This year Pinnacle celebrates its 14th rummage sale. The funds from the rummage sale have made it possible for over 350 students over the last decade to experience and share the love of Christ with others through mission trips and spirit-filled conferences. These trips leave a lasting impact on the students, and for that matter, the adult chaperones who attend! 

We give God thanks for the generosity of this community who donate, shop, and volunteer at the sale each year. These experiences for our youth are only made possible through our fundraising efforts. One of the greatest joys to come from the sale is the relationships that are formed. Hear from some of our superstar volunteers as to why they volunteer. 

Susan Matura: “I first started to volunteer at the rummage sale seven years ago. While there, I met a woman named Joan. Joan told me that I looked like I was twenty-five years old and that I looked too young to have children. After Joan said that to me, I thought to myself, I am coming back here again! Years later Joan now serves as the confirmation mentor to my daughter Julia. This connection all started from working the rummage sale together.” 

Pat Malpiedi: “I like to volunteer at the rummage sale because I like to play. I like to stage the furniture and home goods! It is always a wonderful opportunity for me to meet people! I attend the 8:00 am worship service, so I don’t see a lot of these volunteers until rummage sale season.”

Joan Perkins: “I like to volunteer at the rummage sale because it is a great opportunity to get together. I enjoy widening our community of rummage volunteers. There is room for everyone! Come join us!” 

Katherine Coult: “I serve with Joan as a mentor in this year's confirmation class. Through our time in confirmation, I have gotten to know Joan. When March came along, Joan shared more information about the sale and asked if I would be a part of it! It has been a great opportunity to spend time with members of our Pinnacle family.” 

As you can tell, when we as a church gather around a project, whether it is sorting rummage or going on a mission trip, we have the opportunity to grow closer to God and to one another. Sometimes things are more than they appear! Being a part of a community means working alongside others (and laughing, and sorting, and even selling!). Join this wonderful team of volunteers! Be a part of our rummage sale community. All are welcome! Please click here to sign-up to volunteer. 

Collections are still being accepted!. Please drop off your items anytime, day or night, outside of the Teen Center or in front of the Chapel.

Thank you for your ongoing support of your youth ministry and thank you to all the volunteers who make it possible! You Rock! See you at the sale! Friday, March 17th - 18th, 7:00 am - 2:00 pm. 

All my best,
Brandon

The Plum Street Temple or the Isaac M. Wise Temple is one of the most inspiring landmarks and active places of worship in Cincinnati, Ohio. Influenced by the architectural design of the Alhambra at Granada, it reflects the Byzantine-Moorish synagogue style that first emerged in Germany in the 19th century. None of these types of synagogues exist in Germany anymore - all destroyed under the Nazi rule - leaving this particular temple as one of the very few in existence today. What is unique about this temple is its cultural diversity and a mix of Gothic, Islamic and Moorish styles of design. 

Gorgeous in and out, bathed in the early afternoon sunlight, bright, colorful, and ornately designed, this temple was a feast to my eyes and soul (see pictures above). The feast continued when I heard the sounds of the organ prelude, followed by the exquisite Spivey Hall Children's Choir and the full congregation exchanging beautiful anthems one after another. An important note to make: this particular congregation consisted of approximately 200 choral conductors. This is unlike any other congregation, and only comparable to a group of organists or church musicians which I have had experienced singing with before. With Dan Forrest at the piano, Michael Unger at the organ, Martha Shaw and Stephanie Nash conducting, and Rabbi Zachary Goodman sharing reflections, it was one of the highlights of this trip for me. The overall experience and sheer power of the beauty of the music made by professionals was giving me goosebumps every minute. I was singing my heart out with all gathered in the room, and I felt that the roof was being raised and God was present! 

The event was called “How Good and Pleasant - The Song of Belonging,” and was organized by the Music in Worship section at the ACDA National Conference. I have been to quite a few worship, church music and organ conferences before, but this was my first ACDA national conference. ACDA stands for the American Choral Directors Association which I have been a member of for a few years. The conference spanned 6 days: February 21-26, 2023. 

I participated in many fascinating lectures, interest sessions, forums, reading sessions and concerts, and brought back a plethora of resources and fresh ideas. Two experiences stood out to me the most - two types of immersion choirs I participated in. Immersion choirs were designed to provide artistic, cultural, and educational experience, and allow the participants to immerse themselves in a wealth of literature, styles, and rehearsal techniques. 

The first immersion choir I joined was the Black Diaspora Choir led by J. Donald Dumpson. Dr. Dumpson is the Minister of Music and Arts at the Arch Street Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, PA. Apart from singing some wonderful selections from the Black Diaspora tradition, I learned that in order to avoid cultural appropriation and not fear performing this music in predominantly white churches there are a few points to be met: 

• we need to research thoroughly the history and the origins of the music 

• to the best of our ability, we need to use empathy and our own experiences and emotions to put ourselves in the shoes of those who created the music or those whose experiences inspired the music to be composed, 

• we need to deliver it with genuine care, passion, emotion and understanding

In a couple sessions Dr. Dumpson took us from the European-influenced choral singing to, as he described himself, the “moans and groans” of soulful music. He let us experiment with our own voices and expressions in order to create a powerful communal experience. 

I found my soulmate in María Guinand, a famous conductor from Caracas in Venezuela, who led the Latinoamérica Immersion Choir. We were introduced to a variety of choral songs which represented numerous Latin American styles of music. Every song was accompanied by representative percussion instruments and piano, and included dance moves and rhythms for all involved to execute. The dancing elevated our spirits and made the music instinctively easier to perform. I loved how much the way we sang was originating from body movements and dance. I am sure that you all have figured out by now that for me body movement and dance are vital and indispensable elements in delivering music which exudes passion. That’s why my loving admiration towards Maestra Guinand. 

I went to this conference grieving. In the span of a couple days I experienced a sudden loss of two very dear choir members - one from Pinnacle Chancel Choir and one from my former choir at an Episcopal Church. The process of grieving after the death of a choir member, especially unexpected, is something hard to explain unless you are a choir director yourself. Being a music director is my job. But choir members cross the line of work and family. The reason for it is the sheer power of Music. It’s exactly why my experience at the temple was so transformative. Communal singing has power like no other - we connect on levels which are beyond our understanding. I will leave the explanations of why it is so to God. 

Meanwhile, I will encourage all of you to consider joining a choir. Any choir. It will provide you with wonderful tools to express yourself, your love of God and of your neighbor, and it will give you a sense of belonging that, in my opinion, can’t be matched in any other setting.     

Some of my best childhood memories were seaside just a short drive from our family home. It felt like it was worlds away even though it was likely just a few dozen miles as the crow flies. We’d pile into the station wagon and begin the trek over the coastal foothill on the treacherous Highway 17 connecting what we now call Silicon Valley to Santa Cruz. I’d usually arrive feeling a bit carsick, but always excited about the waves and the sandy beach. It was typically cold which was a surprise because it was so close to home, and yet, again, a world away. We’d bundle up, grab hands full of bags and blankets and an ice chest and umbrellas, take off our shoes and walk through the sand on the slow journey to the perfect spot. Somehow my father always knew the perfect spot on the beach.

Seacliff Beach was always our target, and I can never forget the smells, the feel of the natural debris-laden sand between my toes and of course the odd feeling of sand somehow finding its way into my sandwich. A sandwich that somehow always tasted better (even with the sand) at the beach. Seacliff Beach had a strange feature. It had a fairly typical wooden pier with fishermen, seagulls, and of course otters and seals frolicking beneath. At the end of the pier was a curious sight – a cement ship.

I was always fascinated by the ship. In many ways it made no sense to me, but I initially didn’t question it because it was always there. It was a permanent fixture – a ship that didn’t go anywhere and would never go anywhere. We talked about the ship a lot when I was growing up, though. It was associated, not unlike the sandy sandwich or the trudge through the sand, with the most peaceful and joyful memories of my childhood.

Later in life I learned that the ship was an actual vessel called the S.S. Palo Alto, and it was an oil tanker during World War I. It was never used during the war as it was not completed before the war ended. Instead, it was sold to an amusement company and made a very short voyage from San Francisco to Seacliff Beach where it became an attraction for dancing, dining, and some illicit gambling. But by the time I was a child, it was simply a concrete boat at the end of a pier. A permanent boat.

If you had asked me as a child, I would have said that nothing could destroy that boat. It was permanent.

I wonder what things you think are permanent in life? Do you ever settle into the permanency of conditions? “It’ll always be this way.” Or the permanency of relationships? “We’ll never speak again, I’m afraid.” Or even the permanency of doubt or anguish or sorrow or the permanency of inadequacy or unfulfillment. 

I don’t think I realized how permanent I thought that boat was until recent storms began their assault upon it. Finally, the most recent storms of this winter had the final say and the boat is completely destroyed, and with it the pier. The final bits of the pier and ship will be removed later this week. In reflecting the past few days, I’ve come to see that permanency, and our conceptions of it, plays games with our expectations and our understandings of reality.

To my siblings and me sitting on Seacliff Beach, the S.S. Palo Alto was permanent. Until it wasn’t.

So much of the gospel is about God writing the next chapter when people thought there wasn’t any more to their story. Jesus brings hope to those who are hopeless. Jesus raises up the broken and tears down the oppressors. Jesus upset the norms and makes a way where there is no way. 

We protect these areas of our lives sometimes – the areas of permanence where we dare not let hope come in. We protect or shelter ourselves from others, but also from God. But the danger comes when we create a false image and church becomes a place where we put on masks to cover who we are – when we tuck our wounds behind fine clothes – when we leave our pain in the car – when we don’t acknowledge our scars from our past.

What a wonderful gift God has given us in the form of fellow sojourners. Before the risen Christ left the disciples for the last time, he told them that they would not be alone and that in their fellowship with one another, the Holy Spirit would be present. With confidence, we are called to bring our whole, authentic selves into the fellowship – and God will be present and God will do what we might have written off as impossible shattering the permanence of our conditions and bringing new life.

I’ll miss that cement ship. I know my siblings and my parents will as well. But I’m grateful for the reminder that comes with its end.

This past weekend, we welcomed our preschool families into the Atelier for our spring Tallulah Family Workshop. Our Tallulah project began in 2005 after being awarded a grant from the Arizona Commission on the Arts. Over the last couple decades, our Tallulah tiles have spread across the walls of our preschool, leaving the legacy of the families and children that helped create them.

The name Tallulah was chosen for its Native American meaning of Leaping Water. Water is essential to all living things in our Sonoran Desert and can have a transformational impact on the desert surroundings. In this way, children and their families are like the water in the desert – both essential and transformational  to our community of learning.

The beautiful clay Tallulah tiles are now simply synonymous with PPP. They have become a recognizable feature of who we are - from Pinnacle Peak peaking over the window of the Owl class to the Atelier Tree, Cottonwood Tree, and Havasupai Falls by the water fountains. Underneath Houdini’s home, our desert tortoise, are the bright orange Poppies and Schools of Fish. The tiles encircle our preschool campus with the Water, Desert, and Desert Wash projects interspersed throughout.

We are excited to begin work on our next project - adding beautiful Tallulah tiles to our new security wall by our front entry gate. The security wall is a new addition this year and we are grateful for the peace of mind it allows keeping our children safe while on our campus. We know the addition of these legacy Tallulah tiles will have a meaningful and welcoming impact at our preschool entrance.

If I said the name Uzbekistan, could you find it on a map? Most people, I think, would have a hard time. It doesn’t make it into the news much. I bet the same would be true for Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan, and Turkmenistan, let alone Old Turkistan, now a region forming the western part of the People’s Republic of China. What holds all these central Asian countries together? Well, for one thing, the people of these countries and regions are all Turkic: the Uzbeks, the Kazakhs, the Tajiks, the Kyrgyz, the Azeris, the Turkmen, and the Uighurs (of western China.) Their cousins, who live in Turkey, make up the Western-most inhabitants of the old Turkic empire, stretching from Mongolia to the Mediterranean Sea. The other way these places are connected has to do with Christian pilgrimage and missionary journeys.

Christians first ventured among the Turkic peoples starting in the 6th century. Some whole tribes of Turks converted to Christianity over 1000 years ago, but for the most part, Christianity died out among the Turks with the coming of Islam.

Why do I bring all this up? Well, about a week ago, I saw a book in a bookstore, the title of which had caught my eye: The White Mosque. I picked up the book and read the following blurb: A historical tapestry of border-crossing travelers, of students, wanderers, martyrs and invaders, The White Mosque is a memoiristic, prismatic record of a journey through Uzbekistan and of the strange shifts, encounters, and accidents that combine to create an identity. In the late nineteenth century, a group of German-speaking Mennonites traveled from Russia into Central Asia, where their charismatic leader predicted Christ would return. There they built a white-washed church. The locals called it Ak Metchet, the white mosque.

I was intrigued at first glance: nomadic Mennonites in Central Asia!? This was a story I had never heard. The author, Sofia Samatar, herself a Mennonite, the daughter of a Swiss-German Anabaptist mother and a Somali Muslim father, she retraces the trek of these itinerant apocalyptic Christians on their long, hard journey to their own Promised Land. I dove right into the book, and everything she describes, I knew: the harsh desert landscape, the exotic smells, the omnipresence of livestock to daily living, the clash of cultures and ethnicities, and keenly curious hospitality. I knew the Turks she met and fell in love with on her journey; not the same Turks, mind you. You see, hers were Uzbeks and mine were Uighurs.

Thirty-six years ago I travelled to far-western China to teach English among the Turkic people of the Tian Shan (Heavenly) Mountains in Xinjiang Province. I too fell immediately in love with these curiously exotic peoples. Sofia Samatar, in her memoir, is clearly on a trek, not only to discover her shared ancestors in Mennonite faith, but a trek to discover herself. As the book jacket says, “How do we enter the stories of others? And how, out of the tissue of life, with its weird incidents, buried archives, and startling connections, does a person construct a self?” I don’t think I specifically set out on a halfway-around-the-world journey to ‘construct myself,’ but I do surmise that who I am today was shaped in significant ways by that pilgrimage. I walked along the old Silk Road, I spelunked in ancient Buddhist caves, I lavished in remote desert oases, and I met God among strangers whose ways were on the one hand alien and on the other so familiar in their humanness. Oh, and I danced…in those aforementioned oases, on the highest peaks of the Heavenly Mountains, with myriad times myriad stars stupefyingly beautiful, with their cacophonous silence overhead, and in busy market places, the dust rising like twin benevolent desert djinn, dissipating as quickly as any momentary breath of surprise and awe.

Such a journey led me to wonder too in the daily routine of life back here at home. God leads us each and everyone to discover in “weird incidents and startling connections” moments of wonder and awe where we can say, “God is in this place.” What pilgrimage of the ordinary (and extraordinary) is God leading you? Who will you be when your camel train stops at the next oasis? Whom will you give a refreshing drink of water on their journey? With whom will you dance next, when you least expect it? There is an old camp song that goes, “My Lord knows the way through the wilderness. All we have to do is follow.” May God lead us home.