In this world, to Fast is really to Slow Down

 

The Lenten season has begun.  For the next six weeks, many people will give up favorite foods like coffee or chocolate, refrain from swearing or abstaining from reality television.  The idea of giving up something for Lent is to remind you of the sacrifice that Jesus made by dying for our sins. Theoretically this means that each time you reach for that cup of coffee, piece of chocolate or the remote to catch the latest shenanigans of Snooki, you will pause and remember the suffering of Jesus.

I used to give up chocolate; no small feat since Lent also happens to be the only time that Cadbury Mini Eggs are available.  These candy-coated delights used to be my own personal version of crack.  Once I began consuming them there was no stopping.  When my cupboard ran bare, I’d started “jonesing” for more, scanning supermarket and drug store aisles for that signature purple bag.  Rather than checking myself into Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew, Lent has proven to be the perfect opportunity to break myself of the Mini Egg habit by giving up chocolate. 

This year my church, the United Church of Christ in Norwell, is suggesting a different Lenten practice.  Rather than giving up one item for the entire length of Lent, they are asking members of the congregation to consider doing a series of targeted fasts, one each week until the season ends.

Week one suggests a food fast for a day, consuming nothing but water and fruit juices.  My first thought was “I can do this” followed immediately by, “Wait, is coffee a food?”  The description of this fast includes a tip about bringing aspirin or ibuprofen with you in case of headaches, so I’m guessing java is not part of the acceptable beverage list.  If I plan this carefully, designating my 24 hours to run from post-dinner one night to dinner the next, and schedule it on a workday where I won’t hear my chips and crackers and cookies calling me from the cabinet, I think I can make it.  All in all, it’s better for my body to have a food fast than fast food.

Week two suggests a technology fast.  No Internet, radio, television, computer or any other electrical device.  Oh dear.  I think a second food fast would be easier.  My computer sits on my counter running all day long, providing easy access for my multiple visits to Facebook, Pinterest and Regretsy.   I’d have to drive with no music in the car.  And no…(gulp)…television.  Is it cheating to set Tivo to record my favorite shows the night before and watch at a later time?  WWJD?

Week three is a carbon footprint fast.  Pick one day to refrain from driving or using electricity.  If weather permits, turn down the heat.  Eat cold meals. Don’t buy or use disposable products.  Think about what it takes to power our lives and reflect on how to reduce it.  This fast has been brought to you by Al Gore.  I inadvertently participated in a fast like this for two days when Hurricane Irene knocked out our power last summer.  This will also be a tough one.

Week four is a verbal fast.  Select a day when you can spend an extended period of time in silence.  When I described this to my husband, he carefully arranged his facial features in a neutral expression to avoid laughing.  In his mind I know he was thinking “good luck with that one!”  I believe of all the fasts, this one benefits my husband most; his own personal cross to bear is my constant conversation interruptions.  I’m intrigued by the idea of embracing silence, listening to the sounds of the natural world and listening for God.  My husband is intrigued by the idea that he might finally get to finish a sentence.

The final fast is a financial one.  Spend no money for an entire week, with the exception of gas and groceries.  As an impulse shopper, this one is tricky.  Like many, I often rely on “retail therapy” to ease boredom or relieve stress.  Could I go a week without buying a coffee, lunching with friends, or perusing the aisles of Ocean State Job Lot?   Could you?

Each of these fasts hits home in a very unique way.  As a society we have become complacent by our access to abundant food, modern conveniences and a cyber world that consumes an enormous amount of our time.  Stepping away from each of these things, if only for a day, will help me to better appreciate the blessings that God has given me.  And if I compare these small sacrifices with the one Jesus made, will they really be that difficult?

I’m excited to find out.

Vacation Days can lead to Vacation Daze

It’s Wednesday of school vacation week or Thursday, depending on when you get your paper.  Have you pulled your hair out yet?  I’ve still got a little bit left which is really just a credit to the volume of hair that I started with this week.

As much as I enjoy spending time with my children, February vacation tends to be the one that sends me over the edge.  First of all, it comes just seven weeks after the end of Christmas vacation.  Sprinkled throughout those seven weeks we’ve had a few early dismissals and a four-day weekend in honor of Martin Luther King. 

February vacation is also a rough one because several of my friends are either heading north or west to ski country, or south to a tropical destination.  I too decided to take my kids south for a few days, but we only travel as far as my parent’s home in New Jersey, so there isn’t much opportunity for sun bathing, swimming with dolphins or drinks with little paper umbrellas in them.

I foolishly chose to add a day to my kids’ vacation by taking them out of school a day early for travel.  Wanting to maximize my time with my family, I opted to travel on Friday and return on Tuesday.  Setting the tone for my trip was the discovery that my husband’s car needed several hundred dollars worth of repairs in order to insure safe travel.  This news came on the heels of having spent another ungodly sum on my own car, which required a rebuilt transmission and still sports a “check engine” light when traveling over 60mph.  I began to wonder if someone was trying to send me a message: “Stay home!”

Still, I decided to take my chances, loading my kids in the car and heading south.  Mere minutes into my trip I discovered that my iPod had died.  Disappointed that I wouldn’t be able to listen to my favorite music for the six-hour trip, I consoled myself with satellite radio instead.  Thankfully, my husband’s car behaved, my kids immersed themselves in videos in the back seat, and we arrived in the Garden State just in time to see whether or not the flags were really lowered to half-staff for Whitney Houston.

Our first morning in New Jersey, my sons and I spent several hours poking around a favorite flea market with my sister, brother-in-law and nephew. Buried deep in an old milk crate, I found old record albums from the original PBS shows “Zoom” and “The Electric Company” which I purchased $2 apiece. Within minutes a stranger approached and said, “I’ll give you $5 for that Zoom album...I’ll give you $10!” Tempting…but no.  I held onto those vinyl treasures.  My second best score of the day was an antique Royal typewriter, which I thought would make a great decoration.  Relaxing with my sisters later that same day, my sons and their cousins took turns typing away, setting aside their Nintendo game systems and other electronic devices to play with what they deemed “historic technology.”  Hmm.  I wonder if I can convince them that the vacuum cleaner is “historic technology” as well.

Our second day in New Jersey, I discovered that nothing can wake you from a sound sleep faster than your child yelling, “Mom…the toilet is overflowing!”  Truth be told, it was at that point I missed my husband most.  How wise of him to stay in Hanover, sleeping late while I unclogged a toilet before my first sip of coffee.  If ever I needed one of those little umbrella drinks, it was then.

Later that same day, my sister and I took my boys to a local museum to see a special Lego exhibit, then stopped by my grandparents’ grave to pay our respects.  Not one to pass up a chance to scare his brother, my older son tried to recreate the cemetery scene from “Night of the Living Dead”.   I quickly hustled the kids out of the graveyard before we got ourselves kicked out.

Ok, so it may not be a ski vacation or a tropical retreat, but at least I’m spending time with my kids.  We’re scheduled to head home on Tuesday and decompress on Wednesday.  And then on Thursday my real vacation will begin when I go back to work while my husband takes a few days off to spend with the boys. 

Because honestly…why should I have all the fun?

The Tragic Death of Whitney Houston

What went wrong, Whitney?

Like many, I was shocked to hear of Whitney Houston’s death this past weekend.  I found it particularly painful in that Whitney and I are the same age. Anytime someone my age passes away, I say a prayer and think, “there but for the grace of God go I.” However, our age is pretty much the only thing Whitney Houston and I had in common.   

Whitney came on the scene in the mid 1980’s, just as I was graduating from college and learning to make my way in the world. I remember purchasing her self-titled debut album on cassette, so that I could walk to work listening to songs like “How Will I Know” and “You Give Good Love” on my Sony Walkman. Her next album included hits like “So Emotional”, Didn’t We Almost Have It All” and my personal favorite “I Wanna Dance With Somebody”. I looked up the music video for that last song online and although the costumes and hairstyles are dated to the 80’s, the enthusiasm and exuberance Whitney conveyed in that one song are timeless. She looked young, fresh, innocent and happy.

Out of those four adjectives, innocence seems to be the one that always came to mind when I thought of Whitney Houston.  While Madonna was rolling around in a wedding dress singing “Like a Virgin”, canoodling with a Christ-like figure in “Like a Prayer”, and addressing the issue of teen pregnancy in “Papa Don’t Preach”, Whitney’s songs focused more on love found and love lost through award-winning hits like “The Greatest Love Of All” and the iconic “I Will Always Love You”.  She was the only artist to chart seven consecutive No. 1 Billboard Hot 100 Hits, and according to the 2009 Guinness Book of World Records, the most-awarded female act of all time.  The daughter of gospel singer Cissy Houston, cousin of legend Dionne Warwick and goddaughter of Aretha Franklin, it was clear right from the start that Whitney had musical talent in her blood.

Her “good girl” image seemed to lose some of its shine once she married bad boy Bobby Brown in 1992.  For the next decade, her performances onstage and in films were interspersed with accounts of physical abuse, drug abuse and erratic behavior.  Her interview with Diane Sawyer, where she emphatically denied using crack cocaine, asserting,” Crack is whack”, confirmed in my mind that something was truly wrong in Whitney’s life.

Whitney Houston fell off my radar over recent years.  Whenever her name came up in conversation, it was always something along the lines of “Did you see how thin she looked?” or “She looked like she was on something.”  For this reason her death came as a shock, but not a surprise.   If her behavior and alleged drug use had landed her in the papers more frequently, like Amy Winehouse or Lindsay Lohan, I guess I would have expected a premature death for her.  But because she dealt with her demons mostly in private, away from the cameras and reporters, surfacing just long enough to spark brief, negative comments, her death hits me harder than others might.

I mourn the loss of Whitney Houston and her God-given talent.  And though there are many ways to remember her, I’ll chose to remember that innocent girl from 1985 whose only wish was to dance with somebody who loved her.

Rest in peace, Whitney.

Oddly, both Abbey and Abby are Dear

In a traditional battle of good versus evil, I find that there are two opposing forces wrestling for my soul. One side, I am drawn toward a force that embodies refinement, quality and culture. The other is the pure essence of darkness, evil and negativity.

I’m talking about “Downton Abbey” versus “Dance Moms”.

It’s hard to wrap my brain around the fact that I can embrace two completely opposite television programs such as these. “Downton Abbey”, winner of multiple Emmy and Golden Globe awards, is broadcast on PBS, the standard for quality programming and the channel that produces shows like “Nova” and “Frontline”.  “Downton Abbey” follows the story of the Earl of Grantham and his family, beginning with a relative’s death aboard the Titanic and continuing through the battlefields of World War I. “Downton Abbey” chronicles the lives and loves of both the Earl’s family as well as the servants who work for them. I find it to be a more rich, sumptuous, engaging version of that old PBS classic, “Upstairs, Downstairs”.

“Dance Moms”, on the other hand, is a reality program that follows the trials and tribulations of a group of young dancers from the Abby Lee Dance Company in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The program airs on the Lifetime network, the channel that also created “Drew Peterson: Untouchable” and “The Craig’s List Killer”.  In “Dance Moms”, a group of girls ranging in age from 6-14 travel each week to a new dance competition while their instructor, Abby Lee Miller screams criticism and treats everyone around in her orbit as verbal punching bags. The “dance moms” sit on the sidelines and complain about how terribly their children are being treated.  And yet, no one makes a move to leave.

It’s appropriate that “Downton Abbey” airs on Sunday night. Between Sunday school, church and youth group, I spend a good portion of my Sundays feeling tranquil and serene. Capping of Sunday night with a well-produced program like Downton Abbey makes me feel clean, refreshed and renewed.

Then Tuesday night comes around, complete with Abby Lee Miller barking at the mothers, the dancers, the competitors and the poor bus driver who takes them to their various competitions. By the end of the show I feel as if I’ve rolled around in a dumpster for an hour. 

“Downton Abbey” boasts a cast of some of Britain’s finest actors including Dame Maggie Smith. “Dance Moms” boasts a cast of some of the craziest mothers I’ve ever seen. In Season 1, a dance mom snuck off to the hotel bar for a couple of glasses of wine, then accidentally burned her daughter with a curling iron mere minutes before she was due to dance. 

“Downton Abbey” is filmed at Highclere Castle, an exquisite country estate located in

Hampshire, England that dates back to the 8^th century.  “Dance Moms” is filmed mostly at Abby Lee Miller’s studio located in beautiful, scenic Pittsburgh. The characters on “Downton Abbey” wear tuxedos and sumptuous evening gowns and dress formally for dinner each night. On “Dance Moms”, the girls are dressed in outrageous dance costumes, twice dubbed by their own mothers as looking like “prosti-tots”. 

It’s “Abby” versus “Abbey” competing for my soul. How is it possible to equally love two programs that are such polar opposites of each other? Do I need an intervention? Where can I turn for advice? Should I write to “Dear Abby”?  Meditate at Westminster Abbey? Listen to the Beatle’s “Abbey Road”? 

Perhaps the answer lies in simply shutting off the television altogether and turning to a good book instead. After all, reading is much better for the mind than television.

Yes, that’s what I’ll do. I’ll improve my mind with a book.

So what’ll it be?  Jane Austen? Or Danielle Steele?  Hmm.

Rock the Vote for Risky Business Band

Every once in a great while, I stop for a moment and realize that the world doesn’t revolve around me. As much as it might seem to, I’m occasionally reminded that there are other notable folks out there that deserve more than just a small blurb at the end of whatever diatribe I’ve composed each week. So without further ado, may I please have a moment of your time to raise your awareness of Hanover’s incredibly talented Risky Business Band?

Risky Business Band (RBB) is comprised of area high school students: Hanover High Seniors Tyler Cheo and Alex Sennett, HHS Junior Myles Sweeney, Ben Shirley of Beverly and fill-in member Bob Summers of Scituate. Committed to creating musical fusion, these musicians joined forces in 2011 and have since created a steadily increasing buzz throughout the South Shore and Boston area. Each member has a love and respect for music that translates in their music and on stage.  

I was fortunate enough to see three of these young men perform on Friday night at the Friends of Hanover Music fundraiser, “Aloha Hanover”. The evening featured performances from groups representing each of the Hanover schools. I attended the event in order to see my 8^th grader perform with the Hanover Middle School Jazz Band.  However, I stayed right to the end in order to enjoy music from the Middle School’s Performance troop and Hanover High’s VOX choir, Mad-Jazz Choir, Jazz Lab Band, Jazz Combo and Jazz Ensemble.  To sit in the Cushing Center with your eyes closed, you would not think that you were listening to high school-aged musicians.  And three of the most talented performers from that evening comprise the heart of the Risky Business Band.

I’ve kept up with RBB through Facebook friends, so I knew that they have performed not once but twice on WATD radio’s “Almost Famous” program.   I knew that they have been featured at the Palladium in Worcester and the Orpheum Theater in Foxboro.  I was impressed to learn that they won the 2011 Marshfield Fair Battle of the Bands (under their former name Political Extinction) and that they took Top band at the Music on Up Showcase at the Hard Rock Café in Boston.

What I didn’t know was how much Risky Business Band has given back to their community.  Despite their busy schedule playing in a variety of local clubs and private parties, the boys have donated their time to several worthy organizations and causes including The Alzheimer's Association; Friendship Home, an organization committed to enriching the lives of individuals with developmental disabilities; South Shore YMCA; Friends of Jaclyn, a non-profit, charitable organization that improves the quality of life for children with pediatric brain tumors and their families; Captain Lew's Crew, an organization that provides opportunities in sports to athletes in need; and their newest cause, The Cancer Support Community-Massachusetts South Shore, which provides free emotional support programs for people who are living with cancer and their loved ones.  The

Organization will host a walk at Wompatuck on April 29 at which the boys will perform.

These young men have devoted their time and their music to help these organizations and their community.  And now I think it’s time that their community return the favor by helping them.  

Risky Business Band is competing in Hard Rock Rising 2012, a global battle of the bands, taking place online and in 86 participating Hard Rock locations around the world. Hard Rock Rising lets music fans around the globe download free tracks from emerging acts. The nine bands (minimum) with the most votes in Boston will earn the opportunity to perform live in a battle of the bands at The Hard Rock Café- Boston. One band will be crowned the regional winner of Boston and move on to compete globally for a chance to open Hard Rock Calling 2012 in London's Hyde Park.  The download contest is hosted on Facebook and voting is open until February 5.

How can you help Risky Business Band get to London?  The first step is to search for the Hard Rock Rising 2012 page on Facebook and “like” them.   Then follow the steps to get to United States and then Boston.  Download the single “Call Me A Fool” by Risky Business Band.  An easy way to find RBB amongst the contenders is to sort the bands by the number of downloads.  As I type this, Risky Business Band is in first place.   Let’s keep it that way.  Each download counts as a "vote" for the band. When you’ve received your download, encourage all your family, friends, co-workers and other Facebook acquaintances to vote for RBB as well.  (You can “like” Risky Business Band on Facebook as well).

It’s one thing to say, “I knew that band before they were famous”, it’s quite another to be able to say, “I helped that band become famous.”  Take a few minutes to visit Facebook and give yourself that rare treat of helping make someone else’s dream come true.

Good luck boys!