Hi VanceFann!!

Fri 11/22, Philadelphia, PA - World Cafe Live Pre-Release Soiree - www.WorldCafeLive.com 1/2 the room is sold 4 days out - you better get you a tikket! (you do know I was born and raised around here, right?)
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Sun 11/24 Newburyport, MA - www.mandaravajuice.com/dinner/ - late addition, sells out in days. Reserve now!!
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Tue 12/3 Severna MD, Frank’s Mostly Private Party - https://www.cafemezzanotte.com - Frank says you can come if you like, but seating is now kinda limited. So first call, first reserve till there’s no more room. I am unplugged for this event.
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Sun 12/8 Skokie IL, Michele’s Mostly Private Party - (sheljc at comcast dot net). Michele will field a handful of extra-interested folks’ inquirys and then shut it off at some number, as this is her Holiday Houseparty. But she cooks amazing vegan and would be thrilled to have you. I’m unplugged here too...
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Stuff
- December Holiday Private Party dates are almost all gone. Frank got his - you want one?

- Holiday Soirées, coaching of songwriting, performance, voice, VCR timer programming available upon request.

• Good Good Man's street date is 1/24/20 (streaming and download then too), but you can get one from me at any show
• use PayPal to vancefunder@gmail.com
• send a check for anything between $10 - $20 and up to Vancefunder P.O. Box 17 Arlington, MA 02476

• **If your name is on the CD, you’re a friend, family member, promoter, radio/podcast personage, cash strapped, or anyone else that thinks they should just have one, send me your address and just ask and I’ll send it.**
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I was in our local Unitarian Church Sunday morning. There was a special musical presentation of the music of a Black composer named Mark Miller, who put Walt Whitman's Song Of The Open Road (not all of it - it’s 20 pages long!!) to music. There was an orchestra, and an infused choir - my partner Deb and a few other friends as part of it - and I got there just as the service was starting so I got to stand in the back.

The music came later, and it was beautiful. But, having never been to this church for an actual service, what struck me was, even in fairly-Anglo Arlington MA, the actual diversity in this place. Not so much the diversity in the population within, I mean there was a gay, black and white couple with a tan baby (stop judging me...that’s what someone who knew them said they were…), some Asian folks, Old, Young. Truly tho, the diversity that got to me was how open it was to folks worshiping however they wanted yet still in a somewhat organized format.

The placing of collected rocks to let go of or take in what you needed.
The line down the aisles just like communion.
The moment of prayer in places where people. just. got. quiet.
The hand clasping your neighbor thing during some easily remembered and recited homily.

I mean, you could roll out a rug and face East or cross yourself or whatever you wanted to do, I suppose. But the prayer part was sincere people contemplating, communing with, or just respecting each other’s GodWahtever thing.

Or just being quiet.

Unitarians can be as annoyed as the next Unitarian as to how much God should be in their service, or as grumbly as to the balance between spirituality and community action, or how small the parking spaces are. Unitarians can be as proud as P.T. Barnum, John Quincy Adams, Pete Seeger, Louisa May Alcott, Bela Bartok. They can be as self-effacing as the Unitarian Minister who told me “What do you get when you cross a Unitarian with a Jehovah’s Witness? Someone who comes knocking on your door and has no idea why..."

To some, Unitarianism is an unfilled shell. Some think there’d be no Unitarianism CatchAll Bucket if it wasn’t for people shunning and running from all of their established familial habit religions, those religions that are perceived to have already done all the WeKnownGodSince B.C. work. Some look at Unitarianism as a place where Judeo-Christian or Muslim-Judeo marriages can have just enough spiritual ritual to keep miscegenation-bemoaning parents at bay.

And some, like some of those folks at First Parish Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington, just want that quiet minute of reflection amongst others apparently doing the same.

Shhhh. Thanks. -vg