Sixth Week of Lent: The Star Thrower

Once in a lifetime, perhaps, one escapes the actual confines of the flesh.Once in a lifetime, if one is lucky, one so merges with sunlight and air and running water that whole eons,the eons that mountains and deserts know, might pass in a single afternoon without discomfort.

-Loren Eiseley

Stories are the lifeblood of the spirit. I have a handful of such stories that have formed, informed, and built my life over the past 45 years. The wondrous preacher Fred Craddock, the amazing Tony Campolo, pastoral care guru Howard Clinebell all contributed. Only Loren Eiseley contributed a unique and enduring story in the midst of some of the most scientifically enriching writings of his day.

Loren Eiseley was called a spiritual wanderer and naturalist in the title of a 1986 essay by Joan Rosen in the Language Arts Journal of Michigan. Rosen wrote:

Nature is Loren Eiseley's teacher. In the creatures of the natural world, in the stars, in the flora and fauna, he witnesses the miracles and wonders of the ages…. [When Eiseley] describes Thoreau as "a spiritual wanderer through the deserts of the modern world” in "Thoreau's Vision of the Natural World" in the essay collection The Star Thrower he is describing himself.

Trained as an anthropologist he had a poet’s feel for words and an amazing eye for the unique and wondrous things of the world. Some quotes from Eiseley that shape his ideas and his incredible spirituality:

If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water

he wrote about the very beginnings of life on our planet, coming out of the primal seas. But there was a growing of life that at some point produced the human race and then:

For the first time in four billion years a living creature had contemplated himself and heard with a sudden, unaccountable loneliness, the whisper of the wind in the night reeds.

That loneliness, sadly, can turn to hubris. The result as we are seeing can be dangerous. Eiseley, who died over 40 years ago saw it coming:

When man becomes greater than nature, nature, which gave us birth, will respond.

Humanity is on an incredible pilgrimage within nature, as Thoreau and Leopold, Dillard and Olson have seen. It is not easy and never ends. Eiseley was one of the tour guides for me.

The journey is difficult, immense. We will travel as far as we can, but we cannot in one lifetime see all that we would like to see or to learn all that we hunger to know.

Of all the descendants of Thoreau, Loren Eiseley stands alone in my estimation. Some of his anthropology and science have been changed in these 40 years. We have broader and deeper understandings of the world and how we have come to be where we are. But his foundation is as unshaken as it was when I first read him well over 45 years ago. He calls us to pay attention equally to both the little and big things. He calls us to be aware- mindful in our 21st Century language- of what we do and how we live. He calls us to see within us the spirit of one greater than ourselves.

His greatest story, told and retold countless times over these years, often without attribution, has become almost a trite motivational trope. I found a number of “quotes” that were supposedly from Eiseley, but are paraphrases, retellings of retellings of the original. It is powerful, mind-boggling, and more than just a nice motivational story. It is the story of our calling as humans with nature and each other. Here is a very short version of "The Star Thrower." What a perfect way to prepare for Easter in a week and a half:

In a pool of sand and silt a starfish had thrust its arms up stiffly and was holding its body away from the stifling mud.

"It's still alive," I ventured.

"Yes," he said, and with a quick yet gentle movement he picked up the star and spun it over my head and far out into the sea. It sunk in a burst of spume, and the waters roared once more.

..."There are not many who come this far," I said, groping in a sudden embarrassment for words. "Do you collect?"

"Only like this," he said softly, gesturing amidst the wreckage of the shore. "And only for the living." He stooped again, oblivious of my curiosity, and skipped another star neatly across the water. "The stars," he said, "throw well. One can help them."

I had seen the star thrower cross that rift and he had reasserted the human right to define his own frontier. He had moved to the utmost edge of natural being. I had been unbelieving, hardened by the indifference of maturity. I arose with a solitary mission, to find the star thrower beneath his rainbow. I found him on a projecting point of land in the sweet rain-swept morning. Silently, I sought and picked up a still-living star, spinning it far out into the wave. I spoke once briefly. “I understand,” I said, “call me another thrower.” Only then I allowed myself to think. He is not alone any longer. After us there will be others. We were part of the rainbow – like the drawing of a circle in men’s minds, the circle of perfection.

I picked and flung another star. I could feel the movement in my body. It was like a sowing – the sowing of life on an infinitely gigantic scale. I looked back over my shoulder, and small and dark against the receding rainbow, the star thrower stooped and flung one more. I never looked back again. The task we assumed was too immense for gazing. I flung and flung again while all about us roared the insatiable waters of death, the burning sun, for it was men as well as starfish that we sought to save, a thrower who loved not man, but life. -Link

The Loren Eiseley Society.

A Holy Night- A Christmas Story

I've been writing a number of short stories this past year.
Needless to say it led to a new Christmas story.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

A Holy Night

Barry Lehman

Christmas 2017

What makes a night holy? Why is one night different from other nights? One night can seem like just another night, until the light breaks through.

Angela hadn’t been to church for twenty-five years, not since her brother Lucas died of that awful disease. Things were tense and difficult. No one could help him; few wanted to. Angela, only nine at the time, and her mother moved from town not long after the funeral. She then went on to school and a career as a nurse. She had only recently returned for a new job. She hadn’t thought about the church or that she would be in this part of town tonight. Gabe, a friend from the hospice where she worked, had invited her to a quiet Christmas Eve dinner with friends. So here she was, in her old neighborhood walking by her old church. How odd, she thought. Of all nights to be here. Lucas’ funeral had been the week after Christmas.

She stopped across the street at the small park that had been a favorite place for her after church. The early Christmas Eve service had started. The lights from the church lit the rose-style stained glass window over the front door. She could faintly hear the organ.

She remembered Mr. Ben, the organist when she was a child. He was such a gentle soul and yet his playing encouraged such power from the old organ. She could still feel the chills tingling her neck with joy when he would play. “How can music do that?” she wondered at the time. It was uniquely powerful on Christmas Eve for her. Where did music come from? How could it do so much? Was music magical?

Questions.

She had always been filled with questions. Her mother would get so frustrated with her. “Just accept things as they are. Don’t put so much thought into things- let them be.” She always wanted to know- especially about God and what God was all about. She never understood the idea of God. She wanted people to prove God or show her God. If they couldn’t, then she didn’t want to hear it. She had given up on those questions when Lucas died. There were no answers and little comfort. Some people tried, but to Angela it felt uncaring. Others pointed fingers, saying Lucas got what he deserved, which only hurt more. Since she was only nine they didn’t say it directly to her, but she heard her mother talking about it- and crying. It was clear to her as a child, the questions had no answers, so why ask?

She stared at the rose window. All the colors of the design around the outside seemed to flow into the center circle and the multi-pointed white star it enclosed. She started to feel light-headed as she stared. She stumbled back onto a bench in the park. Maybe I’m coming down with something and should call Gabe and tell him I’m not coming.

As she sat trying to get her bearings back she saw the front door of the church open. A young couple and a child walked out. For a moment the music got louder as the door opened and closed. The child grabbed her mother’s hand and pointed across the street at Angela. The parents looked at the girl and then at Angela. She could see both of them shaking their heads and attempting to get the child back into church with them. The girl stood her ground, pointed again, and, loud enough to be heard across the street said, “That’s her. The one I saw in my dream last night. I told you she would be here.”

Angela looked around, wondering if she was having a hallucination. “Too many cheesy Christmas specials,” she thought to herself as she tried to stand up. The dizziness was still there. She slumped back down and closed her eyes. When she opened them the couple and child were standing in front of her.

“Are you okay?” asked the girl.

“Please excuse us and Sarah,” the woman said quickly. “She insisted that we come over and talk to you. She said that her Christmas depended on it. We are taking her home if she can’t calm down.”

“I saw you in my dream last night,” Sarah said quickly to Angela. “You were looking for someplace to find God.”

“Sarah,” said the man, “let’s not bother her with your dreams.” He turned to Angela. “Are you all right? You don’t look well.”

“I just think I was a little overcome by walking too fast,” Angela replied. “I’m going to a friend’s house for dinner. I used to live around here and even went to this church when I was young. I decided to stop here and rest while enjoying the lights on the church.”

“That’s not what you told me in my dream,” Sarah said. “You told me you were lonely and missed your brother and that here was the last time you were together with him.”

“Sarah!” said the woman. “Enough of that. Your dreams are of no interest to someone we’ve never met.”

“That’s okay,” said Angela, feeling more confused than dizzy now. “Come here, Sarah.”

The young girl moved closer as if she had always known Angela. Angela took her hands and leaned forward. “Tell me more about your dream. Please.”

“Well, I asked you why I had never seen you here before. We come here all the time and this was the first time we met. You told me that you have lived out of town and you don’t believe anymore and don’t go to church because of that. It was Christmas Eve in my dream and the church was all lit up like it is now with the candles in the windows and the star shining through above the door. I invited you to come in but you started to walk away.”

“It’s not the dream Sarah,” her mother said. “You just think she looks like the person in the dream because you want it to be true.”

“What else did I- did the woman in your dream- say?” Angela asked.

“Like I said, you told me you were lonely and just wanted to remember your brother. You said that if you found your brother here tonight you would find God again. Did you lose God? Did He go away with your brother?”

“Sarah! Enough!” her father jumped in again.

“Yes, Sarah. God left. I was so angry that my brother had died and that no one cared he was even sick. He had a disease that you couldn’t cure in those days. Many people were mean to him and us when they found out why he was sick. They were afraid and didn’t understand.”

“But what about God?” Sarah asked. “Why get mad at Him?”

“Because God didn’t make him well again. People said it was because my brother was a bad person and God was punishing him. It was an awful time. We stopped going to church because they weren’t being very Christian.”

“That must have been a while ago,” Sarah’s mother said cautiously. “How old were you when he died?”

“I was only 9 and Lucas was 24. He was more than a big brother to me. He was a grown-up who cared about me. Not many did. My mother was too busy doing other things, and I never knew my father. Lucas’ father had died in Vietnam a year after he was born when my mother was only 19.”

Angela stopped suddenly. Why was she sharing all this with this young girl she never met before?

“I’m nine now,” said Sarah, hardly missing a beat. “And my mother is…”

“Sarah- stop!” said her father. He turned to Angela. “I didn’t catch your name.”

“Angela,” Sarah answered quickly. They all turned to look at her.

“You’re right,” said Angela. “Was that in your dream, too?”

“Yes,” she said as she looked at her parents with an I-told-you-so grin.

“Sarah,” asked Angela, “how did your dream end? What did the Angela in your dream do?”

“I woke up before it was over. But you were walking with us into the church. You and my mom and dad were hugging and crying but I couldn’t hear what you were saying. The music and singing was too loud.”

“Did she find her brother here? Or God?”

“Maybe I can help with that,” said an older man who had walked over from the church while they were talking.

“Dad,” said Sarah’s father. “What are you doing out here?”

“When you didn’t come back I got worried so I followed. I couldn’t help overhearing the conversation.” He turned toward Angela.

“I have often wondered what happened to you over these years. I’m Sam Ellis. I was the assistant pastor here 25 years ago when your brother died. I have never forgotten him or how you and your mother were treated.”

Sarah’s mother turned toward Angela in a moment of realization. “You’re Angela Leonard?”

“Gramps,” said Sarah. “You weren’t in my dream.”

He laughed and touched her shoulder. “Well, I guess I’m here now. Can I stay?”

Angela stammered. “I, well, I don’t know what to say. What… or why… or…”

“Then let me tell you,” said Pastor Ellis. “Your brother’s death was the end of a way of life for me and many here at the church. We saw the hatred that people aimed at him and your family. The pastor at the time was definitely ‘old school’ and didn’t know what to do or how to handle a funeral for a person who died of AIDS. There were some members of the church who insisted that he not allow the funeral. People might get infected, catch the disease. A sinner like that shouldn’t be allowed to have a proper church burial, things like that.

“Abbie here,” he pointed toward Sarah’s mother, “got her dad to support your brother’s service. He was the organist. He was a few years older than I was but still full of passion from his youth like many of us were. Abbie was your babysitter and told her dad how you and your mother were being treated.”

“You’re Mr. Ben’s daughter,” said Angela quietly.

“He went to the pastor,” Abbie continued, “and insisted that the service be held in the church. He said he would be the organist and help plan the service. The pastor was embarrassed by the whole thing and gave the service to my dad to do. He left here six months later. That’s when Sam took over as the pastor.”

Sarah’s dad started talking. “Half the choir quit on Ben because of what he did. Several board members went to the District leadership asking to have my dad removed and his ordination taken away. It was a terrible year. The District Bishop stood with us, though. In the end our church became one of the pioneers in social ministry in the city and the District.

“I didn’t know any of this,” Angela said. She was shaking her head in disbelief.

“You moved quickly,” Sam said. “No one could blame you. It was an awful time. Your mother worked hard to protect you from it. You were only nine and very vulnerable. We lost track of you. It was like you dropped off the face of the earth.”

“We were both upset,” Angela started. “Mom did what she could. But she had her own reactions. She tried to forgive and forget, but it didn’t work. After I went off to college she spiraled in depression. Then she got cancer herself and died last year.” Tears formed and her voice halted. “We never went to church again. Not even for her funeral. God was a forbidden subject.”

“Your brother’s funeral was an important time in our history here.” Pastor Sam sat down next to Angela. “It’s been 25 years but some still remember him and how he made us look at ourselves and see if we are really doing what we should be doing. It sounds trite, but now we try to live in order to serve the least and the lost. Lucas is still reminding us of that. Come, follow me.”

They walked around the south side of the church. A Christmas carol was being sung and she could hear it through the window. At the back corner was another building connected by a walkway to the main church.

“We decided a couple years after Lucas died that we wanted to do something in his memory. We decided we wanted to build a community center to help us minister to the neighborhood. We got some grants and a lot of donations. It took us about five years to bring it all together. Things move slowly sometimes in the church, but we did it. This is it.”

They opened the door to find a group of people watching the service on a large screen. They were singing along. “This is an overflow space for special services,” Abbie said. “These are some of our members who take this space so visitors can be with their families in the sanctuary.”

“This is what I meant when I said your brother is still here.” He turned around to a sign by the door.

A picture of Lucas hung next to a sign with the inscription:

Lucas Adams Community Center

In Memory of a brave young man who challenged us

to be more than we were and to live for others.

Sarah walked over, “Remember in the dream you said that if you found your brother tonight you would find God again. Here he is.” She took Angela’s hand and led her to the picture. Angela reached out to touch her brother’s image.

Maybe all nights are holy. Sometimes it takes a child to help us see.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Merry Christmas and may you all have a blessed 2018!

The Power of Stories

Just finished reading an amazing trilogy of speculative fiction and fantasy that ranks in the top 5 along with Lord of the Rings. The Broken Earth Series by N. K. Jemisin is powerful, relevant, well-written and can change your perspective. (I will write a separate post on the series at a later date. One of the quotes I found compelling is about one who wants to be a "lorist", the caste that captures history and events in order to pass them down to the future. Here is what was said about them:

Lorists were warriors, storytellers, nobility. They told their truths in books and song and through their art… Not all fighters use knives, after all. [Emphasis in original.]
N. K. Jemisin, The Stone Sky

The last phrase sums up the work of writers. Whether they write fiction or non-fiction, essays or stories, poetry or prose, they are essential to making sure people learn and are informed. It is no wonder that dictatorial regimes seek to control the press and the writing of stories.

Nor is it a surprise that in our present political turmoil the charge of "fake news" is the new one aimed at political opponents, or that fake stories make headlines as if they are true. We have been in a period of attacks on the sacred American institution of a free press. That can be but a first phase of an attack on writers and storytellers with who the powers that be disagree. Censorship is a "four-letter word" in the United States so it will be far more subtle than that.

We must keep our eyes and ears open; we must maintain that freedom of storytelling, the telling of stories that contain the values and truth of who we are. These people with pens, pencils and paper- or computers and tablets- are essential. They are on the front lines of freedom at home.

Not all fighters use knives, after all.

Great Writing

It always amazes me, although I know it shouldn't be such a surprise, that I can often tell I'm reading a great book from the very beginning. There's something about the language and flow that grabs hold of me and won't let go.

I AM A SPY, a sleeper, a spook, a man of two faces. Perhaps not surprisingly, I am also a man of two minds. I am not some misunderstood mutant from a comic book or a horror movie, although some have treated me as such. I am simply able to see any issue from both sides. Sometimes I flatter myself that this is a talent, and although it is admittedly one of a minor nature, it is perhaps also the sole talent I possess. At other times, when I reflect on how I cannot help but observe the world in such a fashion, I wonder if what I have should even be called talent. After all, a talent is something you use, not something that uses you. The talent you cannot not use, the talent that possesses you—that is a hazard, I must confess. But in the month when this confession begins, my way of seeing the world still seemed more of a virtue than a danger, which is how some dangers first appear.

So begins the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen. It isn't often I will comment on a book I have barely started, but this one was an instant and powerful hook. (Well, doh, it is this year's Pulitzer Prize winner!)

Every literature professor and critic knows the way to build a story. Very few writers can do it masterfully. For example there is a slow release of information, unveiled bit by bit. A line piques your curiosity wondering what the connection is. A hint of few words about "my father" plants a seed- or is it a time bomb- that you are on guard to find out.

But above all, there is the language and the ability to tell you more in a few words than I could tell you in a whole chapter (or a whole sermon, for that matter.) Here are three that grabbed me and wouldn't let me go in the first chapter:

“Amid short tempers, Claude stayed cool, having lived here so long he barely perspired in the tropical humidity. He could sneak up on you in the dark, but he could never be invisible ”

“I finished the whiskey, then drove the General home through a storm, the amniotic water bursting over the city a hint of the forthcoming season.”

“We were smoking a final cigarette at the mouth of the dank, dripping alley that was the beer garden’s exit when a trio of hydrocephalic marines stumbled out of the vaginal darkness. ”

All excerpts From:

Viet Thanh Nguyen. “The Sympathizer.”

This is clearly a book to savor, rich in language, style, substance and story. It is clearly not a book to be taken lightly. I am already aware that there is going to be much to learn and experience about the human condition in this book. But I must not rush through it. It must be read with caution of its power and at a pace which allows it to become part of me.

As a writer such books make me cringe at my own verbosity here or in any of my sermons over the years. They also force me to look at the world around me in different ways than I may ever have before. This is the kind of book that affirms for me that fiction can be far more powerful in telling the truth than many a set of facts. Like any great book this one may have been conceived in the mind of the writer, but it is not false or fake.

Read, listen, and learn.

The Tuning Slide: It's YOUR Song

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

Most people die with their music still locked up inside them.

― Benjamin Disraeli

Two weeks ago I did a post on "Story," the first of three things that composer, arranger, and educator Stanley Curtis on his blog Trumpet Journey calls the three "S"s. These are what he sees as the three key elements all great trumpet players have in common. They are simply

• Story
• Song and
• Support

Let's look at the second thing- Song!

Curtis wrote:

This is how we play what we play. This song can be sung with heart-on-the-sleeve romanticism, laser-beam clarity, or rhetorical interpretation. This is our personal song we sing on the trumpet when we play. Each of our voices are different–and they should be. Our song is the meeting place of our phrasing, our interpretation, our experience and, of course, our tone. I learned a beautiful lesson about tone from a former colleague of mine, the great euphonium player named Roger Behrend. He said it helps him to think about tone in terms of color, texture and taste. So, for instance, if you are thinking about maroon, velvet and chocolate, you get an especially luxurious sound. Or, perhaps you’re thinking golden, rough and with the taste of jambalaya, like I do, when I hear [Louis Armstrong]...

How we play what we play.
Just starting with that idea is enough to put it into a framework. Miles Davis famously said:

You hear three notes and you know it's Herb Alpert.

While some argue about the possible meaning, there is enough circumstantial evidence to indicate this was not a condemnation of Alpert. Instead it is a way of saying that Herb knew (and still knows) what his song is. One could certainly say the same about Davis or Chet Baker or Louis Armstrong. In every performance, in every recording, you can, in one way or another, hear the underlying song of the musician.

No- that does not mean that all the songs they do sound alike. Far from it. It's the jambalaya Curtis mentions in Armstrong. It's the California Cool in Chet Baker. It's a life of daring and innovation driving Davis. It is a curious spirituality in Coltrane. It's how they play.

The song we sing on the trumpet when we play
The song is your story. The song, as you play it, tells who you are. Now, I don't want to make too much of this. It isn't all that evident in those of us who aren't full-time professionals. Or maybe it is. Think about your playing. Think about how you play. Most of us have our "style" regardless of the music. Pay attention to it. is it you? Have fun with it in your practice room. You will notice yourself being more consistent.

The meeting place of our

• phrasing
• interpretation
• experience
• tone

That's really the crux of it.


What about me? What is my song? How do I play what I play? I never thought of that until reading Curtis' post. But then again, I knew it in my intuitive self. It started- and continues today, 55 years later- with one song- "When the Saints Go Marching In". I can now play that in all 12 major keys! (Some keys way more slowly than others!) I have at least 50 various versions of the song in my iTunes library from Dixieland to Bluegrass to "classical." Closely related to it is "Amazing Grace." I have around 90 variations of that song. Throw in "Tijuana Taxi/Spanish Flea" for some color and you can hear my song. It's how I play what I play.

What I have is blues and jazz, American gospel,  a sense of gratitude and joy. I wrap that into everything I play. It is not a surprise that the only song I have a solo on in either big band is "Basin Street Blues." My favorite solo piece for concert band is the (for me) blues-driven "Song Without Words" from Holst's 2nd Military Suite. I can probably hear that in my style from time to time when playing a Bach chorale, Moravian hymn, or Gabrieli's "Canzon #2."

So what? Always an important question. What difference does it make if I know this or not?

Does my song change? Do I play a different song today than I did 55 years ago, or even 10 years ago? For me, no. But the song does find different interpretations, tone, phrasing- all based on the changing of my experiences. Remember, the "song" is the meeting place of all those things. It is how the story gets told.

It is yours!

Don't lose it- and don't let it stay locked up inside you.

The Tuning Slide: Your Story

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

Music is philosophy. Every chord, every word tells a story. If you listen you will know its meaning.

-Kamanda Ndama (African Musician, Philosopher, Poet and Songwriter

Composer, arranger, and educator Stanley Curtis has a post on his blog Trumpet Journey that talks about the three "S"s, the three key elements he believes all great trumpet players have. They are simply

• Story
• Song and
• Support

As to the first, Story, Curtis writes:

Each of us has a unique story. That story may be an actual account of some event, or even the story of our life. But we also have our own stories that we keep coming back to, such as “beauty is great,” or “old things are cool” or “technology is what I’m about.” These are our thematic points that our choices point to.

Some might say that part of the "story" is your own personal mission statement, your view of what it is you see as your life's mission. That is your guiding principle. Most of us never think much about that, but we all live our personal "Theme and Variations" in what we do and how we go about our lives.

Most of us are more than familiar with the Arban's "Variations on Carnival of Venice." There's an introduction, the theme and then the incredible variations. Another famous similar composition is Charles Ives' "Variations on America". Throughout each composition the basic theme repeats, of course, but all kinds of styles and flourishes are added. For the listener the goal is to see the connections with the  original theme. For the performer and/or composer it is to make those connections real and interesting without going so far afield that the original concept is lost.

That's the "story" we each continue to "riff" on as we go through our lives. Sometimes the riff is fast and furious, putting as much energy as we can into it. Other times it slows down and floats along with ease. Then it switches to a minor key or some odd set of tonalities. Yet, underneath it is "you", your theme. As Curtis says above this "theme" or "story" is what informs the choices and that these choices support.

He goes on:

Choices about repertoire, style, equipment, venues, and even the clothes we wear when we perform can help create our own story and the story that each generation needs to hear. Many players perform to a story that is going on inside their heads. As listeners, we can sense that something dramatic is happening.

Choices. We all make them all the time. Most of the time we don't even think about them. Most of the time the choices we make fall into the pattern of our story. It's who we are. Why did we choose to play trumpet, instead of any of the other instruments? How does "being a trumpet player" fit into our view of our story? Why did we continue to play the trumpet? Many people learn to play instruments but many quit after college, if not before.

Last year at trumpet camp there were those who are planning on making music their career, while others will have other professions. Yet there is something about the trumpet that obviously fits our individual stories. Why?

That's the choice. It helps define us. It fills a place in our lives that nothing else quite does. How then do we tell that story in our music?

Think about your story. What is it? Where do you want to go? How does music help you do that? How does that come out in your music? Spend some time reflecting on that and practice your story this week.

-Link for above quotes from Trumpet Journey

Christmas Season 2015

I had mixed feelings during the first part of the Christmas Eve service last week. We were reminded of the violence that has been so much in the news recently. We were reminded of the sad and at times desperate world we live in. This, we were told, is not unlike the world that the Baby Jesus came into all those centuries ago. If we even look at the Christian events of this week we will be reminded first of the first martyr in the stoning of Stephen followed by the slaughter of the innocents a couple days later. Yesterday was the Saint's day for Thomas Becket, martyr.

I wanted to yell-

Stop! Can't we have one day when we forget all this? Can't I come in here, into a sanctuary on a silent night and not have to face the hatred and anger of the world? I want to escape!

The answer came back:

No, you can't escape. Because of that little Baby, you must not escape- and you no longer need to.

All the sweetness of Christmas was lost in a moment. I have been as guilty as anyone for fostering the cuteness and almost fairy tale like quality of the evening. I have fifteen years of stories written for Christmas Eve that have that element to them.

Ah, wasn't that cute! So nice.

Yes, some of the stories had an edge to them. A drug addict was in one; a hostage situation in another; lost and lonely people in most of them. But it was so easy for people to hear the "happy ending" usually with some mystical or magical realism element to it and feel good- the wonder of Christmas allowing them to escape into a world of fantasy, allowing the Christmas story to give them a moment's respite from the world.

But that is not what the stories- or Christmas- are all about. It is not about escape. It is about redemption, salvation, release of captives, hope in a God who would come into our midst in a feeding trough crib behind the inn. It is about grace.

Grace is my all-time favorite word. I over use it. I add it to most of my "prayer" comments on Facebook. Grace. It is what we need to experience and learn. Grace. It is our being accepted by our Creator no matter what.

I then thought of the words I had already chosen for today's picture for the season. They come from the hymn, I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day. It was a poem/hymn written in the midst of the Civil War. It starts with the same hopelessness that I was sensing as we were reminded of the ways of death and hate, anger and fear spreading throughout the world today. There is no peace on earth the writer cried out. This is all a facade, perhaps even a sham.

No, came the pealing of the bells. This is the story that God has not given up on us. This is the story that God is very much alive and ready to support us. Peace on earth is not a way of escape- it is a way of living the life of God among us.

At that point I realized that it isn't about taking an hour or so on December 24 and escaping from the news; it is about being renewed in order to confront that news bombarding us every day. It is about knowing that there is a peace that we can never explain that will lead us- not away from the world, but back into the world with the message.

I didn't get what I wanted on Christmas Eve- an escape from reality. I got what is needed- the reminder that God is very much alive and calling me- and all- into a different way.

As usual, God was at work when I was willing to listen.

That, I have come to know, is what Grace can give me. What a gift.

The Tuning Slide- Making It a Story

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

Where words fail, music speaks.

― Hans Christian Andersen

Who knows what Frank Foster had in mind when he wrote the wonderful Blues in Hoss' Flat or what Count Basie thought as he put together the band playing the number? It is a fine tune with lots of style, flair and pure joy. Most of us don't think much about the meaning behind the songs we hear or play, especially if they are instrumental. It is just a song.

But don't say that too loud. Music has probably been telling stories since the first cave dweller pounded in some sort of primitive time. Last year at the Big Band Camp at Shell Lake we did the Blues in Hoss' Flat. But first we watched this video- a classic by Jerry Lewis from his movie, The Errand Boy. Take a couple minutes and enjoy it.

Lewis is, of course, pantomiming a "chairman of the board" leading a meeting. Does it help to know that the original Basie album was titled Chairman of the Board? Even if it doesn't, Lewis' interpretation is a wonder to watch. I can never hear the number without this pantomime playing in my head as well.

My first real introduction to "serious" music appreciation was back in junior high (dates me, huh?) when the music teacher dropped the needle at the start of an instrumental piece. She gave us the simple instruction, "What do you hear?" No name, no introduction, just that question. Through the speaker came the opening bars of one of the great works of American music of the 20th Century, An American in Paris. It didn't take me long, even with my 7th grade ears, to hear a street scene, car horns and soon I saw people scurrying to and fro. After a few minutes, she stopped and asked what we heard. I don't remember what anyone else said. I'm not sure I even said anything myself. But when she told us the name and what Gershwin was doing I was blown away.

I had heard the story in the music. I had heard what the composer was trying to tell me without having words get in the way. That one day in class 55 years ago changed my life. I don't always hear stories in the music I listen to. Sometimes I look at the name a composer gave to a song and try to put it to the music. For example, I don't know what Miles had in mind when he titled one of his numbers, Solar. But I hear the sun and energy, light and bright skies when I listen. But then Bruce Hornsby, Christian McBride, and Jack Dejohnette put a different arrangement of the same song on their album, Camp Meeting. Now the sun and light and energy are placed in a different context. I still see the power and light, but now it's in the spiritual context of a tent or camp meeting. Same notes, same basic song - but now a whole new story is being told.

Isn't that what we try to do when we play? More on this sometime in the new year. For the next few weeks spend some quality time listening to instrumentals, stories without words, and find the stories they tell you.

Charming, Challenging, Moving

Those three words in the title describe two books I recently read. Rachel Joyce started an amazing storyline in The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry. In it she tells of Harold who received a letter from an old friend, Queenie Hennessy, that informs him she is dying and in hospice care. He decides to walk the length of England to see her and, in so doing, help her to live longer. As any regulars here know, I am a sucker for the idea of "pilgrimage," so I jumper right on it when a friend highly recommended I read it.

He was right. It is quite a commentary on all kinds of things of every day life- work, relationships, renewal, retirement, hope, dying, fame in 380+ pages. There were a number of places where Joyce could have taken an easier, more Hollywood-type approach, but she didn't. She kept the story moving at a pace that matched Harold's journey and his wife's musings. We hear much about Harold's past and see how his becoming mindful of his journey changes just about everything.

I loved the flow of the book and the way the characters kept interacting through Joyce's narrative. It's kind of like life- which I know is a pilgrimage of daily discovery. It was a bestseller and longlisted for the Man Booker Prize.

The second book is Joyce's parallel story of Queenie Hennessy as she relates her story while Harold is making his pilgrimage, The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy. It is a deeper telling of the events from Harold's life from a person involved in them in ways Harold never knew. Queenie starts writing this letter after she informs Harold of her terminal illness. She describes life in the hospice, how they respond to Harold's pilgrimage and their own mortality that you can never escape in a hospice. In the midst of that Queenie also tells her back story of her time working with Harold and the 20-years since she last saw him.

Harold's pilgrimage is a physical one, transforming his inner life and world-view. Queenie's is internal, remembering and reacting, finding new ways of bringing life to a closure. Her's is truly a love song about finding and losing love while internalizing it, building it in different ways, and finally giving it a voice.

Since we already know one side of most of the events Queenie relates, it is intriguing to put the two together for a larger and more profound picture. It reminded me that we don't often know either how much impact we have on others, or how they are interacting with our lives. While that sounds trite and cliched, Joyce is an accomplished storyteller who keeps us wondering, "What next?" even as we know the end.

That is what this pilgrimage of life is like, though. We all know the end. It is the ultimate equality And yet, it is how we walk that pilgrimage, how we respond to our events that makes each life unique. Hope, transformation, grace- they are all just around the corner at each moment.