The mudders will eat their fodders

11/20

Another two tours. Have to start the first one on my own. Decent neighborhood guy named Johnny. What’s his business, his interest?

Need to make my way to the dentist. An anxiety filled, fear inducing experience. Always. Waiting for the extraction, resisting metaphor construction where it doesn’t belong, I get a text message that chills me to the bone. Issues in our contract negotiation. Returning to the church, I try to avoid the feeling that Armageddon approaches. Jamie tells me not to worry about what I can’t control, to get on with my work that  can control. But how do you always know the difference?

11/21

Danielle has returned. She too feels the anxiety. I have to maintain the non-anxious presence. Right.

Marty gives me a good greeting. Says my blue hat with sunglasses perched on the brim make me look like a jockey. Says, what happens when the tracks’ off? 

Say what?

When the race track is too wet to run...you know, like Aqueduct?

Well?

The mudders will eat their  fodders.....that’s Abbot and Costello...he says and laughs. Then comes a long stream of consciousness. Big sales today reverend?

No, that’s Friday. This is Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving. That happens Friday the day after. 

So when they advertise a sale item and you get there and they don’t have it, what is that?

That’s what you call bait and switch. 

Bait and switch, eh?  Are you sure that it’s not just marketing? Is that legal?

I shrug my shoulders. He goes into a long story about his father sending his to collect money on Jerome Avenue. Was this some rabbinic godfather thing? And then into a long story about a long walk from the Bronx to Harlem to see Rev. Ike. But when he got there, there was a visiting preacher. So I took the bus home he says. And then, I see a big check coming in the mail to you. A big check.... Where’d that come from? I hadn’t said a word to him. Maybe there’s something parabolic or prophetic in all this....hey, I’m open...

On the steps, Teddy and Stephen are in an argument. Managing it fairly well, but nevertheless....I tell them, I have a way to do this, but not today. Let me get through this, then.....

Martin walks down the street. Teddy and I and Martin head to the Dead Poet. Time for what we call a come to Jesus talk. A lay your cards on the table talk. A speak now or forever hold your peace talk.... Straight talk among friends? Or at least those who respect one another...

Walking back up the street, I see Mandola Joe and RL outside the Gate. Stop and talk, RL sharing his view of the lay of the land. And adding an invitation to a Thanksgiving meal. God bless you, RL. Only wish I could be three places at once. The man has a beautiful spirit and good heart. On top of that wicked sense of humor. Gotta just love the man. 

Danielle has gone home. Hugo has delivered turkey and dressing. The message is hope. I have a Thanksgiving service to get to.

Maybe next year at West Park. Hope. 

(For the full Abbot and Costello routine from November 9th, 1944 go to http://www.otrr.org/FILES/Scripts_pdf/Abbott_And_Costello/Abbott_And_Costello_44-11-09.pdf ) this one rivals their classic Who's on First....)

Abbot and Costello

When is the triumphant entry?

1/19

Katrine and Marie come back to visit again. When they thought it was all or nothing and had a sense of how expensive it might be to do all, they decided nothing was better. But something about the building kept calling them back. Maybe something  smaller? A way to begin? Let’s say we’re open.....

Visiting with Teddy before he leaves for his Sandy clean up job. It's back breaking labor with people’s soaked and sodden belongings. As we talk, Anna walks by with puppy, making a joke or two but mainly good humored teasing.

RL apologizes for missing Catherine’s concert. Unavoidable home commitments. Which I understand. Wants to check out dates in December for possible open mike/showcase events. And I’m wondering if he cold get me a lineup of entertainment for the crafts fair if Amanda can’t be here. 

Two burly private  investigators come in looking for me. Looking for Heather. Parents trying to find her and their grandchildren. I haven’t seen her in months.  She only lived here a very short while. W made it clear immediately that this was not a place for she and her children. Would see her time and again. Was connected to DJ Dan. There was the Child Protective Services inquiry. The time to see me wanting to turn her life around, seeking my prayers...Kids generally seemed OK. I heard Brooklyn,  heard squats, but....I don’t know...

A man from Euclid Hall has a long story and needs a Metro Card and I’ve got one for one. Not enough for the time put into the story.

People from a film academy came to check out the building. Wish Jamie were here. I have to start the group on my own. And one of the guests feels a little too aggressive and assertive and I’m too stressed for that.  I’m thankful when she arrives. 

John H and I are reviewing our experiences of the Dzieci Makbet. He’d seen it before, larger venue, larger cast....more impassioned, he felt. But we’re more interested in exploring how do these experiences begin to build towards  community? Toward a church?  How would it be differentiated from what Jane and Sanctuary do? From John’s perspective, it requires an intentional and in depth exploration of Christian scriptures, their origins, meaning today....We are in complete agreement, although I know we may have some radical differences in assumptions regarding the scriptures...And this is not the time to get into that. But he’s right in terms of creating a center for a community to gather around. 

I see Dave and Donna coming in and going out. Where did I see them last? Was it the cafeteria at Whole Foods? Or?  What are they up to? They’re gone before I’m able to ask....

The Center Board meets. John H, Ted, Mim, Hope....concerned about finances. Concerned about the negotiations with Noche. Is there a back up plan? Is there? Ted in his position knows of all kinds of short term needs of arts groups...even just to dry things out....in the wake of Sandy. Can we be involved in that? Why can’t Space Works get it together around that? What do we need to, how do we follow up with Jane round our last meeting? I’m surprised to find out we’re not getting the crafts fair this year. All ted’s stuff in Red Hook storage was lost. Communications an issue too. So we need to schedule a full meeting asap.

Jamie is taking another group around.

I need to assemble a complete set of keys for Jamie and Danielle and myself. Looks like Rachelle has snuck a cart into the sanctuary again. I need to get one person around here connected with a psychiatrist and a residential program because that’s the only way they can move forward. Need to find out from someone else exactly what their story is. Whatever it is is OK, but what is it? Need to reclaim one  of Marc’s closets for Martin and repurpose another room. Need better communications.  Need to clean up the front, the office, need another dumpster..need to know exactly what renovation would cost....how much money we owe....need to finish this contract....need...need to put up a big piece of brown paper so i can put in front of my eyes everything I need to do.... need... a sense of chaos is closing in...

The St.Agnes guys are here but Teddy is at work and Danielle not around...Jamie sends them off on a project.

On the steps, I find Gary with a bottle. Man, you know you can’t do that...

Just takin’ a break, just waitin’ for the next bus, just....

You now the rules...

All right, all right...the next bus...

I need to get out for awhile.

When I come back after making dinner at home, Gary is still on the steps.

Gary, you told  me next bus...that was hours ago....

Ah, they beat the shit out of me, stole my phone...

He seems drunk. Who Gary, who? 

Can’t make out what he says.

Where’s your friend Anthony? Doesn’t he take care of you?

He looks at me. Like he’s not sure. Help me up, OK? 

I know his legs don’t work so well. I help him up. Off the steps. Onto the sidewalk. 

Thank you pastor. Thank you for everything. 

Back inside, Anna, Hope, Marsha, John R and I gather around the table in the sanctuary in its warm evening light. I’m exhausted but we open our Bibles, head into Mark 11. A lot of the passages we’ve been studying have also been part of our Sunday morning lectionary. But not this. It’s a Holy Week theme...Jesus’ (so-called) triumphal entry...But Maybe since Advent is about Jesus coming again, maybe this is not a bad passage to look at in this season. Although as we will come to find out, it’s neither all that triumphant and not really the entry. John R points out as he reads that Bethpage and Bethany are like Long Island place names.  I tell him that I was at a church in Newtown, Queens last weekend that went back to 1672. The whole history of English dissenters welcomed to the New Amsterdam colony....the openness of the Dutch...How that all changed when the British took over. But yes, Long Island founders were devout....

Those names are important too....Bethany: house of the poor, and Bethphage:

House of unripened figs. 

What do we find:

• Jesus entry is powerful contradictory street theatre, trappings of triumphant entries like the Maccabees, or the Sikari but his followers are unarmed, only with palm branches
• Palm branches  also called for in Zechariah for the one who brings peace
• Like a king’s entry, but on a colt of a donkey, the ride of a poor man
• Marsha points out an unridden colt would never have known another master
• People shouting hosanna!, save now!...also associated with sukkot and the waving of branches...
• The people lay down coats and branches...all they have

This could be a band of resistance fighters ready to go in and try to take the city. But when he comes in, Jesus enter s the temple....and...and..looks around and leaves...looks around and leaves...nothing happened...all that build up and....nothing...

He goes back to Bethany (house of the poor.)

Then there’s this incident with the fig tree. (Bethphage.) Symbol of the fruitfulnesss of life. Symbol of the good man. The righteous man. Symbol of the nation.  And as it is fruitless, Jesus curses it. 

That fig tree is not the people, it is the socio-religio-politcal system symbolized by the temple that must go. Our side winning is not enough. Restoration of the Davidic kingdom is not his project. The whole thing has got to go. It’s an Occupy Wall Street moment. Not this. Not that. The whole thing. Everything. 

So our conversation goes a lot of places. Anna wants to know why it has taken so long. Is that really what the church wanted? I respond that in my tradition, the church as a human institution will inevitably be imperfect if not corruptible if not ultimately sinful. Becoming the official religion of the Roman Empire set a certain course. Like the missionary movement that accompanied American imperialism in the late 19th Century. 

And Marsha sees connections to a theology of community organizing where whoever is in power must be held accountable. And we talk again of Tutu, and King and the history of Black Theology that can celebrate victory already won even while slavery or apartheid  continues. Or a village like le Chambon in France where every family saved a Jewish family.  What does it take to raise children so that they will respond like that? And our predecessors at West-Park who were inspired to choose as their slogan, Not by might, nor by power....from Zechariah 4:6. How do that happen? Setting in motion a  line that continues down to today. 

But I think back to what Jesus is trying to say. The this, not that, a transcultural, transnational class based community that is spirit led and driven....non-ideological but political as an expression of the spiritual commitment....what would it take to create such a community? What would living in it feel like?

The morning we shared together

11/18

Teddy tells me  Sean as gone through another round of amputations. He’s making him a care package....

Come into the church to find Anna on the floor with puppy...Now  that’s disconcerting. She tells me it’s her back. And has brought me some kind of digital device I don’t understand as she launches into anther very wordy explanation. 

Two very neat looking men enter into the church. Their shirts say FEMA. As Anna hears who they are, she says loudly, make sure they show you id. And hearing her, they do. Tell me they’re canvassing the neighborhood. Checking to see if we suffered any damage. If any of our people suffered any damage. I tell them we’re OK, except for some roof tiles. And that we’ve been making survival packages. They leave me with a poster about how to get aid. As they’re leaving, Anna says, if anything’s missing, remember what they looked like....write it down...

I remember during the rebuild in New Orleans when people joked that FEMA stood for Find Every Mexican Available...or Federal Experts My Ass....I’m not hearing criticism post Sandy.

So I know Teddy is working a clean up job. Seven and Jay are on Schatzie the Butcher’s pre-Thanksgiving crunch time crew. Hope has called in and said that after the canvassing, her knee is in pain and she’s gone back home. I decide not to worry. To ask John to help me create a circle of chairs so we can be close and intimate with one another. 

We begin with some Taize chants.Our prayers.Hugo lifts up the people of Palestine and Israel. And we read our scriptures:  I Samuel 1: 4-20, 1 Samuel 2: 1-10, Hebrews 10: 11-25 and Mark 13: 1-8. Each brings some reflection...

• 1Samuel 1: 4-20...In a day when we hear so much about Biblical marriage, does anyone even understand  what that is? In Biblical times, marriage had to do with chattel with property, and contracts. But here something different is going on. Elkanah is married to Penninah, who has given him sons. But his heart belongs to Hannah, who is barren. This is a relationship of love.....
• When Hannah is praying, Eli the priest assume she’s drunk....like the crowd assumes the apostles are drunk at Pentecost
• Hannah’s song in 2:1-10 is like the Magnificat, Mary’s song...Just like the stores put up their Christmas decorations right after Halloween, here we have an Advent preview....
• Hannah’s line for... not by might does one prevail.....is like the West-Park motto verse from Zechariah 4:6, Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit says the Lord of hosts....
• From Hebrews... And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds....I wonder what it would be like to provoke one another to love and good deeds.. and yes, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some......OK, what does that say to us? 

So I’m wondering...what’s my lead this morning? There’s an important day coming up on Tuesday 11/20...It marks the 50th anniversary of the official end of the US military blockade of  Cuba in 1962...The final end of the Cuban missile crisis I ask how many remember..Jamie remembers having to practice hiding under her desk in school. Nirka was actually living in Cuba, expecting an American invasion at anytime. Arcadia had just arrived in the US from Nicaragua. I remember what it was like to live in the sense of inevitability that  the unimaginable was about to happen. Unreal and hyper real at the same time. Our 8th grade mountain trip was cancelled. The I remember us breathing a collective sigh of relief in church that Sunday when the announcement was made from U Thant at the UN that an agreement had been reached. President Kennedy had chosen to believe the one of two contradictory messages that indicated a chance for avoiding nuclear war. And Premier Kruschev as well had to want to avoid unleashing Armageddon. So we agreed not to invade, They agreed t remove the missiles. Privately we agreed to remove missiles from Turkey. And then on November 20th, the blockade ended.

Then there was what happened in Presbytery yesterday. Our issue here is not liberal vs. conservative, like in other Presbyteries,eg, Pittsburgh. It is about large (white) and rich vs. smaller and people of color....Manhattan vs. boroughs ... And in the attitude about who should dominate and control it does mirror our current national politics....There is this ever disappearing sense of the  common good...

So we need to go deeper. In Mark we find what’s called the Little Apocalypse. A key question is when was it written? While scholarship has tended to say post-70, after the fall.  But Ched Meyer, in Binding the Strongman,  says it was written between 68-70, in the midst of struggle, before the fall....Israel had lived through some mini victories...but now the Romans were  taking it all  back. And guerrilla resistance groups were being organized and mobilized.

So the disciples are dazzled by beauty of temple...it was their national icon. And Jesus wants them to look beyond nationalism, to recognize that it had been built by Herod, a ruler chosen by the Romans to rule on their behalf, with slave labor...He wants to make clear that the issue is not if we could only get rid of Rome..His reference to those who bring false Messiahs include the guerrilla groups...and maybe even  the Essenes....and the Temple itself represents a power that must, will be, brought down. 

Wes Howard-Brook is a teacher at Seattle University. His new book, Come Out my People. argues that there are two theologies in the Bible, Empire and Creation and that the tension between them flows through the whole bible.

Do we need a king? Hannah’s song shows clearly the  signs of that tension. Both king and messiah, liberator, are subjects. 

We need to remember who we are. Just because Obama has been  reelected, that is not our answer. It never was, even the first time around. 

What we’re being called to is an entirely new way of life...

*Right or left not the point

* The cross is the point...not as martyrdom, not as self-sacrifice....but as radical commitment to stay faithful, resolute, regardless the cause

* As giving, as love...

* As centered in community

• As truly caring about one another.... a community where there is nothing hidden..where we are willing to work our issues out in community...

What would we be willing to give, to do, to be, to build such a community? Be such a community?  To have that be our legacy? 

We finished our service. Shared cake together that Marsha had brought. Thanked each other for the morning we shared together. 

He said: Don't look back

11/17

Gypsies in the house

When I arrive at the church, Saturday’s Pledge Day for Sweatshop Free Upper West Side is just wrapping up. One of the organizers tells me that six new businesses have been added to coalition now passing 75. The goal is 100 by the end of the year. Workers have been out door to door explaining the campaign, developing support. Hope introduces me to Miriam, the wife of the late Jim Drake. Jim was an organizer’s organizer, knew the work intuitively and trained a generation of organizers. I met him back when West-Park was a founding member of the Industrial Ares Foundation (IAF) organization Westsiders Together. We were also the first home of WEST. 

I’m happy that Miriam has recognized the fact that SSFUWS utilizes classic community organizing practices building a truly community based campaign with an organization’s structure involving workers with and without papers, union members, faith community people, politicians, residents and small business owners. And that after a year, our small business owners are leaders in the wisdom of guaranteeing workers basic (and legal!) rights. The connection back to Alinsky’s principles (see Sol Alinsky, Rules for Radicals) is clear. It’s good to make a connection back to Jim and his legacy of justice. 

I share with hope the outcome of the Presbytery vote, 64-34 against dividing the Presbytery into 4 borough based sub units. Tellingly the vote mirrored the results of a straw poll taken at the end of a study day months ago. Somehow, the questions raised by that  day remained and were never really answered. Despite its creative features, it felt like an effort of the white and wealthy Manhattan churches to separate from the poorer outer borough churches of people of color and to create a mission driven by the churches with money and smaller churches in colonial client relationships as opposed to colleague brother and sister ministries. Tough to explain to Sarah, but not disconnected from our recent election and the move in the country away from a commitment to the common good and and towards making the poor and marginalized more dependent on charity.  That part came through.

Alivewire’s Scott wants to come upstairs and see what’s happened in their closeout.  He’s taken their theatrical kitchen set and turned it into a more functional actual working kitchen for us. Prep and serving stations, bar, ready to roll. They’ll be leaving this for us. It’s been  good having them in the house. 

Late in the afternoon, we’ve got an issue. Alivewire’s moveout is continuing, production people from Shades of Gray and Dzieci are arriving. The place  is buzzing with activity.  And Teddy has had to call 911 on Rachelle. Something about all this activity excited her and she kept interjecting herself into the middle of everyone’s work. (Just trying to help, she would say.) Teddy asked her gently to leave and when she wouldn’t and launched into a verbal attack,  instead of losing his temper,  called 911. (Steven, setting up the bar, confirmed the story. Teddy did the right thing, he said. Given their own disagreements, that meant a lot. By now, Rachelle in her billowing hat and layers of clothes was in full Tennessee Williams mode...I have never been treated this way...I am a professional woman...

The police arrive and question me. They talk to Rachelle. She is slowly being persuaded to leave.  My time is running short. Barely enough  time to race home and change before Makbet. She follows me up the street. Telling me she’s cancelling the holiday party she was going to hold to raise so, so much money for your church... and what are you going to do about that man?!!! I keep walking, saying we can talk about that but I can’t have that conversation right now....and finally I’m free, but I am haunted by the difference between her understanding of the world...a world where she plans wonderful parties that everyone attends and raises money and does wonderful things to help so many people and carries herself with the bearing of the privileged while just having moved off the street into Capital Hall. The reality of which she couldn’t bear to accept. 

Even some well respected professional people in my circle are prone to dramatic exaggeration and completely different understandings of what happens in any given circumstance. Thing is, they believe the exaggerations. And it wears me out...

The first floor is a wonderful cacophony of activity. Audiences for two two productions crowding into the halls. A gypsy band is playing fiddle and accordion and violin and singing and passing around bottles of wine.  I pull Hope and her friend June with her into the chapel. Now turned into a gypsy encampment. Matt, as the head gypsy passing out shots of vodka. One by one we are pulled into our seats. And gypsies pass around doing divinations.

He takes my hand. I can feel your hand. I know your back.....has troubles....I see two big hands ....one supporting you, one pushing you forward. Then he looks piercingly into my eyes...Don’t look back. Only forward. Don’t look back. And those words pierce.

And then the lights come down and like a story, a tale told, a ritual around a campfire, Makbet  begins... in flickering light, scene to scene, characters shifting passing the visible sign of each character-- a hat, glasses, a scarf---  to keep clear who’s who...chanting, passing in and out of witches’ circles...something wicked this way comes...tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.... bottles passing, apples passing ... until the end....when the lights come on....and bread, challah, which most of us associate with communion or shabbat passes....

In this chapel we have taken this journey together...Matt talks with Hope about their upcoming residency...their Fools’ Mass and later Ragnarok.... and their commitment  to performing in homeless shelters, AIDS residences, supportive housing and SRO’s.....ritual, service, worship, action....inseparable... well, welcome..

I say goodbye to my friends Beppe and Liljana.  Walk out with Hope and  June. Walking up Amsterdam, the words come back...Don’t look back....

The memory of the walls, the feel of the floor

11/16

Steve and Kimberley are meeting with Danielle to keep working on our social media development. 

Another day, another tour. Another school. 

Jamie has word from Nayelli that she’s reviewed the contract and will be sending back her changes. I call Martin and tell him to come over as soon as he can to finish the deal. 

Rachelle is flitting in and out talking at high speed about a holiday party she is planning that will bring all kinds of money to your church...

Matt and Theatre Dzieci have arrived and are at work preparing the chapel for their performance tomorrow night. They’ve swept the floor. Mopped it as well. Martin arrives and volunteers to do more work, anxious about how it looks. They’re OK, the way it is...they after all will be a band of gypsies....

So Jamie, Martin  and I are waiting. Danielle, too. Hoping to deposit a check. And her husband Nate, waiting for her.  Calls back and forth with Nayelli. A sticky issue.We get through it. It’s getting later. I’m feeling emotionally exhausted. Martin needs one final OK from Nayelli before he signs. So we wait. And wait. She finally calls. Needs to run it by her attorney one more time. Will try to call back soon. Martin says he’s going home. Will come back when the call comes. Danielle and Nate head home. Jamie and I head to the B. No call comes. 

As we’re about to leave, Hugo arrives with food. Steve and I help him unload. As always, it’s good to see him. 

I slowly walk the four flights up to the gym to see Miriam Ibrahim’s one woman theatre performance, Peace/Piece of Mine, inspired by German playwright Franz Xavier Kroetz’ Request Concert. Turns out Kroetz was Germany’s most popular contemporary dramatist of the ’70’s and early ’80’s. His plays often were wordless, characters rendered speechless by their social situation. Known as a communist, his openings were often disrupted by neofascists.

As an Ethiopian raised in Germany, I can understand Miriam’s connection with the sense of alienation so present in Kroetz’ work. She takes Kroetz’ play and makes it her own, with an original score by David Salazar and Carla Fabiani performed on solo viola. She’s transformed the gym into a totally black space with naked  light bulbs.  The set is not much more than a simple table and tape on the floor, buckets and glasses of water and a hanging bag of ice slowly dripping into another bucket. All will play a part in her performance.  The audience seated on black boxes of varying heights. She is brave in performance, vulnerable, eloquent in the silence. That last look of....is it of expectation? Of peace? 

So I am thankful for her performance. And learning about Kroetz too. And couldn’t help but remember the Movement Research  Experience’s nightly performances in the same space. This was almost like an extension of that  festival. Something about that gym, it’s held memories of so many artists and their  late night creative explorations in gym and circus and performance....all in the memory of the walls, the feel of the floor....

United

11/15

Jeremy Mage and the Magi and Catherine Feeny

George, Marc and Marsha of the Interfaith Assembly on Housing and Homelessness meet in my office. Although we struggle every year, this year seems worse. Some funding sources drying up. Somehow with his own sweat and tireless energy Marc has kept this Assembly going for almost three decades. But there’s always a certain chaotic quality, a certain frustrating scramble to stay alive. Wears people out. But that’s all so familiar, I understand. And hang in there with Marc. I can see so clearly how it could come together, the kind of grassroots, congregation by congregation organizing it would take to do it. Marsha and George have come up with some strategies. We’ll have to get the executive committee to buy in, but it’s a possible way to weather the storm. The most exciting thing we’ve got going is the new program with homeless veterans. A reality that should not even exist.....

RL is wanting reassurance that his open mics and showcases still will have a chance...

Anna is in with puppy for a conversation Suggests that if we could get into distribution of food and services for dogs, we’d have a growing church. And we could give music lessons to the kids in the projects and we could offer homework  help and a quiet place to read and ...she tells me of her years at Chicago U, her dad, her brother and sisters...community living situations she’s been in..a Fred Newman cult....more than I’ve known. For all that she wrestles with, she’s clearly brilliant and creative. She looks at me, I know I give you a hard time, y’know? But really, you deserve to have more people hear you. When you teach, when you preach, I hang on every word. Fuckin A, every word...

Look up and see Jamie. Tours. And tours. Jamie’s got a revolving circle of schools and brokers and non-profits and arts groups coming through for tours. She needs the place more in order. Needs to to look more like we’re serious. I’m always fascinated by the looks and reactions of people as they pass through our space.  Sometimes makes me defensive. 

The drawn out negotiations with Noche are wearing me out. We have lunch at Popover’s. When I get back, Nate is sitting behind Danielle’s desk. I’m so glad soemone’s taking charge around here, I say, just what I need. You wrap this up, I’m going to go home and kick back awhile... He laughs. ...if only...

Marc has started getting the sound set up for tonight’s concert. Getting late in the day..I need to run home and change. Glad my son Nate will be helping out. Anxious as to what our turnout might be given that we're up against the People’s Bailout, an Occupy Faith event at the Village Church, live streaming of the telethon at Le Poisson Rouge...I decide to just  let it be. 

When I get back to the church, Martin has arrived. I take him back to my office. Two cold Lagunitas. What do we have to do to get this done? We talk. OK, let’s get our people here tomorrow and finish the papers....He goes out to join his mom and daughters for the concert.  People are starting to stream in. OK, this will be OK.

Catherine is watching Jeremy warm up. Asks me how my day was. Long. 

What did you do?

 Meetings.Negotiations, Meetings. People. Negotiations...and I smile.

I’m happy to see my friends Beppe and Liljana. And my neighbor Ric, who among his many other lives, works the music business. I’m anxious for his opinion of Jeremy and Catherine. And I’m especially happy to see that Jane and her Sanctuary team held their meeting earlier so that they could be there for Jeremy. 

Jeremy opens. Hitting his grooves like the night I caught him in a midnight show at the Bluenote.  He brings Catherine out to join him on his Brechtian cabaret style Let’s take the whole year off...swapping verses and harmonies. During Jeremy’s acoustic guitar songs, I notice there’s a character near me, whistling, loudly, not bad, but loudly...We’re approaching the border of anxious moment territory here..I ask Ric who says give him one more song...There’ something familiar about his looks, his whistling...Took me a long time to figure it out, Rastaman, the occupier, Rastaman..same dreads, same whistling...is this like a rasta thing? Rastawhistle?  Later before Catherine begins, I go over and say gently, somewhat anxiously, bring it down my brother, bring it down...thankfully he nods and does...

Catherine and uke

Catherine begins with her uke, her Spill it all over the ground...She’s got this voice that pierces with its beauty, but also quirky, coming in at an angle, lyrically enchanting and intelligent....I enjoy hearing her songs raw, without the range of accompaniment on her albums. She brings Jeremy and the Magi out for some songs. Then at the end, brings him back for her new anthem from Occupy, United... and for an encore jams with him on  Hurricane Glass...

Soon we’ll head to Slightly Oliver for food, drinks, conversation about music, Occupy, progressive and emergent religion...

Feeling good about having put the night together. Get a text from my friend Beppe. Thoroughly enjoyed all the concert. Catherine is irresistible. I love your  church!

Jeremy, Bob, Catherine

Me too (sometimes) me too.