What are you looking for?

The people at Inspired To Action invited me to be a part of the 40 day fast by picking a day to fast and blog about my passion for the poor and why I work with World Vision. Today (July 1st) is my day! Here’s my blog entry, and if you like it, please visit inspiredtoaction.com and post a comment. Also, check out the other blogs for exciting and inventive ways you too can make a difference and live beautifully. Here’s my blog, I hope it inspires you to action: Ministering To The Broken Heart Of God My name is Jason Gray and I want to tell you why I’m passionate about serving the poor and my work with World Vision. My partnership with World Vision came at a time when I knew there had to be more to Christianity than cultivating and dressing up my personal faith. I read in James where we are told that true religion is this: to look after the orphan and the widow in their distress, and I knew this was the “more” of the gospel that I’d been hungry for. I’ll share a broad overview of what I love about World Vision as well as a more personal story. If you are bored by broad overviews and just want the story, then scroll down halfway to the section that begins, “the last time I was in Africa…” But I hope you will read the whole thing and join with me in prayer today for the poorest of the poor and all those who serve them. I’m a singer/songwriter living in the Minneapolis area and I’ve always believed in music and the power it has to move people, to comfort, to elucidate truth, the help us feel in a world that seems determined to leave us numb to the beauty, terror, hope, and longing all around us and even inside of us. So with a guitar and scraps of words I do my best to feel the weight of my times and hope to help others feel, too. I’m grateful for my work but it involves a lot of time away from family and friends, modest pay, and criticism or indifference with occasional moments of appreciation for my work. I don’t mean to sound like I feel sorry for myself – I’m grateful for what I get to do. But I mean this to say that I began to need more than the vain promises of rock and roll glory to make the requisite sacrifices I make. And so maybe my work with World Vision is partly selfish in that it gives me a deeper sense of purpose and reason to get out and do what I do. You see I get to share about the work of World Vision in my concerts and talk with my audiences about how through child sponsorship they insure a child will have the food, water, education, and care they need to fend off the worst kind of poverty. No matter what happens on a given night, if a child is sponsored I that the lives of both the child and the sponsor have been changed. And this is worth making sacrifices for. At first I was hesitant to align myself with World Vision because of how big they were. I confess I was subconsciously considering the cool-factor and wondering if there was an edgier, lesser known agency with more of an indie vibe that would suit my own indie artist status at the time. I suppose it’s analogous to the way we use music and bands to give us a sense of identity – the more obscure the band the better as they give us a sense of ownership since we discovered them. They become a kind of secret handshake. (God help them if they ever become successful because then we feel betrayed and accuse them of selling out while we go hunting for the next obscure band that we can use to prop up our identity! I see this same dynamic played out even in our decisions to champion certain charities, shopping for a cause the way we might a trendy pair of shoes. I’m not knocking other agencies, But I do hope that whoever we choose to partner with in serving the poor, that we do so for the right reasons.) God as usual graciously saved me from my own narcissism and my wife and I both knew that God was directing us to work with World Vision and this work has become our passion and the driving force for nearly all that we do. I want to share a story with you about a recent trip to Africa that sums up why I am so passionate about serving the poor. But first, some quick facts: There are a lot of GREAT agencies out there, but here are reasons that initially excited about my specific partnership with World Vision: 1. World Vision is the most comprehensive humanitarian agency of its kind addressing food, clean water, medical, agricultural, educational, political, economical and emotional needs. They are a one-stop agency that touches upon nearly every issue that contributes to poverty and oppression. With World Vision we’ve participated in digging wells, emergency relief, micro loans to widows, we’ve bought girls out of prostitution, as well as provide for the basic needs of the children and families we’ve sponsored. They also work collaboratively with other aid agencies (like Compassion & IJM) in an effort to complement each other’s strengths. 2. World Vision is staffed by some of the most amazingly competent and humble people I’ve met – people who inspire me to be more. One of the more interesting people I’ve met is Steve Reynolds, the man who first introduced Bono to the needs of Africa. Most of the time they staff their projects with nationals who best know how to read the needs of a particular community. 3. Because their aid is community based, they are able to work in countries that no other Christian organization can. Because of the excellence of their work they also have the distinction of being the only Christian humanitarian agency to be invited into Muslim countries like Iran. 4. While they are Christ-centric they don’t reduce the gospel to an evangelical agenda. For instance, when they approached an aggressively atheistic country I won’t name here, the government told them they could serve their poor but only if they didn’t evangelize or bring bibles and only if the project was staffed with people the government selected. World Vision’s reply was, “whatever you say, we just want to serve your poor.” Within the first year of World Vision’s presence there more than half of the nationals supplied by the country to staff the project became Christians. This is because the work World Vision does begs the question, “why do you do this?” and of course the answer is Christ. Francis of Assisi told us to preach the gospel always and use words when necessary. World Vision workers bleed and sweat the gospel. 5. World Vision also has the lowest overhead of any agency of it’s kind, with almost 88% of all revenue going directly to aid. They hope to reach 90% in the coming years. 6. World Vision is leading the charge in the fight to answer the AIDs crisis in Africa. They are also the first on the scene in any major disaster you hear about in the news. They successfully lobbied congress to require diamonds be registered to help battle the blood diamond conflict. I could go on, but you get the idea. I have personal experiences that fuel my passion, too, and if you’ve read this far, I’ll ask you to stay with me just a while longer and let me share an experience I had recently in Africa. The last time I was in Africa, I spent most of my time wrestling with God. Besides personal struggles and trying to process what I had seen of the abysmal poverty there, there was also the matter of our friend Carol who became severely ill the day we arrived in Lesotho and was eventually hospitalized from what appeared to be food poisoning. She and her husband had worked hard to be able to go on this trip in hopes of meeting their sponsored child and seeing the work of World Vision first hand. Though our team prayed fervently for her Carol fell deeper and deeper into the clutches of a violent sickness. “God must have a purpose in this,” some said, or offered similar sentiments to the effect of this somehow being a part of God’s plan. I get that thought, and it may even be true, but I’m always troubled by how easily those words come to us and I wonder if, sometimes at least, it isn’t our way of dismissing situations that we’d rather not engage, a way of avoiding the mental and spiritual wrestling matches that are troubling and notorious for leaving us re-named and with a permanent limp. Meanwhile, the rest of us were getting our hearts broken as we ventured into the field to be witnesses to some of the worst that poverty and sickness can do to a beautiful people. I remember spending time with one mother, bed-ridden with AIDs and her husband already gone, who lay dying with the knowledge that she was leaving her 4 year old to care for her 10 month old. Her fear was a shadowy presence in the room as we gathered around her, offering our timid prayers. This is only one of many stories in a place where, if not for the grace of God made known through Word Vision and others who serve the poor, I fear there would be little hope at all. During our drive back to the field office, I was wrestling with the suffering of those we visited that day as well as Carol’s. I was angry that God would bring her all the way to Africa only to abandon her to a third world hospital room. Could He use it or otherwise incorporate it into his plan? Of course, He is the great Redeemer. But I was still frustrated that He wouldn’t simply reach down and fix her now. As I wrestled with my frustration, I had a moment where I believe the Holy Spirit spoke to my heart and gave me some perspective – reminding me that I’m not alone in my frustration. We live in a fallen world where sin has disrupted the God intended order of things, where His perfect plan – though not cancelled – has been complicated. If I felt like I was frustrated, could I even begin to imagine God’s frustration, He who desires so much more for us – a people bent, wounded, and run afoul by the fall? It’s difficult for me to believe that it was God’s will for Carol to be sick, just as it’s difficult for me to believe that it is God’s will that a 4 year old be left to care for her infant sister, or most any other horror that is all too easy to imagine in our day. World Vision was founded on the prayer of Bob Pierce who prayed: “Let my heart be broken with the things that break the heart of God.” On that trip, my own heart came present again to the fact that these things surely break God’s heart much more than they do mine, and the fissures in the canyons of His broken heart are deep and dark beyond measure. I repented of my anger and frustration, and my heart was broken not only for Carol, the poor, the dying and all who suffer, but also for God who perhaps suffers more than any of us; who suffers on account of us. I’m left with the conviction that the work we do on behalf of the poor who are dying of AIDS, the orphans who are left behind, the friends holed up in hospital rooms riding out a terrible sickness, and all those who suffer is not only a ministry to them, but is ministry to God Himself. To ease their suffering is to ease the suffering of God, by caring for them we care for Him, a cup of cool water offered to the thirsty is received by God. I’m convinced that it is the closest we will ever come to giving something in return for all He’s given. He says, “What you do to the least of these, you do it to me.” I believe him. And because I love Him I’m eager, as unlikely as it sounds, to minister comfort to the broken heart of God. This is why I work with World Vision. If you would like to get involved, the best thing you can do is sponsor a child. A mere $35 a month provides the basic care that a child needs and actually impacts 5 people in that child’s community. The majority of World Vision’s work is driven by child sponsorship and as a sponsor you not only contribute to eliminating poverty in a region, but you get a personal relationship with the child who with your help becomes a conduit of God’s grace to a poverty ravaged community. To sponsor a child, go here For other ways to get involved, go to www.worldvision.org and click the “get involved” tab at the top of the page.

“East.” I’ve always thought it an uglier word than “west.” “West” has so much promise and has such a moving, refreshing, almost whooshing sound. “East” just sounds flat and whiny. Nonetheless, we have left Pike’s Peak behind us and are now in the flaaaaaaaaat landscape of Kansas, headed back east. We decided that we’d like to take something other than I-40 back home, so I-70 is our return path. There’s something a little more poetic about Kansas than about Oklahoma, although I can’t really put my finger on it or words to it. I suppose I could try. The air, today at least, cool and tempered (We’ve stopped at a travel stop in Colby, Kansas, the “Oasis of the High Plains.” There are plastic palm trees in the median just to drive the point home. A stupid little yippy chihuahua is sniffing and watering the grass and alternating blinks and stares at the passers-by with his big buggy eyes. I get annoyed at dumb-looking dogs for no reason at all.) Back on the road, the oil rigs out in the fields are pumping steadily and so mom and I have been prompted to wonder and dialogue about our government and our sad lack of self-sufficiency as a nation. The cost of gasoline on this trip is, as you may have guessed, almost as much as a plane ticket would have been. To think that we live in a time where flying over our beautiful country is more economical than driving through its middle, well….ugh. What a depressing notion. I don’t pretend to understand any of it as well as my Uncles Mike, Bob and John do, but I do understand the simple concept of being good, thoughtful stewards of what we have been given in this rich land. The oats out to the south are glowing bright yellow and waving gently in the winds that blow across the plains. The lonely power lines and the irrigation systems that disappear into the blue distance make me wonder, “who does all this work??” Sometimes it’s just too much for me to think about, kind of like heaven or the endlessness of the sky or the human eyeball; my brain shuts down after a few moments of considering. But there are little clumps of trees out in the middle of this expanse of green, yellow and blue. In the shady, silvery groves, sturdy farmhouses and outbuildings sustain busy families — the hearty people who do all of this work. This was my grandfather. After learning more about the lives of grandpa and his siblings as young people, I now know that Philip was the son who stayed at home on the farm while his brothers went to the towns to wear suits and ties and to find work in the automotive business and eat occasional lunches at the corner cafes. He learned everything his father knew about working a farm and quite often necessity was the mother of invention, or at least the mother of going about his tasks in a more unorthodox, homespun fashion. When their family moved to the farm in Wyoming from Nebraska, when my mom was a toddler, the place had no running water or electricity. He appealed to the Rural Electricity Association and asked, if he dug the holes for a quarter mile’s worth of posts, if they would run the wires to the house. Can you imagine?? The ten-foot-deep holes for that many posts, dug without the aid of anything but manual machinery? Then he wired the house for electric and outfitted it for water which he ran from the nearby well. I know, I know, everyone did these sorts of things back then, but it doesn’t lessen my fascination with the lives my ancestors lived. One of my favorite stories about farm life is when my mom was a little girl of eight, and had the chore of gathering the eggs. One Spring afternoon, a morning’s worth of arguing with her mother had gotten her nowhere. It was cold and muddy, and furthermore there were ornery sheep and angry chickens that surely had her in their sights. Martha was given the bowl and firmly ordered outside to garner the fruits of the hens’ labors. She was wearing one of her favorite sweaters, one of the steel blue pullover sort, and her unbuckled galoshes and started out the door. As she walked, she glanced sideways at the barn which was not far off, because she knew the temperament of the few sheep that lived there, and always made a point to steer clear of their territory. Inside the smelly henhouse, the odds were not in her favor: there were twenty of them and one of her. Each time she ventured her hand into the pens, she invariably got pecked by their sharp, greedy beaks. But after completing her duties, without too many battle wounds, and striding carefully through the muck holding a colander full of pretty brown eggs, she started back toward the house. I can only suppose that the sheep had nothing better to do than terrorize the farmer’s daughter, and so they began their stealthy trot in her direction. It remains unknown (or unremembered) whether they actually knocked her down with rough butts from their hard noses or whether she got so scared and started an unwieldy run, but whatever it was, it caused slippage and spillage. Meanwhile, grandpa was in the barn and had seen the woolly beasts lumbering toward his little girl and ran across the yard to head them off. He hollered loudly, waved his arms to call them off and kicked one of the sheep, but his leg came down and landed on the back of the bleating animal, sending him flailing to the ground and landing on his back, mud flying. Likewise, little Martha ended up, muddied and now holding mostly broken eggs, on the dirty ground of the barnyard. I have imagined this scene so many times over in my head, and every time it has caused a spontaneous chuckle. Oh that I could have known what was going through grandma’s head when the soiled pair came back toward the house. What must she have said? “Oh con-sarn-it! Ooooohhhh dear!” I have the advantage of knowing what her voice sounded like. You, dear reader, do not (unless you’re a family member, and if you are, you know what I’m talking about). We are almost to Salina, Kansas. The shadows in the fields are growing longer and darker, although the sun still has a-ways to go before she settles in for good. We’ll be tucking in at Lawrence for the night, just east of Kansas City, and then will complete the trek tomorrow. Mom has done all of the driving today so that I could write, so I’ll have my fair share of road awaiting me in the morning. I suppose we’ll be making some eggs on the propane grill for dinner. It’s all we’ve got left in the cooler and also, eggs are really never a bad idea. Especially when there are English muffins, tomatoes, green chiles and cold beer to accompany. We just drove past a semi truckload of pigs. On their way to market, maybe? Poor things. Hmmm, maybe we should also have some sausage with our eggs…..

In the last month, I’ve been in the process of getting ready to move and I’ve put a lot of thought into why I have so much stuff laying around. My closets and drawers are filled with everything from Wendell Berry poetry, to Brewfest wooden nickels, to an old belt of M-60 rounds. So I’ve gone through it all and with each thing I pick up I have to decide if I’m going to keep it or toss it. Why on earth do I have a belt of M-60 ammunition? And why on earth can’t I bring myself to throw it out? Well, thankfully, I’ve managed to throw out just about everything. I had to narrow my criteria for keeping something down to this: is it a tool, is it a book, is it clothing? Now that sounds easy, but those three categories tend to have big gray areas. Take for instance this Tae Kwon Do gi that I got from a South Korean marine while I was camped on a hill somewhere near Pohang, Korea one winter. I think I traded him an MRE (Meal Ready to Eat) for it. Well, that fits nicely into the clothing category, but it’s certainly not something I’m ever going to wear…even if I could fit into it. Yet I keep it. Why? Or take this set of National Geographic’s Mysteries of the Unexplained books that I bought when I was abut sixteen and thought was the most amazing collection of paranormal oddities I’d ever seen in one place (pre-X-files, mind you.) They are books, sure, but am I going to read them again? No, and frankly they look sort of silly sitting on the shelf next to C.S. Lewis and John Irving. Yet I keep them. Tools don’t really need explaining, you simply can’t ever have enough of them, so why would I ever get rid of any of them at all? I wouldn’t. That part, at least, is easy. Why keep all of this junk? Why did I pack that stupid belt of M-60 ammunition? The answer, for me at least, is that I collect all these weird things and put them on my shelves because they are a visual representation of my life, who I was, who I am. They say things about me in a much easier way than I can express with words. This is why I take so much pleasure in perusing another person’s bookshelf or movie collection. Our collections are like an abstract equation and solving it can go a long way toward telling you who a person is. If I spot too many movies on your shelf that star anyone named Wayans, for example, we aren’t likely to ever be very close friends. If you happen to have a healthy stock of Kurasawa films, on the other hand, we are going to get along nicely. Same with books. Terry Goodkind? It’s going to be a long and ugly night. Wendell Berry? Let’s go farm something for the good of humanity. Music is the same way. So the reason I keep that M-60 belt is that it’s part of my grand collection. There’s a great scene in the movie Wall-E where he brings Eve to his home and since he can’t talk he starts showing her all the things he collects, like a lightbulb, and a Rubik’s Cube. It’s his way of saying, here, look at this, this is what I value, this is part of who I am, this is a piece of the puzzle. For me those M-60 rounds are a reminder to me that I spent six years of my life playing pretend war in some Arizona desert as a U.S. Marine. The Korean gi reminds of the winter I spent freezing my toes off living in a tent on a hillside in South Korea. Kurasawa films are reminders that I was a film student. So I carry all these little collections around thinking that someday maybe they’ll tell someone who I am, or who I was or wanted to be. I’m pretty well done packing. The furniture all had to go. A lot of my clothes went to Goodwill. I got rid of all my dishes except for one plate, one glass, a couple pieces of silverware and a frying pan. I pared down my belongings until I am left with almost nothing. What’s left is, while small, a grand collection. Here’s a sample… Movies: Magnolia The Village The Matrix Punch Drunk Love Star Wars Raiders of the Lost Ark Moulin Rouge Kill Bill Open Range Camelot Zoolander Books: Jayber Crow A Confederacy of Dunces The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant Lilith On Writing Self-Editing for Fiction Writers The War Against the Chtorr series Crime and Punishment Stranger in a Strange Land The Hunchback of Notre Dame Canoecraft Miscellany: A sculpted clay wolf that I made when I was nine Baptismal Certificate A collection of awful poetry that I wrote 10-15 years ago M-60 ammunition A Coconut from Tinian Letters from a French girl named Caroline 16mm Movie Camera A ridiculous student film called “Lucky Strike” The Torah bought in Jerusalem A handful of stones from the desert in Beersheba A woven wicker Thai volleyball Sailboat blueprints A manila envelope from a friend with Wendell Berry poetry written all over it

After a morning’s drive from Canon City through some desolate and beautiful terrain, and then more time than I’d have liked spent kvetching over trying to get connected to the wireless internet at our Colorado Springs KOA, we are now wearing perfume and cowboy boots and are on our way north to check out a few points of interest. Historic Manitou Springs, which we just drive through, is like Gatlinburg and Estes Park and Epcot Center all mushed together, and with the Rocky Mountain foothills as the backdrop. It’s a cool Well, we found our niche. It looked a little gaudy and over-sold from the tiny road we were on, but when we stepped inside and then out onto the patio, we were easily convinced. Long, slender leaves rustled in the treetops and the creek eased by with a steady, rhythmic trickle. The multi-tiered deck included a ‘Cookshack’ where they smoke their own meats (and heads of garlic!) and inside there was a counter where a congenial man wearing a Boston Red Sox cap poured little dribbles of Colorado wines for us to taste. He told me that his first wife was from Nashville and that she hailed from Belle Meade. When I raised my eyebrows he said with a wink, “I should have hung on to her, huh?” Nice folks, really good smoked salmon filet with fresh This wireless access is as unreliable as a cloud, so I am going to post something before it becomes nothing. Tomorrow we start east. Does that mean I have to call my writings “Eastward Ho?” Doesn’t quite have the same ring….

Homemade spumoni, a real bed, as in ‘with a mattress,’ hijacked wi-fi, Dave Letterman, air-conditioning. All things for which mom and I are almost crying with gratitude. We had reserved a campsite in the foothills (not having a tent) and were determined to sleep in the Ford. We pulled up at the Royal Gorge KOA (just west of Pueblo, CO) which had boasted a pool, being “right on the Arkansas River,” charming little groves of Pinon trees and a cafe on site. When we finally found the place, after rolling past the boarded-up cafe and go-kart lanes, and I’m just tapped. More on Day Nine.

We have made the official shove-off from town life. Albuquerque has been left, quite literally, in the dust — lots of it. We have traveled north on I 25 and are now on a bbbbbuummppppyyyy road, headed east to pick up the Turquoise Trail, which will wind us north again through lots of little mining towns until we finally reach Santa Fe. We have opted for the rougher road. It is becoming clearer as we drive further into the pinon trees and the sagebrush, and as the road gets rockier. It’s not working so well for me that I just drank an entire 32 oz. Nalgene of water. There are barbed wire fences along the We ate lunch at a little spot called the Ghost Town Cafe, a.k.a. The No Pity Cafe. We sat next to a fountain and underneath a lovely tree. We shared an egg salad, cucumber and avocado sandwich on warm flatbread and a warm beet and blue cheese salad with spicy cayenne walnuts. I think the goodness was probably amplified by the cool mountain breeze, the turquoise sky and the twittering birds, but man-oh-man, it was good.

In August of 2005, going from a Denver concert venue to their hotel, Marc Cohn was shot in the head in an attempted car-jacking. The bullet was slowed by the van’s windshield and the driver’s chin, and somehow Marc was able to remain alert as he was taken to the hospital where the slug was removed. He was awake, alert and expecting that he’d die soon. Just like that, his life changed. Fans who were ready for his fourth studio record understood this meant they’d probably have to wait. The wait is now over. His road to recovery was long (and no doubt still underway), but something happened that dropped a certain gear into place which seemed not only to propel the new record forward– it also drove him to write and write and write. Hurrican Katrina hit the gulf coast. He told USA Today, “What happened to me was a very small, personal thing. But watching this devastating national calamity from my personal space was extremely emotional.” Following the coverage of Katrina, he came across an essay by Rick Bragg in the Washington Post in which the author wrote of the people of New Orleans; “I have seen these people dance, laughing, to the edge of a grave. I believe that now they will dance back from it.” This comment became the inspiration for “Dance Back from the Grave” from that much anticipated new record, “Join the Parade.” “Join the Parade” has done for me what each of the other Marc Cohn records have done– grown on me to the point that for weeks on end when I open iTunes, Marc Cohn it is. Marc Cohn is a songwriter’s songwriter. He is a musician’s musicians. When you land James Taylor to sing background vocals on your first record you must have something going for you. (He jokes that his self-titled first record, with “Walking in Memphis” and “True Companion,” also happens to be his “Greatest Hits.”) I know there are lots of Marc Cohn fans here in the Rabbit Room and among the Square Pegs. When I try to articulate what it is about him that gathers such a loyal fanbase, what I keep coming back to is that Marc Cohn uses a vernacular all his own. No one sounds like Marc Cohn without sounding like they are ripping him off. Musically, the man knows how to build a song. He knows when to be hauntingly sparse, and he knows when to layer the sonic landscape to the point that in the hands of a less skilled composer, it would just be noise. And his lyrical style is so distinct. He gets away with using words or phrases that are so uncommon that you feel like you’re listening to an old soul who isn’t from around here, no matter where you’re from. For lyric lovers, he uses words and expressions that seem unique to him– like “the voice from the public address” or “I told the ambulance man,” or “It seems like inside every woman I know, there’s a girl of mysterious sorrow.” Lyricists hear some of his expressions and have to wonder where in the world he dug them up. I look back on this last paragraph and think to myself, “Dang it, Marc Cohn! I’m struggling here to find the words to explain your use of them.” So let me open a little discussion for any Marc Cohn fans out there. What is it that makes him so unique? If you are a fan, why? How would you introduce someone else to his music?

In light of Russ’s post about his 13 years of marriage, I submit to you “Give it Time,” one of the finest songs about marriage you’ll ever hear.

I’m at a total loss as to where to begin. This was a great day, but it began with the not-so-fun farewell to a few family members. We sent Bob, Amy and Wade back to Wyoming, but before we did, and much to Wade’s chagrin, we took more group pictures than could ever be necessary. Like I said, I’m at a loss for words tonight, so I think I might need to revert to the lazy man’s method: The Almighty List. – We ascended Sandia Peak on the world’s longest tram ride. It swung a little too much for my tastes at certain points, but we made it safely to the top, took pictures, ate lunch on Aunt Marion’s tab (I love this woman, for many more reasons than only the fact that her logic for buying nine people’s lunch was that she had “only bought three postcards so far on this trip!!”), we observed the wildfires burning miles away from a safe distance, took more pictures, learned a little about rocks and indigenous mushrooms and rattlesnakes, and sailed back down. – We spent the afternoon back at the hotel looking at more photos. Below are just a few that made me either laugh myself silly (Aunt Nell with her scrunched-up nose and twisty lips) or just caused me to be more curious about the family members I never knew (is it okay for me to fall in love with my own movie star of a great uncle whom I never knew?) and more frustrated that there’s so much we’ll never know (grandpa could have answered all of my questions if I’d known what to ask). Why did we wait? – The evening time was spent in one of the suites with good cheese and wine and music and more laughter (has it become obvious yet that we laugh a lot?) and finally, really getting to know each other. As I predicted, this has happened the day before we have to part ways with our California/Arizona contingent. It’s just the way it goes. We can’t force it — comfort and ease have to come in their own time rather than be yanked into the present. There’s truly so much to say after today, but if I attempt to write it all in my stuporiffic haze, it will come out upside-down and inside-out and bass-ackwards. Instead, I’ll post a few pictures which might help communicate what this day was all about (I welcome any queries)…..

Around fifteen years ago, when I was a junior at Taylor Unitversity (the Upland campus), I walked with a pretty blonde beside the lake and I was pulling out all the stops. The sun was setting. Autumn was underway. And I was full of all sorts of profound reflections about the handiwork of God in the changing of the seasons. We were holding hands. And that was cool. And about time too. Having said all I could think to say about the colors in the setting sun, I moved on to my observations about trees. Yes, trees. See how it stands there so green and lush and strong? Could you ever imagine it might ever look any other way? But then autumn sets in because God knows what the tree needs. It needs a winter. Sometimes God gives us winter. Sometimes we go through seasons where by all appearances we look dull and maybe even a little lifeless. But it’s because God knows what we needs. And by His grace He has ordained that before the winter fully sets on in the life of that tree, it would burst into a blaze of glorious color, as if to say, “This is not the last you will see of me! I am strong. I am alive. I have purpose!” I was on a roll. I was clicking with myself. She was lucky to be there. Lucky. I paused to let the full weight of my remarks wash over us both. She really seemed to be thinking hard about what I said. I couldn’t wait to hear what she’d say. I thought to myself, “Wait for it. Wait for it.” After a pause, she finally turned to me and spoke. And what she said made me want to break up with her and marry her at the same time. “Why can’t it just be a tree?” What?! Who does this girl think she is? Didn’t she understand that the reason it can’t just be a tree is because that would be, uh, obtuse? Then it hit me. Maybe she was still absorbing what I’d just taught her. Maybe I was just way ahead of her. So I circled back around to explain it all over again. Turns out she got it the first time. But she still wanted to know why it couldn’t just be a tree. I had no answer. I didn’t break up with her. I married her. What’s so ironic about that little walk we took was that she was being far more profound than I was. In asking why the tree couldn’t just be a tree, she was really asking why I had to dig under every rock? Why did I have to make an analogy out of every simple, tangible, natural event? Was I hiding behind these super-spiritual sounding poetic flourishes from the world in front of me? Would I use this little trick to hide from her? If so, she had just fired a shot across my bow to let me know she was on to me, mister. I was mad at her for it. And I loved her for it. The Puritans used to say you got married in order to fall in love. One of my seminary professors told me on the occasion of his 25th wedding anniversary that the things he loved most about his wife he didn’t really even know were a part of her when they first got married. I believe both of those statements are true in my life. Lisa and I are thirteen years in and she has been God’s gift to me in countless ways– one of which being how she has rescued my heart from retreating deep into a world of spiritual sounding but meaningless abstractions. She has given me four beautiful kids who desperately need me to accept that most of the time a tree is just a tree. They need me to be impressed with their pine cone collections. And she has taught me how to do that. And you know something? This life is richer and better than I could have ever dreamed back then. Here in the Rabbit Room we look under the rocks of our culture for meaning. And I’m glad for it. I still love the secrets of trees in winter. I still love abstraction. But I’m learning to simply love the tree. But that took another person’s help. She is not an abstraction. And I love her.

https://rabbitroom.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/EverythingIOwn.mp3This is the newest single from Jason Gray’s record All the Lovely Losers. He wrote here in the Rabbit Room about some controversy (in the mildest sense) over the content in a few of the lines that radio stations were squeamish about sending over the airwaves. (Read Jason’s post here.) I respect Jason’s decision to change the lines so that the song (and the rest of his music) would have a shot at radio play. I respect it because I know Jason and I know that he isn’t a sellout, he isn’t changing his music so that he can make more cash, he isn’t wishy-washy on his artistic integrity–this just wasn’t a hill he was willing to die on. Besides all that, I happen to like the new lines at least as much if not more than the originals. What I don’t like is that the punk nixed my BGVs in this new version of the song, crushing me emotionally and ruining any chance of a deeper friendship. I have feelings, Jason. Just like you. Well, not just like you, I guess, since you were so cavalier about flushing all my work down your studio toilet. Lest my attempt at humor distract from your enjoyment of the song, I’ll end that tangent, post-haste. I love this song. Also, my daughter loves this song. By the way, Jason’s record is for sale here in the Rabbit Room. If you’re in the market for some solid songwriting, catchy hooks, and an artist whose music tells the truth, Jason’s your guy. And if you’re a singer whose heart might be broken if your good friend eliminates your BGVs from his song, Jason is definitely not your guy. EVERYTHING I OWN (Original lyrics) David Peightal What would I give to be pure in heart To be pure in flesh and bone What would I give to be pure in heart I’d give everything that I own I’d rid my whole house of its demons of lust And open the windows of trust And out of those windows all fear will have flown I’d give everything that I own What would I give for the words of God To come tumbling from the throne What would I give for the words of God I’d give everything that I own I’d open my head and they’d roll right in When I opened my mouth they’d roll out again And uproot the weeds of the deeds I have sown I’d give everything that I own Now what would I give for my children’s strength On the day that they stand alone I mean what would I give for their strength to stand firm I’d give everything that I own I’ve wasted my life in accomplishing things Ignoring the giver of wings So Lord teach them to fly to the foot of your throne I’ll give everything that I own All I’ve accomplished, the titles I hold My passions, position, possessions and gold To God they must look like a thimble of foam And it’s everything that I own Dirty rags are all that I own So I stand before God with my stubble and hay He just laughs, but says there’s still a way Because “Father, Forgive” are the words Jesus moaned When He gave everything that He owned So what would I give to be pure in heart For the known to be made unknown What would I give to be born again? (This is a picture of my daughter Skye singing “Everything I Own” with Jason at our house one night.)

On the seventeenth of July, Eunice Amalia Norberg (Sorrells) will be 101 years old. She has lived for over a century and yet today when we visited with her, she could recount specific details about her days in District 43 where she was both teacher and window washer. After a day of educating one room full of children (“the seats were all filled” she said), she’d wash the windows and sweep the wooden plank floors. She took Uncle John’s One of the most tragic events that Eunice endured was the accidental death of her husband, Joe Sorrells, in 1942, not even two years after they had been married. He was a customs officer at the US/Mexico border and was fatally wounded when he and other officers were pushing a stalled car and the revolver of one of his co-officers slipped from the holster and discharged. They had just welcomed their daughter, Joanne, less than a year prior. To add to the difficulty and the sadness she had endured, her brother Lloyd died in a freak car accident in 1945 and years later, daughter Joanne died from Lou Gehrigs Disease in 1985. She outlived her husband, her daughter and every one of her remaining brothers and sisters. I can not imagine the despair and loneliness she must have felt, but she doesn’t strike me as one who would have complained or dwelled. This was not, and is not, the Norberg way. She enjoyed the role of grandmother and found joy in so many small pleasures as these. She didn’t stop driving until she was 89. She loved chocolate cake with her coffee. She loved to laugh…still does.

One listen to Ben Shive’s debut The Ill-Tempered Klavier will provide obvious evidence of why this young man has secured the respect of peers and colleagues on the inside of the Nashville music community. With The Ill-Tempered Klavier, Shive’s skills are now planted in the public garden. The Ill-Tempered Klavier is an eclectic project, drawing spice from elements of cabaret and Tin Pan Alley, drama of show tunes, elements of classical, electronica, tasty riffs from the 60s, and ear candy of 80s and 90s pop. This is not a project with a repetitive, homogenous, musical theme. Listening to these songs is like opening multiple presents from a caring and thoughtful shopper, one that knows you and takes the time to find exquisite gifts which inspire surprise. These are gifts that will not be returned. Long after the wrapping and bows are discarded, these rare gifts will be held, worn, viewed, and played for years to come. One might expect a debut project to be fraught with synthetic footprints. Attempting to put their best artistic foot forward, new artists may lack the confidence and composure to be authentic. Vocal gymnastics and over-production can be symptoms of this artificial embellishing. Enter Ben Shive, the seasoned neophyte. On this collection of songs, we will not find over-singing or over-production. Shive simply does what he can do. As it turns out, what he can do is considerable. Let’s look at the songs: 1. “A Name, A Name, A Name” – Lyrically reminscent of the Beatles’s “Eleanor Rigby” or even “Nowhere Man,” this song captures the essence of loneliness laced with dispair. The day starts joyfully, with major chords and a sing-songy vibe. But it doesn’t take long for the crush of people and daily routines to take the breath out of the protagonist’s soul. Like Mark Heard’s “Strong Hand of Love,” there’s quiet, unnamed Redemption “hidden in the shadows.” Unpredictably, despite this realization, the music is dominated by minor chords, which is the brain of this song. The realization of Truth, that all will someday be made good and right, doesn’t always make the birds sing and the sun shine in the temporal world in which we live. The residue of pain sometimes clings like a nasty wood tick, sucking the blood from our insides. This one will not be played on the radio. 2. “Out of Tune” – There’s a scene from Sideways that I’ll never forget in which Virginia Madsen’s character Maya asks Paul Giamatti’s character Miles why he is so into Pinot, to which he replies, “Uh, I don’t know, I don’t know. Um, it’s a hard grape to grow, as you know. Right? It’s uh, it’s thin-skinned, temperamental, ripens early. It’s, you know, it’s not a survivor like Cabernet, which can just grow anywhere and uh, thrive even when it’s neglected. No, Pinot needs constant care and attention. You know? And in fact it can only grow in these really specific, little, tucked away corners of the world. And, and only the most patient and nurturing of growers can do it, really. Only somebody who really takes the time to understand Pinot’s potential can then coax it into its fullest expression. Then, I mean, oh its flavors, they’re just the most haunting and brilliant and thrilling and subtle and ancient on the planet.” At some point, it becomes clear the Miles isn’t talking only about wine. I don’t have the intellectual brain power to explain why this kind of communication is attractive, but I think it has something to do with getting closer to the truth than more linear dialogue otherwise might. There’s potential to see and understand better, particularly on an emotional plane. Similarly, “Out of Tune” isn’t just about a piano. Maybe that’s obvious, maybe it isn’t, but it’s the kind of songwriting that lifts this debut effort from what could have been simple, to simply beautiful. “If you can take a good dissonance like a man,” is a great line because it wholly captures a key aspect of best appreciating this album of songs, embracing the dissonance of conflict. 3. “Rise Up” – This is probably the best song on the project. It’s beauty is in its simplicity. With piano playing similar to that on Eric Peter’s “Tomorrow” from Scarce, with such powerful words, the music shouldn’t be very busy and it isn’t. Lyrically, it’s reminiscent of David Wilcox’s “Show the Way” or “Rise.” It provides a deep kind of empathetic understanding of a certain human condition we all encounter sometimes. I receive intense joy, spawned by recognizing my condition in song. My deep need to be understood is–in this moment in song–satisfied. Isn’t that the best compliment we can provide any songwriter? 4. “Do You Remember” – The first of the pop songs on this collection. Of all things, it’s a love song. The Beach Boys-like vocals are brilliant. Flat out brilliant. Look for the one glorious vocal moment at about 2:17 into the song when The Beach Boys hand the BGV baton to fused harmonies from the Turtles (listen to the “ba, ba, bas” in “Happy Together“) and the Mamas and the Papas (listen for the “do, do, dos” in “I Call Your Name“). I don’t know how much arranging credit we can give Eric Peters on this track, but Shive himself turns the spotlight on Peters in the credits. Knowing Peters intimate familiarity with 60s pop music, it’s no surprise. 5. “She is the Rising Sun” – Like most of the other songs, the lyrics in this tune fit together like a master carpenter measured, cut, trimmed, and finished the edges. The consistent cosmic theme provides a pretty canvas from which to paint. Will Sayles muted drums provide a sparse, uneven heartbeat which finds its stride after the narrator is no longer, “lost in space.” 6. “4th of July” – Shive follows the lead of the best songwriters, using a routine or less majestic event to illustrate something more majestic. The string arrangement on this track is a thing of sheer beauty. The first star of the evening; Does it have a name? 7. “97” – This is the kind of song that will probably have universal application, though it refers to a specific event in Shive’s young life. Few reading this will be old enough to remember “Something’s Wrong With Me,” a pop song from the 70s, but Shive/Cason Cooley make use of a synth-sound used in that song (though maybe it was just a processed guitar or piano back then), which to me gives it a bit of a retro feel. When the important people in our lives leave, things change. Whether it be a divorce, college, or death, things will never be the same. 8. “New Year” – This is an unapolegetic 80s pop song. It’s WONDERFUL. It’s Ben Shive channeling Christopher Cross. Can I come clean? I was a Christopher Cross fan, and Mr. Shive utterly captures the essence of this hitmeister here. I like this song so much that I’ve routinely visited Shive’s myspace page since it was posted to shoot-up a dose of “New Year.” The tremulous effect at 1:29 is like adding a few red pepper flakes to an already delicious recipe; it just makes things pop. Ben’s vocal double-tracking–if that’s what it is–makes this track sound big and lush. From first hearing the rough cut of the song, I’ve always liked the lines, “It’s a new scene in an old play,” and “It’s a new line in an old song.” “She just smiles like, what has got into you,” is amazingly evocative, similar to Andrew Peterson’s, “And he smiled awhile at something in his mind,” from “Love Enough.” I just say to myself, “That’s perfect!” With all of the lyrical richness in these songs, we must forgive Ben for his one lyrical misstep, rhyming “heart” and “start.” Despite that, this one should be played on the radio. 9. “The Old Man” – This one gets the Purple Ribbon for “Saddest Song.” Not sad as in bad, but sad as in sad. Really sad. How much sadder can it get than a lifetime of unrequited love? Think of A Christmas Carol or AP’s The Coral Castle or maybe your own personal history. Or consider what it might be like if your perfect love was extended to all, with only a small percentage responding; even less responding with passion. Is that really Ben finger-picking the acoustic guitar? Dang. Nice job, Ben. Listen to the (here’s that word again) dissonance with the phrase, “But she could not return his love.” Masterful. 10. “Nothing for the Ache” – If it’s possible for a song to stand out on this project, this one does. It’s clearly one of the best on in the collection. Beach Boy harmonies punctuate and reinforce some of the best lines in this tune. Let me tell you, it can’t be easy to construct harmonies like that without mounds of cheese later clogging up the laser of the listener’s CD player. But rather than the “Fun, Fun, Fun” variety, these are the melancholy kind. “There’s nothing for the ache.” I think of the movie Magnolia and Jason Robards dying Earl Partridge: I loved her so. And she knew what I did. She knew all the ******* stupid things I’d done. But the love… was stronger than anything you can think of. The ******* regret. The ******* regret! Oh, and I’ll die. Now I’ll die, and I’ll tell you what… the biggest regret of my life… I let my love go. What did I do? I’m sixty-five years old. And I’m ashamed. A million years ago… the ******* regret and guilt, these things, don’t ever let anyone ever say to you you shouldn’t regret anything. Don’t do that. Don’t! You regret what you ******* want! Use that. Use that. Use that regret for anything, any way you want. You can use it, OK? Oh, God. This is a long way to go with no punch. A little moral story, I say… Love. Love. Love. This ******* life… oh, it’s so ******* hard. So long. Life ain’t short, it’s long. It’s long, ******* it. *******. What did I do? What did I do? What did I do? What did I do? Phil. Phil, help me. What did I do? There’s a price to pay for breaking the Law. Without redemption, without forgiveness, the scabs and scars would ooze and fester. 11. “Binary Star” – This one puts me in a different time and place, like a classic old movie or good book. It deals with the twist of fate in a fun way. It’s like an alloy of a show tune and a Tin Pan Alley tune. Ironically, though some of the other songs in this collection seem stylistically characteristic of Andrew Peterson lyrics, this one–for which he indeed wrote the lyrics–doesn’t particularly seem so. It’s a departure, a fun, attractive style different than any Peterson lyric I can immediately recall. Placing this song after “Nothing for the Ache” was a stroke of good judgment. Something light-hearted is needed at that point. 12. “Wear Your Wedding Dress” – Musically, this one also hearkens back to an earlier time with a starring role for the harmonium. Bonus Tracks (only available with the pre-order of the record–sorry!): 1. “On the Night That You Were Born” – Though sparsely produced–with voice and piano–this “bonus track” meshes perfectly with the rest of the songs on The Ill-Tempered Klavier. It’s tempo and tone introspectively capture the sublime transformation that accompanies the birth of a child. The miracle of birth is matched by the supernatural change that concurrently occurs within parents (“it was me that you delivered, your Father old and worn”). Ben’s voice seems close to breaking as he sings the line “kissed your cheek.” It’s this kind of human touch which infuses these songs with a stirring punch made powerful by the raw emotional truth. 2. “The Old Man, Strings and Clocks” – This is a track that ought to find a home somewhere on a movie score. It’s beautiful. I didn’t notice the clocks on the original track. What a fine musical touch for such a song, in which the passage of time is critical to full appreciation of the story. 3. “Going, Going, Gone” – I could go for a whole album of this stuff. The Ill-Tempered Klavier is a work that is full of surprises. There isn’t one of us who are familar with Ben Shive’s work that would doubt his skills. Still, I for one am flabbergasted by this freshman release. It shows judgment and discretion beyond his years. His choices, and those of his co-producer Cason Cooley demonstrate restraint, good taste, and a thoughtful creative spirit. On the other hand, Ben took edgy risks; creating transparently, meshing genres, and biggest of all, executing the production authentically.

Last time we heard from Randy, it was the first part of his Peanuts trilogy. Part 2 is an interlude, so I combined it with Part 3 so you can experience the beautiful way they go together. Excellent craftsmanship all around, from the (Ben Shive) production to the playing to the singing to the punch-yourself-in-the-face-because-it’s-so-good songwriting. If you don’t have this record yet, you really should. It’s on iTunes and here in the Rabbit Room Store. By the way, since Randy won’t brag about it himself, Charles Schultz’s wife wrote Randy a letter thanking him for this fine tribute to her husband. How cool is that? P.S. If you live in the Nashville area, come out to the city of Franklin’s summer Movies in the Park event this Friday night to see the new VeggieTales film that features “The Biscuit of Zazzamarandabo”, a new silly song by Randy and me. We’ll be there, nervously evaluating the audience’s sense of humor. Here’s the link for more info.

Lloyd, Melvin, Metta, Philip, Eunice, Iola, Ralph. I think I’ve gotten that right. Pictured on the right is Aunt Iola. IOLA. As in eye-o-luh. Unfortunate, don’t you think? She was a towering imposition of a woman, scared Uncle John when he was little, she never married, and was always pestering my grandpa about being as likable and handsome as he was — she just called So a night on the floor on couch cushions made me feel like a brand new woman, especially after a cup of coffee brought to me at my low level and a good massage from mom upon waking. Sleeping on the floor without complaining brings all sorts of happy rewards. But really, I do like the floor. There’s something primitive about it, even though it is carpeted and it’s on the fifth floor of a concrete building. We all had breakfast together in the lobby and I sustained the usual teasing and beating from Big Cousin Wade. As I returned to the table and discovered that my full plate had been replaced with Wade’s empty plate, and then later when he threatened the borders of my half-waffle, I remarked that I felt like I was eight years old again. The difference is that now I get more tickled at him than plain mad. Later at dinner this evening, he would continue to plague me with little smart (funny) remarks and lemon rinds in my tortillas and hard pinches on the collarbone, but we all know that it’s all in love….rIght? We ended our evening with dinner at a moderately enjoyable Mexican restaurant. All I’ll say is that they’re on the map enough that they sell their salsa in grocery stores. And it is, hands way down, the saltiest salsa I’ve ever put in my mouth. Dad took a bite before I did and said “I guarantee that’s the saltiest salsa you’ve ever eaten.” And indeed, dad was right. I told him they should rename it ‘saltsa.’ As is obvious from my rambling, the night has gotten late without me noticing. It’s sleepytime. ‘Night.

Saturday afternoon, I joined a good-sized crowd at Davis Kidd Booksellers in the Green Hills mall here in Nashville to hear Andrew read from his novel, On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness, book one in the Wingfeather Saga. They had about 30 chairs set up when I arrived, and by the time it started, they had had to pull out more chairs to seat those standing around and still didn’t have enough. After Andrew was introduced, Randall joined him to sing two songs from Slugs, Bugs, and Lullabies, the children’s album they recorded together last year. They sang “Bears” and “Piggy Little Toes”, and, while they were singing, I looked around and noticed more than one kid in the audience singing along. Before he started reading from his book, Andrew explained that he was always the kid in high school sitting at the back of the classroom drawing dragons in his notebook and getting beat up by the football players. So he thought it was great that he is now getting paid to do that, while none of the jocks are getting paid to play sports. He also explained where some of the creatures he came up with come from, like the Toothy Cows. Growing up, the default gift everyone gave his mom was cow-themed stuff, owing to one comment she happened to make at some point about liking cows, and he said he’d walk into the kitchen and find pictures of cows on platters and towels and salt and pepper shakers that were “dead behind the eyes.” He read the intros – A Brief Introduction to the World of Aerwiar, A Slightly Less Brief Introduction to the Land of Skree, and An Introduction to the Igiby Cottage (Very Brief) – inserting comments here and there, explaining the pronunciation of “The plains of Palen Jabh-J,” for instance. When I read the book, I thought the J at the end of Jabh-J was silent, since I didn’t know how else to pronounce it. But when Andrew read it, he always paused for a second after saying “jabh”, and then pronounced the hard J (followed by another pause to wait for the laughter to die down). He told us later that he is working on a pronunciation guide for the website to help those of us who don’t have a clue how some of his words should be pronounced. After reading Chapter One (“the scary chapter”), he read Chapter Eighteen, the chapter where Tink finds a map that leads the Igiby children on their adventures, and told us that the genesis of the book was him sitting down and drawing a map of the world the story inhabits, the original of which he brought with him to show us. At the end, after fielding questions from the audience for a little while, Andrew honored a request to sing another song by performing Little Boy Heart Alive, my favorite song of his about imagination and childlike wonder, a call to live instead of simply exist. Hopefully he’ll do a full book tour at some point, so those not lucky enough to live in Nashville can hear more of his stories and the stories behind his stories.https://rabbitroom.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/LittleBoyHeartAlive.mp3 Feel the beat of a distant thunder It’s the sound of an ancient song This is the Kingdom calling Come now and tread the dawn Come to the father Come to the deeper well Drink of the water And come to live a tale to tell Pages are turning now This is abundant life The joy in the journey Is enough to make a grown man cry With a little boy heart alive

Another goodern from JC’s latest album, RCVRY. https://rabbitroom.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/DistressSignal.mp3 DISTRESS SIGNAL (major against minor / breaking the glass case / where are you?) words and music: Casella Brother I can’t do this anymore Your silence is killing me Hiding major against minor chords You disappear right in front of me And how am I supposed to take it? I’m already on my knees And suspended in the distance Between grace and gravity Overcome by shadows of ourselves Disguising our reflection We could take the time to find our way Across this disconnection Because how are we gonna make it If we both refuse to see That we can’t go on erasing over Every sad thing? I want to trust you but you’ve lost all control (Where are you?) Nobody holds you like the hand of God

Is it really only day three? We’ll see if I’m still saying that on day twelve. After a morning poolside, a little jaunt west on Central Avenue (also known as Route 66) took us into the Nob Hill district where there are lots of cool shops and restaurants. Not to mention all of the bygone-era signage all along Uncle John was reminiscing about the trips they used to take as a family when The next few days are going to be so interesting. I am eager to hear the cousins compare notes and share stories that maybe I’ve never heard before. We will pay a visit to Aunt Eunice down south in Los Lunas. She’s the only surviving Norberg of her generation. She is over 100, but I can’t recall how far past she is — I suppose I stopped counting after that. Her memory has mostly left her, but I’ll be really interested in seeing whether her long-term memory is as good as it was last time I saw her, which was about four years ago. She couldn’t remember where she was living at the time but she could remember, with unbelievable color and detail, the train she took when she was a young woman studying to be a nurse, apartments where she had lived in San Diego, friends she had known, and so many accompanying tales.

And so the Song of the Day comes back around to the B’s. Last time I chose a live version of a Ron Block song that Alison Krauss sang at one of the Behold the Lamb Christmas shows. This time it’s a pair of instrumental songs from his latest record Doorway. The first is called “Secret of the Woods” and the second is “I See Thee Nevermore”, both based on a passage from a George MacDonald book. This represents a gloriously unlikely convergence of two of my favorite–no, three of my favorite things: fantasy literature, great acoustic music, and the Gospel. The Rabbit Room exists for such a thing as this. From Ron’s website: Originally a 3-part instrumental, I cut off the first part because I didn’t like it. The story begins with Anodos running from the Ash tree in the woods. This section was the part I cut off, but it’s important to the tension and release in the instrumental. Great drops of rain began to patter on the leaves. Thunder began to mutter, then growl in the distance. I ran on. The rain fell heavier. At length the thick leaves could hold it up no longer; and, like a second firmament, they poured their torrents on the earth. I was soon drenched, but that was nothing. I came to a small swollen stream that rushed through the woods. I had a vague hope that if I crossed this stream, I should be in safety from my pursuer; but I soon found that my hope was as false as it was vague. I dashed across the stream, ascended a rising ground, and reached a more open space, where stood only great trees. Through them I directed my way, holding eastward as nearly as I could guess, but not at all certain that I was not moving in an opposite direction. My mind was just reviving a little from its extreme terror, when, suddenly, a flash of lightning, or rather a cataract of successive flashes, behind me, seemed to throw on the ground in front of me, but far more faintly than before, from the extent of the source of the light, the shadow of the same horrible hand. I sprang forward, stung to yet wilder speed; but had not run many steps before my foot slipped, and, vainly attempting to recover myself, I fell at the foot of one of the large trees. Half-stunned, I yet raised myself, and almost involuntarily looked back. All I saw was the hand within three feet of my face. But, at the same moment, I felt two large soft arms thrown round me from behind; and a voice like a woman’s said: “Do not fear the goblin; he dares not hurt you now.” With that, the hand was suddenly withdrawn as from a fire, and disappeared in the darkness and the rain. Overcome with the mingling of terror and joy, I lay for some time almost insensible. This is where the first part of the instrumental, “Secret of the Woods”, begins: The first thing I remember is the sound of a voice above me, full and low, and strangely reminding me of the sound of a gentle wind amidst the leaves of a great tree. It murmured over and over again: “I may love him, I may love him; for he is a man, and I am only a beech-tree.” I found I was seated on the ground, leaning against a human form, and supported still by the arms around me, which I knew to be those of a woman who must be rather above the human size, and largely proportioned. I turned my head, but without moving otherwise, for I feared lest the arms should untwine themselves; and clear, somewhat mournful eyes met mine. At least that is how they impressed me; but I could see very little of colour or outline as we sat in the dark and rainy shadow of the tree. The face seemed very lovely, and solemn from its stillness; with the aspect of one who is quite content, but waiting for something. I saw my conjecture from her arms was correct: she was above the human scale throughout, but not greatly. “Why do you call yourself a beech-tree?” I said. “Because I am one,” she replied, in the same low, musical, murmuring voice. “You are a woman,” I returned. “Do you think so? Am I very like a woman then?” “You are a very beautiful woman. Is it possible you should not know it?” “I am very glad you think so. I fancy I feel like a woman sometimes. I do so to-night — and always when the rain drips from my hair. For there is an old prophecy in our woods that one day we shall all be men and women like you. Do you know anything about it in your region? Shall I be very happy when I am a woman? I fear not, for it is always in nights like these that I feel like one. But I long to be a woman for all that.” I had let her talk on, for her voice was like a solution of all musical sounds. I now told her that I could hardly say whether women were happy or not. I knew one who had not been happy; and for my part, I had often longed for Fairy Land, as she now longed for the world of men. But then neither of us had lived long, and perhaps people grew happier as they grew older Only I doubted it. I could not help sighing. She felt the sigh, for her arms were still round me. She asked me how old I was. “Twenty-one,” said I. “Why, you baby!” said she, and kissed me with the sweetest kiss of winds and odours. There was a cool faithfulness in the kiss that revived my heart wonderfully. I felt that I feared the dreadful Ash no more. “What did the horrible Ash want with me?” I said. “I am not quite sure, but I think he wants to bury you at the foot of his tree. But he shall not touch you, my child.” “Are all the ash-trees as dreadful as he?” “Oh, no. They are all disagreeable selfish creatures — (what horrid men they will make, if it be true!) — but this one has a hole in his heart that nobody knows of but one or two; and he is always trying to fill it up, but he cannot. That must be what he wanted you for. I wonder if he will ever be a man. If he is, I hope they will kill him.” “How kind of you to save me from him!” “I will take care that he shall not come near you again. But there are some in the wood more like me, from whom, alas! I cannot protect you. Only if you see any of them very beautiful, try to walk round them.” “What then?” “I cannot tell you more. But now I must tie some of my hair about you, and then the Ash will not touch you. Here, cut some off. You men have strange cutting things about you.” She shook her long hair loose over me, never moving her arms. “I cannot cut your beautiful hair. It would be a shame.” “Not cut my hair! It will have grown long enough before any is wanted again in this wild forest. Perhaps it may never be of any use again — not till I am a woman.” And she sighed. As gently as I could, I cut with a knife a long tress of flowing, dark hair, she hanging her beautiful head over me. When I had finished, she shuddered and breathed deep, as one does when an acute pain, steadfastly endured without sign of suffering, is at length relaxed. She then took the hair and tied it round me, singing a strange, sweet song, which I could not understand, but which left in me a feeling like this — “I saw thee ne’er before; I see thee never more; But love, and help, and pain, beautiful one, Have made thee mine, till all my years are done.” I cannot put more of it into words. She closed her arms about me again, and went on singing. The rain in the leaves, and a light wind that had arisen, kept her song company. I was wrapt in a trance of still delight. It told me the secret of the woods, and the flowers, and the birds. At one time I felt as if I was wandering in childhood through sunny spring forests, over carpets of primroses, anemones, and little white starry things — I had almost said creatures, and finding new wonderful flowers at every turn. At another, I lay half dreaming in the hot summer noon, with a book of old tales beside me, beneath a great beech; or, in autumn, grew sad because I trod on the leaves that had sheltered me, and received their last blessing in the sweet odours of decay; or, in a winter evening, frozen still, looked up, as I went home to a warm fireside, through the netted boughs and twigs to the cold, snowy moon, with her opal zone around her. Part two of the instrumental, “I See Thee Nevermore,” begins here and leads Anodos on his journey:https://rabbitroom.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/SecretOfTheWoods.mp3 At last I had fallen asleep; for I know nothing more that passed till I found myself lying under a superb beech-tree, in the clear light of the morning, just before sunrise. Around me was a girdle of fresh beech-leaves. Alas! I brought nothing with me out of Fairy Land, but memories — memories. The great boughs of the beech hung drooping around me. At my head rose its smooth stem, with its great sweeps of curving surface that swelled like undeveloped limbs. The leaves and branches above kept on the song which had sung me asleep; only now, to my mind, it sounded like a farewell and a speedwell. I sat a long time, unwilling to go; but my unfinished story urged me on. I must act and wander. With the sun well risen, I rose, and put my arms as far as they would reach around the beech-tree, and kissed it, and said good-bye. A trembling went through the leaves; a few of the last drops of the night’s rain fell from off them at my feet; and as I walked slowly away, I seemed to hear in a whisper once more the words: “I may love him, I may love him; for he is a man, and I am only a beech-tree.”

Current time: 12:43pm (Mountain Time) Current song: “Paper Wings” by Gillian Welch Current snack: a bag of unusually fresh and crunchy CornNuts, Spicy Hot V8 Current state: New Mexico This morning mom and I compared overnight notes and came to the agreement that we each slept really well. I’m pretty sure I didn’t budge — woke up in the same position as when I fell asleep. I suppose that is owed partly to the fact that I was on a tight top bunk in the cabin and partly to the fact that we woke at 5am yesterday and I was quite sleepy. While we were loading the car we were listening to Robinella and the CC String Band. She sings a song called “Morning Dove” and in the chorus she imitates the sound of a turtle dove’s cooing with her warbly voice. At the very same time as she did this in the song, a real dove in the tree outside our cabin was doing the same. The real bird must have felt upstaged and I’m guessing she thought she needed to show that human broad how it’s really done. It was pretty sweet. Sweet and hilarious. We cleaned up, packed up, had thick coffee with cream and English muffins with sliced tomato (eggs and all other accoutrements went out the window when we woke a bit later than we ought’ve) and hit the road. I took the morning shift because I like early driving best. Fresh-faced, wide-eyed, and lead-footed. We just passed a billboard for a truck stop that boasted “Lotsa Rocks!” Really? People get off the interstate to buy rocks? Well now, this next billboard for the same place is also touting the fact that they have a “Flame Thrower!” and “Peanut Brittle!” there, so I suppose there are many unexplored virtues at the Flying C Ranch. Add “Agate Bookends!” to that growing list of goods. They’ve also got “Ample Parking For Your Big Rig!” Whew, that’s great news, because my big rig usually presents a problem. There is a long train snaking east to our right at the present. From where I sit, it looks like it’s going the wrong way, and fast. I think it’s carrying coal and oil, if I had to guess. Maybe some bananas and some immigrants. The bright yellow Union Pacific engine, painted with an undulating, ragged American flag, is making quick work of these red mesas and green valleys. Just one more snapshot of Americana. There are so many reasons why it’s called the Heartland, and I’ll add that mental image to my list. Signing off for now. I am itching to get to the end of the line, get out of this car and off my sore rear, and have a good long mind bending stretch. I can almost taste the pool. It tastes like a freshly laundered towel, sunscreen, the pages of my book and maybe a little nap. Oh, and a lot of chlorine. Yum. ADDENDUM: SUPPER #1. making the black bean ‘stew’ #2. frying four, count ’em, four, perfect eggs #3. ahhhh, sweet perfection: black bean, green chile ‘stew’ with leftover flank steak, cheddar cheese, fried eggs, tomatoes, and of course, the universal utensil, the chip

Twelve hours down, six to go. Mom and I hit the road this morning at 6:30 with strong coffee, kisses from dad and a full vehicle. I declare, if we don’t have it in that Ford, we don’t need it. We have landed safely at the quaint, really lovely little KOA in Elk City, Oklahoma. Oh, Oklahoma. What a BO-RING piece of our nation (my apologies to all native Oklahomans). I drove the second shift today which means I had the pleasure of honking the horn upon crossing the state line (a Coates family tradition) and then navigating the bulk of the state. The roads are abominable, the drivers are asinine, and the landscape less than inspiring. That is, until you get almost all the way across and close to the Texas line, then it starts to unfold and display red clay in the hills and scrubby sideways trees and dreamy windmills against the backdrop of even dreamier clouds. You know you’re entering the west when the clouds seem higher, firmer, and more defined, like cottony creatures. So we had a harmless little wager (‘harmless’ meaning absolutely nothing on the line except the satisfaction of being right) as to exactly what minute I’d be gliding up the exit ramp to this blip on the map. I bet 6:08, mom bet 6:15, At 6:09 on the dot, as the exit sped toward me, I found I was going a bit too fast (is 90 too fast?) and felt that I needed to ease it to a gentle stop, but the stop occurred about ten yards past the actual exit. Thankfully, no one was behind me so I put the thing in reverse then slid stealthily off the interstate. After a slightly exorbitant trip to the grocery for dinner and breakfast provisions, we drove into our little slice of heaven at the campsite. Now, mom and I love to ‘camp,’ but it usually involves a tidy little wooden cabin rather than a tent, clean, bleach-scented bathrooms rather than a tree, and fine, ingeniously concocted meals rather than weenies and marshmallows. (although we are certainly not above such.) Tonight we began with organizing/readying our ‘icebox,’ our ‘stove’ and our ‘pantry.’ Dinner was as follows (on blue speckled tinware, naturally): romaine lettuce, warm black beans with green chiles, sliced avocado, spiced flank steak, chips and salsa, fresh roasted corn on the cob, and cold beer. We had a slight crisis when I was taking the pie pan from the flame and some of the oil spilt over and caused a considerable fire, but I, thinking as quickly and efficiently as I do, grabbed the carton of salt and sprinkled it generously over the flames until there was nothing but a black smudge. We laughed nervously, clinked beer bottles and toasted to “twelve hours down and no burnt appendages.” After a walk down the lane to the restrooms, past all of the monstrous RVs and trailers, we returned refreshed and ready for a nightcap. We opened a really nice bottle of Spanish red, had just a tiny splash each, and now mom’s getting her pajamas on inside. She has just informed me in her best fake naggy-mother tone, “It’s after ten, Evie!” She makes me chuckle. She is a tireless nester. This means that, even though we will be residing in this little wooden abode for no more than twelve hours, she is in there, fluffing pillows, probably lighting candles, and making it ours. I got this trait from her, and it has served me well. I’m being dive-bombed by block-headed bugs of all sorts, my pajamas are still in the suitcase in the Ford, we’d like to arrive at the Albuquerque KOA tomorrow at a decent, plenty-of-time-for-lazing-by-the-pool time, so it will be early to rise (and boil water for our French press coffee and fry up a couple of eggs and slice tomatoes and toast some English muffins), and I had best close for the evening. The soft, constant hum of the semi trucks and the happy chirping of crickets and turtle doves will be our lullaby. Good night.

Last Friday afternoon, some friends and I drove over to Memphis for a Sara Groves concert. I think it was the third time I’ve seen her play, not counting the times she has played for Andrew Peterson’s Christmas show at the Ryman, or the couple showcases I caught last month during GMA week. She was playing at Hope Presbyterian, just outside of Memphis, for the opening concert in their summer concert series, along with another artist, and played for almost 90 minutes. Bruce Carroll, who recorded eight projects on Word Records during the 80’s and 90’s and has won multiple Dove and Grammy awards, is the “Director of Arts and Worship” there now, and he talked about Compassion International and their child sponsorship program for a couple minutes before the intermission. Sara played a good mix of songs from her albums, including one from her under-appreciated side project of songs for parents, Songs from a Station Wagon, that I had played for my friends on the drive over, and her current radio single, “It Might Be Hope,” my favorite song from her newest album, Tell Me What You Know. The line that jumped out at me this time, and that has stayed with me, is from the title song of her second album, Conversations: “The only thing that isn’t meaningless to me is Jesus Christ and the ways He sets me free.”* Growing up in church, the theme that Christ had set us free was constantly driven home (what we’d been saved from, never what we’d been saved for), but not, that I remember, the ways that Christ sets us free, in little and big ways every day. Listening to Sara sing that, I was drawn anew into thankfulness for the freedom that redemption brings and for the accomplished and yet ongoing work of Christ in my life. This week, Sara headed into a studio here in Nashville with producer Ben Shive (Andrew Peterson’s piano player/producer and newest member of the Square Peg Alliance), to lay down the tracks for her first Christmas record, due out later this year. Ben told me yesterday that some of the songs they’ll be recording are new settings that Sara has written of traditional Christmas carols. I love her setting of “Great Is Thy Faithfulness” (He’s Always Been Faithful), so I’m looking forward to hearing what she comes up with. *I just listened to the album version of “Conversations”, and Sara does sing “the way He set me free” there, not “the ways He sets me free,” which is what I heard at the concert. So I’m assuming that, in the eight years since she recorded that, she has broadened the meaning of that line.

Welcome to a new series here in the Rabbit Room, where we will periodically peek into the lives of our contributors as well as other artists, musicians and writers in interview form. We believe that not only is it important to hear from those we appreciate so much but we also enjoy knowing about them as well. So in our first installment, it’s (finally) time for an update from our own Randall Goodgame: Rabbit Room (Matt): Your website hasn’t been updated since 2007. And I can’t seem to find much of anything anywhere on the latest with Randall Goodgame. So an obvious place to start is simply this – what’s happening? Randall Goodgame: For about a year, we’ve been making a record for our worship team at Midtown, which is the name of our church. It’s a record of all the songs we do at Midtown that were written by people at our church that have never been recorded anywhere else, except for one that Caedmon’s Call recorded of mine. You can get it on our website for ten bucks and can listen to some of the tracks. RR: What was the heart for the project? RG: The original inspiration for it was literally that we had no budget. So we thought, ‘Well, we’ve got lots of people who would donate time and give to the making of a record, so why don’t we try to do that and sell it for money.’ It just took forever to do, because you’re getting people to do stuff for free. We finally finished and now that’s finished, the main hope is that they are very useful songs. You know how you buy a CD and there are only two or three songs if you’re lucky that you can actually use in worship on Sunday. Or sometimes there’s only one! But on this, all the songs have been used in congregational worship a number of times, so they are all useful in that way. So it feels we’re making a contribution to the church at large. RR: How does that compare to other available offerings in today’s modern worship scene? RG: You’ll have to tell me. I don’t even know what’s available. I know a couple Chris Tomlin songs, but those are probably six years old now. RR: What’s happening with your own solo career now? RG: I have a new management company that I’m working with and they have just built a new website for me. RR: Does that go live soon because I noticed that hasn’t been updated for a while… RG: Probably in the next month or so. So we’re developing a lot of content for that. I’ve got an album’s worth of material ready to record, it’s just finding the time and money to do it. I’ll probably have something by October 1, even if it’s just an EP of sorts, it will be something new. RR: That’s the October release? RG: I think so.  I have been writing exclusively on the piano. I had always been a piano player before but as you grow in Nashville, carry your guitar around, meet with people and you write, it’s just easier to write on the guitar. We moved into Nashville and my piano was in the living room in our old house and here I put it in my office, so I get to play it all the time. It doesn’t bother people late at night. Also, I just committed to it. I’m a better piano player. I enjoy the things I get to do on it. I’m able to be a lot more expressive and feel at home. So it’ll be a bunch of funky piano tunes. RR: Does that bring out a different side of you – writing from the piano? RG: I think you’d probably say that it would, yes. My guitar playing comes from the different musicians I love and enjoyed growing up musically. They’re all folky people – Bob Dylan, James Taylor, Nancy Griffith, Patti Griffin – so what I play will sound like that. It will sound like my regurgitating or making it my own. But the piano… I’ve been playing it for so long that I feel I play like me. When I sit down to play the piano, I can just play. I can do that on the guitar, but it feels more like making music when I’m at the piano. So it’s just a lot more fun for me and actually for everybody. When I play the guitar, it’s mellow and folky and when I play the piano, it’s more bombastic. RR: A lot of the artists you are surrounded by seem to write thematically. Do you write in the same way? RG: Yeah, I’m writing a lot about friendship and freedom. Feathers. Fruit. [Laughs] RR: Freedom? As in spiritual freedom? RG: Spiritual freedom… you know what I mean when I say that and I will know what you mean, but you’re the pastor of a church. And I’m the worship pastor at a church. So I would say personal freedom, because anybody would know what that meant. And even if they didn’t know what what they knew was spiritual freedom, it would really be spiritual freedom. Because when the guy that has the yachts and all the girlfriends shoots himself in the head because he is lonely, it’s because he wasn’t free. He wouldn’t say that he’s free. So the old blind way of talking about freedom of just being able to do whatever you want… people have wised up to that. They haven’t in their behavior, maybe, because we can’t stop from our behavior being that way. But people are familiar with the language of that you can’t buy happiness. So the kind of freedom that people would understand when you quit a job you don’t like and you just feel free. Or you have a conversation with a friend that’s been weighing you down and making you distracted from everything else that you’d like to be focused on and you finally have it and feel free. So if you take the time to ask what you feel free from, that gets exciting. RR: Any collaborations on the new music? RG: Oh, yeah! There’s at least one of the songs I’ve been working on with [Andy] Osenga that he’s been super-helpful with. Most of them so far have been written by myself, but I’m always asking friends to help me with stuff. You know, anyone who’s around and available to give me their brain energy, I’ll take. RR: What’s the attitude of having to get your name out there? Is that fun or is that frustrating to have to do that work? RG: I’m not real gifted at the long-term view. As a result, I don’t get bothered by maybe what should bother me. I don’t get worried about things I probably should. Whatever blind spots I have don’t let me get troubled by what it takes to ramp up the Randall Goodgame machine. So it doesn’t bother me. I sort of feel like I still do the same things I’ve always done. I love working for my church. And I’m sure I will continue to do that and they’re real flexible with me. Part of my role there is to recognize and train leaders for the community while I’m gone, so that’s not a problem. Even though I will have two or three months at a time where I won’t do shows, I have this job part-time so I don’t need but just a few shows each month to make ends meet. Of course, part of ramping up is to do more shows than that. But I’ve been in a charmed season, continuing to be involved in my own work, my friend’s work, the children’s record and being able to be home all the time with my kids, who are 5 and 7… I’ve been around for these formative years and I’m still here. It’s just also been real rewarding writing for the church and being a part of this growing community in downtown Nashville.

Jonathan Rogers, one of the first people on board with the Rabbit Room last year, has written several books, three of which are a Young Adult series called The Wilderking Trilogy.  Jonathan describes these books as a fantasy tale told in an American accent, and the following song is a great example of that. (Sadly, we don’t have a recording of Jonathan singing it.) FEECHIE LOVE SONG My sweet feechie girl is the swamp’s finest pearl — A treasure, and man don’t I know it. And I really do think that she loves me too, Though she don’t always know how to show it. Her brown eyes are dark like a loblolly’s bark. Her skin is as smooth as a gator. The one time I kissed her, she knocked me cold, mister. But nothing could cause me to trade her. She smells just as sweet as a mud turtle’s feet. Her hair is as soft as a possum. Once I walked by her side, but she knocked me cross-eyed. It took me a week to un-cross ’em. Her voice is as pleasin’ as swamp lily season She talks kind of froggy and crickety. Once I give her a rose, and she busted my nose. My sweetie can be right persnickety. I’ll give you this warning: you mess with my darling, I’ll whop you a right, then a left. And if that ain’t enough, or if you’re extra tough, I might let her whup you herself.

This week, I saw two concerts in three days: the first was Andrew Peterson and the Captains Courageous and the other was Cyndi Lauper and the B 52s. But first, let me backtrack a bit. A while back for our 10th anniversary my wife and I decided to spend a weekend in Chicago – the city where we met – and enjoy some of the local culture before attending a retreat put on by Image: A Journal of The Arts & Religion. We scraped together $150 of activity money and our first adventure was to spend an evening at Second City – the comedy club that produced comedians like Dan Akroyd, Bill Murray, John Belushi and others. As we walked in we were greeted by a group of well-dressed men who shook our hands, graciously thanking us for attending the evening and ushering us down the line to the place where we would buy our tickets. We were asked if we had reserved seats and when we said no, the woman assured us there was still room and that we needn’t worry. “Good, in that case, we’ll take two tickets.” Our guide to Chicago nightlife listed Second City tickets at $8 a piece, so imagine our surprise when the woman presented us with our two tickets and said, “That’ll be $100, please.” It was then we discovered that this was a special event fundraiser hosted by Second City to benefit an AIDs hospice program. We looked at each other and counted the cost of how awkward it would be to walk back down the gauntlet of well dressed men who had just a moment ago so graciously expressed their gratitude to us. Hoping to avoid this embarrassment and realizing it was too late in the evening to do anything else, we blew 2/3 of our week’s worth of fun money, took our tickets, and walked in. And there we were, unwitting attendees of a predominantly homosexual gathering, perhaps the only heterosexual married couple in the room. We were pleased, however, to discover that it was a banquet with a good spread of appetizers and hor d’oeuvres. Whichever side of the line you fall on in regards to the issue of homosexuality, one cannot argue that they do have exquisite taste in food. And shoes. All told, it was a great night and one of our favorite memories. Fast forward 6 years and Taya and I found ourselves in a similar situation as we walked into the Target Center to attend the True Colors Tour with Cyndi Lauper and the B-52s. I saw the tickets go on sale in March and, knowing my wife’s love for all things 80’s, decided to be a good husband and order two. We made it a date night with dinner beforehand and a stay over at a lovely old fashioned Inn in the river city of Afton. After a good meal of fish and chips at Brit’s Pub in downtown Minneapolis, we made our way to the Target Center for our own little 80’s revival. As we walked in, we noticed there were a lot of gay couples in attendance that night. We looked at each other and joked, “Well it is an 80’s concert. And it is the B-52s…” As we made our way to our seats we ran into all manner of people decked out in flamboyant costumes, but we still had little idea what we had gotten ourselves into. The Cliks were the first opener, and I knew we weren’t in Kansas anymore when during a lull between songs someone close to us yelled out “Take your pants off!” Thankfully the lead singer didn’t oblige. When the emcee came out after their set, all the pieces started to fall into place: it was Carson Kressley from Queer Eye For The Straight Guy. A flamboyantly gay man, Kressley joked about the protesters outside who may or may not have been holding signs that read “God Hates Homosexuality” with the Levitical reference below it. “I like to tell them, ‘God hates shellfish, too, but you don’t see me protesting at Red Lobster!’” Ouch, that was a good zinger, I thought, and even laughed. (This joke reminded me of the book I’m reading right now about what it would look like if we followed every law outlined in the Bible. The author suspects that religious people are guilty of picking and choosing which biblical laws they embrace. But that’s another topic for a later post…) Kressley then asked, “How many homosexuals do we have in the audience tonight?!” and when the room erupted in hoots and applause, Taya and I realized that we were the sexual minority. I all of a sudden had a curious moment where I feared being outed as a heterosexual Christian man. Would I be considered the enemy? Would they gang up on me if it was discovered that I had once attended a George Bush rally? Thankfully, the emcee, who was genuinely very funny (not to mention very well-dressed), told all the gays to make any straights in the room feel welcome. I still couldn’t shake my uneasiness, though my unease was less homophobic than it was ideological. I’m sure I had no reason to be nervous, but something about being a Christian heterosexual man at a gathering of homosexuals – some of whom were pretty militant – was an experience I wasn’t prepared for. I was the religious, sexual, and ideological minority. I felt like I didn’t belong and I was afraid of getting busted. I wondered if this was how a homosexual would feel at a rally of religious conservatives. Or a Republican convention. I also wondered if this is how homosexuals feel much of the time in our culture – an outsider excluded from much of the American experience that heterosexuals take for granted. I also worried that we weren’t dressed stylish enough. As the evening went on, we slowly discovered that we were attending what was in essence a gay rally to raise awareness of homosexual related issues and encourage people to vote accordingly in the upcoming election year. I guess we would have been more prepared if we had gone to the website beforehand, where it says: “The goal of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) equality is at the heart of [the] True Colors [tour].” I wonder how many other unsuspecting heterosexuals were there that night. The next act was the Indigo Girls-like duo of Tegan & Sara, who had a good set of catchy 3 minute folk/pop songs, peppered with gay proclamations and crude banter between songs. Following the break, the emcee – after more homosexually charged humor – introduced Rosie O’Donell who gave us a 20 minute set of her observational comedy. She shared genuinely from her heart, but though she tried to humorize painful experiences like the death of her mother when she was young, challenges in her career, and her struggles with depression, most of the jokes came off as vulgar, angry, and sad. She also made some jokes, we felt, at the expense of her little boy. It was the most offensive and heartbreaking part of the evening for both Taya and me. Following O’Donell, the B-52s were introduced as the greatest party band in the world, and man, they still have it! Even though they are more or less an aging gimmick band, they do what they do well, and I will admit that it was fun to hear “Rock Lobster”, “Roam”, and the ultimate party song – “Love Shack” – live. Finally – 3 hours into the night – Cyndi Lauper was introduced, and as soon as she took the stage it was clear why she is… well… Cyndi Lauper. While my reasons for being there were to be a good husband, I genuinely enjoyed her set. She’s a consummate professional who has a real authority when she takes the stage. Because of her outrageous 80’s persona it’s easy to forget that she took some genuinely great songs to the top of the charts during her reign including “Time After Time” and “True Colors”. Listen to these songs again – seriously, they’re great! And she’s very likable. Like the singer/songwriter/storytellers we admire so much here in the Rabbit Room, she would pause in her set and casually tell stories to the arena audience. She connected and made us feel like old friends. She is obviously gifted and it was enjoyable to watch her in her element and be reminded of the theology of “common grace” that refers to those who operate in their God-given giftedness though they may not necessarily believe in God (whether she does or does not, I don’t know). Her set was also thankfully devoid of sexual jokes and references (other than what you might expect to hear from 80’s pop music). But to be honest, other than the few virtues I mentioned above, the night for the most part was often boring to me. There was little for me to connect with emotionally or musically. It’s not like most of the artists who were represented are writing songs that mine the ultimate questions of meaning and existence. And musically, there were very few moments that strayed too far from predictable pop conventions. At an event like this, you have to keep the hits rolling and there is little time for moments that let the music breathe and become something more than merely the canvas for catchy melodic hooks. Now, I know that girls just want to have fun, but I guess I was still hoping for something a little more. Maybe a part of what left me feeling cold, too, is that more than music the event felt like it was about sexuality. I don’t want to be guilty of bigotry, nor do I mean to be dismissive of homosexuals – we have enough friends who are homosexual to know that the issue is much more complicated than most religious conservatives take into account. But the whole evening was so laced with sex-soaked humor and bawdy talk that I kept thinking of Christian author Phillip Yancey who expressed to a gay friend that one of his main issues with homosexuals is the way many of them define themselves almost strictly by their sexuality. Almost every word from the stage, to my ears, conveyed an often militant homosexual agenda. And it pains me to say it, but many of the attendees we saw around us affirmed unfortunate gay stereotypes. Most of the people in our immediate vicinity seemed clearly troubled, confused, and broken. I suppose the relevant question is: was it their brokenness that led them to homosexuality? Or was their brokenness the result of being a homosexual in a world that often marginalizes – or worse, demonizes – people of varying sexual orientation? Hard to say. (In all fairness, I know intelligent and decent homosexuals who would have been as bothered as Taya and I were by some of the behavior we witnessed there. I suppose it’s akin to certain religious rallies that we hear about and then try to assure people that, “Not all Christians are like that.” Every group has its unruly adherents that must be apologized for.) All told, it was interesting to have the experience of being a minority. I’m not assigning a value of “good” or “bad” to our being there, except to say that I think it was useful to gain perspective of what it’s like to be a sexual minority as well as eavesdrop on what homosexuals think of the rest of us – especially religious conservatives. Say what you want about the issue, but I think it’s safe to say that evangelical Christianity as a whole has often failed to address homosexuality in either a loving or compelling manner. The church is more famous for drawing lines in the sand and shouting than engaging in a thoughtful and compassionate conversation. Speaking of compassion, the word literally means “to suffer with.” Christian author Frederick Buechner defines compassion as the “sometimes fatal capacity to know what it’s like to be in someone else’s shoes.” Our attendance of the True Colors tour gave us a chance to be a sexual minority and to experience what those shoes feel like. I choose to believe that we were there for a reason, and I hope that our experience will help us understand better how to show the love of Christ to a community of people who often feel exiled beyond the reach of Christian grace. At the very least, we came away with another great memory. The evening ended with Cyndi Lauper bringing everyone on stage as they all sang “True Colors.” In spite of ourselves, Taya and I were both profoundly moved as they all sang together in true 80’s fashion (think “We Are The World”) this beautiful anthem of love and acceptance. And it occurred to us both that this is all that every human being longs for – to be seen for who we truly are and to be loved and accepted anyway. “I see your true colors, and that’s why I love you…” I actually cried and found a moment that I could resonate with. At its heart, this thought is what the gospel is all about – being seen for who we truly are and being loved anyway. The gospel ultimately takes us one step further, though, going beyond mere acceptance to transformation. The homosexuality issue is such an explosive topic in the culture wars now that it dominates our political and religious conversations, obscuring nearly everything else. I don’t want that to be the case here, so I would like to put aside the sexuality issue and close with an altogether different observation. As you may have read in my earlier post, I attended Andrew Peterson’s concert just two nights before this one, and in the last analysis I guess one of the more disheartening issues with the True Colors tour is this: it cost us over a $100 for the cheap seats and there were thousands of people there. The music was mildly entertaining at best and never really touched or stirred the deeper places in me. It left me unchanged except for the weird hangover of culture shock that still lingers. Two nights previous, however, we attended a modest concert where a crowd of little more than a hundred people attended and the ticket price was $24 for the two of us. That night, I heard songs and stories of real life struggles with no easy answers, but a deep abiding hope that we all must answer to and which has miraculously survived centuries of doubt, fear, cultural shifts, mishandling and misrepresentation. The night was at once musical, stirring, and thought provoking. In the end, I left different than when I came – wanting to love better, to live more fully, and to be more engaged with my own life and the mystery of the God who I believe called it into existence. I left feeling more alive. My wife made the observation on our way home the day after the True Colors show that we live in a culture where people are more likely to pay $100 to be mildly entertained than we are to pay $24 to be changed.