Singer/Songwriter Amanda Udis-Kessler is a prolific Unitarian Universalist composer of music that gets to the core of what it means to be human. I have had the joy and pleasure to have been invited to sing three of Amanda’s compositions along with fellow musicians from the First Unitarian Church of San Jose (California) in a virtual way during the COVID-19 Pandemic.
I’m attaching a recording of our latest collaboration with Amanda, Just Such A Time As This because it is appropriate for right now. That and the fact that my wife and I are in the quartet singing this version of the song. I invite you to listen to it with a thoughtful ear and an engaged mind.
I’ve taken a break from blogging over the past two weeks or so to restore some balance in my life. In recent months, the Blog had been focused on a series of posts using Dr. Timothy Snyder’s book, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons From the Twentieth Century. The series was serious and intense. I am proud of my work on this project, but it took it’s toll on me. It’s difficult to read and write about the darkness associated with tyranny for weeks on end. I needed some time away from the keyboard.
Fortunately, about the time I needed a break from blogging, several music projects popped up for me and have kept me quite occupied. Those along with meeting my goal of bike riding 100 miles each week, getting my Medicare application completed, along with preparing my application for a Real ID which will take the place of my expiring California driver’s license, have filled in the void nicely thank you very much. The Medicare Application and the Real ID applications need to be in before my 65th birthday in April. We also made a trip up to Fortuna, CA to check in on my wife Meredy’s aunt last week as well.
A little Fantasy Baseball doesn’t hurt either. It puts a little much needed fantasy and some much needed baseball back into life as I’d like to know it. Thanks Yahoo!
There truly is just such a time as this. We really don’t have any choice but to deal with it the best way we know how and to help our friends, relatives and the vast majority of the human population that are still strangers to us, to not only get through this “Greatest Generation” moment, but to flourish within it.
Use this time to make yourselves better and while you’re at it, make life better for those around you as well.
Peace.
Thank you, Bruce, for bringing this collaboration beyond the walls of FUCSJ. It marked a turning point in my relationship to playing to a recording device! I’d become accustomed to playing LIVE for my church friends and rather addicted to their forgiveness for my mistakes. The microphone doesn’t offer either forgiveness or praise or anything! We were not friends. Somehow, with this piece, I was able to find the ‘zen’ in my errors, blame them on the pandemic, forgive myself and move on. That blessed sound engineer, John Ector, covered as many of my mistakes as he could! And I was able to find the joy in collaboration again, thanks to the magnanimity of you, Meredy, Bev and John.
Amanda wrote an amazing song that spoke to all of us profoundly, and she liked our performance. This kind of teamwork is what is wanted and needed for our times. We can’t do it alone. Thanks for lifting it up!