PeaceBang

PeaceBang On A Little Hiatus

boid
Originally uploaded by Peacebang.

I feel that pre-holiday insane mania starting, so I’m going to try to put the brakes on a bit. When I feel the urge to blog, I think I’ll pick up the BANJO instead.

Since I’m one of the bloggers who tends to post every day, don’t worry if you don’t hear from me for a week or so.

Love, Peace, Bang.

Sing Unto the Lord A New Song

My bluegrass sacred music group had a big gig tonight, starting with a worship service and moving into a straight-up concert.

Here’s the memorable thing: it was in a bar!! A very gay-friendly bar/bowling alley, as a matter of fact.
But it was a huge, clean, super-funky, romantically-lit with red walls and loads of color, absolutely fabulous joint all decorated with Halloween goodies. People brought babies and children and it was just really cool. It was like a Den Of Iniquity for All Ages!

I joined this group a year ago at the request of its founder, and when he invited me to be part of it I told him that I’m a show tunes girl, not a bluegrass gospel girl. I said the whole idea of trying to sing in a new genre was intimidating but I would like to try it.
I took a tape recorder to our first rehearsals and practiced my harmonies in the car. I was nervous.

The music has become more and more a part of me. I even listen to it for FUN. A few gigs ago, I learned two numbers in the bathroom right before we went on (we don’t have that many rehearsals to begin with, and I often have to miss the few we do have).
Tonight, though, I hit a new low (or high!): I learned two numbers while we were on stage performing them.

By this point, all I have to do is hear the first phrases and it’s like, okay, I got it. Liz fed me the lyrics line by line and it was totally chill. I can sing soprano, I can sing alto, I can hear the harmonies so much more easily.

It’s a little analogous to learning a new way to pray, or a new language for speaking about my religion. A few years ago, I spoke an entirely different language of faith. Or it would be more accurate to say that I didn’t have one of my own. That was mighty frustrating. More than that: it hurt. Now, after some quality time steeped in Scripture, traditional Christian prayer and worship, phrases are in my mind, body and soul that may never leave. Images, stories and prayers from many traditions stay in my memory more easily than they used to and I find them far more readily available for worship preparation than they used to be. There was a time when in order to compose a prayer, I had to sift through a dozen books feverishly looking not for inspiration, but for confirmation that my own words could minister to my people.
Now, prayers just come. Opening words and invocations come so much more readily. The words to say at someone’s bedside come more easily.

I even talk differently to myself.

I am aware of what’s happening. I am very glad that I waited until I was a fully consenting, aware adult before I chose to hand myself over in this intimate way to the influence of the Christian faith. I am grateful that I had so many years’ training in hearing and using religious language critically and from a “hermeneutic of suspicion.”
I prepared myself for this indoctrination into Christian life and thought, and I even use the word “indoctrination” in its purest form, “to instruct in a body of doctrine.”

It’s fascinating to watch this relatively old dog learn all these new tricks.

Spiritual Practice

You know how some people meditate on an icon?

And some people by gazing at a candle?

Do you think it’s okay if I spend a lot of minutes just looking at my cat’s face?

Because to tell you the truth, that’s the only form of focused meditation I get in regularly throughout the day, I mean of the kind where you empty your mind and your thoughts stop racing.

I think she knows this, which is why she parks herself right next to my left hand as I type, but back far enough so I can gaze upon her striped splendor.

To my right, on the wall, is a collage I made that I find myself looking up at a million times as I write, but not really seeing.

When I see Ermengarde, I always see just her.

The Cod

I’m heading down to the Cape so I can spend the night there before our district conference.
It’s supposed to be NAZZZZZ-TAY tomorrow, so I imagine lots of folks will stay home and dry rather than risk skidding out on one of the famously deep, easily-flooded dips in Route 6.

The Cape is very witchy this time of year. I love it.

I am bringing a pile of schoolbooks to study tonight. I’ll probably fall asleep by 9 pm, though. I always do when I’m down there. There’s some kind of opiate in the air.

Verbifying Perfectly Innocent Nouns

The next time I hear someone use the word “popcorn” as a verb, I’m going to shout an obscenity.
If you don’t know what I’m talking about, then you haven’t ever had to “popcorn,” and I’m envious of your innocence.

What noun, when used as a verb, causes your blood pressure to rise? I know there are some I’m forgetting.

20 Million Single Women Didn’t Vote in 2004

What is this I hear? TWENTY MILLION SINGLE WOMEN failed to vote in the November, 2004 elections??

Sister babes, what is UP with that?
I don’t CARE if you were at work, I don’t CARE if you had to get to the gym, I don’t CARE if you had a pedicure scheduled or if you were babysitting your sister’s kids or if you had a night class to get to or if you had to wax the kitchen floor or wax your legs that day or if you feel totally disenfranchised because no matter what you do, the same old asshats get elected to office.

That is NO EXCUSE, sister babes! You are NOT disenfranchised! Don’t give me any ‘tude about it, either! Did you see that fine movie “Iron Jawed Angels” where Hilary Swank tromped around in those adorable cloche hats as suffragist Alice Paul and suffered and practically starved to death in prison so that we could have the right to vote? What’s yer problem, girls?

In all seriousness, vote in November. Vote in every election. Don’t take this for granted. Don’t blow this off. Don’t be a fine, hard-working, great person in every other area of your life and behave like a moron around this issue.

Watch these videos and be inspired. Not by the bad eyebrow lift sported by one of the key actresses, but by the call to be involved in the democratic process, by gum:

http://www.wvwv.org/mediaroom/index.cfm?id=44

Spend some time on this site, then spread the word. The next time one of your oh-so-sophisticated friends says she’s not voting as a form of protest against the corruption of the system, throw your wadded up napkin at her and tell her to grow up, wake up, and wise up. And mean it.

If women don’t stop being so cutesy-cozy with each other, so freaking understanding, we’re going to keep getting the leadership we deserve. Meanwhile, what kind of example are we setting for the little girls in our lives?

[Thanks to PeaceBang reader Suzanah who wrote to me all the way from PRAGUE to pimp these videos]

Thoughtfulness

Oh my HAY-vens! I just found out that 48 people are registered for the workshop I’m leading this Saturday, which means that I’d better prepare more thoroughly than I had planned to!

Things that can make your day: I got a card in the mail saying, “Thanks for agreeing to be a workshop leader. Get yourself a cup of joe or a bagel on the way to the conference.” And tucked inside the note was a $5 Dunkin Donuts gift card.

What a nice thing to do. Religious life runs on volunteer energy, and since ministers make our living “doing” religious life, we feel it’s our job to thank lay leaders, not to be thanked by them. That said, I must say that when life gets tough in the ministry, I take out my files of thank you cards and letters and re-read them, taking fuel for the heart from those tokens of appreciation. I have learned over time that gratitude is a very energy-generating thing. When someone takes the time to thank me, I get more energy. It’s like a little science experiment that works every time. When I make a decision to cultivate gratitude, I get more energy. Simple. Voila.

Parish ministers don’t just serve the parish, of course. We serve the larger movement and our communities, which means that in addition to our parish duties, we serve on denominational or inter-faith committees, we try to accept speaking engagements whenever we’re asked (and some of us are asked pretty frequently), we write articles and essays as requested for various publications, we attend conferences and spend many hours consulting with ordained lay and clergy leadership on a wide variety of issues, we participate in or attend ordinations and installations, we go to collegial gatherings. Much of this work is invisible to the folks in our parish, but I have come to respect the office of the clergy far more deeply over the years as I realize all that my colleagues in parish ministry do outside their own congregations.

Most of what we do outside the parish gets little or no thanks. Actually, let me amend that. Much of what we do outside the parish but within the Unitarian Universalist movement gets little or no thanks. It has been a bugaboo of mine over which I am known to scream and yell, earning a reputation as “that Loud-Mouthed Wench Who Keeps Yelling About Needing To Appreciate Each Other More.” I freely admit it. C’est moi.

So it was really lovely to open this card and get this appreciative “thumbs up” in the form of this card, and please don’t tell me that Dunkin Donuts is an evil corporation, because while it’s undoubtedly true, I am so using that gift card with no guilt, and with very warm feelings for the person who sent it. WELL played, madame.

John Thomas and Bill Sinkford Together At Last!

The event tonight at Andover-Newton was really quite nice, and I sat in the back with three naughty boys who were a bad influence. It seems — and I did not know this before — that “John Thomas” is a British euphemism for a man’s private bits in addition to being the name of the UCC denominational leader. This made for some very juvenile moments back in my row, but I must say that the Rev. John Thomas is a truly lovely and intelligent man with an excellent sense of humor, and I would like to say that the tomfoolery of my dingbat boy colleagues is no reflection on his dignity or leadership.
Honestly, I thought he was cute enough to play a Jimmy Stewart hero-type role in the movies.

I was impressed by all the participants in the panel discussion between the UUA and the UCC leadership. Better yet, it was an event full of humor and good-will, and it was really packed.

It just amazes me that such a big deal was made about the leaders of these two religious movements coming together, and that it generated so much buzz about MERGING. Merging? Vattya, kiddink?

Too tired to write much now, except to share this recent cuteness with you:

Can you see how the paws are tucked over the edge of the bookcase here?

Who Knew Acts Was So Fabulous?

A few years ago when I tried to read the Book of Acts, I literally slogged through it. In the immortal words of J.D.Salinger, it was like dragging the Statue of Liberty across the dance floor. I would read a few verses, yawn, and take a nap. All those characters. All that crazy supernatural stuff. All those gruesome martyrdoms. Pentecost. Totally nuts. Better to rent “Quadrophenia” than try to fathom the meaning of this nutso stuff.

Last night I opened Acts again and was riveted from the first chapter. It was absolutely cinematic! Way past bedtime I sat there propped against my pillows, finger in my mouth, following along in wonder and awe (of the “oh man, this is tripped out!” variety) and falling in love with some characters (Stephen!) while being totally baffled by others (”I just baptized the Ethiopian Eunuch, I think I’ll transmogrify into space now! BEEP BEEP BEEP…”). What the HELL is that story about the early Christians who fake out the community on the price of their house and then fall down and die? And why didn’t I see how totally dramatic Saul’s entrance is into the story of the martyrdom of Stephen? You can practically here the villain music break out the first time his name is mentioned. Oh, this is hot-t.

So anyway, as soon as I get my hymns chosen for Sunday tonight I’m going to get into bed with Acts. This is My Sexy Life, ladies and gentlemen. You heard it here. God can’t find me a man so he made the Bible really great bedtime reading for me. It’s one of those very small, local miracles you never hear much about, like when people bury tiny plastic statues of St. Jude upside down in their lawn and their house sells within a week.

They Walk The Line

Walk The Line
Originally uploaded by Peacebang.

I caught the last hour of “Walk the Line” on HBO last night. That’s what my movie viewing has become lately: the last hour of something on HBO. I don’t know why I even HAVE a Netflix membership anymore. I watch a movie once every five weeks or so and I’m paying a monthly fee of $13 just for the privilege of keeping a movie queue 80 flicks long that I’ll never see until retirement.

Anyway, I did love the last hour of this film and mostly because Joaquin Phoenix was such a smoldering hot hunk of burning love. How come Joaquin didn’t get the Oscar for so brilliantly incarnating the tormented Johnny Cash, and Reese Witherspoon got one for sticking out her chin and playing an autoharp as June Carter? If you ask me, Phoenix had twice the range she did, and I felt like Reese was just playing Tracy Flick with a Southern accent (actually, I love Tracy Flick more as a character).

This movie was just plain fun. It had all those great costumes and de rigeur drugged-out-musician scenes that make you stuff huge gobs of popcorn into your mouth with total concentrated concern (”Oh mah goh, what if he DIES?”) and the obligatory screaming fight with the cheated-on wife to get your heart racing with worry for the kids who are weeping in the background. It was a lot like “Ray,” but white. It really was. Even down to the “I’m Especially Tormented Because I Had a Sweet Little Brother Who Died In A Terrible Farm Accident And I Lived” detail.

I loved the singing, I loved the bitterly tense Thanksgiving scene, I loved the proposal on the bus scene, and I’m so corny I even loved the “I’m Sure It Didn’t Happen But Hell, This is HOLLYWOOD” on-stage proposal when June finally, finally says “YES” and she and Johnny smooch like mad teenagers in love and he lifts her in the air and that’s the final big image. Even though as a fat girl, I had the moment of upsetness thinking, “And the moral of the story IS… you can be as feisty as you want with your man, just make sure you’re good and petite about it so he can pick up up and swing you off your feet and hold you way up in the air in the final shot! So that everyone knows you’re really soft and dainty underneath all that southern spice.”

Anyway, it’s not June Carter Cash’s fault that she wasn’t a fat, sassy Yankee girl who can’t get a date. I love me some June Carter, even if I think she was a whole lot more homey and real than the actress who portrayed her. Did you ever see her play Robert Duvall’s mother in “The Apostle?” That is one of my favorite characters of ALL TIME!

So I need to see the first hour of this film.