As time allows I will be adding thoughts, prayers and ponderings to the blog. Please visit often to see what is going on.

A MUSICAL RECOMMENDATION

              January 15, 2009

              Dave Wilcox, on a recent visit here, gave me a copy of “800 Voices, My Childhood in an Irish Orphanage,” by Danny Ellis (one of Dave’s neighbors in Asheville). Dave suggested, and i concur, that to get the full jolt and beauty of the songs, you’ve got to sit and listen to them straight through. They’re brutally honest, heartfelt, real. I’d be surprised if you can listen to these autobiographical snapshots without tears, without some chuckles, without having to catch your breath a time or two. They are skillfully written and convincingly delivered. An hour well-spent, guaranteed, of you can find the time. You can get the music at www.dannyellismusic.com or at www.cdbaby.com

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

SLOW LEARNER

         January 9, 2009

              Sam almost has me trained.

              I’m presently enrolled in his University of Unhurried Walk.

              Since he returned from the vet a month ago, with a new $1600 knee (left rear), Sam has had me at his beck and call. Part of the post-op protocol given us by Dr. Blackmar has been to keep Sam, previously an outdoor dog with free run of the county, inside the house and under close watch. It is to be that way for three months. It has been a month today. …

              The exception to house confinement is leash walks that are to get progressively longer as Sam gets progressively stronger. By the end of February, he should be able to return to life as a farm dog, at which time I will have to recondition his mind to understand that 16 hours a day on the couch is not normal canine activity.  …

              I’ve never owned a leash dog before; I never wanted to. It is interesting that I now find myself owned by a leash dog. Having enjoyed a long spell at home for the holidays, I’ve been able to give Sam pretty much constant attention since his surgery, an experience that I have found quite pleasant actually. He has spent most of his time in the house (on the couch or the rug) or at the studio with me, sleeping a lot, hearing my voice a lot, getting frequent bits of touch. On no particular schedule, we’ve taken short strolls around the house, through the field in front of the house, on the road behind the house, down the path to the tree house, and in the area around the studio. It’s been a bit of a challenge for a long-legged creature like myself to learn the desultory walking habits of a lame dog. And while Sam seems satisfied to stay close by my side part of the time, walking at my pace and moving in my direction, he mostly likes to meander slowly, with lots of stops and starts, led by a nose close to the ground or slightly upturned, apparently in search of something or other.

At other times, he simply stops, as if attentive to a distant voice or vague scent, and stands for a spell until he decides, on criteria unknown to me, to move along. I could, of course, drag him or pull hard on the leash to get him back on my course and back at my pace. I have, though, resisted that temptation and, instead, am giving him the lead, in the process learning ‘slow,’ learning ‘stroll,’ learning ‘look’, learning ‘let someone else be in charge for a few minutes.’ On a number of occasions, when I’ve gotten out in front of him, Sam leans back on his heels, stops, and waits for me to get to the end of the leash. I’ve turned around to find him standing, head slightly dropped, looking right at me. i’m not sure what he means by the gesture, if anything, but it almost seems that, as the new year begins, someone is telling me not to hurry, that at my recent pace I run the risk of missing something really good, and that I would be wise to let someone else lead the way until I learn the distant voices and vague scents of the better way. Oh, the blessing of a good dog.

              Reflective living and ‘adorational attentiveness,’ which both defy hurry, have been themes in some of my songwriting in the past and, I hope, will be my mindset for ‘09. Being on the leash is reminding me that i‘m still very much a student of those mindsets, that I have much to learn.

              PS (January 15) – Speaking of man and dog, I was recently introduced to a beautiful children’s book (full of solid food for grown up minds) by Mrs. Lane, third grade teacher at Park elementary. (Her’s is one of the classes that I read to on Thursdays.) Today, we finished Stone Fox, by John Reynolds Gardiner and Greg Hargreaves. If you have children to whom you read out loud, or if you’ve got 15 minutes for a ‘leash walk’ that will do your heart good, you might want to read it.

              PS2 -  Sam would have you know that he is no longer a $20 dog.)

Useless Things

November 27, 2008         

“He had been a good man, always i think, but this tenderness was new. It was the tenderness of an old man who had been busy all his life but now had time to pay attention to useless things.” Jayber Crow, Wendell Berry.

           Wendell Berry, with words that can almost make one long for old age, is describing a Kentucky farmer, one who utilized traditional methods – crop rotation, mules rather than tractors, small scale rather than industrial – and who, somewhat as a result, has become an anachronism in his time. The farmer is an honorable, thoughtful man, of few words, late in years.

And he has time “to pay attention to useless things.”  Time has lost its fierce grip on him and the previously ignored has become worthy of attention and, just possibly, appreciation. By “useless,” i interpret Berry to mean objects – sunsets, spiderwebs, leaf buds, letters, running water, spoken words and facial expressions, maybe even experiences – small talk, contemplation, memory, walking, listening, which are financially meaningless and which popular culture might regard as wastes of time. Useless does not mean worthless.

And so, on this Thanksgiving Day, I hope for a heart that can regard, enjoy, be grateful for useless things.

           …

           Last week, while enjoying my time as a volunteer reader at the local elementary school, i posed a question to Mrs. Lane’s third graders, ”What are you thankful for this year, and you cannot say family or friends?” The answers were varied if somewhat predictable – food , football, books. It was good to see the children thinking “thankful.”

 When the answers were all in we did something together.

           For the count of 15  -- which i measured slowly – we all held our eyes wide open without blinking (all tried, few succeeded). And then we talked about the gift of blinking.

           “What would happen if we could never blink our eyes, if that little, tiny muscle, wherever it is, that lets us close our eyes?

           “Your eyes would sting.”

           “Your eyes would get red.”

           “Your eyes would dry out and turn into jelly."

           “You would get blind!”

           “You could never sleep.”

           We concluded that we should be thankful for that little tiny muscle, wherever it is, that lets us close our eyes.

So…

           For the blink muscle which, like so many other useless, undetected, under-appreciated, taken-for-granted things, let me give thanks.

           For smaller and smaller gifts, LORD, make me thankful. And make us wise to see that no gifts are small.

             ...   Blink.

PS – December 4, 2008 –

The gift of blink, was front and center to a movie that I watched last night. “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly,” is an adaptation of the memoir of Jean Dominique Bauby, editor of Elle magazine in Paris, who, at age 42, suffered a massive stroke that rendered him totally paralyzed. For the rest of his life, his active mind and body were hostage to “locked in syndrome.”  His escape came through blinking.

              The one muscle movement that allowed him to communicate with the world outside his mind and body, even allowing him to dictate the memoir, was that of opening and closing his left eye. One blink for “yes” and two for “no.” Quite a remarkable story, if tragic. (The movie is in French with subtitles and is a

movie for adults.)

 - - - - - - - - - -

Some Well-written Lines

         November 29, 2008

           From Jayber Crow, by Wendell Berry , describing one of the patrons at a local roadhouse dance.

           “Alfred Pindle, when he got a few drinks in him, danced just by trotting back and forth in a rhythm having nothing whatever to do with any song that any band had ever played. He trotted along with his eyes filmed over as if he heard an entirely different music far off. Before long, his girl began to have the limply resigned and submitted look of a small animal carried by a cat.”

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

A Crop of Sacramental Beauty

           October 17, 2008

           Update on those 38 holes to fill. Yesterday I planted 8 chestnut oaks (mostly 10 to 12 feet tall), 3 Trident maples, 2 Red maples, and one October Glory maple. Don’t know when I’ve enjoyed work more. There was the immediate pleasure of seeing small changes to the pasture mixed with the long-term prospect of possibly seeing those same trees when they are broad and mature.

           You might have gathered from recent entries here, or from conversations if our paths have crossed in the past few months, that I’m reading a lot of Wendell Berry these days. He is a farmer and writer in Kentucky and I think his writing resonates with me as a land “owner,” a term I’m not sure that he’d endorse. Berry makes me wish that I knew something about farming, about reclaiming land, about plants and animals and farm equipment. But I don’t. I’m willing, even trying, to learn a bit but I know that it’ll be a long time before i set up a booth at the Farmer’s market.

           A very comforting thought struck me a couple of weeks ago, however, and crossed my mind again yesterday as I moved 200 pound ball and burlapped trees, shoveled dirt, hauled water, and sleeved the trunks. The thought was this:

           Beauty is a crop.

           The idea might sound rather dreamy and meaningless but it is energizing to me to know that God made, uses, and blesses beauty in His kingdom. And on the way to making this place ‘productive,’ it heartens me to think that, by simply preparing it to be a place of rest for those who visit, I am acting consistently with Him Who promised “to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes.” (Isaiah 61:3, a passage which continues, “They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the LORD for the display of His splendor.”) A well-placed tree and nicely mown field, and efforts to create an unlittered view from the front porch, while not agriculture in the strictest sense of the word, is, for me, well worth the labor involved.  ….   Beauty is a crop.

           For years, I’ve used a small book, A Diary of Private Prayer by John Baillie, to guide me through my morning and evening prayers. In addition to eloquent petitions, his writings amount to a body of divinity that encourage perceptions of God as awesome and other, but also near and loving. This morning’s prayer included this passage:

    “O God without me, forbid that I should look today upon the work of Thy hands and give no thought to Thee the Maker. Let the heavens declare Thy glory to me and the hills Thy majesty. Let every fleeting loveliness I see speak to me of a loveliness that does not fade. Let the beauty of earth be to me a sacrament of the beauty of holiness made manifest in Jesus Christ my Lord.”

And so, with 23 trees to go, I make it my continuing task to be farmer, loosely defined, in pursuit of a crop of sacramental beauty. It’s good work and I’m glad to do it.  

           - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The opposite of Lost is Home

           October 16, 2008

Years ago, a friend asked the question, “what is the opposite of faith?” My silent answer, and the one given out loud by someone else in the room, was “doubt.” Bill offered that a better answer might be “control.” And as i have reflected on it over the years, which i have done often, i’m convinced that this really is the more precise antithesis of faith.

    That experience has caused me, when trying to understand the meaning of a term, to ask what its opposite is. What, for instance, is the opposite of hope? Of sincerity? Of ambition?

    i’ve noticed in reading the Gospels the last couple of years that there are times when Jesus specifically defines some reason for His coming to the world. i count 6 but there might be more. This morning, the group of guys that meets at my house on Thursday mornings began our 6 week study of those statements by reading and discussing Luke 19:1-10, the story of Jesus’ encounter with Zaccheus which ends with Jesus saying that “the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”

           So i ask myself the question: what is the opposite of lost? The first answer that comes to mind, for me, is “found,” an answer sanctioned by the most famous “lost” story ever told, that of the prodigal son who was “lost but now is found.” (Luke 15:32) But i wonder if the better answer might be “home”? “Found” certainly gets a lost soul closer to where it wants to be, but might it be that home, in all its fullness, is really the destination we long for?

           Just a thought  …  

           [The other 5 statements in which Jesus tells why He came to the world are, as i detect them, to preach the good news of the kingdom (Luke 4:43), to be a king and to testify to the truth (John 18:37), to serve (Matthew 20:26-28), to call sinners to repentance (Luke 5:31, 32), and to die for sin (John 12:27). Understanding Jesus’ reasons for coming to the world might help His followers, whom CS Lewis once described as “little Christs,” to fall in line with His purposes in the world even now.]

• - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

"They’re bringing in the goldenrod."

       October 12, 2008

           That’s what Mrs. Betty Beegle told me this week when I called her with a question about my beehives. “Right now, they’re bringing in the goldenrod.” She meant that the bees are gathering pollen, for their winter food store, from the goldenrod which is presently at bloom in our county. And once the fact was pointed out to me i seem to see the wildflower everywhere.

           There was such a kindliness in Mrs. Beegle’s words, as if she was just bringing me up to speed about some of our neighbors, as if she was pleased to report that they’re doing well and all in good health. And she referred to the goldenrod as if it were pure treasure, a local delicacy, the main float in a Macy’s day parade. The image to me – honey bees and goldenrod -- was that of a thousand messengers with vases of yellow flowers. (… Do I hear another verse for “Coins of Gold”?)

           Funny how a small comment can make the world seem alright. Headlines today are full of gloom and doom, politicians are finger-pointing and blame shifting, and the international worry index seems to be hitting all time highs. But I hear, and take comfort in the small but happy news that, in my neighborhood, all around me by the tens of thousands, they’re bringing in the goldenrod. It might be small news, but, rightly understood, it’s good news, and makes me thankful to know souls like Mrs. Betty whose eyes are open to the wonder of it all.  

        - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

TILTH

     October 10, 2008

           Recently i spent a morning -- a cool, clear Saturday morning – with Mr. John Willis, a recent and colorful acquaintance, in Pine Mountain, about 10 miles north of where i live. He is from a long line of tomato farmers in Florida and is, at 79, a man who is well versed in soil and seed and Source of Life. He is getting ready to break up a small plot of ground for planting strawberries in the next couple of weeks and offered to show me his process for preparing the soil – deep plow, harrow, till long ways, till sideways, till diagonally, build mounded rows on 5 foot centers. A lot has to happen to make Harris County land, usually full of red clay, productive and, since i’m planning to use the fall and winter to work some ground near my house for a good garden next spring, i’m asking folks, at every opportunity, for their wise counsel on how to make things grow.  …

           Mr. John, like other people in my town, was gracious to share information with me, and was kind not to laugh at questions that must have made my ignorance all too obvious. He is one of several locals with whom i’ve spoken lately about gardening and small farming in this part of Georgia, and his comments are consistent with a theme that seems present in all of their advice.

           A good crop all starts with the soil.

           Mr. John introduced me to a new word this morning -- “you work the soil until you get it to the right tilth.” …  Tilth - i had an idea, from its context, what it meant but checked it out in the dictionary when i got home:

“1) – act or occupation of tilling; cultivation of the soil. 2) Cultivated or tilled, land. 3) – the state of being tilled.”

           In the essays, novels, and poetry of Wendell Berry, there is frequent and, at times, reverential, reference to topsoil. (How we’ve treated the topsoil, he implies, is a good test for what kind of stewards we’ve been of the creation.) If you’re like me, topsoil is one of those things that, crucially important though it might be, has managed to stay off of my radar for, well, pretty much all my life. But the Mr. Johns and Shorty Floyds and Wendell Berrys and others like them are making me attentive in good ways to a simple but vital reality of life – that everything matters and that even land is a beloved part of Kingdom life. In the process of learning about local land, the Sower Himself tilling my heart for days of keener gratitude and more appropriate stewardship.

           And i wish good tilth for you.

           “Sow for yourselves righteousness,

           reap the fruit of unfailing love,

            and break up your unplowed ground;

            for it is time to seek the LORD,

           until He comes

           and showers righteousness on you.”

              Hosea 10:12

           - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

38 Holes To Fill

   September 11, 2008

              I have no idea how many trees are situated on the land that I call home, the 1200 or so acres that my dad acquired in the late 1960’s. The number would, no doubt, be a large one. But I could take you to the tree which I have done most to cultivate. It’s a sassafras, just behind my house, presently 12 or so feet high.

               A few years ago, while mowing grass and weed eating around the stumps of some wind-felled pine trees, the sassafras sapling, 2 or 3 feet high, caught my notice just before I might otherwise have cut it down. I made note of its presence, finished my work and returned later to build a small brick and stone barrier around the base of the tree. Since then, it’s gotten regular water, mulch, food, and, to the extent I could give it, protection. Each year, I have trimmed limbs and branches to give it shape and direct its growth a bit.

              It might not be the most beautiful tree on the land, but I attend to it like no others. We have, after all, a certain affinity between us now.

              At present there are 38 holes in our pasture – in low, mostly unusable areas – put there intentionally this past summer. The idea is to put trees in them to stop erosion and beautify the fields. The holes are big ones – put there by Bobby Joe Baxley’s backhoe – and filled with good dirt. i’m wanting to fill them with trees that will produce game food (acorns and fruit for turkey and deer, or nectar for our honeybees) and add some seasonal color to the place.

              My options are several.

              I can buy already somewhat mature tees (15 to 20 feet tall) from nurseries, the argument in their favor being that, if I plant anything small, I might not live to see them in a fully grown state.

              Or I could plant smaller trees (4 to 6 feet), purchased from nurseries or transplanted from around the farm.

              Or I can find tiny saplings – a couple of feet high – plant them in those great big holes and nurture them to whatever height they might reach before I pass off the scene.

              Or I can gather acorns and other seeds, and start at the beginning.

              I’m not sure what I’ll do, most likely a combination of the middle two options, but the thought of tending what ever gets planted, with the annual prospect of satisfaction that surely come with each year survived, is a pleasant one. That I might someday sit under their shade or eat honey made from their nectar or track birds nesting in their limbs is what I imagine, in some very small way, my married friends experience when they plan their family lives.

              When I finally do plant those trees, I will do so with delight and, for days, will walk from one to the others to make sure they are doing alright in their new residence.

              A friend in the tree business told me recently about a wealthy client who has a ‘country home’ among his inventory of real estate holdings. The wealthy client, in his late 50’s, wanted some trees planted along his driveway and had the resources to have fully grown varieties –  40, 50, 60 feet high – moved to the land and laid out precisely beside the road. There was no waiting, no pruning, no dirt on the hands. I’m not sure how much satisfaction their shade might ever give him but I wonder if an instant forest lacks the wonder of one more patiently grown.

              Last week, in the woods nearby, I found a sassafras seedling, about a foot and a half high which I’ve potted for safekeeping until it’s a bit older.

               With it, I’ve got my answer for one hole in the pasture.

              37 to go.

              _____________________________________

AN ITEM FOR THE INVENTORY

September 9, 2008

              I read a poem this morning by Wendell Berry, a writer who has, for months now, had me under his spell.

              “I keep an inventory of wonders.”

              Such would be admirable work for us all and reminds me of a phrase I have shared previously from Eugene Peterson, one which describes the mindset and perspective of the truly alive -- “adorational attentiveness.”

              Among a recent addition to my own inventory of wonders is a small bird that has become a full-time overnight guest just outside my front door. A few months ago, I noticed a curious something hanging down from a roll-up awning on one end of my porch. It looked like a piece of string, maybe threading from the awning, just a couple of inches long. When I moved closer to see what it was, a small, very startled bird fluttered away (and scared a rather large human in the process). I doubted that the creature, a Carolina wren, would ever return but, when I looked the next evening, he was back. The bird flies to the tube-like end of the rolled up awning, tucks his small body in so as to get out of harm’s way, and leaves only  tail feathers as evidence of his presence there.

              Every night, the bird returns. How he found that small haven is a mystery, a wonder, to me, but he is welcome company and, as long as he keeps returning, the awning, not so long ago on a list of old, run down things to throw away, stays put and rolled up tight.

______________________________________

The Long Ride Home

August 15, 2008

            i call it ‘the long ride home,’ the drive after telling Gary good-bye at the airport when he leaves home for a long trip away. On every occasion that he has gone to Costa Rica, Spain, Jamaica, Bosnia, Macedonia, Peru, Afghanistan – each from months to years at a time – his travels are preceded by the uneasy waits at the airport, the forced and somewhat awkward conversations, the last brief, hesitant prayers, the final hug, and then the long ride home. We fight back tears, or don’t, and have little to say for a good while. i would have thought that the experience gets easier with so much practice but it doesn’t.

            My dear white-haired Mom and i just said good-bye to Gary, who’ll return to Afghanistan later tonight. (Dad has been in Kenya and won’t be home till tomorrow, a scheduling snafu that saved him from today’s farewell.)

            In addition to being my best friend in life and my business partner at the farm, Gary is a mentor and, in many ways, a prophet and priest to me. It is a joy to have him around and to be his neighbor. While he’s been home these past eight months, our occasional travels together – pheasant hunting in South Dakota, touring the gardens of Keukenhof, Holland, and hiking in Montana – have deepened our friendship and have been a pleasant mixture of theology, humor, storytelling, sightseeing, and introspection. All of that to simply say that telling him good-bye is a big deal to me. …

            Yesterday, i asked Gary to share some thoughts, maybe a word of challenge, with the Porch Gang men’s group that has met for 9 or 10 years at my house on Thursday mornings. He chose an interesting passage of scripture for doing so, from Ecclesiastes 7:2, “it is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting.” The words, even without Gary’s reflections on them, are quite thought provoking. This week, they were especially poignant to us in light of an accident that took the life of a very popular 16-year-old high school student last weekend. Gary encouraged us to embrace the hurts - big and small -  that come in life, reminding us that, among other things, they make clear that the world is broken, that we are small, that there is comfort if we look in the Right Place, and that ‘this ain’t home.’  So, with his words still in my ears, i accept the ‘long ride home’ as one more part of the ‘long ride Home.’  …  If you are a praying person, i’d appreciate your prayers for Gary as he lives and works in Afghanistan.

            (Incidentally, last summer, when Gary turned 50, i did a short video and song for the event. i’ll have it up on my video in the next few days.)

----------------------------------------------------------------------------            

Mountains in Montana

Posted: July 31, 2008

              After almost 2 months at home, i’m back to road work again and just returned, late last night, from 5 days in Montana – one to play music, 4 to travel with my brother Gary (who returns to Afghanistan in a couple of weeks). A happily-anticipated reunion with friends Tom and Diane Morgan in Big Fork, a pleasant musical evening with a hundred or so of their friends, and then 4 leisurely days of driving through Glacier/Waterton National Parks added up to an easy ‘return to work’.  Two days of hiking, where laughing did more to take my breath away than the actual physical exertion (my brother is a funny guy, and my favorite person to hang out with), and lots of driving at very slow speeds, gave Gary and me the chance to enjoy Rockie Mountain scenery, both U.S. and Canadian, that one must see to appreciate. While i am perpetually on the hunt for song material, there are times. like this one, that i try to forget that i’m a songwriter and simply enjoy what’s around me.  At some future time, maybe a memory will surface and turn into something musical. (The picture below was taken from our moving car in Waterton National Park in Canada. See what i mean about beautiful?)

              While on the trip i read two books i’d highly recommend: Silas Marner, by George Eliot, and My Bondage and My Freedom, by Frederick Douglas. 

This and That

Posted: July 17, 2008

----------------------------------------------------------------------------            

              i’ve spent a lot of my time the last several days digging holes. Really. The work is being done in anticipation of planting trees before next spring. Jack of all trades, BJ Baxley (the one from A Day With Bobby Joe, on Tap the Kaleidoscope) worked with me last week, breaking brick hard ground with his back hoe. Since then i’ve been replacing top soil and adding compost to the holes so that, when young trees are planted there, the ground will be conducive to growth. July heat has meant some sweaty days but has also meant deep sleep at the end of the day. i work with no noise – no music, radio, conversation. It means that i have good time to pray and to think and to turn my brain off.  And twenty or fifty years from now, there might be something beautiful – oak, poplar, sycamore -- in these presently un-treed fields. i’ve loved my time at home these past few weeks.                   Went to Columbus yesterday for visits with friends (a regular practice this summer). An elderly woman, a Mrs. Tharpe, approached me at a Starbuck’s and asked if i knew the location of a local residence for old folks. She lives there and was lost, apparently due to a failing memory, and couldn’t remember how to get home. i called and got directions, then lead her the couple of miles to her destination. She was grateful. “i know where i live; i just don’t know how to get there.” There’s a world full of souls like that i think. That’s why Jesus’ people are called ‘sent ones’ – to help folks find the way to the place their hearts know they are meant to be.

              New CD is about done.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------