God Shops At Meijer

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The Super Bowl and a major grocery store chain - I must be in hell. Don’t get me wrong, the Super Bowl is tons of fun to watch, despite the fact that it seems to fall on our anniversary weekend three out of four years. This is something I am willing to sacrifice for the greater good of all male-kind (which would be my husband and three sons). This year however, I can’t complain. The sports gods (Eli Manning not withstanding) arranged a February Super Bowl on my behalf. Apparently though, I haven’t atoned for all my sins which would explain why I have landed square in the middle of the produce aisle in Meijer on Super Bowl Sunday.

I am thinking of the annoying adage, “when life hands you lemons…” and wouldn’t you know? Meijer has plenty of lemons. Seriously, who is going to kick back and watch the big game with an ice cold… lemonade? As if to underscore a sacrilege, my husband has abandoned me in favor of can and bottle returns, no doubt to make room for… more cans and bottles (of SODA he clarifies while proofreading as editor). The only thing keeping me company (besides a bazillion people) is the chorus to Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah’ stuck on repeat in my head. Normally this would drive me bananas (which I do decide to buy), except that I only heard this song - for the first time in my life - this week.

Or so I thought.

“Mom, you’ve heard this song before! My friend Ben was playing it on the piano right here at the house and you went crazy and had to know what it was.”

In case you don’t recognize the dialect, this is the vernacular of ‘American teenager’ who established this status with us in 2003 and claims his territory somewhere between our basement and the refrigerator.

To add insult to injury he flippantly remarks, “It would be good except that everyone in the world has recorded it.”

Warning! This is a common diversionary tactic of this people group. The first attack is blatant and intended to make you think you are losing your mind. This second is the subtle, more dangerous suggestion that you have already lost your judgment. Do NOT be fooled! This should tell you one thing and one thing only. You are living in the territory of… an ‘American teenager’!

You see, I could argue that ‘relating to the song’ only exists in the present moment and as such, each time can be the ‘first’ time you hear the song. I could run this by so-called ‘American teenager’, but such existential pondering is better left until said teenager leaves this territory and enters that of ‘Real World’. Otherwise, I run the risk of the next wave of artillery, spring-loaded with rolling eyes and hysterical laughter.

The truth is, if everyone (to borrow the exaggeration) has recorded the song, then it stands to reason there is something about the song that everyone can relate to. I related once in passing and then again when I saw the YouTube video of John Cale performing it.

Now, I find myself relating to it in Meijer and at the risk of sounding as if I am losing my mind… I think I am hearing this song for the first time.

You see, strangely enough, I’ve stopped putting things in my cart and am doing something completely insane. I am walking through Meijer, just for the joy of walking through Meijer! (Which I am totally aware sounds like an oxymoron.) I’m singing this song under my breath and looking at all the people. This “Hallelujah” has become a sweet, refreshing refrain and God has poured himself a tall glass. Every person – young and old, all colors, every shape and size – contributes to the complex flavor. Even if theirs happens to be a “cold and broken Hallelujah” and maybe - especially - because it is. Its tang is so potent my eyes well up. Meijer has transcended the plane of lemon to become the Kingdom’s lemonade stand on earth. And as I pass through this roadside stand, I feel someone’s eyes on me. An old man has stopped to watch my pilgrimage – his eyes on my face and a huge smile on his. He is in on the secret. He can relate. God is alive and well and shops at Meijer.

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.