Who is Tom Bombadil?

"Don't you know my name yet?...Eldest, that's what I am. Mark my words, my friends: Tom was here before the river and the trees; Tom remembers the first raindrop and the first acorn. He made paths before the Big People, and saw the little People arriving. He was here before the Kings and the graves and the Barrow-wights. When the Elves passed westward, Tom was here already, before the seas were bent. He knew the dark under the stars when it was fearless..."

- The Fellowship of the Ring, "In the House of Tom Bombadil", by J.R.R. Tolkien

____________________

The Lord of the Rings is a household term nowadays the evokes solemn, earthy images of the sweeping landscapes of J.R.R. Tolkien's literary epic. Search far and wide and you will scarcely encounter someone who has not at least heard of the tale and become familiar with its raw ingredients: hobbits, elves, Gandalf, Gollum, 'taters, and a ring whose veiled and all-consuming power is matched only by the thirst of those who scour Middle Earth to find it.

In the early 2000's Peter Jackson bore the mantle of transferring Tolkien's written volume of poems, tales, and battles into a sweeping visual landscape that, in my opinion (which comes having read the books after watching the movies...ready your grains of salt), mirrors the books quite masterfully. Surprisingly, I have yet to meet anyone that has been dissatisfied with the film renditions.

Of course there are creative liberties, additions, and omissions in the movie that are not true to the book. But a movie that repeats a book verbatim would be a serious technical challenge and would not honestly make much sense. An author has an arsenal of pages with which to create the atmosphere for the story, introduce characters, display character development, and give you the time to decide if you want to accept the invitation to enter the world unfolding before you. Not so with a film production crew. An audience sitting in a theater has already responded to that invitation and they are waiting for the party to start.

And that's what brings me to the excerpt above and the character in question: Tom Bombadil. Who (or what) is Tom Bombadil? Bear in mind this is not an easy question to answer. The most straightforward answer is:

Tom Bombadil is a yellow-booted, blue-coated, red-bearded, husky fellow who sings, dances, rescues the Hobbits from a hungry tree, a barrow-wight (nasty little creatures they), and provides them with weaponry. He is only seen once in the first book of the LOTR trilogy yet is mentioned several times throughout, including a reference by Gandalf at the end of the third.

The more complex answer is:

No one really knows.

He seems to possess great power within his territory in the Old Forest just east of the Shire where the adventure begins. With his songs and rhymes he is able to rescue the Hobbits from a living willow tree and revive Merry and Pippin from paralysis. He refers to himself as "The Master" in his songs. He claims to be "Eldest," to have seen the "first raindrop and the first acorn," and to have essentially witnessed the creation of the world and its peoples. While he is knowledgeable of the world beyond his forest, he seems oddly and humorously detached from it. When asked to see the ring for which the series is named, and for which wars have been fought, friends have been turned against each other, and noble men have been driven to paranoid madness, Frodo hands it right over to him without hesitation. Tom plays with the ring like a child as he, looks through it like a monocle, puts it on his little finger (astonishingly without becoming invisible; one of its involuntary effects on the wearer), flips it into the air, and makes it vanish like a magic trick, only to hand it back to a frozen-hearted Frodo. Tom can also still see Frodo when he wears the ring, though Frodo is invisible to everyone else. He is apparently immune to the power and allure of the ring though it stirs the world around him into chaos. He never becomes involved in the unfolding events of the series. For all we know, he remains in his forest, happily gathering water lilies for his equally mysterious wife.

And he is nowhere to be found in the movie. Nary a mention of his name.

What?

Twice saving the Hobbits from danger? Providing them with the weapons they would use throughout the series? That sounds like legitimate movie content.

Nothing. Not even a summarizing flash-back sequence or deleted-scene on the DVD set.

Why not?

You can read articles about how Peter Jackson felt that Tom's character does not help to advance the greater plot at work throughout the story. Remember the constraint that is assumed for films compared to books? It was a rational decision. The story could logically still exist without Tom in it. Films are extremely expensive to produce and it isn't cost-effective to pour money into writing, rehearsing, shooting, and editing scenes that won't add layers to the plot. Audiences are still swept away by the movies without Tom.

And readers are still swept away by the books with Tom and all his mystery and unexplained nature. I believe what makes the Lord of the Ring's trilogy so captivating is that Tolkien does such a great job of conveying to the reader that Middle Earth is an immense, vast landscape that is full of knowledge and history that could be gained if one would only choose to study it further. He constructed a literary world that seems real, in a sense, because it is so diverse and richly detailed. He even created a few languages while he was at it.

To me, this setting feels much more believable because Tom is a part of it. I like the fact that he is unexplained. As Tolkien himself wrote in a letter, "...there must be some enigmas...Tom is one (intentionally)."** His enigmatic presence adds to the greater atmosphere of an already mysterious Middle Earth. Yet even Tolkien himself wasn't spared from being questioned about the character. In a separate letter, he justified Tom's existence in the book by saying, "...I kept him in, and as he was, because he represents certain things otherwise left out."** I read that to mean that there are elements that only Tom Bombadil with all his quirks, oddities, and obscure powers could bring to the story.
** Quotes from "The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, numbers 144 and 153, dated 1954. Gathered from http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/t/tombombadil.html

Don't we live lives like that? When sketching the life-trail we've followed on our maps, sometimes we look back at certain 'diversions' and wonder, "What in the world did that have to do with anything?" Fill-in-the-blank for whatever that may be in your own words. It could be a city you lived in briefly, a job you took that didn't seem to lead anywhere, a friendship that seemed to have come out of the blue, or your interest in the mysteries of quantum physics. Whatever fills your blank, it happened and you lived it. It is part of your story. What impact did it leave on you? What questions do you still have about it? Like Middle Earth, I appreciate the fact that there are things out there in this world that are majestically above my comprehension.

I remember reading an article that discussed the importance of avoiding "Tom Bombadils" in story-writing; removing elements that halted rather than progressed the progression of the plot. That's an understandable perspective from a technique standpoint. However, I think our life stories are full of Bombadils and while we shouldn't confuse them with the main plot, they each have a little something to add. After all, the Hobbits didn't stay with Tom for long. They had a mission to accomplish. Yet they begged him to travel with them but he declined and sang his way out of their story, gracefully parting as uniquely as he came, leaving them all the better for it.

If we try to edit our lives such that we forsake the Bombadils of our past and avoid them at all costs in the future, how far would we go before we realize we would be cutting out some very important material? Life is a book, not a movie. Sure there may be a few Hollywood moments, but it is largely a world where growth and development happens in elongated increments. There is room for the Bombadils. Trying to align all the details in our life with what makes 'sense' to us might steer us clear of some important relationships and life-altering experiences.

When we look at the map of our life and see those head-scratching Bombadils scattered throughout our past and even in the present, see what they have to offer. Some things are meant to be mysteries. We don't get the answer to every question we ask in this life. That doesn't mean we shouldn't try at all to find the answers. But if it turns out that all we can do in the end is wonder and be amazed at how high, deep, and wide things are in life, don't be disappointed.

____________________

Old Tom Bombadil is a merry fellow,

Bright blue his jacket is, and his boots are yellow.

None has ever caught him yet, for Tom, he is the master:

His songs are stronger songs, and his feet are faster

- The Fellowship of the Ring, "Fog on the Barrow Downs" by J.R.R. Tolkien

Wake up!

Wake up! Today could be the best day yet!

See the light peeking through your shades? Arise! Let fly those nylon barriers and let the bed-room of your soul experience the pain and the joy of the birth of today.

No more the soft comforts of pillows!

No more the idle warmth of those womb-like blankets!

Let sleep give what it can deliver yet not rob what it could take.

"Come!" beckons creation around you. "Come forth and seize life. Gently flee from sleep and fiercely smuggle the dreams of night into the living day."

The sun will invite but will not command
For preserving free will, God does demand
The invited in question may surely respond
With a ready embrace or a shrug and a yawn
For the greatest of days, the embracer may find
Or the greatest of days, may the sleeper decline
So come, seize life, before it is past!
Awake! Rise now, while the invite still lasts!

Bob Ross - Trust, bravery, life

It was Friday afternoon. I rode the school bus home, feeling the weight of a hectic week tugging at my eyelids and while the joy of the weekend glowed in my chest. When I got off at my street, I moved wearily towards my house in the distance, hunched under the yolk of my backpack, feet dragging against the gravel. Reaching the house, I lumbered through the front door, shuffled off my bag, and collapsed on the couch with a remote in my hands while the television buzzed to life. It was a hard week full of homework, projects, after-school activities, and the like. But it was no matter; I was in my sanctuary, it was Friday, and Bob Ross was on TV painting a serene river that would carry the weight of the world away. 

Bob Ross might not need any introduction. His series "The Joy of Painting", signature afro, and calming voice are defining characteristics of the '80s and '90s. From what I've read, Bob used to be in the Air Force and it was there that he developed a painting technique that allowed him to quickly finish highly-detailed paintings on work-breaks. Watch any episode and you will be amazed at how suddenly the canvas comes to life, like Polaroid photo developing into focus. 

I do not paint. I do not draw. I have tried. After comparing my recent artwork to those I produced in first grade and finding nary a difference, I have surmised that such skills come naturally to some and not to others. 

In Middle School, I did not watch the show to be inspired by Bob's artistic mastery. Honestly, I just found the soothing combination of his voice, gentle demeanor, and the hush of paintbrushes on canvas to have the same effect as getting a back-massage. You may experience the same effect in the video above. 

About a week ago, I rediscovered Bob Ross. I was on YouTube and discovered that Bob's company now posts entire episodes online. I was having trouble sleeping that night so I decided to try listening to an episode with headphones in an attempt to doze off. It didn't quite work but nonetheless I am glad to have made the rediscovery because I began to notice something:

Watching a painter at work is an exercise in trust. So is being alive. 

With a small array of colors, brushes, and a knife, Bob will approach a prepared canvas and begin creating very simple shapes; a line, a blot of color, an arc. He'll work around or within that shape by tapping, pressing, or swirling the brush in a technique that blends color and creates texture. Within minutes, that simple shape has developed into a tree with aged bark, a wreath of shrubbery, or the curved bank of a river. As an example, watch the transformation of the tree from 5:34 to 9:17 in the video above. 

The process will continue as more life is added to the canvas in a collection of simplicity that grows into complex detail. Just when the painting seems to be reaching the apex of its beauty, something tragic happens: a smear of mismatched color is streaked down the middle or an unsightly shape invades the portrait, obscuring the details in the background. Just begin watching the video above at 11:25 and just see if you can keep yourself from clenching your fists and shouting, "STOP! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" as Bob calmly smears not one, not two, but four massive, thick, vertical black lines straight through the middle of a gorgeous forest scene and encourages us to "be brave" while we helplessly watch the destruction. 

But don't stop there. Keep watching. By 14:57 those gargantuan obstructions begin to make sense. By 21:00, as Bob adds the final touches, the shapes have morphed into a tree grove in the foreground, framing the background detail, adding depth to the painting, and inviting the viewer to step into the canvas and explore. By the end, the painting "needs" the tree grove; without it, something very precious would be missing. Should the canvas not have endured the momentary disruption, it's beauty would have been incomplete. 

As the viewer, I have to trust that Bob knows what he's going to do with the simple shapes and questionable additions he'll add as the work goes on. Something will come of it, to be sure, but the process of getting to that point can be a nerve-wracking experience as an audience member. "Be brave."

Being alive is no different. Life is a canvas on which God paints beauty in all of its colors: light, dark, and in-between. Things that start of simply explode into meaningful depth: hobbies become life-long passions, jobs become careers, acquaintances become enduring companionships. All are details that make the most sense in perspective of the whole portrait. When isolated, they might not make much sense.

What about the unformed tree groves in life? What about the big, thick, vertical lines of things that clash down like prison bars, smearing over the beauty, comfort, and sensible details of our lives? Why does life feel passion-less? Why did the business fail? Why was the friendship severed? Whatever your questions are, there are no easy answers. They might remain dark, shapeless, and colorless for days, weeks, months, years. There is no shame in feeling the pain or the sorrow that comes. But the painting is not done yet. 

Don't give up. 

Keep watching.

"Be brave."

Afraid in the dark

The trail danced through shrubs and tree groves in a path that seemed to be modeled after the flight pattern of a butterfly. Broad palettes of colorful flowers were spread over the terrain while cloud shadows slowly marched over the terrain like lofty guardians patrolling their territory. I produced my map and began jotting the trail curves as I went, lest I forget the playful turns I had been rounding. 

After a half-mile, the soft grass and vibrant flowers faded to a rocky and muddy terrain, as if the grand paintbrush that enlivened the land had streaked out of color at the end of a long stroke. The trail gave a few more mischievous twists around some boulders before becoming soberly straight as it brought me down into a small valley. Clouds were gathering in the sky as though they found something of interest down below and had called to some friends to bear witness. Though it was midday, the daylight dimmed as I entered a canopy of leaves and branches. Seizing the light that remained, I looked down to sketch the latest developments in the trail on the map; the scratching of my pencil and the windblown leaves whispering to each other as I worked. 

Taking a glance over the top of the paper, I froze as my gaze followed the trail for a few more paces before colliding with a wall of rock interrupted by a round void of darkness: A cave swallowed the trail and its mouth waited in hunger for me. I looked back at the map and saw former portions of my path that were drawn straight for a length and then suddenly diverted, sometimes for miles, in wide arcs to avoid passing through previous caves and features of this kind. 

However, something was different this time. I wanted to follow this trail. I wanted to draw a straight line on my map. 

I pocketed the map and approached the cave. The wind, whispering moments before, was amplified into a low, damp breath as it heaved out of the mouth. I stooped to peer into the cavern and saw a pinprick of daylight at the end; a solitary star in a void of space. The invisible fist gripping my chest loosed a little and I took one last look about me; around me all was cold and gray, before me was darkness, ahead of me was life. I took a breath, entered the cave, and pursued it. 

____________________

I slept with the hall-light on until I was in middle school. My door and one eye were always wide-open while the 3,000 candle-power hallway light cast its all-protecting lumens in a circle bright enough to give a mole cataracts. I don't know what age I was when this stopped but I was old enough to feel self-conscious about it and question if I was breaking some unspoken rule regarding age-mandated sleeping environments. 

I received a response to this question by a classmate in computer class. We sitting side by side on old computers that were cutting edge at the time and are probably now used only by non-conformist grandparents who need email and IT personnel who need an over-sized doorstop. The program we were using was a "get-better-at-typing" game that displayed a computer keyboard and a pair of beautiful translucent hands that were purple and poised perfectly over the keys like the fingers of a master pianist. My hands were not purple and resembled chickens sifting through the keyboard for grain, pecking each key sporadically with gangly index-finger necks that protruded from my fists.

Amid the uncoordinated tic-tac sound of 7th graders learning how to type for the first time, I contemplated my plight. Half of me was tethered to the nightlight with cords of fear while the other half was being pulled into darkness by chains of shame. I wanted neither. Despite the years of protection I had received under the nightlight, I began to resent it and the need I felt for it. I also resented the notion of sleeping in the dark. Whose idea was it anyway to create a culture of fairy tales, nursery rhymes, and movie trailers on daytime television that are rife with images of horrors that lurk in the dark, feed them into the sponge-like minds of society's children, and then shame them for finding it difficult to sleep comfortably in the shapeless void where terror and madness lie in wait around every unseen corner? I felt as though I was expected to justify myself before a jury for breathing oxygen. My nightlight was not only rational, it was a basic living essential. If I had the proper legal authority at the time, I would have written an 11th Amendment declaring it illegal for anyone to question, criticize, or cock their eyebrows at one's use of a nightlight.

Surely I was not the only level-headed thinker around. I decided to take this question to the authorities; to have them examine the illogical case being brought against me and boldly declare before the watching world that I was firmly in the right and should be spared any judgment or critique under penalty of being poked in the ribs.

I conveniently had access to such an authority in the 12-year old classmate next to me who was picking his ear with the pinky finger of one hand while limply swatting his keyboard with the other.

This was my big chance. I was ready. I was going to accomplish two things in the ensuing conversation:

• First thing: Shuffle off the burden of hiding my nightlight dependency, thus kicking that nagging shame in the mouth. 
• Second thing: Receive validation from a trusted source regarding how difficult it is to overcome said dependency...and maybe even permission to stop trying to overcome it because nobody else was bothering to try either. 

My mission was clear and my arguments were sound. I chuckled to myself as I imagined how I would strut out of the classroom with victory under my belt. Maybe I would purse my lips to one side, throwing my shoulders with each exaggerated step, winking and pointing at the cool kids with both index fingers.

I assessed the tools I had available to me with which I would build the discussion. The conversational orbit between pre-teen boys is a selectively small one and tends to gravitate around the following:

• Video games
• Pokémon
• Video games about Pokémon
• Things pre-teen boys think are stupid

This last category is by far the most frequented subject of choice among conversing youngsters. It's content is updated almost by the minute, ensuring that all participants can contribute something to the discussion. Entire friendships have been forged and broken on its grounds. Aware of this risk, I threw caution to the stuffy classroom wind and offered a cordial invitation to discourse:

"Dude, you know what's stupid?"

His response dripped with the enthusiasm of an eager participant:

"Uh?"

Without trying, I was able to conjure up a list of items to discuss and I was sure my classmate would agree. I would build his approval from the ground up, starting with the small things like lockers and algebra while masterfully building a rapport that could handle the nightlight issue. I could do it. I would do it. The time was now:

Me:        "Whaddya think about those lockers?"
Dude:     "Man, I can never open mine! Like, do I turn the dial left, right, left, left? Or left, right left,                   right?"
Me:        "Seriously! And what about algebra? Like, whose idea was it to mix-up numbers and the
                alphabet like that?"
Dude:     "I know right?! If you ask me, I think whoever thought of that should sit on a porcupine!"
Me:        "Yeah! And you know what else is a pain in the butt? Still not bein' able to sleep with the
                light off at 12 years old!"
Dude:     "I hear you brother! With a blanky and teddy bear to boot!"
Me:        "You know it!"
Both:     <Fist bumps while making exploding sounds with our mouths>

This is the script that was playing on repeat in my head while we were talking. It came to a startling halt like a needle being jerked off of a spinning record right about the time when I realized my classmate and I weren't on the same page about how confusing algebra was at its core:

Dude:     "Algebra's not hard at all man. I think pretty easy."
Me:         <frozen mid-sentence with index finger in the air as though once making a great point>
Dude:     "You don't?

Something was wrong. That wasn't on the script. In my brain, there were red lights flashing and sirens wailing while little versions of me scrambled around looking for a response, rifling through filing cabinets, and frantically flipping through databases to find a response that would get us back on track.

Me:        "So uh...I've always slept...with the hallway light on and...I um...still haven't gotten used to
                sleeping with it off"
Dude:     <staring blankly back at me>
Me:        "Um..." <cough> "Stinks, right?"
Dude:     ...
Me:        "...know what I'm talkin' 'bout?"

He kept staring at me while the purple hands on his computer screen were frozen in sharp contortions, as though they too had heard my secret and were in shock. After what felt like three-and-a-half days of silence, the corners of his lips began to curl and his eyes narrowed at their edges. I saw the tips of his teeth emerge in a cursive smile. He seemed to be assessing my situation as a lion casually considers the parts of a trapped gazelle he should like to nibble on first. All at the same time, the classroom slowly became a courtroom; either side of me surrounded by a jury of fellow students who tic-tac'd away on court-logs that were recording every detail of my depraved lack of coolness. His eyes flashed and I knew that he, as the judge, had come to his conclusion and was ready to pronounce his judgment. The lion was ready to pounce. The guillotine was about to drop. My pupils shrunk to pin-pricks; I could see nothing and was left only with ears that would not cease to hear both my pounding heart and the sentence heaved at me with a mocking, "poor baby" tone of voice:

"Aw poor Andy, can't sleep without a nightlight?"

The courtroom disappeared. The judge and jury disappeared. The purple hands disappeared. Everything evaporated in an instant and I was in a black, formless vacuum. It was as though I had been preserved during a split-second rupture in the space-time continuum that sucked away the earth, the stars, the universe itself, and left me in its wake.

There is no air in space but apparently there is sound. Every inch of the expanse around me echoed with "can't sleep without a nightlight" in haunting, mock voices that were speaking, singing, chanting, whispering, and wailing like a crazed choir of inmates. The sinister song reverberated over and over like an eternal record on loop.

Back in reality, my classmates had filed out of the room and it was time to go to lunch. I drifted out behind them like a wide-eyed toad on a lily pad being dragged about by a lazy current, carelessly bumping into things without flinching. The existential void of never-ending woe has a way of making you impervious to outside stimuli.

The darkness and the voices eventually faded away but I probably spent the rest of the day in a distant fog with a drooping jaw and a billion-mile gaze: cemented in the cafeteria, oblivious to the chaos-jungle of middle school behind me; glued to the bus seat like a dashboard bobble-head; frozen at the dinner table while my family gently placed french fries and chicken nuggets in my mouth, smearing in mashed potatoes as an adhesive if they fell out.

This isn't exactly the picture I want to leave you with. You might say that this day was not my day. I wasn't exactly on my A-game so-to-speak. Good grief, out of the vast encyclopedia of awesomeness I've been the cause of <cough> why in the world would I share this excerpt with you? The truth is, things changed that day. They didn't end then but they changed. That's what this is all about. Sometimes I think God withholds the eraser on "bad" days in our life chapters because they change us. Remember how my fear of the dark dictated so much of my sleeping and waking life? Remember how desperately I sought my classmate's validation? That pillar of anxiety lost a chip in its foundation that day. It took a while for the next chip to fall but it fell more easily than the first. Each one after that came more easily and more quickly than those before. As the years went by it shrunk, crumbled, and lost its power. The debris left-over from its destruction still clutters my life at times but its slowly being blown away in the breeze.

That night, I climbed the stairs while the hall-light watched. It's electric glow and hum always seemed so warm, inviting, trustworthy. This time it buzzed and turned angry shades in a way I never noticed before, like a jilted bully whose target has become deaf to their taunts. I reached the top of the stairs and stared back. I smiled, dragged the dimmer switch to reduce the raging light to a dull glow, and got ready for bed.  

Meeting needs with gladness: "Albertine" by Brooke Fraser

Please note the you'll need to be logged into Spotify to listen to the song through the player above. If you don't have an account (there is a free version), you can sign up for one by clicking here. If the player above is not working, you can find the song by clicking here.

Listening to Brooke Fraser's music is like listening to a masterfully written book. The author knows how to engage the senses of the audience that they may see, taste, and feel what is being described. Just about every song I've ever heard by Brooke is flowing with imagery, symbolism, and hidden meaning that might not reveal itself until the 20th time that I've listened to the song. 

Listening to Brooke's music is a journey because you will never hear the same thing twice. Just check out her first album, What to do with Daylight. Listening to that album is like hearing the same singer on a set of different songs while you flip through the radio. The album is impossible to categorize because it transitions from pop to reggae to RnB seamlessly. 

There are many details about Brooke's songwriting that stand out. For me, those qualities are the instrumental production (how the instruments and voices play their parts and are recorded) and the lyrics. 

Let's start with the instruments: If you have ever aspired to play an instrument, sing, write songs, or become a music producer, you will find a worthy challenge and inspiration in this music. There are so many musical 'moments' throughout these songs that make seasoned musicians go "mmm" and wrinkle their face as though savoring a sophisticated hors d'oeuvre at a party where people wear monocles and handle-bar mustaches. Yet this musical intelligence is accessible; no degrees, special vocabulary, or monocles required (though a handle-bar mustache is helpful in every context). I may listen to a song and conclude only that I "like the guitar part," while a group of fancy-pants music students might describe their love for the "harmonic and stylistic interpretation by the guitarist," but we're both describing the same thing. Their is something for everybody here. 

Lyrically, there is some serious stuff being written here and it is best to come prepared. You will not be given a gift-wrapped box labeled "contents: the meaning of this song." Rather, you will be shown the musical equivalent of a complex "Eye Spy" picture book (remember those?) that initially seems to be an artistic collage and nothing more. Yet with further study and examination, certain patterns or anomalies begin to stand out that direct your attention to other details you previously overlooked and soon the beautiful collage becomes only the framework for a deeper story and meaning. You may find that certain lyrics will get stuck with you for days, turning them over and over in your head, coming up with a list of possible interpretations. I love this kind of stuff. After all, that's what this blog is all about. 

Now, what about the song posted on this page? Albertine. This song contains all of the elements described above: rich instrumentation, production, and lyrics. Yet as sweeping and beautiful as this artist's music is, this particular song makes me a little uncomfortable. The deep, rhythmic guitar and percussion play like the soundtrack to a solemn ritual, commanding your attention. Listen to the song a few times and you will start to get a sense of it's context:

On a thousandth hill, I think of Albertine

There in her eyes what I don't see with my own

Rwanda

Now that I have seen, I am responsible

Faith without deeds is dead

My goodness. Regardless of how familiar you may be with the genocide, you may be wondering (like me), "What did you see? What are you responsible for?" If you look up any interviews with Brooke about this very song, you may hear her describe how Albertine is a real person that she met when she travelled to Rwanda. The story is true. 

The thing about this song that makes me uncomfortable are the phrases "Now that I have seen, I am responsible" and "faith without deeds is dead." These aren't thoughts that I like to dwell on. But look at it this way: Brooke is writing about a real person. We are not told much about her in the song itself but, given the context, it is likely that her world has been terrorized by forces beyond her control. Being in the presence of such oppression naturally evokes a response from the viewer. I believe this song is part of Brooke's response. She wanted to do something, maybe the best thing she could do was to write a song about it and share it with others:

...I am on a stage, a thousand eyes on me

I will tell them, Albertine. 

I will tell them, Albertine.

Brooke did not set out to right the wrongs of an entire nation. She did something practical. She chose not to be numb to the pain of another and then she told someone about it: us. And she told it in the best way she knows how: through music. Like we talked about last week with Eric Bibb, sometimes it's the small things that pave the way for a major impact. What happens when millions of people (or "a thousand eyes") hears this story and it spreads like a fire following a trail of parched vines? Do you think it will be easier for someone to see the struggles and pain in the lives of their neighbors? Do you think it will be easier for that someone to recognize how their gifts, talents, and personality fit like a puzzle piece into the void of that neighbor's need? Do you think it will be easier for that someone to do something about it? I do. 

I think we are far more equipped to change the world than we think we are. We've all been loved by somebody, we all know how to love somebody, and we're all gifted at something through which to express that love. It will make the difference. 

"The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet" - Frederick Buechner

What is your deep gladness? 

Rite of Passage

Two figures strode together

A small child and a man

With thoughtful, steady steps

They journeyed hand in hand

The landscape embraced the two

And the shadows that stretched ahead

Their silhouettes converging

Upon the path where they were led

They trod through fanciful woods

Wafting music, colors of every shade

Yet with every stride they took

All of these began to fade

They gazed on their surroundings

And talked in hushed tones

With sudden springs of laughter 

Interspersed within their prose

I was carried along behind them 

By a wind of gentle kind 

That veiled me to observe

The travelers speak their mind

"We're almost there", one voice said

"I can feel it in the wind!"

"Where are we going?", replied the other

"Where does this pathway end?"

The first sang, "You'll see for yourself!"

"You'll find out soon enough!" 

After the echo of these chuckled words

Came a deep and reverent hush

The travelers turned 'round a bend

And stood a moment still

They stared, pointed, shared a glance

And approached a rising hill

At its base the child turned

And raised his hands up to the man

Who seated the boy upon his shoulders

And the upward climb began

Their steps fell heavy upon the slope

A grassy distance to the peak

And halfway to the top

One of them began to speak

One voice said, "I've always loved it here!"

"Yet why does it now fade?

For this is a different kind of night

Than what usually precedes the day"

To this there was no reply

And they climbed on in quiet thought

The boy squeezed round the man's neck

Then both turned their heads aloft

Diamond stars glinted above

And grew steadily in their size

Within them shone colored things

That at last were clarified

The sky danced with these colored vessels

That shone with people and places

Living picture frames that gathered in number

Until they filled the heavenly spaces

The travelers pointed and laughed

And I joined in joyful revery

For every star that shone in the sky

Was, to me, a distant memory

Some of the faces smiled and cried

While I did just the same

For I felt all that which was forgotten

For what remembrance could not tame

The celestial dance continued

As we again turned to the road

For where our path ended

Stood a mystery to behold

A door fixed in place

With no wall to lead through

Nothing behind could be observed 

Save an expanse of darkened hue

The moving lights glittered

In cascades across the door

The man lifted the boy 

And on his feet he stood once more

The voices, breathless, now began

To speak in softer ways

The man kneeling by the boy

The door, the master of their gaze

"Do you know now where we are?

Where the wind has brought us to?

This is where the journey continues

There is so much ahead for you!"

The second voice halted

And struggled with it's speech,

"I am afraid I do not know

What am I here to meet?"

Then came the reply, "You are afraid

But you now well know,

The only one who can go through this door

Is you and you alone!"

"You must not stay

For you are only passing through

But the memories that dance above

You can take from here with you"

With this the stars began to shrink

And streak away from their place

With long-tailed flight through the door

The frame with their light enlaced

"You are not unprepared

For the road that lies beyond

For the wind that I have followed

Will tell you what path to tread upon"

"I have so often dreamed of what you will be

Beyond these borders here

And now that is for you to know

But not for you to fear"

The second voice gave reply,

"Now I understand 

That this door is for me

To pass through without you in hand"

"But one more thing before I do

Embrace me before we part

For of all the memories I take with me

You will stay forever in my heart"

The first voice spoke again

In a way curious to the listener

For with every passing word

It slowly softened to a whisper

"In a moment you will see me no more

But this, of course I will do

For no matter how distant time parts us,

I will always love you"

Then the boy reached with eager hands

As the man picked him up again

They twirled 'round in the embrace

Known only by the greatest of friends

The air chorused with laughter

A pure and child-like sound

Then the twirling figure slowly stilled

And the man stood alone upon the ground

The light swelled around the door

The gentle wind grew fierce

The stoic door swung open

And all darkness around was pierced

The light spilled forth

And shone upon the man in his place

As he looked up and turned towards the door

Upon him I saw my face

With every step he took

I felt myself do the same

Until I passed from the top of the hill

Through the shimmering door frame

_____

I woke to the sound of the wind in the leaves

As they played upon the hill

And I heard the sound of the child's laughter

Indeed, I hear him still

"New Home" by Eric Bibb

Please note the you'll need to be logged into Spotify to listen to the song through the player above. If you don't have an account (there is a free version), you can sign up for one by clicking here. If the player above is not working, you can find the song by clicking here.

Let me tell you how Eric Bibb stomped and clapped his way into my life. It was August of 2014 and I was driving around the twists and turns of Huntington Avenue in the Mission Hill neighborhood of Boston. The crush of cramped apartment buildings, summer afternoon traffic, and the above-ground portion of the subway that shares the street with the cars was bumper-to-bumper and shoulder-to-shoulder. I was picking up my wife from work and had arrived a little early so I pulled into what was probably the only parking spot available in the city at the time. It must have been previously occupied  by a clown car as it was two-feet wide by three-feet long. By some dimensional miracle, I was able to fit our blue Honda within its constraints.

I was flipping through the radio and landed on a college radio station. I've always appreciated the variety of non-mainstream music that those stations tend to play. In a way, college radio is the father of Pandora. As I sat in the car, boiling in the summer sun on a crowded city street, I was suddenly pulled into the speakers by a friendly yet commanding voice that heaved and growled with the huskiness of a trail boss singing to his cattle on the trail in the 19th-century western frontier. With a guitar that played like a rodeo with an attitude, Eric Bibb had wrangled me far away from the city and into his soundscape.

I find this song captivating for a couple of reasons. The first is that it makes me feel content. There's a certain excitement about it that makes me want to join in with his infectious invitation to "come on, clap ya hands"right around the 1:50 mark. I heard a quote once that went along the lines of, "People will forget what you did but they will never forget how you made them feel." I think the same is true of music. What does this song make you feel? It's probably a feeling you've felt before although in a different context. Our emotions are important to our life experience and music is a powerful vessel with which to contain and convey them.

But this song is deeper than emotions. There's something else I find captivating about this song that I believe ties in perfectly with Eric's declaration that he is "building a new home." This song is a bit of an anomaly in that it is built on the foundation of a familiar musical principle but with a subtle yet important difference.

There are many technical nuts and bolts to music that are often neatly hidden underneath the seemingly spontaneous creativity of the craft. Just like a painting, the canvas often starts out with sketched lines and shapes that get erased, redrawn, analyzed, only then to be covered with layers of life-giving paint. As the audience, we like to deal mostly with the finished product because its beautiful, pleasing, and complete. The prototypes, rough drafts, and sketch-ups don't usually get put on display. However, a great product is usually preceded by great preparation. And in the case of this song, I think Eric Bibb prepared marvelously.

This song has the form of a "12-bar blues." A song's form is a road-map that describes the order in which you will hear the different parts of a song. In a 12-bar blues, you will typically hear a section of music that lasts for 12 segments of time, then repeats. Within this form, there are certain chords that are usually played in the same place for almost every 12-bar blues you've ever heard (it's a very common form of blues music). Those chords are represented as "I", "IV", and "V" in written form. Chords are like the scenery you see while driving along a road that prompts you to say things like, "What a nice neighborhood"; they provide context for the rest of the music (the road in the case of this analogy) that allows the listener to emotionally interpret the musical content. Usually, the "V" chord is very pivotal in the 12-bar blues.

And this is exactly where Eric Bibb comes in and messes it all up...in the best way possible. Instead of the usual chord pattern, Mr. Bibb plays the following (chords are written above the lyrics to display where they occur; note that there are 12 chords, one for each bar of the 12-bar blues):

I                                         I                                     I                                         I                              
I'm building a new home, 'cross the county line.
IV                                      IV                                  I                                          I        
I'm building a new home, 'cross the county line.
vi                           IV                                              I                                          I
Up on a high hill, where the view's so fine.

Right there, during "up on a high hill" is where the magic happens. Normally, at this point in the 12-bar blues, the chord that is commonly played is "V." However, Eric breaks with convention and plays a "vi" chord instead. I don't know why he did it. Maybe its because it fit better with the melody he was singing or maybe he just plain wanted to. In either case, this little moment changes the song for me. This would have been a fine song without this change, but it wouldn't have been this song.

One small change made all the difference. That's what it means to build a "new home." It's almost an oxymoron: A home is something that is familiar; something new is unfamiliar. When you take something that is "same-old, same-old" and tweak it ever-so-slightly, you might end up with something fresh.

I think there's an important life lesson here for all of us. Some of us may have the rare opportunity to make a big splash in life by performing some grand heroic gesture or taking an absurd leap of faith. But all of us will have the opportunity to change one small thing that will lead to a lasting change. I'm confident that we have those opportunities daily and that they are so abundant that they can be easy to miss.

I take the subway to and from work. All together, that's about an hour each day when I risk falling asleep on the shoulder of the commuter next to me, drooling all over their suit. Recently, I was inspired to do some reading with that time. I'm typically a slow reader. Starting a book is like laying the foundation for a house; it's gonna be a good while before it's done. I decided to bring a book with me on the train and see what would happen. Last month, I read through three books almost exclusively during my commuting time. I felt inspired and productive with that time. I was energized for what would come next in my day. As a result of what I had been reading (a few Donald Miller books), I started this blog. Most of what you read on this blog started out as scratchings in a notebook written on morning and afternoon trips through Boston in the subway. I'm not moving mountains, I'm just changing one small aspect of my life: instead of sleeping on the train, do something else. And it has made all the difference.

I once worked at a facility for troubled youth. The professionals there abided by a central philosophy to their work: These are normal youth responding to an abnormal amount of trauma. That's a game-changer. That changes how those youth are viewed, treated, and engaged with on a day-to-day basis.

How many other "perspective shifts" are pending in our lives? How many small details are just begging to be tweaked so that we can see and do things differently? They're out there. Go and find them. Build a new home.

If a big change in the world is due, the world needs a little change in you.

What small change have you made recently?

Get rich off of the people who love you

Note: My brother Nathan Larson recommended that I write about the following story. Thanks Nate! Therefore, I'm including this in the "Fellow Travelers" category as an example of what that section is for. If you want to submit an idea or content of your own, click here!

I rounded a large boulder with heavy steps that propelled small clouds of dust from under my feet. I came to a small stream, water curling gently over the stones that paved its course. Kneeling for a drink and a brisk face-rinse, I caught my reflection in the rippling surface. Matted hair, sweat and water carving trails through a thin layer of dirt on my chin. Rising slowly to stand, I pulled out the map and jotted a few details of the surrounding terrain and the serpentine stream that coiled its way through the landscape. Pausing to give the map a final, satisfied glance, I spied more twisting, incomplete lines in a lower corner of the page: More rivers. Maybe, even, the same one. Smiling at the thought, I folded the map, brushed the dust from my arms, and carefully crossed the stream using the protruding rocks and logs as a bridge. A large incline rose from the earth ahead, a steep hill of boulders and trees that wore hanging moss like old women draped with elegant shawls. The trail carved a switchback formation that wound its way to the top in ever-tightening coils like a wound spring. Half-way to the top, a sing-song melody naturally whistled its way through my lips; a tune that came from the dusty yet cherished archives of memory. Rounding each switchback, the tune reverberated off of the hills and boulders in the distance. Nearing the top, the music seemed to ring with a boldness that was perhaps an amplified echo of nature. I suddenly became aware that the 'echo' was another whistler, harmonizing with me from somewhere nearby. The song seemed to be drifting down from the top of the hill. The tune was being finished with all of its familiar melodic twists and decorations as I began jogging, then bounding up the last length of the incline. Climbing over the protruding ridge of roots and rocks, my accompanist was finally in full view as the concluding notes were carried away on the breeze. I stood silent at an apparent crossing of two trails where a figure stood in the middle. As we faced one another, a smile crept across both of our grimy faces like the morning sun breaking the night horizon. The hills that once echoed with an old tune now rang with the renewed laughter of two companions, reunited at last. 

____________________

I have a brother named Nathan. He is five years older than me and I have always marveled when some people, after telling them as much, would exclaim, "Wow, so he's a lot older than you!" I never considered the distance one that was very wide or out of my reach. I don't know how he did it but no matter how hard I tried and how fast I grew, he has, and still does, maintain his status as being five years my senior. This had its benefits. Let me explain. 

Growing up in the same house with the same set of parents gave us shared experiences that were interpreted differently between us. Take chores for example: On summer afternoons, Nathan would tramp over to the shed, clamber over rusted, pointed metal things, and start up a cantankerous red tractor that lived in our shed next to a behemoth green lawn mower. My father would handle the mower while Nathan would follow behind with the tractor, tugging a wooden trailer, and collect the grass clippings for disposal in the woods. The tractor had a humble size but an arrogant attitude. It could buck, cough, and toss like a bull at a rodeo. This was a problem. A rider that could be thrown in the presence of a roaring mower that only allowed everyone in the neighborhood to remain living on the condition that its blood-thirst was abated weekly with a feeding of grass and overgrowth was also a problem. As far as a I know, Nathan and Dad never needed to see a prosthetist. Miracles do happen.

So those were Nathan's duties and mine was to make my bed.

My respect of lawnmowers was a lesson that I conveniently learned from a distance. In retrospect, watching my brother was like watching someone maneuver through an obstacle course while waiting for my turn to jump through those same hoops. As I observed his maneuvers through the obstacles that would come my way in five years, I made subconscious notes that informed how I would handle those same challenges. Some of my notes included:

• When old enough to use a lawnmower, don't.
• When given the opportunity to spend money on car maintenance, new shoes, or anything in general, don't. 
• When given the opportunity to sleep, do.

The amnesty granted to me by my birth-order ranking by which I was to be an audience member, rather than the subject, to various life lessons and and experiments was not always enforced. I'm sure Nathan was aware of this, but there are those times where nothing but cold, factual, bruise-inducing personal experience will prepare you for. You see, being the older sibling has its benefits too yet also a terrible responsibility. The benefit is that the elder can, at times, pause from his leaps through the obstacle course, turn, and watch the oft-amusing performance of the younger fumbling his way through certain maneuvers that the elder has long since overcome. The responsibility, however, is akin to that of a hall monitor who must occasionally attest to the fact that you were present in class when life was to teach a particular lesson and not off in some corner inspecting the inner workings of your nose with your finger.

Such a lesson came on a summer afternoon in the mid 1990s.

Mind you, I have no recollection of the ensuing. Just as I had taken meticulous notes as I watched Nathan swing through life's grand obstacle course, he apparently took full advantage of his elder-child benefit as he turned and watched my performance. The following is an except from his notes which, I imagine, are scribed in the pages of his memory with hi-lighted segments, minutely detailed bullet points, and statements like "See Figure 1.A," with arrows directing the reader to a sketched drawing of the detail in reference.

There was an old exercise trampoline at our house for quite some time. It was personal-sized and quite small. I believe it came to us from a pile of used items at the town transfer station where things like appliances and furniture were both orphaned and adopted, often within the same day. Such was the case with this small, blue trampoline when it arrived to us. There were no overt signs of wear, save for a slight pinking of the blue foam-padded vinyl skirt that ran around its circumference and some rusting on the stout, metal legs.

I had always wanted a trampoline as a child. The first time I jumped on one that was full-size, tumbling through the air, flipping and twirling, I was taken. Visiting a friend's house for the first time could be quite a gamble if they had a trampoline. If I spied, through a kitchen window overlooking the backyard, a corner of that vast, black, polypropylene launch-pad, beckoning me to explore the heavens, the world stopped. My mouth would freeze mid-sentence, whatever my hands were holding dropped (be it a backpack, priceless vase, or puppy), and my feet carried me directly towards the trampoline (I often had to be pushed sideways towards an open door for my feet would not stop walking even if a wall barred my path). Soon I would be lost in rapturous laughter as I took flight, my friend watching from a safe distance. Bounding higher and higher with every leap brought new levels of joy that I did not know were possible. I saw a world of possibility and exploration opening up around me. Being alive was art and I would not, could not put the paintbrush down.

Our trampoline was not like that. Jumping straight up-and-down on it was like trying to achieve lift from new pavement. Needless to say it was rarely used. However, Nathan and I found that if you took a running start and flying leap to it, you could gain a few inches of air. We incorporated this discovery into our past-time of playing catch. There is a sloping hill in the front yard of my parent's house that has two distinct inclines with a slight plateau in between. The hill was nicknamed "Mount Larson" by my cousins and other kids from the neighborhood who carved criss-crossing sled trails in its snow-blanketed surface in the winter. This particular summer afternoon, Nathan and I were taking turns being thrower and catcher. The thrower stood at the bottom of the hill and heaved the football up-hill towards the catcher at the top who would dash toward the trampoline, bounce off of it, and catch the ball in mid-air. Requiring accuracy of aim for the thrower and timing for both, it was a fun game and adequately challenging.

It was my turn to be the catcher. I readied myself at the top of the hill in the kind of hunched, forward slant that runners position themselves into when awaiting the starting bell of an Olympic sprint. I had strategically aligned Nathan and the trampoline in my sight. The trampoline was a black-and-blue badge against the sloping green grass and Nathan, a small blur of color in the distance, was poised at the ready with the football. I licked my finger and put it to the air to test the wind. Doing so carried no particular purpose that I was aware of and no data that could be gained from the experiment would have altered my strategy one iota. But to the seven year-old who had seen big people do things like that in movies, it was absolutely crucial to success.

As my finger dried to its former state, I heard Nathan's voice carried on the breeze like a trumpet: "Three! Two! One! GO!"

I took off. My velcro-strapped shoes drove into the ground hard, leaving divots in my wake, clumps of fresh grass flinging into the air behind me. I saw the distant blur of Nathan's arm winding back for the throw as the trampoline approached my feet. Though adrenaline was pumping through my system at break-neck speed, the following progression of events seemed to occur in slow motion: My hands were pumping alternately in my peripheral vision, my heartbeat and exerted breathing the only audible sounds in my ears.

As I leapt for the trampoline I could see waves of grass bending slowly in the breeze like a stadium crowd craning their heads in-sync as a jet flies overhead. The football left Nathan's hand in the distance and began spinning toward me like a torpedo, casting translucent ripples of sound-barrier disturbances as it travelled. Then, all was silent as I glided through the air and prepared my feet to press against the canvas. This was the stillness before the storm, the choked breath before the plunge, the silence of a world that watches from the wings as greatness is born.

A strange sensation ripped my focus off of the football. Where I should have felt trampoline fabric conforming to my shoes and lifting me upward, I felt a the hard-rounded surface of a metal bar wrapped in padded vinyl. I had over-shot my leap and landed on the far edge of the trampoline.

Allow me a brief pause here: Remember the great and terrible responsibility that comes to all older siblings that I had mentioned earlier? This is the very moment where that mantle had been thrust upon Nathan. You see, in a different dimension of sorts, I had just entered a classroom, sat down in an upright posture, and folded my hands across the desk. I was embarking on a lesson in physics that could not be taught with all the words, formulas, and textbooks the world had to offer. Nathan's duty at this moment was to bear witness to the fact that I would learn this lesson at the hands of a very experiential teacher. He fulfilled his task that day and still, on occasion, recounts it with the pride of a war veteran.

The slow-motion effect came to an abrupt halt and the rest of the scene progressed in the ungraceful tempo of real-time. The force of my false-landing on the bar propelled the opposite end of the trampoline upward. The back of the trampoline came to rest upright on its edge after cracking against the back of my head with a metallic CHINK. In immediate succession, the football, well-aimed and timed, delivered itself to my face with a leathery FWHAP where my ready-to-catch hands should have been. My arms dutifully wrapped themselves around my head (though a bit late) and I, miraculously conscious, fell to the ground and began tumbling down the hill like a misshapen log. Through my bewildered yelps that jolted in pitch as I rolled and thudded against the ground, I began to understand the lesson being taught to me and why I was not, at this very moment, being paraded through the neighborhood; football firmly in hand, ribbons and confetti being thrown at my feet.

I finally came to a flopping stop at the bottom of the hill and lay on my stomach. My vision was blurry but slowly came into focus. I could see Nathan's figure at the bottom of the driveway coming towards me, his arms waving and pointing. He was shouting something but my ears seemed to be waking up from a dream and could only pick-up the muffled timbre of his voice. The lesson seemed to be over and I resolved to get up, dust myself off, and walk away a changed and knowledgeable young boy. As I prepared to do so, I turned just in time to see the blue disc of the of the trampoline that, after uprighting itself against my head, had apparently chased me down the hill after courteously granting me a head-start. It had been speeding relentlessly after me, rolled over my head with a CRUNCH that pressed my face into the grass, and fell onto its flat upside with the finality of a thick, closed textbook at the end of a cold and unforgiving lesson.

____________________

In the moment, scenarios like this are exceedingly embarrassing, which is possibly part of the reason I could not recall it. The suave dude in my brain conveniently decided to sweep it under the rug of forgetfulness while combing his hair with a squinty-eyed, James Dean-esque gaze in the opposite direction. Or maybe when the trampoline rolled over my head, it mashed the "delete" key on my mental keyboard. Regardless, I am glad that Nathan was there to record it for me. I cherish the story and the fact that it is a shared one between my brother and I.

The fact that I wouldn't have remembered this story is it were not for him is one matter. But the even greater matter is the fact that it wouldn't have happened without him at all. Nathan is a natural leader whose ideas are so contagious that you can't help but climb aboard. It was his idea for us to play football and it was his idea to incorporate that accursed trampoline. I would not have naturally picked up a football and wandered around until I found someone to play catch with. I probably would have sat around in my PJs all day playing Mario and never making it past the first few levels (don't judge, video games were hard back then). Nathan and I have a wealth of memories; full of laughter, some tears, and always those sheepish, remember-that-time-when kind of grins.

In my opinion a rich life is one that is full of experiences and people. Often those two go hand-in-hand. Rich is the key word that brings me to the title of this post, "Get rich off of the people who love you." I must apologize for promoting such a myopic and narrow-minded focus. You should get rich off of everyone else too. It is not just the people closest to us that help us line the pockets of our memory and fatten our life-wallet with meaning; sometimes it is the strangers and the people we'll never see again that add to our lives. You never know what your life would be like if you didn't experience the cruelty and rejection of the "in" crowd, if you didn't receive a refreshing smile from a fellow pedestrian on the street on that one, awful day, or if you didn't find yourself challenged to stand up for right when a wrong was being done in front of you.

I don't think we'll get to the end of this journey and say things like, "Man I wish I had isolated myself just a little bit more." It is the people that join us on the trail, briefly or for the long-haul, that are often the best at reminding you just how beautiful this whole journey is:

"Whoa, look at that valley! Let's go over there and check it out"
"Remember when we had to sleep in that cave and didn't think we'd survive? Good times right?"
"I'm so glad there's a river here, I'm thirsty..."

In our own words, we hear and say things like this to memorialize and raise awareness of the things in our lives that matter, both past and present. These are the quotes we scribble into the margins of our maps, with arrows pointing to their respective points along the trail. Often, we compare our maps with our fellow companions, pointing and remarking about how similar our trails have been in some places and how different in others.

I have a brother and I love him dearly. He enriches my life. Nathan is hiking a different trail than mine but they are connected. They weave in and out of each other like vines stretching from the same patch of soil. My map would not be what it is today without him. Or without you. Thank you.