Use With Care
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STJ#1074, Turn the World Around
PLEASE READ THIS POST FIRST: it contains information that change our usage. I advise no longer using the song. Original Post: I may be wildly speculating here, but I am pretty sure there isn’t a person my age brought up in the United States that wasn’t in some way inspired by/shaped by/comforted by/taught by/entertained by… Continue reading
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STJ#1073, The Earth Is Our Mother
Use with care, use with care, use with care. This song is listed as being generally Native American – which is likely all that the STJ commission could find at the time. A link to the source material, Songs for Earthlings, is now dead. However, I did a search for the lyrics and discovered that… Continue reading
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STJ#1071, On the Dusty Earth Drum
Way way back on December 16, 2016 – back when this practice was still new – I wrote these words: I wish I could make sense of this one. No, seriously. I mean, I get that the lyrics are a rain song, and thus appropriate for a section called The World of Nature. I also get… Continue reading
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STJ#1069, Ancient Mother
Sometimes the universe likes to prepare you in advance for something you will need. In some cases, it’s the impulse buy that comes in handy later that month, or a song you hear that the choir director asks you to sing a week later, or in my case, it’s a conversation on Wednesday that leads to… Continue reading
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STJ#1067, Mother Earth, Beloved Garden
One of the things I love best about pagan ritual is the embodiment of creating sacred space. It’s not just about entering a room and calling it sacred, it’s about being present to the physicality of the room, recognizing our connection to and grounding as part of creation, and visualizing the protective and enlivening presence of… Continue reading
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STJ#1066, O Brother Sun
Rejected intro paragraphs: This makes me think of Greg Greenway, Joe Jencks, and Pat Wictor – the members of the musical group Brother Sun. Except they’ve broken up now, and any memory I have of them has nothing to do with the song. It’s nice to have a song that’s good to call the directions with…except…wait…… Continue reading
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STJ#1065, Alabanza
From so much to say to little to say. (Which is, of course, the nature of spiritual practice.) This is a lovely tune, by Pablo Fernández Badillo, a Puerto Rican lay minister and federal judge who held various positions in the Puerto Rican government. Yet it is his time as a missionary that led to… Continue reading
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STJ#1061, For So the Children Come
In this exciting episode: Jason Shelton did a great innovative thing and I just had to go and innovate it further. This may be one of my favorite liturgical pieces – a chorus by Jason Shelton to make new the stunning piece by Sophia Lyon Fahs that most of us use at Christmastime, often on… Continue reading
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STJ#1056, Thula Klizeo
One late December day in the mid 1990s, my partner Trish and I got in the car and drove from our home in Durham, NC, to spend Christmas with my family in Round Lake, NY. The drive is long – about 13 hours – and was usually broken up by little side trips to historic… Continue reading
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STJ#1045, There Is a Balm in Gilead
I sing this to myself all the time but rarely use it in services. Lately – well, for the past year or so certainly – this has seemed like the right prayer, not only for me and my own sin-sick soul, but for our communities and our nation. In fact, I did use it when… Continue reading
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