Music Notes October 18th

Don’t miss “Nasty Women,” a concert to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment that granted suffrage to women!

Friday, October 23rd at 7pm: go to www.countrysideucc.org/concerts

To celebrate the 100th anniversary of Women’s Suffrage, Countryside Community Church is offering a virtual concert called “Nasty Women,” which will explore music written by female composers during the Women’s Suffrage movement. Dr. Joanna Goldstein, a specialist in this music, will guide us on this journey through unsung masterworks. She will be joined by Countryside’s Artist-in-Residence Dr. Christie Beard, as well as faculty from UNO, UNL, and the Omaha Conservatory of Music. the concert will feature works by Amy Beach, Rebecca Clarke, Florence Price, Ethel Smyth, and more. You can tune into this FREE concert at www.countrysideucc.org/concerts

Blessed are the Poor in Spirit

Blessed are the poor in spirit; all God’s realm is surely theirs.
Those in mourning will find comfort as an answer to their prayers.
Meek ones whom this world despises will inherit everything.
God, your kingdom still surprises; may we seek the reign you bring.

Blessed, too, are those who hunger and who thirst for what is right.
They will not be prone to wander, for your will is their delight.
Those who show God’s care and mercy will receive that mercy too.
God, in Christ you show us clearly of the joy we have in you.

Those who share the peace God gives them will find blessings as God’s own.
Those oppressed for faithful living will call heaven’s kingdom Home.
When the world’s ways seem distressing and we feel life’s painful sting,
God, remind us of the blessings of the wondrous life you bring.

Hold to God’s Unchanging Hand

Jennie Wilson (1856-1913) was a prolific poet and hymn writer. A spinal condition caused her to become wheelchair bound at an early age. As a result, she couldn’t attend school and suffered from the alienation and persecution directed at those who were differently-abled in the 19th century. Since she studied, read, and wrote at home, she was able to exceed the level of both scholarship and career opportunities that would have been available to a woman in rural Indiana at the time. Her sadness and afflictions from her condition never made it into her poetry or hymns, and her writing conveys a sense of comfort and hope that can shine through persecution, despair, and suffering.

Time is filled with swift transition. Naught of earth unmoved can stand.
Build your hopes on things eternal. Hold to God’s unchanging hand.

Refrain:
Hold to his hand, God’s unchanging hand.
Hold to his hand, God’s unchanging hand.
Build your hopes on things eternal.
Hold to God’s unchanging hand.

Trust in him who will not leave you. Whatsoever years may bring.
If by earthly friends forsaken, still more closely to him cling. [Refrain]

Covet not this world’s vain riches that so rapidly decay.
Seek to gain the heav’nly treasures. They will never pass away. [Refrain]

When your journey is completed, if to God you have been true,
Fair and bright the home in Glory your enraptured soul will view. [Refrain]