We are a small Episcopal Church on the banks of the Rappahannock in Port Royal, Virginia. We acknowledge that we gather on the traditional land of the first people of Port Royal, the Nandtaughtacund, who are still here, and we honor with gratitude the land itself and the life of the Rappahannock Tribe. Our mission statement is to do God’s Will in all that we do.

2022 Sun Oct 16

Beau Soir Concert, Oct 14, 2022 – a concert to remember!

The Friday night concert on Oct 14 featured picture perfect weather. Rain from the day before cleared in the morning leaving a pleasant fall day .

We had a wine and cheese reception at 6:15pm for the concert outside in our pavilion. About 35 came to the concert our first concert since 2019 due to the pandemic but was in a line of eight previous concerts since 2013.

You can hear more of the group from Soundcloud. Also we featured some of their works from Youtube.

There is also a promotional video

The Beau Soir Ensemble is a flute, viola, and harp trio dedicated to the performance of standard and contemporary repertoire spanning a variety of genres and formed in 2007 by Michelle Lundy. The viola in particular often gets lost in the harmonies of string quartets so it is welcome to hear its own voice here. Most of the pieces presented were modern.

How to describe their music ? Lyrical, rich in texture and harmonically, shifting rhythms with acknowledgment to folk and other forms of music. Totally engaging!

Our concert featured the World premiere of “Los Mensajeros do Otono” written in 2022 for this group by the Mexican composer Eduardo Angulo. Michelle, the harpist, has a story of chasing down this composer to get the music and finally came with the help of other musicians. The last composition “Bacanal”, also by Angulo, was a wild dance orignally written as a viola concerto and recast for these instruments It was also the USA premiere of “The Chasing Tale” (2021) by Martryn Adams, a British Composer.

The concert was noted for excellent introductions of the pieces by the members of the group. We
knew what to listen for as a result.

The Program

Click here to view in a new window.

“October” – Robert Frost

October

 BY ROBERT FROST

O hushed October morning mild,
Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;
Tomorrow’s wind, if it be wild,
Should waste them all.
The crows above the forest call;
Tomorrow they may form and go.
O hushed October morning mild,
Begin the hours of this day slow.
Make the day seem to us less brief.
Hearts not averse to being beguiled,
Beguile us in the way you know.
Release one leaf at break of day;
At noon release another leaf;
One from our trees, one far away.
Retard the sun with gentle mist;
Enchant the land with amethyst.
Slow, slow!
For the grapes’ sake, if they were all,
Whose leaves already are burnt with frost,
Whose clustered fruit must else be lost—
For the grapes’ sake along the wall.

Photo Gallery of early fall color, Oct., 2016

“Wrestle” – From Bishop Wright, Diocese of Atlanta

Genesis 32:22-31
“To love God and be loved by God is to wrestle with God from time to time. Think back to your last wrestling match with God, what were you trying to persuade or pin God down about? Wrestling is about opposing forces trying to get the better of the opponent. Some people wrestle with God and are unable to change God so they decide to leave God for a season. What is amazing about God and God’s approach to wrestling with us is God is never trying to contort us into something other than ourselves. There’s a blessing for the exertion. In the contest with God we learn our limits, get wisdom, see the genius of God, and our praise and adoration for God reaches new heights. Jacob wrestled all night with an angel of God but it wasn’t until daybreak that he got his blessing. At daybreak he got a new name! So this is a word of encouragement to you. Don’t give up in your wrestling match with God or with life. Hang on until your blessing gets named. ”

The Persistent Widow in the Gospel, Luke 18:1-8, Pentecost 19

“This peculiar story of the widow’s astonishing (read: countercultural) behavior is intended, as parables are, to disturb and reveal disruptive truth. It not only says something about how important it is for us to pray without ceasing, it also names what we should be praying for: justice. The widow is so certain of God’s justice that she acts in resolute faithfulness and courage, in anticipation of that certainty. She is anything but passive or powerless, as the ancient stereotype went.

“This kind of resolute faithfulness and sheer, dogged persistence, also demonstrated in ordinary and extraordinary women of the Bible and in social justice history — speaks to Christians today of the courage it takes to reject barriers and social norms, in the name of justice and human flourishing. Who among us will persist in the quest for justice? Like the widow pleading her own case before the unjust judge, we must not take no for an answer. It is a matter of faith. It is a matter of trust in God’s goodness — and in our commitment to claiming God’s reign of justice with constancy.”

—Dr. Kathy Bozzuti-Jones

A longer interpretation where Author Amy Jill Levine says this scripture forced her to reexamine her own views

Lectionary , Pentecost 19, Oct. 16, 2022

I. Theme –  Seeking intimacy with God through scripture study and constant prayer

"Old Woman Praying"-Aert de Gelder (1700) 

The lectionary readings are here or individually:  

First Reading – Genesis 32:22-31
Psalm – Psalm 121
Epistle – 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5
Gospel – Luke 18:1-8 

Today’s readings encourage us to seek intimacy with God through scripture study and constant prayer. As he wrestles with God, Jacob  becomes Israel, patriarch of God’s people. Paul commends the use of "the sacred writings" for growth in the faith. Jesus illustrates how, unlike an unjust judge, our God welcomes our persistent prayers and quickly gives justice.

This image of God as companion also appears in today’s psalm, Psalm 121. There, God is as close as a person’s hand, and as welcome as shade from the sun. The psalmist’s image of God as guardian will ring true for anyone who has felt insecure about sleeping in an unfamiliar place. While most of us don’t have bodyguards, we still know how the presence of a trusted friend in a strange situation calms fear and enables sleep.

There are really 3 themes in today’s readings. 1) the meaning of divine law and its relationship to our well-being, 2) the inspiration of scripture and its role in sharing God’s news, and 3) persistence in prayer and the question of unanswered prayer.  These themes are woven together by a vision that God acts in ways that invite us to be part of a greater adventure, companionship with God in healing the world.  Alignment with divine evolving order, sharing the good news of an open-spirited gospel that reflects a living, moving God, and prayerful persistence in seeking the greatest good are all responses to God’s vision of Shalom

Today’s readings can prompt us to reflect on our own prayer. Do we approach prayer as an unsavory bargaining process in which we must wrangle what we want? Or do we see prayer as an encounter with our dearest love?

Faith is not just a journey, but a struggle. We all struggle at times with doubts but we perhaps struggle even more with being in community with one another. But our God is the God of community: the God of a people, the God of all peoples, the God of Creation. And we struggle and wrestle with one another and with God. But when we are persistent for justice, when we remain faithful to God’s ways—we will see it through. And while we may not change others, we may change the world for ourselves, and through persistence justice, peace, and hope may come.

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