Gillian Welch – The Flatpickin' Pilgrim's Progress

It’s a good time to polish up friendships, love family, forgive, thank and bless.

So I turned sixty, and for some reason the people around me celebrated for a week. I know with Ebola, the Ukraine, ISIS and Israel causing the end-of-the-worlders to crank out their book my firthday isn’t a big deal globally, but it has been to me.

Over the last five years I have laid to rest a close friend, a father-in-law (who was a second father to me) and a mentor and colleague I have known for 21 years and was my predecessor. The Shadow has been around lately. I have grandchildren. There is likely more life behind than before me years-wise. You know—morbidity hangs around. Joints ache a little more.

You’ve poured a lot of concrete by sixty. Decisions, patterns, character, and events harden into tracks out of which it’s hard to escape. On the other hand, those same tracks give a certain comfort and stability to life. It’s hard to break them up.

The upside has surprised me, though. A certain amount of “I just don’t care about that anymore.” I don’t care very much at all what others think about what I think. I don’t need to correct them all Continue reading ““Sixty is Just Alright”” →

“Gillian Welch & David Rawlings-meets-Simon &

Garfunkel with a splash of The Everly Brothers“

I am and always have loved the process of how books, music, ideas and people find me. Life, for the most part, is an odd assortment of intentional seeking and being found. Some people major on the former, others on the latter. Freedom and providence is what we call it in theology. Too much of either leads to bad theology and a distortion of reality. This is about “how the Milk Carton Kids Found Me.” I love music. Two of my parishioners, Kenny and Katherine Worley, love the Milk Carton Kids. I love Gillian Welch and David Rawlings. They figured, “he might like the MCK (Milk Carton Kids from now on!). So they had an extra ticket and invited me to Workplay, a great venue in Birmingham. I listened to them on YouTube, of course, but I was distracted by the handkerchief Pattengale tied to his Martin 000-15 and waved in a circular motion that reminds me of David Rawlings so much. I came ready to dismiss them as wannabes, to tell you the truth. I was so wrong. Wikipedia’s article about them describes them as:

…an indie folk duo from Eagle Rock, California, consisting of singers and guitarists Kenneth Pattengale and Joey Ryan, who formed the group in early 2011. NPR has described their approach to music as “gorgeous contemporary folk”^[1]and “Gillian Welch & David Rawlings-meets-Simon & Garfunkel with a splash of The Everly Brothers“, which fairly represents the band’s music while also appealing to the intended audience[i] Continue reading “What’s In a Name? Or, a 59 Year Old Songwriter Finds the Milk Carton Kids” →