A random cassette takes me back...

My students hear a lot of jazz these days. I love the ones who protest because I know that I have them where I want them. Yes, it is not a democracy when it comes to the music, though at times I am willing to loosen up a bit. In fact it is looking at those who protest that inspires me to say, "Do you want to listen to some jazz? I can do that for you." Than as they mock my music I head to the stereo.

One student used to say, "Why can't you listen to rock music?"

I would say, "I am no longer an angry young man."

Saturday night I picked up Bruce Cockburn's World of Wonders cassette. It sounded awful like many of our cassettes, but those first moments of the first song took me back to 1986. I was an angry young man.

Am I still angered by what is called democracy. I think I am. But instead of working for political change I can be seen carrying bags of canned goods down the block to my church. I am glad there are folk out there working hard on issues I care about, but after a day of teaching, I don't need rallies or meetings. I need music, conversation, glass, exercise, prayer... I need to feed my spirit, so that when my music is mocked by an angry young man or woman, I don't respond like I sometimes did when I was an angry young man.

The song at LastFM (could only find a live version)

The lyrics...

Call it Democracy

padded with power here they come
international loan sharks backed by the guns
of market hungry military profiteers
whose word is a swamp and whose brow is smeared
with the blood of the poor

who rob life of its quality
who render rage a necessity
by turning countries into labour camps
modern slavers in drag as champions of freedom

sinister cynical instrument
who makes the gun into a sacrament --
the only response to the deification
of tyranny by so-called "developed" nations'
idolatry of ideology

north south east west
kill the best and buy the rest
it's just spend a buck to make a buck
you don't really give a flying f...
about the people in misery

IMF dirty MF
takes away everything it can get
always making certain that there's one thing left
keep them on the hook with insupportable debt

see the paid-off local bottom feeders
passing themselves off as leaders
kiss the ladies shake hands with the fellows
open for business like a cheap bordello

and they call it democracy
and they call it democracy
and they call it democracy
and they call it democracy

see the loaded eyes of the children too
trying to make the best of it the way kids do
one day you're going to rise from your habitual feast
to find yourself staring down the throat of the beast
they call the revolution

IMF dirty MF
takes away everything it can get
always making certain that there's one thing left
keep them on the hook with insupportable debt

Agamospermy--- virgin births in the realm of botany

most flowers require pollination so that fertilization can occur, so that seeds can form... Dandelion ovaries can set seed without pollen. Is this a miracle? However, knowing (please let me give plants all kinds of cognizant abilities) that diversity arises from sex, the dandelion only does this with 99% of its flowers. One percent of the flowers will not create seed without pollen.

The rule in biology is to never say "all" or "none"... too many exceptions to the rule.

Maybe it should be that way in our own lives. All this thinking I have been doing about eternal life led to a cassette leaping out at me. See I had found a box of old cassettes in my studio closet and I transfered them to a new location. And there was Bruce Cockburn's Dancing in the Dragon's Jaws. Mosaic Woman, who grew up in Cockburn's native land... Canada, introduced me to this music. He is a man of faith and doubts and I give him some of the credit for bringing me back to a life that includes worship.

So there I was walking down Broad Street in Lansdale searching for cumin humming and doing a bit of wondering where the lions are... and I am thinking about how my life has unfolded, and I am feeling ecstatic. Never say never. If you made it this far with me... Happy New Years.

Sun's up, uh huh, looks okay
The world survives into another day
And I'm thinking about eternity
Some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me
I had another dream about lions at the door
They weren't half as frightening as they were before
But I'm thinking about eternity
Some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me
Walls windows trees, waves coming through
You be in me and I'll be in you
Together in eternity
Some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me
Up among the firs where it smells so sweet
Or down in the valley where the river used to be
I got my mind on eternity
Some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me
And I'm wondering where the lions are...
I'm wondering where the lions are...
Huge orange flying boat rises off a lake
Thousand-year-old petroglyphs doing a double take
Pointing a finger at eternity
I'm sitting in the middle of this ecstasy
Young men marching, helmets shining in the sun,
Polished as precise like the brain behind the gun
(Should be!) they got me thinking about eternity
Some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me
And I'm wondering where the lions are...
I'm wondering where the lions are...
Freighters on the nod on the surface of the bay
One of these days we're going to sail away,
going to sail into eternity
some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me
And I'm wondering where the lions are...
I'm wondering where the lions are...
----------- BRUCE COCKBURN

truths in second person

But I've got this thing in my heart I must give you today/ It only lives when you Give it away.... from Bruce Cockburn's When You Give It Away


your eyes and right hand pause as you read the list of symptoms. You draw a circle and wait to meet your new doctor, and for the script. It is four weeks before Easter.

The day after Easter, you wake to experience the symptom for the first time in months. you go to work where you leave early. you meet the specialist. He tells you that you are young then mentions finding cancer in a 28 year old. He is not going to reassure. He is going to test. You tell everyone it is hard to feel Easter Joy. You tell three people about the circle you drew.

You sleep well, you pray, you garden, you create art, you are present with those around you. But there are those passing thoughts, "is the time during which I ignored the symptom going to haunt me..."

For three days you enter the realm of a low residue diet, a diet you left years ago. You tell three more friends.

You cheat on the fasting day, well just a bit of solid food (bread) and a drop or two of red liquid (wine). You return to your seat and pray as you do every Sunday. "Renew me, Heal me." You skip the donuts.

You distract yourself all day... a DVD, playing at your Flickr site (where at one point, prompted by your wife, you do a search for colonoscopy), you cut out the pieces of a stained glass that will spell HOPE, you blog about preparing for a craft show.

two minutes before you are to intake 14 days of laxative in 90 minutes, the phone rings. Your sister in California asks if it is a bad time. You tell her the truth.

You are between the 7th and final dosage, when the laxative kicks in.

You have heard the stories... the prep is the worst, and it is far from the best. But at 2:30 when the prep wakes you, and the worries hit home; now you are at the worst. Imagining a doctor telling you that you have cancer is not good for sleep. You remember a short story you wrote 14 years ago. The main character is terminally ill. He walks into wilderness to die. You realize how you are no longer that character. You fall back to sleep.

stopped by a train as you try to leave town, you choose a CD from 3 handed to you. You listen to Bruce Cockburn sing.. When You Give it away.

You wait.. 30 minutes in the waiting room where you read favored Buechner quotes.. Then 30 minutes where you first lie down, 30 minutes in the hallway, and 30 minutes in the operating room. For most of it you close your eyes and breathe deeply and chant to yourself... "I am here Lord." It is the greatest truth. You hope someone is telling your wife that it has just been a long wait. Your doctor arrives after eating a bagel.

Your hand goes numb.

You wake up outside of the OR and the nurse, who struggled to find a vein in your hand, smiles at you. You ask, "Did they find any polyps?"

She says, "no."

A Sister of Mercy wheels you to the door. Your wife gets you to a diner for blueberry pancakes.

You are told to avoid driving, alcohol, heavy work, and making important decisions. But you are told to feel free to pass the gas out of your intestines. You say, "I already started."

You wonder if you should finally blog about this.

You find a link so others can listen to Bruce... listen to Bruce