Christmas missive

now that the hubbub has died down
i may have something to say
i hesitated
my life changed
i am writing this note and directing
a mass email inviting many
to come here and read what i have to say
for christmas

here's the news
i am living in my old hometown
on a street called rodney
by day i am attending to the physical cares
and concerns of my parents
they are now elderly and in need of some help

i am typing this missive out on a laptop
sitting at my kitchen table
in the past few years i've been yearning
for some domestic qualities
like making my own coffee and sitting at my own table
in the morning
now i have a three room apt. with many closets
i am typing out a novel on an old manual typewriter
i am playing my ramirez guitar once again
and rather liking it

it is cold and frozen and snowy here in montana
but i like this place immensely

what a year
looking back from this the eve of the fifth day of christmas
it was last christmas that i performed a concert
with the extraordinary cellist clair tunney and
john and sally mcgill
it was a splendid evening as i recall
and while i've no word from clair since she went back
to australia it only lingers in my mind as one of those
things that happens once or twice in life

for work in the monastery i've been attending to
groups of all sizes in their interests and curiosities
pertaining to the abbey church i've been sweeping and mopping
long corridors i've been aiding my elder brothers
in getting to and from appointments
and i've been active in the liturgy
and always keeping my own music life aloft

it's been a ramblin year
it's been a year of intensified pilgrimage
i have a sense of being on the right trail
twice or was it three times
i went to crestline california
i've made the trip by car across the high plaines
5 full times this year
i hit the tuscon folk festival again
i went to the winnipeg folk festival with my pal kurt
life is good

nobody (Ok almost nobody) was aware of a rather blatant
and defiant project known as
The Endless Summer Project
i'm hoping to get funding to continue this
but as for now i am depending on private donations
for the support i need
it consists in challenging the cultural changes of season
few will believe that i actually swam in minnesota
on Nov. 15th

then i have also developed a new means of performance art
which i hope will catch on and become something more people
will do
it involves locating webcams and devising skits
it requires some computer access and timing skills
but other than that i contend it is a free medium
one which needs to be exploited
so
by all means
webcam performance art for everyone
i think children will especially like this

why do i stay dedicated to the life and the story
and the teaching and the ritual perpetuation of grace
emanating from the person of jesus christ?

i heard greg brown in concert last spring
and he made a statement before playing
a gospel song
that in all his studies in all the books
in all his looking around
he hasn't come across anyone more righteous
more challenging and evidently more comforting
that the nazorean
that is the only thing i really remember from the concert
and that he played a flying V electric thing at the end
and bo ramsey impressed me greatly with his
approach to the electric guitar

every day is loaded with mystery
every day is a new ray of light
i have grown accustomed to acknowledging this mystery
within the context of the divine office
the daily practice of psalms recited and sung
day after day even on days that aren't so good
i submit to something infinetly greater than my
ability to adequately give praise will allow
and this is in fact a person
this accounts for my need to love
this accounts for my need to know things
this accounts for my desire to hear great music
( a fact that is so common to my life as to be almost
a matter of vanity to propose it here )

one other project that has gripped my mind this past year
is the project of my growing interest in relating
music to hospitality
when i began the project know as collegeville station
with my pals pat and dave
i had this interest in making music at the level
of the life of people
not music for show not music for money
music as a part of life
and i am still interested in that
and you should be too

there was in late august a sort of culmination
of this way of thinking when i put together
a gig involving friends food prayer and performance
on three seperate guitars i performed three pieces
each a set of themes and variation

it was a delightful evening
it was somehow the commencement
of The Endless Summer Project

so i'm out in the world for awhile
hoping to ski a bit this winter
bumping into old friends
soaking in montana's fine hot springs
fixing my own breakfast now and then
and trying to sustain a routine of prayer
on my own

i live 2 blocks from a beautiful church
and i do attend mass there
getting a feel for the normal place
of the person in the pew

christ is relevant to all the worlds' needs
and every human need can be met
by love and challenge in the long project of faith

last summer i participated in a dialogue gathering
of the Bridgefolk - a Mennonite -Catholic group
seeking to forgive the past and find a path
to reunion and renewed respect between these two
traditions
it was in those meetings as much as anywhere else
this past year that i witnessed christ alive and at work
with us christ patiently urging us on christ willing to
suffer the pain of deathly separation with knowledge that
his resurrection indeed holds more power
than anything devised or destroyed by humans
where there is hope there is christ dancing

if you read this i desire to wish you a
blessed christmas...you should feel free to
respond to me on this blog stream with a comment
you can even look back in my archives and read
the mischief i've been up to these past few years
in the blogosphere

i don't think anyone in the past few years has
been more evidence for the importance
of seeking god by way of his son and the holy spirit
than my friend sally mcgill --
a constant commentor on this blog
she has helped me to maintain a sense
of realism amid the powerful pull
of the imagination
and she's also sparked the imagination a few times
to her i remain ever so grateful

in caring for my parents now i have been given
the opportunity to be a "parent"
i am facing a whole new set of possibilities
for learning about the human scene
that i do this with the love and strength
that comes from only one source known in the world
is great solace
and when it comes to matters of the heart
it is solace we want
is it not?

we long to be to be where we can long
and to long where we can be

and a fine new year to you too

br john hanson osb