Counterpoint to Wonder - song and slideshow

The refugees and asylum seekers fleeing violence in Honduras are much on my heart these days.  Through Project Via Crucis, a Central Pennsylvania ministry of accompaniment with the churches and people of El Salvador, I was privileged to participate in five PVC delegations during the early to mid-1990s.  Walking and worshiping with the faithful, oppressed people of Central America irrevocably changed my understanding and perspective. This blog post and the video it references are my response to the present day suffering of Hondurans and to the terrible misinformation about them that our government officials want us to believe.

From photographs of El Salvador and other meaningful locations I have created a video slideshow set to the song “Counterpoint to Wonder” by Carolyn McDade.  The song, with its challenge to each of us to choose with whom we stand, grew out of Carolyn’s own experiences in Nicaragua in the 1980s.  Here is the link to view the video on YouTube: Counterpoint to Wonder. What follows are thumbnail images of the slides with identification of location and relevance to the words of the song.  I invite readers to view the video first, then return to this blog post to learn about the images, then view the video a second time, keeping this information in mind.

Shouting Defiance and Hope

The seed of the idea was planted in a Facebook conversation.  In response to the link to my latest letter to the editor of the Lancaster newspaper, a friend commented “shouting defiance and hope.”  I recognized the phrase immediately as coming from the song “Compassion Piece” by Carolyn McDade and replied that, in the coming months, that would be my theme song.

A few days later, as I drove into Lancaster to meet another friend for lunch, the final page of the song was humming in my mind.  “I ask you, will compassion walk past shadows deep and many miles long, shouting defiance and hope?”  That evoked anticipation of the thousands of women planning to march in Washington and other cities on the coming Saturday, shouting defiance of the bigotry, hatred, and abuse that marked the actions of the incoming administration, and hope that women and men, children and elders, would rally to build a nation grounded in justice, equality, and embrace of diversity.

Widening Embrace

For the past year I was deeply and joyfully involved in Widening Embrace, the newest music project from Carolyn McDade.  The year began with rehearsals and editing of the songs to be included on the CD.  It ended with ten launch concerts stretching literally coast to coast, with one in Vancouver, BC, and another in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island.  Here’s a bit of the story of what I’ve been doing.

Our Widening Embrace on the wide, wide prairie of Saskatchewan