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Zoe Kolenovsky and Julia Weber
Staff writers

This year’s David Effron Conducting Fellow Ryo Hasegawa values the experience working with fellow students in the School of Music’s many programs.

Just as with tonight’s program, an important connection quickly forms any time musicians and dancers come together, he said.

“It’s just amazing how quickly we bond together. … We’re almost like a family,” he said. “That definitely reflects in the music-making, even though we are from different backgrounds and different schools. So I think it’s a really beautiful experience.”

The Music School Festival Orchestra will take the stage with the School of Dance at 8:15 p.m. tonight in the Amphitheater.

Sasha Janes, artistic director of the School of Dance, emphasizes the importance of students performing in front of audiences in order to improve their skills. He cites his predecessor, Jean-Pierre Bonnefoux, as a driving force for the emphasis on live performances early on in the season.

Janes said he is excited to have the expertise of faculty like Kara Wilkes and Patricia McBride at the School of Dance; both have contributed their choreographing and staging talents to tonight’s show.

A former distinguished prima ballerina with New York City Ballet, McBride, who serves as director of ballet studies and principal repetiteur for the School of Dance, is happy to see the continued collaboration between the dancers and the orchestra.

“We are so thrilled to do it with the orchestra,” McBride said. “… It’s been amazing to see how talented the orchestra is. … Collaboration with the ballet and playing for dance is very special. It’s thrilling.”

James Buckser
Staff writer

Rabbi Glenn Jacob wants people of faith to engage with climate change.

The executive director of the New York affiliate of Interfaith Power and Light, a lead lobbyist for the NY Renews Climate coalition, and the spiritual leader of the Congregation Shir Chadash, Jacob will speak on the theme of faith and the environment at 2 p.m. today in the Hall of Philosophy. This event will open Week Five of the Interfaith Lecture Series and its theme, “Religious and Ethical Infrastructure.” 

Interfaith Power and Light is a national organization with affiliates across the country. Its goal is to “organize the religious community to fight for climate change legislation, regulation, and steps on the ground to go green,” Jacob said.

In New York, Interfaith Power and Light has “two major thrusts,” Jacob said. The first is helping congregations organize internally to each have a green team, in order to “join the process of becoming cognizant of what it means to reduce your carbon footprint and why it’s important as a religious person.”

“The other thrust of our work is advocacy,” Jacob said. “We have a very short time to address the fossil fuel industry, who are the largest carbon footprint in the world, and that can only be done through the legislative process.”

As a member and “one of the early, early joiners” of the NY Renews Climate Coalition, Jacob sits on the organizing committee, which he said is the “second committee,” and is a lead lobbyist. Jacob said the organization does grassroots, not professional, lobbying.

In addition to his work in activism, Jacob is also a spiritual leader, returning to the congregation after an absence because of a natural disaster.

“After Superstorm Sandy, I could no longer ignore the crisis that’s climate change,” Jacob said.

As part of his TED Talk, “God in the Public Square,” Jacob discussed the idea of non-theistic belief in God. For theistic belief, Jacob said, two criteria must be filled. One, a belief that “God is a self-cognizant entity,” and two, that “God intervenes in the world or history.”

“If you don’t believe one of those two criterion, but you believe in God, then you’re a non-theist by definition,” Jacob said. “The point of that presentation for the TED Talk was really to address the bias in American politics against what most people believe about God … and how it really can be an important positive force in the political landscape of the United States.”

In his talk today, Jacob said he will bring a “set of arguments” about how “necessary it is that people of faith engage in the climate change issue in the United States,” and that having a religious voice is a “fundamental necessity.”

Jacob hopes that his talk inspires Chautauquans to get involved.

“I want them to get out of the pew,” Jacob said. “I want them to take up the traditions of their denominations, which already have beautiful essays on the theology of climate change, and act.”

Jacob said in the climate sphere, there is a push for “doomer-ism,” people saying that “we’re already doomed, don’t bother.”

“That is anathema to all of the religious traditions, all of the healthy religious traditions that are prominent in the United States,” Jacob said. “The answer is no, our traditions tell us, we always go forward.”

Arden Ryan
contributing writer

Paul Romer believes cities are the past, present and future of civilization, and “Humanity’s Best Hope for Progress,” as he will explain in his lecture at 10:45 a.m. today in the Amphitheater.

Romer is a Nobel Prize-winning economist, professor at New York University, and former chief economist of the World Bank.

Cities have been centers of progress, discovery, employment and production for centuries in the past, Romer explained, a trend he said he has “every reason to expect to continue” for centuries in the future.

“Cities are where the action is,” he said, and aims to “offer some hope” they will continue to progress.

Romer sees value in cities for where they are in scale – large enough to gain the benefit of collective insight from discoveries made by a larger number of people living and working in close proximity, and small enough to be ruled by a set of common frameworks. 

“When the number of people increases in a particular area, one effect … is that there’s less of any physical object per person,” Romer said. “But there is another effect: Each of us can discover insights we can communicate to others (to) take advantage of that.” Being around more people leads to more strategies for transforming the world to greater value for everyone, he said. 

An idea, as Romer has long been fond of saying, is something everyone can use simultaneously. Humans’ “capacity for discovering and communicating ideas, which means that we can benefit from the presence of other people,” is what makes cities so valuable.

Romer won the Nobel Prize in 2018 for promoting the insight that a human “tendency towards ‘groupishiness’ makes progress possible.”

In studies of progress in the developing world, Romer came to understand that a major “bottleneck” was the slow pace of city growth and the access to benefits cities bring.

“Encouraging urbanization,” he said, “was the most powerful lever governments had to encourage successful economic development,” but it’s one not being leveraged to its full extent.

“The challenge … is that it takes some capacity for collective action to build a successful city,” Romer said. “Many developing countries lacked the capacity in their systems of governance … for successful urban development.”

In his talk today, opening the Week Five Chautauqua Lecture Series on “Infrastructure: Building and Maintaining the Physical, Social and Civic Underpinnings of Society” Romer will cite examples of successful cities, which “should give hope that we can try new things” at the city level, he said. The ability of cities to circumvent the barriers at national and global scales suggests to Romer “we should cultivate and protect” our successful places, and “have the courage” to create more.

Romer will describe the “amazing success” of New York City, which welcomed millions of immigrants to phenomenal results. He lists the 1811 Commissioners’ Plan, laying out the Manhattan street grid as urban living space before much of the island was settled, as “the single greatest success of bold government action in urbanization,” a story he said more people should know. 

He also plans to describe the phenomenon of the arts festival Burning Man and the temporary city that crops up in the Nevada desert each year to host it. The festival and its city “suggest from a very different perspective what can happen when people come together” and enjoy the communal benefits.

“Over centuries, we’ve made remarkable progress,” Romer said. “There’s no reason why we should imagine that possibility has come to an end, but we have to have imagination and courage, be willing to try things, use (the past) as the guide for what we’ll try next.”

Developing cities promotes innovation, but when done right can also be centers of human thriving, Romer said, although more progress is needed to make that thriving accessible.

Moving to cities now is prohibitively expensive compared to the past, Romer explained, both in the United States and the developing world, because of a lack of room for more people. “It isn’t hard to make room,” he said, “we just have to decide to do it.”

All it will require is collective action, a characteristic Romer noted is showing signs of eroding around the world.

“The capacity for making and enforcing collective decisions is both incredibly valuable, for the benefits from cooperation and sharing, but also fragile,” he said. “We should be doing everything we can to foster it.”

There are flaws to how urbanization has turned out across the world, Romer admitted, with urban sprawl and congestion convincing many that the boom of cities is something to be stopped.

“You can do urbanization badly, that’s clear, but you can still do it effectively,” Romer said. The elements required to urbanize effectively, he argues, are not overly complicated.

“In the long-run perspective, we’re headed in the right direction,” he said.

Once the world understands “the potential for all of us to benefit” from the collaborative nature of cities, Romer said, and “we figure out how to keep (building them), we can keep making progress.”

Kaitlyn Finchler
Staff writer

After years of planning, a new maintenance building for the Institution is now open for business. 

Last Monday, a ribbon-cutting ceremony was held to recognize and celebrate what the new building means for operation.

The new property is located on the east side of Chautauqua County Route 33, also known as Chautauqua-Stedman Road.

Candace “Candy” Maxwell, chair of the Chautauqua institution Board of Trustees, started her remarks with a memory from a visit to the original maintenance building five years ago.

“Needless to say, (the old building) was a poor piece of it,” Maxwell said, “(and) served as a catalyst for pursuing a new vision for a facility that recognizes the key roles that our Buildings and Grounds Department plays in the life and success of Chautauqua Institution.”

The new building is a result of Institution leadership and vision, she said, but became reality through donor support from Emily and Richard Smucker, Sheila Penrose, and Ernie Mahaffey.

On the same visit five years ago, Chautauqua Institution President Michael E. Hill said he remembered the “torrential” rain pouring through the electrical sockets in the old building.

“Our finance team was thinking, ‘Could we do some financing around this?’” Hill said. “I was confident enough that I said to Jack (Munella), ‘This is going to happen.’”

Hill said Munella, director of facilities and grounds, had a bit of skepticism, because a new maintenance building had been previously promised several times, and then the pandemic hit. 

“Emily and Richard Smucker surprised me by not only giving a gift to help us get through COVID,” Hill said. “They gave their (donation) with something that every president always loves to hear: the rest is at the discretion of the president.”

While the Smuckers didn’t make any special requests, the one thing they did ask for was a small plaque recognizing what the building means for the Institution.

“(The Smuckers) have brought joy to countless others,” Hill said. “The seeds they plant, the bricks they lay (and) the roads they pave can be enjoyed for generations to come.”

John Shedd, vice president of campus planning and operations, said the new building wouldn’t be possible without Hill’s “true, empathetic, emotional and deep concern” for Institution employees, who work to create “a magnificent, beautiful (and) tranquil place.”

Groundbreaking took place in March 2022 and construction began shortly after, but the initial planning for the facility took place more than 13 years ago, Shedd said. 

“As we begin to occupy this gift from all of you, we will continue to be reminded of your thoughtfulness, generosity and how much you all care for us,” Shedd said. “We will continue to do our best to improve how we care for you in the many ways this team does every day.”

Chaz Barton, a tradesman for the Institution since 1987, said the new building will drive their quality of work.

“This (building) is going to make a big difference for everybody in the future,” Barton said. “(It’s) a lot better working conditions (and) a lot better place, away from the Main Gate, away from the highway. It’ll make things better for everybody.”

All equipment from the old building is being moved into the new one.

“We’ll be doing the same thing but the spaces are better and it’s going to be a lot easier to work with,” Barton said. 

Having all of the vehicles inside and under one roof will make Buildings and Grounds more efficient, Shedd said.

“Our groups will be closer together and more functional,” Shedd said. “That will help with interaction and communication with what’s going on, on the campus.”

Shedd also said employee retention will be better with the new building.

“This is a nicer work environment for them,” Shedd said.

The new building is more energy efficient, handicap accessible and code-compliant, Shedd said.

“We have air units from outside air, combined with some of the radiant heat,” Shedd said. “We’re edging toward more energy efficiency and health and safety compliance.”

When people think of philanthropy, most donate to the arts, education or social issues, but Richard Smucker said donating to the maintenance building is just as important.

“Somebody has to keep the lights on,” he said. “There are dozens and dozens of people who do that work and don’t get recognized, yet they are keeping this place beautiful for generations.”

Sarah Russo
Staff writer

Sometimes the soundtrack of a movie can be just as famous as the movie itself, just how the story of “The Princess Bride,” filled with romance, comedy, adventure and magic, is enhanced with its musical score. 

The Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra will perform “The Princess Bride” in Concert at 7:30 p.m. Saturday in the Amphitheater. The live music and movie feature will be under the baton of guest conductor Lawrence Loh, conductor and music director of Symphoria.

Loh has led the Syracuse, New York, orchestra since 2015 and is frequently a guest conductor for major films. He has previously held conducting positions with the Pittsburgh Symphony, West Virginia Symphony Orchestra, Northeastern Pennsylvania Philharmonic, Syracuse Opera, Pittsburgh Youth Symphony, Dallas Symphony and the Colorado Symphony.

Even though “The Princess Bride” first hit theaters in 1987, Loh said audiences can experience the same anticipation as when it was newly released with the performance this Saturday. 

“When people line up to go to watch it with the orchestra, it has a similar kind of feeling of a big premiere of an event,” Loh said. “I just like that kind of atmosphere.” 

Seeing a movie with live music takes on a completely different stimulating experience, Loh said. He’s a huge fan of “The Princess Bride,” having performed it once before with the Phoenix Symphony. 

Compared to a usual orchestra performance, Loh said he enjoys the audience engagement, as they react to jokes, character appearances and well-known lines in the dialogue.

“They were laughing at everything and they were applauding,” he said. “They applauded when the orchestra played something really spectacular.”

Even for those unfamiliar with the film, Saturday’s CSO performance can be enjoyed by everyone, Loh said.

“It’s a really fun community and interactive experience,” Loh said. “For people that don’t know the movie, they’ll get to hear it in that kind of context of watching it in a community of people. It kind of amplifies everything, and just makes it so fun.”

From the perspective of a conductor, movie music and traditional orchestra performance are quite different. 

Loh said when playing along to a film, the musicians have little ability to make the music spontaneous. For example, in “The Princess Bride,” a sword fight is laid out perfectly in the score to coincide with different swings and strikes.

Originally, the movie’s soundtrack was created using a synthesizer to sample various orchestral instruments. Now, with the help of the CSO, “The Princess Bride” will be brought to a new life and create a “completely new experience.”

For Loh’s first visit to Chautauqua, he is looking forward to not only sharing the stage with the CSO for the first time, but also an old college friend, Bob Sydner, who is guitar soloist for this weekend’s performance.

They have yet to share the stage together until now.

“That’s very special to me,” Loh said. “I’m always looking forward to meeting a new orchestra, and I’ve heard great things about the Amphitheater and the atmosphere there.” 

Julia Weber
Staff writer

Before the curtain rises for Chautauqua Theater Company’s production this weekend, sound designer Justin Schmitz emphasized the importance of collaboration as a key factor for its success.

“You have to lean on your collaborators as a team ultimately, and that’s really truly where it all blends together and becomes the final product,” he said.

Presenting a modern adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, written by Kate Hamill, the company’s ability to come together has been “remarkable,” he said.

“It’s … encouraging me to go as big as I can,” Schmitz said. “… and I’m just grateful for it.”

CTC’s begins with previews at 4 p.m. Saturday and 2:30 p.m. Sunday. The show will open at 7:30 p.m. Sunday with performances through July 30. 

Hamill’s humorous take on the classic Jane Austen novel, directed by CTC Producing Artistic Director Jade King Carroll, approaches the play with a contemporary feminist lens.

Conservatory Actor Anna Roman, who plays Lizzy Bennet, said she hopes viewers will enjoy seeing a familiar story told in an unfamiliar way. She believes this adaptation of the classic novel will be more accessible to a modern audience and will make for a very emotional experience.

“There’s some really heartfelt moments too,” she said. “… Our goal is for laughter and crying and just an excuse to have a human experience all together in the theater.”

Katie Rose McLaughlin, choreographer for Pride and Prejudice, was particularly interested in working on this adaptation because of the way that it examines the gender roles and expectations of the time period.

McLaughlin said Carroll’s artistic vision and leadership were a compelling reason for her to join the Pride and Prejudice team, citing their shared artistic visions and similar values in theater.

The plot focuses on the Bennet family and, specifically, their daughters. Lizzy Bennet is staunchly opposed to marriage and love, defying the gendered expectations of the historical period. 

This, in turn, causes problems for the entire Bennet family. When Lizzy meets Mr. Darcy, though, she begins to question her deeply-held beliefs.

Set in a time in which marriage was an integral and life-determining event for women, the comedic play questions the institution of marriage, and the stifling gender roles women were expected to uphold.

Hamill’s adaptation of Pride and Prejudice was one of the 10 most-produced plays of the 2018-2019 season nationally, and Hamill herself is one of the most-produced playwrights in the country in the last five years.

Deborah Trefts
Staff writer

There is a tactic akin to gaslighting that’s harmful not only for personal wellbeing, but also for local and national wellbeing. It takes the form of pushing back fast and furiously when investigations by credible journalists scrutinize policies and practices that further a few to the detriment of many. 

“When (journalists) do come around, the opposition is so enormous,” said Gretchen Morgenson, Pulitzer Prize-winning financial reporter and author. “The ratio of what we’re up against has changed. I don’t shy away from it.” 

Morgenson returns to Chautauqua to speak at the Chautauqua Women’s Club’s Contemporary Issues Forum at 3 p.m. Saturday in the Hall of Philosophy. She delivered a CWC virtual address through CHQ Assembly on July 15, 2021. 

Morgenson’s lecture is titled “Plunder in Plain Sight: How America is Being Savaged by Financial Elites.” It will be followed by an opportunity for deeper dialogue during a reception beginning at 5 p.m. at the CWC House (registration required). 

Her most recent book, These Are the Plunderers: How Private Equity Runs – and Wrecks – America, provides the basis for her remarks. Co-authored by Wall Street and financial policy analyst Joshua Rosner, it was published by Simon & Schuster in late April. 

“The biggest private equity firms are Apollo, Blackstone, the Carlyle Group, and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts,” according to These Are the Plunderers. “They buy companies and load them with debt while bleeding them of assets and profits. A few years later, they sell these same companies off to new owners, perhaps in an initial public offering of stock, ideally at a substantial gain for themselves and their partners. Often the companies they buy collapse in bankruptcy.” 

As these firms have steadily and stealthily wreaked havoc on formerly profitable corporations, they have also been undermining the U.S. economy. 

“Their reach extends from cradle to grave,” wrote Morgenson and Rosner in Plunderers. “That coffee and donut you picked up on your way to work this morning. The pre-K learning center where you dropped off your kids and the nursing home where your mom lives. The dentist’s or dermatologist’s office, the emergency room you visited and the ambulance that took you there.” 

With COVID-19, a menacing presence for over three years, it is easy to recall the first 18 to 24 months when many elderly were left to fend for themselves in assisted living and nursing facilities staffed by some of America’s most poorly paid and overworked caregivers, and the dearth of ambulances available for speeding the critically ill to under-resourced emergency departments. 

“For healthcare, the product is care, and life and death,” Morgenson said. “Yet (these private equity firms) cut costs. That’s a bad outcome for people in nursing homes and hospitals.”

The reach of pillaging financiers, Morgenson and Rosner wrote, is extensive — podcasts, time-shares, supermarkets — “All may well be owned and overseen by private equity firms that maximize for profit while slashing workers, cutting necessary costs, and harming local, state, and federal taxpayers when their companies fail.” That the founders, C-suite officers and board members of the four firms named, and perhaps other elite Wall Street financiers, feel compelled to manipulate the livelihoods of Americans and the productivity of the U.S. economy through corporate takeovers is an existential problem. Yet some are sought after and celebrated for their largesse – their “philanthropic” donations to the select nonprofits and causes they care about. 

“Nowadays these billionaires who take over companies and supposedly improve them – but they don’t – make a ton of money, especially under COVID,” Morgenson said. “They don’t seem to know the concept of ‘enough.’ ” 

It has been important to Morgenson to understand who these wealth-obsessed financiers are and how extensive their “circle of pain” is. “When it starts to hurt workers, pensioners, taxpayers and also customers, that’s when it gets my ire up,” she said. 

According to Morgenson, “People feel like the system is rigged and the playing field isn’t level, but they don’t really know what’s going on. They say, ‘It’s the system.’ But it is people manning the levers of the system. … You have to name names.” 

She continued: “We know a lot about these very fabulously wealthy and powerful people,” she said. “They’re on museum boards and on the news, but we don’t hear about the people hurt by them. (These Are the Plunderers) humanizes what their tactics are.”

Among Morgenson’s realizations over time is that “the big wheels and powerful people with a lot of money at their disposal have very thin skins when you don’t buy what they’re pedaling. And when you ask questions and raise criticisms, they get their backs up.”

This means that for younger journalists, it’s harder than it was for Morgenson. “Over the last 10 years there’s been a more aggressive stance taken by my adversaries. … (There’s) more pushback. There are so many more of them, and their supporters and law firms are their assistors.” 

Journalists “have to have editors who support them,” Morgenson said. “The information is so important. … I think that the constant refrain (from the previous presidential administration) of the press being the enemy of the people has had an impact.” 

Morgenson’s journalism journey has never been an easy one. Born in State College, Pennsylvania, she moved when she was young to cities with universities: Kitchener-Waterloo in Ontario, Canada; London, England; Oxford, Ohio. Her grandfather had taught at Saint Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota, and both parents had gone there, so she did too. Majoring in English, Morgenson graduated at age 20 during America’s bicentennial year. 

Although she knew then that she wanted to be a journalist, there was no journalism program at Saint Olaf’s. 

“Of course I wanted to move to New York – media central,” she said. “I’d done some work for the town and school newspapers, and the silence was deafening. My first job was at Vogue, as a secretary (‘editorial assistant’). I should have written The Devil Wears Prada. I stayed there five years. By the time I left, I was writing a personal finance column.” 

Since pensions were on the way out and people were beginning to care about the stock market, Morgenson said she felt finance was important and of interest to everyone. 

Harmony Books published The Women’s Guide to the Stock Market: How to Make Your Own Investment Plan by Morgenson and Barbara Lee in 1982. Leaving Vogue magazine for Wall Street, where she spent three years as a stockbroker at Dean Witter Reynolds, she said she learned how the world really works. 

At Dean Witter, “I had a great boss,” Morgenson said. “He didn’t make me sell what I didn’t want to. But it just wasn’t for me. … If you have any capacity for guilt, it’s not the job for you.” She said she had a hard time sleeping when the market went down, even though it wasn’t her fault. Having learned a lot about finance and markets, Morgenson went back to being a reporter in January 1984 – this time as a staff writer at Money magazine for two years. 

“I could ask the tough questions,” she said, “because I knew the answers.” 

In 1986, she moved to Forbes magazine, where she worked as an editor and investigative business writer until 1993 when she became Worth magazine’s executive editor. Persuaded by Steve Forbes to join his 1996 presidential campaign, Morgenson served as his press secretary during the Republican presidential primary. Thereafter, Forbes hired her as its assistant managing editor. In 1997, John Wiley published Forbes Great Minds of Business, with Morgenson, which introduced “five extraordinary people” (men) via “five fascinating dialogues.” 

“Forbes celebrated, but really took apart people if they weren’t doing the right thing,” Morgenson said. “I believe the system is good, but we need to protect (it) from ‘Me Firsters’ – operators who really want to take advantage of it. … (When I was at Forbes) we were not at the point of ‘profits for me no matter how it hurts everyone else.’ ” 

Leaving Forbes in May 1998 to become the assistant business and financial editor of The New York Times, Morgenson began covering world financial markets. For nearly 20 years, she wrote the “Market Watch” column in the Money & Business section of the Sunday Times. 

“I had a front row seat for scandals, market volatility, the dot-com explosion,” she said. “I would see what was going on, dig into it, and explain it, because Wall Street likes to obfuscate, to hide things, to keep things under wraps so we miss what’s going on.” 

In 2002, having revealed “deep conflicts of interest among powerful and respected brokerage firm analysts,” she was honored with a Pulitzer Prize for Beat Reporting for her “trenchant and incisive” coverage of Wall Street. She also received her first of three Gerald Loeb Awards – this one for excellence in financial commentary. Five years later, HarperCollins published a book she edited, The Capitalist’s Bible: The Essential Guide to Free Markets and Why They Matter to You. Morgenson won her second and third Gerald Loeb Awards the same year – for Large Newspapers (as part of a group of New York Times reporters), and for Beat Writing for “Wall Street.” In July 2009, Dean Starkman of The Nation called her “The Most Important Financial Journalist of Her Generation.” For her “significant long-term contribution to the profession of financial journalism,” the New York Financial Writers’ Association awarded Morgenson its Elliott V. Bell Award in 2010. 

With Rosner as co-author, she wrote the New York Times bestseller Reckless Endangerment: How Outsized Ambition, Greed, and Corruption Led to Economic Armageddon, published in May 2011 by Times Books. It hones in on the origins of the financial crisis 15 years ago. On Aug. 4, 2012, Morgenson gave a Contemporary Issues Forum lecture titled, “Why the Financial Crisis Isn’t Over.” 

Having always wanted to work at The Wall Street Journal, she left the Times to become senior special writer in the Journal’s investigations unit. For her “outstanding contribution to business journalism,” the Society of American Business Editors and Writers gave her its 2018 Distinguished Achievement Award. In December 2019, shortly before the COVID-19 emerged, NBC News hired Morgenson as the senior financial reporter in its investigations unit. With stories appearing on NBCNews.com and as segments on NBC News network, and on cable and streaming television shows, she has gone from print to digital to TV, and her audience is “exponentially larger.” Because financial issues are so integral to people’s lives, Morgenson said it is very important to not be afraid of them. 

“Wall Street tries to make it hard to understand what’s happening to the economy, your world, your place in it, and your future prosperity and stability – and not just you, but also the community at large,” she said. 

She continued, “If (there’s) a group of people taking advantage of the system … and making it hard for you to feed your family, you should know about that. The impact they have is substantial. I’m out there working on (your) behalf, shining the light on dark corners and helping (you) understand the world (you’re) in. … I’m trying to pull back the curtain on the hidden forces affecting your life … so people understand how they’re being harmed.”

The role of financial reporting is an important one. Because of Morgenson’s scrutiny of the savage behavior of ultra-greedy and powerful financiers in the private equity industry before and during COVID-19, their gaslighting-like tactics are less likely to succeed.

Mary Lee Talbot
Staff writer

The Rev. Daisy L. Machado returns to Chautauqua for the fourth time as chaplain of the week. Machado was the first Latina preacher for morning worship at Chautauqua in 2008. She returned in 2013 and 2014; now, she will serve as chaplain for Week Five. 

Machado has a great interest in the concept of “borderlands,” which is a multilayered word that not only refers to a specific geographic location, but for Latinas and other women of color also refers to a social, economic, political and personal location within the dominant culture. She is also a strong advocate for a comprehensive reformation of current U.S. immigration laws.

She will preach at the 10:45 a.m. Sunday morning worship service in the Amphitheater. Her sermon title is “A Midwife to God’s Vision.” She will preach at the 9:15 a.m. Monday through Friday morning worship services in the Amp, and  her sermon titles include: “Tethered to God,” “Looking Through God’s Corrective Lenses,” “Of Salt and Light,” “And Still Rachel Weeps,” and “An Extravagant Hospitality.”

Machado was born in Cuba and came to New York City when she was 3 years old with her parents. She completed a bachelor’s degree from Brooklyn College, a master’s degree in social work from Hunter School of Social Work, a master’s degree of divinity from Union Theological Seminary, and a doctorate degree in philosophy from the University of Chicago Divinity School. 

An ordained minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), she was the first Latina ordained in the Northeast Region in 1981. Machado has served Latinx congregations in Brooklyn and Manhattan in New York City as well as Gary, Indiana. She also helped to establish two new Latinx congregations, one in Houston and one in Fort Worth, Texas.

Machado, a historian of Christianity with a focus on the modern period in the United States and the Americas, has been teaching for more than 25 years. From 2007 to 2022, she was professor of the history of Christianity at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. In May 2022, she became professor emerita. She has also served as academic dean of Lexington Theological Seminary and Union Theological Seminary in New York City, the first Latina to serve as dean in both institutions. 

She has provided leadership to major Latinx organizations of theological education, serving as the founding director of the Hispanic Theological Initiative, created in 1996 to expand the presence and work of Latinx scholars in the academy by mentoring and supporting Latinx doctoral students. Currently, she is the executive director of the Hispanic Summer Program, the first Latina to hold this position, which is now in its 34th year of service. The HSP provides programs of theological education for Latinx seminarians from across the United States. Machado is the author of numerous book chapters and has been invited to speak at academic conferences throughout the United States and in Germany. Most recently, she is co-editor of an anthology on borderland religion that collects the work of scholars from South Africa, Norway, Austria, Denmark and the United States, titled Borderland Religion: Ambiguous practices of difference, hope and beyond. She has also written “History and Latino Identity: Mapping A Past That Leads to Our Future” in the anthology Companion to Latina/o Theology, edited by Orlando Espín.  

She has provided leadership for various groups at the Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion and in 2020 received a grant to work with four other Latinx colleagues on a series of workshops that focused on teaching in seminaries from a Latinx perspective called “Teaching Borderlands.” 

Machado was invited to give the 2022 American Academy of Religion’s American Lectureship in the History of Religion on the topic of “Borderlands.” In fall 2022, she spoke at Loyola Marymount University, the University of Southern California, University of California at Riverside, and gave the final lecture at the annual American Academy of Religion Meeting in November 2022.

Sarah Russo
Staff writer

Paris may be nearly 4,000 miles away from Chautauqua Institution, but tonight, the city and its history can be experienced just steps away. 

The Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra’s program for this evening features three pieces each with a connection to the City of Lights during “a very turbulent time of its history,” said Rossen Milanov, music director and principal symphonic conductor for the CSO, which will begin its performance at 8:15 p.m. tonight in the Amphitheater. 

He said pieces for tonight’ program, particularly Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Symphony No. 31 in D Major, and Joseph Haydn’s Symphony No. 82, were composed and “custom tailored to the taste of the audience at the time.”

During the late 1780s, Paris was considered “the style capital of Europe” representing “the way people would dress … and all the extravagant tastes (and) lifestyle.” 

The pieces were still developing and changing when first composed, so it made sense for composers to alter the piece for every performance. And some audiences may have been “a little bit more extravagant in taste” which would require adjustments. 

“Both Mozart and Haydn created symphonies that perhaps are a little bit more fitting into that particular expectation of brighter, bigger orchestras than what they had used before in Vienna,” Milanov said, “and perhaps even more use of musical contrast as the way the musical themes were put together in each one of these works.”

As a songwriter or performer might workshop something in front of a live audience, then alter it based on the reactions, in their time, composers would also account for the way their music was received.

“The ink was still fresh on the stage, because the idea of classical music was very different from what we understand now,” Milanov said. “We refer to classical music (as) something that was composed 100 years ago … (and) has a certain museum quality, rather than reflecting the times in which we live.”

The program features a smaller chamber-like CSO ensemble, partly because of the compositions, but also because other CSO musicians will be performing alongside Chautauqua Opera Company for La Tragédie de Carmen.

To begin the evening, the CSO will open with Joseph Bologne’s L’amant Anonyme Overture.

Not only was Bologne a “fantastic composer,” but he was also a Parisian celebrity in a way as a “spectacular violin player, a fencer, a philosopher and a type of a Renaissance man that had quite a bit of an impact on his time,” Milanov said. 

Of the six operas he composed, Bologne’s L’amant Anonyme Overture is the only surviving composition. Originally a play adapted to opera and set to music, the story includes an unusual love triangle with only two characters: the heroine Léontine and her friend Valcour, who is also her secret admirer.

Next, the CSO will perform Hadyn’s piece, later nicknamed “The Bear,” for its finale, featuring droning bass and country carnival atmosphere reminiscent of dancing bears.

Popular with Europeans in 1786, when Symphony No. 82 was written, ensuing traditions endured, even through Milanov’s own childhood in Bulgaria.

“Normally, a bear handler would pass through town and play some sort of a string instrument and the bear would just (be trained to) dance,” he said. 

Finally, the program will conclude with Mozart’s piece also referred to as the “Paris” symphony. At 22 years old in 1778, he composed Symphony No. 31 at the request of the director of a public concerts series, and each of the three movements capture Parisian taste and style through its score.

An ode to the history of Paris during a particular period of about 10 years, Milanov thinks of this program as “a little cultural capsule.”

James Buckser
Staff writer

To Tyler Sit, the real-world impact of belief is important.

Sit has worked hard to make his faith a part of social change as pastor and church planter of Minneapolis-based New City Church; the founder of Intersect; and the author of Staying Awake: The Gospel for Changemakers.

Sit will speak on the impact of faith at 2 p.m. today in the Hall of Philosophy as a part of Week Four of the Interfaith Lecture Series and its theme “Religious Faith and Everything Else We Believe In.”

A church planter “starts congregations from the ground up,” Sit said. 

“Instead of going into an established church, I gathered some friends in the living room and we started our own church,” he said. “Eventually, it outgrew the living room and outgrew many, many more spaces to eventually us becoming a self-sustaining church on our own.”

While there are many New City Churches in the United States, Sit said they are not affiliated with his United Methodist congregation.

“ ‘New City Church’ as a name is inspired by Revelation 21 in the Bible,” he said. “We picked that name after reading that story which has a significant image of the new city as being kind of a symbol of God’s hope for the world.”

The church has an emphasis on centering marginalized voices.

“That emphasis isn’t extracurricular to being a Christian, but a core component,” he said. “For us, we look at the life of Jesus and we saw how he moved out to the margins of society, and we feel that we’re called to do the very same thing.”

Sit does not see progressive Christianity as “primarily political with a theological justification slapped onto it,” he said; rather, the “natural outcome” of being a person of faith is “seeking justice in the world.”

Before becoming a United Methodist pastor, Sit trained as a prison chaplain, a community organizer and a social entrepreneur, according to his website.

“Community organizers are dedicated to listening to the felt needs of a community and then organizing that community to advocate for systemic change so that those needs might be met,” Sit said. “Social entrepreneurship is using business logic and business models towards social good.”

Sit is also the founder of Intersect, which he said is a “network of church planters who are dedicated to intersectional justice,” trying to look at “how all of our identities stacked on top of each other create different intersectional understandings of the world.”

“You hear some church plants saying, ‘We’re reclaiming this city for Jesus,’ or, ‘We’re introducing God into the world,’ ” Sit said. “We’re trying to approach it more from a lens of the Holy Spirit already moving among marginalized people, and the church’s job is to kind of accelerate or catalyze or transform that work.”

In his talk today, Sit will discuss backing up faith with action. To Sit, it matters that “beliefs translate into action, and that our actions can tie back to our beliefs.”

He said he hopes his message will inspire confidence and the capability for change.

“For the people who are comfortable in their privilege, or who don’t feel particularly inspired to connect their belief to action, I hope that this disturbs them just enough to agitate towards some action,” he said.

Sit will discuss how belief can “create the spaciousness, connectedness, and inspiration for meaningful and sustained social change,” while also being a “mirror or a tool for understanding our action.”

“Belief is completely anemic if it isn’t coupled with action,” Sit said. “But action can be truly destructive if it isn’t coupled with right belief.”

Mariia Novoselia
Staff writer

With a new spin on the questions of faith and trust, Setti D. Warren wants to assess “the real crisis” in current American politics for the Week Four theme, “The State of Believing.”

“If the electorate does not have faith in governmental institutions, then we can’t function as a democracy,” said Warren, director of the Institute of Politics at Harvard University. 

As a citizen of the United States, he said he’s concerned about the future of his country. Years of public service under his belt have not only made him passionate about the topic, but also taught him how critical it is to have faith in political actors.

“If we are to ensure that we protect the rights of people here in our country, if we are to deliver basic services in our country so that people can be successful, if we are to create an environment where people of all different backgrounds can be successful, we’ve got to address the lack of confidence in our institutions,” he said. 

In his lecture at 10:45 a.m. today in the Amphitheater, Warren will present data that shows “the severe drop” in faith in government and discuss why he thinks the deterioration keeps occurring. Finally, he said he will propose solutions to rebuild faith in not just elected officials, but also governmental institutions. 

Warren said he feels lucky to have had the chance to work at different levels of the government. His “wonderful mosaic” includes a role at the White House as a special assistant in the Office of Cabinet Affairs during Bill Clinton’s presidency. 

He said he inherited the commitment to public service from his father, who grew up in “a tough neighborhood in New York and was able to escape a pretty difficult life” by joining the military. 

Warren was a naval intelligence specialist during the Iraq War; his father served in Korea. After his father returned to the United States, he “threw himself into the civil rights movement,” and went on to become an educator, Warren said. 

“The lessons from my father really stayed with me,” he said. “We have to work on the American experiment; we have to be a part of making it better for all people.”

In 2010, Warren became the first Black person to serve as a popularly elected mayor in Massachusetts. During his 8-year-long tenure as the mayor of Newton, Massachusetts, Warren said he was particularly proud of the passing of a “sensible” tax package and two housing projects, along with rebuilding five schools and “replenishing them with additional teachers and aides.” Warren listed housing and overcrowded schools as some of the challenges he faced while running for the position. 

Warren said he was “fortunate” to run at the same time when Deval Patrick was serving as the first Black governor of Massachusetts and Barack Obama was the first Black president of the United States. Both men, Warren said, have been “great inspirations” for him. 

Outside of responsibilities of being a mayor, Warren said he worked on encouraging people “who may not see themselves” in positions in the government to “move ahead” by sharing his journey. His determination, he said, was to make anyone – “wherever they are, whatever their background” – believe that they can participate in politics and be in a position like his. 

“Providing that pathway for others … is just as important as me being the first,” he said.

Political leadership and its role in rebuilding the trust in governmental institutions and elected officials will also be a part of Warren’s lecture during his first visit to Chautauqua. 

His current role takes him back to Massachusetts. As the director of the Institute of Politics, he aspires to create change through education. 

“There’s a chance to regenerate young people’s interest in politics and get them ready to lead,” he said.

COLUMN BY MARY LEE TALBOT

Jesus and the disciples crossed the Sea of Galilee to the country of the Gerasenes and the first person they met was a man driven out of his mind by demons.

“I know I talked about demons on Sunday, and I don’t want to be known as the demon guy, but I don’t write this stuff — I just preach about it,” said the Rev. M. Craig Barnes at the 9:15 a.m. Wednesday morning worship service in the Amphitheater. His sermon title was “Healing Faith in Our- selves,” and the scripture text was Luke 8:26-39.

Before the man became crazy, he had a story. He was someone’s son, maybe spouse or father, but all that was hid- den behind the legion of demons that had driven him crazy.

When Jesus asked the man his name, it was the demon who responded: “Legion, for we are many.”

Barnes said, “If Jesus asked you your name, you would say, ‘Which part of me do you want to know? Do you want to know me as a mother or father, the cool or grumpy grandparent, how I make my living, my volunteer activities, what my friends see, who shows up in the mirror?’ All of these parts vie for control and they don’t necessarily get along.”

All of us, he told the congregation, have a pie chart for our time. “We have pieces for work, all the chores and errands we have to do, family, recreation or time for ourselves, sleep. We all get the same size pie, 24 hours, and we can rearrange the size of the pieces, but we can’t get a bigger pie.”

The only way to make one piece of the pie bigger is to take from another piece and make it smaller. “Work can take time from home and home can take time from work, and they might not like that,” Barnes said. “We always feel like a failure in some part of our life. We cut back, especially from time for ourselves, and that makes us crazy like the man in the story.”

Jesus never asked the man if he wanted to be healed, he just did it. The demons asked to be sent into a nearby herd of swine, and then they jumped into the sea. The owners of the swine went to tell the community what had happened and when the community arrived, they saw the man clothed, in his right mind and sitting at Jesus’ feet.

“I always thought the community got upset about the pigs, looking for compensation for the loss. But they came to ask Jesus to leave because they were afraid when they saw the crazy man sitting in his right mind,” Barnes said.

He continued, “As long as you are not crazy, you think society is working just fine. But when you meet Jesus, who can change the way things are, you ask him to leave.”

The man, now in his right mind, asked to go with Jesus. Even though he usually told people to drop every- thing and follow him, Jesus told the healed man to stay.

“The man was actually applying to be a disciple and Jesus told him to stay and proclaim what had happened to him,” Barnes said. “It takes more dependence on the grace of God to stay rather than leave, to stay with the people who hurt you.”

He told the congregation, “Jesus calls us to stay even when the church hurts us, as is the nature of the church.” Barnes said when he travels by airplane he always hopes his seat partner will not ask what he does for a living. “When they find out I am a pastor, I get one of three responses,” he said. “First, the person gets very quiet and there is an awkward silence for the rest of the flight. Second, when they find out I am a Presbyterian, they try to convert me to Jesus. Third, they give me a litany of complaints about the church.”

One time, Barnes was sitting with a man who chose the third option. The man had some well-considered concerns about the church. Barnes told him, “I spend a lot more time with the church than you do and you don’t know half the problems. It is so much worse than you know, and don’t get me started on the clergy.”

Barnes continued, “So why do I stay? To find Jesus and to gather in his name. He is always there. He called me to stay and it is not easy, but that is where the Savior is found.”

Barnes said he sometimes tries to give his seatmate a theology lesson, explaining that the church is not a school for saints, but a hospital for sinners.

“To be disappointed that the church has sinners is like being disappointed that there are sick people in a hospital,” he said. “Church is the place where sin-sick souls find the healing of the Savior. We need a savior to center us and give us a mission — even one we don’t want — to stay.”

The Rev. Mary Lee Talbot, a lifelong Chautauquan, presided. Melissa Spas, another lifelong Chautauquan and vice president for religion at Chautauqua, read the scripture. The prelude was “Master Tallis’ Testament,” by Herbert Howells, played by Joshua Stafford, director of sacred music and Jared Jacobsen Chair for the Organist. The Motet Choir sang “Like as the hart,” also by Howells, under the direction of Stafford and accompanied by Nicholas Stigall, organ scholar, on the Massey Memorial Organ. Stafford played “Praeludium in E minor, BuxWV 143,” by Dietrich Buxtehude, for the postlude. Support for this week’s chaplaincy and preaching is provided by the Mr. and Mrs. William Uhler Follansbee Memorial Chaplaincy.

KAITLYN FINCHLER
STAFF WRITER

Black women have a maternal mortality rate 2.9 times that of white women in the United States, according to the National Institutes of Health.

Racial disparities in healthcare have always been an issue. In Under the Skin: The Hidden Toll of Racism on Health in America, author Linda Villarosa dives into this topic and more, as she will in her Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle presentation on the book at 3:30 p.m. today in the Hall of Philosophy.

In addition to being the CLSC selection for Week Four, Under the Skin was the 2023 pick for the Chautauqua County Book Read, now in its second year. In April, the YWCA of Jamestown and the Institution — through its Mirror Project initiative; Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Accessibility Office; and the African American House — held several digital and in-person book discussions across the county. Now, Villarosa’s lecture is part of Chautauqua County Day, which features free gate ad- mission to county residents.

The biggest point in the disconnect she explores in her book, according to Villarosa, is America’s status of being the wealthiest country in the world, with some of the worst health outcomes.

“Maternal mortality in this country is on the rise and it ends with life expectancy,” Villarosa said. “We have shorter lifespans than other countries and our COVID pandemic was worse.”

Villarosa previously worked at Essence, where she covered health issues for people of color, particularly Black Americans.

“Our health outcomes are poor compared to other groups of color – extremely poor,” she said. “We’re doing something wrong and, in general, going about it the wrong way – solving the problem in a way that isn’t helping, as far as life expectancy and maternal mortality.”

The problem is not only healthcare itself, she said. It’s also how much is spent on healthcare, what happens in doctor’s offices and how people in healthcare go about solving problems.

Our communities of color are historically marginalized. Due to segregation, it’s made our communities have less access to healthy food, clean water, outdoor exercise, clean air and even jobs and education.

LINDA VILLAROSA
Author,
Under the Skin: The Hidden Toll of Racism on Health in America

“If you talk to people in the community, many of them are suffering,” she said.

Villarosa said another issue is weathering — premature aging in Black people — due to constant discrimination day after day as part of a marginalized group.

“Our communities of color are historically marginalized,” she said. “Due to segregation, it’s made our communities have less access to healthy food, clean water, outdoor exercise, clean air and even jobs and education.”

One way Villarosa said all people can help address racial disparities in healthcare is to always have an advocate with them when at a healthcare facility.

“I think (advocacy) should be part of healthcare education for all kinds of nursing students who are going to be physicians (or) midwifery students,” she said. “Part of it should be ‘What is your role in making the community that you serve better before they get into the hospital system?’ ”

In 2018, she explored disparities in Black maternal and infant mortality in an article for The New York Times headlined “Why America’s Black Mothers and Babies are in a Life-or-Death Crisis.”

Villarosa originally started out writing about doulas — women who are employed to provide guidance and support to pregnant women during labor. She followed the experience of a pregnant woman named Simone. When she saw Simone being treated “very badly” by medical professionals, Villarosa was compelled to adjust her focus.

“I changed the story to be about her experience and why her treatment wasn’t good, even with a doula in the room,” Villarosa said. “People were so shocked.”

Villarosa said this struck a chord in readers who had previously only heard about the issues in a “public health bubble.”

Infant mortality is twice as high with Black parents, and Villarosa said the core issue is “a lack of access to health care or poverty.”

Then, she found a statistic that showed a Black woman with a college education — even someone who may be a doctor or lawyer — is more likely to die or almost die from a pregnancy-related cause than a white woman with an eighth-grade education.

Villarosa said she wants her audience to realize the problems and how far back they go, while not blaming individual people for “this problem that really is about what’s going on in our country as a whole.”

“If we’re dealing with the problem incorrectly and not thinking something is happening to us in society — and in a healthcare system — that education and access to healthcare doesn’t solve, that’s a different problem and calls for a different solution,” she said.

ALTON NORTHUP
STAFF WRITER

Expert Bree Dietly wants Chautauquans to rethink how they recycle.

Dietly, principal of Breeze- way Consulting, a Massachusetts-based waste consultation firm, spoke about the history of recycling and best practices for waste disposal at Saturday’s Chautauqua Property Owners Association General Meeting in the Hall of Philosophy.

“We have more than 9,000 community recycling programs in this country,” she said. “There’s no reason why we should have 9,000 separate local recycling programs.”

To understand the modern recycling system, one must first understand the waste system it grew out of. In the 1970s, waste management programs varied by community due to a lack of federal regulations. With more than 25,000 open dumps in the country, legislators started to worry about the kind of waste accepted by landfills and its effects on the environment, particularly water. These concerns culminated in a mass overhaul of waste management in the United States. The most significant piece of legislation from the era was the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976, Dietly said, which placed solid waste regulation under federal guidelines. The 1984 Hazardous and Solid Waste Amendments phased out land disposal of hazardous waste and reduced the number of landfills operating in the country in an effort to consolidate waste programs and limit pollution, dramatically changing the way Americans handled waste.

This reduction left about 6,000 landfills operating in the country, Dietly said, and with that new scarcity of landfills came a concern over what should fill them. Communities started investigating new methods for disposal to lessen the stress on landfills, and from that, modern recycling was born.

However, much like the early decades of waste management, recycling pro- grams now fall under the purview of state and local governments. This system creates confusion over what can be recycled, Dietly said, and is the reason why de- spite 52% of packaging on the market considered recyclable, just 32% of Americans actually recycle.

Luckily, she said, Chautauqua has a robust recycling program through Casella Waste Systems’ facility in Jamestown, but it falls on Chautauquans to recycle the right things. Plastic drink bottles, milk jugs, yogurt cups, tubs and lids and sham- poo bottles can all be recycled in Chautauqua. Before placing items on the curb, Chautauquans should check to ensure all caps and lids are screwed on; items smaller than two inches are automatically sifted out of the recycling process. Recycling facilities prefer aluminum cans, No. 1 PETE plastic and No. 2 HDPE plastic bottles (deter- gent and milk jugs) the most when sorting recyclables.

“Those three components account for 10% of everything that goes into that berth and 42% of the revenue they make on it,” Dietly said. “That’s the money haul; that’s the stuff you want to make sure is in your recycling program.”

Still, those looking to recycle should look out for more than just plastic, which makes up just 12% of waste nationally. Office paper, newspaper, paper bags, magazines, mail, glass bottles, pickle jars, cans, aluminum foil, wax-free cardboard boxes and egg cartons can all be recycled in Chautauqua. Dietly said to make sure to clean and dry items before recycling, form loose aluminum sheets into a ball and avoid all plastic bags that may clog sifting machines. Dietly reminded Chautauquans that “reduce, reuse, recycle” is a hierarchy, and they should think about how the products they purchase will be disposed of later.

“There is a lot of potential in what you don’t recycle,” she said.

Dietly’s presentation was part of the larger CPOA meeting; on Saturday the group provided an overview of its initiatives and goals for the season. The most significant was the completion of an Economic Impact Study commissioned with the Institution, which measured property owners’ economic impact. The study found property owners are responsible for 27% of visitors to the Institution and 45.4% of philanthropy raised in 2019; they generate $37.9 million in annual economic impact in Chautauqua County.

“We truly are the Institu- tion’s endowment,” said CPOA President Erica Higbie.

Other green initiatives were also discussed. Since last year, the CPOA has increased the number of car chargers on the grounds from one to 10. Additionally, a multi-year plan to convert streetlights on the grounds to energy efficient LED lighting has been completed. A part of that plan was transferring the lights from National Grid to the Chautauqua Utility District, significantly reducing the energy needed to power the lights. The next goal for the CPOA is to apply to be an International Dark Sky Community. If accepted, Chautauqua would be the first community east of the Mississippi River to join the organization, which advocates for ending light pollution.

Jesus and the disciples crossed the Sea of Galilee to the country of the Gerasenes and the first person they met was a man driven out of his mind by demons.

“I know I talked about demons on Sunday, and I don’t want to be known as the demon guy, but I don’t write this stuff — I just preach about it,” said the Rev. M. Craig Barnes at the 9:15 a.m. Wednesday morning worship service in the Amphitheater. His sermon title was “Healing Faith in Ourselves,” and the scripture text was Luke 8:26-39.

Before the man became crazy, he had a story. He was someone’s son, maybe spouse or father, but all that was hidden behind the legion of demons that had driven him crazy.

When Jesus asked the man his name, it was the demon who responded: “Legion, for we are many.” 

Barnes said, “If Jesus asked you your name, you would say, ‘Which part of me do you want to know? Do you want to know me as a mother or father, the cool or grumpy grandparent, how I make my living, my volunteer activities, what my friends see, who shows up in the mirror?’ All of these parts vie for control and they don’t necessarily get along.”

All of us, he told the congregation, have a pie chart for our time. “We have pieces for work, all the chores and errands we have to do, family, recreation or time for ourselves, sleep. We all get the same size pie, 24 hours, and we can rearrange the size of the pieces, but we can’t get a bigger pie.”

The only way to make one piece of the pie bigger is to take from another piece and make it smaller. “Work can take time from home and home can take time from work, and they might not like that,” Barnes said. “We always feel like a failure in some part of our life. We cut back, especially from time for ourselves, and that makes us crazy like the man in the story.”

Jesus never asked the man if he wanted to be healed, he just did it. The demons asked to be sent into a nearby herd of swine, and then they jumped into the sea. The owners of the swine went to tell the community what had happened and when the community arrived, they saw the man clothed, in his right mind and sitting at Jesus’ feet. 

“I always thought the community got upset about the pigs, looking for compensation for the loss. But they came to ask Jesus to leave because they were afraid when they saw the crazy man sitting in his right mind,” Barnes said. 

He continued, “As long as you are not crazy, you think society is working just fine. But when you meet Jesus, who can change the way things are, you ask him to leave.”

The man, now in his right mind, asked to go with Jesus. Even though he usually told people to drop everything and follow him, Jesus told the healed man to stay.

“The man was actually applying to be a disciple and Jesus told him to stay and proclaim what had happened to him,” Barnes said. “It takes more dependence on the grace of God to stay rather than leave, to stay with the people who hurt you.”

He told the congregation, “Jesus calls us to stay even when the church hurts us, as is the nature of the church.”

Barnes said when he travels by airplane he always hopes his seat partner will not ask what he does for a living. 

“When they find out I am a pastor, I get one of three responses,” he said. “First, the person gets very quiet and there is an awkward silence for the rest of the flight. Second, when they find out I am a Presbyterian, they try to convert me to Jesus. Third, they give me a litany of complaints about the church.”

One time, Barnes was sitting with a man who chose the third option. The man had some well-considered concerns about the church. Barnes told him, “I spend a lot more time with the church than you do and you don’t know half the problems. It is so much worse than you know, and don’t get me started on the clergy.”

Barnes continued, “So why do I stay? To find Jesus and to gather in his name. He is always there. He called me to stay and it is not easy, but that is where the Savior is found.”

Barnes said he sometimes tries to give his seatmate a theology lesson, explaining that the church is not a school for saints, but a hospital for sinners. 

“To be disappointed that the church has sinners is like being disappointed that there are sick people in a hospital,” he said. “Church is the place where sin-sick souls find the healing of the Savior. We need a savior to center us and give us a mission — even one we don’t want — to stay.”

The Rev. Mary Lee Talbot, a lifelong Chautauquan, presided. Melissa Spas, another lifelong Chautauquan and vice president for religion at Chautauqua, read the scripture. The prelude was “Master Tallis’ Testament,” by Herbert Howells, played by Joshua Stafford, director of sacred music and Jared Jacobsen Chair for the Organist. The Motet Choir sang “Like as the hart,” also by Howells, under the direction of Stafford and accompanied by Nicholas Stigall, organ scholar, on the Massey Memorial Organ. Stafford played “Praeludium in E minor, BuxWV 143,” by Dietrich Buxtehude, for the postlude. Support for this week’s chaplaincy and preaching is provided by the Mr. and Mrs. William Uhler Follansbee Memorial Chaplaincy.

Kaitlyn Finchler
Staff Writer

Forty-five years in the making, the sounds of blended voices from a San Francisco-based group will permeate the Amphitheater with an evolution of reinspired Renaissance pieces and other eclectic tunes. 

With a plethora of musical genres in tow, Chanticleer will perform at 8:15 p.m. tonight in the Amp. Made up of 12 “incredibly talented” singers and musicians, the male vocal chamber ensemble will perform a “little bit of everything,” said Tim Keeler, music facilitator for the group.

“This program is called ‘Labyrinth,’ ” he said. “(The performance) takes us through a bunch of different styles and a bunch of different challenges.”

Keeler said the show starts with earlier music, including some Renaissance polyphony — where two or more independent melodic lines create complex harmonic and rhythmic textures — as well as pieces written specifically for the group.

“We have included one of my favorite pieces on the program by American composer Trevor Weston, called ‘O Daedalus, Fly Away Home,’ ” he said, which is based on a poem by Robert Hayden — the first Black writer to hold the position now known as U.S. Poet Laureate.

The second half of the program includes an arrangement of Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now” and jazz standard “Stormy Weather,” ending with bluegrass spiritual numbers.

The ensemble also has the “privilege” of offering a music education program, Singing in the Schools, where vocalists visit Bay Area schools and “set an example” for singers of all ages, Keeler said.

“(We want) to show them what’s possible and to help them out along their journey,” Keeler said. “So one day, they could do what we do, or something similar.”

Chanticleer is “always trying to push themselves,” he said, adding that the group makes an effort to commission new pieces every year to explore new ways of singing, harmonies and voices.

“While music has changed over the centuries, people are more or less the same,” he said. “Five hundred years ago, people still got scared, they still got excited (and) they still fell in love.”

Keeler said people feel these things centuries later because “they’re still the same thing.” Combining the different styles of repertoire in one program is “less about exploring genres and more about exploring people.”

Since its founding in 1978, the ensemble has released 25 albums, including Our American Journey, which “celebrates the music of America” with tracks ranging from sacred motets by 17th-century Mexican composers to shape-note hymns and newly commissioned works on American themes.

The 12 singers are: tenors Andy Van Allsburg, Matthew Mazzola and Vineel Garisa Mahal; countertenors Cortez Mitchell, Gerrod Pagenkopf, Kory Reid, Bradley Sharpe, Logain Shields and Adam Ward; bass Andy Berry, baritone Matthew Knickman, and bass and baritone Zachary Burgess.

Keeler said his role is behind the scenes.

“I’m … choosing repertoire and facilitating the music-making experience,” he said, “so when it gets to the stage, those 12 singers can bring everything they’ve got.”