Is This the End or a New Beginning? The Love That Might Remake Us
On Greene's Sarah Miles, Merton’s epiphany and whether compassion can still bridge our divide
by Clay Hipp
German Love Chest, Ella Josephine Sterling 1935
“When did The Land of the Free
become The Home of the Afraid?
Afraid of the world, afraid of the truth,
afraid of each other.
This ain’t the country my grandfather fought for, but I still see the hate he fought against.
Give rest to the tired, give mercy to the poor. Give warmth to the huddled masses
And I’ll show you freedom.”
All right, am going to give this one more try.
The country we love ……and care for……. no longer exists.
It is gone but not forgotten—it is still a wonderful “idea” to embrace, hold onto.
Just now, it is divided against itself. We are being ripped asunder by two extreme factions who do not even seem to be able to speak to each other. They can only point at each other, blame one another for the shape we are in, and put labels on the other: there are “deplorables” and “elite leftists”. With this approach, nothing will ever get better, only worse. They feed on each other’s dislikes and say that “your” actions prove their point. Neither faction can create a consensus, nor govern us.
We cannot continue to claim different “truths”. Social justice and individual rights are simply two sides of our national “union,” which makes the notion of “equality” a significant challenge. Where does hope for the future lie? In the center, where our basic “values” reside. (Home, family, beauty, care, community, the wisdom of the natural world, a belief in something larger than ourselves.)
As it is, I am afraid that “hate” actually exists in both camps among the most radical elements. Certainly, there are disagreements over preferred “policies,” but I sense very little conversation over those. It is mostly about personal identity which, currently, is the primary basis on which loyalty to political parties is based. Crossing over is nearly possible.
OK, enough analysis.
If my observations are correct, much of what is happening is generated, at its core, by built-up, extremely negative, personal and emotional enmity which always borders on hatefulness.
How can we possibly find, extend, compassion for one another?
Only if there is still a residuum of what is sometimes referred to as “brotherly love”. Is love only about special individuals or within families? Is there a force that is as strong as hate to counterbalance what I have been trying to describe?
Honestly, one should be able to discern that I do not know.
Perhaps a couple of anecdotes will aid our quest (and perhaps give us hope for our future as a, currently “disunited”).
How does “Love” Work? Ponder this:
“In Graham Greene's novel The End of the Affair, the narrator, Maurice Bendrix, describes Sarah Miles as having a distinctive way of interacting with others, noting her 'way of touching people with her hands, as though she loved them"
This habitual gesture is one of the first things Bendrix notices about Sarah, reflecting a natural capacity for warmth, even before the deeper, more spiritual shifts in her character occur.
Throughout the novel, Sarah's capacity for love transforms from a focused, passionate, and adulterous love for Bendrix into a broader, almost saintly love that extends to others.”
So, is this a quality that exists in some humans? Is it hidden somewhere in all of us? Can we, by extending it, bring it forth?
Can it be planted in a way that it will grow into a part of the world order?
Another:
“This famous experience is known as the "Louisville epiphany" or the "Fourth and Walnut epiphany," and is described by Trappist monk Thomas Merton in his book Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander.
On March 18, 1958, while on errands in downtown Louisville, Kentucky, at the corner of Fourth Street and Walnut Street (now Muhammad Ali Blvd), Merton was suddenly struck by a profound sense of connection to the crowded city streets.
Merton felt an overwhelming sense of love for the strangers around him, feeling a deep, inescapable connection to them.
He described this as waking from a "dream of separateness," letting go of a "spurious self-isolation" that he had previously maintained through his monastic life.
Merton felt he could see the inner beauty of the people, expressing that if they realized their true nature, it would eliminate war, hatred, and greed.
This moment marked a pivotal shift for Merton, transforming him from a "world-denying" monk to a contemplative who embraced the world, recognizing God in the midst of everyday life.” [I should add that Merton was hard at work attempting to blend his Christian beliefs with those of Eastern religions such as Buddhism. He was, in fact, at a conference in Thailand when he suffered an accidental death. (He was only 53.) While Merton was not interested in what these traditions had to offer as doctrines and institutions, he was interested in what each said of the depth of human experience.]
What are we to make of this? Does it suggest any answers to my questions above? I am encouraged by these two stories that perhaps we can be better, do better. Is love simply there waiting to emerge and change us?
I find myself depending on that “truth” to encourage all of us to seek a way to bridge the huge gap that divides us.
Listen to a very wise songwriter:
It's really hard to hate anyone
When you know what they've lived through
Findin' out that we occupy
Somebody else's opposin' side
On the banks of some great divide
Two versions of a dream
Countless revisions of history
Tryin' to tell us the future
I wanna call off the cavalry
Declare no winners or losers
And forgive our shared mistakes
You can pick the time and place
I wanna sit with my enemies
And say "we should have done this sooner"
While I look them in the face
Maybe that will crack the case
-Taylor Goldsmith (Dawes)
If we truly desire to rebuild our democratic ideal, we could do worse than to listen to these words of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
“Let us now and here highly resolve to resume the country’s interrupted march along the path of real progress, of real justice, of real equality for all of our citizens, great and small,” New York governor Franklin Delano Roosevelt said to the delegates at the Democratic National Convention in 1932 as American democracy struggled to resist fascism.
“Out of every crisis, every tribulation, every disaster, mankind rises with some share of greater knowledge, of higher decency, of purer purpose,” FDR said. “Today we shall have come through a period of loose thinking, descending morals, an era of selfishness, among individual men and women and among Nations…. Let us be frank in acknowledgment of the truth that many amongst us have made obeisance to Mammon, that the profits of speculation, the easy road without toil, have lured us from the old barricades. To return to higher standards, we must abandon the false prophets and seek new leaders of our own choosing.”
“I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a new deal for the American people,” FDR concluded. “Let us all here assembled constitute ourselves prophets of a new order of competence and of courage. This is more than a political campaign; it is a call to arms. Give me your help, not to win votes alone, but to win in this crusade to restore America to its own people.”
Let those who have ears listen hard, and deeply, and take these ideas “to heart”. Begin to care again.
“We are here to love each other, that is all.” (Zuly)
A Meditation: As Far As the Eye Can See
Looking back across the centuries: what the “great guide” taught me about the liminal space between knowing and unknowing
By Clay Hipp
Imagine that you have camped under the stars on the pinnacle of a small mountain that rises from the relatively level plains of the Carolina Piedmont.
Because it is at the very end of an ancient mountain range, there is a 360-degree view of the Blue Ridge to the northwest, and the farms that surround it, and its sister peaks to the east.
Waking early, there is complete darkness…..
As the sky begins to lighten, the blue hour begins—a period that is neither dark nor light—and ends with the rising of the orange orb at the eastern horizon.
Almost suddenly, the whole sky is ablaze with red.
If one looks to the west, you have a view to the peaks of the range that stretches from north Georgia to the White Mountains of northern Maine.
The phenomenon is “as far as the eye can see”, in this case, around fifty miles.
The native name for this big hill translates as “the Great Guide.”
The people who were here well before our appearance used it as a landmark for traversing the many trails they followed for trade and hunting and fishing and interacting with similar people.
If one tends to be introspective, the new day symbolizes the fact that yesterday is gone but not forgotten, and wonders what this day might bring.
More deeply, they might see the past as it slides away (and the lessons learned), and the promise of a future that is completely in their hands to create.
This is the gift that a true encounter with what our natural world can provide.
One might also say, let this moment “guide” me as a map for my very own precious life.
Now imagine looking due east along the spine of the rest of the range as it seeks to join the Blue Ridge in Virginia.
Valleys, fields, and forests on both sides.
If one looks carefully, they might get glimpses of rustic shelters of wood and grass and animal skins, sometimes set against the slopes of granite cliffs, and perhaps caves, where the native people lived and worked.
One might be able to trace trails along the forests and fields.
We know they were there because when farmers plow their fields today, they often unearth beautiful arrow points of native quartz.
The experts who made them had a purpose, but they often show signs of artisanship as well.
Growing up, I knew a man who had a huge collection.
He displayed them on canvases and hung them around his house.
As a group, they were impressive.
He asked that I look at and hold them.
He had talked with experts who claimed that they could see the similarities, but also distinguishing styles.
They speculated that each “artist” expressed them differently.
A thing that is useful could also be beautiful, both at the same time.
Perhaps this reveals much.
Fast forward to the 18th century.
From the same vantage point, you might see streams of wagons and animals and people traveling paths and dirt tracks from north to south along what became known as the Great Wagon Road, seeking new “opportunities.”
They would settle in the Appalachians and the Piedmont of the Carolinas and north Georgia (my Scots-Irish and German ancestors).
In the early 21st century, one might gaze due east across the interstate, and see a small triangular field against a group of hardwoods and notice the orderliness of row after row of what looked like fences covered with vegetation.
Grapevines—mine.
If one spent a few days helping out, he or she might observe wild turkeys, groundhogs, does and fawns, and hear overhead the beating of wings and the cries of red-tailed hawks and the occasional pileated woodpecker (which are the size of crows and the largest since the extinction of ivory bills in the swamps of Louisiana).
On the vines themselves, “helpful” praying mantises and ladybug beetles (they both eat aphids).
Before my vineyard came along, the red clay and quartz soil grew what the farmer next door called the “best tobacco” he ever harvested.
That little mountain has seen a lot.
Can you see why Jomeokee is a sacred place for me?
Late in the afternoon (of which I spent many), if one watched the sun descend, it appeared to be making a landing directly on the peak, “a spaceship,” one might say.
It hurts me to know that moments such as these have so little value to many.
As a matter of fact, perhaps they might even be considered a “waste of time.”
Just think of what one might actually “do” with their precious time!
Jens Kruger has given us a little tune that speaks directly to this thought, which he calls “Beautiful Nothing.”
On first listen, it seems simple enough.
On the second or third, you notice something that you had only noted but wondered about—about two-thirds of the way through, there is a brief pause of perhaps ten seconds.
Is it over?
Then the music returns…just where it had stopped.
What moved the composer to do this?
More listening did not provide a clear answer.
Other composers have been known to intentionally “surprise” their audiences (Joseph Haydn is best known for this in his Symphony No. 94 in G Major, composed in 1791, commonly nicknamed the “Surprise Symphony”).
Was this Kruger’s idea?
I have come to believe, knowing him slightly, that it was the true message, hidden in the title.
The pause was the equivalent of the poet’s method of leaving something “unsaid,” which actually makes verse so different from narrative prose.
We are given the gift of reading between the lines, reflecting on the theme, rather than being “told” everything.
The rational portion of our brains wishes to explain everything; the creative mind is aware of “not knowing” and asks questions rather than giving answers.
In other “words,” my truth of the composition is that silence—pause—allows one to search for meaning and is the place where “beautiful nothings” reside—yours and mine.
I consider those few minutes as the sun sets behind the pinnacle as a “beautiful nothing” moment, to be experienced with new eyes and ears.
What more does one truly need?
How has appreciation of the natural gifts from the earth fallen so far down the scale?
Say what you will, “beauty” has its own throne in the earthly kingdom.
Our truest “knowledge” arises from and teaches us all the natural wisdom we need.
Everything else is “artificial.”
I mentioned earlier the native name “Jomeokee” (JO-mee-oh-kee) means “great guide” and was translated to “Pilot” in English by settlers.
I am moved by thoughts of our native brothers and sisters as they still occupy the fields and forests around the base of the little mountain.
I can also imagine my Scots-Irish and German ancestors as they encountered the trails and blessings of still wild and mysterious country, looking at the road ahead and being comforted to be shown the way toward what they hoped would be their special “promised land.”
Would that we all should read and learn from the history and stories of those who came before and helped form the beginnings of our American (native and immigrant) Dream.
And in the process, let it guide you towards your own a better place to be…
A Poetic Wish
The beginning of each day is neither red nor blue.
It is, however, as we choose to see it.
Being “betwixt” and between, we sometimes feel lost…
Is there a middle ground
Where we might meet as equals
And speak as brothers and sisters
And blend our beings into new forms
Of togetherness…?
Despite the fact that it seems, at first, a “purple haze”
That blurs our vision, it can yet reveal truth
Rather than allow conflict to remain amongst us
Is a new dawn possible…and
Who will work to make it so?
We need to go as far as the mind can travel…
—E. Clayton Hipp, 4/2/2026, at home
Deep Purple
Finding Our Way Back To the Middle Ground: A Call for Unity
by Clay Hipp
Ed Mell, 'Veils of Time,' 12x30, oil on linen, 2006.
Let me just say it, I am tired of pretending. Tired of careful words, measured phrases, tactical silences.
I am afraid—deeply, deeply afraid—and I suspect you are too.
Not alone or in private moments, but a creeping permeating fear that we are watching something slip away. Something we cannot name but desparetly need to hold onto.
It seems that our collective consciousness senses that this moment in time is something different. We may be on the verge of losing it all.
And yet, we cannot allow ourselves to be paralyzed by despair. There is a way to toward a different reality. But it must be pursued vigorously by all of us who “believe” in that ephemeral idea/dream that led us to this place and time.
We must each end the talk. The rhetoric. The finger-pointing.
We must look deeply inside and begin to listen—to voices that are wiser, less driven by ego, more attentive to something larger than ourselves.
In short…..the common good.
This is hard to think about. Hard to hear. Almost too much to bear.
So, begin close to home. Embrace your friends and family. Lift each other up.
And then…..the harder part.
Consider those for whom you have very little affinity.
Taylor Goldsmith’s poignant song “Crack the Case”, about navigating broken relationships, is especially relevant here:
“I wanna sit with my enemies
And say—we should have done this sooner
While I look them in the face
Findin’ out that we occupy
Somebody else’s opposin’ side
On the banks of some great divide
Two versions of a dream
I wanna call off the cavalry
Declare no winners or losers
And forgive our shared mistakes”
Look, I am aware that this might seem platitudinous, pretentious, presumptuous. I can do nothing but say to you that this is not about me. It is about us and the country we call home—perhaps still love.
I, too, want all this to pass.
To wake up and find it was only a bad dream. Unfortunately, it is too very real to ignore. If we do not all wake up now and act, however imperfectly—the fear of which we speak might become firmly grounded.
My point?
One that I mentioned in my last post, but one that I perhaps did not fully honor:
There is, in this country, still a vast middle ground.
Sadly, we seem to have wanted it from two very different perspectives. As the two extreme ends of the spectrum fought it out, the rest of us became too tired to pay this “internecine war” any attention.
But, in the process, we also became complacent and simply allowed them to scream and shout so loudly that the good still left in us withered while we looked after our own little lives, removed ourselves from the chaos.
“As the extremes have grown louder, the rest of us have grown quieter. ”
Now, we are left with letting what used to be simply “politics as usual” become nothing but noise about seeing who can throw the most money at the other side.
Consequently, that has become the true battleground. We are bombarded constantly by those who tell us that they will lose if we do not shell out. It often seems like ideas are secondary and integrity is optional. Power and winning seem to be the only prize.
Perhaps there is another way—not through force, but through ideas. Integrity and sincerity that is shared.
And yet, there is something even deeper we must face:
We may have lost our common “culture” —the very ground on which our mutual understanding once stood.
When I was growing up, we talked to each other about music and books and TV shows that we shared because there were only three networks—three.
We talked about Matt Dillion and Miss Kitty. We hummed the same jingles. We each had our own favorite six o’clock news anchor and while each had somewhat different points of view—they were thoughtful about how they delivered them.
They earned our trust because they seemed to care about the truth, not just ratings.
Most importantly, we “listened” to each broadcast and to each other—around the water cooler at work and on our front porches after dinner. We all seemed to disagree about the same things, had similar ways to talk about it and a basic set of facts.
Today, our modern culture has moved us far away from this kind of shared experience. You watch your news feed. I watch mine. An algorithm decides what you see. We are not just disagreeing, we are living entirely different realities.
Just as pertinent were our chosen “places of worship.” Each—Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, Church of God, Lutherans, and more—approached matters of faith differently, but I cannot recall a single argument about the truth or any attempt to “convert.”
I grew up in a household where my parents were Baptist and Methodist. I became neither. (Okay, there were groups who would knock on the front door and hand out their pamphlets.)
We were all different, yet, somehow together.
Coke or Pepsi. Chevy or Ford. Tiger or Gamecocks. We were mill people and townies, Democrats and Republicans, and we did not always speak the same language.
But we were Americans, proud of our shared heritage, and serious about state and federal “policies” with which we disagreed.
What I think changed: we no longer gathered.
We retreated to our own corners of the world, seeking the comfort of like-minded podcasts, curated social media feeds and self-selected communities. The echo chambers started to take over.
In the midst of all this noise - we have lost something vital. The uncomfortable necessity of encountering people different from ourselves. Votes in the legislatures were bipartisan compromises. We disagreed, sometimes strongly. But we we all shared something underneath it all: A sense of belonging, a sense of place and—most crucially—a willingness to meet in the middle because we had to.
We lived next to each other. We worked next to each other. We didn’t have the luxury of alienation.
Please, understand—this is not nostalgia. I am not suggesting we go backward. I am talking about something deeper: the very essence of democracy. It requires differing views and a shared commitment. Not commitment to being right, but a commitment about what matters.
We have lost that—and we need to find it again.
Deep Purple Coalition
I am not indulging in wordplay.
“Purple”—
as in not red or blue.
“Deep”—
as in thoughtful and committed.
“Coalition”—
as in joined together.
I believe that there is a vast population of people who exist in this space.
They are:
Uncommitted, unrepresented and largely unheard. Many are as uneasy and perhaps even frightened (as am I). Consequently, they have not yet found a common voice and so, they remain silent.
But what if a galvanizing voice began to emerge? What if it was formed by —encouragement, recognition and through one another? Mutual encouragement from those who share their values.
I firmly believe that if there is enough evidence of the existence of this emerging “voice,” and that someone with personality, drive and hope will emerge to speak on our behalf. We have been silent much too long. This is not about winning, this is about whether or not we are willing to show up. I fear we do not, we risk losing something far greater.
So I beg you, Let’s begin this work now.
Here is what being part of the Deep Purple Coalition means:
Have conversations with your friends, family, and receptive acquaintances. Not arguments—conversations. Ask them what they're afraid of. Listen to their answer without trying to "win."
Look for those who are tired of the extremes. They're everywhere— you'll recognize them by their weariness with partisanship and their hunger for something more.
Tell them about the middle ground. About purple. About this idea—that there are millions of us who are tired of partisanship. They hunger for something more, like the ideas I have mentioned. Perhaps, forward this article, or start a small group. Anything we can do to create spaces where nuance is allowed are the kind of spaces where I see our ideas begin to thrive.
Document the emergence. When you see evidence of the coalition growing— share it. Post about it. Write about it. We need evidence that this "voice" exists — this evidence will be the force that galvanizes this movement.
How can you join?
Well, there isn’t a membership card, and we don’t have any t-shirts or a leader (yet). It only means that:
You refuse to accept that America is only red or blue
You are willing to have difficult conversations with people who see things differently.
You believe in the common good, not just personal victory
You are ready to listen, especially when it is hard
The thought of our voices rising, gathering together, gives me hope for a kind of momentum that might take shape, even as early as this fall.
Who is with me?
Coda:
Numerous books and articles show an emerging theme: that if we are to sustain ourselves as a people who can still look after one another, we must recover something deeper—our shared cultural values. For me that means that we must move toward an American “renaissance”.
We must once again care—and give our attention— to all the arts:
Music. Serious literature. Time at the table with family and friends. Spending time outdoors. Sharing with each other the things things we hold dear, and in matters of faith (in the broadest understanding of the word). We are terribly fragmented…..yet we are the only ones who can put ourselves back together. Our “rational” brains are not enough. They have given us our obsession with success and growth and wealth.
And yes, I have hope.
I’m thankful to have young friends who see things differently. They need our support and approval—and a sense that their views are worthy of our attention. That we recognize their feeling of helplessness. We, by and large, are not leading…
Let’s spread the word, and perhaps it will take root.
This all feels so helpless so what can it hurt to try?
Giant oaks from little acorns grow…
Democracy: Shades of Gray
Washington warned us. Adams and Jefferson didn't listen. Are we finally ready to?
By Clay Hipp
Lately, I find myself wondering.
Is this the end, or a new beginning?
This is not the way it was supposed to be, and yet…….
it also feels almost inevitable.
George Washington in his farewell address warned us that two principles were essential:
He urged Americans to cherish national unity as the "main pillar" of their prosperity and liberty, warning against political factions and regionalism.
He advocated for an independent foreign policy, urging the nation to avoid permanent alliances and entangling political connections with foreign powers.
Is that ominous or not?
How could we not have taken to heart these sentiments from the "Father of Our Country"?
Yet immediately after he left office, Adams and Jefferson began an "internecine" war of factionalism. Do we not find ourselves in exactly the opposite place that Washington warned of, and, ironically, just like Adams and Jefferson?
The story is too complex to tell, but true patriots must research and study it. One will see that "party politics" were already in their infancy. The roots of this challenge to the great American experiment were already coming to a slow boil.
How many of us are aware of this prophetic story?
My guess has to be that the "founding brothers" were so caught up in holding things together and also having to keep a wary eye out for Great Britain and the crown, and the (still) loyal "Tories" amongst us, to be perfect protectors of our newly founded republic.
In other words, it is up to us to choose, and make, our own destiny.
What is your dream?
What are you willing to do to make it so?
An even bigger question—are we as a people willing to receive a long due history lesson about what our country was and has been?
It seems clear to this brand-new octogenarian that the teaching and learning of history, in general, has deteriorated so immensely that nothing short of an American commitment to civic education can turn our ignorance around.
In other words, we are living in a period of American intellectual darkness.
Is our current state of affairs not clearly obvious?
Where will the wisdom come from? Where are our "intellectual" leaders?
If you find this little rant a bit much, fine. But before you reject it out of hand, do me the favor of painting a different vision.
Are you content that we will exit this current difficulty unharmed and simply resume our comfortable lifestyle?
How does that work?
Our national governing institutions are strained. The Congress and the agencies that THEY/WE created out of necessity because of the complexities of modern life have been depleted of expertise and the ability to carry out their essential functions. The personnel remaining often serve narrow interests rather than the public good.
The "independent" freedom of press guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution, for goodness' sake, has struggled to fulfill its essential role.
When truth becomes elusive, what is left?
I have found a tentative answer. I should be able to offer something after painting such a dire picture of where we are.
Did I say "reformation"? It must have been a slip of the tongue.
I meant a peaceful "revolution" which is a necessary pre-condition to replacing those powers that have torn down all of our sacred "principles".
It took a revolution to found this country. Do we have any true patriots equal to the task of reviving it?
In short, we might just need a "secular savior".
One must hope that there is a statesman or stateswoman to emerge and lead us forward. If not, we are on our own to find a way to survive.
So, I held this in my mind until an inspiration appeared. I re-read the Declaration and the Preamble to the Constitution. The words were familiar and we all (I hope) know some of the magic words. I tried, as I read, to "decipher" them anew.
Two phrases began to merge:
"Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America" (As it was originally titled and passed by the Continental Congress on July 4th, 1776)
"...that all Men are created equal… with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness"
Take note. Thirteen "united states" declared this and laid down principles upon which they would recognize individual worth.
THE FOUNDING INSIGHT
When the Constitution was ratified ("thirteen"!) years later it began "we the people… in order to establish a more perfect 'union'". From our very beginning the founders recognized that these very diverse colonies "needed" each other to achieve their common goal.
But, even then, they were strange "bedfellows" (if anything even less alike than we are now). Add the "freed" people seventy-five or so years later and, well, you can see where these documents, and the people who declared them, were bound.
I began to see that these words may not mean what we might have thought they meant.
Let me explain.
Return to George Washington's parting concerns. It seems, in the middle of our first decade, that when he referred to the need for "national unity", he was speaking about the sovereign states, not individual people. Why had I not seen this before?
Does that make it any less valuable for an average citizen to arrive at that insight?
But what might that mean for you and me mired in conflict abroad and terrible political disagreements here at home?
Let's think together.
The states were colonies, created for a variety of reasons. When they were brought together around a "common enemy", their "sole" purpose for declaring independence was achieving self-governance. Individually, they stood little chance against the military of the King. They chose to "cooperate" despite their previous significant differences.
They won.
Now what?
Were they truly a "nation"?
Clearly, no. It was simply an "idea" on which to build.
On the ground, we were still individualistic "pioneers" pursuing the opportunities for success and gain, and having a great love for "property", having been serfs and subjects (and in some cases "criminals"). We were of different heritage and religion and culture.
How could anyone, in retrospect, think that we could outlast and overcome our individuality?
Eventually, western expansion, and the quest for precious minerals and the availability of wide open spaces, led to yet another serious difficulty—we were not the only "Americans". When we encountered their own claims of a different kind of "sovereignty", we added yet another layer of complexity to the cauldron of humanity.
Do we begin to see?
Our current schism is a reflection of what we have always been, and who we have become, and suddenly our individual differences have overcome our idea of Union.
So, the question before us is whether we can return to the idea of "Federalism", shared "sovereignty of each state" among very different groups of people.
The founders recognized this from the beginning by giving the populations of each state power in Congress by direct choice of who would represent them in the House. At the same time, each "state" had the same number of Senators.
Are we capable of reconciling our differences by putting away our individual "preferences" through a different idea of Unity? That is letting each state through the political process, one person, one vote, reflect and define its priorities and have our destiny worked out in a true "original" Congressional process.
My suggestion?
The world is neither black nor white, but rather "shades of grey".
It is neither blue nor red.
I have the sense that at the heart of the matter most states are some shade of purple.
Let's band together—establish a "Deep Purple Coalition" (not to be confused with a "party"), but rather a huge uprising of voters who occupy the territory around the "center" of the population.
No left or right, blue or red, and no radical beliefs that they have all the answers.
Open minds and open hearts—people who have seen and experienced the worst possible outcome for democracy.
Legislators and fellow citizens who have forgotten how to do anything but call names and refuse to listen to the other side—even for the sake of the survival of our common dream.
Let's test the idea that we are "divided" by strong beliefs and preferences, but that we can discuss them, not as radically left or right, blue or red, but as "neighbors" who live and work together.
But only if the states themselves "re-unite" and re-declare:
"Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America"
We must not forget that we are all "purple" now.
Let's make Father Washington proud.
Baseball: The Joy of the Game
Finding grace in the unhurried, one run at a time
By Clay Hipp
Yogi Berra and Don Larson, 1956
“The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It’s been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But baseball has marked the time.”
Dear Readers,
Baseball season is here.
And with it…a realization.
I don’t experience it with the joy I used to feel.
Some teams get richer, some poorer (there seems to be a correlation).
Something about the game feels different now.
And yet—I can’t quite let it go.
Because baseball has been a steady thread running through my life.
Let me tell you why…
I have played it from sandlot, through Little and Pony League, high school, and college.
I was a Yankee fan in the fifties (my Dad’s team), a Cubs fan because I was a shortstop—and so was Ernie Banks—until 1966, when the Braves came to Atlanta.
They were awful.
But Henry Aaron was chasing Babe Ruth’s all-time home run record.
They developed a few stars and were the Southern team, so I became attached.
Eventually, they won a World Series and were a fixture at the top of the National League East for two decades.
(Chipper Jones and Greg Maddux!)
But I played—and consequently understood how difficult it was.
I never griped about how “slow” it is.
It is supposed to be.
No time clock.
And it is “never over ‘til it is over.”
Any deficit is theoretically possible to overcome in the bottom of the ninth.
Hope springs eternal in the human psyche.
It is different from any other physical game.
Each of the nine positions on the field is important—even the proverbial “right fielder,” who was almost always the smallest, least skilled, and chosen last when someone picked sides.
But it is certainly true to point to the pitcher and batter as the most crucial pieces of the puzzle.
The pitcher tries to fool the batter about what is coming next—and the batter must try to predict.
(It is much harder to hit pitches that move—curves are not an optical illusion—or when the pitcher changes speeds. A fine fastball can arrive at the plate at over 90 miles an hour.)
Imagine a batter attempting to calculate all of those variables.
All that—and more.
It is a “team game,” but there are no huddles or scrums.
Each player is truly on his own.
A single crucial strikeout or error in the field can make one the hero—or the goat—of the day.
The boundaries (foul lines and fences) merely define the playing field.
What counts is reaching base safely and, hopefully, home plate—the only place where the score is affected.
One run at a time.
You can hit a home run, or coax a walk to first base and “steal” three more bases—still only one run.
I always liked that.
Both speed and power were admired. And even if you lacked each, being a good defensive player—of whatever size and strength—could save runs. Just as important to the final score.
Catchers behind the plate had to squat down all afternoon.
Center fielders ran long distances as fast as possible to track down batted balls.
Another lovely thing…
As the game unfolded, each play was watched, appreciated, and celebrated by eight other players.
If you have never seen a home plate celebration, you have missed a lot of joy.
I remember one eventful inning when a younger teammate leapt off the bench to meet me in glee as I finished off the third out. In other words, there are many versions of a “team” sport.
My little brother and I were five years apart—just enough distance that we didn’t quite grow up alongside one another. But baseball bridged that space and became one of our greatest shared joys. We had a very technical board game with which one could actually recreate a past season due to its statistical accuracy.
During the hot summer afternoons of 1962, we “played” the entire 1961 American League schedule—and kept score (as baseball nuts did) on a huge, accountant-like ledger. Remarkably, the same top teams prevailed. Including our beloved Yankees.
Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris were neck and neck in home runs until an injury slowed Mantle—and Maris won with 61, surpassing Babe Ruth. Mantle finished with 54. (He did win the highest batting average.)
I no longer watch very many games—live or online. But I do still look at the Braves box score from the previous day.
It is kind of cool.
Because as I was growing up, there was only one “game of the week,” televised on Saturday afternoon.
The rest of the time, I would get up, pick the paper up from the front lawn, and open to the sports section to check my team.
Prior to TV, there was a “Mutual Game of the Day” on the radio. When I got my first portable, I would sometimes sit in the shade of a big oak tree on hot summer afternoons—and fantasize about being in the bleachers at Yankee Stadium. In those seemingly simple days, it did not take much to make one happy.
Oh yeah…
Before my time, Ronald Reagan broadcast baseball games on the radio. He read from a “ticker tape” to announce the games as if he were there. I guess good actors have many skills. (But he did not try to mimic the crack of the bat.)
Pity.
“Those were the days, my friend, we thought they’d never end.”
In fairness (as an update), I should report that I became caught up in the World Series pairing this year. We have a good friend with a big screen TV (we have none of any size.)
He is still a sports fan. He and I agreed to watch the series together.
Low and behold, I even talked Joanie into watching it with us. (She has almost no history with any “guy thing” sporting events.)
Knowing that I truly cared for baseball, she relented—saying that she ought to get some fluency.
We watched together.
David and I have no love for the Dodgers. (They are the arch rivals of the Braves—and have the highest payroll in the majors.) So we became caught up in the significantly underdog Blue Jays—and were devastated when the seventh game went to the Dodgers. The consensus—even among Dodger fans—was that they were significantly outplayed by a group of unknown players who had little publicity.
Wait until next year…..
Consider this:
Baseball is a “slow” game. And I, for one, do not consider this a flaw.
If you regularly feel that we are all living at the speed of commercialism—and of monster trucks on our highways and byways—take a break this spring.
If you have a college or minor league team nearby, choose a beautiful day.
Clock out. Sit in the stands and watch the play.
The crack of the bat.
The long, over-the-shoulder catch.
They are magical.
Let it flow all around you.
Surrender.
You might just discover why it was, at one time…
the American game.
Postscript
If you would like a very fine American history lesson, consider watching Ken Burns’ documentary on Baseball.
It covers roughly the period 1860–1960.
It includes politics, capitalism, racism, human nature—and more.
Even if sport is not your thing, you will learn so much about the country we call home.
Stop, Look and Listen
A note on how I’m learning to listen.
By Clay Hipp
“Stop, look, and listen.”
This basic warning now seems a cliché.
It seems to have originated with a railroad engineer, in an effort to make crossings safer. It has migrated and morphed and was taught routinely in grammar schools across the nation.
What if we brought it back in a much larger context—and made it a theme for a general cultural revival of the American Dream?
What would it require…of each and every one of us?
For me, the essential task is listening.
Stopping and looking are hard enough, but they are “physical” activities that require little thought. They are simply commands, delivered in an authoritative voice—the kind we heard each week in Hill Street Blues.
As the station sergeant dismissed all the “beat cops” on their morning rounds, he would stop them at the door by yelling:
“Hey, hey…be careful out there!!!”
Now, that was certainly a necessary and prudent thing when all manner of dangers lurked around every corner—and each policeman was fully aware of them.
But what of us?
By now, we are clearly aware of the imminent dangers to our democracy—but only when we actually stop from our busyness, listen to what has been said, and pay attention long enough for it to sink in.
Then, and only then, do we begin to reflect on the content, the ideas, and their implications—and pause…
…to ask:
What should I be doing with my time, my life?
That little soliloquy came about because of this.
My three weeks of creating, listening to, and posting Words That Sing has been an eye-opening experience—more clearly, an ear-opening one.
The major point is that, despite the fact that I have lived with most of these songs for a long time—and listened with great pleasure—I really did not “know” them at all.
Now, I like to think of myself as someone who appreciates both the music and the poetry.
How could I have been so mistaken?
Some time ago, when I began trying to write a fairly long “tome” about the songs and their writers, I was looking at them quite critically.
I needed to discern their “quality” in order to curate among the hundreds of possible pieces and assess their appropriateness for the text.
I was going to divide them into categories such as wisdom, love, wonder, and storytelling—and had to be very “critical” in choosing.
In other words, I knew them fairly intimately…
—or so I thought.
For the show, I had to become a better listener—mostly to discover their essential “messages,” rather than just how good they were.
(Had I been so superficial?)
I truly believe that I have become somewhat successful at this task.
And yet…
When I sat and truly listened to the show the next day, I became the audience.
I learned—just as I hoped you would.
Honestly, at one moment I thought, Who did this?
At another, a tear rolled down my cheek.
Please think of this only as admiration for the things these artists discerned and conveyed.
I felt honored to, in some way, channel them.
I was also reminded that, for some months now, I have sat early in the morning in the presence of other musical pieces—without words.
I listen to aid in becoming more mindful and less “rational.”
I want to enter the larger world with more of a mental clean slate.
At the beginning, these were just pieces from my past that I considered calming and peaceful—and, of course, beautiful.
Day after day, week by week, my listening began to result in less “thinking.”
Distracting thoughts and ideas could be let go with more ease.
It was a pleasing thing.
One might think (as indeed I might have) that the musical compositions would “wear out their welcome,” as the “old timers” might say—and that I would need to find replacements.
They did not.
And I did not.
Quite to the contrary, something entirely different began to take place.
Without even realizing it, I began to follow the rising and falling of the melodies—and their “conversations” with the other lines of music in creating harmony.
I began to try to identify the various instruments.
In one ten-minute piece, I discovered that it was made up of three related sections—and that the beginning and end of each section was noted not by a pause, but rather by a tiny solo announced by a particular instrument (a flugelhorn!).
I identified the main theme and followed it from horn to horn.
I noticed, at some point, that the most dramatic part at the center was made more so by the entrance of timpani in the background.
This critical “entering” of the piece, on my part, has induced greater pleasure.
Now, I should note here that I have no formal training in music.
(I do have a pretty good ear, having sung in choral groups, and I have listened with great appreciation to complex classical music.)
But here, I am reporting a phenomenon discovered entirely by listening more deeply—and, as a result, analyzing the experience.
Now things will get a little more serious.
I should not have been surprised about my own “listening” deficit.
Poor listening skills are a rampant issue.
And mind you, I am not talking just about deep listening, but rather no listening at all—or, at best, very shallow listening.
It is about our constant distraction.
There is sound, noise, everywhere.
It tends to drown out everything—including our very own thoughts.
As a consequence, we simply stop paying attention—to the natural world around us, or the people sharing the very same place.
“If we stop paying attention, then listening is a lost “commodity.”
Everything is merely a blur.
How can we maintain relationships—even very close ones—our children, our mates, our friends, our colleagues, and, in our current, broken world…our “enemies”?
When our fellow citizens are also enemies, the game is almost over.
The deal is up.
Democracy crumbles—and “freedom of speech” is of no avail when we fail to use it for the “good.”
I started with music because it is, in effect, another language.
I have come to understand that when I listen deeply to it, I am engaging in a form of translation.
I am deciphering musical ideas in the act of understanding the mind of the composer—and, at the same time, learning another form of communication.
Which gives me another “glimpse” of the world beyond myself.
Then it—and the people in it—are more real.
And worthy of my greater attention.
The late, very fine writer Frederick Buechner wrote a little book named Listening to Your Life.
He tells intimate stories of his life as examples of why we can learn just by remembering.
I highly recommend it for its wisdom and depth of meaning.
A confession: sometimes I feel like I come across as a professor—but this is so far from the truth.
I’m not here to teach.
I’m here to learn.
Because the person I am often speaking to in these reflections…is myself.
This website is a place where I am trying to tune into something.
To move away from distraction—and toward the act of being whole heartedly present and attentive.
If music has taught me anything, it is this:
The deeper you listen, the more there is to hear.
And maybe….
this is true of our lives as well.
The Shore
A reflection on why we return to certain places, and what they quietly give back to us.
By Clay Hipp
“Somewhere beyond the sea
Somewhere waiting for me
My lover stands on golden sand
And watches the ships that go sailing
We’ll meet beyond the shore
It’s far beyond the stars
It’s near beyond the moon
I know beyond a doubt
My heart will lead me there soon”
The place where land meets sea inspires so much literature, and song, and, it seems, the heart. We humans seem to yearn for a place apart. Some claim the mountains, others the sea.
I have sat and listened to vigorous conversations in which friends and family debate which is better. Just as we seem to break down as either “dog or cat people,” this divide feels deeper and richer, more essential.
The sea and land give us the sense of forever.
It should be this way.
Our lives are such that peace and quiet are a rare phenomenon. So we have crafted the idea of the formal vacation—a sacred time and place that even the “busiest” among us make a special effort to show up for, even as their minds are far away.
I write about “the shore” rather than “the beach” because my attachment is not just to a physical place involving sun, sand, and waves. Perhaps it is symbolic—this global reality of the edge.
No matter where we are on land, we came from the sea, and we carry somewhere in our deep cortex a common “memory” that tells us we are not truly this or that, but both.
Standing on the sand, with just my toes feeling the ebb and flow, if I let my mind go, there is a melding of sensibility.
We have settled into a grand routine of visiting just this one place twice a year—fall and spring. If we tell someone where we are going (“the beach”), they ask where. More often than not, our destination does not ring a bell.
It is a small lodge that stands on the boundary of two towns—one with a fairly well-known beach identity, the other mostly residential.
As we sit on our balcony, or at our small table, or on a comfortable couch, we see nothing but ocean about fifty yards away. Native shrubs and dunes covered with sea oats are the only things that separate us from the waves and sand.
There is a small wooden deck, virtually hidden, that provides a perch for those who wish to be more proximate to the elements.
That small wooden structure is where you can find us every morning at the beginning of the Blue Hour.
With our first cup of artisan coffee from a small local (very responsible) roasting company, we sit and wait for the main event—“Here Comes the Sun.”
But for us, the time leading up to the feature is the most precious.
Our chosen meeting of land and sea runs oddly east to west so the if we look left, we see a long stretch of sky over a pier at the “beach town”. From our view, we await “first light” as we try to assess the potential for an eye worthy display of color.
We have witnessed a few over the years that cannot be described.
Sometimes the clouds prevail, with only small rays breaking through the overcast. That too is satisfying (who could handle New Mexico-like sunsets day after day without eventually saying “ho hum”?).
Quite often, other guests arrive with cameras and cellphones to “capture” the arrival of “old Sol”. Good for them. At least they are not sleeping in and missing the best part of the day.
We usually return to our porch for a second cup and a little sustenance—enough to carry us to the obligatory trip to the purveyor of the perfect shrimp burger (yes, you heard that right), followed by a walk on the sand.
That usually calls for nap before a glass of wine on the porch or little deck, and then some fresh fish (from our favorite “Blue Ocean” specialty shop) from the surrounding waters, either grilled or pan sauteed.
The music cranks up about five.
Sometimes we go to a small “Island Grill” for dinner and conversation with familiar servers. Otherwise, we stay close to home.
(Oh yes, there are also sunsets to the right, due west. They are, more or less, optional. That separate version of the “other Blue Hour” is too full of other, more pressing events. Happy to announce though that some of our fellow guests urge us to go to the third floor, west facing, walkway to view their favorite luminary show. We try and be kind and considerate…..)
Postlude
Honestly, I tried my darnedest not to make this sound too idyllic. That seems to be elusive—or out of my control. I wrote this a few days before our departure and was probably not entirely in my right mind due to anticipation.
So I will just say this— I do not want to mislead you.
We do not simply sit on the porch and gaze at the surf and worship the sunrise.
Our lodge has someone who sets up chairs and umbrellas. On request, they will place them near the high tide line. We sometimes sit and read until our toes are tickled by the incoming water.
We walk and pick up interesting shells and smooth pebbles. We have an intimate relationship with the surf, and when the day is warm, we take a swim. Sometimes our feet encounter crabs and feel a fish brush our knees.
We live over four hours away in the Carolina Piedmont.
Each week here is a true retreat—a resetting of our personal rhythms.
Here is a glimpse of why and how—a few entries from my diary of the shore (including a freshly written entry of this mornings sunrise experience with a little video snapshot Joanie captured from the waves so you can join us in our revelry).
3/24/25
Yet another interesting sunrise.
A dark cloud bank on the eastern horizon. A break above and overhanging clouds.
Looked like a perfect setup for a complex light show.
Finally—some rising color-mostly shades of yellow with only a small hint of pink/red.
First the empty space between the cloud banks began to glow.
Horizontal bands of the shades of yellow.
Then the underside of relatively fluffy high, not cumulous, streams picked up the growing intensity of the rays building between the layers.
Finally, the true rays of the fast-approaching orb itself caused the deep surface bank to glow at its ridgeas if had been electrified.
At last, the intense first arc peeked above.
It is always a surprise to witness the speed with which the whole sun reveals itself—no mist or dust this morning to allow looking straight on.
Where is Strauss when you need him?
2/16/2025
Atlantis—our last morning until March. About the time we go out to check the sunrise.
Stormy, breakers start as far out as I can remember, almost too windy to stand against comfortably.
I stood looking for a patch of color—only a slight glow through a patch of deep cloud cover.
I closed my eyes to focus on the sound of the waves and noticed, underneath the thrashing of the tide, I heard a deep drumming, throbbing tone. It was magical, saying to the listener, “hear me, I am alive—you are too”.
We walked down to the strand to get a closer feel for the power of the ocean, to hear the sounds more deeply. The throbbing deepened and I fancied that I could feel it below my feet, through the soles of my shoes.
We had pretty much given up on the light show in the east when, suddenly, the underside of the clouds began to glow, first as pastels, then growing to a fiery orange. The glow extended from the eastern horizon to directly over our heads, and the bottom of the cloud cover was rolled and puffy, like the bellies of a herd of sheep.
It lasted for several minutes and faded very quickly.
The waves were coming in and breaking so fast that they were creating beds of foam on the sand and with the incoming tide we needed to flee to evade the threatening water.
Altogether magical, as wondrous as anything lately, we simply bathed in the surrounding phenomenon, with the fierce wind threatening to shear strands of hair from our tingling scalps.
The waning moon, just above, shared the glory.
In the east, the sun, mostly behind a cloud cover, struggled to match its preview.
3/22/2026
The first sunrise upon re-entry is always accompanied by a delicious sense of anticipation. We set the alarm for 6 a.m. to observe first light.
The pink hues illuminating the dark sky as we stepped out of our small studio apartment boded well for the show in store over the next hour.
Indescribable.
The sun rose with a foggy face making it possible to view it straight on as it ascended above the sea oats.
One could watch the world turn (into a new day).
We are simply grateful to be here.
A Picture Worth A Thousand Words
The journey from a single image to a lifetime of discovery, friendship, and presence at the table.
by Clay Hipp
Dear Reader,
"A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words”,
well, I can do better than that. If I wrote a book about it, it would be named:
'From Dry as A Bone to Soaking Wet — in a Decade'.
Being a journey to a thousand bottles,
fifty years of good friends communing around the table,
many miles of travel to pastoral places with rows and rows of bright green and red,
and eighteen years of soirées with home-cooked cuisine, flowers and candles,
and a crystal glass reflecting the light and a shining face.
After returning from Southeast Asia and entering graduate school, a friend said, "I am going to teach you wine appreciation 101."
You see, I grew up in a Baptist home, went to a small men's college, did not join a fraternity, and entered the army after ROTC. Somehow, I never drank a drop. My first beer was at the officers' club at Fort Eustis, Virginia. In Vietnam, I wanted so badly to get drunk — but a beer and a half was all that I could stomach.
Yeah, I know. Sounds like a fairy tale.
The friend said, "Why don't you come on over and we can get started?" Unfortunately for me, he drank mostly Bordeaux — one of the most tannic, herbal red wines, with very little fruit. I could barely even swallow. I said, "Be patient with me. Let's try again next week."
When I arrived, he was on the phone and motioned for me to sit down in his empty den.
There was the traditional coffee table on which, of course, there was a very large tome. On the cover was a globe, a bottle, three beautiful glasses of different shapes and sizes filled with various colors of liquid, and a bunch of dark grapes. As I sat waiting (turned into about a half hour), I thumbed through the pages, visiting country after country.
It was a beautiful book with pictures and topographical maps and well-crafted commentaries. I came to a chapter entitled Burgundy.
As I turned the first page, I was taken by a photo of a wine barrel turned on end being used as a table. The scene was dimly lit with candles as the main source of light. On it stood a bottle, next to which was a delicate wine glass half-filled with a green-gold liquid. It must have been cool in the room (a cellar probably) because the glass was fogged up, and a single, large drop was tracing its way down the side.
“I sat transfixed. I could not take my eyes off the aesthetics of the scene. I remember thinking: “I must find out what and where this is.”
My mind's eye recalled the green-gold color and the dim candlelight filtering through, and I was haunted for days. I checked, and the book was not cheap. Fortunately, Christmas was coming, and a copy showed up under the tree. It must have weighed several pounds. I devoured it for days (I was out of school for a couple of weeks).
Here is what I learned.
The wine was a white Burgundy from a sub-region named Chablis. The color was typical of Chardonnay, but especially from that region — the northernmost, coolest place. I searched the map and found out that the best vineyards were on south-facing slopes that collected and held the sparse heat of the sun. I think that I memorized the names of the nine "Premier Cru" vineyards.
My friend told me not to get my hopes up. Chablis was limited, and the per-bottle prices were shocking. Being a student on the GI Bill, I could only dream.
I dreamed.
All this is to say that I was "hooked." I had hardly tasted a single bottle, but the idea of wine was sweet in my mind, even though the prospect of swallowing was daunting. The magic of the book was that it was a true "atlas." It took one on a virtual tour from country to country. And because the maps showed contours, the sights — though flat — suggested what walking the properties would feel like. Though I was still completely wine "illiterate," the road was clear and the journey had begun.
I still had several years left of school, and soon the relative "freedom" of academia opened up.
The next decade was filled with opportunity. Before it was over, I had made myself something of an expert (on paper and in theory, that is). Because of the low demand for wine (the industry was still recovering from Prohibition), the reasonable cost of land, and before the boom of the eighties, one could drink both European and domestic vintages at prices that today's consumers would swoon over. Very fine California Cabernets and Chardonnays could be had for as little as five dollars a bottle.
This made it possible for me and my friends to buy and taste like kings and queens.
Before 1980 came, I had taken trips to California and Europe, furthering my experience by visiting the wineries for free tastings without ever having to purchase. If this sounds like paradise to one who cares about the elixir, they are right.
By the close of my first decade, I could boast a decent "cellar," which grew quickly to a thousand bottles or so (yes, I can do the math). When folks would ask, "What are you going to do with that much?" I came to say (with a twinkle in my eye), "When one has a bottle with dinner each night, that is only a three-year supply."
One miraculous picture created a lifetime of pleasure and the ability to share a glass and reflect on the places I have visited and the wonderful wine people I have gotten to know.
They — who have toiled in the "dirt" — created precious memories for our (and their) benefit, out in the open air with the sights and sounds of numerous animals (neighbors) of the sky and forest.
In the last eighteen years, that gift of the soil and the sun overhead has been paired with a love of the table and the communion that happens there. We adore cooking and sharing and having a safe and comfortable environment in which to retreat from a world not so embracing. A place to grow and become closer. A place to have actual encounters. A place where the world is not so created by mankind but still imbued with the essence of where we came from.
It is a place of true "presence" — one full of human voices, not artificial sounds. It nourishes our bodies and souls.
Would that we could raise a glass to each and every one of you and find that we are not as different as it might seem.
Wine, when made by caring stewards of the earth, is one of the most natural beverages that exist. Each grape contains sugar and juice inside, and natural yeasts on its skin (which add enticing flavors and aromas). Fermentation occurs with no help from us — creating alcohol and carbon dioxide (which help stave off spoilage and keep it fresh). It is the stuff of magic.
Our ancestors have been making it, and praising it in song, for five thousand years.
- ✦ -
And so, I raise a glass of golden Chablis to you, my dear reader:
in salute to episode one in a "story of a life" and…
— For pictures that open doors
— To the friends who invite us through them and
— To the worlds we might discover on the other side
May you find many kindred spirits along the way — and may you know the joy of presence at the table that such gatherings bring.
Santé!
The Story of a Life
Taking Your Own Advice
How listening deeply changes everything
by Clay Hipp
Dear Reader,
For the last two Fridays, I have posted a two-part show on Words That Sing, my music blog.
The subject was "The Story of a Life"—featuring a group of songs that explore our past, present, and future in order to better appreciate how we, over time, "create" our own human existence.
My purpose was to show how the lyrics of songwriters might guide our thinking and perhaps engage in some reflection to see how things are going.
Now, I find myself thinking of little else.
Perhaps you have not (yet) bought into my idea that poetry in general, and song lyrics in particular, are where true "wisdom" lies. We can accumulate tons of knowledge from reading non-fiction, and much inspiration from novels and short stories, but "poetry speaks to us in mysterious ways unlike the others." I am no expert at literary criticism.
If you want to explore my bold statement, turn to the myriad writers who will be more than glad to offer their erudite opinions. My thoughts are instinctual.
Here is my point:
Words are all we have to attempt to express our ideas. More is not necessarily a good thing. Take any subject. Choose your favorite writing approach and style.
“A great poet can sum up a page of your verbiage in a single verse. ”
The great poetic voice "suggests," with enough spaces among the words, to engage your very mind, your consciousness, and to encourage reflection. The poet is not tempted to "prove" anything or presume to speak truth. That part is left to the creative reader.
My admiration for song is suggested therein, but with another huge enhancement.
Music is also a form of language.
A song delivers lyrics to the mind in yet another "mode" and, probably, to different parts of our brains. One need not "think" in order to receive the melodies and harmonies; they are simply delivered aurally.
If one is astute enough—or if we listen a second time—we begin to notice the interplay between the two.
This phenomenon is something we must spend more time on down the musical road.
For now, I will just say that experiencing the poetry this way can be a revelation to anyone who just "likes" songs. There is certainly nothing wrong with that.
I merely suggest that experiencing music and poetry this way is worth the effort.
Let me offer a corollary.
I recently read a book written by someone who spent a decade or so as a guard at a major museum of art. As he spent more and more time in the presence of beautiful paintings, he began to experience them in a new way.
They became not just whole pictures that one preferred or did not.
Rather, he began to notice the details of the artist’s brush strokes.
The parts took on a whole new level of interest.
Now I love beautiful art myself, but I never studied or practiced it. I never became "enlightened" enough to appreciate "modern" art as a genre.
But on a recent trip to Vienna, I walked through a thoroughly contemporary art gallery and, due to his tutelage, began to see some of the paintings with a different level of appreciation.
The parts became as wonderful as the whole.
That is what I am attempting to communicate about the art of song.
As a result of my trying to raise my listener's consciousness of the wonder of great songwriting, I myself began to experience it more deeply.
I wanted, with them, to understand the nature of our lives more deeply.
Allow me an example from the recent shows.
They were arranged in three parts:
the past (memory)
the present (choices)
the future (planning)
That is only a simple way of describing the experience.
The centerpiece—“Present”—suggested, through a handful of selections, that we, in essence, create ourselves.
I then tried to stimulate reflection by demonstrating our various modes of looking inward in order to see if changes might be beneficial.
As I experienced the program with them, it became clear to me that one of the songs pretty much summarized the whole message.
“We May Never Pass This Way Again” by Seals and Croft on their 1973 album Diamond Girl.
Here are the pertinent verses — please read them slowly and contemplatively.
“Life
So they say
Is but a game and they’d let it slip away
Love
Like the autumn sun
Should be dyin’
But it’s only just begun
Like the twilight in the road up ahead
They don’t see just where we’re goin’
And all the secrets in the universe
Whisper in our ears
All the years will come and go
Take us up
Always up
…
Dreams
So they say
Are for the fools and they let ‘em drift away
Peace
Like the silent dove
Should be flyin’
But it’s only just begun
…
So
I wanna laugh while the laughin’ is easy
I wanna cry if makes it worthwhile
I may never pass this way again”
For me, this covers the waterfront.
It can stand on its own in trying to say to you: "pay attention" to the important things.
For some unknown reason, I almost left it out until I heard it again.
One must experience the whole song to "hear" the artistry —the harmony, the instruments, the dynamics of the arrangement.
If you hear it, I dare you to try to get the chorus out of your head.
And then the message becomes clearer.
The song did for me what I wished for my listeners: don't be "late for your life" (Mary Chapin Carpenter). I urge you to take the time to listen and see for yourself.
A song to the wise…
A Footnote:
After retirement, when I started to try to write creatively (instead of professionally), I did not know where to start. I chose to begin with a kind of memoir (though I was not quite sure what that meant at the time). I called it simply "For my children and grandchildren." I thought that they might sometime want to read about my growing up years. It has grown as it proceeded.
What I had not realized was that doing this actually aided in remembering things that I had not thought of in years. I have not chosen yet to share it, though I think it worthy.
Looking back to that point six or so years ago (and rereading some of it), I have realized two things:
It is very "narrative" in style.
I got at least as much from the writing as I hope my readers will.
I believe since then that I have learned to be a better writer—moving from mere narrative storytelling to become more facile, thoughtful, and to become more aware of when it is good and when it needs improvement.
Also, a final piece of advice….
start writing, even if you do not think you can.
If nothing else, you will be creating a gift to yourself—telling the story of your life to the one most able to appreciate it, and understand what it has been, what it means now, and perhaps, what it might become.
— ✦—
I firmly believe that the story of your life is not something that happens to you. It is something you create, one moment of attention at a time.
Two Worlds
Transactional | Relational
Curiosity, commerce, and the power of human relationships
by Clay Hipp
“While conquest is a finite game, played for the pleasure of the win, curiosity is an infinite game, played for the pleasure of finding things out.”
Dear Reader,
When you read the title, what do you make of it?
Ponder it for a few moments more.
If nothing is coming, then perhaps it is simply that, for whatever reason, the critical words are not “speaking” to you.
So, if someone were to ask you:
“Are they the same thing (world), or is the title suggesting that they might be two separate concepts—two different worlds?”
Let’s explore that—perhaps an anecdote might help.
As I was studying, and later teaching, in a business environment, one of the fascinating subjects that I had never thought much about was the effect of cultural differences on the commercial world.
First it reminded me of the prevailing American image (in my growing up) of Japanese products—seemingly overnight—changing from cheap toys and little autos to finely engineered vehicles and highly desired stereo products.
I was somewhat amazed when my favorite, most desired, automobile was a Datsun 240Z. After serving in Vietnam, I bought two very large Sansui stereo speakers with twelve-inch “woofers” and carried them home as part of my personal baggage.
Hey, I was always a Chevy guy who played music on vinyl 45 and 33 rpm records on an American record changer from RCA Victor.
My first model train was a heavy metal set with only a few cars and enough track for a big oval, made in the early 1950s by Lionel. Within five years, my younger brother came home from a sleepover to report that his friend had a set with multiple cars, side buildings, and enough flexible track to make bridges and figure eights.
I asked him, “Is your friend’s family rich?”
At first I was impressed and jealous. But when I picked up the engine, it was plastic and easily flipped over. It was made by Tomytec, a Japanese company.
I kept my Lionel for years.
See where that early image of “cheapness” came from? My people were proud of buying American-made goods.
My 240Z changed everything.
Then, as I studied business marketing and international sales, I learned—and of course taught my students—that the aggressive manner of U.S. business managers might not serve them well when dealing with firms from other countries.
We read a case study told by an experienced American manager of international sales.
Early in his career, he flew to Japan to sell his company’s products. He had a tight schedule and an ambitious sales goal. He tried to make three or four stops a day, close deals quickly, and return home within a couple of days.
Short story?
On virtually every call, there was very courteous treatment, much bowing, and seemingly genuine interest in his product.
At the end of the hour he would say something like:
“So, we have a deal?”
In almost every case he was told:
“We should meet again tomorrow over lunch and learn more about each other and your company.”
As we learned from other similar scenarios, this was the cultural approach—leading slowly toward a true meeting of the minds.
I would ask my students:
“What do we learn from this account?”
My more astute students would eventually conclude that some cultures prefer engaging in commercial dealings only after gaining some understanding of the person and organization with whom they would be dealing with contractually.
One young man said what he took away was that learning the culture might benefit him and his company through higher sales and repeat business—even though it “cost” more in time.
Then one of my very fine and thoughtful female students (after the guys had gotten their say) went to the heart of the matter. She gently said:
“ I have always hated bargaining—haggling over price.”
(This “disinterested” person stopped short of voicing his bottom line: “Rather than thinking in terms of ‘paying the price,’ I would prefer ‘investing in the future.”)
My hope was always that my students might learn something of lasting value—professionally, of course, but perhaps personally as well.
So, have we moved any closer to answering my query?
Just so you know, this is not simply some academic linguistic puzzle we are exploring.
Almost every important issue in life involves human interaction.
What if we discover that some people instinctively prefer transactions over relationships? (Our earlier example above seems to mirror that conclusion— consider how the negotiations unfolded).
One of the ideas that triggered my thinking about this (the rest is too complicated to cover here) came from a TED talk by philosopher Michael Sandel titled Why We Should Not Trust Markets with Our Civic Life.
Sandel argues that markets do a reasonably good job allocating goods and services—but there are significant dangers in applying market logic to the important facets of our communal lives. He gives a number of good examples, and I recommend this as a primer.
His bottom line seems to be that some of our most pressing necessities should not be “commoditized,” and he proceeds to explain why.
If we return to my title, I am suggesting that we should spend time examining those parts of our lives that can be understood through the rational workings of our minds (the markets) and those that are better considered in terms of our relationships to others—and how we might make our lives together richer by considering the needs of others as well as our own.
Some would say that a good bit more compassion might help.
Please allow me to introduce a somewhat controversial perspective that may help us see, and perhaps better understand, what is being explored here.
In my formative years as a teacher in the world of business education, I experienced many revelatory moments. Here is one of them:
In her influential book In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development (1982), psychologist Carol Gilligan challenged traditional raditional psychological theories, particularly Lawrence Kohlberg's stages of moral development, by arguing they were biased towards a male-centric "ethic of justice".
Gilligan proposed that women often develop an "ethic of care," emphasizing relationships, responsibility, and context, which was previously seen as a less mature form of moral reasoning but which she argued is a distinct and equally valid perspective.
The book was revolutionary because it gave voice to women's experiences and influencing gender studies, education, and political debate by highlighting the importance of relational morality.
A recent example can be found in a series of New York Times articles written in the mid-teens by Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant titled Women at Work.
Earlier, Sandburg had become known for challenging women in business to “lean in”, meaning, in part, to become more aggressive in order to get their voices heard.
Grant, a sociologist, found her work flawed, in effect, strongly implying that she was suggesting that to be successful women must mimic the styles of their male colleagues.
His motivation stemmed from his research and others that the workplace needed both approaches to make the organizations function most effectively if not immediately seeming to be as “efficient”.
Their splendid collaborations should be required reading for anyone negotiating the wild world of business and/or wanting to be a better leader (they include many excellent examples).
Some of the conclusions reached by researchers are stunning:
“When more women lead, performance improves. Start-ups led by women are more likely to succeed; innovative firms with more women in top management are more profitable; and companies with more gender diversity have more revenue, customers, market share and profits. A comprehensive analysis of 95 studies on gender differences showed that when it comes to leadership skills, although men are more confident, women are more competent.”
This idea of two ways of approaching life returns us to my earlier query.
For me personally, I see it reflected in our current geopolitical and governmental predicament.
Many of our leaders quite literally appear to prefer a transactional world in which one side must give something in return to reach lasting agreements.
Relationships seem to play a diminishing role. Power becomes the dominant currency.
(Perhaps even “complete surrender” is the quid pro quo).
My bottom line. We are at this moment destroying long-lasting international partnerships which have lasted despite tremendous national differences.
Why?
We once relied heavily on diplomacy—on the magnificent work of our Department of State and the quiet efforts of ambassadors.
At the same time we have made politically based differences to become worse than ever.
Division has become the preferred political mathematics of our time.
Which world would you rather live in?
I choose relationships every time.
While Sandberg seemed to suggest that women should get in touch with their masculine side, Grant appeared to argue that perhaps men ought to take research and experience into consideration and consider emulating the ways of those who speak “in a different voice.”
A wise speaker once said:
“The woman most in need of liberation is the woman inside every man.”
Maybe a bit to glib, but worth thinking about in a world that increasingly seems to want every problem resolved as a done deal.
— ✦ —
For me, a better world is one that begins when curiosity and human connection matters more than conquest.
Imagine
A meditation on war, memory, and the hope that imagination still matters.
by Clay Hipp
“There are no words, there are only words”
A great philosopher reportedly said this and it has become a mantra for me — a creative guiding light.
No matter how hard I try, many of my ideas simply refuse to translate.
Being new to this process, I must assume that I am not alone.
I reread my post from last Sunday. I, of course, “knew” what it “said”. But when I got to the sentence where I mentioned hymn-like songs, the example that jumped out was John Lennon’s “Imagine”.
In the solitude of my morning, alone in my house, I sat and listened to it for the first time in years.
I was never a fan of his “post-Beatles” years. It struck me quite differently than it had in the early ’70s.
I had recently returned from Vietnam, was entering graduate school, and was living in an apartment near the university. Just prior to starting classes, I was awaiting discharge at Fort Jackson and came home each day wearing “jungle fatigues”, feeling very weird to be among carefree undergraduates.
It was the autumn of 1970.
Anti-war sentiment was running high. Some evenings, the odor of tear gas wafted down my street as protests mounted. One day we woke up to news that the president’s office on campus had become “occupied”.
How was I supposed to feel?
I was so thankful that I had returned safely to “the World”, as we referred to it while serving in Southeast Asia. I was entering another phase of my education (I dearly loved going back to school).
We had very little; I was able to matriculate because of the GI Bill.
I could, for a while, continue to shop at the commissary at Ft. Jackson—cheap and good (amazing pork back ribs that I roasted and basted on my small grill).
And yet, and yet…
Rather than feeling proud, I knew that there were many who referred to me and other veterans as “baby killers”.
(I never carried a weapon; I was in supply management.)
I grew up in a small, isolated town. My father had been in WWII, served in the National Guard, and loved his country. I joined ROTC in college, but mostly to avoid being drafted (and it paid $100 a month so that I could eat late-night burgers and play golf—that was a lot of money in the sixties).
Had I been drafted, I could never have gone to Canada to escape my duty to serve. Young traditional southern boys just went when called.
At school, most of my friends were also veterans. We could play golf for free on a fine course at the fort. We talked about the fact that we never really understood why we had been sent to the conflict.
Yet we did—willingly.
And when we returned, we felt empty, or even worse.
When we turned on our radios, John Lennon sang “Imagine”, and Cat Stevens sang “Peace Train”. The sentiment was good and genuine, but it was hard to consider it “our music”.
What a thing it was then to listen to, and read the words of, “Imagine” again “for the first time.”
Each moment in which we have been placed has its time and place.
Campus protests during the Vietnam era
On the morning before my post Prayers and Hymns was published, we were greeted with the news that our country had bombed another nation (and probably assassinated its supreme leader).
Though we now call it Iran, that country used to be the center of the grand Persian Empire and a religion that called its god Allah and existed for centuries before our American home was even a gleam in the eyes of explorers such as Amerigo Vespucci.
How am I supposed to feel now?
Perhaps that is why Lennon’s words resonated so strongly with me that morning. They were written in another turbulent moment in history, yet they seem to ask the same question of us now.
Lennon wrote:
“Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace…”
At this moment my imagination fails me.
Never in my wildest dreams could I (or any of us probably) conjure up a moment in which I could feel more shame at what we allowed ourselves to become.
Speaking of “dreamers”, he also said:
“Imagine all the people
Living life in peace
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one.”
Some folks know me as a dreamer.
I just have to hope and believe that there are bigger dreamers than I, and that they will have the position and ability and vision to find a way to end this nightmare.
What “joy” could my fellow brothers in arms feel in the years to come as a result of their having “answered the call” of going for “God, Country, and my Baby,” as the song lyrics proclaimed?
I cannot help but think of John McCain—a true war hero, a prisoner in a foreign country, and a true patriot—who was later ridiculed publicly for that sacrifice.
Who are we, and what have we become?
At this moment my emotions are being almost overwhelmed by the reality with which we are faced as a country.
It is dire.
Consider this:
“…Your presidents of late have, unbelievably, failed to know, and to consider, the interests of the country and its people as a whole. Surely this can lead only to disaster. They may know policy and politics, but these, even to someone educated in them, are in the last analysis not much more than a game. Thus the politicians have transformed the life of a nation into a game they play continuously for their own edification.
But games are man-made abstractions, as weak as water, with none of the fullness, beauty, and consequence of life.
I think the model of a president should be a man who comes to you and says, ‘This is what I have seen, this is what I believe, this is how I live, and this is what I love.’ Surely you would know a man better for this than you would know a man possessed of a list crowded with numbers and littered with prostituted oaths.”
But…perhaps it is not only the politicians who must examine themselves.
“…read your Declaration and Constitution… these are lucid and perfect documents, and if you return to them as faithfully as they have served you since the beginning, they will not fail you.
You have neglected them and are unclear about the duties of a citizen and what comes by right. You seem to have forgotten the ancient battles in which you prevailed, and, more importantly, those that you merely survived.
You seem to have forgotten that your original principles… in a land that was carpeted with virgin stands of trees, and the principles by which you have lived—immaterial and bright, ever-enduring—grew up just as strong and fresh.
Return to them.”
—Mark Helprin, spoken by a character in his novel Freddy and Fredericka
The finger now seems to point back at us—or at the very least, to ask ourselves what kind of country, and what kind of people, we hope to be.
Perhaps, in the end, the real question is whether we can still imagine the world Lennon dreamed about in his song.
These lyrics from Harry Chapin’s “Remember When the Music” have become the closest thing I have to an answer:
“And I dream that something's coming and it's not
just in the windIt's more than just tomorrow, it's more than
where we've beenIt offers me a promise, it's tellin' me begin
I know we’re needin’ something worth believin’ in”
Games Versus Sports
The bowl games are behind us; the Super Bowl has just been played; the NCAA basketball championships are almost here; and spring training is just beginning.
It got me thinking about how much I used to enjoy this time of year.
How times change.
Some of my friends are aware that I have pretty much given up interest in following sporting events. There are several reasons that I find myself there.
In my forties, I suddenly felt the need to wean myself. I realized that being a fanatic about teams—and the nature of competition and winning and losing—was having an essential effect on my mental well-being.
I remember saying to myself, and then to others, that I did not like having my days—and the mornings after—controlled by a bunch of twenty-somethings running up and down courts and playing fields (my very state of mind was altered!).
It was especially bad when it involved a team to which I had some kind of loyalty. When they won, it was great. When they lost, the effect could last until noon or so the next day!
My first home remedy was to limit the number of games I watched live.
Toward the end of my agony, I began to give up one sport at a time. For those teams I could leave (such as the Braves), I started waiting to find out the result until the next day. That proved therapeutic—no matter the score, I had no power to change it.
Celebrate the victories. Let the losses slide off my sports back.
I still keep up with my baseball team, but the rest is virtually irrelevant.
Wow. Who says an “old dog” cannot change his ways?
But I now realize that I did not so much consciously give it all up. Rather, something drove me away.
I think it was the whole American thing about winning and losing and the seeming desire among us to assure that someone—or some team—comes out on top.
One prominent reason for losing my enthusiasm for most “sports” is that they have been infiltrated and overtaken by professionalism and greed.
I was drawn to, and grew up in, Little League and Pony League and then continued to play them all as an “amateur” in high school.
In my small town, we had so few students who were athletically inclined and reasonably capable that in order to compete with other schools almost everyone played everything.
The only leagues we had were with rival towns within fifty or so miles.
We got to sample all the games. We could not specialize or choose one to the exclusion of the rest. We were multi-sport athletes by necessity.
We had good teams, but when (and if) we made the playoffs we were often beaten by teams that came from larger towns that did have “specialists”—one-sport athletes who were position players.
As a consequence, we were often overmatched at some positions—especially in football and basketball. Taller, bigger and stronger, or faster.
Nevertheless, we became well-rounded as individuals and as players because of our reality.
I often think about—and appreciate it—when I read stories about young people who were “stars” growing up today and burn out early. (I was a decent pitcher without star quality, but unlike today I was never over-trained or burned out, nor someone who developed a debilitating injury ending their “career” as an athlete.)
As a result, we are only just now beginning to take action to lessen the chances of that happening.
Imagine the emotional injuries to young people who once “reached for the stars” but instead fell back to earth like Icarus.
Our worship of sports must bear some of that responsibility.
I played baseball from my earliest memories.
As a pitcher (without much of a fastball nor a variety of pitches), my job was to fool the batters.
Turnabout is fair play—I was never more than mediocre as a hitter.
I came to appreciate that baseball was essentially a hybrid game: a combination of individual skills played as a team effort.
Later in life I also appreciated the pace of the game and the fact that a variety of sizes and abilities could play it—compared to the speed and power needed for football and basketball.
My other lifelong pursuit has been golf.
It is the only game where the competition is between the individual self and topography—natural problems to solve.
It can be turned into a player-versus-player thing but need not be.
Certain board games have appealed, but only those that have captured my mind.
(Though chess has completely escaped me.)
I was an amateur.
My “love” of the games makes the reality of today’s professionally oriented culture even harder to accept.
I guess I might as well share one other societal concern.
The prominence of the TROPHY.
Have you ever stopped to consider the word “trophy”?
Probably not, because we all think we know what it means.
But do we?
It is obviously a thing awarded to those who excel in a sport. So it is a noun.
But if one sits and contemplates for just a little while, you realize that it is also an adjective: trophy spouses, trophy animals such as stags and bass, and so on.
So it is not just about sporting events, but about things that people hold up as an achievement of some sort.
Think a little more and you will certainly discover more that I have not identified.
A search of the web is extensive.
As an adjective, trophy describes people, objects, or properties that are highly desirable, rare, and acquired primarily as symbols of wealth, status, or success rather than for their utility.
It denotes an item or person meant to be displayed to evoke admiration.
Common uses include:
• Trophy wife/husband: a younger attractive spouse acquired by a wealthy or successful older person to display social status
• Trophy property/home: high-value real estate purchased as a status symbol
• Trophy asset: rare or prestigious investments
• Trophy event: a high-profile event attended for prestige
• Trophy fish: an exceptional catch kept as a souvenir of success
The term implies the subject is a “trophy,” a testament to the owner’s accomplishment and prestige.
So is this culturally based?
Are we, as a society, wrapped up in winning as a major part of our identity?
I am sorry to report that it seems so to this observer.
So what, you say.
Well, it feels as if we have diluted the term so much that it means almost nothing more than that.
Have you had a youngster who has played in any sports league?
Social “do-gooders” began years ago fighting the award of trophies.
How?
By suggesting that all of the players and team members be awarded a little trophy to avoid making someone “feel bad” about their abilities or their failure to achieve top honors.
Uh oh.
This is starting to get ugly.
In two paragraphs we have offended the winners and those who try to honor the “losers.”
So the hard-core defenders want trophies to go only to those who truly “deserve” it.
An example?
In the old days we had a wide range of bowl games after the college football season was over. After they were done, a poll was taken to choose the number one team in the country.
There always ensued huge regional arguments across the country that the voting was rigged or biased.
The obvious answer, to many, was to create a playoff system to assure that the real winner had been identified.
But we all know how that has gone.
Now we argue about the polls that determine which teams qualify for the playoff pairings.
How tired do we need to get about our consuming desire to win—to be number one?
Your guess is probably better than mine.
I cannot help but note the greatest evidence of the professionalizing of games and sports and the overwhelming obsession with winning.
We are now paying huge sums to “amateur” athletes to play a game for their colleges and universities.
Am I wrong to say that the love of the game has lost much of its meaning?
We will be poorer as a society when even that has been completely commoditized.
I am left with caring about and pursuing art and amateurism as my “balms in Gilead”.
But I am still glad that I have my very small MVP trophy from my senior year as a member of the baseball team.
And oh yes—I was far from the best athlete among some budding stars.
It warms my heart to know that my great coach, “Lefty” Johnson, found my efforts valuable.
Perhaps that is the real trophy.
Prayers & Hymns
Everybody is wondering what and where they all came from
Everybody is worrying 'bout
Where they're gonna go when the whole thing's done
But no one knows for certain and so it's all the same to me
I think I'll just let the mystery be
Some say once you're gone you're gone forever
And some say you're gonna come back
Some say you rest in the arms of the Savior if in sinful ways you lack
Some say that they're coming back in a garden
Bunch of carrots and little sweet peas
I think I'll just let the mystery be
Some say they're going to a place called glory
And I ain't saying it ain't a fact
But I've heard that I'm on the road to purgatory
And I don't like the sound of that
I believe in love and I live my life accordingly
But I choose to let the mystery be
—Iris Dement
Virtually every morning, I rise and spend an hour or so of quiet time in my darkened living room. It begins with two pieces of music: “The Prayer of St. Gregory” by Alan Hovhaness and “Hymn to a Blue Hour” by John Mackey. Over time, as I have listened more and more deeply, the melodies and harmonies have spoken to me—both the compositions themselves and their symbolic and mysterious messages. It has begun to fascinate and stimulate a part of me that I could not name. I had sat many mornings in silence and darkness, and I had chosen the music to allow my mind to remove or at least repress the intrusion of rational thought and distraction. It was serving its purpose well, and with time I began to explore ideas and inspirations that would not have appeared without that environment of peaceful contemplation.
One morning, I can say, with some trepidation, that I, figuratively, traveled from the present time and space back to the Big Bang of creation. I could see and feel the depth of the space through which I was traveling farther and farther from home. In the end, I did not actually witness the event but could sense that there was nothing else to see or visit. The “source,” the presence, was not evident. I am doing my best to speak of this lightly. I do not want to give anyone the sense that I am going off the deep end.
Now here is the ironic rub: I have not attended “church” in decades. Yet here I was, morning after morning, being inspired and sustained by two pieces of music which bore titles indicating that they were somehow related to prayer and hymn. It is quite possible that those words were being used in an easily understood and vernacular manner. Still, once recognized, it became impossible to ignore the possible implications. They have not yet become clear, or perhaps there are none to discover. But the question still remains. Did I choose them purely because I liked the music? Or did I subconsciously select them because of some kind of spiritual need (for want of a better word)?
I am aware that some who “meditate” are searching for meaning. The secular self yearns just as much as those who are part of a specific religious tradition. I grew up in a family of faithful parents from two traditions. I participated in their “rituals” as part of the family, but to my mind I never felt myself affiliated. I think I was always somewhat uncomfortable with—especially the liturgy. Eventually, I could no longer say the words because the beliefs were not mine, and it felt dishonest to openly vocalize them. I also know and respect people who pray regularly. Some use words of praise and ask for intervention into some aspect of their lives. For others, it is just “listening.”
And so, back to the early morning voyage through the stars and the darkness of deep space toward the center of it all.
Were the voices of the cosmos suggesting that perhaps I was missing something? If so, what was the message?
Since it all started in the dark before dawn, should I presume that the source of the vision was in the notes of those two songs?
I was vaguely aware of the medieval Pope St. Gregory but lacked any real knowledge of why he was a Catholic saint. (The prayer was attributed to him, but it is not clear that he actually wrote it.) I did a little work and learned that he had established the medieval papacy and developed the Gregorian chant. He was a prolific writer, a Doctor of the Church, and is considered a key figure in medieval spirituality, transforming his family’s wealth into monasteries and serving the poor during famine and plague. Now there was a reason to think a bit more about his prayer, if indeed it existed. The answer: oh yes, much to ponder.
So much for prayers—what about hymns? Well, there are certainly thousands of them in the Christian tradition. As the grandson of a Methodist pastor, I should note that John Wesley’s brother Charles is one of the best-known hymn writers. But are all hymns religious in nature? Online sources tend to agree that “the term ‘hymn’ is not exclusively limited to religious use. Hymns typically involve communal singing, theological messages, or praise aimed at a deity, spanning Christian, Jewish, Hindu, and ancient cultures. However, the concept extends to secular contexts as well.”
Well, there you go. Further reading reveals this: while historically and primarily praise songs for deities (God, gods, heroes), the concept extends to powerful, praise-filled songs about ideals or people, like “Imagine” or “Hallelujah,” but most commonly, a “hymn” refers to religious praise.
This leaves it open that I need not conclude that any message I might have received from my spatial journey was truly religious. Rather, I like to choose that whatever source “created” the known universe is simply a mystery that our minds can pursue alongside doctrinal conclusions reached by others about a singular, supreme “God” figure.
The great scientist, cosmologist Carl Sagan gave us his own perspective in a marvelous book entitled Pale Blue Dot. His book was inspired by an image (taken at his suggestion) by Voyager 1 on February 14, 1990. As the spacecraft departed our planetary neighborhood for the fringes of the solar system, it turned around for one last look at our home planet.
Voyager 1 was about 6.4 billion kilometers (4 billion miles) away and approximately 32 degrees above the ecliptic plane when it captured this portrait of our world. Caught in the center of scattered light rays (a result of taking the picture so close to the Sun), Earth appears as a tiny point of light, a crescent only 0.12 pixel in size.
Sagan’s thesis, in his own words, follows:
“Look again at that dot.
That's here.
That's home.
That's us.
On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, and lived out their lives.
The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader", every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there—on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena.
Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.
Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.
It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.”
— Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot, 1994
Perhaps my vision that morning was a remembrance of having read Sagan’s book. Note that Sagan tells this to the reader without, to me, trying to prove anything. His words are so different from the conclusions of so many of us who have chosen to take a leap of faith to their “belief” in the truth of the words written over a period of five or so millennia by other human writers in so-called “scripture.” Infallible, literal words. If I may be so bold, I would suggest that writers such as Sagan are just as worthy of the title “prophet” as any of the sages named in the “holy” texts of other cultures, which are often conflicting. Truth, to me, must stand up to universal scrutiny and acceptance.
The market for religious belief has no monopoly on faith.
OK, no more theology for the moment. Back to music. It has not escaped my notice that Sagan’s “pale dot” was blue. My early morning hour is blue as well. Is that perhaps the missing link here that explains my “dream state”?
Are you aware of the origin of the term “blue hour”?
An online source explains it this way:
“The ‘blue hour’ (l’heure bleue) connotes a magical and fleeting transition between day and night (or dawn), characterized by a deep, tranquil blue light. It evokes feelings of peace, reflection, melancholy, and nostalgia, often representing an intimate, or ‘suspended,’ moment where the world feels calm and quiet.”
One of our finest observers of the natural world and host of an unequaled online site, The Marginalian, Maria Popova, brings us this vision:
“Blue, Rebecca Solnit wrote in one of humanity’s most beautiful reflections on our planet’s primary hue, is ‘the color of solitude and of desire, the color of there seen from here… the color of longing for the distances you never arrive in, for the blue world,’ a world of many blues—a pioneering 19th-century nomenclature of colors listed eleven kinds of blue, in hues as varied as the color of the flax-flower and the throat of the blue titmouse and the stamina of a certain species of anemone. Darwin took this guide with him on The Beagle in order to better describe what he saw. We name in order to see better and apprehend only what we know how to name, how to think about.
But despite Earth’s distinction as the Solar System’s ‘Pale Blue Dot,’ this planetary blueness is only a perceptual phenomenon arising from how our particular atmosphere, with its particular chemistry, absorbs and reflects light. Everything we behold—a ball, a bird, a planet—is the color we perceive it to be because of its insentient stubbornness toward the spectrum, because these are the wavelengths of light it refuses to absorb and instead reflects back.”
I am in deep water if I were to attempt to follow that.
But she and Sagan may just have made my point and answered my question. Where did my contemplative mind go during that most inspirational moment in memory? Or better yet, where did it take me? Please, if you will, help me here. Was my journey from the pale blue “dot-spot” to the very point of our origin more than metaphorical? It presents a great contrast to the creation stories of the world’s established religions.
If one wishes to have his faith story reach fruition as an affirmation of a life well lived, is existing in the “great mystery” enough? Or did the culmination of the journey end too soon? Was seeing at least a glimpse of the ultimate answer available, but not perceived? What more is being asked of human faith?
I have talked enough and will now let another human speak for me.
If I can claim a “spiritual” leader, the choice is simple: the monk and author Thomas Merton. He left us much too soon as he was moving towards finding a way to merge the faith journeys of Eastern and Western peoples. If one wishes to experience his thoughts on the individual “search for meaning,” you could do much worse than his New Seeds of Contemplation. In it, he seeks to awaken the dormant inner depths of the spirit so long neglected by Western man, to nurture a deeply contemplative and mystical dimension in our lives. It is much more accessible than it sounds. In essence, contemplation is his word for “prayer.”
A small sample to pique your interest:
“Every moment and every event in every man’s life on earth plants something in his soul. For just as the wind carries thousands of winged seeds, so each moment brings with it germs of spiritual vitality that come to rest imperceptibly in the minds and wills of men. Most of these unnumbered seeds perish and are lost, because men are not prepared to receive them: for such seeds as these cannot spring up anywhere except in the soil of freedom, spontaneity, and love.”
In the last few pages, he leaves the reader with this:
“The mask that each man wears may well be a disguise not only for that man’s inner self but for God, wandering as a pilgrim and exile in his own creation.
For the world and time are the dance of the Lord in emptiness. The silence of the spheres is the music of a wedding feast. The more we persist in misunderstanding the phenomena of life, the more we analyze them out into strange finalities and complex purposes of our own, the more we involve ourselves in sadness, absurdity, and despair. But it does not matter much, because no despair of ours can alter the reality of things, or stain the joy of the cosmic dance which is always there. Indeed, we are in the midst of it, for it beats in our very blood, whether we want it or not.
Yet the fact remains that we are invited to forget ourselves on purpose, cast our awful solemnity to the winds, and join in the general dance.”
So, I hope this heartfelt piece has spoken to you. As I reflect on my reason for creating this site, it has never been about becoming an authority (especially a model) about anything….
I share in order that you, the reader, might experience another person’s uncertain journey and know that they are not alone.
We can dance alone, but why?
Nothing I have encountered tells me that it is the only way—quite the contrary. Perhaps there is something to be discovered in setting aside the masks we create and wandering, for a time, as pilgrims, open to what might be revealed.
It is your life. Neither I nor anyone else can tell you what it means.
All I can say is that I am glad to be on this journey with you.
The Accidental Wine Lesson
Dear Reader,
OK, time for a break from philosophy.
Let’s turn to another subject I like to pontificate on—wine.
Joanie’s sister stayed with us last weekend and I prepared a nice, light dinner for us to share as we caught up on the latest news. We sat down to a lovely meal of homemade crab cakes, crunchy, oiled and salted roasted potatoes, and my famous creamy coleslaw that had been slowly marinating for the last hour or so.
Before the meal began, I poured a small glass of Chablis (shuh-blee—it’s French; you’re welcome), paired with silky shreds of salmon and avocado perched atop fresh sushi rolls. The Chablis showed its classic profile: mouthwatering green apple acidity, a flick of sea salt and lemon, giving way to a creamy, rich finish. As a good friend who often visits our table said recently, “I want to find myself with more Chablis in my glass.” Hear, hear!
As it turns out, sister Carol really likes my food and was delighted with the choices (she also has a growing interest in wine.) As we sipped the white, I explained that the Chablis was a Burgundy wine grown in the northernmost part of the region. Its crispness, I told her, comes from the difficulty of ripening the grapes in that cooler climate and from the limestone-rich soil.
She stopped me, a confused expression on her face, “Wait a minute. I thought Burgundy was a red wine.”
I explained that people who enjoy wine but have only a layperson’s (or laywoman’s!) knowledge of its more esoteric niceties are often confused by the terminology. The problem is that most people encounter “Burgundy” first as a red wine—specifically Pinot Noir. Pinot Noir is a red grape, but Burgundy itself is a region, just as Bordeaux is.
So, the wine she was drinking was actually Chardonnay, and (almost) every white wine labeled Burgundy will be made from that grape. At this point, I noticed her eyes beginning to glaze over—an entirely common reaction when one first encounters the complexity of French wine.
We decided it was time to move to the table and enjoy the second course. With it, we served a very nice Pinot Noir from Oregon.
Uh oh.
She looked puzzled again. “They grow Pinot Noir in Oregon? I thought it was a Burgundy.”
Let the games begin.
“Here’s the problem,” I said. “The French system of designated regional names is hundreds of years in the making. It’s complex and extremely difficult for a layperson to master. The French are fiercely proud of their regional identity, and that extends to the wines traditionally grown, made, and consumed there.”
The wines we had been discussing are described as Burgundian. If you get into the study and enjoyment of fine wine, you may come to prefer Burgundy over Bordeaux—or vice versa. For the French, though, this goes far deeper than mere preference.
“OK,” she said. “So are Pinot Noir and Chardonnay grown in Bordeaux too, just called different names because of where they’re grown?”
“Oh my—absolutely not,” I replied.
The reasons are complicated but essential. And by the way, never ask that question in the presence of a Burgundian (more on that later).
“So what grapes are grown in Bordeaux?”
“Thank you,” I said. “That’s an easier question.”
Most people associate Bordeaux with Cabernet Sauvignon, and many Bordeaux wines are indeed based on that grape. But, like Burgundy, Bordeaux has subregions where other reds dominate. Within the region, growers are permitted to cultivate and blend five (possibly six) grape varieties. The two most prominent besides Cabernet Sauvignon are Merlot and Cabernet Franc.
To complicate matters further, there is also white Bordeaux, made from the closely related varieties Sauvignon Blanc and Sémillon. Merlot dominates in Pomerol, where one of the most famous wines in the world—Château Pétrus—is made entirely from Merlot.
Enough?
Consider this: beyond these famous regions lie nine additional major regions and many smaller ones. Surrounding them all are so-called “country wines” (vin de pays).
Finally, Carol spoke again.
“I don’t quite understand. Does someone tell them they must grow only certain grapes, or have they just always chosen their favorites?”
Oh my. Another can of earthworms.
Rather than get wordy, I said simply that within these important regions, grape varieties are regulated.
“Wait—do you mean by law?”
“Yes,” I said, “but it’s not quite that simple.”
Here is a brief summary related to your question (from the web):
The Institut National de l’Origine et de la Qualité (INAO) regulates which grape varieties may be grown in each French wine region. Established in 1935, this governmental body enforces the Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée (AOC/AOP) system, which sets legally binding rules governing grape varieties, yields, and production methods to protect regional authenticity and terroir.
“Wait,” she said. “I thought the French valued liberty—perhaps more than we do. Why would they tolerate that? It sounds like socialism. And what exactly is ‘terroir’? It sounds frightening. Why would anyone want to protect it?”
Whoa. Too many questions. Too many mysteries.
So I said, simply:
“All right, I hear you. But in reality, this system developed over centuries and emerged largely from the growers themselves. Much of it is about maintaining quality and regional identity.”
“OK,” she said. “But do they do that in California?”
“Simply put, no. And I don’t think you want another essay explaining why. Might we stop, have dessert, and recover? I promise to protect you—at least for now—from the dreaded terroir.”
She agreed, not reluctantly.
As I reflected on the conversation, it struck me that it had been a very fruitful exchange. I meet many people who enjoy wine but feel frustrated by it—too many varietals, confusing labels, marketing claims, not to mention vocabulary. There is also a sense of intimidation. And then, of course, there are the snobs among us who enjoy showing off their expertise in obnoxious ways. You know who I mean.
All of this got me thinking about how I might help.
Here’s my current idea: I’ve been considering using the midweek post for lighter—dare I say more populist—topics, while saving heavier ruminations for Sundays. This could be one such vehicle.
Without making too much of it, I must admit that I’ve been a “wino” for more decades than I care to admit. I’ve studied, sampled, explored, and extolled the subject with great interest. We’ve traveled extensively throughout Europe and the United States, taught courses for community and curriculum (and pure pleasure), and hosted regular tastings in our home. All of which is to say—I have much to share.
One of my more popular offerings was a short course for over-21 business students called Deciphering a Wine List for Fun and Profit. I told them they should take it whether they liked wine or not—just in case, at their first important business dinner, the boss hands them the wine list and says, “Why don’t you choose something appropriate for the food?”
They could then reply with confidence:
“Certainly, sir—or madam. Domestic or imported?”
I suspect the course’s popularity had something to do with the syllabus promising a tasting at the final session: two whites, two reds, and a rosé.
So here’s my proposal. As part of this blog, I’d like to offer short, accessible pieces—like my conversation with sister Carol—sprinkled throughout the months.
We could do it experimentally, test the waters (turned to vino), and gather your feedback. If there’s interest, we might even create short video sessions at the table, talking about food pairings and how we talk about wine. It’s not a language that should feel foreign.
Until then—
In vino veritas.
FUNDAMENTAL
Soon after posting this week’s essay on “Wisdom,” I began to wonder what the next post might be. I thought, “All right, it seems that you left out a lot yesterday.” People want and need something to go on, to live by, as we walk this elusive path toward better understanding of who we are, who we should be.
One word emerged: Fundamentals
Are there concepts—foundational pillars—that underpin our search, hold us up when the going gets rough, when the very earth beneath our feet begins to shake?
I began searching to see whether I might discern, for myself and others, essential “wisdom teachings.”
My first thought: “Is your title, your seminal thought (fundamental), perhaps itself fraught with danger?” The word sounds powerful. Is it egotistical to even contemplate that one person might hand down a “stone tablet”?
That was frightening. First, it seemed too tall a mountain to climb, but then it began to beckon, to become something like a “wicked” temptation. Should anyone truly even attempt such a sacrilege, much less be prepared to presume to “preach” it?
I hope that I am somehow communicating to you a true existential moment. I came close to stopping right there. Then I said, “coward.” You do not need to preach anything—just try to find enough remedial thoughts to heal your own yearning.
And so, as humbly as possible, I shall try to work through my musings for whatever they are worth.
But first, a “caveat.” This piece should in no way imply that I wish to become a “fundamentalist” on any topic. Rather, know without question that this is my mantra:
“All I know is that I know nothing, and furthermore, I am not so sure about that.”
I say this because, in the course of my personal and professional life, I have encountered—and been offended and indeed harmed—by several brands of fundamentalism. Experience tells me that it is, almost always, exclusionary and anti-intellectual. My preference is to keep interpersonal doors open, not closed and locked.
These emerged as my fundamentals (with short notes).
Listening is essential and constant talk counterproductive
I am a “natural” storyteller (ask just about anyone I know). My favorite high school teacher delivered exceptional preparation in Latin, grammar, and literature, and made us do vocabulary exercises for college prep. I was almost an English major. I was ultimately trained in “the law” and became a teacher. I was required to publish or perish (I almost did the latter). In other words, to paraphrase the great philosopher Muhammad Ali in an interview with Howard Cosell: “Boxing has been my life, Howard” (for me, “words”).
What I think, I tend to say. Just ask my lovely partner in life. It has cost me dearly in friendships. Some folks tend to take “fierce conversation” personally.
I am gradually learning to balance speaking and listening, a difficult task for me.
Empathy may be one’s most powerful weapon against discrimination and separation
Lack of empathy encourages closed-mindedness. In the words of Taylor Goldsmith, “It is hard to hate someone if you know what they’ve been through”, therefore, have ‘encounters’ with others—do not just move amongst them.”
You may ask anyone. I think that I am a kind person, generally speaking. My mate, among others, is trying to teach me more empathy for individuals, especially those who do not at first seem “worthy.” Thich Nhat Hanh, the great Vietnamese Buddhist monk, was known for practicing and preaching empathy in everything that he did (“Peace Is Every Step” was his lesson to the world and a book title).
Empathy is not easy in a world as divided as ours. Even Thich Nhat Hanh was forced to admit that there is a limit to our capacity to practice it. We must not let it destroy our own personhood.
Despite our differences, we all share a common and fragile existence.
Essential Practices
Music “hath charms” (and poetry)
Music, according to some wise people, is the universal language. We have been creating and performing songs since well before written language emerged. We told our histories and preserved our memories for the next generation.
It may just come from the spheres—the vast space that is still evolving and may be sending us messages and singing the creation story. It cheers us up and embraces our sorrows.
Reading is essential
Whether fiction or non-fiction, we must return to reading serious prose and poetry. Reading news and opinion online is not only a source of vexation but also debilitating.
We have scores of novels, short stories, poetry—both deep and humorous—wisdom-seeking essays and tomes.
When the mind is engaged with the works of authors who raise questions, we begin the journey toward “natural” intelligence.
Read Loren Eiseley, The Immense Journey.
Communion over shared meals brings us together in essential ways
Once the unquestioned gathering of family and friends, the shared meal is nearing extinction. It is quite often a casualty of the necessity of providing the means of surviving.
Do not let it be gone for you and yours.
If for only minutes a day, sit with your loved ones and give thanks for the communion. Invite friends to a sit-down, to a meal prepared from scratch.
Feast (with candles and flowers and your favorite beverage—yes, water became wine).
Create your own rituals.
If one separates oneself from a relationship with the natural world, it erodes soul and spirit
Get outside.
Plant a garden.
Take a walk around the block.
Visit the closest park.
Fall in love with a tree.
Look up. Watch the clouds go by. Notice a hawk on the wing.
I planted and tended, almost alone, a four-acre vineyard and lived among wild turkeys, pileated woodpeckers, does and fawns, woodchucks who dug holes and tried to break my ankles.
When I picked my first harvest, it made me feel as if I were rich.
The taste of one Barbera grape brought tears to my eyes.
It is unlikely that an individual can achieve true, fuller wisdom alone
Contemplation, meditation, sitting alone and still have their place, but exploring joys and sorrows with another human being is essential.
Find one or two others whom you can trust. Tell them your concerns and listen to theirs.
Let each other know that it is both a blessing and a curse to be truly you.
Wisdom is experiential, not a given
We learn from observing reality as it unfolds.
Make note of phenomena that confound.
Ponder them.
Nothing is all right or all wrong.
Learn from “seeing a lot just by looking” (Yogi Berra).
Fundamentalist thinking is egoistic
If you believe you know it all, have discovered the truth, then you just might be “all wrong”!
Lastly (and I will warn you), many of us do not want to hear this…
Turn off the TV.
Stop incessant scrolling.
Put down the phone.
Consult search engines only when necessary. They are full of rabbit holes.
Do you see—understand—that your attention has been commoditized and is being “sold” for someone else’s profit?
Invest yourself for your benefit, not theirs.
I am well aware that we might somehow have become addicted to these things as useful, convenient, and necessary. They are all those things and more. Take charge of your precious gift of time…spent intentionally with others… and yourself. If one loses herself, what is left of any value; you no longer have the capacity to “give”, voluntarily. You have become someone else’s prisoner.
Finale
Look, I do not pretend to “know” these things.
The idea of writing this piece, and a number of its components, came to me unbidden in the middle of the night. The essence of it, I think, arrived during a long conversation with an extremely talented musician and a very “wise” soul. We were talking about the “art” of composing. He revealed to us that he had piles of music in a cabinet that had never been recorded or even performed.
The reason? Had he determined that they were not “good” music or poorly constructed? No, he explained. Rather, when he listened to them, they were not “true.” He saw that we were confused about what that meant. He explained further, after years of composing, that he knows how to write musically professional pieces. He knew because he had done it many times, quite often because of a “commission.” Someone said, “Would you write a piece for me about…?” He could and did, to the requester’s satisfaction.
Further, he said—and I am trying very hard to recapture his exact words:
“Writing very fine music is not an ‘intellectual’ endeavor. Creating the best comes from the ‘consciousness’ of the artist. The great composers received their musical ideas and created their compositions therefrom.”
The many pieces tucked away in their cubbies were quite simply not “true,” not a reflection of the nature of the artist who conceived them.
Make of this what you will, but I propose that all these ruminations are a lesson to those of us who yearn to be “wise.” It is not a totally “rational” endeavor. It is about being still and listening to the “still, small voice” from a place of mystery.
But don’t believe me. Once again, I turn to my musical sources for guidance. After all, true “art” proceeds from the beauty of a mind in search of meaning.
Here is Mary Chapin Carpenter (Late for Your Life)
Well, no one knows where they belong
The search just goes on and on and on
For every choice that ends up wrong
Another one's right
A change of scene would sure be great
The thought is nice to contemplate
But the question begs why would you wait
And be late for your life?
Or Bonnie Raitt (Fundamental Things)
Let's get back to the fundamental things
Let's get back to the elements of style
Let's get back to simple skin on skin
Let's get back to the fundamental things
Let's dance barefoot over broken glass
Slither like a snake does through the wet, cold grass
Howl and tremble in a sleepless grind
Let's do the brain drain, leave it all behind, or
You can sit in your room and worry
You can contemplate the end
This seems to be an invitation to strip away life's complications, anxieties, and artificiality to embrace raw, honest, and "fundamental" experiences. It advocates for spontaneity—like running naked through city streets—and finding authentic connection, emotional freedom, and innocence rather than wasting time worrying or hiding.
The lyrics urge listeners to move past the "carefully prearranged" nature of modern life and focus on simple, tangible joys and human connection.
Instead of hiding or dwelling on past mistakes, the song encourages a return to a more natural state, be here now.
Conclusions
In the act of putting myself through these paces, I began to realize that I seemed to be crafting a comprehensive personal philosophy. But I also became aware of how unlikely it will be to put it into practice. I discerned, to my consternation, that in this hurried world, built upon a doctrine of ever-increasing productivity, who can pause for even a half hour of consideration, much less contemplation?
May I suggest a starting point?
Make a time; give yourself a gift. When you awake, whether you lie abed or go to your special quiet place, say, “I will make this day different in some essential way.” Choose from the ideas I have suggested. Concentrate on that one single thing. Stay aware of it. If you want to be treated better by the world, make someone else’s day better, for instance. Smiling and saying hello seems a small thing, but acknowledgement is something we all desire—to be told, “you matter.”
If we wish to pursue wisdom and enhance our lives, we must start somewhere. I have found, with respect to almost every “resolution,” that beginning is the hardest part.
Just put one foot on the path.
One Truly Final Thing
Some years ago, I received a gift. I was in the Colchagua Valley of Chile, South America, with family. We were staying at a charming country B&B. I awoke one morning to the strains of a lovely piece of music (the weather was perfect and the sliding glass door was open). I rose gently from bed and went to the exit. Much to my surprise, my youngest son was sitting on the porch…listening to the piece. The scene was ethereal.
I revisited the composition from time to time. Several months ago, I began an early morning ritual. I rise around five and sit for an hour or so in silence. I begin the day wrapped in the inspirational beauty of this piece and am simply still for an hour or so. The title tells the tale: “Hymn to a Blue Hour,” by the American composer John Mackey. I cannot recommend it to you more highly. Only you can decide if it is “true” for you.
Because of the reality of “human-sounding” language, I feel compelled to affirm that the words you just read were spoken by a human. Please join with me in pledging that, to the best of your ability, you will avoid any document that might have been written by a machine.
This essay is dedicated to my two beautiful boys and commended to their reading.
E. Clayton Hipp, Jr., February 20, 2026.
Not to be used without permission of the author.
Wisdom
“Who is as the wise man? and who knoweth the interpretation of a thing? a man’s wisdom maketh his face to shine, and the hardness of his face is changed.”
All right. Now we have done it.
How does one follow the deep contemplation of love that we experienced last week? Is love all we need; does it conquer all; is it a cross to bear or all we need to make us happy; do we simply have to wait for it to come when we are ready, or when we are afraid?
Will it turn out to be “our greatest teacher”?
I am forced to conclude that it takes a whole lot of “wisdom” to figure these things out. Once again, our conclusions quite often “beg other questions.”
Uh, oh.
May I ask you to ponder the nature of wisdom with me?
In the quotation above, from around five thousand years ago, we see that we are not alone in looking for an answer.
Should we just stop now and save a lot of time?
I think not.
Allow me to start with an anecdote. Many years ago, as I was trying to learn how to teach, someone suggested that I should require my students to keep journals. As a result, I might learn something of value about their lives and how they were reacting to my “brilliant” tutelage. I would read them periodically and give feedback as appropriate. One of the entries began something such as this:
“How dare you? This is supposed to be a class in law and you have already brought in religion!”
I was taken aback. When and how had I done that? She was quick to observe that I had quoted the Bible at the very top of my syllabus. I was forced to ponder whether that had been a “wise” choice. Please draw your own conclusions.
So let me begin by posing a few questions for your consideration:
— Is wisdom the same as knowledge or being smart?
— Are we born with it?
— What is its role in a human life?
Of course, by now you know that when I lack answers, I consult my songwriters. Makes sense to start with a song named simply “Wisdom” by the incomparable John Gorka.
A couple of starters:
“Wisdom exists, though it's not commonly found”
Wisdom's still free, but it doesn't come cheap
It's found in your dreams, not on the nights you don't sleep”
And my personal favorite:
“It's got the lonesomest howl of any dog in the pound
Wisdom resides between salt and sky
I'm too mean to quit, or too dumb to try”
Now that I call a “good start” (or perhaps a good stopping place?). My hope is that we can go on.
A tentative thought. “Professor” Gorka suggests a few concepts about the subject at hand. Wisdom is a lonesome endeavor, and not everyone attains it. It takes some hard work. It is seemingly ephemeral.
Hey, I am starting to have fun—are you? Almost makes me wish I had majored in philosophy…nah.
So, what are you thinking? Here is where I find myself at this moment. Wisdom is so much more than words. It is an ineffable thing. As much as I care for Gorka’s lyrical, amusing exploration, one can see his abiding wonder about the thing. His poem demonstrates, I think, how difficult it is to get one’s mind around its essence. Maybe that is the “wisest” thing about his effort.
As fine and thoughtful as the lyrics are, they cannot come close to the attempts of the writer(s) of the Old Testament’s so-called “wisdom” literature—words heaped upon words, for pages and pages. It wears one out to attempt a reading and not be exhausted far from the end. The question remains: does it do justice or harm to our understanding?
I shall stick with this: poetry, and the spaces between the words, are perhaps a better (the only?) way.
OK, then—what can we say of value? As I hope it goes without saying, please feel completely free to make your own interpretations. My comments, when appropriate, are merely my own.
I would like to introduce you to a writer whose name might not ring a bell, yet he is one of the most brilliant musicians, lyricists, and impactful songwriters of our times. He is not a balladeer who goes from venue to venue in his own car to play for smallish gatherings. He is the leader of an influential pop/rock band called Dawes.
His work (dare I say poetry) crosses all the modes—from stirring stories to social commentary to love songs and introspective self-reflection. Did I say lead soloist, guitarist, and primary writer? The band’s arrangements are complex and soaring, and the members listen to and complement one another.
Enough…go out and see for yourself—no matter your preferred genre.
His own personal take?
“I confuse a sense of purpose
With grabbin' the future by the throat
While the museum of my memories
Was just some blurry photographs
When I was younger I was serious
Now everything's a joke
But my friends detect a sadness
At the end of every laugh
Which has left me with a tricky sense of humor
I keep gettin' further led astray
Every punchline takes on another dimension
When you realize that the time flies either way
— Taylor Goldsmith
This leaves me breathless. It is brave reflection. Do you sense that this “summary” of a life may just be a description of almost any of us at any point in time?
Guess we better start working on our “stuff” right now. As he suggests, none of us knows how much time there is. Seems like the “wise” thing to do. But it is also an uncomfortable pursuit.
Shall we search further?
“And you wonder where we're going
Where's the rhyme and where's the reason
And it's you cannot accept
It is here we must begin
To seek the wisdom of the children
And the graceful way of flowers in the wind
For the children and the flowers
Are my sisters and my brothers
Their laughter and their loveliness
Could clear a cloudy day”
—John Denver
One of my favorite songs is from a songwriter who, depending on one’s point of view, was over (or under appreciated). He was a child of the sixties, writing mostly in the seventies. He spent a lot of time in the Rockies and greatly adored the out of doors, thinking, contemplating.
His are not the first words to express belief in the idea that “a little child will lead them”. Our society tends to discount lessons such as these as overly romantic and idealistic. We value progress even if our young suffer from its effects, and the planet is at risk.
So, is there any answer that can bridge this intergenerational gap? I do not want to tire you out.
I, for now, choose to leave you with this advice from a great band of singers and songwriters who united the idealism of folk-rock of the sixties with the throbbing rhythms of the classic bands of the next decade. On their iconic album Déjà Vu, they make this plea to parents and their offspring (and the reverse!), helping us see the necessity of passing along lessons learned.
Ponder it ’til next time.
“You, who are on the road
Must have a code that you can live by
And so become yourself
Because the past is just a goodbye
Teach your children well
Their father's hell did slowly go by
Feed them on your dreams
The one they pick's the one you'll know by
And you, of tender years
Can't know the fears your elders grew by
Help them with your youth
They seek the truth before they can die
Teach your parents well
Their children's hell will slowly go by
And feed them on your dreams
The one they pick's the one you'll know by”
—Graham Nash (of Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young)
And… Finally!
Please listen to the wisdom of Alan Jackson, one of our great “country” lyricists.
“The older I get
The more I think
You only get a minute, better live while you’re in it
'Cause it’s gone in a blink
And the older I get
The truer it is
It’s the people you love, not the money and stuff
That makes you rich”
Amen
Performance and Communion
Dear Reader,
Perhaps you may have noticed by now how taken I am with music. I literally “grew up in and into” music of many kinds. As I said to you earlier, one of my chief regrets is having failed to heed my mother’s gentle prodding to take piano lessons. I know now that, though I never chose to pursue a vocation as a musician or teacher, I have, deep down inside, a belief that, had I ever mastered an instrument and learned theory, I would have succeeded on some level. As it is, nothing was ever completely lost on me. I did “sing,” and it “made the world a better place to be,” and now I have so much music in this head that I need to, and am able to, share it with others.
Today’s post is no random account of an inspirational music event. The musical group that I will be telling you about has been a part of our life together for fifteen or so years. We (the two of us) first saw and heard them in a little venue simply called the “Cook Shack,” run by Pal and Myles Ireland. It was in the tiny town of Union Grove, NC and served mostly a local population, offering a menu of classic comfort foods and Southern favorites, including breakfast. Myles and Pal were musicians themselves, and the small narrow room was as eclectic as they were. The most memorable of “decorations” being the vintage vinyl album covers attached to cheap plastic trouser hangers that littered the ceiling. They had intimate bluegrass jams on Saturday mornings for all comers.
A friend gave them the brilliant idea to book traveling musicians on Thursday nights, on the theory that they might be willing to stop and play on their way to bigger gigs in Raleigh or Charlotte that weekend. It worked. Those of us who learned of it could sit and hear individuals and groups way above our pay grades. There were only seventy-nine folding chairs packed into the interior. There was no “stage,” so the concerts were as intimate as anyone could ask for.
Fortunately for us, the group of which you are about to read lived just up the road and played at the “shack” regularly. Though they were from the country/bluegrass tradition, the banjo player was also a composer of music that approached “classical” status. Can you imagine a “country” band of banjo, guitar, and bass playing pieces that J. S. Bach would have admired?!
Believe it.
We have heard them since, playing before thousands at festivals and in concert halls. Some of their larger pieces have even been recorded with a string quartet. You cannot make this up—I would not try.
I sincerely hope that this little piece will inspire you to seek them out or at least listen to their many, very diverse recordings. With no further adieux, I present my best effort at describing a magical musical night.
Oh, please try to attend a live concert. I did once and have never looked back.
Good things rarely last forever.
Real Tears, Cried in a Glorious Outpouring of Love
— for Jens Kruger
I want to tell you a story. I am the only one who can tell it. I say that without a single iota of egotistical human pride. On the contrary, I consider it a gift of the highest value. Saying that I am the only one who could tell it is simply to express a reality—one that I want the reader to receive very seriously.
The stories that each of us tell could only be written or spoken by that single individual. The beauty of each mind is that its conscious perspective and unconscious contemplation are truly unique. No other single human has them. All of who we are, and who no one else is, comes together in our stories, and in telling them we say a great deal about who we are, but also about the things we have experienced—things that no one else has. That is why stories are so important. We must tell them, or they will not be told.
It is a true story—not because all of the facts can be verified, but because of its message. When it has been told, the hope is that the reader will have encountered something about a “secret” of life that will ring with an undeniable clarity—one whose beauty cannot be denied.
The story begins in an improbable place and in a moment that might never have happened. In a very humble corner of the earth, there is a small rural town. For most of every year, only ordinary things happen. For one glorious weekend each spring, the extraordinary comes to visit—an international music festival. Held on the campus of a community college and now in its thirty-fifth year.
It came into being to celebrate the life of a beloved son—his father a towering songwriter, flat-picking guitar virtuoso, family man, and friend. He was also a revered ambassador of traditional American music to the larger world. Many young singers and instrumentalists from numerous countries credit his concerts and recordings with giving them a creative life in music.
On one spring day in Western North Carolina, two brothers from Switzerland arrive to be performers at the event and are taken in by their local family hosts. They are immediately moved by the hospitality they receive. They had been invited to play sets on the numerous venues scattered around the verdant campus. Almost from the beginning, their extraordinary musicality and virtuosity on the banjo and guitar endeared them to a patronage that came each year expecting to see and hear the very best of a genre that has come to be known as “Americana,” or simply “roots” music. They were not disappointed.
The brothers’ enthusiasm and sparkling personalities took each new listener in, language barriers melted away by their “universal sound”. They were invited to play at an emerging feature of the event and one that was fast becoming legendary: A Saturday Midnight Jam. By their own admission, they were up practically all night.
Unfortunately for them—fortunately for the storyteller—they were scheduled to play their last set on Sunday morning at 10:00 a.m. (if memory serves, it was cool and misty, as mornings in a creek “holler” can be in the mountains). Word had gotten around, and a surprisingly large crowd showed up to hear them.
They sat and played an enthusiastic and amazing set of largely bluegrass covers. Songs heard from vinyl recordings brought to them by their traveling father, from which they learned to play in the family kitchen back at home. Their fingering and picking were so hot and fast that few of us uninitiated could even comprehend what we were witnessing. We left the morning inspired and joyous, all hoping that the brothers would be invited back the following year. If you do not know, music fans tend to “fall in love” when they encounter new groups—certainly those that exhibit extraordinary talent.
The year was 1997.
In the fall of that year, the brothers returned at the invitation of their host family. From tales told in the ensuing years, the brothers experienced something of a “conversion.” They became very close not only with the family but with the larger community. Something special was beginning to grow. To “make a long story short,” they were invited back and became a fixture of the festival lineup. In the following years, they visited regularly, stayed for months at a time, and eventually moved permanently to the town.
Although first known for their faithful (though innovative) covers of traditional pieces, their performances began to include original compositions—songs from one and accomplished instrumental works from the other.
This storyteller was extremely fortunate to remember one night in a very small venue named The Cook Shack. During the week, it was a local burger-and-fries place run by a salt-of-the-earth couple named Herb and Pal. On select Thursday evenings, it hosted concerts by “itinerant,” but extremely talented, musicians who were on their way to larger, more remunerative venues in surrounding towns. The atmosphere could not have been more intimate or captivating. There were only seventy-nine seats available. Album covers hung from the ceiling. The “stage” was a ten-inch-tall platform at the front of the store and could barely accommodate a quartet and their instruments. Those sitting in the front row could literally reach out and touch the microphones.
The Brothers were regular entertainers, though money was not the draw (the proprietors relied on sales and gave all of the “gate” to the musicians—mostly gas money). They loved, then and now, playing for, sharing with, and interacting with their audiences. We all came one night expecting to hear their “hits,” such as “Jack of the Woods” and “Carolina in the Fall,” which were forthcoming. However, after the break (for more burgers and dogs and Cheerwine), we returned to our chairs and booths anticipating all those favorites not yet rendered. It was immediately apparent that the mood (and the mode) had changed. We were treated to a mostly instrumental grouping of selections that later became a record named “The Suite, Volume 1.” Many of the pieces had been years in the making but had not yet emerged on these shores (bluegrass having been the early theme). This storyteller was stunned by the “classic” nature of the “new” material. He knows now that what the small crowd had witnessed was the emergence of a major composer of what is known in some circles as “programmatic” music—that is, music which reflects (or is inspired by) the composer’s environment.
Nothing would ever be the same again.
Fast forward to the year 2011. The Brothers had become a beloved fixture at the festival. One of the venues was a concert hall on top of a steep hill that, at that time, could be reached only by climbing a very steep set of stairs through a natural, garden-like setting among tall trees and blooming native shrubs. Devoted fans negotiated the challenging terrain to attend the afternoon concert by the brothers. One never knows what to expect from their self-designed set lists. This day was different. It had been announced that there would be a festival premiere of a long piece entitled “The Appalachian Concerto.” The piece would include a young, up-and-coming string quartet. By this time, audiences expected that performances would include a mixture of songs and instrumental selections. This was something entirely new. The concerto would fill the entire forty-five-minute set.
Having come to adore and expect music of the highest possible quality, this listener was both ecstatic with anticipation and just a bit apprehensive. Could they pull it off? Would the promise be fulfilled?
The first movement was eclectic and complex and emotionally moving. How would it be resolved? Would it be complete—would the promise be fulfilled? As the phrases moved inexorably toward climax, many, to be sure, must have found themselves on the edge of their seats.
“Finish,” we thought, “this is already enough. I cannot breathe,” we said collectively.
Then the last chord resolved itself, and…as one, we exploded into the most spontaneous, leap-to-our-feet ovation one can imagine. The applause seemed to last for minutes. Finally, limp as a washing machine full of dish rags, we slumped back into our seats. Totally sated emotionally, we paused for more. Two more gorgeous movements followed. Beethoven’s fans themselves could not have felt more rewarded. Our own adopted son—how great will he become —how great already?
Saturday, April 29, 2023. Same hall, same trio (the brothers added a third member early on as a bass player—equally accomplished and revered). As usual, everyone was so glad to be there. It had become one big family. The musicians loved it—they were playing to a packed hall of over three thousand in their own “hometown,” though the audience included some first-timers from elsewhere (how lucky they were about to become). This was “our band.” As the first chords played, it became obvious to long-timers that the first selection would be the very same first movement from the Appalachian Concerto. So familiar, so memory-stimulating, we sat back drinking it all in. But…something felt different. The banjo-playing brother seemed more intent. His movement up and down the fretboard was more animated. The playing was at a generally higher velocity, more baroque. The movement of thirteen years before was being transformed before our very eyes and ears. “Dynamic” does not begin to do the performance justice. Not being a professional musician or music critic, one should hesitate to say more.
Though the music was beyond words, what happened next was so unexpected that it left one (or more) speechless. Before the last note had begun to fade, the entire body of listeners almost literally leapt to their feet as one. The shouts and the applause rose and went on in a display of unabashed, spontaneous pleasure. This storyteller, who for many years had reaped great individual pleasure from simply watching the facial displays and wordless interaction between the brothers, was observing the banjo-playing composer as he sat, without moving, in his chair. I saw him as I had never done before. His usually joyous visage began to dissolve. He looked down instead of out. He gently placed his hand over his heart. Gradually, with his other palm, he wiped an obvious stream of tears from his eyes. Finally, he looked up and, without words, met the gazes of the audience. Several times he mouthed the words “thank you.” He patted his chest to emphasize the import of his silent speech. He glanced aside, almost helplessly, at his brother who, seemingly reading his thoughts, eased into a song. His selection (if not already planned) was almost certainly offered as an antidote: “Carolina in the Fall,” which has come to memorialize the brothers’ acknowledgement of their “homecoming” to this sacred place.
This storyteller cannot conclude without a very personal footnote. Whatever the banjo master was experiencing at that moment, this is what has come through and what has only strengthened in intensity in the few hours since. The reaction, and the exchange that it represented, is nothing less than the very essence of the very best aspect of live music—its offering and reception—that can ever be experienced.
This musician, though he had played for a room full or a packed hall, had a moment when dual gifts were exchanged in a much deeper way. His art, born in the depths of his heart and soul, had become manifest and been delivered directly to the very being of his listeners. In a spontaneous exchange, their hearts had leapt toward him and had been viscerally experienced by him. I have no other words.
If one believes in the existence and power of love, what other name is appropriate to this moment?
[Reaction to a live concert by The Kruger Brothers in Watson Hall, Wilkes Community College, Wilkesboro, NC, April 2023)
A Love Story
Well, Valentine’s Day is upon us.
If these current times of ours have given us anything of lasting value, it seems, for me, to come down to this:
All of us are, or should be, searching for deeper meaning in our lives. Who are we and what’s to become of us? Some of the more fatalistic of us might be tempted to say “why bother?”. We have no control over the present or indeed the future. For me, that is not about living. I sense deeply that our lives do have purpose, individually and as communities of caring people. Others may simply say simplistic things such as “be happy” or find your most successful self.
OK, let’s start somewhat on a higher plane. The Beatles are famous for saying “All You Need Is Love”. But that begs the big question, does it not?
What indeed IS love?
We have plenty of sources to consult. Poets and songwriters have been besotted with the idea since language came into being. (Oh, I know, our ancestors in their caves must have thought about that special feeling too! Not to mention our precious dogs and cats). The book of Corinthians spends much time suggesting its qualities from the highest authority.
—An aside and a caution. I am well aware when the subject of “love” comes up, it is likely to trigger some strong emotions. So, here is my personal mantra. Love and hate are truly special words. One should try to avoid overuse. They should be reserved for deeply thought-out conclusions and declarations. Try your best not to throw them around cavalierly. It diminishes their value and demeans their use. I might like chocolate chip cookies, but I certainly do not “love” them. End virtue lesson.
Since I have little way of choosing among the universe of all these lofty ideas, I regularly turn to the so-called “universal language” of music, one of my passions. Let’s begin with romance. Here are some words sung by one of the very fine voices of the Seventies, Karen Carpenter:
“Love, look at the two of us
Strangers in many ways
We've got a lifetime to share
So much to say
And as we go from day
…
Let's take a lifetime to say
I knew you well
For only time will tell us so
And love may grow
For all we know”
So ephemeral. So hopeful. It is a wonderful thing, yet it recognizes the fragility that each of us experiences when we find even the “perfect” match. Is this all we really need?
It is, without doubt, a beautiful song and sentiment, but…let’s take a deeper glance. As many of us know from experience, many love stories fail to fulfill the promises they seem to offer. That leaves a lot of time to fill and a whole lot of “life” in between.
Does any kind of “love” fill all our needs as the famous trio sang? But if love is the panacea, if the deity is love, or some force that fills the vastness of the universe and has existed since the moment of “creation”, how do we know, how do we take it inside, allow it to grow and nourish us and our families and friends, and use it to save a broken world?
The Carpenter’s song “For All I know” hints at a resolution of the big question. Love may grow, which means it exists, but it also must be nourished and cared for. In this, whether I can name it or not, lies the source of my hope for all of us.
Not all songwriters are created equal (but some are created “more equally” than others). One more song might help to find an answer to our big question. I hold in very high esteem a composer whom you may not know , Kate Wolf. She left us much too early in the middle of the eighties, just as our appreciation of her talents was rising. This song has been a favorite since I heard it covered in a very small, intimate music venue in Black Mountain NC. David Wilcox closed with it in almost all of his concerts, for good reason. Some lyrics will tell part of the story.
“Kind friends all gathered 'round, there's something I would say:
That what brings us together here has blessed us all today.
Love has made a circle that holds us all inside.
Where strangers are as family, loneliness can't hide.
You must give yourself to love if love is what you're after;
Open up your hearts to the tears and laughter
And give yourself to love, give yourself to love.
Love is born in fire; it's planted like a seed.
Love can't give you everything, but it gives you what you need.
And love comes when you're ready, love comes when you're afraid;
It'll be your greatest teacher, the best friend you have made.” - Kate Wolf
On cold winter nights all of us left Wilcox’s concerts better able to face what life was throwing our way and even better to face the dawn. As you can see, I am still seeking answers to life’s more elusive questions. But music helps, and the words of our great writers enrich, and the forests, mountains, streams, and sandy beaches speak to us also.
Kate Wolf died in her forties, half a life ahead. Whenever an artist of great promise leaves us I cannot help wondering what they still had to give. But let’s not allow ourselves to look only in high places. I have a very small circle of friends and many more lovely acquaintances and a deep and abiding partnership with a woman of substance and radiance. Look around you and notice the “circle”. Be the force that draws them together and count yourself fortunate. But know that they have questions and insecurities of their own—listen to their stories. Offer yourself if they express needs or simply stand ready. “He also serves who only stands and waits”.
If one wants to get mystical they could hardly do better than one of the great naturalists of the twentieth century Loren Eiseley. A scientist of the first order, he was also filled with wonder about his experiences. Listen to his beautiful idea about love and life.
“It was the humans who nourished the highest in their nature by means of love, who lived with such exquisite tenderness for life in all of its expressions, that propelled our species from the caves to the cathedrals, from savagery to sonnets.”
Some of them, a mere handful in any generation perhaps, loved — they loved the animals about them, the song of the wind, the soft voices of women. On the flat surfaces of cave walls the three dimensions of the outside world took animal shape and form. Here — not with the ax, not with the bow — humans fumbled at the door of his true kingdom. Here, hidden in times of trouble behind silent brows, against the man with the flint, waited St. Francis of the birds — the lovers, the men who are still forced to walk warily among their kind.
“It was here that I came to know the final phase of love in the mind of man — the phase beyond the evolutionists’ meager concentration upon survival.
Here I no longer cared about survival — I merely loved. And the love was meaningless, as the harsh Victorian Darwinists would have understood it or even, equally, those harsh modern materialists…..
I felt, sitting in that desolate spot upon my whiskey crate, a love without issue, tenuous, almost disembodied. It was a love for an old gull, for wild dogs playing in the surf, for a hermit crab in an abandoned shell. It was a love that had been growing through the unthinking demands of childhood, through the pains and rapture of adult desire. Now it was breaking free, at last, of my worn body, still containing but passing beyond those other loves.”
—Loren Eiseley (author of an essential book, The Immense Journey. It must be in your essential life library)
All right. Where is this going? I just wanted to tease you with some semantics. It should be clear that I lack a definitive answer to my initial question of “what is love”. After all, this piece should simply be celebrating the holiday. So, I will finish with a couple of intriguing musical thoughts, anchored by a bit of hope. First, an inspired idea that once love has shrouded the lives of two people, it might just last forever.
“All my plans, keep fallin' through
All my plans depend on you
Depend on you to help them grow
I love you and that's all I know
When the singer's gone
Let the song go on
It's a fine line between the darkness and the dawn
You say in the darkest night there's a light beyond
I love you and that’s all I know”
—Jimmy Webb
It is mutuality that makes great loves. When two become “we” and the light of each other’s existence (even in dark times).
What if love ends? In the moment of fresh loss it can often feel like life is over. But here is a song of hope to carry with you if you have, perhaps, loved and lost.
”Well, I have climbed to lover's lane
I felt the joy, I felt the pain
Asking for another's soul
Thinking they could make me whole
Now I heard a voice from deep inside
Saying you're not blamed for love you tried
Oh, you may think that love takes two
But love's a gift from you to you
And I have tried without ceasing
To give love without regret
I know love's not through with me yet
Can you hold a place within your breast
For someone you've never met?
Then love's not through with you
I said love's not through with me
I know love's not through with us yet”
—Darrell Scott
Now, I hope you agree that this is a very fine song for Valentine’s Day. Take it with you now — and for “Down the Road.” May we each hold a quiet place within our hearts for what is still forming. I, for one, am trusting that love is not through with us yet.
With affection,
Clay
Our Table Trek
“So long as we still reflect each other (even deformed) as through silver spoons, wine glasses, and exultant bottles on the table of a dinner party about to begin, things can’t be that bad.”
The offering I bring to you today is a reflection rather than a story. It is a tale that did not exist eighteen years ago. It is a remembrance of a shared journey that has unfolded scene by scene. That is why we have chosen to refer to it as a “trek”, generally described as a long, challenging, journey by foot or (as we like to think of it) a purposeful, extended trip or migration.
I use “trek” in a very expansive sense. For us, Joanie and Clay, it rather connotes a journey of discovery, an inner journey to find meaning in the company of others, in conversation and good cheer.
This site represents our take on life (idiosyncratic and ultimately permeated with romance) life as it is enhanced and expressed through sight and smell and taste and contemplation. We believe that the only “real” answers to the confusion, distractedness and disconnectedness that many of us feel is a return to community—to learn how to be together again. We believe that the “table” (in the literal and symbolic sense) is a good place to start. A place to be approached openly, with open minds, open hands, open spirits. No “devices” (technical or intellectual) allowed.
We try to practice what we preach.
Here, at the table, is where we share our love for good food, candlelight, and flowers with the people we care about.
For eighteen years, Joanie and I have felt ultra fortunate to have encountered each other in a way where we have had the honor of experiencing a melding into something like “one”. In some ways we are exceptionally different. As in life, differences can be a source of separation but, in others, vehicles of completion.
At our table, we have discovered shared values which include the need for companionship, and perhaps most importantly, a strong desire to engage others in discovery of who they are rather than simply what they do. We try hard to view the world and those who inhabit it with as much compassion as we can muster, without losing the essence of who we are and what defines our true identity.
At times this also involves some rather “fierce” conversations when our individual ways of processing come into conflict, sometimes in ways that may seem trivial to one or the other. In sum, this has allowed us to understand each other through a frank sharing of feelings, helping us realize that our friction is more often about the need for better communication rather than true disagreement.
All that having been said, our mutuality about the things that really matter makes us a functioning entity. Where that has taken us is the places and the contexts of life that define our happiness and pleasure of existence, with some sorrows and disappointments as well.
The quotation I shared at the beginning helps to explain what I have said so far. I sincerely hope that what we have written does not come across as too personal an approach, for which I apologize, but without a shred of guilt. This thing that we are trying to do through this site is in fact a testimonial of sorts.
It seems the best way to proceed is to share with you, our reader, some anecdotes of our sharing food, wine, and companionships with others.
We regularly, for ten years or so after we met, entertained in our small cozy house. Sometimes with other couples or small gatherings for wine tastings, or back porch cookouts. In good weather, the back porch has been our chosen venue because it is ten feet wide, runs the whole back of the house and is covered. It shelters us beautifully from the summer sun and looks out over a very private, fenced backyard that is the home to a small vegetable garden (mostly heirloom tomatoes) in the summer months, framed by the gracious generosity of a few muscadine vines that dot the landscape. Our small lawn of soft-bladed Augustine grass looks after itself wonderfully, providing a plush bed for romantic stargazing on clear, warm nights.
“A shared meal is the beginning of friendship.”
The true beginning of our regular dinners was during Covid. We had a small group of friends who we knew were acting responsibly (some we had entertained regularly—others not as much). Most of us were colleagues from my days working at the university. We all had our first round of vaccines and were sheltering in place. We started small, making sure everyone felt comfortable meeting on the back porch around our large farm house table—fans blazing and enough space to spread out. At first, we only met occasionally, just wanting to get out and fight the isolating, monotony. Over time, as it became clear the quarantine-like conditions would not end any time soon, our get-togethers, became more regular until soon dinner time felt like “going home” (family, you might say). I often referred to our newly banded dinner group (or “The Pod” as one member referred to us) as a “functional family at Thanksgiving”. Thankful indeed we all were to experience those gracious and tender moments that lighted our way during dark, troubled times.
What we knew at the beginning was that we all truly enjoyed wine as food. We had traveled together and shared from our respective collections (cellars?). We began the practice of sometimes serving them at the table blind, so that we could play little tasting games. Our palates were not all equally experienced, so we called it “guessing” and, mostly, we developed our descriptive skills and broadened our vocabularies (being careful not to use terms such as “wrong”). We found out that the same wine had distinctly different characteristics for some of us. We talked about whether a given wine went better with (or enhanced) the given menu item. We had fun—serious about the wine but never taking it too seriously.
“Wine is meant to be enjoyed with food, and the best wines enhance the meal.”
All this is to say that what happened was a deepening of the experience of dining. We lingered long after the plates had been cleared, putting off the inevitable need to depart—savoring each moment together. When it was deemed safe to travel again, a few of us took a trip to California where we visited two of our favorite wine regions (Amador County and Mendocino) with a few stops in between. We eschewed hotel rooms for a common house so that we could be together, as was our habit. Our relationships continued to deepen, and even though we came from different backgrounds and vocations, our conversations at the table were anything but superficial. Sometimes they were even “animated”.
All this is to say that as we dined and tasted and explored our respective lives, we also learned some compassion and care for who we were, not just what we do. We all came from very different backgrounds and even though our politics were not the same we avoided, (for the most part), topics such as public policy and religion, holding back when we knew that we were coming too close to a personal line. We also forgave each other, as the bond we forged had become too precious to lose.
It is sad to think that many people do not have the privilege to truly dine. We become disheartened in the rare times we have dinner “out” to observe too often precious moments reduced to the glow of a small screen and silence instead of candlelight and presence.
They are missing the “magic” of being at our table.
The same could be said about most of life’s mysteries. Some just chose to “let the mystery be” thereby ignoring the beauty of the people and the world outside their little islands.
So, we extend an invitation, perhaps an evocation: Be with one another. Break bread. Share a glass of something celebratory. Sit a while and commune. Give each other the gift of presence. We believe deeply that our greatest riches can be found by simply being together.
“Friendship improves happiness and abates misery, by doubling our joys and dividing our grief.”
— Cicero, De Amicitia (44 BCE)
Special Report: The International Wine Crisis
“Wine is a mystery that holds the promise of an explanation.”
—Randall Grahm, Bonny Doon Vineyard
The international world of wine may be entering an industry-wide crisis it has not faced since Prohibition.
What, you say—wine is everywhere you look. Shelves and shelves. What could be bad about that?
Fair enough.
Let me start by telling you something that is not obvious to the average consumer.
All of a sudden, it is not selling like it used to.
Retail stores and restaurants are at the end of the pipeline. There are forces at work—some related to each other, some separate—that are severely affecting the flow.
At this point you may be saying:
“I do not even drink much, and when I do it is likely to be beer or bourbon.
Why should I read this?”
That being said, you might feel an impulse to exit the site.
But wait.
There is a moral to this story. Let me explain….
I am no expert, but I have been a serious consumer for a long time.
I have an ample cellar. I have traveled to wine regions, domestic and international. I have developed contacts at every level of the market and, as a result, keep my ear to the ground.
At every level—vineyard owners, wineries, wholesale and retail firms—the news is frightening.
Let me give you one example to capture your attention.
I have a friend who writes about the business of wine and, consequently, spends time with people at every level of the industry. His major focus is Napa Valley.
On a recent trip, a source who chose to remain anonymous confided this:
Growers of top-rated vineyards who formerly sold their Cabernet for $5,000 per ton were forced to sell their grapes for $1,000 per ton—or even less.
Other sources reported that they actually dropped fruit on the ground rather than “give it away” or spend the money required to ferment and store their excess.
For some, the problem was that they still had last year’s wine sitting in the barrels needed for aging.
Impressed yet?
If I were a reporter, I would be struggling to gather enough research and expertise to document all of this thoroughly.
But as a mere consumer—and a translator of interesting phenomena—I will try my best to help you see and understand what is happening.
A Brief History Lesson (That Matters)
Let me start with Napa Cabernet.
In 1976, Napa Cabernet won a very high-level tasting in Paris against the best Bordeaux. Some California Chardonnays had similar success against white Burgundy.
This event catapulted American wine back into the world market, which had been depressed since Prohibition.
Suddenly, California was back in the game.
Consumers and collectors who had long adopted French wine took notice. They traveled to Napa. They requested California wines from their merchants back east.
Unfortunately, the number of premium wineries—those that survived Prohibition or were founded in the late 1960s and early 1970s—was limited, and production was small.
For several years, I was able to buy wines from that historic tasting at very reasonable prices.
Then everyone wanted in.
Prices soared.
A wine already sitting in my cellar suddenly became a collector’s item—one I could no longer afford to replace.
So my friends and I chose to celebrate our “loss” by building special dinners around Cabernets and Chardonnays that now lived in the cellars of celebrities and captains of industry, and appeared on wine lists at famous restaurants—such as Bern’s Steak House in Florida—for prices that would shock you.
These wines became benchmarks for the burgeoning California wine market.
I tell you this so you can better understand what came next.
Fast Forward
Wine became fashionable.
It became a symbol of sophistication.
We were no longer the Budweiser generation.
When invited to dinner, it became customary to arrive with a bottle in hand. If your hosts were “wine people,” you might feel intimidated—hoping not to commit a faux pas.
At some level of society, wine had become culture.
This lasted for some time.
Other beverages came and went. Some people became cocktail people, bourbon people, tequila people.
But for those of us who grew up in wine, we still valued our cellars. We still discussed vintages and favorite varietals.
Then, almost suddenly, things began to change.
Health concerns rose. Once believed to be beneficial for heart health, red wine—and alcohol in general—came under scrutiny. Studies warned against any alcohol consumption. Drinking itself was framed as a disease, or at least a cause of obesity.
At the same time, studies began reporting that the last two generations were either not drinking much at all or switching to alternative beverages.
Meanwhile, another force was quietly building.
The surge in wine consumption and collecting over the last forty years encouraged massive vineyard expansion. New wineries opened. Vineyards were planted in regions that had never produced wine before.
Overproduction became inevitable.
Private equity firms and large beverage companies aggressively acquired small wineries in preferred regions like Napa and Sonoma. Long-established family names became brands—with production scaled up to satisfy investors.
Bottom line:
Wine became commodified. A product bought and sold for profit—not necessarily for quality.
Why This Matters
Supply and demand became distorted.
Massive investment required continuous growth. Advertising created desire where none had existed. Winemakers became celebrities. Beautiful destinations beckoned us from glossy ads—even if we never went there.
A sea of very good wine, and plenty of mediocre wine, began pressing against the floodgates of oversupply.
That is where we are now.
If this were purely a market correction, lower prices might eventually solve it.
But the adjustment is painful.
Retailers and wholesalers are sitting on mountains of inventory. Some have already closed. Overseas shippers face canceled contracts.
When an entire supply chain backs up, the damage spreads far beyond the obvious players.
The Human Cost
What matters most to me are the small farmers and the cellars that vinify grapes and bottle the finished nectar.
Vineyards and wineries are rural enterprises. They create communities. The people who make wine are neighbors, friends, families.
If they fail, everyone feels it.
Wine is, at its heart, a farm product—subject to the same vulnerabilities as any crop. One violent hailstorm can wipe out an entire harvest and devastate a household’s livelihood.
And yet, wine is also the most natural alcoholic beverage in existence.
Pick grapes. Place them in a clean container. Protect them from insects and fungus. Within days, natural yeasts begin fermentation.
Historians tell us the first cultivated grapes were fermented in buried clay vessels. When spring came, villagers unearthed them and declared—party time.
This magic likely began in the Middle East and spread across the Mediterranean with trade and conquest.
If the international grape glut continues, small farms—and centuries of artistry—may vanish.
In southern Europe, some vineyards have been farmed by the same families for hundreds of years.
This is history.
This is culture.
This is a way of life.
The Moral
If any of this resonates with you—or even sparks curiosity—here is what you can do.
Support independent growers and producers.
If you buy retail or online, pause before your next purchase. Ask questions.
Where is this wine made?
Who owns the vineyard?
What is their philosophy?
It is often possible to trace the wine in your glass to a real place, made by real people.
Why buy mass-produced, proprietary wine if you can drink farm-to-table bottles that are sustainably grown, often better, and frequently less expensive?
With a little homework, we rarely pay more than $25 a bottle—and often much less. We know the wine’s heritage. We can call the winery and speak to real people.
And don’t worry.
There will always be giant machines, endless rows of meticulously tended vines, and massive factories producing perfectly consistent wines—with beautiful labels—waiting for you at the supermarket.
No awkward conversations required.
“I’m always carried back to why wine was seen as magic or divine from the beginning.
I suspect it’s because it is the most familiar act of transformation.
And it is one of the very few remaining rituals that many of us have.
It makes the meal into a ritual that it otherwise would not be.”— Paul Draper, Ridge Vineyards
With care for the vine and those who tend it,
Clay
P.S. We’ve considered forming small wine group with online and in person meet-ups. If you’re interested in going deeper, drop me a line.