Thursday Poem: A Musician's Life

Tuesday
felt the doubt creep in

Walked away
from everything safe

Benefits of peace of mind
doctor visits
tooth pain
of not hearing reprimands for not having
all of the above

Tuesday
needed the wind
and the clouds
to give rest from the worry.

Today is different.

Patty sings
of work-weary sons
fathers, walked on to the other side
and that kind of lonely.

And I know
I know
that all of this matters
more than many will understand

Until the dark hour
when they lay on their bed
climbing stairs in their mind
stairs to nowhere
stuck in their mistakes
and reminded of grace

From one song
one voice
that refused listen to the voices
that said, "This is not safe."

After all
we do this because
this is not safe.

Thursday Poem: What Keeps Me

Escape the lights,
camera,
action.

Retreat to the oneness,
piano,
empty,
yet full.

Sunlight
through pieced-together glass,
colors bright.
Warmth.

We need not add much;
it is simple here.
Small in number, we are.
Names we know.
Faces we recognize,
on that backdrop
of colored glass.

Awkward,
imperfect,
faithful.
In song,
in repetition,
in the words of saints and sinners.

A table
chalice... the blood;
bread... the body;
need - this is our need.

Not sometimes
but all the time.

I did not choose you;
yet, you choose me.
Savior.
Bride.

Both of you, mystery to me.

Running
often seems desirable.
To something less complicated,
something more clean.

But I know
less complicated
I will not find
Less complicated
is still need for the
Saving One.

So, I stay.

Grandfather

Little children came and grew

Moved away and never knew

Who I was or who I am

No they never knew this lonely man
("Faithful Son" by Patty Griffin)

**I didn't want to walk through that door, didn't want to cross the threshold into your world or harsh opinions and unwelcome criticism.

Home from college for the weekend, it was the last thing I wanted to do, spend time with you. We'd sit in your living room, the television our background noise, while you asked me obligatory questions and I gave you as truthful and polished answers as I could.

There was a time before that, high school, where we had that parade. Remember that one? You were mad at me. I chose a friend over you. I think it was silly. Except now, I think it was silly on both of our parts.

We didn't get this way overnight. We both know it was 18 years in the making.

Do you remember the time you grabbed me by the shoulders and marched me to the back to raise your voice at me? Did I even know what I'd done wrong. You were quick to punish; reluctant to listen. I remember. I listened to every word you did and did not say. We all did.

And that is why, on those weekends home, I did not want to see you.

But life had not been kind. Your years were longer and harder than mine will ever be.

I did not know that then. I know that now.

_________________________

Your garden was the fruit of your labors. The corn grew tall. The potatoes grew deep and large. The peas, we shelled on the back porch, with the sun shining through.

The floors we walked, the walls that kept us, the shrimp in the fryer, these were the fruit of your years of hard work, your years of proving to yourself and to everyone else just how hard work can be and how good the reward.

Those are good memories, now that I can see through those first years after you were gone. I can remember them again.

My 28-year old self knows what my 18-year old self did not know - that you gave us what you could, you gave us what you had to give. There are a great number of things about you that we'll never know. Pain and tears and joy and secrets and things of which I am sure you were ashamed.

And I never would tell you then

So I never will tell you now

All the things that break an old man down

The real truth is, I don’t know how

("Faithful Son" by Patty Griffin)

I am learning to love you now, by this grace that comes only through the time and space of years and silence. And I am remembering, more clearly, that you did love us. You did often beam with pride when talking to others about us, and you gave to use the the things you knew, the things you took a lifetime to learn.

My own regrets rise to the surface, too. That I did not take so many more things you would have given. That I did not yet know grace in a true enough way to extend it towards you.

And so I know that I, too, will spend a lifetime learning to love.

(**I sat on the couch today, listening to Patty Griffin's new album "American Kid", and cried. I could see my grandfathers so clearly. They are gone now. But I can beginning to see them more clearly, now, than I ever did before.)

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?