. It’s also known as the Church of St. Joseph, because it marks one of the traditional sites of Joseph’s house. But I like the other name better. The Church of the Nutrition is so called because it marks the place of Jesus’ growing up, and therefore where he ate each day: the place where Mary breastfed him, where he ate his breakfast each morning, and where his parents argued with him about finishing his vegetables. There is nowhere else in the world where a church with such a name would make sense. But in Nazareth, it does. Now, it could have been given a different, less silly, name: the Church of the Nurturing of our Lord, perhaps, or the Sanctuary of the Blessed Domicile, something much nobler and less earthy sounding.

But no: the Church of the Nutrition. It reminds me that while the last three years of Jesus’ life were the most important, he spent three times that long living a normal life, like yours and mine, full of parents and work and small tragedies and small triumphs. It reminds me that in the stories we tell, God got a body just like ours, one that needed to be cared for and cleaned and nurtured, that was susceptible to starvation and cravings, that had to be fed each day or it would die. The Church of the Nutrition reminds me, as did every moment we spent in Israel, that our faith is not a theoretical one, not one about right ideas or right beliefs; our faith is an embodied one, with bodily needs and bodily functions, messiness and complexity, mothers and fathers and families and hunger. The Church of the Nutrition reminds me that I am to be—and to feed—the Body of Christ. – Quinn G. Caldwell

The Pilgrim’s Song. Pilgrimage is a form of worship, and one cannot worship the central mystery of life – the divine essence, the Holy One – without regularly breaking into song.

We experienced this first hand our very first morning in Jerusalem. Weary, jet-lagged and sleep-deprived, we were awoken at 4:00 a.m. by song … by the muezzin’s prayer chanted from the nearby minaret. Every morning he calls Muslims from sleep to prayer, (and, by the way, anyone else within hearing). Here, in translation, is a portion of his 4:00 a.m. song:

“God is most great. God is most great. God is most great.
There is no god but God … Prayer is better than sleep.”

In the Jewish Quarter of the Old City we encountered families singing and dancing their way to the Western Wall for a young person’s bar mitzvah. Joyful and costumed, they serenaded God with instruments, song and dance.

On the Via Dolorosa, a street in the Old City that is held to be the path upon which Jesus walked to his crucifixion, singing pilgrims are abundant. Bearing large, heavy crosses, somber-faced and in slow, stately, memorial procession, they sing their way through the winding streets to visit the sites associated with Jesus’ final hours.

Visitors to Jerusalem are warned against renting a room in the Armenian Quarter because the Armenian Christians have a habit of assembling without warning, for noisy, song-filled religious processionals. At inexplicable hours of the day and night, black-robed, long-bearded Armenian priests snake through the streets of the Quarter, banging, clanging and chanting their way to their ancient place of worship.

One day our pilgrimage group gathered at the Jordan: the river in which Jesus was baptized by John. Barefooted, trousers rolled up, knee-deep in the Jordan, we anointed each other’s foreheads’ in remembrance of our own baptismal vows. Then, dripping, still standing in the Jordon we broke out into song. We sang “Down to the River to Pray,” (a traditional American sacred folksong, which you may know from the film, “O Brother, Where Art Thou?”) Our pilgrim group was blessed with many skilled singers. They led us as we lifted this song into the air. We were full-throated, absorbed, joyful … until a pilgrim group near us, eager to renew their baptismal vows, asked us to quiet down.

Like all pilgrims, we sang our way through the confounding and wondrous Holy Land. Sacred song is a means of taking hold of the golden string of God’s love … a love that winds through the labyrinth of the ages, binding us to one another despite ancient resentments. The Golden string of God’s love is long … it stretches deep and high and wide enough to be experienced and expressed in myriad ways. It stretches to embrace and accommodate the whole human family. It is a love that beckons us, each in our own time and way, toward Heaven’s Gate.

So, pilgrims – for we are all of us pilgrims – let us join in taking hold of that golden string. Let us, in this time and in this, our sacred space, lift our voices to the God who calls us each by name. – Nancy S. Taylor

Ten measures of beauty, God gave to the world,
Nine for Jerusalem, one for the rest.
Ten measures of sorrow, God gave to the world,
Nine for Jerusalem, one for the rest.
So pray for the peace, pray for the peace,
Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.

—The Babylonian Talmud

UNDONE

by Linda Dini Jenkins

Excerpt from a new book, Travels with My Husband to be published Fall 2008
Great Little Books LLC.

Even before we boarded the plane for Milan, and shortly after my husband, Tim, walked straight into a cement column in the Brussels airport, things had started to come undone. A mild concussion and a black eye were certain; a fractured skull was a possibility. Also, we had gotten separated from our traveling companions at the last gate. Tim had bounced off pretty clean, though and, still clutching his carry-on, soldiered forward, the two of us eventually catching up to the rest of the group as we funneled into the boarding area for the flight to Milan’s Malpensa Airport.

The other five travelers we had flown across the Atlantic with were nearly strangers. We knew each other only from The Old South Church in Boston. We were part of an inner city community offering a radical welcome and a history of social justice activism. Sam Adams had been a deacon at our church. Ben Franklin had been baptized there. And the folks who threw the tea in the harbor were members. So we shared the deep connection of believing that we were all beloved children of God, were saved by grace, were part of something ancient, yet relevant, and were trying to live our lives as well as we could. That was the easy part.

What we did not know was who among us might leave the toilet seat up. Who was the early riser? The night owl who would keep us all awake? Who would demand eggs for breakfast when the rest of us wanted a quick bowl of cereal before dashing out for the day’s activities? Would we have to buy both frizzante and still water? These were the things that would require a period of adjustment. I only hoped they’d all remembered my request to bring a roll of toilet paper so we wouldn’t be slaves to the waxy variety I remembered from years before. These were the things that I personally worried about . . .

There were eight of us in total. Seven flew over together and one, Tom, would meet us in Florence after a few days of traveling solo in Venice. He was the trip’s organizer and the only one the rest of us really knew to any degree. It was a bold move for a first trip to Italy. We had met as a group three or four times to select a villa, the amenities we thought we’d want, a budget and so on. Our original group of a dozen was winnowed down to eight. A good size, both for an affordable villa and for two cars, the maximum that we wanted to pay for. And the maximum, we thought, that could remotely stay together on the Italian highways at speeds in excess of 100 miles per hour. We were right. On those trips when we did get lost, a comedy of errors followed, with each of the drivers trying to backtrack to round up the other and each driver subsequently getting lost. It was a time before cell phones, and it was idiotically nerve wracking.

When we finally landed in Milan and retrieved our luggage — all of it, miraculously — we walked over to the EuroCar counter as a group and, after a jet-lagged, language-impaired beginning, actually took possession of the two cars we had arranged for stateside. A few minutes later in the parking lot, we were crushed when we saw what we had just signed up for. No snazzy Alfa Romeos for us. Not even an adorable, if toaster-sized, Cinque Cento. No. Parked before us were cars that no self-respecting Italian would ever consider driving. Big, boxy Fiat SUVs called Multipla — one indescribably green, one a muddy bronze, each able to fit five passengers plus luggage.

This was a disaster. We knew that we would stand out like sore thumbs in these things, no matter where we went. This proved true almost immediately: on our maiden voyage on the A1, a family of five in a tiny Fiat passed us impatiently, each one of them turning toward us as they sped by, waving their clenched fists at us menacingly. And we thought we were driving fast . . .

Distressed at the sight of these turista mobiles, we split up into two groups and loaded the luggage. The two among us who were most familiar with manual transmissions (Tim being one) climbed behind the wheels, and off we went. Off in the general direction of Florence to find our four-bedroom villa in the countryside about eighteen miles northeast of the city. We had that tingly excitement that comes from being on the verge of something brand new and also from being near-collapse overtired. I wondered if everybody felt as scared as I did at that moment. What had we done? What would the next two weeks be like? Were we crazy? With no native speakers among us, how would we eat? Buy gas? Get directions? Most important, how the hell would we buy shoes? Tim backed us out of the parking space. It was about as easy as turning around the QEII.

We slowly found the exit and pulled out of the parking garage only to find ourselves in a downpour of Biblical proportions. Rain. Fog. No visibility, and a three-hour drive through an alien countryside in front of us, Tim with a mild concussion. Still, he drove. He drove us through the Appenines, through the many short and long tunnels, over bridges that crossed both deep ravines and twisting river tributaries. He drove alongside speeding cars and semis that seemed not to notice that it was raining so mightily. We were tired, jetlagged, nervous — and now nearly blinded by the weather. Benvenuto a italia.

As we got closer to the village of Vicchio, which marked the nearest town to the villa we had rented, we began to worry. We exited the autostrada and drove into what appeared to be a flood plain. To hear Tim talk of it, if we were staying here, we could expect to see our mattresses floating down the river at any moment and we should simply reach out and grab one. He was making jokes, but it was clear that he was concerned. After all, we were renting a 900-year-old mill and flooding was a definite possibility. We felt completely doomed until the directions instructed us to turn and start going along a certain road that to our relief climbed up to higher ground. We had no idea just how far up it would bring us, but we were more than willing to find out.

This second road, leading to our villa and the tiny hamlet of Cistio, went on for a mile or more, almost straight up, in hair-pin-turn increments of 100 feet or so. Each time we made a turn we heard a car horn from the distance and then were nearly face-to-face with an angry Italian driver who veered away from us, trying to make his or her way down the mountain. It took us a day or two to realize that Italian hill-climbing (or descending) etiquette requires that you honk your horn before you make the turn. In the case of this drive, that meant about 25 honks before arriving at the villa. Twenty-five opportunities to be flung from one side of the Multipla to another. Twenty-five chances that we would be thrown off the mountain by either an oncoming car or by the force of gravity itself.

So we were flung but did not fall off. Shaken, we missed the villa gates the first time up the road, but realized our mistake, turned around and went into the only gate that made sense, despite the fact that we could make out neither house name nor number. We were so exhausted by the road and the weather that we would have stayed in a barn that night, as long as it was dry. We didn’t have to. The villa, an ancient mill that had been added on to and renovated into a comfortable 5-bedroom home, was everything we were hoping for and more — the more was our key keeper, Mario.

Tall and dark, Mario was right out of central casting for an Italian Adonis. He had been sent over by the rental agency to provide us with keys and a tour of the villa. With his wavy black hair and schoolboy English, Mario was captivating. We padded after him into every room, while he showed us how to turn on light switches and open the refrigerator. There wasn’t a thing we didn’t want him to show us: the washing machine (no dryer), the showers, the fireplace, the TV. This group of eight soggy, exhausted, not unintelligent Americans had turned into complete idiots at the sight and sound of this exquisite Italian. Well, at least the three straight women and four gay men did. Tim was much less impressed, but was highly amused at what he was seeing. We would have had Mario show us how to tie our shoes if he’d asked.

With the keys delivered and the door locks explained, Mario eventually took leave of us for the evening. The rain had slowed down to a relaxing drizzle and the heat began to come on. We were home. Safe. Drying out. Choosing bedrooms. Seeing what had to be bought the next day to fill the larder for the coming two weeks. Unpacking. Flinging the shutters open to reveal a full moon shining brightly over the tall bamboo trees in the yard. Slightly undone, still, we retired to our rooms and our first night in Tuscany.

Linda Dini Jenkins is a member of Old South Church, and past chair of the Communications Committee and the Writing Into God group. She is the author of Journey of a Returning Christian: Writing Into God, Things I Never Told My Mother, and co-author of If I’m Talking, Why aren’t You Listening?. She now lives in Midlothian, Virginia with her husband Tim and their dog Maxine. She will return for a book signing at Old South's 4th Floor Guild Rooms in January. More details at <www.greatlittlebooksllc.com>.

THE ORGANS AT OLD SOUTH
by Jonathan Ambrosino

The organ is so central to worship at Old South that it is easy to take for granted. Yet on an average Sunday, at least a third of the principal service uses the organ in some fashion; singing hymns or accompanying the choir would be inconceivable without it, and Old South wouldn’t feel like Old South with the soul-stirring, room-shaking music the Skinner organ provides.

The beauty of any pipe organ is its wonderfully low-tech engineering. Unlike telephone systems, computers or any other modern technology -- all of which are designed to be obsolete, thus requiring eventual and costly replacement -- organs are almost infinitely renewable. In the famous words of Joseph Dzeda, Curator of Organs at Yale University, “As long as God makes sheep and glue, we can restore organs. ” Some people get discouraged that large organs require periodic and costly repairs. But repairs cost far less than replacement, nothing permanent is maintenance-free, and the fact it can be restored indefinitely marks the pipe organ as a spiritual offshoot of the church it serves: infinitely renewable and designed for the ages.

It was a daring, expensive and magnificent undertaking that brought Op. 308 to Old South ¯ perhaps even more so, given how much secondary effort had to be expended so soon after installation. Thanks to the superb work of the Barden crew at that time, and the expert guidance of consultants and church members, the organ has emerged as a paragon of stability and easy maintenance. This does not mean that it is maintenance-free ¯ like a Church, it needs its equivalent of roof and furnace repair, cleaning, overhaul, restoration. But a Church soon to celebrate its 350th anniversary understands longevity. In its incarnation at Old South, Op. 308 is a mere adolescent, but one whose long life can be guaranteed, with the right attitude and good work. We want to do everything possible to see it into a happy middle age.

In broad terms, both instruments [Sanctuary organ & Chapel organ] are in solid shape. The sanctuary organ has proven remarkably stable in the eighteen years since Nelson Barden Associates completed the large campaign of work (1987-1990) following the rebuild by Casavant/Hokans-Knapp 1983-1984. For various reasons, that campaign could not address certain areas, which have been and will continue to be, areas of ongoing attention.

Parts of an Organ

Parts of the Organ from encarta.msn.com

Background of the Sanctuary Organ:
Skinner OP. 308 & Others

In 1875, the “New” Old South Church was equipped with a three-manual [3 keyboards] Hutchings organ, sited in the gallery. This was replaced in 1915 with Ernest M. Skinner Organ Company’s Op. 231, a four-manual with 32 ft. metal Gamba and wooden Bombarde, a Physharmonica, and the full complement of Skinner specialty voices. Like the Hutchings, the Skinner was also installed in the gallery. For many years the eminent Dr. Carl McKinley presided over this instrument.

In the late 1960s, Dr. McKinley’s successor, Alfred Nash Patterson, sought a new instrument, which was eventually commissioned in 1968 from the Reuter Organ Company of Lawrence, Kansas and installed in 1969. This, too, was a four-manual organ, with Great, Swell, Choir, Positiv, Bombarde and Pedal divisions. The two Skinner 32ft stops were retained, but all else was sold to Virgil Fox for use at his home in Englewood, New Jersey. (Eventually the pipes and parts were broken up for sale; the Kleine Erzähler and Flute Celeste found their way first to restorers in Detroit, and then eventually back to Old South via Nelson Barden.)

In the early 1980s, under the tutelage of then-organist David Garth Worth, an effort was established to return the Skinner sound to Old South Church. Skinner Op. 308, built in 1921 for the Municipal Auditorium of Saint Paul, Minnesota, had suffered the fate of most municipal organs of its day. Although these organs opened to great fanfare, the advent of radio and sound pictures caused such instruments to be used less and less.

Old South learned of the instrument’s availability mere weeks before the auditorium was to be razed and decided to act. A consortium was quickly formed to remove and store the instrument. The crew consisted of the A. Thompson-Allen Co., Curators of Organs at Yale University; Foley-Baker Inc. from Tolland, Connecticut; and Nelson Barden Associates of Boston. Once the heroic removal effort was completed, attention turned to how the organ could be installed in Boston. Some consideration was given to retaining the gallery arrangement, but Old South was ready to have music join with clergy in the chancel area. Such a job being beyond the capabilities of the New England restorers, other vendors were explored, and ultimately Casavant Frères, Ltée. of St. Hyacinth, Québec was chosen, in a two-contract arrangement with that firm’s regional representatives, Henry Hokans and Richard Knapp. The Reuter organ was sold back to Reuter in the early 1980s, who took it back to Kansas and repackaged it for a Baptist Church n Orlando, Florida.

Nelson Barden Associates began a rebuilding program in 1986, made formal in 1987 under consultants Jack Bethards, Joseph Dzeda and Jason McKown, and church guidance from organist Frederick A. MacArthur, treasurer Tom Wardell, and member Wayne Davis. This particular campaign of work saw completion in June 1990, in time for the American Guild of Organists National Convention in Boston. In 1993, the Antiphonal organ received all new pipework from Austin. Nelson Barden Associates renovated the console in 1999, installing a new solid-state combination action.

Blower and Blower Room. The blower was completely overhauled in 1984, and the three static bellows rebuilt by Nelson Barden Associates in 1987. At that time, the blower room was re-engineered, cleaned, re-lighted, and fitted with filtered air supply via a duct that draws air from the Great/Pedal pit. We routinely monitor the grease in the blower motors and the cleanliness of their filters.

Being in such a confined space, the blowers generate considerable heat and dryness. This has not promoted longevity of the three bellows there. Already the high-pressure bellows has had to be re-restored, and recently we undertook emergency repairs on the low-pressure bellows; further work will be needed in due course. The mid-pressure bellows appears stable for the moment.

Climate control in this room would be tremendously useful, and should be explored as a means of promoting longevity of these three bellows. Also, humidification of the wind supply system would further promote longevity of the entire organ chassis.

Windchests. Given their complexity, organs have surprisingly few moving parts, most of which are found in the windchests. Underneath each pipe is a leather pouch and valve, conveying wind to that pipe. The leather is like that used in ladies gloves, and sometime thinner, but begins life with great tensile strength. As the organ is played, the leather pouches flex constantly. Even a short hymn entails thousands of individual pouch movements. As the leather decays, creases and tears develop, and notes go silent. In some actions, the notes sound all the time, and the pipes have to be muted until the leather is replaced. There are approximately 6,900 individual leather movements to operate the 6,500 pipes in the Old South organ. (By comparison, the Chapel organ contains 1,411 leather movements to operate 1,164 pipes. )

Illustration of Organ from "Pipe Dreams" Smithsonian Magazine, July 97

Pollution and age combine to cause leather deterioration. Typically, organs in urban areas are prone to earlier failure than their rural counterparts. Age is a further consideration, as leather quality declined along the course of the 20th century. As a result, organs in our stable of considerably different vintage (1925 Skinner, 1936 Kimball, 1965 Aeolian-Skinner, 1983 Casavant) are all coming due for releathering about now.

Fortunately, these organs are engineered for infinite renewal. Those elements upon which the leather is mounted are easily removed from the organ, and are restored in the workshop according to straightforward practices. Using the best available leather and restoration techniques gives the longest life from the next generation of work, and promotes the general health of the organ.

When Casavant reconditioned the organ in 1983-84, the old leather was stripped off and new pouches fitted. Brown, vegetable-tanned sumac leather was used, which became standard practice for electro-pneumatic organs built after World War II. Research since the mid-1970s, however, led most American organ builders to eventually use white, chrome-tanned leather for these actions, since testing has demonstrated that chrome-tanned the leather might last fifty to sixty years, not twenty-five to thirty-five, as new brown leather seems to.

Nelson Barden was the first restorer in North America to employ white, chrome-tanned leather in an organ restoration project ¯ at Church of the Advent, on Beacon Hill. In the Barden rebuilding project at Old South, the issue of releathering was considered. However, the brown leather was new and clearly had value left, all while more pressing items demanded attention and resources. Thus the primary and pouch leather was left intact to lead out its useful life.

Considering all the factors described above, it is not surprising that dead notes are now surfacing:
a) the leather is now twenty-five years old, beginning the typical failure period for brown leather;
b) Old South is situated upon one of America’s busier street corners;
c) the first signs of failure are in hose mechanisms that do the most work: another typical sign.

As this issue is approached over the next decade, three principles should be borne in mind:
a) leather life left should be maximized wherever practicable;
b) any work should be done in the most cost effective manner possible;
c) dead notes and failures should not unreasonably impede the musicians.

View of Primary Actions by Jonathan Ambrosino

Primary actions: This machinery controls all notes of a given windchest. Because the primary operates with one or all stops drawn, its leather tends to wear out faster than the leather operating individual notes.

Individual note pouches: These are the brown circles of leather shown in the photograph to the right. The wooden boards on which the pouches are mounted fit inside the windchest and align to the holes that supply the pipes with wind. As the pouch flexes downward, wind enters the pipe. As the pouch returns to its upward, rest position, the valve seals off the hole and the pipes silenced.

The good news: at this point, no individual note pouch has failed. On our December 22 tuning visit, we surveyed every note of every stop. While silent notes exist, in each case it is due to pipe speech, not a leather pouch. However, if we take into consideration both the failing primary notes and the porosity issue, and join that to experience with other organs, we know that failure cannot be far off. Ideally, no note pouches will fail within the next three years. We will monitor the situation at our tuning visits, and you should log any silent note you find, so that we can investigate.

Valves: If the pouch is the brown circle of leather, the valve is the black disc of rubber that sits atop the leather, and actually does the work of sealing the holes underneath the pipes to stop the wind. When Casavant releathered the organ, they used neoprene rubber valves. The originals would have been made of a felt-leather laminate. When the pouches are eventually replaced, new felt-leather valves will be used.

Pouch springs: Each pouch contains a spring to press the valve tight up against the pipe hole. Without disturbing one of the pouches, it isn’t possible to know whether Casavant used the original 1921 springs or employed new, but certainly when the pouches and valves are replaced, new springs should be fitted.

Pitmans: these tiny pneumatic armatures determine whether a stop plays. The pitmans are contained in a second rail affixed to the bottom of the pouchrail. In this photograph, the two rails have been separated for inspection. The pitmans are made of thicker leather tacked to little dowels; the dowels move, but the leather doesn’t flex. Because of their thickness and this lack of flexing, pitmans generally last two generations where pouches last one. All pitmans we’ve seen thus far look original to 1921 ¯ not surprising, as in 1982-83 they would have been in good condition and worthy of re-use. However, the pitmans have been failing now for several years. In December 2005, we took apart the both the Swell Dulciana and Bourdon to cure ciphers caused by disintegrating pitmans. Two more failed this month on the Dulciana, which we repaired.

Summary: There are nine primaries in the organ: Great (33), Swell (22), Choir, Solo, String and Antiphonal. The principle described about maximizing leather above should be applied to the restoration of this mechanism: a) restore the Choir primary as soon as possible; b) monitor the remaining eight, assuming the next one needing restoration will be the Swell high-pressure; c) budget for their eventual restoration d) hold off on restoring any primary until failure reaches the tipping point of inconvenience.

As individual pouches begin to fail, we should develop a phased approach to releathering, spreading costs and down-time over a number of years. Releathering should not stretch too long, so that the leather throughout the organ remains from the same general period.

Bellows Leather. There are 19 individual bellows for wind regulation. Unlike the leather work inside the windchests, Casavant’s rebuilding of the bellows (cutting down the side ribs and modifying the valves) fundamentally altered how these units regulated the wind. In the rebuilding of 1987-1990, the most important bellows ¯ those for static regulation and the manual divisions ¯ were rebuilt according to original specifications. The others were left as Casavant had renovated hem.

Console. The console is in generally good condition, following the renovation and upgrades in 1999. A few items are in the works:

Power switch: this caused problems earlier in the fall. While the on/off button unit is no longer made, Casavant had several in stock, so we purchased two: a replacement and a spare. The replacement was installed a few days before Christmas, while the spare is stored inside the console for future need.

Expression shoes: there have been persistent problems with the electric swell motors, in which individual motors will occasionally seize and need re-booting, requiring a service call. The syndrome has been diagnosed as an incompatibility between the contacting system of the original 1921 expression shoes and the solid-state circuitry of the electric swell motors. In addition, last spring the Swell expression shoe almost fell into the console, being simply worn out. We are currently under contract to replace all five expression shoes, both to provide reliable swell shoes but also to introduce solid-state circuitry into the signal-sending portions of the shoes to make the swell motors happier. This job will require the pedalboard to be out for one Sunday ¯ we should schedule this work at your convenience.

Pipework. Most of the pipework was cleaned n the 1987-1990 work, and is in good condition.

Flues: I am happy to note that the interior and pipe surfaces of the organ are surprisingly clean. Remarkably little dirt has accumulated in twenty years, and conditions seem harmonious. We routinely wipe down and vacuum walk boards, perch boards and access-ways, so that our footsteps do not track any more dirt through the organ. We will do this again at some point before our Easter tuning.

Reeds: Some reeds were renovated professionally by the Broomes (Great reeds, Solo Tuba, Swell French Trumpet), while the others were cleaned in the Barden shop. In each case, particular attention was paid to zinc reed sockets, which have a tendency to oxidize over time, producing a dust that can get blown up into the reeds and cause notes to go silent. While most of the reeds have been admirably stable, some have not. We recently contracted to have the Pedal Trombone, Solo Heckelphone and Solo English Horn professionally reconditioned. The Trombone has always been problematic, and the Solo color reeds have not been stable in a long time. As you know, the Trombone, English Horn and Heckelphone were removed on January 3, and barring any unforeseen incident, we plan to re-install them prior to Palm Sunday. In the future, we may wish to work on the Solo Corno di Bassetto (trebles especially) and Orchestral Oboe. But for the moment, those reeds seem happy enough.

Percussion: Neither Harp nor Chimes was restored in the Barden work of twenty years ago. They work, sort of. Both are particularly soft.

DIRECTORY OF ORGAN STOPS (PDF file)

Background on Chapel Organ:
Aeolian-Skinner OP. 896, 1933

Gordon Chapel was constructed in 1932 as a part of the parish house project that also replaced the original tower with the present one. Æolian-Skinner Organ Company was contracted in 1932 for a new organ of special, small design. Due to limited space, 14 sets of pipes were ingeniously installed into inhospitably-shaped chambers. Despite the cramped conditions, the organ’s warm and engaging tone was always considered something of a triumph. Dr. McKinley was so delighted with the results that he wrote an article praising the organ in the May 1933 American Organist . Originally a three-manual instrument, the original console (gutted, but with its original ivory hardware) still lives in the parish house basement.

In 1983 this instrument was rebuilt by Casavant Frères, Ltée. A new, two-manual console was fitted; Great, Choir and Pedal made unenclosed; Choir stops combined onto the Great manual; and several tonal changes made. The organ was releathered at this time, one chest converted to Schwimmer winding, reservoirs overhauled n the manner of the sanctuary organ, and a few other mechanical modifications made.

The 1983 work left much of the organ uncomfortably loud and bright, at least to our ears today. In 2007, we carried out a tonal renovation whose goal was to return all available pipes to their original locations and voicing. This project removed two of the added mixtures, replicated the Gemshorn treble and Great Twelfth (thus permitting the original Grave Mixture to be heard), and re-regulated all stops. The organ is now as it was tonally in 1933, with three exceptions: the Great, Choir and Pedal remain unenclosed; the Swell Vox Humana (now in the sanctuary organ) holds the Casavant 111 Plein Jeu, revoiced as a two-rank mixture; and the Choir Dulciana is absent.

For this project, installation and racking work was executed by Spencer Organ Company, new pipes were made by Thomas Anderson (former head of the Æolian-Skinner pipe shop), voicing was by Daniel Kingman, Trompette renovation by Broome & Co. ¯ all managed, contracted and tonally finished by me. Concurrently, Nelson Barden Associates rebuilt the blower, replacing the original D. CC motor with a vintage 3-phase A. C. model. Finally, some structural repairs were made to parts of the organ whose wall attachments had failed, the swell shutter action was adjusted, and the electro-pneumatic relay received a few modifications.

It is important to note that, apart from the repairs listed above, no mechanical work of any kind has been carried out since the 1983 renovation. Since Casavant undertook the mechanical overhaul of both chapel and sanctuary organs, and the two instruments are constructed by the same manufacturer, the same restoration issues evident in the main organ hold true for the Chapel. Fortunately at this time, the chapel organ has no dead note of any kind. Since it is used far less, we hope dead notes won’t develop for five to ten years. But, in any pipe organ in which some of the mechanism has not been addressed since its construction in 1933, we should be prepared to address a few mechanical items. Some that come to mind:

a) Unlike those in the main organ, the Chapel organ’s magnets have leather gaskets and leathered armatures. This leather is all original to 1933, and is crumbling into failure. At present, this condition is worst in the Swell Gedeckt, causing ciphers. At some point, it would be good to restore all the magnets in the organ.

b) We could certainly improve the effect of the Swell Tremolo on the lower chest, affecting the Geigen, Salicional, Voix Celeste and Trompette.

c) We might give consideration to re-creating the swell shutters on the Great/Choir side.

d) The old console should be safeguarded at all costs. It would be wonderful to reinstate this console some day, as it is a particularly elegant thing, original to the organ, and would give the benefit of returning his organ to its original intention of a three, not two-manual organ.

Organ Value: A fair-market appraisal of any pipe organ is speculative. Unlike pianos, harpsichords or violins, pipe organs are rarely sold or traded. Most often they are restored, rebuilt or replaced. If it were to be sold, even a valuable instrument could command only a fraction of its true value, since its purchase is only the first step in a long, expensive process for the buyer: professional removal, storage, shipping, restoration, re-engineering and installation in a new location. Since these expenses can easily equal or exceed that of a new, similarly-sized instrument, any prospective purchaser is in the position to pay only a small sum for the organ itself.

In the case of Old South, any organ with so much Skinner mechanism and pipework commands a good sale price. Perhaps the range of $150-$250K can be mentioned. The Chapel organ might sell for $25,000. But in the same breath, it must be said that such figures are incredibly misleading, as they state but a fraction of the organ’s true worth.

An organ the size and scope of the sanctuary instrument, as obtained from one of the country’s best builders, would cost between $3.6 and $4.2 million. These figures do not take into account costs usually borne by the purchaser in the acquisition of any pipe organ, which generally include (but are not limited to) sales tax, shipping, hoisting, insurance and site preparation costs. The real price might be closer to $4.5 million. Of course, in the largest sense the organ ¯ like the Church itself ¯ is irreplaceable. It contains materials and historical techniques of tone production that cannot be duplicated at any price. It would be sensible if the Church’s insurance reflected replacement cost at this price, also taking into account that the organ exists in several locations, with a large console.

The Chapel organ would cost about $600,000 to replace with something of like quality. Its insurance value should be at least that amount. New organ prices have risen dramatically in the past five years, due to rising labor costs and sharp increases in wood, steel and the metals used in pipe manufacturing.

Maintenance and Restoration. Industry rule of thumb suggests that churches set aside annually an amount between ¾ and 1½ percent of replacement value ¯ half devoted to yearly maintenance and tuning, the other half set into a sinking fund against future restoration. If we apply this formula to Old South based upon an average replacement value of $4 million, Old South should be budgeting between $30,000 and $50,000 yearly for the sanctuary organ, and perhaps $4,000 annually for the Chapel organ.

Rules-of-thumb, however, are only a guideline. The most expensive organs are often cheaper to maintain because of their stability, and more straightforward to rebuild, because of sensible engineering. In the calendar year 2007, we billed $6,128.77 of both organs (probably 15 percent being devoted to the Chapel). This is testament to each organ’s reliability and stability of tuning: in the Sanctuary organ, a result of the Barden campaign’s careful attention to those elements that promote stability, and in the Chapel, our recent tonal rebuild only encouraged the organ’s inherent tendency to remain in tune.

However, in this year the Church is spending an additional $42,000 on the Sanctuary organ to renovate three reed stops and do important console work. Future years will bring other important renovation issues to the table, and it is important to budget accordingly.

At this point in the instrument’s history, it is probably wise to adopt a more aggressive budgetary approach. Certainly $30,000 a year is advisable: $7,500 for organ maintenance, $22,500 set aside for organ rebuilding. Anything not spent on maintenance can be sunk into a rebuilding account, so that a reserve is built up to address the normal and expected mechanical rebuilding of both organs.

We love taking care of Old South, and not merely because it is a wonderful instrument. It is one of those happy instruments that invites good care. The building’s heating system is stable, reliable and largely silent and draft-free; most pipes are easy to reach and in good shape; and we are treated with unfailing hospitality. I hope that you and I will retire together after many decades of service to Old South Church.

JONATHAN AMBROSINO <jonathanambrosino.com> is an historian, journalist and consultant actively involved with organ work and the preservation of the American pipe organ. A Boston native and educated in journalism, book editing and newspaper design, he migrated to the organ business in 1985. Early in his career he was business manager of Nelson Barden Associates, Restorers-in-Residence at Boston University, and he later worked for Austin Organs Inc. and Rosales Organ Builders. He has worked independently since 1996, combining historical studies with professional involvement in organ building, consultation and tonal finishing. He served as President of the Organ Historical Society from 1999 to 2001, having served as a Councilor since 1993.

OLD SOUTH
TRAVEL MEMORIES

It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. Who knew . . . that Dickens was talking about travel and vacations?! Such remembrances of things past came to mind when we asked the Old South community to contribute their own “best and worst” vacation memories.

Out of Africa. One of the perks of my job is that I get to travel to far away places and go on safari every other year or so. One of these journeys took me to Botswana where we focused our exploration on Chobe National Park, known for its elephant population. As we drove through the park we came across the body of a mighty elephant, slouched against the trunk of a large tree with his back to us. It seems this amazing creature was shot the day before by a farmer across the Chobe River (in Namibia), fearful that the elephant would destroy his crops. The injured elephant stumbled back to Chobe to die. As we drove up, there were many vultures in the area, doing what vultures do best. We paused to watch and suddenly all the vultures stopped and backed off the carcass. Just then a long line of elephants appeared and formed a half-circle around their fallen friend. They all paused, seemed to bow their heads, and the world fell silent for a few moments. Just as peacefully as they came, the elephants then walked off. It was a gift to witness this private moment of mourning in the animal world. The sadness and the power of community will stay with me always. — Sue Gettum

Land of Many Colors. Poised in mid-air upon a suspension foot bridge in the cloud forest near Monteverde, one Costa Rican summer morning, we peered down into the infinite green below, while our young guide explained that before our eyes were arrayed some 440 shades of green. He remarked, somehow without sadness, that we humans can see only 60 or so of them. Good thing God made the creatures of the forest, so someone can see them. — Weldon Palmer & Tricia Hazeltine Palmer

Going Up. In August of 2004 I went to a conference in Urumqi, in the northwest corner of China. Before the conference began, a friend took me for a drive into the mountains. Driving out of the city we passed street signs in Uyghur and Chinese; veiled Uyghur women and Han Chinese in business suits; donkey carts and air-conditioned tour buses. After 40 miles we entered the mountains, and followed a river canyon for another 40 miles. The nature of the canyon changed many times as we went up, but almost always it was stunningly beautiful. The base of the canyon was sometimes just the width of the river: as little as a hundred yards, with the road carved into the side of the valley. I didn’t see any “beware of fallen rock” signs, but there was certainly a lot of fallen rock. In one place, two-thirds of the pavement had fallen about twenty feet down into the river, so everybody squeezed around. The last ten miles was gravel and entirely under construction. We stopped for lunch at an elevation of perhaps 12,500 feet. I’m not sure what the nature of the restaurant was. We ate in what was clearly a bedroom for three people: the bedding was rolled up, and we sat on the mattress pads. Food was a wonderful lamb stew, with potatoes and who-knows-what spices: definitely one of the best stews I ever ate. After lunch we walked some and were led on horses a little further, going up almost to the base of the glacier in a cirque called Tiger’s Mouth. The locals claimed that the top of that was 15,000 feet, and it certainly looked less than a thousand feet up from where we were. That’s the highest I’ve ever been on land. — David Vogan

Family Roots. Each Fourth of July week our family gathers at Craigville, all l8 of us, sometimes the children bring a friend or two — our three children and their spouses and ten grandchildren. It is a glorious time. . . . Also, every summer for years Della and I have made our annual journey to Cape Breton Island, the birth place of her parents. It has become for both of us a spiritual pilgrimage as we connect with her roots and my adopted ones. — Carl F. Schultz

I Spy. What’s secret code for “I rushed through the Spy Museum?” Secret codes. Altered identities. Little listening devices. The Spy Museum has it all! My family went there for part of a trip to Washington DC. It was my favorite part of that trip. I bought an invisible ink pen at the “Spy Store,” and it inspired me to buy a password journal and an alarm for my room! We didn’t get to spend as much time there as we wanted, since we had to rush to get on a cruise down the Potomac, which never took off of course (due to stormy weather). — Amanda Grace Shu

The Sound of Wailing. One of my most memorable vacation experiences took place way back in 1968 in the old walled city of Jerusalem. Walking the narrow cobbled streets in the late afternoon, I heard the unmistakable sounds well before I rounded the corner leading to the famous “Wailing Wall.” Jewish friends in New York had rightfully warned me that I would be awakened at daylight on the overnight El Al flight by shawl draped figures rising around me to pray ¯ certainly an unexpected airplane experience. But nothing had prepared me for the somber, colorful, international and very noisy intoning of prayer in this public assembly. There was still a very special celebratory air in this holy place, which had been reclaimed by the Jews just a year earlier in the six days of war with Jordan. Israel’s patriotism and militarism at that time were astounding. Nancy’s and Quinn’s reports of their recent Israel pilgrimage were a nice reminder of my long ago visit to that complex country. — Margaret Bush

Airing Our Laundry. Traveling to Spain with friends in college, we came upon a southern town in which we planned to stay at a hostel. Learning from a resident that the hostel was now an empty building, we chanced upon nice lodging that seemed like a hotel/bed and breakfast. After we settled, we did a desperate sink load of laundry and attempted to create a clothesline across the room and hung some things on the balcony railing. As we were rearranging furniture in our attempt, a loud beeping came from a truck at a four-way intersection directly below. Inside the truck was a woman waving her hands and shouting in Spanish saying something about the clothes! The woman was the owner of the place and we believed we were in deep trouble and so we scrambled to undo everything we had regarding the laundry line and the balcony hanging. A few minutes later, inside and at our room door, she said to us simply and kindly: Next time use the roof! — Liz Olson

Lewis & Clark’s Winter Camp. I remember going to Fort Clatsop in Oregon. I got to try on costumes. I did a booklet and got a patch. It was so fun! I also got to see India Ink. I want to go there again. — Nathaniel Shu

Trans-Siberian Prayers. Ten years ago, just after my son Stephen graduated from Cambridge Rindge and Latin High School, he and I traveled with a terrific group on the China “Orient Express” from Beijing north to and through Mongolia into Siberia. We then boarded the Òðàíññèáèðñêàÿ ìàãèñòðàëü, aka the Trans-Siberian Railroad, traveling west to Moscow. During these four weeks together, we traveled across China, into Mongolia, and Siberia, visiting Beijing, climbing and walking the Great Wall, going to Ulaan-Baator, Ulan-Ude, Irkutsk, Novosibirsk, and Moscow. We swam in the magnificent Lake Baikal, the largest freshwater lake in the world (and legend has it that we each added 20 extra years to our lives in so doing — besides, it was such fun!) as well as viewing ancient relics and monuments of the Orient. After passing the Chinese-Mongolian border, in a small town Erlian (China) we changed the train and continued our trip to Russia on board the Trans-Siberian Railroad. While this trip was not planned with specific theological or religious goals, one of the most surprising aspects was the incredible inter-religious opportunity in Mongolia and across Siberia to visit countless Buddhist monasteries, libraries, and archives as well as Christian churches, all of which had been hidden, buried, and used as horse stables during years of Stalin’s rule and further Russian occupation in Mongolia and over the past century in Russia. What a delight to see Buddhist prayer papers waving in the wind on countless “prayer lines” and to witness Christian baptisms being celebrated in every sanctuary we visited! — Liz Rice-Smith

Got to Admit It’s Getting Better. In July of 2004 I attended a large and well-organized conference at a mathematics institute in Hangzhou, China. On the next to last day I developed a standard traveler’s ailment. Having been invited to dinner by one of the organizers, I needed to cancel with an explanation; so the status of my gastrointestinal system was fairly widely known among the institute staff. The last day of the conference I was going to lectures, visiting the bathroom regularly. One of the secretaries came up to me with a bottle of pills: “Take three, one time.” I accepted gratefully. I later asked a Chinese mathematician for more details about the dosage, and was told that the dose of three pills was to be repeated three times a day. The details were important to me, because at the end of the day I had a three-hour bus ride to Shanghai. Just before I left for the bus, one of the other secretaries inquired after my health. “Your nose is better now?” she asked, indicating her nose. “Oh yes, thank you!” I replied cheerfully, hoping of course that the secretary who brought me the pills was better informed about the nature of the problem. I’m still not absolutely sure about that. I had no trouble on the bus trip. But the following week I related this funny story to two US-trained Chinese mathematicians. The first said that they probably gave me some “Chinese medicine. Very strong stuff. Effective for everything.” The two of them examined the bottle, and agreed that it did indeed have some powerful ingredients. I still don’t know what it was intended to cure.
— David Vogan

Missing. We were nearing the end of wonderful spring break driving trip to our nation’s capitol and decided on our last day to make one last stop on the way out to visit the Supreme Court. I dropped off the family at the front steps and rushed to find a parking spot in a nearby neighborhood and jogged back to join them. After an educational presentation made memorable by our 8 year old son (and possible future attorney) Nate falling asleep on the floor in front of the highest court in the nation, we walked back to where I had parked the car. No car. No car filled with all our luggage. No car to take us home. “I must have parked on the next block,” I said more calmly than I felt. No car. “Or was it down this street?” No car. We asked a mail carrier if the police routinely tow in this neighborhood. She shrugged her shoulders. With mounting panic, I told the family to wait at one corner while I continued to jog around the neighborhood trying to jog my memory of my path as well. No car. Finally, after a frantic hour of searching, I was ready to call the police and try to get us home by bus or train. I knew it was hopeless, but I said, “let me just look down this one block” (which I had long ago eliminated because surely I would have remembered parking next to a big playground!). . . Yup, you guessed it: Car! Our car was in the very spot, just where I had left it 3 hours earlier. Thank You, God! Our drive home to Boston was uneventful but filled with gratitude and humility over what might have been. — Evan H. Shu

In-Terminable. Travel arrangements and flight connections were all in order. I arrived at the Berlin airport at an early hour and sat waiting at the gate to board for New York. An announcement—our plane did not pass inspection for take off—an hour wait. Later, another announcement—a two hour wait. Another plane was brought on—another inspection. More announcements with unknown wait times. We were given coupons for food. Monitors were rolled in with a variety of movies in a choice of either English or German. Finally, we
take off.

Arrival at New York JFK, through customs, passed baggage and to the correct ticket counter. “The last plane to Boston just left.” “Next” is tomorrow at 7 am, but another will leave Newark shortly.” I raced, remembering the lengthy directions—down long hallways, up and down escalators, finally to the exit. A bus is waiting, and yes, it is the shuttle to Newark airport. A few streets, a few corners, across a bridge and we are here. I managed another race—hallways, escalators and breathlessly to the ticket counter. “The last flight to Boston just left.” “Next is tomorrow.” It was after 7:00 pm. I retraced my route, back to the bus, and back again to JFK. I was offered a hotel, but the thought of another bus — much as I love bus riding — and to be back here by 7:00 am — no, I would just wait here and rest on one of these plush couches.

As the night wore on, huge gates were extended and locked. “Lady, you have to move out.” Finally I was in the entry and no plush couches, in fact no couches. There were stainless steel squares for holding suitcases. I would manage. My sleep was in very short naps. Suddenly out came a noisy bobcat with a huge round brush spraying gallons of soapy water up and down the long hallway. Fortunately, I travel lightly. My combo back pack and wheeled luggage could fit in the shiny square with me, that is, with none of my joints extended. Finally, my feet could go back on the floor. No, another bobcat tractor, this time apparently with wax and a huge round brush polisher. Don’t anyone ever try to tell me that the John F. Kennedy Airport in New York is not kept clean. Many more naps and long hours, and I think the dark outside is getting lighter. People are coming in for early flights, throwing backpacks down for pillows and sleeping on the clean floor. Uniformed staff entered with enormous keys, the huge gates were pushed back. Staff kept returning to stations, talking of last night’s entertainment. I could straighten my knees and walk to the boarding gate to wait on a plush couch for 7:00 am. I gave up telephoning arrival times to family. I pictured the shuttle, the Blue Line, Green Line, Red Line and perhaps a little hike at the end might both rouse as well as calm me. I could turn the keys in my own door and find my own bed. On the plane the flight attendant looked bright and enthusiastic as she demonstrated the safety procedures. Do I really need to pay attention to these again? If I didn’t know better I would declare that this tiny craft was going to touch down right into the water between the islands of Boston Harbor. I watch the wing flaps fold down. I hear the change in the sound of the engine. Bump, this really is the runway to Logan Airport. Home at last!
— Edra Mercer

Missing, Part II. The longest and most frightening five minutes of 2003 came when my son Nate, then age 4, vanished from my life in the San Francisco airport while we were on our summer vacation. My husband Evan went to get food while I watched our children, Nate and Amanda, and all our carry-on baggage. Exhausted from the long plane ride, my attention wandered and suddenly, Nate was gone from sight. I can still recall the horror and worry I experienced when I discovered that I did not know where Nate was. I looked at all the thousands of people in all the hundreds of terminals and did not even know where to begin looking. I expressed my alarm over my missing son to two security persons, who reacted very lackadaisically — but fortunately, nearby parents picked up my alarm and panic and helped me begin to search . Fortunately, Nate did not lose sight of me as I lost sight of him and came running back completely unaware of my terror. I embraced him with great intensity as I realized how precious he is.— Annamarie Ross Shu

Cherche le Gun. “Do you want to see my gun?” the Parisian police officer asked, complete with an Inspector Clouseau accent. Without waiting for a reply, he handed his service revolver over to my 12-year-old son for him to inspect. Because, of course, an American boy would want to play with guns. This was not what I had expected when I went into the police station to report that my wallet had been stolen at the Metro station. But nothing about Stephan had been what I expected, from the Blues Brothers poster and assorted memorabilia on the wall, to his constant assurance that he didn’t usually take pickpocket reports. After all, he was a detective and he didn’t wear a uniform. But his cousin in New York wasn’t a detective yet, and he still had to wear a uniform (I detected more than a touch of family rivalry). When Jonathan handed the gun back, he took the gun, pointed it to the back of his office mate, pretended to shoot him, and said wistfully, “someday.” . . . Somewhere in Paris is a police detective who has been way too heavily influenced by American pop culture. — Lois Corman

30' high Segregation Walls at Abu Dis (photo by Nancy Richardson). Traditional Burial Cave of Jesus (photo by Nancy Richardson). Cave of Mary's childhood home (photo by Nancy Richardson). Via Doloroso (photo by Nancy Richardson).	Golden Thread at the Jaffa Gate into Jerusalem JERUSALEM REFLECTIONS by Quinn G. Caldwell and Nancy S. Taylor from a sermon preached on April 6, 2008 upon their return from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land with photos by Nancy Richardson. (See Full Photo Journal Here.) Pilgrimage “I give you the end of a golden string. Only wind it into a ball. It will lead you in at Heaven’s Gate, Built in Jerusalem’s wall.” With these four lines, poet William Blake captures the heart of the mystery, conundrum, and glory that is Jerusalem. In Jerusalem, the golden string of God’s love is wound into a ball that takes in the whole city. It leads down narrow alleys and up minarets. It burrows through layers upon layers of white limestone pavement and old houses, through doorways of third-century churches and ancient tombs. It runs through convents and synagogues, across valleys, along sacred ways, and up to high places. It leads past archeological digs, through thirty-nine different destructions of the city—and thirty-nine different rebuildings. It snakes its way through tradition and history, past the places where Abraham heard God’s call to sacrifice Isaac, where the great Temples of Judaism stood, where the prophet Muhammed (peace be upon him) took his famous night journey through the heavens. The golden cord winds and knots and spirals and doubles back on itself endlessly among the white stones of the city, touching sacred place after sacred place. From a distance, the whole place seems to be wound around and shining with God’s love; up close, it seems to be nothing but God’s love all tied up in knots. And all along this thread: pilgrims, Christians and Jews and Muslims, seeking to follow the golden thread down paths their forebears have followed to the deep and ancient places. Pilgrims make the trips they do and follow the threads they follow for many reasons. But in a way, every pilgrim journey is about the same thing: acting out the journey from creation, through life and death to heaven and an encounter with God, and on to new creation. The journey on which the pilgrim sets out is an attempt to crystallize his or her own, larger life journey in the smaller pilgrim journey, and to meet God and form oneself for the larger journey through the taking of the smaller one. And there is no place, no place anywhere, that crystallizes the experiences of the peoples of our God more than the city of Jerusalem, the third holiest city of Islam and the holiest city for Christians and Jews. As most of you know, Nancy and I, along with church members Elaine Huber and Nancy Richardson, have just returned from a pilgrimage to that place. An important part of any pilgrimage—perhaps the most important part—is the return, the coming back to normal life and the telling what you what seen and heard. So now, Nancy and I want to share with you some of what we have seen and heard, a few of the moments or places that captured for us the deepest truths of what that place is like, and what it has to teach us about life with God. Be warned: it is very early to have discerned all that these things mean, and so we will not do too much meaning-making in what we have to say today. Rather, we offer some simple snapshots, and will trust time and the Holy Spirit to do the rest. – Quinn G. Caldwell View of Jerusalem from Mt. of Olives (photo by Nancy Richardon) Walls. The pilgrim approaching Jerusalem is met by walls: ancient, immense, golden walls of limestone. Ten feet thick and rising to heights of 50 feet, these walls enclose the Old City of Jerusalem. Entering through one of its noble gates, the pilgrim is confronted by yet more walls. Springing from the outer walls, like a great river’s tributaries, are numerous secondary walls … walls that define and separate the city’s quarters: separating the Jewish Quarter from the Muslim Quarter from the Christian Quarter from the Armenian Quarter. These tributary walls contain each Quarter’s neighborhood with its signature music, smells, cuisine, houses of faith, shrines, shops, religious costumes and customs. The pilgrim, embarked upon a journey of discovery, burrows deeply into each Quarter in turn … there to smell, taste, touch, listen and look for the different faces of God. Sooner or later, the pilgrim makes his or her way to the greatest wall, the Western Wall. Ancient and immense, it humbles all who approach it. Gathered from the four corners of the earth, pilgrims swarm beneath it. We form a colorful, chaotic, wild, cacophonous assortment of humanity: from the ultra-orthodox to the ultra-modern. We, who have nothing else in common but our hunger for God, gather here to pray, to sing and dance, to read quietly, to chant loudly, to sway and to wail. Then, with bare fingers, each works into a crevice, cranny or crack a tiny bit of paper… entrusting to this wall our solemn intercessions. For, in fact, the secret of this wall is that it is not a wall at all. It is a window, a door, a gate, a mail slot … a postal route to heaven. This wall is a place of access, a bridge between earth and heaven, human and divine, longing and assurance, supplication and fulfillment. Outside of the Old City, the pilgrim confronts a quite different wall … a recent wall. Guarded by heavily armed Israeli soldiers, it is over 400 miles in length and 32 feet high. It is all concrete and barbed wire, studded with surveillance towers and the occasional checkpoint. Like so many places in Jerusalem it has more than one name. The Israelis call it “the Security Fence.” To the Palestinians it is the “Segregation Wall.” Whether you see it as a wall or as a fence, as protection or as degradation, as a peace-keeping enterprise or as a foot on the neck of the Palestinians depends on who you are, who you know, whose stories you believe, and on your own experiences of fear and safety. – Nancy S. Taylor Map of the Old City and division into Quarters Church of the Resurrection (photo by Nancy Richardson) The Church of the Resurrection. The Church of the Resurrection (sometimes called the Church of the Holy Sepulchre) stands near the center of the oldest part of the city. The entrance is tucked in a quiet courtyard, almost impossible to find unless you know where to look. It stands on a site that many, maybe even most, theologians and archeologists believe is very likely the place of Jesus’ death and burial. It is the most important site in all of Christianity, and it is a complete…train wreck. One walks through the low, ancient door and is immediately overwhelmed by a sense of disorder, confusion, tackiness, and a distinct lack of holiness despite the heavily incensed air and the overabundance of religious images and accoutrement. Beneath hundreds and hundreds of golden and silver lanterns (which may sound pretty but are not), tour groups rove madly, snapping pictures and only half-listening to their group leaders rattling off dates and facts. If you wander around long enough to find it, you will discover that the original tomb of Jesus was destroyed centuries ago and has since been replaced by a hideous masonry kiosk kept from falling over on one side by steel I-beams. If you find it, you will discover that the traditional rock of Golgotha is encased in glass and dramatically lit from below; it looks like a diorama in a natural history museum. Nevertheless, if you wait in line long enough, you can have the opportunity to kneel down on the floor, crawl under an altar, and stick your hand blindly through a gilt-edged hole to touch the top of what might or might not be the place where Jesus was crucified—and you will then be allotted ten seconds to pray before a grumpy monk yells at you to make room for the next person. The church is shared by seven different world and local denominations, who pretty much sort-of get along with each other most of the time, but whose internal bickerings occasionally break out in fisticuffs among the monks and clergy, and are bad enough that to avert trouble, the keys to the building have been held by a local Muslim family since the days of Ottoman rule. It is a train wreck, and it is perfect. You cannot walk into that place without recalling the words of the angel on Easter morning: “He is not here.” You cannot walk into that place and not long and long deeply for the grace of God to transform this world. You cannot walk into that place and not be reminded that even our best, most faithful strivings fall short of our best intentions and the glory of God. I walked in and was shocked, and offended, and confused. I wanted beauty, simplicity, nobility, serenity, joy—not darkness, smelliness, crowds, rudeness, and tackiness. Then a friend reminded me that when God came to us, God came to the human world, which is layered, imperfect, crowded, smelly, complex, and ultimately unsatisfying, and it is in that world, not a perfect world, it is using the stuff of that world, not a perfect world, it is by loving that world, not a perfect world, that God saves us all from both our best and our worst strivings. So as a reflection of the heaven we all hope to one day attain, the Church of the Resurrection, the holiest church in the holiest city in the world, is a complete train wreck. But as a reflection of the real world God loves beyond all reason, loved enough to enter into even though she could have chosen to turn her nose up at it, as a reflection of the locus of God’s most powerful act in history, it is perfect. – Quinn G. Caldwell At Galilee, photo by Nancy Richardson The Galilee. Our pilgrim band departed from Jerusalem and headed north for the Sea of Galilee. It was here and in the surrounding villages – in Capernaum, Magdala, Tiberias and Nazareth – that Jesus was formed, grew up and exercised his ministry. It was here that Jesus walked on water, stilled a storm, taught from a boat, preached the Sermon on the Mount, uttered the Beatitudes, fed 5000, and, in a tender post-resurrection appearance to his disciples, grilled their breakfast on the Sea’s shore. In contrast to the sun-scorched limestone of Jerusalem, in contrast to the forbidding Judean wilderness through which we had just traveled, the Sea of Galilee is framed by a verdant apron of brightly colored flowers, as well as groves of olive, almond, lemon and date palm trees. As we approached Galilee we were greeted with a riot of perfumes and colors: lavender, rosemary, jasmine, cistus, oleander and tamarisk, and blossoms of reds, pinks, yellows and oranges. The Sea itself is blue and shimmering under the bright sun. The entire area is alive with song birds, parrots and wading birds. Sitting on the Mount of the Beatitudes, a gentle hill overlooking the Sea of Galilee, we read aloud the Beatitudes and reflected on the natural beauty with which Jesus was accustomed. This was his playground and workshop. Here were the scented air, the thriving sea, the fertile soil, the song birds and jumping fish, the quiet places that fed his soul … and, which at that magical moment, were feeding ours. – Nancy S. Taylor Basilica of the Annunciation, photo by Nancy Richardson The Church of the Nutrition. In the middle of all the fertility of the Galilee is Nazareth, Jesus’ hometown. In the middle of Nazareth is the Basilica of the Annunciation, a gorgeous modern church built over the cave traditionally venerated as Mary’s childhood home and the place her task was announced to her. And next to the Basilica stands the house of worship with the best name ever: the Church of the Nutrition. It’s also known as the Church of St. Joseph, because it marks one of the traditional sites of Joseph’s house. But I like the other name better. The Church of the Nutrition is so called because it marks the place of Jesus’ growing up, and therefore where he ate each day: the place where Mary breastfed him, where he ate his breakfast each morning, and where his parents argued with him about finishing his vegetables. There is nowhere else in the world where a church with such a name would make sense. But in Nazareth, it does. Now, it could have been given a different, less silly, name: the Church of the Nurturing of our Lord, perhaps, or the Sanctuary of the Blessed Domicile, something much nobler and less earthy sounding. But no: the Church of the Nutrition. It reminds me that while the last three years of Jesus’ life were the most important, he spent three times that long living a normal life, like yours and mine, full of parents and work and small tragedies and small triumphs. It reminds me that in the stories we tell, God got a body just like ours, one that needed to be cared for and cleaned and nurtured, that was susceptible to starvation and cravings, that had to be fed each day or it would die. The Church of the Nutrition reminds me, as did every moment we spent in Israel, that our faith is not a theoretical one, not one about right ideas or right beliefs; our faith is an embodied one, with bodily needs and bodily functions, messiness and complexity, mothers and fathers and families and hunger. The Church of the Nutrition reminds me that I am to be—and to feed—the Body of Christ. – Quinn G. Caldwell The Pilgrim’s Song. Pilgrimage is a form of worship, and one cannot worship the central mystery of life – the divine essence, the Holy One – without regularly breaking into song. We experienced this first hand our very first morning in Jerusalem. Weary, jet-lagged and sleep-deprived, we were awoken at 4:00 a.m. by song … by the muezzin’s prayer chanted from the nearby minaret. Every morning he calls Muslims from sleep to prayer, (and, by the way, anyone else within hearing). Here, in translation, is a portion of his 4:00 a.m. song: “God is most great. God is most great. God is most great. There is no god but God … Prayer is better than sleep.” In the Jewish Quarter of the Old City we encountered families singing and dancing their way to the Western Wall for a young person’s bar mitzvah. Joyful and costumed, they serenaded God with instruments, song and dance. On the Via Dolorosa, a street in the Old City that is held to be the path upon which Jesus walked to his crucifixion, singing pilgrims are abundant. Bearing large, heavy crosses, somber-faced and in slow, stately, memorial procession, they sing their way through the winding streets to visit the sites associated with Jesus’ final hours. Visitors to Jerusalem are warned against renting a room in the Armenian Quarter because the Armenian Christians have a habit of assembling without warning, for noisy, song-filled religious processionals. At inexplicable hours of the day and night, black-robed, long-bearded Armenian priests snake through the streets of the Quarter, banging, clanging and chanting their way to their ancient place of worship. One day our pilgrimage group gathered at the Jordan: the river in which Jesus was baptized by John. Barefooted, trousers rolled up, knee-deep in the Jordan, we anointed each other’s foreheads’ in remembrance of our own baptismal vows. Then, dripping, still standing in the Jordon we broke out into song. We sang “Down to the River to Pray,” (a traditional American sacred folksong, which you may know from the film, “O Brother, Where Art Thou?”) Our pilgrim group was blessed with many skilled singers. They led us as we lifted this song into the air. We were full-throated, absorbed, joyful … until a pilgrim group near us, eager to renew their baptismal vows, asked us to quiet down. Like all pilgrims, we sang our way through the confounding and wondrous Holy Land. Sacred song is a means of taking hold of the golden string of God’s love … a love that winds through the labyrinth of the ages, binding us to one another despite ancient resentments. The Golden string of God’s love is long … it stretches deep and high and wide enough to be experienced and expressed in myriad ways. It stretches to embrace and accommodate the whole human family. It is a love that beckons us, each in our own time and way, toward Heaven’s Gate. So, pilgrims – for we are all of us pilgrims – let us join in taking hold of that golden string. Let us, in this time and in this, our sacred space, lift our voices to the God who calls us each by name. – Nancy S. Taylor
Camel in Judean wilderness (photo by Nancy Richardson).	Ten measures of beauty, God gave to the world, Nine for Jerusalem, one for the rest. Ten measures of sorrow, God gave to the world, Nine for Jerusalem, one for the rest. So pray for the peace, pray for the peace, Pray for the peace of Jerusalem. —The Babylonian Talmud
	UNDONE by Linda Dini Jenkins Excerpt from a new book, Travels with My Husband to be published Fall 2008 Great Little Books LLC. Even before we boarded the plane for Milan, and shortly after my husband, Tim, walked straight into a cement column in the Brussels airport, things had started to come undone. A mild concussion and a black eye were certain; a fractured skull was a possibility. Also, we had gotten separated from our traveling companions at the last gate. Tim had bounced off pretty clean, though and, still clutching his carry-on, soldiered forward, the two of us eventually catching up to the rest of the group as we funneled into the boarding area for the flight to Milan’s Malpensa Airport. The other five travelers we had flown across the Atlantic with were nearly strangers. We knew each other only from The Old South Church in Boston. We were part of an inner city community offering a radical welcome and a history of social justice activism. Sam Adams had been a deacon at our church. Ben Franklin had been baptized there. And the folks who threw the tea in the harbor were members. So we shared the deep connection of believing that we were all beloved children of God, were saved by grace, were part of something ancient, yet relevant, and were trying to live our lives as well as we could. That was the easy part. What we did not know was who among us might leave the toilet seat up. Who was the early riser? The night owl who would keep us all awake? Who would demand eggs for breakfast when the rest of us wanted a quick bowl of cereal before dashing out for the day’s activities? Would we have to buy both frizzante and still water? These were the things that would require a period of adjustment. I only hoped they’d all remembered my request to bring a roll of toilet paper so we wouldn’t be slaves to the waxy variety I remembered from years before. These were the things that I personally worried about . . . There were eight of us in total. Seven flew over together and one, Tom, would meet us in Florence after a few days of traveling solo in Venice. He was the trip’s organizer and the only one the rest of us really knew to any degree. It was a bold move for a first trip to Italy. We had met as a group three or four times to select a villa, the amenities we thought we’d want, a budget and so on. Our original group of a dozen was winnowed down to eight. A good size, both for an affordable villa and for two cars, the maximum that we wanted to pay for. And the maximum, we thought, that could remotely stay together on the Italian highways at speeds in excess of 100 miles per hour. We were right. On those trips when we did get lost, a comedy of errors followed, with each of the drivers trying to backtrack to round up the other and each driver subsequently getting lost. It was a time before cell phones, and it was idiotically nerve wracking. When we finally landed in Milan and retrieved our luggage — all of it, miraculously — we walked over to the EuroCar counter as a group and, after a jet-lagged, language-impaired beginning, actually took possession of the two cars we had arranged for stateside. A few minutes later in the parking lot, we were crushed when we saw what we had just signed up for. No snazzy Alfa Romeos for us. Not even an adorable, if toaster-sized, Cinque Cento. No. Parked before us were cars that no self-respecting Italian would ever consider driving. Big, boxy Fiat SUVs called Multipla — one indescribably green, one a muddy bronze, each able to fit five passengers plus luggage. This was a disaster. We knew that we would stand out like sore thumbs in these things, no matter where we went. This proved true almost immediately: on our maiden voyage on the A1, a family of five in a tiny Fiat passed us impatiently, each one of them turning toward us as they sped by, waving their clenched fists at us menacingly. And we thought we were driving fast . . . Distressed at the sight of these turista mobiles, we split up into two groups and loaded the luggage. The two among us who were most familiar with manual transmissions (Tim being one) climbed behind the wheels, and off we went. Off in the general direction of Florence to find our four-bedroom villa in the countryside about eighteen miles northeast of the city. We had that tingly excitement that comes from being on the verge of something brand new and also from being near-collapse overtired. I wondered if everybody felt as scared as I did at that moment. What had we done? What would the next two weeks be like? Were we crazy? With no native speakers among us, how would we eat? Buy gas? Get directions? Most important, how the hell would we buy shoes? Tim backed us out of the parking space. It was about as easy as turning around the QEII. We slowly found the exit and pulled out of the parking garage only to find ourselves in a downpour of Biblical proportions. Rain. Fog. No visibility, and a three-hour drive through an alien countryside in front of us, Tim with a mild concussion. Still, he drove. He drove us through the Appenines, through the many short and long tunnels, over bridges that crossed both deep ravines and twisting river tributaries. He drove alongside speeding cars and semis that seemed not to notice that it was raining so mightily. We were tired, jetlagged, nervous — and now nearly blinded by the weather. Benvenuto a italia. As we got closer to the village of Vicchio, which marked the nearest town to the villa we had rented, we began to worry. We exited the autostrada and drove into what appeared to be a flood plain. To hear Tim talk of it, if we were staying here, we could expect to see our mattresses floating down the river at any moment and we should simply reach out and grab one. He was making jokes, but it was clear that he was concerned. After all, we were renting a 900-year-old mill and flooding was a definite possibility. We felt completely doomed until the directions instructed us to turn and start going along a certain road that to our relief climbed up to higher ground. We had no idea just how far up it would bring us, but we were more than willing to find out. This second road, leading to our villa and the tiny hamlet of Cistio, went on for a mile or more, almost straight up, in hair-pin-turn increments of 100 feet or so. Each time we made a turn we heard a car horn from the distance and then were nearly face-to-face with an angry Italian driver who veered away from us, trying to make his or her way down the mountain. It took us a day or two to realize that Italian hill-climbing (or descending) etiquette requires that you honk your horn before you make the turn. In the case of this drive, that meant about 25 honks before arriving at the villa. Twenty-five opportunities to be flung from one side of the Multipla to another. Twenty-five chances that we would be thrown off the mountain by either an oncoming car or by the force of gravity itself. So we were flung but did not fall off. Shaken, we missed the villa gates the first time up the road, but realized our mistake, turned around and went into the only gate that made sense, despite the fact that we could make out neither house name nor number. We were so exhausted by the road and the weather that we would have stayed in a barn that night, as long as it was dry. We didn’t have to. The villa, an ancient mill that had been added on to and renovated into a comfortable 5-bedroom home, was everything we were hoping for and more — the more was our key keeper, Mario. Tall and dark, Mario was right out of central casting for an Italian Adonis. He had been sent over by the rental agency to provide us with keys and a tour of the villa. With his wavy black hair and schoolboy English, Mario was captivating. We padded after him into every room, while he showed us how to turn on light switches and open the refrigerator. There wasn’t a thing we didn’t want him to show us: the washing machine (no dryer), the showers, the fireplace, the TV. This group of eight soggy, exhausted, not unintelligent Americans had turned into complete idiots at the sight and sound of this exquisite Italian. Well, at least the three straight women and four gay men did. Tim was much less impressed, but was highly amused at what he was seeing. We would have had Mario show us how to tie our shoes if he’d asked. With the keys delivered and the door locks explained, Mario eventually took leave of us for the evening. The rain had slowed down to a relaxing drizzle and the heat began to come on. We were home. Safe. Drying out. Choosing bedrooms. Seeing what had to be bought the next day to fill the larder for the coming two weeks. Unpacking. Flinging the shutters open to reveal a full moon shining brightly over the tall bamboo trees in the yard. Slightly undone, still, we retired to our rooms and our first night in Tuscany. Linda Dini Jenkins is a member of Old South Church, and past chair of the Communications Committee and the Writing Into God group. She is the author of Journey of a Returning Christian: Writing Into God, Things I Never Told My Mother, and co-author of If I’m Talking, Why aren’t You Listening?. She now lives in Midlothian, Virginia with her husband Tim and their dog Maxine. She will return for a book signing at Old South's 4th Floor Guild Rooms in January. More details at <www.greatlittlebooksllc.com>.
Photo of Old South organ console (photo by Evan H. Shu). Blower Duct under the Choir, photo by Jonathan Ambrosino	THE ORGANS AT OLD SOUTH by Jonathan Ambrosino The organ is so central to worship at Old South that it is easy to take for granted. Yet on an average Sunday, at least a third of the principal service uses the organ in some fashion; singing hymns or accompanying the choir would be inconceivable without it, and Old South wouldn’t feel like Old South with the soul-stirring, room-shaking music the Skinner organ provides. The beauty of any pipe organ is its wonderfully low-tech engineering. Unlike telephone systems, computers or any other modern technology -- all of which are designed to be obsolete, thus requiring eventual and costly replacement -- organs are almost infinitely renewable. In the famous words of Joseph Dzeda, Curator of Organs at Yale University, “As long as God makes sheep and glue, we can restore organs. ” Some people get discouraged that large organs require periodic and costly repairs. But repairs cost far less than replacement, nothing permanent is maintenance-free, and the fact it can be restored indefinitely marks the pipe organ as a spiritual offshoot of the church it serves: infinitely renewable and designed for the ages. It was a daring, expensive and magnificent undertaking that brought Op. 308 to Old South ¯ perhaps even more so, given how much secondary effort had to be expended so soon after installation. Thanks to the superb work of the Barden crew at that time, and the expert guidance of consultants and church members, the organ has emerged as a paragon of stability and easy maintenance. This does not mean that it is maintenance-free ¯ like a Church, it needs its equivalent of roof and furnace repair, cleaning, overhaul, restoration. But a Church soon to celebrate its 350th anniversary understands longevity. In its incarnation at Old South, Op. 308 is a mere adolescent, but one whose long life can be guaranteed, with the right attitude and good work. We want to do everything possible to see it into a happy middle age. In broad terms, both instruments [Sanctuary organ & Chapel organ] are in solid shape. The sanctuary organ has proven remarkably stable in the eighteen years since Nelson Barden Associates completed the large campaign of work (1987-1990) following the rebuild by Casavant/Hokans-Knapp 1983-1984. For various reasons, that campaign could not address certain areas, which have been and will continue to be, areas of ongoing attention. Parts of the Organ from encarta.msn.com Background of the Sanctuary Organ: Skinner OP. 308 & Others In 1875, the “New” Old South Church was equipped with a three-manual [3 keyboards] Hutchings organ, sited in the gallery. This was replaced in 1915 with Ernest M. Skinner Organ Company’s Op. 231, a four-manual with 32 ft. metal Gamba and wooden Bombarde, a Physharmonica, and the full complement of Skinner specialty voices. Like the Hutchings, the Skinner was also installed in the gallery. For many years the eminent Dr. Carl McKinley presided over this instrument. In the late 1960s, Dr. McKinley’s successor, Alfred Nash Patterson, sought a new instrument, which was eventually commissioned in 1968 from the Reuter Organ Company of Lawrence, Kansas and installed in 1969. This, too, was a four-manual organ, with Great, Swell, Choir, Positiv, Bombarde and Pedal divisions. The two Skinner 32ft stops were retained, but all else was sold to Virgil Fox for use at his home in Englewood, New Jersey. (Eventually the pipes and parts were broken up for sale; the Kleine Erzähler and Flute Celeste found their way first to restorers in Detroit, and then eventually back to Old South via Nelson Barden.) In the early 1980s, under the tutelage of then-organist David Garth Worth, an effort was established to return the Skinner sound to Old South Church. Skinner Op. 308, built in 1921 for the Municipal Auditorium of Saint Paul, Minnesota, had suffered the fate of most municipal organs of its day. Although these organs opened to great fanfare, the advent of radio and sound pictures caused such instruments to be used less and less. Old South learned of the instrument’s availability mere weeks before the auditorium was to be razed and decided to act. A consortium was quickly formed to remove and store the instrument. The crew consisted of the A. Thompson-Allen Co., Curators of Organs at Yale University; Foley-Baker Inc. from Tolland, Connecticut; and Nelson Barden Associates of Boston. Once the heroic removal effort was completed, attention turned to how the organ could be installed in Boston. Some consideration was given to retaining the gallery arrangement, but Old South was ready to have music join with clergy in the chancel area. Such a job being beyond the capabilities of the New England restorers, other vendors were explored, and ultimately Casavant Frères, Ltée. of St. Hyacinth, Québec was chosen, in a two-contract arrangement with that firm’s regional representatives, Henry Hokans and Richard Knapp. The Reuter organ was sold back to Reuter in the early 1980s, who took it back to Kansas and repackaged it for a Baptist Church n Orlando, Florida. Nelson Barden Associates began a rebuilding program in 1986, made formal in 1987 under consultants Jack Bethards, Joseph Dzeda and Jason McKown, and church guidance from organist Frederick A. MacArthur, treasurer Tom Wardell, and member Wayne Davis. This particular campaign of work saw completion in June 1990, in time for the American Guild of Organists National Convention in Boston. In 1993, the Antiphonal organ received all new pipework from Austin. Nelson Barden Associates renovated the console in 1999, installing a new solid-state combination action. Blower and Blower Room. The blower was completely overhauled in 1984, and the three static bellows rebuilt by Nelson Barden Associates in 1987. At that time, the blower room was re-engineered, cleaned, re-lighted, and fitted with filtered air supply via a duct that draws air from the Great/Pedal pit. We routinely monitor the grease in the blower motors and the cleanliness of their filters. Being in such a confined space, the blowers generate considerable heat and dryness. This has not promoted longevity of the three bellows there. Already the high-pressure bellows has had to be re-restored, and recently we undertook emergency repairs on the low-pressure bellows; further work will be needed in due course. The mid-pressure bellows appears stable for the moment. Climate control in this room would be tremendously useful, and should be explored as a means of promoting longevity of these three bellows. Also, humidification of the wind supply system would further promote longevity of the entire organ chassis. Windchests. Given their complexity, organs have surprisingly few moving parts, most of which are found in the windchests. Underneath each pipe is a leather pouch and valve, conveying wind to that pipe. The leather is like that used in ladies gloves, and sometime thinner, but begins life with great tensile strength. As the organ is played, the leather pouches flex constantly. Even a short hymn entails thousands of individual pouch movements. As the leather decays, creases and tears develop, and notes go silent. In some actions, the notes sound all the time, and the pipes have to be muted until the leather is replaced. There are approximately 6,900 individual leather movements to operate the 6,500 pipes in the Old South organ. (By comparison, the Chapel organ contains 1,411 leather movements to operate 1,164 pipes. ) Illustration of Organ from "Pipe Dreams" Smithsonian Magazine, July 97 Pollution and age combine to cause leather deterioration. Typically, organs in urban areas are prone to earlier failure than their rural counterparts. Age is a further consideration, as leather quality declined along the course of the 20th century. As a result, organs in our stable of considerably different vintage (1925 Skinner, 1936 Kimball, 1965 Aeolian-Skinner, 1983 Casavant) are all coming due for releathering about now. Fortunately, these organs are engineered for infinite renewal. Those elements upon which the leather is mounted are easily removed from the organ, and are restored in the workshop according to straightforward practices. Using the best available leather and restoration techniques gives the longest life from the next generation of work, and promotes the general health of the organ. When Casavant reconditioned the organ in 1983-84, the old leather was stripped off and new pouches fitted. Brown, vegetable-tanned sumac leather was used, which became standard practice for electro-pneumatic organs built after World War II. Research since the mid-1970s, however, led most American organ builders to eventually use white, chrome-tanned leather for these actions, since testing has demonstrated that chrome-tanned the leather might last fifty to sixty years, not twenty-five to thirty-five, as new brown leather seems to. Nelson Barden was the first restorer in North America to employ white, chrome-tanned leather in an organ restoration project ¯ at Church of the Advent, on Beacon Hill. In the Barden rebuilding project at Old South, the issue of releathering was considered. However, the brown leather was new and clearly had value left, all while more pressing items demanded attention and resources. Thus the primary and pouch leather was left intact to lead out its useful life. Considering all the factors described above, it is not surprising that dead notes are now surfacing: a) the leather is now twenty-five years old, beginning the typical failure period for brown leather; b) Old South is situated upon one of America’s busier street corners; c) the first signs of failure are in hose mechanisms that do the most work: another typical sign. As this issue is approached over the next decade, three principles should be borne in mind: a) leather life left should be maximized wherever practicable; b) any work should be done in the most cost effective manner possible; c) dead notes and failures should not unreasonably impede the musicians. View of Primary Actions by Jonathan Ambrosino Primary actions: This machinery controls all notes of a given windchest. Because the primary operates with one or all stops drawn, its leather tends to wear out faster than the leather operating individual notes. Individual note pouches: These are the brown circles of leather shown in the photograph to the right. The wooden boards on which the pouches are mounted fit inside the windchest and align to the holes that supply the pipes with wind. As the pouch flexes downward, wind enters the pipe. As the pouch returns to its upward, rest position, the valve seals off the hole and the pipes silenced. The good news: at this point, no individual note pouch has failed. On our December 22 tuning visit, we surveyed every note of every stop. While silent notes exist, in each case it is due to pipe speech, not a leather pouch. However, if we take into consideration both the failing primary notes and the porosity issue, and join that to experience with other organs, we know that failure cannot be far off. Ideally, no note pouches will fail within the next three years. We will monitor the situation at our tuning visits, and you should log any silent note you find, so that we can investigate. Valves: If the pouch is the brown circle of leather, the valve is the black disc of rubber that sits atop the leather, and actually does the work of sealing the holes underneath the pipes to stop the wind. When Casavant releathered the organ, they used neoprene rubber valves. The originals would have been made of a felt-leather laminate. When the pouches are eventually replaced, new felt-leather valves will be used. Pouch springs: Each pouch contains a spring to press the valve tight up against the pipe hole. Without disturbing one of the pouches, it isn’t possible to know whether Casavant used the original 1921 springs or employed new, but certainly when the pouches and valves are replaced, new springs should be fitted. Pitmans: these tiny pneumatic armatures determine whether a stop plays. The pitmans are contained in a second rail affixed to the bottom of the pouchrail. In this photograph, the two rails have been separated for inspection. The pitmans are made of thicker leather tacked to little dowels; the dowels move, but the leather doesn’t flex. Because of their thickness and this lack of flexing, pitmans generally last two generations where pouches last one. All pitmans we’ve seen thus far look original to 1921 ¯ not surprising, as in 1982-83 they would have been in good condition and worthy of re-use. However, the pitmans have been failing now for several years. In December 2005, we took apart the both the Swell Dulciana and Bourdon to cure ciphers caused by disintegrating pitmans. Two more failed this month on the Dulciana, which we repaired. Summary: There are nine primaries in the organ: Great (33), Swell (22), Choir, Solo, String and Antiphonal. The principle described about maximizing leather above should be applied to the restoration of this mechanism: a) restore the Choir primary as soon as possible; b) monitor the remaining eight, assuming the next one needing restoration will be the Swell high-pressure; c) budget for their eventual restoration d) hold off on restoring any primary until failure reaches the tipping point of inconvenience. As individual pouches begin to fail, we should develop a phased approach to releathering, spreading costs and down-time over a number of years. Releathering should not stretch too long, so that the leather throughout the organ remains from the same general period. Bellows Leather. There are 19 individual bellows for wind regulation. Unlike the leather work inside the windchests, Casavant’s rebuilding of the bellows (cutting down the side ribs and modifying the valves) fundamentally altered how these units regulated the wind. In the rebuilding of 1987-1990, the most important bellows ¯ those for static regulation and the manual divisions ¯ were rebuilt according to original specifications. The others were left as Casavant had renovated hem. Console. The console is in generally good condition, following the renovation and upgrades in 1999. A few items are in the works: Power switch: this caused problems earlier in the fall. While the on/off button unit is no longer made, Casavant had several in stock, so we purchased two: a replacement and a spare. The replacement was installed a few days before Christmas, while the spare is stored inside the console for future need. Expression shoes: there have been persistent problems with the electric swell motors, in which individual motors will occasionally seize and need re-booting, requiring a service call. The syndrome has been diagnosed as an incompatibility between the contacting system of the original 1921 expression shoes and the solid-state circuitry of the electric swell motors. In addition, last spring the Swell expression shoe almost fell into the console, being simply worn out. We are currently under contract to replace all five expression shoes, both to provide reliable swell shoes but also to introduce solid-state circuitry into the signal-sending portions of the shoes to make the swell motors happier. This job will require the pedalboard to be out for one Sunday ¯ we should schedule this work at your convenience. Pipework. Most of the pipework was cleaned n the 1987-1990 work, and is in good condition. Flues: I am happy to note that the interior and pipe surfaces of the organ are surprisingly clean. Remarkably little dirt has accumulated in twenty years, and conditions seem harmonious. We routinely wipe down and vacuum walk boards, perch boards and access-ways, so that our footsteps do not track any more dirt through the organ. We will do this again at some point before our Easter tuning. Reeds: Some reeds were renovated professionally by the Broomes (Great reeds, Solo Tuba, Swell French Trumpet), while the others were cleaned in the Barden shop. In each case, particular attention was paid to zinc reed sockets, which have a tendency to oxidize over time, producing a dust that can get blown up into the reeds and cause notes to go silent. While most of the reeds have been admirably stable, some have not. We recently contracted to have the Pedal Trombone, Solo Heckelphone and Solo English Horn professionally reconditioned. The Trombone has always been problematic, and the Solo color reeds have not been stable in a long time. As you know, the Trombone, English Horn and Heckelphone were removed on January 3, and barring any unforeseen incident, we plan to re-install them prior to Palm Sunday. In the future, we may wish to work on the Solo Corno di Bassetto (trebles especially) and Orchestral Oboe. But for the moment, those reeds seem happy enough. Percussion: Neither Harp nor Chimes was restored in the Barden work of twenty years ago. They work, sort of. Both are particularly soft. DIRECTORY OF ORGAN STOPS (PDF file)
Chapel Organ, photo by Evan H. Shu	Background on Chapel Organ: Aeolian-Skinner OP. 896, 1933 Gordon Chapel was constructed in 1932 as a part of the parish house project that also replaced the original tower with the present one. Æolian-Skinner Organ Company was contracted in 1932 for a new organ of special, small design. Due to limited space, 14 sets of pipes were ingeniously installed into inhospitably-shaped chambers. Despite the cramped conditions, the organ’s warm and engaging tone was always considered something of a triumph. Dr. McKinley was so delighted with the results that he wrote an article praising the organ in the May 1933 American Organist . Originally a three-manual instrument, the original console (gutted, but with its original ivory hardware) still lives in the parish house basement. In 1983 this instrument was rebuilt by Casavant Frères, Ltée. A new, two-manual console was fitted; Great, Choir and Pedal made unenclosed; Choir stops combined onto the Great manual; and several tonal changes made. The organ was releathered at this time, one chest converted to Schwimmer winding, reservoirs overhauled n the manner of the sanctuary organ, and a few other mechanical modifications made. The 1983 work left much of the organ uncomfortably loud and bright, at least to our ears today. In 2007, we carried out a tonal renovation whose goal was to return all available pipes to their original locations and voicing. This project removed two of the added mixtures, replicated the Gemshorn treble and Great Twelfth (thus permitting the original Grave Mixture to be heard), and re-regulated all stops. The organ is now as it was tonally in 1933, with three exceptions: the Great, Choir and Pedal remain unenclosed; the Swell Vox Humana (now in the sanctuary organ) holds the Casavant 111 Plein Jeu, revoiced as a two-rank mixture; and the Choir Dulciana is absent. For this project, installation and racking work was executed by Spencer Organ Company, new pipes were made by Thomas Anderson (former head of the Æolian-Skinner pipe shop), voicing was by Daniel Kingman, Trompette renovation by Broome & Co. ¯ all managed, contracted and tonally finished by me. Concurrently, Nelson Barden Associates rebuilt the blower, replacing the original D. CC motor with a vintage 3-phase A. C. model. Finally, some structural repairs were made to parts of the organ whose wall attachments had failed, the swell shutter action was adjusted, and the electro-pneumatic relay received a few modifications. It is important to note that, apart from the repairs listed above, no mechanical work of any kind has been carried out since the 1983 renovation. Since Casavant undertook the mechanical overhaul of both chapel and sanctuary organs, and the two instruments are constructed by the same manufacturer, the same restoration issues evident in the main organ hold true for the Chapel. Fortunately at this time, the chapel organ has no dead note of any kind. Since it is used far less, we hope dead notes won’t develop for five to ten years. But, in any pipe organ in which some of the mechanism has not been addressed since its construction in 1933, we should be prepared to address a few mechanical items. Some that come to mind: a) Unlike those in the main organ, the Chapel organ’s magnets have leather gaskets and leathered armatures. This leather is all original to 1933, and is crumbling into failure. At present, this condition is worst in the Swell Gedeckt, causing ciphers. At some point, it would be good to restore all the magnets in the organ. b) We could certainly improve the effect of the Swell Tremolo on the lower chest, affecting the Geigen, Salicional, Voix Celeste and Trompette. c) We might give consideration to re-creating the swell shutters on the Great/Choir side. d) The old console should be safeguarded at all costs. It would be wonderful to reinstate this console some day, as it is a particularly elegant thing, original to the organ, and would give the benefit of returning his organ to its original intention of a three, not two-manual organ. Organ Value: A fair-market appraisal of any pipe organ is speculative. Unlike pianos, harpsichords or violins, pipe organs are rarely sold or traded. Most often they are restored, rebuilt or replaced. If it were to be sold, even a valuable instrument could command only a fraction of its true value, since its purchase is only the first step in a long, expensive process for the buyer: professional removal, storage, shipping, restoration, re-engineering and installation in a new location. Since these expenses can easily equal or exceed that of a new, similarly-sized instrument, any prospective purchaser is in the position to pay only a small sum for the organ itself. In the case of Old South, any organ with so much Skinner mechanism and pipework commands a good sale price. Perhaps the range of $150-$250K can be mentioned. The Chapel organ might sell for $25,000. But in the same breath, it must be said that such figures are incredibly misleading, as they state but a fraction of the organ’s true worth. An organ the size and scope of the sanctuary instrument, as obtained from one of the country’s best builders, would cost between $3.6 and $4.2 million. These figures do not take into account costs usually borne by the purchaser in the acquisition of any pipe organ, which generally include (but are not limited to) sales tax, shipping, hoisting, insurance and site preparation costs. The real price might be closer to $4.5 million. Of course, in the largest sense the organ ¯ like the Church itself ¯ is irreplaceable. It contains materials and historical techniques of tone production that cannot be duplicated at any price. It would be sensible if the Church’s insurance reflected replacement cost at this price, also taking into account that the organ exists in several locations, with a large console. The Chapel organ would cost about $600,000 to replace with something of like quality. Its insurance value should be at least that amount. New organ prices have risen dramatically in the past five years, due to rising labor costs and sharp increases in wood, steel and the metals used in pipe manufacturing. Maintenance and Restoration. Industry rule of thumb suggests that churches set aside annually an amount between ¾ and 1½ percent of replacement value ¯ half devoted to yearly maintenance and tuning, the other half set into a sinking fund against future restoration. If we apply this formula to Old South based upon an average replacement value of $4 million, Old South should be budgeting between $30,000 and $50,000 yearly for the sanctuary organ, and perhaps $4,000 annually for the Chapel organ. Rules-of-thumb, however, are only a guideline. The most expensive organs are often cheaper to maintain because of their stability, and more straightforward to rebuild, because of sensible engineering. In the calendar year 2007, we billed $6,128.77 of both organs (probably 15 percent being devoted to the Chapel). This is testament to each organ’s reliability and stability of tuning: in the Sanctuary organ, a result of the Barden campaign’s careful attention to those elements that promote stability, and in the Chapel, our recent tonal rebuild only encouraged the organ’s inherent tendency to remain in tune. However, in this year the Church is spending an additional $42,000 on the Sanctuary organ to renovate three reed stops and do important console work. Future years will bring other important renovation issues to the table, and it is important to budget accordingly. At this point in the instrument’s history, it is probably wise to adopt a more aggressive budgetary approach. Certainly $30,000 a year is advisable: $7,500 for organ maintenance, $22,500 set aside for organ rebuilding. Anything not spent on maintenance can be sunk into a rebuilding account, so that a reserve is built up to address the normal and expected mechanical rebuilding of both organs. We love taking care of Old South, and not merely because it is a wonderful instrument. It is one of those happy instruments that invites good care. The building’s heating system is stable, reliable and largely silent and draft-free; most pipes are easy to reach and in good shape; and we are treated with unfailing hospitality. I hope that you and I will retire together after many decades of service to Old South Church. JONATHAN AMBROSINO <jonathanambrosino.com> is an historian, journalist and consultant actively involved with organ work and the preservation of the American pipe organ. A Boston native and educated in journalism, book editing and newspaper design, he migrated to the organ business in 1985. Early in his career he was business manager of Nelson Barden Associates, Restorers-in-Residence at Boston University, and he later worked for Austin Organs Inc. and Rosales Organ Builders. He has worked independently since 1996, combining historical studies with professional involvement in organ building, consultation and tonal finishing. He served as President of the Organ Historical Society from 1999 to 2001, having served as a Councilor since 1993.
OSC Logo with additional artwork by Evan H. Shu Transiberian Railroad from <bored-todeath.com>	OLD SOUTH TRAVEL MEMORIES It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. Who knew . . . that Dickens was talking about travel and vacations?! Such remembrances of things past came to mind when we asked the Old South community to contribute their own “best and worst” vacation memories. Out of Africa. One of the perks of my job is that I get to travel to far away places and go on safari every other year or so. One of these journeys took me to Botswana where we focused our exploration on Chobe National Park, known for its elephant population. As we drove through the park we came across the body of a mighty elephant, slouched against the trunk of a large tree with his back to us. It seems this amazing creature was shot the day before by a farmer across the Chobe River (in Namibia), fearful that the elephant would destroy his crops. The injured elephant stumbled back to Chobe to die. As we drove up, there were many vultures in the area, doing what vultures do best. We paused to watch and suddenly all the vultures stopped and backed off the carcass. Just then a long line of elephants appeared and formed a half-circle around their fallen friend. They all paused, seemed to bow their heads, and the world fell silent for a few moments. Just as peacefully as they came, the elephants then walked off. It was a gift to witness this private moment of mourning in the animal world. The sadness and the power of community will stay with me always. — Sue Gettum Land of Many Colors. Poised in mid-air upon a suspension foot bridge in the cloud forest near Monteverde, one Costa Rican summer morning, we peered down into the infinite green below, while our young guide explained that before our eyes were arrayed some 440 shades of green. He remarked, somehow without sadness, that we humans can see only 60 or so of them. Good thing God made the creatures of the forest, so someone can see them. — Weldon Palmer & Tricia Hazeltine Palmer Going Up. In August of 2004 I went to a conference in Urumqi, in the northwest corner of China. Before the conference began, a friend took me for a drive into the mountains. Driving out of the city we passed street signs in Uyghur and Chinese; veiled Uyghur women and Han Chinese in business suits; donkey carts and air-conditioned tour buses. After 40 miles we entered the mountains, and followed a river canyon for another 40 miles. The nature of the canyon changed many times as we went up, but almost always it was stunningly beautiful. The base of the canyon was sometimes just the width of the river: as little as a hundred yards, with the road carved into the side of the valley. I didn’t see any “beware of fallen rock” signs, but there was certainly a lot of fallen rock. In one place, two-thirds of the pavement had fallen about twenty feet down into the river, so everybody squeezed around. The last ten miles was gravel and entirely under construction. We stopped for lunch at an elevation of perhaps 12,500 feet. I’m not sure what the nature of the restaurant was. We ate in what was clearly a bedroom for three people: the bedding was rolled up, and we sat on the mattress pads. Food was a wonderful lamb stew, with potatoes and who-knows-what spices: definitely one of the best stews I ever ate. After lunch we walked some and were led on horses a little further, going up almost to the base of the glacier in a cirque called Tiger’s Mouth. The locals claimed that the top of that was 15,000 feet, and it certainly looked less than a thousand feet up from where we were. That’s the highest I’ve ever been on land. — David Vogan Family Roots. Each Fourth of July week our family gathers at Craigville, all l8 of us, sometimes the children bring a friend or two — our three children and their spouses and ten grandchildren. It is a glorious time. . . . Also, every summer for years Della and I have made our annual journey to Cape Breton Island, the birth place of her parents. It has become for both of us a spiritual pilgrimage as we connect with her roots and my adopted ones. — Carl F. Schultz I Spy. What’s secret code for “I rushed through the Spy Museum?” Secret codes. Altered identities. Little listening devices. The Spy Museum has it all! My family went there for part of a trip to Washington DC. It was my favorite part of that trip. I bought an invisible ink pen at the “Spy Store,” and it inspired me to buy a password journal and an alarm for my room! We didn’t get to spend as much time there as we wanted, since we had to rush to get on a cruise down the Potomac, which never took off of course (due to stormy weather). — Amanda Grace Shu The Sound of Wailing. One of my most memorable vacation experiences took place way back in 1968 in the old walled city of Jerusalem. Walking the narrow cobbled streets in the late afternoon, I heard the unmistakable sounds well before I rounded the corner leading to the famous “Wailing Wall.” Jewish friends in New York had rightfully warned me that I would be awakened at daylight on the overnight El Al flight by shawl draped figures rising around me to pray ¯ certainly an unexpected airplane experience. But nothing had prepared me for the somber, colorful, international and very noisy intoning of prayer in this public assembly. There was still a very special celebratory air in this holy place, which had been reclaimed by the Jews just a year earlier in the six days of war with Jordan. Israel’s patriotism and militarism at that time were astounding. Nancy’s and Quinn’s reports of their recent Israel pilgrimage were a nice reminder of my long ago visit to that complex country. — Margaret Bush Airing Our Laundry. Traveling to Spain with friends in college, we came upon a southern town in which we planned to stay at a hostel. Learning from a resident that the hostel was now an empty building, we chanced upon nice lodging that seemed like a hotel/bed and breakfast. After we settled, we did a desperate sink load of laundry and attempted to create a clothesline across the room and hung some things on the balcony railing. As we were rearranging furniture in our attempt, a loud beeping came from a truck at a four-way intersection directly below. Inside the truck was a woman waving her hands and shouting in Spanish saying something about the clothes! The woman was the owner of the place and we believed we were in deep trouble and so we scrambled to undo everything we had regarding the laundry line and the balcony hanging. A few minutes later, inside and at our room door, she said to us simply and kindly: Next time use the roof! — Liz Olson Lewis & Clark’s Winter Camp. I remember going to Fort Clatsop in Oregon. I got to try on costumes. I did a booklet and got a patch. It was so fun! I also got to see India Ink. I want to go there again. — Nathaniel Shu Trans-Siberian Prayers. Ten years ago, just after my son Stephen graduated from Cambridge Rindge and Latin High School, he and I traveled with a terrific group on the China “Orient Express” from Beijing north to and through Mongolia into Siberia. We then boarded the Òðàíññèáèðñêàÿ ìàãèñòðàëü, aka the Trans-Siberian Railroad, traveling west to Moscow. During these four weeks together, we traveled across China, into Mongolia, and Siberia, visiting Beijing, climbing and walking the Great Wall, going to Ulaan-Baator, Ulan-Ude, Irkutsk, Novosibirsk, and Moscow. We swam in the magnificent Lake Baikal, the largest freshwater lake in the world (and legend has it that we each added 20 extra years to our lives in so doing — besides, it was such fun!) as well as viewing ancient relics and monuments of the Orient. After passing the Chinese-Mongolian border, in a small town Erlian (China) we changed the train and continued our trip to Russia on board the Trans-Siberian Railroad. While this trip was not planned with specific theological or religious goals, one of the most surprising aspects was the incredible inter-religious opportunity in Mongolia and across Siberia to visit countless Buddhist monasteries, libraries, and archives as well as Christian churches, all of which had been hidden, buried, and used as horse stables during years of Stalin’s rule and further Russian occupation in Mongolia and over the past century in Russia. What a delight to see Buddhist prayer papers waving in the wind on countless “prayer lines” and to witness Christian baptisms being celebrated in every sanctuary we visited! — Liz Rice-Smith Got to Admit It’s Getting Better. In July of 2004 I attended a large and well-organized conference at a mathematics institute in Hangzhou, China. On the next to last day I developed a standard traveler’s ailment. Having been invited to dinner by one of the organizers, I needed to cancel with an explanation; so the status of my gastrointestinal system was fairly widely known among the institute staff. The last day of the conference I was going to lectures, visiting the bathroom regularly. One of the secretaries came up to me with a bottle of pills: “Take three, one time.” I accepted gratefully. I later asked a Chinese mathematician for more details about the dosage, and was told that the dose of three pills was to be repeated three times a day. The details were important to me, because at the end of the day I had a three-hour bus ride to Shanghai. Just before I left for the bus, one of the other secretaries inquired after my health. “Your nose is better now?” she asked, indicating her nose. “Oh yes, thank you!” I replied cheerfully, hoping of course that the secretary who brought me the pills was better informed about the nature of the problem. I’m still not absolutely sure about that. I had no trouble on the bus trip. But the following week I related this funny story to two US-trained Chinese mathematicians. The first said that they probably gave me some “Chinese medicine. Very strong stuff. Effective for everything.” The two of them examined the bottle, and agreed that it did indeed have some powerful ingredients. I still don’t know what it was intended to cure. — David Vogan Missing. We were nearing the end of wonderful spring break driving trip to our nation’s capitol and decided on our last day to make one last stop on the way out to visit the Supreme Court. I dropped off the family at the front steps and rushed to find a parking spot in a nearby neighborhood and jogged back to join them. After an educational presentation made memorable by our 8 year old son (and possible future attorney) Nate falling asleep on the floor in front of the highest court in the nation, we walked back to where I had parked the car. No car. No car filled with all our luggage. No car to take us home. “I must have parked on the next block,” I said more calmly than I felt. No car. “Or was it down this street?” No car. We asked a mail carrier if the police routinely tow in this neighborhood. She shrugged her shoulders. With mounting panic, I told the family to wait at one corner while I continued to jog around the neighborhood trying to jog my memory of my path as well. No car. Finally, after a frantic hour of searching, I was ready to call the police and try to get us home by bus or train. I knew it was hopeless, but I said, “let me just look down this one block” (which I had long ago eliminated because surely I would have remembered parking next to a big playground!). . . Yup, you guessed it: Car! Our car was in the very spot, just where I had left it 3 hours earlier. Thank You, God! Our drive home to Boston was uneventful but filled with gratitude and humility over what might have been. — Evan H. Shu In-Terminable. Travel arrangements and flight connections were all in order. I arrived at the Berlin airport at an early hour and sat waiting at the gate to board for New York. An announcement—our plane did not pass inspection for take off—an hour wait. Later, another announcement—a two hour wait. Another plane was brought on—another inspection. More announcements with unknown wait times. We were given coupons for food. Monitors were rolled in with a variety of movies in a choice of either English or German. Finally, we take off. Arrival at New York JFK, through customs, passed baggage and to the correct ticket counter. “The last plane to Boston just left.” “Next” is tomorrow at 7 am, but another will leave Newark shortly.” I raced, remembering the lengthy directions—down long hallways, up and down escalators, finally to the exit. A bus is waiting, and yes, it is the shuttle to Newark airport. A few streets, a few corners, across a bridge and we are here. I managed another race—hallways, escalators and breathlessly to the ticket counter. “The last flight to Boston just left.” “Next is tomorrow.” It was after 7:00 pm. I retraced my route, back to the bus, and back again to JFK. I was offered a hotel, but the thought of another bus — much as I love bus riding — and to be back here by 7:00 am — no, I would just wait here and rest on one of these plush couches. As the night wore on, huge gates were extended and locked. “Lady, you have to move out.” Finally I was in the entry and no plush couches, in fact no couches. There were stainless steel squares for holding suitcases. I would manage. My sleep was in very short naps. Suddenly out came a noisy bobcat with a huge round brush spraying gallons of soapy water up and down the long hallway. Fortunately, I travel lightly. My combo back pack and wheeled luggage could fit in the shiny square with me, that is, with none of my joints extended. Finally, my feet could go back on the floor. No, another bobcat tractor, this time apparently with wax and a huge round brush polisher. Don’t anyone ever try to tell me that the John F. Kennedy Airport in New York is not kept clean. Many more naps and long hours, and I think the dark outside is getting lighter. People are coming in for early flights, throwing backpacks down for pillows and sleeping on the clean floor. Uniformed staff entered with enormous keys, the huge gates were pushed back. Staff kept returning to stations, talking of last night’s entertainment. I could straighten my knees and walk to the boarding gate to wait on a plush couch for 7:00 am. I gave up telephoning arrival times to family. I pictured the shuttle, the Blue Line, Green Line, Red Line and perhaps a little hike at the end might both rouse as well as calm me. I could turn the keys in my own door and find my own bed. On the plane the flight attendant looked bright and enthusiastic as she demonstrated the safety procedures. Do I really need to pay attention to these again? If I didn’t know better I would declare that this tiny craft was going to touch down right into the water between the islands of Boston Harbor. I watch the wing flaps fold down. I hear the change in the sound of the engine. Bump, this really is the runway to Logan Airport. Home at last! — Edra Mercer Missing, Part II. The longest and most frightening five minutes of 2003 came when my son Nate, then age 4, vanished from my life in the San Francisco airport while we were on our summer vacation. My husband Evan went to get food while I watched our children, Nate and Amanda, and all our carry-on baggage. Exhausted from the long plane ride, my attention wandered and suddenly, Nate was gone from sight. I can still recall the horror and worry I experienced when I discovered that I did not know where Nate was. I looked at all the thousands of people in all the hundreds of terminals and did not even know where to begin looking. I expressed my alarm over my missing son to two security persons, who reacted very lackadaisically — but fortunately, nearby parents picked up my alarm and panic and helped me begin to search . Fortunately, Nate did not lose sight of me as I lost sight of him and came running back completely unaware of my terror. I embraced him with great intensity as I realized how precious he is.— Annamarie Ross Shu Cherche le Gun. “Do you want to see my gun?” the Parisian police officer asked, complete with an Inspector Clouseau accent. Without waiting for a reply, he handed his service revolver over to my 12-year-old son for him to inspect. Because, of course, an American boy would want to play with guns. This was not what I had expected when I went into the police station to report that my wallet had been stolen at the Metro station. But nothing about Stephan had been what I expected, from the Blues Brothers poster and assorted memorabilia on the wall, to his constant assurance that he didn’t usually take pickpocket reports. After all, he was a detective and he didn’t wear a uniform. But his cousin in New York wasn’t a detective yet, and he still had to wear a uniform (I detected more than a touch of family rivalry). When Jonathan handed the gun back, he took the gun, pointed it to the back of his office mate, pretended to shoot him, and said wistfully, “someday.” . . . Somewhere in Paris is a police detective who has been way too heavily influenced by American pop culture. — Lois Corman