Sad day in T Bay

This past Saturday, after soundcheck just prior to a concert Thunder Bay, I casually rested my guitar  against the stage  wall and headed to the back room to fetch some guitar picks.  I had only taken a couple steps when I heard the slide and the crash.  I spun around to see my beloved steed face down with the headstock snapped off just above the nut.

It’s very hard to relate all that went through my mind in that first split second. Like when a whole life flashes through ones eyes just before a car crash, the life of that guitar and the relationships and events associated with it were all suddenly present and re-membered; over a thousand concerts, treks through far away lands, the many songs co-authored, countless hours woodshedding, the pleasure…  and the friendships that led to my acquisition of the guitar  in the first place.

It was about a dozen years ago, I was performing in Sante Fe.  My friends, Lou and Fran Bruno who were promoting the concert,  took it upon themselves to fly the legendary guitar-maker Kevin Ryan and his wife Barb from LA to see the concert. I was well-aware of Kevin. He was a relatively new Luthier (guitar maker) but was already turning heads internationally with his aesthetic sensibilities, rich-toned instruments and technical/design innovations. It was such an honour to play for them and then afterward to head back to the Brunos for fine wines, elegant foods and rich conversation.

Certainly, guitars and guitar artistry were a huge part of that conversation as both Lou and Kevin are fine players in their own right.  At one point, the three of us got into detailed discussion about what we like/dislike in guitars – wood preferences, tonality, aesthetic appointments and the like. I already had a couple great guitars with no real need of another, and certainly I was not  in a financial position to even entertain getting Kevin to build me one. But none of that really mattered because  six months later this one was delivered in a crate to my door.

Now, all these years later, close inspection of the guitar reveals the many scars of a faithful old warhorse. The surface laquer is checkered like a thousand-piece puzzle.  Several large cracks have been glued and reglued  - one which extends from the strap-pin about a foot and a half up along the outer bout and into the waist. The wood around the soundhole has worn away to the abalone inlay that Kevin’s father selected for me from his “private stash” of unique pieces. And there are gouges, dents and divots enough to prove the hundreds of flights, countless careless moments, and endless hours of playing.

Needless to say – accompanying this rush of memory was a significant nausea  as I had to consider that the guitar may be irreparable.  But apparently I need not have worried.   “Jake the Guitar Whisperer”  here in Winnipeg is confident he can fix it. It may not be pretty but it’ll play. But even if her days were indeed over, the echos of her voice would reverberate for some time in the recordings and memories of those blessed enough to hear her in concert and witness first-hand the results of master-craftsmanship, generosity and love.

Just ’cause I’m being all sentimental here – I’ve chosen a song for you to hear that I wrote and recorded on this guitar…  it’s from my CD Sons and Daughters and the song is called Air Jam . Several years ago, my Chicago friend, Johnny Rutlege, asked me to write an instrumental piece  for a film soundtrack he was producing.  It had to have a decidedly  “Marlborough Man” feel to it and so this is what I came up with.   I titled it Air Jam simply because that was the name of Johnny’s production company.

Click song title to listen:

AIR JAM | STEVE BELL

Visit Ryan Guitars HERE…

See Acoustic Guitar Magazine’s recent article on Ryan Guitars HERE…

My friend Heather Bishop (singer/songwriter/ painter/ activist) has a little cabin in southern Manitoba that I have taken the liberty of dubbing Bishop’s Barque. A ‘barque’ is a simple, small sailing vessel to take one out to sea. Given my history of the place, it seems an appropriate title.  It is a humble abode for sure; simple hay-bail construction, open floor plan, lots of light, wood stove, no phone, no internet.  Perfect.  I’ve twice driven down there for private retreats and both times come home with a new song.

Lady Slipper

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Some places are just special – who knows why? It would be hard to identify the single quality that sets Heather’s place apart. If the above description isn’t enough, think:  scrub oak and whispering aspen, prairie tall grass and lady slipper, milkweed, garter snakes, chipmunk and woodpile, monarchs, hummingbirds, jays.  Big sky.

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Old Man by Heather Bishop

Heather, herself,  lives a quarter mile down the road from the cabin in a fairly unique enviro-design home she built with her own hands (literally). And so, if while retreating you find yourself too isolated, she is usually puttering about somewhere and good for a lively conversation, a song, a healing prayer or counsel about a song-in-progress. And… Heather paints. Beautifully! Her gracious home is hung with the tender portraits of the faces that have captured her. Her subjects, and the delicacy with which she treats them, tell so much about her.  She’s the kind of person that makes you want to be better at what you do.

Last June, just before having to lay my guitar aside for several months to let a repetitive stress injury heal, I took five days at Bishop’s Barque to finish writing a couple of songs and to work on arrangements for my new CD.  I didn’t get very far on those tasks, mostly because the place lends itself far better to rest and restoration than task and accomplishment.  Mostly I slept, read and noodled about on my guitar. The weather outside was gorgeous and atypically free of mosquitoes. So I sat for hours, absolutely still, outside the cabin, drinking in the staggering complexity and miracle of the surroundings.  A chipmunk who lived in the woodpile kept me entertained endlessly.  The ants about my feet and the impossibly bloated bees fascinated.  A soothing cacophony of birdsong settled my soul while the hot sun and cooling breeze alternately invigorated the skin on my face.  At night, the sun would humbly retire so the cosmos could shine; the deep-space stillness – enchanting. I and all the other creatures drank it in – felt our kinship and our gratitude.

I had a book of poetry with me, Richard Wilbur’s Mayflies. I’ve read and reread this collection dozens of times.   Wilbur’s poetry is earthy – not the faux-earthy of one who has simply forgotten his or her manners  – but earthy like loam, like compost, like a pile of leaves in fall.  He has a way of re-animating the familiar. His words teach you to see again. And so under his eye, a “lofty stand of trees beyond the field” becomes a “great fleet of galleons bound our way / across a moiled expanse of tossing hay.” And, a mature relationship, or “long love” (which constant spirits are the keepers of)  has the quality of a finely (divinely) crafted thing, “like a good fiddle…like the rose’s scent… like a rose window or the firmament.”

The poem that was honored to give the Mayflies collection it’s name elegantly tells of the a profound kinship that is the ground of creation from quark to galaxy. And I couldn’t help but be suddenly saddened by all that is not kind.  I could not help but grief the petty meanness we humans willfully indulge, our capacity to diminish the other, the false autonomy we blindly celebrate. I must admit that as of late, the level of vitriol in public discourse has vexed me.  We have traded in debate for insult;  honest argument for cheap victory at the expense of the other.  It seems we have forgotten why we must be patient, honouring and kind, and have equally forgotten how to blush.

Rublev's Trinity

It is my conviction that, whatever else may be true of God, God is (in God’s-self) communion, unity. God is mutuality.  This is the intuition behind the doctrine of the Trinity. And as with any good poet, I assume God’s created work is an externalization of the true interiority of the artist. Therefore, kin-ness is no mere accident of evolution – it is the fabric, the logic of evolution.  And I believe we’re heading somewhere purposeful and good.  It is ours to freely choose how we will co-operate with or resist this unavoidable relationality. But our choosing makes a world of difference to the experience we know and the world of experience around us.

And so, inspired by Wilbur, and in part by a blog posting by my friend Prof. John Stackhouse, I wrote:  Be but your own good friend / and be good to the other/ cherish those sisters and brothers on the road. / And to the earth extend / every reverence and wonder / tend to the wounds of your blunders / and honour God who formed our home.

Below is a demo version of the song if you want to take a listen.  And just so you know,  “demo” in my world is what “first draft” would mean to an essayist, or an initial sketch would be for a painter.  It’s a working version I laid down in the summer. (My son Jesse was the recording engineer.)  Currently the song is being re-recorded for my new CD to be released in January. But given the advent of World Food Day, October 15, and the Canadian Foodgrains Bank’s corresponding Fast For Change – Tend the Earth campaign, I thought I’d share it now:

click song title to listen

GOOD FRIEND | STEVE BELL
Bishop’s Barque / June 2010
Lyric adapted in part from Richard Wilbur’s poem Mayflies.

On somber night
When shivering clouds bemoan
The aching of souls alone

Then stars appear
One arch of their dance shows clear
And glittering song intone

Be but your own good friend
And be good to the other
Cherish those sisters and brothers
On the road

And to the earth extend
Every reverence and wonder
Tend to the wounds of your blunders
And honour God who formed our home

When sun is low
Bright bands in forest glow
Fair fiats of love. Behold…

See shimmering flies
In their quadrillions rise
Weaving a cloth of gold

Be but your own good friend…

BURNING EMBER

“Judge for yourself how great man is – how great man may become. God abides in him and he in God so that Christ himself and not a man lives in a devout Christian; the whole soul becomes Christ’s, just as the iron in burning coal becomes fire as if it were burning – everything is fire, everything is light!” *

~ Father John of Kronstadt, Russia 1829 – 1908

Who knows why one day your eyes pass over a sentence languid and bored, perceiving nothing, and the next day your soul catches fire and flares bright with ardor and insight. I remember the day Father John’s words did so for me.  I was on a silent retreat at St. Benedict’s Priory just a few miles north of Winnipeg. The retreat was mandated as part of a soul-care requirement of the ministry I worked for at the time.  For someone like myself, growing up Evangelical and active, intentional silence and stillness were strange. And being naturally extraverted as well, the inner, contemplative pursuit was one that I looked on with curiosity but from a bit of a distance.

The sisters were lovely. They seemed to float around on a breeze. The older ones dressed in their habits, and the younger ones in civilian clothes. When they looked at you, you felt seen.  The room I was given was plain; a single bed, a desk with a lamp, and a window looking out onto the parking lot.  Nothing special. But it was serene and quiet. “Nothing much” ever happened there, just rest and prayer, and you could feel it.

Fr. John of Kronstadt

And so, in that place, reading Fr. John’s diary, I briefly caught vision of what it might mean to come alive and be fully human; to live my life in God and for God’s life to abide in me… mutual indwelling… mutual othering; so absorbed in the other that the self is forgotten yet never more fully realized. The theological word is perichorisis. The experience is joy.  Deep joy.

And then melody started to come with a lyric inspired by Fr. John’s ecstasy:

aaaaaaaa Judge for yourself how great is the one
aaaaaaaa Who lives in God, whose God is Love!
aaaaaaaa Like an iron when left in embers bright
aaaaaaaa Everything is fire! Everything is light!

It is remarkable that if you take a rod of iron and place it in a fire, the properties of the iron are such that it is able to take on the qualities of the fire. First heat and then light; glowing red initially but eventually white hot if left in long enough.  Further, when you then take the iron out of the fire, it can retain the energy and light of the fire on its own. You can hold it up as a beacon, you can warm with it, burn with it and you can start another fire with it. But if left out of the fire for long, it returns to cold metal.

And so, it has been the insight of the saints that the fullness of humanity is revealed thus: “as we lay our lives in the fire of God’s divine love, we become by grace what God is by nature.” Anything less is beneath our dignity.

aaaaaaaa Judge for yourself if a fire isn’t safe
aaaaaaaa When cities fall before its face
aaaaaaaa Yet a flower can endure the course of a storm
aaaaaaaa By bowing to the tempest’s rage
aaaaaaaa Burn forever, let me never
aaaaaaaa Curse the pain you bring
aaaaaaaa Somehow I know, I will be whole in your glowing.

Here’s the rub. Fire consumes. And love is no different. It is the Christian conviction that eventually all that is not love will be consumed by love.

Bernadette Soubirous

On the same retreat, I read a biography of the life of St. Bernadette. Singer/songwriter Jennifer Warnes had just released her celebrated CD of Leonard Cohen songs, Famous Blue Raincoat, and on that CD is a song she co-wrote called Bernadette. The song is so achingly beautiful that I had to find out who Bernadette was. In the library at the priory I found her story.

As a young girl in France, Bernadette received several visions at a grotto in Lourdes.  So remarkable was her countenance while receiving these visions, and so beautiful and elegant her words about the experience, she quickly rose to enormous fame. Eventually she was whisked away and cloistered in a convent where she lived the remainder of her short life in obscurity and ill health.  She died at age 35. But her biographer tells of her profound humility and forbearance in the face of tremendous suffering that marked her life after her brief celebrity.  “She was like a flower in a tempest. Where unbending oaks are snapped in two, the supple field flower remains.”

And so it is with love, fierce and unrelenting, humbling all that resists it – leaving behind nothing but itself.

aaaaaaaa Burning ember, shine forever
aaaaaaaa In the darkest tomb
aaaaaaaa Warmth of heaven, hidden secret
aaaaaaaa In a mother’s womb
aaaaaaaa Flame of beauty blazing through me
aaaaaaaa So that all might see
aaaaaaaa Somehow we know
aaaaaaaa We’ll all be whole in your burning.

In ancient church tradition there is much use of the censer. You’ve seen it in movies if you haven’t in person. The censer is an ornate metal cage on a chain. Inside is lit a block of incense swung about by the priest until every nook and cranny of the sanctuary is filled with its fragrance.

The censer can be thought of in several different ways; the tomb of Christ from which arises the new humanity; the womb of Mary that nourishes our hope and our future.  Or, it is I, it is you, created to “house” heaven for the sake of the earth. This is what we’ve been created for. Anything less is beneath our dignity.

Arise oh man! Arise oh woman! Know who you are!  We are too easily and woefully satisfied with so much less.

~ Steve Bell

*My Life in Christ by Fr. John of Kronstadt
Holy Trinity Monastery, Printshop of Pochaev
Jordanville, New York, USA 1994

(click song title to LISTEN)

BURNING EMBER | STEVE BELL

Music and Lyric by Steve Bell
St. Benedicts Priory  November 17/ 1992

Judge for yourself how great is the one
Who lives in God, whose God is love
Like an iron when left in embers bright
Everything is fire
Everything is light

Oh Love most beautiful you are
Oh flame of joy within my heart

Burning ember, I remember
Love’s first light in me
I was cold then, like a stone when I
Saw your flickering
Oh what beauty as you drew near me
I could scarcely speak
Somehow I knew, I would be new
In your glowing

Judge for yourself if a fire isn’t safe
When cities fall before her face
Yet a flower can endure the course of a storm
By bowing to the tempest’s rage

Oh Love, more fierce than all the rest
Oh raging joy within my breast

Burning ember, I remember
Love’s first light in me
I was cold then, like a stone when I
Saw your flickering
Burn forever, let me never
Curse the pain you bring
Somehow I know, I will be whole
In your glowing

Oh Love, more lovely than the rest
Of flame of joy within my breast

Burning ember, shine forever
In the darkest tomb
Warmth of heaven, hidden secret
In a mother’s womb
Flame of beauty, blazing through me
So that all can see
Somehow we know, we’ll all be whole
In your burning

© Signpost Music 1992
www.stevebell.com

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The above version of Burning Ember was recorded for Steve’s CD The Symphony Sessions. To view, listen to tracks or purchase, click HERE

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The original recording of Burning Ember was recorded for Steve’s album of the same name. To view, listen to tracks or purchase, click HERE

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See video below.

Drumheller Circle was written after seeing Leo Kottke perform live at the West End Cultural Center in Winnipeg. It’s a small, funky theater which seats perhaps 250 max and hosts the most amazing concerts. I already knew a lot of Leo’s material and was looking forward to discovering what crazy tunings and techniques he used to get his outrageous melodies, chords and unique percussiveness. I was quite surprised to discover that most of his material was written and played in standard or simple alternate tunings (drop D); Theme from “The Rick and Bob Report” (My Father’s Face/ 1989) is a particular example. Leo seems determined to wring every possibility out of these two familiar tunings.

At the time I was experimenting with all sorts of tunings to rescue myself from going to the same old places musically. But I went home that night with a renewed appreciation for the carrying capacity of standard and drop D tunings, determined to wrestle a few more tunes out of them. Drumheller Circle was the result of that determination.

When I first started to play the song publicly I didn’t have a title for it, but found myself telling the story of my early guitar days as a boy in Drumheller, Alberta. My father was a prison chaplain at the federal penitentiary in Drumheller and the inmates used the chapel Saturday afternoons to have jam sessions. Occasionally I was allowed to go in, sit in the corner and watch the guys play – some were quite exceptional. But I was quite eager to learn to play, myself, and when the inmates discovered this, they invited me to join their circle.

Not having a guitar of my own, I joined the Jr. Sales Club of Canada and started selling Christmas Cards to get the money to buy a guitar – Dad told me he’d match me dollar for dollar and I had my eye on a Hofner Acoustic ($120 w/hardshell case, strap and pick – ooooo!) After several months I had 60 bucks, Dad matched it and I started showing up every Saturday afternoon to sit in a circle with Canada’s most unwanted men who taught me to play the guitar. I was eight, I was in heaven and to this day adore those men for taking me seriously and investing in me.

Several months after I started performing this song, and telling this story, my manager Dave finally suggested I call it Drumheller Circle and I have ever since.

A few years ago I was invited back to Drumheller prison to perform a concert for the inmates in the same chapel I learned to play in. Obviously, for sentimental reasons, I was eager to go back and play there. It never occurred to me I’d know anyone, or that anyone would remember me after all those years. But I did. It was so very wonderful and so very sad to see old friends after all those years. It was the first time the awful reality of “life sentence” hit me. Is this really the best our “gospel” imagination is capable of?

Anyway - for those of you guitar players who want to take a stab at playing this song, click on the button at the top of the page to download the guitar tab (music notation). It’s perhaps easier to play than it sounds – you’ll notice the basic chord shapes are D, G, and A (in drop D tuning). Most of the song revolves around those three chord shapes. The greatest difficulty you’ll have is the thumb independence.  If you have any questions just post them in the comments below – I’m not much of a teacher but I’ll try to be of help if you’re having trouble.

27 years ago

When Nanci and I first got married I remember getting all doe-eyed and telling her how I couldn’t wait to grow old together. It was a lovely sentiment to be sure, but “old” was still a fairly remote concept and therefore a rather safe longing.  Last week, we celebrated our 27th anniversary of unrelenting wedded bliss (right dear? )and although I would hardly classify us as being old, it is no longer remote. We now have one grandson and another on the way, all three of our children are adults and these days Nance and I can sometimes be found watching my youngest son’s band play in nightclubs I played in 30 years ag0.  30 YEARS AGO!

There are other indicators: I now need glasses to read what I’m typing into my computer,  and last spring I suffered a bout of shingles. “Shingles?!” I protested to my doctor, “isn’t that something that grandparents get?” He just smiled patiently and waited for me to process what I had just said.

Judy, Max and the new chair.

This past weekend offered up another reality check. Our friend Judy has spent the last 21 years of her life in a wheelchair after a bell tower at a summer camp collapsed on her leaving her paralyzed from the waist down.  Nanci and I have known Judy since before the accident but in recent years moved into her neighborhood and so we get to see her more often than we would  otherwise.  Judy’s house is along the path of my daily walk with Daisy (our Jack-Russel fondly referred to by our neighbors as Crazy Daisy.)  I noticed Judy’s house was in desperate need for a fresh coat of paint and mentioned to her that I used to paint for a living and would happily take care of that for her.  The conversation led to a longer conversation about several mounting needs including new shingles for her garage roof, repairs to her modified van, and a new wheelchair that would cost about 5 grand.  Ugh.

Judy's shingles - not like mine.

Well, silver and gold have I none, but I can paint, and I can sing. So we put on a fundraising concert at a nearby church. My staff all got behind it, the church donated the space – we advertised it on Facebook and on April 18/09 about 400 folks showed up to hear a few songs and we raised 7 thousand dollars which covers the cost of the chair, the paint, and the shingles.  (a local roofer has donated his labor to do the work.)

Yay!

So last weekend I finally got around to starting to paint Judy’s house.  I decided to start by scraping the many windows which were in terrible shape. It’s the part of painting I never did like so I thought I’d get the worst over with right off the start.  I got out my ladders, sharpened my scrapers (it’s been awhile) and tackled the worst with gusto. Four hours later…. four hours!!… and I was totally spent. I could hardly put enough muscle behind to scrape off a cornflake.  What’s with that? I used to be able to do this for 12 hours no sweat. I must admit, I was a little shocked. I packed up my gear and dragged myself home to soak my aching muscles and bandage my blisters.  Sigh…

Window scraping.

So, there’s no denying it – bodies age and change. But as I reflect on my marriage, our family and our history, I realize that love changes as well.  Over time we (hopefully) begin to shed sentiment and live into the reality of shared life and all that love requires of us. Like physical work, it takes a certain muscle to accomplish, but unlike physical work, its capacity grows over time rather than diminishes.

My favorite poem says it best:

Still, there’s a certain scope in that long love
Which constant spirits are the keepers of,
And which, though taken to be tame and staid,
Is a wild sostenuto of the heart,
A passion joined to courtesy and art
Which has the quality of something made,
Like a good fiddle, like the rose’s scent,
Like a rose window or the firmament.

excerpt from ‘For C’  by Richard Wilbur

Actually, I have a good start at a new song using this poem. I really had hoped to have finished it but alas, couldn’t make it happen. Later – I think it’ll be a good ‘un.

But I do want to leave a couple of songs to mark our anniversary.  The first is one I wrote years ago, at the beginning of our journey.

The second is one I discovered on-line literally on the morning of our anniversary. It is written and recorded by one of my favourite songwriters Pierce Pettis and speaks rather eloquently of that “long love” that Richard Wilbur wrote about. I was able to contact Pierce to ask permission to post the song and he graciously consented.

Here’s where it gets mushy: I love you Nance – thanks for the many great years and the great kids.  If I could do it over – I would.

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(Download) this music.

Song: Alone Tonight by Steve Bell.  Click Here for lyrics.

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Song: That Kind of Love by Pierce Pettis | from the album That Kind of Love  | Available at www.piercepettis.com or on itunes.

That Kind of Love | Pierce Pettis

Can’t be bought or sold or faked
That kind of love
It always gives itself away
That kind of love

It’s wiser that the wisest sage
It’s innocence makes me ashamed
till I’m not sure that I can take
That kind of love

Pride and hatred cannot stand
That kind of Love
Greater love hath no man
Than that kind of love

It won’t be kept unto itself
It spreads it’s charm it casts it’ spell
till no one’s safe this side of hell
from that kind of love

Love rejected love ignored
Held in chains behind closed doors
Stuff of legend and of song
And deep down everybody longs
For that kind of love

Some people never know
that kind of love
Though it only takes a child to show
That kind of love
Widows smile and strong men weep
And little ones play at its feet
The deaf can hear the blind can see
That kind of love

Love triumphant love on fire
Love that humbles and inspires
Love that does not hesitate
With no conditions no restrains
That kind of love

So how can anyone deny
that kind of love
knowing every heart is measured by
that kind of love
Even stars fall from the sky
everything will fall in time
Except those things that cannot die
That kind of love
Oh may you be remembered by
that kind of love.

To sum it up, Morley believes, as passionately as I do not, that ours is a meaningless and pitiless universe in which we need to bravely choose how to live according to whatever standards make sense to us.  I, however, believe differently, that ours is an ordered creation sustained by and reflecting the eternal loving communion of the Trinity.  Of course, neither of us can prove our belief to the other simply because both positions fall under the category of faith.  Simply put, science can neither prove or disprove the existence of God. Both the belief in God and belief in the non-existence of God are beliefs that cannot be empirically proven.  Ian Benson writes quite eloquently about this,  maintaining that the realm of the secular is not the place where faith is absent – because there is no such realm -  but rather, it is the realm of competing faith claims.

In the end, what we do have is our experiences and their interpretation. I have written elsewhere that I didn’t become a Christian because I was convinced by a robust, rational defense of Christianity – rather I am a Christian simply because I have always felt like I am known and cherished by some deep personhood quite outside of myself.  Convincing? Probably not, but that’s my story and all the mini-stories I tell are some version of this larger narrative that I am helpless to not believe.

So… this last week, my daughter Sarah and grandson Luca have been in town.  It’s impossible to describe the depth of feeling I have for my own kids -  and then there’s this grandchild thing.  There’s an ache of love there that is almost painful. And when I meet other grandparents, there’s always this “knowing” look.  We are the lucky ones, no doubt.

Sarah and Luca in hospital.

One day Luca was chewing on a pea pod (not a good idea) and got some of that stringy goodness caught in his windpipe. He was able to breathe but developed an alarming wheez in his chest. As a result we spent the next 24 hours at the Children’s Hospital waiting for a procedure for removing the offending legume.  While we were in the waiting room at the beginning of our ordeal, there was a young couple there – kinda rough looking. Obviously the young woman was sick and her thugish looking boyfriend sat emotionless beside her as they waited to be called.  Luca (13 months) was toddling around as toddlers do until at one point he fixed his attention on the guy and started to walk toward him.  As Luca approached, to everyone’s surprise he raised his hands to the startled young man whose stony face suddenly softened as he leaned over and picked up Luca. Luca wrapped his arms around the guy’s neck and gave him a big hug before settling rather contentedly on his lap.  The fellow burst into the most rapturous boyish grin and exclaimed, “This never happens to me!”

Luca sat peacefully on his lap for a few minutes before sliding off and going on with his explorations.  And the fellow, visibly moved, remained a little stunned in his chair.

I had the distinct impression the fellow was a little shaken by the event.  And I sat there thinking we had just witnessed a holy moment where God reached out and touched that kid through our one year old.

As difficult as it was watching Luca suffer through the rest of the ordeal, I couldn’t shake that moment.  For the next 24 hours I watched other parents with their suffering children and shared in the loving ache for our precious ones.  This is not a pitiless universe.  It is, in the words of Jim Croegaert’s song, “a lover’s world.”  Wars and famine and pestilence will come and go, people will forget their dignity and pursue themselves, but in the end,  love continues to rise from the ashes  and her plume astonishes and ennobles us every time.

In closing I’ll share a song I’ve not thought about for some time.  Keeping Vigil is a song I recorded on the Romantics and Mystics album.  For some reason I rarely perform it, but have been humming it relentlessly this last week.  It’s funny how songs step up to the plate exactly when they’re needed. What a gift!

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Click HERE to read lyrics for Keeping Vigil

Jim and I in Chicago August/ 09

Keeping Vigil is a song written by  Jim Croegaert. If you are familiar with my music you may know several of Jim’s other songs:  Here by the Water, Why Do We Hunger for Beauty and We Come.

Jim lives with his wife Jana-Lee in Chicago and he supports his songwriting habit  working as a hospital chaplain.

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Download (The Water Runs).

We had found this wonderfully picturesque 5 acre property that was half wooded and half brush and decided to build a home that would serve as a refuge for me and a place where Nance could pursue her strong love of gardening, sunsets and prairiescapes.  My father-in-law, Ken, is a builder and came out from BC to oversee the building part and I took on the role of researching prices, resources, hiring of carpenters etc.

Of course, as these things go, right off the top several things went wrong. Within the first month Ken had broken his leg and project was already significantly over-budget. I spent the next six months in a perpetual state of anxiety knowing I was in way over my head.

One of the most memorable days of the build was the day they came to drill the well. It was fairly early in the project but already enough unwelcome surprises had occurred that I had a sense of dread about how this would play out.  Would there even be water?  How deep would they have to drill?  – the cost of the well was directly proportionate to the depth they would have to go.

It was a hot, hot prairie day. The rig came on site and I stood nervously beside as the huge bit bored easily through the topsoil until it hit bedrock and started to grind and groan its way down 30 – 40 – 50 feet.   The deeper it went, the more anxious I became until suddenly, somewhere around 80 feet, there was a abrupt lurch and within seconds a geyser of pure, cold, crystalline water came gushing past the overheated bit and spilled gorgeously about our feet in a silvery rush.  It’s easy to remember, but difficult to describe the corresponding joy that arose in me at the same time.  And with the joy came an overwhelming sense of gratefulness to God. “So it is true,” I marveled, “that underneath this bony dust runs a river of life-sustaining water!”  Honestly, it was difficult to hold back the tears and I’ve never viewed life or troubles the same since.

The house was eventually finished and we moved in on a cold, rainy spring day with the help of several friends.

A year later, one evening as I reclined peacefully in our back screened porch, listening to the wind rush through the aspens and poplars and puffing on a pipe that was a gift from a good friend, I recalled the fears and anxieties of the previous year and this song started to percolate.

Click here to view the lyrics for “The Water Runs”

Sample/Buy online from Signpost Music:

Production Notes:

The arrangement for this song came together at a demo session at Great Big Music in Toronto with Brent Barkman  playing the Wurlitzer (electric piano), Troy Feener on drums, Fergus Marsh on bass and Hugh Marsh on those great violin pizzicatos.  We spent several days there in advance of recording the project to take advantage of the collective intuition of such great players.

We then came back to Winnipeg to record the album at Signpost Studios.  The drums and bass were recorded on 2 inch, 24 track tape and then transfered to Pro-Tools for the completion. This turned out to be the last analog (tape) session at Signpost. Hugh”s violin was recorded at Glen Soderholm’s church in Campbleville Ontario, and lastly we sent the tracks back to Toronto where Brent Barkman added the  Hammond B3 organ track, which is, I think, as great a B3 track as I’ve ever heard.

Of all the songs I’ve recorded, this production is undoubtedly in the top 5 of my favourites.

Almighty God was one of the first 3 tunes we did. We took the single verse, which is from the Anglican prayer book, and stretched it. Gord Johnson (the original songwriter) had written this wonderful “la de da” part that was almost so hook-y as to be the chorus, except there was no lyrical chorus.  So we laid down a scratch groove and guitar, then a scratch vocal.

Randall Stoll

Drummer Randall Stoll and bassist Tony Marriot came and played to that. Then Steve played acoustic guitar on top of that. I think the guitar was the Ryan acoustic most of his fans will be familiar with. Then we decided to try a 2nd acoustic. We used one of the Duncan guitars I have at the studio and Steve came up with this wonderful counterpoint guitar part that complimented the 1st one.

After the initial guitars were put down, I was convinced we needed an electric guitar hook to start the song with a bang. Steve felt strongly otherwise. He thought it should start chilled and build from there. After a bunch of discussion and phone calls (and I think we solicited Carolyn Arends opinion), we left it as is. Almost a Bruce Cockburn feel at the beginning with the 2 acoustics interweaving. After all, a big part of a producer’s job is fulfilling the artist’s vision.

Tony Marriot

So Steve sang his lead vocal to that and we sat down and listened (probably after sushi!). It sounded good but was missing something. Now the basic form of the song was verse , la de da, then repeat. After the la de da part we left about 4 bars to “do something” that we’d figure out later. I picked up an electric, I think it was the ‘63 Gretsch and played along and came up w/ the electric hook that plays after the la de da chorus part. It came right away. We both liked it so we kept it. However, there was a bit of arguing over the sound. We were open to electric guitars but didn’t want them to dominate or make Steve’s album a pop record. (If anything is too commercial Steve gets a little nervous:-) We tried various guitars on the part, and I kept trying even after he went home. I tried a Paul Reed Smith, and several versions of a Strat. We ran them thru amps (Vox AC30 and an old Fender Princeton amp). Then we tried it through the Pod XT Pro effects unit and various combo’s of the above. Finally we went back to what we had at the beginning which was a Strat thru an amp and a Pod, and we put it down for real. We were still nervous if it sounded too ‘pop’.
Then we realized that the song ended with a stop ending around 3 minutes and 4 seconds.  Problem was, we just wanted it to keep going. So I edited a chunk of the beginning and verse  (leaving out the vocals) and pasted it to the back and got rid of the last chord, so it seemed like it was a false ending and we were just warming up. That kept the groove going and we kept it, although you can hear the original ending on the radio version of the song.
I added piano, and Steve Dawson was in to do some overdubs. We got him to play guitarbanjo on it, which is a 6 string banjo tuned like a guitar.

Carolyn Arends

Carolyn Arends came and sang harmonies on it with Steve. That’s Carolyn doing the delayed part on the 3rd time they sing la de da. Then Steve’s buddy Brent Barkman in Toronto laid down some tasty organ bits and lastly we had Sal Fereras add congas, shakers and triangle. We went back and forth on this thinking it muddied up the mix, and then thinking it propelled the end better.
After much discussion (& probably more sushi) we decided to keep it because I think we were just tired of trying to make up our minds. Now I listen to it and hardly even noticed the percussion coming in at the 2nd verse.
The best part of the song to me is the soaring la de da chorus that just begs one to sing along. Not only singing to God but singing to ourselves and enjoying ourselves. What is worship without the latter?? It’s becomes only a dutiful rehearsal, and worship is so much more than that!

Here’s the song.

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Download (Almighty God).

Roy Salmond - Whitewater Productions

The last song I wrote was Everything’s Lies – almost exactly four years ago after having wasted a night watching late-night TV. After a couple hours of infomercials, sensationalist newscasts (America was marching to Iraq) and Evangelists Gone Wild I lost the ability to distinguish between the different shows and now recall the evening as a haze- drenched, postmodern collage of shameless hucksters just tryin’ to make a dishonest livin’.

So I wrote: Everything’s lies / isn’t it swell / sex in a silver cup / serve it up with the televangel / no worries here/ trust the t.v. / there’s nothing of consequence / with God on a leash.

Shortly after that night I found myself in Palestine/Israel visiting several Palestinian Christian communities and organizations in the West Bank. There I witnessed first hand the malevolent raw power of a military occupation designed to slowly squeeze the life out of an entire people. The trauma of what I witnessed, along with the shame of belonging to a people group who have largely supported this brutality, shut me down. I really haven’t known what to say since. I’ve spent countless hours reading about the Middle-East; politics and history. I’ve read tons on Islam. Specifically I have read many accounts of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and recently took a course on the same topic.

But I can’t fix it. And so one grieves. One grieves one’s own limitations. One grieves the incomprehensability of God. One grieves the particular moms and dads and children in other lands whose lives are ruptured by violence.

Last week I was reading the latest GEEZ magazine. Under the heading, The Luxury of Hope, editor Will Braun asks if our religion and spirituality are deep enough to “contemplate catastrophe.” It reminded me of when my daughter was six or seven years old. One night she couldn’t sleep because she was afraid a “bad man” might break in and hurt her. I reassured her that Jesus loved and her wouldn’t let anything bad happen. As she began to dry her tears she looked up at me and asked if, then, Jesus doesn’t love the children who do get hurt.

Shame on me.

Later (in the same, aforementioned GEEZ magazine) in a beautifully written piece called The Washing, Jessie Van Eerden recalls being interrupted while doing laundry, which she eloquently understands as redemptive work. A phone call from her father informs her that her cousin Billy has committed suicide:

It shakes me to the core, Billy’s quiet death.
There is good work to do.
There is good work to do.

Indeed.

Here is the song…

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(Download) this music.

and the lyrics…

In Billy’s Wake lyric by Steve Bell and Jessie Van Eerden

We’re not alone
laundry awash in the mid-morning sun
you can see angels dance as they try blouses on
there is good work to do

We’re not alone
casting long shadows as the day wears on
Billy had troubles, now Billy is gone
there is good work to do

kissing eyelids closed like caskets
breaking bread and filling baskets
pressing dress and swabbing soiled floors

fast remains of feast and fanion
evidence of ghost companions
greeting some and showing some the door

we’re not alone
wordlessly stung by a sliver blue moon
closed casket wake in a cold living room
there is good work to do