My father and I were just talking about singing groups. His church has a monthly singing group that uses the book Rise Up Singing, and some of us from the choir at my church recently started our own monthly singing group here in New Bedford, which we’re calling Singing Out!
I asked Dad which songs his Rise Up Singing group likes to sing, and he gave me lots of good ideas for our New Bedford Rise Up Singing group. Then Dad had a question. Like me, he is going to the Unitarian Universalist General Assembly (GA), the annual denominational meeting, and he asked if anyone was going to do a Rise Up Singing session at the denominational meeting. Well, near as I can tell, there will be no such singing session at our denominational meeting — but there should be. Elsewhere, I’ve shown how Rise Up Singing could serve as a liberal religious hymnal — so why not sing from Rise Up Singing at GA?
If you’re going to GA this year, and have any interest in doing something like this, leave a note in the comments section. Maybe we can get find a time, and a space in the convention center, and do some singing at GA.
I won’t be at GA to sing along with you – but I always hold a memory of a First Night – circa 1995, when a group of us (including you and Carol, and our younger sisters and Mark and Beth ) started singing tv theme songs, then show tunes, Beatles tunes and more while waiting for some concert at Trinity. Our wacky little band of singers was goofing off, but before long a sea of voices was rising up on the plaza at Copley. One of my best spiritual community memories. Don’t tell me I have the story wrong!
You’ve got my email address in the reply data. I’m not sure what my schedule at GA is. But I’m interested. I suspect others would be.