Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
Community Affairs<br />
Old and New<br />
Some of the old things have found their way back into the new world we find ourselves in.<br />
Kippen Street Fayre kind of happened amid some wild weather. Ayman Jarjour, a classical<br />
guitarist, played in Kippen Kirk and helped raise over £2000 for Forth Valley Welcome. <strong>The</strong><br />
end of term school service took place. Concerts and gatherings are returning like before<br />
the pandemic.<br />
I love music and I am so grateful to be singing again with others. I missed singing in church<br />
and I missed singing at concerts. Singing at home alone is not quite the same but better<br />
than not singing. My faith is strongly influence by songs ancient and music of more recent<br />
years. I know many people think all the songs we sing in church are ancient, and to be<br />
honest some are many thousand years old like the psalms (songs) of King David. Half<br />
a dozen times in the psalms and twice in the prophetic books, people are told to ‘sing a<br />
new song to the Lord’ and the writers are encouraging people to express the feelings and<br />
experiences in song. I wonder what songs will become the old songs we remember from<br />
this time and what will be the news songs we will be singing in the decades to come.<br />
Recently, I watched Sir Paul McCartney play<br />
at Glastonbury (from the comfort of my sofa<br />
in Kippen) a week after his 80 th birthday.<br />
Other concerts and gatherings have been<br />
happening and the music makes my heart<br />
sing. Old classics and new fun tunes that<br />
may one day be classics we know all the<br />
words to have been great to join in the<br />
expression of the human experience,<br />
naming the old and giving rise the newness<br />
coming into being.<br />
Dave Grohl and Bruce Springsteen both<br />
joined Sir Paul McCartney on the stage of<br />
Glastonbury and lead the massive crowd in<br />
old favourites. I know these musicians will still be wondering what new songs they will still<br />
write within their lives. What songs will they express to capture not just the glory days but<br />
also give language to the longing and hope of these days we are living breath by breath.<br />
What has gone before has songs that we still cherish. What is coming into being is giving<br />
rise to new songs. What has yet to happen may be written in the hopes of songs we sing as<br />
we find our way of being in the world post-pandemic. I pray the songs in our hearts name<br />
the heartache, lament, struggle, but do not leave us in the miry muck and lift our eyes and<br />
hearts to something greater than just the moments we live. May God meet us in the music<br />
we sing. May we sing with joy and express our hopes and fears. May we bring our prayers<br />
to God even when we don’t understand what may come. Old and new find their home in<br />
our days. May you know rest, joy, peace, comfort, and songs old and new.<br />
God bless, Ellen<br />
Sunday Worship in Kippen Kirk 11.15 am.<br />
3 rd Sunday of month prayer time in the church from 4-5 pm. All welcome.<br />
Rev. Ellen Larson Davidson, Minister<br />
Kippen linked with Norrieston Parishes, Church of Scotland<br />
Reg. Charity No. SC004286 (Kip) & SC028719 (Nor)<br />
16 www.theweevine.org