I could write pages on the things that I have been thinking about since our week in D.C.…but for now, I just want to mention one little idea that has lingered.  During a Q&A session, Kyle asked a great question about the value of words.   He asked, (I’m paraphrasing), “What role do words play in your work as singer-songwriters?  Does the work that you do matter as story makers and truth tellers?”

This question led me to think about how much I love words.  I have always been a sucker for a string of rhymes nestled neatly in a narrative.  Be it a poem from Ecclesiastics, or Dr. Suess and the trufulla trees, or a ramble about a leopard skin pill box hat; I suspect that words might be one of our most basic human needs.   Marylin Chandler McEntyre in her book Caring For Words in a Culture of Lies says it this way, “Words are entrusted to us as equipment for our life together, to help us survive, guide, and nourish one another.  We need to take the metaphor of nourishment seriously in choosing what we “feed on” in our hearts, and in seeking to make our conversation with each other life-giving.”

This question of words also makes me think about hymns, and the present movement of people writing new old hymns.  I am on a journey with fellow songwriters and poets who are working to revive and restore old hymns in hopes that it will inject our modern church with a sense of unity as people of faith.   Hymns can help protect the purity and the peace of the church.  Hymns, with enduring words, tell a story of where we’ve been, who we are, and where we’re going.  The words we sing are formative to our worship, and worship is formative to our whole selves.  And we, as whole people are sustained by these words so that we can translate the good, true and beautiful to our communities and our culture.  I’m convinced that words matter.

Jesus is called the Word.  His essence is intrinsically wrapped up with God in this way.   This correlation between God, Jesus, and Word elevates the value of language, poetry, and all manner of creative word work.   If God is the Maker, and without Jesus “nothing was made that has been made,” (Jn 1:2) then, this leads me to believe that there is a direct and mystical connection between spirituality and the world that we are currently making out of our words. 

As with most things, there are good words and there are bad words.  They are to be harnessed for intentional use.  “Four letter” words can be used for good.  And the most pious prayers can be bent toward deceit.  Our past is made up of the stories we remember and retell.  Our future is made up of the words that we teach and how we converse with our children.  Our politics are often made by the “news product” that we choose to highlight (much of this information we don’t know how to contextualize).  We highlight what we think is urgent.  What is urgent is not necessarily what is important.  As a result, we often make tidy generalizations about complex situations and misrepresent people.  And our social grid is shaped by the way we alter the tones of our speech when talking with different kinds of people (based on racial or economic differences, and social hierarchies).  With language at its worst, we wield our words as swords of greed and self-promotion and war.  

Jesus is THE Word.  The good Word.  Jesus isn’t dismissive of our good and bad words.  He elevates the value of our words, and he pays the premium to buy them back for the Good.  Jesus is the incarnation.   Jesus is the translation.  He is the one who learns our native tongue, to be the interpreter in our conversations with God.  

 Jesus is God’s best narrative in human form.  He walked, and ate, and spoke words, and slept, and fished, and loved, and died.  He rose from the dead.  And just like all things, he resurrects our words, too.  In Jesus, our words can have new life.  He elevates ordinary work of art making through songwriting and poetry and conversation.  This means that we can be in communion with God while we have conversation about sports or gardening with our friends.  And it means that teaching 9^th grade physics can be as sacred as caring for the poor.  So, yes…I believe that writing songs is valuable.  And I thank God that it does.   And I’m thankful for good questions that stir up the meaning that is just beneath the ordinary.  I hope to find the right words at the right times to do more of that which David Dark calls “sacred questioning.”  Thanks, Kyle.

Wendell Berry -from an interview in Mother Earth News, 1973

this is the Christ, our God and Lord
who in all need shall aid afford
he will himself our savior be
and from our sins will set us free

were earth a thousand times as fair
beset with gold and jewels rare
she yet were far too poor to be
a narrow cradle, Lord, for thee...
praise God upon his heavenly throne
who gave to us his only son
for this his hosts on joyful wing
a blest New Year of mercy sing.

this is the Christ, our God and Lord
who in all need shall aid afford
he will himself our savior be
and from our sins will set us free.

c 2009 drink your tea music
martin luther/mccracken

I think the biggest obstacle to more restorative living is organization.  I can't quickly find what I need when I need it.  That is when the big-box stores have in their favor, with rows and rows of labeled, organized products. But easier is not always better.  Faster access to our needs and wants is not always better.  More people, buying more stuff, and more quickly producing more trash.

I noticed last week, while out in the newly developed suburbs south of Nashville, that there is a new storage building just off the highway near all the new stores and strip malls.  Several more farms are gone since I've last been by there, too.  It is a picture of consumer growth, more stuff to buy, more stuff to put in storage. But is this kind of growth and industry sustainable?  Is there longevity to these habits?  And what will our kids be like as adults when this is their childhood experience?

I want find new systems to sort and sift through our stuff, and to make our stuff work for us, rather than our working to buy more stuff.  I want to have less stuff.  And I want to encourage imagination and creativity in our home as we find ways to live simply and fully here in America in the last days of 2009.

We're gearing and rehearsing and packing for the Black Eye Tour that starts later this week. Our house is bustling with the kids, the fall leaves, the band, and the circadian rhythms of our neighborhood this time of year. I'm preparing for a Red Balloon focused set on these shows, hopefully with a few stems and elements from the recorded version.  The talented Josh Moore is planning to accompany me during my solo set.  Which actually means, it's not a solo set, I suppose...but I'm looking forward to it.

Life is full these days, from the moment we wake until the moment we hit the pillow.  I am grateful for it, and am trying to slow down enough to soak it in.  I haven't had many long, thoughtful hours for blogging, but I have been jotting the momentary updates of things on twitter.  Join me there if you'd like.  I'll try to continue from the road.

Best to you, and happy autumn.

Love,

Sandra

P.S.  I'm now posting on Twitter (@sandramccracken) if you are the type to tweet.  

"The dark around us, come,
Let us meet here together,
Members one of another,
Here in our holy room,
Here on our little floor,
Here in the daylit sky,
Rejoicing mind and eye,
Rejoining known and knower,
Light, leaf, foot, hand, and wing,
Such order as we know,
One household, high and low,
And all the earth shall sing. "

-Wendell Berry

Amazing Grace

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me!
 I once was lost, hut now am found,
 Was blind, but now I see.

'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,
 And grace my fears relieved;
 How precious did that grace appear,
      The hour I first believed!

 Through many dangers, toils and snares,
 I have already come;
 'Tis grace has brought me safe thus far,
      And grace will lead me home.

      The LORD has promised good to me,
      His word my hope secures;
      He will my shield and portion be,
      As long as life endures.

      Yes, when this flesh and heart shall fail,
      And mortal life shall cease,
      I shall possess, within the veil,
      A life of joy and peace.

      The earth shall soon dissolve like snow,
      The sun forbear to shine;
      But GOD, who called me here below,
      Will be for ever mine.

-John Newton

Top 5 Records of 2008

5. Waterdeep, Pink & Blue

4. Katie Herzig, Apple Tree

3. Ray LaMontagne, Gossip in the Grain

2. Thad Cockrell, To Be Loved

1. Joe Pug, Nation of Heat

Happy Holidays to you and yours! 

Peace,

Sandra