Hold On, Let Go

So this is an old idea; we've seen it on banners and posters around our churches... well... churches I hang out in. Being surrendered to the will of God is an ideal. If it's only ever aspirational I guess that's ok too. I'd like to think that God is working on me, and I know I will continue to reach out to God. I also recognize that to fill my hands with God I have to let go of other things.

This song is from 16 years back: In January of '05 I found out that my marriage of 27 years was going to end. It's like Stevie says, "...well I've been fraid of changes, since I built my life around you..." Anyway one reason we make art is to try and get a handle on our feelings, because otherwise they get too much for us. I like this one a lot. Not only is it minor blues - yeah! - but it's about as good as I get for lyric writing:

"...go down down to that cradle of light,

Jesus goin' to save you

in His own sweet time..."

Country Jesus... Little Brown Bird

What was not to like? It was such a pretty song, such crisp little blue-grassy turns in the key of G, and it had been such a bad fight. The latest, I'm sorry to say, in a string of bad fights, and it hurt bad also because I was trying to follow Jesus, and so I was also ashamed that I was yelling at a person I loved. All a long time ago, such a long long time ago, and people have moved on, and the children in the middle of the angry parents, those children who perhaps suffered the most are now adults themselves, and if they don't want to talk about it, who's to blame them?

When the image came though of the little brown bird stuck in the tree, I went, "Oh yeah," and then when the joke came out at the end about how we'd get married and "...all our kids get little brown wings..." I thought, "OK, now I can take this to April and Rich and Bill." Sometime in 1998, I think; maybe that night at the Dublin Pub I played through it for them. This song also neatly models something I learned writing poetry back in the late Cretaceous Age: that making art can help manage pain. Jesus, and love do win out in this song, though it is a mixed business and a near thing, much like the rest of my life.

"...Lord Christ backlit by flickering orange coronas..."

For David and Julie Peyton

Lord Christ backlit by flickering orange coronas

diamond laser turquoise beams

like twin searchlights your eyes sweeping the dark,

and the multiple flashing purple gymnast

arms, or tai chi, qi gong

slo-mo ballet movement

hip shot rock n’ roller move, and...

...galaxies spray when you do that,

they fling and fall and obediently

coalesce

bringing forth herb and fruit

according to their kind;

more of your rugged sense of humor,

your slapstick, your crosses, your thorny crowns.

The bread and the lentils,

the water and the wooden cup

Martha brings you; her halt step

and the love in her eyes.

Eugene, 1/23/20