Last night we in Lake Luzerne had our annual Thanksgiving service at the Hadley-Luzerne Wesleyan Church, and it was a festive, sometimes rollicking, sometimes thoughtful, service. The Community Choir sang "We Give Thanks" -- and it was good to be singing together in worship again. I'd been away from the Community Choir for awhile, as I served churches in other communities, but I'll lend my voice (tenor this time, usually alto) to the choir for the Christmas Concert on Dec. 5.
I keep thinking of Dan Berggren's song "Alice" about Alice who started a community chorus up in the north country -- Dan's from Minerva, so it was somewhere thereabouts. It was Alice's conviction that anybody could "sing along" and the world would be a better place. I agree.
We have fun in community choir. Randy, the director, is a genuine character with a somewhat wacky sense of humor, and the choir responds accordingly. But we also work hard -- and the work pays off. Our concerts are always well done, presented with faith hope and love, and also well-received.
This year the cantata is a modern one called "The Star Still Shines." But it doesn't matter a whole lot what the music is as long as it's faith-full, has some traditional and some contemporary aspects, and expresses a simple but profound faith. That's pretty much what our community choir is about -- that, and blending our voices together in a harmonious whole -- something from which our society -- in particular, our political process -- could take lessons!
In order to sing in harmony, each singer, and each vocal part, needs to listen to all the others and hear how all the parts fit together. If they don't fit together, we have to do more listening, practice, and then keep trying again until they do. The best singers in the world don't necessarily make the best CHORAL singers. Instead, those who can keep on tune and learn to blend together make the best music together. This is a good lesson for life, too.
Monday, November 22, 2010
Monday, November 1, 2010
The Rally
I left with some trepidation. After all, I am not a twenty-something. I remember when Eisenhower was president (well, I don't remember all that much, but I do remember that he was president. My brother and I had two turtles, named Ike and Dick...). Not only am I not young, normally I don't like crowds. And since I've been having trouble with sciatica, walking isn't as much fun as it used to be, and I knew there would be a lot of walking. It seemed to me that the very fact that I, at my age, was off to a Rally to Restore Sanity meant that I really needed my sanity restored.
I came back home tired, with sore feet and back, flaring sciatica, but full of hope. The whole experience was, as the kids say, AWESOME! Stewart and Colbert outdid themselves, as did everyone else connected with the event.
We left Albany, NY, by bus, somewhere around midnight. The buses were chartered by Northeast Public Radio, WAMC (my friend Val and I won the trip as promotion for donations during the fall fund drive), and there were six buses of WAMC members and staff. We arrived in Washington, DC, near the Lincoln Memorial, at about 7:00 am. I got some great pictures of the Washington Monument at sunrise. We stayed there, waiting for the rest room to open, until a little after 8:00.
The whole group of WAMC folks, including President and CEO Alan Chartock and my favorite radio personality Joe Donahue, assembled on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial for pictures. Somebody had a banjo, and we all sang the telephone number song from fund drives, and then a bit of "This Land is Your Land" before we all went off on our own to explore the National Mall. Some folks went to museums. Val and I took pictures as we strolled our way down the Mall.
The crowd was growing and growing. At about 9:30 we settled on a spot on stage left, to the side and a bit behind the Jumbotron and waited there for the festivities to begin.
The CBS estimate of attendance is "over 200,000." However many of us there were, everyone was well-behaved and polite. It was hard going trying to leave the Mall (Val and I, trying to get up to the Lincoln Memorial end in time for the buses'departure scheduled for 4:30 ...) but even then, everybody was polite. Amazing!
The only mishaps as far as we were concerned: Val left her brand new 3-legged stool on a bench somewhere beyond the Washington Monument, and when she went back to it maybe ten minutes later, it was gone. And somewhere I lost my pedometer, which had been clipped onto my jeans.
Did I say it was awesome? the signs were wonderful ... the music was great ... and the crowd was all ages. Someone reported we were "predominantly ages 18-39" and that might be accurate. But there were plenty of folks in our 40s, 50s, and 60s, and some that I daresay were in their 70s (the ones I look at and say, "Ah. Older than I am."
Herein lies my hope: so many people ostensibly advocating and actually demonstrating "reasonableness" -- and people of all ages coming together in peace, hope, and humor. Some of us found ourselves explaining to the young folks in our midst about Father Guido Sarducci and Kareem Abdul Jabbar and a few other references. The youngsters thanked us! When Kareem came out, I remarked to Val "I wonder how many in this crowd remember what his name was before" but there would have been a good number, I'm confident. I don't know whether the crowd was an accurate microcosm of America race-wise, but there were enough people of color there that it was obvious it wasn't a "whites only" event. People with disabilities were represented, and people of all genders and sexual orientations. One almost universal: of those not wearing costumes, almost everyone else was in jeans.
Since arriving home at 2:00 Sunday morning, I've looked at a lot of pictures of the Rally, laughed at some of the signs I missed on Saturday, and read commentaries on the event. Those who were surprised at Jon Stewart's serious statement at the conclusion of the Rally have missed some of his interviews, during which he often asks serious, probing questions. And those who think his main point was criticism ONLY of "cable media" or even media in general, missed his critique of the parody of democracy our political discourse and process have become.
Some of my favorite "sound bites" from Jon's statement:
"... we live now in hard times, not end times. And we can have animus and not be enemies."
"If we amplify everything we hear nothing."
About the cars funneling into the tunnel: "Concession by concession. You go. Then I'll go. You go. Then I'll go..."
"Sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel isn't the promised land. Sometimes it's just New Jersey. But we do it anyway, together."
Jon's point about the media is that the unhealthy things, the bad things, the lousy things about us are magnified by our "24-hour political pundit perpetual panic conflictinator" while the good things seem not to exist, even though we Americans live with the good as well as the bad every day of our lives.
Somebody has written that if things really turned around as Jon would have them according to his closing statement on Saturday afternoon, he'd be out of a job. Sure. And if everyone took Micah's advice "to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God," and Jesus' command to love one another, even to "love your enemies," then I -- and every other minister, rabbi, imam and other religious leader would be out of a job, too. I pray for that day to come, even though I know that the chances of it happening mean that Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert and all of my colleagues of whatever religious stripes will not have to find themselves another line of work.
The Rally to Restore Sanity and/or fear (sorry I haven't done Stephen Colbert justice in this blog -- maybe another time.) He was also awesome, in character, and he definitely sings better than Jon. He also managed to let Jon have the last word, seriously, without interjecting his own often rather insane brand of humor.
From the opening music of the Roots (my only criticism, that opening sequence was rather too long!) to (good grief!) 84-year-old Tony Bennett, the entertainment by Stewart and Colbert's guests was just what the crowd needed. There wasn't much room for dancing on the Mall, but most of us managed to move with the beat anyway.
The experience was, how can I say it? Ah. AWESOME.
I came back home tired, with sore feet and back, flaring sciatica, but full of hope. The whole experience was, as the kids say, AWESOME! Stewart and Colbert outdid themselves, as did everyone else connected with the event.
We left Albany, NY, by bus, somewhere around midnight. The buses were chartered by Northeast Public Radio, WAMC (my friend Val and I won the trip as promotion for donations during the fall fund drive), and there were six buses of WAMC members and staff. We arrived in Washington, DC, near the Lincoln Memorial, at about 7:00 am. I got some great pictures of the Washington Monument at sunrise. We stayed there, waiting for the rest room to open, until a little after 8:00.
The whole group of WAMC folks, including President and CEO Alan Chartock and my favorite radio personality Joe Donahue, assembled on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial for pictures. Somebody had a banjo, and we all sang the telephone number song from fund drives, and then a bit of "This Land is Your Land" before we all went off on our own to explore the National Mall. Some folks went to museums. Val and I took pictures as we strolled our way down the Mall.
The crowd was growing and growing. At about 9:30 we settled on a spot on stage left, to the side and a bit behind the Jumbotron and waited there for the festivities to begin.
The CBS estimate of attendance is "over 200,000." However many of us there were, everyone was well-behaved and polite. It was hard going trying to leave the Mall (Val and I, trying to get up to the Lincoln Memorial end in time for the buses'departure scheduled for 4:30 ...) but even then, everybody was polite. Amazing!
The only mishaps as far as we were concerned: Val left her brand new 3-legged stool on a bench somewhere beyond the Washington Monument, and when she went back to it maybe ten minutes later, it was gone. And somewhere I lost my pedometer, which had been clipped onto my jeans.
Did I say it was awesome? the signs were wonderful ... the music was great ... and the crowd was all ages. Someone reported we were "predominantly ages 18-39" and that might be accurate. But there were plenty of folks in our 40s, 50s, and 60s, and some that I daresay were in their 70s (the ones I look at and say, "Ah. Older than I am."
Herein lies my hope: so many people ostensibly advocating and actually demonstrating "reasonableness" -- and people of all ages coming together in peace, hope, and humor. Some of us found ourselves explaining to the young folks in our midst about Father Guido Sarducci and Kareem Abdul Jabbar and a few other references. The youngsters thanked us! When Kareem came out, I remarked to Val "I wonder how many in this crowd remember what his name was before" but there would have been a good number, I'm confident. I don't know whether the crowd was an accurate microcosm of America race-wise, but there were enough people of color there that it was obvious it wasn't a "whites only" event. People with disabilities were represented, and people of all genders and sexual orientations. One almost universal: of those not wearing costumes, almost everyone else was in jeans.
Since arriving home at 2:00 Sunday morning, I've looked at a lot of pictures of the Rally, laughed at some of the signs I missed on Saturday, and read commentaries on the event. Those who were surprised at Jon Stewart's serious statement at the conclusion of the Rally have missed some of his interviews, during which he often asks serious, probing questions. And those who think his main point was criticism ONLY of "cable media" or even media in general, missed his critique of the parody of democracy our political discourse and process have become.
Some of my favorite "sound bites" from Jon's statement:
"... we live now in hard times, not end times. And we can have animus and not be enemies."
"If we amplify everything we hear nothing."
About the cars funneling into the tunnel: "Concession by concession. You go. Then I'll go. You go. Then I'll go..."
"Sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel isn't the promised land. Sometimes it's just New Jersey. But we do it anyway, together."
Jon's point about the media is that the unhealthy things, the bad things, the lousy things about us are magnified by our "24-hour political pundit perpetual panic conflictinator" while the good things seem not to exist, even though we Americans live with the good as well as the bad every day of our lives.
Somebody has written that if things really turned around as Jon would have them according to his closing statement on Saturday afternoon, he'd be out of a job. Sure. And if everyone took Micah's advice "to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God," and Jesus' command to love one another, even to "love your enemies," then I -- and every other minister, rabbi, imam and other religious leader would be out of a job, too. I pray for that day to come, even though I know that the chances of it happening mean that Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert and all of my colleagues of whatever religious stripes will not have to find themselves another line of work.
The Rally to Restore Sanity and/or fear (sorry I haven't done Stephen Colbert justice in this blog -- maybe another time.) He was also awesome, in character, and he definitely sings better than Jon. He also managed to let Jon have the last word, seriously, without interjecting his own often rather insane brand of humor.
From the opening music of the Roots (my only criticism, that opening sequence was rather too long!) to (good grief!) 84-year-old Tony Bennett, the entertainment by Stewart and Colbert's guests was just what the crowd needed. There wasn't much room for dancing on the Mall, but most of us managed to move with the beat anyway.
The experience was, how can I say it? Ah. AWESOME.
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