MARY LEE TALBOT
Staff Writer
There may be no poet more representative of the word “resilience” than Maya Angelou. Consider these words: “You may shoot me with your words, / You may cut me with your eyes, / You may kill me with your hatefulness, / But still, like air, I’ll rise.”
Or consider the words of Emily Dickinson: “‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers – / That perches in the soul – / And sings the tune without the words – / And never stops – at all -”
Resilience is the ability of something or someone to withstand, recover or bounce back quickly from difficult conditions, stress or change. When faced with the dark night of the soul — a part of everyday life — poets and musicians urge people to not despair, but to turn with others and walk into the light.
The theme of the 8 p.m. Sunday Sacred Song Service is resilience. The Rt. Rev. Eugene Taylor Sutton, senior pastor of Chautauqua, will preside. The theme was chosen by Sonya Subbayya Sutton, interim director of Sacred Music. Owen Reyda, organ scholar and Sophia Vastek and Sam Torres will also perform.
The readings will include a contrapuntal poem featuring the words of Emily Dickinson and Maya Angelou, a reading from Psalm 121, thoughts on the dark night of the soul by Susan Palo Cherwien, and a closing prayer by Joan Brown Campbell.
The music will include the hymns “Day is Dying in the West” and “Now the Day is Over.” The Chautauqua Choir will sing “Dare to Call it Good,” music from The Third Tune, by Thomas Tallis, 1561, arranged by Lee Dengler, 2003, and text by Carl P. Daw, Jr., 1990. They will also sing “Torrents of Summer” from “King Olaf,” music by Edward Elgar, 1896, and text by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1863. The third anthem will be “Virtue Music,” with music by Gary Davison, 2025, and text by George Herbert, 1633.
There will be one musical piece entitled “As Torrents in Summer,” by Gary Davison. The service will conclude with the playing of “Largo,” from the opera “Xerxes,” by George Frederick Handel, 1738, on the Massey Memorial Organ.
