SUNDAY CHILLIN' MUSIC

Smooth and Soothing

[before resuming rants]

WILDFIRE

I have never been much of a horse enthusiast and also do not think that Michael Martin Murphey's Wildfire is a particularly great song - but - it has always been hauntingly sad.  So if you are in need of a dose of melancholy along with nice horse pictures, have at it.

She comes down from Yellow Mountain
On a dark, flat land she rides
On a pony she named, Wildfire
With a whirlwind by her side
On a cold Nebraska night

Oh, they say, she died one winter
When there came a killing frost
And the pony she named, Wildfire
Busted down it's stall
In a blizzard she was lost

She ran callin', Wildfire
She ran callin', Wildfire
She ran callin', Wildfire

By the dark of the moon, I planted
But there came an early snow
There's been a hoot-owl howling by my window now
For six nights in a row
She's coming for me, I know
And on Wildfire, we're both gonna go

We'll be riding, Wildfire
We'll be riding, Wildfire
We'll be riding, Wildfire

On Wildfire, we're gonna ride
We're gonna leave, sodbustin' behind
Get these hard times right on out of our minds
Riding Wildfire


COME EMMANUEL



TAIZÉ

Regarding a Taizé service, a colleague said "I don't think that it matters whether or not one is a believer, if you enjoy communal singing and a time of meditation, you will be moved by Taizé."  And I agree.  I have been to several Taizé services, from Malibu to Hong Kong to Heidelberg, and although each has been slightly different, they all have the same sense of communal inward reflection.  The Taizé service at Peterskirche was typical of a larger service, with hundreds of participants and songs accompanied by a seven piece chamber group and a lead singer.  A previous service in Heidelberg was at the Jesuitenkirche Krypta and was much smaller, more intimate, and accompanied by only a single keyboard.  The service in Hong Kong was amazing - the new leader of the Taizé community, Brother Alois, was present, and thus the gathering was large and the singing and accompanyment ethereal.

Jesuitenkirche Krypta

 As usual, the language changed from song to song.  Below is a favorite in German.



Behüte mich, Gott, ich vertraue dir, du zeigst mir den Weg zur Leben. Bei dir ist Freude, Freude in Fülle.

Keep me, O Lord, for I trust in you. You show me the path of life. With you, there is fullness of joy.

Garde-moi,mon Dieu, j'ai confiance en toi. Tu m'entraînes sur le chemin de Vie. Auprès de toi, plénitude de joie.



A WINTER'S SOLSTICE

One of my favorite albums for sitting by the fire with a cup of hot chocolate is one of the Winter's Solstice Series from Windham Hill.  Here is an example.  Happy New Year to all of my pagan friends :-)

Interestingly, shortly after putting this post together, I received this New Year's Greeting from a long time colleague and friend:

Well..., another year has come and gone and tonight, like our ancestors before us, we anticipate the dawn of a new year.  

I hope that tomorrow, all those things that bother you will slip away into the past - where their absence and the quiet salve of the passage of time will erase the pain they caused you, forever.  I hope that the new year delivers surprising things more wonderful than you have ever imagined - not only to you, but also to those you love and those who love you.  Science often appears to suggest that working to achieve our dreams - and believing that we can achieve them - leads to unlikely outcomes.  There is time and there is hope, for the promise of tomorrow still remains.  Therefore, tomorrow and the new year, hold real hope for the achievement of our most heartfelt dreams.        

Thank you for being a part of my life and my work to make this life better for everyone, everywhere.  Tomorrow, we again begin another iteration of our journey around our local celestial fusion source, an event our foreparents celebrated for eons over time immemorial - driven first by biochemistry, later by fear - and only recently by knowledge and confidence.  We are the lucky ones: we know of the "big bang," galaxies, black holes, the atoms of which everything is constructed - and their behavior in the nano, micro, meso, and macro scale.  We live in a time when our understanding of the behavior of electrons, protons - even the quarks of which they are constructed appears correct, repeatable and predictive, even when combined into celestial bodies of such immense size that the resultant gravitational field induces their fusion - and their eventual evolution of the heavier elements upon which our lives depend - fission, fusion, the supernova, accretion, planetary dynamics, integrative systems, evolution, biochemistry, society, observation, verification, prediction - the solstice - yet another beautiful day on earth.  

Our predecessors almost certainly once gathered in fear to to observe this now often overlooked celestial event - the stopping of the sun - unsure if it would reverse its course to deliver the promise of spring - and the relied upon realities of renewed environmental warmth - and food.  While our work-a-day knowledge of the wonders of the universe can lead us to take such unimaginably meaningful and beautiful events for granted, many still appear to celebrate the solemn meaning of this annual celestial spectacle, and a few even look to the stars from which we came.  

These are wonderful times with wonderful opportunities.  We are so lucky to have them - and I am so lucky to be able to share them with you.  

Happy New Year!

SUNDAY MEDITATION

 NADA TE TURBE



.

Nada te turbe

Nada te espante

Quien a Dios tiene nada le falta

Solo Dios basta

Todo se pasa

Dios no se muda

La paciencia todo lo alcanza

Let nothing disturb you,

let nothing afright you.

Whoever has God

lacks nothing.

God alone suffices.

All things are passing.

God does not change.

Patience achieves all things.