Resident Christmas Party and Memorial Walk

On Wednesday evening, the park hosted the Resident Christmas Party and Memorial Walk. The information indicated that there would be cookies and punch and a performance by "Resonance Vocal Ensemble". They announced the winners of the "Holiday Lights Awards" for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place blocks, lots, and corner lots.

We asked another couple at the bottom of the stairs up to the ballroom to take our pictures in front of the decorated trees in the lobby -- very festive!

Upstairs in the atrium area there were luminaries for the residents who had passed this past year. We found the luminary for our friend, Bob Bingham.

The "Resonance Vocal Ensemble" (http://www.resonanceve.com/) performed for us...

... we thoroughly enjoyed their performance! (If you'd like to see one of their performances, the one they did at Venture Out in 2017 is available here: https://youtu.be/ZQaAmcaCYjs?si=ECBEX7ULU-5dZ9Qu.)

One of the songs that they performed I had not heard before, "The Hands that First Held Mary's Child" - looking at the Christmas story from Joseph's perspective. Here's a video done by another choir: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fks0tdHmoYI

Here are the lyrics (author Thomas Troeger, 1985):

The hands that first held Mary's child were hard from working wood. 

From boards they sawed and planed and filed and splinters they withstood.

This day they gripped no tool of steel, they drove no iron nail,

but cradled from the head to heel our Lord, newborn and frail.

 

When Joseph marveled at the size of that small breathing frame,

and gazed upon those bright new eyes and spoke the infant's name,

the angel's words he once had dreamed poured down from heaven's height,

and like the host of stars that beamed blessed earth with welcome light.

 

"This child shall be Emmanuel, not God upon the throne,

but God with us, Emmanuel, as close as blood and bone."

The tiny form in Joseph's palms confirmed what he had heard,

and from his heart rose hymns and psalms for heaven's human word.

 

The tools that Joseph laid aside a mob would later lift

and use with anger, fear, and pride to crucify God's gift.

Let us, O Lord, not only hold the child who's born today,

but charged with faith may we be bold to follow in His way.