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Chapter Eleven of Online Memoir: Pecans, Prayers and Prophets

Posted on March 29, 2024 | Leave a comment

The big highlight of our worship and observance this Holy Week (the Week before Easter Sunday) was watching our parish pastor, Louis J. Richard wash the feet of my disabled oldest surviving brother – Simon Peter Emmanuel Summers. He has Prader-Wili Syndrome and was one of twelve parishioners whose feet were washed in the Holy Thursday evening Church service that especially commemorates Jesus’ institution of the Eucharist in the Last SUpper and other things he did that night including washing his disciples feet.  It was a wonderful ceremony streamed live and re-streamed on the Saint Mary Magdalen site. It was a special highlight in the holidays. On March 28, 2024 we celebrated the start of the Paschal Triduum of this Holy Season. The Triduum is the peak and summation of the Catholic liturgical year. The Triduum joins Lent and Easter. It is made up of the Holy Thursday  Mass which has readings from the Bible that focus on the first Eucharist at the Lord’s Supper that was the Last Supper. Then there is a ceremonial washing of the feet. In addition to this the rest of the Mass commemorates the events of Holy Thursday and the Last Supper all the time. Then the blessed bread thatCatholics call the Blessed Sacrament and believe fulfills Jesus’s words that “This is My Body” is at the center of every Mass, But in Holy Thursday’s Mass this Blessed Sacrament is marched from the Sacramental Altar that is at the center of every mass to a special altar of repose. The usual altar of the tabernacle and the sacramental altar are both stripped of all ornamentation and usual things of beauty until they are decorated again for Easter Vigil Mass on Holy Saturday Night. On March 29, 2024 Good Friday, Clara and I were attending Good Friday services at the Church. This was a very moving service contemplating the Passion, Crucifixion and Death of Jesus Christ. Then on returning back in the early evening we sat out on our patio and enjoyed the flowers, plants, birds and weather that mark the Spring.  The seasons of the year have a big impact on my life. They always have had an impact.

It was in the summer that we arrived in Augusta, Georgia in 1976. It was a time when it was a joy to swim, a time when kids were out of school and a time when we could get hot and uncomfortable easily but also when the Georgia heat and humidity were noticeably less hot and humid than the heat and humidity of South Louisiana. All of those factors impacted what our arrival among the people of Alleluia Community were like. We lived in transition in those days – but this transition happened joyfully, more or less..         

The arrival in Faith Village and the Alleluia Community was the arrival in pecan grove where a village had been built to house married servicemen in the Korean War. The military had sold the land and houses of the village and it had gone through a number of stages in demography and economics. A group of Christians from all denominations, the Charismatic Renewal and thePentecostal movement had come together and produced ecumenical prayer groups around the world. In some of them there was a call to live a more intense Christian community experience. Alleluia Community was one of those communities that formed in those days.  Alleluia Community had come to occupy Faith VIllage through the mechanism of some families buying clusters of homes and renting neighboring homes to community members,  while others rented from existing landlords and still others bought homes only for themselves to live in the voluntary association of the community had come to occupy most of the houses in the old military village.  FInally, though other clusters of people lived in other neighborhoods in the community and some in Faith Village just happened to live there the Community had its center in the village and the village was largely dominated by Alleluia Community life. Crosses or Christian symbols had been put up on many of the corners where one entered the village.In the center was a parklike space with playgrounds and a common fenced area for small kids. It also had large tires sunk in the ground. Prayer and worship was offered out in the open under the trees on a regular basis.  There was fellowship and worship shared by those who had chosen to be neighbors. Kids swarmed about playing and visiting. It was summer and school was out and the kids were of all ages.

We were invited to stay in the guest house for the residential community in Faith Village. It was called the Alleluia Retreat Center and generally the ARC (pronounced like arc in arc light or Noah’s Ark). The Covenant Community process ( Alleluia was among a good number forming at the time from among the most committed members of the larger prayer groups of the Charismatic Renewal and the Pentecostal Movements that were seeming to remake much of the life of the Christian churches in the United States and elsewhere. There was a lot of sharing and some inspiration form the first community described in  the Acts of the Apostles which tells of the lives of the first Critians after Pentecost, who held all things in common,  devoted themselves to the Breaking of the Bread and the Prayers  and submitted themselves to Apostolic Authority. However, although all of these communities were inspired by that first Jerusalem community  – these communities practiced subsidiarity more that those first Christans (by the way the other Christian communities planted across the world by the Apostles never replicated that first way of life either. And that is evident even in the EPistles of the New Testament) . This subsidiarity meant that they were  believers that the  economic and social responsibility rested first with the individual, then with the family and then with Covenant Community. Private Property was respected. However in Alleluia there was more apparent economic equality than in many other communities because the houses built by the military in the  Korean War were virtually identical. People decorated, renovated and even added on to these homes  – but basically everyone in Faith VIllage lived in the same kid of house.

The other thing that distinguished these communities was that most of them had definite lay leadership. Few had Catholic Priests among the leaders called “Coordinators” Where a Protestant Ordained minister became a coordinator they were carefully made to separate the two roles. Eventually  most of the Covenant Communities would confederate into  either the Sword of the Spirit  or the Fellowship of the Covenant Communities. But in 1976 it was not clear where this adventure was headed. It was clear that their way of life was extraordinary in many ways.  For me it was not hard to see that the life of this community had a great deal  to offer. Among many other things, I found it joyful to lose myself in worship. But I noticed that few of the kids my age were as enthusiastic as I was about the shared prayer.  Many were more devout than most kids I knew but in the communities of the poor and those who ministered   to the poor in El Paso it seemed like there was more enthusiasm for the faith. In the villages in Tonga, children generally seemed closer to their parents in involvement in choirs and such things. Among my irreligious friends in various places the lack of religion was much the same for children and  adults. Here I sensed that there was a working out of the way to bring the next generation into the connections their parents had made. But the transgenerational process was  not yet settled. In 1981 the community members would all contribute funds to purchase the Fleming School on nearby Peach Orchard  Road. It was on 11 acres of land and had three school buildings and a gymnasium. At the time it was being renovated I would end up spending a few days there helping to demolish some of the worst maintained internal structures so that they could be replaced. But when we were there in 1976 we were to help renovate and repair other structures but there was no community school. The children lived with a real tension between the values and way of life in Alleluia Community and the values and way of life in the schools that they attended.   It was summer and I was not truant but I was starting to feel like I was becoming someone who did not really have any chance of finding a home  in a school. But although I really did think about all of these things, I was also happy to mingle with a bunch of good Christian kids. Some of whom had problems that I could relate to as well.

I had “visions” at prayer meetings and  mass in those days. Not simply imaginative prayers and also not full on hallucinations or apparitions but rather a kind of visual insight in prayer that was practiced in the Charismatic renewal. I also spoke with several adults who were acknowledged to have a gift of prophecy. I did believe God was speaking to me and what I meant is hard to describe.what that meant but I will work on it and harder topics over the course of the rest of this book. While we  were at Alleluia Community I pulled out a notebook from my family’s meager possessions. I am not sure the exact type of paper or other aspects of the physical notebook. I can still see, in my mind’s eyes, the content of the notebook in the form of writings and drawing. I can see the  pages and the shape the document took now.  There were brief bullet points without the bullets, paragraphs and references.  

 But I remembered when it had been created. My father had a very long vision, before we left for the missions. The Vision is described in the  twelfth chapter of Mom’s book Go You Are Sent: An Incredible Odyssey of Faith  is called (appropriately enough) “The Vision”. On pages 122 to 123 of the 1995 edition of the book the vision is described. I had looked at it then and I looked at it before shortly after it was created. There were little things in it that seemed to me to have been fulfilled in our lives and other prophecies as well from those times when Dad had the vision. Some people in Alleluia were  certainly drawn to our intense family spirituality. But the truth is that as I slipped the book back that day I was aware that there were prophecies in it about me and that I saw the meaning of those prophecies differently than my father did. In the vision there was a segment where he saw me as a human boy, as a sort of icon or even a doll and as a kind of gloriously resurrected figure. I worried about the way he found it easy  to accept it might mean me dying and going to heaven as a child in our first years of mission. But I also felt that in fact it resembled an experience I had had a number of times in which I fell asleep and viewed my sleeping body  below me in the night and moved out into other realms as a glowing figure. 

I was to experience these strange dreams several times during the month we lived in Alleluia. But I did not share those dreams. A great deal of what I talked about was the  trips we made to Fort Gordon. I loved swimming there. I loved swimming anywhere. We had a system where we gathered rocks as we swam out to a big floating platform in a deeper part of one of the lakes. Then we stacked the rocks on the platform. The rocks were big and heavy enough that when we had filled our lungs and dived off the platform they would speed our way down to the depths of the dark lake and  slightly muddy waters. We would then swim round in the depths and on the way up use the chain from the permanent anchor to the platform. We could see well as we got close and would push off from the chain to get near the edge and pull ourselves up. Some of the boys joined or were on the crews where Dad and I often worked together on renovation projects. However we also played together  on the equipment. I had broken bones, been X-rayed and in casts. I had lots of other injuries. I knew the difference. We were playing King of the mOuntain on the big tractor tires and I fell off and heard a snap and felt a very distinct pain. Several kids commented on the snapping sound. I was helped to a Coordinators house and there was examined by several people with some medical training who thought It was broken ,  I was in agonizing pain and just in a broken arm kind of way. Others had prayed for me. But when my Dad arrived he prayed for me and anointed me with oil and I was instantly free of pain. I sensed that nobody could fully relate to the experience that I had known. Sme who had been sure they had heard and seen evidence of a broken arm were enow wondering if I was putting on some kind of show. Others just figured I had made a mistake in reporting my pain. Those who believed it was a miracle still found it hard to relate to me. 

We had not employment there for funds. We visited friends who had a ministry in a nearby town in South Carolina. But nothing was settled. We had been in touch  with Dad’s brother Jim and his wife Kathy who lived in VIrginia. They invited us to housesit after visiting them for a while. We began to discuss and pray about that  and soon it seemed the best next step for all of us. Although the school year was approaching and we had no plans for that..  

Alleluia was not ready for a full time missionary family in membership and wanted Dad to go back to practicing law as he discerned some kind of mission aspect of community involvement  in the future. The coordinators were willing for us to stay as part of the community but as prophetic outsiders. My first cousin Jennifer was born to my mother’s only sister Rachel while we were still there in August. Rachel  had many health problems and the baby girl born in August had serious lung problems. We all prayed for her and she made what some in the medical community thought was miraculous progress. But that was not as strange as what had happened with my arm. When I left Alleluia my mind was full of experiences but I felt lonelier than before. .

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“Keeping the Faith” and Keeping the Faith

Posted on January 26, 2017 | 1 comment

There is a good bit of questioning about antisemitism in America and about the Jewish identity and experience in America if one is attuned to such discussions. The totality of the discussion would include a variety of relatively disinterested observers, Jews and also thoroughgoing antisemites.   However, this post is not primarily a post on antisemitism. Like a lot of posts on this blog it sort of meanders along –but it meanders more into being a discussion of Jews in America than being a discussion of antisemitism. However, for those interested in a more thorough discussion of antisemitism in America in recent years this article on the Huffington Post is a place to start.  But while there are no simple answers to the question, it is possible in a meandering way to ask “who are American Jews?” With all respect to Wrangler and Lee, it has always seemed to me that the most American garment is a great pair of blue jeans and the most American of the great blue jeans is also Jewish. The Levi Strauss company founded by a German Jewish family before Germany became known for the Holocaust and when Mendelssohn’s wedding  march filled both synagogues and Christian churches and was likely to be what one thought of in terms of the relationship of Jewishness and German identity. But this article is not mostly about Mendelssohn but mostly about another music maker — Billy Joel. (Still alive and more than welcome to comment on my little blog).

I like Billy Joel music and songs — in fact Piano Man is probably my favorite Billy Joel song, although this post is much more about Keeping the Faith. But in this post I want to discuss a particular aspect of my appreciation of his music. That aspect is how his music added, and still adds a certain something to American life and culture. Something which is Jewish, which is American and which is more profound than it seems.

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The story of American life and the story of American Judaism is a complicated pair of stories that relate very definitely to one another. Some names that come to mind when thinking of the Jewish qualities and tones that are part of American life and the American qualities and tones that are part of some Jewish life are Billy Joel, Eli Wiesel, Albert Einstein,  J. Robert Oppenheimer, Gloria Steinem,  Adam Sandler, Gilda Radner, Billy Chrystal and Yasmine Bleeth among others. But in the matrilineal tradition of many parts of modern Judaism and Hebraica neither Bleeth nor Steinem or necessarily Jewish –only their fathers really are for sure. Some people like Jean Chatzky are not so open about it in all aspects of their life but they are still willing to reveal their Jewish identity in the right format. The connection of all Jewish life to the events of the Holocaust is a real and vital set of connections. That doesn’t mean that the terms “Hitler” and “Nazi” have not often enough been bastardized to mean whatever anyone might want them to mean. Nonetheless, the Third Reich was real enough. The nation of Israel has shown Jews fighting for their own people and doing so effectively. There were few such successes in direct Jewish resistance to the Third Reich. But a Jew from Germany ‘s First Reich (named J. Robert Oppenheimer) with the support of a Jew who refused to return to the Germany during the Third Reich (named Albert Einstein) designed and developed the atomic weapons that would have defeated the Third Reich if we had not already beaten them a bit earlier. These same Jewish based technologies secured America’s place in the post-war world. As much as these varied people have contributed to American life and greatness I still am drawn to think about Billy Joel.

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I am where I am in my own journey through life. There is not much I have to write that does not matter in some significant way to me but I am aware of the limits of its import to the larger world. But as I begin this post I have a particular song on my mind — Keeping the Faith, by Billy Joel. The video features his real life wife playing a character in the song. Christie Brinkley is the only woman to bear him a child that I or the general public know about for sure — Alexa Ray. Although he would be married several other time and Christie Brinkley would have other children not with him and most romantic of all, she and Joel didn’t make it all the way to the grave together they were a couple who made an impression. I have spent a good bit of time in the last few months talking about my own past, in some ways I find something to relate to in Billy Joel’s song. But it is hard to know how well America relates to this nostalgia for an American youth.

Billy Joel is a man who in real life has known something about the love affairs and American living that he heard about first and later wrote intelligently about in  the songs of American popular music. The story is that of a man with his fair share of woes to say the least but also the story of a great American pop artist. The lyrics of “Keeping the Faith” tell some of his story.

 

“Keeping The Faith”

If it seems like I’ve been lost
In let’s remember
If you think I’m feeling older
And missing my younger days
Oh, then you should have known me much better
‘Cause my past is something that never
Got in my way
Oh no
The truth is that when one looks back on the past and sees only the glory days or only the sorrows one does not really look back on the past.  But we have a hard time not looking back on the past with all the many colors of nostalgia at one time or another. Billy Joel has allegedly attempted suicide a number of times and had struggles with alcohol abuse. What I am sure of is that he wrote and performed songs which people have related to fairly intensely over the years. Judaism contributed to the founding of Islam and Christianity each more than any other single source in objective historical terms — and therefore it is older. Nostalgia has a particular place in Jewish identity in the West.

Still I would not be here now
If I never had the hunger
And I’m not ashamed to say
The wild boys were my friends
Oh
‘Cause I never felt the desire
‘Til their music set me on fire
And then I was saved, yeah
That’s why I’m keeping the faith
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Keeping the faith

There was a  whole lot more going on in the  urban neighborhood of Joel’s song besides just music and faith. One thing he seems to believe in as he tells the story in song is the junction of youth, community and the  commerce based on  local  shared consumption. One can imagine a largely or susbstantially Jewish neighborhood in a great American city in the song. the song is sometimes shocking but a Catholic who is honest about Mardi Gras or Carnival as a Catholic liturgical season that is not a liturgical season should have no trouble making room for some kind of insight.

We wore old matador boots
Only Flagg Brothers had them with a Cuban heel
Iridescent socks with the same color shirt
And a tight pair of chinos
Oh
I put on my shark skin jacket
You know the kind with the velvet collar
And ditty-bop shades
Oh yeah
I took a fresh pack of Luckies
And a mint called Sen-Sen
My old man’s Trojans
And his Old Spice after shave
Oh
Combed my hair in a pompadour
Like the rest of the Romeos wore
A permanent wave, Yeah
We were keeping the faith

The boys with the condoms and  and the knowledge of which local merchants had the right clothes who smoked and got their hair done were making the boundaries of their community real enough. One wonders about the connections between the Catholic situation in America and the Jewish one at various times and in various places. the Jewish belief in the rituals that consecrate sex, life, the seasons of the year and the sense of being a people are modified in different ways as they come into Christianity. The secular Jewish experience is another modified view of those ancient streams.

Catholics have different reactions to the Trump administration singling out Mexico for his principal target of isolation. Isolation can be targeted. So the reactions over time will be interesting…. the targeting of Sanctuary cities may well be a cause of conflict with Catholics in many cases.  But the Catholic identity is that of Mike Pence, VP as well as of the undocumented worker. In addition Mexico and Central America are much less Roman Catholic than they used to be — much less. One wonders about the kind of Catholicism that Donald John Trump expects to confront. In the paper below from the American bishops, the right of the country to protect itself is balanced with the rights of those who might suffer. But there is a cultural sympathy that is not to be missed. One sees in trump a man who is very much an American secular Protestant who surrounds himself in close relationships with Catholics and Jews as well as others. I still have not pegged Trump at the personal level, his real policy goals I feel I understand well enough to discuss them but the man — not so much. Pence seems a likeable Catholic and his job is important and official. Mnuchin seems an unusually unlikeable American Jew and may not get confirmed. While Ivanka and Jared seem to be trotted around a great deal neither seems to have an official position. If not all Catholics will trust Trump is devoid of Anti-Catholic bias one wonders what varied Jews might be thinking.

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I am told that the President of Mexico has cancelled a meeting with President Trump. I like Trump being strong and energetic and I favor a vigorous and strong America. I also favor a healthy Mexico. I am a Catholic and an American. I look at the people who are trying to see where Trump plays out with Jews and there seems to be a hint that some people are wondering if only Israel is the Jewish place to be. Some see this perhaps in Trump’s chief strategist. I myself am on the far right (in my own opinion). I am able to oppose too much driving of Christianity from the Public square. But I also see a value in secular space and zones of governance. I also appreciate the Jewish American experience I even think there are things all of us can learn from their journey — even my WASP friends.

Getting back to Billy Joel, I too can remember that my own ethnic and specific heritage as a particular kind of American was not perfect either. You  (or one) can see a criticism of both a blind progressivism and a cultural conservatism that is unquestioning for any American in his  next few lines. Take them as autobiography, politics, romantic memoir or any  number of other forms and one can find some truth in them.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Keeping the faith
You can get just so much
From a good thing
You can linger too long
In your dreams
Say goodbye to the
Oldies but goodies
‘Cause the good ole days weren’t
Always good
And tomorrow ain’t as bad as it seems

But Billy Joel and I do indeed have different pasts and he is quite a bit older than me. Getting a bit off text again we witnessed different parts of the fire he sang about. We had different parts of the song going through our heads. But only the differences of versions and arrangements of the greater metaphorical song — I relate to his song We Didn’t Start the Fire , just fine. But like a lot his songs it is not of a single simple meaning. For now, let’s get through the song for which this post is named.

Learned stickball as a formal education
Lost a lot of fights
But it taught me how to lose O.K.
Oh, I heard about sex
But not enough
I found you could dance
And still look tough anyway
Oh yes I did
I found out a man ain’t just being macho
Ate an awful lot of late night drive-in food
Drank a lot of take home pay
I thought I was the Duke of Earl
When I made it with a red-haired girl
In the Chevrolet. Oh yeah
We were keeping the faith
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Keeping the faith

A while back on Facebook I received a compliment from a red-haired beauty from my own ethnic community in Acadiana and reminded her of a long ago date in Chevy Impala and was gratified by a smoochy emoji in response. While Billy Joel’s lyrical boasts do not apply to the date she and I were commemorating online much is similar, thus remembered by me or in song  it is a deeply American experience.  So I look at the role of Jews as a religious minority and I contrast them to the Jihadi Muslim communities. The other Muslims may or may not listen to Billy Joel but the smartest among them realize that American Jews have worked hard to create a workable secular American culture because it is one that they can participate in. It is sometimes good and sometimes bad but I respect the effort. Muslims, Christians and Jews can all wear Levis, listen at least to Piano Man if not this post’s theme song  and enjoy some discrimination-free public space. I have a  Jewish friend, a woman whose initials are JY and like some of the great American Jews she has done humanitarian and secular and patriotic things. She is spiritually adventurous and like so many she is vastly more liberal and more leftist than I am (two separate measures) but I think she has come to respect me and my views a little. I have mentioned her here but will not go further than this in this particular post. The relationships between Acadians and Jews are very complex and very enduring. there is plenty that is of Hebrew origin in the mix of French, Greek, Latin, Spanish and MiqMaq ingredients an Anglo scholar can find in the Cajun culture. I have reminded miss JY of her heritage more often than not — although I do not know really how closely she relates to it. But whatever her struggle is with majority culture it does not involved blowing up people in their homes and at markets. Europe’s murdered millions of Jews filled a niche that others from the same region of the world now fill- a good number of those people are committed to destroying the Europe both Goethe and Mendelssohn built together.   Where Hitler complained of the occasional Jewish Caftan there is now the burka.

You know the good ole days weren’t always good
And tomorrow ain’t as bad as it seems

I told you my reasons
For the whole revival
Now I’m going outside to have
An ice cold beer in the shade
Oh, I’m going to listen to my 45’s
Ain’t it wonderful to be alive
When the rock ‘n’ roll plays, yeah
When the memory stays, yeah
I’m keeping the faith
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Keeping the faith
I’m keeping the faith,
Yes I am

So what about America and Billy Joel? What about the world of Christie Brinkley and Billy Joel? I am not sure that America will be great again or OK or anything else. But I will be here fighting my corner until I can’t anymore.  I am glad there are friends of Israel in the new administration. But along with some York, some Cornwall, some Languedoc, some Extremadura and some Shetlands — besides some Sicily and some Chihuahua — I like a little Galilee, Judea and Israel in my America as well.

 

 

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Halloween and Elections, a Few Thoughts

Posted on October 31, 2016 | 1 comment

Happy Halloween. Halloween as it exists in America is a time for celebrating the scarier parts of our unconscious and also other parts of the imagination with children.  This election season is for many Americans time of frightening realities and a scary walk and wait for adults. America is well populated with people who are afraid of Hillary as President and people who are afraid of Trump as President.  There are some who are not happy with either and this long post will discuss both Halloween and the elections as scary ritualistic events.

I have posted about Halloween here.  I also dealt with this day in the context of other days around this time just here. I have remembered that for me it was near my maternal grandfather’s birthday. I have also remembered the occasions of All Saints Day and All Souls Day which follow hard upon us.  The New Orleans Saints Football team was also founded on November first, the Feast of All Saints and of course the two things are related although how they are related is not so clear.    Family Missions Company and many of my family members usually have a Holy Ween Party with many traditional aspect of Halloween where the kids however costume as Saints while they bob for apples, get candy and play games . It is a rather beautiful and fun custom. All these events other costuming and the national celebration of Halloween make up the meaning of these days for me. The memories of those days are largely good ones as are the memories of many of the earlier days I spent Trick or Treating.  There have been plenty of bad memories as well.  But nothing really terrible is closely associated in my mind with these days.

This particular Halloween 2016 is one of those days which is not all together one thing for me and not all together another. It is a day when the weight of many problems ways down upon me but the weights, worries and regrets are offset by other aspects of my life. Nonetheless what is most notable about it is that it is Halloween. It is also the day after my deceased maternal grandfather’s birthday and the day before all Saints Day. But today, while trying to find out if the party is happening and perhaps drop in on it I will also be helping my aunt  with whom I share my grandparents house where she has been living for a long time recently and I have lived many times in the past. She will be giving  out candy during Abbeville’s official Trick or Treating hours between 6 and 8.    The town also has a  public access Scare on the Square in the late afternoon. That is my contact with the mainstream Halloween. The first picture posted below is not one of those pictures but I may add some pictures of the Square to the mix over time. There are quite a few decorated houses which have gotten elaborate. I might get a picture of one or two but probably not as to do them justice on really needs to go out at Trick or Treat time and I am not doing that.

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Among Cajuns  in the past the customs of these days varied from place to place. But generally some of the adolescent boys, in some cases united into societies that passed on their customs across generations and in other cases not in such an organized way raised a little hell on day we call Halloween. They went to houses and put skinnier and lighter cows on roofs and in barn lofts, made ghostly shapes and figures on window panes, howled like wolves and brought their dogs around to scare the farm animals but not enough to do serious harm.  Inside around the fire and stove there would be a few traditional treats and some scary stories. The loup garou  or Cajun werewolf tradition is not deeply tied to Halloween but it is tied to all things scary in this culture. I have posted about that tradition a little bit here and here in the glossary. The connection is available in music today, there are many things to be written or said about the  Halloween, All Saints and All Souls Day  customs in the region without mentioning the werewolf tradition but one song of some significance  by a musician named Daigle is viewable here. . On the morning of Toute Saints or All Saints people would walk ride or drive through the village, town or region to see the mischief done. Then people would go to church for the feast of All Saints. After Mass in some communities there would be a feast and music in the cemetery so that people could wake up early and clean, repair and decorate their ancestors tombs on the feast of All Souls on November first. In most communities however people ate at home and got ready to go to the cemeteries on All Souls. Caring for the tombs and visiting with others doing so was the  main focus of Acadian and Cajun practices around this time of year. In some places it was customary for widows to remove their black shawl on the first All Souls Day after they finished one year of  mourning.  In other places the calendar year alone was the key for the end of all mourning dress. Courtships sometimes began between widows and those men repairing other tombs who would pay respect to the dead husband’s tomb before courting the widow. Only taces of all of those custms remain today. But all of these things are in my mind on these days.

I also grew up a good bit of my life in Mexico and remember the various customs of the Dia de Los Muertos — the Day of the Dead. I have spent significant time in cemeteries and changing out flowers and such around the tombs of family members but that has not been as associated with this time of year as I would ideally have liked it to be.  So that is a summary of what these four days in a row bring to mind most for me.

In Celtic tradition this was a time when the year passed from the light half to the dark half of the year and the dead  were free to move between realms through a sort of portal opened up by these occasions. the very early Christians (such as the Galatians to whom St. Paul wrote)   included many Celts. There were people of living  flesh and blood who took advantage of the time of spiritual and demonic activity to do some bad things. Jack O’ Lanterns and scary costumes have some connection to scaring off bad spirits and bad people in ancient Celtic society.  The Christians gave some Christian meaning to those cultural acts but the darkest and worst parts of paganism such as human sacrifice were woven together in the same symbolic language and the controversies have been ongoing from the earliest days.

To lump all of this together in a single post when more clever writers are discussing the elections is probably only another means of whittling away the tiny readership that I still have.  Perhaps the scaries Halloween reality for me is embodied in that reality related to this post and to the fact that I used to write a great deal for many thousands of folks and get paid. Now I am trying to embrace the career path I am on which will end with paying one person a great deal to read my work. It never hurts to know where you are heading. Like many writers over history I might do well to dress as an unpaid bill or perhaps a a literary agent. those are scary realities for sure.

But is there anything that can be said coherently about all of these varied faces of this time of the mysterious, the mortal and the unusual. For me the unusual and the little known ar not unique cetainlu to Halloween.  I have had an unusual life thus far. In it I have sailed small vessels, ridden horses, hiked, climbed, spent time and energy in  pretty exotic and secret places. Form Boucheries, to Hula dances, to cava and Haka ceremonies in Polynesia to teahouses in China — I have sought the insights of the treasured common ceremony. My own life as a Christian every day  has been wrapped about with a number of secrets. Now I am in the process of revealing a few of them. Of course the Catholic Sacraments are described by the Latin word “Sacramentum” but also by the Greek word “Mysterion”, the same word translates as mistery. Catholics pass into the sacred mysteries at different phases of Christian life and the human lifecycle. They gain spiritual insight, renewal and energy.

I never pledged a college Greek Fraternity. I got a bid from the TKE chapter at Steubenville but declined it, I was honored but unable to take on the commitment and I was committed to a household that had few secret aspects to its initiation.  But there have been rituals that have been part of my life beyond church. I have posted a good bit about Mardi Gras, here and here for example. Besides the  Carnival and the  Official Christian Catholic mysteries, I remember being bloodied after a significant kill and bloodying young boys after a first kill — this is an important hunting ritual that I have seen in many forms. I remember fathering my hunting cap for the first kill of significant desirable duck or geese species like mallards, pintails, specks and snows. Then somehow I remember my first time at a bar after a rugby game, my first byline in print, my first time in a deep pool cave where sun never shines, my first time in a bat filled cave and a weta cave. Drinking and caves also remind me of other drinking rituals and not all involving alcohol or drinking cava in ceremonies on the Pacific isles. I remember getting a driver’s license and learning how to use computers — in both processes there were real initiation rituals and the car is extremely dangerous in many ways. Like a lot of people there were many milestones on the way. Somehow I got involved with some rarer and more exotic ones. When I was a teacher at St. Thomas More High School one of the classes that I taught was the Junior year “Sacraments and Morality” year. Both the editors of the textbook and I chose to show how rituals like birthday parties and Friday night football games were formative for young people learning the language and practice of rituals that they would use in Confirmation, the celebration of their weddings and the celebration of Mass.

For some people the politics of this election cycle are a bit of a mystery.  The cycle does not fit with their view of the way things should be and their ideas of what is normal in America. For some people much of life is a mystery, but many still hope for candidates from both parties that feel transparent and normal. Spies, detectives, lawyers and clerics keep lots of their life’s work hidden form many people who know them. I have known prophets, witches, mystics, shamaans, monks of various faiths, nuns, vampires and members of secret orders of knights. Some people would argue that virtually none of these people can exist. But nobody can argue that Anthony Weiner’s laptop full of Hillary’s email and his own problems exists. Nobody doubts Trump has said and done tings on record which many Americans consider abnormal or scary. these are our major choices this year. Neither Hillary nor trump were my choice this year.  I believe in the duty of citizens and I did my duty.

I voted. I voted yes on all but one of the Constitutional Ammendments — although I had less conviction than is ideal. I voted for Marilyn Castle for Supreme Court. Both seem qualified but she is very well qualified and I found her husband a decent boss back in 1989. I voted for Charles Boustany in the packed Senate Race. I selected Scott Angelle for Congress. Mike Francis for Public Service Commissioner and for the big finale….

I have voted for a third party or independent candidate once in a while but never for the Presidency. I voted for Keniston. I do not apologize for it and give him a limited endorsement:

Chris Keniston 2016 – A New Voice, A New Choice, For All Americans
Who is Chris KenistonChris Keniston is a family man, a patriot, a veteran but more importantly he is an American that will work for the people. Get to know Chris and…
CHRISKENISTON2016.COM

I believe in the basic claims of Christianity and in differences between good and evil outside of the question of whether something is Christian or not Christian. By no means would I put contemplative Carmelites and human sacrificing demon worshippers on the same moral plane. However, both groups like their privacy, both like to use symbolic language and both can be communities with long traditions that are well known to insiders and little known to outsiders. Discussion of what Halloween, All Saints Day  and All Souls Day mean are tied to the problems that exist across any tradition f rituals and secrets tied also to public celebrations.  I would urge that, if you have never thought about it, you realize that metaphors can be made real on film and effects are used to sell tickets. Halloween does not answer all our questions about the scary beings portrayed in some costumes  just as Real nuns don’t fly or seem like characters in “Sister Act” but you would recognize real nuns from either “The Flying Nun” series with Sally Fields or from Sister Act. I have had the time, desire and guts to get into a whole lot of varied mysteries. Sex and love are of course among the greatest mysteries and none of us exhaust them.

I have taken up too much time and space to discuss the other things I wanted to discuss. But we have concerns at the holiday and on election day. I will do my best to cope with each.

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Posted in 1, Abbeville, Acadians, Childhood Fun, Christianity, family, Family Missions Company, Frank W. Summers III's family, Genie Gremillion Summers, Greece & Greeks, Louisiana, Vermilion Parish

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The Ananias Project: Good Music, Creative Artistry

Posted on November 15, 2009 | Leave a comment

I did a post a while back in which I mentioned the Ananias Project. To see that post go to: https://franksummers3ba.wordpress.com/2009/10/19/a-jambalaya-round-up-or-potpouri-post/ That October 19, 2009 post was the first of my round-ups which have since become a regular feature of this blog.  Because it was only one of several items I can reproduce everything I said about it here.

” 9. My brothers and brother-in-law (and some other people without the good taste to be my relatives) have come out with a CD I believe is titled ”The Ananias Project”. I have not heard it but I know all of them have made beautiful music and I have enjoyed it. One of the best guitar riffs I ever heard was two of them playing together. I wish them well. You can order here: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/ananiasproject  I hope that I did not promise WordPress not to publish commercial links, I did not really read the contract. ”

As of today I have still not heard the exact disk which you will get if you order it from CD-Baby. However, I did get to listen to one of the production studio CDs that was mostly complete.  I was impressed at what a unique musical experience it was there was live recording from several  places where Family Missions Company Missionaries have served which added color and depth to the many original pieces of music.  The raps and intros had a lot of personal feel and universal quality.  Their was a wide range of musicality and it showed that these are people serious about music who have other real connections that empower their vibe.

This is religious, spiritual and Christian but I think anyone could appreciate the work with a certain attitude and be glad to have this piece in your collection. You may not  have heard of Joseph Summers, Kevin Granger and Sarah Summers Spiehler Granger or Sheila Aggresta or any of the others on these tracks but you can hear the fact that there is quite a bit of both musical training and popular audience experience in these digits your machine is reading.

One of the things that impressed me the most is that these artists and especially my brother-in-law Kevin Granger did much of the mixing, equalizing, editing and production. In my opinion much of the CD is extraordinary in its perfection.

There is a sense of a debut album by people not on a big label — although some members have had there CDs distributed before under various names but this is not raw. It is Christian Indie and contemporary fusion folk in a post deconstructionist milieu but it is not amateurish. These people have gone surely where they wished to go. We must now see if they  can connect with the listeners who connect with their music and art.

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Another Thursday Round-up Post.

Posted on October 29, 2009 | Leave a comment

1.The Phillies beat the Yankees at Yankee Stadium last night. In the Fall Classic we use the word shut-out but seldom words like “lopsided”, “trounced”, “slammed”  or “routed”. Since such terms or not customary why should I use them. Lee may have surrendered to the Yankees at the little village of Appomattox Courthouse but last night a Lee reminded another set of Yankee of some earlier episodes in that war of the 1860s.

2. Sarah, Kevin, Alyse, Anika and Soren have gone on a tip which is part mission trip, part public relations, part musician on tour and part family vacation. These are the events that are so much part of the warp and woof of my life but I still miss and worry. But I would not choose for none of my extended family to travel extensively.

3. My brother Joseph is attempting to move another house for he and Brooke here to Big Woods from Gueydan. That will make an easier transition for the marriage.

4. NASA launched the Ares rocket in a fairly successful test flight yesterday. THis vehicle will play an important role in NASA’s plans for future spaceflight if those plans are pursued.

5.One of the people who made an impact on my life and whom I have since fallen out of touch with has become involved with a number of projects I liked when I found them googling her name.  I am posting the links for those projects here.:  http://artists-first.net/   is a distributing outlet for musicians. Then there is a Save Darfur outreach titled fo a Jon Lennon song:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEjUQ15lyzk  The actual web page eludes me just now. It is also dated because even though I signed it it is a group urging the Bush administration to act. The third thing that this person has become involved in is a charity for young people involving music and based in Los Angeles:  http://www.soundartla.org/donors.htm .  I am not revealing her name or the circumstances of our meeting but I do recommend giving these things a good hard look. Some worthy stuff. 

6. The Saints will be playing on Monday Night Football this week and are undefeated. I hope to watch and know it will be a worthy contest well produced for television. However, MNF is not what it used to be in its long reign of glory on ABC.

7. I think David Letterman’s prediction of Yankees sweep was conditioned his New York base but it was made odd by the fact that it was first aired after a Yankees loss in game one. However, the interview he did with the commissioner was good and contained excellent responses to questions about instant replay, steroids, hgh, the pace of play and playing in November.

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A Jambalaya, Round-Up or Potpourri Post

Posted on October 19, 2009 | 1 comment

Here are some facts of the week for ye  few, ye proud, ye readers:

1. I won Lord Norton’s Lords of the Blog Quiz: http://lordsoftheblog.net/2009/10/17/quiz-questions-7/

2. It was an unusual weekend for me as neither the LSU Tigers nor the UL-L Cajuns formed any significant part of my Saturday football watching or analysis.

3. The UL-L  Team BeauSoleil added a second win to its first place in Market Viability at the Solar Decathlon. The team also took the People’s Choice Award. Go Cajuns!

4. The Saints rolled over the previously undefeated New York Giants. Go Saints!

5. NASA (so far as I can see) has still released nothing from the impactor results of the LCROSS mission. Does this mean that the moon is really made of Green Cheese as my babysitter used to tell me and they are unable to admit it?

6. Obama’s visit to New Orleans was very brief.

7. I am on Twitter:  http://twitter.com/FrankW64Summers

8. If the World Series is going to be an LA freeway series I will be surprised. On the other hand what baseball city would not be pleased to get this close.

9. My brothers and brother in law (and some other people without the good taste to be my relatives) have come out with a CD I believe is titled “The Ananias Project”. I have not heard it but I know all of them have made beautiful music and I have enjoyed it. One of the best guitar riffs I ever heard was two of them playing together. I wish them well. You can order here: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/ananiasproject  I hope that I did not promise WordPress not to publish commercial links, I did not really read the contract I do not think.  

10. Autumn has reached me! Alleluia!

11. A note: round up, round-up and roundup are all used as the term for gathering cattle for a drive in the United States. This term is then applied to police blotter stories in journalism, music countdowns, and some kinds of catalogs. There are magazines, a herbicide and other entities which use one of these three variant forms capitalized as all or part of their proper name. This blog post is a blogging round-up.

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