Twelfth day of Lent: A fine knit cap, a fountain in Poland

3/6

Getting my morning coffee at Barney Geeengrass, one of the workers leans over across the counter.  Wants to discuss a personal issue. It feels good to know our pastoral presence makes a connection through daily coffees. Neighbors. 

The bag on the steps is from a high end neighborhood steak house. Inside there is a fine  knit blue and white cap. It will be gone within an hour. An umbrella has been placed on a ledge near the door.

As Danielle and I are catching up, there is music coming from the sanctuary. A young woman is at the piano. I tell her I thought I heard original music. She smiles, shy. Says that she works at a doctor’s office down the street and likes to stop in and play. I tell her about the open mic night we just had. She says she’s actually into musical theatre. I tell her about Matthew and his play. Invite her to come to us with dreams and ideas. And then leave her to continue working on her music.

Luli comes by anxious about the Noche Flamenco contract. We just got their revisions. Need to run them by our attorney. Our session. But I too want to get this settled and locked up. She has brought their architect back for another look.

A woman is in the  church praying. On her way out, she stops to say hello to Danielle and I. Danielle tells me she stops by often. She’s from Poland. And has a deep devotion to the Virgin Mary and a healing fountain that is there. 

People working on their original music. People praying. That is why I want our office at the front. Why I never want to go back to a side door buzzer system again. The back and forth flow, money or no, keeps the place living.

I thank Marc for his work on the Open Mic last Friday. He tells me that with more advance notice, he could have had more artists there. There are musicians around, just lookig for a venue. He’d like to set up a shop. Maybe a mini recording studio. I tell him I”m still having trouble with my mini recording device.  

It’s time for me to head to Newark to teach Liberation Theology again.

The eleventh day in Lent: Social, not political; Bavaria not Berlin

3/5

The companion of the man with the cans has arrived on the steps early. She’s got a little boom box, playing music. Not sure what to say. She’s not alseep.

Danielle and I join in a conference call to discuss upcoming proposals for events with the Center Program Committee. We need to get far enough ahead to publish an actual program calendar, plan an actual season. Need to break out of the relentless present. 

I find Max sitting in the sanctuary. He’s been visiting with Danielle with ideas. He joined #ows as a social movement. For him, it’s become primarily a political movement. He wants to recover the social dimension. Has some ideas. He and Danielle were interviewed by a German TV crew. I think of Micah. But this crew was from Bavaria, not Berlin. 

Rose approaches me. Wants to know if now that it’s dark, the doors are closed,  if the man with his cans and his companion can be on the steps. Yes, I say. That’s what I thought, she says. Outside, they have massive amounts of stuff. Giant stufffed suitcases and all. This is turning into an issue. This will not work. 

Second Sunday in Lent: If we can accept, if we can receive it....

3/4

In the sanctuary, Teddy is talking to a young man he found sleeping on the steps. He offered him breakfast, kept him downstairs. Now it’s time for him to leave. He’s giving Teddy a hard time. Look bro, accept the kindness that’s been offered. It’s time to go...

Got nothin’ to do with Occupy Wall Street...it’s nothin,’ you’re just a bunch of homeless...

That’s ok bro...you still have to go...

I tell Teddy I’m heading down to pick up the bulletins. I come back, we finish setting up for the service. Happy to see Andre has arrived. And Rachel. And my occupiers. Soon the rest of the congregation will arrive as well. And I see that a young couple has joined us. And my friend Rev. Sekou as well. 

We start with Create in me a clean heart, O God...continue through Sanctuary, Nada te turbe, our prayers...I have John read Genesis 17: 1-7, about Abram and Sarai getting new names, becoming Abraham and Sarah. God’s promise with them, God’s covenant with them....many nations, yes, many nations... and we sing The God of Abraham Praise in English and Spanish. We do Psalm 22 people’s mic style.  And then the Gospel, Mark 8:31-38 in English and Spanish. Time to talk.

The weather has been teasing us this week. Remember what I said about Lent....how it speaks to lenghtening? The lenghtening of days?

So what do we deal with today? Abraham and Sarah? A follow up to last week’s rainbow story? That was about God making  a covenant, this is too...it keeps talking about Abraham being the father of many nations....we know them to be Christian, Muslim, Jew....

Or our gospel passage....how does that passage make you feel? We talk about Jesus saying get behind me Satan when Peter tells him not to go to Jerusalem. About how he knows he’s got to go there, but really doesn’t want to go. How for me that’s the only way the story works, if he doesn’t want to go. Maybe even a little afraid. 

Then I say that my friend Barbara Lundblad, from Union Seminary, says you coud do a whole series on the theme of Jesus the Disrupter....every week disrupting something different... Like this week he’s  disrupting expectations of what a messiah is all about..They expect him to come marching in with his troops,ready to take on the Roman Empire. Which he will, but not the way they expect.  ..Or , she says, you could do a whole series of Jesus as stranger...and this week he ‘s describing a strange messsiah...

(Follow me so far...Jesus as disrupter, Jesus as stranger... anyone here ever feel like a disrupter? A stranger?) But finally we’re just left with  pictures of God...and this week it’s pictures of a God who suffers with us...

What does it mean to us to think of a God who suffers? Who suffers with us....?  Is that ok? Is it disturbing? Upsetting?  Most of the congregation sees to be comforted by a God who suffers with us Like this week,that weird phrase an act of God.  God did not create the tornado that wreaked havoc in the midwest. But God suffers with those who suffer in its wake.  

The word is, those who follow Jesus must deny themselves...must take up their cross  and follow him...There seems to be this division between those who focus on taking up the cross as the center of the gospel and those who focus on I came so that you might have life and have it abundantly...abundant life...Like they are opposites. But I’m thinking,  maybe that is the way to abundant life...

 What does it mean to gain the world, lose your soul...that temptation is there before us all the time...we lived through that when we had a vision of a whole residential building of affordable hosuing and then saw the percentage of affordable shrink away to nothing...

This  adulterous and sinful generation...if, as Guttierez says,  sin is breaking friendship with God, with others, failure to love brothers and sisters....then that is what we are facing....

Suffering with....it is just another form of feeling with...of compassion....and the reality is you cannot do that, feel with others  without suffering, without hurting...because that’s what human life is....

But it is more. I think of the Brazilian theologian Rubem Alves...who says his problem with North American Christians is that thet want to jump too quickly to the happy ending ...that you cannot get there without embracing, experiencing human life in all its paradox, perplexity but most of all profound beauty...what I see on the subway every day and feel blessed to be alive...there is profound beauty in this....and that is where we are today....

As we take up the offering, Amanda does her riff off of This little light of mine...her song of struggling to be who you are supposed to be...conquering fear to move beyond mediocrity...

Before we gather for communion, I say that get behind me Satan was about conquering fear...and we are called to give up ours...I have brought a wooden cross, one that was used in the Tenant. I pass out cards, ask each person to write down a fear to tape to the cross, that we will thrw away after the service. (Thanks, Barbara, for that idea...) Release our fears. 

and grace our fears relieved

As we come froward to share in communion, Andre sings Morning has broken, a capella.

As we form our circle of blessing, I ask everyone to look around the circle. it is a new circle. A growing circle. A good circle. I ask Rev. Sekou to join me in the benediction.  And we sing Amen.... 

Afterward, Sekou asks Andre and Amanda to join him at the piano. He’s working on something. Kind of Gospel, kind of blue. 

We go to the chapel to join in  a meal. Gallo pinto, platanos, pizza....

Then the session meets with Jane and Ingrid and Karen to discuss where will go in our future. Much is still unclear. West-Park needs to gain more clarity on its own path before we can come to an agreement. 

Later, in our own discussions, we talk of our need to come closer together in our own fellowship. Stengthen our own body. More meals together. More study. There has been struggle today.

Following the service, I has said to Hope and Marsha, individually, If we are able to accept it, if we are able t receive it, there is something happening here....just look around us....it’s here...

Ninth and tenth days of Lent: the unexpected intersections of unlikely combinations of people

3/2


Tony Lo Presti, a neighborhood activist and one of the founders for West Siders for Peace and Justice, one of the main organizers for each year’s Martin Luther King, Jr. march, has brought a young Italian artist to talk about a festival that would bring together artists and musicians and children from the neigborhood together for exploration. Another good idea for combining our vision of ethics and esthetics working together across generations.

Teddy has taken the day off work to put together a crew to turn the chapel back into the music venue Amanda had created for our 100th anniversary event last December. He’ll also work the bar for us. Steve is in for follow up discussion on the silk screen idea that Jason had brought forth.

We spend the afternoon running around to gather supplies for tonight’s Singer-Songwriter Roundup open mike. Our occupy coop will be there selling their t-shirts and Jean’s brownies. 

Amanda opens

What a night it turns out to be. The chapel again transformed, candles glowing in the old iron gates. Church pews, tables for folks. Marc working the sound.  The musicians are there. Amanda opens.  Piano Dan follows. A highlight of the night has to be RL dragging me out to tango with him while Piano Dan sings Tom Leher’s Masochism Tango which I hadn’t heard since I was a kid. My dad brought it home on the 33 rpm An Evening Wasted With Tom Lehrer back in 1959. Brought back memories of my dad as a young guy with his frineds in our house. I remember thinking it was eerie, strange and funny. 

The Original Buskers

Justin Robert James and his dusky songs. Mandola Joe and his Original Buskers. Katie Rowell on violin and singing her own songs. Susannah Conn. RL himself. And I sing, too. Always loving to catch people by surprise that I do this. Amanda joining me on my last song. 

Sarah came too

Some of the older Occupy crowd has shown up, too, like Steve and Jessica. Steve sending out a video of me singing. And Sarah has come as well, with her buoyant spirit and a hug. Feels almost like  family. 

Amanda and Sarah are given Occupy West-Park Coop t-shirts. 

Her Occupy t-shirt

Dan and Katie close out the night. And a mixed group of musicians and occupiers head out together to the Gate. By the time the night has ended, Piano Dan has promised Teddy that he will teach him to sing. 

This is what gives me some of my greatest joy...the unexpected intersections of unlikely combinations of people. 

On the street, Teddy says, I love this place. It’s got soul, it’s got spirit, it’s got life. Amanda says, So, did you hear that?

Joe by Susannah

Piano Dan by Susannah

3/3

The day after. Passing Popover’s, I hear a rap on the window. Teddy, Steve, Jessica and our medic chaplain Mary are having a late brunch. Teddy comes out to drag me in. 

Down at the church, one of Imiko’s dancers has returned to retieve something she had left there. Soon Kanaska and Rio arrive. I notice that since he was in church last Sunday, he’s now sporting a mohawk. Kanaska started out planning a simple open mike night for singers and comedians. It seems to be expanding cosmically. I’m wondering if she can pull it off and what else I might have to be concerned about. Rafael has his own thoughts. We do a tour of the church, I’m watching her thoughts whirl. 

I’m happy to get back to Teddy and Steve and Jessica and Mary. I feel old sometimes. 

The eighth day of Lent: Wounded Warriors

3/1

The guy with the cans is back. Today is a beautiful day. No rain. Teddy and Rafael are encouraging him to leave. Today he is arguing that he is sick. Rafael agrees that he is sick, but is concerned as to what kind of sick he might be. There are worrisome signs. He moves, but just around the corner to the 86th Street doorway. Teddy tells him that if he is that sick, he will call an ambulance. His companion was concerned as well, but Rafael had overheard him say that if she continued to talk with us, he would punch her out. I want to call Reachout, but Danielle says that cutbacks have made them a lot more difficult to connect with. Just before we’re ready to call 911, he agrees to leave. 

John  and Melissa are back again.  They and Hope and Amanda are comepletely abosrbed in Matthew’s rehearsal. The music soars, voices weaving in harmomies. Amanda says that he should do an open rehearsal before their opening. I make a note to ask him.

Jason comes with a new idea. There is a silkscreen company that is going to be in need of space soon. In return for space, they could teach coop members the trade and upgrade the quality of their shirts and other items. 

Rosa has run out of time at the shelter she has been staying at in the Bronx. Dorot has been unable to help her. I recommend maybe theWestside Federation at Euclid Hall, draw her a map. She returns twice, so I finally walk with her the block and change to Boradway and 86th. Ultimately she will be back having failed to connect there as well, so I call to make her an appointment with their housing specialist.

I come back from Federal Plaza where Hope and I joined with the Justice Will Be Served campaign in their protest of the arrest of Chinese livery car drivers in Queens, the federal governent essentially acting as union busters on behalf of exploitative bosses. My friend Rabbi Michael of the Labor Religion Coalition was there as well. 

Immigrant workers under attack,

Stand up, fight back. 

Tonight is the Times Square Players premiere of Martin’s When Johnny Comes Home. It’s a sensitive play about a soldier coming back from Afghanistan badly wounded. And the struggles of his family to adjust. It’s a decent exploration of the issue. 

But what really makes the evening is the after performance talk by Andrea Brin Sawyer of the Wounded Warriors Organization, a national organization of those who are caregivers for severely wounded veterans. Her personal story and the story of their lobbying efforts to get justice for those who have served their cointry was profoundly moving. And once again, I felt that this is exactly what we want to have happening here. I’m thankful to Martin for having taken this on. 

The seventh day of Lent: With a circleof baby carrots on top

2/29

Mim has come by for a conversation to see how the Center Board could be more helpful in working on structures to make our communication better and our work more efficient. She continues to bring a crtical amd caring eye to what we are doing helping keep the bigger picture in mind while Danielle and I are often caught up in the demands of the immediate.

John H has brought Melissa for a grand tour. Melissa is the fromer director of the Galapagos performance space, a space in DUMBO (the neighborhood under the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges) that features among other things, new music, both classical and jazz. A few months ago, I was there to see my friend Greg’s duo Due East and their CD release party. I was amazed seeing a full house audience in a renovated warehouse setting in rapt attention for both Greg and the first performance of a new requiem. (Not the West-Park occupier.) As expected, Melissa is taken by the space and its possibilities. 

Martin Bard and the Times Square Playwrights are finishing rehearsals for their performance tomorrow night.  Hope has come by to do anything needed and Amanda is there, too. 

There seems to be a situation developing on the steps. A man with a large bag of bottles and cans is stretched out in the south doorway, his female companion nearby. I tell hm he can’t be there during the day, especailly with all that stuff.  He starts an argument, you know, the rain and all. I waver a bit, it is raining hard. But have mixed feelings. 

An expected meeting will not be taking place. Amanda and I will stop and chat with RL on the way to see Mandola Joe and his Original Buskers. 

The man with the cans has moved on. In his place is a fresh pizza. With a circle of baby carrots on top. 

The fourth, and fifth, days in Lent: planning

shirts

2/27

Uli walks with me down to the church. Last night, the occcupiers had given him two shirts to take back to Germany and he had left them in the sanctury. One was the whole world is watching and the other was an Occupy West-Park Coop shirt. Uli will be leaving soon to visit his relatives in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

Much of Danielle and my work is devoted to trying to wrap up the details of the contract being prepared for Noche Flamenco and all the information that has to be gathered together for tonight’s Center   meeting. 

Rose is in and out working on the business of the Coop. Annah has come to check out the basement, the old God’s Love We Deliver kitchen,  to see if it might have possibilities as a bakery. John H is here to set up his next installment of his Dark Lady Players project, this time focusing in on the Anunciation.  

Outside on the steps, there is an entire container of barbecue chicken. One piece has been eaten.

2/28

Back from midtown and a conversation with Jane and Ingrid and Marsha and Danielle about where we go next together. Wrestling with the challenge of looking at the whole building as a jigsaw puzzle and trying to figure out what pieces need to fit in where to make it all work.  

Amanda is back. Teddy is happy to see her. Soon we’re engaged in a  meeting to plan the M17/18 actions. The necessity of going to the Irish famine memorial, permit or no. Teddy wants to lay a wreath for his people. It was the famine that brought them to New York City. I say that the occasion demands that this be done. The leadership of this event appreciates my ability to articulate the meaning of the alternative march, the original focus of St. Patrick’s Day as an expression, a claim of dignity by an exploited immigrant group. And how hunger continues to be a political tool. They want me to speak at the event.  And everyone still wants to see the weekend end with a celebration at West-Park. 

Amanda meets Rafael for the first time. Rafael is wanting to set a time for the coop to move out of West-Park. There are some interal debates going on as to where all this is or could be headed.