A wedding. Pushing back the darkness. And green smoke.

9/21

Quick stop at the church to put the finishing touches on a wedding ceremony. It will be a typical New York wedding, the bride from here, the groom from India and currently working mainly in Germany, his bachelor party in Munich. People will come from Calcutta, London and New Jersey. There will be turbans. The bride had met me at a wedding I did last march for a Turkish- German couple.

On the way back, i stop at the Gate and find RL and Thatcher there so we return to the earlier issue of reenvisioning and restarting our website and the prior concern of getting our pirated URL back from a collector in Colorado. It’s frustrating that a google search always leads first to Westparkchurch.org, which is NOT us. Aargh,(Sorry,that was a leftover from International Talk Like a Pirate day. To which Dan said, does anyone know Somalian?)

Shannon Beck is in town. She is the new Presbyterian Church (USA) reconciliation catalyst. (Love that title...) Originally it was violence and reconciliation, but she didn’t want it to seem like she was a catalyst for violence. She is working to connect people working creatively to engage cultures of violence, including our own. 

Shannon and the house concert

I met her last year when my friend Mark from the PC(USA) UN ministry was looking to find her a place for s concert. Hurricane Sandy intervened and it wound up an intimate house concert at my apartment. Which led to live recording that we eventually added our Sunday morning church voices to with the help of Marc S. 

I’ve got an agenda that includes preparing for tomorrow morning’s service, figuring out exactly what her job is, trying to make some connections for Zejko’s Second Meeting film and Amanda’s Indian Summer cross country tour.

But first I want to show her the space. And walking inside, I find the sanctuary enveloped in theatrical smoke and mist and weird green lighting. What the...?But of course, it’s Ramon. A tech rehearsal for his appearance tomorrow afternoon. With Jeffrey from Sanctuary’s assistance. Well,alright then...

So we go up to visit RL. Tales of Washington State roots. Yakima, Spokane....And then the swapping of songs, Shannon with one about people she met at a shelter in Seattle and pushing back the darkness...And RL’s classic Pinto and of course, Stay Awhile...And the evening would not be complete with out a visit from RL’s western radio altar ego Dusty Withers.

We head to sit out side at Slightly Oliver’s and get into the agenda as soft then steadier rain begins to fall....

After seeing Shannon on her way back to Hope’s, I return to the church. Jeffrey has fans blowing full speed to disperse the smoke, the eerie light remains. Hopefully it will all be gone by tomorrow morning, he says.  I nod. Yes. Hopefully.