December 20, 2025

Kansas City, MO, USA

Saturday. Up at 05:00. Had a good night’s sleep. Worked on the blog while waiting for other people to get their lazy asses out of bed. At 07:30 decided to go to Starbucks for a tea and sandwich. Then changed that to go to Messengers to get Mary one of their really good cinnamon rolls.

I drove down Main Street towards Messengers, stopped at Starbucks and got myself a tea. Then continued down Main until Grand. Started down Grand before I realized that it was closed at Crown Center for the Hallmark Christmas Experience. It appears they are trying to recreate the European Christmas markets. So, it was necessary to take a detour around Crown Center before heading back down Main again to Messengers.

Messengers wasn’t very crowded but there were a few people. Hey, it is before 08:00 on a Saturday morning in December, what do you expect. They did have a country loaf today which I know Harry IV hates. He hates it because he loves it, and then he eats it and then he has to go for a six-mile run to work it off. I got Mary and V each a cinnamon roll and got a croissant for myself. Their baked goods are really good. Then back to the hotel to fix Mary her coffee.

Today is a little more active. There is the Old Miss game at 14:30, Mary wants to take George shopping, George leaves for Italy and tonight there is a candlelight concert at the Unity Temple on the Plaza tonight from 18:30 to 19:30. It its just down the hill on 47th street. The Fountain City String Quartet will be preforming. The tentative program is:

• 12 Days of Christmas

• Angels from the Realms of Glory

• Angels We Have Heard On High

• Away in a Manger

• Carol of the Bells

• Deck the Halls

• Ding Dong! Merrily on High

• Do You Hear What I Hear

• God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen

• Good King Wenceslas

• Greensleeves (What Child Is This)

• Hark! The Herald Angels Sing

• In the Bleak Mid-Winter

• Joy to the World

• O Christmas Tree (O Tannenbaum)

• O Come All Ye Faithful

• O Holy Night

• O Little Town of Bethlehem

• Silent Night

• The First Noël

We shall see how it goes. We did love the one on the Square in Sonoma, hopefully this will be as good.

So, at 17:50 we left the apartment and walked the block down to 47th Street, made a right turn and walked the two blocks to Unity Temple. So, you say, what is Unity Temple? Great question, glad you asked. It is the result of a religious movement started by Charles and Myrtle Fillmore right here in Missouri in the late 19th century. It started with Myrtle being diagnosed tuberculosis in 1885 at the age of 40.

Then Myrtle had an epiphany. She decided she was “an expression of divine spirit” and it was through this very spirit she would be healed. Using Affirmative Prayer she prayed and meditated daily for two years communicating positive healing thoughts to the cells of her body. Hey, she went on to live until she was 86. Must have worked.

However, as part of this revelation, her and Charles started a church, and built a community around this idea of Affirmative Prayer. Today, well today, we would probably call it a cult. In 1928, the movement now called Unity, bought the land where Unity Temple is on the plaza. It is a 165-foot-tall tower called the Silent Unity Building or Unity Temple.

Today Unity Temple is a community place. There is a Buddhist Temple there, AA meetings, jazz concerts, and programs like tonight. There are still Christian services on Sunday and Wednesday, but it is more of a community outreach program, with less emphasis on religion. Not completely sure this is correct but in 1989 the building may have been placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

None of that really matters tonight. Tonight, it is about the music and candlelight. According to their website, the Fountain City String Quartet, Carmen Dieker (violin), Matthew Bennett (1st violin), Alyssa Bell (viola), and Sasha Groschang (cello), is one of the most sought after ensembles for weddings, etc. After listening to them play for an hour, it seems their boast has a ring of truth to it. They were very good. Even I, with my very tin ear, could hear the different tunes and enjoy them. It was a very enjoyable evening.

After the concert, Rochelle, Oliver and Mary went to Eddy V’s for dinner. Harry V and Grace were supposed to be with us tonight, but they are now with food poisoning. They were the only two that ate healthy, that is had salad, at Spin yesterday. I am now very happy about my choosing not to indulge in lunch at Spin yesterday, although not happy how it turned out for V and Grace.

I went back to our apartment, watched a little TV and went to bed at 21:00 per the usual program.

Buonanotte e ciao

Enrico e Maria