A little "occupy" on Thanksgiving Eve in Pittsfield...

Tonight we worked HARD to whip our TGE show into shape.  We're getting there and the gig will be sweet and spirit-filled. I am so grateful to each of the musicians and poets sharing their gifts so that we might express gratitude and compassion for our neighbors in need this Thanksgiving.  We'll begin with "One Voice" and transition into "Come on Up to the House." Together both songs express the heart of this event.  Our opening prayer cuts to the chase, too:

O God, when I have food,
help me to remember the hungry;
When I have work,
help me to remember the jobless;
When I have a home,
help me to remember those who have no home at all;
When I am without pain,
help me to remember those who suffer,
And remembering,
help me to destroy my complacency;
bestir my compassion,
and be concerned enough to help;
By word and deed,
those who cry out for what we take for granted.
Amen.

I saw a cartoon earlier today that touched my heart - it shows what I hope our concert expresses - because I think of this event as our own very modest "occupy" rally.  The time is well past due when a commitment to the common good is in order.  I was very moved by this poem and will share it as part of the gig:

Skin remembers how long the years grow

when skin is not touched, a gray tunnel

of singleness, feather lost from the tail
of a bird, swirling onto a step,
swept away by someone who never saw
it was a feather. Skin ate, walked,
slept by itself, knew how to raise a
see-you-later hand. But skin felt
it was never seen, never known as
a land on the map, nose like a city,
hip like a city, gleaming dome of the mosque
and the hundred corridors of cinnamon and rope.

Skin had hope, that's what skin does.

Heals over the scarred place, makes a road.
Love means you breathe in two countries.
And skin remembers--silk, spiny grass,
deep in the pocket that is skin's secret own.
Even now, when skin is not alone,
it remembers being alone and thanks something larger
that there are travelers, that people go places
larger than themselves.