A Wider View: Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of our Building

Click right here on Sunday a little before 10:00 A.M. to join your ASC friends online.

OUR BUILDING IS 50 YEARS OLD THIS YEAR!
Back in the turbulent times of the late 60’s, a few members of All Souls Church thought about their stone building home on Main Street (now a concert venue) and wondered what a larger, more modern building would look like. The architect envisioned a space that would open, airy, flexible, and spiritually inspiring. It would be a place where the broader community could gather in meaningful ways consonant with UU values.  In September 1970,  the brand new building was inaugurated with a gala week of services and concerts. Since then it fulfilled this vision by hosting hundreds of musical events, plays, art shows, lectures, private rites of passage, public meetings, and several nursery schools.
Last winter a small ad hoc committee, headed by Leslie Kinney, began making an ambitious plan for a summer open house to celebrate the 50th anniversary. Alas, like so much else this year, it was short circuited by the pandemic.   Instead of inviting everyone in, we will have a virtual acknowledgement during this  regularly scheduled Sunday morning Zoom Service.  In addition, we will build an archive of memories and appreciation on the Church website.
You can contribute!  We ask you to consider what the West Village Meeting House has meant to you.  Do you have a particularly fond moment that connects you to the building?  Would you be willing to write up your thoughts or send in pictures?  Everything will go into the online archive, which is a work in progress.  Send your contributions to Christina Gibbons.
And be sure to attend our Zoom Service today to hear some of the memories that have already been collected.

The 50th Anniversary Celebration Committee
Christina Gibbons, Leslie Kinney, and Marie Gorst

 

Order of Service
Sunday, September 20, 2020
“A Wider View”

ASC Board Greeting 

Prelude  –  Fanfare for the Common Man (1942) Aaron Copland   
solo piano arrangement by Roger Brison
played by Eva Greene
images from Greenleaf hut in the White Mountains

Chalice Lighting  adapted from Hildegarde of Bingen  12th C
read by Charles Butterfield

Opening Reflection: Origins  Christina Gibbons

 Hymn  # 298 Wake Now My Senses   
played by Hilary Claire Menegaz-Weitzner

Reflection from the 1970s   Spirit           Peter Gould and Mollie Burke

Reflections from the 1980s   Ecumenicity            Jim Levinson
    Music         John Spicer

Musical Interlude   O Gentlemen, Hear Me, I Pray  
              excerpt from Trial by Jury, Gilbert & Sullivan
presented by Eva Greene

Reflections from  the1990s and onward
Western Wind        Jerelyn Wilson
Theater           Laura Lawson Tucker

 Fundraisers, Fellowship,  and Art              Maisie Crowther

Offering  shared with CASP

Offertory   Suite I: Minuets     Johann Sebastian Bach
                          Peter Gibbons, viola
painting  by Maisie Crowther

Looking to the Future                   Leslie Kinney

Unison Affirmation

Love is the doctrine of this congregation and service is its call.
Let this be our covenant:
to dwell together in peace,
to seek the truth in love,
and to help one another.

Extinguishing the Chalice             Charles Butterfield

Closing Circle 
“Carry the flame of peace and love until we meet again.”
(sung 2 times)

Blessing