wrecked.org

I've been missing something...something visceral; something that I have always - under every circumstance - been able to count on and draw upon.

I've looked in closets, books, song, people, silence, and in the battered book of faith that I've been known to toss at doors and walls. It wasn't there.

Searched photographs, memory, conversation, wisdom, image, restitution, and prayer.

Nope.

Curled up with fuzzy pups in good company, celebrated the heroes and heartsick, listened in on conversations between card-playing grandmas and their young grandsons...

I didn't know what it was that I was missing, but I knew that I'd recognize it when I finally caught a glimpse of it.

It was like I'd misplaced a limb or part of my frontal lobe. A lost shadow?

And yesterday I was felled by something that turned my entrails into my extrails and all I could do was sleep. Read. Rest.

I woke this morning after a few nightmares and tears that I wept to the moon and realized that what had been lost had found me...again.

Hope.

That thing inside that says, "this is all worth it."

"Get up! it may not be today, but life is coming!"

"A good sun shines on the other side of the hurricane."

"Hang on. Keep moving."

"Rise."

It is as if oxygen has returned to my lungs and my lips are no longer blue and the panic that has lived within so long has fled into the abyss (for now).

I have no wisdom, no job, nor forwarding address yet.

It is still ridiculously humid and hot in Houston.

My heart is still broken and justice a taunt.

But I have heard the sound of hope that calls me forth to rise.

"Rise" to my Kingdom Dream of a boisterous table where stories, laughter, tears, and good food flow in good campy company and where even the little things matter...especially the little things.

"Rise" to Kenan and Madi, the aMayeses, the Queens, and the folks in Manhappiness and far afield who feel like home.

"Rise" out of the sewer of despair and into hope and life and health and singing Veggietale songs while racing my bike through the Flint Hills ("everybody has a water buffalo").

"Rise" to wherever this wind of Spirit and Unseen leading lands me.

I hope that it is into downy clover and lavender.

But if it is not

and if one day

the explosion of living

implodes my hope into a black hole

I'll know

I'll remember to keep looking in all of those places

Calling out its name

And it will find me.

*  *  *

Rise by Josh Garrels

Rise

I hung my head, for the last time

In surrender and despair

Before I’m dead, I’ll take the last climb

Up the mountain, face my fears

The time has come, to make a choice

Use my voice for the love of every man

My minds made up, never again

Never again, will I turn round

Though they may surround me like lions

And crush me on all sides

I may fall, but I will rise

Not by my might, or my power, or by the strength of swords

Only through, your love, my lord

All we’ve lost, will be, restored

Take courage sons, for we must go under

The heart of darkness, and set them free

But don’t lose heart when you see the numbers

There’s no measure for, the faith we bring

It’s given us, to overcome

If we run, where the spirit calls us on

The greatest things, have yet to come

With the dawn, we will rise

Though they may surround us like lions

And crush us on all sides

we may fall, but we will rise

Not by my might, or my power, or by the strength of swords

Only through, your love, my lord

All we’ve lost, will be, restored

http://joshgarrels.bandcamp.com/track/rise

"He makes all things beautiful in His time." (Ecclesiastes 3:11)

credits

from Love & War & The Sea In Between, released 15 June 2011

Vocals, Guitar, Organ, Bells, Hammer Dulcimer, and Drum and Sample Sequencing by Josh Garrels

String Section by Laurie Thornton

Flute by Colleen Davick

Bass by Jay Kirkpatrick

Electric Guitars by Scott Frantz

tags

tags: folk electronica neo-soul singer-songwriter Portland