Why I haven't sold my dulcimer

Ten years ago,  my English 101 professor, Dr. L, told our class that instead of our regular classroom, our last class before Thanksgiving would be meet in the Appalachian Center, a beautiful old house on the Carson-Newman College campus. "I'll bring my guitar," Dr. L said, "Billy can bring his djembe, and Bethany will bring her dulcimer. Instead of rushing through another essay, we'll celebrate Thanksgiving with music."

We made a funny ensemble -- one guitarist, one drummer, a damsel with a dulcimer, and a dozen Baptist-college freshmen. We sang hymns, mostly: "Blest Be the Tie that Binds," "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing," "For the Beauty of the Earth," "Amazing Grace," and others. I missed more than a few notes, but in the chorus of voices and drum-beats and guitar-strings, my mistakes didn't ruin the song or lead anyone astray. I remembered all my high-school years in choir, the delight of letting my single voice dwell in a much greater sound than I could produce alone.

Unfortunately, that Thanksgiving sing-along was a unique event. My friends and I did plenty of singing in college--especially on long road trips--but in the years since I have hardly played at all.

I always look back on that first college semester fondly, for it was full of so many things I spent my adolescence praying for: rigorous academics, adventures in the mountains, a group of friends, and, of course, sing-alongs. I do not exaggerate to say that in stepping onto campus at eighteen, I found myself in the sort of place I thought only existed in my daydreams. For a short time, my dulcimer was part of that ponderous and lovely incarnation.

Indeed, for most of the time I have owned my dulcimer, I have felt more guilt than enthusiasm when I think about it. Once every year or two I will buy a new book of music to prod me to practice, but these resolutions haven't lasted long. I like music, and sang in choirs for years, but my other pursuits--writing, knitting, baking--not only bring more immediate gratification, but also come more easily to me.

You might wonder, then, why I haven't simply sold the dulcimer and removed the object of so much guilt. I have enough interesting (even eccentric) hobbies that I don't need the dulcimer to keep me busy or provide a topic for dinner conversation. Even so, I cannot bring myself to give it up. That Thanksgiving sing-along still haunts me with hope--hope that one day my imperfect notes will find a home again within the singing of my friends.


Tonight I tuned my hammered dulcimer for the first time in years. Tomorrow I have a chance to meet with some new friends interested in playing music together, and although I am ashamed at how much I've forgotten, I'm hopeful. I may never be able to play as well as the musician in this video, but tonight, tuning my dulcimer was my of affirming that the world of late-November hymn-sings, the world of discourse-giving-way-music, the world of abandon-the-rushing-for-the beautiful, that this world exists in more than memory.

Sing like never before

As an unredeemed six-year-old, I disliked all the music that happened in church. I could happily scribble during a sermon, but when it came time for singing, my mother would haul me to my feet, forcing me to exchange pen and crayons for a cumbersome hymnal.

I didn't like the music because it compelled me to participate in what was happening around me, interrupting my plans.  Years later, on the other hand, I discovered other teenagers who knew the hymns I had grown to love, and this shocked me into a deeper understanding of what it means to have a common faith. (You can read an account of that discovery here.)

The beauty of music can be a testimony to God's grandeur, consolation to a grieving spirit, or a way to express joy that passes understanding. At the same time, it is worthwhile to consider how strange it is for any number of grown people to gather in a room and sing. Most people, religious or not, listen to music as performed by professionals, and some people join choirs or bands because they enjoy making music. However, the practice of regularly gathering in a large group to sing is one of many unusual things Christians do on Sunday mornings.

Singing makes me feel particularly vulnerable among strangers, and yet I have found myself in this new city, week after week, making music alongside people I hardly know. Why would I do such a thing?
I haven't had a voice lesson in years, I may not like the instruments this church uses, or I might grumble to see  a PowerPoint screen instead of a hymnal. And yet I sing.

Yesterday I visited yet another new church. Unfamiliar building, unfamiliar people, unfamiliar song. But the strange song soon grew precious: common faith, shared hope, one Father.

For amateurs and aliens, singing doesn't make much sense. But it can help make a home.

Aradhna

I've been so preoccupied with moving over the last few weeks, that I've hardly written anything about my four days at the Wild Goose Festival in Shakori Hills, North Carolina. According to their website, the festival strives to be a celebration "at the intersection of justice, spirituality and art." This means the festival included many things, from talks on Christian activism to workshops on dance as a form of prayer. Additionally, for the duration of the festival, you could not walk far without hearing live music come from one of the many pavilions scattered across the wooded campus.

For the time that Shakori Hills was home, this music was in the air. Sometimes, the music was less than welcome: I learned, for example, that I am apparently too old to enjoy midnight percussion concerts that start just behind my tent.

Most of the music, however was wonderful. When you are hot, sweaty, and mostly unwashed, the clarity and jubilation of music can have a unusual power. My favorite group at the festival was called Aradhna, and they create songs of Christian devotion in Hindi and Sanskrit.

Here they are singing a song called "Gaao Re."  The name means "Sing, O Sky," and the song calls all creation to praise God. This video is not from Wild Goose, but it gives a sense of the joy I heard in the singing there.



I also bought three of Aradhna's cds, and those albums were among the first I played in my new Alabama home. The sound is much less raw, more contemplative, than the wood-born music I heard last month. But both are good. Both are becoming part of the sounds of my home. (I especially like "River")

Have you discovered any new music this summer? 

"The time has come for you to go..."

Today: visiting more houses, then heading north for Indiana, with a stop in Mississippi along the way. Today: travelling with courage thanks to these sweet words:

Child the time has come for you to go
You will never be alone
Every dream that you have been shown
Will be like living stone
Building you into a home
A shelter from the storm

The Call

I'm hardly headed off to war, but this song is in my ears and heart nevertheless. Tomorrow I leave one beloved home in search of a new one. This is my song for that day.

I'll carry on

According to my new plan, Tuesdays are now a day for me to share a song from a playlist on "home" I've been building for years. Today's offering is "I'll Carry On" from Rich Mullins's album A Liturgy, A Legacy, and a Ragamuffin Band.  I have known this song since I was a child (my parents really liked Mullins's music), but it became particularly important to me when I left college to begin my PhD adventure.  This stanza, in particular, often ran through my head during my first year in Texas:

I kissed the earth on my daddy's grave
Said goodbye to my brave young companions
But when they hoist that sail I know my heart will break
As bright and as fine as the morning
I don't know where this road will take me
But they say there's a place there for a man
And I'm only afraid that my dreams may betray me
And I'll never get home again 

 Complete lyrics can be found here.

Making it Home: To Build a Home

March has been a busy month in and around my little Texas home.  I have several new posts in progress, but until I make time to finish and post them, please enjoy another musical meditation on the ideas and complexities of building a home: "To Build a Home," by The Cinematic Orchestra.

Making it Home: To Be Still

I often feel that I'm spending my days building a life, a home, and waiting for others to come join me.  This song, by Alela Diane, is the song I play when I feel this way. I open the window wide, sing along, and hope all the friends and strangers outside can hear.  

Have you been wearing holes in your boots out there?

Have you been kicking bones in the desert sand?

There's a wolf inside the cave and another in the clouds.

I've seen them chewing on, on the shadows in your eyes.

And it's here at home I wait for your wanders to be still.

Oh it's here at home I wait for your wanders to be still.

from "To Be Still" by Alela Diana

Making it Home: Musical Edition

As George MacDonald says, “ […] home, as you may or may not know, is the only place where you can go out and in” (Lilith, Ch 1). As my other posts and your comments have already suggested,  “home” can mean a particular place, a season of life, a relationship, a church, and often all those things at once. The journeys into and away from those places, times, relationships can be both joyful and disorienting.  With those meanings of home--and the journeys associated with them--in mind, I started a playlist several years ago entitled “For the Journey Home.” It is filled with songs that speak in some way to the experiences related to home--feeling away from home (or journeying toward home), being at home, and leaving home. 

I have much more to say about home in the coming weeks and months, but for now, I’d rather listen. I hope you’ll listen with me. 

* Feeling away from Home / Journeying toward Home

"Homeward Bound" by Simon and Garfunkel



"Heimweh" (Homesickness) by Edvard Grieg




"Much Farther to Go" by Rosie Thomas


* Feeling at Home




"This is Home" by Switchfoot (one of the few good things to come from the film version of Prince Caspian!)



"The Lakes of Canada" by The Innocence Mission


* Leaving Home



"The Trees of the Field" (This is the song my church sang for me on my last Sunday before leaving for college)




"The Trees of the Field" by Sufjan Stevens (Inspired by the same passage, Isaiah 55, as the song above).

Question: What are your favorite songs about being away from home, enjoying home, or leaving home? Post a link or description below!