esrosedotblog

I bet some of you didn't know of my checkered past as a church organist.

I took piano lessons when I was 8 and stayed with it even into adulthood. Lessons.

I learned to play the organ from a woman who was also the kept woman of a local hotel owner and well into her scandalous years. But she could play the piano and organ and so, in typical Methodist hypocritical head turning, she was the church organist too. Up to then she had played mostly in bars. And did some other work on the side although I am just guessing. I was just a kid.

I know my mother was worried about my working along side "that woman". But she needn't have bothered as we all now know. Anne wasn't that loose and I was not that kind of boy.

We used to play organ piano duets and then when she got her old man to take her to Europe for a grand tour it was only reasonable that I step into he her shoes (I had to learn to play the pedals, socked feet though, a cheat of most organists who learned the "wrong" way.) to take over the job. I was only sixteen. 16.

I did not lead the choir then but worked with another amateur who at least had attended music classes in college.

When I left for college, I went to a Methodist Church in Harvard Square and they had a professional paid "quartet". Hard core soloists who carried the amateurs. I got a lot by watching them in action.

Fast forward, going to move to Pennsylvania in the suburbs a preacher from a new church came to the door to drum up some membership and he found out that I played. There was a piano in the house, the only real furniture we had in there. I helped him start up a choir and became their organist.

There was even some scandal. A parishioner thought that I was messing around with his wife and went to the pastor. I was given a stern talking to. I couldn't figure out what it was all about since he spoke in euphemisms. Years later I pieced that together.

It seems that church music and sexual hanky-panky have a long tradition and, just as an aside, a lot of it is homosexually oriented. Not in this case, however. I was married and happily so. I had kids. Playing outside that fence was totally not my game although, as we know, later, my little homo past became a present tense thing and I ended up coming out in my thirties.

When we moved to Plymouth MA, I played in two churches. One, the Methodist, was rife with politics. As Methodist churches usually were. Light on the religion they were largely social organizations with all the usual bullshit. Weak pastors who were easily pushed around by pushy parishioners. Almost all menopausal women. Sorry. It is not a stereotype. Many churches run that way. Sublimation is a powerful thing.

I was not happy nor was my family who I was dragging along with me.

So, a job at the Baptist opened up and I defected. Happily. We all went for awhile. We never got dunked. The ABC was happy to recognize "sprinkling" if the communicant recanted his previous views, if any, on the baptismal font. They did have a pool though and I did play for some immersions.

Being just a bit dramatic I contemplated doing the dive for myself but realized with the help of my good friend Pastor Denny that I was just doing it for the show biz aspect.

This was at a time when I was beginning to stray to Boston. Reading those alternative newspapers with the new religion of gay liberation was calling. Before long, I was on my way into that life. No time for church music.

I have never gone back. But I remember it all quite fondly and if anyone says you can't get a lot out of religious activity then I beg to differ. Quietly.

I have a quiet faith still today. A different Higher Power perhaps. But still the same being who was there for me when I was a kid.

As it happens, recovery from alcoholism introduced me to a spiritual way of life. I had not given up on the whole business anyway. In the intervening years I went to meditation schools and learned to practice some pretty weird disciplines. I do not regret any of it although the memory of some of it makes me blush a bit.

The spiritual path is long and winding and it is sometimes hard to know where the path goes. In my experience it is better to remain open about that. It goes where it leads and it leads to its end and that ending may also be a new beginning. I surely do not know.

That, endeth our discussion for today. The thought for today is "I don't know". The best spiritual attitude that one could have. Of course that should not kill one's drive to find out.

"The spiritual life is not a theory, you have to live it."

Labels: spiritual life