Back to the city

Fresh from a week at Ashokan that culminated in dancing my fool head off to the Texas Playboys - not a recording! Live! - I sang at the Cathedral yesterday morning one day ahead of a cough and a sore throat. I know what this is. It's the natural result of being overwhelmed by joy. The body says,"Captain, she canna take no more", and the dilithium crystals take a little nap, anad I come down with a little something that is enough to keep me quiet for a day or two.

Ashokan Fiddle and Dance Camp is heaven on earth. I mean something very specific by that, and I have to say it in the language I am comfortable with. It is an experience for me of the kingdom of heaven revealing itself to be right here, right now. Here. Now. Every here. Every now. In every one. That's the real world, and the challenge is to carry it with me, to remember this, and to revel in the accomplishments of my many companions in this life, and to share in their sorrows. And to dance.

I did take a break in my reading; after having devoted two months to the Onegoodbook experiment, I needed to come into something else. So I started Barbara Ehrenreich's Dancing in the Streets, subtitled A History of Collective Joy. But it is really hard to read about dancing when just up the hill you can hear fiddles and a swinging rhythm section calling you to actually dance. So I put it aside till sometime later this summer (after Harry Potter, of course), and am about to re-immerse in scripture. But I am going for the gospels now. The more I read of the Old Testament, the more I long for the good news.

It is going to take me a few days to be posting on a semi-regular schedule. Looking forward...