It Is Time Now

February 23, 2021

Dear BUF Choristers,

Today is exactly one year since our last Interfaith Music Festival, on February 23, 2020, and what a year it has been! Watching the videos from that day, of BUF singing "Baba Yetu" with Unati Machyo on the solo, and of the festival choir singing "Bright Morning Stars" makes me cry. How did we do that? When will we be able to sing like that again?

I'll show you those videos during our Zoom rehearsal tomorrow (Wednesday , Feb 24 - use the regular link:   https://zoom.us/s/203732613     password: BUF).  and then I want to just look at you and celebrate that at least we're still here! And not only that, but we ARE having an Interfaith Music Festival this year, albeit a virtual one.

As of Monday afternoon, these six intrepid singers submitted videos of themselves singing "We Shall Be Known" : Lawrence Allen, Lisa Heezen, Tessie Mandeville, Cindy Pfeiffer-Hoyt, Melanie Rieck and Jane Ronca-Washburn.  Kudos to them!

It is time now for THEM to encourage the rest of us, to answer our questions and quicken our resolve. Our videos are due March 5, and I heartily hope that the rest of us will join the celebrated six above in the virtuous ranks of the virtual heavenly choir, who know that:

     We shall be known by the company we keep, by the ones who circle round to tend these fires.

     We shall be known by the ones who sow and reap the seeds of change, alive from deep within the earth

     It is time now, it is time now that we thrive, it is time we lead ourselves into the well

     It is time now, and what a time to be alive, in this Great Turning we shall learn to lead in love.

See ya Wednesday,

Love,

Kevin