During my last year in high school, I found out
about the Liberal Catholic Church. It was
in a beautiful spot in the Hollywood hills.
The ceremony was an anthology of the most
theatrical bits and pieces found in the principal
rituals, Occidental and Oriental.
There were clouds of incense, candles galore,
processions in and around the church.
I was fascinated, and though I had been raised
in the Methodist Episcopal Church and had had
thoughts of going into the ministry, I decided
to join the Liberal Catholics. Mother and
Dad objected strenuously. Ultimately,
when I told them of my intention to become an
acolyte active in the Mass, they said,
``Well, make up your mind. It's us or the
church.'' Thinking along the lines of
``Leave your father and mother and follow Me,''
I went to the priest, told him what
had happened, and said I'd decided in favor
of the Liberal Catholics. He said,
``Don't be a fool. Go home.
There are many religions.
You have only one mother and father.''
David Tudor gives the impression
of not being overly fond of
mushrooms.
But one night he had two
helpings of morels and then
finished the dish completely,
including the juice.
The next
afternoon while he was shaving
I read out loud the following
quotation from Leonardo da Vinci:
``Lo!
Some there are who can call
themselves nothing more than a passage
for food, producers of
dung, fillers up of
privies, for of them
nothing else appears in the world
nor is there any virtue in their
work, for nothing of
them remains but full privies.''
David Tudor said,
``Perhaps they were good Buddhists.''