Not everyone reads Facebook. I meet folks there and often, they squeeze thoughts, ideas, and words out of me that I write on the spot. They don't always make it here. So, I picked out a few from the last week and re-posted them.

On Saying Goodbye to Pete

Let's Sing Together Today! What I most loved about Pete Seeger was how this gentle man with a banjo could get any group singing and usually harmonizing. He just won them over. 

Even after his voice was gone, with his banjo and presence, he could get people singing.

Tom Paxton said that he looked them in their eyes and connected. All of us who try to communicate in one way or another could learn from that. 

I know I did a long thing on him last night, but want to add this bit and more and more and more because I want the singing to continue.
https://www.facebook.com/tomsims/posts/10153761840740015?ref=notif&notif_t=like

So …. How about this tribute to Pete: Can we find some people to sing with today …. or tomorrow?

What if we could all start by starting to sing together?

http://youtu.be/lozOYS1v4Uw

Remembering MLK

I celebrate M.L. King Day every year like, to some extent, I celebrate the liberation struggle of every oppressed people through history and today. At one time or another, we are all the oppressed or we may be the oppressor. Our task is always to align ourselves where God is aligned, with the oppressed. We are called to be the voice of Moses in every generation whether we are among the "privileged" or whether we, like Fannie Lou Hamer are just "sick and tired of being sick and tired." It is never about one man or one voice or one people. It is about all of us and, for me, it is about following Jesus. 

http://youtu.be/kxRfT12Sojw

The American Dream for All

Langston Hughes said it with compelling insight. The American Dream is a great dream, but the dream is only worth its full weight if it is available to all to pursue and all are encouraged to pursue it.

The dream is bigger than the dreamers or the founders or any who have ever pursued it or expressed it. It is bigger than all of us … and it is a great dream.

"O, yes, I say it plain, America never was America to me, And yet I swear this oath— America will be! Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death, The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies, We, the people, must redeem The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers. The mountains and the endless plain— All, all the stretch of these great green states— And make America again!" – See more at:http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15609#sthash.zjkimOtg.dpuf

Music in a Rest

“There is no music in a rest, but there is the making of music in it.” ~ John Ruskin

And further, he says …

“In our whole life-melody the music is broken off here and there by rests, and we foolishly think we have come to the end of the theme. God sends a time of forced leisure, sickness, disappointed plans, frustrated efforts, and makes a sudden pause in the choral hymn of our lives; and we lament that our voices must be silent, and our part missing in the music which ever goes up to the ear of the Creator."

"How does the musician read the rest? See him beat the time with unvarying count and catch up the next note true and steady, as if no breaking place had come between."

"Not without design does God write the music of our lives. Be it ours to learn the tune, and not to be dismayed at the rests. They are not to be slurred over, not to be omitted, not to destroy the melody, not to change the keynote. If we look up, God himself will beat the time for us.” – John Ruskin

How does this apply to your life today?

Where in the score are you? Are there multiple measures of rest or is something at a grand crescendo? Perhaps you do not have the whole score and the conductor is only giving you a page at a time …

There is the making of music in a rest.