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3/28/5
Good to be back home. Had a great Easter... starting with a sunrise
service on the banks of the Warren River in Rhode Island. I had played the
Church Street Coffeehouse the night before and made some wonderful new friends.
Spent the night at the parsonage and rose at 4:30. Eric Behr offered me a warm
sweater to wear beneath my rain coat against the still chilly New England dawn.
As we gathered in a parking lot and drained the last few drops from warm mugs of
caffeine, I wondered if Jesus had needed coffee when he woke from his lifeless
sleep 2000 years ago. (Certainly this would be the kind of question that Sister
Sylvarius would have branded as sacrilegious back when I was a youngster
at Saint Madelines Elementary School; a transgression that often merited the
swift and certain retribution of the yard stick she wielded with the lethal
skill of a samurai...) When Reverend Nancy's flock had assembled, she led
a us to a small hillock where we sang and prayed as the stars retreated. I was
surprised and honored when Nancy quoted a couple lines from one of my songs in
her Easter message: Hope sleeps but when it sleeps it dreams the most amazing
dreams... Hope sleeps... but not forever! If Easter is about anything surely it
is about hope. As the light came up around us, a single white swan could be seen
gliding on the rose colored river. A perfect metaphor as we exclaimed. "He
is risen! He is risen indeed!" -JF
3/25/5
Pick a horizon, any horizon…
I live beneath trees. Lots of trees. Oak, Sweet Gum, and Maple mostly. Their
bows form canopies over our house and like tall guardians they stand watch over
my family while I’m away. I love my trees but… sometimes I do enjoy a good
horizon.
I watched the sun come up over the ocean this morning; soft gold born of the muted pinks and purples
that diffused the lethargic Atlantic’s gray dawn and announcing the arrival of yet
another one of the incredible gifts we call a new day. I met it with a cup of
coffee, a deep breath of salt air and an immense sense of gratitude. I need to spend more time
with the sky. After a week of full enchanting ocean moons and dazzling gulf
sunsets I’m more aware than ever of the power of horizon, of distance and
perspective. For the eye. For the soul!
I’m in a Fort Lauderdale airport now. It’s Good Friday and I left my family in
the keys this morning to catch a 1:25 flight back to Philly. The flight has been
delayed three hours. So I’m going to finish up this note and close my eyes
meditate on one of the many horizons I’m taking home with me.
Happy Easter!
John
3/19/5
What a day yesterday! I was so proud to be with the members of Pacem in Terris
who assembled at the federal building to mark the second anniversary of the
occupation of Iraq.
Four very courageous women stood in the courthouse entryway solemnly reading the
names of the American soldiers who have been killed since the invasion. Before
they were very gently arrested by the slightly uncomfortable looking police on
hand for the event, one of the women, Sally Millbury-Steen, had me lead the
crowd in a heart felt version of "Let There Be Peace on Earth". We sang as
if, somewhere, somehow, it made a difference. I pray it does. Two of my
friends, Kevin O'Connell and Brother David Schlatter, were taking turns pulling
a thick rope and tolling a large bronze bell that they pushed
several miles on a wobbly wheeled cart along the route of the procession that
had proceeded the group's arrival at the federal building. The sound of
the bell echoed off the surrounding buildings and added powerfully to the
solemnity of the proceedings. When someone asked Brother David why they were
doing it, David answered, "So we remember".
From Wilmington I went to the campus of Rutgers University in Camden, New Jersey
where I attended a symposium on the death penalty. The keynote speaker was our
friend Sister Helen Prejean. Sister had just returned from Australia where
she had learned of the six thousand year old aboriginal discovery of "fire
farming" in which fields were purposely set ablaze, with the knowledge
that some seed pods will only crack open in the searing heat of fire. She talked
of the kinds of fire, the witness to suffering and injustice, that human beings
must be present and open to in their own lives, and the power, the miracles,
that can be unleashed by the seeds lying dormant in each human heart. Sister's
words certainly lit fires in our minds and will give me much to consider
during this upcoming holy week.
Peace,
John
Put Your Freedom Where Your Mouth
Is by John Flynn
There’s a young man in a prison somewhere far across the sea
And his body’s being broken in the name of you and me
He’s been charged with no offenses and convicted of no crime
He’s protected by no law there and he’s running out of time
Put your freedom where your mouth is
In a land of liberty
You can't say nothing about this
For no tortured man is free
There’s a woman being beaten by the police in a place
where she wears her subjugation like a veil across her face
It’s the monster we’ve created so we don’t even protest
Because its oil is like black milk and we suckle at its breast
Put your freedom where your mouth is
In a land of liberty
You can't say nothing about this
For no beaten woman’s free
Now a child’s belly’s empty and he’s crying from the pain
And his mother soon will leave him to the virus in her veins
And his future ain't much brighter than the color of his skin
If you’ve never heard him weeping, then it’s time that you begin to
Put your freedom where your mouth is
In a land of liberty
You can't say nothing about this
For no hungry child is free
There’s a student and he’s gathering up his text books in the dirt
Cause they didn’t like the slogan he had printed on his shirt
And they said he got off easy and they said next time he won’t
But he’ll keep wearing that t-shirt because they win if you don’t
Put your freedom where your mouth is
He believes in liberty
He’s for freedom and he’ll shout this
For no silenced man is free
© 2005 Flying Stone Music
March 7, 2005
So it’s come down to this… I’m
supposed to be working in my taxes but have run out of excuses so I fired up the
laptop to post a few lines...
I’m just back from LA and was lucky enough to actually get a relatively rare
peek at something southern Californians say they hardly ever see these days –
the sun! I got to put in a six miles run on Thousand Oaks Boulevard in Agoura
Hills Saturday morning and then visit a beautiful Franciscan Abbey in the Santa
Monica Mountains overlooking Malibu and the Pacific Ocean that afternoon. The
Abbey is a retreat house and sits astride a cliff where beautiful statuary and
meditation gardens are nestled into the hillside. The sense of peace is palpable
and the stunning natural beauty is truly breathtaking. (I’m told that actor Mel
Gibson was so taken with the place that he became a neighbor and visits each day
to say his morning prayers.)
My new pal, Renee Bodie who runs the house concert where I performed
Saturday night, picked me up at the airport on Friday at about 7PM. From LAX we
went to a club called Kulak’s Woodshed where Jackson Browne’s brother Severin
and his friend Eric Hansen (who was to play the Bodie House with me) were
performing. Severin and Eric were great and invited me to do a few songs as a
way of promoting my gig. Everybody was exceedingly generous .
Saturday night’s show was a lot of fun. I must admit I was a little burned
(figuratively and literally) from the day and the jet lag; at one point the
lyrics to Not with my Jesus just completely vanished from my head. I’ve learned
not too fight these moments so I played a new song “Sermon to the Birds” that I
had written from the text of a homily that Saint Francis had, according to
legend, preached to a flock of birds in a field near Assisi. I had been
thinking a lot about Francis that day and it only seemed right to do his song.
Anyway it was a genuinely warm and appreciative crowd and I felt like a made a
lot of new friends.
After the show I said some hasty goodbyes and made for the airport. My son
Cole’s confirmation was to take place the next afternoon and I was catching the
1AM connecting light to Houston. At Bush International Airport (which has its
own kind of less inspiring statuary…) I got a really bad vanilla milkshake for
$5.98 (I was really hungry the candy store was the only thing open!) and
stretched out on the floor at 6AM for a quick nap. A short while later we were
bouncing through the sky in a 737, crammed into the smallest seats human beings
can physically occupy, and I got to the church in Wilmington just in time to
doze off during Bishop Salterelli’s sermon. It didn’t matter. I was so proud to
see my kid stand up there. He was actually wearing my suit and looked every inch
a young man when he told the bishop the new name he had chosen for his
confirmation; Blaise, after the patron saint of throats. All I know is I had a
lump in mine.
It’s good to be home. Now back to doing the taxes. Hmmm, nope, that’ll have to
wait. It’s time to cook dinner.
Peace,
John
