Halloween Organ Recital Q&A

When?  Before everyone else, on October 18th, 3:00 p.m.  2015

Where?  Trinity Lutheran Church, 42 Guy Park Ave, Amsterdam, NY 12010 (the United States one, not the other one where pot is legal).

Is there a Cost?  Only my blood, sweat and tears.  All others, free.

Will there be refreshments?  I wouldn't play otherwise.

Is the church handicap accessible?  Yes, there is a spacious elevator located on the parking lot side entrance. If need be, I will carry you up the stairs (I've done it before). Watch the end of the demo video, I show you how to find it.

What kind of organ are you playing?  It is a newly installed three manual tracker, built by a local builder. There will be a dedicatory recital in the upcoming months.  Come to find out when and all the other pertinent deets.

I hate organ recitals, they are boring, arcane, esoteric, stuffy, recondite and they all sound alike.  What are you playing?  I hate organ recitals, too.  I will be playing the ubiquitous, standard "scary" organ music such as the Chopin Funeral March, Bach's (sic) Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, Boëllmann's Toccata  plus a few novelty songs and pieces arranged by me.

The organ is currently lounging in it's summer tuning estate but, here is a demo video of me at my first practice session getting to know the instrument and finding my arm weight. Here I demonstrate the en chamade and the full organ (which distorted my camera's microphone).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lldWqEhIkbs

See you then.

-Malcolm (The pastor wants a bio) Insert pretentious crap about myself here)).

Malcolm, a true Capricorn, is actually not funny. He is just really mean and people think he is joking.  He is a lover of ice cream and a runner - because of all the ice cream.  Malcolm is a Nomad in search for the perfect burger and is an especially gifted napper with killer abs (want proof, check out "Mount Baker Glacier Clips."  Do not judge him before you know him, but just to inform you, you won't like him.  He is not on Facebook and most likely wouldn't friend you anyway so this is all you are ever going to get.  Malcolm feels sad for seedless watermelons because, what if they wanted babies?  The humanity.

Seattle Underground

Kadampa World Peace Temple

Bennington Battle Monument

Views from the Bennington Battle Monument in Vermont.

Church Growth

I have had the privilege of speaking with several pastors recently about church growth or the lack of growth which many churches are experiencing across the country.  Some pastors are looking for gimmicks or programs to attract those who left and also looking for ways to welcome those who have never been.  Others are accepting of their size and diminishing membership and are desirous to settle for being in the service of those who remain.

A predominant reason people say they don't go to church is that they consider themselves spiritual and not religious and that the church is filled with hypocrites.  It is very easy to perceive the church as being filled with people who are "holier than thou."  It is also  very easy for the church to attract or foster people who "protest too much" in an effort to hide their own sinful nature.  It is easy for good people to be judgmental especially if they secretly recognize sinful desire in their own hearts.  On top of that, when some crime occurs in a church, we might discover that the perp was a pillar of the community, a lector, secretary, youth group leader, pastor or Eucharistic minister. 

It is not that the church attracts bad people.  The truth is everyone has the capacity to be a "bad" person.  There was a study by Wallerstein and Wylie where they asked 3,000 NY citizens who have never been arrested about all the things they had done in their lives.  100% of them have committed misdemeanors and were never caught and 97% had committed felonies but have never been caught.  So if you've never been caught, you must be a good person despite the bad things you've gotten away with.

About fifteen years ago I vacationed in Canada with a friend who illegally brought back Cuban cigars and prescription drugs which you couldn't buy in the US but they were available in Canada.  I thought it was very funny that I got flagged for a search and he, a Roman Catholic priest, waltzed right through. 

Today, churches often run background checks on its members in an effort to weed out the sinners.  It is good that they want to make safe sanctuaries but they need to keep in mind that most saints such as St. Paul and even Jesus, a convicted felon himself, would not be welcome in our churches for none of them would pass their background checks.  Part of the problem with organized religion is that it represents only a tiny part of the story and one that is often dangerously dysfunctional at that.

People of adversity find strength within themselves and they think that that has to do with finding meaning.  Instead of finding meaning we should call it forge for meaning for finding and searching are two different things.  Endurance is the entry way to forging meaning and, being accepted into a community is the only place that that can happen.  When we forge meaning we can incorporate that meaning into a new identity and that is what the church needs.  We need to take our faults and traumas and make them part of who we've come to be and we need to fold the worst events of our lives into a narrative of triumph as a response of things that hurt.  Instead the church tries hard to deny this.

I once encouraged a church to start a prison ministry and the response was that they didn't want to attract or associate with those kind of people.  What they failed to realize was that those people were already in the parish as convicted arsonists, drug users, DWI perps, a sex offender and burglar.  A few years later one of their 20 year old boys was arrested for dealing drugs and it still didn't dawn on them that they had the capacity to heal and the healing needed to happen in their own back yard.

When it was found out that I answered a suicide hotline, a woman grabbed me after a church service, broke down in tears and told me that her brother was arrested for committing a sex crime with a teenager, then completed suicide while in jail.  We spoke for quite some time and afterward I told the pastor what had happened so that he could be aware of the situation.  Instead of being compassionate, he became angry that the woman would confide in me and not him.  Of course, this was in a parish who abandoned a former pastor who was arrested on a DWI charge. She never trusted anyone in the parish with her pain and she carried it silently for many years. 

A woman who was raped as a teenager seemingly had her life destroyed.  She dropped out of school, gave birth to the child of the rapist and never went to college or forged a career of her own.  At the age of fifty she was asked if she ever thought of the rapist and she said she did and she felt sorry for him because, he has a beautiful daughter and two beautiful grandchildren and he doesn't know that and she does.  As it turns out, she considers herself the lucky one.  She credits the support and love of her community for the blessings in her life. 

Some things we are born to; our race, a disability, our sexuality, our gender and some are things that happen to us; being a rape victim, a prisoner, a Katrina survivor, a 9/11 survivor.  Religious identity means being able to enter into a church community to draw strength from that community and to give strength there too.  A church community is not for someone to enter in and say "I am here and I hurt," but rather "I hurt and I am here."  But we are ashamed, judgmental and can't tell our stories to the "good people" but our stories are the foundation of identity.

Just as the stories we tell come from our life experiences, our lives can grow from the stories that we tell.  The bible is filled with such stories of healing, joy, forgiveness and com-passion (suffering with one another).  That is the key; one another and, you won't find that on a Facebook page.  Instead, the church looks for ways to attract the wrong people because the church is interested in numbers and money.  If the church's goal is to promote healing and acceptance through pain and struggle, numbers and money will be the symptom thereof.  Currently, that calling is being lived out through social services and other organizations and they are doing a better job than the church is.   So, who needs the church . . .

It isn't solely about changing ourselves but about changing the world.  It doesn't make what is wrong right but makes what is wrong precious and you won't learn that from social services.  The road less traveled is what makes all the difference and the church is abandoning that road.  We can not be ourselves without the misfortune that drives our search for meaning.  "I take pleasure in infirmities," St. Paul wrote, "for when I am weak, then I am strong."  The church is trying to be strong while denying its weakness and driving out people it thinks will make them weak.

Oppression breeds the power to oppose it and that is the cornerstone of identity.  However, you can't change the church if you don't belong to it.  If a church is full of hypocrites, leaving it doesn't change that.  I know a church whose organist was arrested and half the church supported him and half wanted to abandon him.  The church chose to abandon him and eventually all the supporters left and the haters won.  That church's attendance dropped and is currently in danger of closing because - hate begets hate.  If the church chose love and forgiviness, who knows where it would be today. 

Today's church does not know what oppression is because they are doing the oppressing.  If you banish the dragons, you banish the heroes and we've always been attracted to the heroes in our society.  Satan doesn't have to fight the church because he has joined it.  When we shelter our children from adversity, we've failed as parents for it is adversity which trains and teaches children how to prepare and cope for what the real world may throw at them.  Someone once asked gay activist Harvey Milk what they could do to help the cause and Harvey told him to go out and tell someone.  There is always someone who wants to confiscate humanity and there are always stories to restore it but we need people to tell the story.  By banishing sinners the church is denying and forgetting its story and its calling.   Certainly every church will proclaim that it welcomes sinners but watch what happens if a registered sex offender or former murderer would like to join.  Ask Squeaky Fromme what church she is welcome in.

If the church lives out loud, we can trounce hatred and restore everyone's lives.  Then we can truly celebrate who we are and truly see ourselves in a healthy, life-giving, complimentary relationship with creation around us. Forge meaning and build identity then, invite the world to share your discovery and joy.  As the Hollywood axiom goes, "If you build it they will come."  Those who hear may even enter in for, they too have a story they'd like to share if they are brave enough and welcome to do it and then in the process, heal others too afraid to speak up.  The big question is though, does the church want to listen?

More From Mount Baker

Washington State

I recently took a trip out to Washington state, here is my overall review of the northwest corner of the US.

The landscape, mountains, rivers, streams, parks and forests are amazing.  If you are a hiker, there are many options for you to keep busy up there.  The people don't seem to be as rabid about hiking as there are in the Adirondack region of upstate New York but, there is enough of a variety of terrain to satisfy most hikers for a short period of time.

The food is good in all the restaurants of this state.  I routinely availed myself to several bowls of clam chowder and eggs Benedict at each place I ate.  Every diner failed on the eggs Benedict.  So far, the best place I've encountered to get that dish has been the Downtown Diner in Lake Placid.  The Fisherman's Restaurant in Seattle has the absolute best clam chowder I've ever had.   You can either get it in a bread bowl or a regular bowl.  You get bread with it anyway and the bread is from the hollowed out bowls of other soup orders so it is less expensive to get it in a regular bowl.   If you love to shop, plan on spending a day at the Pike Market.  It is a wonderful place and has everything.

The price for food is high in this state but you will generally get a higher quality and freshness than you would find anywhere else.  We went to a very fancy restaurant near a sailing club and pier one evening where everything about the restaurant was excellent except - most of the food came out of individually wrapped plastic bags as if they came from a food warehouse.  The salad was definitely pre-mixed from bags, the burgers had wax paper between each patty, the fish was from individually vacuum sealed pouches.  The cooking area is actually open and part of the dining area so you can watch the staff prepare all the food.  I wasn't impressed watching one of the chefs handle raw meat then reach over to a spice bowl and use the same unwashed hand to sprinkle spices on a cooked dish.  All this in an establishment with minimum $30 entrees.

While visiting the Olympic Peninsula, we turned on the news one morning and the first five minutes were devoted to a story about a tree falling down.  They even interviewed people who lived nearby and asked if anyone witnessed it or how the news of its fall will attract or impact rubberneckers driving by.   It was funny.

Driving on the roads of Washington is different from driving New York roads.  First, all NY roads have route markers every tenth of a mile and those would have been convenient in Washington State since I didn't always know where I was.  Many of the Washington streets have both route number names and formal names, sometimes a third name.  Often my GPS couldn't locate any of them.

I found the people of Washington to be often belligerent.  I went inside a Native American gift shop and the Anglo woman from Ohio who ran it evaded most of my questions about the indigenous people.  Each answer was accusatory and insinuated that I was somehow prejudice.  I knew this woman wasn't worth talking to further when she said that Columbus landed on Plymouth Rock.  You can't trust the information from a person who has that degree of ignorance.

I was walking along a river front park when two dogs came out of the woods and started to follow me.  They zigzagged in front of me for about two miles.  Each time I came upon another person, that person yelled at me for not having my dogs on a leash.  One woman asked me if I was carrying any poop bags for my dogs.  I told her they were not my dogs.  She asked again, "But are you cleaning up after them?"  I said, "They are not my dogs."  She then said "I am going to report you to the park ranger."

One place where you do find wonderful people are in the pot shops.  Yes, marijuana is legal in this state.  I don't smoke (both parents died from lung disorders) but my travel companions did, so, we stopped in several of these stores during the course of our travels.  You immediately feel "at home" once you walk in.  Everyone is cheerful, friendly and courteous.  While standing in line you can get directions, restaurant tips, hiking information and advice on what to buy in that shop.  The customers ranged in ages between about 30 to 70.  There were nice grandmotherly people in the shops, too.  Legalized marijuana and these shops are a very good thing for elderly people who have chronic pain and disease for they can benefit greatly from the pain relieving effects of marijuana.  For those who can't afford prescription drugs or can't tolerate the side effects of pharmaceuticals, marijuana is a Godsend.

Now, I know, according to Harry Anslinger, marijuana is a devil drug which causes white girls to have sexual relations with black men (Harry used a different word) where pregnancy and syphilis will ensue after sex with black men, and it will also cause young men to go on murderous rampages, go mad and lead to other drug uses.  I'm sure if Anslinger was correct, the news that day wouldn't have led off with a tree falling since the marijuana shops were packed.  I also noted that all the medical marijuana shops were out of business.  Too bad NY is spending a fortune on that industry eventually to bite the dust.

The facts are, everything we think we know about cannabis is false, exaggerated, cherry picked or made up.   The government made up lies and exaggerated truths about it back in the thirties simply because they didn't know how to tax it and it was cutting into the sale of alcohol and tobacco.  People without knowledge of the facts and statistics perpetuate the myth out of baseless fear and ignorance.

Shortly after President Barack Obama’s comments that pot is no more dangerous than alcohol, his deputy drug czar, Michael Botticelli, reluctantly agreed.  Botticelli’s office considers marijuana dangerous and harmful but Rep. Gerry Connolly of VA challenged the ignorant Botticelli.  “How many people die from marijuana overdoses every year?” Connolly asked Botticelli.  “I don’t know that I know,” Botticelli replied. “It is very rare.”  “Very rare. Now just contrast that with prescription drugs, unintentional deaths from prescription drugs; one American dies every 19 minutes,” Connolly said. “Nothing comparable to marijuana. Is that correct?”  Botticelli agreed.  “Hundreds of thousands of people die every year from alcohol related deaths. Automobile, liver disease, esophageal cancer, blood poisoning,” Connolly continued. “Is it not a scientific fact that there is nothing comparable with marijuana? I’m not saying it is good or bad, but when we look at deaths and illnesses, alcohol, other hard drugs are certainly — even prescription drugs — are a threat to public health in a way that just isolated marijuana is not. Isn’t that a scientific fact? Or do you dispute that fact?”  “I don’t dispute that fact,” Botticelli said.  In an interview with the New Yorker magazine published last month, President Obama said that he views pot as a “bad habit” and “a vice” but no more dangerous than alcohol.

So, why then is it illegal?  Why are people arrested and sent to prison for pot use or possession?  Yes, $$$, for it will kill the medical marijuana industry, it will gouge the profits from alcohol, tobacco and PRESCRIPTION MEDICINE sales.  Back in the twenties, marijuana was an effective cure and treatment for many mental health disorders and addictions, such as alcoholism.  Why is this country so blind to truths and still believes in antiquated lies?  Is it simply because our parents told us it was bad because they were told it was bad by profiteers who told us it was bad?

Washington State is doing a couple of things right.  First, the state has pulled in over $70,000,000 in tax revenue from the sale of marijuana since the first of the year.  That is about ten million per month.  The chicken little people are panicking about drugged driving but if you look at the statistics, fatal accidents caused by DWI accidents are down significantly.  For instance, in 2002 there were 450 fatalities in the first seven months of the year.  This year there were under 200.  People are drinking alcohol less.  Sure, the chicken little people will say that there has been and increase in the number of drivers testing positive for THC who have also had accidents but that does not mean they were high when they had their accident, only that there was THC in their system.  The drug supposedly stays in the system for about 30 days from use.  If I have a glass of wine, then get in an accident a week later, you cannot blame the wine.

The down side of legalized pot is that cigarette and alcohol sales are down but, that is good.  And that is another thing about this state, alcohol can be purchased in grocery stores and places such as Walmart and drug stores.  In my state, illegal activities are rampant from liquor stores.  One of their favorite scams is to keep your receipt and cash in manufacturer rebates that the buyer may not be aware of.  That doesn't appear to be happening when the merchandise is sold from the supermarkets.  NY has some growing up to do.

There are no amusement parks in Washington.  Apparently the weather is not conducive to such investments.  That is too bad.  A major amusement park would attract people from all over the state, at least on sunny days.  Everyone I spoke to was disappointed that their state didn't have one and said they would support it if they did.

Black berry bushes are everywhere in this state.  You can't drive down any road without seeing copious amounts of berries growing wild on the side of the road.  They must be very plentiful because I never once saw anyone picking or eating them.  I stopped to pick and eat some and could tell that nobody had picked any of the berries prior to me.  Strange.  People must take them for granted since they are so plentiful.

Washington is a gorgeous state with much to offer.  If you visit, definitely check out Pikes Market and plan to spend a day if you enjoy shopping.  There are minor tours, cruises and other benign activities to partake in also.  For instance, you may wish to take the Underground Seattle tour for the stories but otherwise, it is just a walk through various basements.  I'd certainly visit again.