let the celebration begin!

John Laing Singers, Hamilton:  johnlaingsingers

Tafelmusik Chamber Choir: tafelmusikBaroqueOrchestra&Choir

The Edward Johnson Music Foundation:  edwardjohnsonmusicfoundation

TACTUS Vocal Ensemble: tactusvocalensemble

Celebrating the Bard:  guelphartscouncil/2007/bard

Guelph Youth Singers Tribute:  guelphtribune/arts&entertainment

More SOUND-BITES:

from The Mystery of Christmas, Elora Festival Singers:

‘Twas in the Moon of Wintertime:

Listen to The Huron Carol

from TACTUS, Mirth and Merriment:

Sweet Faces:

Listen to Sweet Faces

from Dido and Aeneas, Act 3, Scene 2, in Tafelmusik Chamber Choir:

Purcell:

Listen to With Drooping Wings

CD:  amazon.com/Purcell-Dido-Aeneas                  DVD:  amazon.com/Dido-Aeneas

Glenn’s Tactus Bio

http:www.tactusvocalensemble.com

As one of the two tenors in Tactus, I understand how important this voice part is to the world of music.  Never dime-a-dozen, tenors obviously make music music.  Tenor parts in Renaissance composition are somewhat schizophrenic, with extremely wide ranges, unpredictable and creative voicing, and often carry the responsibility for the cantus firmus (the ‘melody’ in polyphonic writing).  So, there you have it, an argument for the importance of Marcus Kramer and myself!

My musical background includes boy and head boy chorister training under Scott Bradford at St. George’s Church, Guelph, Ontario.  As a teen, I sang with the Ontario Youth Choir, and have since sung with The Elora Festival Singers under Noel Edison and, for many years, in Tafelmusik Chamber Choir under Ivars Taurins.  Tactus Vocal Ensemble came into being during my Tafelmusik commuting time with Catherine Robertson and Stephanie Kramer.  We met with Marcus, my former voice teacher, and the idea for our octet was born.

Outside of music, I practice medicine on the side, attempt to garden as much as possible, enjoy a small career as a writer, and love to tease and bother my wife and two children as much as possible. Our home is in Guelph and along the northern shores of Lake Huron.

Glenn Peirson, tenor

Writer

Poet, even during Medical School, and taking a break at Spindrift:

find the story on these in comments at:  Glenn Memories for T&H

Food & Wine:

Food, Wine, Spa writer for Inns Magazine & Spalife Magazine
interdrama/chocolate/chocophilia

Poetry to Music:

• guelphyouthsingers/library/Follow-the-Star-poster

Believer

Whether in London, England, or in Emo or in blackness, the resurrected Word must bring meaning.  The setting or the structure of our celebrations is absolutely second to our recognition of Truth incarnate, killed, buried and eternally rebirthed.  [GP]

GLENN’S CREDO (circa 1985)

I believe there is a God (and only one God)
and that It threw Itself
into human substance and dwelt among us
and due to unknowable reason
substituted Its perfect self
through sacrifice for our absolute inadequacy
thereby granting us connectedness with the Divine
in some immediate and yet
utterly and wholly other way
in both the personal and social dimensions

I believe that Jesus stands infinitely
as our only true model
in how to live, love each other, and have meaning

I believe the Bible to be an adjunct to this
and to incorporate much Truth
(though not in any complete sense)

I believe in direct revelation
that is inexplicable

I believe that I cannot and should not judge the validity of another’s
belief in God,
be he or she Christian,
Hindu,
Buddhist,
or Native
in faith

I believe that God’s Love mysteriously surrounds me
And that my maximal understanding of and allowance for it
will not come
until I do not exist
in this realm

Lastly,
I believe that I know nothing more than what I have just stated
at this particular twinkling of an eye
in the minuscule monstrosity
we call Time

(I believe that
I may not even know all that I have just said)
[GP]

Whether you have a faith or not, you know that our little family of Peirsons has a Faith that emanates from the core of who we are as created beings.  I never felt fearful of death.  I never railed at God about my circumstances (really not part of my belief system).  I did, however, feel great fear about losing my family, about not watching my children grow and develop over the years.  Almost a selfish instinct, I couldn’t get my head around the idea of not being with them, shaping and being shaped by them.  This tortured me when I let it.  I really found no conciliation in any idea of nirvana beyond this.     [GP]

Saturday I travelled up the NE coast to Holy Island – a most holy island, where St. Cuthbert lived and where St. Aidan established a monastery, which was the focus for the meeting of Celtic and Roman Christianity.  I have experienced no more misty and mystical environment than this area.  Sunday I toured the Lake District with a nurse tutor from Devon.  It was absolutely sensuous and at once spiritual.  To complete the circle of the magical mystery and spiritual history tour, I revisited Durham Cathedral during my final week, heard evensong, and had time for reflection at the tombs of St. Cuthbert and the most venerable Bede.  At Christmas, when I was given Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, I presumed that I would spend my time in London.  I ended up in the darkest heart of Bede’s land without knowing so until I arrived.  Praise be to God for dapple-down-drawn things.

Dublin Street United Church:

the team, Spring 2008

• dublin.on.ca/LIFEatDUBLIN:Healing & Prayer_Ministry

Subject: vision
Date: Saturday, October 25, 2008 8:08 PM
From: Glenn
Conversation: vision

If the argument could be made, and I would make it, that Dublin is doing so many varied, meaningful, and wondrous things, then our vision shouldn’t necessarily be about more “doing”.  The question arises, and follows from our mission and core values, what is our vision – what brings us together – what brings the doing together – what gives spiritual cohesion to whole beautiful mess that is Dublin?

That is what this is about.

Look forward to your thoughts (as always)!

Glenn

TO MY BELOVED DUBLIN from Glenn

A Vision for Dublin
October 22, 2008

DUBLIN:  A HEALING CHURCH

As followers of Jesus, we envision Dublin as a place of healing, where we call upon God to restore balance in body and mind and soul.

We follow in the footsteps of Jesus, who lived and breathed a ministry of healing as essential to life.  He taught, in word and deed, that life is a journey of healing, ultimately reaching a state of wholeness in life beyond death.

We believe in the ongoing movement of the Holy Spirit, whose power brings healing to our congregation, our community and our world.

At Dublin, we envision that this healing power, founded in God’s love, is the only solution to our frailty as human beings, whether individually or collectively, whether looking inward or reaching out beyond our doors, whether small in scale or as large as the healing needed globally for injustice, violence, ignorance or ecological abuse.

We need to be bold in seeking God’s healing.

Why Dublin?

February 12, 2009

“It is the type of cantata that reminds us how, in our increasingly urban society, we have lost close contact with the rhythms and patterns of the liturgical year, and perhaps even with perceptions of the basic cyclic round of life and death.”

John Eliot Gardiner, notes for Volume 17 of his complete Bach Cantata cycle

“Services at 9:30 and 11:00 Sunday mornings and at 7:00 on Wednesdays”

Sign on St. James’ Anglican Church, three blocks away from Dublin

We tend to worry at Dublin, in the United Church, in modern Christendom about what we are taking away from people, rather we should focus on what we are giving.  We do not want to trouble or bother or ask too much.  We want our worship, our fellowship, our weekly life to merge into people’s existence, to blend in harmoniously.

We have one service per week and rarely any special services.  Our service is at 10:30, shifted back some years ago from 11:00 to not interfere with the obligations of lunch, for the elderly living residentially, for needs of children, for our collective convenience.  We ensure that coffee time after the service is vital and organized, fair-trade coffee, sign-up tables, streamlined and efficient, socially-just and environmentally-sound.  And, of course, everyone out in good time to pursue the remainder of the day.  The church is almost closed in the summer, as everyone flees from the idea of Sunday obligation when the sun beckons.  And there is general understanding and even endorsement of the cottage priority.  Communing with nature is church, we justifiers say, and we mean it.

Sunday School happens concurrent with the worship service, pulling children regularly, automatically from the service, along with the legion of dedicated teaching adults.  Sunday is a work day for the ministers, for staff, and perhaps Monday a down day, perhaps Friday, perhaps Saturday.  Burn-out to be avoided at all costs.  Avoided with therapeutically lowered expectations.  We try some new services, for healing and prayer, for vespers, for rare liturgical blips.  We re-invent small groups, as many as possible, and pat ourselves on the back, for it is good and ministers to the needs of the modern person, family, Canadian, Guelphite, with no strings attached.  Come or go as you like or need or as feels good.  Our society is so focused on feeling good, hopefully for the right reasons, and church tends to blow that way as well.

Perhaps some cry out for more radical change.  Despite Dublin’s continual evaluation, reevaluation, despite extraordinarily committed lay leadership and talented staff, despite developing real core values and declaring our mission, we are still out of touch, heading in the wrong direction, fiscally fragile, waiting to hit the wall.  Sell the old ship and put her out to pasture, for scrap metal.  Take the money and merge with another unnecessary downtown church, change what church is, minister through the coffee shop, get down and get dirty.  Get real.  Take the show on the road, divest of the old and understand the new.  Let go of the stodgy archeology of Christian practice and connect with people.  Where are people, real people, comfortable?  Where do they frequent?  Tim Horton’s, drive-through culture, big screen TV, iPod soundtrack, but also that proverbial walk in the woods, to the seaside, the quest for mountainous beauty.  People are comfortable with the instantly available commercial things and the timelessness of Mother Nature.  So let’s give it to them.  A new eco-conscious building on property with natural landscaping, a meditation garden, perhaps a small wood, and coffee on Sunday mornings, drop-by Chapters outlet through the week, multi-media options in worship, all punctuated by today’s music, suitable for everyone, and accessible, no elitism please.

No, no, we miss the point.  We don’t squeeze our religion, faith life into what is our life.  We build our lives around Faith.  It gives us life, rhythm and pulse … big scheme stuff.  It’s not how Dublin can sell itself, reinvent itself, morph into modern Christian palatability.  It’s about what marks us as Christians, what makes Dublin special.  We should invest in what we do that is core to us.  We should highlight what we have to offer, critical to living life with meaning, in the footsteps of Jesus, inspired by the Holy Spirit.  We should not sell ourselves as part of normal living in our secular society.  We are different, we follow the principle of Love, even though we follow imperfectly.  We eschew doctrinal blindness, religiosity, prejudice and judgment.  We espouse the new commandment, the way of forgiveness, the meaning that a Christ-centred life brings here and now.  We should not worry about what we are taking away from people, rather we should focus on what we are giving.

Therefore we trumpet worship as central to our week.  We celebrate the seasons of the church.  We mark all we can on the liturgical calendar.  We have worship every Wednesday evening, no matter who comes.  We perform real and vital pastoral care and this is a difference-maker in our society.  People cannot get this without connecting to church.  We keep our children and youth empowered, inspired and inspiring.  We serve our elderly as the faithful servants that they are and have been.  We recognize and seek out those for whom life is a struggle, no matter what the reason.  We give money out of love and with wisdom.  We pray for God-based vision, and this drives us, not budgetary concerns.  We nurture families and adults in the middle of their lives, whom we recognize as terribly busy these days.  We have Sunday School before church for everyone, and then some young children’s programming for those who can’t make it through the service.  We share eucharist together often, we bless each other, we are a place of healing, we follow Jesus’ practices.  We lunch together after worship (why not?!) and recognize this as a form of communion.  Food and drink, central to life, just as Jesus.  Those who are visited, whether by clergy or laity, are offered communion and anointing … these are markers of who we are and call into being power greater than ours.  We celebrate marriages of all types and we observe life’s milestones, especially at the end.  We are the embodiment of real life, but as a leader, not a follower … actually a leader who follows the one true Leader, our source and our inspiration.

Athlete

Swimming, especially Lake Huron:

T-Ball & Baseball:

City Football:

High School Football -> All Football:
Theo’s first University of Guelph Game

Track and Field

Basketball

Pick-Up Basketball:

Golf, St. Andrew’s, Scotland (on tour with GCC; look closely!):

Goof & Humorist