Hurricanes, marriages, music

4/20

Up early. 7:45 am in fact. Meeting Thia Reggio of Presbyterian Disaster Assistance at the church to get a load of supplies together to send to Broad Channel for Sandy Relief. Probably our last load.  Stephen helping too, with Jay supplying the muscle.

Then coffee with Jon, the retired bass player from the Philharmonic who’s been working with El Sistema, the music project in Venezuela that produced Gustavo Dudamel and the Bolivarian Youth Orchestra. We talk about the current volatile political  situation in Venezuela and it’s impact on the program. The fact that Chavez had been so supportive made it suspect in a lot of North American eyes. We talk about how it could be brought closer to a true Freirian model and begin to use not only classical music but everything culturally in the air around  the students. Jon’s special program is called Very Young Composers. He’s anxious to schedule an event for the fall at West-Park to begin exploring collaboration with the Center. I have no idea how it would work out, but think immediately of Martin because their approach to art and learning is so similar.

Talk with an American Jewish and Colombian Catholic couple about their upcoming marriage. Late in the day, I’ll marry an Argentine-Chinese couple. This is the world we are living in.

Between these two marriage appointments, I pass back through the church. Danielle is working on bringing more order to  the office to get ready for phase two of our spring cleaning project. Martin’s workshop is in full swing, or should I say full flamenco, and Frog & Peach is on break in their final two days of rehearsal here. I walk up the street with Ted Z who once shared F&P with Lynnea but now has his own unlikely country and western music career going. But what we talk about is real estate.  

A message comes from Thia that the  folks at Christ by the Sea Presbyterian, our worst hit  Presbyterian Church, was the thankful recipient of our supplies. They’re only now getting able to receive and handle  relief supplies four months later. 

After the wedding in breezy, cool but sunny Battery Park, I meet Jeremy at the Firehouse to talk music and watch the Nets take out the Bulls in the first round of NBA playoffs.

After the game, it’s late. F&P is just finishing up. There are noises outside on the steps but I let it go, since I’m working on my sermon. Jay stops by just to check in to see what's going on. Later still, I’m startled by Marc and discover I’d fallen asleep at the computer. Time to finish the sermon and head home. 

From Lord Buckley to Freire to Beard Papa

4/19

Stephen has received a response back from the Pantha du Prince people. We’re into negotiations  now. 

Lynnea is looking for an old jail cell set piece from years ago, maybe even a previous production of Measure for Measure. Stephen recalls that it was last used last summer in Glen’s  Dem Dahk Days Down South production as something in the slave trade. Amazingly it turns up. Still here.

RL comes in. He shows me a strange trail of white pigeon feathers leading all the way up to the fifth floor. Fine and white.Like there’s pigeon babies  somewhere. Or a ripped open pillow. Mysteries like this, at the right moments, make want to just give up.Surrendur. Like the building has a spirit of its own. 

RL invites me into his studio.  Shares his concerns about a building issue.  Then plays me an old cassette of the most original hipster, Lord Buckley, performing his beat masterpiece and therefore the Nazz..) story. The Nazz was a carpenter kitty...when he laid it stayed laid....An eleven minute caffeinated florid trip that to your amazement somehow makes sense. In the Eisenhauer 50’s, Buckley was as probably as subversive as he was thought to be. With friends like Lenny Bruce and Ed Sullivan and one of Bob Dylan’s influences, Buckley managed to produce an art that anticipated rap and perfomance art by decades.  Before being  hounded out of show business, he made contemporaries like Ginsburg and Ferlinghetti seem simple and staid. His Nazz is perhaps the quintessential interpretation of Jesus in the Beat era. His performance is what an era was. 

                                                     Lord Buckley performs  the Nazz

My best time of the week? Danielle had a presentation to do in in one of her graduate classes at Hunter. A presentation on Paulo Freire. Gave me the opportunity to talk about one of the most influential figures of this time. (I will resist saying be was the Lord Buckley of education) Gave me the chance to talk about education for critical consciousness. And his idea that people become the subjects of their own history. That their lived lives were part of their curricula. 

Along with Sol Alinsky, Freire is one of the lightning rod thinkers of our time seen as almost demonic by the defenders of establishment and empire. Accused of imposing a Marxist agenda on education, Freire was the opposite. His educational theory flows organically from his   philosophical understanding of the nature of humanity which put into practice can only lead to revolutionary praxis. His thought not only transformed education but deeply influenced liberation theology and community organizing as well. 

Once in a meeting between Newark School of Theology staff and grassroots people, a community representative objected to our use of the term empowerment. That implies we are empty vessels waiting to be filled, she said.What we need you to do is help us discover and put into use what wis already inside us ...that’s the essence of Freirian education.

while I first heard  about t   his  from my friend Mjchael James and his Oakland literacy project in the  late ’70’s , it was my colleague, mentor and friend, Warren Dennis, now the The Dirk Romeyn Professor of Metro-Urban Ministry and Director of Doctoral Ministry at New Brunswick theological Seminary, who showed me what Freirian education is in practice. He was the first educator who ever made it real for me. Working with him in an introduction to ministry practice course with second career adult students changed my teaching style. I would later used what I learned from Warren  with my own students at NST. By helping students read their own lives as text, this model is appropriately  perceived as threatening to structures of domination and power. 

After a dinner with Katie and RL, I’m working late. I hear Chris talking to someone outside. He’s the homeless guy I saw yesterday. Loos like the logo man for the Japanese cream puff chain, Beard Papa.

 Later, I’ll find him inside the church. Tells me he’s homeless. Just needs a place to spend the night. Yesterday Danielle had directed him to the Arc program. He has an appointment for Monday. i tell him he can’t stay here inside, we’re not equipped for that. And he leaves.

Walking home, i see all our doorways are filled....perhaps Beard Papa among them. 

How good and pleasant it is

4/18

Marsha and Hope and I meet at the Bean across the street to talk about the congregation. The extended uncertainty weighs on us all.  And has been hard on those who have endured, stayed faithful for years.

i come back across the street to meet with Kimberley. We review and evaluate her last worship service. And the musical review/exploration of Genesis she did at Union. Were hoping to do it here, but most of her cast is heading home as the semester is all too quickly coming to a close. She’s got something well worth doing.

Deacon James stops in, wearing his Korean War vet’s hat. On his way back form the hospital. Wants me to know he’s still alive. breathing’s hard, but he’s hanging in. 

A man comes in. Has a job interview. Needs clothes. Has an appointment at St. John the Divine. I help him get there.

Martin is conducting a workshop. Stephen has been working with him, sharing with him a photographer’s eye on perspective. Thinking again about Elizabeth Herman’s striking portrait gallery from Occupy.(http://www.transtudies.org/Photos_Herman.html ) Especially her shot of me looking off to the side.

Stephen impressed by Martin’s broad ranging interests and insatiable curiosity and how he brings that all to his work. That’s why he’s here, I say. 

Cara is in to sweep and clean and play awhile before Dzieci arrives for the healing circle.

Rachelle has all her things spread out on a bench, going through them piece by piece, item by item. Nothing really of value, but she feels it’s important work. In her mind, she’s still the bright cultured woman professor living on the East Side.

Anna comes in. More than anything, she’s a a woman with a deep compassion for others. And a desire to help, to fix things if she could. In #OWS, she was known as Big Bertha, but for me, she should only be called Anna. There’s someone she cares about deeply. And in two minutes rattles off a dozen or more alternative strategies and resource references to execute them. I say, Do you have any idea how much you have just told me in the last two minutes? I can’t even remember  it or write it down fast enough ...She smiles and says, So I’m doing it again huh? and I smile. Her capacity to retain all this information is nothing short of amazing. 

Frog & Peach deep into rehearsal.

Matt from Dzieci wants to schedule their Cirkus Luna!, a family troupe hailing from East Molvenia....I share with him the reviews of their Passion, those who were upset with their using the communion table as a prop and not having a more recognizable worship experience to frame it and those who wondered if it were not inappropriate appropriation of Jewish symbols for a Christian story. And those who felt moved to tears, as if they had never truly understood the story as their own before. I want to talk more with him about worship, ritual and performance. About where the lines are. And whether the lines are even important. And how this experience can be used to build a community. But we run out of time. 

The healing circle continues to intrigue me. Touches my skepticism and desire. Always new people as well as the Dzieici circle. Totally non-verbal, resonance of ancient tribal chant, medieval church, monastery, coven....Matt completely aware and watching and directing. A circle diverse enough to defy characterization. 

After it’s over, Cara tells me she’ll miss church because she’ll be at a wedding. 

When the others leave, i stay for the Dzieci evaluation of their passion experience. I share the critiques I’ve heard. The problematic histories of passion plays. Matt speaks of the first time he did this was at a convent with nuns. In habit. How the creation emerged from their community. This was different. 

One’s husband felt it conveyed the idea that the Jews killed Christ, but that was a lone experience. 

Many of the cast were from a Jewish background. Including Orthodox. Had wanted to explore what had been for them an alien, forbidden world and found a story that had its roots in their own. Those from a Christian background understood for the first time the origins of bread and wine. The Eucharist rooted in passover. And for all of them, the power of the use of kaddish, the Jewish prayer of mourning that goes deep into their memories, the mourning prayer that doen’t speak of death but only affirms life.  

And I speak of how ending without resurrection not visible, with a reaffirmed community recessing to hinay ma tov (how good and pleasant it is when brothers and sisters dwell in harmony, psalm 133) underscores my understanding of the victory in being willing to follow faithfully to the end, even the cross. And through the following, find transformation. 

And how the meta level has not only a community reality but that of the individual as well. Inside each of us we are the betrayer and the betrayed, the crucifiers and the crucified, Judas and Jesus. The reality inside each of us.

The discussion ends. Martin’s workshop is continuing. Frog & Peach has finished. Share a few words with Lynnea. Try to explain Dzieci. Namechck Grotowski and Brook. Lynnea’s trying to bring her Measure  for Measure home. My day is over. 

Mexican connections

4/17

And when I hurt,

Hurtin' runs off my shoulders

Sweet Caroline, Neil Diamond

                     * * * *

I tell Stephen about my shock arriving at Yankee Stadium last night and seeing the Red Sox and Yankee logos on either side of United We Stand. Never thought I’d live to see that. And around the third inning they played the Fenway favorite, Sweet Caroline. It’s all a shock to the system. I actually look forward to hearing the fans  chant Red Sox suck again. It will mean we’re back to normal. Whatever that is, these days.

Stephen briefing me on developments in the upcoming Pantha du Prince concert. Continuing to get bigger. They are now looking for 3 days load in, the concert, and two days load out. A large set will be constructed. There will be projections. And the concert is technically sold out. Martin joins us to talk about negotiating the final contract. We want to do this right. 

I get back from my visit with Jack. He lives at the Aurora, run by the Actors’ Fund. You have to be connected to the theatre in one way or another to live there. And many residents are living with AIDS. I told Jack about Dzieci. He’d love to see them. On the way out, I stop to see Chris, the program director, to talk about the possibility of Dzieci doing something there. He’s open.

I go upstairs to talk to the Frog & Peach troupe. Tell the new company members why I'm glad to see them. And tell them the story of F&P and the balcony theatre. 

Marty is out there in his own world today. Nonresponsive.

Chris still pacing the balcony. 

Rene comes in. From Mexico. Getting ready to marry a Jewish woman who’s a diplomat in Haiti. I share my own interfaith experience. My work in Mexico. My Mexican brother-in-law. And speak of my Catholic priest friend in Tulsa who spoke to me about God’s greater unity when I told him I was marrying a Jewish woman. 

Ready to head home. Martin’s done for the night, too. Stop and talk with him and Marina. Turns out she’s from the Bay Area. Mexican family  roots. Why she’s into flamenco. And as we head to the subway she says, And Irish too...that’s where this comes from, her red hair. 

A direct relationship

4/16

Martin is first to greet me this morning.

Stephen is hard at work on the contract for the Pantha du Prince concert.

Out on the steps, Marty is sitting, staring out towards the street. He sees my gray shirt with the word New York arched across in blue felt letters. Yankees or Mets? He asks. Don’t tell me. It’s the font. It’s Yankees. It’s the font. My father, he wrote 12 books. He’d check the galleys. Send them back to reset the Linotype. It’s all about the font. Did you ever publish a book? Like in the 42nd street library?

No. Not exactly. Just some articles. Don’t think they’re in the library.

But in a book?

Mainly magazines. Journals. Dissertation. You know?

Ahhh. What about the font?

I shrug.

Well, have  a good day, Reverend. And he’s on his way.

Later in the day, Stephen walks in with the man in the cowboy hat. (Danielle tells me his name is Yonah.) This man has escorted me into your office. Tell him it’s OK for me to play for an hour or so. 

Well, actually it’s not. You did some serious damage to our sidewalk gates.

No, I  did not.

Danielle responds, Well actually two people saw you jumping up and down on them. That’s not respectful. 

I had to. Those gates are dangerous. It’s rotten iron. There was a man in a wheel chair. I had to save him. What if he rolls over them in a 600 pound wheel chair?I had to save him.

Don’t you think there might have been a better way to do that?

Danielle says, They were okay before. It’s going to cost us a lot of money to fix them.

I have been sent here to save you. I have done so much for you. And you don’t listen. Am I angry? You treat me like they treated Yeshua. He was angry. He cast out the moneychangers from the Temple. I cast out the smokers from the church. And not a word of thanks. But that’s the least of your problems...

You can’t be harassing people who rent from us, says Danielle. And you can’t be going through the church.

Yes, I went through the church. I’ve been sent to save you. I emptied the refrigerator. There was dead meat in there. Bad meat. Can you believe it? I found ham in there. Ham! Meat of the pig. And it says clearly in Leviticus 17:7 it is an abomination.

So he knows his Bible. I consider talking to him about Peter’s vision in Acts 10, but think better of it. 

People with logs in their eyes come to you to talk about the speck in my eye. They use my little imperfections to distract you from their big faults. I have tried to tell you but you just won’t listen...

I listened to you for an hour the other day...

You and I have different concepts of time. You have compassion but no wisdom. Yeshua told me what to do. If you will not receive my peace, then take this...and he shakes his pants cuffs and turns to walk out. Then looks back over his shoulder, directly at me. You need to know, there’s a direct relationship between what happened yesterday and my presence here today. Believe it. Then turns again and goes out the door. 

Stephen looks at me. He better not say that too loud in the wrong place...not today...

Danielle puts her head down a minute. Then looks back up. Sometimes I feel I can’t take anymore...it’s exhausting. Draining....takes it out of me....

In a funny way, he’s right. There is a direct relationship between what happened yesterday and his presence. When ever there’s a major incident like yesterday’s Boston Marathon bombing, it sends people on the border over the edge. They feel the disturbance in the universe. They don’t understand it, but it disturbs them deeply. Unsettles them. And they wind up here.

Christopher is acting stranger. He repeatedly walks rapidly onto the balcony, stops at a particular place, stares at it, then walk rapidly back out. Tells Stephen he's working on his memory. Jane's Diego Rivera is missing from the women's room. I fantasize that if Christopher has found it, and written all over it, as he is wont to do, we could probably sell it as outsider art. 

Frog & Peach is rehearsing in the balcony. Makes me feel good to see them there. Way back in '96, they excavated the theatre from years of neglect and accumulated detritus and restored it for use. The first step in recreating an arts and cultural presence here. In exchange for their work, we gave them space for years' worth of their free Shakespeare performances with some pretty amazing actors, Austin Pendleton among them. (One day, one of he congregation's children saw Austin coming in for rehearsal and said excitedly, Hey, Back to the Future!...) They're performing now in the cozy but nearly perfect theatre down the street at SPSA. But I'm glad just to have them here. Back in their old home. 

Nancy stops in. Wants to talk about apartments. Can we go to the B? The phone rings. Better wait until tomorrow. 

Boston : April 15th, 2013

4/15

Why do these explosions at the Boston Marathon finish lone disturb me so? I’ve lived through 9-11. Newtown, Columbine, Colorado, greater body counts. Maybe it was looking at the clock, the finish time, just beyond 4 hours. In another life, when I ran the Boston Marathon, that was about my finish time. Middle of the pack. Average joes and janes, yous and mes. Whoever did this planned it out carefully for the peak time of finishers. Not elite runners. Just normal people, their families and friends. And planned to go off close to the ground, cutting off legs, destroying dreams. Those bombs were targeting me. 

Funny what you notice, think about. Even as the explosion goes off, runners continue to cross the finish line even as others drop. I see one man pump his fist in victory as he crosses. Maybe it’s just that zone feeling I remember, being in this focused place of near exhaustion, just focusing on the finish line. Some thought it was celebratory cannons. Still, strange....

And I think what new invasions of civil liberties will we now be forced to live with? Every time I go through airport security, I ponder how one crazy man with a shoe bomb has affected the lives of millions. That’s the thing about terrorism, it works. It’s extremely cost effective. 

And who did it? Does it even matter? Of course a Saudi was picked up first. But he is not considered to be a suspect. I keep thinking Tax day? Patriot’s Day? Some misguided domestic right wing fanatic maybe? 

So it’s compassion, annoyance, anger I feel. Not fear. Other places in the world, London, Israel, Spain....this is or has been common occurrence. Life goes on. We are  too innocent.... safety, security, a matter of privilege. Life goes on....

As always, where is God? In those who immediately, with no regard for their own lives, jumped fences to bandage and tend to the wounded. Who  without official instructions self-organized triage and skillful coordination of medical resources. The capacity of normal people to not panic and immediately go to work continues to impress me. God is in the human hands and hearts that reach out, stop the bleeding, care for the wounded.....

Life goes on....

The rest of Monday

4/15

The day begins with a conversation with Martin on the workshop he held at the church over the weekend. Introducing choreography to beginners, theater skills and flamenco as a means to expression. You know,we all have genius, he says, a look of excitement on his face. I share with him what appear to be looming attorney issues, and he’s immediately hooking me up with an attorney friend. 

I’m starting the day overwhelmed and sanguine about the worlds of real estate and law and the court system...

But then around 2 pm, the first news about Boston comes onto my computer screen. And everything else shrinks away. But everything  else continues. Cara is outside sweeping. Stephen is plugging away on the concert contract. I go outside. 

The Frog & Peach theatre company is in the house rehearsing Measure for Measure. They’re gathered outside, talking Boston. Lynnea at first thinks it was just a couple of overextended runners who died. But her cast fills her in and her face drops. Before they head back in, I tell them M for M has always been one of my favorite Shakespeare plays. I remember the Three Rivers Shakespeare production directed by the sui generis Israeli Yossi Yzraely. Angelo comes on stage, sees the word fuck scrawled onto the wall and with a piece of chalk, turns it into book.  The Lower Eastside Shakespeare in the Parking Lot played it set in New Orleans. Lynnea of course has her own vision.

Back in the office, Rachelle has come in and is off on a monologue. All the ways she could help the church if only we allowed her. All the money she could raise. Why don’t we rent her space? Why haven’t we this? Why haven’t we that? Why can’t we be like SPSA? All we’d need to do is just...Finally Danielle has had enough. Says she’s offended by the implication that we’re just not doing it right, we’re only a paid staff of two.She wants to continue the conversation, but Danielle says, Now is not a good time for that conversation...

I step outside, talk with Cara and Stephen. Suggest that Rachelle should be sent to Guantanamo. Everyone  would confess immediately.Her non-stop monologue is like a dentist drill into the brain. I have to get out. 

At the Gate, the TV is showing a seemingly  never ending  loop of the Boston Marathon finish line as the explosion takes place scattering the runners. Over and over like the second plane loop on 9-11.

                * * * * 

Time out for Bible Study:

I’m wishing no one shows up for Bible Study but I've got three people anxiously waiting. An F&P actress is rehearsing a original song for the play with a pianist.

When they finish, we begin. Luke this week. What do we find?

• Stone already rolled away. (Like Mark, but not Matthew)
• Empty tomb, no body.
• Two men in dazzling white, not one young boy (Mark) or one angel (Luke)
• Don’t look for the living among the dead....
• In this version, the women go back and tell the disciples, but no on believes them. (Idle tale is too gentle for the scatological Greek...almost literally bull shit...)
• Peter races and runs and finds the empty tomb
• Jesus first actual appearance is on the road to Bethany with previously unknown Cleopas and friend. And they don’t recognize him. 
• They had hoped that he would  redeem Israel, as in pay off their debt, as in bring them back for captivity. Ancient Leviticus practice turned into metaphor. 
• Jesus explains himself in terms of the law (first five books of the Bible) and the prophets, IE, the whole of Hebrew scripture.
• They invite him for dinner. He stays and breaks bread with them. And in the breaking of bread, they know him.  A familiar act of intimacy... breaking bread together. In the Presbyterian Worship Book of the 1970's,  this passage became  the intro to every Eucharist, rooting it post-resurrection instead of pre-crucifixion last supper. 
• The first group he appears to are not the apostles.
• They say he appeared to Simon (when exactly? Not in the scripture story...)
• And after their eyes were opened, he vanishes
• Finally appears to the disciples. And once again, it is his wounds that identify him. 
• And he asks for food...broiled fish...to show he is truly alive (In Mark and Matthew, Jesus has been raised, in Luke he has risen, no other agency needed...) This is to make clear that it is not a ghost they are dealing with here.
• That their minds had to be opened to understand the scriptures means that it takes divine intervention to be able to see proof of prediction in the Hebrew Scriptures, it is not self -evident. It's  isogesis, from  belief working backwards into scripture, not reading exegetically, from scripture forward.
• For the first time he defines his mission as related to the forgiveness of sins. 
• And it is to be proclaimed to all nations
• He tells them to stay put until the Holy Spirit comes
• Volume 1 ends with the ascension. The story will continue in Acts. 

Although Luke has the most explicit language about the poor in the gospels, he also moderates the critique of empire. And whereas Mark has the temple allied with the powers, in Like the disciples are in the temple continually blessing God. They continue to live their lives as practicing  faithful Temple related Jews. Their Christian lives are lived  out in table fellowship in the privacy of homes.

We wrestle with the differences in these stories. of course they are literary creations, not intended as documentaries. Still.....maybe it's a bit like shifting to focus of a lens. What comes into view, what is seen, depends on what you are focusing on. The rest remains, indistinct, unclear....