Remember Fitz
LETTER FROM FITZ - 2011
​
"I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it.... People think pleasing God is all God care about. But any fool living in the world can see it always trying to please us back."
~Alice Walker, The Color Purple
December 16, 2011
​
Dear Friends and Fellow Seekers:
It's Beethoven's birthday. I've got the Solti/Chicago recording of the 9th Symphony playing, so of course I'm utterly immersed in the reality of God and the world "trying to please us back". There's a lot of purple to notice in Beethoven! And elsewhere. Two nights ago I put on the PBS telecast of THE NUTCRACKER from NYC Ballet, intending to address envelopes for this letter while half watching/listening. Two hours later I addressed the first envelope. Still later, sitting on the edge of mybed, I was remembering that the first recording I ever owned (a gift from my mother's mother, who lived with us) was a 45 rpm set of that Tchaikovsky ballet by Arthur Fiedler and The Boston Pops. And my very first book of piano pieces was the same music. No wonder I became a hopeless romantic!
Truth, wisdom and revelation about the meaning of life and about God can be found in very familiar sources: ancient texts written in Hebrew and Greek and other tongues. (Like at the end of CASABLANCA when Captain Renault orders "Round up the usual suspects.") But for most of us, like Alice Walker's Celie, insight also comes from surprisingly less orthodox experiences - perhaps being startled by beauty, or, in C.S. Lewis' words, "surprised by joy". (You remember that Moses discovered the voice of God in a shrub that was on fire.) This summer I had the privilege of seeing the smash Broadway musical THE BOOK OF MORMON. To call this show "irreverent" and "blasphemous" doesn't even begin to scratch the surface. There is stuff to offend just about everyone! (Confession: I've never laughed harder or longer in a theater than I did that evening.) But at the end of the play there's a wonderful twist, when the naively idealistic young Mormon missionaries and their new Ugandan friends acknowledge that there's a lot to laugh at in all of our religions, with their magical stories. And yet, when push comes to shove, what ALL of our spirituality is about is how we treat each other and this earth we share. Now I've known that truth for a long time, but it grabbed my heart and soul with fresh power and relevance because of a Broadway musical! (What? I've never told you about seeing the original WEST SIDE STORY and it changing my life?) There is a lot of purple out there just waiting to be noticed.
Most of you are familiar with Stephen Colbert and his wickedly humorous take on current developments in American public life. You might not know that he is a devout, liberal Catholic and Sunday schoolteacher. Here's something he recently said.
"If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn't help the poor, either we've got to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we've got to acknowledge that he commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition, and then admit that we just don't want to do it."
Now there's a field of purple and burning bush rolled into one! Forgive me for getting "political" in a Christmas letter (I mean, it's not like I've never done it before) but it does seem to me as though we, as a people, are at a moment in our history when we are faced with a really basic, profound reassessment about just who we are. (No. I'm NOT just talking about the upcoming elections.) You know what I mean: times and events push us toward some tough questions and choices. Is there any difference between us and the stratified, classist European world of the 18th century from whom we dramatically, and violently, chose to separate ourselves? Are we really a democratic people with deep and sincere convictions about our equality? Should we remove "e pluribus unum" from our currency and give up the struggle against racism and prejudice? Are the cynics right? Do we blind ourselves with comforting political chatter and not even notice how increasingly we really have become a nation of the 1% and the 99%? And ... in such a land and people, what is the relevance of those charming stories we celebrate this season? Especially the one about a baby born in a smelly feeding place for animals whose 'purple' arrival went unnoticed by the wealthy and powerful, but not by poor shepherds.
Wait a moment. (I need time to climb down from my soapbox.) OK. So ...I hope that you have had as good a year as I have. Some memorable moments have included:
​
+ Celebrating the 60th birthday of St. Anthony's Dining Room at a public rally on the steps of City Hall. I was invited to lead the crowd in "America The Beautiful". One of my fellow Dining Room volunteers was accompanying me on guitar. But a rally going on across the street had a loud band playing. I took my note from them instead. So the first verse was in two different keys. Charles Ives would have loved it!
​
+ The funerals of several friends whose age and infirmity never kept them from reaching out to serve the neediest of their fellow citizens. One of them, a Franciscan friar, had made his own casket. On the end of it, facing the congregation during the Mass, was a sign reading "I TOLD you I was sick!"
​
+ My first experience with Shingles. Ouch!
​
+ After a lifetime of seeing/hearing my beloved Judy Collins in vast spaces like Ravinia, getting to experience her artistry up close at a cabaret room here in San Francisco.
​
+ Washing and massaging the feet of homeless people on Holy Thursday with my friends from Care Through Touch.
​
+ A tech agent from Best Buy's Geek Squad telling me that I shouldn't feel too bad about my computer's untimely death: "You know, it was four years old. It was obsolete." To which I replied: "I'm 68. What the hell does that make me?"
I wish you a blessed holiday season and a new year so full of the color purple that you can't help but notice and be enthralled.
-Fitz