Marissa Provenza: just people she loved...

10/6

Thanks to my cousin Suzanne and her son Gordon, we are able to quickly replace the stolen computer. Family, extended communities, that keeps us going.

The police come to interview me about the old one, the one that’s gone. Two uniformed police. Male and female. Friendly. I tell the story again. Slowly. For the third or fourth time. And yes, we are working on the security cameras.  Saturday, I visited the precinct detective squad and spent an hour going through mug shots on a computer. Pretty depressing. Went through nearly 500 photos. All looking, angry, anxious, depressed, defiant, broken or….Only 3 or 4 were maybes, the other hundreds clearly no. But the faces haunted me.  RL, of course asked me, what did I expect? Smiles?

Geoffrey is asking for a blanket. It’s getting cold out.

Jeremy and Anthony are the first to arrive to start putting things together for Marissa’s memorial service. Marc has quickly agreed to do the sound on short notice...

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Marissa

Marissa Provenza was a  member of the Seed Group. She came every Monday to sing with the Work Center Seed Group singers. They gathered to sing the African -American and southern white songs that are the roots of spirituals and gospel. They said she didn’t want to sing out too much, but everyone heard her voice, felt her presence. She died last week, suddenly. Unexpectedly. Tragically.

Jeremy G contacted me about the group coming together to plan a memorial service for her. Could they use the sanctuary? 
Of course. That’s why we’re here. 
The Seed Group is part of the family.  They’ve asked me to open and close the service. As people enter, they plan on people being greeted with a eucharist of  popcorn and prosecco. There will be a slide show. Music. Later, a video. And a potluck following.

As we are preparing, the parents arrive. From Florida. They tell me they were raised Catholics but became Christians in the ‘90’s. Today they are more spiritual than religious, but they assure me that Marissa knew Jesus.  More an affirmation of who she is than any thought that I needed to know that.

The people keep coming in, the pews keep filling.  The numbers are moving to me. Most from that 25-40 age group. Many from the circle of communal community houses in Bed-Stuy where she lived.

I’m paying attention to details. The altar.

The altar

Photos. Flowers, Remembrances. Poems. A small Mexican craneo. A San Lazaro candle from Latino popular culture. Votives.

Time to begin. I share some traditional words. ….my peace I leave with you…not as the world gives…blessed are those who mourn…for they shall be comforted.. Welcome them all, say that as her voice sang in these walls, it is still here. As theirs will be. And I quote the Dead:

If my words did glow with the gold of sunshine
And my tunes were played on the harp unstrung
Would you hear my voice come through the music
Would you hold it near as it were your own?
It's a hand-me-down, the thoughts are broken 
Perhaps they're better left unsung
I don't know, don't really care 
Let there be songs to fill the air

And said may your songs, your words, your prayers, fill this air…

I listen closely over the next two hours. To the original songs. The deep, probing spiritual questions they ask, affirmations they make. The poems, spoken word offerings.  One of her favorites, Don Mc Lean’s Castles in the Air.  A singer breaking down, unable to finish Leonard Cohen’s Bird on a Wire. ... and I swear by this song, and by all...by all.... A rousing group sing of another of her favorites, the praise song, Our God is an Awesome God:

Our God(our God) is an awesome God
He reigns(He reigns) from heaven above
With wisdom(with wisdom) pow'r and love
our God is an awesome God…

Testimony after testimony to a woman who embodied unconditional love. No acquaintances, they said, just people she loved. Who drew the bitter and cynical in from the edges. People who knew they had been loved.

The parents were amazed by the number of people. The life of their daughter given witness to.

I been changed...

The Seed Group gathers in a circle, takes off their shoes…starts to sing, I been changed….and the circle grows and the dance goes round and hands clap in rhythm, voices raised in harmony…

And then it’s my turn again. I begin with the  23rd psalm. The Lord is my shepherd... I was expecting a lot of why to be in the air, so I spoke of how my good friend Father John says it remains a mystery. And that at moments like these, God is shocked, surprised. But that he is equally sure that God is there on the other side, waiting with open arms to say, Welcome home with a warm embrace…I say the traditional words of commendation, …ashes to ashes, dust to dust…yet even at the grave…alleluia, alleluia, alleluia….

The chanters come forward, including some who sang Awesome God with one hand upraised, kneel before the altar, Nam myoho renge kyo, nam myoho renge kyo…until a bell is rung…

Anthony, who has been painting throughout the memorial, shares his finished work with Marissa's father.

Anthony's painting

And then, as people move to embrace each other, a lone harmonica plays Amazing grace….

People join together in the breaking of bread. Sharing of food from vegan to barbecue ribs.

Hold your life dear. Live your life. Love your life...
In the name of the living one who created us, Jesus the human one who walks with us as brother,companion and guide, and the wild and untamed holy spirit that sustains us, Amen…

                                         

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I was moved by what they had woven together from who they are. From their souls. Uncensored. Unfiltered. Unmediated. I was ready for why, but not so much of that. Yes, profound sadness. For some unspeakable grief. And the inevitable anger. But more acceptance than why. With all that accepting that means.

These 200 or so young people were for this night a true spiritual community. And my question of course, is who am I? Who are we, as church, in relation to this reality? Do we have any other role than that of a chaplaincy of accompaniment? Do they need anything from us other than a space to be together? Why was it important to be in a holy space? A church? What do we have to offer? All I know is it begins with presence….

After Mario and the Grotowski Work Center brought the Seed group into being, and Mario returned to Italy, I challenged Jeremy

Jeremy

and the group to see if there was a true community in formation. They have done that, rooted in song and spirit. My challenge has been to see where that can go..

I’m thinking of my conversation with Kristen Leigh…so why do we need church? And her answer, It comes down to what’s there when the shit hits the fan…what can I count on….The Seed Group met that challenge.

Again, what is the call here? All I know is that it begins with presence…

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Interfaith Assembly pin

Uh, thanks for Ripple, someone says, that blew me away...
Pretty close to perfect lines, I say. Outside on the steps, a neighbor is talking to one of the friends. He’d seen an open door, walked in to

see what was going on. Another I’ve lived here for years, never been inside before's….The friend says, This place is coming back…he points to my Interfaith Assembly pin with the four quadrants, cross, crescent, Buddha, star of David…that’s it, he says….

I’m concerned about the clean up, the remains of the potluck. I see Jeremy. He says, I was worried too, but Marissa believed strongly in recycling, in respecting the environment. Her friends got this covered…

Pat O has stopped by. He looks on, intrigued. 

Forming new spiritual communities II: rejecting and reclaiming

3/24

Mario has come back from Italy. What’s going on here has captured his interest and he believes that something special could happen here. Jeremy G, who’s keeping the flame burning here locally, is a key part  of the conversation as well. We head down the street to Flor de Mayo which gives me the opportunity to tell Mario all about the Cuban-Chinese community that once flourished  here on  the Upper West Side. And how members of First Chinese Havana were part of the original Iglesia Presbteriana de West-Park 50 years ago. 

Nirka and her husband Gregorio were part of that community. Greg had been part of Mao’s revolution and then fled to Cuba and joined Castro’s revolution. When reeducation loomed, he made off to New York City. Nirka and her children consider themselves both Asian and Latino in as much as their language is Spanish. Most of the restaurants with Comidas Criollas y Chinas are now gone. But Flor de Mayo continues even though it’s famous pollo a la brasa is now under the direction of a Peruvian chef.

We jump back into the issue of new spiritual communities. Mario still has his interest in connectng with existing communities and their capacities, especially St.Augustine’s in  the Bronx with their garifono community, descendants of Arawak Indians and African slaves. He brings up Redeemer Presbyterian, but I direct him away not wanting to get into a long discussion of  stand alone churches accountable only to themselves and closed to the leadership of not only lgbtq folks but women as well.

I’m interested in having the  open  choir sing with  us in worship. Jeremy responds that most may not be interested in anything related to the church. My point exactly, I say. And I talk about how those from the over 50% in this neighborhood describing themselves as nonaffiiated and the  thousands of them as spiritual but not religious.   

It is they I am concerned about. The came to Mario’s open choir because they sought connection. The growing sense of community brought them back. And I want them to conceive of a local based community continuing even without work center  presence. Praxis, not product, not branding. And I want to help the community come into being, to have people understand the connection between experience and prophetic action, and the service of others. Whether they call it Christian or not I don’t care. Mario and I, each with our own individual spiritual communities, have insites , resources to lend to the project. So we agree to continue the conversation and include Katherine and her questioning  as well.  Along the way we pick up a few strands of Freirian pedagogical precis and education for critical consciousness principles. Their connection with Liberation theology. And the overarching issue of context.

We walk up the street excited about what could happen next.

                                               

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Mitchell is looking for a breaker box, the lights have gone out. I show him the other breaker box that  comtrols the church house. Somewhere along the line, RL loses his Internet.

Forming new spiritual communities: the church that could be

3/1

Martin is working intensely on Antigone. Yesterday, he was excited for me to have a look in the studio.  One dancer, very,very tall..eight, nine feet? in height,  was standing at one end of the studio. A long flowing back dress stretched all the way the length  of the studio. All of the sudden,there is a stirring at the base of the dancer. Under the long stretch of dress, a figure is moving  forward. Strange and eerie. And then Marina’s head pops out. Slowly she frees herself and proceeds to move through an anguished dance.

Strong effect, right? Martin asks.

Great, I say, mesmerizing. And it is. I’m blown away and not sure what to say.

I look in today and now there’s a guy standing there. And the body is not Marina.

I go in to my meeting. Ask Jeremy and Katherine, did you look into the studio? Both nod yes. Both have eyes very wide, very wide indeed, like they can’t believe what they have just seen.

Katherine and Jeremy are soon joined by Felicita and a young woman from Greece by way of Toronto to who has just arrived and hosted the work center. Katherine and Felicita have been in email exchange.  It’s an important conversation. First and simplest, Katherine’s issues around the simple clarity of their performances. How hard the words are to understand.  If I hadn’t told her that it ws Ginsburg poetry she’d have  never known.

More important is the issue of context. Their work clearly has spiritual content but what is the context? Any performance seeking to create a spiritual experience must come from some place unless we’ve happened into a post-modern derridaist construct. What is the spiritual place they understand themselves to be coming from? Where do they seek to take us? As Katherine puts it, what kind of experience are they trying to decant?

Felicita agrees that they are good questions. Doesn’t necessarily have answers. They need to reflect on these things.  Any performance that seeks to create a spiritual experience is essentially a liturgy. That liturgy has theological content and ultimately a theologic, that is an intentional progress from one point  to  another with a conscious intention behind it. What Katherine refers to as a scaffolding. What our former music director, accordionist extraordinaire Bill Schimmel (Dr.William) referred to as the architecture of the liturgy. To this analysis the young woman from Greece adds the category of dramaturgy, that is the inner dramatic logic and structure of any particular theatrical performance. All agree that this us an important conversation. When  asked why it hasn’t been doe before, Felicita says that she hasn’t wanted to distance herself from the experience by dissection, even vivisection, of the work.  Which leads to a discussion of the process of action (or experience), reflection and revision leading to new action. An ongoing cycle.

I have  a different but connected concern. Much of  Mario’s work connects with existing spiritual communities. According to Felicita, Mario is looking for particular competencies.It is essentially  a dialogic process, two communities sharing their gifts and understanding together.

I am concerned for that growing circle of people who call themselves spiritual but not religious. And that when they come to open choir, say,they’re coming in a search for community. That community in formation must not only look inward but outward, transformation of the self and the world around us. That the music they are using from the American south, whether plantation work song or spiritual or Appalchian white mountain music is music of communities of struggle and that apart from engagement in the world the music becomes abstract aesthetic.

We want to talk about who comes to the open choir, and why. What are they looking for. And can we provide the space and support for building an ongoing community and how does that connect with the existing church here. We have open space and time now to do that. My experience tells me that this is the direction that the future of church lies, the creation and formation of new spiritual communities of shared experience, mutual accountability and commitment to building a more just, humane and sustainable world. That is what young people see in Bread &Puppet, Dzieci, Work Center. That’s where we need to go.

Katherine stays as our meeting breaks up. Almost screams as little mice scramble across the floor. (Yesterday in my office, Felcitia kept looking towards the closet. Is there an animal? She asked. I smiled and said yes.  The exterminators are coming next week.

Leaving, late, it’s freezing. Outside the door, there’s Rachel. I tell her you can’t come in, no one’s there. She holds out her gnarled hands, my hands are freezing, she says. I hesitate a minute, I’m sorry you can’t be here. No one is here. I can’t stay here. You’ve got to go somewhere….

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