Knocking Things Over and Building Back Up Again

What a time this is! Thanksgiving just ended and Christmas is coming right up. The rush of this year’s holiday season is happening in the aftermath of one of the most polarizing presidential elections in recent history. We are stretched to the extremes. How can we find resilience in a time of so much volatility? What does the holy message of peace mean for us today?

Leon Dunkley (bass) is a minister serving North Chapel in Woodstock. He has been in the professional ministry since 2008, but his first spiritual journey was in music. Leon studied Ethnomusicology (Music of the World) in Boston, Baltimore, and Pittsburgh. His influential teachers have many—from James Taylor, Joni Mitchell, and Bob Dylan in the folk realm to Jimmy Health, Nathan Davis, Geri Allen, and Art Matthews in Jazz. In recent years, his musical interests have turned to Bluegrass and the country blues of Kelly Joe Phelps. He writes his own music on occasion. He has also studied musical traditions from West and Central Africa as well as traditions from Indonesia (Java and Bali). He is a former professor who taught at Brooklyn College and Duke University for seven years.