ANOTHER NEW YEAR: Starting Anew

by Judith Lavender Dancer

The new year feels refreshing and a starting over again that we repeat often, not just every year, but there are events and times in our lives that point to a refreshment, a starting over that can be restorative and helpful in modern times of busyness and loosing connection to the Sacred.

I love a good soak and a scrub in the New Year, cleaning off the dead skin and allowing the natural glow to become restored. The scrubbing also awakens part of me that may have forgotten that it feels good to be touched and cared for. One year, Kabuki Hot Tubs was the answer, with hot Japanese noodle soup afterward. Yum.

One year, we gathered up all the rocks we had collected over the years, living just 3 blocks from Ocean Beach at the time, and went down to the beach to release them back into the environment they came from. When we got there, someone or ones had made a reclining 8-10 foot woman out of sand, so we delicately laid the rocks all over her body. The surf came up to her, lapping away at the rocks and carrying them back to sea.

When we are back into our lives, Chinese (or Lunar) New Year sneaks in with a roar of a dragon and special food and celebrations inhabit our fair city. I especially like the red envelopes the elders used to give me with a dollar or two inside, good luck for the new year. My colleague is Chinese and he has two young children, so now I get to give the envelopes to them, which I bought today in Chinatown. The cycle continues...

I was baptized 7 years ago this Easter, so the Lenten journey always feels as if it is a gathering of

energy and intention into such a special time in the church year, the death and resurrection of Christ. The poignancy and weight of Good Friday, Easter Vigil and Easter Day are rejuvenating and so sacred. Yes, another form of new year, rebirth and a recommitment to being Christian in the 21st century.

Spring, Summer and then in the Fall we have the Jewish New Year. I am a September baby, so I feel very connected to the timing of this event for my sisters and brothers, my birth starting a new year, plus respecting and noticing the rituals of others. My birthday has always been important to me and I celebrate it with relish (not the pickled kind, Jack!).

Advent—the start of the liturgical year—has become a magical time for me as I explore the imagery, the story and the symbols of light and dark. I cherished this time and felt a refreshment I have never felt in this season before this year, moving away from the party and shopping frenzy and deepening into the understanding of its sacred meaning.

I know other cultures and religions have their New Years but these are the ones that have affected me. What I notice is I am able to start again in so many ways throughout the calendar year and it gives me an opportunity to rejuvenate (we say re- judith-ate at our house), take stock and begin again. My energy does not need to get stuck (although being stuck might be what I need sometimes, too) but I can be on the journey of newness and deepening into a new understanding of myself and how I can contribute to the world.

What are your New Year points and how do you celebrate and open into the journey of this sacred life? Let’s continue this celebration and opening together.

Gospel According To Pop

Pastor Megan's Christmas present to the Community of Traveler community is a series of videosongs that narrate the life of Jesus using contemporary pop songs.

Check out this project: The Gospel According to Pop

Megan hopes to finish the project by January of 2012. Leave your comments below if you have ideas about what songs you think would help narrate the Jesus story in a way that will cause others to think or hear the gospel differently.

Baby Shower for Baby Jesus - December 4 at 5 PM

Bishop Marc Visits COT November 6 for Confirmation, Beatles Mass, and Liturgical Potluck

Occupy St Aidan's by Pastor Megan Rohrer

As protests brew across the world, yesterday they raged in 900 cities, I've wondered if I should join the protests. You'd think it would be an easy choice, since I work with the chronically homeless and have dedicated my ministry to working with those living in poverty.

I love the idea of the people who have always been the majority taking back their voice and holding those in political power accountable.

I've done a lot of studying of nonviolence theory, so I'm proud when people find nonviolent ways to bring attention to important issues.

But, something about the protests have been unsettling to me. While I cheer on those street retreating and creating mass conversations in the streets, I can't help but remember that my mother is a banker and has been all her life.

In fact, she worked at the same bank since she was 18 and just retired a few months ago. As a working mother, she struggled to keep daily bread on our table. She managed the tellers at several branches of a South Dakota bank that went national. The reality is that our family was not the 1%.

As I see the images of the protests in front of banks I remember that my mothers desk and those on the lowest rungs of the banks payrolls are the ones sitting in earshot of the protests.

I also remember that the effectiveness of the civil rights protests and sit-ins came from their ability to dramaticize the injustices that existed, to force private terror to be publicly scrutinized or to clog the wheels of unjust laws by filling the jails so no one else could get arrested.

I wonder if the protests are dramatizing a solution? I also notice that we are in a precocious time when the world is listening to the protectors, but no individual voices have emerged as the leaders of a more benevolent future.

So I suggest, that we call for a shift in the countries moral compass. When we bring a mass of people to a location we give it power. But is Wall Street where we want our change to come from?


I call us to put our butts where our mouths are. Let's fill the spaces we want the world to see as the moral compass of our communities. And in those spaces, let's demand that those leaders speak for us and get voice in the halls of congress and at the CEO meetings where the 1% can actually be found.

What if the churches, Temples, zen centers and other places we wanted our ethical center to come from were as full as the streets?

This is our moment. Let us give to Wall Street what is Wall Street's. Keep your upside down wealth systems. Let us be people bringing a new understanding of love, hope and prosperity to the world.

So join me in occupying St Aidan's. Lets fill the pews and the offering plates and reset our compasses. Whose with me?

Finding God in a Bar Around a Piano after Katrina

by The Rev Tommy Dillon

Two weeks after Hurricane Katrina hit, I drove from Baton Rouge to New Orleans to experience firsthand the devastation of a place that I love dearly. I thought I had prepared myself for what I would see, but, indeed, I had not.

Approaching the city, I saw coffins that had floated out of the large above ground cement mausoleums and found a new resting place alongside the interstate. I wept. Not only had the living been affected by the flood waters, but also the dead.

Going further, I witnessed the large gaping hole in the roof of the Superdome and instantly returned to the images of the thousands who took refuge in this shelter of last resort-turned prison. Large blue tarps covered many homes and served as temporary roofs, a thin blue layer between fragile people and the wild nature that had so recently turned against them.

I parked my car in the normally bustling French Quarter, though this time, it was a ghost town. Peeking into Pat O’Brien’s famous bar, which usually hosts raucous dueling pianos, I was struck this time by the emptiness and hollow silence in its stead. The windy breezes stirred up alternating wisps of rotting food and mold. Fresh graffiti screamed anger towards President Bush, FEMA, and Governor Blanco. When I encountered people in the streets (which was rare), they were lifeless and listless: walking zombies who had their life sucked out of them.

There seemed to be so much despair, sadness, and loss of hope. Where was the light that shines in the darkness? Where was God in all of this mess?

In the many years before Katrina, I travelled to New Orleans on Sunday afternoons to gather with friends at the corner of St. Ann and Bourbon Street for what is known in the gay community as “Sunday Tea Dance”. This was sacred ground for me, a ground zero of sorts from which I “came out” as a gay man. Through the years, I had danced many nights away at the Tea Dance, laughing, singing, sharing stories, meeting new people, sometimes drinking too much and having a little too much fun. But the Tea Dance was where people knew to gather on Sunday afternoon.

My favorite stop at the Tea Dance was the Good Friend’s Bar, where a gentleman named Tom played an old piano on the second floor of the bar that sounded as if it came from a old western movie saloon. Tom was in his late sixties and gathered an eclectic group of people--gay, straight, men, women--around that old, out of key piano for a weekly sing along. We enjoyed singing show tunes, but sometimes when I would arrive, Tom would play a Gospel Set of well known Southern hymns and ballads. People would sing loudly. Many of them loved the church, but they no longer attended because they had either been either kicked out or left due to its stand on their “gay lifestyle”.

As I walked around a desolated New Orleans that fall afternoon, I wondered if any of my kindred were gathering at that sacred corner where we had spent so many Sundays at the Tea Dance. I turned onto Bourbon Street and glanced down at the section of the French Quarter where my father used to warn me, “Do not go down there son, it is where the homosexuals gather.” To my joy and delight, I saw life! In the distance, I heard the thumps of the deejay as I made out the gay anthem “We are Family” in my head. A few steps closer. Over 100 people were standing around the Bourbon Pub/Parade Disco, which reopened that day, peace and happiness swept over me. The community indeed knew where to gather that afternoon, even in the midst of desolation and despair.

A giant blue tarp covered the roof of the Good Friend’s Bar...surely, the second floor was flooded in the deluge, I supposed. But then, in the distance, I noticed the faint sound of singing. Could it be? Was Tom there? Were the faithful gathered around the piano? Drawing closer and closer to Good Friend’s, the singing was louder and louder. I walked into group of 30 people who were indeed standing around the piano, having picked it up and carried it downstairs so that they could sing.

Tom looked up, saw me, and yelled, “PADRE, YOU ARE HERE” and he began to play Gospel music and people assembled sang out from their hearts! First was “I Come to the Garden Alone”, and then a stirring rendition of “His Eye is on the Sparrow”. The voices grew louder and heartier. People raised the rafters in joy and celebration as tears filled our eyes. For the wayward souls assembled that day, even in the midst of destruction and despair, this was Church! We were not in a building consecrated by a bishop. The space was not filled with stained glass and statues. Instead, we were a church formed from the presence of the people and our piano became our altar, a place of sacrifice where we could offer to God our tears, our joys, our prayers, and our hopes. The piano became a sign and symbol of God’s redemption and love in our midst.

Bishop's Visitation November 6 at 5 PM

Bring your favorite breakfast food for the potluck!