A *Swan-Song* Christmas — By Peter A. Black

The piece below is a modified edition of my final article that concluded my weekly column – P-Pep! that ran for 23 years.

Have you ever performed a ‘swan song’? 

Credit: GetDrawings.com 

Let’s say, an operatic singer begins having problems with her voice and her vocal range isn’t quite what it used to be. She’s still a wonderful, experienced artist. However, she’s aware that it takes much more energy than before to reach the upper extremities of her range, and she has to exert greater concentration to hold them steady.

Since she’ll not be getting a new voice this side of heaven, she decides to retire, figuring that she’d better quit while still at the peak of her profession.

The peak can be a perilous place, because, to where do you go from the peak? By quitting she would avoid the embarrassment of her voice cracking in performance and disappointing her fans, or having music critics carping that it’s time she quit.

And so, she plans a retirement recital featuring a selection of her best-loved repertoire. That performance will be her “Swan Song.” 

Credit: webiconspng.com

Perhaps your swan song was a speech you gave upon retirement from your workplace or business, or when moving on to new opportunities.

I’ve ‘swan-songed’ on a number of occasions. Most occurred when I was leaving pastoral charges to go to another. At the final service, in addition to my final sermon and expressions of gratitude to the congregation and so on, my wife and I would sometimes be asked to sing.

Those were usually bittersweet occasions. In the earlier days it meant tearing our sons away from their friends and school chums and the familiar haunts where they’d spent some of their growing-up years. The sweetener, though, was a sense of adventure and eagerness, despite trepidation, for taking on new challenges.

It’s not uncommon for some fun-poking at swan-song events, as emcees and colleagues reminisce, presenting generous tributes of appreciation, or engaging in ‘hot-roasting,’ as they recall comedic incidents and oddities of the departing ‘swan.’ Mild roasting was not uncommon in my case, since there’s ample idiosyncratic fodder to draw from.

I began writing this inspirational column, P-Pep! during August of 1996 in The Watford Guide Advocate. It has continued throughout the process of amalgamation with several other papers and their rebirth into the Lambton Middlesex Standard. 

We’re not in heaven yet; however, it’s time for a new writing voice and a new column name. And now, after twenty-three years P-Pep! column will be gone. Perhaps the publisher will continue making this space available for someone else to – as it were – sing the praises of our Lord Jesus and offer an elevated focus to encourage our readers along their respective life pathways.

I’m still singing vocal music – mostly sacred. My voice cracks . . . a lot, and yet I’m grateful that I have health and strength still to sing and play, speak in services and visit the sick, and am blessed that my wife May shares in many of these pursuits. For now, I’ve been drawn back into a pastoral role in a country church and community ministry.

I’m grateful to the publisher for accepting my submissions and am especially grateful to Vicki MacKenzie for her skill, care and friendship; she has formatted P-Pep! throughout these many years. I’m grateful too, for you, the reader. Without you, P-Pep! would have been pointless!

As I go ‘swanning’ out of this space I pray that you will all be blessed with a joyous Christ-filled Christmas, and with a New Year that, along with its challenges, will include much cheerful encouragement, with grace and peace through Jesus our Lord.

Peter.
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So it has been and so it is.

To all of our TWG authors blogspot contributors and readers and your loved ones: May the Blessings of God in Christ Jesus our Lord be multiplied to you this Christmastime and throughout the Coming Year, with grace and peace, through the Prince of Peace.

Our Place

Amen.

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Peter is author of Parables from the Pond (Word Alive Press) and Raise Your Gaze ... Mindful Musings of a Grateful Heart (Angel Hope Publishing). 

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Three ‘Loves’ – Desires of the Heart by Peter A. Black

Lately I realized that three longstanding ‘loves’ in my life have received continuing avenues of expression, even into my wife May’s and my retirement years. We can hardly keep up with it all.

Music making, both vocal and instrumental, has been virtually life-long for me. The interest was awakened when, as a three year-old, I got my first harmonica.

Creative writing, while showing an early start in elementary school, blossomed during the second half of my pastoral service years.  

Pastoral care and sharing of the message of redeeming love and life in Jesus Christ, in the joy and peace of His grace, budded during my teens through engagement in Sunday school teaching, music and witness teams.

These three ‘loves’ in some measure found outlets in two successive careers spanning fifty years till retirement (the music instrument servicing industry and pastoral service). However, they continue to find avenues of expression today in various volunteer and pulpit supply settings.

Recently, during a pastor friend’s hospitalization and recovery my wife and I had the privilege of ministering to his rural Baptist congregation (we’re often involved there, musically). On 

Rotunda. St Paul's, T'burg, Ont.

 Easter Sunday we were at a United Church, St. Paul’s (its beautiful sanctuary is a favourite of mine), where the choir presented one of my compositions – an Easter anthem – and I sang "The Holy City." 



Front. St Paul's UC, Tillsonburg, Ont.

More than a decade ago I had that anthem and another piece arranged by Joy Brown, a Toronto area arranger and accompanist.  I’d hoped to have her arrange several other inspirational compositions, but didn’t get around to it.


St. Paul's UC

Instead, since then, the writing occupied available time, finance and creative focus, resulting in publishing two books and hundreds of newspaper columns and a number of magazine articles.
The other arranged piece – an ode to Canada, with Christian motifs – may be presented by St. Paul’s in June of this year. Its original form was written for a Canada Day celebration almost two decades ago.

How grateful and blessed I am to experience, even with limited and jaded abilities, avenues for expressing those three loves that have been woven into the gift-mix and fabric of much of my life.
Jaded? Faded? Maybe, yet it often feels a lot like spring!

Our Heavenly Father has seen fit to grant the desires He has placed in my heart (Psalm 37:4-5) regarding that threesome. The day will come when one thing or the other will be laid to rest, and so will I.

The Lord has given, and the Lord has the prerogative to take away.

Blessed be the name of the Lord.

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Snapshots of St, Paul's UC, taken by the author.

Peter, now retired from fulltime pastoral service, is an author, inspirational columnist and songwriter living in Southwestern Ontario. He enjoys singing and playing sacred music and praise songs – especially for his friends in a number of residential care facilities and in area congregations.

~ Raise Your Gaze ... Mindful Musings of a Grateful Heart

~ Parables from the Pond

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