Talkin Bout Country

Here's a video from country legend Waylon Jennings. This is from back when it was about the music and not the market. Just a good ol' sweaty jam.

El Paso & a Poem

Brothers

Rolling down 54

between

the setting sun and rising moon

so fat and full tonight

they hang there like scales

and I can't help but feel that we are

the ones being weighed

On the Road Again

and

I've Always Been Crazy

blaring from the radio

as we blast down that desert highway

the music coarsing through our veins

like blood

cause their ain't no song

like the one you're livin'

All day long we fought

the desert wind

and dust

but never

let them get the

best of us

so

we're off to celebrate

at Andale's tonight

Gathered round the table

we eat and drink our fill

cause tommorow

we'll die

again

between the rising sun

and setting moon

only to be

resurrected

by the beauty of mountains

and the strength of brothers

Ray's doing his best Cosell

and Brett is cracking jokes

as Shawn takes it all in

up on the hill

overlooking

dirty Juarez

Nobody's smiling

but its not cause

we aren't happy

the night wind

is blowing now

and it picks up our souls

Spinning, spinning

it carries them

high up into

the mountains

We can't get there

any other way.

Excellence

Two quotes on excellence, the first I relate to (the debilitating part), the second, healthier quote, I aspire to:

"But being [excellent] is also about having an insecurity that is almost-but not quite-debilitating. The best people have trouble living in their own skin, because nothing is ever great enough." - David Lubars in The Wall Street Journal

"This is how I see excellence, it embraces generosity, humbleness, and sincerity of effort. At it's heart it is about never being satisfied. It has nothing to do with perfection. I'm not a perfectionist. I'm an excellence-ist." - Chef Charlie Trotter in Hemispheres

Feels Like Years...

Placid
Here she is. I cannot tell you how much peace this little girl brings to me. Amidst moving (twice), starting a new job (sort of), and Margaret's birth, the last four months have been crazy. But this sweet little package of grace and love has flooded our souls with a sustaining peace and surprisngly, rest. We had initially been planning on calling her Charlotte, but as I told friends, she looked much too regal for that when we first saw her and so out of the blue she ended up as Margaret. I have received quite a bit of gentle ribbing about this, but scoffers take note: in our house, we play an endless procession of music cds and Margaret has no reaction to any of them except for the visible reaction she shows to classical music. Unlike Willie Nelson, it never fails to put her in a great mood. Told Ya!

Ramblin
We are now located in Des Moines, Iowa - one third of the way between Canada and Mexico on Interstate 35 and almost halfway between New York and San Francisco on Interstate 80. I am enjoying being at the crossroads of two great American highways, but still wish I was further south at the crossroads of I-35 and I-10. Although it is a slightly different string of pearls than I-10, I just love heading West on I-80 knowing that Cheyenne, Salt Lake, Reno and San Fran are all just sitting out there in the setting sun waiting for me.

Unbecoming
In the course of my work, I run across quite a few men in their 50's and 60's. I look up to and enjoy being around older men and so I am always excited by these brushes with wisdom. Probably more so because of the initial burst of anticipatory excitement, I am always extremely let down when they turn out to be more like a 30 year old than a 60 year old. I've got to say that one of the saddest sights in this world is a dirty old man or a bitter old woman. Old age should be a glorious time. So many battles behind you, so many rivers crossed, valleys endured and peaks enjoyed. It is a time to pass on lessons learned to those in need of your wisdom, a time to slow down a little and enjoy the world with your knowing yet grateful eyes. I am so thankful that I have grandparents who are people I can look up to.

From the Mighty Mo' to the Mighty Miss
I've been to Omaha four times now in the last few months and I've got to say that it is such a great town. The Missouri River runs along the eastern edge of town and the wide and sandy Platte River runs just to the south of it. It is a town with a great railroading heritage that is celebrated by the two locomotive engines permanently parked on the river bluff just above the highway as you come in from the east on I-80. You can feel the history in the air, the stories of both hard working men of the field and of free living hoboes riding by on boxcars heading from one great city to another. Like Des Moines, it is immediately and completely surrounded by fields full of grain, corn and beans as soon as you get out of town. Sitting on the edge of Omaha gazing west gives me a similar feeling to the one I used to get as a teenager when I would stand knee deep in Atlantic staring out into the darkness at the great emptiness between me and Europe. As you sit there can feel the vast and wonderful nothingness between you and the mountains of the West, and out of the dark, a siren song wails, tugging, tugging at you till you can barely stand it and almost give in.

Also had the chance to visit Dubuque, Iowa on the Mississippi River, a town where you feel like at any minute the ghost of Johnny Cash is going to float by, feet dangling off of one of the many barges moving either north or south as he soaks up the sun. Really, the Mississippi is stunning from St. Paul all the way down to at least Davenport ( that's as far as I have been up to now). The river runs through a deep valley surrounded on either side by towering river bluffs topped with tall and leafy trees.

The corn was 6 to 7 feet tall and green as grass when we got here and it now a bleached tan just waiting to be harvested. I am so jealous of the farmers running down miles of corn in their green John Deere combines from well before sun up to well after sun down. That has got to bring such a great feeling of accomplishment as well as a connection to both the past, and the rhythms of life and earth.

Fellow Sojourners
Before we left Texas, Jen and I were able to catch Patty Griffin live in concert in Austin. While waiting for the show to begin, we started talking to the couple next to us. I love Patty Griffin, but I've got to say the highlight of the evening was getting to meet this couple. They were so much fun to talk to. He is a scientist/conservationist type guy who was in Kileen, TX studying birds and has since moved to Florida to work on another project. I would like to point you in the direction of his blog which is filled with tons of great wildlife pictures like this one. You can get a better look at the photos by clicking on them which will enlarge them. Check out the amazing colors in the coral snake.

Iraq
My buddy Scott has one month left in Iraq, after being there for 15 months. Would you please pray for his safety during this last month?

God Bless Texas.

A Great Line

"It was a lovely night, one of those nights, dear reader, which can only happen when you are young. The sky was so bright and starry that when you looked at it the first question that came into your mind was whether it was really possible that all sorts of bad-tempered and unstable people could live under such a glorious sky."

-Opening line to White Nights,

a short story by Dostoevsky