Advent 2: Getting Ready

12/9

Ready for Christmas at Good Shepherd Faith

I arrived at Good Shepherd Faith on the Second Sunday of Advent to find the place all a sparkle and glowing. (In large part thanks to Elder Neil..) After lighting the candles,

Lighting the Advent candles

prayers, hymns and scripture, here was the reflection I shared with the church...

So I'd made a big mistake yesterday. I went downtown to do some Christmas shopping at Macy's. I had forgotten  it was that one day when  the very image of a Santa suit strikes terror into the hearts of even the most hardened and hardy New Yorkers. Santacon Saturday.....

One of my best New York memories was the year when a surging wave of Black Lives Matter marchers crossed paths with a wavering surge of drunk Santas. For a few blocks we had drunk guys in Santa suits chanting "Black lives matter." and a few had to be helped back to their original path. That's12/9

I arrived at Good Shepherd Faith on the Second Sunday of Advent to find the place all a sparkle and glowing. (In large part thanks t Elder Neil..) After lighting the candles, prayers, hymns and scripture, here was the reflection I shared with them....

So I'd made a big mistake yesterday. I went downtown to do some Christmas shopping at Macy's. I had forgotten  it was that one day when  the very image of a Santa suit strikes terror into the hearts of even the most hardened and hardy New Yorkers. 

One of my best New York memories was the year when a surging wave of Black Lives Matter marchers crossed paths with a wavering surge of drunk Santas. For a few blocks we had drunk guys in Santa suits chanting "Black lives matter." and a few had to be helped back to their original path.  Like they sing in the the Radio City Music Hall spectacular  sequence,  that's "Christmas in New York."

Getting  ready. I was out to get ready. That's what we're up to these days.

Like Paul Simon sings:

From early in November to the last week of December
I got money matters weighing me down
Oh the music may be merry, but it's only temporary
I know Santa Claus is coming to town
In the days I work my day job, in the nights I work my night
But it all comes down to working man's pay
Getting ready, I'm getting ready, ready for Christmas Day

And that's what our gospel is about today...I always look forward to this day because it's John the Baptist coming back again.  He's such an interesting character. Especially as a cousin to Jesus. We don't often think about the fact that his father was a priest in the temple. I mean the temple. He was, in essence, the son of what  we call a tall steeple preacher. You couldn't be more establishment. He's like one of those rich kids who turn hippy or ran away and joined Occupy Wall Street. And he's out there in the desert in animal skins and a raw nature diet preparing the way for his poor cousin Jesus. Straight from the prophet Isaiah (and you can almost here Handel:

"The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:

'Prepare the way of the Lord,

make his paths straight.

5Every valley shall be filled,

and every mountain and hill shall be made low,

and the crooked shall be made straight,


and the rough ways made smooth;

6and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.'"

(For what it's worth, Isaiah was a court prophet as opposed to street prophets like Micah and Amos...)

One thing I want you to see is how specific Luke is about timing:  

1In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, 2during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. 

He wants to put all this in a very specific socio- historio- political context. To tell this story about a specific time and place. Because that's how God breaks into our world...it always takes the particular to reveal the universal. Jesus comes to us in the second year of Trump's Presidency when Cuomo  was governor of New York and Di Blasio mayor of the city and Egan Cardinal of the city...you get the idea...

And by implication, God comes to us, the incarnation comes to us, Jesus comes to us, in the specific context of our lives. And let me tell you...the specific context of our lives, right now, today, is not easy...

My son last week at my birthday brunch asked me if I remembered a time in my life that was "so weird"...and I said, "Yeah, 1968...a sitting President decides not to run, Martin Luther King, Jr assassinated, leading Democrat candidate Bobby Kennedy assasinated, Democratic convention descends into chaos, mired deep in Vietnam and we wind up with Nixon as President...yeah, that was a rough year..."
(By the way, my band is doing a production of a 1968 album...of 12 people onstage, only 3 were alive i 1968. One who was 4, one who was 11...and me...)

So how do we respond, prepare in our day?  How many here remember "Amahl  and the Night Visitors"? It was an annual event for my family growing up.  I saw a production last week that profoundly moved me.  Onsite Opera staged it at Holy Apostles Soup kitchen. Right after a meal. The lead roles were all opera professionals but the chorus was made up mainly of current (and formerly) homeless people. (Once again, breaking our stereotypes..) Amahl's mother starts off wiping the tables and the opera emerges from the heart of the kitchen, which is actually the sanctuary of the church. OSO has partnered with "Breaking Ground," an organization that works to move homeless people from shelters to permanent affordable housing.(see  http://west-parkpress.blogspot.com/2018/12/amahl-and-night-visitors-from-soup.html )

That to me is a wonderful example of how an arts organization seeks to, as my Jewish friends say, "heal the world,""..preparing the way.."

A friend of mine in Ottawa, a former Occupier and tattoo artist, is working with others to fill backpacks with clothes and necessities, including hand knit scarves and mittens, for that city's homeless.

Years ago this church helped me create an annual concert for the homeless. It moved on to be on its own, but nevertheless was a creative cooperative effort.

We do what we can. In the ways that are appropriate to us. 
I'll finish with these words of Paul Simon:

If I could tell my Mom and Dad that the things we never had
Never mattered we were always okay
Getting ready, oh ready, ready for Christmas Day
Ready, getting ready
For the power and the glory and the story of the
Christmas Day

And so I ask you? How are you getting ready for Christmas Day? What are your stories?

I get various answers. One man's wife has just lost her mother. Wondering how to celebrate Christmas a time of grief. i recalled the Christmas my grandmother died. The importance of family being together. Others of the importance as a place of quiet during a time bustling with activity. A single mother  speaks one speaks of the importance of the Radio City Music Hall Spectacular to her daughter.  And a young man is continuing to do his annual project of answering the letter to Santa of children from a housing project even though he is unemployed this year. We do what we can. 

A time for coffee and cake and then back into the cold. Getting ready for Christmas....












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Amahl and the Night Visitors from the Soup Kitchen

12/4

On Site Opera's "Amahl....

Throughout my childhood, one of the most important moments in my family's annual Advent liturgy was the yearly NBC broadcast of Amahl and the Night Visitors. From the time I was two years old to the time I was 17, I waited in anticipation for this production every year. My family owned the original cast recording with the Bosh "Adoration" on the cover and accompanying libretto which I had pretty well memorized by age 10.

Bosch "Adoration of the Magi"

Finally, when I was now a college student, a dispute between Menotti and NBC meant there was no broadcast.

I barely noticed that it was gone, but I eventually caught on. It made a one-time reappearance in 1978, but the annual  event was over. During those  years, the narrative of the Menotti opera had become for me (almost) as much a part  of the canon as Matthew and Luke. 

Thus I was very excited when I learned that On Site Opera would be doing a production of "Amahl"...The more I learned the more impressedI was. The production would be done in conjunction with Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen and in partnership with "Breaking Ground," an organization dedicated to getting homeless people into permanent affordable housing. While opera professionals would take the leads, the chorus  would be made up of current and formerly homeless people. 

OSO kept faith with all my expectations. As you enter the church, you are aware that you are in a church that has opened up its worship space as a soup kitchen. Tables throughout the sanctuary give the impression of a meal just served. Amahl's mother is cleaning up after that meal and is interacting with the security guard. A simple child's toy on the floor helps set the stage and the narrative will emerge from this context.

From the first orchestral notes I was relieved that they were played with sharpness, precision and expression. (The last time I saw a community Amahl, the strings just about did me in. And the first sung notes took me back through over half a century to emotionally connect in ways that took me by surprise. And not the only edge of tears moment. 

 The cast was truly stellar throughout starting with Devin Zamir Coleman as Ahmal, alternating with Luciano Pantano, Aundi Marie Moore, Jospeh Gaines, Daniel Belcher, Musa Nkungqwana and Jonathan Green as Amahl's mother, the kings and the Page are equally effective in their roles.

For the most part the framing device works, although at times it stretches and strains to  contain the narrative. I liked the kings as characters one encounters on the street...with shopping  cart, wagon, baby carriage and outlandish garb. I've met them all. The chorus arises out of the gathered communuty. Having the  security guard be the "page" who calls out the theft was well played. As was coming back to the toy at the end. When it becomes difficult to manage the narrative within the frame its best to just take in the collective sense and feeling of the moment. 

Amahl emerged in a different US. One that was still in a glow of post war optimism that hoped to provide opportunity as a basic right. Networks like NBC commissioned new works of classical music and made them available to the public as Bernstein passionately believed that music belonged to the people. 

It's a different day. Culture is increasingly restricted to the privileged class. We have few collective shared experiences  on media. And poverty is perceived as being just desserts. In such a time, the question before the artistic and creative community is what then is our responsibility in such an age? Onsite Opera is clearly seeking to answer that question creatively and responsibly.  The fact that the opera was presented as part of a free opera program makes it all the more powerful a witness.

Onsite opera is now one of the resident companies of the Center at West Park, a place that has as part of its  mission exploring the intersection of ethics and esthetics, beauty and justice. Seems like a good fit.....

https://osopera.org/

https://www.centeratwestpark.org/