A HAPPY AL CARMINES
Al Carmines and I were close friends as late-’50s students at Union Theological Seminary in New York. He was sharp as a tack and played piano with great skill. We went to lots of movies in Times Square and spent late nights at the West End Bar. We maintained our friendship through the years. He became a celebrated composer of original musicals in NYC and maintained his effervescent manner of wonder that already marked him as having a foothold on heaven. I was a critic of the church in Chicago, my magazine Renewal making waves.
My conversation just now was facilitated by Abba, who is my friend and guide.
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A happy Al Carmines reminds me of a truth
I rarely knew him to be sad or blue
His positive was always so profuse
Anchored in Jesus and Good News
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It was like taking up where we began
There is much more for him than he knew here
He has a deeper music way today
He revels in things he had never known
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He knows that once again he will compose
But with input from music beyond him
Input from the entire universe
Tones rising from thinking miracles
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He said we’ll go to movies once again
He says he is be young as he was then
Here the music he wrote’s still performed
The church we both served stands just as before
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I must confess to feeling overwhelmed
Home to us all — such possibilities
Home that turns death into opening
Awakened to all that can be
