Namoli Brennet
Tucson-based songwriter Namoli Brennet has been touring the country with her own brand of moody and inspiring folk since releasing her first CD in 2002. Since then she’s played over 1000 shows and logged over 274,000 miles on her still-running 87 Volvo station wagon (“I have a great mechanic”, she says). Touching on often poignant themes, her music and lyrics ultimately paint a vivid and redemptive portrait. She’s a breathtaking and moving performer, and her sweet, road-weary voice is as quick to deliver her wit and humor as it is a turn of phrase. She’s been described as a cross between Lucinda Williams, Patty Griffin and Sheryl Crow, and Zocalo magazine called her music, “Gorgeous and introspective.”
Although the themes of identity and freedom weave their way subtly through her songs, being transgender is not the focus of Namoli’s music: “I know it’s kind of a quirky and interesting part of my story, but as a human being I’m interested in life, spirituality, meaning, social issues, justice, compassion…and these are the things I write about.”
Namoli’s 9th CD, We Were Born to Rise, was released in September 2011 and she’s currently working on a live CD with a release date in fall 2012. You’ll often find this prodigious musician in the studio dividing her time between engineering, producing and playing most if not all of the instruments on her recordings.
A 4-time Outmusic award nominee, Namoli has also won the Tucson Folk Festival Songwriting Award and was a finalist in the ISC songwriting competition. Her recent release ‘Black Crow’ garnered critical acclaim and was named one of KXCI FM’s top albums of 2010. Her music has been featured on NPR, PBS and in films including the Emmy-award winning documentary “Out in the Silence”, which details the struggle of a gay teen growing up in rural Pennsylvania.
Ysaye Barnwell
Dr. Ysaye M. Barnwell, a native New Yorker now living in Washington, DC, appears as a vocalist and/or instrumentalist on more than thirty recordings with Sweet Honey In The Rock and other artists. She has spent much of her time off stage working as a master teacher and choral clinician in African American cultural performance.
Her workshop “Building a Vocal Community®: Singing in the African American Tradition” has been conducted on three continents, making her work in the field a significant source of inspiration for both singers and non-singers, a model of pedagogy for educators, and cultural activists and historians.
Dr. Barnwell has been a commissioned composer on numerous choral, film, video, dance and theatrical projects. Three axioms have proven significant in Barnwell’s life.
- To whom much is given, much is required.
- As one door closes, another door opens.
- Everything matters.
Meg Barnhouse
Meg Barnhouse grew up in North Carolina and Philadelphia. After graduating from Duke University and Princeton Theological Seminary she spent a chapter of her life in Spartanburg, SC, working first as a college chaplain teaching Public Speaking, Human Sexuality, and World Religions, trying not to get them mixed up. Earning her credentials as a Pastoral Counselor, she ran her own counseling practice while raising her two sons who are now in their twenties. She was active in the community, preaching and teaching in many churches, recording commentaries for NC Public Radio and “Weekend All Things Considered,” serving as Interim Minister in several congregations and helping to found the SAFE Homes Network for battered women. Along the way she earned a second-degree black belt in American Karate. She finished up that southern chapter with seven years as the minister of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Spartanburg. After two years as Interim Minister for the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Princeton, NJ, Meg is settled as minister at the First UU Church of Austin. She travels nationwide as a speaker, preacher, and singer/songwriter.
Her books, Rock of Ages at the Taj Mahal, The Best of Radio Free Bubba, Waking Up the Karma Fairy, Return of Radio Free Bubba, Did I Say That Out Loud? and Broken Buddha are compilations of stories from the radio and of her columns for the UU World online. Her CD, July Blue, is a mix of 12 original songs and 3 stories. The CD, Mango Thoughts in a Meatloaf Town, contains more original songs, including All Will Be Well. Her newest CD, Heart of Compassion, is a collection of Meg reading her favorite stories from her books.
Jon Arterton and James Mack
Jon Arterton and James Mack live in Provincetown, Massachusetts. Both lived in Greenwich Village in New York City, two blocks apart, but didn’t meet until moving to Provincetown, where their mutual love of singing brought them together. Thanks to the “activism” of four courageous Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court judges, they were able to legally wed on April 16, 2005. They released their first CD in 2011 entitled “Legally Married… and the sky didn’t fall!”
Jon Arterton is a singer-conductor-vocal arranger-actor who began his musical journey as a choirboy at Washington’s National Cathedral. He holds a Master’s Degree in choral conducting and voice from The New England Conservatory of Music. He was the founder and vocal arranger of The Flirtations, the proudly gay a cappella group seen on HBO, Good Morning America and in the film Philadelphia. He toured with the group for a decade, singing in such places as Carnegie Hall and Yankee Stadium. He also holds an MFA degree in theater and appeared as an actor in The Utter Glory of Morrissey Hall on Broadway. Jon moved from New York City to Provincetown at the very tip of Cape Cod in 1993. There he conducts The Outer Cape Chorale, a 140-voice community chorus he founded in 2002. He gives periodic Singing Workshops, and serves as the Director of Music at Provincetown’s U.U. Meeting House.
James Mack was born in Memphis, Tennessee and raised Southern Baptist! In high school, he was president of the Bible Club. He went to a Southern Baptist University to become a preacher, but when he came out in his early 20’s he decided to become a choir director instead, and transferred to Memphis State University where he majored in voice. He soon moved to New York City and began a career in men’s fashion as a store manager and buyer for Paul Stuart and Ermenegildo Zegna. James moved to Provincetown in 1997and began singing in the choir at the local Universalist Unitarian Meeting House where he met his future husband Jon. He is now a chaplain at the Meeting House where he performs weddings and commitment ceremonies.
AGAPE* (Dave Scherer)
AGAPE* has inspired youth from Brooklyn to Bosnia with his relational ministry “Hip Hop Outreach.” Combining rapping, dancing, storytelling and his fluency in Spanish, this Minneapolis-bred music minister connects with his listeners in a way that they really “get it.” In recent years, AGAPE* has worked with critically-acclaimed producer Ant (Atmosphere, Brother Ali) and grammy-award winning Billy Steele. On his recent CD “Rise Up,” he tackles issues of faith and justice with help from Chris Brown’s producer Ra Charm. While AGAPE* loves performing in football stadiums, his main gig is rocking church basements and youth gatherings. He would love to help old ladies in your church throw their hands in the air like they just don’t care. Have your people call his people!
On Going to Church (Excerpt)
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I come to church—and would whether I was a preacher or not—because I fall below my own standards and need to be constantly brought back to them. It is not enough that I should think about the world and its problems at the level of a newspaper report or a magazine discussion. I must have my conscience sharpened—sharpened until it goads me to the most thorough and responsible thinking of which I am capable.
All Our Relations
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Community has been lost in today’s world. People have become so engrossed in their own wants, dreams and desires that they don’t worry about helping anyone else. One of the truest definitions of community is fellowship, and we can’t have fellowship going about life on our own.
Amongst Native culture, the importance of community is prevalent throughout their history. This becomes evident as you learn of the many different Native customs and beliefs, yet come across one common expression in nearly all Native nations and tribes. For the Lakota people the expression is Mitakuye O’yasin, for the Cherokee it is Ahwensa Unhili, and in English it translates to All Our Relations.
Community
September 2013
“We have all known the long loneliness, and we have learned that the only solution is love, and that love comes with community.” —Dorothy Day
Articles
On Going to Church (Excerpt)
I come to church—and would whether I was a preacher or not—because I fall below my own standards and need to be constantly brought back to them. Read more »
All Our Relations
Community has been lost in today’s world. People have become so engrossed in their own wants, dreams and desires that they don’t worry about helping anyone else. Read more »
Who Knows You?
Some of the old New England graveyards are serene little pockets of neglect. Their slate tombstones lean at odd angles and the elegant calligraphy is barely legible, spelling out obscure colonial names like Ozias and Zebulon. Read more »
From Your Minister
Though the extended community of Unitarian Universalists is a profoundly important one for me, if I had to name where I’ve learned the most about how to create deep and grounded community, it would not be church of any kind. Read more »
REsources for Living
What communities do you belong to? Very likely there is the community of your family, and your neighborhood might or might not feel like a community… Read more »
Community
“We have all known the long loneliness, and we have learned that the only solution is love, and that love comes with community.” —Dorothy Day Read more »
Dreaming in Circles
It is said that if a group of people sleep arranged in a circle—heads at the center and feet out like spokes—they create a dream circle. Read more »
The Light of the Faith
Imagine stepping into the sanctuary of the Unitarian Universalist Society of Geneva, Illinois. With narrow rows of wooden pews and the bright glow of stained glass along each side of the meetinghouse, you might think you had gone back in time. Read more »
Vision
July-August 2013
“There are always flowers for those who want to see them.” —Henri Matisse
Articles
Clarity of Hindsight
Knowing what you now know, would you do it all over again? Whatever it is. Marry your spouse? Pursue your career? Buy that house? Go to that college? Enlist? Join the Peace Corps? End that relationship? Plant that crop? Invest in those stocks? Read more »
Finding True Identity
Filled with the holy Spirit, Jesus returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the desert. (Luke 4:1) He’s really not much different from us, the man who walked deep into that desert. Read more »
Possibilities and Limits
We are on a dismounted patrol to the top of some ancient ruins. A short walk, but the ground is loose and steep. Rocks and dirt slide down as we walk up. The only way to make it up a steep hill while laden with gear is to look ahead but watch where you put ...Read more »
Solemn Te Deum for Peace
Can you imagine it? Palestinians and Israelis settling down together in their common lands bound together by the silver covenant of Jordan… Read more »
From Your Minister
In the dream, I am alone in a round stone tower. I do not want to be there, but I am trapped in its dark, damp, cold, airless space. And then, almost in a whisper, comes a soft voice, Keep looking there is a door. And suddenly the door is there. I can see light, ...Read more »
Thank You!
The CLF applauds the vision of the members of the congregations listed below. We are deeply thankful that they have chosen to hold special collections during their services to benefit the CLF’s Prison Ministry. If your bricks and mortar congregation holds special collections, we hope you will consider joining them in supporting this life-changing ministry. Read more »
On Living (Part I)
Living is no laughing matter: you must live with great seriousness like a squirrel, for example I mean without looking for something beyond and above living… Read more »
REsources for Living
What if you had x-ray vision like Superman? What would you use it for? Of course, real x-rays let you see through skin and muscle to the bones underneath, but they wouldn’t let you look through the walls of buildings to see what the villains were up to inside. But never mind. It’s our game ...Read more »
Rebirth
June 2013
“Nothing remains as it was. If you know this, you can begin again, with pure joy in the uprooting.” —Judith Minty
Articles
Finding Life in the Land of Death
If I were trying to develop and deliver a talk about the history of Unitarian Universalist opposition to war and war-making institutions, I could have hammered this out and gone right back to dipping peppermint Jo Jo’s in milk and watching Dr. Who on Netflix. Read more »
Dancing into the Heart of God
Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi was born in 1207 in Afghanistan, which was then within the Persian empire. Read more »
Annual Meeting
The CLF Annual Meeting will be held on June 27, 2013 at 6:00PM Eastern Time by teleconference and screenshare. That means that CLF members can call in to a conference call number and participate by telephone. Read more »
From Your Minister
Before rebirth, there has to be birth. I have never given birth, but I have been privileged to witness two human babies, six puppies, three kittens, and a few birds and turtles enter the world. And I suspect all of us have watched documentaries of the same kinds of thing. Read more »
REsources for Living
Perhaps you have seen the bumper sticker: “Born OK the first time.” That’s where we UUs tend to come down. You don’t need to be born again. We don’t hold with the notion of original sin, that babies are born carrying the sin of Adam and Eve’s rebellion. Read more »
In My Own Worst Season
In my own worst seasons I’ve come back from the colorless world of despair by forcing myself to look hard, for a long time, at a single glorious thing: a flame of red geranium outside my bedroom window. Read more »
Rebirth
“Nothing remains as it was. If you know this, you can begin again, with pure joy in the uprooting.” —Judith Minty Read more »
