Where there is no vision, the people perish; but he that keepeth the law,
Happy is he. - Proverbs 29:18 (KJV)
Where there is no revelation, people cast off restraint: but blessed is
Is the one who heeds wisdom's instruction. - Proverbs 29:18 (NIV)
If people can't see what God is doing, they stumble all over themselves;
But when they attend to what he reveals, they are most blessed. - Proverbs 29:18 (The Message)
Where there is ignorance of God, crime runs wild; but what a wonderful
Thing it is for a nation to know and keep his laws. - Proverbs 29:18 (The Living Bible)
I have written about the arresting nature of convergences before--intersections in our lives that call attention to a meaning far deeper than the ordinary flow of events. They can be both deeply personal and also have a larger, universal application. If I am attentive enough, I have found them to be opportunities to pause, reflect and be informed in mystery.
The prompting revealed in this reflection concerns music, musicians and concert goers. Our paths seemed to cross so intimately and tragically in this year 2017. What to make of it?
Several months ago, I had some rare time alone in our home. I had finished an intensive three-day prayer session, full of its preciousness and the privilege to be with a person. I turned to the Netflix documentary section. Many of you know that I love and have devoured scores of biographies and many documentaries on the lives of artists from all genres. I believe there is a close connection in the Spirit between artistry and imagination involved in prayer intercession for another. The imaginative world of the arts, whether music, literature (including by all means poetry), painting, iconography, photography, and other art forms including film and architecture tap the mystical elements of a person. A strategic part of the Verbena vision is to keep a dialogue alive concerning these shared experiences in transcendence and creativity.
My Netflix search lighted upon a three-hour Tom Petty documentary. I only barely knew of him, having heard a song of his here and there but not always knowing his sound. I was transfixed by the story of this rock music man played out through concerts, collaborations and fights with the music industry. He had a grit and a vision that drove 40 years of music production into places where opposition, intimidation, scarce resources and limited vision of others would have stopped other gifted men and women in their tracks. But I also encountered a joyous humility in him as he would include others in his journey and join them in theirs. He often celebrated the gifts of folks like Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison and George Harrison, as collaboration and friendship overtook being in the singular spotlight. His fight over the right to his own music was truly a David and Goliath triumph. His victory set a distinct and valuable marker in the music industry for other artists. That underlying fierceness, undoubtedly formed by some brutal childhood hurts, was always tempered, it seems, by his willingness to see and care for a person, whether fan or colleague.
Just a couple months later: Las Vegas, a country concert drawing hundreds from all over the country. Open air, friendships, & celebrations: a community drawn together by music becomes a shooting gallery. Before the shooting, "America, the Beautiful" sung in unison to hundreds of lighters illuminating the scene. Then, the horror of carnage rained down on the trapped, unsuspecting and unprotected concert-goers. This violence linked in malevolence if not in cause, to the other tragedies experienced worldwide: innocent, unsuspecting folks trampled, blown-up, beheaded, shot and run over. This is a truly malignant and virulent unleashing of demonic force and overtaking that we are loathed to name. In our denial of supernatural evil, we deny the power and existence of supernatural good. We deny the sudden flash of Gabriel coming from another place to intersect a young women's destiny with a new narrative of both suffering and glory. We lose the reality of Saul being knocked off his high horse by a blinding light, this holy interruption intersecting his journey of destruction and changing his heart and his future.
Three other convergences emerged, one shortly before I began to form these thoughts and the other two in the midst of writing. Last week, Laurie and I attended a Rhiannon Giddens concert at UNCG in Greensboro. Rhiannon is a youthful though now seasoned performer, a believer in Jesus, African-American in descent and historian of music particularly of music being lost from early black culture in America. Her original group in Greensboro was named the Chocolate Drops and now she is a Grammy winner living in Ireland. She is a wife, a mother and performer: singer and song-writer, violinist and fiddler as well as banjo player. Toward the end of the concert, she called out to us concert-goers: " You know this has been a hard week. Las Vegas and Tom Petty dying.” There it was. This beautiful young woman, standing in the midst of her band (which included her sister) crying out: " Shall we do a Tom Petty song?" We erupted in acclaim and she and the band kicked into a rousing, defiant (but not angry) and convicted rendition of " I won't back down". She said we need this in the face of what is happening.
Laurie and I left for the beach this week for a much-needed break and a chance to reflect and to write. I told her of the waves of thought breaking over my consciousness, intersecting my world of impression. As I read through the names, pictures and bios of the precious victims of the Las Vegas shooting, I felt a force of gravity, the deepest disturbance. I told her I wanted to understand the meaning of these events and experiences juxtaposed in such a short timeframe and then to write about it.
The next morning, she just started playing Greg Allman's last album, Southern Blood, released in September. Greg died earlier in 2017 than Petty. He died of lung cancer, untreated so that he could sing on, fearing that treatment would destroy his voice. Like Petty, he just completed his last concert tour before he died. The album, Laurie tells me, has only one original song. He had run out of energy to work on others so the rest of the album is covers of songs sung by Greg that he felt connected to by southern blood and that helped interpret his life. He chokes up in the course of "Song for Adam", a Jackson Browne cover, as his late brother Dwayne comes to mind. Jackson steps in to finish the harmony on his song about losing a friend to death. Her selection reminded me of a previous reading of Greg Allman's autobiography. It was a story of pain, music, recovery and redemption.
Obviously, these musicians, like us, are flawed. They struggle with addictions, broken relationships, losses and difficult childhoods. They also fought to play their music and to sing. The concert goers and fans there to hear them sing and join in. Their stories underscore the presence and activity of this malevolent force, more active and unleashed as our societies’ vision is lost and even repudiated. It is far from being just mental illness. This force tries to kill the singing in the universe and supplant it with fear and terror. It seizes from within and puts life into a mausoleum. Maybe this is not a startling revelation but it has converged on me and brought forth intense emotion and grieving. In my grief, I am discerning that this malevolence is the same force trying to destroy the song in each one we accompany in prayer.
But the Psalmist also says that God will give us a new song. Can we hear it? Can we learn to sing it together in the midst of horror, loss, and death. We have to listen for it and I admire those who fight to sing and write songs in various ways. They join in the creative celebration of the children of God. In fact, we have a musician, a music maker, in our midst. Our son, Julian, is a gifted artist, singer, song-writer and in my opinion virtuoso piano, keyboard and organ player and a beautiful guitarist. He has confronted his own fears and addictions and lives to make music as a solo act and with his band. He has been inspired more by his mother, a true keeper of the mystery and delight of music more than by my periodic belts of Elvis over the years. Keep singing, Julian.
I am going to close this Reflection as we walk in this way of singing together, with the third interposition contemporaneous with this writing. It makes my point I hope in its unpretentiousness and sincerity. Yesterday, as I was finishing the draft of this piece, I received an email from Carol Patrick, one of our intercessors. Years ago, I prayed with this single woman for healing in great brokenness. She has sought and received healing relentlessly and courageously despite much opposition and misunderstanding. She has grown immensely in the Spirit and maintains a great sense of humor. She has also begun to write poetry and has been sharing it with me. She had no idea that I was writing or what I was writing but in her email she expressed her deepest angst over the events in Las Vegas. She then shared that she stepped outside into the darkest of night and was stunned by the brilliance and clarity of the fullest of moons. Transfixed by the light she created a poem. She threw it out to the darkness and stood her ground, solitary but aware. I believe this holy defiance makes a difference in the universe. Her artistic expression, fledgling as it is, gives voice to the hope within her and testifies to the light that has come into the world that the darkness cannot extinguish: Jesus. There is not another answer and Christ in you is the hope of glory right where you are and in the whole world. Don't back down. Shout out to me not to. Let’s sing our songs and let it rise. Her poem:
Oh, the full moon shining so bright
in the early morning night.
God's creation for lighting the dark night
to remind us that He is the one and only Light.
Praise the Lord, Praise the Lord,
for he cares for the night.
The darkness can never outshine the light.
And from Isaiah 61 in the closing verses:
As a garden causes seeds to grow and a sprout to come up
So the Sovereign Lord will cause righteousness and praise
to spring up in every nation.
Blessings,
Trip and Laurie