DOG SONGS

Elaine Hutchison, one of our members, sent Victoria and me a copy of one of her favorite books: Dog Songs, a book of poems by Mary Oliver. Mary was a poet who won the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize for poetry. I would like to share with you one of her poems from this book:

How it is With Us,

How it is With Them

We become religious,

then we turn from it,

then we are in need and maybe turn back.

We turn to making money,

then we turn to the moral life

then we think about money again.

We meet wonderful people,

but lose them in our busyness.

We're, as the saying goes,

all over the place.

Steadfastness, it seems,

is more about dogs than about us.

One of the reasons we love them so much.

Rev. William

All About Rev. William

This is my new profile on the Compassion Consortium Members platform. You all know about my spiritual/vegan/animal rights background from the CC website and spiritual services. Now for the important stuff. I am posting it because I am still playing around with this Members platform.

So, following is absolutely everything you didn't know and didn't care to know about me. I originally wanted to be a musician. I played the accordion from the age of 8. In 1964, I placed second in the World Accordion Championship 12-year-old division at the World's Fair in NYC (full disclosure: there were only 5 contestants in the 12-year-old division). I also played the French Horn and toured Europe twice with symphony orchestras while I was a teenager. I also played the harmonica and co-authored The Complete Idiot's Guide to Playing the Harmonica. Most importantly, I later played accordion and harmonica in an Irish rock bank for 6 years -- we were kind of like a Pogues cover band, with other music sprinkled in. Alas, I became a lawyer and left my beloved music career behind. And then I became a minister and left my unbeloved legal career behind. However, I still have an accordion, and before Covid hit us I belonged to an organization that sent musicians to play at nursing homes and elderly care facilities in NYC. I enjoyed this very much --- I hope the audiences did as well. Rev. William

WELCOME TO OUR NEW MEMBERS

The Compassion Consortium now has 7 new members:

Chef Jodi

Carianne Stone

Nathan DeMay

Elizabeth Glynn

Julie Konik

Jack Harkins

Gretchen Otten

Welcome to all of you and thank you for becoming CC members. I am still learning how to use the CC Members platform, so this is kind of a test post. If any of you see it, let us know, and feel free to write a post on any subject of interest and start a dialogue.

Rev. William