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Community Corner

The Historic Ossining Camp Meeting Association Closes Summer Vesper Series with a Tent Revival

OCMA closed their summer vesper series with a Tent Revival on the lawn in front of the Campwoods Auditorium featuring local musician, magician and storyteller Jaime Rickert.

The historic Ossining Camp Meeting Association (OCMA) held a tent revival on the lawn outside of the historic Campwoods Auditorium on the Campwoods Grounds in the last meeting of their 2011 Summer Vesper Series “Will the Circle Be Unbroken.”

Last night’s service, entitled, “By your touch we are made whole,” featured Jaime Rickert who is a musician, storyteller, magician and a Pastoral Associate at St. Ann’s Catholic Church. He led the assembly through a lively, fun-filled program of songs, magic tricks and story telling, all the while gently reminding the crowd of God’s love and constant presence in our lives. 

In between songs such as “Come to the House of Lord”, where he told some of the Bible’s greatest stories such as David and Goliath and Daniel in the lions den, he gave the audience snippets of his life both before and after he regained his faith.

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“Years ago I was a singer….made a bunch of records in Nashville that you have never heard of…” said Rickert. He went on to talk about his first day in the monastery and how they had a party that entailed pizza and talking during dinner, a sharp contrast to his party days where he “once went to a new years eve party and came home in February.”

He got serious when he talked about how during his time in the monastery he realized he did not like who he saw in the mirror and slowly saw that through prayer he could change and that God loved him just as he was, flaws and all.

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After a few songs, he switched gears and did some magic with two young volunteers in the audience.  He did two rope tricks and reminded every one that it wasn’t magic he was doing, but tricks.

“Sometimes the greatest magic we have is dealing with things as they are,” Rickert said, adding some down-to-earth perspective in the midst of a magic act.

He then pulled another one of his talents out of a seemingly endless bag of tricks, story telling. He led the crowd through a retelling of the famous Biblical story the sower and the seed in a story he called “the sower and the seed part 2." For this he employed the help of a teenage girl to act out the story. In a very funny way, the two of them drove home the point that we shouldn’t focus on all our failures since we all have potential for greatness.

“Each of us is a giant pile of fertilizer just waiting for a seed,” Rickert said at the conclusion of the story.

“It was very nice,” said Angeal Galindo.  “It was great. I liked him. This was my first time here.”

The final service of the summer series was held as a tent revival because the OCMA community is unable to use the Campwoods Auditorium since they are in the process of restoring the historic building.

“The goal of this event is to keep the spirituality of this place alive while keeping it updated and contemporary to the community,” said Katie Gorycki evening service coordinator.

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