Seen on a billboard in the Denver Metro area between Wadsworth & Kipling on I-70W. Summer, 2018:
“Fear is contagious…so is hope.”
Me (Laura Bruno) Spring Break, 1977, Hardin, Montana – photo Terry Friedlander (Griffin)
The above ‘quote’ prompted me to dig out this piece* I had a hand in creating back in the day. Yes, there’s a story behind its creation and yes, it’s a few decades old and yes, the recording is kinda funky…but the point is, it just seems like it’s time to share it with you my readers and little listers…perhaps its message will speak peace & hope to you this day.
Spirit of God (circa 1977) Bill & Jim Griffin – instrumentals & vocals
Laura Bruno (Lilly)- lyrics & melody
When the Spirit of Truth comes He will guide you Can you hear Him calling?
No one knows where the Spirit goes or how He moves Can you hear Him calling?
When you’re lonely and cold inside Let Him woo you.
Spirit of God Fall down Let Your love surround Show us Your way
Behold the Spirit shall dwell within you and He will comfort you Can you hear Him calling?
He now leads into all righteousness He now convicts the world Can you hear Him calling?
When you’re walking and standing tall Let Him woo you.
Spirit of God Fall down Let Your love surround Show us Your way
When the Spirit of Truth comes He will guide you Can you hear Him calling?
No one know where the Spirit goes or how He moves Can you hear Him calling?
When you’re lonely and cold inside Let Him woo you
Spirit of God Fall down Let Your love surround
Show us Your way
Spirit of God
Fall Down
John 16:13
* Thank you, Bill & Jim, for your agreement & support in the posting of our ‘shared’ piece.
On Monday, September 17th, my bro and I signed over our folks’ house to a buyer who said, “I fell in love with this house the minute I set foot into it.”
In celebration of this event, I bring you a jam session of a favorite gospel tune, Oh Happy Day, in the spirit of my JazzMan Dad…
(jump to 3:05 if you’re not a musician interested in the creative process)
Context of this piece is as follows:
Original youth group recording
This is track 5 from the 1968 album “Let Us Go Into The House Of The Lord”. Lead by Dorothy Morrison-Combs Written by Philip Doddridge Arranged by Edwin Hawkins. Edwin Hawkins was a pianist at Ephesian Church of God in Christ in Berkeley, California when he came up with the popular Latin/Soul version of the song “Oh Happy Day” in 1968. In an October 23, 2009 interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, he explained that “Oh Happy Day” was one of eight arrangements he put together for the Northern California State Youth Choir, which was made up of 46 singers ages 17 to 25, and the plan was to sell an album of the songs to finance a trip to a church youth conference in Washington, D.C. The tracks were quickly recorded live in church on a two-track tape machine (industry standard at the time was eight-track), but the records weren’t pressed in time for the trip. They did attend the conference, and the choir placed second in a singing competition, where they performed 2 of Hawkins’ arrangements, but not “Oh Happy Day,” which Hawkins said was “Not our favorite song.”
Me: the bassline beginning at 2:40 through to the end is fantastic! – this is a stellar example of the vibrancy of live performances regardless of the limitations of available recording equipment…wow!
And the performance you might be more familiar with:
Me: this one is a vocal improv that is relatable to the Jam.
Oh happy day (oh happy day) Oh happy day (oh happy day) When Jesus washed (when Jesus washed) When Jesus washed (when Jesus washed) When Jesus washed (when Jesus washed) He washed my sins away (oh happy day) Oh happy day (oh happy day)
He taught me how to watch, fight and pray, fight and pray
And live rejoicing every, everyday
Oh happy day…
Two years ago on the 17th, I was scheduled to fly back to SC after a Summer of Dad visit. He, instead, changed my plans the day before by having a mini stroke. Hubby quickly cancelled that flight and rescheduled for another flight for the following week.
September 17th, 2018 we closed on Ma & Dad’s house. Two nights before that, hubby and I slept in Ma & Dad’s empty house for the last time on our faithful air mattress.
“You cannot buy the Revolution. You cannot make the Revolution. You can only be the Revolution. It is in your spirit, or it is nowhere.” -Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed Continue reading
As most of you know, I’ve been sorting/sifting through the stuff of the lives of my folks while trying to get their house in order for sale these past almost 2 years. That said, this post is kindof like how I am – two opposite drives streaming together – sadness for those lost and gone, yet invigorated to actively let those still here on earth know I love them in the here and now…
My cousin Dennis taking us for a boat ride on Lake Waco, TX
As hubby alluded to in the last post, we went to Colorado via the ‘long way’ earlier this May. First driving for 17 hours straight through to Waco, TX to visit my baby cousin and his family (and to do some business with a colleague in Houston).
Then off to Las Cruces, NM (a breezy 10 hour drive) – land of hubby’s adolescence, our newlywed life and ‘the compound’.
A favorite spot to wander the desert in Las Cruces, NM
LCNM revisited (thoughts)
Sometimes ya gotta be away before ya can come back…or at the very least appreciate what ya left (for whatever reason).
I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with this place known as Las Cruces, New Mexico. Town where we moved for hubby to finish his degree at NMSU after we first got married; place filled with his side of the family or in other words: my in-laws. Not inherently a bad thing, just harder to make one’s mark on a new marriage when there are lots of others hovering overhead. Plus life in married student housing was fun except for the crash course in the myriad varieties of roaches and ants harbored and lurking within the requisite 300 square foot cinderblock walls…
Our first-born was indeed born there, in fact, she was the first baby born for the New Year that year (1982). Cool. We couldn’t wait for all the diapers and other baby items everyone said the city would be bestowing upon us because of that incident of nature; we really needed the help with that kind of stuff being poor students and all…except the year before, the city made such a big deal over Baby New Year that it backfired on them since there were some shady relatives, legal circumstances and secrets now publicly revealed surrounding the family that innocent baby was born into.
So, no freebies for us, though we did get a great write up in the local newspaper and enthusiastic announcements on several of the local radio stations.
Oh well, didn’t matter much since we left for the Bay area soon after hubby graduated – within the first month of our Havilah’s life – to pursue his new job at HP (Hewlett/Packard) as a little family without either side of our families too near. And that’s when we grew the most as a three-some; and when our hearts yearned to be closer to both our families…go figure!
After a few days we were back on the road. The familiar I-25 trail took us to Colorado in the usual 9-10 hour time frame. Also, since we know that route by heart, it is less stressful in terms of placement of rest stops and timing on the one gas fill-up necessary to complete the journey.
Bruno’s Purple Giants – Irises in the family and transplanted in our various gardens for almost 50 years (last vestiges shown here in a corner of Ma&Dad’s neglected garden)
Once at Ma & Dad’s place, the dominoes aligned into classic form, readying for that one touch to start the tumbling of items needed to get their estate settled.
For good.
Now that most of the sorting and sifting of the stuff of lives has been completed, I still have much to do to get the house ready for listing, but as a professional real estate agent told me: “You’re on the right path…almost there.”
After a mere 10 days back here in SC for already-on-the-calendar doctor’s appointments/tests and other commitments, we’ll be heading out again to Colorado, land of my (he)art, gearing up and plowing through to the finish line to ‘git ‘er done*’ with all things related to selling the house.
The housing market is rich with possibilities, wish us luck. * thank you Anna for lending me this phrase On the day before this year’s Summer Solstice, I’m leaving you with a bit of Manc Music in honor of the turning of seasons. Here are Mancunian native sons, the Courteeners, withSummer.
Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in Him Psalms 34:8
Inside view of my ‘loaded brownies minus one ingredient’
This edition of the Virtual Brownie Sharing Circle answers the question presented in the first VBSC post: What exactly is the missing ingredient in my ‘loaded brownies minus one ingredient’?
In a word: Lavender. In a story?
—Ooo-La-La Lavender Brownies—
was the number one fav vignette of my little list* for 2012. Since then, I figured out the proportions to be 1/8 cup crushed dried lavender buds added to the Ghiradelli Double Chocolate Brownie mix, using a large egg in the prep. (see recipe here)
Personally, if I eat more than two, I’ve found that they don’t settle so well on my tummy…kind of reminiscent of their alluded to ‘cousin’ edible. Continue reading
In an effort to reflect solidarity with students in today’s walkout, I am pubbing this post at 10AM local time on March 14th.
Parents wait for news after a reports of a shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., on Wednesday, Feb. 14, 2018. (AP Photo/Joel Auerbach)
Just one month ago on Valentine’s Day/Ash Wednesday 17 students and faculty members of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School were violently killed by Nikolas Cruz with an AR-15-style rifle. As with the Manchester Shootings, teen aged ‘children’ were victims but unlike Manchester, this is an internal ‘war’ waged by American citizens against itself.
I am proud of the students of Parkland – but not proud of the reasons behind this desperate need for change. They have somehow been graced with the gift of channeling anger and grief into a rational and highly visible form of social activism.
Finally, a palpable ‘changing of the guard.’
Hubby says this is their Vietnam…and I’d say they’re rising to the challenge.
The following are snippets of articles gleaned to read as a single narrative (sources are referenced in highlighted links) to document this living history of a rising “Next Generation of Change.” Continue reading
Been a bit under the weather lately.
As I ‘get better’, I find myself perusing all sorts of Youtube tutorials on my fav sidekick instrument – the UKE. And am having fun exploring musical paths yet uncharted. Continue reading
I thought the final drafts and final rewrites of pieces critiqued by two different writers groups in two different states, edited, reworked and rewritten over a time span of close to four years would be the easy part of finishing my Goat Suite Saga set of 7 vignettes. Never mind the larger project of Swimming with Swans: vignettes of our three year journey between homes set of at least 2xs that amount.
Silly me.
While I’ve stamped four of the seven vignettes as final, it’s this fifth one that’s got me up against the wall as mentioned in a previous post. It’s a good thing I took that quilt break as it helped refresh my writerly juices to get back in the game.
However, it seemed like I just wasn’t making any progress. So, the other day I decided to passively gather data on how long it’s taking to actually do specific rewrites. The numbers were kind of scary.
Let me explain.
There’s this one musically technical paragraph that I was told was confusing to non-musicians. However, I insist upon it staying as it’s important to the totality of that particular vignette. One paragraph, out of one vignette with an approximate word count of 2000 words took me over 12 hours to rework, reword, rewrite and stamp as final.
One paragraph.
Waiting on the final studio mix of my lone recorded piece (out of four total) left to be mixed before sending all to the mastering lab has been frustrating. Yet, it gives me an excuse to focus on the written part of the GSS of which an abbreviated form will be featured in the cd insert booklet.
Never did I ever figure on spending so much time on one paragraph.
John 16:13
