Brunch at my Sister's

The other day my sister hosted a birthday brunch for her oldest daughter, Olivia, who has recently turned two.  My sister is quite a good cook, so I was curious to see what she would serve for brunch.  As it turns out, she served a delicious breakfast casserole, along with fruit salad, muffins, coffee cake, and these delicious scones (plus, of course, juice and coffee).  The scones were so pretty, I had to take a picture. 

Above the table were these lovely poofy things (sorry, I don't know what you would call them) made of tissue paper.  This is the sort of thing that I would never think to do, but my sister has more of an eye for pretty things than I do, I think.

My boys are old enough now to be mostly independent at social gatherings, leaving me free to socialize--and hold babies. :)  Here is Caleb and Leah's youngest.  She is such a cheerful and good-natured baby.  This picture doesn't really capture her cuteness, but it's the best I could do.

And this is Calvin (Joseph and Carolyn's youngest) looking serious.  Look, his eyes match his shirt.

A few of the children (and one adult) eating lunch.  From left to right, Shona, Sarah, Jenna, Cameron, Elijah, and Noah.

Here is Julia (Calvin's big sister) reading a card to the birthday girl, Olivia.  I have a hard time getting good pictures of Olivia.  I have concluded that a lot of her cuteness is in the way she acts, and the way she talks, and you can't really capture that in a photo.  But you can still tell that she's cute. :) 

More pictures coming soon!

Psalm 145

We have a lot of old recordings of psalm singing, most of them congregational singing from when our church met at its old location on Highway 6.  A few years ago, Jesh went through a few of them to produce a set of 4 CDs of psalm singing; but until recently, the rest were scattered in various folders throughout the church's hard drive, mostly unidentified.

When I moved down and expressed an interest in psalm recordings, Jesh decided to put me to work.  He went through the church hard drive, located all the psalm recordings, and dumped them into one folder with the ambitious title "full psalter."  He then assigned me the task of identifying them all and replacing file names like "DS02983" with names like "032 v 1-5 St David."  Once they were all identified, I had to delete duplicates, and where there were multiple recordings of one section of the psalms, I had to pick out the best and remove the others to an "alternates" folder.

It took me a while, but when I was done, we had a nicely organized folder of (once the psalm sing recordings were added to the list) about two hundred recordings.  A lot of the recordings overlap a bit, and many of them are not of good quality, since the recorder was positioned to record the sermon, not the singing.  But the idea is that over time, we can produce more recordings to replace the poor ones, and to fill in the many gaps where we have no recordings at all.

Fast forward a few months: Jesh has decided that it is high time we make a new set of psalm CDs to replace the old set.  Since he is quite busy, of course the task has fallen to me.  First I went through all of the recordings and selected the ones of better quality, to be included in the CDs; and now I am having to edit most of the recordings I selected, to fix volume and other issues. 

This task has involved lots of poking around in the depths of the church hard drive.  In the process, I stumbled across a folder of sermons from an Edinburgh communion season that Jesh attended in 2007.  At the end of one was this recording of the Edinburgh congregation singing from Psalm 145.  I thought it was nice and decided to share it with you.  Enjoy!

Psalm 145:17-21 to Sheffield

Travel

Jesh recently went to Europe for a conference.  

The weekends before and after his conference, he spent in London,
where he did some sightseeing with a friend, and attended FP services.

He saw, among other things, Big Ben and the Westminster Palace.

Then he was off to Vienna, where, between conference meetings,
he wandered the streets

taking photos of rose gardens

and old cathedrals

and Mozart's grave.

I haven't traveled much myself, but someday I hope to.  It would be nice to make it to Canada again; and some day I would really like to visit Scotland and England to meet all the wonderful people that I've heard so much about.

Of course, being on a tight budget, I won't be traveling at all for quite some time.  But it's quite easy to open any number of mini-savings accounts through my online bank, so with a few clicks I opened an account entitled "travel."  Of course, since travel isn't high on the priorities list, I didn't have much of anything to put into the account; but it feels good to have made a beginning, anyway. :)

Psalm 147

An acquaintance in Florida e-mailed me to say that he had listened to a sermon by Rev. R. Macleod from the FP website, and that at the end you could hear the congregation singing from Psalm 147.  Perhaps, he suggested, I might be able to split the singing from the sermon, and post it online.  I thought this was a good idea. 

My brother Jesh (who knows more than I about this sort of thing) says that this file was likely compressed, so the technical quality of the recording is not great; but the singing is good (on pitch, etc.) and it's nice to have a recording of Psalm 147, which is one of my favorites.

Psalm 147:3-7, Huddersfield

3 Those that are broken in their heart,

and grieved in their minds,

He healeth, and their painful wounds

he tenderly up-binds.

4 He counts the number of the stars;

he names them every one.

5 Great is our Lord, and of great pow'r;

his wisdom search can none.

6 The Lord lifts up the meek; and casts

the wicked to the ground.

7 Sing to the Lord, and give him thanks;

on harp his praises sound.

Our communion season starts Thursday, so this week will be busy and I must say "goodbye" until next week.  Rev. Goldby will be the assisting minister at communion, D.V.  He and my parents are quite well acquainted, as he works with my dad, and until just recently was stationed in Israel; but I haven't met him myself.  So I am looking forward to meeting him and hearing him preach.  

Found It

Some time ago, I was looking for something in writing from the Free Presbyterian Church regarding their position on women's dress.  I couldn't find the FP position in print myself, and when I asked a couple of people for help, they couldn't find it either (though they did, to their credit, go to great lengths to try to find more information for me).

It wasn't until some time later that I happened across an article on the Holdfast blog entitled "Long Hair and Femininity," and at the end of it was this link to a resolution of the synod of 2003, as printed in the FP magazine.  I've copied and pasted it here:

At its most recent meeting, in May 2003, the Synod reaffirmed the Church's adherence to the Scriptural standard expressed in this Resolution originally passed in 1970:

There is evidence that the "permissiveness" of the age has influenced the Church. In particular this is the case in the dress of the women, and in the hair styles of both men and women.

The Word of God demands of women that they be dressed in modest apparel, and the Synod urge the women of the Church to give heed to this counsel. Not only does it require modesty of dress but also distinction in dress between the sexes. The practice of men and women wearing clothes which obliterates this distinction is quite contrary to God's Word and expressly declared to be an abomination to Him. "The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man neither shall a man put on a woman's garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the Lord thy God" (Deut 22:5).

The Word of God clearly teaches that the hair of women should be long and the hair of men (and boys) short. Long and short are relatives. To argue from hence that the matter cannot be determined is to cast the most serious and solemn aspersion upon the Divine wisdom. "Doth not even nature itself teach you that, if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him? But if a woman have long hair, it is a glory to her: for her hair is given her for a covering" (1 Cor 11:14,15).

The Church must therefore condemn these practices as contrary to God's Word and direct her people to seek the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ to enable them to live unspotted in the world.

So there you have it.  I'm not sure what I was expecting exactly, but I was happy with the way this resolution was written, in that it does not compromise on important Biblical principles of modesty and distinction in dress; and also in that it is no more specific than the Bible regarding how exactly one should be feminine or masculine (the specific application of these principles being left up to the discretion of church government within a given culture/era).

Slightly off topic, but it would be nice if past resolutions of Synod were more accessible online.  I am sure that many of the resolutions are somewhere to be found in past issues of the FP magazine, which are indeed available online, but they aren't searchable, so it is quite difficult to find something specific when desired.

A Really Neat Family Photo

Check out this awesome family photo from my sister's blog.  Okay, it's not "my" family in this photo, it's the Smith family.  But my family and the Smith family do overlap a bit--I've got two siblings, two in-laws, and four nieces in this photo.  Can you find them?

Family Reunion Photo (don't forget, you can double-click on the photo for a better view)

In the center are Grammie and Grandpa, then to the left and right are Rev. Lyle (our minister) and Uncle Ernie, two of Grammie and Grandpa's four sons.  All the rest are spouses, children, spouses of children, and grandchildren of the two brothers. 

Two spouses will soon be added to this large family: John (back left, next to Jett) is engaged to Naomi from New Zealand, and Sarah (bottom right, next to Uncle Ernie) is engaged to Dave from Canada. 

I've enjoyed getting to know this family over the last few years.  The first time I, personally, met any of the Smiths was when a few of them drove Jesh and Caleb back to Indiana from Texas (long story).  It was on that first visit of theirs to Indiana (many more followed) that the photo at the bottom of this post was taken.  This was before any of the Smith cousins had gotten married, so the family as a whole was a lot smaller then.

Oh, the stories that could be told.  Someone should write a book. :)

I Like It

One of the young people (Sam maybe?) discovered this one.

I like it.  Maybe you will too.

Leo Siberski conducts the Danse Bacchanale, from "Samson & Delilah" by Saint-Saens.

May Psalm Sing

We try to host psalm sings on a monthly basis, but sometimes it's hard to squeeze them in.  The Smith families were busy with family events during Jett and Evelyn's visit, and Rachel and Peter's.  And Jesh has been busier than ever with work, especially in recent weeks as he's been preparing to give a presentation at a conference in Vienna.  (Those of you at the FP church in London will be seeing him shortly, D.V., as he plans to stop there for the weekend both on his way to Austria, and on his way back again.)

But on Saturday we finally managed to have a psalm sing for the first time since February.  Despite the last-minute notice, a good number of people were able to make it.  Hopefully next time we'll be able to plan things farther in advance (yes, I know you've heard me say this before).

Our psalm sings usually involve a bit of good-natured debate over various points, from pitch or tempo to which version of a tune or psalm to sing.  This time proved to be no exception. :) We also spent more time than usual learning parts, since we didn't have advance notice of what tunes we would be practicing.  But despite the delays, we managed to sing and record four selections.

Psalm 21:1-6 to Free Church


Psalm 50:1-4 (1st version) to Malan


Psalm 50:5-8 (1st version) to Old 134th


Psalm 71:21-24 to Sheffield


I hope you enjoy these recordings.  I look forward to singing with you all again next month, all being well.  Next time, we hope to work on at least one tune that's *not* in our split-leaf psalters; Mercy has offered to copy and edit a couple of tunes from other books, so that we can print them out and pass them around beforehand.

A Trip to the "Alligator Park"

We live not far from a state park known for its population of alligators.  One morning recently, I checked the weather forecast and saw that the day would be exceptionally beautiful, so I decided to take the boys to the "alligator park."

As it turns out, we only saw one alligator in the wild.  He was pretending to be a log, and waiting for dinner to come along.

We did see baby alligators in the nature center, and a nice lady who worked there got one out of the tank for the boys to pet.  We also saw an alligator skeleton in the nature center, and lots of other creepy (live) critters like poisonous snakes and spiders.  I think the nature center was the boys' favorite part of the park.

I, however, most enjoyed our hike.  The boys like to run, so they did.  I reminded them of the story of the tortoise and the hare, but to no avail.

We saw lots of white birds (what are these?)

And grey ones (don't know what this one is either)

And cool trees.  I like live oak trees.  How do they grow such huge branches parallel to the ground without the trunk splitting open?  A marvelous feat of engineering!

The boys liked this hollow one...

By the end of our hike, this tortoise mama was still good to go, but the two hares boys were worn out, so we called it a day.  Look at our dusty feet.

Lined out Psalm-Singing, Scottish Style, in Israel

Last week, I posted the first of two recordings of lined out psalm singing in English.  The first one was an older recording made in Scotland.  This second recording of lined-out English psalmody is particularly interesting to me, because while the precentor and singers are Scottish, the recording was made in Israel.  This is a tour group led by Rev. David Campbell of the Free Presbyterian Church, singing in St. Anne's Church at the pool of Bethesda.  Rev. Campbell was also the precentor for this recording.

Psalm 22:22-24, to Moravia, lined out


As I listen to this recording of the psalms being sung by Scots in Israel, I remember how my parents (who are in Israel) have told us that the Jews don't sing the psalms in their entirety as we do in the Free Presbyterian Church.  They sing only some of the psalms.  The remaining psalms are read or recited, or chanted by a cantor, but not sung by congregations.

It's so sad to think that this is a people and a nation who have the psalms in their original languages, and yet they do not sing them.

My mom is working on music for some of the psalms that are not commonly sung in Hebrew, to make them singable.  You can read about her efforts in her recent blog post.