Sunday morning has come and gone...

On the first Sunday of this round of vacation, I did what most Americans seem to do on Sundays:  sleep late, share a breakfast and the paper with my honey and then do a few odd household chores.  Feels good even though I miss being at church.

Last night I went out to see a musical buddy, Grahm Sturz, play at the Lion's Den in Stockbridge.(check it out @ http://www.redlioninn.com/rli/lions_den.html )It was a gentle, mellow acoustic set that touched my heart.  The crowd was distinctly 50+ and way into the wooden groove. (Maybe we'll head down there sometime and do a set.) 

On my way home, I saw another club featuring the local blues rocker, Arthur Holmes, so I stopped in to check out his set.  He opened with a spot on take of "All Along the Watchtower" a la Jimi Hendrix. (Check him out @ http://www.arthurholmesbluesband.com/fr_home.cfm ) This crowd was heavy into the beer and Saturday night is all right for fighting ambiance and hovered in their mid 40s.  Very different from round one.

So after 45 minutes I thought, "What the hell" and proceeded to yet another club in the hopes Whiskey City might be playing as I can always get down with some hardass country rock.  Instead there was a 20-something "luau dance club DJ" in process with lots of guys looking like Eminem and tons of slinky babes in 5" heels.  One young hipster kept coming up to be at the bar and talking to me about trying to score - even though he was married - until he finally got the nerve to ask, "So what's YOUR story, man?  Are you an artist or something?  I love your look and chicks did the salt-n-peppa thing you got going on. But what brings you out to a place like this?"  We talked for a bit about jazz and vacations and wanting to know the local night world before I headed home.  As I headed for the car, my new hip hop buddy said, "I respect what you're doing, man.  Be safe!"

All the while I was watching each crowd and digging the sounds of my own people, the harder blues groove souls and the hip hop youngsters, I kept wondering:  What does my church have to say and bring to their world?  That's the question that is going to haunt me for a while... and it is probably a good thing to ponder on a Sunday morning that has come and gone.

Fr. Richard Rohr writes: When we hold spiritual questions, we  meet and reckon with our contradictions, with our own dilemmas; and we  invariably arrive at a turning point where we either evade God or meet God. Mere  answers close down the necessary struggle too quickly, too glibly, and too  easily.

When we hang on the horns of dilemmas  with Christ—between perfect consistency and  necessary contradictions—we find ourself in  the unique place I call “liminal space.” Reality has a cruciform shape to it then—and we are taught best at the intersection of order and  disorder, where God alone can make sense out of the situation and we must  surrender. All real transformation of persons takes place when we’re inside of such liminal space—with plenty of questions that are open to God and grace and  growth.

Hip hop maestro, Jay Z is equally insightful...