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‘Beauty in Holiness’ is theme for Week 6 Sacred Song Service

The Chautauqua Choir sings songs in remembrance of loved ones Chautauquans have lost during last week’s Sacred Song Service July 21 in the Amphitheater.
Emilee Arnold / staff photographer
The Chautauqua Choir sings songs in remembrance of loved ones Chautauquans have lost during last week’s Sacred Song Service July 21 in the Amphitheater.

“All passes, art alone endures,” is the inscription over the proscenium in Norton Hall. The phrase comes from the poem “L’Art,” by Theophile Gautier: “Tout passe. – L’art robuste Seul a l’éternité.”  

Ralph Waldo Emerson, in “Beauty” — the third chapter of his book Nature — wrote that “the creation of beauty is Art. The production of a work of art throws a light upon the mystery of humanity. A work of art is an abstract or epitome of the world. It is the result or expression of nature, in miniature.”

And C.S. Lewis, in The Weight of Glory, said: “We do not want merely to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else which can hardly be put into words — to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it.”

The desire to express beauty in worship is behind the theme for the Sacred Song Service at 8 p.m. Sunday in the Amphitheater. The service, designed by Joshua Stafford, director of sacred music and the Jared Jacobsen Chair for the Organist, follows the Interfaith Lecture Series theme for Week Six — “The Arts: Expressions from the Soul.”

Stafford has produced a program that features a variety of music paired with poetry and writings from secular sources, as well as Hebrew and Christian scripture. 

As Emerson wrote, “No reason can be asked or given why the soul seeks beauty. Beauty, in its largest and profoundest sense, is one expression for the universe. God is the all-fair. Truth, and goodness, and beauty, are but different faces of the same All.”

Tags : C.S. LewisJared JacobsenNatureRalph Waldo EmersonreligionSacred Song ServiceThe Arts: Expressions from the SoulThe Weight of GloryWeek six
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The author Mary Lee Talbot

Mary Lee Talbot writes the recap of the morning worship service. A life-long Chautauquan, she is a Presbyterian minister, author of Chautauqua’s Heart: 100 Years of Beauty and a history of the Chapel of the Good Shepherd. She edited The Streets Where We Live and Shalom Chautauqua. She lives in Chautauqua year-round with her Stabyhoun, Sammi.