Category: Church

Grace has no race

Man, I read some PAINFUL SHIT  yesterday.  But this is what fell out.

 

Unitarians have no issue with working through privilege and fighting discrimination. That is one of the functions of religion, to identify bias in ways that open the heart and warm the soul and loosen the fists.  It’s part of our congregational covenant.

â–ª The inherent worth and dignity of every person;

  • Justice, equity, and compassion in human relations;

 

Race is not specifically mentioned in our principles.  I can understand why that is; my personal bias is that a specific mention of race when we’re all about the oneness of humanity is well, unseemly.

 

But… We haven’t had the internal conversation on race. I believe our ideas and words on the subject are hampered by fears of giving offense, by guilt, by ignorance, by denial and by a vast interlinked network of laws and customs, tv news and badly taught history which result in the elevation of white people over people of colour.

 

It’s time we got over that.

 

One of the things I’ve noted, and which yet again was pointed out to me by a young FN activist in November of 2013, is that it is not the responsibility of those discriminated against to plead their case as and when asked – or, indeed, ever.  If you’re an ally, the thinking goes, you will put down the Chardonnay and google “Residential schools” or “Highway of Tears” or “Poll Tax” or “Komagata Maru”.  You’ll educate yourself.  And if you’ve got a boatload of guilt or want to interrupt at public meetings, please stay home, you’re tiresome and a continual reminder that many more white people want to have wings than earn them.

 

Having accepted after all this time that it is my responsibility to look at the problem and develop my own curriculum, this is how I see the process.  We’re talking years, but there’s no reason we can’t start.

 

Step one. Sorting.  Get over how we don’t know how racist we are.  Staying home and reading about it on the internet is not helpful.  We must share our painful, quirky, horrific, wrackingly tragic, bewildering, magical and intimately personal stories about race in the comforting bosom of our church siblings before we talk about it in public.  It is by story that we will be set free.  It is through story that we will find both the will and the vocabulary to accept our complicity and move on together, with grace and forgiveness stumbling forward with us.

 

Step two. Reconnecting with the flow of life.  Develop a way of talking about race and racial discrimination which removes inflammatory language (by listening to what people of colour have to say on the subject and humbly paying heed), doesn’t play into old guilty habits (“well we’ve done talking about race now”), models the best possible behaviour church-wide for our children and visitors (so yes, special attention given to greeters and those people in the congregation who have the ability to talk to anyone and RE), and helps distinguish us from other liberal religious organizations.  We’ve been a stagnant pond, it’s time to be a tranquil stream.

 

Step three. Clean up time.  ACCEPT that we will likely never be racially reflective of the areas we live in, STOP being ashamed about it, WORK to eradicate discrimination the way humans everywhere always have.  Build networks with people you personally like, who value life and freedom and beauty and nature and art as you do, to find whatever role to play against racial discrimination you have the strength to fulfill.  They don’t have to be in the church, and in fact one of the marks of a healthy Unitarian congregation is how many different social justice sandboxes are being played in at once.

 

Step four. Sing the message.  Encourage those UUs who can to self identify as people who have quit taking racial privilege and discriminatory bias as part of the natural order of things. Teach consistent and tested ways of knowing the why and when to speak up, what to say, and how to say it with humility and temperance.  If we have a haven on Sunday where we can bring our stories of confronting structures of evil, it will be much easier for us to shift out of our guilty little comfort zones.

 

Step five. Carry the flame.  Find ways to set congregational goals regarding eradicating racial bias, incorporate them into church life, celebrate milestones.  Continue to hold workshops and write curriculum on racism and equality, make art and media about it, blog and write and link on facebook and other social media platforms, build links to faith communities not just for interfaith kumbayas but for true stories about institutional racism and how we can be of practical help.  Put refresher courses on the church five year plan.  Note to self:  leave the presence of the word kumbayas but take it out of the final version because it refers to a spiritual song wrested from the Gullah folkways. Of course when I heard it in my childhood it was the Weavers singing it.  And I have to go away and think about that for a while.  Anyhoo…

In sum:  Racial bias must be defined and that definition broadly accepted, its eradication valued, encouraged and honoured, and participation in self-reflection, liturgy and civil engagement to end racial bias must be considered a foundational aspect of UU life. Grace has no race.

De Colores

After Rev Deb’s mighty sermon on racism yesterday, I thought of a possible curriculum.   THIS IS TOTALLY IMAGINARY AT PRESENT and I haven’t heard back from anybody because Holy shizzsnacks it’s five in the ayem.  So if you have comments, it’s about the imaginaryness of it first of all.

 

Skin in the Game of Life is a ten session recovery program for Beacon UUs addressing racism.  The goal is to help each participant understand where they are on the continuum of racism and to move themselves closer towards Unitarian Universalist principles of social justice.

 

1.  How dare you call me a racist!

What is privilege?

What is intersectionality?

Having the conversation about racism – in ourselves, in others, in our culture.  Current understanding of inclusive language and why what you say and how you say it is so important.

 

2. Family stories

Sharing stories about racism, tolerance and aha! moments.

Understanding families as racism incubators.

Examining racial makeup of UU congregations.

What we didn’t learn in school.

 

3.  Otherness

Race is “policed” by, among other things:

Education, Law, Language, Affiliation, Occupation, Religion

 

4. “I pity the poor immigrant”.

The Canadian immigrant experience, focussing on the East Indian and Chinese migrant experience in Vancouver.  The Poll Tax.  The Komagata Maru.

 

5. The Settlers and Turtle Island

Colonialism and the ongoing resistance of First Nations.

 

6. Science and Race

An overview of the latest research. Facts, questions, controversies.

 

7. Highway of Tears

The Highway of Tears and the collisions of race, politics, media, law enforcement and gender.

 

8. The Laws of the Land

Current laws and important court cases.

 

9. Good people keeping quiet.

How social conventions stressing harmony and lack of overt conflict sap the strength of anti racism actions, and contribute to the growth of overtly racist actions.  Finding allies in the struggle against racism.

 

10. Now what?

Continuous improvement as a model for recovering from racism.

Racism, like all human bias, requires a cognitively pragmatic, emotionally stable and physically active approach for eradication to be contemplated and achieved.  The bias must be defined, its eradication valued and honoured, and its eradication must be supported by personal and collective will, and participation in activities which will challenge, inform and invigorate anti racism in UU life.

 

 

Reading List:

 

The Inconvenient Indian, Thomas King

CUC resolutions addressing racism, diversity, First Nations

Learning to Be White, Thandeka

http://cuc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/CUC-ACM-2013-Keynote-Radical-Inclusion-Mark-Morrison-Reed.pdf

Charter of Rights http://lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/Const/page-15.html#h-45

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/lou-james/racist-native-canada_b_3795232.html

http://anti-racistcanada.blogspot.ca/

http://apihtawikosisan.com/

http://www.anti-racism.ca/node/1

http://www.hopesite.ca/remember/history/racism_canada_1.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Komagata_Maru_incident

http://www.idlenomore.ca/manifesto

(link removed for safety)

http://intercontinentalcry.org/

Testimonial

I want you to imagine what would happen if Sapperton Old Age Pensioners Hall burned down.

We would lose our place of worship, our sound system, lectern, hymnals, aesthetics and chalice.

And somehow we’d still be here. We would be meeting somewhere else, but the church would still be here. Our principles would remain intact; our love for each other would be as firm; our resolve would be tested to the snapping point, but it would hold.

If you don’t give us any money, we’ll still be here. It will be as if we burned down and we’ll be meeting in people’s homes instead of here, but we’ll still be here in the sense that the work of this church will continue.

If you choose to give Beacon money we’ll have a more solid foundation upon which to do the work of the church.

What is the work of the church? To bring us together in fellowship and worship. To be a sanctuary for freethinkers and warriors for social justice alike. To create a safe space for our children and youth to stretch their agile minds. To perform good works in the community we share. To extend the promise of liberal religion to all who will hear it. To provide a pulpit for prophecy, truth, love. To provide a trumpet for the sorrows of the world and its creatures and its peoples. To illuminate the path that brings us in right relation to each other. To shake us from complacency, to turn us from greed, to open our hearts to song and art, to open our hearts to the beauty residing in each of us, and the struggle.

If you cannot give Beacon money, then I urge you to do one or more of three things. To choose and volunteer for a committee performing work you think is important; to plan to bring a friend or colleague to church, especially if the message is relevant to them; to try to come to church every Sunday you are able. For the gift of your presence is what makes this a community. The money is a red herring. We make joy from fabric scraps and leftovers. It is an accumulation of many things, money being the most difficult to speak of, that makes Beacon what it is. Bring your gifts, and bring your questions, and Beacon will be here.

 

Immersion

What between getting sleep in two hour bursts (all I can manage with the cpap, which I put on and took off three times last night), donating blood on Friday, and somewhat inadequate levels of exercising, Physio Luce is telling me that my flex is good but my strength sucks.  He totally bought that sleep deprivation has slowed me down… and loaded me up with more exercises.  Ainsi soit-il.

Today I will be adjusting the moisture content and seating of the mask on the cpap.

Dishwasher is running, sun is shining, Eddie is feeling much better.  He needs a special diet so we are attempting to feed  the cats separately and it’s kinda sorta working.  His thyroid is wonky but there are meds for that.  He is SUCH a good kitty.  He despises being pilled so much that when Jeff puts the pill in front of him, he consumes it rather than go through the gharstly struggle.  He was also a sweetheart the last time I trimmed his nails.  (Kitties shouldn’t click on floors).

I am assembling yet another project in Scrivener – Broad Hints.  It will be selected songs, poems, essays (no homilies though, that’s another project), humour, blog posts, recipes and miscellaneous writings (like band names, movie and concert reviews).  I have a ton of stuff in there already and it’s going to be book sized by the time I’m done. At the following URL (ya hafta scroll down) there’s my third fave pic of my grandpa: He’s a real cowboy with real First Nations….

Holy crap! some twin engined plane just went over the house at about 500 feet.  I hate when they do that.

Church yesterday was great, excepting that the split pea and ham soup I took for the meal afterwards overturned in the car trunk.  Fortunately I’d taped the lid on and it was still so cold that only the condensation from the defrosting came off it, plus I put the crockpot in a large garbage bag, so there was some leakage but not the HOLY FUCK disaster I thought it was when I leapt out of the car to investigate the gharstly noise.  I did the aesthetics and screwed it up, but Rob rescued me by leaping up and getting a taper for the service leader (Donna).  I don’t think aesthetically it was too bad.  We didn’t sing enough and there was a congregational discussion afterwards grump grump.  I’ve had to lower my pledge because, HEY no INCOME! which cheeses me off, but other delights await, including my return to delivering homilies!  And getting to sing the compost song first service in 2014, more or less hopefully.

I am going to go back to chores now.

We’re number one! In pipeline accidents.

 

Unitarian humour address for canvass, circa 2002

Good evening, brothers and sisters of the Beacon community. I have been asked to present a humorous homily in a Unitarian vein, and I beg your indulgence as I outline how I approached gathering the material for this evening’s celebration of our community.

First I reviewed my previously delivered comedy routines. As one of them commences with my walking on stage half naked — I will leave to your imagination which half — you will not be surprised that I thought this inappropriate. Unitarians believe in freedom, not license.

Having dispensed with nudity as a means of encouraging people to laugh, or at least to pay attention, I then worked my way through the rest of my gags, one-liners, pithy observations, and so forth.

I made the considered decision to delete the references to sex as also being inappropriate to an intergenerational dinner. The prospect of having the children loudly explaining the jokes to their parents was too much for me.

Then I deleted all the drug references, as everyone knows that drugs are something Unitarians did years ago; we have all long since grown out of it, except for Ibuprofen, of course.

As we are eating, I thought it best to banish all scatological humour. I firmly believe that this is the best part of a family meal, but I have learned that not everyone feels the same way.

As you can imagine, this left me in something of a quandary. I had three jokes left, and while they are all reasonably funny, they didn’t take my audience into consideration.

I then resolved to visit a number of Christian humour sites, reckoning that I would find some jokes that would offend nobody. I now have proof that I am nobody, because I was offended by them. Anybody else who is offended by the inane and the sickly sweet will know exactly what I mean.

In desperation, I visited a Unitarian joke site. Of course I should have done that FIRST, but it’s traditional to check out various forms of Christianity prior to coming to Unitarianism. I came across this gem, which, is seasonal, now that Halloween is over:
(Sings)

Gods rest ye, Unitarians, let nothing you dismay; Remember there’s no evidence there was a Christmas Day; When Christ was born is just not known, no matter what they say, O, Tidings of reason and fact, reason and fact, Glad tidings of reason and fact.

Our current Christmas Customs come from Persia and from Greece, from solstice celebrations of the ancient Middle East. This whole darn Christmas spiel is just another pagan feast, O, Tidings of reason and fact, reason and fact, Glad tidings of reason and fact.

There was no star of Bethlehem, there was no angels’ song; there could not have been wise men for the trip would take too long. The stories in the Bible are historically wrong, O, Tidings of reason and fact, reason and fact, Glad tidings of reason and fact!

This little song charmed me because I believe it accurately reflects our Unitarian principles and it scans. I hate things that don’t scan.

Then I cruised around some more, and landed with this one,
Q: How many Unitarian Universalists does it take to change a light bulb?
A: …well, first you’d have to know whether it’s a fluorescent, incandescent, or halogen bulb, but even then you may have made a false assumption because not all UU’s necessarily even find electric illumination useful, or even believe in Electricity or BC Hydro, although I’d guess most BC Unitarians don’t want to see it sold, whether they believe in it or not… Did that answer your question?
(Helper in the audience. No! How many Unitarians does it take to change a light bulb?)
Well, it dePENDS. Look, I take the question seriously, but I think we should seek consensus on this one. Do you want to strike a committee?

A Christian friend of a Unitarian once remarked that UU’s tend to take a couple of months off during the summer with some churches completely closing. Other denominations might question this practice, by saying “God doesn’t take vacations.”

The response to this is that UU’s are the only ones that God trusts enough to let out of his sight for a while.

Does anybody here know what the four UU sacraments are? (Helpers in the audience.)
– Dedication,
– Marriage,
– Memorial Service,
Allegra: And, of course, Moderated Discussion

What 2 things do UU’s and Dracula have in common?
They both have origins in Transylvania and they both shy away from the cross.

I had a bit of a run-in with a Fundamentalist Christian recently. After getting increasingly irritated by my flippant responses to her dogma, she demanded, “Do you know what’s going to happen when you stand in judgment before God?”
I grinned and said, “She’s gonna have some ‘splaining to do.”

I note that the following hymn is NOT in Singing the Living Tradition; I am willing to believe that it might have been an honest error. (To the tune of Holy, Holy, Holy)

Coffee, coffee, coffee,
Praise the strength of coffee.
Early in the morn we rise with thoughts of only thee.
Served fresh or reheated,
Dark by thee defeated,
Brewed black by perk or drip or instantly.

Though all else we scoff we
Come to church for coffee;
If we’re late to congregate, we come in time for thee.
Coffee our one ritual,
Drinking it habitual,
Brewed black by perk or drip or instantly.

Coffee the communion
Of our Uni-Union,
Symbol of our sacred ground, our one necessity.
Feel the holy power
At our coffee hour,
Brewed black by perk or drip or instantly.

As I say, this should probably be in the hymnal but I am sure that it was an understandable oversight.
I would like to close my homily with a few words on the subject of the canvass.

When I first came under the benign influence of the CUC, it was at the Lakeshore Church in Montreal, with the Rev. Joan Montagnes presiding. (She’s now with a congregation in Idaho.)

When the canvass was announced, the canvass chair got up, brusquely told us that there wasn’t going to be a canvass that year, and sat down. After a brief, rustling pause, suddenly, from all over the church you could hear purses and pocketbooks snap open, making a joyful sound of thanksgiving and support. This is a sound which I hope we will all be able to hear in this community as we continue our journey of discovery and service. It is a strange quality of money that, like people, a little of it with the right intentions, in the right place, really can accomplish great things.

Yanno…. I am rather proud of myself

I lost my Mac hard drive, and guess what?

None of my homilies are gone, they are on my site.

Only a couple of my written out songs are missing, because I backed everything up that had anything to do with music a couple of weeks ago.

My canonical list of songs was uploaded to the cloud the end of September, and I’ve only added a couple of things since.

The last couple of pieces of software I downloaded I had all my info, so I just downloaded them again, so I have Finale and Scrivener back no sweat.

Tarot for Atheists and Midnite Moving Co. are on the cloud (mostly… as I learned to my sorrow… but I may have emailed some of it to mOm and Chipper).

All the photos are gone.  That is a shame, and there’s no help for it unless I want to spend a whack of money for no guaranteed end.

I am going to be doing homilies in 2014 for church and will likely be participating in the Compost Communion first service of 2014, with my compost song.

No word back from the interview; I will take that as a no and move on.

I gave my seventh unit of blood yesterday.  I have to do it while I can; my blood pressure is just inside the line and I may not even get to my tenth unit before I have to stop.  But hey, I’ve saved a life or two in my time, and that makes me happy. Katie’s iron was two points too low; she was CHOKED.  And then she and I and Keith ate sushi that I didn’t have to pay for.  And I went to pay the rent on the storage locker to keep the family buffet in the family.  Yeah, I know.

Bone doc says I am progressing well and to keep up the physio.  I’m going back for my final review the end of December.

 

 

 

waiting

for a callback

for the onset of a period of adjustment – I’ve finally bought my machine.

for inspiration about esthetics for sunday

for inspiration to make my comments on the minister’s Rite of Ordination

but despite the waiting there has been movement; I made supper for breakfast this morning; chops and fresh green beans and fresh brussels sprouts, quartered lengthwise, both steamed together, and quartered purple spuds done up in rosemary and garlic and salt like last time since they were a spectacular hit if the comments were any indication.  That you get to watch them disappear and get thanked for them… that’s rooted in the place happiness comes from.

and I have my machine.  It smells plasticky, but that is really hard to avoid.  There are a number of lovely features, preheated moistened air, a quiet period so you can sleep before it fires up and then just sleep through that part, really quiet fans, a really nice LONG and robust power cable for those times when you really have to string it aways across a floor and he gave me a good long walk through the features.  The mask I’m already used to; it is apparently a medium and covers both nose and mouth.  It’s of a milky silicone hue, and sensorily I must report with all gravity that it feels like somebody’s upended a little hovercraft over my face. Before I figured out how to seat it properly, there’d be blasts of icy cold air going across my eyebrows, evenly on both sides, until I (once again I am not exaggerating) thought my eyebrows were going to freeze in the act of fleeing as far up my forehead as they could fling themselves.

In other acts of random candor, I must report now in a spirit of feminist self criticism.

I recently started plucking my eyebrows so that about half their normal mass is now yielding before the first pair of tweezers I ever owned that was worth a docken.

I am pleased with the results and believe it makes me look, along with new stylish glasses, and a short neutral haircut, and me resting in the ammoniacal arms of Garnier number 60, reasonably well-kempt in a low key way.  I no longer care to wear contacts even though I own a relatively recent prescription pair; the capacity to wear makeup except in the context of a miracle play or other public event, or possibly dressing up for an awards show I got invited to by accident… I wouldn’t even wear makeup to my own wedding, were my life to break out in bizarreries of that nature; no creature who loved me would countenance it, let alone ask for it.

But I must now say that every ravaged follicle under both eyebrows rose up and said in one voice, as the arctic blast from my cpap mask chased my denuded brows into the heather, “Bet you wish you hadn’t plucked us now, you sellout!” I can’t say how much warmer I would have felt, but their ghostly cries interrupted my five minutes of thinking of this and that before I fall into my nightly ‘sleep’.

I’m amazed I remember that; my sleep is like a special case of amnesia, where all my bad memories go down dark hallways and get conveniently throttled, while all the sunshine and fireworks and gleaming new bicycles and a pair of pantyhose that lasted ten years lived.

My Mac died, and I’m sad.  I have another machine, so I’m happy.

There is a balance in everything. Sometimes you’re at the pivot point, and sometimes you’re hanging on for dear life off the end. Sometimes the only thing you care about, as you fly through the air frightened and alive and hyperaware, is that the right kind of music is playing.  That is the rather neurasthenic and precious point I find myself at, and I’ve tied myself into this wildly swinging rope in the hope that inertia reasserts itself and the rope quits moving soon. I have a sack of popcorn, a tarot deck and a small stringed instrument.

 

 

A collection of asides regarding the UU Hymnal readings

There are 317 readings in the UU hymnal, designed to provide words of wisdom, comfort, exhortation, prophecy and joy apposite to the occasions which present themselves at church.  Which, candidly, is a panoply of human life.

Sticklers notice: I will be using UU and Unitarian interchangeably. It’s inaccurate and kicks church history in tender parts, but ainsi soit-il.

As a lengthy aside, I purchased a copy of the hymnal and gave it to my cheerfully atheist mOm, as she is the designated driver and provider of editorial content for the crafty circle of elderwomen she remains connected to at the retirement home (which was the last home of her mother-in-law).  (My folks are still, praise evidence based medicine & competent ambulance attendants, in their own home.) As such she must occasionally find words for occasions, and I thought I’d minister to her by providing her with some very nice quotations.  I also wanted her to be able to find lyrics and words to follow along from Orders of Service I provided her with from time to time when I delivered homilies (see list to the left).

Although she has declared herself permanently disinclined to religiosity, however friendly a face it may present to atheism, I keep hoping that she’ll wake up one morning and declare for Unitarianism, like 16th century Hungary.  (I must hasten to add that my mOm is not as big as Hungary, although she contains multitudes). Given that my pOp blew out of the Anglican church the day he was confirmed – to make his mother happy, may she rest in the comfort of Denny’s presence for all eternity in a specially constructed atheist heaven – I can only imagine my father attending church after a stroke which destroyed both frontal lobes, his hearing and his taste buds, and at this point my imagination reels at the prospect of my mother ever darkening a church door in Victoria unless I was presenting.

I’m sure she’ll quirk an eyebrow when she reads that, but I’ve tried not to be a pest in my conversion attempts and she’s been very patient with me.

Aside aside, the hymnal is full of great quotes.  Roughly half of them were written by Unitarians, and the rest come from an array of holy books, atheists, agnostics, pagans, Christians and poets.  It is a collection of words useful when depth of emotion overwhelms our capacity to frame a spoken response, or when we’re feeling lazy.

Unitarianism is a religion which has dodged liturgy, ducked canon, rejected creed and flattened hierarchy for so long that it has come to be defined (by outsiders) as offering a kind of nebbish-y nebulous feelgood question-of-sin-dodging heathenism, mocking Christianity with its vintage Orders of Service but spitting on Jesus and trampling the Bible underfoot in the ultimate glorification of apostasy.  Neither of which we do.  We revere Jesus and continue to draw both comfort and sermon ideas from the Bible.  We do not worship Jesus or take the Bible literally.  Right there we sacrifice the right to call ourselves Christians, but I guess it’s legit if we call ourselves Protestants, cause we’re still protesting everything we can.  As we are able.

I prefer to think of Unitarianism as being evidence based religion.  Yeah, I know, it sounds like a contradiction in terms, but I think I can at least provoke some discussion on the matter.

In the course of human events, and rather earlier than everybody else, Unitarians became convinced that black people (and other POCs) and women were persons, which meant that they had to change the organization to accommodate them as full members, and anoint them as worthy of the ministry. So it was that the first woman ordained in the US, the highly remarkable Olympia Brown, was ordained in 1863 (probably not coincidentally during the budding of the women’s rights movement coexistent with abolitionism during the Civil War) and so it was that one of the charter members of the Gloucester MA church was a free black man. (No date available at press time, but it was at least 50 years before the Civil War.)

How long did it take science to catch up?  Cheezy Pete, check out the UNESCO declaration.  Whoopsy, the scientists gathered themselves up after the carnage and frenzy and sacrifice and heroism of WWII to declare race to have no scientific basis.  (Whether women are human beings remains an open question on sizable chunks of this old world.  Count me as a believer.)

Unitarians had thrown their hearts over THAT fence more than a century earlier, even if we’ve done a shitty job of being integrated since (and that will be ANOTHER rant).  So when I say that Unitarians are an evidence based religion, it’s to say that we came to a decision, as an organization, that we can’t fear science any more than we fear the light of the sun or the silence of our sanctuary.  (We can always bring sunscreen and wear headphones). We WILL KEEP THROWING OUR HEARTS OVER THAT FENCE.  And science, sapientia, Sophia, will keep catching up with us, and showing that when we love, when we work for justice, when we instill inquiry and lovingkindness in our children, when we speak truth to power, science will come along and provide evidence, and tools, and confirmation, even it comes later.  We trust the dawning future because it’s always been there for us. Always.  That’s what being in the vanguard of religion means.  The past is awesome and we love poking around in it but children are starving now, and we look to a future in which that can be made impossible.

When Montreal congregations put themselves at hideous risk by providing contraception and abortion information to women in the 60s, it was before the laws changed. When Unitarians put themselves at hideous risk hiding fleeing slaves, it was before the laws changed.  And the laws changed in part because of us, because AT EVERY STAGE of liberalization of laws regarding human rights, in both the US and Canada, Unitarians have been in there preaching, marching, organizing, lobbying and in general kicking ass, taking names, and staying up late putting stamps on newsletters.

Thank you for your patience thus far.  Back to the hymnal.

The readings are divided into groups, roughly, words which are plug and play with the Order of Service, words apt to or from our Living Tradition, and words for special occasions.  There’s everybody from Maya Angelou to Israel Zangwill  in there.

Here begins the drunkard’s walk.  In most cases the quote will be a partial one from the reading, just for flavour, and also to maintain some kind of distance in terms of legal right to reprint.  I can quote for commentary but just dumping the whole reading is disrespectful.

Reading 420, Annie Dillard: We are here to abet creation and to witness to it.

Tangential comment: Annie Dillard is one of the most amazing writers in the English language.  The fact that she quoted Dorothy Dunnett in one of her works will be amusing to at least one of my blog readers.

Reading 429, William F. Schultz: Come into this place of peace and let its silence heal your spirit.

Reading 435, Kathleen McTigue: We come together this morning to remind one another to rest for a moment on the forming edge of our lives.

The line “the forming edge of our lives” hits that sweet spot of brevity, accuracy and power which characterizes many of my favourite readings from the hymnal.

Reading 440, Phillip Hewett (minister emeritus of UCV and one of the finest theologians and preachers of our faith in Canada and whose participation in Rev Thorne’s Rite of Ordination was one of the high points…): Let us labor in hope for the dawning of a new day without hatred, violence, and injustice.

Amen, venerable Phillip.  (This is a joke which someone who attended the Ordination might find amusing).

Reading 441, Jacob Trapp (I’d provide a link regarding this remarkable UU preacher but the best one goes to a PDF of his eulogy): Worship is kindred fire within our hearts; it moves through deeds of kindness and through acts of love.

Reading 447, Albert Schweitzer (who likely doesn’t need an introduction):  At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person.

I think this reading, which is for the chalice lighting at the commencement of the service, for the annunciation of sacred space, is part of Beacon’s DNA.

Reading 457, Edward Everett Hale. This I think may be Peggy’s favourite reading from the hymnal, I could be wrong. It sure is one of mine.  I quote it in its entirety:  I am only one, but still I am one.  I cannot do everything, but still I can do something.  And because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.

Reading 462, Paul Robeson: The song of freedom must prevail.

Reading 463, Adrienne Rich: My heart is moved by all I cannot save.

Reading 470, Leonard Mason: We affirm a continuing hope that out of every tragedy the spirits of individuals shall rise to build a better world.

Reading 471, L. Griswold Williams: Love is the doctrine of this church, the quest of truth is its sacrament, and service is its prayer.

What admirable concision.

Reading 477, Vivian Pomeroy: Forbid that we should feel superior to others when we are only more shielded, and may we encourage the secret struggle of every person.

Reading 483, Wendell Berry, who should need no introduction unless you’ve been hiding in a hedge these last 30 years: I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief.

Reading 543, Greta Crosby (a Unitarian minister): Winter is a table set with ice and starlight.

Reading 492, W.E.B. Du Bois, quoted in its entirety: The prayer of our souls is a petition for persistence; not for the one good deed, or single thought, but deed on deed, and thought on thought, until day calling unto day shall make a life worth living.

Reading 496, Harry Meserve: From arrogance, pompousness, and from thinking ourselves more important than we are, may some saving sense of humor liberate us.

Hey, I do what I can.

Reading 504, e.e. cummings: i thank You God for this most amazing/day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees and a blue true dream of sky, and for everything which is natural which is infinite which is yes

Long term Beacon members will remember Rev Ev using this often in services, and how wonderful that was, his delivery always being a support to the meaning….

Reading 526, Inuit Shaman Uvavnuk: The sky and the strong wind have moved the spirit inside me till I am carried away trembling with joy.

Reading 530, Robert T. Weston: Out of the stars we have come, up from time.

Reading 557, David H. Eaton: Our destiny: from unknown to unknown.  May we have the faith to accept this mystery and build upon its everlasting truth.

Reading 560, Dorothy Day: No one has a right to sit down and feel hopeless.  There’s too much work to do.

Reading 561, Margaret Mead: Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed it’s the only thing that ever has.  (I recollect Peggy has this up on the wall in her house.)

Reading 566, Francis David adapted by Richard Fewkes: Sanctified reason is the lantern of faith.

Reading 579, Frederick Douglass: The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.

Reading 592, William Ellery Channing (my all time fave historical Unitarian even if he was a well intentioned racist – hey, we all have our cognitive cross to bear): I call that mind free which sets no bounds to its love, which, wherever they are seen, delights in virtue and sympathizes with suffering.

Also Reading 652: The great end in religious instruction is not to stamp our minds upon the young, but to stir up their own.

Reading 603, Lao-Tse: And whether we dispassionately see to the core of life, or passionately see the surface, the core and the surface are essentially the same.

Reading 637, Robert Eller-Isaacs: For each time that our greed has blinded us to the needs of others, we forgive ourselves and each other; we begin again in love.

Reading 649, Antoine de St-Exupéry: Love, like a carefully loaded ship, crosses the gulf between the generations.

Reading 657, Sophia Lyon Fahs: Some beliefs are like blinders, shutting off the power to choose one’s own direction; other beliefs are like gateways opening wide vistas for exploration.

Reading 663, Margaret Starkey: We make a holiday, the rituals varied as the hopes of humanity, the reasons as obscure as an ancient solar festival, as clear as joy on one small face.

Reading 671, John Milton: If the waters of truth flow not in a perpetual progression, they sicken into a muddy pool of conformity and tradition.

Word.

Reading 681, adapted from Gaelic Runes (and another favourite of Peggy’s): Deep peace of the running wave to you.

It’s a benediction I sometimes write or say to people suffering loss.

Reading 698, with which I close.  Wayne B. Arnason: Take courage friends.  The way is often hard, the path is never clear, and the stakes are very high. Take courage. For deep down, there is another truth: You are not alone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A drunkard’s walk through the UU hymnal Singing the Living Tradition

There are 415 hymns in the UU hymnal (“The Grey Book”) Singing the Living Tradition, and although I’ve been going to Beacon Unitarian Church nigh on 15 years, I’ve not heard more than a tenth of them.  I won’t be addressing the readings, that will be another post.

There are additional hymns I will reference from the (“Teal Book”) Singing the Journey Hymnal, which (and here my prejudices flow like an unattended bathtub…) has a bunch of songs in it from the people who put the hymnal together (read the credits for the authors, and then look at who wrote what and tell me I ain’t lyin’) which sound like anemic show tunes and are expletive hard to sing for altos, but it definitely widens the scope of what can be sung in church, although it’s my preference to let the choir handle it, because I don’t like many of those songs and would prefer not to voice them, however frequently people tell me I’ll start liking them eventually.  (Mushy lyrics and ditzy tunes, o well). These two sentences deleted for excessively high sour grapes content.  Yeah. Okay, there are some good tunes in it, I love Blue Boat Home, which Gary and Elva brought into a service in such an emotionally appealing way that I can’t help but applaud them.

But, erm, why sing at all?

Hymn singing in church is a purposeful way of:

  • Involving the congregation in worship.
  • Forcing people to stand at regular intervals so they cannot snooze through the service. Not that our folks generally do, but you know what I mean.
  • Making people breathe together – that’s what a conspiracy is, it’s a breathing together, except we’re the conspiracy of well meaning white people.  Breathing together causes entrainment.  For a few minutes our breathing and brain waves sync up, causing a big spike in happy brain chemicals, which seriously, folks, is one of the reasons people come to church.
  • Assuring newcomers that we haven’t dispensed with what was their favourite part of services at their church of origin, which they fled, ’cause of the every reason people flee their religious upbringings. It’s as individual as you are!
  • Filking… cause we mess with the lyrics, hard, yo.
  • Maintaining continuity with our forebears, and extending that continuity into any foreseeable future.
  • Honoring the great composers of religious music from many traditions, not just Christianity.
  • Bringing Hungarian Unitarian songs into our worship, providing a welcome break from the standard Protestant hymns and bringing minor tunes up front.
  • Sneaking gospel into the repertoires of militant atheists.
  • Providing awesome ‘cleaners’ for when you get Miley Cyrus, commercials and the Song That Never Ends stuck in your head.  PS the best cleaner is the happy birthday song because you sing it once and stop.  You’re welcome.
  • Providing something you can drop from the service when worship is running too long.  And that’s me in the back giving the stink-eye to the homilist who ran long and cut my fave hymn from the service.  Running long is a CRIME against HUMANITY. Lord how I wish I’d recorded one of the many conversations I had with Bareld, rest his soul in splendour and joy, on the subject. Plus we only rent the hall for x number of hours….
  • Differentiating one church from another.  Every Unitarian congregation handles music and congregational singing differently.  I nearly swallowed my gum when I found out there are UU congregations who don’t use congregational singing AT ALL as part of worship, only bringing in guest singers and musicians on the occasions they feel appropriate.  I would hike up my skirts and trot out of any church so inclined.  That aside, each church comes to have a particular set of fall back hymns, with complicated backstories of how they came to be part of the lifestream of the church.  These ‘in frequent rotation’ hymns are part of the psychic furnishings of the church.
  • Forcing you to stand close to your neighbour, who is holding the hymnbook for you.
  • Providing emotional consistency to worship services.
  • Providing an emotional and physical break from preaching or sharing that can be quite exhausting or uplifting or otherwise challenging.
  • And there are likely other reasons, but I’m not going to run off to the UUA website to look them up. These are all just out of my head this morning.

Herewith my meander through the main hymnal, with a nod to various connecting points. At this point, however, I must pause and say that David Hamilton’s piano playing has enhanced every aspect of worship, and that his dedication and ability are an adornment to our church. For further info on tunes.

Hymn 1.  May nothing evil cross this door.  Louis Untermeyer wrote the words, Robert N. Quaile wrote the music.  We have sung this once to my recollection; I particularly love the last lines, which speak to our wandering state, tent dwellers in a world of settled churches.  “Though these sheltering walls are thin, may they be strong enough to keep hate out and hold love in.” It’s in waltz time.

Hymn 145. As Tranquil Streams.  Another of many gems from the Musicalisches Hand-buch, which has been feeding congregational singing for over three hundred years, it has a tune recognizable to any Protestant but the lyrics are… well, Unitarian, as in written by a relatively prolific Unitarian hymn lyric writer by the name of Ham.  My favourite line:  “A freedom that reveres that past but trusts the dawning future more, and bids the soul, in search of truth, adventure boldly and explore.” Sounds like a Star Trek hymn, and certainly a suitable hymn for a lifelong SF fan.  This is one of our congregations mainstays.

Hymn 348.  Guide My Feet.  (I sang this to the KSS, the former minister as HO-OLD my PU-URSE, while I run this race.  It was appropriate in context.)  A real corker, if sung with sufficient enthusiasm and all our basses are in da house to sing that line.  It’s a traditional tune, pleasingly simple and with loads of gospel flair.

Hymn 211. Jacob’s Ladder.  Like a number of other hymns in the hymnal, this resonates with my childhood. One of the many folk groups we listened to constantly back then had a really fine version of this on an album.  It was one of the Limelighters, Kingston Trio, Chad Mitchell Trio (or other) albums.  It was wonderful hearing it in church for the first time, and as I recollect I asked for it as a hymn for one of the services I delivered.  Obviously the lyrics have changed from the original…

Hymn 108.  My Life Flows On. AKA How can I keep from singing.  This is one of the hymns I sing in my head, a LOT.  The lyrics strike me as facing the trials of life with a tranquil and patient spirit. All of the lyrics are moving and essential… the last verse in particular I love. “When tyrants tremble as they hear the bells of freedom ringing, when friends rejoice both far and near, how can I keep from singing? To prison cell and dungeon vile, our thoughts to them are winging; when friends by shame are undefiled, how can I keep from singing?”  All as a reminder of those who do not enjoy the benefits of living in Canada in the circumstances we enjoy.  Often I sing the first lines to myself… “My life flows on, in endless song, above earth’s lamentation.  I hear the clear, though far off song, that hails a new creation.”  So mote it be.

Hymn 324.  Where My Free Spirit Onward Leads.  The truest and saddest song in the hymnbook, I definitely have used this one a couple of times in services, and I’m the only one who did, to my recollection. The minor tune, an English folk melody, is lilting and questioning at the same time.  The lyrics, by my personal favourite Alicia S. Carpenter, contain the following gem. “Eternity is hard to ken, and harder still is this: a human life when truly viewed is briefer than a kiss.”

Hymn 361.  Enter, Rejoice and Come In. Well now. I love this hymn so much I mentioned it in my “Cognitive Bias and Congregational Life” homily, referenced to your left.  When I first started attending UU services it was at the Lakeshore UU Congregation and a very excellent pianist would be playing this as I climbed the stairs (where a beautifully coloured and handlettered sign welcomed me, like a hug, honestly). I thought with the naivety of the newbie that ALL UU Congregations started their services that way and I was saddened to find that nope, every UU congregation is like a different fingerprint gathered from the same body.  And then I cheered up, because individuality within unity is good.

Hymn 291.  Die Gedanken Sind Frei. Ah, another gem from my past, as sung with tremendous musicality, precision and enthusiasm, by the Limeliters.  When I first started attending Beacon at Place Maillardville, we had two elderly German speakers in the congregation, and I was BLISSFUL when they sang, standing shoulder to shoulder at the back of the congregation, in the original German.  One of those men escaped from Hitler.  Both were mighty hearts for justice and learning.  It’s a song with a LOT of meaning for me; I’m always thrilled when it’s in the order of service.

Hymn 8. Mother Spirit, Father Spirit.  A plea to the Spirit for assistance in understanding our lives; as deeply Unitarian a hymn as can be, having been written, lyrics and tune, by one of our martyrs, Norbert ÄŒapek, who died in a concentration camp in 1942.  The tune is simple and yet heart-rending. Sung measuredly and reverently, it’s an amazing work for congregational singing.

Hymn 16.  ‘Tis a Gift to Be Simple. Here we borrow from the American Shaker tradition, and a fine borrowing it is, too.  It’s a good one to put in the order of service if you know things will run long…. cause it’s so short you feel like you’re standing up and sitting down in the same breath.

Hymn 21.  For the Beauty of the Earth.  Gentle lyrics and a singable tune make this a favourite of mine.

Hymn 30. Over My Head. Another spiritual brought lovingly into our tradition.  It does have God language, but as I have described repeatedly elsewhere, I have no objections to God language.

Hymn 34.  Though I May Speak with Bravest Fire.  From 1st Corinthians 13, to a lightly modified English folk tune.  “Though I may speak with bravest fire, and have the gift to all inspire, and have not love, my words are vain, as sounding brass, and hopeless gain.” As stern a warning to Unitarians not to be chatty intellectuals as we get in the hymnbook.

Hymn 38. Morning Has Broken. A very slightly different version than the wonderful Cat Stevens rendition, which messes me up almost every time I sing it with the congregation despite David’s best efforts, but I don’t care, I’m always happy to see it in the service.

Hymn 55.  Dark of Winter.  “And then my soul will sing a song, a blessed song of love eternal”.  Sung by the choir, this song has reduced me to silent weeping. Winter services are so NECESSARY.  Anything to get out of the house and see people. “Let your peace flow through me.”

Hymn 73. Chant for the Seasons.  A great hymn to include for solstice and pagan friendly services, it has a charming Czech folk tune and lyrics like a sensory tour of the changing seasons.

Hymn 95. There is More Love Somewhere.  Apart from the fact that every time I see this in the order of service I think “Well, that’s a heck of an endorsement for our congregation if we sing about there being more love somewhere… else,” I enjoy this African American spiritual borrowing, which is full of plaintive longing for joy.  “I’m gonna keep on… til I find it….”

Hymn 99.  Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen.  Can’t exclude that song from the hymnal. “Although you see me, going ‘long so, oh, yes, Lord! I have my troubles here below, oh, yes, Lord.”

Hymn 100.  I’ve Got Peace Like a River.  Sounds traditional, but it was actually composed in 1974.  It is a very simple and singable tune, and I always like what the congregation does with it.

Hymn 109.  As We Come Marching, Marching.  Suitable for many occasions at church, but especially for woman warriors for social justice and International Women’s Day. “Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes; hearts starve as well as bodies, give us bread but give us roses.” “As we come marching, marching, unnumbered women dead, go crying, through our singing, their ancient song of bread.”

Hymn 118.  This Little Light of Mine.  A truly awesome song, begging for four part harmony and a kickass uptempo effort by everyone, it is guaranteed to cheer you up on the gloomiest of mornings.

Hymn 121.  We’ll Build a Land.  Carolyn McDade for the tuneage and a little bit of Isaiah and Psalms, repurposed, for the lyrics.  “Come build a land where sisters and brothers, anointed by God may then create peace, where justice shall roll down like waters, and peace like an ever flowing stream.”  It’s long and a bit complicated compared to many hymns but definitely worth it in worship.

Hymn 123.  Spirit of Life.  Carolyn McDade has provided Beacon with one of our signature songs (she being responsible for both words and music).  Short, sweet, with deceptively simple lyrics, for all its brevity a truly great hymn.

Hymn 128.  For all that is our life.  Beacon uses a portion of this as the responsive song after the collection.  I was irked when KSS introduced it and now it’s a comforting lodestone in the center of the service. “For all that is our life, we give our thanks and praise, for all life is a gift which we are called to use to build the common good, and make our own days glad.”  Can’t argue with those sentiments!

Hymn 131.  Love Will Guide Us.  Some hymns, rather than associating directly with the church, you associate with church members. During the amazing/awful period of the getting of the Welcoming Congregation imprimature, Peggy asked us to sing this at the end of some of our meetings, and also we sang it many times at her insistence at the end of our Chalice Circles.  Happy sigh.  So no, can’t think of this song without thinking of Peggy, and the articulation of her voice singing it.

Hymn 159.  This Is My Song.  Oh my how very yes.  We get to sing Sibelius in church on a regular basis.  The tune is very familiar, although I keep messing about with the dotted quarter, wanting to flatten it all out, although if I keep my ears open I can hear David gamely attempting to get us to sing it as written.  And who can fault Lloyd Stone’s brilliant lyrics. “This is my home, the country where my heart is/here are my hopes, my dreams, my holy shrine/but other hearts in other lands are beating/with hopes and dreams, as true and high as mine.”  Absolutely beautiful, and I love singing it. Also see Hymn 318 to the same tune We Would Be One.  The lyrics for that one are almost as beautiful.

Hymn 163.  For the Earth Forever Turning.  A beautiful slow waltz time hymn which is a love song to our home, our planet earth.

Hymn 177. Sakura. “Cherry blooms, cherry blooms, pink profusion everywhere.” A wonderful hymn for spring in Vancouver, full as it is of cherry blossoms, or, as Lady Miss B refers to them, CHUBBLIES!  We get to sing in rote Japanese, too.  We also sing it for Hiroshima Day.

Hymn 188.  Come, Come Whoever You Are.  A well used ingathering song, it is wonderful to start the day with a paraphrase from the poetical and spiritual genius known as Rumi.  “Come, come, whoever you are, wanderer, worshipper, lover of leaving, ours is no caravan of despair, come, yet again come.”  A sly reference to our mobile ways, and a candid revelation of the difficulties of a spiritual path. Sometimes we sing it straight, sometimes somebody up front keeps time and we sing it as a four part round.  Either way, count me in!

Hymn 231.  Angels We Have Heard on High.  It just isn’t Christmas if we don’t sing this.  This was my favourite Christmas Carol as a child, and singing it congregationally feels like a cup of hot chocolate on a miserable night!

Hymn 298. Wake, Now, My Senses.  A call to get off one’s duff and work for justice.  “Wake now my vision of ministry clear/brighten my pathway with radiance here/mingle my calling with all who will share/work toward a planet transformed by our care. The tune is a traditional Irish melody and Thomas J.S. Mikelson wrote the lyrics.

Hymn 304.  A Fierce Unrest.  I can’t think of this song without thinking of John.  It’s definitely a science fiction Unitarian hymn.  He and Brooke and Tom and Peggy sing, or sang this, every chance possible, and introduced it to many a filker.  Don Marquis wrote the lyrics.  “Sing we no governed firmament, cold, ordered, regular; we sing the stinging discontent that leaps from star to star.”  It’s got a slightly awkward tune, but I don’t care, the lyrics make it all worthwhile.  The lyrics of Hymn 343 are memorable too… A Firemist and a Planet contains the words:  “A firemist and a planet, a crystal and a cell, a starfish and a saurian, and caves where ancients dwelt, the sense of law and beauty, a face turned from the sod, some call it evolution, and others call it God.”  About as Unitarian a sentiment as is possible, I’d reckon.

Hymn 346.  Come Sing a Song with Me. Carolyn McDade’s sweet and simple hymn, which I always love singing.  Usually harmony, much to the consternation of the tone deaf members of the congregation who are standing next to me and leaning on my voice to find their way to the tune.  And tone deaf is okay.  Congregational singing shouldn’t be a popularity contest or only held up for people who can follow a tune.  Even if I hadn’t thought that way at the beginning, filking would have cured me of that little caustic wound of elitism.

Hymn 305. De Colores.  A gaily cheerful hymn, based on a Spanish folk tune, a little hard to sing for my taste, but part of our repertoire for sure.  “All the colors abound for the whole world around and for everyone under the sun.” Amen.

Hymn 347.  Gather the Spirit.  The great Unitarian songwriter Jim Scott is responsible for this one.  “Gather in peace, gather in thanks, gather in sympathy now and then/gather in hope, compassion and strength, gather to celebrate once again.”

Hymn 360.  Here we Have Gathered.  “May all who seek here find a kindly word, may all who speak here feel they have been heard.”  That about wraps up how we should be toward newcomers… and oldtimers.

Next up:  A drunkard’s walk through the spoken word portion of the UU hymnal.

Ordination

I am still processing how beautiful the rite of ordination was.  UU churches ordain ministers, not other ministers or entire denominations, as is the case in other forms of Christianity. There were people from all over the Pacific northwest; the aesthetics team OUTDID themselves in coming up with a stunning, relatively inexpensive and mobile layout; there were enormous swathes of colour contrasting nicely with the shining wood of the hall.

Emotionally, it was a roller coaster.

Anyway, like I said, still processing.

The funny things the characters say

Jeff took me for breakfast… the leftovers will make a loverly brunch.  We also did a shop, including two for one standing rib roasts.  Nom.

Teaching the homeless to code.

I said I wouldn’t, but I did volunteer for something at church; I’m doing esthetics for Sally’s birthday (which is also a choir day so she can’t sing and set up at the same time).  I will be talking to Sue about what she wants, since the Board is doing the service that day. Sue returned my steampunk hat and we had a lovely visit.  It was weird; I thought of her because I knew she was back from vacation and I hadn’t talked to her in yonks, and she rang me up within seconds of this thought occurring.  Ah, the message in the wind.

Trip to Toronto is not yet booked, but it is tentatively 26th Nov to 5 Dec.

Good news for prostitutes and women at high risk of HIV everywhere.

I just had a character whisper in in my ear “Shiny is health, sparkle is magic”.  It made sense in context. (Kima, if anybody cares.)

Jeff and I are watching Cheers.  Shelley Long as Diane makes me want to alternately slap her and make counted crossstitch samplers of her dialogue, but the rest of the characters, especially Coach, are so funny my occasional cringes are worth it.  It’s one of the many shows in my tv blackout period so I never watched it the first time.

I am reading Foucault for Dummies.  There’s probably only one person who reads my blog on a regular basis who will find this amusing.

We are also watching Caprica, which is way, way better than I expected it to be.  As I remarked on another subject, all this and Bear McCreary too.

pOp is feeling poorly, so I am sending him a big hug and a wish that he recover his normal level of grumpiness with all due speed.

 

 

 

 

It’s a meme

This is me.

Why are hoomins moosical?

Yesterday was church, soup lunch (yay), a showing of the shop (we’ll see…), another nibble on the shop, meeting Ayesha, Paul and Keith’s new kitty (and dropping off Paul’s church directory for 2013 since it just was reprinted and heaven knows when he’ll be back at church with his crazy schedule) and it all started when Jeff took me out for breakfast, so that was yummy.

I loaned my camera to Rob W (as he was headed overseas) so he didn’t have to buy one.  Forgot to send him the transfer cables but I can deal with it when he gets back.

Breaking Bad.  One show to watch and finale next week.

Physio this morning.  I’ve been exercising lots.

It’s been rainy any cold.