We are family
Whatever one’s religious traditions or heritage, the sights, sounds, and tastes of the holiday season are in the air. They exist along side of the existential angst created by the us and them beliefs that seem in this and other countries to underlie the political and religious decisions, which will affect the lives of many for years to come.
Last evening I first attended a 12 step meeting with some clients. Many of us warmly greeted each other. I have known, loved and worked with/for some of these individuals since I first came to this part of the world in 1980. They have, in turn, loved and nurtured me for all these years. Leaving them, I attended the last set of an evening with the poet Marc Harshman and the musician/poet Doug Van Gundy at the local art co-op, Artworks, where I was again warmly greeted and then fed by the artists who were performing. I was also fed by the art exhibited on the walls and those others, like me, who came to be fed.
Later today I will travel to Pittsburgh to join a small group of friends for our annual holiday gathering. This year the position of host has changed, but nothing else has changed since we first started meeting many years ago. Actually, some of the faces have changed. There are now only two of us who were in the original group. Some have ended this life journey while other entered a different phase of their life and now arrive with a new partner. It is a gathering where each person is awed by the talent, unconditional love and amazing contributions to the larger community of each other.
When I first came to this area to live close to my then very young son, Jamie and his mother, Beverly, the song, “We are family” had been released the previous year. The vocal group Sister Sledge performed the song, which was composed by Bernard Edwards and Nile Rogers. Shortly after arriving in Pittsburgh I found not only the men who would help me blossom as a little less sexist (and hopefully a little more free of all the isms which limit our identification of community), but I also discovered disco music and gay bars where I would dance until all hours of the night. For the first time in my life I was not self-conscious about dancing. It seems as if, for several “seasons”, one danced to the music of Sister Sledge at least a half dozen times every time one went dancing. It was and is a song, which seems to magically erase all the artificial constructs of differences and creates a living, moving, and transcendent experience of loving energy. For those brief moments it was very clear that we were one family – male, female, gay, bisexual, transgender, heterosexual, white, brown, yellow, black, old, and young. For those moments our words morphed into action. We were family. We then carried that reality into the larger community.
It is easy for us humans to forget the simple truth that we are one family. All we need to do is to show up for the dance. If music is available so much the better.
Written December 16, 2017
Whatever one’s religious traditions or heritage, the sights, sounds, and tastes of the holiday season are in the air. They exist along side of the existential angst created by the us and them beliefs that seem in this and other countries to underlie the political and religious decisions, which will affect the lives of many for years to come.
Last evening I first attended a 12 step meeting with some clients. Many of us warmly greeted each other. I have known, loved and worked with/for some of these individuals since I first came to this part of the world in 1980. They have, in turn, loved and nurtured me for all these years. Leaving them, I attended the last set of an evening with the poet Marc Harshman and the musician/poet Doug Van Gundy at the local art co-op, Artworks, where I was again warmly greeted and then fed by the artists who were performing. I was also fed by the art exhibited on the walls and those others, like me, who came to be fed.
Later today I will travel to Pittsburgh to join a small group of friends for our annual holiday gathering. This year the position of host has changed, but nothing else has changed since we first started meeting many years ago. Actually, some of the faces have changed. There are now only two of us who were in the original group. Some have ended this life journey while other entered a different phase of their life and now arrive with a new partner. It is a gathering where each person is awed by the talent, unconditional love and amazing contributions to the larger community of each other.
When I first came to this area to live close to my then very young son, Jamie and his mother, Beverly, the song, “We are family” had been released the previous year. The vocal group Sister Sledge performed the song, which was composed by Bernard Edwards and Nile Rogers. Shortly after arriving in Pittsburgh I found not only the men who would help me blossom as a little less sexist (and hopefully a little more free of all the isms which limit our identification of community), but I also discovered disco music and gay bars where I would dance until all hours of the night. For the first time in my life I was not self-conscious about dancing. It seems as if, for several “seasons”, one danced to the music of Sister Sledge at least a half dozen times every time one went dancing. It was and is a song, which seems to magically erase all the artificial constructs of differences and creates a living, moving, and transcendent experience of loving energy. For those brief moments it was very clear that we were one family – male, female, gay, bisexual, transgender, heterosexual, white, brown, yellow, black, old, and young. For those moments our words morphed into action. We were family. We then carried that reality into the larger community.
It is easy for us humans to forget the simple truth that we are one family. All we need to do is to show up for the dance. If music is available so much the better.
Written December 16, 2017
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