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!

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...