Fine Line Between Ripe and Rotten

I bit into a banana this morning and realized it was still a bit green. Not bad, really, but not very sweet. It wasn’t quite done ripening. It got me to thinking. When does ripening cross over to rotting?

Isn’t it interesting that the same process that does the ripening, without the harvest (or consumption), will eventually turn the fruit into mush.

I’m a firm (haha) believer that we as created beings cannot create anything, only take creation and rearrange it. Like the old joke about the scientist telling God he can create life, and then reaching for a pile of dirt to begin, God stops him and says, “Hey, make your own dirt”.

As a result, I see things like writing and melody creation as a series of puzzles with different pieces. We’ve got letters, and words, and notes and chords and ideas. We don’t create rhymes and emotional moments, we assemble them from our tool kit and inventories of old. Ideas aren’t created, they’re discovered. Melodies aren’t spun, they’re deciphered. Add the Holy Spirit and only then, true synergy happens. Something greater than the sum of the puzzle pieces.

I reminisce, fondly, of my green banana plucked from its ultimate potential, so early in life, only to become a poor-man’s brunch. I see another one ripening on the counter, and if protected from my a-peeling hands, one day it might be arbitrarily referred to as a rotten banana.

When will be at its optimum sweetness and firmness? One day it might be at the perfect state where it as sweet as it can be, and still firm enough to eat without triggering a repulsive reaction. Too early, and we’re cheated of the ultimate flavor; The design standard! Too late, and were deprived altogether.

I can’t help but assume that there’s a word picture there. Another clue to this never ending puzzle we call life.

Or... its just a banana?

Faith vs. Reason

In a recent facebook debate, Chuck Cannon asked the question, “Does God Have free will?” This sparked an ongoing debate which quickly turned to the question, “Does God exist?”, etc.

Then the question of faith vs. reason. I always think its strange that the two are sometimes presented as polar opposites.

Here is part of Chuck’s response that seem applicable to songwriting:

Chuck Cannon commented on his status:

I am a songwriter.

I have no idea what I am going to write next. I can be in the middle of a song and have no idea what the next line is going to be. I have no way of "knowing" if the lines I write are the right ones.

But I have "faith" that I can write songs. That faith has been supported by "reason" ... I have actually made money writing songs and have had people (besides friends and family) tell me my songs are good.

But the only way I will ever write another one is to have faith that I can ...

If I just sit on my ass and have "faith" nothing will happen. (Yes, I have empirical evidence!) So I spend an enormous amount of time reading ... looking for ideas. I write off movie tickets because I find so many ideas there ... I listen to people and how they say things ... what they love ... who they love ... what they believe ...

But once I'm in the middle of a song, "reason" plays a huge role ... I analyze ... I use dictionaries, a thesaurus, quotation books ... my old harmony textbooks for musical ideas ... different instruments ... different co-writers ...

poets and mathematicians ...

they are both at work in my brain ...

so faith and reason feed on each other in my world all the time ... i bet in your world too ...

and tomorrow I can get up and crank my tractor and move some gravel around on my driveway or I can stay right here in my studio and see if a song shows up ...

fate has brought me to this moment of choice ...

and my choices have brought me to this fate ...

Peace ~ Chuck"

A Hymn For Me

O self, myself
In unimpressive wonder
Consider all
Alone, thy hand hath made
You’ll feel the scars
You’ll see the waste and plunder
No pow’r throughout
Your universe displayed

Then cries my soul
Without your Saviour, see
How small thou art
How small thou art
Then cries my soul
Without your Saviour, see
How small thou art
How small thou art

An Army of Paper Saints

At lunchtime on Thursday, I was skimming on facebook when I IM’d Eva, a cowriter of mine in Houston. We recently started working on a song, and I’ve been pretty remiss in working on it. I wanted to tell her I’ve been thinking about it, which I have, but to be honest, not that much.

In the process of the conversation, I told her I had another idea for a worship song. No title, not even a hook; Only an idea.

The idea is coming together in authenticity. Real with one another in the Church. Maybe that doesn’t sound like a new idea, but I’ve been feeling led to write it.

I love working with Eva. She’s a walking, talking, emailing vessel of the Holy Spirit. We bounced a few ideas back and forth and she said she’d pray about it and write down some ideas.

At that moment I had a thought and typed two words in the box and hit send “Paper Saints”.

She replied, “tell me about that. I replied something like, ”not real saints, just 2 dimensional cut-outs of what a saint is supposed to look like“.

She started a file and just before I went back to work, I typed this into the file:

We come with needs unspoken
for fear of being exposed
And though the circle be unbroken
we unfold into an army of paper saints.

That evening, I sat at he piano and started playing around.. 5 minutes later I had a chorus. I went online and opened the file. She had copied my im onto the page and had started a verse.

I started typing.. she came online and she started praying.. then the words flowed, and by Friday morning, most of the lyric was done. I went in the studio on Saturday morning.. and by the next day we had a work tape done.

I gotta tell you, when the Holy Spirit is on board, writing the song’s just a matter of holding the pen, laying your hand on the keyboard, and most importantly, getting out of the way.

If you’d like to give it a listen, you can check it out here.

The Challenge of "WHY?"

I was driving to an early call-time last Sunday morning.. Before sunrise. Dark-thirty. I flipped on the radio.. NPR.. talk-interview show. Some guy was explaining his take on the meaning of life. Between my thoughts of “I need coffee” and “where am I?”, I started listening to the conversation. The guy was saying, “...the important question to ask and answer about anything you do is, ‘Why?’ ”

Now, unless you’ve never contemplated the meaning of life before, you know this is the pertinent question. I’ve asked it many times as I sat down to plan. The 5 year plan. The career plan. The family plan.. The house plan...

It’s important, I get it.

But in the middle of my pompous, eye-rolling-head-nod, it suddenly dawned on me that in many areas of my life I had gone a long time without revisiting that question.

Why do I work where I work? Why do I do what I do? Why do I live where I live? Why? Why? Why?

Sure, I asked these questions at critical times when I started my job, nurtured my job skills, was house-hunting, etc.

It rarely occurs to me that I need to revisit those areas (and other areas) and ask the question again.

In Michigan, there are many people who are having to ask these questions again, out of necessity. In other words, the are looking for new jobs, careers, and houses.. because they lost the ones they had.

For myself, I still have a job, a career, a house.. but are the reasons I chose them still the same as today’s reasons?

Answer: NO!

Time to re-evaluate.. in fact, its always time to re-evaluate... actually, maybe its the wrong word... The word evaluate indicates something that can be accomplished, and I’m beginning to wonder if the process is much more dynamic than I ever assumed..


Use me while you can.

Normal vs. Paranormal? Natural vs. Miraculous?

I was reading today a quote that said there is nothing paranormal except our limited knowledge of nature. That’s what the quote said..

I can relate to that statement because of an experience I had a few years ago.

You may remember an asteroid belt that ended up flying through our atmosphere a few years back. Many got up and laid outside in the early morning to watch it go through the atmosphere.

I was driving about 5 miles south of my house, in broad daylight, when something caught my eye to the left. I turned my head in time to see a fireball in the sky. Thing is, it appeared to be the size of the Sun (my perspective).

But this was not normal.. it was paranormal. Here’s why. It was high in the atmosphere, so it was quite large, but it was moving across the sky as if it were a jet 200 feet above the ground.

It lasted 2 seconds at most.. took 2 seconds to fly from the horizon on my left to the horizon on my right. So fast, in fact, that by the time everyone in the car looked it was gone.

My idea of normal was shattered. It laid in pieces on the floor of that minivan.

Seriously, Up to this time, the nearest I’d come to Paranormal was Teflon®. (I mean, how is that surface dry yet feel wet? It has to dry out eventually, right? Just sayin’...)

As a Christian I’ve heard (and talked) about miraculous things all my life. Friends who are healed from a non-operable cancer. People who testify of an Angel’s presence who led them through a mind-field. Miraculous circumstances that freed people from prison.

All those things. You know, when we feel God’s presence. We ‘see’ Him working in people’s lives.

But Paranormal? Physical aberrations that seem impossible? Something you can touch? Aren’t these things paranormal? Why don’t these miraculous things of the faith amaze me.. humble me.. bring me to my knees?

Have I become numb to the supernatural, because its not paranormal? I’ve realized that I’m pretty much still a skeptic to these things. I’m a Thomas. A doubter. Do people really see these things? Are they using them as a way to make their story more significant or impacting? Were those people really healed or just misdiagnosed to begin with.

Even as I write this I have a fear coursing through my arm that people are going to be disappointed in me for expressing these feelings... that I’m somehow not holding up my end of the story. I’m not trusting in what people tell me, or that I’m denying the working, maybe even the existence of God.

I don’t. I know what I know. I feel what I feel. I’m a witness to his miraculous hand in my life and others... but unless I remind myself that those things I know, feel, and witness are not natural, ordinary things, I begin to classify them as normal, and they become something I take for granted, or worse something I don’t even recognize as the hand of God working in my life and the life of others.

Then I see a fireball the size of a football field rocket 1,000 miles in 2 seconds and realize how small I am in this unbelievable, ordered creation and I realize that there is nothing miraculous except my limited knowledge of God’s omnipotent hand at the wheel of His creation. My limited recognition of His incomprehensible love for us and His desire to have us be an integral part of its fruition.

Took It For Granted

I’ve been waking up multiple times during the night. (and its not because I drank too much water before bed)

I’ve been waking up with lines and couplets. Ideas and rhymes. A few nights ago I woke up and thought, that’s a great idea. I’ll remember that. I didn’t even need to get up and write it down, it was that good. Good thing, because I was at a hotel and I didn’t have my notepad next to me..

I forgot the idea by the time I woke up again.

Try as I might, I’m still lamenting the loss of that idea. Moleskin is back in place. Recorder is at the ready. Its been awhile since the thoughts bubbled. Now they boil at times.

I’m thankful they’re back and I will try to be prepared. Hit me, Lord. Hit me!

WANTED. Up-tempo Radio-Ready Drivel.

I was reading a posting over at Ninety Mile Wind on the current state of the country music market that prompted the following response:

The current parade of country drivel on terrestrial radio is perceived to be what the customer wants, and in some respects, it IS what the customer wants, or at least what they are willing to settle-for to get where they want to be. They play it, and people listen. (or at least advertisers think so)

Artists and writers can't stand most of it, of course, but the market exists, and it comes with formulaic risk that is easily exploited by the accountants and execs.

Pop culture will always exist, and it will rarely be pretty, and will almost always be laughable and/or forgotten in hindsight, but as long as people will put up with them, 30 second hits are not going away.

There will always be someone willing to whip up what the customer will consume.

I'm reminded of a quote from Henry Ford. When asked about giving the customers what they want, he replied, "If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said 'Faster Horses'.

People and labels may think they want more drivel (uptempo horses), but what people really want is a way to extract themselves from reality and for that, the current drivel and vacuum-packed productions deliver! Even we, as artists, have to admit we’re distracted from reality as we contemplate how such a mindless song ever made it to the airwaves.

Unless presented with a different destination and a compelling vehicle to get them there, the consumer will continue to shovel all the hay and manure the label’s hit-farms have to offer.

Songwriters. You were made for a higher purpose.

©2009 Tim Wheeler

Are We Just Too Paranoid?

Are we just too paranoid about our kids. This is an enlightening piece... brave enough to look facts in the face.

The King Is Dead.

Michael Jackson was an Icon with a capital ‘i’. He took his work seriously and never produced a sub-par piece of work. Whether you like his style, or not, you cannot deny his consistent level of excellence. I remember waiting to watch a new video or listen to a new song when he would be working. My expectation was that it was always top shelf. I don’t remember being disappointed.

His personal life, of course, was a freak-show. There was a sweet innocence about his demeanor. Personally, I prefer not to think he was perverted, that he was trying to go back to another time when everyone wasn’t suspect. I may be wrong, but I prefer not to have to rectify that type of perversion with the art and message that his art portrayed. Some know the truth, but in this day and age you don’t know who’s telling the truth.

It was obvious he was trying to fill a bottomless hole. His plastic surgery, skin color, Neverland. Deep down, I think he was longing for acceptance. Perhaps, from his father. Perhaps from his fans. Perhaps from the press. Perhaps from himself.

Surely he got glimpses of it when each of his projects were released... Thriller had no critics... but I sense it was never enough.

I cranked up BLACK OR WHITE last night. I love that song.. mostly I love the performance. There is so much energy in that performance and so many other MJ creations.

I never idolized Michael Jackson, but I bought his stuff. It was always worth the money. I did my part to contribute to his acceptance, but I’m only human, and in the end, its not our acceptance by other humans that counts.

“If you’re wantin’ to be my brother it don’t matter if you’re black or white.”

Bradley Russell Flamm 1982 - 2009

When I first met Brad, he was 2 years old. Brad had a mind of his own. He was a handful. He was a joke-ster flashing a mischievous grin whenever you caught him in a prank or in the process of planning one.

If you know Brad, you know the look.

I figured he’d would grow out of it. At times, I prayed he’d grow out of it... but, he never did. Whenever I would see his face, it was not long before it held that look. That grin.

I have to admit that there were times I wasn’t in the mood for that grin.

But now... Now, I crave it.

That infectious smile that required you to move from one emotion to another.

It took me a while to realize it, but Brad longed to do that in life. He lived to move others from one emotion, whatever it might be, to an emotion that required a smile.

Sure, he would be serious sometimes. Sad. Mad. Frustrated. But he would always lace his mood, his situation, his decisions with that classic 2-year old mischievous grin.

On his myspace page, there’s a section where he could write a little description of himself.

This is what he wrote:

I am a very open-minded individual. Extreme optimist, always looking at the brighter side of things, even when it's hard for others to see...Things always happen to me...good, bad, it's all the same to me...Always trying to smile...I like to smile, almost as much as I enjoy feeling others smile. And I smile even more if I played a part. I love life--I look at it as a grand adventure. There's a secret to it, you have to learn to ride the waves...Human bodies naturally float, right? Since I was born I have grown strong, straightforward, intellectual, philosophical, AWARE, fearless but respectful, proud but humble, adventurous, spontaneous, empathic, romantic...A thinker as well as a doer. I don't bullshit--the things I believe in are Peace, Love, HOPE, Loyalty, Selflessness, JOY, Destiny, Respect, Honesty---I never lie...unless it's the right time....Timing is everything...Timing is perfect-----So over the years I've learned Patience as well. I am good and bad--I am everything, yet I am nothing...I am as wild, ferocious and destructive as the most savage of beasts, but as calm and gentle as a Sunday breeze....or the serenity of the sea....I am nothing more than a gift to Earth--a caretaker, cultivator and motivator.

                                                        - Brad Flamm

There will always be a special place in my heart for Bradley. There will always be a hole in the fabric of our family when we gather in the future. A critical element missing in the chemical mix. You are truly missed, Brad.                                                 

A Little Parable About Breaking Rules

I got a ticket once while living in Texas. I needed to make a U-Turn. I pulled into the left turn lane, and looked up to see a No U-TURN sign. I turned anyways.

When the officer asked me, “Did you see the no U-turn sign back there?“, I played dumb. I answered, “no officer” with my best puppy-dog-eyes, and with the utmost respect. He wrote me a ticket, anyways.

You may be interested to hear what the ticket was for. Making an illegal U-Turn? No. He wrote me a ticket for ignoring a traffic signal.

Several years later, I was pulled over for not stopping completely at a stop sign. When the officer pulled me over, he asked me, “Did you see that Stop Sign back there?” I said, “Yes sir, I know there’s a stop sign back there, I see it every night... did I not stop?”. He let me off with a warning.

You see, I had learned a valuable lesson. It seems that, in Texas, it’s sometimes OK to break the rules, but its never OK to not know what the rules are. Ignorance is not an excuse, and stupidity carries a stiff fine.