You can still pray and/or meditate under the area social distancing and closure restrictions, if you can locate the right place, but it might not be in a church gathering area itself with a full congregation and you can’t really manage it it with a prayer partner. But still the live-streaming of services, not just the Sunday morning ones, but smaller prayer vigils all weekend long, has become the new way to manifest Mass — even if the few other “essential” activities that had still been done indoors at the churches, rather than just a kibbitz for a very brief moment in the foyer, and now have gone the way of the old Habit, were curtailed — no exceptions — so filming of Father could be done upstairs.
So an old friend of mine who is a solo singer/songwriter and performed for a few months in downtown Hudson, Sarah Pray, is not someone that can get your spritual juices going as a part of a duet with you, or full band, no matter how pretty her long dark locks are, and friendly enough to procure a Sarah Smile. There is not enough room in the current Agave kitchen, up in front, where a full-size table now is, but not one that’s any longer than the one in mother’s kitchen. And forget bringing in another old act, Metal Church, in from any place of worship at all using the out door The 1980s had seen AIDS but not This Virus.
But if you can distance from being near the roadies, if you have any, and don’t require an audience or a rhythm guitar player, there still is one place you can go — and you impromptu concert with yourself can go on for a full 13 hours, including the encore. But like in so many cases these days, you have to limit it to one, even if there is lots of applause from the next room in the “venue” I’m going to suggest, which could have a Seventh Street Entry and First Avenue vibe going on and last a whole 13 hours. That praise would have to be for the main act, who has been pleasing throngs of people, as many as 5,000, for about 2,000 years. And few can just Let Him Be, or be an opening act, but there is a veteran backup band of brothers.
OK, I’ll quit being coy, and tell you a place you can still worship in your own way, and this will have to be satisfying enough for these days when so many options for spiritual expression through things that start with music and take many other forms, have been shut down. If you go to St. Patrick’s Catholic Church on Hudson’s east side, and maybe only that place around, the chapel featuring Blessed Sacrament with about 12 pews each, on a right and left side is open for obviously “private” prayer from virtually sun-up to sun-down, each and every day, 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. That’s like that all-day worship session that used to be done by the Israelites, much to the chagrin of their even-in-those-days-sometimes-hyper children — and you think you thought Father’s homily was long! Formal observance of Adoration, basically a one word name, has been suspended for a while, meaning a goal for a record number of continuous months with at least one person present just might be in jeopardy. But people can still bring a rosary, though it is not come one, come all. And no ushers.
To weekend update, you no doubt have heard that there as of virtually now are allowance of churches holding their services as long as the capacity isn’t more than 25 percent. The main thrust of the backlash from a governor was faced by Walz in Minnesota, when the Twin Cities archbishop defied the order of no more than ten people at a time being present, and not closer than six feet apart. God won this one again, as there was a relaxation to the “one-quarter” rule announced at basically the same time as a cavaet that objectors wanted more membership at once would not be harshly treated. Not nearly what Jesus faced. That is finished. Forget the Sign, of Peace and Holy Water is not nearly the cherished thing it once was; can’t even take solace in wafting in the part being evaporated. But I think we can allow insence, as long as that chain in front of Father is Really Long. Word is still out on those ushers at the cathedral who have been known to stearnly “suggest” that parishioners not congregate in the back near the area where the cool Navitity and its Holy Family and related members are, rather take a seat while allowing reasonable distance between each other. In Jesus’ day that would have required a lot of straw piles. And no more than three wise men. Shepherds, continue first with your Run To The Hills
There is an obvious question here. Who gets to be part of the chosen few, in this case 25 percent, who can continue in the main area where there are the pews. Can some of those Roman soliders be on retainer and use their skills to keep the percentage from swelling to 26 or 27? Will there be a drawing of lots? Jesus will not be feeding the 5,000. Silly commentary, no doubt. But it shows that even the things we continue to not necessarily be sacred, but shown in practices that edge toward the status of doctrine, can be temporal when tweaked by the likes of men. So take them as and when they come, and don’t, as my wife would say to me, be a Creaster. It was just weeks ago that we were weighing if their even would be an Easter as we’ve known it. So I say get your religiousness in as it is presented in front of you. And if you are like me, that includes music in so many forms.
And now other local varieties to kick in your spiritual: (1) The prayer labyrinth that weaves though much of the outside footage of First Presbyterian Church, within walking distance of St. Patrick’s, although some say it could be even larger, like a couple of those in the Stillwater area from whence their designer hails. (2) The much similar but much bigger cemetery walk from St. Patrick’s, although their Cemetery Gates are on the other end of town, that includes even more woods and more woods. (3) The Transport For Christ chaplain by name of Tim Sackett, who had hailed from the Hudson truck stop and now because truckers are getting their spiritual fix from the radio and such is retired — or as the Catholics would say, in residence — can still likely be found in Hudson proper, and I’m sure would love to talk. Just don’t ask him what he thinks of Ozzy’s Bark at the Moon. (4) The peace garden in the middle of the parking lot at O’Connell’s Family Funeral Home, which is packed full of artful decore and greenery just starting to color out for summer, not exactly a mosh pit since its full of metal and wood and leafy arrangements rather than elbows touching each other and thus respectful of social distancing. But it is at a concert or theater that perhaps we could have learned a way to better get around these things better and sooner, taking the velvet roping approach and putting needed sideways spacing between patrons and only leaving to chance your breath on the back of the fan in front of you. Put another way, only sit on one side of the pew, and leave enough space going forwards and backwards from you so your finely honed falsetto is not too iritating.
There is more for another time, as HudsonWiNightlife is trying vainly not to Ramble On, and the focus even moreso is the the infamous — did I make him so? — Fr. John and his mates. And also, just what is so special to a local man about his almost daily and long excursion to that St. Patrick’s chapel, in part because of who he meets up with, for not quite like the Fishers of Men on the small boat, quite prayfully respecting social but not spiritual distancing.