the village that it takes
DESCRIPTION
A Christmas Thanks and Song for Mom and Dad, 2011TRANSCRIPT
I facilitate Courage to Teach retreats for teachers.
Around twenty of us gather at a camp five times over a
year and a half time span for seasonal themed gatherings.
We read together, eat together, talk… and especially, we
listen.
Listening isn’t something that happens often these
days, deep listening to others, or to one’s self. In Courage
to Teach talk, we call that the “inner teacher.” Part of
what happens in these gatherings is that people who
never listen to their own inner teacher 1) find out they
have one, 2) start listening, and 3) BEGIN the process of
recognizing and appreciating the cadences and tones and
patterns of that voice.
So, after one of the first circles of our first gathering
of South Dakota’s Courage to Teach Cadre 5, just after my
colleague Maggie had sent us off to listen to our inner
teacher, I found myself alone with my guitar listening to
that voice recall the gifts I received when I was very
young, gifts that have not only carried me through, but
have actually shaped the unique qualities that have
turned out to be me.
Most of these early images and memories came due
to the formative decisions made by my mother and
father… no, that’s not exactly right… they came via Mom
and Dad’s presence. Not just that they were around, but
that they were actively around, imbuing my moments
and the places those moments inhabited with a kind of
light that can only be described as love… unconditional
and absolute.
As I listened to my own inner teacher, music and
lyrics shaped themselves, and the song, Village, was born.
The specifics are the warm embrace, very early on, of
my mother; the faces of both my mom and dad, warm
and laughing; the tiny town we moved to in Nebraska
where my father taught at a small college and my mother
raised my brother and me. My mother loved that town,
probably more than any other place, and through her
eyes (and my listening to her voice) the little town
became more than a place to live… it was a place to be
alive…,THE place to be alive.
Tiny moments emerged—sunny grass and blowing
dandelions, the colors of the town lights at night…
especially around Christmas. The snow made everything
glow. I recalled hours, in my bed at night, second-story of
our little yellow clapboard, the dark, night windows
glowing with lights from every house. It was like one of
those little Christmas villages that people construct from
miniature houses, streetlamps and storefronts collected
Christmas after Christmas-- you know, plugged in and
glowing from the inside of each little piece, arranged up
on the hearth, tinkling music soft in the background.
Life isn’t really like that, is it? It’s dark and cold
sometimes. You forget who you are—or begin to wonder
if you ever really knew, and the outside harshness, the
desperate toiling, the push to be self-reliant and
invulnerable to beauty or wonder, puts you by yourself,
no matter how many people crowd around you. Not only
that, but worse, you are really by yourself, especially
when you’re alone and things are quiet— no inner music,
no inner light, no inner voice, just silence.
Years ago, Americans became aware of the phrase “It
takes a village…” but I’m really interested in the kind of
village that it takes.
I think it takes one that is portable.
Somehow my mother and father peopled my early
years with loveliness and openness and trust and love.
It’s like I was collecting all of these wonderful bits of
home and music and lights and warmth for those really
important years… and they’re all still there, a village on a
hill, impossible to ignore, easy to find when I remember
it’s there.
And it’s not just nostalgia. No, that would be a sad
state of delusion. These lights, this music… the voices and
the people and the faces and the places are all quite
functional. They continue to play out into my life in
important ways. The dark roads are lighter, the empty
days are filled with voices, music comes in at the
strangest and most incredible moments… and I can’t help
but believe that somehow, via the windows of my own
soul, the lights and music inside show through. I pray
they do. And I thank Mom and Dad for placing them
there.
Village For Mom and Dad
Well he started out as an accident
Nine months of labor and toil
And he entered the light with open eyes,
A loving face, a warm breast,
Before his feet even hit the soil…
A loving face, a warm breast,
Before his feet even hit the soil…
He’d sit for hours in the grass
Watching the sun light the seeds
They were planes and ships on magical trips
Tiny parachutes on the breeze
And the fingers of light pulled down the night
Through his window, the town went to sleep
And the dance of the colors winking to life
Gave him dreams and musical themes
Treasures and tales for keeps;
They gave him dreams and musical themes
Treasures and tales for keeps.
Oh, it’s a fertile soil and a loving breast
And lights to light your way,
Oh, it’s floating ships launched by tiny lips
Blowing dandelions all day.
And at night, oh the village sleeps
But everybody keeps a candle burning bright
His village on the hill…
It’s still shining through this night.
Sometimes these days he forgets his name
And his feet don’t touch the ground
Or a coldness steals his heart away
And the wind makes a lonesome sound
But there’s a deeper place—a stronger grace
Where the lights and the music are stored
And when he shuts his eyes to listen close
Deep inside, like a rising tide
A calling that can’t be denied
Deep inside there’s a roaring tide
A calling that can’t be denied.
Oh, it’s a fertile soil and a loving breast
And lights to light your way,
Oh, it’s floating ships launched by tiny lips
Blowing dandelions all day.
And at night, oh the village sleeps
But everybody keeps a candle burning bright
His village on the hill…
It’s still shining through this night..