Among my folk music friends, I often hear the lament:  “Where has all the movement music gone?”  Many social movements throughout history have been spurred on by music.  The labor movement in the 19th and 20th centuries and the Civil Rights movement in the mid-20th century are two examples.  Cyndi Lauper’s “True Colors” also has done a lot to bring folks together around LGBTQ rights.

With our iPods, Pandora, Youtube, and Spotify, though, we are rapidly losing a common musical vocabulary.  Folk singer Pete Seeger believed–really believed–that if people could sing together, they could accomplish anything.  Pete wasn’t looking at things from a faith perspective, but I think he was on to something.  We experience it every Sunday at Pilgrimage when we sing “Let There Be Peace on Earth and Let It Begin with Me.”  How often has simply singing that song, holding your neighbors’ hands, inspired you to live your faith more mindfully in the world?  Here’s a bit from NPR about five Pete Seeger songs you might have heard–or sung–before:  http://www.npr.org/2014/01/28/267584749/5-pete-seeger-songs-to-sing-together

On August 28th at Pilgrimage, we’re going to celebrate the music that inspires us to “act the world into wellbeing.”  In order to do that, though, we need to hear from you!  (We’ve got a few contributions already.  Thank you!)  I don’t know that we’ll be able to sing all the songs together in worship, but we can compile a list to share with the rest of the community.  In this way, we’ll begin to create our own Pilgrimage UCC Playlist for Acting the World into Wellbeing.

So that the musicians will have time to work up accompaniments, we’ll need your submissions by Sunday, 8/14.

Let the singing begin!

Kim