Update for St. Paul's from Caroline :-)

Chapel of the Apostles (COTA)

Hi St. Paul's! :-) I hope this update finds you well and happy. I miss being with you: your welcoming smiles and laughs we share, seeing all the kids growing up, our wonderful services, Fr. Rob and Bishop Duncan and Fr. Ed, all my fellow staff members, the choir !!of course!!, and our beautiful church, but I am doing well here at seminary and truly loving it. Winter on this Holy Mountain has been beautiful and spring promises to be gorgeous. We even had a little now last weekend (LINK).

After I left you in December, I was able to participate in a choral tour of Israel and then use miles and hotel points to have an adventurous break in Egypt. Then, I drove to South Carolina where I visited my mother before returning to Sewanee.
Here are some links to the performance tour in case you'd like to know more about it!
1. Annelies, by James Whitbourn (tour) in Israel - LINK
2. Acre, Israel - LINK

Bull from Acre, Israel. Canaanite period

This spring I'm taking the second semesters of Old Testament (Dr. Rebecca Wright), New Testament (Dr. William Brosend), and Church History (Dr. Benjamin King). Our Junior class is also taking World Religions (Dr. Donna Mote). being exempt from the music course, I decided to take Environmental Ethics (Dr. Andrew Thompson). ALL of my professors are extremely BRILLIANT and I love them all!

Fun announcing Lent Madness (above) and New Testament class below)

Fr. Rob came to visit during during the Come & See recruitment program and I am eternally grateful to him for his time, listening ear, advice, care, humor, and so much more. It was so fun to introduce him to my professors and some friends here. It was also really wonderful to hear about St. Paul's and how you all are doing!

I've been practicing a bit of nature photography while here

Things are going very well and today is our first day of spring break (March 16 to 26). I have a TON of papers from now until the end of the semester so I will be working on some of them next week. I'm going to Atlanta with our World Religions class and professor this weekend for an immersion of various kinds of faiths and to attend some services. Next Monday through Wednesday, I'll be on my own schedule, do some hiking around the Sewanee domain, and work on some papers. Then, I'll drive to Raleigh-Durham where my brother and his family now live. I didn't get to see my precious neice Suki and nephew Jasper over Christmas so I'll see them next week and I can't wait!!!

Looking ahead, I'll be leaving on April 28th, the weekend before exams to travel to The Philippines! I received a grant from the Episcopal Seminary Consultation on Mission (SCOM) for a project in The Philippines this May. Don't worry, I made sure with deans and professors that it was ok to ask about leaving early AND to take exams and turn papers in early! Following that, my Clinical Pastoral Education assignment will be at Lutheran Medical Services of NY in Brooklyn. C.P.E. is a program that all seminarians must complete and it is usually about 400 hours in a clinical setting or another setting which lends opportunities for pastoral care and more. Our Junior class has assignments all over the country. My particular program runs from May 22 to August 8 so I won't be home in New Orleans until after August 8. WOW! It's also two days after I return from The Philippines, but I am quite used to cutting things closely :-) Lucky for me, my cute little Bluebell kitty cat will be able to come with me to New York this summer!

scenes from Taize at Sewanee     

I would love to hear from you! You can email me at choralmusicrules@hotmail.com or carsocp0@sewanee.edu or you can drop me a postcard sometime and let me know how you are doing!
My mailing address is:
335 Tennessee Avenue
School of Theology
Sewanee, TN, 37383
If you have time, please remember me in your prayers and send me positive energy!
All good things to you and stay tuned for future updates!

                                Making friends with goats during our Environmental Ethics class trek to the Sewanee farm!                                 

Sewanee SNOW 03/11/2017

This past weekend, we had a light SNOW in Sewanee!

I was soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo super excited - as I hardly EVER see snow, being from Charleston, SC and New Orleans, LA.! 

                    

I watched the forecast every hour and was massively distracted by it all, but it was Saturday and fun to see snowflakes and flurries periodically!

Here is some video of the snowfall. I think that one of the most beautiful sounds on Earth is that of falling snow at night. Especially when it's falling on a full snow (which it wasn't here, but still gorgeous!)

VIDEO 

I'm excited that tomorrow's forecast has a 60% chance of snow from 5 AM to 10 AM, YAY!!!

Dear Oreo Cake Ball

Dear Oreo Cakeball,
Thank you for making my Friday better! I don't care if you are full of calories...I welcome your sugary deliciousness.

The week has been full of nonstop activity, rushing around like crazy, late nights, writing papers, paying bills, etc. I hereby combat all that with your crunchy tastiness!

To Nap or Not to Nap... (After 16 days at Seminary)

View of storm from the Cumberland Plateau

Today's one of those Saturdays where I would have loved to sleep in. In fact, I truly need to catch up on sleep because now that seminary orientation, Quiet Day, Matriculation, and the first week of classes have all come and gone, I am a bit sleep-deprived. Last night featured lots of fun and new friends together for a fun community cookout and big birthday party too!

All Saints Chapel in Sewanee

Nevertheless, it was not to be. My new neighbor's music was loud and constant from 6 AM onward. So, by 8 AM, I had decided to leave and drive to Manchester, TN to explore a bit and pick up a few more necessary items at the Walmart there. 

                               

I found a couple of farmer's markets while there and bought a few things: muscadines from a nice man playing the autoharp, honey & lip balm from a local beekeeper, and lemon bread & a peach fritter from a nice grandmother .

St. Bede's Episcopal Church in Manchester, TN

I found the local Episcopal church, St. Bede's, and decided that I'll attend there tomorrow morning! After exploring the town and finishing errands, I cam on back and straightened up the apartment, fixed my sink drain, sprayed some more for bugs and spiders (I have a feeling this is going to be VERY regular up here!) and dozed a bit after starting the crock pot on a delicious roast for later. 

I'm loving being here! Everyone is so nice and our 2019 class is full of super smart folks. The choir has begun and the director, Kenneth Miller, is outstanding, both as organist and rehearsal technician. It's going to be great to sing for him. I'm really very happy about that as I was worried that I'd be picking apart every choral thing and feeling like I'd want to jump up and fix things. Those feelings will surely arise every now and then, but I'm happy that Professor Miller is excellent :-)

I also love all my other professors. EVERYONE is BRILLIANT. Wow. It is truly and deeply humbling. I'm a bit worried about getting behind already because the vocabulary and amount of assumed knowledge and reading history is MUCH higher than I expected. I bought a book on an "Introduction to Theology" and will be buying a dictionary so I can try to catch up behind the scenes on some of the basics which every one else seems to have already. There are more than a few students in my class who majored in Philosophy or Classics and they all are very well-read. Even though I have a D.M.A. degree, the learning curve is STEEP right now.

Chapel of the Apostles, Sewanee School of Theology

Chapel services are plentiful and well-arranged. Sermons have been terrific and thought-provoking. I've gotten to read and be a chalice bearer once in a noonday Eucharist and that was both exciting and a little scary since the community is new to me and everyone is both listening and watching intently!

Fontastic....

I have two work study positions and they are:
1- sing in the choir! (YAY!)
2- social media and photography! (YAY!)
Here are some albums I've taken already:
1- Seminary's Quiet Day and Matriculation 2016 (none from during the service from me)
2- Jonathan Myrick Daniels Pilgrimage 2016

Last night, a fellow student's suggestion (Garrett Boyte) of raising funds for Episcopal Relief and Development to be given for Louisiana flooding was realized in the weekly community cookout. My rector in NOLA at St. Paul's Episcopal asked his friend Jude Tauzin from Tony Chachere's if they could donate anything and they sent a GIANT box of spices, jambalaya mix, and koozy's. 

                                       

Garrett made a ton of delicious jambalaya, another student in my class, Forbes Mann, made tasty boudin balls, and I made chocolate walnut pralines! Over $1500 was raised because lots of folks came out, the seminary's St. Luke's Mission committee agreed to match raised funds up to $500, and the Dean got us to the level we needed to have them match! It was a great success!

It HAS been busy indeed. It's hard for me to fathom that I've only been here since the evening of August 11th! Only 16 days and SO MUCH HAS BEEN GOING ON!
Please keep me, my fellow classmates, and our tremendous faculty and staff in your prayers! 

A beautiful misty Sewanee morning

#AdventWord #CARE - Sunday, December 6, 2015

Today's #AdventWord is #CARE - Sunday, December 6, 2015

Take time to care for your spirit by caring for yourself. Sometimes mountains views and coffee help! :-)

Photo taken at St. Mary's Convent & Retreat Center in Sewanee, TN. 2015 

AdventWord was created by SSJE (The Society of St. John the Evangelist) and is the Anglican Communion's Global Advent Calendar. I'm using it as a daily meditation, prayer, photo post, and a way to connect in spirit to millions during this season of light and hope. You can join me in creating your own. Just take a picture and post it with the day's AdventWord tags! Click HERE for their website and for their daily AdventWords.
#SSJE

The Peace of Being

(from my travels in Tennessee and time at St. Mary's, Sewanee, June 2015)

My afternoon was the magic of sitting in clover and grass, breathing fresh air. My evening was watching the silent flicker of fireflies from a rocking chair. My night is the cool, soft breeze under a starry sky. Thank you God, for everything!