Gilbert Friend-jones

Faith in a Minor Key Gilbert Friend-jones

With humorous stories and serious reflections, Friend-Jones juxtaposes Biblical texts with scenes of mimes and an Amtrak Christmas journey. He celebrates Welsh singing at national rugby matches, diagnoses "minor key angst" and reveals how Charles Ives saved his soul. He includes an unsolicited speech he wrote for President Reagan, an angelic Christmas cocktail party in Heaven, a lighthearted correspondence with a Shih Tzu, and an attempt to describe American religion to a Soviet sociologist. Friend-Jones sees in Arlo Guthrie's classic film"Alice's Restaurant" a modern iteration of the saga of the Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock. He even reveals Victoria's other secret. Here is a tapestry of writing collected from over 40 years of ministry. The chapters are organized around the great festivals of the Christian liturgical year, and written the way ministry unfolds - from story to reflection, from reflection to interpretation, from interpretation to interruption, and from interruption back to story. Friend-Jones honors the totality of human experience. He suggests that the blue note or the minor key are ways we acknowledge the dying in all life, the darkness in all light, and the loss in all salvation. He gives darkness its voice, but within it he finds the "First Light" of creation. His is a gentle testimony of hope, laughter and playfulness in the midst of the troubles we all inevitably face. All income from the book supports the Loneman Elementary and Middle School (Isnawica Owayaya) in Oglala, SD.