July 12th is Minnie Riperton Day

I graduated high school in 1967, and went to San Francisco to look for a job. I wasn't a hippie; I had discerned that the real, original hippies, the Beats, were long gone, but I identified with the kids who were looking for them in the Haight-Ashbury. I enjoyed Golden Gate Park, and I listened to the music, I guess you'd say, religiously. Planning to become a merchant seaman like my father, but invited by the President to join the Army (i.e., I was drafted), I jumped into the Navy for the experience. It was during my up-in-the-air, open-to-anything experience in the Navy that I heard Rotary Connection and their singer, Minnie Riperton (November 8, 1947 – July 12, 1979). Minnie was one-of-a-kind, different from all the other rock and soul singers, even from her compatriots in Rotary Connection. She was the sole person populating her unique category: sweet as heaven.

It seemed surreal to hear she was ill, and then that she had passed. It didn't make sense; angels aren't supposed to die. But in this world, angels do die. This is a serious religious matter: why in this world do angels--myriads of Minnie Ripertons throughout history (my own Charismatic mother, for instance)--die? I both love and hate the answer: even the saints have the wrong God. Our God is too small, too far, too much our construct. As high as we think, we still have a lesser, inferior God. In short, OUR God isn't the REAL God. We've taken wooden nickels, and have accepted an impotent Deity, a substitute God.

I don't know what Minnie might mean to you, but I see a young, beautiful, saintly angel who speaks even now from heaven, saying, "Look to the Father, our Father, and search seeking the REAL God. He sent, and came, as the Milta (Miltha), to save us, and DID. FIND Him, the real thing that the Milta is (the Milta is the Ineffable No-thing in thing mode). Disregard religious men's words--their warped teachings, and concentrate on His Way of Love. Remember your knees, be on them in high mental places, and accept His Life."

Thank you for your beautiful singing and your beautiful spirit, Minnie.