Life Along the Orthodox Way
is beautiful tonight. The air is warm and the moon rises between the trees just over the roof. I shall sit tonight by the fire, listen to the sounds of the neighborhood as it falls asleep and read edifying things.
Such a gift is this night and I thank the Giver.
has a sound that simply is not possible to mimic electronically. It has, as well, a presence that its electric brothers lack. Played with passion, and in the right context, its depth has the power to make or break a composition. Guitars may be the stars but the bass line is essential for people to feel, and not just hear, the music. When you play the bass you are the power behind the dance.
These great gifts, though, come with a cost. From the fingering to the transportation the upright bass is a physically demanding instrument. Not particularly heavy but tall and wide the upright bass is less a tool than a partner. It stands by and with you and is never held per se but balanced by being attached to you. The strings are resonant, but thick, and your fingers must be strong. It is graceful in its own way but not easily moved. You extract sound from it and it takes energy from you.
And when you’re done, you can ache. To work the magic of the bass the player themselves must work, not just fingers or lips but the whole of a body, arms, shoulder, legs to stand, and a core for the energy that becomes sound. Everything goes into every note and when the lights go down and the stage is empty the effort is noted in every muscle used.
This Monday morning a good deal of last night’s nearly four hours of music is with me. The notes are in my head. The good company is in my heart. And my shoulders? They remind me that I play the upright bass. Such is the life of the guy in the back next to the drummer.
is nestled on the side of a hill where Minnesota meets Lake Superior and the through it the seagoing world. Part dirty port town, part shining metropolis, and part bastion of urban civilization on the edge of the great northern woods. Creation gave it a location and its people have given it character.
In truth there are only four larger clusters of people living in Minnesota. St. Cloud to the west, Rochester to the south, Duluth to the north, the rim of a wheel in which St. Paul and Minneapolis are the hub. After them there is nothing else but expanse dotted with smaller towns struggling to attract 10,00 souls at best. The farms are too large and the woods too deep to allow anything else.
Even the towns on the rim of the wheel are still smaller, not one has progressed above 100,000 people. Only the Twin Cities with its sprawling suburbs have managed to become anything anyone would call “big” and even then people from a truly large place like Chicago, New York, or Houston would find the whole thing quite provincial. Yet of the towns on the rim it would seem that Duluth is the most useful.
You see there are towns that produce services and towns that produce essentials and Duluth produces essentials. Ore, grain, timber, the basic stuff that underlies what we call civilization all flows in and through Duluth. Behind the veneer of carefully manicured suburban lawns and gleaming metropolitan towers there is the raw products that made it all and the people who produce it. That is Duluth.
In our illusions we think that meat comes from neat packages in grocery stores and forget about the immigrants working the slaughter houses. Milk comes in cartons, flour in bags, gasoline in pumps, and wood from hardware stores. It seems a kind of magic to us because we’ve been distracted from what the magician’s other hand is doing.
Yet its the places where the factory lights are on all night, where derricks and cranes hug the shore, smoke floats through the air, and people get up early that keeps the whole thing running. So other places are more glamorous for sure but none are as important. You like your lawyer and your massage therapist is very nice but you need a farmer, the person who cuts wood, drives a truck pulling a tank of gasoline, or loads and unloads ships with the things that let us live when the lights go down and the cold comes ripping out of Canada. In other words we need Duluth and if we don’t have one we’re obligated to either create one or be beholden to those who do.
We probably shouldn’t forget that.
when Orthodoxy makes me want to bang my head on the wall. Sometimes it’s about frustration, sometimes its about knocking in some sense, sometimes I’m not sure what it is. Yet somehow its still seems worth it despite the dents in the wall and the ringing in my ears.
if I were as beautiful on the inside as my vestments are on the outside. As that happens I will understand what it means to wear them in the first place.
I think, some times, there are people sitting in the streets by the gates of our parishes, hungry for all that is within, even a crumb, while our principal occupation seems to be arguing among ourselves over who gets the biggest piece of dessert.
I use humor every day in my work with seniors.
If we want smaller government, we will have to pick up the slack. Helping change another life for the better may be the most satisfying work we do on Earth. It is part of my own ethic and I can testify to the satisfaction it has given me. Make it a fad and it could become a trend. Ron Paul’s answer, which to some sounded crass, might prove itself to be the ultimate in compassion.
Read more here…
a discussion about the moral dimensions of the recent riots in England and how secularization has left the young with no context to define or identify virtue.
The Beautiful Path 