MY TURN

Greenfield Recorder, September 29, 2023

By the REV. SARAH PIRTLE

Ever since the Ashfield Film Festival, I look west across the mountains toward Hawley with new knowing. Being able to picture Alice Parker at her piano sends the joy of her light across the hills. The film “Alice: At Home with Alice Parker” by Eduardo Montes-Bradle is described in the program notes: “Pioneering, world-renowned composer, conductor and teacher Alice Parker is a champion of the power of the human voice and a hero in the world of choral music.” My neighbor next to me wept through the film.

After the showing, Alice led us in singing. As she conducted, her arm glided like a wing, encouraging us to join our voices. We entered into ”Sometimes I feel like a motherless child,” and Alice said, “Songs are our best way to feel our common humanity. ” Mary Mosley in the row behind told me, “I’m enthralled. A flow takes us above and beyond.”

The last song Alice chose said: “Let your little light shine. There may be someone down in the valley trying to get home. It might be me or it might be you. It might be your brother or your sister, too.” It said we all feel lost in the valley, and we also can be lights for one another. Alice has held that light and impacted people around the world.

This means we are not just living as individuals but as people in chorus. We can visualize a long line spanning generations. At a day camp I’ve directed for 30 years called Journey Camp, held at Woolman Hill in Deerfield, this past summer our ages spanned 7 to 73. A song I wrote for the camp says, “We are standing on the shoulders of the ones who came before us. They are giving us their courage, and they say we are glad you’re in this world.”

We give young people a vision that we are more than individuals. We are people joined in community across time, lifted by each contribution. I want them to feel the long line.

Something happens when we pause to take in the value of another. The movie brought us in close and magnified Alice’s light. There’s human photosynthesis when we let others matter, allowing ourselves to be impacted and fed by their light. Earlier this year in Ashfield, Mary Mosley honored elders over 80 in an inspiring display she created from interviews and photographs. Mary commented, “I feel changed by Alice’s legacy. Elders light the path and actually give me a voice. They show that we of the next generations can step up, too.”

Someone from the past can also carry a flame burning so brightly that her influence isn’t dimmed by time. A hundred years ago leading services in that beautiful stone chapel in Rowe, the Rev. Anita Pickett was instrumental in launching Rowe Camp. I first “met” Anita Pickett through the stained glass window etched with her name when I was 12 and a junior high camper in 1962.

I sat by the window during morning theme talks and felt her moral compass. It was extraordinary she had been a minister. Back then there were no women spiritual leaders in my town. That’s what I wanted to to be, but how could I? Her presence told me to hold this dream. Anita Picket was also a pacifist, feminist, and white anti-racist. I wanted to be all of these. I experienced how she was a beacon.

The life-sustaining things we do help all of us. What if we showed young people how to draw upon this long line? Often it’s implied to teens. “What career will you have that will make enough money?” We could ask, “What kind of gift will you give? How will you contribute to your community?”

Alice and Anita’s lives have impacted countless people. Thank you, Alice, for bringing us the bond of community singing. Thank you, Anita, for following your goal to inspire people to believe in the light inside them. We can tell young people their life can also help somebody down in the valley find their way home.

The Rev. Sarah Pirtle of Shelburne Falls is the author of five books including the award-winning “An Outbreak of Peace.” She will lead a sing-along concert Saturday, Sept. 30 at 1:30 at Water Street Barn in Shelburne Falls called “Sing Out for Peace.” Listen to 75 of her songs online for free at sarahpirtle.com/ hope-sings/.