Choral Reef: music under the surface

Community as a condition of the heart

2011-02-23T21:27:00.003-06:00

I was talking tonight with my church choir about community. We started with a reading from the writings of Henri Nouwen, in which he spoke of community as sometimes a good thing (eating together, supporting one another, sharing a laugh) and sometimes not (having to subscribe exactly to a particular point of view, or naively glossing over genuine conflict to preserve the status quo). I'm paraphrasing here, but what struck me was his starting point that community is a "condition of the heart."

I spoke of the conflict so deeply embedded in our national/global/insert-your-group-here culture...of how easy it is to find examples in which each side of a dispute is rock-solid sure that their point of view is the right one...and (here's the disturbing part) that the other side is not just wrong, but bad, and even out to get them.

There's just so much shouting everywhere.

As a person who lives to create harmony, I've found this increasingly distressing over the last decade or so. I'm deeply concerned that we're losing the capacity for rational disagreement: that so great is the need to be right that it just doesn't matter whom we demonize, whom we hurt, whom we shut out in the process.

I spoke of my relief at coming to church choir every week: we're there to train not just our voices, but our hearts as well. Singing in a choir requires humility, the ability to truly get yourself out of the way and listen, and generosity of spirit. You can't hear the group if you're trumpeting your own part so loudly that you drown it out. You won't like every piece of music that you're called to sing. Sometimes the crazy director will ask you to take a risk, or do do something that seems downright weird or silly...and singers faithfully, courageously, generously try.

Don't get me wrong; I'm not naive to the fact that sometimes, there is evil that needs to be addressed. There are p-l-e-n-t-y of times when it's necessary to speak truth to power. But I think we have to be very careful about our own motives; it's so easy to become righteous rather than loving. It happens when you're not looking.

Not listening.

Jesus asks us Christians to "love our neighbors as ourselves." Every major faith system has a tenet very much like this. I love being a church nerd because it's a place where we try to pay attention to one another...to dare to open ourselves up to a greater possibility than anything we can construct on our own.

It's risky. It's messy. And it's exactly the training our hearts need to cultivate the condition of community.

The world needs all of us to take this training seriously. And to do it joyfully!

Friday five: but how, then, shall we live?

2010-07-02T08:15:00.000-05:00

Sally of the RevGals writes:

This has been a good week for British Methodism, The Annual Conference has discussed and debated many things and not shied away from some difficult stuff. New Ministers have been Ordained and received into Full Connexion. Add to that the fact that two amazing ladies; Alison Tomlin and Eunice Attwood have taken up their posts as President and Vice-President for 2010/2011–and that they have both inspired us in their speeches and preaching , and you begin to get the picture. In the Vice-President's Address Eunice gave an inspiring account of the type of church she wants to be a part of:

I want to be part of a church that is prayer-filled -
A church that is resourced and sustained by the Bible,
A church that can offer hope even in a credit crunch,
A church that can live well with difference and diversity.

I want to be part of a church that welcomes the wealthy, those who have power and influence -
A church that knows how to party and celebrate life,
A church that acknowledges death and speaks boldly of resurrection,
A church that doesn’t pretend to have all the answers but encourages all the questions.

I want to be part of a church that throws parties for prostitutes -
A church that welcomes those who seek asylum,
A church that longs and yearns for justice,
A church that listens to those no-one else wants to listen to.

I want to be part of a church that believes in transformation not preservation -
A church where all who are lost can be found,
A church where people can discover friendship,
A church where every person takes responsibility in sharing the good news.

I want to be part of a church whose hope is placed securely and confidently in the transforming love of God -
A church that engages faith in its communities,
A church that makes and nurtures disciples of Jesus.

A church where the story of God’s love is at the centre.
I want to be part of a church that offers outrageous grace, reckless generosity, transforming love and engaging faith.
This is God’s story Transforming Love: Engaging Faith.

My prayer is that by the power of the Spirit of God at work amongst us, it will increasingly be our story.

I want to be part of that church too, and at the danger of trying to add to such a wonderful litany of dreams/ visions and prayers I wonder which five things would you echo from or add to this. What kind of church do you want to be a part of in the 21st Century?

Bonus: Is there a hymn or a Bible passage that you would make your inspiration?

Well. That's a thinker, isn't it? Here's my answer:

I want to be part of a church that is

humble–that can find a different standard of belonging than dogmatic “right” and “wrong.” That can be fully in conversation with people and institutions whose ideas, strengths, commitments are different from its own, for the betterment of all. That can admit when it’s wrong by its own standards, repent and do better next time. That cares less about its image in the world than its effectiveness in the relief of suffering and of spreading (or, at the very least, not impeding) the love of God. Talk with me about babies and bathwater all you want; I’m pretty sure that genuine love is the fulfillment of the Law. I want a church that isn’t so comfortable that it has all the right answers; that’s a kind of living death. I want a church that will recognize its own “-olatries” and work to tear them down. And could we maybe even (dare I say it) laugh at ourselves sometimes?
engaged in a positive way–that truly sees the suffering/injustice within its walls, down the street, and around the world (which will require a good dose of characteristic #1, particularly in first-world environments) and wants to provide that cold drink of water to a child more than it wants to preserve itself. That seeks out the gifts of its body and brings them to bear on the problems it finds. However, the church should act within the political system of its country more as a voice of conscience than as a political power in its own right; it should be about raising questions about how we are to live together, instead of seeking power for its own sake. And–hear me now–its methods are every bit as important as its results. Scapegoating and scaring people into thinking they’re losing their grip on everything they hold dear so that they’ll support a particular political engine is hypocritical, reprehensible and, in the end, counter-productive. Witness the treatment of GLBT folks in the last twenty years as just one of many examples. We should be about tikkun olam.
awake to the unfolding beauty of the world–that observes, listens, ponders and responds creatively. Where beauty is taken seriously as a characteristic of the Divine. Where the planet is celebrated and protected as our astonishing home. Where spirits open in song, art, dance and story, in response to the unbelievable gift of being alive and together under the sun, in God’s gaze, as part of the ongoing story of God’s people. Where, as the hymn says, “through the church the song goes on.”
un-self-conscious about holding love of God and neighbor as its highest values. Period. Worship is vibrant, fresh, the central practice/equipment to the life of faith for all people–and I do mean ALL people–so that they may be sent out to love all the world. Not to convert them, just to love them. It must be extravagantly welcoming to everyone, as if love really does cast out fear. Doctrinal agreement and social conformity are not defining characteristics of this community; for once, it’s more about “us” than about “me.” And–don’t get me wrong–I’m not talking about a squishy “we are the world” sentiment here; I’m talking about honest, vigorous, creative, brave, get-your-hands-dirty love. Not onstage; in the trenches. And sometimes, we are the ones in need of help and teaching. Two-way relationships.
hopeful, faithful, confident and patient enough to pour itself out as Christ did.

And let me just say this; it’s easy to talk about it on this level. The hard part is when we try to answer the question, “But how, then, shall we live?” Because working all this out is messy. Feelings get hurt. Dignities are affronted. Turf is impinged upon. Scabs are pulled off. Put your helmets on, people; this is a contact sport. But if those things don’t happen, from where does the growth come? Truly, if we’re not changed by the experience, what are we doing? And this is where the good stuff always comes–where we can be surprised by grace, by joy, by love.

Oh, and my answer to the bonus question? Albert Bayly's wonderful hymn does it for me (sung to BEACH SPRING):

Lord, whose love in humble service bore the weight of human need;

who, upon the cross, forsaken, worked your mercy's perfect deed.

We, your servants, bring the worship not of voice alone, but heart;

consecrating to your purpose every gift that you impart.

Still your children wander homeless; still the hungry cry for bread;

still the captives long for freedom; still in grief we mourn our dead.

As you, Lord, in deep compassion, healed the sick and freed the soul,

by your Spirit send us power to your world to make it whole.

As we worship, grant us vision, till your love's redeeming light

in its height and depth and greatness dawns upon our quickened sight,

making known the needs and burdens your compassion bids us bear;

stirring us to ardent service, your abundant life to share.

Called by worship to your service, forth in your dear name we go,

to the child, the youth, the aged, love in living deeds to show;

hope and health, goodwill and comfort, counsel, aid and peace we give,

that your servants, Lord, in freedom may your mercy know and live.

Hedgehogs in motion

2010-06-29T18:16:00.008-05:00

I'm feeling philosophical today. Perhaps it was brought on by five full days of sitting more-or-less in one place, listening to nature, conspicuously NOT producing anything. I'm feeling de-cluttered in a way I haven't been for about nine months. It's delicious and clean and, well, simple.

On the way back from our vacation, Beloved and I were listening to the audiobook version of our wonderful book club's next selection, The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery. Two chapters in, it seems to me as if this is going to be one of those books I'll end up buying more than once because I keep thrusting it into the hands of all the readers in my life. You can find a synopsis at the link, so I won't bother with it here, but I have to say that Paloma–a mordant, intellectual, twelve-year old genius–will stay with me long after I finish the book. She has created a project for herself: to keep a journal of Profound Thoughts. I'll offer three of them here for your consideration:

(Art is) the beauty that is there in the world; things that, being part of the movement of life, elevate us...grace, beauty, harmony, intensity.

Paloma understands Major Works of Art (and has a fondness for Vermeer), but doesn't see them as the only containers for artistic expression; for her, art is both ever-present (like Meister Eckhart's image of God as a "great underground river") and something that must be sought, held and practiced.

Movement is a major intellectual theme for Paloma. Her observations thus far encompass not only the way we're defined by the direction we're pointed, but the way that progress (or even the anticipation of progress) irrevocably alters us:

Most people, when they move, well, they just move depending on whatever's around them. At this very moment, as I'm writing, Constitution the cat is going by with her tummy dragging close to the floor. This cat has absolutely nothing constructive to do in life, and still she is heading toward something–probably an armchair–and you can tell by the way she is moving that she is headed toward. Maman just went by on her way to the front door. She's going out shopping, and in fact, she already is out, her movement anticipating itself. I don't really know how to explain it, but when we move we are in a way destructured by our movement toward something. We are both here and at the same time not here, because we're already in the process of going elsewhere.

It's not simply our attitude that changes (which we can-do Americans hold as Tremendously Significant), but our fundamental nature. Simultaneous presence and absence...if you've ever tried to hold a conversation with someone who's absorbed in their TV program/text message/insert-your-pet-distraction-here, you know what this means. But to what effect on the person who's in two places at once? Paloma again:

What makes the strength of a warrior isn't the energy he uses trying to intimidate the other guy by sending him a whole lot of signals; it's the strength he's able to concentrate within himself by staying centered.

Food for thought, no?

Friday five: Remember me?

2010-06-18T17:03:00.000-05:00

Hi, everyone–it's been a while, and I've missed you! But here I am, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, redesigned and looking forward to coming back to the Reef.

RevGal Jan writes:

As I opened up my computer this morning, I directly went to my blog and RevGals to see what the newest Friday Five would be! Nothing was here, which seemed odd. Then I went to look at the calendar and counted the Fridays, and it is the THIRD Friday! How did that happen so quickly? It's my turn, so here's a quickie:

1. Do you tend to be a late person or one who is timely, arriving on time or earlier?

I'm used to being the one who runs the meeting/rehearsal/event, which means that I take being prepared and punctual seriously–it's a matter of respecting those good souls who have volunteered their time and effort for that which I've asked. It backs up on me sometimes, though:

I'm (unreasonably?) irritated by lateness. I know that life sometimes gets in the way, but I have a hard time not seeing habitual lateness as a sign of disrespect.
I drive Beloved nuts when we're going somewhere together–I'm the little bouncing animal gasping "Are you ready? Can we go? We're gonna be laaaaaaate!" She is gracious about this. :-)

2. Have you forgotten anything of importance lately?

The list of things I've forgotten lately is l-o-n-g. It's been an unusually stressful program year, and I've been in recovery mode for the last couple of weeks–and thus, not at the top of my game. But I'm working on it...and I get to go and sit beside a lake with Beloved for five days starting late next week. Huzzah, I say!

3. Is procrastination your inclination? Why or why not?

It depends. If it's a book or something over which I have creative control, I'm likely to go great guns until it's done, even months ahead of the deadline. But sometimes I have a hard time dragging myself off the couch to do another load of laundry!

4. Do you like schedules or spontaneity? Which works best for you?

I like spontaneity; I function better with schedules.

5. How do you stay on track with the various things you need to, people you must meet, etc., etc.?

My laptop has helped a lot, I think. WiFi and Google calendars and instant access to email. That having been said, I have 3 email accounts and 3 voicemail boxes to keep track of, which is a bit wearing.

BONUS: Whatever comes to mind about forgetfulness or lateness.

What was the question?

Strengthening your core

2010-02-23T21:27:00.003-06:00

I was fooling around with a friend's Wii Fit a couple of weeks ago, having a great time. At one point, as the machine was evaluating my relative strengths and weaknesses, it sort of hinted at the fact that I could use some work on my core strength; limbs are pretty good, but balance...not quite so much.

Hmmm...I feel a metaphor coming on.

My home church, this Lent, is working with the theme "Come Home" in all things worship-related. We're using the story of the Prodigal Son as a meta-narrative for the season. If you don't know it, here's a version of it--a paraphrase by Eugene Peterson which begins like this:

Then (Jesus) said,

"There once was a man who had two sons.

The younger son said to his father,

'Father, I want right now what's coming to me.'

So the father divided his property

between (the younger and older sons).

It wasn't long

before the younger son packed his bags

and left for a distant country.

There, undisciplined and dissipated,

he wasted everything he had..."

I heard this particular version of the story tonight for the first time. And this stuck with me: undisciplined and dissipated. Dissipated--as if the source of the young man's unhappiness was the fact that he lost track of his core, his essential being, his connection. Dissipated--as if his very self had scattered to the winds.

Huh. Ever felt that way? Ever been distracted by something shiny or something "worthy" or just too many somethings, and lost track of yourself? Of your place in the world? Of those things which keep you tethered to deepest reality? I certainly have.

Lots of times, I've heard this story told as if the young man's main problem was active debauchery. And it's easy to hear it or to read it from a place of righteousness: "WE certainly wouldn't be so overtly selfish and sinful. What a bad boy he was." As if we were the elder brother in the story.

This translation, though, suggests to me that the young man's problem was more subtle, more passive--that he just surrendered, little bit by little bit, his essential humanity. He settled for a lesser version of himself until his hunger and desperation brought him back to his senses. He could then go back home, having lost so much and yet regained that which was truly essential. His homecoming was met with gracious abundance on his father's part.

There's a wonderful hymn by Kevin Nichols in Evangelical Lutheran Worship called "Our Father, We Have Wandered." We sang it last Sunday, and the second verse goes like this:

And now at length discerning

the evil that we do,

behold us, Lord, returning

with hope and trust to you.

In haste you come to meet us

and home rejoicing bring,

in gladness there to greet us

with calf and robe and ring.

We don't often manage that kind of gracious welcome with one another. It's sort of ironic that we so regularly (especially when in groups) react as the elder brother in the story did, lost in our own righteousness--wanting judgment to be meted out to those who have "done it wrong" in many and various ways:

by daring to be both gay and Christian,
by daring to be both divorced and Christian,
by daring to be both mentally or physically ill and Christian,
by daring to be both homeless and Christian,
by daring to be both broken and Christian,
by daring to be both doubtful and faithful,
by daring to admit that sometimes the only way to God is through a pig sty, or, in short,
by daring to admit our brokenness and to reclaim our core selves in the company of the body of Christ.

It ain't easy. We make it awfully hard on one another. Vulnerable honesty just makes everyone uncomfortable; it seems a living thing unto itself--and a threatening one, at that. It's unpredictable. It doesn't follow the "rules." Those things which make us authentically ourselves sometimes scare our brothers and sisters out of their (right) minds.

But did you notice that, in the parable, the older son is also called to remember who he is, in the context of this new turn of events? To recall his own identity as a son, a brother, a loving being in the world? He lost track of himself, too--was dissipated as surely as his brother had been--but by his own righteousness, anger and jealousy. His father invited him to remember the joy at his own core...to join in the celebration instead of sitting in judgment and resentment of his brother.

And so, whatever your own vantage point in the story in this particular Lenten season, I ask you these questions:

What is the "home" to which you return?

What strengthens your core?

And I end this post with a prayer of awestruck gratitude for a God that continues to welcome me back, despite my brokenness, despite my righteousness--who collects my scattered pieces and restores me to wholeness over and over again, and who runs out to greet me every time "with calf and robe and ring."

Coloring outside the lines

2010-02-18T18:21:00.007-06:00

I work, during the day, for Large Metropolitan Church (LMC)--large enough to have a full-time Communications Director. Much loveliness comes of this for LMC, including and especially seasonal devotional books. The over-arching Lenten theme at LMC is "coloring outside the lines."

"Interesting approach," mused my Internal Worship Planning Geek, when I first heard it. "Wonder how, exactly, that will play out."

One way is in a beautiful devotional. It contains original art by a member; meditations submitted by staff and members; a scripture reading and a prayer for each day; and--wait for it--a coloring page for each Sunday. And the book comes with a little box of six crayons.

Genius. An invitation to approach Lent in a very personal, creative and fresh way, if a body is willing. Staff and most members who've seen it have responded with delight. But yesterday, as our receptionist offered a book and crayons to a rather elderly member, I heard her say rather archly, "Well, I'd prefer to behave like an adult."

But she took them.

And I (goody for me) managed not to make a crack about needing to have the faith of a little child. Because faith takes us to all kinds of uncomfortable places. Some of them are deserts; some of them are moral crossroads; some of them are invitations to try something a tiny bit loose and silly and joyful.

My home congregation (both midwestern and Lutheran!) did just that on Transfiguration Sunday. Our opening song was the South African freedom song "We Are Marching in the Light of God." In subsequent verses, we are "dancing," "praying" and "singing in the light of God." Our drumming director worked out some simple dance moves for everyone to do while we sang and the drummers played. This sort of thing has been a bit lackluster in the past, (we're sort of self-conscious about all that movement and exuberance, don'cha know) but not this time. Almost everyone at both services, from age 3 to 83, was moving and singing and grinning. Maybe even transfigured, in a way.

The incandescent Barbara Brown Taylor notes in "An Altar in the World" that

We need the practice of incarnation,

by which God saves the lives of those

whose intellectual assent has turned dry as dust,

who have run frighteningly low on the bread of life,

who are dying to know more God in their bodies.

Not more about God.

More God.

Sometimes when people ask me about my prayer life,

I describe hanging laundry on the line.

After a day of too much information about almost everything,

there is such blessed relief in the weight of wet clothes,

causing the wicker basket to creak as I carry it to the clothesline.

Every time I bend down to shake loose a piece of laundry,

I smell the grass.

I smell the sun.

Above all, I smell clean laundry.

Above all, I am happy for practices that bring me back to my body,

where the operative categories are not "bad" and "good"

but "dead" and "alive."

As hard as I have tried to be good all my life--

as hard as I try to be good even now--

my heart leans more and more toward that which gives life,

whether it is conventionally good or not.

There are times

when dancing on tables grants more life than kneeling in prayer.

More to the point,

there are times when dancing on tables

is the most authentic prayer in reach,

even if it pocks the table and clears the room.

And now I have a hopeful image in my head of my crusty friend at home alone, using those crayons and chuckling to herself. And my wish for you, gentle reader, is that you give it a try, too. Dance. Laugh. Sing. Remember that life is our first, best gift from our loving Creator. Don't you think it's God's hope for that life to be colorful and extravagantly vibrant?

Some deserts are of our own making. I'm just saying.

Peace, y'all.

The dynamism of compassion, part deux

2009-11-30T23:39:00.003-06:00

Compassion is the key.

(All the major religions) have come to this conclusion

not because it sounds good, it sounds nice, but because it works.

We are at our most creative when we’re ready to give ourselves away.

We are at our most sterile and dangerous when we seek to have ourselves and more so,

and to use religion to enhance our sense of ego.

--Karen Armstrong, to Krista Tippett

I listened today to a podcast of an interview done for the program Speaking of Faith--it resulted in a show entitled “The Freelance Monotheism of Karen Armstrong,” but what I heard was the unedited version, and it was terrific.

Karen Armstrong is a former nun, a religious historian/scholar, and currently leading the Charter for Compassion. I first heard of her 15 years ago or so when she was part of Bill Moyers’ Genesis discussion, and she struck me as a truly fresh voice, and won me with the line “Religion is at its best when it asks questions.”

That comment sparked a new chapter in my own faith life, and I’ve kept her work on my personal radar ever since. I recently linked to her TED video (which is related to her winning a TED prize for the idea of the Charter).I commend this interview to you; it’s available here. In it, she tells the story of her own journey through Roman Catholic religious life, through amused/bewildered atheism, to her present orientation as a person of faith not tied to a particular faith tradition--or, rather, lightly tethered to many and adept at finding their points of commonality.

The quote about compassion with which I opened this post captured my imagination today. The charity necessary for true compassion could be a truly powerful (holy!) force, were it fully unleashed in the world. She spoke of charity not in the sense of pity, which locates the charitable above the other, in the center; rather, charity is the force that gets us to willingly vacate the “center” position and put someone else there...to see the world through their eyes. Whether we like them or not. Whether we agree with them or not. Even if they drive us nuts. Even if they’ve done Bad Things.

This isn’t new thinking. What got me was her assessment that this kind of generosity of spirit is the most creative of forces. That sings somewhere deep in my soul.

She also discussed the Western/Christian tendency to be hung up on doctrine--to focus first on believing rightly--in contrast with the Eastern/Muslim/Jewish orientation toward living rightly as a path to the Divine.

(We do spend a lot of time and energy arguing, do we not, fellow Lutherans?)

What if, instead, we tried this (Karen’s quote, again):

If we do what Hillel says (do not do to others as you would not have done to you), if we lived by that, day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute--and it’s no good going straight on to Osama Bin Laden or Saddam Hussein when there are people in our own immediate entourage who we find difficult to get on with--the Buddha always said you have to radiate compassion to all four corners of the world, but you’ve got to deal first with the people who are right there around you: that difficult sibling, that annoying colleague, that rival, your ex-wife. (When) you can extend benevolence, wish them well, this starts to break down the hard shell of ego.

If, every time you attempted to say something horrible about one of these “enemies,” (you stopped to consider) how you would like it said about yourself or a loved one and refrained (from doing so)...in that moment, you would have achieved a transcendence of ego--and that would be a religious life, I think. Hillel was right to say that that’s the essence of religion; that’s the Torah, the rest is commentary. Confucius uttered a version of this golden rule 500 years before that; Buddha taught a version of it.

I think lots of things would change if we learned from our co-religionists instead of fearing them, judging them, and focusing on why they’re “wrong.” I think part of the reason we argue so much is that it’s substantially easier and more immediately gratifying than it would be to live in the simplicity of genuine compassion. We like to be right, and don’t want to spend more time with the Other than we absolutely have to.

I had a Zen class in seminary. The view of “what’s next” expressed in that class frightened me at the time--it was about attainment of enlightenment via complete emptying of the self (oooo...sounds like Jesus); about a "goal" of finally sort of being absorbed back into the web of life that hums all around and through us. This is a contrast with most of the funerals, most of the conversation about death I’ve been part of in the Christian world--you know, harps, clouds, lots of anthropomorphizing, a “reward” for a life well lived (yikes!).

What if this whole journey IS about breaking down ego, about emptying the self to find the Divine? What does that change in each of our lives?

What if we Christians took Jesus more seriously than Church/Tradition/Doctrine?

If we try to live our way into the answer via compassion as depicted above, it seems to me that we’d all be changed for the better, regardless of our dogmatic location.

Discuss.

Friday Five: Crush

2009-11-29T16:45:00.008-06:00

Though it's a few days late, this is too much fun to resist. Songbird of the Revgals writes:

I have to admit it. I felt for her.

You see, in high school, I had a crush on my Chorus teacher. He was a young guy, and he had gone to college with some cousins of mine, and over the summer between 9th and 10th grade, we ran into each other at a series of pre-wedding parties, and I feel DEEPLY in like.

You?

1) Did you ever have a crush on a teacher?

I had a terrible crush on my sixth-grade teacher, Mrs. Hager. She went to my church, and we bumped into one another out in The World once in a while (laying to rest my earlier understanding of teachers as context-sensitive beings who only existed in classrooms and faculty lounges, but evaporated if they tried to leave the school grounds...)

I was crushed out to the point at which I dressed like her...which sounds harmless enough, until you picture an 11-year-old in a calico shirt (the kind where every panel is a different fabric) over a TUBE TOP. (Shudder.)

2) Who was your first crush?

Hmmm...the first one. That was early. Kristin Setterstrom, our 4-houses-away

neighbor, was about 5 years older than I, and she looked a bit like Kristy McNichol. LOVED her. She babysat my sister and me a couple of times, and when all the rest of us (younger) kids on the block were playing Statue Tag in the front yard, I always kept one eye turned toward her house, in the hope that she might come out and join us. Alas, no.

3) Have you ever given a gift to a crush?

Oh, yeah. Poorly written, unmailed love-scratchings, mostly.

4) Do you have a celebrity crush? (Around my house we call them TV boyfriends and girlfriends...)

If Emma Thompson ever looked my way, Beloved might need to be a bit indulgent with me. ;-)

5) Have you ever been surprised to find yourself the crushee?

The first time was in first grade. George Christidis gave me a pin shaped like a chicken, that he'd got from a gumball machine. Looking back, he was a tiny George Clooney--gorgeous kid. Bet he's breaking some hearts now. Hope I wasn't too hard on him.

Oh, and Tom Harder called me several times in fourth grade to profess his undying devotion and to propose an ongoing relationship. Nice fella. Our dads drove the same kind of car. I liked the attention better than I liked him, though. Poor Tom.

Thankfulness

2009-11-29T15:10:00.003-06:00

Well, it's been a while.

It's been a challenging few months; Beloved has had struggles with her depression and her job; I've had a new job (which I love, but being new somewhere sort of demands that you raise the level of your game), and there have been a couple of other "extra effort" sorts of circumstances. I've had NO time to write, or even to think too deeply or for too long.

Which is, perhaps, a blessing in disguise. ;-)

And we're heading into December, which is generally my most stressful month of the year. But today I'm in a good place with it. The last few days have taught me some stuff; Beloved and I stayed home and had a quiet Thanksgiving together, and it's been a terrific weekend framed by wonderful worship services at my home church.

For the six of you who are still reading after this long hiatus, I shall spill out the wisdom that's presently in my tenuous grasp:

In times of stress, sometimes you have to pare down to the essentials as a family. Being able to say "No, thank you" is a critical survival skill.
Remembering to do something sweet and surprising during such a time can have extra impact. Beloved got me a "real" version of this piece of art, had it beautifully framed and gave it to me on Thanksgiving. Ummm...wow. I get a bit weepy just thinking about it. The Ruth passage it references was read at our wedding.
Ask for help when you need it. (I know...duh, but I'm still working on this lesson, after years of Life's gracious re-presentation of opportunities to learn it.)
Speak your truth, even when it's difficult. Sometimes the only way forward is through.
Love is all around. Look for its impish grin peeking at you around corners and beckoning you.
Finally, from Meister Eckhart: if the only prayer you say in your life is "thank you," that would suffice.

About that last one--though I find much of contemporary culture (at least that part that relates to getting/having/sharing our stuff) seriously out of whack, I have to say that a day set aside for pondering the gifts of our lives, and being thankful for them, is a not-so-distant relative of the Biblical concept of jubilee. In the same way that jubilee released people from debt and punishment, intentional thankfulness releases us from the bindings of fear and despair by reframing our vision.

Instead of worrying about what might be, we see what is.
Instead of focusing on the material (and its potential for loss), thankfulness rightly locates us in the abundance of God's mercy and love.
Instead of ruminating about "I," we find ourselves in relationship with "Thou" (and "thou," and "thou," and "thou...").

This is all to the good, and I'm facing December with a lens of quiet confidence and with a singing heart...at least, for today.

Deo gratias.

For all you aisle-seat potatoes

2009-10-01T20:00:00.000-05:00

The dynamism of compassion...

2009-09-30T12:55:00.002-05:00

which demands intelligence, not just a gooey feeling" is Karen Armstrong's topic here. Excellent!

Outrageous peace and costly grace

2009-09-27T22:41:00.005-05:00

Let us sing songs of

outrageous

peace.

--Susan Palo Cherwien

I got this extraordinary book of poetry about a month ago, after hearing some selections used as part of a gorgeous hymn festival sung by the choir in which Beloved and I met. I've since been savoring Susan's precise, vibrant wordsmithing...an extraordinary circumstance, as I tend to devour beautiful books.

I found the quote above at the end of one of the poems, and have been pondering it deep in my heart, marveling at the unlikeliness of that word pairing: outrageous peace. As is my wont, I looked at the prettiest definition most closely: "highly unusual, extravagant, remarkable."

And then I re-watched a movie tonight, and it brought me to a deeper, more difficult definition: "grossly offensive to the sense of right or decency."

The movie was Dead Man Walking. It came out in 1995, at the tail-end of my callow youth. I saw it through the eyes of a young woman, and took two things from it then: the conviction that the death penalty is wrong, and a deep admiration for Sr. Helen Prejean, CSJ.

Tonight, it seems to me that Sr. Helen made outrageous peace. It deeply offended the parents whose children had died violently, violated, at the hands of the condemned man whom she was trying to counsel. It offended correctional workers, worried her mother, alienated others with whom she was working. It offended the condemned man, because she held a mirror in front of him.

And yet.

Her willingness to throw herself into the gaping maw of others' pain, to face head-on her own self-doubt, to claim unequivocally the love of Christ for all people, even society's "monsters..." This willingness of hers made outrageous peace: the condemned man faced his crime and asked for forgiveness. His family found a measure of dignity and comfort. A parent of one of his victims began to heal from his searing grief and got back on speaking terms with God. She made room for kindness within the coldest of human processes.

She made peace where there could not be peace; further, she made peace that offended people deeply. It seems to me I've heard about some of other guys who sang that song: Bonhoeffer. King. Mandela. Jesus. The song required everything of them.

It changed the world, with each of them...and the song of outrageous peace goes on.

I wonder I'll get to sing a verse...and if I'll be able to do so. I pray that I'll have the courage to lift my voice, if called upon.

Living as "we" in an "I" world

2009-09-23T17:13:00.003-05:00

Art is the transfer of emotion from one person to another.

--Leo Tolstoy

Hmmm. Yes.

So, what's the appropriate application of this idea to church music?

Music can serve as "testimony"--I can tell you my own hard-won faith story through music, and I can hear yours in the same way. This is, I think, why we have so much "I" music that's done in the middle of an essentially "we" experience. It's immediate emotional connection.
Music is able to place us in another time/place in much the same way our sense of smell does; the scent of lefse on the griddle transports me directly to my maternal grandmother's house every time I make it. And there are a million songs that can take me directly back to high school, for better and worse. Because of this, there's an inherent sentimental attachment to any number of hymns and spiritual songs; they recall our beloved dead for a moment, and remind us where we've come from. Again, immediate emotional connection.
For many of us, it's difficult not to get caught up in a well-executed song of praise or lament...consider the power of the "Hallelujah Chorus," for example...or the way that we can BE "lost in wonder, love and praise" if the music leaders and congregation do "Love Divine, All Loves Excelling" well. [Reader, insert your own example here.]

Here's the thing, though. Because of music's emotional power, it's easy for it to become a tool of manipulation. As soon as we worship planners forget that, the music rings false to the thinkers in the crowd. It's one of the true challenges of worship planning...not to put words into people's mouths that weren't there to begin with. Let's face it: we all come to the worship planning process with biases. It's easy and fun to plan worship that expresses my own belief and feelings. It's much harder to try to place myself in someone else's Cole Haans or Adidas or Manolo Blahniks or steel-toed boots. And so, when I'm not a little bit uncomfortable, it's time to be concerned that my own preference is holding too much sway over a community's shared worship experience.

But I suspect that many--even most pew-sitters are not approaching worship that way. They come wanting to be moved, even transported. For many people, that means that if we don't use something in their preferred style or lexicon, they don't connect with worship...which is a rather consumer-oriented approach to a community experience.

It's sort of a conundrum for me, really. It seems to me too little to hope for to just get off on worship; it should work on me a bit. On the one hand, worship should be a kairos moment, and I should be able to forget myself and my location in time/space; that's both a relief and a communion. On the other hand, how will my faith grow if I don't learn to figure out where to discover the gift in music that doesn't immediately speak to me personally? Because that also builds communion over the long term; it teaches me connection in the way that synapses connect axons to dendrites: they learn to connect by needing to connect.

If we don't experience the gap, how do we learn to cross it? And if worship includes all that we are in the presence of God and one another, isn't the willingness to weave those connections an essential part of that experience?

So, yes--music transfers emotion from one person to another. But not always without our willingness to make it happen--to be full agents of the musical experience for ourselves and for one another, to the greater glory of God. That's what makes church music a bit different: the minute we act like an affinity group, we veer off course from our deepest purpose. In the end, it's not about the music itself. It's about learning to live as "we" in an "I" world.

Loveliness

2009-09-19T20:32:00.002-05:00

Beloved and I are home together this evening, having played with the pups, done a Saturdayish potpourri of keep-the-household-running things, and shared a lovely dinner. Tapping away on our respective computers, she's working on school stuff and I'm writing program notes for the next InVocation concert program. Pups are snuggled up, and we're all enjoying this:

Dvorak + Yo Yo Ma = yummy.

Thoughts for the first music rehearsal of a new program year...

2009-09-09T06:34:00.000-05:00

...from Thomas Merton:

Music is pleasing not only because of the sound

but because of the silence that is in it:

without the alternation of sound and silence,

there would be no rhythm.

If we strive to be happy

by filling in the silences of life with sound,

productive

by turning all life's leisure into work,

and real

by turning all our being into doing,

we will only succeed in producing a hell on earth.

If we have not silence,

God is not heard in our music.

If we have not rest,

God does not bless our work.

If we twist our lives out of shape

in order to fill every corner of them

with action and experience,

God will seem silently to withdraw from our hearts

and leave us empty.

The telltale limp of the faithful

2009-08-30T18:37:00.014-05:00

I read a reflection this afternoon, written by someone I've never met. I was really struck by his line "the telltale limp of the faithful." The new song lyric by that title (music isn't finished, but imagine sort of a driving, bluesy mood) is about three minutes old. This Bible story has a lot of resonance for me; I wrote a poem about it last year, and here it is again, in another form:

Just step right up, the carny man said,

I can show you all the face of God.

For a spectacle that dazzles you and fills you with elation

you just need a small donation and a pious inclination--

I can show you all the face of God.

Come right on down, the TV preacher said,

I can show you all the face of God.

For just fifty on your Visa and the contents of your head

you never need to wonder what the Bible really said--

I can show you all the face of God.

Be careful what you use to build an altar;

be sure to question everything you think you know.

The telltale limp of the faithful

is what it’s going to cost you for the face of God to show.

You’ll be changed; it isn’t cheap

but you might find a peace so deep

that you can sleep now on a pillow made of stone.

Get going through the desert, the Holy One said,

if you want to see the face of God.

You have to struggle and you'll fight, wrestle angels through the night,

but when you stumble in that darkness, I'll be glad to give you light--

only I can show the face of God.

Be careful what you use to build an altar;
be sure to question everything you think you know.
The telltale limp of the faithful
is what it’s going to cost you for the face of God to show.
You’ll be changed; it isn’t cheap
but you might find a peace so deep
that you can sleep now on a pillow made of stone.

It’s a hard old world, my mama said,

when you’re looking for the face of God.

Be careful what you pray for, ‘cause you’re never gonna know

if it’s truth that you are seeing or a circus or a show--

where will you go to find the face of God?

Where will you go to find the face of God?

I can haz konduktr funneh

2009-08-25T22:58:00.000-05:00

moar funny pictures

The aftermath

2009-08-24T10:13:00.003-05:00

I was expecting elation.

I've spent a decade working and praying in many and various ways for the votes that came on Friday. And I'm grateful and inspired by the (mostly) civilized dialogue that the ELCA managed to conduct around one of our National Hot Button Issues last week. I'm hugely relieved, on a personal level. And, as one member of my own congregation said yesterday, I'm glad for the sense that "Christ is leading us, and it's up to us to figure out how to follow."

But elation isn't the word for where I really am. I'm grateful that dear friend B (and SO many others--maybe even me, someday) can now be ordained. I'm grateful for the witness of the Lutheran church to those outside it. I'm grateful for the many kind, supportive words and hugs that have come my way this weekend...and over the long haul.

I'm sad, too. I'm sad that some people feel that they've lost their church. It seems unnecessary to me, after hanging in there all this time, that one decision could cause someone to feel like an outsider, when what I was really hoping for was the possibility of growth in relation to those who see the "issue" differently.

It's not elation. It is, as retired Bishop Chilstrom commented on Friday night, "bittersweet." And it's clear to me that we're going to need to work harder than ever for a while, to nurture conversation wherever we can and to turn that legislated welcome into reality.

Meanwhile, leadership is going to continue and to emerge anew...like this sermon, which I like very much. Deo gratias.

That's my bishop

2009-08-22T22:15:00.004-05:00

Who was a calm and compassionate voice, reminding us that we meet "not in our agreements or in our differences, but at the foot of the cross."

I'll be praying for him in the coming weeks, and invite you to do the same. Continuing the dialogue and keeping the family together isn't going to be easy!

Proud to be Lutheran today

2009-08-22T00:33:00.006-05:00

It's after midnight. For the last three nights, Beloved and I have gone to Churchwide Assembly-peripheral worship services after our regular workdays. We're tired and a bit punchy.

Today, almost everything we hoped for, worked for, and wept for came to pass. The ELCA resolved to "bear one another's burdens and respect one another's bound consciences," to allow for blessing of same-sex unions, to make space for partnered GLBT folks on the leadership roster, and to agree to move forward together in good faith, though we do not all agree about any of this.

I'm overwhelmed. This will have very real consequences for me, my congregation, and so, so many people I care about.

I'm proud of my church. It was an impassioned debate, but conducted with general grace, space for opposing opinions, and a great deal of prayer.

It will be deeply sad to me if the people who voted in the other direction, and who are feeling sad/angry/shocked by this vote choose to leave the ELCA. This issue will never really get better until we sit side-by-side in the pews together for a long time, in an open and honest atmosphere. I heard one vociferous local pastor today suggest that the church has strayed from "obvious Scriptural teaching" (?!) and "capitulated to the popular culture" by choosing to make this circle a bit bigger.

I think that he's wrong.
I think that the Church has taken a brave step deeper into Scriptural teaching this week.

I think that the real capitulation to popular culture would be to act as if there is only one "correct" point of view, and to claim that the "losers" need to sit on the bench until their "turn" comes up again, while the "winners" get the mandate. That's not how a real community acts.

I think, as one bishop so eloquently prayed at the end of the last plenary today, that God has called us servants to ventures of which we cannot see the ending,

by paths as yet untrodden,

through perils unknown.

I think that God will give us the strength to go out with good courage,

not knowing where we go,

but only that God's hand is leading us

and God's love supporting us.

And I think that this pastor with whom I disagree so vehemently must remain my brother in Christ. I hope with all the power of my heart that he and all who are upset by today will hang in with the ELCA. GLBT folks have done so for decades, and have borne a patient and loving witness to the church from outside its structures. I hope that we may do as well from inside the building, and remember to go the extra mile to welcome the stranger, whoever that may be.

As the incandescent Barbara Lundblad reminded us earlier this week, we are many parts, but one Body. Amen and amen.

Deo gratias.

Ceiling Cat iz displeezed wif church's stance on sowshul justiss

2009-07-22T20:42:00.000-05:00

href="http://icanhascheezburger.com/2009/07/21/funny-pictures-here-is-da-church/">
see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Choice vs. gift

2009-07-17T10:46:00.005-05:00

Sometimes, in my more lucid moments, I recognize that the technology I enjoy is changing not just the culture around me, but also my perceptions about my place in the world.

The opening of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, so long anticipated, has got me thinking. This sense of group expectation and shared experience used to be a lot more frequent. Remember when we had to all wait together to find out who shot J.R.? And for a while, NBC had must-see-TV on Thursday nights...and people talked about it together on Friday mornings.

Like so many other people I know, I have a TiVo and an iPod...not to mention Pandora and Hulu and iTunes. I get to choose what media I watch/hear, and when, with much more control than ever before. Generally, I like this very much; I get to fast-forward through commercials, and I never have to waste my time with a song I don't like.

But...

Remember what it was like to be driving along, listening to the radio, and the EXACT, PERFECT SONG came on, seemingly just for you? Remember having a moment like this?

That doesn't happen to me any more. Most of "my" music feels like a choice, not a gift.

Maybe sometimes, in order to be surprised by joy, you've got to be "free fallin'" and just see what comes your way. :-)

What kind of reader are you?

2009-07-06T17:27:00.003-05:00

Newsweek has published their Top 100 Books: the Meta-List, derived via “number crunching” from various top-10 books lists. The purpose of this note is to gather a bit more information about your experience with the books on their list. I’ve started the process using the following key. If you’re interested in participating, please copy the list and replace my numbers with your own, and tag me. Please note that more than one number may be used per book. More information available on each book by clicking the link at the beginning of the post.

1 = read it
2 = saw the movie

3 = in my “to read” stack at home

4 = someday I’ll read it

5 = have made at least one attempt to read it, but didn’t finish

6 = no interest in reading it

(4/5) War and Peace—Tolstoy

(1) 1984—Orwell

(4) Ulysses—Joyce

(6) Lolita—Nabokov

(4) The Sound and the Fury—Faulkner

(3) Invisible Man—Ellison

(4) To the Lighthouse—Woolf

(3) The Iliad and The Odyssey—Homer

(2/4) Pride and Prejudice—Austen

(4) Divine Comedy—Alighieri

(5) Canterbury Tales—Chaucer

(5) Gulliver’s Travels—Swift

(6) Middlemarch—Eliot

(4) Things Fall Apart—Achebe

(1) The Catcher in the Rye—Salinger

(5/6) Gone with the Wind—Mitchell

(3/5) One Hundred Years of Solitude—Marquez

(5/6) The Great Gatsby—Fitzgerald

(3) Catch-22—Heller

(2/3) Beloved—Morrison

(1/2) The Grapes of Wrath—Steinbeck

(4) Midnight’s Children—Rushdie

(1) Brave New World—Huxley

(2/4/5) Mrs. Dalloway—Woolf

(1) Native Son—Wright

(4) Democracy in America—de Tocqueville

(4) On the Origin of Species—Darwin

(6) The Histories—Herodotus

(4) The Social Contract—Rousseau

(6) Das Kapital—Marx

(6) The Prince—Machiavelli

(4) Confessions—St. Augustine

(4) Leviathan—Hobbes

(6) The History of the Peloponnesian War—Thucydides

(2/5) The Lord of the Rings—Tolkien

(1/2) Winnie-the-Pooh—Milne

(1/2) The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe—Lewis

(2) A Passage to India—Forster

(4) On the Road—Kerouac

(1/2) To Kill a Mockingbird—Lee

(1/2) The Holy Bible (RSV)

(4) A Clockwork Orange—Burgess

(1) Light in August—Faulkner

(4) The Souls of Black Folk—Du Bois

(4) Wide Sargasso Sea—Rhys

(4) Madame Bovary—Flaubert

(6) Paradise Lost—Milton

(4) Anna Karenina—Tolstoy

(1/2) Hamlet—Shakespeare

(1) King Lear—Shakespeare

(1/2) Othello—Shakespeare

(4) Sonnets—Shakespeare

(1) Leaves of Grass—Whitman

(4) The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn—Twain

(4) Kim—Kipling

(2/5) Frankenstein—Shelley

(3/5) Song of Solomon—Morrison

(2/4/5) One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest—Kesey

(4) For Whom the Bell Tolls—Hemingway

(4/5) Slaughterhouse-Five—Vonnegut

(6) Animal Farm—Orwell

(1/2) Lord of the Flies—Golding

(2) In Cold Blood—Capote

(4) The Golden Notebook—Lessing

(4) Remembrance of Things Past—Proust

(6) The Big Sleep—Chandler

(4) As I Lay Dying—Faulkner

(1) The Sun Also Rises—Hemingway

(2) I, Claudius—Graves

(2/3) The Heart is a Lonely Hunter—McCullers

(4) Sons and Lovers—Lawrence

(6) All the King’s Men—Warren

(4/5) Go Tell It on the Mountain—Baldwin

(1/2) Charlotte’s Web—White

(6) Heart of Darkness—Conrad

(1) Night—Wiesel

(3) Rabbit, Run—Updike

(2/6) The Age of Innocence—Wharton

(4) Portnoy’s Complaint—Roth

(4) An American Tragedy—Dreiser

(4) The Day of the Locust—West

(4) Tropic of Cancer—Miller

(6) The Maltese Falcon—Hammett

(1/2) His Dark Materials—Pullman

(1) Death Comes for the Archbishop—Cather

(1) The Interpretation of Dreams—Freud

(4) The Education of Henry Adams—Adams

(6) Quotations from Chairman Mao—Mao

(4) The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature—James

(2/4) Brideshead Revisited—Waugh

(6) Silent Spring—Carson

(6) The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money—Keynes

(4) Lord Jim—Conrad

(6) Goodbye to All That—Graves

(4) The Affluent Society—Galbraith

(1) The Wind in the Willows—Grahame

(1/2) The Autobiography of Malcolm X—Haley/Malcolm X

(6) Eminent Victorians—Strachey

(1/2) The Color Purple—Walker

(4) The Second World War (6-volume set)—Churchill

Total read: 24

Additional questions:

What would you cut from the list?

HATED “The Great Gatsby.”

What would you add?

Little Women—hello? :-)
Where’s the Dickens?
Though it was a terribly grim read, I’d also suggest Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road.” It was POWERFUL, and written with an economy of words exactly suited to its barren landscape.
East of Eden—Steinbeck. Gorgeous.

When you look back at the list as a whole, do you draw any conclusions about yourself as a reader?

My liberal arts education hasn’t demanded enough of me, from a literary perspective… though I’ve read a number of books that didn’t make the list, that were written by these same authors. (That's me...I chose "Chicago Hope" over "ER" when they came out; Betamax over VHS...)
I have still read some great, mind-changing books; my book club has stretched me in several directions.
I strongly prefer fiction to non-fiction; gimme a metaphor over a directive any day.
At this point in my life, I read mostly for pleasure, with a “this is a work I should know” book every few months—a different kind of pleasure, I guess.
I'm happiest if there's a sympathetic character or two, but that's not necessarily prohibitive; for example, I love Wally Lamb, and most of his characters are...unappealing to me.
The fact that I've written this post at all suggests that I should think about a Lit course sometime, just for fun!

These friends of mine...

2009-07-01T16:33:00.004-05:00

...yes, for those of you who were paying attention, that was the original title of Ellen.

It also refers to the exciting premiere of a brand-new show starring two church friends who sing in my choir. I'm thinking, after seeing this, every choir director in the world is going to wish they had such creative souls to work with!

Thanks, guys. :-) Fantastic!

Quasi-Niebuhrian moment

2009-06-30T18:11:00.005-05:00

There's some intersection of Christ and culture here, but I can't quite put my finger on it. :-)

Hat tip to my friend Erik!

Edited to add: having trouble with the embedding? Try this link instead.

Friday Five: play that funky music, white girl

2009-06-26T07:41:00.006-05:00

Mary Beth of the RevGals writes:

The sad news of Michael Jackson's untimely death has me thinking about music and its effects on us - individually, as cultures, as generations. Let's think about the soundtracks of our lives...

1) What sort of music did you listen to as a child - this would likely have been determined or influenced by your parents? Or perhaps your family wasn't musical...was the news the background? the radio? Singing around the piano?

Mmmm...earliest memories include my Close-n-Play, guitar lessons, hearing my mom's accordion ("Lady of Spain," anyone?) all through the house, and looking forward all week to music class at school. Mrs. Ewald, my teacher, was really creative about getting us "hands on" with a variety of instruments, and we sang all the time. In fact, the first songs I ever really took notice of, listening to the words and how they fit with the music, I learned in music class. Here's one of them:

There's a land that I see where the children are free
And I say it ain't far to this land from where we are
Take my hand, come with me, where the children are free
Come with me, take my hand, and we'll live

In a land where the river runs free
In a land through the green country
In a land to a shining sea
And you and me are free to be you and me

Which says to me that I was a sort of utopian, social-justice oriented kid from w-a-y back, ready to be part of the Lesbian Musical Earnestness Wave, a la Indigo Girls, from age 7! :-)

2) Going ahead to teenage years, is there a song that says "high school" (or whatever it might've been called where you lived") to you?

So MANY. So much CHEESE. :-) The list is long and embarrassing. This is more 6th grade, really, but I remember dancing around my bedroom, singing into my Tickle deodorant, to this one. I was pretty sure that I'd grow up to be one of her backup singers.

3) What is your favorite music for a lift on a down day? (hint: go to www.pandora.com and type in a performer/composer...see what you come up with!)

Hmmm...again, LOTS.

Stevie Wonder--Sir Duke
Elton John--Tiny Dancer
Gustav Holst--finale from St. Paul's Suite
Aretha Franklin--Natural Woman
Indigo Girls--Get Out the Map
Beethoven--last few minutes of last movement of 9th Symphony ("Ode to Joy" part)
Billy Joel--Just the Way You Are
Captain & Tennille--Song of Joy (no link, sorry)
Patti LaBelle--Ready for a Miracle
Sarah McLachlan--Ordinary Miracle

And, of course, any really good choral music (soft spot for spirituals), cranked up LOUD. Beloved and I used to sing with this group, and had the privilege of singing this particular piece under the baton of its composer, in his guest stint with us. We had a group of friends sing it at our wedding.

4) Who is your favorite performer of all time?

There's been so much brilliant music...where do I begin? I love Jessye Norman's ability to completely mesmerize an audience; YoYo Ma's joy; the way music seeps from Bobby McFerrin's pores; the Indigo Girls' laid-back honesty; Bonnie Raitt, Lyle Lovett and Keb Mo's effortless cool and amazing musicianship, Aretha Franklin's willingness to leave everything on the stage. Basically, anyone with the chops to write a lyric that says something honestly and poetically, pair it with an evocative musical setting and present it unabashedly and artistically has something to offer that I want to hear. I can't possibly pick just one.

5) What is your favorite style of music for worship?

Almost all of them...from great, crashing organ music to soaring choirs to joyful Latin/African drums to gospel to one little kid lisping out "Jesus Loves Me" to jazz to Taize to a whole congregation cranked up on "Amazing Grace" to the sound of silence. I can't do a steady diet of vapid, simplistic stuff, and I don't really get the rap thing--but I'm willing to try almost anything once, as long as it points to God instead of itself and finds that taproot of reality and joy. I'll leave you with this:

What channel should I be watching?

2009-06-23T07:16:00.000-05:00

In order to find advertising like this, I mean? Good grief, it's an art piece! Lovely.

Hat tip to Philip Copeland at ChoralNet.

Ashes, ashes, we all fall down

2009-06-19T17:27:00.000-05:00

Andrew Sullivan--whose coverage of the Iran crisis has been terrific, BTW, posted this lovely morsel this morning. Check it out.

Choristers as citizens

2009-06-19T12:13:00.003-05:00

Thank you, CBS Sunday Morning, for this!

And, according to Chorus America, there are 10,000,000 more choral singers in the U.S. than there were in 2003.

Excellent trend!

Oh, and for more information, our local public radio station has a story.

Abomination

2009-06-19T07:58:00.001-05:00

Something occurred to me last night, as I was awaiting the Sandman, and it got me giggling uncontrollably.

The reason for the gathering I'd just posted about was the celebration of the 50th wedding anniversary of Beloved's parents. The five kids all put their heads together and decided that they'd cook the Big Dinner, and that it would be shrimp for the kids, and filet mignon with lobster tail for the adults. A pretty big splurge for this family; no one's got a lot of money, so it was a gift of love and honor for their folks.

And it was an abomination. Which means that the abominable playing field has now been leveled.

Mirth.

Verb: that's what's happening

2009-06-19T07:12:00.001-05:00

Jan of the RevGals writes:

Jennifer recommended this book, which I got because I always value Jennifer's reading suggestions. The author of Life is a Verb, Patti Digh worked her book around these topics concerning life as a verb:

Say yes.
Be generous.
Speak up.
Love more.
Trust yourself.
Slow down.

As I read and pondered about living more intentionally, I also have wondered what this Friday Five should be. This book has been the jumping off point for this Friday.

1. What awakens you to the present moment?

The pups are good at it--Linus has a special beagley "rowl," combined with a grin, that says "Get out of your head! Let's play!" Lucy hops up on the couch and curls her warm little body against me, as if to say, "Pet me, please. Mmmmm." It's great--they insist, in their delightfully individual ways, upon being heard, upon bringing me back into "now."

2. What are 5 things you see out your window right now?

Beautiful trees, a cardinal's nest, the neighbor kid on his way down the street, heavy clouds, a squirrel just managing to cross the street without being run over.

3. Which verbs describe your experience of God?

Open, offer, receive, trust, try, love.

4. From the book on p. 197:
Who were you when you were 13? Where did that kid go?

13? Oh, yuck. What a horrible year. I was studious, lonely, and insecure. My family was having trouble and I didn't yet know who I was. That kid is mostly grown up; she peeks around a corner from time to time, but her suffering has been eased.

5. From the book on p. 88:
If your work were the answer to a question, what would the question be?

Assuming we're talking about music here--what's the closest thing to play in your life? What absorbs you?

Bonus idea for you here or on your own--from the book on p. 149:
"Go outside. Walk slowly forward. Open your hand and let something fall into it from the sky. It might be an idea, it might be an object. Name it. Set it aside. Walk forward. Open your hand and let something fall into it from the sky. Name it. Set it aside. Repeat. . . ."

Raindrop. Ummm...another raindrop. :-)

Interstitial living

2009-06-18T14:19:00.005-05:00

So.

It's been a while since I've posted...sort of a "between time" for me. The end of May meant the end of the choral season, the end of the heavier church season, and a brief lull before a Big Event that marks the real beginning of summer for me (more on this below). I'd come to a point at which some re-evaluation was needed; I was beyond exhausted from the pace I'd been keeping, and needed some recovery time. In that interim, I also needed to do some serious thinking about the ways in which I spend my time...where my gifts are, where I'd like to put my energy. I didn't have a lot to say, blogolistically (?) speaking; was feeling the need to shut up and listen for a while.

And so I did. And it was good.

I've made some changes--spoken the truth about what I really want, to myself and--where needed--to others. I also did some difficult things I've been avoiding, and I'm feeling better.

One of the many changes that's come about recently is a new boss at my day job, and in our "getting to know you" meeting she described my role in our office as "interstitial." I loved that. First, because she has an interesting and creative vocabulary; second, because it's pretty apt. I move in the spaces between things. My job lives there, and I'm energized there. Besides which:

I joke about being a "BuddLutheran" because my deeply-rooted Lutheranism is seasoned by Zen, and the two are so different from one another.
I'm both a church geek and a lesbian; I live somewhere in between church culture and GLBT culture.
I'm a musician, a writer, a minister and a teacher, bouncing around those mini-vocations like a pinball.

I live in the spaces between. And so, I present (interstitially) the following, for fun; we'll be right back after this:

I heard a podcast of a rather terrific sermon on John 14 today, in which the preacher refused to try to neatly "resolve" her difficulties with the "I am the way" statement, in regard to the ways it has been used by Christians to perpetrate judgment and cruelties upon people of other faiths. She said instead,

I stand in front of you with fragments--
pieces of ideas I find compelling in relation to it--
but I cannot solve it...I prefer
to live it its interstices,
the hard places,
the ruptures that this text opens up.

She then presented several of those fragments, and they illuminated the text for me far more fully than any pat answer would have.

We stand with our fragments; sometimes, that's all we can do.

And there's that word again: interstices. The places between--between answers encased in smooth little shells, between rocks and hard places, between comfortable definitions, between "now" and "not yet," between, between, between.

I've begun to believe that this is where most of the good stuff is.

I spent a part of last week at a family reunion with Beloved's family...almost all of them. Most of them, I was meeting for the first time since Beloved and I got together 11 1/2 years ago.

It was illuminating.

Because, before last week, I thought that most of the barriers in our not-really-developing family relationships had to do with the fact that Beloved and I are gay, and together. I thought I was regarded as sort of the Evil Influence Upon their Treasured Youngest Daughter, and therefore persona non grata. I don't think that any more. It's perhaps a little piece of the puzzle, but by no means the whole thing.

I think we have the same problem that most people have. I think that what we have here is a failure to communicate. And much of that failure results from an unwillingness to even visit the interstices--places of doubt, of vulnerability, and so all we can do is carom off each other's hard little shells.

Don't get me wrong--it wasn't miserable or anything; some parts of the trip were quite nice, and I was glad to be included. That was a big step.

I'll approach this situation differently now. I'll try to help create some safe interstitial space between us, so that we can perhaps bridge the chasm. Maybe it's possible to build a little bit of trust with some of them.

At any rate, I'm going to try to be open to the possibility.

A gifted hymnwriter once told me about a song she was working on with her writing partner...they were arguing about one word in their new text based on Isaiah 2, a song about real and lasting peacemaking. They had the swords being changed into plowshares and the spears into pruning hooks and all that lovely imagery. There was a verse in which they re-stated the lowering of "sword and spear," and she wanted to change "spear" for "shield."

Because, as she said to me, true peacemaking requires vulnerability. True peacemaking sometimes requires a solitary walk across the interstitial space between two armies, in order to shake the hand of the other side's representative.

I'm wandering with my fragments, looking for that space. And it feels good.

The importance of the right spokesperson

2009-06-02T16:26:00.001-05:00

'Cause if this was a conversation between Bert & Ernie, it would have smacked of "agenda."

Bwa ha ha...

Music on a budget

2009-05-26T07:56:00.000-05:00

Read what my new friend, halfway around the world, has written. Hear her. It could change your whole way of being in the world--not all at once, but note by note.

Every time you choose to approach music as a practitioner instead of a consumer, you feed your soul. I kid you not. "Talent" has so little to do with it; it's about joy!

Twitterplation

2009-05-24T14:33:00.001-05:00

There's an interesting conversation going on at Search the Sea (and a couple of other linked sites) about Twitter and worship; check it out!

The case for working with your hands

2009-05-22T15:01:00.000-05:00

This is interesting. It's got lots of important themes:

human agency
the importance of failure
location in a community
what makes a "good job"

Give him a listen!

Friday five: getting the heck out of Dodge

2009-05-22T10:42:00.007-05:00

Mary Beth of the RevGals suggests, "Let's think about VACATIONS! I certainly am!"

1) What did your family do for vacations when you were a child? Or did you have stay-cations at home?

Fishing. Dad loves to fish; Mom's a fan, too. Often, Saturday DAY trips would start at 5 a.m. with a drive into Neighboring Cheese-oriented State, a day of fishing, and a return home after midnight. My sister and I were mostly resigned to this; I've always loved to read, so I got a LOT of reading done on those trips!

2) Tell us about your favorite vacation ever:

Two stories--

There's a small, family-run, 3-cabin resort in the northern middle of Neighboring Cheese-oriented State; various members of my dad's side of the family have been spending vacation time there since the 1930s. (It's on a "rent a cabin for the summer" basis now, so I haven't been there in a couple of decades. Bwaaa.) My family went, the summer between my junior and senior years of high school, and I got to bring Lori, my best friend. We (still!) have the sort of friendship in which we can find fun in a trip to the grocery store. A solid week together was fantastic; being at the lake with the swimming and the boating and the hiking and the canasta games and the chocolate-covered peanuts = fun, not to be measured with existing technology.

And then there's that whole "honeymoon" thing--Beloved and I got married, two Octobers ago. Immediately afterward, we spent a few days at a lake house belonging to friends, which was a welcome respite. Lovely and still. A month later, we went to Chicago for a long weekend--great pizza, great art, great theater, gorgeous hotel, terrific wife. WONDERFUL.

3) What do you do for a one-day or afternoon getaway...is there a place nearby that you escape to on a Saturday afternoon/other day off?

There's a lovely town on the nearby Very Big River...including fun shops and several lovely B&Bs, as well as its proximity to two excellent state parks.

Alternatively, the back yard hammock is good!

4) What's your best recommendation for a full-on vacation near you...what would you suggest to someone coming to your area? (Near - may be defined any way you wish!)

Our Major Metropolis is so full of world-class music, theater & art, good food, great parks, sports teams...there's something for every taste. Truly--it's hard to justify leaving it for a vacation somewhere else!

5) What's your DREAM VACATION?

I'm thinking we should start in Norway and make our way south. It would take a while, and also a chunk of change:

fjords and the culture of my rellies
Iona Community
London--significant stopover
German/Austrian music (and some Eastern European choral music) and the culture of Beloved's rellies
Paris--the obvious
Italy--eating our way through Tuscany, stopping in Rome for some history
Greece--continuing with the history, and ending up on a beach by some Very Blue Water before we come home

Bonus: Any particularly awful vacation stories that you just have to tell? ("We'll laugh about this later..." maybe that time is now!)

Oh, four or five leap to mind. The one I'll share happened when I was about five years old, and my sister was a toddler. My dad had borrowed his brother's tent and camping gear, and we were going to have our first family camping trip. It was early summer, nice and warm out, good weather forecast. Well, we arrived at the campsite, my folks got stuff set up and, just as Dad was pounding the last tent stake, Mom looked up to see my sister heading for the lake, full speed ahead. I'll sum up the rest of the weekend with these important points:

There was no beach. At the shoreline, the water was 6 feet deep.
Mari went for it. Mom jumped in after her.
Mom can't swim. Dad jumped in and fished both of them out, just as the sun was going down.
It got down to 25 degrees that night.
We packed up and went to the Holiday Inn in the morning.

I was the only person who'd had any fun at all camping, but the area chipmunks also seemed pleased when I shared my nutritious breakfast with them:

In addition to its 100% of minimum daily requirements of vitamins and iron, it was a great big bowl full of delicious camping metaphor.

Be the change you wish to see

2009-05-19T17:25:00.005-05:00

My denomination, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, will gather this August for our biannual Churchwide Assembly, taking place right here in my hometown. At this Assembly, the voting members will decide whether or not to adopt a recently-completed Social Statement on issues of sexuality. They will also be called upon to decide about some resolutions around the place of GLBT folks in the Body of Christ, with regard to ordination and blessing of same-gender relationships. I posted an analysis here when all were revealed in February.

I'm hopeful that there will be real and open conversation, as opposed to frustration, fear and finger-pointing. We're off to a pretty good start, from what I'm hearing.

To that end, Beloved and I have been part of a project that aims to tell the stories of people directly affected by these issues within our church. The participants here don't intend to argue scripture or doctrine, nor to label those on the other side of the "fence." Instead, we simply tell our stories as loving, Christ-following people who are geared toward same-gender relationships, or as pastors and family members of GLBT folks.

We're not scary. We're not Extra-Sinful. We're not hedonists, any more than our straight brothers and sisters can be so called en masse. And we're already part of the the Body of Christ. As one couple in the book describes it,

Both John and I attend these debate forums they have at synod assemblies.
We listen to some people talk using terminology such as
‘the gay lifestyle’ and ‘those gays’ and ‘them’
without knowing we’re sitting in the room right with them.
They talk like they’re authorities
when they have no clue about our lives or our relationships.
We work our butts off, take care of our family,
go to church, knit,
and fall asleep before the ten o’clock news is on.
That’s the gay lifestyle.

That made me laugh, because it's so representative of my life, too--well, except for the knitting part.

Read our story here (#9). Share it with anyone in your life who might be helped by hearing it, or any of the others in the book. If you are able and so inclined, provide a little bit of financial support to the committee that put it together.

Most importantly, invite a conversation with someone who sees these issues through a different lens than yours, whether or not either or both of you are churchgoers. Be open. Be respectful. Cultivate trust and understanding instead of hollering and name-calling.

Let's unbolt the doors we've slammed in one another's faces.

If you're wondering why marriage is important to us GLBT folks...Part The Second

2009-05-19T09:23:00.004-05:00

I posted one reason last week. Here is another. Particularly harrowing to me is the fact that they had done everything right--got legal proxy paperwork done, etc.--and it wasn't enough.

Please, can we fix this?

Best retriever EVER

2009-05-18T18:23:00.000-05:00

Wonder if I could get Linus & Lucy to do this...instead of, say, the not-quite-dead rabbit they slipped into the kitchen last night.

Yech.

see more dog and puppy pictures

Dammit, Jim, I'm a blogger

2009-05-18T07:53:00.000-05:00

I'm not a Trekkie, but I play one in this post.

First, I must cop to this: I have Shatner issues. Blasphemy, perhaps, but there it is. I liked TNG, and have seen some of the movies (thought "Nemesis" was pretty interesting). I know what a "red shirt" is, what a "tribble" is, and get the basic Kirk/Spock dynamic.

But we went to see the new movie, and I LOVED it. Seriously loved it. Clapped-like-a-second-grader-over-the-closing-credits loved it. This guy has said it so well, I need not say it all again. But read him. He's funny!

Live long and prosper...and go see the movie.

Mompriest meets Katie Couric: an interview with the Revgals

2009-05-18T07:30:00.001-05:00

Mompriest had a fun idea, so I thought I'd play along. Here goes!

1. Where do you blog?

In our office/family room/guest room, for the most part; our Mac is at the center of the room, which is usually fairly quiet, but for the neighbor boys' ongoing basketball game in the next driveway, and the continuing orbit of my pups.

2. What are your favorite non-revgal blog pal blogs?

For random musings and civilized, smart political discourse (with which I often disagree, but the way they write makes conversation possible, and I really like that):

James Lileks' Bleat
Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish
my friend the Neomugwump

For political musings with which I generally do agree, as well as lots of techie goodness, I visit Mary Hess at Tensegrities.

For deeply spiritual storytelling, go to Gordon at Real Live Preacher.

Philip Copeland writes and syndicates lots of interesting choral music stuff at ChoralBlog, and from an instrumental perspective, Sam & Sarah at InsidetheClassics.

For background content to my favorite NPR program, Krista Tippett's wonderful Speaking of Faith, I go to SOFObserved.

Oh, and for pictorial hilarity, you can't beat the LOLCATS and dogs...and celebrities...

3. What gives you joy?

Sleepy/cuddly puppies, Beloved's smile, choir rehearsal, prose/poetry/music that manage to be both substantive and beautifully written, a cozy dinner with friends, a shady hammock on a sunny afternoon, my congregation singing their hearts out.

4. What is your favorite sound?

See the end of #3; the sound the pups make when they wake up, lapping waves, chirping birds, the word "hello" from someone I love.

5. What do you hope to hear once you enter the pearly gates?

Welcome home. Choir rehearsal is down the hall; the puppy meadow is out back; the library's in that building over there. There's a line of people who want to see you when you've had a minute to sit down and here's a tall, icy diet Coke.

6. You have up to 15 words, what would you put on your tombstone?

I'm thinking of an Oliver Wendell Holmes' quote:

Alas for those that never sing, but die with all their music in them!

7. Write the first sentence of your own great American novel.

She yawned, stretched, opened her eyes and leapt out of bed: today was the day.

8. What color do you prefer your pen?

Green felt tip, an increasingly rare animal. Beloved just scored a box of them for me! Woo hoo!

9. What magazines do you subscribe too?

Christian Century, The Advocate, National Geographic...and I read Time and Newsweek online.

10. What is something you want to achieve in this decade?

Retire a big chunk of debt! Not sexy, but it'd be a lovely thing, free-time-wise...

11. Why are you cool?

(laughing) Because I'm not, and I think I'm really OK with that.

12. What is one of your favorite memories?

I've already talked about the Big Ones in this blog (wedding, arrival of puppies, concerts), so I'm going with a simple one: a family vacation at the lake, the summer after junior year of high school. Lori (best friend) came along. We laughed more that week...

13. Anything else you've always wanted to be asked?

You should be spending more time creatively; can I hire you a personal chef/trainer/financial manager/housekeeper/assistant?

:-)

Deliver us

2009-05-17T12:19:00.008-05:00

I feel like Miriam today.

A variety of forces have been at work on me this week, bringing me through a difficult season and into a new peace. It culminated this morning at church: my choir outdid themselves; our larger community baptized Owen into the faith; we celebrated our graduates. We sang "Come, Lord Jesus--send us your Spirit; renew the face of the earth" and "Jesus loves me: this I know." And Wonderful Colleague drenched us (homiletically speaking) with great, dripping buckets of grace. He quoted two other wise souls, in so doing:

The arc of history is bent toward justice. --Martin Luther King, Jr.

The arc of the gospel is bent toward inclusion. --Walter Brueggemann

And so, it was a strange time for this phrase to jump out and smack me on the forehead while we prayed:

Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

Deliver us. Whatever it takes. Whether or not we know how much we need it.

Deliverance sometimes comes in a pillar of fire or a parting of the waves. More often, though, it's a messy, protracted business--often arriving just as we are truly tiring of the company of its advance party, Mssrs. Discomfort and Doubt.

Deliverance can be as sensational as a near-drowning, or as mundane as our pesky brother Moses continually clearing his throat in the corner of the room. But one thing is constant: it's born of a truth that insists on being heard, whether we really want to deal with it or--most likely-- not.

Deliverance comes when we muster the courage to bear witness to deep truth: by telling, by hearing, by doing. By not bowing down to our assumptions, especially when they exist to keep other people safely classifiable and under our control.

Like many of you, I've been blessed and privileged to bear witness to Cecilia's journey over the last year or so. This extraordinary woman has had a big week, coming out to her congregation and basically everyone she knows. And now she has been delivered from the burden of secrecy and some fear of the unknown, born into a new understanding of God's love and her own courage. Her congregation has likewise been delivered (whether or not they all know it yet) as she has invited them to a take another look at her, and at what they truly believe about the core meaning of life in the body of Christ.

In the last week, I, too, have been delivered from an aspect of anger and fear. It hasn't been as dramatic as Cecilia's story, but hey, any true deliverance is gracious and powerful. God kept on gently (and finally, more firmly...like Professor Dumbledore's mugs of butterbeer knocking at the Dursley's heads when they rudely refused his hospitality) prodding me to take a deeper look at a couple of challenging situations in my life. It was uncomfortable. Some repentance was required of me. That's well and good. Because I, too, have been just a little bit more fully delivered now, having inched farther along the arc of justice and inclusion in my own life. It isn't dramatic. It's incremental and incomplete, but it's real.

I often ask my choir, as I did today, to make arcs of melody that have an origin, a sweep, a peak and a falling away...arcs that sometimes intersect and hold the music aloft like this. The sweep and swoosh of the arcs are moments of fullest life: of awareness and, sometimes, of deliverance--whether you're the singer or the listener.

I'm awed.

I'm grateful to God for the unending canticle of deliverance, and pray that we may all continue to listen for it, and to try, as much as we can, to sing it in tune.

If you're wondering why marriage is important to us GLBT folks...

2009-05-15T18:45:00.000-05:00

this is just one of the reasons why.

Short theologians at dinner

2009-05-11T18:23:00.000-05:00

Repentance from the sin of heterosexism

2009-05-11T08:33:00.001-05:00

My friend Mary has a wonderful post today, with compelling links, that suggests a fresh angle of approach to the conversation around GLBT lovin'. Terrific stuff.

Need to add a shout-out to Sarcastic Lutheran for a stellar sermon on Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch: similar song, different melody. Wow!

Life at my house

2009-05-11T07:56:00.000-05:00

Perhaps the best argument against the closet EVER

2009-05-10T13:49:00.003-05:00

Being What God Means Us To Be
--Thomas Merton

A tree gives glory to God by being a tree.
For in being what God means it to be it is obeying [God].
It 'consents,' so to speak, to [God's] creative love.

It is expressing an idea which is in God
and which is not unique from the essence of God,
and therefore a tree imitates God by being a tree.

The more a tree is like itself, the more it is like God.
If it tried to be something else which it was never intended to be,
it would be less like God, and it would therefore give [God] less glory...

This particular tree will give glory to God
by spreading out its roots in the earth
and raising its branches into the air and the light
in a way that no other tree before it or after it did or will do...

The special clumsy beauty of this particular colt
on this particular April day
in this field
under these clouds
is a holiness consecrated to God by [God's] own creative wisdom
and it declares the glory of God.

The pale flowers of the dogwood outside this window are saints.
The little yellow flowers that nobody notices on the edge of that road
are saints looking up into the face of God.
This leaf has its own texture
and its own pattern of veins
and its own holy shape,
and the bass and trout
hiding in the deep pools of the river
are canonized by their beauty and their strength.

The lakes hidden among the hills are saints
and the sea too is a saint
who praises God without interruption in her majestic dance.

The great, gashed, half-naked mountain is another of God's saints.
There is no other like him.
He is alone in his own character;
nothing else in the world ever did
or ever will
imitate God in quite the same way.
That is his sanctity.

But what about you?
What about me?

Seriously. That's as close to the truth as I can get. When people suggest that I should have chosen to repress my gayness, this is the heart of my answer. Because to try to be other than what I am would be a distortion of what God created, when what's called for is a way to humbly honor God's truth in me as I understand it.

Oh, and a postscript to InVocation's concert weekend, to which I referred in my last post: it went very well. We had fun, the music was good, $ were raised for charity. It's really a gift to get to do this.

Despite the fact that yesterday, Beloved came home from tae kwon do using a cane. (I kid you not!)

I'm going to go and mow the lawn now. Continue to pray for me, please. ;-)

Playing injured

2009-05-08T17:05:00.000-05:00

So...it's May, 2007.

The choir brought to birth so patiently and lovingly by the efforts of a truly exceptional bunch of people is about to sing its first spring concert season (we're excited, because the Christmas season went well!). The Wednesday before our first concert, my phone rings. It's the wife of one of our two tenors, calling from his hospital room. He's just had an emergency appendectomy. He's doing well, but you can guess where my head went next. Our concert is three days away, and this guy represents exactly half of one voice part.

Can you believe, he SANG the concert, plus the three that followed? Medal of Valor to him.

Fast forward. In the next three times around the track, our group of 12-14 people has had the following maladies occur within a week of the first concert of the season:

broken ankle
broken wrist (on the alto with a recorder solo)
virus resulting in complete laryngitis

Not to mention another member's discovery (and subsequent treatment) of cancer.

All of them--ALL of them--rallied. They did everything possible to sing/play the concerts; barstools, casts, pain meds, slings (and don't even get me started about the accompanying "arrows of outrageous fortune!"). And the rest of the group comes through for them by learning extra voice parts so that we have coverage.

There is much joking about the InVocation Curse, and we've been considering a traveling trophy (and maybe a supplemental insurance policy of some kind!).

I wonder how Chanticleer and Cantus manage this; they're our size or smaller, and divide into at least as many voice parts as we do. (Perhaps I'll e-mail and ask them! If any of you choral types out there have wisdom to share, please do so!) Not to mention the million smaller groups out there.

Anyway, we had two concerts last weekend. We finish this season with one more tonight and one tomorrow night, along with a church service beforehand. And now what, you ask?

Yesterday, one tenor had a fever of 101; another got HIT BY A CAR. (He's OK, but left part of his face on the street, and is referring to himself as the Phantom of the Opera.) Both are planning to sing.

As a director and fellow singer, I'm grateful to these amazing people for their willingness to tough it out. And I hope it's clear to them that I'm aware that it costs them something to do so. And I hope that they take good care of themselves, and don't push beyond what's healthy for them. And I wonder where the line is, and how to care for both "the needs of the many and the needs of the one," especially an injured one.

And I ask you, is it too much to ask that this good-hearted group of people get ONE concert season in which no one gets sick or hurt? This is not a full-contact sport; usually, pads and helmets are not required choral equipment. And there aren't that many of us--statistically and karmically, I think we've got one healthy season coming.

Right? Seriously?

I do so love my peeps, and wish them well--on SO many levels. :-)

Friday five: there's a hole in the bucket, dear Liza, dear Liza; let's plug it with money

2009-04-24T07:04:00.001-05:00

Singing Owl of the RevGals writes:

I wrote this Friday Five a while back but was unable to post it. Just saying, so you know I am not ill! :-) Actually I am heading out of town and will not be able to read your posts till sometime early next week, but I'll do so then. Have fun, and don't think too hard about this one. I figured we were due for some fun after Lent and Good Friday and Easter and all that churchy stuff! Four days of being mostly in bed with a reallyhowever, has been cheated in my case and I am up and taking nourishment. In that vein of thought, do you have a "Bucket List"? In other words, from the movie of the same name, five things you want to see, do, accomplish, etc. before you kick the bucket?

This is a biiiig bucket. :-)

Get legally married, knowing that we'll have the same rights and protections as any other couple as we age in the state where we live. Things are starting to look promising as momentum builds across the country!

Go back to seminary: maybe chaplaincy, maybe full ordination. If ordination, focus on homiletics. Learn to read Biblical Greek & Hebrew.

See a sunrise over the Grand Canyon, leaf-peep in New England, sail through the Fjords of Norway, dogsled on the Alaskan Glaciers, go on a "culture spree" in NYC, see the ancient wonders of Rome, eat my way through Tuscany, hear great German music in person, and lie on the beaches of the Mediterranean. Hmmm... and maybe, once, Christmas in London--including Lessons & Carols at King's College, a pilgrimage to Aldeburgh and time at Iona, while I'm in the neighborhood.

Keep my choirs growing and healthy. Keep challenging myself as a conductor. Learn to play trombone & bassoon, and spend some time in a community orchestra (playing one of those or taking up cello again, with Lori as my stand partner), just for the fun of it. Maybe conduct one.

Suffer a near-miss with a big bag of money falling from the sky. Though it won't fall on my head and kill me, it WILL make possible all of the above, as well as a quiet spot on a lakeshore to call our own, with regular time:

to be with Beloved and watch her create things
to read
to hang out with our pups
to write music and poetry (maybe publish something?)
to just be in nature

Calling all chorolocovores

2009-04-21T06:36:00.001-05:00

Food shelves are having a tough go of it, at the moment. Demand is way up; locations are down. So, Minneapolitans, here's an opportunity for you to help.

InVocation, my choir, lives by Frederick Buechner's definition of vocation: where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet. We're spending the first two weekends of May concertizing to raise money for Second Harvest Heartland. It's a great investment; for every $1 we raise, Second Harvest can distribute $9 worth of food.

It's a good deal, and it's an important time to help food shelves. So come on out to one of our concerts; we're doing some terrific music:

the world premiere of a new work entitled “Invocation,” written for us by Montana composer Thomas Keesecker, and based on a traditional Navajo prayer
psalm settings by Bobby McFerrin and Carol Barnett
a buoyant Hebrew peace prayer arranged by Alice Parker
Christian music from Hugo Distler and Francis Poulenc (four of St. Francis’ prayers, set for men’s voices)
settings of the poetry of Rumi and Rilke by local composer J. David Moore
Gustav Holst’s Choral Hymns from the Rig Veda (Hindu prayers arranged for women’s voices) with harpist Tonya Anderson
chants from the Brazilian rainforest, the Buddhist tradition, and a Japanese temple song

The program, "The Beauty We Love," is based on some of the writings of 13th-century Muslim mystic poet Rumi:

If you think that there’s an important difference
between a Muslim and a Jew
and a Christian and a Buddhist
and a Hindu and a Shamanist,
then you’re making a division
between your heart
— what you love with —
and your ability to act in the world.

Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

So, come on out to a concert if you can. Feed the hungry...and maybe get a little fed, yourself! Hope to see you there:

Saturday, May 2 @ 7 pm
St. Joseph’s Catholic Parish
13015 Rockford Rd
Plymouth
[ map ]

Sunday, May 3 @ 4 pm
Calvary Lutheran Church
3901 Chicago Avenue South
Minneapolis
[ map ]

Friday, May 8 @ 7:30 pm
Macalester Plymouth United Church
1658 Lincoln Ave
St. Paul
[ map ]

Saturday, May 9 @ 7 pm
Shepherd of the Valley Lutheran Church
12650 Johnny Cake Ridge Rd
Apple Valley

[ map ]

Wow

2009-04-20T17:38:00.000-05:00

Thanks, Frank Rich.

The Colbert Report and same-sex marriage

2009-04-17T08:29:00.002-05:00

Freakin' BRILLIANT. Seriously. Laughed my butt off.

The Colbert Report

Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

The Colbert Coalition's Anti-Gay Marriage Ad

colbertnation.com

Colbert Report Full Episodes

Political Humor

NASA Name Contest

Friday five: it slices! It dices! It even makes julienne fries!

2009-04-17T07:38:00.008-05:00

Sally of the RevGals writes:

As I write this I am waiting for my new dishwasher to be delivered, it along with my washing machine and vacuum cleaner are household appliances that I consider indispensable! Others not so much, we decided not to replace our tumble drier when the old one finally gave out last year, and I can honestly say I haven't really missed it. My hubby Tim and I often disagree about which household appliances are really necessary and which ones aren't, we also enjoy a few luxury items, one of my favorites is a juicer, and Tim's is our all-singing-all-dancing filter coffee maker--it has a thermos jug so the coffee stays nice and hot without the aid of a heat element.

So being in a domestic frame of mind I thought I'd ask:

1. What is the one appliance you simply couldn't be without?

I live in Minnesota. This is, in part, because I prefer being cold to being too hot. But August...well, as they say around here, "It's not the heat; it's the humidity." YECH. And so...our bedroom air conditioner gets my vote here.

Because a Choralgirl that sleeps through the night is much more rational and pleasant than a Choralgirl that sweats and swears her way through the 2-4 a.m. period.

Oh, and we've got a George Foreman grill that's not going ANYWHERE. Panini...mmmmmm.

2. What, if anything, would you happily give up?

The 1000 mysterious gizmos that clutter the kitchen cabinets.

3. What is the strangest household appliance you own?

A vaporizer shaped like a penguin.

4. What is the most luxurious household appliance you own?

When we had a housemate, our (rather small) refrigerator was always stuffed beyond usefulness. So we got a mini-fridge for beverages and tucked it under the counter. Best. Idea. Ever. Buy soda in bulk (cheaply), stock the little fridge, and there's always one cold. And it's possible to always have beer and a couple of bottles of wine in there, too...as they would have said in the sixties (on TV), "It makes entertaining a breeze!"

5. Tell us about your dream kitchen--the sky is the limit here...

It has beautiful wood cabinetry, is sunny, and is staffed by Padma Lakshmi, full-time. ;-) Nah--just kidding. Actually, ours is very nice--it's big and colorful, it's sunny, and it is occasionally staffed by my Beloved, who is lovely and gifted in the kitchen.

But I'm only partly kidding about the personal chef. We're always on the run; it'd be terrific to have someone whose raison d'etre (at least professionally) was to provide us with fresh, healthy meals! FAB. I'm just too adept at eating fast food in the car.

This just in from the Lake Wobegon Genome Project

2009-04-06T12:07:00.002-05:00

Yesterday morning, I was sitting in the church office, proofreading the Easter bulletin, when a bunch of Sunday schoolers trooped by on their way to the sanctuary. They were going to practice processing, waving palms and singing "All Glory, Laud and Honor." All of a sudden, I was given a glimpse of Lutheran DNA in action when one of the little sprouts expressed an earnest concern to his/her teacher:

I don't know if I can do this.
They want me to sing and smile at the same time.

Had a difficult time not anointing the bulletin proof with a mouthful of coffee.

Blessed Holy Week, everyone!

A crisis is a terrible thing to waste

2009-04-03T17:32:00.001-05:00

That came from Majora Carter, as told to Krista Tippett in Speaking of Faith's ongoing conversation entitled Repossessing Virtue--Wise Voices from Religion, Science, Industry and the Arts. In this excellent, thought-provoking series, Krista and her staff are gathering perspectives on our current economic crisis, it's moral overtones, and what to do about it. I find it a fascinating kind of reframing. One of my favorite ideas came from Rachel Naomi Remen; I've synopsized it here:

Money is stored energy.
Energy follows belief.
We need to be careful what we believe.
This crisis is an opportunity to create a new story about who we want to be, as individuals and as a society.

LOVE that. I'll be walking around with it for the next little while, I think.

Friday five: Holy Week-a-thon

2009-04-03T07:42:00.001-05:00

Sally of the RevGals writes:

Holy Week is almost upon us, I suspect that ordained or not, other revgal/pals calendars look a bit like mine, FULL, FULL, FULL.....

Jesus was great at teaching us to take time out, even in that last week, right up to Maundy Thursday he withdrew, John's gospel tells us he hid! He hid not because he was afraid, but because he knew that he needed physical, mental and spiritual strength to get through...

So, faced with a busy week:

1. What restores you physically?

Sleep. Quiet time. Good food. A brisk walk around one of the many lakes in town.

2. What strengthens you emotionally/mentally?

Time with Beloved. Poetry. Music (of which there will, thankfully, be a lot). Rubbing a puppy belly.

3. What encourages you spiritually?

Prayer. Music (see what my friend Mags has to say about this; it's wonderful!). Poetry. Walking in the woods or by the shore (though I usually can't manage that during Holy Week!).

4. Share a favorite poem or piece of music from the coming week.

This is a favorite hymn of mine because the plaintive melody is so well matched with the text. I'm an especial fan of the Carolyn Jennings's arrangement for SSA voices and cello, but her colleague (and my teacher...actually, both of them were in grad school) John Ferguson's arrangement is great, too. Here he is, accompanying it at the organ:

5.There may be many services for you to attend/ lead over the next week, which one are you most looking forward to and why? If there aren't do you have a favorite day in Holy week if so which one is it?

I'm a Maundy Thursday fan. It's intimate and honest, and it calls us into relationship with God and with one another in a refreshing way. Our service this year will be candlelit, in the round, with the bread and wine passed hand to hand instead of lining up for it. Simple Taize refrains by the congregation, and I'm going to sing this hymn that Bonhoeffer wrote in prison:

By gracious powers so wonderfully sheltered,
and confidently waiting come what may,
we know that God is with us night and morning,
and never fails to greet us each new day.

Yet is this heart by its old foe tormented
still evil days bring burdens hard to bear;
oh, give our frightened souls the sure salvation
for which, O Lord, You taught us to prepare.

And when this cup You give is filled to brimming
with bitter suffering, hard to understand,
we take it thankfully and without trembling,
out of so good and so beloved a hand.

Yet when again in this same world You give us
the joy we had, the brightness of Your Sun,
we shall remember all the days we lived through,
and our whole life shall then be Yours alone.

Daily grin

2009-03-31T06:57:00.000-05:00

What the...

2009-03-27T17:57:00.001-05:00

I could be wrong about this, of course, but aren't institutions of higher learning supposed to support and elevate discourse...to value the exchange of ideas and to learn to live within their inherent tensions? To make us better thinkers and citizens, able to debate without lobbing grenades at one another?

What's all the fuss, Notre Dame?

Transgendered in Zimbabwe

2009-03-27T11:50:00.003-05:00

I don't know how to even begin to imagine what life must be like for Tawanda. It's a terrifying story.

Robert Mugabe is dangerous to Zimbabwe's GLBT community, as evidenced by the combination of his power and his views on homosexuality:

...degrades human dignity. It's unnatural and there is no question ever of allowing these people to behave worse than dogs and pigs. If dogs and pigs do not do it, why must human beings? We have our own culture, and we must re-dedicate ourselves to our traditional values that make us human beings...what we are being persuaded to accept is sub-animal behavior and we will never allow it here. If you see people parading themselves as lesbians and gays, arrest them and hand them over to the police!

Bigotry breeds violence--if not in the bigot himself, certainly in some part of his sphere of influence. And a significant component of Mugabe's legacy in Zimbabwe is violent repression.

This is tragic.

Better than coffee and bars...

2009-03-26T18:39:00.004-05:00

...is this book, which I began reading today. If you Lutherans out there have ever found yourselves intimidated by theological jargon, consider this definition:

Angel
Divine beings, heavenly servants of God, know as purveyors of godly messages, such as recipes for light and delicious food--cake and impossibly fine pasta, or the somewhat rougher traditions of motorcycle fellowship.

There's a longer exegesis (a word which, sadly, they neglected to define) of the topic, a portion of which won my undying esteem:

In art angels are most often depicted with wings upon the back--sometimes two, sometimes six--but it should be noted that in the Bible, most often do not have wings and seem to appear much like people...if you're wondering whether the six-winged angel flies faster than the other varieties, the answer is no, as two wings are used for flying and the other four to cover eyes and ensure decency (Isaiah 6:2). (Now, whether a laden or unladen angel makes better time remains a separate matter.)

This caused a bit of a spew, as I was reading while eating chicken soup. Consider also:

Justice
A condition that most people desire for themselves, claim never to get, and have no interest in granting to their neighbors.

and

Free Will
The belief--which you have no choice but to believe--that human beings are free to make their own choices.

Gentle Reader. Buy this book. You KNOW you could use a laugh. Or thirty. I leave you with these thoughts:

"Corrective" rape

2009-03-26T07:36:00.000-05:00

Yep. That's what they're calling it. How do we help fix this?

Because the idea that a woman would be "cured" from lesbianism by getting raped...well, I don't know where to BEGIN to discuss how many things are wrong with that.

I'm angry.

Turn that frown upside down

2009-03-25T06:58:00.001-05:00

I dare you not to smile. I double-dog dare you!

Surround sound

2009-03-24T17:36:00.000-05:00

Love this ad, found through CurrentConductor's blog.

And, oh my, what an interesting discussion here about the Whitacre phenomenon! Not just the post, which is thought-provoking, but the comments as well. I'd be curious to hear from anyone who was at his Minneapolis appearance last week...what do you think? I particularly like what commenter Philip had to say about not condescending to young people. About Whitacre, I think he's written a couple of lovely pieces (had a particularly powerful experience hearing his Lux Aurumque once), but he is a bit overhyped. I'm inherently suspicious of any cultural phenomenon at the center of such a splendid marketing machine. I will be interested to see what his next chapter is as a composer.

To err is human

2009-03-19T17:30:00.001-05:00

If you've ever directed or sung in a choir, you're familiar with the difficulties associated with certain consonants. For example, a little bit of "S" goes a very long way. An "L" can smudge into the vowels that precede or follow it, distorting both vowel and pitch. And, what has become my personal favorite, the dreaded "R." It has a way of overstaying its welcome, adding a saber-like edge to certain words.

It is a tradition in my choir to celebrate International Talk Like a Pirate Day on September 19. In rehearsal, we sing whatever anthem we're preparing for the following Sunday as if we were pirates. The first time we did this, it was "If Ye Love Me," a Renaissance motet by Thomas Tallis. You'll have to use your imagination a bit here, but mentally stick a bunch of "arrrrs" in this:

High (seas) hilarity ensued. It has become something of a running joke with us. Last night, I was presented with a gift by my tenors and basses:

Thanks, me hearties. I'll nae be sendin' ye to Davy Jones' locker. Salmagundi and grog's on me!

Yer cap'n,
Anne Bonny

Bonus and malus

2009-03-19T08:02:00.000-05:00

I love words. I respect people who use them carefully and elegantly. Our excellent local soprano Maria Jette does just that--with insight and humor--in this commentary on the AIG debacle. Check it out!

The task of our generation

2009-03-18T06:51:00.000-05:00

I was listening to a fascinating podcast of the most recent Bill Moyers Journal. His guest is Karen Armstrong, a former Roman Catholic nun turned Islamic scholar and author of several bestsellers on religious themes (more info available here).

When she was researching her recent book The Bible: a Biography, a question formed in her mind: what if the Golden Rule were the lens used in interpreting scripture?

Well, this is one of the things that really intrigued me: how frequently the early rabbis, for example, in the Talmudic period, shortly after the death of Jesus, insisted that to any interpretation of scripture that read hatred or contempt for any single human being was illegitimate.

Rabbi Hillel, the older contemporary of Jesus, said that when asked to sum up the whole of Jewish teaching, while he stood on one leg, said, "The Golden Rule. That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the Torah. And everything else is only commentary. Now, go and study it."

St. Augustine said that scripture teaches nothing but charity. And if you come to a passage like the one you just read, that seems to preach hatred, you've got to give it an allegorical or metaphorical interpretation. And make it speak of charity.

Shades of Deuteronomy and the synoptic Gospels!

He answered,
‘You shall love the Lord your God
with all your heart,
and with all your soul,
and with all your strength,
and with all your mind;
and your neighbor as yourself.’
--Luke 10:27

Last year she received the TED prize, which grants $100,000 and a wish. Karen's wish was for "help with the creation, launch and propagation of a Charter for Compassion--crafted by a group of inspirational thinkers from the three Abrahamic traditions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and based on the fundamental principle of the Golden Rule."

She's getting her wish. Check it out.

The task of our generation,
whether we are religious people
or secular people,
is to build a global community
where people of all persuasions
can live together
in peace and harmony.

--Karen Armstrong

Little girly gesture language

2009-03-17T18:14:00.003-05:00

I sang, at one point, for a (long-term substitute) conductor who did a lot of talking about how our choir needed to learn his "gesture language" if we were to follow him correctly. Every rehearsal, he used that phrase at least once, often accompanied by a sort of wilted clawing motion of his right hand. It became something of a running joke in the alto section; after all, isn't it HIS job to make himself clear? If he's not getting what he wants, shouldn't he try something else? As a conductor-in-training at that time, I was skeptical of what I perceived to be a rather whiny approach to the ensemble and a too-narrow conducting "dialect" on his part. Shouldn't the conductor model, insofar as is possible, the geist of the music on the page, so that the singers may then do the same?

Well, yes. But.

Also, at various points in my career, I have sung for a few "colorful" (read "temperamental, sometimes downright abusive") conductors. You know the stereotype--hollering, baton-throwing, blaming the ensemble for not achieving his (yes, his) superior interpretive vision. Some of these guys were truly visionary; some were just socially impaired and/or insecure. All of them got in the way of my participation and enjoyment as a singer, to varying degrees.

For the most part, now that I've conducted a number of different groups myself, I still think it's true that the conductor bears most of the responsibility for communicating interpretation and vision clearly and succinctly. If my choirs don't get what I'm asking of them, I think it's incumbent upon me to take a fresh approach. Sometimes that involves watching myself conduct a passage several different ways in the mirror. Sometimes it involves finding the right metaphor. Sometimes it's a question of vocal technique. And sometimes--heresy of heresies--it means asking them what they see/hear, and altering my own vision in a more collaborative direction.

When I was in grad school, I decided that I would spend my career finding out if it's possible to make really terrific music with people without turning into a tyrant. Because I believe that it's my job to engage people in the music making, but maybe it's not my job to have all the answers. I've got more training and spend more time thinking about the music than most (not all) of my singers; however, they are bright and talented and insightful, and I'd be stupid not to take that seriously. Does this make me, as Hans und Franz might say, a "little girly conductor?"

Because this is not how most musical ensembles operate. We are used to the sometimes-benevolent dictatorship model. What the conductor says, goes. Period.

Much of the time, this is a practical, time-saving teaching model (as the conductor has completed years of training, analyzed the musical score, thought through interpretation and technique, etc.); however, in order to maintain a healthy relationship, conductors and ensembles need to be open to one another, to really see and hear one another.

There are two main obstacles that prevent this open communication. One is the "conductor's ego as group's raison d'etre" situation I've already mentioned, in which the conductor can't see the ensemble as anything other than a means to an end. The other unhealthy situation arises when the ensemble refuses to really hear what the conductor is saying, for any of a variety of reasons. Orchestral conductor Marin Alsop describes one such dilemma:

When a woman makes a gesture,
the same gesture as a man,
it's interpreted entirely differently.
The thing I struggled with the most
was getting a big sound from the brass
because you really have to be strong.
But if you're too strong,
you're a b-i-t-c-h.
As a woman,
you have to be careful that it's not too harsh.
It's a subtle line.

--Marin Alsop, to Barbara Kantrowicz of Newsweek

There is truth in this statement. I have experienced this from a couple of different angles; first, the one that Maestra Alsop mentions. Directness looks to some singers like anger...especially in the world of "Minnesota Nice." However, the converse is also true. If I operate from a less aggressive, more collaborative framework, it has sometimes been treated as a sign of weakness. And, based on many musicians' previous experience, no wonder:

Conductors have for so long been promoted
as imposing, larger than life,
acceptably aggressive personalities
who bend orchestras to their will
and to whom musicians submit in reverence and terror.

--as observed by Anna Hodgson, Contemporary Review

Hodgson really wrote an interesting article on the dearth of women orchestral conductors, BTW.

I really don't see "reverence and terror" as a useful model of musical leadership...and CERTAINLY not of ministry. I'd like to propose an alternative--that conductors and singers should do two things:

commit to doing everything they can to bring to life what's on the page in front of them, and
treat one another with respect.

I think it looks something like this:

I promise to

prepare for rehearsal and share what I know
engage my Inner Diagnostician
offer music that's worth doing and skill-appropriate
start and end rehearsal on time
not yell at or embarrass people
admit when I'm wrong
make our work together as inspiring and fun as I can, which is my way of saying "thank you" for their work and bravery and creativity and time.

In return, I want my singers to

come to rehearsal on time
trust that I'm trying to bring out their best as musicians
take care of their voice and use it well
have a pencil and use it!
be brave and willing to try something new
ask thoughtful, economical questions
have a sense of humor about what we're doing, tempered with a bit of wonder.

I want them to really engage with the music. And I want them to not care about my gender, sexual orientation, race, age and the fact that I prefer jeans to skirts. And--this is a big one--if something is wrong, or if they have a helpful idea, I want them to be able to approach me about it, without the slightest fear that I'll throw a baton at them.

My experience teaches me that this model bears much more fruit than an arena of drama. I've been blessed to conduct some delightful groups, made up of wonderful human beings. When I'm on that podium, I don't think the experience should be about whether or not I'm a "girly" conductor. It should be about bringing to life the music on the page in front of us. My "gesture language" is only one means to that end...not even the most important one. My ears (and theirs) are another, as well as our minds. And, most importantly, the full, joyous, brave participation of my singers.

If all of that is working, we can lift right off the floor together.

It oooonly takes a spaaarrrk to get a fire going...

2009-03-06T08:26:00.002-06:00

To anyone who went to Bible Camp or VBS, that was your earworm for the day. :-)

My articulate cyber-friend Shalom has bestowed a kindness on me, and it's now my pleasure to pass it on (as in the song). Here are the rules:

List 7 things that you love and then pass the award on to 7 people...tagging them and letting them know they won! You can copy the picture of the award and put it on your sidebar letting the whole wide world know you are KReATIV!

Seven Things I Love

1. the sound the pups make when they wake up in the morning, and the way they're excited about nearly everything

2. really well-crafted lyrics

3. friendships measured in decades

4. the moment when I say a perfectly abstract thing to one of my choirs and it makes enough sense to them that they SING the essence of the thing I was trying to say

5. unexpected kindnesses, of which I have received a bunch lately

6. getting to preach (which is fun on several levels), or getting to hear a really good sermon

7. the hearts of those who suffer when justice is absent...especially when the offense isn't against them personally

Now, to share--some old friends, some new!

1. MomPriest at Seeking Authentic Voice--it's an oasis: calm, thoughtful, deeply kind.

2. Diane at Coexist--lots of original poetry and meditative thought. Got a Minnesotan's love for this one, personally.

3. Christine at Abbey of the Arts--gorgeous, all around. Photography, poetry, and I particularly loved the wisdom in this post.

4. Catrina at The Mad Preacher Liberation Front--insightful, articulate, and sometimes hilariously titled posts (i.e. The Audacity of Nope).

5. Rachel at The Sweet Bi and Bi--visually restful, astutely observed, well connected with resources, sweet and funny. Try this post for a new take on diversity in the church.

6. Mary at Tensegrities--she's interested in lots of things that appeal to a quirky church geek like me, and she writes well and links to fascinating stuff.

7. I've recognized Ruth of Ruth's Visions and Revisions before--still think she's wonderful, but today's shout-out goes to her co-blogger, Smokey. His Dog Parables (right sidebar, scroll down) are really something special!

Moses and the flood: meditation on Exodus 34:1-10

2009-03-05T06:51:00.003-06:00

Yep, Moses.

I delivered this meditation at our Lenten service last night. Context: our Lenten theme and the handing out of a rock to each worshiper upon entry into the sanctuary.

Traditionally, many of us think of lent as a time of repentance. We search ourselves for signs of sin, of too-small vision, of the ways that we're broken. Then we ask for forgiveness, maybe not quite daring to hope that anything will really be different afterward, but trying anyway to "get right with God" again because...well, because we should. For some of us this is a dreary season, more about rules than relationship; more about guilt than grace. And going through a 40-day exercise of self-examination and self-denial may not seem so helpful when we're grieving or afraid. But is there another way to see it? There isn't one of us who doesn't need to repent, but is there also good news to be found here in the desert?

Let's take a closer look at the Moses story and the chapters in Exodus that lead up to this point. In tonight's chapter, God and Moses are having a conversation...one that takes place as Moses is pleading for forgiveness for his people, the Israelites. They have messed up spectacularly. You remember the Israelites--God freed them from slavery and brought them through the desert to Mount Sinai, where (in Exodus 19) God made this covenant with them:

You have seen what I did to the Egyptians,
and how I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself.
Now, therefore, if you obey my voice and keep my covenant,
you shall be my treasured possession out of all the peoples.
Indeed the whole earth is mine,
but you shall be a priestly kingdom and a holy nation.

It's a grand vision, isn't it? God will be God, and we will be very, very good, and all will be well. Except that it won't, if we have to depend on the strength of our own goodness. We're frail creatures, and despite our best efforts, we can't hold up our end. But at this point in the story, just after making their first covenant, God keeps Moses running up and down the mountain for a while, handing out all kinds of laws about how the Israelites are to hold up their end of the deal, including the Ten Commandments.

Perhaps inevitably, Moses eventually comes down from the mountain, stone tablets in hand, to discover that this "priestly people," this "holy nation," is worshiping a golden calf--a sacred cow of their own making. God and Moses had been off in conversation for kind of a while, you understand, and so the people filled that void with what they could see...which left them

worshiping wealth and security
admiring their own creation in the place of God's work, and
making a god small enough to comprehend and to control.

Those naughty Israelites. We'd do better, right?

Maybe not...at least, I often don't, despite my best intentions. So let's take a minute here, with this tiny piece of mountain in our hands. (hold up rock) Let's think a bit about our worship of the sacred cows that we create...about our own broken places. In fact, let's sort of mentally glue them to these rocks we're holding.

a few minutes of silence

Now, the story continues: God kicks them off Mount Sinai, sputtering, "You people have gotten on my last nerve. Our relationship is broken; I'm not coming with you to the Promised Land." Imagine the desolation of that moment--they know they're guilty, convicted by the law, and now they have to go back into the desert without God's presence.

Bleak, bleak, bleak.

Now Moses, after smashing those tablets on the ground and ranting at the Israelites a while, begs forgiveness for them, and pleads for a reason to have hope for the future: "Show me your glory, God, so that I'll know you're not really abandoning us."

And what does God do? Something surprising. Something absolutely dripping with grace.

First, God commands Moses to remake the stone tablets of the covenant--saying, in effect, "Yes, I'm still in this thing with you; in fact, I'll meet you more than halfway in repairing this breach. I'll go even a step beyond simple justice in order to stay with you."

That's some extraordinary peacemaking. But honesty is also a necessary part of any life-giving relationship. And so God doesn't just gloss over the sinfulness of the Israelites, but acknowledges the reality that "Hey, you guys really messed up here. According to the terms of our covenant, you were supposed to listen to me...to obey me. And now I'm supposed to punish you, and your children as well, to the third and fourth generation after you. But I'm not going to do that. In fact, I'm tearing up our previous covenant. Let's start again."

At one of the most wretched, sinful moments to date in the story of God's people, God breathes new life into the relationship...and instead of 3-4 generations' worth of punishment, God offers them a renewed commitment, drenched with enough hope for several lifetimes.

And so it is with us. As we heard earlier, God promises to do an "awesome thing" with you...and with you...and with me...with all of us. God promises to stay with us not just on the mountain, but in the desert, too. And in that desert, God drowns our sin and renews our spirits in flood after flood of grace.

As we leave tonight, we'll put these rocks in the baptismal font, where they--and we--are washed clean. We'll remember what God is doing and offer our thanks.

And then, God will go with us out that door.

Incandescence

2009-03-04T07:30:00.005-06:00

One
Strides purposefully through the bellowing crowd,
Stately amidst the chafe and scrape
Of her truth against their certitude.

One
Sidles gently to their sealed, adjacent reason,
Her chest bared to the heedless darts
Of their blind, bewildered fusillades.

One
Awaits in wonder the fiery bursting forth,
An ardent bloom in gathering light
Of the jointed wills of God and nature.

Each
Faces east.

for B, R and C

The inflatable doggie of my life

2009-03-03T18:32:00.001-06:00

more animals

No time to post today...or likely tomorrow! See y'all soon...

Peripheral vision

2009-03-02T08:27:00.004-06:00

So...a couple of weeks ago, I graduated from reading glasses to all-the-time glasses.

Bifocals.

As many of you who have gone through this transition before me already know, there are some adjustments. The weirdest one for me is the interruption of my peripheral vision--as I get close to the inside edges of the lenses, there's a curvature; if I try to glance to the side with just an eyeroll, it's jagged at the outside edges of the lenses. When I'm trying to look at both my choir and the score on the music stand in front of me, the frames create a dividing line between them. Weird.

So I'm adjusting by moving my head more; this is a really minor inconvenience, but it got me to thinking about the way we see things...about how healthy it is to have some sort of challenge to our accustomed point of view, once in a while. And about how we can choose how much significance we assign to edges and dividing lines.

I'm just sayin'.

Friday five: fork in the road

2009-02-27T09:15:00.007-06:00

Singing Owl of the RevGals writes:

I am at a life-changing juncture. I do not know which way I will go, but I have been thinking about the times, people and events that changed my life (for good or ill) in significant ways. For today's Friday Five, share with us five "fork-in-the-road" events, or persons, or choices. And how did life change after these forks in the road?

I'm reminded of the Yogi Berra quote

When you come to a fork in the road, take it.

Funny...and yet descriptive, too. 'Cause that's how I roll:

Age 9: I remember trying to decide which I liked more: visual art or music? I was trying to decide where to focus my energy. (No, I wasn't overprogrammed, just a thinker.) I really enjoyed both, and liked the fact that I always had something to show for my effort after art class. But I loved to sing, and had just started guitar lessons on my 3/4 size red-and-black acoustic guitar. I liked the way that I felt more alive somehow when I sang...and so my Inner Romantic conquered my Inner Pragmatist for the first of, oh, I don't even KNOW how many decisions. I made the right call, though--I'm a decent musician, but have no discernible talent in the visual arts. :-)

Age 19: Music Therapy major or Music Education major? After much agonizing I ended up trying both and then graduating with an extremely marketable B.A. in Music. (snicker) I had a starter job in music publishing, in which I've worked on and off for my whole career, and so I decided to GRADUATE and get on with my life!

Age 29: Continue in corporate training or go to seminary? I was off to a good start as a trainer, and more-or-less liked it. Was making good money, had a lot of contacts...and was ultimately dissatisfied that it was the way I should be spending my time and effort. And it seemed that a deeper voice was speaking in me. Seminary it was. Now: MDiv or MSM (sacred music)? It was music...but I haven't stopped considering MDiv as well. Maybe my denomination will make that a bit easier for me next summer.

Age 39: Continue in church music or go back to training? I'd had a shattering experience at my First Big Church Job and was seriously questioning my calling...not to mention having a pile of debt from going back to school. Exhausted and disheartened, I wasn't sure I was willing to put myself back together and try to continue church work. And then there was The Interview. I met with the hiring committee of my present church and something deep inside me sang...and that was the right answer, the healing answer, the real answer.

Age 9-29: I think I'm gay. Do I ignore it and hope it goes away, or do I find out more about what it might mean for me? From 9-18, I ignored it. From 18-19, I fell in love and got my heart broken. From 19-29 I fought it. At 29, I fell in love with Beloved and the world opened up.

And I knew what to do.

What I believe, in six words

2009-02-26T07:58:00.005-06:00

I was listening to an interesting Valentine's Day podcast last night (yup, I'm a bit behind...) about the six-word love story project underway at SMITH magazine. (and the ongoing six-word memoir project.) It was engaging, entertaining, fascinating. Check the link for more stories. It was begun my a six-word story by Ernest Hemingway:

For sale: baby shoes. Never worn.

There's a novel in that. What economy! Up at the magazine this morning:

Morning coffee tastes different without you.
Child in hospital. Heart losing hope.
Tried men. Tried women. Like cats.
Quit my dad's dreams. Found mine.

It got me thinking...what if we tried to tell our faith stories in six words? It's harder than I thought. I have two, as of this morning:

Lutheran musician, insider, outsider. Aaaaaahhhhh, grace.
God makes, saves, loves. I try.

What do you believe? Please post!

Ash Wednesday: sabbath of the soul

2009-02-25T06:47:00.001-06:00

I got this today from Inward/Outward. I think it's rather wonderful.

Humility is not a matter of beating ourselves up.
It is not a question of judging ourselves
as stupid or sinful, as hopeless and bad.
Who are we to judge these things?
Humility, for John [St. John of the Cross],
is the gentle acceptance of that most tender place inside ourselves
that throbs with the pain of separation from the Beloved.
It is that deep knowingness that identification with the false self
brings nothing but further separation.
It is an initially reluctant dropping down
into the emptiness
and an ultimate experience of peace
when we stop doing
and rediscover simple being.
It is the Sabbath of the soul
when we heed the call to cease creating
and remember that we are created.

--Mirabai Starr

Our theme at my church, this Lent, is "Renewed by Floods of Grace." It's from a hymn that we'll be learning and using all season, with a wonderful text by Ruth Duck. She begins

Remember and rejoice, renewed by floods of grace:
we bear the sign of Jesus Christ, that time cannot erase.

I know a lot of people who see Lent as a time in which we beat ourselves up for being hopeless sinners. They got that impression from years of Lenten services that emphasize our sinfulness to the point of creating a distorted view of our relationship with God.

I believe it may be true, as Martin Luther allegedly said on his deathbed, that "We are all beggars." But I think that people need hope even more than they need bread (with the exception of Eucharist, which is both).

Penitence is necessary sometimes, and today's remembrance of the brokenness of our nature and our world is helpful because it locates us in reality. But we need to be careful not to leave people in the dust.

Our location within God's grace is necessary all the time.

Living on $1/day in Afghanistan

2009-02-24T20:06:00.003-06:00

Heard a fascinating, sobering interview on The World this evening. Jennifer McCarthy is trying to eat for $1/day in Faryab, Afghanistan. Follow along with her here.

Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust

2009-02-19T19:32:00.006-06:00

First, some definitions.

Me: child of God, member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), seminary-educated professional church musician eligible for rostered leadership in all ways but one: I'm a lesbian who has been with my partner since 1997, who had a big church wedding in 2007. My best friend B is also a partnered lesbian, which is the one giant stumbling block in her journey toward ordination.

ELCA: Publicly proclaims this. Structured like this. Governed like this, with the next Churchwide Assembly taking place in my hometown next August.

At that Assembly, voting members will decide whether or not to adopt as ELCA policy a social statement entitled "Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust," which has been crafted over the last two years by a task force which was convened to study and articulate a proposed ELCA position on matters of human sexuality. The catalyst for this discussion is the disagreement on issues pertaining to homosexuality:

tolerance/recognition/blessing of committed same-gender relationships
ordination of homosexual persons in committed same-gender relationships

I suspect that service on that task force may be the most excruciating, thankless job in history. I honor and thank its members for their careful, respectful work.

Along with the draft of the Social Statement, they have proposed recommendations for action by the Churchwide Assembly which take place in four steps, each succeeding step considered only if the one before it has passed:

Step one asks the Churchwide Assembly whether, in principle, it is committed to finding ways to allow congregations and synods that choose to do so to recognize, support, and hold publicly accountable life-long, monogamous, same-gender relationships.

Step two asks the Churchwide Assembly whether, in principle, this church is committed to finding a way for people in such publicly accountable, life-long, monogamous, same-gender relationships to serve as rostered leaders of this church.

Step three asks this Church whether, in the future implementation of these commitments, it will make decisions so that all in this church bear the burdens of the other, and respect the bound consciences of all. This means that any solution that serves only the conscience-bound positions of one or another part of this church will not be acceptable.

Step four proposes how this Church can move toward change in a way that respects the bound consciences of all. It recognizes that such respect will lead to diversity of practice. However, the majority of the task force believes that the conscience-bound lack of consensus will be respected most faithfully by providing some structured flexibility in decision-making so that congregations and synods may choose whether or not to approve or call people in publicly accountable, lifelong, monogamous, same-gender relationships to serve on ELCA rosters.

My bishop notes that

In this way, the assembly will decide whether to create "space" for congregations and synods to publicly recognize and hold accountable the relationship of same-gendered couples (step one), and (step two) whether our Church ought to find ways to allow the rostered ministry of such persons.

The task force acknowledges that conscience-bound faithful Christians find themselves on different sides of this issue. The task force also acknowledges that we are bound not only in our own consciences but in love to the conscience of the other. Because of the lack of consensus in our Church, the task force believes that we need to respect our differences and accept the different places in which the baptized find themselves. The recommendation affirms that our distinctive positions on this issue should not be church dividing. No congregation will be pressured to call any pastor they do not wish to call.

Now...all that having been said, what do I think? Mostly, I think they've done a good job. Their recommendation includes a reference to Luther's declaration, while speaking in his own defense at the Diet of Worms, that he was bound in conscience by the Word of God and that "It is neither safe nor right to go against conscience." The report continues,

The emphasis of "conscience-bound" is not on declaring oneself to be conscience-bound. Rather, we are bound in love by the conscience of the other--that is, we recognize the conscience-bound nature of the convictions of others in the community of Christ. For Lutherans, the reality that people hold convictions from deep faith that may be in conflict with the deep faith convictions of others is not merely a procedural or political difficulty. As sisters and brothers in Christ we bear one another's burdens. For one member to suffer because her or his conscience has been offended is for all of us to suffer...the task force asks members of this church to join them in a commitment to honor conscience-bound decisions. However, the recognize that such honoring may lead to some diversity of practice within this church. ...nevertheless, the task force invites this church to continue and even deepen its ability to concentrate on finding ways to live together faithfully in the midst of our disagreements.

In other words, as conscience-bound Christians, each of us is entitled, after prayerfully sweating out our own theological position, to say with Luther, "Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me." But we need to recognize that it may cost us everything. And this task force wants very much for us to remember that, while we're all living in our own deepest truths, we must try to trust that others are also doing so...and to take their commitment as seriously as our own, that we might not break the Body.

I have to say, that's a large thing to ask of anyone...especially a member of an oppressed minority or (I must admit) someone who's staked their life's work and their soul on a particular position, whatever that may be. Ay, there's the rub. But that is part of what I love about being a Lutheran--these conversations are serious, and we're all asked to do the hard stuff.

Finally, toward the end:

Most, but not all, members of the task force believe that it is undesirable and unrealistic to continue with existing policy in its present form. They feel this approach would fail to honor the conscience-bound lack of consensus in this church. They also believe that continuing current policy does not serve the mission and ministry of this church in instances where a member in a publicly accountable, lifelong, monogamous, same-gender relationship is the person determined to be best suited for a particular call...though no policy can be fully in accord with this church's diversity of convictions, the majority of the task force believes that the conscience-bound lack of consensus will be respected most faithfully by providing for some level of structured flexibility of decision-making.

In other words, they're:

recommending a "local option" scenario, while
asking us to remember that we're all members of one Body of Christ and
recognizing that this will be painful for most people, to varying degrees. No one gets everything they want.

Seems pretty positive to me...which is an evolution from my initial "justice is justice, dammit" standpoint. Viva la revolucion, and all that.

It's funny--though I want to, I still can't quite trust that that bigotry and lack of understanding aren't at the root of the "anti-change" position; however, I can recognize that it isn't necessarily productive to demand that people change their hearts and minds, This Instant.

Kahlil Gibran once described pain as the "cracking of the shell that encompasses your present understanding." I think that this document acknowledges that everyone, on every side, needs to be willing to experience that cracking open...to bear the pain for the sake of their sisters and brothers, for the Body of Christ. That's vigorously Christian. I like it.

I also like "gift and trust," and think it can only be positive for all relationships to be lived out in the light of day...as long as the "public accountability" is offered in the same spirit of public support that is offered to hetero relationships. Their careful definition of "conscience bound" is helpful, as well, I think--it demands that we take seriously the conscience of the Other, as much as our own.

This is an evolutionary, but not a revolutionary position. Pragmatically speaking, I think this has a chance of appealing to everyone enough to move the church forward. I'd like that. I want my friend B to be ordained; she has a clearer call to it than almost anyone I know.

Also noted--from what I've read thus far of the Statement, it seems a bit grimmer than it might be; not so much emphasis on the "sexuality as created gift" part as on the "we're sinners saved by grace" part. Bit of a buzz-kill. :-)

And, admittedly, though my rational mind sees this effort as positive (assuming, of course, that it's passed by the Assembly next August) part of me still screams "Now! Now! Full inclusion and recognition NOW! Justice!" Because it's true that "separate but equal" is usually neither.

But, in our human framework, justice almost never rolls like God's waters in a mighty stream, matter how cathartic and satisfying the idea of it is. Usually it arrives an inch at a time, and that because some folks really put their backs into it.

I think that the Task Force did. I hope that the voting Assembly will think so, too, and will be brave enough to allow the shell around our Church's present understanding to crack.

I'm cautiously optimistic.

Your damaged angel-in-waiting

2009-02-18T14:44:00.001-06:00

Here's an interesting article on Wally Lamb's work with prison inmates who want to write.

In writing, as in life, voice is crucial.
Your voice has been honed
by your family, your ethnic heritage,
your neighborhood, and your education.
It is the music of what you mean in the world.
Imitate no one.
Your uniqueness -- your authenticity -- is your strength.

--WL

Heartbeat

2009-02-17T20:30:00.001-06:00

Beloved and I saw these extraordinary musicians on Sunday night. Click the link, play the video and TURN IT UP.

It's been awhile since I've felt like my very heartbeat was altered by a musical experience (usually I keep things at a sensible, "protect my hearing," "don't irritate the neighbors" level). Coincidentally, one translation of the group's name is "heartbeat."

Brilliantly revealing of Japanese culture. Joyous. Arresting. Adjectives fail.

SEE THEM if you get an opportunity!