Monday Night at the Church

The first Monday Night at the Church of the church year was held tonight.


As usual, the Worcester Zen Group sat for an hour.


At 6:30, about 40 people shared a fellowship dinner prepared by Ken Waugh and others. We dined on ham, fresh corn on the cob, summer tomatoes, mashed potatos, peas with watermelon for dessert.


The evening program was the first session of "All About the Music." Jay Lavelle led us through an appreciation of the music most meaningful to him: Gustav Mahler's Second Symphony (The Resurrection Symphony.) We listened to the Fourth and Fifth movement of this work.


The symphony which includes choral music with words written by Mahler is a powerful expression of a Universalist conception of the Universal Resurrection of all the dead at the end of time.

Here are some of the words for the Fifth Movement:

Rise again, yes, you shall rise again,
my dust, after a brief rest!
Immortal life
will be given by Him who called you!

You are sown to bloom again.
The Lord of the Harvest goes
and gathers the sheaves of us,
who have died.

O believe, my heart, believe:
Nothing is lost to you!
All you have desired is yours, yes, yours!
Yours, what you have loved and fought for!

O believe, you were not born in vain!
You have not lived or suffered in vain!

All that is created must perish.
All that has perished rises again.
Cease trembling!
Prepare to Live!