one afternoon long ago I stumbled
upon Albert Einstein sitting on a stair
a map of the constellations at his feet
what I remember is the playful look
in his eye — as though the universe
was intended as a source of joy
today is his birthday — and Pi Day
which he would actually understand;
me — I chose, instead, to bake pies
and fill up our table with friends
who would share an evening of pies
as though it was our best offering
you don’t have to be a rocket scientist
to understand how the world is changed
when friends eat and drink and talk
as though their lives depended on it:
the world is held together by dinner tables —
nothing matters more than together
Sometimes you get on a roll — I mean I get on a roll and I forget things I already know. Last night I got going on the idea that Jesus didn’t sing and it all fell together so nicely until I got up this morning to find notes from a couple of friends reminding me of Mark 14:26:
When they had sung the hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.
After the shared their last supper, Mark says they sang. The verse is not obscure. In fact, it is part of the closing of our Communion service every month. Ginger says the verse and then we all sing together and go out, but to Coffee Hour instead of the Mount of Olives. I read the comments and smiled at myself. Mark writes as though “the hymn” was something they knew and sang regularly — or so it seems as I read his words tonight. I hear the word hymn and I’m going through a list of songs that Jesus knew nothing about. Whatever they sang would have been a Hebrew song out of their Jewish tradition; no one in the room knew anything about being a Christian.
But they sang together. I’m glad to be reminded of such an obvious moment.
Tonight I came across this report from NPR about a class Billy Joel taught at Vanderbilt. During the question and answer time, a student named Mark Pollack told Joel that “New York State of Mind” was his favorite song and asked if he could come up and play it with him. Billy told him to come on up and the young man played as he sang. It’s one of my favorites, too, and this version ranks up their with the best of them: the courage of the kid to ask and the generosity of Billy Joel to share the stage and risk the song.
In years past, I have posted a Lenten Soundtrack, which has consisted of regularly offering clips of songs that help me through the season. Though I have not been as frequent this year, tonight feels like a good night to include one of the songs I keep coming back to in my life: “LIttle Victories” by J. D. Souther.
in my hometown and family circles
they seem unsure and unempowered
oh, they don’t understand and you can’t help that
though you can love so hard, that never comes back
till you just can’t take it for one more hour
little victories
I know you need one
little victories
I know it hurts sometimes to look around
the sameness of it beats you down
and the best seems all behind before you start
little victories
I know you need one
little victories of the heart
I got a text from my nephew Ben telling me he was at the Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell concert in New Orleans, where they are opening their national tour. I gave him their new record for his birthday last week. I will let the title track be our benediction:
we are
following stars
way cross the sky
round an old yellow moon
I can remember buying the record. Vinyl. 1979 — my first year in seminary and her first record, self-titled: Rickie Lee Jones. The radio hit was “Chuck E.’s in Love,” but the record was full of great things beyond what was fed to the general public. I loved the abandon with which she sang and played, the mix of sounds and rhythms, the way she chewed up her words to make you work to understand what she was saying.
I loved that record and I had not thought about it in I don’t know how long until Sunday at Downtown Presbyterian Church in Nashville. One of the announcements printed in the worship guide was an invitation to a church work day, which said something to the effect of, “If you have been planning to do something special for Lent and haven’t gotten around to it, here is your ‘Last Chance Texaco’ for Lent: come to the work day.” I had to hand it to Alan, the guy responsible for the announcement, pulling the title of a deep cut from a thirty-five year old album as your reference point was a bold and creative move. And there were six or seven of us in the congregation that actually knew the song.
it’s your last chance to check under the hood it’s your last chance she ain’t soundin’ too good, your last chance to trust the man with the star you’ve found the last chance Texaco
I know that because Ken, the pastor, asked who knew the song. Those of us who raised our hands were, as they say, of a certain age. Somewhere on my journey home yesterday, as I listened to Emmylou Harris and Patty Griffin, it struck me that none of the gospel writers talk about Jesus making music. For all of the songs and hymns that are a part of Christian history, there is no record of Jesus singing or playing or even listening to music. The New Testament doesn’t have a soundtrack.
How did I not notice that before?
In my mind, they were singing all along — as they walked from place to place, as they gathered for meals and discussions, as the fished. Even at the Last Supper, I have an image of them singing together around the table. I can’t imagine being with Jesus and not singing, even though the gospel writers didn’t think it was important to mention. Even talking about the gospels sets me singing along with Emmylou Harris and Robert Duvall. I am incredulous, most of all, because I find so much gospel in the music around me that I guess I have always imagined the converse to be true. Life and faith are both full of melody and harmony and poetry.
Maybe that’s one of the reasons I am so pulled by things like Godspelland The Cotton Patch Gospel, both of which put Jesus to music. Years ago, when I had the chance to sit in the Garden of Gethsemane, I found myself singing,
because it felt like what they might have sung. Whether or not Jesus ever sang a note, the truth of our faith could not have survived the centuries had it not been carried by words and music. May we all keep singing.
Last week at my church’s series on Poverty in Durham, one of the speakers said the biggest difference between those who hit on hard times and end up homeless and those who hit upon hard times and do not is the latter have a network — they have people to turn to who will help them out or take them in. As I have said before, life is a team sport. We need each other. Desperately.
I thought about her words as I wound through the Smoky Mountains on my way back to Durham from Nashville where I spent the last four days with friends. I started to say I was there for book-related events, but the real reason I was there was because of friends who asked me to come and talk about the book, or to cook dinner, or both. My soundtrack for much of the trip was a record called “stone water wood light” by my friend, Christopher Williams, who was the main reason I went over the mountain in the first place. The chorus of one of the songs says
I want to be seized by the power seized by the power seized by the power of great affection.
That’s exactly what happened to me, thanks to the man who was singing me home. Christopher called about two weeks ago and did more than invite me. He told me about an “evening of extravagant hospitality” his church was planning to surprise their pastor on the occasion of his ordination, and he told me about Evie Coates, who was cooking the dinner, and then he said, “I want you to come and bring your book and be a part of the evening.” Then he spent another fifteen minutes talking about other ideas he had about how to help me get the word out about Keeping the Feast. I put the word out that I was coming to Nashville and two other friends opened their homes. Joy and Todd Jordan-Lake not only hosted a chili supper and gave me a place to sleep, but also made connections at Downtown Presbyterian Church in Nashville. Lynnette and Sam Davidson opened their home for a Sunday night gathering and invited their friends. My weekend was wall to wall.
Friday night, one of the people at the chili supper asked what I had learned from the experience of writing the book. Had I known of Christopher’s song at the time, I would have said, “I have learned what it feels like to be seized by the power of great affection.” The only words I had were to say I had been overwhelmed by unsolicited encouragement. (I like the phrase, it just doesn’t sing as well.) I am both grateful and amazed by the way people have taken chunks of their lives and spent them on me. None of those who welcomed me this weekend were sitting around with big holes in their lives waiting to be filled. They made room. They made time. They offered grace with skin on. And they seized me with their great affection.
Sunday at Downtown Church, Ken Locke preached on the Prodigal Son using an artistic interpretation of the parable provided by one of the children in the church. For Lent, they are letting the kids draw the covers to the worship guides. Ken said the class had talked about hugs as a way to show love, and so the artist drew a picture of the father welcoming back his once lost son and Ken talked about the “hugs and kisses crazy love” of God — the power of great affection. When the young man had squandered everything, he had somewhere to go, someone who loved him no matter what.
I traveled over the mountains to the far country because of friends determined to incarnate their crazy love by including and encouraging me. I came home tonight to Ginger the crazy love that has sustained me for almost twenty-three years. In between, I listened to Christopher sing and watched the clouds embrace the mountains and glided home on gratitude.
In our discussions about hunger and poverty, one point that has been repeated is the issue is one of distribution, not quantity. There is enough food; it’s just not getting to everyone. Could not the same be said for love? There is enough, it’s just not getting to everyone. So Christopher sings in the final verse of the song:
there are orphans in the trenches fighting for their lives held captive by injustices so evil and devised and millions of thirsty people with simple basic needs I feel each story but walk away and don’t do anything so wreck my heart and make me different than I’ve been your love will make me strong so I can walk on in I want to join the saints as they come marching in I want to be seized by the power seized by the power I want to be seized by the power of the great affection
I have been in Nashville since Friday for several book-related events, most all of which have centered around gathering with friends and most all of them have gone late into the evening before the conversations stopped — or at least before I quit talking. I have not, therefore, kept my promise to write everyday during Lent.
I will get back to writing tomorrow. I am thankful for the days here.
I am in Asheville, North Carolina staying with friends and will drive over the mountains to Nashville tomorrow for some book events. The evening has been filled with good food and conversation.
here we are again
old friends making new memories
talk with your heart full
I love a good conversation among friends. We make each other better when we challenge, when we question, and when we dream — together. My post from last night brought three notes my way that kept me thinking and praying about what needs to happen here in our town, across the country, and around the world — and what my part in it is, beyond a blog post. I offer them tonight without my response, in hopes that the conversation will both broaden and continue.
The first came from a friend in Memphis:
Hey Milty, Hope you are well.
As usual, you started my day off by rattling my cage. So today, instead of just reading I have a question for you: what exactly, specifically, do I do? Wasting time with legislative lobbying is one thing. I can do some of that. But what exactly can I do today to start making this better.
Finding a family and giving them money doesn’t help. Every professional aid agency I have ever heard from says that doesn’t work. I give to local aid organizations. I have my company giving to them. You say “support, engagement: allies” . Define that for me.
Adopt a family? Adopt an individual? Give them financial aid until….? When does it become co-dependent? Not helpful? What about the corruption in their families where the clothes or resources for the family are taken and sold or re-allocated by folks around them? It seems to me to be mobilized to do some good people like me need more specifics or actionable steps.
The last two came independently of one another, though I go to church with both of them. The first came by email:
Hi Milton, I just read your blog post. I’m sorry to have missed last night’s program because of work. Your post reminded me of Momastery. I don’t know if you’re familiar with the website. I can’t remember who I’ve talked to about it. Anyway, yesterday, there was a “love flash mob” going on. This is (at least) the 3rd time it’s happened. The idea was to raise $85,000 online to change someone’s life. The kicker is that each person can only donate a maximum of $25. The money was raised in less than 6 hours yesterday. I wanted to share in case you hadn’t heard of it. It’s right up your alley, and I think it epitomizes a Durham-like can-do approach. Last night, as the Faith Approach to Poverty Series was going on, a teenage mother and her infant son who were homeless yesterday morning were moving into their new home in Indiana.
Read your blog post today and thought of another blog I follow: www.momastery.com. It’s all about “small things with great love”. Yesterday, the blog followers (called Monkees) raised $110 thousand dollars in 15 hours — part of the catch is that the maximum limit per person was $25 and many gave less than that. The Monkees far exceeded the $83k they were aiming for — that $83k literally took a teen mom and her 4 month old into the care of a non-profit home for the next yea — that mama and her baby had a safe and warm place to sleep last night — and for the next 364 nights — and the mama will return to school tomorrow. It’s amazing. The Margaret Mead quote in action. I think you would enjoy some of Momastery’s postings, especially about Christianity.
I spent part of the evening at Fullsteam tonight talking with people about how we could become the Foodie City that makes sure everybody eats. We need big ideas and specific actions. The more we talk, the more I am convinced there is enough to go around — enough food, enough housing, enough love. We have to become determined enough to make sure it all gets shared.
In the final presentation by Camryn and Ernest Smith, a quote went by on one of the Powerpoint slides that grabbed me, even though they didn’t specifically reference it:
The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which we created them. — Albert Einstein
In the free association field that is my mind, the first place I went was to a conversation long, long ago in my youth ministry days. I don’t remember where it was, or to whom I was talking, but I remember what they said: never have a generic repeating event. Don’t fall into the pattern of a Fall Retreat, or Disciple Now, or Youth Camp. Even if it is something that happens every year, give it a specific name, a specific theme. Put dates on the t-shirt. Make sure you know why you are doing it — and make sure it’s for reasons other than “it’s an annual event.”
The second place was an article on editing; again, all I remember is what I read. If you want to learn how to be a good editor of your own work, start by taking out your favorite sentence. Make it work its way back into the piece. Make sure you know that nothing is sacred, that anything can change for the sake of what is best.
After that, I thought, “Here’s what’s wrong with Congress: low, same level thinking.” There do not appear to be even a handful of legislators who are thinking transformationally. They are trying to solve the problems exactly as Einstein said they could not. Thinking about them brought me back to thinking about poverty and that I had heard on the radio about the Dow Jones hitting a record high today. The reason, it seems, is because corporate profits have skyrocketed even as wages for workers have stayed flat. This video, which went viral this week, visualizes it well.
Some time during the course of this week — perhaps leaving my part time retail job at the mall — it struck me how many of the people I depend on to be able to do what I want to do in a day don’t make a living wage. A living wage: one that allows them to actually pay the bills and feed their families and have a secure roof over their heads. In North Carolina, it would be in the neighborhood of twenty dollars an hour. When we go to a restaurant, a shop, the mall, a convenience store, or a dry cleaner, talk to the custodian, hired a landscaper, or take our kids to preschool, we rely on people who work and don’t make enough to live. A couple of legislators and the CEO of Costco are working to raise the minimum wage. One of the arguments is if labor costs go up, companies won’t hire new people. (Insert Einstein quote here.)
Camryn said they asked two questions when they worked with communities who wanted to make life better:
what would you change?
what would you be willing to do to make it happen?
She was asking my editing question — or at least that’s how I heard it: am I willing to let go of what makes me comfortable to make life better for everyone?
What I loved about all three presentations tonight was they were not talking about what we can go do to save the poor in our community. They were calling us to relationship, to peership, to common ground. “Poor people,” said Carmyn, “know the keys to their own liberation.” What they need is support, engagement: allies. What they need is for us to listen to Jesus: “I was hungry and you fed me . . . .”
What is happening in Durham gives me hope that we are doing more than this year’s Discussion About What We Need To Do. We have a sense of urgency also, thanks to our governor and legislature, who may be throwing witches in the Eno River to see if they float should things continue along their current trends. Still, I am encouraged because we are working on what is in front of us today, on how we can change things now and for the future; this is not a generic event about fixing the Issue du Jour. This is us — all of us — and here we come.
In these days when the distribution of wealth in our country is unconscionable, here we come. As we watch the Supreme Court prepare to undo the Voting Rights Act, here we come. Even though Congress seems determined to make spending cuts at the expense of those who cannot afford it, here we come. Here. In 2013. Face to face.
Tasha Melvin opened her presentation with a quote from Margaret Mead:
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.
I am encouraged because I trust there is not just one small group, but thousands of them around the country — around the world — looking to think larger and deeper, determined not to give into cynicism, and committed to one another.
I spent two and a half hours today with the allergist. (Hang in there — I don’t intend to talk about this for the rest of Lent, I promise.) Since I had done without my medications for a week, I was able for them to do some testing on me, which meant I laid down on my stomach and made a canvas of my back for the nurse who first took a purple washable Crayola marker and made dots — six across and ten down — for all of the different allergens to which I was to be exposed. Then she took a tray of needles and stuck me with a different thing in each of the spots. (Yes, it was as fun as it sounds.) She then left me alone for about fifteen minutes to give the sticks a chance to do their magic. When she returned, she recorded what had happened. Out of all the possibilities, I was allergic to all of them but four: red cedar, mouse, cockroach, and dust mites.
In the discussion that followed, I was not given much hope for change. The doctor talked about what the numbers mean, told me to keep up my fistful of pills regimen, with some adjustment, and to think about whether or not I wanted to begin the three to five year process of seeing if the shots would work to build up my immunity. I knew going in there was no magic trick that was going to cure my allergies, so I had set my expectations accordingly and I left more philosophical than despairing, looking for some larger lesson to take away.
In looking at the dictionary this evening, I found it interesting that the word allergy was not even a part of our vocabulary until 1906 when Clemens E. von Pirquet coined the term — from the Greek allos meaning “other” or “strange” and ergon meaning “reaction.”
Strange reaction.
When the nurse came in about halfway through the process, she looked at my back and said, “The trees and grasses are not your friends.” (The antithesis of what the Little River Band used to sing — “the albatross and the whale they are my brothers.”) That was sad news for me. I really like trees. Grasses, too, though I don’t like to mow. I love to be out in our yard, digging and planting; now I find out my body thinks I’m conspiring with the enemy and keeps calling up reinforcements.
I’ve spent a good bit of time this evening on reframing the whole thing into some sort of lesson or metaphor as a means of helping me figure out how to live in this chronic state of combat, and how to hear what the doctor said while also not letting what feels like resignation be the last word. I have explored some alternative forms of treatment in the past; it’s time to go there again. I love where I live, even if the trees and grasses don’t like me right now; there has to be a way to write a different chapter to this story.
Here in the middle of Lent, in the middle of life, I am face to face with the now and the not yet, the what is and what might be. I am face to face with reality, but I’m not willing to concede what I have been told is the whole story, so I’ll keep sniffing and hoping and praying and sneezing, and trust there is more light yet to break forth.
After writing about allergies, I went to bed with metaphors on my mind and woke up thinking about music as both metaphor and soundtrack for life, or at least those thoughts were running in the background. Before I left for church, I listened again to Scott Simon’s interview with Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell introducing their new record, Old Yellow Moon. Part of the discussion centered around aging and singing. “Can I ask both of you how does your voice change over the years when you hear it and you feel it?” Scott Simon asked them.
“Oh, boy.,” said Emmylou, “I mean, I sound so young and my voice sounds so high and kind of thin to me. I don’t mean in a bad way, but I really have shaken hands with one of my voices right now. I think it’s got a little deeper. It’s got some more grooves in it. And with me it was never about my voice as much as how can I tell the story of this song? And if I really love a song, nothing is going to get in my way because it’s more about the emotion of the story of the song. And if I can’t go as high as I would like then I’m just going to stay low.”
Rodney added, “For me, it’s truly my experience about 10 years ago, as I turned 50, I made peace with my voice. And now I really like the sound of my voice.”
Before church, I sat with a couple of friends who are both musicians and we talked about those performers, like Harris and Crowell, who have continued to write and sing as they have aged and those who have chosen to repeat hits from years ago rather than make a present day offering. Don’t get me wrong. When I see Emmylou perform, I hope with all my heart she will sing “Boulder to Birmingham,” but that song has more life because she has something new to sing as well. Because she has continued to grow, the song keeps growing with her. She isn’t trying to be who she was then; she is being who she is now.
When I sit down in the sanctuary for worship each week, one of the first things I do is look through the worship guide to see what hymns we are going to sing. Music is one of the thin places for me, so I like to see what invitations await. This morning I found one of my favorites: Robert Lowry’s “How Can I Keep From Singing,” which begins:
my life flows on in endless song above earth’s lamentation I hear the sweet though far off hymn that hails a new creation: through all the tumult and the strife I hear the music ringing; it finds an echo in my soul — how can I keep from singing?
As Ginger moved into her sermon, she quoted Walter Anderson, an artist and writer who — I found out later — suffered from severe depression:
Bad things do happen; how I respond to them defines my character and the quality of my life. I can choose to sit in perpetual sadness, immobilized by the gravity of my loss, or I can choose to rise from the pain and treasure the most precious gift I have: life itself.
His words made me wonder if he knew Lowry’s lyric, for he was also calling us to hear the music in the circumstance. I’m not suggesting we just tar-la-la our way through the trouble fields as though nothing is happening. Guy Clark, once again:
And when we sing, whether the songs are old or new, we must sing the song for today. We can’t reach back to make it feel like it used to; a nostalgia fix is about as helpful as pinning it all on the sweet by and by. We sang a new (to me) hymn this morning by Carl Daw, “God of Grace and God of Laughter” — here’s the second verse:
when our lives are torn by sadness, heal our wounds with tuneful balm; when all seems discordant madness, help us find a measured calm. steady us with music’s anchor when the storms of life increase; in the midst of hurt and rancor, make us instruments of peace.
The music, for me, is both actuality and metaphor, the songs are both sanctuary and symbol. The stacks of CDs in our house and the number of tracks in my iTunes demonstrate that I am not speaking only metaphorically when I say my life has a soundtrack.
no storm can shake my inmost part while to the Rock I’m clinging since Love is Lord of heaven and earth how can I keep from singing?
. The radio hit was “Chuck E.’s in Love,” but the record was full of great things beyond what was fed to the general public. I loved the abandon with which she sang and played, the mix of sounds and rhythms, the way she chewed up her words to make you work to understand what she was saying.
. I put the word out that I was coming to Nashville and two other friends opened their homes. 
. Part of the discussion centered around aging and singing. “Can I ask both of you how does your voice change over the years when you hear it and you feel it?” Scott Simon asked them.