Simple Gifts

At 2:36 my eyes popped open with a song in my head. This actually happens with some regularity and I often say that I think in lyrics anyway. Sometimes I wake up with worries, vivid reminder of a dream or ... a song. This morning it was a song.

'tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free

'tis the gift to come down where you ought to be

And when we find ourselves in the place just right

Twill be in the valley of love and delight

It is an old Shaker Hymn that I learned when I was the professional Christian inexplicably in charge of the Jefferson Street Baptist Chapel in Louisville, Kentucky. We grew to do all kinds of music at the Chapel, most were outside of the Broadman Hymnal sanctioned and required by Baptist Corporate Headquarters in Nashville, Tennessee. I remember that Associate Pastor, Cindy Weber, brought that song and I haven't thought of it in years until the middle of last night.

Rolling over I lay my head beside Sarah's.

When true simplicity is gained,

to bow and bend we shan't be ashamed

I know all about that. My ass has been bowed and bent like crazy over the past several years. What had once been a steady and relentless uphill ascension where I could do no wrong turned into a roller coaster quickly descending into hell. Everything about everything changed and suddenly I found myself ... free.

I was free from the tremendous obligations of a very public and demanding career ... from the unending needs of others that never goes away ... from the marriage I was in ... from having to be anywhere at any particular time ... free of having to do anything.

I've read when Slaves were first freed in emancipation as the Civil War concluded many had no idea what to do. Freedom overwhelmed them so they stayed put in the slave quarters and at the beckon of their former owners. They had no idea what to do ... no way of imaging how life could be different.

I know that feeling. It took me a year or so to work through this tremendous need to go backwards. It was all I'd known and all that I still wanted. I couldn't imagine a different life that was better or more fulfilling than what I'd already had.

Then just as the freed slaves finally figured it out and made new and better lives, I've come a long way into the Promised Land too.

To turn, turn will be our delight

Till by turning, turning we come out right.

Sarah reaches and grabs my arm, still sleeping. The girls are quiet in their rooms. Goddess snores beside the bed. Chelsea is with her Mom and getting over being sick. Jeremy and Marie are in Milledgeville for some reason. Kristen is still working as St. Patrick's Day draws to an end.

Listening to Sarah breath, I think how odd it this song comes to me. A sliver of moon casts its trail on the floor beside us. I recall the Shaker's danced and many think the song a dancing song for when they gathered for church. At the end, where it says turn, turn ... these were instructions in the dance.

Turn and dance into your new life.

Come down where you ought to be.

Find yourself in a place just right.

In the valley of love and delight.

Sarah rolls and throws and arm over me. I fall back asleep. 'tis a gift!