Month: May 2021

World Cafe-St Pete: Mon, May 24, 7-9 PM ZOOM

If you could design your own sustainable city, what would it include?

How would it be different?      What would it be able to do?

You are invited 

Virtual World Café* Community Conversation 

Monday evening, May 24th 2021 from 7:00 to 9:00 pm

Host Team

Andrea Anderson, Karin Braunsberger, Jenny Fessler & Sharon Preston-Folta

EXPLORE
…the idea of sustainable cities

…what that might mean to those of us living in St. Petersburg, Florida.

Dream sustainability into reality

let’s start with sharing our ideas about what we want to see

Meet new people

while exploring ideas that could impact our community

Environmental Resilience 

*World Cafes are a way to harness the power of conversations that matter,
to spark new ideas and possibilities for action. 

People with diverse viewpoints are invited to share their experiences and knowledge 

in a relaxed, café-style setting. (this time, virtually in Zoom breakout rooms)

We are wiser together than we are alone


This shared experience is free.  SPACE IS LIMITED
To reserve your spot, please RSVP here on Eventbrite 

My Faith, It Is an Oaken Staff

Rev. Wells, pastor of Lakewood UCC, where I’m music director, introduced me to this grand Congregational hymn with which I was not at all familiar. Now, it’s one of my favorites: My Faith, It Is an Oaken Staff.

Check out the representative text at https://hymnary.org/text/my_faith_it_is_an_oaken_staff and the author’s full bio at https://hymnary.org/person/Lynch_TT.

The tune’s name is THE STAFF OF FAITH and its composer is anonymous. It’s been var­i­ous­ly de­scribed as tra­di­tion­al Swiss mel­o­dy, or an Engl­ish folk­song. It’s in public domain.

After seeing his picture at the above links, the following account gave me a laugh: “he was a s student at the Highbury Independent College; but withdrew, partly on account of failing health, and partly because his spirit was too free to submit to the routine of College life.” He looks as if he and I both share an equally dissolute life! Nevertheless, he wrote an amazing amount of moving texts.

Let the Lower Lights Be Burning

The composer of this famous old hymn is P. P. Bliss. Follow this link to know more about the hymn: https://hymnary.org/text/brightly_beams_our_fathers_mercy and this link to learn about the Bliss, himself: https://hymnary.org/person/Bliss_Philip. I remember, so clearly, as a small boy hearing my mother and father playing this in our front room (my father on piano, my mother on violin) as I fell asleep on the front room couch.