How many times must a man..... hear that Bob Dylan has turned 70?
If he is that old, what happened to time? Why do I still see him in my mind as about 25? I was 13 when I first heard Dylan thanks to my 15 year old step-brother, who hung out with an older crowd of New York City kids. I was quite early to the show. Dylan was not yet a household name. I took my stepbrother's Dylan album to my room to listen on my pathetic little record player and wore the grooves off the record. I had many dark moods as an adolescent, and listening to songs like "In my time of dyin" and "Baby let me follow you down" just resonated, as eventually did his protest songs several years later. For the next ten years Dylan was my main hero. Then, his music seemed to lose it's magic for me. He seemed to have sunk into mediocrity. In the mid 70's he released "Blood on the Tracks" which restored for me some of my admiration for him, but then he seemed to drift again. In 1979 I had a remarkable, overwhelming born-again experience, and became a Christian; and within a month, I heard that Dylan had converted to Christianity as well. I felt like I was right there with him again when he put out his next two "Christian" albums..."Slow train coming" and "Saved." My conversian happened independent of any "church" connection, so I was hungry for anyone who could relate to what was happening in my life, and he was speaking the language of my experience again. I have no idea where Dylan is spiritually today, and I haven't enjoyed any of his albums in the last decade or so.
One thing I give him credit for is that he has always said he is not a hero or out to change the world. He is right about that. I think Dylan the man is far more human, fallible, and perhaps materialistic than the ideals we held him and his music to in the 60's. He had some great songs and lyrics and some awful albums as well. I didn't bother getting tickets to the last concert he did here, as I was totally disappointed the last two times I saw him.
Oh, well, that's the way it goes with heros. They have nowhere to go but down. As Dylan himself wrote...
Disillusioned words like bullets bark
As human gods aim for their marks
Made everything from toy guns that sparks
To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark
It's easy to see without looking too far
That not much
Is really sacred.
Oh, but he wrote some awesome songs. Happy 70th!
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Sunday, May 22, 2011
warm your heart
It's been a beautiful weekend and I've been warmed by being outdoors for much of it and playing with my crazy cat and spending time with my wife and eating lots of good food. So warm your heart with this video clip. It gets better as it goes! Take four minutes and enjoy!
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
and this is living
Since I am living, it serves me well to pay attention
to wake up...to stay aware...
and always stay open to God's presence.
"Be still, and know that I am God" Psalm 46:10
Yes, it is a good thing to be still. Not just good...I find it to be a necessary thing. I lose my way otherwise. Really. I went for my usual early morning walk a few days ago. It broke my heart... this cute little terrier dog started following me. Normally, dogs do that for awhile and then go home. Not this dog... I kept trying to get it to stop following me and return to whence it came, but it kept running ahead of me. After about two miles, it ran off and I didn't see it again. I'm sure it was lost. That just breaks my heart. I'm like that dog when I forget to be still. Chasing this and that like a fool until I am totally lost.
I value stillness and I value the "still small voice" of God that can be found in that stillness. As well as the awareness that comes in slowing down. All of it...the awful sadness of life as well as the awesome joy.
There is so much to experience and learn in being still before God.
Anyway, here's a poem... a nice perspective on what paying attention can be like. Notice how paying attention in the poem gets smaller and smaller and more detailed... from the world to a bear to the movement of a specific gracehopper's jaw... it's great stuff!
The Summer Day
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean--
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down,
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
~ Mary Oliver ~
to wake up...to stay aware...
and always stay open to God's presence.
"Be still, and know that I am God" Psalm 46:10
Yes, it is a good thing to be still. Not just good...I find it to be a necessary thing. I lose my way otherwise. Really. I went for my usual early morning walk a few days ago. It broke my heart... this cute little terrier dog started following me. Normally, dogs do that for awhile and then go home. Not this dog... I kept trying to get it to stop following me and return to whence it came, but it kept running ahead of me. After about two miles, it ran off and I didn't see it again. I'm sure it was lost. That just breaks my heart. I'm like that dog when I forget to be still. Chasing this and that like a fool until I am totally lost.
I value stillness and I value the "still small voice" of God that can be found in that stillness. As well as the awareness that comes in slowing down. All of it...the awful sadness of life as well as the awesome joy.
There is so much to experience and learn in being still before God.
Anyway, here's a poem... a nice perspective on what paying attention can be like. Notice how paying attention in the poem gets smaller and smaller and more detailed... from the world to a bear to the movement of a specific gracehopper's jaw... it's great stuff!
The Summer Day
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean--
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down,
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
~ Mary Oliver ~
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
and that is dying
My wife's mom passed away at 3AM this morning....cancer... which she has been battling in one form or another for the past three years.
She spent the last few months of her life in our home, and I am happy that Kathy had the chance to care for her mother in that way. She is very brave. Kathy lost her sister to cancer in 2009...she was there for her, and what with my ordeal that same year, she has been through the wringer. When my mom died five years ago I was 1,400 miles away and not at her bedside. It's very different.
-----------------
I am standing upon the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength, and I stand and watch until at last she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come down to mingle with each other.
Then someone at my side says, " There she goes! "
Gone where?
Gone from my sight . . . that is all. She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side and just as able to bear her load of living freight to the place of destination. Her diminished size is in me, not in her. And just at the moment when someone at my side says, " There she goes! " there are other eyes watching her coming . . and other voices ready to take up the glad shout . . . " Here she comes! "
And that is dying.
---Henry Van Dyke
She spent the last few months of her life in our home, and I am happy that Kathy had the chance to care for her mother in that way. She is very brave. Kathy lost her sister to cancer in 2009...she was there for her, and what with my ordeal that same year, she has been through the wringer. When my mom died five years ago I was 1,400 miles away and not at her bedside. It's very different.
-----------------
I am standing upon the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength, and I stand and watch until at last she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come down to mingle with each other.
Then someone at my side says, " There she goes! "
Gone where?
Gone from my sight . . . that is all. She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side and just as able to bear her load of living freight to the place of destination. Her diminished size is in me, not in her. And just at the moment when someone at my side says, " There she goes! " there are other eyes watching her coming . . and other voices ready to take up the glad shout . . . " Here she comes! "
And that is dying.
---Henry Van Dyke
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