Brubeck, Hirt, and Respighi

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Verse — We Never Played Rock ‘n’ Roll

I’d take a couple of LPs (they’d spin
at 33 and a third RPM)
and bike down the concrete sidewalk–not in
the street that’s made of brick. I’d dodge the limb
of the old elm in front of Katie’s house
and fly around the corner at the T
to where Paul lived. Two other high school guys
left bikes by the garage. We’d holler, “Hi!”
to Mrs. Duker and head downstairs to where
Paul’s dad had a great stereo. We’d play
some Brubeck or Al Hirt–we loved to hear
the “modern”jazz of the ’50s. We’d stay
and listen to Respighi’s Pines of Rome.
Band guys: we never wanted to go home…

– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, March 8, 2013

I look in the mirror and what do I see?

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“I look in the mirror and what do I see? A toothless wonder comin’ after me. I want to be young again” I’m thinking after the tooth extraction. It’s my rendition of Swing low, sweet chariot’s “I looked over Jordan and what did I see….”

Who is this older me and the Me that’s comin’ after me? Has God ever lost a tooth? Has God ever looked in the mirror and protested the reflection? Has God ever stepped on the scale in the morning, counted the days on the calendar, googled the weather channel, picked up the dog’s poop, poured Mirilax in the coffee to stay “regular”? Taken three Ibuprofen to keep the swelling down? Has God ever come to the end of a day and wondered why the dentist said “Good Morning!”

Beyonce on the floor of Congress

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Congressional leaders are singing off key, inviting a national food fight. They want us to believe they’re soul-singers. But the sound is wooden. No heart. No soul. Instead we hear only of sequestration, protestation, damnation, remonstration, and gyration, but no gestation, no universal gun registration. Only sequestration.

Bring in Beyoncé! “Swing low, sweet chariot, coming fo’ to carry me home. I looked over Jordan and what did I see? A band of angels comin’ after me, comin’ fo’ to carry me home.”

If you agree that Congress is acting like the prisoners before Beyoncé came to their rescue, send this link to your Congressional Representatives. Tell ’em Paul Robeson, Johnny Cash, Etta James, and Beyoncé told you to. 🙂

Trumpeter Swans

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Trumpeter Swans, Hudson, WI

Trumpeter Swans, Hudson, WI


Soaring, swooning,
Pining, preening,
Spreading wings,
Trumpeting,
Wooing, wanting,
Playing, pairing,
Synchronized swimmers
Spoon for life.

– Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, March 6, 2013; Photo by Kay Stewart

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PJ McKey's avatar

The Église Saint-Pierre in the town of Parthenay-le-Vieux near Poitiers is mentioned for the first time in the texts in 1092. Today, it is an empty church, privately owned. On this day, it was being unconsciously watched over by a house painter working on the house next door. Our equipment and question about whether church was open spurred his interest and he couldn’t resist coming to take a look. Despite being a resident of the small town, he had never been inside. I think the church surprised him looking so beautiful in the morning light; elegant, bright and pure.

The interior was devoid of statuary, candles, paintings, the usual elements that personalize a church and reveal its human history. Only a few sarcophagi lying in the north side aisle decorated this church.

The empty church revealed its true universal character; only the architecture was left to speak, to capture our…

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Jazz – the language of love and awe

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“Who is your favorite jazz pianist?”

“Bill Evans,” came the quick reply from Ted Godbout, the jazz pianist who came to us out of the blue as a candidate for the music position at the little church in Chaska, MN where jazz is the language of love and awe.

In the news Michael Jordan is defending himself against a young man’s claim that he is Air Jordan’s “love child” who deserves more of Michael’s time. Listening to Ted Godbout at his audition, I wondered….

We sent Ted’s DNA to the lab for testing :-). He’s that good. And only 29! Ted leads the music at Shepherd of the Hill for the first this Sunday, March 10.

Extracts from the Visitors page of the church website speak of the language of jazz.

Imagine a place…

a church, actually, your church,……

where it is a safe place to land, for a bit of time

while you marvel….

and wonder, and revel in

love…..

and justice…..

and mercy….

where the questions get clearer and

better questions replace them….

where your heart burns to return

Again and again……

where jazz is the language of love……

and love, the language of

Awe…….

where God is a three letter word again….

spoken to soothe your tired feet…

On your journey of becoming

more of who Love intended you to be,

(since you have heard it said, “fear not….”)

An Acrostic on Jazz improvisation

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Steve Shoemaker sent this today after learning that Ted Godbout, an outstanding jazz pianist, is joining us at Shepherd of the Hill Church in Chaska.

PENTECOST
(TO BE READ ALOUD)
An Acrostic

Perhaps a jazz improvisation says

Exactly what is thinkable about

New life, fresh breath…the Holy Spirit. Has

There ever been a music without doubt

Except jazz? Faith, improvisation cause

Circles of sound to rise and fly throughout

Our cosmos. Tongues of flame are seen on heads

Singing or playing solos. Then without

Time passing–a new language: Jesus! Jazz!

– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL

Sequestration Silver Lining

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Budget Control Act

Budget Control Act

Only a deadlocked Congress could produce this unintentional miracle.

The military-defense budget has been a sacred cow. Proponents of Department of Defense budget cuts were tarred and feathered as weak on national security.

Perhaps only ‘Sequestration” – this unthinkable package of defense and entitlement program cuts that neither major party thought tolerable – could make it happen. I can hear the applause from the angels and from President Dwight David Eisenhower, whose last words from the Oval Office warned that the rise of the Military-Industrial-Complex was the greatest threat to democracy, even while they weep over the indiscriminate human impacts of Sequestration.

Somewhere over the rainbow….bluebirds…instead of drones…fly. Could it also be that sometimes God really does act in strange and mysterious ways…?

Thick heads and the deeper truth

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Micah 6:8

“God has told you people what is good–
and what the Lord requires of you:
do justice, love mercy,
and walk humbly with your God.”
…
One third of the Jewish Bible
is in poetry:
all the prophets, all the proverbs,
Job and all the Psalms.
Fables, sagas, metaphors–we
take it literally?
No, its truth is deeper, wider
than the sea. Our souls
leap or cry, our hearts sing or sigh.
…
We are called to act by holy
words in parallel:
every idea is repeated–
image, example,
contrast…thick heads hit again and
yet again. As sheep
we need a good shepherd or we
stray. For us to keep
ten commandments we need poetry.

– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, March 4, 2013

The Voting Rights Act and the Scowl

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Justices Sotomayor and Scalia

Justices Sotomayor and Scalia

The Voting Rights Act for which so many of us fought is at risk in a case before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Yesterday Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, one of the Justices who will decide on the constitutionality of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, called it a “perpetuation of racial entitlement.” His statement shocked the court and those in the courtroom.

Justice Scalia showed visible contempt for President Obama sitting behind the President at the Second Inauguration. He never looked up. He sat there like the Man…in his Doctor of Jurisprudence graduation hat…with a scowl on his face. His Jesuit professors are pulling their hair out.