Post 16: Somewhere Down the Road
1985 Graduation at Fordham University, with my friend, Sheila. MA in Theology, concentration in Biblical Studies.
Another marketable degree.
“The Simple Path
Silence is Prayer
Prayer is Faith
Faith is Love
Love is Service
The Fruit of Service is Peace
― Mother Teresa
The force that matured us from college crazy to early adulthood was Sister Augustine, Sister “Gussie,” a contemplative nun we visited at the Dominican monastery in Guilford, Ct. We poured out our stories and our dreams to her. I didn’t scandalize her with my doubts about the Catholic Church. Or when I told her I felt a call to “ordained” ministry – what shape that would take I didn’t know.
Perhaps the hardest thing she ever told me was about healing. She told me I would know I was truly healed when I could thank God for what I had been through.
I couldn’t believe my ears.
I almost stopped talking to her. How could I thank God for what I had been through? Or what I have seen others go through? There were days I wasn’t on speaking terms with God. I was sure I would never be able to publish in proper publications what I told God.
She just quietly nodded. She didn’t take it back. That’s what I liked about her. She just listened and lobbed spiritual bombshells.
On full scholarship, I went to Fordham University for a Masters in Theology focusing on Biblical Studies. I roomed with a single mom in the same program in an attic apartment in Mount Vernon, on the outskirts of the Bronx. We would take turns parsing Greek verbs while singing nursery rhymes to baby David.
I took a crash course in Latin (which I promptly forgot) taught by the Jesuit priest who was the consultant on the movie The Exorcist. Besides being a Latin scholar he was a demonologist as well. That perked my ears up, seeing as I struggled with a few myself. Father Demon Slayer stressed that the devil’s objective was always to destroy human connection. To put us in isolation, believing we were unlovable and unredeemable. Yup. That rang a bell. Then we would be back translating some ancient Church Father. I forgot the Latin, but never the game plan of The Infernal One.
While working as a secretary in the Translations Department at the American Bible Society, I learned Barry moved on big time, dug into his roots and made radical changes. I was impressed. 2:00 AM Paradise Café was released in 1984. I read that the concept of the album came to Barry in a dream (got my attention there) and is work for which he wanted to be remembered. This album was a leap from pop into jazz, really a step into the world that he loved, that shaped him musically as I understood it.
So he wrote an album recorded with jazz greats Sarah Vaughan, Mel Torme and Gerry Mulligan. It was haunting, beautiful and strange. I knew nothing of jazz. Jazz was as foreign to me as the Hebrew and Greek I was slowly learning in my Biblical Studies program. My family was almost strictly a rock-n-roll lot. With jazz, classical and all other forms of musical expression, I am as ignorant as a board. However, back in 1984 as now, I could nod and understand the need to be true to yourself.
Find your roots and dig in deep.
Notes:
http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/838305.Mother_Teresa?page=2
Give the gift of music to the next generation through donations to:
The Manilow Music Project
8295 South La Cienega Boulevard
Inglewood, CA 90301
info@manilowmusicproject.org
Click here to go to the next post or click here to return to the previous post.
Silence is Prayer
Prayer is Faith
Faith is Love
Love is Service
The Fruit of Service is Peace
― Mother Teresa
The force that matured us from college crazy to early adulthood was Sister Augustine, Sister “Gussie,” a contemplative nun we visited at the Dominican monastery in Guilford, Ct. We poured out our stories and our dreams to her. I didn’t scandalize her with my doubts about the Catholic Church. Or when I told her I felt a call to “ordained” ministry – what shape that would take I didn’t know.
Perhaps the hardest thing she ever told me was about healing. She told me I would know I was truly healed when I could thank God for what I had been through.
I couldn’t believe my ears.
I almost stopped talking to her. How could I thank God for what I had been through? Or what I have seen others go through? There were days I wasn’t on speaking terms with God. I was sure I would never be able to publish in proper publications what I told God.
She just quietly nodded. She didn’t take it back. That’s what I liked about her. She just listened and lobbed spiritual bombshells.
On full scholarship, I went to Fordham University for a Masters in Theology focusing on Biblical Studies. I roomed with a single mom in the same program in an attic apartment in Mount Vernon, on the outskirts of the Bronx. We would take turns parsing Greek verbs while singing nursery rhymes to baby David.
I took a crash course in Latin (which I promptly forgot) taught by the Jesuit priest who was the consultant on the movie The Exorcist. Besides being a Latin scholar he was a demonologist as well. That perked my ears up, seeing as I struggled with a few myself. Father Demon Slayer stressed that the devil’s objective was always to destroy human connection. To put us in isolation, believing we were unlovable and unredeemable. Yup. That rang a bell. Then we would be back translating some ancient Church Father. I forgot the Latin, but never the game plan of The Infernal One.
While working as a secretary in the Translations Department at the American Bible Society, I learned Barry moved on big time, dug into his roots and made radical changes. I was impressed. 2:00 AM Paradise Café was released in 1984. I read that the concept of the album came to Barry in a dream (got my attention there) and is work for which he wanted to be remembered. This album was a leap from pop into jazz, really a step into the world that he loved, that shaped him musically as I understood it.
So he wrote an album recorded with jazz greats Sarah Vaughan, Mel Torme and Gerry Mulligan. It was haunting, beautiful and strange. I knew nothing of jazz. Jazz was as foreign to me as the Hebrew and Greek I was slowly learning in my Biblical Studies program. My family was almost strictly a rock-n-roll lot. With jazz, classical and all other forms of musical expression, I am as ignorant as a board. However, back in 1984 as now, I could nod and understand the need to be true to yourself.
Find your roots and dig in deep.
Notes:
http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/838305.Mother_Teresa?page=2
Give the gift of music to the next generation through donations to:
The Manilow Music Project
8295 South La Cienega Boulevard
Inglewood, CA 90301
info@manilowmusicproject.org
Click here to go to the next post or click here to return to the previous post.
Graduation Day at Fordham University, The Bronx, NY
1985