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Community Corner

Long-Awaited Sunday School Christmas Progam Finally Staged Sunday

Children sing and dance at Shinnecock Presbyterian in belated Christmas celebration.

Shinnecock Sunday School youth had their Christmas program this past Sunday afternoon. Yes, it was slightly late, a month and a half past Christmas. It’s not so much that our community ignores calendars  — Christian, Gregorian or Mayan. We just do things when we can, if we can. This year we heard that the program was not going to happen on or near Christmas, but on or near Jan. 6, which corresponds with the beginning of Epiphany. (We forgot and had to look it up. Epiphany has to do with the three Kings from the East bringing gifts to the manger and/or the Twelve Days of Christmas.) The program didn’t happen that day. Then we heard it was going to take place Jan. 17, and we went, only to have it postponed before it started due to an emergency that befell a tribal family that very afternoon. Finally, on Feb. 6, the kids gathered on the stage of ’s Parish Hall, blissfully singing songs, reciting poetry and rendering Biblical readings. And they were wonderful.

Generally, we can’t claim to have produced a Pavarotti, or a Springsteen, or Streisand, voice-wise. Nor have we yet given rise to a Shakespearean actor. Our kids sound and act just like we do. Some can sing pretty good, and some need more practice. A lot more practice. But somewhere in the mix, they produced a show they can all be proud of. They got up on that stage, overcame any discomfiture they might have been experiencing beforehand, and did what their Sunday School teachers taught them to do.  Just as we once did.

In days of our youth, we had the program in the early evening of Christmas Day. Some of us sang, and some of us lip-synched, either because we couldn’t carry a tune if our lives depended on it, or we found the event all too terrifying and overwrought with stage fright, produced no sound at all. We think we fell somewhere between both groups, so we imagine that might be why our Sunday School teacher sweetly directed us to the finer art of reciting poetry.

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We don’t remember any of the details of how she did it. But even all these years later, when public speaking or performing is still one of our least favored activities, we marvel at what she did. Our Sunday School teacher, coached us to perfection and we pulled off a poetry recitation still remembered by some of the tribal elders, and she remained a warm and encouraging influence throughout our life.

Last week, we sang in the church choir for her funeral service. We don’t sing in the choir. We still can’t hit high notes and we didn’t know some of the songs. But we were quick to pick up the tunes and made some pleasant humming on behalf of our long ago Sunday School teacher, Bernice Dyson Smith.  It was the least we could do to honor this beautiful woman. Throughout life, we do as we will and live with the consequences. We do, after all, have free will. But we can never say we weren’t given a compass. Our Sunday School teacher gave us that, and much more than we can sometimes remember.

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