Oak Ridge Today

Feed the People Thanksgiving Dinner at High Places on Thursday

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High Places Community Church

The Second Annual Feed the People Thanksgiving Dinner is from 3 to 6 p.m. Thursday.

Note: This story was updated at 10 a.m.

Volunteers have organized a free, hot meal this afternoon for the homeless, lonely, and those who have no family.

It’s the Second Annual Feed the People Thanksgiving Dinner, and it’s from 3 to 6 p.m. Thursday at High Places Community Church in Oak Ridge.

“We simply do not want anyone to be alone on Thanksgiving,” organizers said.

The volunteers could serve several hundred meals, and they will deliver food to shut-in residents later today, organizer Kandace Tucker said. They will bring food to Callaghan Towers, Emory Valley Center, 82 E. Tennessee Ave., and Honeysuckle Lane this evening. [Read more…]

Youth Showcase to benefit Child Advocacy Center on Nov. 2

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Taylor Kress

Singer/songwriter Taylor Kress will be one of the featured performers at the first Youth Showcase on Nov. 2, a benefit for the Child Advocacy Center of Anderson County. (Submitted photos)

Singing, dancing, and comedy—coupled with great food and celebrity entertainment—will kick off the first Youth Showcase on Nov. 2, a benefit for the Child Advocacy Center of Anderson County.

The fundraiser for CACACT will feature some of the area’s most talented youth, a press release said. It starts at 6:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 2, at the High Places Community Church in Historic Grove Center in Oak Ridge.

The young performers include ballet dancer Taylor Gober and singer/songwriters Nic Cagle, Taylor Kress (who has also appeared on WDVX), and Lara Manning. Two voice majors from UT, Breyon Lattrell Wess and Taylor Stone, and other local singers Maddie and Sydney Buckner will also perform. [Read more…]

Faith column: Imagine greater

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I have a heart for skeptics. I understand what that feels like. When I used to read the story of doubting Thomas, I could relate. Jesus tells him in John 20:29: “You believe because you have seen. Blessed are those who have yet to see and still believe.” My response to that was usually—”Well, how convenient Jesus!”

It wasn’t always this way for me. There was a time that I didn’t have any doubts at all. To be quite honest, that made me a downright scary person. I know it isn’t this way for everyone because I’ve met a great many people with a deep, deep faith who aren’t scary people. They love and serve, and their lives are completely admirable. Still, I have spent just enough of my life with a doubting Thomas inside to know skepticism and even to appreciate it.

I had an experience this summer, however, that touched me to the core. I saw God in such a way that I won’t ever need to see anything more. It sealed the deal. You may never understand how difficult it is for a naturally skeptical person to make a statement like that. [Read more…]

Sound Company choir has auditions Saturday

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Sound Company

Members of Sound Company, the Oak Ridge Children’s Performing Show Choir, sing in a concert during the 2012-2013 season. The choir is holding auditions starting at 9 a.m. Saturday. (Photo by Linda Miller Ripley)

Sound Company, the Children’s Performing Choir of Oak Ridge, will be hosting auditions for the 2013-2014 school year starting at 9 a.m. Saturday at High Places Community Church in Grove Center.

The organization is primarily seeking boys and girls in first and second grades as well as boys in grades three through twelve, a press release said. Girls in grades three through twelve are welcome to audition, but there are limited openings. [Read more…]

Faith column: Letting pain be pain (Part Two)

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Last month, I wrote about the problem Western civilization seems to have with pain as evidenced by the plethora of outlets we’ve created to avoid it. Central to part one is understanding the paradox of pain: that while pain certainly is no one’s friend, the laws at work on our planet are such that pain is everyone’s friend: Life depends on pain and without it, we wouldn’t be here.

It would be hard to maintain our humanity if we didn’t ask spiritual questions about pain. The Bible is loaded with “heroes” who did this very thing, including Christ himself, who from the cross issued the famous phrase found in Psalms 22: “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” Questioning in this way is not only natural, but also appears in both the Jewish and Christian texts as an affirmation of our human need to wrestle with the “why” of pain.

I have only one real issue with the questioning of God and pain in our modern world. It comes when a person has rejected the faith life because of the problem of pain and yet, simultaneously, accepts the story of evolution as a beautiful thing, despite the clearly painful history it details. I don’t believe these two world views are mutually exclusive and personally hold to both as examples of beauty rising out of pain. [Read more…]

Faith column: Roger Ebert’s final critique

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The history books will record Roger Ebert as a great film critic. He was that and, I am certain, much more to those who loved and knew him best. His loss has been felt by many around the globe because of the millions he touched. Ebert took us to the movies for years; he guided our ticket purchases, awakened in us a poetic appreciation for films we might not otherwise have seen; and best of all, he called the public away from the mindless, lowest common denominator of entertainment. His ability to critique film and his way with words had the effect of “raising all our boats” in the areas of culture, intellect, emotion, and even an awareness of the sacred.

Ebert’s ability to awaken us is what makes his death feel so tragic; but it is also what makes his now popularized letter, “I Do Not Fear Death,” equally as tragic. Ebert’s final critique came to us not in the form of a film review, but in a staunch and unwavering gaze cast toward seeming permanence of death. It has taken the Internet somewhat by storm and praised by many.

I confess, I found little praiseworthy in it. In fact, it primarily aroused in me a deep sense of pity to see a man with such brilliance and appreciation for beauty in life take those gifts and place them in a room with such a low ontological ceiling. [Read more…]

Faith column: The things that stalk us

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With the advent of the Internet, you might have already noticed that intelligent, rational conversation about religion is increasingly becoming a thing of the past. Online identities have been constructed somewhat anonymously and disconnected from any real “community,” thereby allowing many to pass off opinion for fact, with an absence of accuracy, honesty, and personal integrity.

For example, I cannot begin to count the number of times I have read this on an Internet message board: “Religion kills more people worldwide than anything on the planet.”

Of course this is nonsense, but proof that if we repeat something loud enough and frequently enough, we can get a majority of people to believe it. Let’s leave the debating about what is “religiously-motivated” violence versus “ethnically-motivated” violence for the scholars to debate. The lines are always going to be blurry there, although I believe the evidence from these scholars would be more than enough to put this disinformation to rest. Still, we don’t even need to dig that deep—all we need to do is crack open a beer.

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‘Dialogue with Dan’ on Monday

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Stephen Seifert

Stephen Seifert

Dan Allcott, music director of the Oak Ridge Civic Music Association and conductor of the Oak Ridge Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, will speak at noon Monday in the lobby of the historic Grove Theater, High Places Community Church. This will be the fourth “Dialogue with Dan” of the concert season.

His topic will be the “Spring in the Mountains” ORSO-Chorus concert at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Mar. 9, at Oak Ridge High School Performing Arts Center. The featured artist will be Stephen Seifert, mountain dulcimerist from Tennessee, in keeping with the ORSO season theme—“Tennessee Sounds Good to Me.”

[Read more…]

Nonprofits organize February concert with Peter Mayer, folk singer-songwriter

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High Places Community Church and Friends of the Grove are sponsoring a Peter Mayer concert on Feb. 8 at the Grove Theater in Oak Ridge.

Mayer is a folk singer/songwriter from Minnesota who has performed in Oak Ridge before and has been well-received.

[Read more…]