KNOCK, KNOCK - Who'sh 'ere? – GOD (Any more stupid questions?)

The September tour of Detroit and Indiana was a great time and I enjoyed meeting you all! There were so many God moments that it’s tough to identify only one. But that’s sort of where I am going with the following story. It’s really not about one moment – it’s about THE moment. Aren’t you intrigued? (O.K. – maybe just mildly curious.)

So here’s the story.

When I left for Indiana, I was popping Halls like candy and praying like Paul for the scales to be lifted from my eyes… my nose… my head… you name it. I’d been fighting a cold all week, but felt well enough to get on the road. (Note to self: What is ‘well enough’?). You see, I’d done this once before on a tour of Pennsylvania and was much, much worse. God sent good care at that time. I stayed in a home where they made me fresh carrot juice (I am aware that most people don’t consider that a blessing) and had people scoring me Slippery Elm lozenges in such a way that I was worried I might get arrested.

This was different. This was INDIANA. Home of the Hoosier! Since I don’t know what a Hoosier is, I had to look it up on the internet. Some knowledgeable types on Wikipedia think it had to do with a Frontier greeting. Supposedly, when approaching a man's home in those early frontier days, you shouted from afar, "Hello, the cabin!" to avoid being shot. The inhabitants would then shout back "Who'sh 'ere?" (who's there). As it got slurred together over time, the country folk came to be called Hoosiers. (It should be noted that in the early days in Detroit, if you shouted “Hello the cabin!” -you would get shot.)

All things considered, I don’t suspect that definition is very flattering to the people of Indiana. And since I approached many ‘cabins’ without offering the so-called ‘secret greeting’ and am alive to tell the tale, I’d have to say that myth is busted. The folks I did encounter were nothing but kind and hard–working and three of them make up the band Consider. Besides being a great band, they were also gracious hosts and made sure that my niece LeAnna and I were well taken care of. They went above and beyond the call of duty, but you know they are sold out to that Jesus guy and are the quintessence of another definition of Hoosier I found…. “a brawny man, capable of stilling opponents.” I think Jesus may have been a Hoosier.

So I persisted and subsisted on the tour, all the while having the same recurring thought and experience…

Trust God in the moment… good, bad or otherwise. What this means to me is that instead of evaluating something through my fog-brained, limited perspective – I am to trust that God is at work in everything.

With that in mind, I decided that I would break up the long trip home and stop to see some good friends in Kalamazoo. Julie and Gary live on a lake and have two really cute kids who kept me entertained and unexpectedly held captive. I thought I was doing a good thing by letting their very precocious toddler temporarily play with my keys. What I didn’t take into consideration is that she is, after all, a toddler and one whose favorite thing in the world is keys… especially new ones. After much tears and trickery, we were able to recover the keys and I was free to go. It was really fun to see them and… it was a nice moment.

The second stop was to see Lisa in Grand Rapids. She is the fiery and fiercely passionate CEO of the American Red Cross of Southwest Michigan and a great friend. She chauffeured this very tired and very contagious looking woman to a warm and cozy restaurant for an impossibly good dinner. We always have a lot to talk about! It was a nice… long… moment.

The problem was 6 a.m.

That was the time I had gotten up.

The second problem was 9 p.m.

That was the time I was leaving her house.

The final and determining problem (aside from being a dead woman walking) was 11:30 p.m.

That was the time I would probably get home.

If I drove fast.

And didn’t get arrested.

Maybe this wasn’t so different than the Pennsylvania, slippery-elm-popping tour I referred to earlier.

At that point, I became very tempted to think I was a complete idiot (feel free to agree with me) and should have done things differently. She asked me to stay. I was on my way home. What could I do about it at that point?

Trust God in the moment.

I made it to Reed City which is about an hour or so north of Grand Rapids and decided I couldn’t go any further without finding something to keep me awake and alive, aside from the car needing gas – but somehow that part seemed less important. Do you know how many beverage choices there are at a gas station?

So, there I stood (and may be standing still) if a young girl hadn’t stopped and shocked me out of my head-cold-muddled indecision.

“I have that shirt!”

I was wearing the Consider t-shirt the band had given me. The same band I had just been gigging with in Indiana.

I believe my response was very profound, something like…

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

She had gotten the shirt at Big Ticket Festival - where I had first met Consider (I am not kidding you either). I told her where I was coming from and about playing in Indiana with the guys.

She had a message for me to pass on. “Tell those guys that I pray for them whenever I think of them.”

I guess she could have sent an email.

I guess that wouldn’t have been as cool.

I guess God will use everything for His good.

Even an idiot like me.

Trust God in the moment.

Yeah… I get it.

So tell me… what’s your ‘God in the moment’ story?

(Thanks so much to Pastor Heather at St. Philips in Trenton, Pastor Charles at First Congregational in Rockwood, Pastor Daniel at Trinity First Wesleyan in Southgate, Café Crossing in Middlebury, Downtown Grounds in Syracuse, Pastor Scott at NWUMC, Jeremiah and Marcie of 40 Miles North – great to see you! Thanks to my friend Mark who introduced me to Downriver, to Carla for a great September, to Joe just because, LeAnna my roadie and Mike, Jeremy, Nathan (Consider) and families!)

OF HAMMERED DULCIMERS AND RINGING BELLS

CCM Magazine assistant editor Lindsay Williams posted a challenge to musicians – of which I was included - to submit an anecdote about my favorite instrument and how I got it. The winner of the blog will appear in CCM Magazine. I was thankful for the challenge, if only to write something worthwhile! Check it out and if you choose to comment, it would be really awesome if you did it here AND at the CCM site:
www.myccm.org/angelajosephine/blog

“I have been my whole life a bell, and never knew it until at that moment I was lifted and struck.” - Annie Dillard, Pulitzer Prize Winner for Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, 1975

I was driving down the road many slivered moons ago, blissfully minding my own darn business, when the Rich Mullin’s song Calling Out Your Name came on the radio and in one fury of a pheasant’s wing (because there are no grouse in Michigan) my life was effectively sideswiped. I guess you could call it my Damascus Road experience and how I got home after that blinding episode is beyond me. All I knew was that if the scales were ever going to fall from my eyes, I had to find my Ananias, which turned out to be an album called, “The World As Best As I Remember It – Volume One”. I also knew that I’d eventually have to get whatever the heck instrument this guy was playing. Never mind that I had no idea who Rich Mullins was or where to begin looking for him. I began by going to my favorite store because I was convinced they carried all the music that counted, but they kept asking me if I meant S h a a a w n Mullins and they said it in a long, drawn-out way like I was some idiot who’d lost her mind on the way there. Up until that point, a Christian bookstore was another planet I had yet to set foot on.

Even so, the album was by far an easier thing to come by than that elusive instrument that God used to lift and strike me. By my own estimation, two instruments had gotten married and given birth to a perfect Middle Eastern child with an Irish brogue. If I couldn’t produce such a miracle on my own behalf, I was willing to adopt. Little did I know that I would spend the next ten years slaving to learn to play piano, guitar and mountain dulcimer, forging an independent music career in the process, before I would actually get the one instrument I had longed for - a hammered dulcimer.

The story of actually GETTING the hammered dulcimer isn’t that remarkable in the way that some stories go. In fact, it’s ridiculously simple and embarrassingly obvious along the lines of, “Why didn’t I think of that?” One day, my husband – of whom I am convinced, is a genius - handed me some information about a dulcimer festival in Evart, MI and said, “Why don’t you just go and buy a hammered dulcimer?” Was he kidding? I mean, wasn’t it supposed to fall out of the sky or arrive in a burning bush or something?

So I went to the festival and met a guy named Dave. The first song he played for me was one of Rich’s and I guess that was the closest thing I was going to get to a burning bush. He told me that if I was looking for a great instrument I should check out the ones made by Bob Tack. I found Bob in the merchandise tent. When he began to play this one in particular, the heavens parted and I recognized that ringing. It matched the one that had been echoing in my heart for over ten years.

So, I bought it.

Now, I am not a gear guru so don’t expect me to remember things like how many strings there are (there are a LOT of them and yes, I have to tune them ALL) or what kind of wood it’s made of (but it IS so pretty).

These are the kinds of thing I remember.

I remember Bob.

I was in Nashville recording Grace Exhaled when the news came that Bob passed away unexpectedly. I had just gotten done in a session with my producer and decided there were questions that needed answering and next to God, there was none other than Bob who could answer them. Bob had become used to my endless barrage of questions that eventually all added up to the same exact question, “Are you sure I’ll be able to sort this thing out?” He assured me that I would. Apparently, he thought he’d given me all the answers I needed.

So I remember Bob and feel like a part of him lives on when I play the instrument he made with his own two hands.

I also remember that sometimes you just have to go and buy a hammered dulcimer, which is by far the best practical advice I have ever been given.

And I remember the most important thing ever. Every time I hit those strings, I am a bell and I was made to call out His name.