btw – click on photos to enlarge

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Stony Mountain Prison - I used to toboggan down that slope!

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When I was a lad, my father was the Protestant Chaplain at Stony Mountain Prison. The Catholic chaplain was a jolly Jesuit priest named Fr. Bob MacDougall, or… Dougie, as we called him.

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I took to Dougie the first time I met him. I was about twelve at the time. He drove a gold Trans-Am, was always fun and boisterously energetic, had  a love for youth and an open door for all the kids in the neighborhood. We  set up a clubhouse in his basement complete with black-light posters and a stereo. We painted the walls with our footprints and suspended fishnets from the ceiling. Dougie bought a small fridge for our space and always kept it well stocked with soft drinks and the cupboards stuffed with chips.  I taught my two buddies (Fuzzy and Beats) to play guitar and bass, and we often rehearsed our band there (with me on drums)…   Creedence, The Guess Who, and a bit of Ozzy if I remember right.

Once my parents took a holiday to the south of Texas in the middle of winter.  My sisters and I were delighted to learn Mom and Dad had arranged for us to stay the whole two weeks at Dougie’s house. The first day coming home from school to our new temporary home, we found Fr. Bob in the livingroom sternly standing next to a huge plate of donuts bellowing,  “No supper until all these are gone!!”  That was the first day! It just got nutty after that.

We became great friends. I did all of Fr. Bob’s yardwork and he kept me in guitar strings. Whenever he traveled somewhere he thought I might like, I’d be invited along. He was always encouraging me to write and play my songs and often arranged for me to sing with the worship band in the folk mass at St. Ignatius Parish (Winnipeg.)

Fr. Bob eventually moved to Toronto to work with David Mainse at 100 Huntley Street. I missed him terribly. During my later teen years I  tended to drift in and out of seasons of depression and Dougie somehow always seemed to know. The phone would ring, “come out to Toronto for a couple of days – I’ll pay for the flight.” I’d hop a plane and Bob and I would spend a few days walking the streets of Toronto, talking about life, faith, hopes and dreams. We’d hang out in greasy spoons and generally just enjoy easy company. Bob loved to laugh and tell stories. He also loved to  pray and would endlessly recite his favorite Scriptures with more pleasure than most of us do rehearsing our favorite Simpson’s episode or Monty Python skit. I always came home filled up.

Original cassette cover for "Comfort My People" with me and Fr. Bob on front | 1989

Fast forward to 1989: Fr. Bob talked me into recording my first solo project.  He even paid for the recording that was to become Comfort My People – which launched  my solo career.  When that project came out, Dougie took me with him (and friend Jack Kincaid) to the Philippines, Thailand and India where I found my sea-legs (so to speak) with regard to my solo concert work. It was on that trip, up in the Himalaya Mountains  at a remote monastery on the border of Tibet, that I first heard the song Deep Calls to Deep which has become a staple in my concerts.  And Deep Calls to Deep has since become a favorite and fortifying song to literally tens of thousands of people.

photo of Moon Over Birkenau (Auschwitz) courtesy of Carson Pue

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A few years later, Bob took me to Poland to sing for  several thousand Catholic youth in Opole.  While there, we visited Auschwitz – probably the most intense and impactful experience of my life which eventually resulted in the song Moon Over Birkenau.

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Jack and Fr. Bob in Ireland

It was in Ireland,  again with Jack and Dougie,  I remember first timidly sharing the song Burning Ember. It’s painful to remember how insecure and unsure I was of myself as a songwriter in those days. That day in Dublin they both prayed for me and encouraged me to learn to trust the gift and confidently take my place as an authentic contributor to the world as an artist.   That was an extremely significant day for me.

One of the tenderest memories of my friendship with Dougie was just shortly before he died. Late one night, with failing health at a Catholic infirmary just outside of Toronto, Bob uncharacteristically pulled out a box of memorabilia from his days as tail-gunner in the Second World War.  After many successful midnight sorties over Germany, his plane was shot down into the Baltic sea. He survived several days by hanging onto a flotation device  before being plucked from the icy deep by some Finnish fisherman who left him to hide in a shack while his legs thawed. Bob was eventually caught by the SS and spent a couple years in a POW camp during which time all his friends and family thought he was dead. The intense stories Bob told me that night and the tears we shared constitute what can only be described as a holy or sacred gift.

Dougie was no saint. I was privy to some of the less flattering aspects of his life and character as well. But among all the other stories that need to be told right now, it feels important to tell this good story about a priest and a young boy. These days I tour  the world singing songs, telling stories and plucking my guitar “for the glory of God and the good of neighbor.” And this I do, in no small measure, because a Catholic priest profoundly and appropriately cared about and invested in me during my youth and early adulthood.  I’m sure my story is not unique. The church has been marrying, burying, nurturing, and consoling souls for centuries. Her flaws do not constitute her any more than mine constitute me, and I bet yours don’t constitute you either. It’s terribly important we own up to and amend for our weaknesses. But it’s also  important we don’t allow them to define us – mostly because in isolation, they are impotent to tell the whole truth.

When Dougie died, Nanci and I were in transition moving from rural Manitoba back into Winnipeg. Because of phone numbers being changed, nobody yet knew how to get ahold of us and so we didn’t hear about Bob’s passing till after the funeral.  The sense of loss and disorientation for me was overwhelming. I felt I had been set adrift.  One  night in Calgary, after a concert during which I was  feeling particularly miserable, a man came up to me and said, “I don’t know what this means, but throughout your concert, a verse of scripture was burning in my heart and I think you are supposed to hear it and will know what it’s for.”  The verse was Jeremiah 29:11-14:  “I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will find me when you seek me with all my heart. And I will be found by you…” aa I was stunned. That was Dougie’s favourite scripture. I must have heard him recite it a thousand times.  It felt like God had mercifully slipped me a message so I’d know that Dougie still had my back, perhaps more now than ever.

The Dougie Stone

Months later, while on tour in southern Ontario, my manager Dave and I took a detour to find Bob’s gravesite. In typical Jesuit style, his grave was plain and uniform and totally not Bob.  I don’t know what I was expecting – garlands perhaps? A stone festooned with neon and and glitter? Bob was such a character – the site seemed almost blasphemously plain. He was such a believer – the site was uninspired. I couldn’t connect with him at all there.  So I set my own stone and marked his impact on my life by hijacking a Bruce Cockburn song in memory of my friend.

click song title to listen:

Closer to the Light | Bruce Cockburn

There you go
swimming deeper into mystery
here I remain
only seeing where you used to be
stared at the ceiling
’till my ears filled up with tears
barely got to know you
suddenly you’re out of here

Gone from mystery into mystery
gone from daylight into night
another step deeper into darkness
closer to the light

Walked outside
summer moon was nearly down
mist on the fields
holy stillness all around
Death’s no stranger
no stranger than the life I’ve seen
still I cry
still I beg to get you back again

CD Cover for My Dinner with Bruce / Steve Bell

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The song Closer to the Light was recorded on Steve’s CD My Dinner With Bruce. To view, listen to tracks or to 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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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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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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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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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