Isla Jane

My little Isla,
This is my first attempt at writing anything since you were born. It will be sketchy and clumsy. But that’s not because of you. You’ve been a welcome distraction from the fact that I was already seriously struggling to write. I think I posted six times last year total, and most of them were with a lot of stress and hesitation. But your dad kicked me out of the house this morning with my lap top and a free latte card, so here I am. It’s not that there’s nothing to write about. On the contrary, your birth is probably the biggest event in my life. That and marrying your dad, but birth is far more dramatic than a wedding (assuming everyone crucial shows up).

There are several babies here and so I’m distracted and missing you already. Maybe especially because you were still sleeping when I left. There’s also a table of older men and that makes me weepy right off the bat. Old friendships. Vulnerability. Babies. Seriously beautiful stuff at the coffee shop this morning. Also some pretty impressive beards – so while I’m happy to be here, part of me wishes you and your dad were here to share it.

I haven’t told you this yet, but I spent many years being scared to death of motherhood. Personal issues, fears of screwing the whole thing up, awareness of my own selfishness all made me hesitant. (Not to mention actually giving birth!) And I’ve come to believe American culture contributes to those things by obsessing about the value of autonomy for adults and also of a perfect childhood for kids. But here’s the thing: I was so, so wrong. I love you and I don’t have to try. I want to take care of you and I don’t have to force myself. You are beautiful and interesting and I don’t have to talk myself into seeing it. I hope you experience it someday – knowing that love can be so powerful and one-sided is a great boon to my understanding of the love from God. And of the love he hopes to see in all his people for each other.

When I fell in love with your dad, it happened very quickly, and then more slowly, and over again. Choosing to love someone comes with starts and stops and decisions and fears, but not so with parenthood. There are no hesitations or issues of requiting. You are my family and I love you. Just like that. Blown out diapers don’t change that. Trouble sleeping, refusing to eat when you desperately need it, the stuff of babyhood – none of it closes my heart to you. If anything it opens it more and pulls at its strings as I wish I could fix it all. And I know that will continue as you grow and change. I am no longer afraid of anything compromising my desire to give of myself for your sake, and I will always be grateful for that discovery.

I love you, sweet Isla Jane. May you grow in the knowledge of that, and that it is only an inkling of the love that awaits you in your relationship with the Lord.

 

Fear Month Pt. 3: Mind and Mantra

It is a temptation.  It is a submission.  For me, fear is even an addiction.  It is a place I know how to inhabit, where I believe I gain control of what happens to me.  If I fear it before it happens, I can see it coming and prevent it.  I’ve experienced it before with other failures of my mind.  Like judgment.  Like pride.

It once took me several months to decide to forgive someone that I love.  And another two years to really get it done.  Book after book, talk after talk, wall after wall, learning how to forgive a fully repentant person.

It wasn’t just about deciding to forgive, it was about breaking the cycle of unforgiveness.  A cycle in which my mind longed to recall the ways that I had been wronged, a cycle that made me feel less vulnerable by keeping me in the place of victim at all times.  Never would I be surprised again.  A cycle that poisoned my heart and mind and relationships.

Any time we want to eschew a habit, we have to say “no” to it once.  And then we have to say “no” again the next hour, the next day, and every day after.  For me, one of the most helpful things is to replace my previous thought pattern with a new mantra.  One that is easy to remember and available to repeat at the first sign of danger.  My mentor wrote one for me once and since then I have found my own.

My forgiveness mantra is pretty simple now that so much time has passed.  Every few months now I may find a flash of paranoia, and I can say in response – I have forgiven that person and I am loved by that person.

My fear mantra will probably change over time, too, but here’s what I’m starting with:

It is an act of obedience and worship to create.  I will seek and indulge creative promptings, and I will present my work to my loving Creator with open hands.

I may crochet it on a pillow.  Except that I am afraid of needles

 

Fear Month, Pt. 2: Find & Replace

When I started writing and making music recreationally, fear was hardly a factor.  Little risk, I suppose.  But with each post, each attempt, each listener, my fears grew.  Small successes actually made them stronger.  Farther to fall, and other fallacies.  I’ve pushed them down, tried to ignore them, but all it’s done is made me avoid my pursuits in order to avoid the voices.

So, my first step is to expose the fear, and I invite you to do the same.  Tell someone you trust to listen, journal a prayer, write them here in the comments.  Whatever you do, be specific.  Don’t just say you’re afraid of failure, describe what it looks like under the full light of your inspection.  Here are some of mine.

There is only so much success to go around – another person meeting their goal precludes me achieving my own.

I will make my work too honest, or not honest enough.  Too honest and people will shy away or feel they have to boost me up, or not honest enough and there will be no personality or truth on the page. 

I will include too much moral, which will make someone feel I’ve preached at them, or not enough, which will deny my belief that our surroundings are full of teachings that we should attend.

As I identify previous mistakes I’ve made, whether in writing, music, relationships, or the day-to-day, I become afraid that sometime in the future I will look back on this very moment as a mistake.  It is common to say that one regrets more the things they didn’t do or say than the ones they did, but my regrets fall at least equal, if not more toward the latter.

I did not hone my craft enough in my younger years.  I would stay in bed all morning on a Saturday reading, like many who are interested in writing, but it was typically The Baby-Sitter’s Club, not Anne of Green Gables or The Hobbit.  This means I will never understand good writing.

If I receive praise, I’m being patronized.  If I receive critique, I’m being told to quit.

The list could go on, and probably will, elsewhere.  It feels good to ask myself what exactly I’m afraid of, to answer honestly and without a filter.  With some, hearing myself out loud is enough to break the spell of fear, and with others, it is good to know what I’ve been listening to internally.  No wonder it’s hard to get work done with all that noise.

Fears found.  Tomorrow, a post on replacing them.

 

Fear Month

January is for plans, for resolutions, for new motivation.  I love this time of year.  Love the possibilities and goals.  Love it.

Well, no, that isn’t entirely true, but it’s true enough.  Well, okay, it’s just a little true.  It’s truthy.  I also begrudge January.  Because while I watch other folks with plans, resolutions, and motivation, I am jealous.  I want to participate in the talk, which is easy.  But most of all I want to succeed, which is daunting.  I set my sights on the desires of my heart, but pounding in my ears is, “Best laid plans…”, “You know you don’t stick with resolutions”, and “Have you seen your gut lately?  Motivation?”

I know, my internal dialogue is riveting.  But truly, I do love the marker that is January.  I love that we give ourselves the freedom to re-evaluate and try again.  Immediately behind each goal, though, for me, comes fear.  Fear that I am an imposter trying to sneak into the world of art and music and it is only a matter of moments until I am discovered and expelled forever.  And the surest way of being discovered would be to make something that is bad.  Something that will let everyone know I have no business here.  Worst of all, something that I had thought was good.  And I will be made the fool for believing.

In December I sprained a ligament in my lower back.  Not doing anything glorious, just stepping off a ladder.  Apparently I am tall.  And have been doing too many things in a slightly bent position for my lower back to keep up with, and now it has retaliated.  This means a new position at work and for the past several weeks, fewer positions at home.  Namely lying down, walking, some standing, and minimal sitting.  I would’ve imagined that all that time would get me through my stack of reading and a lot of writing, but my mind has been a scatter and the few times it has come to rest it has done so on discontent with my lack of productivity.  My doting dog breaks me out of the cycle when he can, eager as I am for purpose and movement.

Last night the best of my friends quietly sat and probed.  Quietly waited while I searched for a way to convince him that I am done trying.  I will cook and garden and pursue the things that I can fail at without anyone being the wiser.  And then he got angry, which was the most surprising and helpful thing he could have done.

These next few posts I will be exploring this dynamic of art and fear.  An old and common journey, but one I clearly need to fully travel.  Because I have a great desire to give in to one more than to the other.  And because I have a  husband who calls me an artist, even when it makes me cry.

If you like, come with me.  We’ll wear fear-colored ribbons and stop ignoring the problem.

 

Reduced

In the last 30 years (read: my lifetime) I’ve had the fortune of watching several members of my family grow to very old age.  Eight of them lived to their eighties, one all the way to one hundred.  She especially grew sweeter as she grew older.  Her body became dependent on the help of others, and her heart seemed to follow, finally embracing what it had always needed.  She doted on her great-grandchildren, spent hours studying the pictures of a great-great grandchild she’d yet to meet.  She was tiny, sweet woman with beautiful wrinkles, bright eyes, and terrible hearing.  Her eyes were clear and blue through the end and she taught herself to read lips with them, so that while she struggled to participate in group discussions, she persisted with one-on-one conversations and tenaciously kept abreast of her family’s affairs.

My childhood memories of this woman are distinct from the later years.  I have clouded images of an old house with a fascinating church organ we were not allowed to touch.  It was slightly dank and the pink-tiled bathroom may be solely responsible for my continued aversion to that color.  Nana didn’t talk with us much then, that I remember.  She worried a lot and had neck pain that bothered her intensely.  She mostly sat in her rocking chair and adjusted her  brace, her feet occasionally touching the floor.  My sister and I would sit across the room or explore carefully outside while we waited for the visit to end, never stepping too close to the small fence which continually sank further over the eroding cliff that bordered her property.

When she moved into the retirement home, it was with readiness for her life to wind down.  She could no longer take care of her belongings or keep herself in health.  She whittled that house down item after item to fit into a small kitchen-less studio and anticipated a small and quiet ending.

But she was wrong.  Nana lost her independence, the home where she raised her child, the neighborhood she had inhabited for fifty years.  She gave up what had become her life, and she then came alive.  She signed up for water-color painting and we each have her paintings displayed in our homes.  They are simple, but beautiful.  She took a tai chi class and felt the pain in her neck lessen.  She had friends to lunch with each day and took it upon herself to learn the geography of her new town, though she never drove a car again.  She took pride in “treating” us to breakfast with her saved up dining points and wasn’t satisfied until the table was filled with every variety of juices and Eggo waffles available.

Most people in my family maintain that giving up her home and responsibilities added many years to Nana’s life.  And when eventually her health outlived her money, her dependency, and her joy, reached yet a new level.  She became less and less the woman we had known, or even she had known.  If you ask Jaron to do his impression of Nana, he will put on his best high-pitched voice, turn his head to the side while he snaps his wrist and says, “Oooohhh, ooh!!”.  In her later years it didn’t take much to make Nana smile and even an attempt at a joke in her presence got you the rich reward of that expression which Jaron felt the need to master.  She thought less and less of herself and became younger and more beautiful in the process.

As I approach the second third of my lifespan, I think often of Nana.  Here’s to the force of aging.  Here’s to the loss of our self-sufficiency, control,  and possessions, which we would never accept if given the choice.

Tonight I’m making salad for my aunts and uncles.  Watching the vinegar reduce.  Watching it become sweeter over heat.  Thinking of my Nana, and looking forward to an evening basking in the beauty of the people surrounding me, while I can.

(It’s a fun autumn salad, if you’re interested: Caramelized Beet and Goat Cheese Arugula Salad)

 

What is a weekend?

I was not an Anne of Green Gables girl.  I didn’t read the entire series of Little House on the Prairie. When I was given a Skipper doll I immediately cut her hair off to have a tomboy cut.  Or maybe it was my sister’s Skipper.  I did watch BBC’s “Pride & Prejudice” a few times in college, but that had less to do with the fancy outfits and more to do with good company and the opportunity to feel like a rebel as we indulged in a Mike’s Hard Lemonade while watching.  And the fact that I had an inkling that I, like Elizabeth Bennett, was one of the few with the stellar combination of wit and intrigue to one day win a worthy but seemingly unwinnable man like Mr. Darcy.  I was right, but that’s another story. 

Somehow in spite of all this tomboy training, last weekend I was home, car-less,  with hot tea in hand and a severe thunderstorm outside when I happened on an episode of Downton Abbey, a BBC Masterpiece Classic I had not heard of before.  It would seem I’ve finally caught the bug for historical fiction in fancy dresses cause two days later I had watched all seven episodes.  The story begins with the introduction of the family of a British earl during the days of the waning power of royalty and aristocracy in England.  The earl has three daughters, none of whom can receive his inheritance, and is surprised by the news that his nephew, who was to come and care for the abbey and his family one day, has died in the sinking of the Titanic.

To the dismay of everyone involved, the earl must now pass on his great wealth and title to a third cousin, a middle-class lawyer.  The lawyer is a prideful man who smugly regards himself as “self-made” and snubs his nose at the frivolous lives led by his family and at their request that he now live as they do, with more servants than family members.  One evening at dinner he made it known that he had no wish to give up his vocation and would just find time to manage the affairs of the vast abbey on evenings and weekends.  At this, the earl’s mother, played by Maggie Smith, turned to him and said, “Hwhaattt…. is a wheek… eendt??”

Jaron and I, along with many others our age, are in ways trying to undo the dynamic that this lawyer’s generation began.  We are trying to carve out a life that is not about our employment.  For days and episodes after this scene, those words kept returning unbidden.  I’d get home from work and feel entitled to use the rest of my day for leisure, talking myself into ignoring chores or even productive hobbies because I had earned my free pass being on my feet all day at the store.  And there it would be… Maggie Smith’s voice again.  What is a weekend?

Work and responsibility, as Maggie’s character so perfectly pointed out, are utterly distinct from employment.  In a time when the five day-work week was just beginning to dominate, the upper and lower class still had no use for it.  A task was a task, regardless of the day of the week and their life and work were largely indistinguishable from each other.

A life’s work couldn’t very well be expected to fit into a specific schedule of employment.  It’s an important distinction for us, as people who wish to have a life’s work to show.  We live in a time when being an artist, writer, musician is not often a viable career choice.  We also live in a time when the culture tells us that the career is a means to fund the entertainment.  We “work” so we can “play”.  We must be diligent if we don’t want to get caught up in the confusion – if we want to be people who know the glory of working hard in every area of our lives and the peace of rest in each part of our lives, as well, rather than the exhaustion of mere employment and the numbness of being entertained.

 

The Self-Tortured Soul

I’m turning 30 this year.  Technically I will turn 30 in December, but if I’m honest not a day has gone by in the last six months when I felt “29″.  No, this is not the year I am age 29; it’s the year I’m “turning 30″.

I didn’t anticipate the head trip that would come with this next decade.  I figured 40 is the one people freak out about.  But I live in a society where the young are glorified and the older are not.  The elderly in America aren’t even disrespected or mocked.  It’s worse than that, really.  They’re ignored.

The television shows I’ve watched in the last fifteen years image twenty-somethings for every stage of life, it seems.  From high school students through lawyers and doctors – young, smart, sexy is the rule.  The idea that life happens in your youth is pervasive, as is the inferred notion that life ceases when you are not young.  So I am here, approaching my fourth decade, fighting back the instinct to believe that the living opportunities in life are winding down, and that I have failed to experience them.

To be sure, there are perspectives that would say I’ve done a lot of living in my twenties.  They held two years of college, six years of marriage, more than seven changes of address.  If I were to google my name I’d find some things I’m quite proud of, and I live in Nashville, which would be a pleasant shock to my twenty year-old self.

But often times since moving here, even since the release of our album,  I find an unbidden Weepies song running up from the back of my head, “everything’s greener; you’re still hard to please.”

We have had unbelievable experiences in the last decade, begun incredible friendships, even bought a house that is perfectly situated for our situation.   And yet, I find myself driving on the 440, whining to God.  When I said we could cut our paychecks way down, I didn’t mean for this long.  How did I get to 30 years old without trying to have kids or a career?  When I was a kid I put a lot of hope in the idea that eventually I would be pretty – I’m still waiting…  What the heck am I doing over 500 miles from anyone in my family??  I think of the lives of specific friends from college or high school and feel totally justified in my pouting.  Why couldn’t I make something of myself like them?  Why can’t my story have reached a happy ending by now?  (Those of you who are a day above 40 can go ahead and laugh right now.  Don’t worry, it’s only on my really dramatic days [read "most days"]  that I think life ends in your thirties…)

Slowly and surely, creeping through my anger and hurt, in the middle of a freeway junction, God answered.  He brought to mind a quote I had heard from Dwight Edwards through Twitter and, at the time, given my hearty approval.  “Comparison is the thief of joy.”

My mind stopped.  The list of reasons to be discontent disappeared mid-rant… What exactly was missing in my life?  Shelter? No.  Food? No.  Love?  No!  So what had gotten me so out of sorts?

Comparison is a wily deceiver, offering itself as a scale, but likely used only to mislabel abundances as voids.  Comparison can tell a successful artist or business person that they have failed because they don’t have a family.  It can tell a stay at home parent that they have failed because they don’t have a career.  And it can tell someone with a family and career that they have failed because they did not choose one.  Comparison will tell us what we want to hear, every time.  If we want to feel better than someone, we’ll find  the appropriate data.  If we’re looking to prove what we lack, we’ll find that, too.  It can make us feel better or worse than others, but it cannot tell the truth.  It claims to simplify what cannot be simplified.  It can say that an ex-girlfriend is better than a wife, or that new is always better than old.  But true comparison doesn’t exist, as no two sets of circumstances are exactly the same.

I have tortured myself with comparisons, mistaking happiness for a happy ending.  But I know full well that the source of happy endings is not happiness.  It is resolution.  If I want to live a compelling life, a story worth listening to through the end, my focus must not be on happiness.  Happiness, much like success, is a by-product.  The content of a happy ending, in an imperfect world, is not beauty or riches or even laughter.  It’s justice.

The good news is that the story of the world is in safe hands.  Justice is guaranteed in the end.

And the stories we tell, with our lives or by our hands, should model that justice.  The world cannot gain happiness without it.

 

This Mourning

In our daily Frederick Buechner yesterday, we read about the time when he received his first book deal, only to immediately hear about a classmate’s dissimilar misfortune.  And as he walked away, his joy could not fully withstand the grief of his friend.  “There can be no real joy for anybody until there is joy finally for us all,” he wrote.

And isn’t that the way it is with everything in our quite broken world?  One man’s fortune is another man’s burden.  The same hill means one man’s climb and another’s coasting descent.

Sometimes in the effort to encourage the pursuit of simplicity, proponents point to the joys of letting go of consumer values, to the shame of living for cheap, monetary thrills, to the true cost of our endless appetites.  I believe in that joy, and in that shame, but I forget sometimes, that while there can be great reward for making sacrificial changes, those changes very often feel like loss.  Change is never without a feeling of loss, even happy change.  A wedding is a great beginning, full of hope and the promise of a timeless friendship, but it is also an end.  Isn’t it a common story for a best friend to spend much of the wedding grieving over the forever-changed nature of their friendship?  Or a child is born and amidst the parents’ joy, they are quickly adjusting to the sudden demands of their new charge, likely without the indulgence of previous comforts like sleeping in or a simple cup of coffee.  When we leave one thing behind in order to gain something better, moving on into joy is part of the story, but the other part is loss.

Whether it’s moving across the country, signing a book deal, or giving up Netflix (I know… it’s a doozy), we must give ourselves the freedom to grieve the fear or loss we feel.  Because regardless of how good the change may be, the pain it brings along the way is real.  I love Eric Peters’ song that I posted for the new year.  “So much to be thankful, so much to be forgotten… gonna cry when I need it, smile when I need it, laugh when I need it.  Good-bye denial, good-bye.  Good-bye.”

Pursuing a more simple, focused life is a common response to the rampant consumerism and disposability of our time, and I believe an appropriate one.  And when I am visited by the longing for what I have left behind, I must see it, name it, and then remember that I have not so much given up what I had gained as begun to hope for something different.

To pursue the life-giving habits that depend less on accumulation, and more on expression, enrichment, service, is for many of us a hoping for the day when there is joy without sadness, for us all.

 

Just you and me

A note to readers:  I know that each of you has a variety of perspectives and experiences when it comes to spirituality.  This blog entry, unlike most you’ll find here, is unique to my own spiritual tradition and experience, which is that of Christianity.  Of course, I hope you’ll all read along regardless of your feeling on the topic, but if you prefer not to, please join me again next post.  I love having you here.

If you know me, you know I’ve made a habit of moving.  In the last twelve years I’ve lived in Seattle, three different parts of San Diego, Illinois, and now Tennessee.  I’m all too familiar with pulling nails out of walls, turning off the lights for the last time.  At times I feel that I’ve said, “Nice to meet you,” and “Nice knowing you,” more often than, “See you tomorrow.”  Lucky for me with each move I’ve had some sort of built-in community.  Teams, classmates, churches.  There have been lonely times to be sure, but more often than not I was able to move directly into a welcoming and like-minded community of people as much as a place.

Moving to Nashville, however, has been a different ballgame.  Jaron and I came without jobs or connections, beyond a couple of acquaintances.  We are getting to know folks as quickly as possible, which means quite slowly.  We have been in town for five months and several times have experienced the excitement of meeting people whom we never thought we’d get to meet.  We’ve also had a few great moments of camaraderie with like-minded artists and thinkers.  And in between we’ve endured long periods of loneliness.  Times when I want to get in my car in the middle of the night, forget that we have work in the morning and bills to pay, and drive to Illinois for a breath of familiar friendship – for just a moment of knowing for sure that we are with people who love us.

Living with spiritual community has been a hugely important part of my life, of our married life, and of our vocational lives.  We have been blessed with generations of loved ones, spiritual family, to lean on and bounce off of, most notably our dear small group in San Diego.  It has been when trusted Christians speak into our lives, who know us and have invited us into their lives, that we experienced profound, seemingly tangible, almost measurable, growth.

Part of the appeal of living in Nashville is community with other art-seekers, and it’s definitely available here, however quickly or slowly you find it.  Some of our favorite influences live in the vicinity, and they continue to put out challenging, thoughtful, and Scriptural art.  In large part they do it together.  Throughout history waves of great artwork have come from good workers with great influence on each other;  these folks have recognized that they need one another.  They have actually embraced that need and made great strides together.  And I’m so glad they did.  (Behold the Lamb tour, anyone?)

I’m so glad they did, in fact, that there are times I get distracted by the beauty of the artistic community, when I forget that community is not the source of art.  There are times when I forget that great ideas, great expressions, great movements, do not come merely from having the right set of people around the table.  In our current (and temporary) loneliness I find myself thinking that what we really need is a strong social and spiritual community surrounding us and until that happens we won’t feel the comfort of friendship or experience the growth that comes from people speaking into your life or the very important feeling of being needed by someone you need in return.  I forget, in all honesty, about the fellowship of Christ.

Like the very sad VHS my parents had of the making of “We Are the World” in the eighties.  All the talent in the world brought to the same room does not supply the super-natural experience we all expect will result.  Christ supplies it.  It is his story we tell and his in-dwelling by which we are sustained whether with a crowd of support or in a quiet room with a whispered prayer.  Without him our cries for beauty echo to nothingness and our hope dissipates along with them.

What good news this is to me.  Lest I confuse my spiritual health with the group of people with whom I am able to associate.  Lest I forget that Jacob had to wrestle with God in solitude.  Or that Job’s friends called him to turn from God in his anguish.

I am incredibly grateful, and forever improved by the art that comes from the Rabbit Room and its surrounding community, and others like it.  But what I have learned in my first months in Nashville is not the power of community. Receiving others, being received by others, while important and worthy, is a pale reflection of receiving and being received by Christ.  When people come and go from our lives, we know that Christ stays.  When others betray us, we know that Christ is faithful.  And when we are surrounded by beauty and laughter and loved ones, we know that Christ’s is the grace that supplied it.

 

Merry Christmas! (I hope you like me!)

We had been dating for less than a month when Jaron and I first exchanged Christmas gifts.  I was head over heels and very excited for what I expected to be a Hallmark moment.  But, it was not to be.  Several small gifts, some nerdy books, and a tool set later, we realized that maybe we weren’t done getting to know each other yet. 

We all have memories of receiving a crappy gift.  Maybe it was thoughtless.  Like lotion.  Maybe it proved how little that person knows you.  Like a grandmother who gives you expensive perfume to which you are very much allergic.  Maybe it was even an insult, or a passive attempt to change you.  Like the Mom who gives her Goth daughter a pink blouse.  Or maybe you watched your siblings open their toys and then as you unwrapped your electric toothbrush, you realized once and for all that you were not the favorite.

Never wanting to be the perpetrator of such events, I’ve given some pretty sweet gifts in my day.  Jewelry, a remote control airplane, musical instruments, a trip to Ireland.  I enjoy putting thought into gifts, making sure that person knows that I appreciate them and want to encourage who they are, or even who they want to be.  I’m very motivated by the opportunity to affirm the people I love; it’s my favorite part of gift-giving.  I think.  I don’t think I’m motivated by imagining the perfect gift reception scenario, where it becomes clear to that person that this is a truly fantastic gift and I must be one of the most important people in their life.  It’s not that I just want to be liked.  It’s not.

Okay, it is.  If I’m honest, I have two hearts.  One is full of love and one full of lust.  One is wrapped up in the edification of others and one in owning that person’s affection.

When I put more thought into the gift-receiver’s amorous reaction than I put into how this gift will actually effect their life.  When I spend more than I should to make sure that my gift stands out.  When I subconsciously attach strings to my gift, expectations for its use or how prominent it will be among that person’s belongings, I start to reflect that other motivation.  Pretty soon, just like I’ve sometimes done with facebook (and my blog), I’ve used gift-giving as an attempt to paint the most flattering picture of myself to present to the world, or at least to one person.  One that they will admire.  One that they will (dare I name it?) “worship”.  A far cry from the gospel and a great irony for a season of celebration of the humble birth of our Savior.

Selfish giving has been on my mind a lot this week.  The obvious reason is Christmas, of course.  Which is part of it.  But last year, largely through the help of Crown and Advent Conspiracy, I managed to limit my gift-giving and even stay in budget (almost).  Jaron and I gave each other time and unhindered presence (no screens in our house were turned on that day).  We enjoyed our very favorite holiday celebration to date.  This Christmas will be even more simple, strictly within budget, and I’m even staying within the gift wish-lists I received.  No above-and-beyonds this year.

What really has giving on my mind is the pre-order and immediate download release of our album last week.  We’ve been waiting for this day for a long time, preparing for it directly for almost a year and indirectly for many years.  We’ve made sacrifices and taken risks for it, and mostly felt good about those risks because we were “serving the work“.  It wasn’t about us; it was about these songs that we believed should be recorded, and recorded well.

Now, after cutting the ribbon and watching the trickle of response, I find myself face to face with doubt.  With the loneliness of having finished a work and realized that I cannot control what will happen with it now.  And with that I find that I was not entirely serving the work – I was in fact serving myself, too. My desire for acceptance as a musician, to solidify our involvement with the musical works we so admire.  So, in this advent season, in this uncommonly cold and snowy weekend in Nashville, I find myself looking out the window as the stark beauty of the snow reflects the lack of beauty within me.  It reflects, actually, the reason for His coming and with it the blessing of being a person not just in need of redemption, but who has had their need fulfilled.  The same light both shows my blemishes and warms my face.

As I’ve learned over the years about other submissions, like forgiveness and loyalty, serving the work is not a one-time decision.  I will be asked time and time again whether my work is for myself or for the glory of bringing order from chaos.  Of shaping scrap into beauty on whatever level I can achieve.  Freedom to do the work comes from submitting myself to the outcome.  Even, it seems, after the work is complete.

So from Jaron, Banjo, and myself, I wish you a warm and reflective Advent season, a time for wonder and gratitude.  And I invite you to check out our work at our new website, kaminmusic.com.

Merry Christmas from the Kamins!