Bring me my bow of burning gold

After doing the Beethoven, it was nice to get back to our church choir and a bit less intensity. Also we're doing a song I love, as a William Blake fan -- and it's a great song of social action.

Jerusalem

AND did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England's mountains green?
And was the holy Lamb of God
On England's pleasant pastures seen?

And did the Countenance Divine
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here
Among these dark Satanic mills?

Bring me my bow of burning gold:
Bring me my arrows of desire:
Bring me my spear: O clouds unfold!
Bring me my chariot of fire.

I will not cease from mental fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand
Till we have built Jerusalem
In England's green and pleasant land.

William Blake

This song fits very well with the community dialog concerning poverty, rising from the library's community read of Nickel & Dimed. Neither is this a big stretch from our recent travels to Transylvania, as we contemplate what we are called to do for our friends there. I usually find things to like in Blake, but this is a favorite, reminding us how we are all empowered with marvelous tools and called to use them in larger struggles.

How Can I Keep from Singing?

I'm a lucky guy, in lots of ways. But one way of which I am conscious is the ability to make music and sing with people. The last week is a case in point. After our Irish band, Celtic Knot, played a full slate of gigs around St. Patrick's Day (one story from this is on the New Cybrary), I had four nights which included two rehearsals for a folk music gig with friends Doug Wheeler and Barbara Hoffman, a rehearsal for singing Beethoven's Ninth as part of a community choir and then the gig with Doug & Barbara at the Brewed Awakenings coffeehouse. Lucky, lucky to have friends who want to play and sing and a community offering opportunities.

Music is tied up with my spirituality in ways I am still exploring and seeking to understand. Certainly it points to connections with other people and with stories, and a fundamental way of looking at the world, involving beauty, creativity, melody, rhythm and harmony. At a later time, I'll write something particularly about singing the Beethoven, which is a new realm of experience.

Right now, I'm trying to get my backpack guitar and some music ready to take to Transylvania, where some of our pilgrims will share music & I hope I can learn some songs.

Beggars to God

Near the top of the Spanish Steps, an old woman in black bends over her rosary, a cup before her for alms.

Journey to the East

This blog is actually occasioned by a pending trip to Transylvania. Some men from our church, the Fox Valley Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, will be travelling to Deva, Romania, to help our partner church with some remodelling. But mostly we're going to connect with friends from around the world. It's also a religious pilgrimage: the Citadel in Deva (shown above) is the martyrdom site of Francis David, 1510-1579, an early pioneer of Unitarianism and religious tolerance. It was David who said "We need not think alike to love alike."

The fact that in April (Easter weekend) we climb the hill to the martyrdom site in Citadel sends me echoes of Chaucer:

Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his half cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open ye
(So priketh hem Nature in hir corages),
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,
To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;
And specially from every shires ende
Of Engelond to Caunterbury they wende,
The hooly blisful martir for to seke,
That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke.

We're heading out for to seke straunge strondes, ferne halwes in sondry londes & a martir! (seek strange shores, distant holy places in various lands, and a martyr)