Te Quiero

16 Años contigo, mi cielo.  Te quiero mas cada día.  Que bello que hoy, el día de nuestro aniversario, estamos codo a codo, enseñando a otr@s como comprometerse mas a la jornada de la justicia.

Te adoro.

Tus manos son mi caricia,
mis acordes cotidianos;
te quiero porque tus manos
trabajan por la justicia.

Si te quiero es porque sos
mi amor, mi cómplice, y todo.
Y en la calle codo a codo
somos mucho más que dos.

Tus ojos son mi conjuro
contra la mala jornada;
te quiero por tu mirada
que mira y siembra futuro.

Tu boca que es tuya y mía,
Tu boca no se equivoca;
te quiero por que tu boca
sabe gritar rebeldía.

Si te quiero es porque sos
mi amor mi cómplice y todo.
Y en la calle codo a codo
somos mucho más que dos.

Y por tu rostro sincero.
Y tu paso vagabundo.
Y tu llanto por el mundo.
Porque sos pueblo te quiero.

Y porque amor no es aurora,
ni cándida moraleja,
y porque somos pareja
que sabe que no está sola.

Te quiero en mi paraíso;
es decir, que en mi país
la gente vive feliz
aunque no tenga permiso.

Si te quiero es por que sos
mi amor, mi cómplice y todo.
Y en la calle codo a codo
somos mucho más que dos.

-- Mario Benedetti

Discovered

This statue is outside the basilica of St. Francis in Santa Fe (where we've been on vacation).  The statue is called "St. Francis Dancing on Water."  I fell in love with it.  The artist is Monika Kaden.  I took a ton of photos of it, these are just three.  I think if you click on them you get the bigger version.

 

 

And then I found this Rumi poem, thanks to the artist:

DANCE, WHEN YOU'RE BROKEN OPEN.

DANCE, IF YOU'VE TORN THE BANDAGE OFF.

DANCE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FIGHTING.

DANCE IN YOUR BLOOD.

DANCE, WHEN YOU'RE PERFECTLY FREE.

Rumi

Amen.

Memory and Protest

First I should say that I was not one of the people in this beautiful line of activists putting their bodies on the line to demand immigration reform that protects the rights and dignity of immigrants -- not this time, anyway. But some of them are my friends, and I am so proud them.

This protest took place on Tuesday, here in Denver (WashPost article w/a few pics here, best local story here). We marched from the capitol through downtown to the Federal building where the immigrant court is. A couple hundred of us marched a looped picket line on the sidewalk while 14 walked into the street which the police had blocked off on each end of the block. Most were SEIU staff, with a few local activists as well.


There they knelt and chanted and sang, and declined to leave when approached by the police.


They were then arrested one by one, placed on a police bus, and taken to the jail for processing.


In case we got too rowdy (or whatever, who the hell knows) the guy below was standing by:

That's a tear gas rifle. There were children not ten yards from him. Would he really have used that? Or was he just there to terrorize us? This was a planned arrest, the organizers met with the police beforehand. I guess at a minimum he was there to remind us who is in charge in the Empire.

Someone asked me if the protest was peaceful, and I responded, well, the police didn't beat up anybody this time, so I guess so. One of the local news stations reported that the protest was not peaceful because people got arrested. So non-violently putting your body on the line for justice is not peaceful? Hmm.

Anyway. The whole event was beautiful, powerful. As we marched the chanting was loud and energetic and just built up as we looped around the sidewalk. So much outpouring of Spirit for these brave folk. After the arrests many of us waited outside the jail for everyone to be released, which they were, all as a group, near 11pm. The group keeping vigil was a wonderful blend of youth and, er, not quite youth activists. We prayed and sang together and cheered everyone when they were released.

The 14 were charged with obstructing the street (see above about the police having already blocked the street...) and failure to obey a lawful order. Now comes the rest of the process.

The immigrant rights movement is stepping up its presence all over the country. As we say, we've marched, we've visited the capitol, we've met with Obama, we've met with our legislators, we've written letters, we've signed petitions, we've made phone calls, we've done EVERYTHING ELSE, and NOTHING is happening to create dignified and just immigration reform.

Sorry, that's not true. Things are happening. Deportations (with no guarantee of due process) are increasing. Detentions are increasing. Hate crimes against Latinos are increasing. Border enforcement (an expensive, completely ineffective policy) is increasing (even though crime in border states has declined drastically in recent years). Border deaths of migrants crossing the desert are up 30% over this time last year (even though border crossings are down). More useless walls are being built on the southern border (pushing people into ever-more-remote areas of the desert). Hate speech is increasing. Families are ripped apart and live in desperate fear now more than ever. Police departments utilizing 287(g) agreements (which permit local police to function as immigration enforcement) are increasing. Immigrant worker exploitation is increasing.

Oh, and SB1070 et. al. happened in Arizona. This weekend in Colorado there's a rally by right-wingers to support that law.

Meanwhile, the President and Congress think maybe they'll get to this issue next year, in spite of the fact that Obama promised the movement he would pass reform his first year in office. Oh, and he promised he would be better on immigration than his predecessor, but the opposite is actually true.

So the movement is stepping things up. Civil disobedience in various forms is happening all across the country -- arrests, marches, fasting. What is going to take? Many more bodies on the line -- citizen-privileged bodies, undocumented bodies, white bodies, brown bodies, men's bodies, women's bodies, youth's bodies, all kinds of bodies.

As St. Paul says, "²I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect." (Rom 12:1-2) ³

So that's the protest part. Here's the memory part.


The photo above is at the intersection of 15th and Stout, downtown. We were coming up 15th and I turned to my friend S. and said, "Uh...do you know the march route?"

"Yeah, I think we're going up 15th and turning at Stout."

"15th and Stout? Seriously?"

"Yeah, why?"

I just gave her a look, and then it dawned on her. 15th and Stout was the intersection of the 2007 columbus day arrests. She smiled wryly and said, "A little PTSD, maybe?" We laughed.

We stood at that intersection waiting for the light to change. I remembered...I always remember when I go by there, but this was the first time to actually *march* through there, the police carefully keeping us on the sidewalk with their special keeping-us-in-our-place vehicle.

This was the first protest I've been to since then where civil disobedience was planned. (Uh, I was too scared to go downtown during the DNC in '08, so I missed all the police violence then). And it was downtown, so it would be the same police squads as dealt with us.

I had lots of feelings about all that (primarily anxiety and fear), and marched right into them anyway. Who would I see? How would I respond? What would they do? How would I keep focused?

There was more police presence along the march route and at the Federal Building than all the police I saw when I marched in Phoenix a couple of weeks ago protesting SB1070 -- a march of at least 200,000 people. On Tuesday we were 200-300.

I marched anyway. Look, my body still hurts. I still hurt. I still get nervous around police and trust them not at all, even when the protest is "planned" and they were met with beforehand. S. was not kidding when she mentioned PTSD (she was pulled out of our circle by her neck, and I saw the bruises there 6 hours later).

But I marched anyway. There is no other place for my body to be, than stepping out of the place its white, well-educated, citizen-privileged being has been assigned, and to put it in the street marching with, as my amiga Robyn says, "the browns." So I acknowledge the pain and the fear and the anxiousness and the fact that I keep forgetting to breathe, and I keep marching.

Sure enough, there were cops I recognized, especially the one on the left, below:


That's the commander. She testified at my trial, and she lied (demonstrably w/video and photos), and it didn't matter.

I don't know how to explain how I felt but as we kept marching by her suddenly I thought, "They wanted to keep me out of the street. They tried to stop me. BUT I AM STILL HERE."

So there.

I could feel myself trying to come out of my body as the police approached the bold line of justice kneeling in the street. Part of me terrified and crying out "no no no" but I gulped breaths and kept marching, kept chanting. And then I started just hollering at the top of my lungs. I don't know where that sound came from, but it was somewhere deep inside and beyond me. I can only say it was Spirit. I hollered, and shouted "Gente! Fuerza!" and hollered more and sang "We shall not be moved" and kept marching and praying and hollering. All that hollering -- really, it was more like a scream, but it was not a scream of fear, it was a cry of strength and Spirit and power and it kept me present and rooted in my body.

It's not like I thought, "Hmm, maybe I shall holler and that will help." No, it just started flying out of my throat (which is still sore) and I can't really explain it.

Afterwards I hung out at the jail. My church donated water and food for the folks keeping vigil and for the arrestees upon release. I remember how good it felt to be welcomed by loving folks and good food (compared to jail food, a bagel with peanut butter was damn-near gourmet) and wanted to provide that for others. I hung with my friend the fabulous street medic Z who told me crazy jokes and kept me laughing. Kept me healing.

Here's what I know: Stepping out of place is hard, it can be risky and painful -- the Empire will punish you -- and the healing can be a long time coming (if you haven't figured out by now if you've been hanging out at the Window very long at all).

But look at that top photo again.

Stepping out of place is beautiful, and powerful, and Spirit-filled. And I'm going to keep doing it. I have good people around me, and we are fighting for the love of our lives.

is there no mastermind
of modern day
who can blueprint a plan
to make love stay
sturdy and weatherproof
ushering in a new revolution

at the drawing board the hopeful ones still try
how can we help it
when we're fighting for the love of our lives

I'll Never Forget It, You Know...

My best friend in college was Mickey. He came in as a freshman my sophmore year and we were both in the Mustang Band. We bonded first of all because we were both from tiny towns in Arkansas, only about a half hour or so apart. And then, we became good friends.

Mickey was outrageous, hilarious, loud -- all the things I was not. I felt a little braver and funnier when I was around him. We both did work/study with the band and so we spent many afternoons in the band hall neither working nor studying, but making each other laugh and playing "rocks" (a game with dominoes) with whoever we could round up. I loved it when he would start doing Bette Midler impersonations -- and impersonating Bette impersonating Sophie Tucker. Man, he had every mannerism, every inflection, every gesture down perfectly.

We would go eat at the favorite campus places, go for walks around campus, watch Designing Women in his dorm room. I think the only class we ever had together was geology (of all things) and so we broke actual rocks together, too. And we loved being in the band. He loved his friends pretty passionately. The only time I remember fighting was when we had seen Thelma & Louise and he tried to tell me that based on the Bible women were supposed to be submissive and I told him not to argue about things about which he was ignorant (he didn't go to church, didn't have much use for it). He thought I was calling him ignorant. But we made up.

I don't remember if it was his first year or second that he came out to me as being a gay man. I think I was not surprised, although he was the first gay person I knew that I knew (you know what I mean? I'm looking at you, high school class of 1988). I think he was worried how I would react. And what I said was something like, let's go to my dorm room, I want to get my Bible.

Bless his heart, he did not go screaming in the other direction. So we went to get my Bible and then we walked over to a spot in front of Meadows, a little hidden spot behind the shrubs where I liked to go and read and write and think. I don't know what he thought I was going to read, but I read Psalm 103 and told him God loved him no matter what. I think he thanked me.

Sometimes I would go with him to the gay bars in Oaklawn and watch him dance with the boys. Then we'd go eat a late/early breakfast somewhere and he would grin when women would hit on me, an occurrence which mostly, at that point in my own personal history, left me baffled and slightly shy.

I also went and sat with him in the student senate hearings when the GLBTQ folks on campus tried to get a support group officially recognized. I was appalled by what some students said, some of whom went to my church and waved their Bibles around like so much weaponry.

Knowing Mickey gave me a lot to think about, especially since the Presbyterian church at that time was in one of their periodic upheavals about what to do with the "gay problem." The church I attended in Dallas was discussing leaving the denomination if a report stating that GLBTQ folk should be treated equally was approved by the General Assembly (it wasn't, but some of the members left anyway). So I sat in these Sunday classes and other gatherings for the college kids hearing these discussions, and thinking of him. How could anyone not love him? I loved him.

He helped me be much less lonely during what was sometimes for me a lonely time. And I think he helped me to see what was possible.

The summer after I graduated, that was when I came out. When I look back I can see a very repressed struggle during my high school and college years but at the time I did not really understand that. Not until I kissed a girl by the Guadalupe River in the hill country of Texas. And then I was like, OH, well now everything makes sense.

Mickey was the first person I told who wasn't with me that summer. The first person from my "past" (although he wasn't past, really, you know). I remember so clearly, sitting on the edge of my bed in my little apartment in Hobbs, NM, where I had gone to teach school. By the end of the summer I had accepted the truth about myself, and I wanted him to know.

So I called him up. When I told him, he screamed with delight. He was so happy for me, so happy that I had figured out what he had long suspected anyway. He told me that he had guessed but then knew for sure when we came out of the movie theater the previous winter after seeing Fried Green Tomatoes, and how crazy I became about that movie, how I wanted to be Idgie Threadgoode and made him take me to the store right then so I could buy a denim shirt.

He cheered for me. I will never forget that.

When I came back to Dallas for homecoming, he set me up on my first lesbian date (it didn't take, but that's ok). And he took me to the LGBTQ bookstore in Oaklawn where I bought my first rainbow paraphernalia and lesbian reading material. I'll never forget that, either.

As the years went by we drifted apart, as happens after college. We exchanged Christmas cards here and there, and I would hear news of him through my brother and his wife, who also knew him in the band at SMU, and I would send my greetings. I was so happy to reconnect with him on Facebook last year sometime, and get caught up with his life and he with mine. He continued to be the outrageous, funny guy I had known so long ago. He had found a church he loved, an ONA UCC church, which surprised me because he had no use for God/church in college, but I was glad. He sang in the choir and would post status updates by phone from the choir loft on Sunday mornings. He still made me laugh.

You must know where this is going by now.

Mickey died yesterday. He was found in his apartment. Apparently it was a suicide. At this point that is all I know.

I am so sad, and so angry. And heartbroken.

Oh Mickey. I wish I had told you how much you have meant to me. I'll never forget you, you know.

This one's for you.

Enjoying Armida

(I want to thank the Met for their fabulous archive which allows me to enjoy such photos as above...)

Ah, Renée. Your tenor made the wrong choice, don't you think? I certainly wouldn't choose honor and duty if you looked at me like that...

We went to see the encore HD broadcast of the Met's Armida production last Wednesday. The story seemed a tad silly to me at first (you'll want to read the synopsis for any of the rest of this post to make sense), and we really went just so that I can continue to indulge my crush on Renée, but after seeing the whole thing, I think there is more depth to it than I thought.

The first act began with Cupid being lowered to the stage on a silk...what do you call those? Is it a trapeze? I'm drawing a blank. It was pretty stunning on the screen and I would guess even more so live. They built a tall curved wall that served as part of the set for all three acts -- when I listened on the radio, the announcer said the idea was to shrink the stage in order to push the sound out.

After Cupid, it seemed the soldiers sang for an eternity (and a not very interesting eternity at that) about how they were not going to fight that day, but have "pity" instead and mourn their dead leader (perhaps it's the fault of the subtitles, but they sang that line over, and over, and over, solo and in chorus). The action was static and stiff, and I began to wonder both if I was going to like this, and if Renée were ever going to appear.

She did. She brought things to life with both her singing and acting (god, what she can do with those eyes...) although I have to also admit I spent most of the rest of the 1st act distracted by the buttons on her dress, and whether she might need any, er, help with them.

The fun begins in the second act, with Armida's demons/spirits/furies swirling around the stage, at times on all fours. The leader is the only one who seemed remotely scary to me; mostly, they seemed mischievous. And funny. Including when they dressed up in tutus for the ballet scene. Are the demons of hell supposed to be funny? More on that in a moment.

The 2nd act has the famous soprano aria, "D'Amore al Dolce Impero." So look. Renée says herself she's not a bel canto singer, and she takes on roles like this as a challenge to keep herself in good shape, and because they're fun. So I don't know why people criticize her when she herself says she's not an expert at bel canto -- singing like that is freaking hard and I certainly can't do it. Anyway, I thought she sounded fabulous; you can listen here, and I wish you could see her expressions, which to me totally sold the whole thing. Whatever she did with her voice and her expression when she sang the word "fecunde" in the second verse made me gasp and gulp and forget to breathe. Which is why I love Renée.

In the 3rd act everything literally goes to hell, when Rinaldo, the silly tenor (is there any other kind?) chooses honor and duty rather than love, and is literally, at least in this production, carried back to war by two soldiers.

So here's what I think about this story. The stage direction and the director's comments talk about this opera as being about the choice between love and revenge. They chose to personify love and revenge to draw this point out (revenge is the bare-chested jubilant dude in the middle). Armida's last aria is in fact about her struggle after Rinaldo leaves her, whether to choose love or revenge. She chooses the latter, and destruction ensues.

I don't think it's that simple though, and the rest of the staging seemed to bring that out. My cielo and I talked about this in the car on the way home.

The struggle before the love/revenge struggle is Rinaldo's decision to choose either love or honor/duty. Love -- in the opera as well as the staging -- is equated with sorcery, evil, trickery, women, desire, passion, the body, pleasure, beauty. When Armida shows up in the first act, the static and staid soldiers come alive, acting out their beating hearts with hands pounding on their chests. Wherever Armida's reign is, there is movement and laughter and silliness. Without her, the soldiers were boring, dull, lifeless.

Honor/duty -- to the crusade, to the war, to other soldiers -- is stiff (! -- but look at those uniforms!), dispassionate. Honor and duty are held to be pure, nothing like the magic, trickery, sorcery of Armida's realm. And since they are crusaders, all of these qualities are held to be Christian. To choose honor/duty is to choose to be Christian.

So to me, the conflict is not only love vs. honor, but also the sort of traditional patriarchal Christian completely messed up "body/passion/desire = evil" ideology vs. well, love. And I think Rinaldo makes the wrong choice (not just because I think he's an idiot for giving up this). And I think *the opera* thinks he makes the wrong choice. Why?

• The crusaders are shown to be hypocrites. First, in the 1st act, Rinaldo defends his honor and ends up killing a man -- and is in danger of being punished for it until Armida calls up a storm and spirits him away. So honor is only defensible in certain (controlled?) contexts? Second, in the 3rd act, the two soldier buddies sent to rescue Rinaldo are highly condemning of all the magic of Armida's realm, which would include her small wand. Yet how do they find their way there? With some "prayed over" paper instructions and a REALLY. BIG. STICK. (Paging Dr. Freud).

• Armida brings things to life, as mentioned before. The crusaders are de facto instruments of death.

• Now about those silly demons: These creatures are a threat to NOTHING in the entire opera until love is spurned. They are present, certainly, but do no harm, until Rinaldo rejects Armida, and she sets the creatures to destroy everything (including her own realm).

To me that last point is really key. I think the opera may be trying to make the point that it is love that gives us life, love that holds evil in check, and when we do not choose love, destruction (of the pleasure palace, or of war) is the inevitable result. Rinaldo makes the wrong choice.

I love opera.

By the way, Lawrence Brownlee was amazing. He's the real deal for sure. Parts 1, 2, 3, 4 of the Act 3 tenor trio show him off finely.

I'm looking forward to the 2010-2011 season (view the online brochure here)!

Small Signs

The spot
at the base of my thumbs
just above the wrists
the size of about a quarter
the spot
where the sharp edges
of the plastic
zip-tie handcuffs
cut into my skin
into my radial nerves

leaving welts for days
leaving numbness for months
leaving pain for going on now
over two and a half years
since the day

it
still
hurts.

I still hurt.

I carry that pain with me
every day
a basket of bread
a constant reminder
and I wonder if I will ever
be done with it.
The needles find relief
and also
seemingly endless depths
of soreness,
tenderness,
stuckness,
pain. The needles wonder
if I will ever
be done with them.

I don't know.
I wonder if being done
is the wrong question.

I know this, though.
I am mindful to anniversaries.
I know what happened
in the less than merry month of May
two years ago. It has been
in my consciousness.
I even thought about it
this morning, driving
to see the immigrant workers,
remembering my people
sitting with me on the bench,
how I wouldn't let them leave,
how they wouldn't leave,
how they cradled me,
how they blessed me
every time I sneezed.
(I was so so sick.)
A chorus of blessings
behind me around me.
It is May,
and I remember.

But not until this morning
sitting with BlueEyes
and sweet cups of Tension Tamer
having a conversation with her
about "one year ago today..."
what she was doing to get ready to graduate,
which prompted me to think
of two years ago,
what I was doing to get ready to graduate,
And only then did I realize, remember
that today is actually the day
today is the day I testified,
and the day I was found guilty
of stepping out of place.
Today is that day.

And I had forgotten.
Or,
not forgotten, exactly,
I didn't forget.
I just didn't think
to count the days.
Last year I did.
This year...something else.
And realizing this
made us smile.

That I didn't need to remember
didn't even realize to remember
down to the minute, the day
must mean
I hope it means
something is healing.

I am mindful,
but perhaps not as captive.
Even though my body still hurts,
my arms and shoulders and heart
still remember,
but not everything is the same.

Thanks be to God.

A Little White Shirt Goodness

OK, more like white dress, black dress, BRIGHT green scarf. And interestingly placed hands...
Larger version can be seen here.

If you can't read the small type under the photo, this is from the Met's recent production of Lulu, an opera new to me, with a rather disturbing story and a main character who's a real live lesbian (Countess Geschwitz, of the BRIGHT green scarf, above) and pretty much the only decent human being in the story. Well, perhaps Lulu would have been a decent human being if her humanity hadn't been violated so violently by all the men in her life. I listened on the radio. I can't tell if the story is meant to portray critically what misogyny does to women, or is just misogynist, but it did make me think.

Anyway.

Another black dress/green scarf shot of the Countess here, and the Countess in a slightly shabby suit-like get-up here (Anne Sofie still looks great, though). This is the closest to a white shirt as she gets. (Whole set of production stills here).

I'm really just posting this for Anik, who adores Anne Sofie von Otter, and who's been having a rough go.

(And if you're wondering about the White Shirt...read here!)

At Last!

Clips of the Met's Der Rosenkavalier broadcast from January, starring Renée Fleming, Susan Graham, and Christine Schafer, are finally reaching the youtubes, thanks to rosen10kavalier.

Giddy overture and opening scene of Act 1:



Oh my god, I could watch that forever. (I know, don't you just want to yell at Placido to get the heck out of their bedroom? Clearly he's interrupting!)

Also posted are:
The Marschallin's Monologue;
The Presentation of the Rose;
The Final Trio (which makes me forget to breathe);
And the Finale.

Bonus bits are the entr'acte interviews with Renée, Susan (she is 12 feet taller than Placido, wow!), and the Trio. Note in Renée's interview she tries to convince us that it's "believable" that Susan is playing a young man. Uh-huh. Maybe from the 4th balcony, honey, but I'll just keep enjoying the sight of two women enjoying one another in bed, thank you very much!

Edited to add: oh yeah, there are a couple of men in the story. If you ask me, Baron Ochs is, as Hitchcock would say, a MacGuffin. I'll grant Sigmundsson is hilarious in the role, but you don't really see him in these clips...because his character is a MacGuffin!

Enjoy! And thanks again to rosen10kavalier!

Scenes From A Retreat

When despair for the world grows in me … I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Wendell Berry,
from his poem "The Peace of Wild Things"

(photos not in chronological order, which bugs me, but blogger is being stupid)

All hail the camera timer, so one can take photos of oneself in utter solitude. Me, and my hermitage. This is the same one I stayed in last year.



We had some storminess roll through on Monday, although we only got a spot of rain, just enough to wake up the desert and scrub out my lungs with that amazing scent. I climbed up the little hill to take this photo of my hermitage and the sunset. In the larger version I think you can see the candlelight inside the windows.



The chapel and bridge leading to the cloister. Amazing late afternoon light breaking through the stormy clouds, an hour or so before I took the photo just above.

I saw LOTS of bluebirds, every day. Or, I suppose, the same bluebird, a gazillion times a day. Anyway, this little fella was enjoying riding that branch headed facefirst into the wind. I was welcomed on my arrival by a trinity of deer munching shrubbery on the side of the road.

A little revolutionary declaration on the wall inside.

I once heard Bernice Johnson Reagon say, "Wade in the water. If you don't get in trouble, you'll never know who you are." So there you go. I would just like to add that the water in that creek was VERY cold...first snowmelt from the Sangre de Cristos.

Stepping Westward

What is green in me
darkens, muscadine.
If woman is inconstant,
good, I am faithful to
ebb and flow, I fall
in season and now
is a time of ripening.
If her part
is to be true,
a north star,
good, I hold steady
in the black sky
and vanish by day,
yet burn there
in blue or above
quilts of cloud.
There is no savor
more sweet, more salt
than to be glad to be
what, woman,
and who, myself,
I am, a shadow
that grows longer as the sun
moves, drawn out
on a thread of wonder.
If I bear burdens
they begin to be remembered
as gifts, goods, a basket
of bread that hurts
my shoulders but closes me
in fragrance. I can
eat as I go.

--Denise Levertov

Easter, A Year Later

Today, Easter Sunday, I can't help but think back to Easter Sunday, a year ago, and compare.

Last year, as I mentioned, I essentially refused Easter. Too much sunk in Good Friday. I experienced Easter a week later, while on retreat, pondering Thomas touching Jesus' wounds. Which was entirely appropriate.

This year, I found myself wondering how I would feel about Easter as it drew closer. This has been the struggle with me for months, really, whether there is in fact hope in the face of so much suffering. If in fact anything I do matters. Whether there is in fact any hope for healing.

By the end of Holy Week, I found myself yearning for Sunday's resurrection story. And I woke up this morning excited to go to church and hear that story, and to sing about hope.

We sang a song I learned from a Nicaraguan pastor and liberation theologian. I haven't sung it in years, but I found myself yearning to sing it, to sing it in community. So we did, and I held his smiling face in my mind, and felt my feet tapping under my guitar, and marveled at how my body easily remembered how to play the song after such a long time, and sensed my voice break inside my chest, and heard all the people around me singing, and I believed.

I believe.

El Jubileo

Nuestros ojos abiertos están
viendo muerte, pobreza, y maldad;
Sin embargo, seguimos creyendo
que el futuro está por llegar,
la esperanza provoca el andar
por la fe, la justicia, y la vida.

Mañana, cuando nazca el sol
vendrá la libertad, la fiesta y el perdón,
y descanso para todo aquel que sufre.
Mañana, cuando nazca el sol
la tierra volverá a aquel que la perdió,
y el trigo crecerá y habrá abundancia.


The Jubilee

Our eyes our open,
seeing death, poverty, and evil;
nevertheless, we keep believing
that the future is arriving
hope provokes our journey
for faith, justice, and life.

Tomorrow, when the sun is born
freedom, the fiesta, and forgiveness will come,
and rest for all who suffer.
Tomorrow, when the sun is born
the land will return to the one who lost it,
and the wheat will grow and there will be abundance.

Good Friday

I'm pooped.

This is my first "real" Good Friday as a pastor -- last year our worshiping community was gathering for meals every other week while we looked for space, so we weren't actually worshiping together then. I did preach at HappyChurch for their Good Friday service, but that was it. I didn't even go to church on Easter (I refused, in fact...so not in a good place spiritually this time last year).

Anyway -- I had an acupuncture treatment on Wednesday, after a 2 month hiatus. I woke up yesterday feeling beat up from the inside out, and emotionally shaky. She warned me, my acupuncturist, that the last needle, if we placed it, was likely to release a lot of emotions, and she was right.

No coincidence that that needle was placed right at the base of my right thumb, just under where the handcuff cut and is still painful. When she placed it a huge wave a grief washed over me.

A little Renée Fleming on my mp3 player consoled me.

So today, still felt quite shaky. I said to a friend that it felt like I was white-water rafting on the inside -- just trying to ride out this release, trust that it's going somewhere. And yet, I needed to be present with quite a few folks, in different ways, today. So, for all the drives around town, I brought the "hermitage mix" of music and sang along, and practiced breathing, and tried to see the spring flowers with the delight of the two-year-old I was with.

In the evening, was our Good Friday vigil. We held vigil outside the immigrant detention facility that is only a few miles from where we worship. We read the passion narrative, sang Taizé chants, and offered poetry of hope to those detained and words of challenge to the guards to repent and ask forgiveness for their participation in this violation of God's image. For this we read the words of Oscar Romero.

Well, I read them (my cielo read them in Spanish). And I also challenged them again with the call to repentance as we ended. We could see them, a few were standing outside, and it seemed like they were listening (even if only to scoff later, who knows, but still).

My cielo said she was in awe of me, that I was so bold in what I said. I don't know about that, I barely remember what I said; what I do know is that when I was speaking (my cielo said I was evangelizing...even on Good Friday there is the opportunity to turn away from Empire and chose again to walk God's path of justice and love), for a brief moment who I saw were my own guards, who had jailed me. It got a little messy, inside.

I can feel it in my body -- holding that sacred space on the sidewalk, dealing with the guard who came out to tell us to move (or they'd call the police...we moved to the sidewalk across the street), watching the guards watch us, trying to speak and sing loud enough so the folks detained inside and the guards could hear us, watching the police drive by twice, windows rolled down, observing us (so, the guards had called them anyway). My body is tired, and sore. And my arm, it aches.

So the plan is for some immersion therapy: tonight, sleep. Tomorrow, the fabulous Verdi opera Aida, live from the Met, which will be good for several hours of opera therapy. Errands and a movie in the evening with my cielo (either "Up," or a Kiri Te Kanawa-led Der Rosenkavalier, whatever we're in the mood for. There may or may not be some goat therapy, as well. At any rate, it will be a Holy Saturday of some self-care time, and some cielo time.

And then, we shall see what Sunday shall bring...

Music Of The Day (or the Week)

Holy Week, that is.

I heard Bach's St. Matthew Passion on the radio today on the way to church (this exact recording) and fell in love with this aria (the aria starts at about 2:30, after the recitative). The text is about the burial of Jesus, but the music is so gentle and tender, almost like a lullaby. I can't stop listening to it, and humming it...




I didn't know which part of the piece it was to try to find it again, so thanks to google I found the list of movements on wikipedia and just kept plugging titles of bass arias (altho this version is sung by a baritone, which I like better) into YouTube's search engine until I found it. I was so pleased to find the version I heard on the radio!


P.S. I changed a few things in my sidebar, including adding a link to my new YouTube channel. Find out what I'm listening to and watching! (and hey, would someone let me know that link works?)

Immersion Therapy: Part I

And by immersion therapy, I mean my own, not your immersion in the length of these posts! My! This is Part 1, with more to come...

**************

My parents are both trained classical musicians, my mother with a master's and my father a doctorate. I grew up surrounded by music, classical music: symphonies, operas, orchestral pieces, sacred choral works. Some of my earliest (and favorite) musical memories are playing on the floor next to my mom as she practiced the organ; later I would be her page turner. Another favorite childhood memory is lying in my bed at night while my parents practiced for a piano recital in the next room -- duets, two pianos, four hands. They brought in an extra piano for rehearsing.

I first sang the Fauré Requiem in church choir when I was in 4th or 5th grade, my mom on the organ. I remember every Good Friday Daddy would listen to Parsifal (the whole thing). In 6th grade I was the best in music class at identifying classical pieces, because we had all the records at home and I could practice. This was probably not fair to the other kids in class, but oh well.

I started playing French Horn in 6th grade; then when we moved to Kansas, my dad began conducting the very local regional orchestra, which I joined in I guess 9th grade. There were only two horn players, the 1st chair grown-up, and me. Pretty cool, and I got to play some good music; I always enjoy it when a piece comes on the classical radio and I can say to my cielo, "Hey, I played that!" And of course, I had piano lessons from my mother from age 5 until I graduated from high school. By the end I was playing concerto movements for competitions.

In college I sang in the choral union, which was made up of vocal majors and anyone else who wanted to join. Choral union was required for vocal majors, which meant I was singing next to top-quality singers such as this one. Here I got to sing the Fauré again, as well as the Mozart and Brahms Requiems, Rutter's Gloria (oh my god, that movement is sublime), and Bernstein's Chichester Psalms.

My folks didn't have much use for popular music -- although I distinctly remember my mom saying she really liked "Yesterday," and they made note of when John Lennon died, so it wasn't completely outside their realm of existence. Nevertheless, we were a classical music household, and it wasn't until I went to college that I really started exploring other genres.

In fact, it was my little brother TBro who introduced me to the Indigo Girls, when I was 21 and heading into my last year of college. He came back from boy scout camp, where he was on the summer staff, and said, "Hey, you should listen to this, it's kinda cool," and popped "Closer to Fine" into the tape deck. It's not an overstatement to say this changed my life. The Girls saved my life, and their music led me to Nanci Griffith (ooh, complete with monologue!), Mary Chapin-Carpenter, Shawn Colvin, Emmylou Harris, and, eventually, Dar Williams, the Dixie Chicks (I still feel this way, if you're wondering), and Patty Griffin. If you've been around awhile you know this is music that has pulled me through some tough times.

It's not that I got away from classical music, exactly. When we lived in Tucson I sang in the UofA's Community Chorus (Mahler 2 being the highlight) and when we lived in Portland we went to the opera with some regularity (we got in cheap since we had friends who worked there). We have two CD racks, one full of classical, one full of the above singers (as well as some others, and Latin pop/tropical/Nueva Canción, jazz, and Sweet Honey In the Rock). Classical just didn't have the same space anymore; that space was shared by the need to occasionally rock out, or have my heart cracked open by a high lonesome harmony, or to nourish my struggle against injustice.

And then, in January, I rediscovered opera.

Now as I said, I grew up with opera. We often listened to the Met radio broadcasts on Saturdays, and if there were operas on TV we'd watch those, as well. And of course there's was Daddy's Parsifal ritual. Mom would cry listening to "Nessun Dorma."

One of my favorite memories is when my mom took me to Dallas to see the Met on tour in 1979, for my 9th birthday. This was back in the day when the Met actually took their productions on the road. We were originally going to see 3 operas: Don something (I forget now which of all the Dons), with Beverly Sills, who I adored at that tender young age; Tosca; and Tannhauser. The trip was really about seeing Sills, but Don something sold out, which I distinctly remember made me cry. So we had to settle for Tosca and Tannhauser ("Settle," she says...).

Mom and I packed up the Pinto with food and all the opera books we had, and drove from our little town of Monticello, AR, all the way to Dallas. Just the two of us, the brothers stayed home with Dad! I read the stories of the operas from our books out loud to Mom while she drove. She felt it was better to know the stories going in, so you would know what was going on. So I read them, and we talked about them, all the way to Dallas.

We saw Tosca first. You can see pictures of the set here, thanks to the Met's archive. As I mentioned, the production would have traveled, so what was seen at the Met was what I saw in Dallas. I was enthralled. I won't rehearse the story for you, you can read it here, but I remember being on the edge of my seat, from the crashing, threatening opening chords all the way to the end, when Tosca throws herself to her death (what, you're surprised? It's an opera, somebody has to die, and in Tosca, just about everyone does...). It was the music, it was the story, it was the performances (Magda Olivero's swan song*, and Pavarotti** in his prime). It was the strong, powerful woman in charge of her own life. I was HOOKED.

*1960 performance, Act II, part 1, part 2, part 3 (the famous aria, which my dad says is bad theology but my cielo points out is a biblically sound lament. When we saw her in 1979, she did the whole thing on her knees, which, considering she was 69, impressed my mom and me very much.), part 4. Very cool; such presence in her voice. Basic summary of this scene: her boyfriend is being tortured in the next room, and she's trying to convince the bad guy to stop it. Bad guy says he will, if she sleeps with him. Watch and see for yourself how it turns out. And you thought opera was boring.

**Here he is in the Met's 78-79 production, in NY. This is the same production we saw, with him, but with a different soprano obviously. Part 1 and part 2.

The next night we saw Tannhauser. I feel asleep shortly after the Venusberg scene of Act 1 (er, that link is a not entirely traditional production. Maybe I would've stayed awake if we had seen this!). Wagner is pretty heavy for a 9-year old, and it could be that Tosca wore me out! I did wake up with the brass fanfare (traditional production) in the 2nd act, which was pretty cool.

My folks had the 1962 recording of Tosca, with Leontyne Price, Giuseppe di Stefano, conducted by Herbert von Karajan. 2 records, red box, with a nice booklet on how they did the recording. I listened to that album OVER and OVER and OVER when I was a teenager. My parents gave me the piano score for Christmas one year, and I used to play through the WHOLE THING at one sitting (knowing right where the spots were to flip the records). It was my escape, even if to a brutal, all-too-real place (sometime I will write about why I think Tosca may have primed me for my future justice work...). A few years ago, my folks transferred the records onto CDs for me, which I thought was fabulous.

I enjoyed other operas -- the Puccini oeuvre, Verdi, Wagner (I grew into it, and besides, in my household, it could not be escaped), Mozart somewhat -- we were more romantics in my house. I remember adoring the New Year's Eve Met of the comedy Die Fledermaus, which was a riot, and starred Kiri Te Kanawa, who I promptly got a crush on (and oh my, the Met has put that performance online...goody!). And on into adulthood, I kept listening when I could.

But I think during seminary classical music became the background for studying, and less for really listening to. And with opera or longer orchestral works, I hate interruptions (I'm the same way about movies), so when I needed a brief musical pick-me-up, I opted for a few Indigo Girls or Patty Griffin songs.

Which helped. But I had forgotten what it meant to be immersed in music, whatever sort it was.

To be continued...

And thanks to all the youtube-ers for making all the linkage in this post possible!

My Inner Hermit

I was reading the latest post at the Abbey of the Arts, and was struck right off by the phrase "my inner monk." The thought resonated with me as a question: Do I have an inner monk? And I think the answer is: I'm not sure about a monk, but I definitely have an inner hermit.

The photo above was my hermitage when I went on retreat last year at Nada. As you may remember, I was there, by myself, for a week. I'm going back again the week after Easter, and will get to be in this same hermitage again. It's basically one room, and a bathroom. There's a little desk, a little kitchen (well stocked by the good folks at Nada), a bunk, and an easy chair facing that glorious set of windows facing south. There's also a wood stove which I enjoyed tending, although I never quite figured out how keep the temp lower than about 80 at night!

I think I have an inner hermit because sometimes the desire to get away to this hermitage is almost overwhelming. It is not quite the sense of wanting to run away from my problems and life's difficulties. Rather I sense it more as retreating away just to be with God, by myself, and sort things out for a while with no distractions.

Just sit there in that chair, looking south at the broad Sangre de Cristo landscape, soaking up the sun, music helping me to give voice and emotion to stuff that's packed inside. Sometimes I close my eyes and imagine myself there. A brief retreat, accessing the presence of the Divine so palpable in sunlight and solitude.

Thinking of that longing for retreat as "my inner hermit" is helpful because whereas before it simply felt like unrequited longing -- Ah! I want to get away! But I can't! -- now I can think about it as a part of myself that's giving me some information about my state of being and what needs paying attention to.

For instance, I think it's no accident that this "longing" is currently quite constant and feels almost physical -- while at the same time there is some very difficult stuff going in my life/our lives, not just my whole healing work but other mostly unbloggable stuff as well. In the middle of all this, my inner hermit is manifesting in the urge to just. stay. home. and. do. nothing.
It doesn't help (or maybe it does) that there's the Olympics with which to distract myself...

Recognizing my inner hermit helps me to think about way I might tend to her that could be more intentional and helpful rather than simply vegging out on the couch discovering the oddity that is olympic curling.

I know this: My inner hermit needs music. And sunlight (Denver's weather lately is not helping in this respect). And solitude. Learning to create these spaces in what is right now a very busy and challenging life might be a good Lenten practice for me...

Considering my toes in front of those fabulous south windows...

Love Songs From God

I was listening to this today:



Yes, yes, I know, Renée Fleming again. What can I say, I have a mild obsession.

Anyway. This is her cover of a famous Joni Mitchell song, "River," from a really wonderful album of jazz covers (rather than opera). Here's another song, from the same album, I was also listening to today:





So, lately...Oh, you know, I get tired of talking about this sometimes (and sometimes wonder if people are tired of hearing about it, one reason I think I haven't been saying much here lately) ...so suffice to say, healing is still a struggle, with better days and worse days, and mostly a sense that things that have been stuck and stagnant are moving again. I was going to say something about "progress" but that is too linear for a process which to me does not feel particularly linear at all.

Acupuncture has helped. Spiritual direction helps. Love of friends and my cielo helps. And I have to say it, even if you laugh, Renée Fleming helps.

In spiritual direction I learned that immersion in beauty is, for me, one of the best counterbalances to my pretty constant immersion in the muck and pain of life. I've been trying to find ways to do that, and for now it is coming a lot through music. In fact what made me realize it was going to the Met's Live in HD broadcast of Der Rosenkavalier (starring you-know-who). I was swept away. The next week in spiritual direction I realized that I was so swept away that my brain-on-hypercritical-deconstructive-overdrive actual shut its damnself up for four hours and just let me enjoy the wonder and beauty of moments like this one.


I loved it so much I went back and saw the encore showing.

In enjoying one youtube posting after another of Renée (may I call you that? surely by now we are on a first-name basis), I rediscovered her jazz album, Haunted Heart, which I actually had forgotten that we own (silly me). I've been listening to some of the songs over and over and the point I am trying to get to is this:

Renée's voice is like God singing to me.

I don't mean that like, "Oh, she has such a divine voice," although certainly she does. No, what I mean is, in these days when I need to feel God close, She is showing up through this music, this voice, to remind me that I'm loved, and I'm not alone.

And, apparently, She sings me love songs, gorgeous ones, like "My One and Only Love," that I posted above.

So I got to wondering..."River" is a sad song. It's a song about love lost. When Renée sings this lyric:

Oh I wish I had a river
I could skate away on
I'm so hard to handle
I'm selfish and I'm sad
Now I've gone and lost the best baby
That I ever had
Oh I wish I had a river
I could skate away on
I wish I had a river so long
I would teach my feet to fly
Oh I wish I had a river
I could skate away on
I made my baby say goodbye

...I wonder, does God feel that way sometimes? When I am sad and hurting and ticked off at God, does She sing sad, lament-y love songs about Her haunted heart and how She's trying to figure out how to win me back?

I'd like to think so...I think the prophets express this sometimes. And it opens up a whole new way, for me, of thinking about my relationship with the Divine One, one that is not about duty and responsibility, but rather is about longing, and love, and holds room even for pain. And in holding room for pain, there is then the possibility of comfort. And healing.

On a cold, snowy, day, I am thinking about this kind of God...

In the night, though we're apart
There's a ghost of you within my haunted heart
Ghost of you, my lost romance
Lips that laugh, eyes that dance

Haunted heart won't let me be
Dreams repeat a sweet but lonely song to me
Dreams are dust, it's you who must belong to me
And thrill my haunted heart, be still, my haunted heart

Dreams are dust, it's you who must belong to me
And thrill my haunted heart, be still, my haunted heart