Love and Rain in January

The drive from our family's house in Florida today was a bit wearying, but in a good way. The January rain played a persistent peacetime snare on the car windows, sometimes crescendoing in great applause of the old year and it's graceful adieu. I thank you, reader, for patience as we enter this often-mourned season of silence. I must, however, interrupt the pensive smiling snap of gloomily rain-soaked branches, with news that I finally feel free to tell you.

God has, for His Glory, provided that I should go to Scotland. For a few days in March, I will join about fifteen other gracious and joyfully surprising folks to edify the Church in a foreign land. May this be the first of many times. The Lord has already provided more than enough funding for me to go. I'm also to be in charge of all things musical on this trip. Right now, I'm walking the dark steps behind the drawn curtains of knowing exactly what lies in store, of knowing exactly the work to be done. I pray that the whole crew of us will be quiet in heart and compassionate in spirit. We are poised to be amazed as the cripple who leaps out into open space to find wings that weren't there before.

And in the realm of being amazed, I'm learning my place more as a dabbler on this artistic palette. I finally felt at peace in taking photographs the other day. I drove again across the fog-scattered farmlands of this town and watched the telephone lines pass by in shadow like something from Steinbeck. And I understood. I understood that I see beauty in ordinary things so that I can show that same beauty to others who see the world differently. I feel that beauty in the lines of knuckles and in the squelch of shoes in mud beneath long grass and in tattered thread trailing from old shirts and in the thousand smells that grace every breath. I take photographs to beg and to plead with Johnny Q. Passer-by to see the smallest things. To stop and listen to the quiet. I hope this shred of understanding spreads to all the other messes into which I dig these clumsy fingers.

I'm getting ready to start recording another album. I am so excited and apprehensive about this whole process. It's certainly something that I have to relinquish control over, considering I've never had control anyway. I can't wait to see what comes of all this, and I hope it's something as wonderful as it will be surprising. I'm hoping that I can be quiet and easy enough to delve into the Incomparable Depth of the Peace that rests within me - that you may drink up and share it. Keep your fingers crossed.

Also, I must relate this to you. I really have no idea how to read it and what it means except that it's a good thing. I just woke my wife up to tell her that my name is on somebody's radio chart. Many thanks to WOTR for thinking that my music is worth playing. You guys really have a heart for the little guy. I'm going to bed before my head gets too big.

Enjoy your January my friends. Albra gu brath.

...but I would never turn my back on your love.
                              The Blue Nile