Magic Happens

I had an amazing day yesterday in The Crescent City.

A surprise at St. Augustine's... Ellis and Delfeayo Marsalis were supposed to be at the church and I had forgotten about it until I was sitting in the house working on some other things and heard the Live Wire on WWOZ. I made it to St. Augustine early for a change and to my surprise there was another, relatively familiar, figure standing beside the piano with a saxophone in his hand. So church this morning took on the feeling of a family concert from Branford Marsalis and family.

The experince was amazing and delightful. Branford, the total musical gentleman, regularly deferred to the church's regular saxophone player, served as a sort of replacement roady (setting up mic stands and making sure everyone got their mic time). He even sat in on drums a couple of times.

Father LeDoux's sermon focused on the old testament lesson of the story of Abraham and Isaac and God's disturbing call for a sacrifice. There were two terrific moments in that, one when Father LeDoux exclaimed that he had "problems" with this text and later when he talked about how "the old folks" have a saying that when your stuck between a rock and a hard place, "There's always a ram in the bushes." For a community like St. Augustine which has already been threatened by Katrina and is now being threatened by its own diocese, the idea that God will provide a way out of your sticking place is a gospel proclamation indeed.

It felt pretty good to me also, and when Branford gave it a little sax boost, well... I'm sure you get my meaning.

After church I went to the Ogden museum for the premiere of a documentary film on Mississippi artist Walter Anderson, a man who lived much of his life on the edge of realization, seeking, over and over, to get as close to the raw reality of the universe and to express that in his art. to view this film and to hear about this artist was to be broken apart and emotionally spread open. In the few minutes that it took to view this film, I was once again - as I have been many times in the last several months - broken open to a sense that there is something waiting for me to experience... to be... to do. Walter Anderson sacrificed a normal exitence to the choice to expose himself, raw and open, to something he didn't fully grasp. In that way, he was not terribly dissimilar from Abraham on the mountain, confused, desperate, but open.

After these two experiences, I really wasn't inclined toward my previous resolution to go hear Billy Graham, but I went anyway. Fortunately (I really don't think I could have handled all the kool aid drinkers in the crowd) I was unable to get into the service. So many of the "true faithful" had loaded up buses and brought them in to see this rock star of evangelists that by the time I got there they were turning people away toward a giant TV screen in the parking lot. Well... after the amazing day and the moving experiences I had already had, I was not going to stand in the parking lot to see Billy Graham on TV.

I grabbed a Greek pizza (spinach, olives, feta and roasted garlic) and headed home.

By the end of the evening I had been slammed via email for some of the things I've written in these blogs and I came to the end of this otherwise astonishing day feeling pushed out of shape and deeply troubled.

But the day - and the ram in the bushes - opened me up once more.

This Lent feels like a true preparation... Walter Anderson's life is a template... Isaac's near sacrifice is an example.