Chantey Singing at the Rowayton Arts Center

For the last two months, I've been taking part in a chantey sing held at the Rowayton Arts Center from 4:00-6:00pm on the third Sunday of the month, and have been enjoying it immensely.  The program is hosted by Deirdre Murtha, of The Johnson Girls, and her husband Sean, who also sings and plays banjo, fiddle and bones.

Each afternoon, different people take turns leading chanteys and other maritime-related songs.  The guy on the left, whose name I should remember, but don't, sings a lot of Scottish and Irish songs.  [Editor's Note 4/14/12: His name is Cliff Abrans and he's a heck of a great guy.  Also, for the record, I figured that out right after I made the original post, but only just got around to making this note.  Oops.]  Other folks are more general-purpose chantey singers, while others just come and sing along -- or even just listen.

When I went last month, it was a spur-of-the-moment decision and I didn't have anything prepared, but ended up leading Adieu, Sweet Lovely Nancy, The Mary Ellen Carter, and Fair Maid Walking.  This last time, since I had a chance to plan, I took along my guitar and banjo and led The Loss of the Bay Rupert, Battleship of Maine [Here's a video of me playing it in Havana.], Christmas in the Trenches, and The Storms are on the Ocean.

The Chantey Blast at Mystic Seaport is January 7 and I'm looking forward to going up for that.  I feel like I need to have a policy of not repeating songs at the Rowayton Chantey Sing, so I'll be on the lookout for catchy tunes with interesting lyrics.

Ship Sighting: Hudson River Sloop CLEARWATER

Earlier this week, the Norwalk Hour ran a brief piece letting the world know that the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater would be at the Norwalk Cove Marina for a few days for maintenance.  Having crewed on Clearwater for part of a single day, back in the fall of 2006 when Amistad and Clearwater were tied up at the same dock on the Hudson, I was interested in seeing what Clearwater looked like out of the water.  On Thursday afternoon, Kimberly and I took Ian to Cove after we picked him up from school.

Unlike Amistad, which draws 10.5 feet of water, Clearwater is a shallow-draft vessel, with a centerboard that can be raised and lowered to accommodate the waters of the Hudson.  Similarly, the areas below decks are rather scant on headroom and the crew's quarters have the feel of a child's play area, with stringed instruments hanging on bulkheads for easy access by the crew.  Steering is with a large tiller, carved in the shape of an arm with a fist on the end of it, rather than with a wheel.

Clearwater's crew, who are usually busy teaching lessons about the Hudson River's ecosystem, were hard at work replacing planking and caulking seams, so I didn't want to bother them, but here are a couple photos from the afternoon.

Bless!: A Retrospective

Rev. Quinn Caldwell speaks
about blessings.  Note the
spiffy tweed vest, similar to
the one I was wearing.  We
were extremely stylish together.

The last couple days in Boston have been fantastic, with several great worship experiences, informative workshops, and shop-talk with fellow pastors and worship leaders, including several that I had gotten to know well in my days back in the Central Atlantic Conference.  Not to give too much away, but I'm coming back with a couple interesting ideas for different celebrations in the life of the church.

The pastoral staff at Old South Church, Revs. Nancy Taylor (Sr. Minister) and Quinn Caldwell (Associate Minister), along with Ron Buford (Minister for Discipleship), and Harry Huff (Minister of Music) encouraged attendees to make the practice of blessing things, people, and pets a regular part of their congregation's worship lives.  At Old South, they bless "anything that moves and many things that don't," including stewardship pledges, animals (from hamsters to police horses), backpacks, hammers, and marathon runners.  They are also extremely intentional in their worship planning, having weekly meetings with the worship leaders to critique the previous week's service and to fully plan out the logistics of the coming week's service.  Often, they try out new ways of doing things at the early service ("First Worship") before incorporating them in the main service ("Festival Worship").

At the conclusion of the conference, there was a live webcast of a blessing service for the fruits of the Mission:1 offerings.  (Video archived here.)  With preaching from Ben Guess and music featuring Old South's magnificent pipe organ, 'cello, and a quartet, we praised God for the ability to share in blessing others.  We dedicated all of the items that had been received and those still outstanding.  At the time of my writing this, the UCC has collected:

• 1,190,533 items of food collected (Goal of 1,000,000 exceeded 11/10.)
• 33,792 letters to congress (Goal of 11,111 exceeded 11/6.)
• $91,802 donated to Neighbors in Need for US hunger relief (Goal of $11,111 met in pledges.)
• $93,930 donated for famine relief in East Africa (Goal of $11,111 met in pledges.)

A sign along the green line of the MTBA
somewhere between Boston and Riverside.
Click on the picture and read about Charlie.

In other news, it turns out that the distance from Old South Church and the Walker Center, where I stayed, is longer than I had anticipated, with each trip taking 45 minutes or so, which gave me lots of time to read and people-watch.  At one point, as we were sitting at a station, I heard some start humming the MTA song, "Let me tell you a story 'bout a man named Charlie..."  I was amused, as it had been running through my brain ever since getting on my first T train, but I was surprised to see that my fellow traveler had been inspired to sing not by the mere fact that we had used our "Charlie Cards" to pay our fares, but that the song -- and my friend Jackie Steiner -- had been immortalized by a sign along the tracks.  Go ahead.  Click on the picture and read all about Walter O'Brien and the true story of "the man who never returned."

I managed to eat two meals in Boston's Chinatown, one at Xinh Xinh, a Vietnamese restaurant where I got a fantastic bowl of pho, and Winsor Dim Sum Cafe, where Eric Anderson and I gorged ourselves on many varieties of dumplings after the conference ended.

Today, I wandered around the Boston area, with a dead cell phone battery, so I couldn't take pictures of anything or even check in on Facebook, Twitter or Foursquare until I managed to plug in late in the day.  I stuck my head in at Andover Newton Theological School, since you never know when there might be a D.Min. in the cards, though Saturday may not have been the best possible time for a visit.  I also stopped by the Occupy Boston encampment in Dewey Square, where I chatted with some of the folks who were in residence and prayed with some of them  in the Sacred Space Tent.

So here I am, making use of Amtrak's WiFi and 120 Volt outlets, posting even before getting home from my trip.  Isn't technology grand?!

"Bless!" Conference in Boston

I haven't taken a train trip in a while, not since the Great Chesapeake Bay Schooner Race back in 2008.  Today, I'm riding Amtrak on my way to Boston for "bless!", a national conference for worship leaders, sponsored by the UCC's Local Church Ministries and hosted at the historic Old South Church.  Tomorrow afternoon, the bless! conference will include a blessing for all of the food and financial gifts that have been raised by all of the congregations of the United Church of Christ as part of the Mission: 1 project, with the blessing service being webcast at 4:00pm here.  If you look carefully, you might even see me in the congregation.

While at the conference, I'll be staying at the Walker Center, which was originally started by a Congregationalist missionary who had returned from Turkey when her husband died.  Her new mission was to start a home for the children of missionaries who needed to stay in the US for either safety concerns or so they could pursue their education.  Over time, the Walker Center shifted from hosting Missionaries' Kids, becoming first a center where students from abroad can stay while pursuing studying at Boston area schools, and then a retreat center.

Over the next couple days, I'll be posting reflections from the conference, mostly via Facebook (friend me) and Twitter (follow me).  I'll post a big-picture reflection here, as well.

Fall Hiking and Paddling at Huntington State Park

It may seem that four months without a blog post is a bit excessive.  Of course, on the other hand, I'm not really sure how many folks were sitting at home and checking my blog every couple of hours in the hopes that I'd written something.  For those of you who have been doing so, please accept my apologies.  The rest of you can just read this and murmur something about how time flies.

Since Ian and I returned from General Synod, the big family adventure was our family vacation in the Canadian Maritimes, where we stayed with friends on Prince Edward Island and then camped for the rest of the trip as we visited Cape Breton Island, Halifax, Lunenberg and Cape Chignecto on the Bay of Fundy. These places would probably have made great blog posts, except that we didn't have much going in the way of internet access. Upon returning home to Connecticut, things have been work-work-work, all the time, with a bunch of funerals and meetings. Oh well....
So today, which was a genuine day off for EVERYONE in the family, Kimberly, Ian and I loaded up our canoe and kayak and headed up to Collis P. Huntington State Park, located on the borders of Bethel, Newtown and Redding, Ct.  On this October day, the drive was beautiful, with the autumn leaves providing just a hint of color.

Starting Down the First Stretch

When we reached the park, we popped the boats in the water right next to the parking area and paddled down the first bit of water toward the main pond, passing down the West Lagoon, an area a couple hundred yards long that had the feel of a lazy river, rather than a pond.  In spots, the tree branches from both sides of the pond met and formed an arch down which we paddled.  At the end of this first stretch, we paddled under a foot bridge and entered a somewhat larger pond, the East Lagoon.

Mallards Ignoring Us

As we entered the East Lagoon, the feature that first caught our attention was a spillway on the far side.  After paddling over to it, went to the north end of the pond, where we encountered a flock of mallards who seemed completely unconcerned with our presence.

Returning to the south end of the pond, we paddled under another foot bridge into Lake Hopewell.  We paddled past a small stone "lighthouse" into the channel between an island and the west shore of the lake and found ourselves in wonderfully clear water, where we could easily see the bottom, along with fish and a huge turtle that was probably 16" or so across.  Other turtles sunned themselves on a log, plopping into the water in a most undignified way as we neared them.

Turtles, Prior to Their Retreat

 After circling the island, looking for a landing spot, we went ashore and climbed to the top of the hill for lunch, There were lots of trees that had been chewed by beavers, but we never did see a dam or a lodge anywhere in our trip.  After lunch, we made a fairly quick circuit of Lake Hopewell, watching a couple throwing sticks into the water for their black lab to retrieve and seeing a couple of anglers casting, but nobody catching anything.  With a quick duck back under the two foot bridges, we paddled back to the end of the East Lagoon, with maybe an hour and a half's actual paddling time elapsed.  After we loaded the boats back on top of the car, we switched from Tevas to hiking boots for a ramble around the park's trail system.

Horses Graze as Their Riders Picnic

Much of the trail that we hiked had a lot of what Ian called "PUD," Pointless Up and Down, going over several ridges that run across the park (though the park map gives absolutely no sense of terrain).  A surprise for us was that we ended up sharing the trail with mountain bikers and horseback riders, who must have stayed on the somewhat gentler trails.  The park website says that they also offer cross-country skiing in the winter, so I expect that we'll have to venture back in a few months to see which trails are designated for that.

It was a fantastic day, just warm enough for great paddling and just cool enough for comfortable hiking.  This is what fall in New England is supposed to be!

Tampa: Days 3-5

In a perfect world, there's time to blog.  In mine, there isn't.

Since General Synod 28 started on Friday, I've been getting up early, working hard, staying up late (either with old friends or debriefing with the Youth and Young Adult Delegates from the Connecticut Conference, for whom I'm a "shepherd"), and collapsing into bed.  That isn't to say that I haven't been blasting out lots of tweets and/or Facebook posts, trying to capture the essence of what is going on around here.

Worship has been fantastic!  See below.  Really, take the time to watch this video!


Yesterday was the day that all of the resolutions went to committees and were hammered into shape so that they can come to the synod floor today.  As always, there were lots of people who were all trying to have their say, even though they didn't have anything new to add to the discussion.  My group, which was REALLY well led by Dr. John Ramos, who is a member of my congregation and also serves as the moderator of the Connecticut Conference, discussed a resolution "On Actions of Hostility against Islam and the Muslim Community" and managed to move fairly briskly through the process, though the business, though I understand that my son's group not only took up the allotted three hours, but ran an hour over because folks were arguing over commas v. semicolons or some other such minutiae.

Today, we entered plenary session and have covered a few issues.  This being Florida, we have had some difficulty with the new electronic voting system, as some of the delegates have had trouble with the new technology.  We seem to have gotten it squared away, but not without some anxiety.

In our voting so far, we have approved the ecumenical agreement between the Roman Catholic church and several churches out of the Reformed tradition, whereby we will now officially recognize one-another's baptisms.

So far, I've attended meals sponsored by the Pacific Islander and Asian American Ministries and one by the Pacific School of Religion.  I've still got a Wider Church Ministries dinner tonight and a "Seven Secrets" lunch tomorrow.  What's "Seven Secrets?"  I have no idea,  I expect that it's a secret.

We're starting our next plenary now, getting ready to deal with amendments to the UCC Constitution and Bylaws, dealing with the Unified Governance proposal.

Tampa: Days 1 & 2

Yesterday, Ian and I flew to Tampa for the UCC's General Synod XXVIII.  We settled into a motel just outside of the city and took a short drive to Ybor City, a section of Tampa started by a Cuban cigar manufacturer by the name of Ybor a little over a century ago.  Over time, Ybor City became the center of cigar manufacturing in the US, though that industry has all but died out, with only small shops offering hand-rolled cigars instead of industrial scale operations.  These days, Ybor City  has become a tourist area featuring lots of tattoo parlors and nightclubs, and is served by a streetcar that runs into center city and has three other connecting lines.  After dinner of Cuban sandwiches at Carmines, we returned to the hotel and turned in.

This morning, Ian and I picked up some sandwiches and headed up to Canoe Escape, where we loaded into an old school bus and headed out to for a paddle trip on the Hillsborough River.  We put in at Sargeant Park and spent about an hour paddling upstream of the put-in, where we saw and photographed several alligators, snowy egrets, herons, and other interesting wildlife.  Shortly after we turned around and went downstream from the put-in, we heard thunder rumble and the rain soon followed.  Undaunted – well, slightly daunted – we kept paddling, making our way down the beautiful little river, passing palm trees and live oaks hung with Spanish moss, passing a school group huddled under umbrellas and complaining about how they were tired and wet, and finally reaching what would have been the half-way point of our trip, Morris Bridge Park.  Given the thunder, we decided to cut the trip short and arranged a pick up by the Canoe Escape shuttle.  

Since we finished the canoe trip earlier than we had planned, Ian and I had to improvise plans for the afternoon.   We crossed the 4.8 mile long Howard Frankland Bridge across old Tampa Bay and went to Haslam’s Bookstore  in St. Petersburg, not planning on buying anything, but with the hope that we just MIGHT come across a hard-to-find book or two that needed to come live chez Bryant-Smith.  Though Haslam’s is, according to one brochure, the “destination bookstore” for new and used books, we still didn’t find anything that we simply couldn’t live without.  It is, however, still a place where, if I lived in the area, I’d end up spending an inordinate amount of time and money.

Haslam’s isn’t far from Gulfport, so Ian and I made a quick trip to that town’s municipal beach, which opened onto a bay separated from the Gulf of Mexico by a series of barrier islands, Ian and I decided to head over to the beach at 130^th Avenue in Treasure Island, which was on the Gulf itself.  We parked and made our way to the beach, taking off our shoes and socks before stepping onto the soft, white sand.  On the drive over, we had seen several rain squalls blowing across the area and one of them was making its way down the beach toward us, so we dipped our toes in the water, took a couple pictures, grabbed a few seashells and hightailed it back to the car, accompanied by a stream of folks who had hastily hauled down their umbrellas before the rain hit.

Back in the car, Ian announced that he wanted barbecue for dinner.  We checked Yelp! and found Smokin’ J’s Real Texas Barbeque, for which I’ll write a separate post.  Ian was amused that I was the first Facebook check-in and had to create a listing for the restaurant.  My commentary, which turned out to be the new description for the restaurant was, “Great pulled pork, ribs & brisket.  LIFE CHANGING wings.” 

After dinner, we returned to the hotel, where we were treated to a gorgeous rainbow before settling in to watch TV and blog.  Tomorrow will be an early start.  I’ve got to return the rental car and we’ve both got to get checked into the Marriott and attend the first events of Synod in the afternoon.