Flamenco and resistance

3/28

Soledad Barrios

One of the reasons to be happy to be alive right now is to be here at that moment when Soledad Barrios may be reaching her peak as a dancer. That moment when the passion and desire of youth come together with the wisdom and insight of a life lived while the body can still express it all. It is a rare moment that only ever lasts so long.  It's amazing to witness someone who can dance simultaneously with reckless abandon and complete control, steely self possession and unbound passion.

Part of what has made Ms. Barrios' dancing so transformative over the years is her commitment to continually expand the vocabulary of her discipline. Her recent years of ballet study clearly inform her movement as does her engagement with hip hop. And in her most recent performance in Noche Flamenco's  Intimos program, she seems to be discovering and adding elements of the dance of the cultures that flowed into and created flamenco including northern India and the near east. She has become at the  same time both the keeper and preserver of the genre's deepest traditions and the pioneer who is always pushing the boundaries. 

Providing much of the vision for Noche Flamenca is artistic director and choreographer (and Soledad's husband) Martin  Santangelo.  With training in the Grotowski school of theatre, Santangelo brings to his creations a respect for deep ritual and archetype and the interconnections between theatrical  forms which led to his intuitive understanding of the connections between Flamenco and Greek drama resulting in Noche's historic Antigona. (Also in their current production of La Ronde, inspired by a play by Arthur Schnitzler.) The other important element to Santangelo's work is his absolute commitment to his understanding of the moral content of flamenco.

My first knowledge of flamenco came from the Dona of New Mexico flamenco, Eva Encinias Sandoval who told us that flamenco was about peasants in flight. Gypsies, gitanos, constantly driven from one place to another. It's a dance on the edge of the earth when facing life threatening oppression. It's a dance of defiance. Of persistance. Of celebrating life in all circumstances. It is important to Martin to always maintain that connection between the dance and its roots.

This is clearly what led Martin to an intuitive understanding of the connection between flamenco and hip hop. It's very important to understand that this is not stunt choreography but integral and organic. Unlike ballet, modern, etc, flamenco and hip hop are both artistic expressions from communities of oppression. What began as a literal battle between two genres  in Antigona moved to a dialogue in last summer's Creacion and has now evolved into a seamless engagement in La Ronde.
beauty  Noche's most recent show at the Joyce was a classic expression of their singular vision. La Ronde is a danced interpretation of Schnitzler's erotic exposition of mores across class boundaries in turn of the century Germany. In Noche's version, we could just as easily be in an Andalusian village with its cast of characters from rich to poor. In Achispar, rising  stars Marina Elena and Carlos Menchaca show their growing skill both as individuals and as partners. It has been a joy over the last several years to watch Marina grow into a distinctive dance personality. And Carlos is  scion of the New Mexico Encinias tradition as a student of Eva's son Joaquin.

The program's solo offering by Juan Ogallo is the visible definition of the essence of male flamenco dance in all it's dignity, passion, self possession and sensuality. The current Noche company is nothing short of an all star cast with the definitive vocals of Carmina Cortes, the classic guitar stylings of guitarists Eugenio Iglesias and Salva de María and  percussionist David “Chupete” Rodrigue. Electric bassist Hamed Traore has become a creative contributor to the whole. And vocalists Manuel Gago and  Emilio Florido create a whole village of characters by themselves. Robert Wilson (ShortSircuit) is the troupe's hip hop dancer, now fully integrated.

But what's really important to me these days is exploring resistance to oppression. Flamenco in the Noche style is precisely that. In a day as AI Wei Wei's Human Flow has pointed out, more humans are in motion than at any other time in history, the human experience is now defined as peasants in flight. Europe seeks to seal its borders. A US president wants a wall. Neighbors who have  lived here decades are deported, separated from family friends and community. When you see Soledad Barrios solo tour de force, it is the expression of that human experience. The capacity to embrace life, in the words of Rubem Alves, in all its paradox, perplexity but most of all profound beauty. And when she stands in the spotlight alone, jaw set, face  forward fist raised, she is the embodiment of that collective humanity, that duende, defiantly proclaiming You can abuse us. You can move us. But you will not defeat us. We will survive. We will be here, And we.... Will.... Dance.

This commitment makes Noche  a perfect anchor for the Center at West Park as it seeks to establish itself as a vital place of exploration of the intersections of beauty and justice, ethics and esthetics. It's a mission Noche believes in and has already contributed much heart and soul to.

Bravo y ole.

The 3rd Sunday in Easter: Have you anything to eat?

4/19

The PDA volunteer work crew from Sacramento Presbytery

Today we have our friends from the Sacramento Presbytery with us. We’ve got 8 volunteers from the Presbyterian Disaster Assistance program to do a week’s worth of reconstruction work with us, under the leadership of my longtime friend Jeanie. (Marsha finds it a fun thought that we qualify as a Presbyterian disaster.) Andre has come to lend his voice and jazz musician Adam Birnbaum is our musician.

Pat and Larry decorated again

As we do throughout Easter, we begin with Alleluias. And the traditional greeting:

One: Christ is risen!

All: Christ is risen indeed!

Our first hymn is  Come Ye Faithful Raise the Strain. And for the first time in a long time, we get one of Andre’s jazz improvs on Psalm 4. Today’s gospel reading is LUKE 24:36B-48

Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” ³⁷They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost. ³⁸He said to them, “Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? ³⁹Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” ⁴⁰And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. ⁴¹While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” ⁴²They gave him a piece of broiled fish, ⁴³and he took it and ate in their presence

⁴⁴Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you — that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.” ⁴⁵Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, ⁴⁶and he said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, ⁴⁷and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. ⁴⁸You are witnesses of these things.”

I start my reflection with the question:

Have you seen Jesus this week?   Just wondering…was he on one of the posters of the victims of police shootings at the rally last Tuesday at Union Square? With Cornel West and Eve Ensler and Arturo O’Farrill? Did he spend the night in jail? Was he with the one who came in to my office last week, the one who we helped find housing who said you helped me can you help him? Asking me to contact our Reachout friends and write a letter to help get his friend a place to live. Passing it on, you might say. Or was he the one who needed a home? Was he at the PCUSA DC training on Mass Incarceration last Friday? Maybe a cell mate of my friend whose 39 year old son has been in since age 17? Or did he come from Sacramento with a hammer and paintbrush? Have you seen Jesus this week.?

Rising…resurrection living…that’s our topic, that’s our theme…today the question is…do you have anything to eat? We’re looking at what the disciples saw, reported…

Let’s set the context….after Easter morning, in the late afternoon, two unsuspecting characters were walking along the road to Emmaus and were taken by surprise by a stranger. And they walk and talk and ask the stranger to stay for dinner and when he breaks bread, they recognize him…like Mary needed to heart her voice, and Thomas needed to see the wounds, it’s this familiar act, they must have shared with him so many times….those must have been great meals, not the food so much, but the fellowship…during the revolution in Nicaragua, the usual form of address was companero, the one I break bread with …like our word companion…with the Latin word for bread in the middle..Jesus was before all else, their companero, the one they shared bread with…and in that act, they knew him..

So the two guys, already late in the day, walk the seven miles back to Jerusalem…anxious to tell the disciples…and all of a sudden, Jesus is there…don’t ask how he got there…and he says, Shalom….peace…

And how do they respond? ³⁷They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost.

And how does he respond? As he did to Thomas…

Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? ³⁹Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” 

And although they feel joy, it was too much to believe…so what does Jesus do? He asks for something to eat…(It’s been a pretty long day after all…) And they offer him broiled fish. (Several were after all, fishers…) And he eats….

What is the gospel writer trying to tell us? That this was a flesh and blood rising…even this risen, resurrected one could hunger and need food and nourishment…that just as Christmas was about incarnation, so too is Easter…God made flesh…(John puts this story on a beach…at breakfast…here, we’re still on Easter night..)

And then he connects his story with the Bible story they all know…and before he’s done, tells them to take this story to all nations…as witnesses…that’s what it means to be a disciple…to be  a witness….

So what is this supposed to tell us about our rising? Our resurrection living?

First of all, it’s not about metaphor. We are being challenged with flesh and blood reality. Go wrestle with that. There’s no how here. There may be a why. But at the end, it’s just an IS.

Believe me, I have struggled with that my whole adult life. Je suis Thomas,  le incredule…I survived for years on the power of metaphor…but I feel I’m starting to get it… it has to be flesh and blood….

And we are to be witnesses…what do we witness? How do we witness? It’s got to be flesh and blood real.. He asking for something to eat…

My Easter ended perfectly with the meal we served at the women’s homeless shelter…no fish this time, though Kate can put out  mean salmon…but we did have lamb and ham..he wants  to break bread…he wants to walk the road with us…he wants a place for the night to rest his head…and yes, he wants to breathe…

SO your job for next week? See if you see Jesus…maybe carry a notebook, or just put a memo on your smart phone…

I want to close with a poem by John Updike, not usually one of my favorites, but with this one he took me by surprise…

Seven Stanzas at Easter

Make no mistake: if He rose at all
it was as His body;
if the cells’ dissolution did not reverse, the molecules
reknit, the amino acids rekindle,
the Church will fall.

It was not as the flowers,
each soft Spring recurrent;
it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled
eyes of the eleven apostles;
it was as His flesh: ours.

The same hinged thumbs and toes,
the same valved heart
that–pierced–died, withered, paused, and then
regathered out of enduring Might
new strength to enclose.

Let us not mock God with metaphor,
analogy, sidestepping, transcendence;
making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the
faded credulity of earlier ages:
let us walk through the door.

The stone is rolled back, not papier-mâché,
not a stone in a story,
but the vast rock of materiality that in the slow
grinding of time will eclipse for each of us
the wide light of day.

And if we will have an angel at the tomb,
make it a real angel,
weighty with Max Planck’s quanta, vivid with hair,
opaque in the dawn light, robed in real linen
spun on a definite loom.

Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,
for our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,
lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are
embarrassed by the miracle,
and crushed by remonstrance.

John Updike, 1960.

We enter into our prayers by singing

Lead me, guide me along the way

For if you lead me I cannot stray

Lord let me walk each day with thee

Lead me, O Lord, lead me

And then there’s a joyous passing of the peace all around. Andre treats us to a an artful

Fairest Lord Jesus as we pass the plates.

a circle of friendship

And we close the service with Christ is Risen Shout Hosanna to the tune of Beethoven’s Ode to joy. And it feel something like that.

After our post worship conversations, Don from Sacramento, the construction manager of the team, and I will head down to Home Depot in Chelsea to get all the supplies needed for the week’s work.

I get back to the church in time for Noche’s  final flamenco singing class. The song that begins Si alguna vez va a Cadiz a el barrio de Santa Maria, tu veras los gitanitos bailando con alegria is working its way inside of me. We’ve been working on it all week. Since it’s the last class, there are bottles of wine and Spanish sherry and cheese and later chicken. Voices are singing open and full. I learned from el maestro Juan Ogallo that you riff on the open vowels, the a’s and o’s. It’s like una ventana entro la alma…To do it on the i (sung as e in Spanish) sounds like you saw a mouse. So I did learns something. 

Talking with Juan about flamenco singing

Around 7 PM, I’m in the lobby. In the sanctuary, the francophone African fellowship is finishing it’s service with vibrant soul stirring song. Upstairs in McAlpin Hall the Stop Mass Incarceration Network is working diligently and determinedly on their next action.

The Stop Mass Incarceration Network

And in Martin’s studio, the flamenco fiesta continues. I think to myself, this is how it is supposed to be. 

A few words about flamenco

5/25

Back from breakfast with Hugo and Arcadia. Stephen is working on editing the recording of Cara’s music. Martin and I step out for conversation. Numbers, numbers, working on numbers. I talk about yesterday afternoon’s epiphany moment.

Yeah, I know, he says. Antonio came up for dinner. He was still crying.

Beauty, I say, exquisite beauty. 

You have to tell him, says Martin, he’s actually pretty shy.

As if on cue, Antonio walks by. He’s teaching his Saturday morning class. Ayer, I say, que belleza. Un momento de belleza. Un momento...

and we say together, magico puro....and he smiles in a gentle, semi-embarrassed way. 

I say to Martin, it’s not just numbers, it’s this...these stories...you understand...

He looks at me like, of course I understand...

Somehow this must be  part of the equation...

We talk. I say that yesterday, Stephen said, everyone has their price. And I responded, but apparently not me...

And I tell Martin, but on reflection, maybe I do....the right flamenco dancer, the right gitana,  and I’d follow that caravan anywhere...

                  * * * * 

This flamenco thing. Not new. Back in 1977, I went to my first artists’ workshop at Ghost Ranch, Abiquiu, New Mexico. Where Georgia O’ Keefe lived and painted. It’s rocks and mesas her subjects. There were poets, painters, sculptors...and Eva Encinias teaching dance. At the end of the week, she brought her  troupe up from Albuquerque for a performance. Including her mother, still a powerful singer.  I was blown away. Even wrote a poem about watching Eva dance flamenco. 

I learned that its roots went from beyond Andalusia to the Indian subcontinent. That it could be loosely translated peasants in flight. And in the flashing feet and facial expressions of the  women I could see a narrative of flight, of determination  of passion. Dances, songs around camp fires. Feet almost bursting into flame. As if they could chase away the devil or drive all the way through  to the center of the earth. 

Every summer I would wait for Eva’s performance. As a whitebread boy from Pittsburgh it was a world that was vibrant and alive with pure passion. A world I wanted. 

Needless to say, I love flamenco in my house....

                                       * * * * 

Excitement: the New Yorker magazine has a feature in the Pantha du Prince concert...that's a first...(http://www.newyorker.com/arts/events/nightlife/pantha-du-prince-west-park-presbyterian-church )

Another day of sweeping. And its a rubber gloves day. Lots of wet newspaper, cardboard. I get to where the army guy with  the sign was sleeping. Pick up his cardboard. Out falls 2-3 dozen condoms. What? Seriously?

I go down to visit with RL, Katie and Poet Tim at the Gate. On the way back, I see the Sergeant. Tell him what a mess it was this morning. Unacceptable. And then I tell him about the condoms. He is sad and angry. All right, pastor, I got it.

And we talk about housing. How I learned from Reachout he still has a place. Not the way he understands it. Could be a bureaucratic foul up where his case got closed and housing no longer in place. I tell him we’ll check it out next week. Stephen is adding him to our crew for the concert. 

This day is done. 

Why we're here

5/24

See Anna on the bench in front of Genarro, one of the only destination restaurants on th Upper West Side. Haven’t seen her in a few days, so I sit and talk awhile. She reminds me that the project across 93rd is called Little Vietnam. That tells you how long its been around.  Haven’t heard that for awhile, I say. And I remember how when I first moved here, we’d hear gunfire coming from there. Back when the Mexicans first moved in the and Caribbeans moved out  and a battle took place for control of the drug trade. I recall that. Haven’t heard guns in a long time, I say. They’re  still there, she says, but now the projects are all next door to rich people. 

When we were planning our candidates' forum questions, someone suggested stop and frisk as an issue. Not in our neighborhood, most responded. With projects just three blocks away. I’ve had members  stopped and frisked. But in the gentrified Upper West Side, some things, some people, are invisible.

Stephen and Danielle and I going over the Red Bull contract one more time. I help Stephen move the movie screen. We’ll need Marc to help move out all his sound equipment so that Red Bull’s people can move their equipment in. 

Bread and Puppet tech people are in to do preliminary work for their fall celebration. Contingency plans and all. And a contractor comes in to work up estimates on what it will take to bring  the building up to code. 

In addition to the new exposed lath Stephen  showed me last night during the storm, we hear water dripping  and find there’s water coming in through the tower into the theatre. The bathrooms are flooded. And the drainage hole at the end of the stygian darkness passage is filled again. 

Danielle emerges from the tower  looking like Ash Wednesday.

Rudolfo wanders in, with that sad ready to ask for help look on his face. My look tells him not now. 

See Gregory out on the street. This time he just greets me. A random man comes by with a story and an ask. Anna tells him I’m almost as broke as he is, which is pretty close to true.  

The madness is also beginning  to get to me. Looking out at the world through so many eyes that see plots and plans and threats at every turn. Harder to pull myself out of that place. 

I tell Danielle, in my world, most of us are doing our best juts to get by. None of us perfect. All of us mixed motives. Few of us truly evil. Takes most of our time and energy just to hang on. Not much left over for plots and plans....Tiring. 

I open my computer to look at financial statements. And feel an increasing depression setting in. More than  one kind of leak has sprung. The sound of steady dripping has me almost to the what’s the point place. Why do we keep trying? Really feeling it. RL comes in. It’s cold enough that he’s got his winter cowboy hat out again. He here’s me utter what could be heard as a prayer. OK, when I hear a man of the cloth looking at his computer screen, calling for Jesus, it’s time to git...

Even sweeping the steps doesn’t help.

Jeremy is in the sanctuary recording Cara’s music. She’s been playing about an hour. Then Danielle hears a voice.

Who’s that?

Jeremy? I suggest.

No, someone different.

So we look. It’s Antonio. One of the foremost flamenco dancer/singers in the world. Here for a week of composing and choreography with Martin. And conducting workshops.  

Antonio Rodriguez

We watch. And listen. He is flamenco riffing off of Cara’s playing. That plaintive flamenco style with echoes of Muslim muezzin, Jewish cantor, Andalusian gitano. Wavering, near ululation, filled with longing, anguish, determination, passion. They are improvising. Gypsy jamming. We are mesmerized. Transfixed. They continue the dance of piano and voice, back and forth, rising and falling. Then Antonio begins clapping his hands, palmas, and next thing  I know he has flown into dance, his feet pounding the floor in relentless rhythm until a final explosion of sound. They look at each other. Collapse into laughter. And hugs. Danielle and I look at each other. Amazing. Just amazing.

Maybe because it’s because I’m already on the verge of emotional exhaustion, but I feel tears welling up. And I know. I know why we’re here. That unexpected intersection of unlikely people. The moment of magic transcendence that happens here. 

We walk into the sanctuary. Stephen looks up. Did you hear that? Incredible, I say, just incredible. Cara is beaming. I have never been happier, she says, I am so rich. I am going to be somebody (Cara, you already are somebody.) I know her story. Her journey. I’m watching rebirth as she claims all her gifts.  And I know.

This is so right. So what is supposed to be. So why     is     it    so    hard? So    damn   hard?

And after this performance, Cara goes out to sweep. This is why we are here.

                * * * * 

When I go to leave, the door won’t open. Los Rodriguez are there. They tell me the other doorways are full. I see a young white guy asleep in the south door. He’s got a sign that says: 

US ARMY VET

HOMELESS
PLEASE HELP

You can’t do that here, I say. He nods. Takes down the sign.

It’s the shit and champagne story again. The  exquisite beauty and madness.

I know why we’re here.

http://west-parkpress.blogspot.com/2012/09/and-champagne.html

http://west-parkpress.blogspot.com/2011/04/thirty-seventh-day-of-lent-stygian.html

...and champagne

9/3

Arrive to find another disaster on the steps. The worst yet. I go inside. Danielle has not opened up the doors yet. Came in the side door, never noticed. Teddy’s unavailable, so I call Steven who’ll be there in a minute. I need a plan. When Steven shows up with a large glass container of water,no buckets to be found,  I say, No, here’s what we’re going to do. I’m buying us new gloves. And a new mop. The old one died Sunday. And new garbage bags. You’re going to get the bleach and check the hoses downstairs. And the we’re going to deal with this.

I head to the hardware store. Buy my supplies. Back at the church, Ana has come in to sit and talk. I tell her I’ve missed her. She tells me the heat’s been too great. And wants to get into a discussion about Ched Meyer’s Binding the Strongman. You didn’t think I read it but I did. 

Never doubted that Ana.

Now I’m not an atheist, believe it or not. But it seems to me he’s trying to make Jesus out to be a Che Guevara....

I tell her I’d like to talk with her, engage the discussion, but I’ve got shit to deal with, literally. Ah, someone’s been pooping there? she asks. Yeah, that and more, I say. 

Steven and I go downstairs and find all the hose connections. Push the hose up through the hole in the street grate. We drag it. Need another length. Find it. Finally have enough hose to reach all the way down 86th and around the corner at Amsterdam. Next issue is to figure out how to turn the water on.

Finally. I reach down and gather up all the blasted papers. Steven brings a garbage bag, I hold my breath, dig down and toss it all into the bag. They don’t teach this at Yale, I say. Pepperdine neither, he says. And then pours bleach. His first container of water. Then as the hose is turned on, I take the new mop and scrape and mop until it’s all gone. We keep the water flowing until the steps are thoroughly clean. 

And then for good measure, pick up all the papers and cigarette butts all they way around to the 86th Street door then hose everything down. While I’m sidewalk sweeping and picking up butts, my old friend and neighbor Elle, the old fashion designer, stops. Looks. Has it come to this, Pastor, that you have to do this yourself?  I consider telling her she doesn’t know the half of it. But don’t. And that I’d give a lot for our neighbors to know how much we do care about this place.About being neighbors. But I don’t. I just say, I’m not alone, and, we all have to take our turn.  She thinks a minute. I think that’s admirable, she says, then heads to her home. 

Steven says, You’ve got to do something.

 I know, I say,  Soon as I’m back inside, I’m calling the precinct. And I do. And as expected, get an answering machine. Then I call Reachout who say they’ll take a note. 

Danielle is talking with Miriam, a young striking Ethiopian-German. She was the artistic director for Playing With Fire. She wants to do another play, here, on her own. I share my reflections on their performance of ....Fire. She’s surprised I saw it. She saw me outside with the mop. Am I an actor? A theatre person? No, I say, I’m a minister. The pastor of this church. What I do is sometimes a performance.  But it’s never acting...

I share with her the vision of the Center. And how I prefer groups interested in collaboration, not just renting cheap space. Tell her I’m glad she’ll be around. 

While I’m putting the hose away, Luli is coming into the church with a tray, glasses and a  bottle of cava. It’s Soledad’s birthday. Martin invites me to share a glass of champagne, watch some rehearsal. I sip the cava as Soledad dances to Miguel and his ululating gritos born from el Andaluz.  That’s what it is here, I think, shit and champagne...

Teddy is up and into the office.  Tells me Edward was on the steps when he got back from work. Soaked from the waist down.  Asleep in his own. I tried to wake him, he says, he gets up, weaving, gets in my face. I called the ambulance. Didn’t know what else to do. They showed up. I left when they came. Don’t know what happened. 

I tell Teddy what we had to deal with. That there was blood on the steps. That we have to call 911 on sight. 

Bob, he says, and making his arms go like an umpire’s safe sign, says, the dude is cooked. He’s cooked. His body is shutting down. He’s got no control.

I know. But we’ve got no choice. He’s not going to die on my steps. 

And I tell Teddy and Danielle the story of Arthur Cafiero, who froze to death on the steps, back in 2003, despite my efforts to get him in. The New York Post blamed my bleeding heart for his death. There’s more, but another story for another time. Still hurts. 

In the late afternoon, the Center Board gathers in Mc Alpin Hall for a post mortem on our late lamented lost deal. There is sadness. And anger. We are going to make this deal, we’d been told. And we had begun to live into it. The moment is grim. But we have to use every moment we’ve got. Melisa’s proposal is back on the table. Chris, who had been working with us back when we had a developer, as their rep, has found another possibility. We have our assignments. We’ll play this out to the end.  

While we’re meeting, Teddy texts, Edward is back. But when he sees Teddy, he takes off. The sounds of voices and feet of flamenco filtering up through the floor. I ponder the mystery of Edward. My therapist says, someone has to want to change. And I say, I know, but it’s not enough. He knows what he has to do to live and won’t (can’t?) do it. So do I. And there’s a lot I don’t do. And I think I  I know why but I don’t. All that DNA/genes what not. It’s like genetic Yahtzee. The cosmic dice get rolled. Maybe you get all sixes. Or maybe just a bunch of random dice that don’t add up to nothing. I’m on the inside, a struggling pastor in a struggling church.  He’s on the outside, slipping away.

The sounds of flamenco getting louder through the floor. The voice, the feet, dancing together. Shit and champagne.

And today it's Howard Thurman

Howard Thurman

10/27

I need to be on my way to Stony Point for a retreat. But I stop in to see Danielle, just to check.Try to work out with Marc what level of sound equipment is appropriate ffor Sanctuary.  Martin is here again. Today, it’s Howard Thurman. We seem to be travellig through the Civil Fights era. Martin is finding those who were mentors to Dr. King. Thurman, prototype of the American mystic activist. Another FOR pioneer. And a strong believer in community, what is most sacred to me. 

...community cannot feed for long on itself; it can only flourish where always the boundaries are giving way to the coming of others from beyond them -- unknown and undiscovered brothers.... From The Search For Common Ground; An Inquiry Into The Basis Of Man's Experience Of Community, page 104. The model of the holistic raidcal we need today. Who understands the intersection of spirit and revolution at the deepest level. 

We talk more about Thurman. Then I tell Martin I’ve got to get up to Stony Point to meet for the Intefaith Assembly Board retreat. Which means I’ve got to tell him both about the Assembly ... only place in the city to work for both the transformation  of the individual and society...and Stony Point. When I talk about  Stony Point, their interfaith model of arts and culture,social justice activism and spirtuality with living communities of Muslims, Jews and Christians really excites him. Before we’re donem he’s taking about doing a set of concerts, one at West-Park, the other in Stony Point. Perfect, I say, just what we’re here for...

I'm sorry he's leaving. I can't wait to see who or what tomorrow might have brought. 

Now to Stony Point.