Reflectionary

Ministry of the Meantime

I've been at my current job for six months now, and it was great to meet with the Pastoral Relations Committee tonight and have a wide-ranging conversation about the job, the church and the preparation for a settled Associate Pastor. My work as a consultant to the Search Committee will soon be over, as they get closer to running an ad and beginning to look at candidate profiles. Although I continue to leave open the possibility of seeking a settled call myself when this job ends, I *love* working with search committees. It's exciting, challenging and creative work, helping the committee to paint a picture of the church that will speak to the heart of the pastor who will be the right match.

When I shared this with the committee, the Moderator of the church pointed out the cost at which doing this very gratifying work comes: the wrenching nature of the goodbyes that come at uncomfortably close intervals.

He's got that right.

Books. I mean it.

Apparently I stopped writing about reading even before I stopped reading. So here are the two books I read in August, the last books I've finished, though I am steaming through "People's History of Christianity" in anticipation of hearing Diana Butler Bass speak this weekend.

In late summer I went to see "Julie and Julia," which I loved, and then I quickly read the two books on which it was based.

#39, "Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously" by Julie Powell is the now-famous story of a woman who hated her job and as a distraction blogged her way through "Mastering the Art of French Cooking." It's amusing and fascinating, and I highly recommend it.

Then I read #40, "My Life in France," by Julia Child. I enjoyed it as a post-war memoir and a slice of life, but it's not nearly such a good book.

At the point my reading came to a crashing halt, I was capping off my Summer of E.M. Forster with "A Passage to India," but I remembered that I don't like it, and I decided--gasp!!!--not to finish it. So scratch that one off the list.

Chances are nil that I will reach my original 60 book goal for the year, but maybe I can still make 50. I'm determined to finish the Bass book, and then I have some others in the sidebar, but I think it's about time for a quick novel. Any suggestions? I've had a recommendation to read "Driftless." What are you reading?

Divvying Prayer

Every Sunday, Senior Colleague and I divvy things up for worship. We sort of have a formula, but we vary it depending on the elements of the day. But one thing that's always true when both of us are in worship is that the non-preacher gives the morning prayer. The focus is usually thematic, which can be tricky since we're praying before the other preaches. Sometimes we mention the wider world, sometimes not. Really, there is complete freedom to pray whatever comes up. I don't usually write a prayer ahead of time, unless I'm having a busy day and want the prompt.

I'll be praying today, and in my mind there swirls a confusion of health care reform and the way the Stupak amendment limits women's right to choose and Veteran's Day and the shooting at Fort Hood and our scheduled adult ed class on Islam today and the need some will no doubt feel to talk about the religious implications of the shooter's identity and the defeat of No on 1 earlier in the week and the conversations held at our two sessions of Bible Study the next day on the few verses constantly quoted by the opposition, part of our Open and Affirming process.

There's a lot going on in our world, and my list does not include the  known family and medical issues in our congregation, the hearts that grieve and the minds that wonder why and the lives changed in ways I do not even know, all this week.

We divvy up our concerns and try to pray for the "right" ones.

God, I believe, that Great Force Beyond Our Knowing, doesn't need a memo. But in the life of our community, I wonder who needs to hear a concern spoken aloud in order to feel comforted or heard, in order to feel like one of us?

Where You Are, Where I Am

Where you are the sun will come up in an hour.

Where I am it rose an hour and a half ago.

Where you are, the work night will end.

Where I am, the work day begins.

 

In your temporary home you will sleep

While I create a space to read the Word.

Pieces of Bryce we snuck into our pockets,

Long ago, surround a candle on a cloth.

 

Hands on my shoulders, you walked me

to the edge of the canyon, my eyes closed tight.

"Keep them closed," you whispered,

Hoping for the view to steal my breath.

 

No, not hoping, knowing it would,

Because it had for you, that odd

Orange landscape with hidden pinks,

The rocks porous, the shrubs dry.

 

Where I am, in the death of autumn,

We kick through the dry leaves while we walk,

The remains of spring verdure and summer rain,

Crisp and cool, yellow and brown and fading red.

 

I tell you I've driven through snow.

It seems fantastical, where you are;

You make a joke. Where are you?

Two hours behind and forty hours drive.

Friday Five: What's New?

As posted by yours truly at RevGalBlogPals:

There's a new baby on my street, a double PK whose Mom and Dad are Methodist pastors and church planters. I'm hoping to go over and meet her today. I love new babies, the way they smell and their sweet little fingers and toes. Little K has me thinking about all the new things that please us with their shiny freshness.

Please share with us five things you like *especially* when they are new.

1) New yarn--Whether it comes ready to knit or needs to be wound on my swift and ball winder.

2) Puppies--Molly and Sam as puppies looked like stuffed animals. Their coats were soooo soft. Kittens are nice, too, but come with disturbingly sharp little claws.

That's a picture of Molly, shortly after she came to us at 8 weeks old.

3) Brand new pencils--I love sharpening them for the first time.

4) New books--I love opening a new, hardcover book and smelling the pages. I love my Kindle, and I'm grateful to have it.

5) Last, but not least, New shoes--Even though they may require a break-in period, I adore new shoes. Just the idea of them makes me happy. Oh, would you like to see my new shoes? Okay.

They're Keen Venturas, and they were on sale!

What's new with you?

My Cup of Hope

Light Princess came downstairs this morning as the kitchen counter TV, tuned to the news, blared a commercial with Christmas music.

Offended, she exclaimed, "It's not even Thanksgiving yet!"

I agreed. "I got a Christmas cup at Starbucks yesterday."

I prepared for her disgust, but instead she smiled.

"Well, they sort of put me in a good mood, so I guess it's okay."

And it was true, that on a morning when I felt discouraged, my first response to a Christmas cup was to cry out, "No! It's barely November!!" But then I noticed the words on the cup, which include "Wish" and "Joy."

And the first one I saw was "Hope."

Some of us might be about up to here with the idea of hope. We hoped and hoped all last year, and we rejoiced on Election Night, but on the other side of the country, people felt then the way my friends and I feel now.

It's possible that word got to bound up with a human being, one who doesn't share my position on the issue of marriage. I mean, he really, really doesn't. 

Do not put your trust in princes, in mortals, in whom there is no help. (Psalm 146:3, NRSV) 

I don't like thinking of this verse in reference to a President for whom I voted. It felt like a *great* verse six years ago, when we were going to war and the colleagues in my preaching group were still trying to figure out how to talk about it in a sermon. He even acted like a prince, that President--in my opinion--but I see how inclined we are to make them into princes, all of them, even if only the ones we prefer. Princes or fools or mustachioed villains, however we dress them in our minds, do not put your trust in them. They cannot manifest our hopes single-handed. They may not share them. They may not even care about them.

We've got to find our hope in other places. 

I start with my kids. They are 23 and 19 and 14, and two of them voted, and all of them are angry. They're learning a hard lesson that other Christian people did not hear the gospel the same way they heard it in this house and in the churches that formed them. It makes no sense.

LP will go tonight to the big GSA meeting where LGBT students and their straight allies from many schools will gather to unpack what has happened.

For my No on 1-voting neighbors and the onlookers from away who don't reckon these things from a faith perspective, it's almost easier. They can shut out the religious voices, or try to, and make plans for the next campaign. They don't have to figure out a way to talk to the ecumenical colleagues at the next community event or clergy group meeting.

My friend, RevFun, went to see a priest yesterday. God, he's brave. He's braver than I am. He wanted to tell a priest how this felt and why it was wrong.

I know the priest he went to see, not as well. I've met him once. I wonder if he felt equipped to have the conversation. I wonder if any of them do.

My friend E wrote a beautiful reflection on the power of the widow who gave her mite, and another E wrote he would "watch the sun come up tomorrow, and go back to work repairing the world. Who's in?"and my musical colleague J used Facebook to share his feelings about how this experience led to deeper self-acceptance and my friend B simply said in a status update, "B W is not going away..."

We are all in some way part of the United Church of Christ, and we are motivated by our understanding of the gospel message that we are to love God with all our hearts and all our souls and all our minds and our neighbors as ourselves. Make no mistake about it.

That's my cup of hope this morning. I put no faith in princes, but in the next generation and in the people of God, who are not going away.

The Morning After

The Roman Catholic Diocese loaned its Public Affairs Director to the campaign against marriage equality, and last night he claimed to have been the little guy going up against the big guy.

There is a huge irony in people who suffered discrimination for being Catholic or for being Franco-American claiming their "little guy" roots as they work together to deny rights to another class of people.

It is, dare I say it, un-Christly.

(And in its definitions of traditional marriage, laughably un-Biblical.)

But these are the people whose Supreme Leader would deny women's call to ordained ministry, who is eagerly waiting to scoop up disaffected Anglicans around the world.

Don't be deceived. This attitude toward LGBT people is also an attitude toward women. It's institutionalized, and it's unloving.

My job this morning after is to find a way to love people who hate and fear.

Because love never fails.

I believe that. I have to believe that.

Four years ago we defeated a people's veto similar to this one, aimed at overturning a new law extending anti-discrimination rights to gay people. It was not the first campaign for, and against, those rights.

And this will not be the last effort to extend the right to marry to all people.

I'm angry this morning, but I believe that it's a message of love that will win in the end. And so I will pray, and get mad, and pray again. And strive to love.

No on 1

It's Election Day.

Everyone in my family who is going to vote has done it already. We won't be going to the polls in person. In my case, I gave up my "vote on election day" heroism to show my support for the "Vote Early" effort mounted by the No on 1 campaign. The organizers understood that their supporters were young and did not have a voting history yet, that they had turned out for a Presidential election last year but might not be as likely to get to the polls within a certain window of time in this Off-Off Election Year.

I mailed my absentee ballot almost a month ago.

I marked the No on Question 1 carefully. There were other matters on the ballot, but this is the one driving my participation.

When Pure Luck and I decided to get married, we didn't have to ask anyone's permission. No one said, "You two have already failed at this marriage thing. Forget it!" But we had. No one said, "Hmm, a woman with three children and a man with none, that seems odd. Forget it!" But that's who we were. No one asked, "Are you sure you have proper judgment about who you are marrying this time?" Because it didn't work out so well the first time, for either of us, even though we married perfectly fine people in all other areas.

No one had the right to keep us from marrying the person we loved.

All we had to do was get the paperwork in order and find someone willing to officiate and sign the license.

There may be something to be said for making people work harder to have the rights we have. We can inherit each other's money and make medical decisions for one another. No one can keep us apart in the Emergency Room. No one can make us testify against each other.

But there is no justification for making it harder based on the anatomy of the people we love.

Churches have been part of this campaign, on both sides of the question. One side, those opposed to same-sex marriage, has focused on fear. The other side, the side I'm proud to be part of today, has focused on love. And so I ask people of faith in Maine, will you vote today based on fear, or on love?

If love is your answer, vote No on 1.

Why I Do This

  In the midst of probably the lowest blogging ebb I've had in the past five years, I received an email from one of my earliest blogging friends, Jody Harrington at Quotidian Grace, who will be writing an article about clergy bloggers who are also mothers. It was a great reminder of what blogging has meant to me over the years. I started blogging with 3 posts in 2003, then came back to it in the winter of 2004, but it was probably another year before it became a daily habit. I've done it at three blogs:

• the defunct Blogger version with the non-pseudonymous lame title;
• Set Free, to which I moved all the old posts, though I lost the comments;
• and finally, Reflectionary.

What does it mean that I've had a slump this fall? It's a combination of a very demanding job and children reaching an age where writing about our life together feels like over-exposure of their individual lives. I used to blog when we made a pie, but as blogging has declined overall, I don't know if anyone cares, whereas in 2004, when we made the pie in the picture, I didn't care if anyone knew!

And I'm not preaching every week, so I don't have the "need" to write as a sermon process.

But I think I do need it for other reasons. I need it as a spiritual discipline. I need it as a release valve. I need it as a place for processing. Sometimes I need it as a resource for feedback or affirmation or wisdom from others.

November is that month when people commit to write a novel, or a short story, or knit a sweater, or simply to blog everyday.

I'm more likely to be writing a Christmas pageant than a short story, and although I have a sweater on the agenda for a certain someone for a certain holiday upcoming, I think I'll choose the blog commitment and simply make it to myself.

Be Forever Blest

(A sermon for All Saints Sunday/Proper 26B     Mark 12:28-34    November 1, 2009)

If you want to confuse a little Baptist girl, send her to a school named after a saint.

I spent six years studying at St. Agnes School, hearing the story of our saint. She was a young Roman girl, they told us, from a Christian family in the nobility. In just a few short years, Christianity would become the state religion, but not in time for Agnes. The Governor’s son wanted to marry her, but he was not a believer, and she said no. The Governor himself tried to convince her, first by promising gifts and later by means not generally described to girls in the Lower School, but she continued to resist, saying she was promised to Jesus Christ. She met her death joyfully, beheaded by a sword stroke. She was thirteen years old.

We saw her pictured holding a lamb, a girl with a radiant face, a reminder that even a very young woman could be brave and faithful and pleasing to God.

But despite the efforts of the school to set Agnes up as an example, her story and those of all the other saints seemed far away, mythical, not related to us exactly. After all, we didn’t live in a time when 13 year old girls got proposals from the sons of Governors and were executed for saying no.

It’s hard to relate to a legend.

Really, I didn’t “believe” in saints. They fell outside my practices. Praying to them seemed superstitious to me. When I left St. Agnes School, they became nothing more to me than stained glass images in churches, people who must have been too good to be true.

And I think that may be one of the problems with saints. Whether we “believe” in them or not, which is to say, whether we make the veneration of saints part of our religious practice or not, we’re inclined to think they are beyond the norm. Whether they were ancient martyrs or medieval miracle-workers, they seem too perfect to be people. Their goodness may seem to put them out of reach.  We don’t know them as whole people but as works of spiritual art.

I didn’t believe in saints, in the sense of going to a church where I prayed to them, but I read about them, in a book in the school library. They fascinated me the same way King Arthur and his cohorts did, and their stories came to be in similar ways. People built their legends and created their images out of a hunger to believe in untainted goodness. As stories of saints were passed down, they became more detailed and more dramatic, to encourage ordinary people to be brave when facing more everyday temptations and difficulties.

In our Congregational tradition, we have a broader understanding of being a saint. We speak of the saints of the church, and we don’t simply mean St. Peter and St. Paul. We mean the people who keep the spirit of God alive in our own time and place. And I would like to think that a person who carries a spirit of God’s love in the world, despite being human and less than perfect, can mean just as much to others as the saints in ancient tales. They are the people who bless the name of Jesus, forever, or for as long as we continue to share their stories.

We all have our saints of memory, the people whose goodness and kindness and faithfulness exemplified just what Jesus spoke about in our story from Mark’s gospel. In it, Jesus lays the foundation for a faithful life, whenever and wherever we live.

A scribe questions Jesus, and while many of the questions asked by scribes and Pharisees were intended to trick him, this one seems to have been sincere. Which is the first commandment, he asks? What is the most important thing for us to do? Who are we supposed to be as faithful people?

Jesus responds to him with the familiar words of the ancient Hebrew prayer called the Shema: “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.”

That’s the first thing we are to do, the first thing we need to know and understand.

It’s a message Agnes got, all those years ago, before anyone called her a saint.

And “The second is this, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these.”

The scribe agrees with him; there are no commandments about religious practices or the making of sacrifices that outweigh these two ideas. We are to love God and to love our neighbors as ourselves. There’s not much point following the other commandments if love does not motivate us, if love does not ground us and elevate us and press us toward goodness.

Jesus does a lot of bantering with scribes and Pharisees, giving them as good as he gets and even more, leaving them scratching their heads about his answers. But this time he meets someone from the other side who understands him, and he tells the scribe, “You are not far from the Kingdom of God.” The scribe understood the ultimate simplicity of our faith: to bring God’s kingdom near, by loving God and loving one another. In living a faithful life, we make sure the name of Jesus will be forever blessed.

In Confirmation class we’ve been studying the history of Christianity, and the clouds that hang from the balcony represent the cloud of witnesses, the saints that surround us as we gather on this All Saints Sunday. We asked the students to choose their own saints, and I hope you’ll all take a look at the names they chose. Most of them have gone on to their reward, though not all, reminding us that sainthood begins with the way we live. They range from Abraham Lincoln and Harriet Beecher Stowe and Gandhi to President Obama and Mother Teresa and Bob Marley—NOT the comedian, they wanted you to know.

One special saint means more to young people in Yarmouth, and that’s Hanley Denning. It did not surprise me to see her name on more than one cloud. There won’t be any official action to declare her a saint, but we don’t need one to recognize the special nature of her life and work and to grieve for her loss and to celebrate all she did. Hanley’s life and work on behalf of others exemplify the gospel and call us to live a saint’s life, too.

The saints of my childhood were my grandmother, Emily Spong, and her best friend, Miss Margaret Johnston. They grew up in the same church, but because of their nine year age difference, they didn’t become friends until they were both young women, teaching Vacation Bible School together. I’ve seen the picture from that summer, taken on the front steps of Monumental Methodist Church. They would go on to work in education, both public and Christian, for the rest of their lives.  Maggie, who never married, taught first grade, which seemed just right for a little lady who stood about 4’10” tall, but when she eventually became principal of the elementary school, we learned that height was no barrier to her attainments. My grandmother served on the city School Board and provided leadership during the tumultuous years leading to integration of the schools, while Maggie taught in one that the city later named after my grandmother.

But of all they did together, Maggie and Emily felt proudest of the call that came to them after the Second World War. As new neighborhoods were developed in our hometown of Portsmouth, Virginia, the Methodists built new churches. Every church needed a Sunday School, and someone to get it started. Maggie and Emily became the Sunday School planters. They trained the teachers, prepared the classrooms and oversaw the operations until the new leaders could do things for themselves. Then they moved on to the next church. They didn’t do it for reward or renown, although the churches eventually gave them a pair of engraved silver plates as an award. They did it because they wanted the story of love to be shared. “Hear, O Portsmouth, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and all your soul, and all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.”

This lesson, learned as little children and taught to little children over and over again, formed their understanding that “Separate But Equal” could never really be equal.

We all have the potential to affect the world around us, but what makes some people so special in the expression of their sainthood? I believe they are particularly good at identifying what tugs at their hearts and their minds and their souls. They respond to God, whether they know God by the names we use or not. They respond to God’s love by recognizing the places where the gifts they bring can spread God’s love and care further in the world. They recognize with an uncanny clarity that the nearness of the kingdom lies within our reach.

They are Presidents and authors and musicians and teenagers and elderly nuns and foreign religious leaders and hometown heroines. They are Sunday School teachers and grandmothers and maiden ladies. They are people in our own lives who will never be written about in books, but whose stories are inscribed in our hearts. Hear, O First Parish Church, the Lord is One. May we reach out and touch God as they did. “Thy name, O Jesus, be forever blest. Alleluia! Amen.”

Reading is FUNdamental

I hate to admit it, but since the fall program year began, I have not finished reading a book. Please don't take this as one of those "I'm so busy and important I can't read a book!!!" boasts. I'm actually puzzled and a bit ashamed at my fall off the reading rainbow.

At the beginning of 2008 I decided to take on Beso Mami's reading challenge. I've always been a reader, but there's no question that in recent years I let other things take the place of books, and because I spend so much time multi-tasking it can be hard to find the focused time to disappear between the pages and let the words work on me.

I made it easy on myself and started by re-reading some favorites, just as when I returned to knitting after a long gap, I began with a simple pattern. When I developed RA that same spring, Pure Luck bought the Kindle for me as a piece of adaptive equipment. It's sitting on my bedside table, loaded with books I'm not reading right now, some I've started but not finished ("A Passage to India," "A People's History of Christianity") and others entirely unread and seemingly unappealing.

I'm interested to know how other busy people, and especially pastors, find the time to start and finish books. There's no question that my schedule now is more demanding than in my other ministry jobs, but I don't want that to be my excuse for reading nothing more challenging than the Huffington Post! There are books that would be helpful, fruitful, even needful. There are books that might even be fun.

Maybe I need a happy novel, a little more Precious Ramotswe--or maybe a mystery.

But first I need a block of time to get started. And I guess the only way to get that is to give it to myself.

A Peculiar Communication

Friday I received the following email:

Xin chao, toi ten la Minh Canfield tu van phong Da Ngon Ngu cua Truong hoc Portland. Toi goi dien de thong bao cho qui vi biet ve cuoc hoi thao dau tien trong loat hoi thao cua Hoi Phu Huynh ma se to chuc vao thu Sau, ngay 23 thang 10 tu 9:15 den 11 sang tai Portland Adult Education o so 57 Douglass .

Chu de cua hoi thao la
· Viec Lam Dung Ruou va Thuoc
· Bat dau mot cuoc noi chuyen voi cac bac phu huynh
Day la mot chu de quan trong ma la tat ca cac bac phu huynh cua thanh thieu nien can hieu biet.

Toi se co o do thong dich cho qui vi neu qui vi can giup co thong dich. Hy vong se gap qui vi vao thu Sau, ngay 23 thang 10 luc 9:15 den 11 sang.

(All followed by the usual boiler plate that comes with emails from the school system.)

Do you suppose this has anything to do with the fact that LP joined the Asian Student Association?

Reading with Expression

 (Thinking about Proper 25B, especially Mark 10:46-52)

It must have been twelve years ago. I was back in seminary, very part-time, after a year's leave, and the kind Senior Pastor at my home church took every opportunity to involve me in worship leadership. On the Sunday in question, I read the gospel lesson before his sermon. I got to church early to look over the text, and as I read it, I felt very excited.

You see, once upon a time, when I was a student in Mrs. Barber's 2nd grade class at St. Agnes School, I was called across the hall to read aloud to a circle of mostly boys. Their teacher told them to listen carefully, because "Songbird reads with expression."

I've always been proud of that.

And I saw my opportunity on that Sunday morning in 1997, because the story of blind Bartimaeus is one of those that begs to be read with expression, nay, enthusiasm!

"Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!"

I sang the words out with spirit.

"Son of David, have mercy on me!"

I gave it all the expression I could.

I looked over at my dear Senior Pastor, feeling I had done all I could to help set the tone for his sermon about Bartimaeus, hoping to see his always charming smile of appreciation. But that day it was not forthcoming.

And then I realized that a big part of his sermon? Was rendering the words of Bartimaeus in as dramatic a fashion as possible.

Now-retired Senior Pastor is a member at Y1P. I'm grateful that when he hears me preach now, I get that smile. It's very dear to me.

And if you are preaching this story, and someone else is reading it for you? Check in with the reader ahead of time. Just in case.

(Read more about the image at Vanderbilt's Revised Common Lectionary website.)

Friday Five: Our Favorite Music

As posted by yours truly at RevGalBlogPals:

When I was a very little girl growing up in Virginia, I never missed a Sunday going to Court Street Baptist Church. But there was something else that made Sundays special, and that was "Davey and Goliath." Every week the opening strains of the theme song would find me lying on the floor, chin on hands, looking up expectantly to watch the adventures of a cloth boy and his big dog. What I didn't realize was who wrote that music, the hymn "A Mighty Fortress is Our God."

It was the same Martin Luther who said: "I have no use for cranks who despise music, because it is a gift of God. Music drives away the Devil and makes people gay; they forget thereby all wrath, unchastity, arrogance, and the like. Next after theology, I give to music the highest place and the greatest honor."  On this Friday before Reformation Sunday, let's talk about music. Share with us five pieces of music that draw you closer to the Divine, that elevate your mood or take you to your happy place. They might be sung or instrumental, ancient or modern, sacred or popular...whatever touches you.

Some of us even love hymns. (Well, I do.)

1) And I do! I do! This Sunday afternoon, Y1P will be hosting the Association Annual Meeting, and since I got to plan the brief worship service at the beginning (okay, I'm still planning it), I chose both "A Mighty Fortress" and one of my personal favorites, because it seemed appropriate in this time when many churches wonder what the ultimate economic fallout will mean for them: "How Firm a Foundation" (tune: Foundation).

2) Last night my daughter's Facebook status included the following:

"LP is getting through her English homework with the help of Bach's French suites."

Nothing makes my mind and heart feel cleaner. It's something about the percussive nature of the piano. We have the Andras Schiff recording. Lovely, especially the Gigue.

3) At disconsolate moments, I turn to musicals. I love, love, love musicals. Some favorites are "Ragtime" and "Into the Woods" and "My Fair Lady" and "Camelot" and "1776."

4) In the bleak of December, I love to listen to Handel's "Messiah." I have a couple of recordings. Mostly I like to try and remember the alto and sing along.

5) On my iPod, I do have a playlist ("Away Message") for the mopey times when Pure Luck is away; it's a pretty good expression of my eclectic tastes. Here are the titles currently on the list:

Rufus Wainwright    "Vibrate"

Sixpence None the Richer    "Kiss Me"

Stevie Wonder    "Signed, Sealed, Delivered (I'm Yours)"

Uncle Kracker    "Follow Me" (Don't laugh. I downloaded the CLEAN version.)

Madeleine Peyroux    "Walkin' after Midnight" and "Dance Me to the End of Love"

Leonard Cohen    "Dance Me to the End of Love"

Kiss    "Beth" (My first slow dance, circa 1977.)

Death Cab for Cutie    "I Will Follow You into the Dark" (For the really mopey times.)

Carole King    "So Far Away," "Will You Love Me Tomorrow" and "(You Make Me Feel Like a) Natural Woman"

Bruce Springsteen    "Thunder Road"

As mentioned recently, The B-52s    "Love Shack"

Peter, Paul and Mary    "Leaving on a Jet Plane"

Three Dog Night    "One"

That's a good summary, for today.