In January Nathan and I stole a couple days away to Duluth, and I took some video of a surprisingly calm and pastel winter Lake Superior. Today I combined it with a song I wrote and recorded in my basement in June 2020 during COVID lockdown, to make a new YouTube video. Not sure I ever posted about this song here on the blog before, but I don’t think it needs explanation. We’ve all been here I think.
And you’re fast asleep And you’re dreaming deep And you’re falling down down down
And the stars burn out And the angels doubt feel them falling down down down
still I won’t let go Let the cold wind blow As we’re falling down down down
Here’s a song I wrote and recorded last spring but actually got around to posting on my YouTube channel today. It feels like good timing for a lot of reasons, personal and communal. The words are inspired by the words of Jesus in the gospel of John, chapters 13 and 14.
Open your hopeful eyes in the morning, before the very first light Breathe in compassion, breathe out forgiveness Before the very first light
Let not your hearts be troubled Believe in God, believe in me As I have loved you, Love one another Reach out, follow me
Lay down your weary heads in the evening After the very last light Breathe in forgiveness, breathe out compassion After the very last light
Let not your hearts be troubled Believe in God, believe in me As I have loved you, Love one another Reach out, follow me
“Black Hole” is a song I wrote and recorded in 2020. Then, a couple years later, I came across this essay on one of my favorite websites, publicdomainreview.org. During the Great Depression, the US Farm Security Administration sent out photographers to document people’s living and working conditions. This project brought us well-known photographs like Dorothea Lange’s “Migrant Mother.” It also produced what would become thousands of “killed negatives” – photos rejected for whatever reason, punched with a hole to make their rejection clear.
The song itself was inspired by my learning that many galaxies, including our Milky Way galaxy, have at their center a black hole. I just felt like I could relate – and maybe you can too.
There’s a black hole at the center of everything Even you even me what is gone what is yet to be There’s rage there’s rest there’s reality Warped around what we cannot see There’s a black hole at the center of it all
Don’t you look too long or hard at the black hole underlying everything breathe it in, breathe it out, hold it close, let it go There’s love there’s light there’s levity rippling from what you never see There’s a black hole at the center of your soul
dream perchance to sleep Void and without form In the dark and deep Ever being born
Through the black hole at the center of your soul broken hearted blessings flow path of pain, gift of grief, fire of faith, cloud of unknowing There’s hope there’s hell there’s history Enigma wrapped in epiphany round the black hole at the center of us all
*PS – “Black Hole” is one of 19 songs I’ve gathered from my last decade of songwriting and recording, and am preparing to release as an album. Fingers crossed, it’ll be out before this year is over!
Here is the song I wrote on the very first day I decided to try songwriting as an early-morning habit, March 8 of this year 2024. That habit stuck well and produced a pile of songs which are still in various levels of tweaking, and as I wrote in my last post (at the end of April!), I batch-recorded four of them to post on Youtube as I had time. (I shared one of the four in that post.)
Nobody’s been waiting with bated breath for the next release (including me!) but here it is just the same, after a longer hiatus than I intended. It was a busy beautiful summer and now I’m settling into a newer routine in which I’ve significantly cut back my day job hours to make more time for music once again, so I think the next Youtube release will be much quicker. Also still crossing my fingers for a complete album release this year, which has been in the works for several years.
But on to the song.
Many of us who grew up in the church are very familiar with Psalm 139, or at least we think we are. When it’s included in public readings, it often cuts out just before this part:
If only you, God, would slay the wicked! Away from me, you who are bloodthirsty! They speak of you with evil intent; your adversaries misuse your name. Do I not hate those who hate you, Lord, and abhor those who are in rebellion against you? I have nothing but hatred for them; I count them my enemies.
But these days (and probably not just these days), I think this part is something we need to acknowledge. We humans are often quick to judge and prone to righteous indignation, with violent imaginations that, paired with powerful weapons and polarized societies, bring us tragic consequences of wars, mass shootings, and assassination attempts. Not to mention all that doesn’t make the news, including and down to the cold and selfish ways we can each so habitually treat one another in our everyday interactions.
The beauty of this psalm is that it doesn’t end with the vengeful part. Here is the ending:
Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.
See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
It’s no good to either ignore or justify our tendency towards hatred and violence. We must honestly name it out loud in the context of community – God* and neighbor** – seeking to be truly seen and known, and asking for help to live well together. “The way everlasting” is the only one that will ultimately work, that is sustainable and life-giving.
*However we each conceive of God, the concept is vital – none of us is all-sufficient unto ourselves. Something/someone is the ground from which we grow, the life that sustains us, and the overarching great beyond to which we are all ultimately drawn.
**Everyone is your neighbor.
Ok, really, on to the song.
You’ve searched me, you know me, my ups and downs You feel me, you see me, you’re all around Before a word is on my tongue you know You lay your hand upon me
You’re higher, you’re lower, you’re everywhere There’s nowhere I can go and you’re not there Night shines like day, darkness is light to you You lay your hand upon me
You found me, you formed me, my ins and outs You read my life story before it starts Your thoughts are vast, your works are wonderful You lay your hand upon me
But all those bloodthirsty wicked ones Couldn’t you wipe them out God?
Oh search me, know my heart, my anxious thoughts Test me, and see where I’ve gone wrong Lead me in everlasting ways with you Oh lay your hand upon me
Here is my last song for #songaweek2023. This year I slowed my songwriting pace from weekly to monthly, and it has felt right. Next year I will probably continue with this pace.
The first part of this song drew inspiration from some painful news my faith community received last week, that our 15-year-old church’s founding pastor is moving on to a new church call. When you’re part of a good thing that’s become an anchor of peace in your life, it’s hard to lose its leader and wonder what comes next, and if you have the fortitude to keep going now.
This personal grief comes amid the deeper, wider sorrows spreading from two wars in the news and the insistent vague consciousness of suffering all over everywhere and everywhen. It’s December and it’s raining as I write this (a localized pain of global warming here in Minnesota where it should be snowing), and in this northern land we’ve been swiftly plodding towards the longest night. So it feels like the dark is never far.
I couldn’t write a hopeful part for this song, but I turned to a song that Sam Gamgee sang in The Return of the King. So once again, thank you Mr. Tolkien. In the lyrics posted below the video, Tolkien’s words are set in quotation marks, and I am happy to give him the last word in this last song of 2023.
If I go on then why can’t you? Can I believe the words you said The songs you sang The hope you spoke The better day you thought you saw? And if I fall then have I failed? Can I be down and still be true True to you The you I knew When you knew all would come out right?
“In western lands beneath the Sun the flowers may rise in Spring, the trees may bud, the waters run, the merry finches sing. Or there maybe ’tis cloudless night and swaying beeches bear the Elven-stars as jewels white amid their branching hair.”
The day is dark the night is long It’s stolen land I’m standing on From hand to hand From name to name We pass it down, we shift the blame The water’s wide, I can’t cross o’er, The day is bruised the night so sore I’ll dig my den and lay me down, bear my heart to the wounded ground
“Though here at journey’s end I lie in darkness buried deep, beyond all towers strong and high, beyond all mountains steep, above all shadows rides the Sun and Stars for ever dwell: I will not say the Day is done, nor bid the Stars farewell.”
Julia Bloom 