Getting The Spirit

Up several flights of stairs into a small but airy blue sanctuary with high windows, the singing hasn’t started, but the drums and organ are warming up, seats full and pews stocked with paper fans from the local funeral home. Needless to say, getting the spirit raises temperatures. Amen. This Saturday I met Carrie up in Harlem for the fourth annual gospel choir festival at the Elmendorf Reformed Church. Our friend Laura was singing, the proceeds went to autism research, and the noise promised to be joyous unto the lord and anyone else who might be listening. The church itself (now in its fifth home uptown) was founded 350 years ago, and, as the MC Elder Kevin Spooner said “it feels like some of us have been here that long”. Amen. Four choirs. Organ, piano, bass, drums.The crowd instructed to sing out if the spirit moved us, and moved we were. And afterwards, we waltzed out into the warm Saturday Harlem night to Sylvia’s for fried chicken. Amen.

Author: loiseaufait

Little by little the bird feathers its nest, and object by heart burnished object we surround ourselves with lovely necessities of memory and function. It is these things that make a silly Apartment a Home or a silly Wednesday an Occasion. Whether my nest is an old farmhouse, a sixth floor tenement walk up, or a brownstone basement... whether I share it with family, vagabonds, women of heart and mind, or a little brown cat and a sweet ginger banjo, my principal joy is filling it with light and laughter (and corralling). View all posts by loiseaufait