Fourth Hour Dedicated to Boz!

One hour. 
Set the timer. 
Go. 
Write. 

I hope you don’t get sick of me. 

For a special, unique treat this time, hop on over to David’s Facebook page to listen to the B-Side of this post! (B-Side? It’s about music! What can I say?? Note: Clue to topic in that last sentence!)

Let us know what you think! Well, unless you hate it! LOL

*****
“Ugh! This letter C. It has stopped working.”

“Click… harder click… POUND.”

I think I read somewhere that the letter C is often the first letter that quits on a computer keyboard. 

Can that be true?? 

What is verifiable is that it’s hard to write on a computer without a working letter C. You would be surprised how often that QWERTY key is used - a hard or soft consonant in a remarkable number of words. All meaning can be lost with a jibberish non-message that doesn’t include that third spot in the alphabetic line-up.

Our cat, Boulpaep, scrambles as a frustrated C-less David suddenly blasts the now-capless space on his maimed keyboard with canned air. 

Boz Scaggs is quietly playing in the background this morning, a thoughtful touch from my husband of 29 years. He knows of my invite to see Boz tonight at the Capitol Theatre. Just a half-second into that faint-playing Lido Shuffle as I come down the stairs convinces me I need to be there. I HAVE TO BE THERE!

And strangely, it convinces David that he absolutely CANNOT be there! 

While Georgia immediately transports me to the hill at Pine Knob in 1979, David is driven down another path he tries to explain to me. But it’s like a foreign language. I don’t understand a word he is saying. And my mind is drifting, honestly, as I still hear in the background lyrics I haven’t heard since high school. I try to hide my smile as I remember when a crowd of friends crammed onto blankets and probably annoyed every single person around us as we stood and sang every single word. 

My friend Dawn, who invited me, told me that Boz is 79 years old now. I admit, his age stung a bit but not like finding out that Mick Jagger is 80 - he just had a birthday! Mick Jagger! Come on! My neighbor just went to see Willie Nelson perform at the Soaring Eagle. Well, at 90, she said he didn’t really perform. He sat and spoke the lyrics instead of sang them! Maybe that is still considered performance. Who am I to say? 

As I thought about the completely opposite feelings David was trying to describe, I encouraged him to write about where Boz takes him emotionally. Annoyed, he said his C is broke! How can he write?
But I see him over there now on a intact-C laptop. I hope he is click, click, pounding something out - maybe others will understand his thoughts far more than they understand my ramblings of these sweet memories.

It’s indisputable, right, that music is able to heal the body, mind and soul in ways that even the most powerful medicine cannot? It is able to remove barriers and transport us to different places, spaces and maybe even the heavenlies at a good Sunday morning service. Music helps us lose ourselves, the demands of self-consciousness, and releases our suffering in favor of pure, unadulterated honey-baked reverie. It can
PUMP
US
UP! 
Shoot, Dancing Queen can quickly change my mood, my night, my day, my week in its entirety. Music has that kind of power, a force, a way of unifying a body of believers whether they are gathered in a sanctuary or at a sold-out downtown Flint concert venue full of people looking for … hmmm

looking for … 

Well, I suppose I’m looking for stolen moments of sheer joy as Boz replays the past, awakens a forgotten world, and helps my soul travel to a heart-warming place without antagonists. After all, music is the language of the spirit. It opens a secret of life bringing peace, abolishing strife and reminding us of all that is right with the world…  

I can’t wait! 

The music still drifting in from the kitchen speaker syncs with my heart today,
“Look, look what you’ve done to me.
Never thought I’d fall again so easily
Oh love, you wouldn’t lie to me,
Would you?
Leading me to feel this way?”
❤

Post-Show Note: WOW!! Absolutely the best concert of the summer!

Second Hour, Ramping Up Writing for Pee Wee - RIP

Bear with me as I start playing with words again, those musings flitting around my brain, my heart. 

Today, this is on my mind. I wonder if it is on yours as well…

I spend far too much time thinking about the lives of celebrities. I’m 62 for crying out loud! What is it about their lives on AND off screen that fascinates me??

Today, of course, it’s Pee Wee - or I guess, truthfully, it’s Paul Reubens, but I really only knew him as Pee Wee. And I feel like I knew Pee Wee. I spent countless hours - maybe formative years! - watching Saturday morning Pee Wee Herman in his crazy-creative, animated and highly kinetic playhouse. Most times, at the end of an episode, I was akinetic, somewhat stunned by the brilliance of whoever thought all that stuff up (Today I learned it was Paul Reubens and Phil Hartman, or Captain Carl as I knew him in those days! By the way, I have all five seasons on cd if you haven’t seen it!)

Many years that have passed since then as well as definitions of proper and right when it comes to the news. I remember, though, that something strangely mysterious happened to Reubens in the ‘90s. I only caught bits and pieces back then but it seemed sexual and I remember hearing that it had occurred in a sexual place. In my innocence, I wondered how many others might have done something sexual in a sexual place - No one? Ever? Just Pee Wee? 

Maybe I should be grateful today for the reprieve from my mentally-looped video of Cardie B throwing her microphone at the apparently malcontent fan who had just seconds before, thrown a drink at her. I don’t think that is the first time Cardie B has thrown something either. I’m not saying she is a grade-A player for the microphones team, but sister-friend was no stranger to a passion-filled windup pitch. I’m just saying. Was it warranted? 

Was that Will Smith slap warranted? I know someone who thinks so much of the “comedy” performed by “comedians” today is deserving of a slap of some kind. For the record, that line of not allowing the name of his wife, Jada, in offender Chris Rock’s mouth is the whip! Oh how I wish we had such power some days. 

And then there is the great prophetess Cher, who recently created her own brand of gelato. Ain’t that grand? We are going to soon be eating the same gelato that Cher eats! I can’t wait to buy it! Because, well, it’s Cher! I so clearly remember some of my earliest memories, sneaking down the stairs and sitting on the last step, straining to hear every joke and line of the televised Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour. To this day, I really don’t understand my fascination with them - I named my pet Gerbils after them, for crying out loud again! (And did my mom really let me listen to those very provocative songs about tramps and thieves? I’m telling you I missed her edginess back then! Was I blind? Note: I also have the Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour on cds.)

Btw, the latest headline says Cher leads the tributes for Paul Reubens today. She knew him. She loved him. Her and I share a special grief for someone who undoubtedly made us laugh, maybe at the same characters and maybe at the same lines. Could that even be? 

I think it could be, especially back then. It seems indisputable that we were more unified in the days before 62, finding levity and escape in the shared experience of Saturday’s episode of Pee Wee’s Playhouse. Today, everyone watches any number of shows, all at once, at their own pace, sometimes pounding through a whole season in one sitting. There are so many different channels, apps, and websites that we rarely even watch the same shows any more. 

Add it to the reasons for our lonely lack of connection these days. Are we even laughing at the same things? 

While Pee Wee nearly always made us laugh, I felt a deep sadness when I read about him passing today - I also felt a melancholy for a shared experience I may never know again. How I long for only three choices on my tv (and Channel 50 on a good day!) We use to share universally experienced moments like “Na-nu, na-nu” from a rainbow-suspendered alien or a “pork chops and apple sauce” delivery from a smart-alecky teenager to his very Brady family. The next day every single person was talking about these moments in the halls as we passed from class to class.

Today I am fascinating on Paul Reubens, grateful for the way he made me laugh as his character Pee Wee awkwardly burst out laughing and swung his body wildly during the tequila dance. Did he enjoy it too? His last post on social media makes me think so: “Please accept my apology for not going public with what I have been going through the last six years. I have always felt a huge amount of love and respect from my fans, friends and supporters. I have loved you all so much and enjoyed making art for you.”

I felt that - did you??

 

 

The undertow of love...

So my spiritual advisor likened it to Lucy and Charlie Brown, Lucy promising to hold the football for her dear friend Charlie Brown, him believing her - again - and then regathering himself to finally experience kicking a football like he has always dreamed. 

Most of us know the rest of the story. Most of us intimately so. Charlie trusts the word of his friend. He runs with great freedom and excitement and faith that Lucy will hold the football in place while Charlie kicks it from his dreams into reality. (Is it only me who while watching this scene unfold holds my breath hoping the outcome will somehow, miraculously, be different? I mean after all, there aren't that many episodes!) 

At the last minute, for reasons that seem cruel and inhumane, Lucy removes the football from Charlie's path - and the full force of his dream ends up throwing Charlie on his back in a humiliating reality - while Lucy laughs or mocks or dismisses. Honestly, I don't even remember WHAT Lucy does because I am so focused on Charlie. And how Charlie must feel - again.

That is how my advisor described it. My description was more direct: it's like being invited to come close, I do, then I'm slapped. Time and again. 

"Come close!"

I size up the situation ... Think it through. Tentatively move closer.

SLAP.

It's hard not to hate Lucy. Even though Lucy might have her reasons. After all, Charlie shared his dream with her. In today's self-help, self-actualized jargon the dude mustered up the courage to ask his friend to help meet his need, as silly as the need might have sounded to Lucy. And while Lucy may have judged kicking a football as insignificant, her decision to pull the football away at the last minute without considering the impact on Charlie likely did damage to more than his ego-pride. It undoubtedly impacted his heart - if not his soul. 

The application here is vast as I sit in Flint, MI, surrounded by individuals who were encouraged to come close to corporations like General Motors and others. Fill in the blank with names of individuals who promised to hold the ball for us as we ran full tilt toward an agreed upon dream. Yanking the ball back at the last minute crosses racial lines, political lines, religious lines - every line that deals with our humanity. We all feel the pain of Charlie Brown laying on his back morally, psychologically and mentally defeated. I suspect even Lucy feels his pain -- for a minute anyway -- until she reverts back to her own logical reasons for the decision without saying a word to her friend Charlie.

I read a line this morning that described such things as an undertow, "giving with one hand while taking out from under with the other. More than sleight of hand, it’s slight of heart.” 

And I'm left to wonder. 

What in the world does Charlie Brown do with Lucy? How do we as souls on a common journey respond to capricious acts that impact far more than the moment?

The spiritual advisor reminded me that all people respond out of love or fear. And while I cannot imagine why Lucy would be afraid, I do know that her actions were not born of love. The sting of the most recent slap is that reminder. The bruise from falling to the ground instilled within Charlie a mistrust of anyone who offers to help hold that football while he kicks it - possibly forever more. 

"So what in the world should I do," I asked my spiritual advisor while rubbing my still stinging face?

"We are to live our lives as totally loving beings," he responded, noting the staggering number of times even Christ was slapped and betrayed. "We are to live as totally forgiving beings. Only love has the power to change the world, to replace fear, to keep us centered in moments of our pain and despair and shame."

... what??? ...

Dang! 

Maybe I should buy a face mask...

Hoping for something more...

"When we feel suffering, it doesn’t mean that something is wrong. What a relief. Finally somebody told the truth. Suffering is part of life, and we don’t have to feel it’s happening because we personally made the wrong move.

"In reality, however, when we feel suffering, we think that something is wrong. As long as we’re addicted to hope, we feel that we can tone our experience down or liven it up or change it somehow, and we continue to suffer a lot.”

I wrestle a lot with the idea of hope - or maybe it is the experience of hope.

And yet, how in the world can a person wrestle with "hope?"

It seems I was raised with this idea that longing for something more, or better, or some days simply hoping that this day would end and that tomorrow would bring some relief ... My faith journey has included Christian teachings that promote the sustainable hope of heaven, somewhere far better than the suffering we encounter, at times, on this earth. Hope has become an acceptable and seemingly effective way to pound through pain and disappointments. We fantasize of our rewards once we leave this place.

Ahhhh yes heaven ... Where there will be no challenges or pain or suffering...

Am I addicted to hope? Have I turned to hope instead of considering the larger message to be heard? Have I falsely considered, even subconsciously, that my circumstances are meant for someone, anyone else? Do I refuse to even acknowledge that "heaven" may be found in the challenge - a greater truth that will be overlooked and/or unaccepted because I think the associated pain is too much - far too much for my heart and soul to bear?

Does a 21st century faith call for such retreat?

I was asked yesterday of circumstances where I have become disheartened - and I fell in love the word because it so captured my literate mind.
Oh yes, disheartened! 

And I quietly recited my list to myself, almost laughing at the sheer number of life-altering experiences of late.
Umm... SO yes! Disheartened!

So few of the challenges of life can be undone, I mean, right?? We don't have a rewind button that will take us back to the challenges of yesterday - that now seem like luxuries if we were to take time and compare! We reach the summit of this mountain and turn around to marvel at our path - only to see a range of mountains that needed to be scaled in order to get to this one.

Why can't I enjoy this amazing view? I can see things from here I have never seen before, above the tree line, where the air seems extrordinarily thin... 

Instead, foolishly, I spend far too much time hoping this leg of the journey will end - that I will soon be on flat ground where I need not be concerned about my footing, or becoming lost, or falling into a deep and bottomless pit where no one will ever find me - or even know that I am gone!

Every single choice I have ever made has brought me to this moment, writing this sentence, suddenly being enheartened that I have made it this far on the journey... From this peak where I have found my heart again ... How could I hope for anything more?

A life of expression for a larger harmony...

I have been thinking a lot about what it means to “express” what is on our minds or on our hearts. Express. What does the word we use rather freely even really mean? I googled and discovered this: convey (a thought or feeling) in words or by gestures and conduct. Expression is defined as the process of making known one's thoughts or feelings.

What of those who choose to express very little? What of those that express way too much? What if we do not feel comfortable expressing anything at all?

I don’t have to be told that I express too much – though I have been told as much by others who are uncomfortable or bored with my expressions. I have been told that my more emotional expressions are off-putting, that I can be critical or angry or too syrupy or too loud or too much or too little or too forward or …

Geesh! Give me a break! Why is it such a challenge to find someone who allows me to express whatever (within reason, mind you) - whatever is on my mind or heart without attempting to challenge it, fix it or completely shut it down? Can we really be in a relationship with anyone who chooses not to express at all? Is it really a relationship when one expresses and the other remains silent?

But then I read this: “In a similar way, what we feel, think, and experience is often inaudible until it’s expressed. The life of expression that moves through us allows us to hear a larger harmony. When we ground what we feel by touching another, the interwoven nature of things is amplified and we’re brought closer to what matters.

"When we don’t give voice to what moves through us, we become entangled with life, but not connected to life. When silent with our love and pain, we can’t distribute what we feel and so our heartaches and pains are intensified as they only bounce around within us. The way a lightning rod standing in the open attracts and grounds the lightning, the life of expression grounds the intensity of what we feel on any given day.

"To practice the life of expression enhances all the other practices, the way blood is needed for each organ to do its work."

And I am emboldened.

And while my relationships may change and I no longer feel the freedom to simply say or be or speak what is in my thoughts or on my heart, the desire is still there – and maybe still there for all of us human beings who have not shut off their own expressions due to fear or boredom - or the inability to find someone who will simply listen.

The author suggests we keep trying, we keep looking, we search for a larger harmony discovered when we can touch one another and be brought closer to what really matters.  

wrestling…

As his zen koan sunk in...

"If you are given a mango. just eat it and enjoy the taste. Don't bother about the size of the tree or how many years it took to grow - otherwise you will miss the taste, the essence of mango-ness!"

While holding a glass of cool water - and then sipping it - my friend told me how much he LOVED that glass of water. He went on to describe it, noting that there are so many times in his life when a nice glass of cold water is the most refreshing drink he could have. Better than iced tea, he said, better than coffee - better than a beer! 

And I just continued to stare at him wondering what point he was attempting to make with his zen koan.  

When one is longing for a nice, tall glass of iced tea, however, that cold glass of water falls a little short. 

I spend too much time wondering why my glass of water isn't a Red Bull or Diet Coke. I can down a mango while wishing the whole entire time that I was eating a plum or a Granny Smith apple. 

Someone told me recently that she attended a conference where the speaker described relationships as a big bowl of spaghetti - with meatballs. The speaker went into detail about the nice, added extras that meatballs provide - and how meatballs are a must for the Italian dish. The meatballs complete the recipe, she told me exasperated. "It wasn't until then that I realized that I didn't have a single meatball in my spaghetti," she said dismayed.

In almost every area - or at least too many areas - I am thirsty or hungry for something more, wanting the extraordinary - the very best, the brightest, the most meaningful, the greatest love, the preeminent experience in every way. I forget that plain and simple water has its place - and in fact, water is good - IN FACT, a glass of water truly might be the best, given the situation! A good plate of spaghetti without the meatballs can be delicious - especially if one is a vegetarian! I should try to eat a Northern Spy instead of a Granny Smith!

"Stop expecting that this glass of water is going to be Guarana Antarctica (my favorite soft drink!)," my friend admonished me while taking another sip of the contents of his glass. "That person is a glass of water - nothing more. Let them be water. Enjoy the water! They CAN'T BE Guarana Antarctica!"

I sat and stared while his zen koan sunk in. 

Can I accept the provision of water when my heart desires something with a little more carbonation? Why do I consistently reach over the nectarines to gather the best purple plums? How would my life change if I simply accepted what unfolds before me - if I simply explored new tastes and textures and smells with appreciation for the provision and diversity. In this moment, when I think I NEED a Diet Coke, perhaps I can walk a shorter distance and fill my cup with icy water. 

And perhaps I can intentionally enjoy the water - appreciate the water for all that it brings instead of longing for something more.

Listening...   



  

Surrendering to the Guiding Hand...

I read this morning of an AA meeting in Kinsale, Ireland, where a man named Tony said, “If I had to choose among all the diseases that afflict human beings, I would choose mine [alcoholism], because I can do something about it.” At that meeting (as at each meeting) he introduced himself as “a grateful recovering alcoholic.” When asked why, he said, “Because without the Twelve Steps of this program I never would have found God.” Likewise, in the book of Job, that ruined man of God said, “Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?” (Job 2:10) …

Job again!

I feel like I have bumped into him again and again in recent years. Why does it feel like this book in the bible was written for me?? Do I need any more proof that nothing ever goes away until it teaches us what we need to know?

The late Brennan Manning spoke to my heart this morning with this: "To be grateful for the good things that happen in our lives is easy, but to be grateful for all of our lives—the good as well as the bad, the moments of joy as well as the moments of sorrow, the successes as well as the failures, the rewards as well as the rejections—that requires hard spiritual work. Still, we are only grateful people when we can say thank you to all that has brought us to this present moment. As long as we keep dividing our lives between events and people we would like to remember and those we would rather forget, we cannot claim the fullness of our beings as a gift of God to be grateful for. Let’s not be afraid to look at everything that has brought us to where we are now and trust that we will soon see in it the guiding hand of a loving God."

Ok.
Take 415 (415,000!).
Action! 

Let's try this scene again. Relying on the Spirit of God more than my mind or sheer grit to get through the times we may not understand. I am too often assigning value to my circumstances. This is "good." That is "bad." "Bad" we too often push away and refuse to even acknowledge sometimes. We just want it to go away - or end. 

But I am just beginning to grasp that everything - and everyone - is a teacher, revealing areas within ourselves that need some redemption. Even those teachers who make us scream with frustration reveal our own shortcomings on the journey to becoming whole, to becoming more fully aware of His very presence in our lives. IF He is with us, we need not be so consumed with the externals.

 

I want to be more like my brother Job, like the late Brennan Manning - like the "grateful recovering alcoholic in Ireland" - more fully consumed by Love rather than consumed by all that makes me uncomfortable, resisting my circumstances that are merely challenges to my ego rather than gateways to a greater awareness of my soul. 

May my outer world become a sacred threshold to my inner journey.

He has brought me to this present moment...