Contrology by Joseph Pilates

"The mind, when housed within a healthful body, possesses a glorious sense of power. / Contrology develops the body uniformly, corrects wrong postures, restores physical vitality, invigorates the mind, and elevates the spirit. / Pilates is gaining the mastery of your mind over the complete control over your body. / Contrology is complete coordination of body, mind, and spirit where you first purposefully acquire complete control of your own body and then, through proper repetition of its exercises, gradually and progressively acquire that natural rhythm and coordination associated with all your subconscious activities. / You will feel better in ten sessions, look better in twenty sessions, and have a completely new body in thirty sessions.” - Joseph Pilates

Many of my friends have asked me about my experience with Pilates and so here goes: I know I have neophyte fever, but this practice has completely changed my life. I've never had this kind of command over my body in all the years I've lived, even from years of dance study, even from years of the practice of yoga.

I started exactly two months ago and I have just had my 11th session. What happened was, I was sick and tired of being bone-weary tired and having random aches and pains and squeaking cracking knees. I knew I needed to go back to dance class or yoga class, needed to start moving outside of the 2 miles I walk on my commute, and then there have been a bunch of stories of people our age just dropping dead within the last couple of years. I have a dear girlfriend who teaches Pilates in Virginia and I've watched her body transform from flawless dancer to potent panther. I know the history behind the practice, and I looked FOREVER for somewhere to train and, hello, there had been a studio right around the corner from us for years, but it just wasn't Time, obviously. Then, a couple of months ago I googled studios again and there up popped Gina at Zend and here we are. My husband and I agreed, we need to do this NOW while we CAN and not later because we HAVE to. I have another girlfriend who just told me something I didn't know: she lost and kept off 50 pounds JUST by doing Pilates, not dieting. It's absolutely transformational. It changes the way you live. I suggest you go somewhere to take a private intro class so that you can get indoctrinated properly in to the practice, and then move to classes. ALSO ! machine classes, not mat classes...IMHO, mat classes are too advanced for anyone just starting out, and I believe you can get injured. I got a book many years ago when I was dancing and young and all it did was hurt my coccyx. What I didn't know is that I hadn't developed the specific muscles needed to perform the practice and so I just gave up.

So if my hinges and bones and joints were all creaky and my knees were all wonky and my ankles would get all sore and my muscles were all tight, why didn't I just go back to my practice of Integral Yoga which has brought my soul and body salvation for decades?

I gotta tell ya ... there were times when I could pull myself up for the first back arch of the Salutation, but I just couldn't get down and comfortably throw my leg back to get even half-way through the first two postures. My knees were just too tight, no matter how much stretching I did beforehand. I was also wearing my shoulders like earrings and no matter how much meditation I practiced, no matter how much stretching I performed, I couldn't get my shoulders down, I couldn't get my legs to respond responsibly to my efforts, I just felt like I was on a treadmill of warming up enough to get out on the street for my day. (My day is a commute from Queens in to New York City which is a half-mile walk, climbing four stories of steps, climbing another four stories of steps in the city, and a quarter mile walk once I'm there, lather, rinse, repeat.)

So ... what's all the hubbub, bub? What makes this practice different from all other practices?

I promise my knowledge of myology (the study of muscles) is next to nothing but I have been a life-long lover of the study of kinesiology, the body in motion, and the physics of moving my massive frame through space has always intrigued me. What I'm about to describe is just my experience, and the guidance of our Pilates instructor over the last two months.

The concept, as I understand it, of the practice of the progression of Integral Yoga postures (regardless the class level, you always proceed through the same sequence of postures) is that you're using your entire body the entire time to stretch and lengthen all of your muscles as you're massaging all of your internal organs. During my daily dedication to this practice I always felt lithe and long and lean, my hip pans contracted and became narrow, moving me from the first time in my life from a 42 inch waisted pant to 36 inches, and my lower back was strong and pain-free. I could never keep myself upright, however, without a lot of concentration, and I always had problems keeping my shoulders down.

What I've discovered through Pilates is that yoga, to me, is like the stretching one does BEFORE a ballet class, making the muscles supple and poised for action; Pilates is the actual ballet class where you tone and discipline the body to be able to respond to your requests to perform the many movements that make up the dance.

Look how large the entire trunk of the human body is. If you look at the picture of the musculature above, there is an entire system surrounding and protecting the torso which I promise you I had NO knowledge of in my entire life. While yoga works through these muscles, Pilates demands that you engage them. That literally is the entire practice in a nutshell: Your only obligation, regardless the ancillary movements of any other part of your body, is to engage all of those muscles, and any other movement of your limbs is the result of your engagement of those muscles.

In Pilates Anatomy by Rael Isacowitz and Karen Clippinger, we’re told:

</The powerhouse, or core, can be described as the area from the bottom of the rib cage to a line across the hip joints in the front and to the base of the buttocks in the back. Joseph Pilates placed great emphasis on the powerhouse, considering it a physical center of the body from which all Pilates movements should proceed. Many Pilates exercises are designed to strengthen the powerhouse, and there is a desire to keep the powerhouse working consistently throughout a given exercise. If the powerhouse is being used appropriately, the limbs should be able to move in a more coordinated and connected manner.

<Some Pilates practitioners and many people in disciplines such as dance, fitness, and rehabilitation also refer to this area as the core and the desired maintenance of appropriate positioning and activation during movement as core stability. Core stability can be thought of as the ability to keep the pelvis and spine in the desired position while moving the limbs or the whole body through space without undesired distortions or compensations. Someone who is not maintaining desired control of this area in a given movement and who arches the lower back or moves the pelvis excessively is often said to have a weak core or demonstrate poor core stability or poor core control./>

It is this very concept which has given me, for the first time in my life, the most holistic and peaceful feeling I've ever encountered in my life. We're practicing once a week and the from the moment we leave the studio to the moment we return, my body spends that time continuously self-correcting ... pulling itself up, re-arranging itself, tucking itself in, so that I'm constantly in a state of perfectly erect alignment. My core is like a corset in which my very being sits; my torso is high, my neck balanced on, not sunk down in to it ... for the first time in my life my shoulders are completely relaxed and down where they should be, but it's no longer a conscious struggle to keep them there, it's a result of the core's engagement insisting everything be where it should be. As Joseph Pilates said,

"The Pilates Method teaches you to be in control of your body and not at its mercy. / Contrology is designed to give you suppleness, natural grace, and skill that will be unmistakably reflected in the way you walk, in the way you play, and in the way you work. / Physical fitness is the first requisite of happiness. Our interpretation of physical fitness is the attainment and maintenance of a uniformly developed body with a sound mind fully capable of naturally, easily, and satisfactorily performing our many and varied daily tasks with spontaneous zest and pleasure."

And it does.

Is it "expensive"? In New York City it generally sits around 30$ a session. I'm VERY cheap and for ever I wouldn't even consider paying that money because it seemed an insane amount to me. But as I said before, we need to do this now while we can and not later because we have to. Here in the city? What is that, six Starbucks? Three beers? It's less than two movie tickets. It's certainly less than a meal in a semi-nice place. Plus: this isn't just a practice, it's a lifestyle, and I hope to keep a vow that I won't go another week of my life without practicing in a studio on the equipment.

I also strongly suggest to go the extra mile at first and take private sessions. There is indeed a period of indoctrination, a period of learning not only the lexicon of the spoken vocabulary of the practice but the lexicon of what it feels like inside your body. The luxury of "gaining the mastery of your mind over the complete control over your body" in a private one-on-one setting sets you up for a lifetime of success. "To achieve the highest accomplishments within the scope of our capabilities in all walks of life we must constantly strive to acquire strong, healthy bodies and develop our minds to the limits of our ability. Joseph Pilates."

We walk in to the studio, and I place my head on the head rest and lay my shoulders in the blocks, press my spine against the bed and begin to breathe. It's like "going back to one," like the first plié in class, what original Martha Graham Troupe Member Ethyl Butler would say at the beginning of our sessions: "Friends: Let's Begin ... and ONE ..." It's home. It's salvation. It's the beginning of every new breath. And as my girlfriend Jenn says, It may be uncomfortable at first because it's different, it may be strenuous at times, but "at least you're lying down!"

So that's where we are today.

"Not only is health a normal condition, but it is our duty not only to attain it but to maintain it. Everyone is the architect of her own happiness It’s the mind itself which shapes the body. A few well-designed movements, properly performed in a balanced sequence, are worth hours of doing sloppy calisthenics or forced contortion. - Joseph Pilates."

Live in the Present Moment

To live in the present moment requires a change in our inner posture. We have to calmly observe our own stream of consciousness and see its compulsive patterns. These patterns drive our small “ego” self which are the illusions of our thoughts, a passing fantasy. That’s why it’s called the false self. It’s not real. It’s the past and gone, or the future and imagined. Some people don’t have a clue who they are apart from their thoughts. Meditation moves us to the level of pure and naked being, of pure consciousness, naked awareness. We must force ourselves to wait in silence. In silence all our usual patterns assault us, patterns of control, addiction, negativity, tension, anger, self-blame, self-loathing, and fear, they all make an appearance to assert themselves. Thomas Keating teaches a beautifully simple exercise: Imagine yourself sitting on the bank of a stream. Observe each of these patterns coming by on little boats saying, “Think me, feel me, define yourself because of me.” Acknowledge that you’re processing them, feeling them, judging them, but don’t let them come up and hug you or make a home around you, keep them in their boats and point at them and name them: “resentment toward so and so,” “an embarrassing moment from second grade,” “an ill word toward someone who has passed away,” “so and so told me / whispered / got in my way…” Admit each moment, wave to the boat, and keep it floating down the stream. That stream is our stream of consciousness. We have to become the watcher, where we sit over here and observe those boats without judgment, just in acknowledgment, over there, until we realize those episodes are not us, they don’t define us, they’re just fancies. If we’re over here then it’s a perception, it isn’t intrinsically us, it’s not even a part of us anymore. What’s the point of such contemplation? God doesn’t want us bound by these illusions, God wants to continuously remind us of our intrinsic worth and value, not shadows of our past or worries over our future. God wants to help us send that garbage downstream and infuse us with prophecies of bounty and success, and wrap us in a blanket of eternal love and care, which God can do once we, and our limited minds, are finally out of the way.

– kind of Richard Rohr, sort of

We Must Live With Death

We must live with comfort in the specter of death. The more we live the more we must walk among the memories we hold which death leaves behind and come to terms with our perception in navigating its shadows. Think: When you die, do you want your family and friends to walk about miserable? atrophying in yearning and sadness? maybe for a little. But don't you, rather, as you're living, get your absolute life when your loved ones come back in your presence to recall, eyes glowing and full of life, their experiences and passions and loves and adventures? The longer we live the more death we must navigate. Truth: Death is for the living (and "never a convenient visitor" Dan Ade+), for the dead are too blissful in peace to care for our sadness. And if the relationship before death was complicated, what good is going through that drawer again. Nothing we do can affect the past. What is always best is to collect the most precious, life-giving moments, and stitch those golden threads in to the quilt we'll leave behind when it's our time to move on to That Heavenly Country. Yes, there is a hole death leaves, there is an emptiness, but those are the joining borders between each square of our quilt. "Oh, but for one more phone call, one more dinner, one more hug." But you know one more is never enough; we want a lifetime of those moments. So...we must pick ourselves up, make the ache a part of our breath, live with the empty, and love again, with more vigor, with abandon, because we must one day come back into their presence to recall, eyes glowing and full of life, experiences and passions and loves and adventures ... not with a life unlived because we were too sad to live it.

<...and if there’s a reason I’m still alive when everyone who loves me has died I’m willing to wait for it...> - Hamilton the Musical

For Kent: Customer Engagement

John Robbins, Illustrator, Educator, Life Saver.
http://bit.ly/1rA7X0W

I was a lonely, scared, severely gay little 12 year old in 1973. I mean, Bette Midler hadn't even come out yet, but I was sure trying to.

You know how spastic I am now, you can't believe how spastic I was then, and even the teachers didn't know what to do with me. I guess now they would just drug me and put me in a corner. But my interests were all over the place and I couldn't really find a focus for any of my energy. Enter: John Robbins. What a huge crush for me.

Before we consciously knew what Stranger Danger was, there were people like Mister Rogers who would invite you over to his house and talk directly to you, just the two of you together, and tell you stories, and play with you, and sing you songs, and introduce you to his friends ... John Robbins did the same thing, only for the pre-teen set. He was a teacher, yes, but he was also an illustrator, and he would start out sketching, and then turn to the camera and tell you how that drawing fit in to the story of an exciting new book ! Then they would have a voice-over of people reading from the book, and then at the end the picture would be done, or we'd come back to him and he'd give us a bridge to a later portion of the book, and then he'd say goodbye. AMAZING books, and he loved to introduce you to series. Some of these books I read annually to this very day.

Now...my physical attraction to this man is so obvious, not only for my "type" but for the era, #GayClone, #PornStache, and his soft southern lilt was so inviting, and he was in jeans and had that groovy necklace shining, it was like a real teacher you had a crush on inviting you over to his own house ! to make drawings for you and tell you stories ! (Later when he went from The Book Bird to Cover to Cover, he got a leather wrist band just like Bobby Sherman in Here Comes the Brides.) But the other thing I remember was the books he had in his apartment behind him. I remember loving the word Bauhaus and looking it up at the library and going down a rabbit hole of beauty and excitement and ingenuity, and realising for the first time that there was a world outside of the one I could find in the pages of a Sears and Roebuck catalogue.

Here's a whole episode of him introducing us to Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House series ... [you may know them from television, but] you may not know that you can read about this family in 8 different books."

I'm engaged because someone I find attractive is telling me a secret about something and he's telling me about it while I'm watching him create something himself.

Now, it's this one-on-one engagement, this secrecy, too, this being invited in to someone's home and life that's made YouTube the phenomenon it is. A perfect example of this is in the life of a fanatic. I couldn't become engaged with the original casting of WICKED, but then my cousin went in as the percussionist and I needed to do some homework so that I could talk to him about his life. There became nothing I didn't know about the show from the audience's POV and then the DELIGHTFUL, DEEPLY talented, and delicious Lindsay Mendez of Dogfight fame went in to the show for its 10th Anniversary and did one of thee most SPECTACULAR series of videos from HER point of view. Her day before the show, what it's like in her dressing room, we got to meet all of her cast mates, she'd take us through her quick changes, we got to run around backstage with her before and during ! the show ... we became a part of her life and part of the life of the show we'd known for ten years, but now we knew lots of secrets.



Hamilton has recently made good use of this type of marketing as well. Knowing so many people can't get in to see the show, but know the show, they come out on to the steps of the theater and perform Ham4Ham, selections from the show, fun skits, audience involvement, and it keeps us engaged with them on a personal level.

So too, Twitter comes in to play and these people read Tweets during the filming and answer questions, or like or answer back on Twitter. It makes the audience member feel special, noticed, engaged.

Where I'm going is, I don't have a brick-and-motar to stroll into anymore. I can't put aside an afternoon to look at dust-jackets and find a few new titles. The Times and the NYR are fine (my 12 year old self didn't even know those things existed, although if I were 12 now I might...), but these same conversations come up in the Episcopal Church: those are viable but antiquated ways to communicate information and they're not really bringing new butts in to the pews. I'm still spastic and my tastes are still all over the place. I just finished the Nicolle Wallace three-parter White House backstage novels, Game Change by Heilemann and Halpern, I'm in the middle of Off Script by Josh King and I'm also reading a YA steampunk series by Jackqueline Garlick called The Illumination Paradox.

I need faces to fall in love with to guide me to books, or at least faces to trust, to tell me what THEY find exciting...a LIFE of books, an ARC of books, not necessarily XTITLE coming out YDATE. And I don't mean SPECIFIC faces, they could be an avatar or a comic, I just need the IDEA of someONE who HEARS ME, who responds to MY questions and needs, who interacts with ME. I need someone to NOTICE me. The 9 year old girl inside me needs someone who looks like Six from Blossom to tell me about Ann M. Martin’s The Baby-Sitters Club series.

The 13-year old rebel girl in me needs someone who looks like Pauley Perrette from NCIS to tell me about Kim Harrison's Hollows series with all those kick-ass woman in them.

and all of Sybil's "alters" need Scott Hoying & Mitch Grassi from SUPERFRUIT and Pentatonix to tell me about the novel Auntie Mame and DV by Diana Vreeland.

Now, I do love my BookBub, it shows me pretty pictures, there are sales on books, I can choose all the genres I'm interested in, but my problem is (a) I feel like I'm not getting a very WIDE selection of publishing houses, and (b) it comes TOO OFTEN ! and (c) some of the titles are ... uninspired ...



I KNOW it's TL;DR, but Social Times has a fantastic article about INFLUENCER MARKETING here: http://bit.ly/1TLpUTn and an article summarizing something from MILLENNIAL MARKETING here: http://bit.ly/1TuGKTQ which tell us that

...a stunning 97 percent of millennials today don’t turn to TV news or magazines to influence their purchasing decisions, which doesn’t bode well for the ads that support them. As a result, more and more brands are turning to influencer marketing to establish meaningful connections with their target audiences. It’s no surprise that 75 percent of brands are currently using influencer marketing in some capacity… Influencer marketing is most effective when the influencers produce sponsored content in the same style that made them successful in the first place–engaging and trustworthy stories, opinions and reviews. This content is valuable because it has been proven to establish a meaningful emotional connection with people, ultimately influencing them to take action. If a brand is too “hands-on,” it is easy for the content to lose its authentic tone and feel, making it just as ineffective as traditional advertising…

THE ! KEY ! IS ! CONSISTENCY ! ! ! and a private, shared lexicon. This gives the audience "a sense of control in a world filled with chaos" (CLUELESS). Some of THEE most successful YouTubers became so because, like, Simon and Martina, who I've been following for a decade on EatYourKimchi.com, have regularly scheduled segments:

• Wednesdays: TL;DR (Too Long; Didn't Read) - Fan questions about living in Korea, Korean culture and society and their personal lives answered by the Stawskis
• Thursdays: WANK (Wonderful Adventure Now Korea) - Showing popular places to hang out as well as road trips, or
• FAPFAP (Food Adventure Program For Awesome People) - Eating out in Korean restaurants, food delivery services, cooking Korean dishes and convenience store items
• Fridays: Livechat - Chatting with fans, opening of care packages
• Saturday: WTF (Wonderful Treasure Find) - unusual products and devices from all over the world, an Open The Happy video - Korea unrelated videos such as movie reviews, make-up tutorials and montages of their pets or DICKS (Discussing Interesting Contemporary Korean Slang) - a segment hosted by employees SooZee and Leigh about Korean and North American slang words
• Sundays: K Crunch Indie - Introducing Korean indie music, or Speaker's Corner, uploaded every Sunday on their You are Here Cafe channel, with many people leaving messages in their coffeeshop booth, discussing popular topics in the news in Korea or around the world.

Lastly, and not off-topic, I promise, is my participation in panels. I ALWAYS want my voice heard because they're my gay dollars and, although I am penurious, I am a BRAND queen and I love a bargain but I want P&G and other big corporations to KNOW that I'm choosing them over a bargain brand because I think it worth my time and expense. I've been on the NPR panels for decades, but that's more for feedback about what to keep funding, but the most satisfying brand relationship in my adult life has been with Stop&Shop. I signed up to partner with them about five years ago and it's electrifying. One of their concentrations during this period has been to offer local produce, local ingredients, and ask why we don't buy the already-made foods instead of getting the ready-to-make offerings ... I'm sent surveys once or twice a week and, although the chance to win $10 gift cards is a nice incentive (I've probably won about 10 times), the point is, they will present X logo or Y logo, would you like peppermint-flavoured treats during Christmas, how early should we put them out, should we keep using paper coupons  ... tell us in DETAIL WHY you like this over that ... and I'll participate and then I'll walk in to the store and see my vote counting ... or not ... but it makes me an integral part of not only their corporate life but with decisions that directly impact me. And it gives me, however false, a sense of satisfaction that I'm being heard, that my voice matters, and so I go back time and again to their brand because it's OUR brand, it's my brand, and I'm helping to make it great.

 So, anyway, that's my two cents. xoxo

Get Out of Your Own Way

There’s a teaching I’ve heard most often from the Hindu faith,

“It is hard only because we make it so.”

I know most all of my problems every single day are when I live too much in my own head. One of my girlfriends actually got me to go on my third date with my now husband of 12 years by SCREAMING at me, “Oh for the love of Christ, will you just get out of your own way and let God BLESS YOU?” It's pretty amazing how powerful we are, seriously, because we truly manifest what we’re looking for, what we're meditating on. If we KNOW that our path is going to be filled with encumbrances and obstacles then we will be frustrated with each step; if we know we are supposed to be exactly where we are just so that we can bring blessings at that exact moment in time and space, then everywhere is the perfect place to be. If we anticipate every interaction with someone who lives in pain and likes to spread their pain (hurting people hurt people!) with fear and apprehension, then we’ll play right in to their need to keep the circle of punishment spinning by allowing them to plop their hurt feelings directly on our heads; if we go in to the conversation with the spirit of service (yoga), however, with the ear of compassion, with the heart of empathy, then we receive clarity that the roaring lion is just a damaged little kitty and we are able to engage in and guide the conversation to one of understanding and peace (or just ignore it altogether and step out of the way of the spew). Through simplicity we become mighty.

<Let us look to this day, for it is filled with life, with miracles, with blessings, it is filled with the very breath of life. In the brief course of this day and our span on earth lie all the realities of our existence: the bliss of growth, the wonder of being awake while we’re alive, the peace of gaining wisdom, the glory of action, the splendor of beauty. For yesterday is only a dream, and tomorrow is but a vision. But today, well lived, makes every yesterday a dream of happiness, and every tomorrow a vision of hope. Look well, therefore, to this day. - Ancient Sanskrit, sort of>

Philippians 2: Stop Bitching and Trust God, Will Ya?

image source https://pixelsandstories.files.wordpress.com

<Do everything without murmuring, complaining, grumbling, grousing, or questioning the protective care of God or of nature as a spiritual power.>

Paul could have picked any number of moral issues to challenge the church in Philippi but instead he tells them to buck up and cut the crap; if we're going to walk in The Way then we're just gonna have to create beauty and blessings with positive declarations, as the power of life and death is in the tongue, and trust that we are cared for, provided for, and protected. It's funny, I got on the elevator with someone yesterday who, for TWENTY FLOORS, streamed a bitch fest about the weather, about the rain, about her shoes, about her hair. Innocuous, I know, but I thought of the flowers, people who don't have shoes, people in chemo who don't have hair, and I didn't think judgmentally, I promise, but I just thought, you know, I bet you never contemplate those things at all, do you, or you couldn't possibly say the things you're saying. I really had to shake off her grumbling because when people bitch that much at the top of a day, all I want is to swap them out with my dead friend Jon Lipscomb who greeted every morning with a gasp and a, HEY GEWRL! WHEE ! LET'S GET GOING and see what this day has to offer !! <For the birds who sing outside my window, for the tree that stands outside my door, for the neighbor who waves and says "good morning", I give you thanks for these and so much more. Your blessings every morning know no limit, yet I often rush by not seeing them. Let me take a moment this and every morning, God, I pray, to remember all of them, and remember and know that you are here. >  (http://bit.ly/dailyprayerus sort of)

Mary said Yes

The Annunciation, Henry Ossawa Tanner

God, we come to you this very morning, full of hope that the day to come might be filled with joy and positive, peaceful, potent energy. Grant that we may do the work assigned to us this day with a light and happy heart; and if there are tasks that we do not look forward to (or even dread) let us undertake them with courage and resolve. If people who offer us challenging relationships appear in our path, cover them in your peace, give them an understanding heart, and let us see you in them. When we face frustration today, and throughout the coming week, remind us that these are opportunities to inject your love and peace and joy in to this world, and please guide us through these moments with grace and humour. Lead us away from anger or judgment of other people. Let us not pick up any business that isn’t our own business, and let us tend to our own garden instead of looking over the fence at others’. And let everything we attempt be filled with the knowledge and guidance of Your Holy Spirit. We pray that the Spirit will be with us at every moment, that we will always be aware of Her whispers, and guide us to live every moment of this day in Your presence. Let us, like Mary, hear the angel’s voice: “Fear not, for you have found favour with God.” When we respond, “How can this be?” let us remember the calming answer of the ages: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you … For nothing will be impossible with God." Give us the resolve to say, "Here am I, the servant of God; let it be with me according to your word."

Our intuition is the fruit of our innocence

Our intuition is the fruit of our innocence. If we have dread in our heart we expect nothing but turmoil; if we have pain from our past we expect nothing but harm in our future. Hope is not a prediction of the future, it's a declaration of what is possible. We clean objects when they become soiled, but are we meticulous to cleanse our spirits as well? How can we expect joy and love and peace from others and the future if we do not come at the world with a pure heart? Our purity depends on the luggage we're carrying. We need to consciously daily concentrate on and enjoy whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable and wholesome, whatever brings peace. We need think continually on these things, and center our minds on them, and implant them in our hearts. Meditation is nothing but taking a mental shower. Meditation is when we empty ourselves and let the universe come in us and bathe us in its innocent beauty. If we are happy, happiness will come to us because happiness wants to go where happiness is. The same is true of other emotions, so be careful. We need to remember that enlightenment is just a state of perfect peace. Enlightenment should be something very ordinary.

Which is the story you tell ...

People tell stories on us and we have a narration of ourselves, probably one we tell others and certainly one we tell ourselves. God has a story about us too. In God’s eyes we are right and good and worthy. God proclaims that we are filled with courage and determination because, in God’s eyes, we were born in to an unbroken home, and we were raised in an environment filled with acceptance, encouragement and unconditional love which overflows with all the possibilities a doting guardian and lover can provide. With God we have strength to do all things. May we work to make our stories about ourselves reflect those that God tells on us, so that we might proclaim with God a story of love, compassion, and care. <I will kindle my fire this morning in the presence of the holy angels of heaven; without malice, without jealousy, without regret, without envy, without fear.> <God of strength, with each thought and action we are telling ourselves and the world a story. Help us to know and to share your goodness. Give us ears to hear you whisper the story about each of us, the one that is filled with your pride in us, and and is laced with love, compassion, care, and grace.>

Easter Sunday is Redund-ie-poo

Placing Easter on Sunday, imho, is a little redund-ie-poo. It's like Passover falling on a Friday ... Every week the Sabbath meal re-enacts the Passover tale but just with HIGHlights (#‎HamiltonDamage); The Holy Eucharist re-enacts Jesus on his last night on earth re-enacting the Sabbath meal which re-enacts the Passover Tale; The Great Vigil of Easter re-boots our entire life by chucking everything old and stale and worn out and making everything new and fresh and revived; and Easter is really just another Sunday where we celebrate The Holy Eucharist.

I love years ago the always delightful, ever brilliant Rev'd Dr Elizabeth Kaeton saying, <It’s always so wonderful to see the church filled on Easter Day. Everyone looks so wonderful, all decked out in their Easter finest. If you haven’t been to church in awhile, please consider coming back. We do this every Sunday...>

The two most important parts to remember for me are: we must gather in community in sincerity and truth, and we must show up time and again, to remember the story, and to imitate the example of laying down our lives, as a sacrifice for God's glory and a sacrifice to our fellow humans, being; sharing our troubles, our cares and concerns, and sacrificing our lives, on and around that altar, all for the Glory of God.

Once, For All

Bless the Children by Alix Beaujour, http://bit.ly/1UgyiwM

Whether you buy in to this belief system or not, our tradition is that it existed, so work with me a little here. My problem with the whole thing is, though, that some people keep acting like it's not done with and hasn't been taken care of but guess what, IT'S DONE WITH AND IT'S BEEN TAKEN CARE OF SO STOP MAKING PEOPLE PAY FOR IT OVER AND OVER AGAIN. I feel better now. The reason that I pay so much attention to these days of remembrance is because I think this sage we call Jesus once, for all time and for all kind, became the propitiation in the divide between us and God. This divide existed because of a berserk set of laws, and those laws actually defined the division between us and God. When those laws were broken reparation was required. Instead of supplying endless offerings, a personage stood in place of those offerings and fulfilled, once, for all, every debt owed for every law written. Since that moment, everyone has been encouraged to live life to its fullest as we were, at that moment, made emancipated spiritual beings with no encumbrances between us and the bounties of this universe. Whether this tradition is true or not, one thing I do know: the history I have, believe, and hold dear is that this terribly wise man came in to this belief system, saw that most people were getting it all wrong, and tried to show us that the root of all peace and an end to all trial and strife was the practice of a coupla things: don't point a finger at someone because three are always three pointing back at you; forgive yourself then others quickly; and, since we're all in this together, be quick to love and try to give of yourself freely and tirelessly. I sure as shootin' fall short of these practices most moments of the day, and it's hard not to be judge-ie and stingy, but I find it a delightful way to live. Join me, won't you? xoxo

Just Remember Me

The middle paint is Janet McKenzie, "Jesus of the People"

Do me a favor please? I knew this precious gorgeous little priest who used to serve a simple, quiet re-enactment of the "Last" Sabbath meal, and he would very specifically hold the bread up, hold the wine up in turn, make sure each of us saw it and met his eyes, then he would say quietly, "Whenever you do this ... just ... Remember Me." It's 30 years later, I still think of it daily. So-wuh simple and I had never thought of it like that until then. So, please? put aside anything any Christianists have ever told you about their Jebus, all the crap about some religious exclusionist white man who didn't smell and never went to the bathroom ... and I'm not talkin' right now about an idea of Jesus-as-Deity ... I'm asking you to remember Jesus as Hippie, this simple dude in a dress and sandals wandering around saying, "you've got to be SHITTING me ! THIS is what you came UP WITH ? THIS isn't what this stuff means AT ! ALL !" ... Please put aside any damage anyone has ever inflicted upon you or your psyche about this simple teacher and guide. He's one of my best friends all my life, one of the reasons I never went insane because I'm in constant running inner dialogue with him, my first lover, my pillow book, the only reason I think I'm still alive ... over the next coupla days, Just Remember Him and the simple things you know about him: How he himself was surrounded by asshats, how he loved little kids to come around his skirts to giggle and play, how he would see the unseen, stop and touch the untouchable, how he would just fix things and disappear, how he encouraged people to have faith in themselves and that all things were possible if we just asked, if we just believed, if we just got up and walked in our certainty; how love, self-forgiveness first and the forgiving of others second, were the most important things of all; and especially the faith that he had walking in to each new day, having nothing, trusting the provision of the universe, he actually had all things, and in abundance. Thank you !

Dear People of God:

Saint Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, Grand Junction, CO.
Icons written by Anthanasios Clark

I hope everyone is having a meaningful Lent. It’s Holy Week and it’s time to hunker down, to press in, and to show up.

We hear echoes of tales Jesus told, and one of the themes which strikes me most at this time of year is the one where Jesus implores us to reinvent our relationship with God, and encourages us to talk to God like a friend, like a lover, sharing secrets, dreams, and cares. Henri Nouwen writes:

[He] came to us to help us overcome our fear of God. As long as we are afraid of God, we cannot [wholeheartedly] love God. Love means intimacy, closeness, mutual vulnerability, and a deep sense of safety. But all of those are impossible as long as there is fear. Fear creates suspicion, distance, defensiveness, and insecurity. The greatest block in the spiritual life is fear. Prayer, meditation, and education cannot come forth out of fear. God is perfect love, and as John the Evangelist writes, “Perfect love drives out fear.” Jesus’ central message is that God loves us with an unconditional love and desires our love, free from all fear, in return.

It’s interesting to me, there are a couple of times in the Church Year when we are directly addressed from the altar: For Lessons and Carols, whether at Advent or Christmastide:

“Beloved in Christ, in this season of [Advent], let it be our care and delight to prepare ourselves to hear again the message of the Angels, and in heart and mind to go even unto Bethlehem, to see the Babe lying in a manger…”;

then the biggie, on Ash Wednesday:

“Dear People of God: The first Christians observed with great devotion the days of our Lord’s passion and resurrection, and it became the custom of the Church to prepare for them by a season of penitence and fasting…I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God’s holy Word…”

Other than private devotions or going to a daily Eucharist or communal Daily Office, it’s odd to me that in the Western tradition we have this empty space between the emotional high of The Sunday of the Passion (TWO services in ONE! Props! Anthems! Hymns! Collects! Sprinkling! Salutation! Procession! “Let us go forth in peace,” but don’t go ANYWHERE ! ‘cause we got a Eucharist ! WHEE ! “Ride on, ride on, in majesty! The angel armies of the sky look down with sad and wondering eyes to see the approaching Sacrifice”), and then nothing until Tenebrae (Latin for "shadows" or "darkness"), if that service is offered, or Maundy Thursday, and there are no further instructions, no additional bidding from the altar for services which are crucial, not only to our faith and our tradition but to our very spiritual survival, and nobody says a thing, it’s just listed in the service leaflet.

[Speaking of which … please, PUHLEASE ! try and make it to Saint Thomas Church on Fifth Avenue at 53rd Street for The Office of Tenebrae Wednesday, March 23, 2016, at 5.30 pm and, if you can’t, do listen to the podcast (http://bit.ly/1S0jA7e).

(I posted about my experience once here http://bit.ly/1I2cM8T).

The service feels very monastic and is treated with great reverence and it’s hard to describe the awe I feel sitting in that landmark building erected in 1911. As you’re listening to the plainchant of the Psalms, you’re staring at the 60 figures of the magnificent reredos which is 80 feet high, with every Saint and Angel imaginable standing over you. You marvel at the vaulted ceilings which disappear in to the heavens like the enchanted ceiling in the Hogwarts refectory, and you realize the building is stone on stone, without any steel reinforcement, and then all you can see is a blue-you’ve-never-imagined-in-the-sunset-blue stained glass windows as the church grows darker still. One year, during a particularly difficult Lent, I remember coming out of the service and yelling, “I believe ! I get it ! I believe it all !”]

Anyway … it’s odd, to me, as we’re hanging here between Palm Sunday and the Easter-Holy-Paschal Triduum (Latin for “three days”) which begins with the liturgy on the evening of Maundy Thursday (the vigil of Good Friday) with the Foot Washing, the Reserving of the Sacrament, the Agapé Supper, the Stripping of the Altar, and the Vigil at the Altar of Repose; then the silence and contemplation, with the Solemn Collects, of Good Friday; then another sort of empty day with Holy Saturday prayers; and then the The Great Vigil of Easter which, seriously, how beautifully do we do that service, huh? and how GLORIOUS ! when we get to ring them bells, that there are no supplemental instructions. Until now …

On Sunday, March 20, 2016, in this silence with no official bidding from the altar, there came such a roar from the pulpit with preaching “so good that it knocked my socks off and right in to the washin’ machine down the hall,” as they say where I’m from, our very own Mother Posey Krakowsky issued some instructions. It took everything in me not to stamp my feet and scream when she finished. It put me in mind of something our Presiding Bishop, The Most Rev. Michael Curry, says in A Call to Follow Jesus:

 “…being a Christian is not essentially about joining a church or being a nice person, but about following in the footsteps of Jesus, taking his teachings seriously, letting his Spirit take the lead in our lives, and in so doing, helping to change the world from our nightmare into God’s dream.”

Here is part of Mother Posey’s bidding:

 “…We are … complicit in the Christian Hope. We are called to bear witness to God’s choice to share our human nature – to be deeply embedded in all of it – the joy and the grief of human life … what we will be doing this week is not performance art. It is not a theater event. It is not an historical re-enactment. We are not an audience watching a show. We are participants. We are involved. What this week IS is a chance for us … to intentionally encounter God’s loving embrace of the world. It is a call to no longer accept our systems as “how things are.” A call that offers us different ways to imagine how things can be. Join in the three-day liturgy of the Triduum as fully as you can. Make the choice to intentionally explore how Jesus is active in our lives right now, at this moment … Please, this week…Dive in. See where it takes you. Allow yourself to experience how Christ is present and working in your life – right here, right now.” (note: the entire sermon will eventually appear here: http://www.stlukeinthefields.org/sermons)

I will, with God’s help. Will you join me?

This post originally appeared on the Blog of St. Luke in the Fields

I went to a funeral yesterday.

photo: picture: S.Shull @ flickr

I went to a funeral yesterday.

When I tell people that they sometimes get sad for me or wonder how that could have any deep joy for me, spending my time that way.

Going to church is easy and it smells good and it sounds purdy and it's a nice contemplative break from a busy noisy world.

Following The Way as Jesus laid out, however, means showing up; being an active participant in a congregation; being present and prayerful in the lives of others; that's the chore, that's the task, and it's the hardest part: living in community.

When one of my dearest heart's marriage ended, she was reluctant to return to the altar because she felt like she had made promises on that altar she found she couldn't keep. Wuhl, sometimes that happens, and isn't that why we're always repeating our vows? pledging to help one another live those vows?

Thing is, you gotta walk that aisle and you gotta show up at that altar and you gotta lay down your broken life on that altar day after day in order to be healed and restored, refreshed and renewed. We're gonna help one another get up that aisle week after week and hopefully, one long healthy day away from now, someone is going to love us enough to help us take that last important walk and place us lovingly in our final resting space, and continue our memory by telling tales of our love and participation among the other Travellers in that parish, forever.

So ... yeah ... I went to a funeral yesterday ... and I'm'a go and walk up that aisle today ... I will, with God's help. Join me, won't you?

Ash Wednesday 2016

<I would rather wear the smudge on my forehead than to admit its residence upon my soul. I prefer a crude cross above my eyes to questions about runny mascara and smudged liner. In a place where self-confidence is rewarded and any sign of weakness or emotional predisposition is held suspect, it is difficult to consider actually following the advice of the prophet to return to God with fasting, with weeping and with mourning. It is, however, acceptable — maybe even fashionable — to appear in public with a dirty forehead as a sign that I have *religion*. It is amazing how the symbols of piety, sackcloth and ashes, have been transformed into mask that hides me from myself and circumvents the intent of Ash Wednesday...Blow the trumpet that warns a penitent like me to wear the smudge of ashes long after her face has been washed and to admit the smudge on the one place that matters to God, her heart. Blow the trumpet in Zion, the prophet said, and sanctify a fast. Hear the sounds of grumbling need in a world where few are filled — and where we are overfilled. Today we are called to push away from the voracious consumption of everything in our path, for at least a little while, in hopes thatmight realize something about the equitable distribution of the world's resources before the fast is over. Rend your hearts and not your garments,. The gift of the day is personal reflection, a season of confession, and change. Start the arduous journey from shadow to substance, from ritual to reality, from façade to faith. Today, choose the harder course. It is easier to buy new clothing than to mend a soul.>

from 2007 Upper Room Disciplines, Discipleship Ministries, The United Methodist Church