Spent a couple hours with Keaver yesterday. She just got back from Atlanta, performing music from her new album, LullaBaby. Inspirational Children's Lullaby Collection.
She told me about a young girl she met at this event, traded in sex traffic since age 12, finally able to find escape that life at age 16 with the assistance of of Living Water and GEMS (Girls Educational and Mentoring Services).
I listened, saddened, wanting to be horrified, but numb instead. How do we do these things to one another? Why are humans so inhumane? How can we treat our daughters and sisters this way? How do I ignore these things?
As I listened to the story Keaver told me, I flashed back to page 38 of Redeeming Love, by Francine Rivers. I remember how important it was to Tanja that I encounter that story. That came at a time I felt the Lord had instructed me to re-read the book of Hosea, which I did, and had just completed when Tanja presented this book to me as a gift. I cried my way through the last page.
You know its funny how things just happen. I love the saying that Coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous. Carlos, one of the valets at the sports bar across the street, bought me lunch today at a Columbian restaurant on Melrose. It was so good. It was sooooo good.
I haven't known Carlos very long--just a few months. As we talked, I learned that he's currently doing exactly what I'm planning. He left a good stable, practical job with a reputable bank, to live his life simply. I admire a man who takes chances like that. What is there to lose, really? If I'm wrong about this, I can always do something practical again. If I don't do this now, by the time I get the nerve, I'll have lost the energy.
Speaking of energy, did the Tabata workout again today and finished it, thank you very much. Hurting, but finished. Can't walk straight, but finished. Loving the satisfaction. I'm gonna get to the point where I can do this easily and add more reps to the workout. I'm gonna push myself and see how far I can go.
Today my mom emailed me this: Promise me that you will look for a job that will give you the means to live comfortably . It hurts to think that you are so lonely and then to wonder how your needs are being met. You can spend evenings and weekends with the music. I am sure God has something speciaL FOR YOU TO DO with all the other abilities and gifts He gave you.
My mom loves me. I know it hurts her to watch me apparently flounder. And even my most heart-felt assurance that I choose this road in full view of the possible consequences...well, let's be real, that does nothing to ease a mother's pain at watching her son's discomfort.
I think the music in me is coming from somewhere else. I'm just the vessel that gets to house it, but my charge as steward is to get it out of me. I don't worry about what happens to it after that. Maybe no one wants to hear what I've been given to say, but I'm going to say it.
This morning someone offered me to stay with their family and live rent-free for a year and simply work on music there. I had narrowed my options for moving and now they seem to be widening again. Where shall I go? What best serves my prime directive?
These last six months or so, I've been really enjoying my new friend Brian Lauritzen, radio producer, Cellist. He and his wife have undertaken the antidote to my horrible lack of culture. Which is how we came to sit in a 4 by 4 box at Hollywood Bowl a few weeks ago, mesmerized by Jean Thibaudet playing Liszt along with the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
They'll be taking me to the Disney Concert Hall downtown soon and I can't wait. I'm told the acoustics in there are amazing. You really might hear a pin drop, if anyone happens to drop a pin. So far my only experiences of that space are admiring the architecture from outside as I drive by, and the scenes of it in the movie The Soloist. Great movie. I was sad the rest of the day from watching that. Come to think of it, I was sad the rest of the weekend.
So, logically, and by way of punctuation between classical ventures, Brian and Brianne just made a washtub bass inspired by the bluegrass band they saw at Pike's Peak in Seattle about a month ago. There are pictures of the washtub birth on Brian's Facebook.
For the record, Thibaudet also had a red sock phase. Look mom, I'm getting cultured.
I'll tell you about the sock thing soon.
Goodnight, Beautiful...
Goodnight, Strender.
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