lenten journal: a time for singing

Writing about time -- and finishing up with Tom Waits -- has sent me in search of time songs. Today I offer a soundtrack to pass the time.

Bruce Cockburn opens the set with "Lovers in a Dangerous Time."



John Mellencamp continues: "Save Some Time to Dream."



An old favorite -- Shawn Colvin singing "Ricochet in Time."



As long as we're in old favorite mode -- Cyndi Lauper's "Time After Time."



One more old favorite: "Where Does the Time Go?" by the Innocence Mission.



On to Ryan Adams -- "In My Time of Need."



Here is Dawes with Mumford and Sons: "When My Time Comes."



And our closing hymn: Paul Simon singing, "Love and Hard Times."



Sing along every chance you get.

Peace,
Milton

allergies and acceptance

If you press me, I’ll tell you my favorite Paul Simon record is one of his least known: Hearts and Bones. I’m in the minority because it’s his least known record, I think, other than the soundtrack from his Broadway show. Nevertheless, it’s one I can listen to over and over. I thought about it today because of the opening track, “Allergies”:

allergies allergies
something’s living on my skin
doctor please doctor please
open up it’s me again

You see, today I spent the afternoon at the allergist.

I have to back up a bit for you to understand the import of that statement. I have been hounded my whole life by allergies. I have tried every antihistamine, delved into most every decongestant, tried as many treatments as I can find and, in Paul Simon’s words, still these allergies remain. In New England, winter meant a respite, but North Carolina offers nothing of the sort; I’m allergic to the state.

About ten months ago, my throat started seizing up – or, at least, that’s the best way I can describe it. I can still breathe, but I can’t swallow and my throat fills up with mucous that I have to clear rather unceremoniously. The result is I go without good sleep about every third night, which seems to be the pattern of the onslaught. I have not been able to pinpoint a direct cause of the congestion. Instead, it seems rather capricious. So I have lived on a steady diet of Benadryl, among other things, trying to find a way to survive. I talked to my doctor about it last summer and he promised to send me to an allergist, but the promise was not kept before my health insurance ran out, so I had to wait until this January to push him to keep his promise. He sent me instead to an ear, nose, and throat specialist who then sent me on to an allergist, whom I saw today. Though last night was miserable, I was somewhat happy that the “swallowing thing” was happening as I went to see him today. I also went with the expectation that he was going to do a full slate of allergy tests to try and figure out what was going on. He was a nice guy and he dealt with me well, but he said he didn’t have the equipment to look at my throat and he only tested me for dogs (not allergic) and dust mites (allergic) and offered me yet another antihistamine and told me the best thing I could do for my throat was to go see the ENT while it was going on so she could figure out what it was.

I spent over two hours in his office. At the end of the time he said, “Well, I think we have a good plan.”

“The only plan I know is for me to go see the other doctor when my throat acts up. That’s a plan?” I asked.

That was his plan. That and to write me a prescription for another antihistamine and a nasal steroid. And he wants to see me in two months. I’m not sure why. It seems actually treating allergies is not a part of the American medical system to try and figure out how to treat the symptoms of my allergies. At the end of our time, I asked him about the skin irritation I get with some regularity.

“You’re just a really allergic person,” he said without irony.

I left feeling just as allergic and a good bit more frustrated than when I arrived. I went by the church to vent to Ginger and then met some friends at Fullsteam to find a way past how pissed off I felt. The friends are folks at the heart of the Wild Goose Festival, which will happen again here in North Carolina this June. (Please come.) As I drove to meet them, I remembered one of the talks that stuck with me from last years festival. A pastor from New York named Gabriel Salguero spoke on “The Allergy to the Other.” I wish I had notes to go back to that would outline the great stuff he had to say, but all I can do is recall feeling compelled by his words about how we allow ourselves to feel “allergic” to people who aren’t like us, responding defensively in the same way our bodies produce histamines to protect us from the unknown.

I thought about his talk today because I was so taken aback by the way in which the doctor whose declared specialty was allergies had only enough imagination to deal with symptoms. His aim was to make me comfortable, period. He did talk about allergy shots, but what he offered was a five-year commitment that was only about seventy-five percent effective. Beyond that, my best choice was to mask the symptoms and act like things were OK.

Recently, Durham was recognized as The Most Tolerant City in the United States. I love that I live in a place that is recognized for its welcoming spirit and I want to be more than “tolerant,” which seems to me to be the relational equivalent of taking antihistamines and thinking you’ve dealt with your allergies. When I hear the word tolerant, I think it means learning to put up with something or someone: getting used to someone, but not really making a place for them in your life. Straight people, for example, who learn to tolerate gay and lesbian folks come to some sort of “live and let live” place, but don’t ever intend to actually be friends with them.

Toleration is not acceptance any more than what the doctor did for me today was actually deal with my allergies.

I long for another survey that measures the most accepting city. I think Durham still has a shot because we are, in large part, more than tolerant of one another. This is one of the most encouraging places I have ever lived. The task in any community is to learn how to live in such a way that we become essential to one another. That means finding a way to do more than mask our allergies and to push through our fears and prejudices to see the only way we survive is to survive together. To quote another Paul Simon song,

I’ve reason to believe
we all will be received in Graceland

Durham, too.

Peace,
Milton

still here

these are the days of miracle and wonder
this is the long distance call . . .
-- Paul Simon, “The Boy in the Bubble”

I know I’ve been away . . .
I have seen many things
walking in our neighborhood
in conversations at church
and around tables at the pub
I even have stories to tell –
but tonight I write to say
the path from wonder to words
has been a bit cluttered
by stories I’ve collected and
kept that they might ripen
like the blackberries
in the backyard
so close to their season

Peace,
Milton

lenten journal: it is unfinished

“It is finished,” Jesus said, and then (according to old King James) he gave up the ghost.

I know I’m getting ahead of myself, as far as Lent goes, but unfinished things have been on my mind and I find myself looking at that sentence once again. Like any pronoun that begins a sentence, it begs for an antecedent. What, exactly, is finished? Did he mean his life was over? That’s about all that actually ended in that moment. Perhaps he meant he was finished with what he came to do, though he didn’t exactly tie up all the loose ends on his way out. Those who write commentaries and such often look for a more abstract antecedent and some grander theological theme. Bill Gaither wrote a rather moving gospel song, putting the quote to music:

it is finished the battle is over
it is finished there’ll be no more war
it is finished the end of all conflict
it is finished and Jesus is lord

The song builds to a glorious crescendo yet, for all the song’s certainty, the antecedent still lies unexplained, or at least not explained enough. If Jesus was speaking in some cosmic sense, as the song suggests, he was leaning into the future. Even now, two thousand years later, what was supposed to be finished ain’t done just yet. As we walk this Lenten road to the Cross once again, part of the reason is we are living out an unfinished faith: everything was not completed at Calvary, or even at Easter. Such is the nature of our faith, which thrives more in its questions than it’s answers, which takes root in relationships rather than in concrete certainty.

Last week, Elvis Costello wrote a review of Paul Simon’s upcoming record, So Beautiful or So What. The essay is actually going to be the liner notes for the album. He says of Simon’s songwriting:

These days it might court shallow mockery to sing so openly of our humanity, mortality and divinity but not with music to make these themes fly or words containing such wit, grace and humility.

The musical shapes and shades arrive from all over the world and back in time to illuminate the heartfelt intelligence of the writer.

Central to the picture is Paul's vivid singing and own beautiful guitar playing - which doesn't always get full measure in the shadow of his writing.

Throughout the record, I kept coming up against what I can only call, rock and roll surprises; not some orthodox formula but indelible, hypnotic guitar motifs and swinging, off-center rhythms tipping your expectations into a new kind of thrill.

After over fifty years of songwriting, Paul Simon is unfinished, and doing some of his best work. Costello provides a link to a song off the new record called “Waiting for Christmas Day” (now I am getting ahead of myself) that I am willing to predict will show up as a part of Advent in many churches. But it’s Costello’s description that grabs me tonight and how he spoke of “rock and roll surprises:” not some orthodox formula but indelible . . . off-center rhythms tipping your expectations into a new kind of thrill.

Into the unfinished.

Every so often in Christian circles, someone writes a book that becomes a lightning rod and a litmus test and the best new thing and the reason God is going to destroy the earth all in one volume. This week, it’s Rob Bell and his new book that questions the reality of Hell and whether or not God is going to send anyone there even if there is one. First of all, I’m not trying to critique the book here because I haven’t read it. Second, I’m not sure I understand why it would be so terrible for God to throw open the doors and yell, “All ye, all ye, oxen free.” Third, neither of those is my point. I wish we could work out our faith and theology together with the same mind that is in Elvis Costello, willing to be surprised, to have our expectations tipped, to be thrilled by the off-center riffs of the rhythm of our God.

The story of God we have so far is one of God showing up in unexpected places from making Sarah laugh to singeing Moses’ expectations in the burning bush, to meeting Elijah in the silence and the Israelites in the manna, to being born in a barn, to lighting Paul up on the road to Damascus, to letting Tom Waits write songs, to speaking through Rob Bell and Elvis Costello.

And God is not finished.

God is not finished breaking down barriers, calling us to new understanding, breaking out hearts and healing them, opening our eyes, blowing the doors off of our theological cages, or letting us get comfortable thinking we’re finished working out our faith and can coast from here on in. There is more light yet to break forth.

It is not finished. And that’s good news.

Peace,
Milton

P. S. -- Here's a little Simon for your soul.