These days are filled with acts grounded in love: not so much deep forethought as sincere affection and compassion for those I cherish. These days feel like the darkness. I know the vernal equinox has come and gone and the sun rises higher in the sky everyday. Still, so much is not clear. Wendell Berry says:
To go in the dark with a light is to know the light. To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight, and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,
and is travelled by dark feet and dark wings.
In another place he adds:
It may be that when we no longer know what to do,
we have come our real work,
And that when we no longer know which way to go,
we have come to our real journey.
The mind that is not baffled is not employed.
The impeded stream is the one that sings!
So I hang with a few trusted musical friends, teach elementary school children to play the ukulele, and hoist a brew in a local dive bar talking with people I've never met before like long, lost friends about what we might hold in common. I sing and play quiet songs of trust with those without ego as we share a common but still unspoken trust in the mystical presence of Jesus. I walk in the wetlands with my wacky dog, Lucie, and watch my loved one hobble through her pain towards strength. I cherish my children - and grandchildren. I pray for my beloved friends in L'Arche and my brother's eye surgery. I cook simple meals each evening evening, send a few emails during the day to stay connected, watch the evening PBS news with tears, and pretty much leave the all the rest in the hands of the One I know as Lord.
Today is a quiet day here in the Berkshire hills. Well, to be honest, for me and mine, everyday is a quiet day here in these Berkshire hills. With the exception of a few late winter romps in the back with our grandchildren, I have not walked around to look at the ground since late October. So on this quiet day, I am simply going to go and see what's happening all around me on the outside of our home. There are twings and branches to pick up for sure - not raking or serious cleaning until we've had a least a week above 50F - and that's not likely to be any time soon. The little critters and insects need this covering to help them prosper. No clearing out our garden beds yet either.
But given the recent winds, there's dead wood that needs to go. Probably a few other types of debris as well. I'm curious if any of the early wild flowers will return this year. It's time to rehang the outdoor windchimes, repair the arbor, measure the new raised garden beds for their soon to be created wooden frames, and slowly and quietly let it all soak in. It is ctime to get out of my head for a spell. Two recent quotes have nourished this notion that I'm about to re-enter a season of incarnation rather than mere intellectual abstraction.
The first comes from Alejandro Frid's reflection in YES Magazine re: resilence. He writes: "The world will unravel but you will not."
These words reflect the worldview that has overtaken me while working at the front lines of conservation science alongside undying Indigenous knowledge. In a world of accelerating climate disaster, political doublespeak, and horrific colonial legacies, the conviction that we can remain our essential selves throughout the unraveling is what gets me up in the morning. Most entities—biological, cultural, personal, planetary—can absorb shocks and still maintain their essence. This is what we call resilience.We log a forest, but given enough time and a stable climate, a community of trees returns that supports myriad organisms, from lichens to goshawks to fungi. This new community does not replicate the one before, yet the interrelationships that define it advance legacies and adaptations from the ancestral forest. (YES @ https://www.yesmagazine.org/issue/personal-journeys/2022/02/16/climate-scientist-indigenous-resilienceutm_medium=email&utm_campaign=YESDaily_%2020220324&utm_content=YESDaily_%2020220324+CID_fe53857eeb44b79d3a9033ef009547bc&utm_source=CM&utm_term=Read%20the%20full%20story)
The second hails from David Whyte's words about courage in the Network for Grateful Living newsletter.
COURAGE is a word that tempts us to think outwardly, to run bravely against opposing fire, to do something under besieging circumstance, and perhaps, above all, to be seen to do it in public, to show courage; to be celebrated in story, rewarded with medals, given the accolade, but a look at its linguistic origins is to look in a more interior direction and toward its original template, the old Norman French. Courage is the measure of our heartfelt participation with life, with another, with a community, a work; a future. To be courageous is not necessarily to go anywhere or do anything except to make conscious those things we already feel deeply and then to live through the unending vulnerabilities of those consequences. To be courageous is to seat our feelings deeply in the body and in the world: to live up to and into the necessities of relationships that often already exist, with things we find we already care deeply about: with a person, a future, a possibility in society, or with an unknown that begs us on and always has begged us on. To be courageous is to stay close to the way we are made. Courage is what love looks like when tested by the simple everyday necessities of being alive.
Now that the Vernal Equinox has come and gone, her hint of warmer days still lingers and encourages me to put my winter spirituality to bed. The cold and dark calls us to attend to the inward truths for to everything there is a season. As our extended New England darkness prepares to retire, however, I can feel that my flesh is eager to let it go. I suspect that's part of what our up-coming benefit concert is about: reconnecting to the values, people, and commitments of love in public. So, too, the ukelele class with Conte elementary school children. This small, after school gathering allows me the space to make some music with Andy, meet new people whose lives would rarely intersect with my own, and do so in the context of something I love. Whyte puts it like this:
The French philosopher Camus used to tell himself quietly to live to the point of tears, not as a call for maudlin sentimentality, but as an invitation to the deep privilege of belonging and the way belonging affects us, shapes us and breaks our heart at a fundamental level. It is a fundamental dynamic of human incarnation to be moved by what we feel, as if surprised by the actuality and privilege of love and affection and its possible loss. Courage is what love looks like when tested by the simple everyday necessities of being alive. We become courageous whenever we live closely to the point of tears with any new possibility made known inside us, whenever we demonstrate a faith in the interior annunciations and align ourselves with the new and surprising and heartfelt necessities of even the averageexistence.
It will be sloppy, muddy, and damp. There's probably a few piles of dog shit laying around, too. But the sun is out, the rain is waiting, and my soul says winter is dying: long live the spring.
In about six weeks, a small cadre of musician and poet friends will present a live music/poetry event at the historic First Church of Pittsfield. It will be the first live music I've played since November 2019. It feels good.
A few discrete but somehow interrelated thoughts are swimming around inside of me about this gathering:
+ First, after such a long hiatus, making music in an ensemble of friends feels like embodied prayer. I played my last gig in a pub as bass player in Famous Before We're Dead. That whole experience fed my soul. I was reunited with a dear friend I've known since 8th grade, we had a shared musical history emcompassing the past five decades of beauty, we experienced a sense of adventure in the creation of original music and getting it out before the wider public, and it was just a gas to play live with people I loved and for people who resonated with what we were exploring. It was a privelege to play with my "Famous Brothers" and I would do it again in a heart beat should the opportunity arise. At about the same time, however, I realized I needed to step back for a spell as I found myself artistically stuck. It takes me a LONG time to write original song and poetically satisfying lyrics. I have a few that work, but I'm no McCartney, Hiatt, or Mitchell. Additionally, as as old dude making music, I found memorizing lyrics was no longer my forte. At the time I didn't have the cash for an IPad that could be mounted to my mic stand so it was just an old school music stand for me - and in some places there was barely room for the three of us to stand let alone store our gear. Other tensions existed, I'm sure, but I simply sensed the need for a break about the start of the New Year. So when we all got slammed by the plague, it created a natural albeit forced musical sabbatical.
Some 28 months later it felt like time to get back to my roots. The Beatles' "Get Back" documentary was an unintended parable: they realized it was time to let go of their esoteric psychedlia and get back to where the once belonged. The influence of Bob Dylan's old musical comrades-in-arm, newly named The Band, was everywhere in 1968. Artists like Clapton gave up their bizarro hipster costumes and hair in favor of simple jeans and cowboy boots. Jimi Hendrix covered "All Along the Watchtower" with verve and originality. And roots rock players in The Byrds, Buffalo Springsfield, The Flying Burrito Brothers and CSN&Y were flying high. Artists all over creation were returning to the grit of the genre's founders. Elvis had a revival. Nostalgia became profitable as bands like Sha Na Na Na captured some of the Doo Wop groove. And that's what playing with my new/old local musical friends feels like: these are artists I've worked with closely over the past 15 years. We know how to watch, listen, and support one another. Our vocalists intuitively know how to create stunning close harmonies. It is just a stone, cold gas when it sounds so sweet and comes together with so little effort - which is more often than not. We've enough time to take the rough edges off our emerging set list that includes Mellancamp and the Foo Fighters, Springsteen and Marvin Gaye, Dylan and Motown plus a few originals by well-seasoned local performers.
+ Second, the reason for gathering has been a work in progress and has finally taken shape and form. Last summer, in the halcyon glow of vaccinations, we thought we might be able to do an end of summer show. Hopes were quickly dashed by late August and the whole idea was put on ice. After boosters, however, we started pondering the possibilities. I was approached by a local pastor to consider helping raise fund for the interfaith effort to resettle 31 Afghani refugees in Berkshire County. It felt like a karmic debut so I reached out to my old mates and we started simply sitting around our living and playing tunes that made us smile. I put out feelers to other artists to see if they might join us if it was safe. And after the New Year, we began slowly working on a few songs. Who knows if freakin' Omicron is going to jinx us again, but as we all learn to live with a new variant we're going forward with joy. The show is becoming an encounter with Americana - part of the invisible hand of synchronicity and grace - that owes a ton of debt to T Bone Burnett. Not only his resurrected Robert Plant/Allison Krause CD, "Raising the Roof," but his life-long commitment to sharing and re-inventing American roots music is alive and well among us. It is also a blessing to do this fundraiser for Jewish Family Services, the agency in-charge of resettlement, at the historic First Church in town. In a time when anti-semitism is all too alive and well, this gig became a way of expressing solidarity on a number of fronts - and that makes my heart sing.
+ Third, while most of our tunes will be "covers" rather than original compositions, each fits into the whole to evoke an audible mosaic. Some performers are artists who make music to share their original compositions. I cherish the work of Joni Mitchell, Carrie Newcomer, Bob Dylan, Marvin Gaye, Lou Reed and others who have songs and poetry bubbling up that can't be contained. Others - Joe Cocker, Joan Baez, and Eva Cassidy come to mind quickly - have a different gift - interpretation - and that is a sacred charism, too. There is NO better rendition of either "With a Little Help from My Friends" or "Feelin' Alright" than what Cocker brings to the table. Same goes for Cassidy's take on "Woodstock." What I have discovered in putting together this show is that it is steeped in the various sounds of Americana. It's was as if the Spirit was guiding us towards music that expressed the ups and downs of our country at a time when we are struggling for its soul.
Say what you will about Facebook - and there is much to say - it continues to be a forum for helping some of us stay connected. I know I'm not saying anything new or creative. It is clear that FB is not used with any regularlity by most folk under 40 and never by those in the Gen Z demographic. So be it - most of my friends, family, and colleagues are Boomers and Gen Xers who live all over creation and still enjoy posting pictures of our children, grandchildren, pets, travel experiences, and the random personal update, too. I confess to enjoying viewing those notes from people I once knew well. Smiles as well as tears happen often each week. And I can't count the times I've learned of births, deaths, divorces, and life achievements through this imperfect platform.
Reconnecting with high school friends has been wonderful. Two weeks ago I saw the name of a former colleague show up on a friend's post. "Could this be the same person I knew 40 years ago in Costa Rica?" I wondered. And, after a quick note of inquiry on Messenger, a long neglected connection was confirmed. I've been able to reach out to those in distress when I don't have a phone number. I have joined multiple spirituality and the arts groups and native seed gardening sites that daily share small gifts of beauty and wisdom with the world. And how about those Beatles fan clubs that post live concert clips of the Fab Four from fifty years ago? My bed time ritual would not be complete without a quick blast from the past.
What's more, I continue to learn how not to respond to political arguements that require in-person conversations to say nothing of trust and vulnerability. As in most of life, I am a slow learner and have lost more than a few contacts in those early days of FB. Eventually, the sting of cruel words and unkind generalizations suggested that it was best to let hyperbole and zeal roll off my virtual back and disappear into the ethernet. In this regard, FB has been yet another way to practice the Serenity Prayer! To that end, I've found it wise to also give up on snark and fact check more often. This is especially important now in the age of genuinely fake news and QAnon madness.
Please understand that I have my issues with Facebook. Some creep stole the identity of a beloved friend and caused profound economic and emotional pain. My blog site (when love comes to town) has been officially banned from FB for nearly seven years for some still unknown reason. The FB police have locked me out of making any links to that blogger site. I eventually quit trying to appeal this foolishness and simply repost my reflections on my personal page and add a few of the graphics. (NOTE: If you want to see the real thing, however, you can google it noting its on blogger and called When Love Comes to Town like the U2 song of the same name.) I also hate some of the political and emotional manipulation that crooks and political hacks have come up with to influence our elections and all the rest. As noted, it is a highly imperfect forum but one that still works for me in a limitted and selective way.
I know that if I want or need to be in touch with younger associates and musicians then texting and/or Instagram is the way to go. Even something as retrograde as an email can do the trick, too. And, shock of all shocks, the phone still has its uses, yes? This poem, American Sonnet, by Billy Collins evokes some of the same truths I've experienced using FB. Like most of the rest of reality, including picture postcards, it ain't perfect but it gets part of the job done.
We do not speak like Petrarch or wear a hat like Spenser and it is not fourteen lines like furrows in a small, carefully plowed field
but the picture postcard, a poem on vacation, that forces us to sing our songs in little rooms or pour our sentiments into measuring cups.
We write on the back of a waterfall or lake, adding to the view a caption as conventional as an Elizabethan woman’s heliocentric eyes.
We locate an adjective for the weather. We announce that we are having a wonderful time. We express the wish that you were here
and hide the wish that we were where you are, walking back from the mailbox, your head lowered as you read and turn the thin message in your hands.
A slice of this place, a length of white beach, a piazza or carved spires of a cathedral will pierce the familiar place where you remain,
and you will toss on the table this reversible display: a few square inches of where we have strayed and a compression of what we feel.
(Thanks to my FB friend Pam for her picture of me during a FB livestream event.)
It has always been my joy to be a dad to our daughters. I have a small clay sculpture from ages past that says, "Any man can become a father; only some can be a dad." And now I have the double joy of being a grandad (or as I'm better known here: Gwad. When young, precocious Louie was trying to get his mouth around grandad, it first came out like a Welsh word: grwaadd. And quickly was simplified into "Gwad." And now that Anna is a part of the brood, we didn't even try to make a change. So, Gwad it is!) The Brooklyn crew was up in our hills this weekend for a whiteout snow fall. On Saturday we were out in the backyard throwing snowballs, making little snow villages and running around in the cold. On the Sabbath we took a long walk in the snowy woods - and as fate would have it I got to bring up the rear by walking at the speed of Anna.
For the past year this has become the natural course of things whenever we take a hike: everyone else has a different pace and Anna's moves with intentional slowness. She likes to pick things up to explore them. And then take a leisurely seat on a wood stump before chasing a butterfly or jumping off a rock. She is oblivious to time as most of us know it and moves through her young life accordingly. Her brother, Lou, is on a quest to learn new things. He doesn't race through the day, he has time to notice the sun, moon, stars, leaves and snow prints. It's just that there's so much to take in that is awesome - and he wants to embrace and understand it all - so he's off in a flurry. Anna, on the other hand, isn't so interested in analysis. She's an experiential gal who likes sto savor the day: she eats with creative apblom, she moves gracefully but without undue haste, and she speaks and dances as if time does not exist. Moving at the speed of Anna is a blessing and just the right way to honor Sabbath space.
Another aspect of moving at the speed of Anna happens after the family heads
home. The following day I usually devote to cleaning. It is a weekly embodied prayer that restores the semblance of order into my small world. I genuinely enjoy washing floors and clothes. Like Kathleen Norris notes in The Quotidian Mysteries:“The ordinary activities I find most compatible with contemplation are walking, baking bread, and doing laundry." Ordinary Mondays involve ordinary acts of cleaning. But on those Mondays following a weekend visit from the Brooklyn tribe, I start my cleaning oblation with a walk through the house to see what is hiding where? Sometimes a pink unicorn peeks out from under my desk. There are a host of articial butterflies lurking in the most unusual spots. To say nothing of candles, dog supplies, tea mugs, and various books and blankets piled into our assortment of small wicker baskets that are strewn about here and there. Step into the guest bathroom for a quick clean and behind the shower curtain is Anna art drawn on the walls with bathtub marker (who knew?) It is a fascinating way to both slow down and discover a little bit of what the world might be like through the eyes and heart of this wonderful little person who, indeed, moves at the speed of Anna. Kathleen Norris gives all of this her wise interpretation:
The Bible is full of evidence that God's attention is indeed fixed on the little things. But this is not because God is a great cosmic cop, eager to catch us in minor transgressions, but simply because God loves us--loves us so much that the divine presence is revealed even in the meaningless workings of daily life. It is in the ordinary, the here-and-now, that God asks us to recognize that the creation is indeed refreshed like dew-laden grass that is "renewed in the morning" or to put it in more personal and also theological terms, "our inner nature is being renewed everyday". Seen in this light, what strikes many modern readers as the ludicrous details in Leviticus involving God in the minuitae of daily life might be revisioned as the very love of God.
First born grandchild, Lou, is a whole other story: brilliant and talented with a mind like a computer that retains EVERYTHING (and I mean everything!), this child has perfect pitch, is a math/science wizzard, reads voraciously and retains even the most arcane factoids because, "who knows, Gwad, I might need to know that sometime." Indeed. We are into playing and practicing music these days: Lou has been singing in the Trinity Wall Street youth choir for a few years and is now taking dance and ukelele lessons. His music teachers run a hip shop in Brooklyn called Jalopy that specializes in bluegrass stringed instruments. So, in addition to "When the Saints" and "You Are My Sunshine," we're now grooving to "Rolling in My Sweet Baby's Arms" and "Shady Grove." He's usually a half mile ahead of Anna and myself on our hikes although somethimes he holds back to ask me questions about erosion or Nor'Easters. He, too, is the delight of my heart and moves to the beat of his own unique drum. He's never been one to move at the speed of Anna though and these days I want to savor as much time with both of these angels as possible.
Now a certain quietude has returned to our little home in the hills. The snow from two recent storms has melted. The floors have been vacuumed and washed with a coat of polish on the kitchen. Lucie is back to sleeping on the sofa in the sun room and the errant toys are back in their natural homes. I'm making Hungarian Chicken Paprikash solo tonight - no little helping hands - as I try to keep in touch with the joy of moving according to Ms. Anna. We won't see these treasures until Easter weekend so this weekend past must serve as part of my Lenten fast where making a place for Sabbath rest happens every day.
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