Japanese Fusion

Last night I went out with some girlfriends who also did JET in previous years. We saw an amazing performance by Mu Daiko, a local taiko (Japanese drumming) group here in Minneapolis. Taiko is powerfully evocative stuff, and I wish I'd had more opportunity to see it while I lived in Japan.

The second act was by On Ensemble, and I feel inspired to urge you to check them out! Seriously amazing shizit with koto, taiko drums, modern drum kit, Central-Asian-style throat singing (wow!) , acappela mouth music, DJ scratching, hip-hop beats, and true musicality. Seriously, people, check them out!!!

In Thanks-giving

by Rev. Max Coots

Let us give thanks for a bounty of people.

For children who are our second planting, and though they
grow like weeds and the wind too soon blows them away, may
they forgive us our cultivation and fondly remember where
their roots are.

Let us give thanks;

For generous friends…with hearts…and smiles as bright
as their blossoms;

For feisty friends, as tart as apples;

For continuous friends, who, like scallions and cucumbers,
keep reminding us that we’ve had them;

For crotchety friends, sour as rhubarb and as indestructible;

For handsome friends, who are as gorgeous as eggplants and
as elegant as a row of corn, and the others, as plain as
potatoes and so good for you;

For funny friends, who are as silly as Brussels sprouts and
as amusing as Jerusalem artichokes;

And serious friends as unpretentious as cabbages, as subtle
as summer squash, as persistent as parsley, as delightful as
dill, as endless as zucchini and who, like parsnips, can be
counted on to see you through the winter;

For old friends, nodding like sunflowers in the evening-time,
and young friends coming on as fast as radishes;

For loving friends, who wind around us like tendrils and hold
us, despite our blights, wilts and witherings;

And finally, for those friends now gone, like gardens past
that have been harvested, but who fed us in their times that
we might have life thereafter.

For all these we give thanks.

Source: “Garden Meditations” by Rev. Max Coots, minister emeritus of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Canton, New York.

Yes, We Can!

Quotes of the Day

Wednesday, Nov. 05, 2008, Time

Your victory has demonstrated that no person anywhere in the world should not dare to dream of wanting to change the world for a better place.

NELSON MANDELA, former South African President, in a letter to Barack Obama on being elected the 44th President of the United States

New HOPE; Newfound Patriotism

O beautiful, for spacious skies,

For amber waves of grain,

For purple mountain majesties

Above the fruited plain!

America! America! God shed His grace on thee,

And crown thy good with brotherhood, from sea to shining sea.

O beautiful, for pilgrim feet

Whose stern, impassioned stress

A thoroughfare for freedom beat

Across the wilderness!

America! America! God mend thine ev'ry flaw;

Confirm thy soul in self control, thy liberty in law!

O beautiful, for heroes proved

In liberating strife,

Who more than self their country loved

And mercy more than life!

America! America! May God thy gold refine,

'Til all success be nobleness, and ev'ry gain divine!

O beautiful, for patriot dream

That sees beyond the years,

Thine alabaster cities gleam

Undimmed by human tears!

America! America! God shed His grace on thee,

And crown thy good with brotherhood, from sea to shining sea!

Around the time of America's Independence Day, I sang this song to several of my classes of Japanese junior high students. They'd never heard the song before, but I gave them a brief history of the author (a woman teacher) and story of the writing (she traveled over the endless plains to Colorado, and was struck by the beauty and immensity of our land). I love this song and cried freely as, this week in church, we sang it together as a congregation. I most especially appreciate the second verse. My prayer is that we might be inspired to work collectively for the greater good.