January 2011

508 is a show about Worcester. This week’s panel is Tracy Novick and Brendan Melican.

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Today, at the invitation of a friend of a friend, I went to worship with the Salvation Army in the Kibera neighborhood. Read the rest of this entry »

Enough of this pre-Christmas and post-Christmas blogging; today is Orthodox Christmas.

Last night I stopped by the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church in Nairobi a few hours before Christmas mass, which I considered attending but was warned off from by a couple non-Amharic-speakers.

Here’s a photo of the inside I took at the urging of a member of the congregation. The painting of the three bearded men depicts the Trinity. I was told that the TV screen, though not working at present, is intended to give people a view of what’s happening in the inner sanctuary when the curtain is closed.

I love watching people showing up for Ethiopian mass, the women in white packed into cars, emerging like circus clowns turning into butterflies.
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508 is a show about Worcester. This week’s panel is Brendan Melican. We talk about The Pulse’s “Ones to Watch” list; last year we did an in-depth analysis. We revisit the “travel spending scandals” of city employees. Today is Orthodox Christmas. The weather in Nairobi is better than the weather in Worcester. There’s a Worcester Magazine article about the PharmaSphere phiasco; Bill Randell has some critical thoughts, as do we. (For more background than you probably want, watch our episode on the South Worcester Industrial Park.) The City of Worcester has a list of Social Media & Information Sharing resources; we recommend the police Twitter feed. Also, there was a Dianne Williamson column Brendan liked.

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Last Sunday I stopped by the Quakers on Ngong Road in Nairobi for the mostly-silent “unprogrammed worship.” This is one of the few religious services where I feel obtrusive—it’s like sitting in at an AA meeting when you’re not part of that community.

The unprogrammed worship didn’t go very long, so we walked over to another building where they hold, you guessed it, “programmed worship.” I had no idea such a thing existed. It’s similar to an evangelical service. (Though on the tamer side.)

One more surprising fact: Kenya has the most Quakers of any nation. I am told that the Ngong Road congregation is mostly Luhya.