This past Sunday, we considered some of the spiritual and theological messages of the 1950s. You can listen to the sermon ("Bobby Socks and the Bomb: Diggin' that 1950s Spirituality") here.
Several of us dressed in 1950s costumes. I sported Bill Haley-like hair and Buddy Holly-like glasses. I'm not so sure about those... but the atomic blue bowling shirt is a keeper!
We are entering into a busy time of the year. There are lots of great events coming up in April and May, when the weather becomes more reliable in these parts. Stay tuned! I'll post information here!
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Last night we had a UU Vespers service where we thought about Celtic spirituality and mysticism together. Now, we turn our attention to upcoming holidays such as Easter and Passover.
This coming Thursday, March 24, we will hold our second annual Maundy Thursday Service. Maundy Thursday (sometimes called “Holy Thursday”) is a Christian
commemoration of the Last Supper and the mandate (“maundy” comes from
the Latin mandatum) of Jesus to his disciples, “Just as I have loved
you, you also should love one another.” We will have an intimate communion service,
combining elements of the humanistic “Unitarian Universalist Eucharist”
created by Rev. Chuck Freeman as well as elements from the liberal
Christian tradition. There will be wine as well as juice available. This
service is open to all. Please join us! Directions here.
The last weekend of February, I went to Kripalu in Stockbridge, Massachusetts for a kirtan workshop with Krishna Das. It was a wonderful experience!
I'm teaching myself harmonium and loving it. But the workshop was more about singing, and doing kirtan as a spiritual practice.
I found that it made me feel a little more confident in my singing. One of my goals is to become a more competent leader of hymn-singing at the UUCiA. This was a good place to start!
My front-row view!
I lined up early for the Friday night concert, and I got a front row seat. I've seen KD perform before, but never from the front row. It was amazing to be so close.
KD is such a good story teller. During the workshop, there was a lot of time for Q&A, and it was a pleasure to hear him speak. The only thing better is to hear him sing.
Most of KD's chants are to Hanuman, Ram, Sita, Krishna, Durga, Shiva... Someone asked why he never does chants for Ganesh. Good question! His answer amounted to this: he never felt like it. Well there you go!
I'm going to make an effort to catch up with some news today, on my "day off", since I have fallen behind in my 2016 blogging (as mentioned in my last post).
One of my very favorite hobbies is music. I am a (VERY!) amateur musician. I play some guitar, bass, trumpet, clarinet... and am trying to learn sitar and harmonium. For me, playing music is a spiritual practice.
Playing bass at the David Bowie tribute in Boston.
I recently had the chance to play some bass at a David Bowie tribute show. A group of eastern-Massachusetts based musicians came together -- rehearsing only about three times, mind you, and never all of us at once -- to create a fun and loving tribute to the artist. That happened Saturday night, February 13, at the Milky Way Lounge in Jamaica Plain. It was just so. Much. Fun.
In the picture to the left, I am dressed as a clown, inspired by Bowie's "Ashes to Ashes" video (I will embed that video below). It's not necessarily my most flattering look, but it seemed appropriate!
After David Bowie's death, which came as a surprise to most of us, I was very struck by how much his music and androgynous and gender queer persona had meant to me in my lifetime. Like many others in the LGBTQ community, he was one of the first people that made it seem not so horrible to be queer in this world. And the more I listen to his music, the more I realize how much I love it. Basically all of it. We lost a truly gifted artist.
And so, it felt really good to be a small part of such a fitting local tribute to the man. I am grateful that I got to do this.
Here, as promised, is the "Ashes to Ashes" video. I love the song, and the video is one of the trippy-est ones from that golden MTV era.
The timing of this opportunity to play bass is interesting for me. Back about a month ago, we had a "Church of the Holy Pajamas"-themed service, leading into our Mid-Year Congregational Meeting and Brunch served up by our wonderful Board. The "Church of the Holy Pajamas" is a term that I learned from a colleague, and it was apparently coined by students at the Andover Newton Theological School about ten years ago or so. It refers to that place where many people worship when they either don't have a faith community, or when they just can't make themselves leave the comforts of home to get to church. We had a lot of fun in our very-casual service, where many of us (including myself) wore pajamas.
At the "Church of the Holy Pajamas" service.
We ended with our own "Holy Pajama Jam Band" playing "With a Little Help from My Friends". And, that (back on January 10) was the first time I played bass in public for a couple of years. (One of my all-time favorite bass lines, by the way.)
Since this is a post of unflattering photos, I'll add the image to the right. Here I'm in my holy pajamas (with fluffy Chewbacca slippers). In the inset photo, I'm playing bass that day. I'd share other photos of that day, but not many folks love to have pictures of themselves in pajamas on the Internet. (Just me?)
In any case, after that service, I realized how much I love playing bass with other musicians. And very shortly thereafter, the Bowie gig opportunity came up. It felt like a message from the universe.
Does anyone need a bass player for their band? Email me. ;-)
I have been slow in posting here in 2016! Apologies. I have been fighting a mega-cold that just doesn't quit, and so things like blogging have fallen behind.
This Sunday, February 14, is "Standing on the Side of Love Sunday", marking the end of #30DaysOfLove (learn more at the SSL website).
We will be focused on the Black Lives Matter movement and what we can do, further, to show solidarity. The service will end with a congregational reflection.
To the left is the UUCiA and our own Black Lives Matter flag, which we put up with a brief ceremony during a worship service in November 2015. You can read about UU congregations displaying BLM banners here. You can see the (getting more crowded!) map of where UU congregations have displayed a BLM banner or flag here.
