A Recital and Religion

A few weeks ago, my oldest son participated in his annual piano recital. His teacher organizes her students into recitals from their earliest lessons—in fact, this year a kid who had had only one or two lessons participated: he bowed to the audience.

As always, the recital was at a nursing home. This provides a change of routine for residents who choose to attend. There was a piano in the dining room, and members of the audience pulled chairs back from the tables and turned them toward the front. There was a decent turnout of residents who occupied the forward rows while parents of piano and voice students sat every which where around the room.

While listening to the performers, I couldn’t help but notice that the four-seat dining table in front of me had a tent card on it printed with three dinner blessings. One was titled Protestant, another was titled Roman Catholic, and the other was titled Jewish.

First of all: I’m certain that by the time you move into a nursing home, you’re going to know a blessing appropriate to your religious affiliation. I puzzled over this for a bit, and decided that the intent of the card was, perhaps, to promote understanding—a Jew could see the blessing of a Catholic or Protestant, a Catholic could see blessings of Jews and Protestants, and a Protestant could see blessings of Catholics and Jews. Sharing insights into faith, I believe, shows good moral fiber.

Then, I wondered: How rigid are these religions? The Catholic blessing on the tent card was familiar, but the Jewish and Protestant blessings were news to me. It’s hard to believe that Catholics everywhere say this particular blessing before dining… but maybe they all do. With Judaism having so many branches, it’s even harder to believe that there is one proper dinner blessing for all of them. Most certainly, the blessing labeled Protestant is arbitrary: even if it originated from a Protestant church, there are so many dozens of Protestant religions that no one dinner blessing could satisfy all of them. What’s more, the very designation of Protestant suggests a follower would question the validity of one blessing over the validity of any other; a good protestant wouldn’t let a nursing home administrator dictate how to give thanks at dinner.

Finally, I thought: Is this all there is? No Hindu prayer? No Islamic prayer? No Native American prayer? Nothing Buddhist, Confucius, Tao, or Zen? Of course not; not in Lewisburg. Prayers on the tables were as underrepresented as the religions of the world are in our community.

Anyway, the prayer tent cards really challenged me. There were also name cards at each seat, so apparently the same people eat in the nursing home dining room meal-after-meal. With that understanding, and all my musing about the specific prayers, I came full circle back to “first of all…” I’m not about to enter a nursing home, but I know how to pray before a meal. If I last long enough to check into a nursing home, it’ll be one that doesn’t have semi-eclectic prayer cards on the dining tables.

Oh. I enjoyed the recital.

For the complete City Slipper experience, please visit my web site at http://www.cityslipper.com/.

Celebrating The End Of June

Lewisburg has one of the most amazing end-of-June celebrations you could imagine. Here’s the plan for this year: Wednesday, Sousa in the park. Thursday, Yankee Doodle Dandy at the local movie theatre. Friday, a big band concert on the lawn followed by fireworks. Saturday, a parade followed by concerts on the lawn and picnicking under the trees.

If it sounds suspiciously like a 4th of July celebration, that’s because it’s not really an end-of-June celebration; it just happens to fall at the end of June. Lewisburg celebrates Independence Day a week early—and there’s good thinking behind it:

As a small town, Lewisburg isn’t a big draw for groups that might march in a parade here. Local High School bands tend to march in their hometown parades—and most of those are on the Saturday closest to July 4th. Bands travelling from Philadelphia or farther can find larger audiences on that holiday weekend than they’ll find in Lewisburg, so they aren’t available for the Lewisburg parade.

Move the parade a week before the holiday weekend, and you find a lot of open calendars. Several local high school bands participate, and a respectable assortment of bands comes from afar. In fact, the “week early” strategy has let the Lewisburg 4th of July parade to grow into one of the longest and most robust parades in the area.

With the parade a weekend early, it’s appropriate to hold the rest of the Independence Day celebration early as well. So, the music in the park program on Wednesday featured patriotic tunes as Sousa would have directed them. On Thursday, for a one dollar admission fee, residents could attend a screening of Yankee Doodle Dandy at The Campus Theatre—an art deco building that’s on the National Register of Historic Landmarks.

The fireworks show held yesterday was sponsored by the Allbright Care Center at Riverwoods. For 25 minutes they launched aerials above a soccer field that’s nearly surrounded by tall trees. Through one wall of trees, there are baseball fields where spectators started arriving more than three hours before the launch. A big band style dance band played until dark, and people took up positions with lawn chairs and blankets. It was a generous show—as it is every year.

The parade and picnic are a fine exclamation point for the celebration. (Immediately after the parade, patrons and participants gather on a lawn at Bucknell University where bands play and several vendors sell hot dogs, hamburgers, sausages, and other foods.)

We had packed a cooler and grabbed it from the car on our way from the parade route to the University. There, we met up with several friends and had a pleasant lunch in the shade. It was a fine end-of-June celebration.

For the complete City Slipper experience, please visit my web site at http://www.cityslipper.com/.

Music In The Park

Starting in June of each year, Lewisburg sponsors music in the park. This is one of the great entertainment bargains available anywhere: there’s no charge to attend, and you can take along your own seating and snacks. The park in question is Hufnagel. The music varies.

Hufnagel Park sits in the western third of the downtown business district. It is a narrow block, but quite deep with a creek along one side, and a railroad track along the other. Near Market Street (the main street), there are ornamental plantings and stairs leading down from the sidewalk. A level lawn stretches toward the back of the park where a gazebo sits at the bottom of a modest brick and concrete amphitheatre.

Music in the park happens each Wednesday evening at 7:00. Over the years, we’ve heard performances by the Williamsport Symphony Orchestra, the Lewisburg High School Marching Band, the Susquehanna Valley Chorale, the Penn Central Wind Band, and more. We’ve heard big band music, classical, jazz, pop(s), and folk.

The performances are usually entertaining, if not, then at least technically very good or better. Some draw bigger crowds than others, but they always draw more people than could watch comfortably from the amphitheatre seating. So, the performers usually set up facing the level lawn, (rather than the amphitheatre), and patrons bring chairs and blankets with which they make haphazard patterns across the park.

Perhaps the most popular show each year is Stars, Stripes, and Souza performed by the Penn Central Wind Band. The band plays music that John Sousa’s band would have played—some of his original works, and some written by his contemporaries. I counted about 700 people in the audience this year which seems like a small number until you realize that’s nearly a tenth the population of Lewisburg.

It’s not surprising to find so many Sousa fans in Lewisburg. Many will return for upcoming performances by a brass band, a big band, a symphony band, a trumpet duo, traditional Celtic music, a jazz duo, and the Lewisburg High School marching band—all on the remaining schedule. If you live in Lewisburg, you’re bound to see people you know at these concerts. If you don’t live here, you’re still likely to feel welcome.

For the complete City Slipper experience, please visit my web site at http://www.cityslipper.com/.