Next Sunday, Dec. 22– Sparkle, Rev. Connie Simon speaking. From Katy Perry’s song Firework: “There’s a spark in you – you just gotta ignite the light and let it shine.” On this date, we’re going to celebrate the spark and sparkle in each of us. Feel free to wear your most shiny, sparkly, glittery outfit. Let your colors burst and come prepared to sparkle!

The Flowers this morning are from Jenna and Allen Atkinson in memory of their daughter, Alyssa.

Sunday Morning Volunteer Program (MVP) Team Three is handling the duties of greeting, ushering, providing coffee service and clean-up today. Team Three is led by Linda Miltner. She is joined by Sallie Barringer, Barbara Dickerson, Laurie Frank, Barbara Homlar, Jack Niehaus and Ann Retford.

Sound Technician: Doug Rohrer

Assistive Listening Devices for people needing hearing enhancement are available at the rear of the sanctuary.

All are invited to write their Joys and Sorrows in the book at the back of the sanctuary.

First Unitarian Church of Cincinnati

536 Linton Street * Cincinnati, Ohio 45219 (513) 281-1564 * www.firstuu.com

Rev. Connie Simon, Minister revconnie@firstuu.com

Large Print Orders of Service are available. Please see an usher.

First Unitarian Church

of Cincinnati

December 15, 2019 Music from the Heart

Rev. Connie Simon Jera Cox, Director of Music

Meredith Plummer, Director of Lifespan Faith Development

First Unitarian Singers

Music from the Heart December 15, 2019

Rev. Connie Simon, Minister Jera Cox, Director of Music

Meredith Plummer, Director of Lifespan Faith Development First Unitarian Singers

Welcome and Announcements

Prelude Confidence Antonin Dvorak

Performed by Martha Dillow and Charlyn Jackson

Chalice Lighting

Call to Worship Amid All the Noise in our Lives Tim Haley

Vision Song We are a liberal religious haven, welcoming wonder, and spiritually free. We’re sustained by a loving tradition, moved and inspired by the future we see. Boldly seeking and working for justice, gently transforming lives through deeds great and small. Young and old, sharing meaning and mission, we joyfully offer our vision to all!

Shelley Jackson Denham

Reading Give All to Love Ralph Waldo Emerson

Fuente de Amor Till the Stars Fall From the Sky

Sally Albrecht Performed by Nick Payne and Cynthia Heinrich

Hymn Congregational Choice

Sing the Children Out #413 Go Now in Peace Amazing Grace

Benjamin Harlan Performed by Tom Cottrill and Nick Payne

Joys and Sorrows Ritual Hymn #1002 Comfort Me (Sing, Love, Pray)

Offering

Offertory Spirit of Life

Hymn Congregational Choice

Reading We Have Come Into this Room of Hope Libbie D. Stoddard

The Wide Missouri/Shanandoah Arr. Ruth Elaine Schramm

A Song for You June Schlipf

The Ground Ola Gjeilo

Hallelujah Leonard Cohen, arr. Ethan Sperry

Performed by Men’s Double Quartet: Nick Payne, Larry Bullock, John Schlipf, Tom Cotrill, Jeff Hildebrand, Peter Tennent and Roland Johnson

Seal Lullaby Eric Whitacre

Sure on this Shining Night Morten Lauridsen

Hymn Congregational Choice Extinguishing the Chalice

We extinguish this flame, but not the light of truth, the warmth of community or the fire of commitment. These we carry in our hearts until we are together again.

Elizabeth Selle Jones

Benediction Let Us Sing the Magic of Imagination Susan L. Van Dreser

Postlude Al Shlosha D’varim

Allen Naplan

ESPECIALLY FOR VISITORS

Welcome! We’re happy you’re here today. Stop by the Welcome Counter as you entered the building for a pre-stamped info card to complete at home and mail back– or fill out a card if you have time this morning. We’ll send you our newsletter and information on what’s happening at First Church.

Interested in learning more about First Church and Unitarian Universalism? Join Rev. Connie and our Welcoming Team for an informal discussion about our active community. Find out how you can get involved in our Social Justice, Faith Development, Music and other programs or become a member of First Church on January 19 after service in the Fisher Room. Childcare will be provided.

TODAY

Today in Sunday School: This will be the last Sunday your child in preschool through fifth grade will be able to design and make gifts for loved ones and First Church members. Upstairs, your junior high youth will engage in deep discussion on a topic TBD, while your senior high youth will be introduced to Jesus and the New Testament.

Today’s Family Faith Development Volunteers: VIP, TBD; Rebecca Algenio, Infants/Toddlers; Patricia Rohrer, Suzanne Carpenter, Gaut Ragsdale and Beth Lutz will be the Holiday Workshop Elves; Rozy Park will be with the junior high and Barbara Bonney and Amy Bottomley will be with the Senior High. Today, the singers in grades 6 to 12 will meet for a Youth Singing Thing following the service in Room 207.

.UPCOMING EVENTS

Winter Solstice – Saturday, Dec. 21, 5:30 to 8 p.m. Please join us for a cozy evening celebrating the winter solstice on this evening. We’ll begin with a Winter Solstice Supper at 5:30 p.m. followed by a program in the Sanctuary led by Rev. Connie at 6:30 p.m. Our supper will be a build-your-own-taco bar with meat, vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free and dairy-free options. There will be fruit and cookies and

entertainment. The suggested donation for the Supper is $5 per person (maximum of $20 per family) with an additional donation requested for beer and wine. Sun., Dec. 22 – One Room Schoolhouse – Preschool through 12th graders will explore the concept of “Sparkle” (the worship theme of the day) by holding a talent show! Children and youth come ready to shine, but don’t worry, no child or youth will be forced to participate if they don’t want to! Family Christmas Eve – Tuesday, Dec. 24, beginning at 4 p.m. All are welcome to enjoy a Children’s Service at 4 p.m. – wear your ugly Christmas sweaters, and come ready to sing The 12 Days of Christmas the “traditional” First Church way. A cookie social will be held after the service. Christmas Eve Service – Tuesday, Dec. 24 at 6 p.m. – join Rev. Connie and the message Within the Shining of a Star.

Mark your calendars now for our annual Heart and Hand Auction at 5:30 p.m. on Saturday, February 8. Enjoy an evening of fun that includes both silent and live auctions, a restaurant raffle, and much more! We are looking for donations from businesses. If you have a suggestion, contact Janet Schneider at 513.371.0335 or janetpschneider@yahoo.com. We are also looking for First Church crafters to add items for our new craft booth. Contact Beth Whelan at ewhelan@cinci.rr.com or 513.545.6660.

Sun., Dec. 29, Lifespan Faith Development will close out 2019 with another One-Room-Schoolhouse lesson. Preschoolers through 12th Graders are invited to wear their pajamas to church and bring a blanket, pillow or lovey with them. They’ll all snuggle in to watch a movie in Room 207.

Music from the Heart Service Notes

December 15, 2019 Confidence, by Antonin Dvorak (1841-1904)-This piece is from Dvorak’s Moravian Duets, Op. 32 #10. It references a couple who are to be married, but the timing is off, so they must wait a long time. Amid All the Noise in Our Lives-by Tim Haley. The Rev. Tim Haley is a retired UU minister, whose ministry included positions at UU Community Church of Washington County in Hillsboro, OR, the UU Church in Reston, VA, the UU Congregation at Willamette Falls in Oregon City, OR and Quimper UU Fellowship in Port Townsend, WA Fuente de Amor- this Spanish translation of Spirit of Life is one of many hymns included in the Spanish UU hymnal, Las voces del camino: Un complemento de Singing the Living Tradition Till the Stars Fall from the Skies by Sally Albrecht- A native of Cleveland, Ohio, Sally received a B.A. degree from Rollins College with a double major in Music Theater. From there she moved to the University of Miami where she received both an M.A. in Drama and an M.M. in Accompanying. Her previous employment includes serving as the school choral editor at Shawnee Press, and teaching in the Music Departments at Oakland University and Jersey City State College. She has worked with literally thousands of teachers and students through clinics, conventions and workshops in 40 states, Canada, Singapore and Australia. Sally and her husband, composer/arranger Jay Althouse, currently reside on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. She has over 140 popular choral publications in print.

Amazing Grace is a Christian hymn published in 1779, with words written in 1772 by the English poet and Anglican clergyman John Newton (1725–1807). Newton wrote the words from personal experience. ... "Amazing Grace" was written to illustrate a sermon on New Year's Day of 1773. Benjamin Harlan is a Professor of Church Music at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. He became the second dean of the School of Church Music at Southwestern Baptist

Theological Seminary in 1995. He is an internationally known arranger and composer of choral, keyboard and handbell works. Comfort Me by Mimi Bornstein- Mimi Bornstein is a choral director, song leader, pianist, workshop and worship leader, singer, and composer with a belief that when we sing, we change who we are, and when we change who we are we change the world. Ms. Bornstein served as founder and artistic director of Midcoast Community Chorus (MCC), a non-profit community arts organization hosting a 140-voice non-auditioned multigenerational chorus. Ms. Bornstein has served on the AAUMM Board of Directors where she also helped design and launch their Professional Music Ministry credentialing program and served as AAUMM’s Director of Conferences. She has presented workshops and served as choir director and worship leader at numerous national gatherings.

The Wide Missouri/Shenandoah (included is “The Water is Wide”) is a tender setting of two traditional American folk songs and is arranged by Ruth Elaine Schram, who began composing at the age of 12 and now has over two thousand published works. Over seventeen million copies of her songs have been purchased in their various venues, and she has been a recipient of the ASCAP Special Award each year since 1990. In addition to her choral music for church and school choirs, her songs appear on thirty albums (four of which have been Dove Award Finalists) and numerous children's videos, including sixteen songs on four gold videos, and four songs on one multi-platinum video. Ruth began piano and theory lessons at the age of five. She studied music at Lancaster Bible College and Millersville State College and taught Elementary Music in Pennsylvania for several years. She now lives in Birmingham, Alabama with her husband, Scott Schram (his site, not music related), and they have two grown daughters, Crystie and Celsie.

A Song for You by June Schlipf: This choral piece, completed in 1992, celebrates the interplay of life's joys and their expression in song, and was begun as an expression of appreciation for friends who were moving to another part of the country. It was one of three and a half (the half needs complete revision) composed during a difficult time, shortly before our lives became even more chaotic. The chaos

continues in new forms, but the music and words remain, celebrating new friends and new joyful and loving moments of life.

The Ground is based on a chorale from the last movement of Ola Gjeilo’s Sunrise Mass (2008) for choir and string orchestra. The chorale, beginning at Pleni sunt caeli in that movement is the culmination of the Mass, and it’s called The Ground because he wanted to convey a sense of having ‘arrived’ at the end of the Mass; to have reached a kind of peace and grounded strength, after the long journey of the Mass, having gone through so many different emotional landscapes. Ola Gjeilo was born in Norway in 1978 and moved to the United States in 2001 to begin his composition studies at the Juilliard School in New York City, where he currently lives and works as a composer and pianist. Hallelujah- "Hallelujah" was originally composed by singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen and released in 1984. ... The song's thematic content is oddly fitting for its history. The song's constant refrain, "hallelujah," takes the listener through a journey of pain, joy, suffering, and celebration. Leonard Cohen was born on Sept. 21, 1934, in a suburb of Montreal, Canada. Part of an intellectual, middle-class Jewish family, he was encouraged by his parents to pursue his interests in poetry and music and was also thoroughly immersed in Jewish theology and the stories of the Old Testament. The Seal Lullaby was written by composer Eric Whitacre, who was asked by a major studio to write music for an animated feature, which was to be an epic adventure based on Rudyard Kipling’s “The Seal Lullaby.” After inspiration from the first beautiful words of the text (Oh! Hush thee my baby, the night is behind us) as the mother seal is singing softly to her young pup, Whitacre wrote down the piece, recorded it and dropped it off at the studio. The studio did not make the film, but Whitacre sang this song to his baby son every night. This arrangement was commissioned by The Towne Singers and is dedicated to Stephen Schwartz, whose tutelage of the composer was greatly appreciated. Sure on This Shining Night is from Nocturnes, a set of three, which are performed as a cycle or separately. This piece was first performed at the ACDA Los Angeles National Convention in February of 2005.

Morten Lauridsen is most noted for his seven vocal cycles and his series of a cappella motets, and he is often present at the piano when his works are recorded. He has received accolades by the National Endowment for the Arts, has been a faculty member at the USC Thornton School of Music as well as composer-in-residence of the Los Angeles Master Chorale. He was awarded the National Medal of Arts for his “radiant choral works combining music power, beauty and spiritual depth that have thrilled audiences worldwide.” James Rufus Agee was an American novelist, journalist, poet, screenwriter and film critic. In the 1940s, he was one of the most influential film critics in the U.S. His autobiographical novel, A Death in the Family, won the author a posthumous 1958 Pulitzer Prize. Al Shlosha D’varim by Allan E. Naplan is a lyrical setting of the popular maxim for Pirkei Avot (Jewish morality laws). The translation means: The world is sustained by three things, by truth, by justice, and by peace. Using the universal language of music, this piece conveys this important and universal theme through its beautiful simplicity. Allan Naplan is an award-winning composer, whose choral works have been performed and recorded in over thirty countries and have been featured in concerts at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, and the White House. Naplan maintains an active dual career as an opera administrator and composerand serves as organist and choirmaster of historic Calvary Episcopal Church. He is also co-founder (2013) and conductor of the Cincinnati Fusion Ensemble, a professional chamber choir. Nationally and internationally Mr. Helvey is in frequent demand as a composer, conductor, and speaker.

♥ ♥ ♥ 38th Annual Heart & Hand Auction ♥ ♥ ♥

5:30 p.m., Saturday, February 8, 2020, at First Church

DONOR FORM

We prefer that you email this information to Gillespie.molly@gmail.com, but you can also return this form

to the Heart & Hand table by the DONATION DEADLINE, SUNDAY, JANUARY 26.

Donor Name(s): _________________________________________________________________________

Email: ____________________________________________ Phone: _______________________

Category:

________ Food (to be sold for a set price at the Gourmet Delights booth)

________ Food / Meal for future delivery (to be transported to winning bidder at a future date)

________ Meal, Party or Event (specify # of seats and date below)

________ Service or Learning Opportunity

________ Theme Basket

________ Craft (contact Beth Whelan at ewhelan@cinci.rr.com, 513.545.6660)

______ Tickets to an event

______ Monetary Donation

Description of Donation: (Please be as complete as possible. We use this information in the auction catalog.)

Title: ________________________________________________________________________

If event or party, date: ____________________ time: _________________ # of seats ___________

Details/Description: ____________________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________________________

Estimated Fair Market Value: $ ________ Suggested Minimum Bid: $ ________

If food or craft item, Suggested Set Price: $ ________

Tickets, gift certificates and theme baskets should be delivered Sunday, February 2, after the service OR the

morning of the auction between 9:00 and 11:00 a.m. Food for the silent auction should be brought before 5:30

p.m. the day of the auction.

If you have any questions, contact Janet Schneider at janetpschneider@yahoo.com or 513.371.0335.

Thank you so much for your donation! YOU make the Heart & Hand Auction possible!