Upcoming Events
February 9, 2010
Lent is fast approaching
and Transmission has it covered. See below for our current plans for Lent, Holy Week, and Easter.
Wed Feb 17: host-Caleb, cook-Caleb, ritual-Katie. This Ash Wednesday, we will be making ashy soap for use throughout Lent. See our post from last year for more details.
Sat Feb 27: Planning meeting at a cafe TBA
Wed Mar 3: host-Mabel, cook-Katie, ritual-Johannes
Wed Mar 17: host-Elaine, cook-Dan, ritual-Isaac. We will be blessing Elaine’s new home and celebrating St. Patrick’s Day.
Sat Mar 27: Planning meeting at cafe TBA
Wed Mar 31: Planning meeting at cafe TBA
Thurs Apr 1: Maundy Thursday with St. Lydia’s?
маси и столовеFri Apr 2: Stations of the Cross around NYC?
Sat Apr 3 – Sun Apr 4: Easter Vigil? We had a very successful vigil last year, and we are searching for a space for our Easter ritual redux. Let us know if you have ideas about churches that might be willing to host an 8-hour Easter Vigil.
Wed Apr 7: game night, host-Mabel, cook TBA
Wed Apr 21: host, cook, ritual TBA
If you would like to come to any of these events, get on our mailing list by clicking on the Contact link. We hope to see you soon!
A Rite of Passage
August 10, 2009
Aidan Kavanaugh was professor of liturgy at the Divinity School of Yale University. He told the following story within a lecture delivered in August 1997 at the Theology Institute held at Holy Cross Abbey in Canon City, Colorado. It was printed in Liturgy 70 with Father Aidan’s kind permission, and was read to me last week by Craig Satterlee.  I thought it might be an interesting read for Transmissioners while we continue exploring our relationship with sacraments.
I have always rather liked the gruff robustness of the first rubric for baptism found in a late fourth-century church order which directs that the bishop enter the vestibule of the baptistry and say to the catechumens without commentary or apology only four words: “Take off your clothes.” There is no evidence that the assistants fainted or the catechumens asked what he meant. Catechesis and much prayer and fasting had led them to understand that the language of their passage this night in Christ from death to life would be the language of the bathhouse and the tomb – not that of the forum and the drawing room.
So they stripped and stood there, probably, faint from fasting , shivering from the cold of early Easter morning and with awe at what was about to be consummated; years of having their motives and lives scrutinized; years of hearing the word of God read and expounded at worship; years of being dismissed with prayer before the Faithful went on to celebrate the eucharist; years of having the doors to the assembly hall closed to them; years of seeing the tomb-like baptistry building only from without; years of hearing the old folks of the community tell hair-raising tales of what being a Christian had cost their own grandparents when the emperors were still pagan; years of running into a reticent and reverent vagueness concerning what was actually done by the Faithful at the breaking of bread and in that closed baptistry . . . . tonight all this was about to end as they stood here naked on a cold floor in the gloom of this eerie room.
Soapy, Frothy, Ash Wednesday
February 23, 2009
This Wednesday, we’re celebrating the first day of lent by taking a bunch of ashes and…. making them into soap! Ha, that’s not what you were expecting me to say, was it?
In any case, in the grand tradition of Fight Club, we’ll be making soap as a penitential act (although we’ll be using goatsmilk, honey, and palm oil rather than animal fat). We’ll be providing burnables (paper, palm leaves, etc), but you’re welcome to bring things of your own that might having meaning to you – just be sure that anything you bring to burn is free from chemicals, plastic, etc. Through the course of the evening, we’ll turn our confessions, transgressions, and deconstructions into a cleansing, frothy, ritual bar which we can use for the next forty days. Seriously, it’s hard to find time in our busy days for prayer and meditation, and shower time seems as good a time as any.
Also, remember that we’re trying a move to Friday nights after this month, so the next Transmission after his will be March 6th. Finally, we’re on for an Easter Vigil retreat on Holy Saturday, so put April 11 on your calendars, all day and all night.
See you soon!
JESUS and the SATAN (skit by j. Snodgrass)
February 9, 2008
JESUS and the SATAN
-or-
Meeting the Devil’s Advocate in the Desert
By j. Snodgrass
Presented 3 February, 2008
READERS :
Narrator (Bible Student)
“Luke” (Author of the Gospel According to Luke)
Jesus (Live Free or Die)
Devil (Advocate of Alternate Strategies)
Moses (Supposed Giver-of-the-Law in Deuteronomy)
NARRATOR : Today, in honor of the Lenten Lectionary, we’re going to take a look at my all-time favorite Biblical passage – The temptation of Jesus in the desert, in the Gospel of Luke, Chapter four, verses one to thirteen. As a matter of fact, I love this passage so much, we’re going to hear it twice!
‚ÄúLUKE‚Äù : Jesus…was led by the Spirit in the desert, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry. The devil said to him,
DEVIL : “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.”
JESUS : “It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone.’”
“LUKE” : The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world.
Ash Wednesday Transmission, Feb 6, 7-9pm
February 4, 2008
This week we’ll be having Ash Wednesday at Paul’s – email if you want to come and need directions. Come ready celebrate your own mortality and kick off lent with style! We’ll also be discussing the possibility of collaborating on a
Purim/Maundy Thurday service with Storahtelling (yes, the two really are on the same day this year) and a Good Friday service with our friends at Sanctuary.
Blind Voyager on Happiness & Healing
April 10, 2007
Here is a quick write up on Transmission at my house on Wed March, 28th.
“If only we could get ahead in life we’d be happy.” A similar thought probably went through the paralyzed man’s head at the pool of Bethsaida (John 5:1-9). He thought if only he could touch that pool he would be healed and he would be happy. But as a blind person I know that physical healing doesn’t necessarily mean happiness. There are plenty of people in the world who are not paralyzed and who are just as miserable. What truly makes us happy is our spirit and attitude towards life. But sometimes our spirit is paralyzed and we need someone or something, like Jesus, to come and kick us off our ass.
We ritualized these ideas at Transmission on Wednesday, March 28. As we all gathered together, we each took change and threw it into a pool of water and wished for the things that “If only we had” would make us happy. Then we read psalm 121 and intermixed it with the chorus from the Beatles song “Help.”
After this I gave an abridged version of a sermon I had given at my seminary a week ago, and we then discussed our desires for happiness, how they help us and hinder us, and where our true help comes from. I told a story about a friend of mine who was born blind. Her parents were devastated and they did not know what to do. They assumed that a blind person could never live a happy and successful life so they sat out to make her life as pleasant as possible. They gave her a bedroom with a radio, tv, refrigerator, and microwave, and she stayed there and grew up into a woman weighing over 300 pounds. The whole time she thought that this was as happy as she could get, but if only she could see she could be truly happy, make friends, and go to college. Until one day a worker for the National Federation of the Blind came and told her to get off her bed and follow. The worker taught her how to accept her blindness and use skills such as cane travel and braille as a means not just of coping, but of living. After a year of training my friend had completely changed. She had lost a hundred pounds and is now going for her doctorate of law degree. This was a true transformation, and I believe that Jesus can effect a similar change in people.
After sharing with one another we ended in silent prayer. It was a wonderful time and the food and fellowship we shared before and after the service was incredible. I was particularly excited because we were able to have the service at my apartment, and I was able to welcome the church into my own home.
Paul Grenier.
Miss Good Friday?
April 7, 2007
Were you too worn out to make it to church last night? Did your boss make you work late? Did you have a better offer to go out with some friends?
Well, never fear – I’m bringing you a nice good Friday meditation featuring the poems of Barbara Crafton and the music of, well, me. So turn up your speakers, turn down your lights, and spend some time getting ready for Easter…
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Enjoy!
PS a really large chunk of my last album is in the meditation, so be kind about distributing it. If you really, really love it, consider picking up a copy.
Grid::Blog::Via Crucis 2007 – Station VIII
April 6, 2007
Check out other blog “stations” on the Way of the Cross at Via Crucis 2007
Can Jesus console these daughters?
By Bowie Snodgrass
Washington Window
Vol. 75, No. 6, May 2006
Mothers. Whores. Martyrs. Virgins. We’re all daughters. Daughters of Jerusalem.
Asked to do a Station of the Cross for an alternative Good Friday service, I chose VIII: Jesus Consoles the Daughters of Jerusalem. Thinking about my station, I wondered: who are the daughters that need consolation? Can Jesus, a first-century male, console us?
“A great multitude of the people followed him, and among them were women who were beating their breasts and wailing for him. But Jesus turned to them and said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For the days are surely coming when they will say ‘Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never nursed.’” – Luke 23.27-29
Sabbath Poem (anon)
April 4, 2007
My personal aphorism lately has been “count your blessings, cut your losses”… which a friend thought was a Bowie original, and I was convinced was pirated. So, I googled it! Of course, both phrases are oft used, although perhaps not always together (sort of like “we’ll jump off that bridge when we come to it”).
But, here’s an anonymous Christian poem that I found online with the same sentiment. It may be cheesy, but it feels like good advice for these last days of Lent… as we complete our fasting and prepare for the feast!
Count your blessings instead of your crosses;
Count your gains instead of your losses.
Count your joys instead of your woes;
Count your friends instead of your foes.
Count your smiles instead of your tears;
Count your courage instead of your fears.
Count your full years instead of your lean;
Count your kind deeds instead of your mean.
Count your health instead of your wealth;
Count on God instead of yourself.
Psalm 121 Mash-Up
April 2, 2007
I write a lot of music for Transmission but we haven’t put any audio up on the site yet. I wrote this last week for our Bethesda service and thought you might enjoy hearing it.
Push play to listen:
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I frequently write antiphons for psalms when we use them in worship, but I don’t have a strong voice so if the crowd is small the singing can get iffy. Since hiring a cantor was out of the question, I figured that sampling Paul McCartney would make things a little easier (and more fun).
It actually worked really well – I recommend that any of you other small house churches look into sampling pop tunes for worship. If you want to know about the nuts and bolts of how I put this together, read on…