Will Work for Profit

Our life - that is, my and Jeff's life together - hasn't exactly been traditional, normal.

We've shared our home with other people for most of our married years, left "full-time" work for "part-time" work (though our lives are still full of work) and we pack up our music gear several times a month to play instruments and sing our songs for little-to-no pay.

We do a lot of other things, too: grow vegetables (tend the garden), drink good coffee (roast it ourselves), have people over for dinner (cook a lot of meals), and make sure there are clean bath towels for our overnight guests (do lots of laundry with our homemade laundry detergent). Those things take a lot of work.

But there is no longer much value in good work. There is value in "good" profit. People are valuable insomuch as the profit (in the form of dollars) they bring in, not necessarily how good their work is (though we cannot argue that good work should bring in good profit).**

What about good work - farming, art, home-making - that doesn't have "good" profit, the kind that changes hands at the register? Is it still valuable? Does it still provide for a family, at least in some way? Is it necessary in order for people to live whole, healthy lives? If the laundry wasn't done and the vegetables weren't harvested and mother was never home and songs were never written (and, consequently, never heard), I think we would ourselves less human, less full.

I won't write about the importance or doing work that makes money to feed your family: we all know it is important. I am not silly enough to argue it has no value. But I am silly enough to model with my own life that good work matters whether or not it makes money. And I'll keep doing that work - songwriting, gardening, letter-writing - no matter how much time it takes and no matter how little value it has in the eyes of others (though the recipients of this work can attest to its value).

Perhaps we have a big problem: people work hard for money. But what happens when you reduce the money or take it away? People often stop working hard.

Must there be more reasons to work besides money alone?

(**Inspired by the reading of Wendell Berry's The Unsettling of America)

Thursday Poem: Lyrics

I could make my home in the palm trees

spend my days in the sea breeze

but I'm just looking for a place to soothe my soul

Drive me east to the mountains

wake up in the morning on the Blue Ridge

I just want a place I can call home

Songwriting Retreat: Day 3 (The Songs)

Day 3 has arrived. And the most welcomed routine of the day comes first: breakfast.

By now, I've written a few songs, and I played those songs again and again for myself - I always do this. I want to hear them, make sure I like them, I guess. Really, I just like playing them. When the song is new, you can never hear it too much.

And here are some snippets of those songs...

...about a month, a season, a grace-full God:

We need the Spring

to help us dream

when the winter was so long

those short, gray days

pushed our hope away

but you finally bring it back

...a very creepy fish who I still found myself envious of:

Jumpin' off the dock was a scary thought

with you down there below

snout like a gator, I said, I'll see you later...

...and hard things.

I could reach my hands toward you
but we both know there's no going back.

Thankful for the time, the writing, the breeze, the wheat harvest, the quiet, the lonely.

Songwriting Retreat: Day 2 (To Be Lonely)

Where I have become cold, 

give me warmth to offer people.

Where I have lost compassion,

help me have it again.

Where I am confronted with brokenness

by those who meet me on the street,

the sidewalk,

in the checkout line,

give me wisdom, give me love.

Show me my place.

Show me my purpose.
(a prayer while on retreat)

__________________________

I've only been here about 30 hours - a little over one full day - and the loneliness is intense. I even feel bored. I don't want to write anymore. Perhaps I should go watch the sun set, be outside at my favorite time of day, the dusk hours. But that, too, feels lonely.

There's a feeling a disappointment in myself today that I haven't written anything that goes deeper in terms of getting at the heart of faith, truth, whatever might seem more "spiritual" that the songs I've written since I've been here. I know I need to let the writing be what it is.

___________________________

The lonely times were good, too. I held my breath and watched a turtle hovering at the surfacebout all the life teeming underneath the lake's surface. Dreamed of future plans. Thought through past hurts. Saw myself in lights I don't usually allow to shine on me, lights that expose a colder and tired heart than one, two, three years ago.

Well... did I write? Yes. And it was good. But the good wasn't just the writing; I needed some loneliness, too.

There's something important about having more silence than is comfortable, more space then you're used to, more time to learn how to use well instead of with the numbing of social media. Aside from writing, I was able to look inside myself and see places I had become lost, hardened, caught up in a flurry of busyness, prone to look past people whose lives need my love.

Lonely has a purpose.

__________________________

How am I ever going to make it to Day 3?

Thursday Poem: How to Write a Song

Think.

Be quiet.

Write.

Hum a melody.

Write more.

Wash dishes.

Walk away

from the song you think you love.

Sit down

for an hour,

maybe two.

Write.

Re-hum that melody

and be OK

with change.

Write.

Eat lunch

and feel it nourishing you.

Sit outside.

to think.

Then, write.

And at the end

when the sun sets again

and you're 

sick

and tired

of writing,

watch HGTV

and go to bed.

Songwriting Retreat: Day 1

These posts date back one week, handwritten while on a songwriting retreat at a lakehouse.

How does one "do" a songwriting retreat? Isn't it lonely? [Yes.] Isn't it difficult? [Yes.] What do you expect? [Anything, really, but especially songwriting.]

Before anything else, I had to settle in; I'm actually still settling in. Made a sandwich, mixed up some berry "just add water" drink mix I found in the pantry, and - the best way to settle in - washed my first dish.

When I've dirtied and subsequently cleaned my first dishes, I know I'm ready. See, I've begun making this space somewhat my own, done a little homemaking, taken enough time to prepare and clean up after a meal.

Now, I can write. 

_____________________

You see, I had to come here. I had to leave the rhythms and noise of the normal. Not escaping; rather, setting aside. Admitting, "The world - my world - will not end without me." But neither will it stop or get quieter anytime soon, so the writer needs some space and some quiet.

Just as we need mundane, ordinary, real-life, it is good to step away from it and see it from a distance. Write it down. Think it over. Turn it around, see what's hidden behind, underneath.

Then, after some time (probably longer than the actual retreat time can give) we are ready to give it back, lay it out, reveal to those ready to listen, ready to take it from us and like it, hate it, misunderstand it, or the many responses that will be given to the end product - the song.

multiple writing instruments and notebooks 

Thursday Poem: Chained

Gray

Perfect that today you're gray

It's OK to feel this way

When things are gray.

Still

Most things stand so still

I can hide away

when it's still

Wonder how you got someplace

until you remember why you left

a road to someplace else

you've yet to find

I am afraid of you

your clever words

awkward stare

the way you convince me to be wrong

Freedom

you tell me to have freedom

but free, I will not be

Your wind is blowing through 

all my leaves

never still anymore

"It's me, not you,"

Do not worry; I will concede

and leave you to be

free of me.