A VISION OF ILLUMINATION

The University of Redlands’ School of Music in Redlands CA has launched Advent by honoring a 65-year tradition with its Feast of Lights spectacle of choir, orchestra, narration, and elaborately and authentically clad human tableaux.

The Feast of Lights is held in Memorial Chapel under the stunning "Christ Window" depiction of the Sermon on the Mount by Walter Horace Judson whose 3,500 pieces of glittering stained glass make it, in itself, worth a visit to the University.  But its beauty and majesty merely set the stage for the experience that unfolds.  As promised, the Feast of Lights is a "tapestry of scripture, poetry, music and drama." But it is so much more. Under the visionary direction of Dr. Nicholle Andrews and Chaplain John Walsh, the genius of this ecumenical service is not that it recognizes diversity as a new concept (consider that Judson's stained glass masterpiece depicts a gathering 2,000 years ago consisting of "a variety of social types - rich and poor, young and old, Jewish ecclesiastical leaders, and Roman soldiers”) but that its thoughtful narrative is articulated to reach hearts and minds whose belief systems may be less traditional but no less in need of its message of illumination.