Random Monday Thoughts after a long time not posting.

Sitting in church yesterday thinking (during sermon Part 2, the sequel) about the topic, "joy," when I tried to come up with a bumper-sticker-t-shirt-slogan line about the difference between Pleasure, Happiness, and Joy.

How about "Pleasure is eating a cookie, Happiness is sharing cookies with a friend, and Joy is teaching a loved one to bake cookies."
** 8/19 update, thought of a new spin today: "don't seek happiness in pleasure, find pleasure in your happiness."  oooooo, deeeeeep.
Meh.

I was thinking about a couple of things somewhat deeply as well, most of which is now lost in the recesses of my mind. Some continuations about the conflicts of being a human, which I have mentioned before: we want to be independent, strong, self-sufficient, yet at the same time we want to be taken care of. Makes our system here in America difficult to manage. I'm not the first to think that a truly benevolent dictatorship may be the best system, but that person would get killed anyway, and then it would just be a regular dictatorship. Alas.

Also, it came to me that we are simultaneously part a group (or groups) yet want to be regarded as an individual.

I was actually thinking specifically about the dilemma of inclusive language, and how we shouldn't take everything so stinking personally, but it's hard not to, right? It was pointed out to me long ago that all the God as Father references could be off putting to someone that had a crappy Dad (or Mom, there are those references as well), but if we could all just take a step away and see that it isn't always all about us maybe more would find comfort in the words? I dunno, just thinking out loud.

A Winter's Carol.

Enjoy!

This is from the last Taize worship service at Hyde Park Community United Methodist Church's Erie building, November 12, 2013. We sold the building and it will be demolished and replaced with several homes on the lot (expensive, too, I hear).

The octet + 1 (we had 3 sopranos that night) performed in the balcony. I recorded this with my iPhone 4s, on the floor slid away from me as far as I could so that my voice wasn't too present in the recording (I've tried recording us before) and with the mic end of the phone facing away from the group. I then imported it as audio into Audacity, but all I did there was snip the front and back ends to lose the phone noise and dead space.

Church Thoughts

We actually did a song with the choir in reference to Earth Day this past Sunday, but it was a song I am down with:

Care For Creation (Words and Music by Pepper Choplin) As this is a copyrighted work, and I share here without permission, if Mr. Choplin asks me to take this down, I will.

When I rise in the morning and consider all the blessings of the earth,
I give thanks to my Creator, to the One who gave me breath upon my birth.
I offer my thanksgiving for all God allows me to share, but I show my true thanksgiving when I nurture all God placed within my care.

     Let me worship the Creator and care for the creation as I live my life to worship and restore.
     I will sing and I will praise, but the measure of my days is how I care for the creation of the Lord.

As I move among God's children, may I show respect and care of all I meet. For the Creator who I worship has created them with holy dignity.


     Let me worship the Creator and care for the creation as I live my life to worship and restore.
     I will sing and I will praise, but the measure of my days is how I care for the creation of the Lord.


Also, our pastor led the service with some thoughts and prayer regarding the news of the week, Boston, etc. He struck me (as wrong) with a line about the sad state of the world, and I scribbled this on my Order of Worship:

"Actually, I took from this week the amazing human spirit, the goodness that responds so selflessly in the face of evil and evil acts. Goodness overwhelms evil. Sometimes it takes time, sometimes we see it immediately. People are good."