Mavis Staples at Roots and Blues

Posted: September 23, 2013 in Uncategorized
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It was a great festival, Roots and Blues was. The relocation to Stephens Park was brilliant. Once they get enough food, porta potties and shuttles it will be even better. And invite the Rootsy and Bluesy groups that give it its flavor rather than who happens to be popular (Black Crows? Really?).

Mavis Staples Live

Mavis Staples Live

Broadway was proud to be the sponsor the Gospel Brunch, the new Sunday afternoon addition to the festival. Headliner Mavis Staples, up in years and tottering after a knee surgery, drew in the crowd like bees to honey.

I’ve overdosed on the sounds of Blues Traveler, Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, BB King and Gospel. At least enough to hold me until next year.

Rabbit trail: On Saturday I left the festival and traveled to our Jazz service in Rocheport. Afterwards as I drove back to the festival I tuned in Garrison Keillor. His special guest was the mandolin playing freak of nature, Chris Thile. I first encountered him through Nickle Creek. But he outgrew that format in time and formed the Punch Brothers and then collaborated with all manner of eclectic combinations of styles, instruments and musicians such as Yo-Yo Ma.

On Keillor’s show he played an incredible J.S. Bach piece originally scored for solo violin. It was astounding and is joined but equally stunning settings on his new recording of Bach on mandolin. But the real stunner? As good as everything I had just heard at the Roots and Blues Festival – everything – and our very fine Jazz service that boasts some of the very finest young up-and-coming jazzers around – Chris Thile playing on a radio show I accidentally tuned in between what I thought were the real musical events took the golden ring. Handily. Without a whiff of competition. Just like that.

And isn’t that how it is? Somewhere between our planned schedule, those things which represent the matters at hand, we discover something truly revelatory, beautiful and astounding on the way. Like grass growing out of the cracks in the sidewalk we find the remarkable. Tune in to this remarkable feature on Thile to see what I mean: Chris Thile and Bach

End of Days

Posted: September 16, 2013 in Uncategorized
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I remember well
how one courageous soul
defended the right
when surrounded by the wrong

And now people try to defend her
from the end of days
that will take everything
except the love that gave her courage
in the first place

A Prayer for Friday the 13th

Posted: September 13, 2013 in Uncategorized
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Purpose and Presence of the Universe, existing before we were made and will be long after we are gone:

Early in the morning, our song shall rise to Thee, but not only our songs. There are also

lingering doubts  we have not yet released into your care,
heavy burdens that have bent us over and crushed those we love,
and persistent anxiety about so many things.

With the freshness of this new page release us and many from the shackles that bind and open us to the gift that is this day.

Help us to care for the least of these even as we also care about the strong and accomplished.

Empower us to demonstrate a witness for peace in a world always filled with wars and rumors of wars;

Transform us into carriers of hope who shed light toward the future.

Reveal your purpose and way in such a way that it is reflected in the tarnished mirrors of these hearts.

For this and so much more we thank you for that which we continue to seek:

your healing presence in the storm,
courage to do right when surrounded by wrong,
and the peace that passes understanding,
the peace that allows us to speak the truth,
forgive as we have been forgiven,
and seek a life that is higher and greater than the one we now have.

We pray all this in the power of the One who holds us all, Amen.

HB329 is just as bad

Posted: September 11, 2013 in Uncategorized
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This year will be remembered as “bad bill” year. Out of the looney bin of our Missouri Legislature comes HB 329, vetoed by the Governor but now re-approached with an attempt to sustain it by the MO House.

It is a funky bill with a smattering of financial components, one of which is submerged deep in the bill: a provision that protects predatory payday loan companies. This morally offensive payday loan industry runs rampant, unchecked, and preys upon the most vulnerable. Of course, it is favored and protected by certain special interests.

The Governor’s veto of HB 329 must not be overturned.

 

 

 

Ten Reasons Why HB 253 is a Lousy Idea

Posted: September 11, 2013 in Uncategorized
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The House Bill 253 has that skunk smell, the kind of whiff you catch from a long way off. Presented as a great break for Missourians it does nothing but benefit the powerful and wealthy. Driven by one lone billionaire and his bought and sold politicians the bill is bad for Missouri. To find out why in a very concise form read here.

Dear Missouri House: Do not give me your revolutionary tax break so I can buy another Big Mac this year. Do not lower my taxes and gut our state of essential services, drive up tuition, force school systems to cut teachers and ravage programs for mental health and the disabled. Don’t do it.

Families, Interfaith Dimensions and Communication

Posted: September 9, 2013 in Uncategorized
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Colleen Colaner, Ph.D.

Colleen Colaner, Ph.D.

Read my recent interview in Columbia Faith and Values with Mizzou professor Colleen Colaner about her research into the interfaith dimensions of family life and the special role communication plays here.

Love according to Beuchner

Posted: September 7, 2013 in Uncategorized
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“The love for equals is a human thing – of friend for friend, brother for brother. It is to love what is loving and lovely. The world smiles.

The love for the less fortunate is a beautiful thing – the love for those who suffer, for those who are poor, the sick, the failures, the unlovely. This is compassion, and it touches the heart of the world.

The love for the more fortunate is a rare thing – to love those who succeed where we fail, to rejoice without envy with those who rejoice, the love of the poor for the rich, of the black man for the white man. The world is always bewildered by its saints.

And then there is the love for the enemy – love for the one who does not love you but mocks, threatens and inflicts pain. The tortured’s love for the torturer. This is God’s love. It conquers the world.”

Frederick Beuchner from The Magnificent Defeat

Ecumenical Day of Prayer for Syria Saturday September 7

Posted: September 6, 2013 in Uncategorized
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Ecumenical partners throughout the world have set aside this Saturday, September 7, as a day of prayer for Syria. Whether you pray with others or alone, consider lifting up your own prayers of peace for that place and all places in conflict.

And here is mine:

Eternal Spirit of love and joy:

We have not done well in tending your garden
loving our neighbor
or aspiring to your purpose and vision for us
and so we pray again and again.
We pray the prayers of failed love
that the lurking, buried menace of hate
not take the day, but rather
be crowded out by our entirely unrealistic
and naive hopefulness.
We are fools, to be sure, to pray in such a world
where all evidence confirms our folly.
So take the little prayers of your clowns
and heal your world
in places like Syria
and then the next place and the next,
for your son, the prince of peace,
never wearied of praying for your kingdom
even as the world’s kingdoms crashed upon his head.

Have mercy, O God, have mercy.
Amen.

Get the police in here

Posted: September 5, 2013 in Uncategorized
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She was always very bright, however eccentric. Now she searches for names, places, reasons for the way things are. The fog began to gather over the top of her brain slowly until she hardly knew who she was anymore. And she is afraid, always afraid.

For now, some faces are still recognizable, like mine. Relieved to have a familiar coordinate in the room, she almost runs to me. Thank God you’re here.

The paranoia first crept in like something burning in the oven. It was fear that fueled it, a persistent, pointed fear that all was not well. As we sat talking she insisted that we should call the police. Something is happening here, a conspiracy, starting here or over there. No, it is not safe.

But there are reaches of memory that abide untouched. In the middle of the unexplained diabolical plot I challenge her to say the words and she does, closing her eyes and mouthing them with me:

“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want …”

“Our Father, who art in heaven …”

“Amazing grace, how sweet the sound …”

All of those words sit on a shelf in a row of the heart where the sacred things bubble and brew, unforgotten. They gently caulk the gaps and suspend the falling mind like a silky spider web falls across your bare arm on the path. Gently, so gently, the shiny strand caresses the bruised flesh with the faintest sensation: I know that. Then the half smile.

We really should call the police, you know.

Repeat after me: “Amazing grace …”

Daily bread for those who serve the bread

Posted: September 3, 2013 in Uncategorized
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As a part of a recent action on behalf of a living wage for fast food workers, those in the religious community showed up to stand in solidarity. Missouri Faith Voices was represented by various clergy in the area. Read the whole story from Columbia Faith and Values.

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