Jazz and poetry... Ira Sadoff

I believe that music was created to help us experience emotions. Nothing moves me quite like music. 




At the Half-Note cafe
                               for Gene Ammons

Once I heard him play
"Willow Weep For Me"
in a tone so full
and sentimental, I felt
a gap between my ribs
and lungs, a dearth of air,
sorrow soon enough would fill.
I found the blues unfair
to boys like me who came to bars
unprepared for grief
that wasn't strictly personal ...

By Ira Sadoff


Maybe one of the hardest things we face is to feel joy in the midst of pain, but I do believe God desires us to feel emotions as pancakes.  They come in stacks, not just one at a time.  We tell ourselves it is wrong to be happy or the pain of an event masks the joyful moment that fills the present moment.  In 1956 Gene Ammons gathered with some of the best to record some music.

 here is the title track, The Happy Blues...




Individual musicians touch our lives and when they pass away tributes emerge.  Here is one made for Etta James, in which she sings the song, which touched Ira Sadoff, when it emerged from Gene Ammons horn...

Crafting On Thursday- Rising with Sophia

at etsy

which comes first:

falling into an emotional funk or staying out of the studio?

I have felt riled up this week, letting things annoy me. Students, colleagues, friends, administrators, forms, stained glass artists who sell their pieces for dirt cheap, drivers, ...

I went 130 hours away from my studio, since Saturday when I cut and then ground 21 pieces to fill in a favored design.

For the last 90 minutes of commuting I have listened to one song over and over. A Canadian, singing a song written by a Canadian.

And a phrase resonates with my bitterness: it's a cold and broken hallelujah


and I think of Sophia. In the book of Wisdom, Sophia is given 21 attributes, one of which describes great swiftness. When I first read this I imagined the human need for God to flow into us as Wisdom before we say things we wish we hadn't said. And as I imagined myself a bit cold and a bit broken this week, I thought of my need for some Wisdom.

Today went better at work, so I returned to the studio to foil those 21 pieces. And what design has been waiting for me patiently, it would be my Sophia Mandala. The most recent to be completed welcomed you when you entered this blog post. The new one that is taking form is very verdant.

and it helped to read these words by Rumi at this blog.

There is a light seed grain inside.
You fill it with yourself, or it dies....
I'm caught in this curling energy. Your hair.
Whoever's calm and sensible is insane.

and it helped to ask this friend to pray for me.

...

emptiness--- fears and exposures and responses, OCD

I have been pondering this post for a few days now, but it was reading this meditation on Mary that tied a few things together.

In my life I have gotten to know quite a bit about those who suffer with OCD. The rituals that get our attention are ways to cope with fears that the person cannot release from their brain (and heart and soul). I am contaminated... I must wash my hands again. I ran over someone... I must circle the block 5 times. I must make the right decision... I will ponder and research it endlessly. I don't know if the door is locked, I will circle the car 20 times. They desire absolute certainty in a world not designed for it.

My mind is much more akin to the anti-obsessed end of the spectrum, and the students with ADD following their names. However...

winter weather can creep into my brain and while my brain will flutter away from the thought it will come back and back and back. I want certainty that I will be safe, that I will not get stuck, that I will be able to park, that that that that...

One of the best treatments for OCD is the old prescription for fears..."get back on the horse."

It is called exposure and response prevention therapy... here is link to a book by an expert in the field , Jonathon Grayson

contamination--- touch a garbage dumpster and eat without washing. locked doors---- leave them unlocked on purpose. decisions--- flip a coin and admit to your self that it may have been the best or worst decision that you have ever made and move on. Feel the fear and anxiety and see that you can survive. No guarantees, remember this is not about certainty.

So Tuesday night I drove out into a winter weather advisory to do some yoga with a friend. Last night I drove out onto roads that only needed a degree or two drop to become black ice to attend the school's holiday party, and today is a big test. Facing your fears does not mean you won't get an infection, make a wrong decision, or get stuck in a snow bank in the Poconos, but it means you will have emptied yourself. And even though you feel the ritual is a treasure that protects you, releasing it from your life is realising it is not magic and is a release that can lead to greater joy, peace, and hope.

So there is the connection to the meditation. emptiness.

I won't drive out into a northeaster, but I may just be listening to jazz tonight instead of feeling I protected myself by staying home.

movies

I have written nearly 100 posts and there has been little or no talk about movies, my passion of which waxes and wanes... but I have seen many since August.

Most of the movies I see outside of my house are seen in the Ambler Theater, I went there by myself on Wednesday, then read about the good thief that night. Thursday morning I tried to tie it all together with my spiritual director.

Now I will try again.

In Bruges ended and I was an emotional wreck, movies can do that to me. If I want to be numb, I should avoid them. I wanted to scream out, "This is not the way movies are supposed to happen." And there I was at the foot of the cross understanding those who had believed but were seeing the wrong ending. No movie has gotten to me like this in a long time. Maybe back to when I saw Crash and came home and watched Johnny Cash making a nine inch nails song his own .... to truly let out the emotions.

How did I grow to care so much for a violent character, who would take money to take a life? Maybe it was the emotional pain he was going through while stuck in a town he hated. He is on one cross. By the end of the movie he knows he is supposed to be there, but has hope. Next to him playing the role of Jesus (only in my take of this film) is a friend who would likely give his life so that this man can repent and be saved. Maybe that was it. The Good Thief knows he is guilty, but wants a new life with Christ. There is nothing I see better in a human than a desire to turn away from what is preventing us from living a full life.

That is why I left the theater into a steady rain shocked by the violence I had encountered and like those who were shocked at the cross... trying to have some hope, in this case for the future life of a character written into a movie. Placed into my life.

new boss the same as the old boss

"I'm not an angry young man anymore," I say to my students when they ask why we don't listen to rock and roll in my classroom. But that doesn't mean the lyrics have left my brain and late last night as I read this Sunday's scriptures, The Who came back and possibly into my sermon. Before I sat down to sermonize I decided I needed some comforting music, nothing agitating for the soul tonight, no Mingus Big Band.

My thoughts are inspired by Isaiah chapter 1. Isaiah is passing on a message from God to wash yourself clean, seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, and plead for the widow.

"Come let us talk this over," God says. "Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow."

"Yes", I say, "meet the new boss he is the same as the old boss." I don't believe those who say to me that the Old Testament God is mean and the New Testament God is nice. What, God had therapy and became loving 2000 years ago? I don't buy it. My take is that throughout history there has been a fair share of those who choose to view God as an extremely judgmental parent, president, judge, teacher, or friend. Then there are those who see God as loving and forgiving. Isaiah, Jesus, Buechner and Stratoz. After 2000 years of the NT we still have a loud proportion of christians who vote for angry. Fear motivates, but so does love.

Then lately, this thought came to me: if God can love, then why couldn't God get good and angry too. If God has these feelings at all, why be one sided. Isn't life more interesting when we feel a broad range of emotions? Maybe God did go through therapy and has a good handle on the wide range of emotions that is felt while witnessing creation. But just like a good therapist, God is ready to talk things over with us. My hope is that we can handle the emotions that this brings forth.


Yes, I am now an angry, happy, sad, and joyful middle-aged man who is listening to the Modern Jazz

Quartet's take on Bach...