front and center

•July 6, 2009 • Leave a Comment

got asked to sing a song here at our weekly graduation on thursday (no, i don’t get to graduate yet…). am singing one i wrote a year and a half ago.

(at another treatment center…).

i may have posted these lyrics before; if so, read them again…

pathways

one just like the other / who caught it from their mothers
or maybe from their daddies – no one knows
blame the genes and habits / that multiplied like rabbits
then scattered down the trails where no one goes
now your words remind us / that you would always find us
in the thickets where we liked to hide
cowering in silence / beaten by the violence
that raged beneath the surface deep inside … deep inside

faces getting clearer / end game getting clearer
taking steps behind a trusted guide
outlook surely brighter / burden getting lighter
time to face the troubled world outside
took in others’ knowledge / the ones who’d been to college
and left the school of hard knocks far behind
read the books and listened / to find out what was missin’
in the holes inside our hearts that kept us blind … kept us blind

heaven’s tears kept falling / and the past kept calling
pulling downward like a ball and chain
trapped inside the sorrows / clouding our tomorrows
but holding onto hope that still remained
sparks of life enfolding / the small seed we were holding
set to bloom whene’er the clouds would clear
grateful for each minute / the miracle within it
the perfect love to cast away our fear … our fear

but sometimes we’re forgetting / as the day is setting
that night will only last until the dawn
moon and star reflections / give light to our directions
help us find our way til night is gone
and with the sun to guide us / and with no shame to hide us
we can follow paths that others made
trusting where it leads us / and in the love that freed us
with promises the footprints will not fade
believing that their footprints will not fade
with faith that their steps will not fade … will not fade

copyright 2007 ruckersongs

untitled

•June 29, 2009 • 1 Comment

hear the still voice through ord’nary men
hear the still voice through the fallen
hear whispered words thru the humble and meek
opening up to their calling

mercy and grace pour out love upon you
both in and out of the seasons
somehow it seems that it’s diff’rent for me
trapped here in all of my reasons

thinking too much with no answer to find
all my prayers stopped at the ceiling
stuck on each rung of the ladder i climb
marked are the cards that i’m dealing

so break the walls and the barriers down
too-rigid words ringing hollow
unsure of where all the paths will lead to
but i choose the one i must follow

you walk on your way and i will walk mine
both sure to find our salvation
seeing the other through eyes that were blind
finding the same destination

talbott prison blues

•June 12, 2009 • 2 Comments

(a song for a skit tonight – folsom prison blues parody…)

i hear those demons calling
they’re calling me again
ain’t had no wine or vodka since
i don’t know when
i’m stuck in talbott prison
and time keeps draggin’ on
who knew that ninety days
could be so bleeping long

when i was just a baby
my momma told me, ’son
don’t mess with wine or whiskey
it ain’t your kind of fun’
i hate to tell you momma
you didn’t get your wish
cause when i got to college
i drank just like a fish

talbott gave me lectures
they made me jump through hoops
i slept thru 12-step meetings
and all my process groups
i learned to share my feelings
i shared them all day long
i broke the rules they made up
as they went along

but lately the alumni
ain’t doin’ all that well
the patient count is fallin’
the place a hard, hard sell
but they take you to heart
and take you by the hand
but they don’t take insurance
so cough up forty grand

one day i’ll get my freedom
and see reality
and all my friends will wonder
what happened to me
talbott prison changed me
from who i was before
i went there with a problem -
came home with twenty more

© 2009 ruckersongs
All rights reserved. Void where prohibited. May cause drowsiness. Do not take while operating heavy machinery. Call your doctor for any erection lasting more than four hours.

| wings |

•May 29, 2009 • Leave a Comment

one dances in the grasses
and one nests high in a tree
one flies by without pausing
and one seems to stare at me
one frolicks in his freedom
as i sit behind my wall
their songs ring in the warm air
and still no one hears my call

their bright wings flash the sunlight
as i cast a shadow black
they tip a wing to notice
all the joy i seem to lack
they have no doors to open
while all mine i’ve had to close
i sit in bitter silence
left to wonder where time goes

they fly off in the winter
and return again in spring
the world awakes in beauty
just to hear the strangers sing
a longing somehow grips me
and the loss of what i’ve missed
i raise my voice to join them
as i step into their midst

| wish you were here |

•May 6, 2009 • 2 Comments

please keep my family in your prayers.

http://www.talbottcampus.com/home.php

| a new way forward |

•April 18, 2009 • Leave a Comment

taking steps to get involved in a group called a new way forward, a grass-roots effort looked at the resolving the banking mess.

zephyr teachout teaches election law at duke university school of law, and is someone with whom i’ve swapped a few emails through this group. she wrote a piece called seven preliminary thoughts on the tea parties.

pieces from her post, with my comments placed on the post mixed in:

These are my preliminary thoughts about the tea parties:

First, I support public expression of political ideas. I am generally more impressed, than distressed, by peaceful, public, political civic action, even where I disagree with the policy goals.

agreed; yet people will take the same ‘facts’ and draw different conclusions.

Second, I am troubled that many of the views held by people at the rallies were factually wrong. Global warming is not a socialist scam.

agreed; yet people will come to believe almost anything said long enough and if they can find others in similar agreement.

Third, tea parties represent a genuine, authentic civic anger. While the right wing noise machine funded them and hyped them up, they did not pay people to draw posters and show up in Lansing, Michigan, or organize dozens of events in Arizona. Republican Party operatives mobilized for them, funders supported them, and Fox News shilled for them…that still doesn’t mean those were fake citizens at the rallies. Funding alone does not turn something into Astroturf.

agreed; but everyone has a basis that is anything but selfless. dress us up as citizens and we are still human.

Fourth, I am not willing to dismiss all rally attendees because of racist views held by some, comicly off-base views held by some, or ugly banners waved by others. I reject the habit of guilt-by-association in public affairs. If each of us had to endorse each banner held by each person at our rallies, we would not ever be on the sidewalk or at a public event.

agreed, somewhat; see ‘third’. the guilt-by-association we all share is that we don’t want to share :) . we all belong to the i-want-mine-first group.

Fifth, I do not think the rallies represented any coherent political view. The coherent, albeit very dangerous, policy proposals supported by Fox News and Michelle Malkin, cannot be attributed to the citizens protesting.

disagreed; there was an overwhelming waspish, hannitized view on display. i ride the train home in atlanta from the white north to the black south thru overwhelmingly black downtown. going home that day there were many more whites than normal; downtown, MANY more whites than normal; from downtown southward, it was business as usual.

Sixth, I think the public anger is warranted. We are spending billions of dollars on bank bailouts that will not serve us. People are profoundly, and rightly, insecure about their jobs, where they live, their health care, and the economy. They are concerned, rightly, that the government’s response seems to be driven by the financial industry. They are concerned, rightly, about the cost of the programs and the degree of deficit spending.

agreed, somewhat. ‘bailout’ is the catch-all term, but with a clear blame-obama echo. it’s the ‘obama recession’. ‘bailout’ means bailing out low-income homeowners. it’s why they had signs here in downtown atlanta that said, ‘honk if i pay your mortgage.’

Seventh, part of this anger is frustration that Congress is not being responsive, and that the administration is taking a “trust us” approach. In the Daily Show’s coverage, you’ll see video of a sign that reads, “Read the Bill Before Voting.” I saw another that read, “Restore the Republic!” Another read, “I read as much of my bill as my Congresswoman.” A popular bumper sticker bears the “no taxation without deliberation” slogan.

the heart of the matter. those with money maintaining those in control over those who have neither control nor money.

my bet is that ‘gambling’ under the guise of ‘investing’ was not discussed at the teabags. protesters on the 15th fail to entertain the idea they are being used by the very ones they need to rail against.

the unintended – maybe even intended – consequence is to keep the status quo and create a deepening racial divide. when the ‘haves’ view other races and groups not as ‘have-nots’ but as ‘those-who-want-mine’, the end is frightening.

| nothing to fret about |

•April 4, 2009 • 1 Comment

from the jethro tull webiste:

Ian Gives Cat the Finger

Ian Anderson is recovering from his recent finger drama.

ianfingercropmain

The day before Jethro Tull’s departure to Minsk, Belarus, Ian managed to break a finger while putting out a reluctant cat during the early hours of the morning. The tendon which controls that part of the finger was torn off the joint taking a small piece of bone with it. Technically known as Mallet Finger, the condition slowly mends after about 6 – 8 weeks in a specially designed plastic splint which has to be worn continuously for the first 6 weeks.

Having played the 6 shows in Belarus, Germany and Finland wearing a finger splint, Ian has adapted the G key of his flutes to allow fairly normal playing but the guitar remains difficult. Well, impossible, really. Some parts are playable with compromise using only two fingers in the left hand. Most are not. But Martin and John are covering most of the acoustic guitar parts for the next show in Spain in April as they did in Germany and Finland earlier this month. It’s good to have friends.

“Business as usual,” says the sign on Ian’s dressing-room door.

Ian will remain splinted until the beginning of May. The cat may well remain splinted for longer….

webmaster’s note: For the curious, Ian refuses to divulge if the cat was Rupi…after all, she is a minor and we don’t want assault on her permanent record.

| here but not here |

•March 29, 2009 • Leave a Comment

ian anderson north american tour dates for 2009. i can see one glaring omission from where i sit.

if you’re keeping score, ian will turn 62 this year.

i heard that leonard cohen is 74.

SEVENTY-FOUR.

that’s older than my mother.

OCT
6 Milwaukee
7 Chicago
9 Schenectady, NY
10 Worcester, MA
11 Ledyard, CT
13 New York
15 Baltimore, MD
16 Glenside, PA
17 Red Bank, NJ
18 Wallingford, CT

NOV
3 Phoenix, AZ
5 Anaheim, CA
6 Los Angeles
9 San Francisco
13 Portland, OR
14 Seattle, WA

| i fought the law and … |

•March 29, 2009 • Leave a Comment

… the law won.

or did it?

i’ve always wrestled with what the law meant.

i read something the other day where someone said we needed to hang people and we needed to televise their hangings in order to put an end to crime.

when you start looking at punishment as a deterrent, it really can only go so far. you get to the point where any crime is a capital crime.

and every punishment is capital punishment.

we make graduated sentences that try to equate the punishment with the severity of the crime. we implement mandatory sentences so that the criminal knows ahead of time that he will receive the full agreed-upon sentence for his crime regardless of the circumstances surrounding him or his crime.

so as the criminal code is made harsher and harsher with the intended purpose of preventing crimes from occuring, you reach the point where every felony and every misdemeanor has a mandatory sentence of death.

there. THAT’LL stop ‘em.

which, in a lot of ways, is what the old testament law looks like.

murder somebody?

we murder you back.

have sex the wrong time, the wrong place, with the wrong partner, in the wrong manner?

it ain’t, ‘bailiff, whack his peepee.’

nope.

stone ‘em. to death.

there. THAT’LL stop ‘em.

now, we try to turn that mosaic code into the means by which we more accurately determine how bad our sin – any sin – is, in the sight of God. in fact, with the concept of original sin, and the normal view of Jesus’ death as an ‘atonement’ for sins, one can argue that the proper view of crime and punishment is that any felony – any misdemeanor – is a crime deserving of death.

and that’s why Jesus died – because from God’s point of view even the most minor sin of omission, comission, admission, submission or permission is a complete affront to His holiness and has to be atoned for by the death of something.

a ram.

a pigeon.

some grain.

a lamb.

a God.

but is that really the right way to look at it? or did God perhaps look at man’s repeated attempts to control each other with various laws and codes and say, well, let’s take this as far as we can, shall we?

or maybe God didn’t even write all those laws. maybe they were intentionally written so harshly so that someone could have complete control over a hundred thousand griping desert wanderers.

or maybe someone thought that, if man’s laws were tough, surely God’s laws would be the ultimate picture of not sparing the rod to keep the child from being spoiled, and the obvious end game was that every little misstep took one off a steep cliff like the coyote falling once again to the canyon floor, soon to be followed by the acme safe that would land on top of him.

it’s like when they said – ‘give us a king – we want to be like everyone else!’

God said, you don’t really want a king.

but if you insist on having one, here you go. and the record of israel’s kings is spotty at best.

maybe they cried, ‘give us some laws to make us different from everyone else!’

God said, I don’t really want to relate on the basis of dos and don’ts.

but if you really want a law, I’ll make it severe to the point of almost being absurd.

there. THAT’LL stop ‘em.

we can always set a bar that no one can reach. not reaching the bar doesn’t necessarily pass valid judgment on the one that cannot reach it.

the bar may not be a valid judge of the worth or character of a person. it may be able to make a too-narrow statement about someone’s skills or abilities or talents or discipline in a certain area.

the bar can always be raised.

or lowered.

sometimes it seems that we set bars for others that are just out of their reach.

and that’s not always a bad thing. it helps to be stretched sometimes. teachers don’t give the same test over and over and over to a class. there’s always new material. there’s always something different to ask to see how well a subject has been learned.

it is always the teacher’s prerogative to give a test which everyone is certain to fail.

but it may say more about the test – or the teacher – than the students taking it.

God, i suppose, was fully within His rights to set up whatever laws He wanted. and, being God, He probably was not bound to set up any laws at all in the final analysis.

so the law had to have some purpose.

was that purpose to set a bar we could never reach? that’s one way to look at what paul wrote. he said the law was set up to show us our sin – to make us know in our minds the things that were wrong to do.

now, i would wager that millions of people who have never read exodus or deuteronomy have a reasonable degree of conscience that guides them in what is right and wrong regardless of whether or not they know the ten commandments, the seven deadly sins, or the three pep boys (manny, moe and jack, for the record).

i think the better way to see the law is that God set a high bar for us to aspire to. if all He was interested in doing was setting up rights and wrongs so that punishment could be meted out – and even punishment He’d ultimately mete out on Himself – then our betterment would never even figure into the equation, would it? is ‘look how much you hurt Jesus!’ a proper way to get someone to be motivated to change sinful behavior? to help them see a need for salvation?

| rush to judgment |

•March 27, 2009 • Leave a Comment

640 wgst has good on-the-half-hour news here in atlanta. occasionally i’ll leave my car radio there a little too long, as i did today. i caught ten seconds of rush limbaugh – yes, far more than the usda recommended daily allowance, i know, i know. he said, ‘Our president has committed 4000 troops to Afghanistan. Do not be deceived: this is not enough.”

in a perfect world, our president’s next news conference would go something like this:

reporter: “president obama, rush limbaugh has stated that 4000 troops into afghanistan is not enough. what is your response?”

(pause)

president obama: “if our country has reached the point where rush limbaugh is as cognizant of the facts….

(pause)

“…and not only cognizant of the facts, but able to do the analysis of them…

(pause)

“…and not only cognizant of the facts, and able to do the analysis of them, but willing to hear all sides of what action might be taken…

(pause)

“…and not only cognizant of the facts, and able to do the analysis of them, and willing to hear all sides of what action might be taken, but capable of making an informed decision…

(pause)

“…and not only cognizant of the facts, and able to do the analysis of them, and willing to hear all sides of what action might be taken, and capable of making an informed decision, but responsibly charged with making that decision…

(pause)

“if our country has reached the point where rush limbaugh is as cognizant of the facts, and able to do the analysis of them, and willing to hear all sides of what action might be taken, and capable of making an informed decision, and responsibly charged with making that decision…

(pause)

“….as the president of the united states…”

(pause)

“…then we have a far, far greater problem facing us than the adequacy of 4000 troops in afghanistan.”