what sam has to say

I’ve always been a big fan of words.

I love their sounds, their meanings, the many ways they can be put together. I am pulled by poetry because it is words at their best, standing in fresh light, speaking deep truths, unlocking hearts. After the last couple of nights of convention speeches, I’m prepared to say politics is the opposite of poetry when it comes to how words are used, turning them from gifts into weapons, cheapening them by repeated use and misuse, throwing them around like hand grenades. It’s enough to make me less fond of words.

So tonight I pulled out a CD of a singer-songwriter we met on our Texas sojourn, Sam Baker, who is a nurturer of words. This is a man who knows how to tell a story in a way that pulls people in rather than causes them to choose sides. What strikes me about Sam’s songs is how his faithfulness to the description – to the story – without feeling the need to explain too much or somehow say, “Here’s the point,” lets the words say so much more than if he had chosen to be more directive.

The song that pulled me tonight is called, “Waves,” because I know some folks close to me who are living out the story Sam tells. I will resist the temptation to tell too much myself and let the song speak for itself.

waves

so many years so many hardships
so many laughs so many tears
so many things to remember
cause they had fifty years

and now the kids have got their own kids
and their own kids have grown
she told him not to worry
said he’d be fine when she was gone

he walks down to the ocean
bends to touch the water
kneels to pray
he writes her name in the sand
waves wash it away

there are sea gulls circling shrimp boats
that turn inside the bay
there’s an emptiness inside
that never goes away

he walks down to the ocean
bends to touch the water
kneels to pray
he writes her name in the sand
waves wash it away

That’s what words can do. Amen.

Peace,
Milton