To Seth, on His Wedding Day

Dear Seth:

On this day of your wedding, fragments of experiences we’ve shared seem to randomly spring on my consciousness, reminding me of what a special relationship we enjoy. I find myself reliving a moment from our “11-year old trip.” We’re on I-4 and approaching a string of Oscar Meyer Wiener cars and singing “I Would Walk Five Hundred Miles” at the top of our lungs. Or we’re at the Encontro das Aguas, where the Rio Negro flows into the Amazon, jumping off the third deck of the boat right into the spot where the brown and the black water touch, fearlessly swimming with piranhas, stingrays, and the dreaded Candiru (whose victims would rather be eaten by piranhas). Or we are giddy at the marvel of creation as we feel the mist of the falls at Iguacu. Or I’m soaking in the hot tub at our house in Louisville, wondering about the awful smell emanating from the yucca plants, a mystery that only you would solve.

The natural apprehension a father feels at this moment is greatly reduced by your choice of bride. Candace is truly wonderful, everything your mom and I prayed for since you were born. I remember singing Wayne Watson’s “Somewhere in the World” and pleading with God to send you a godly wife. Now that we have seen His abundant answer to our petition we praise Him for His providential care over Candace’s life, bringing her to you at this moment on this day. The added blessing that she came to faith in Christ several years ago because of an email I sent her is a special delight that I hope to someday tell my grandchildren—including Hershael Wallace York III (no pressure or anything).

Your path to this point has been winding, to say the least. You and I have both grown and matured on that path. From childhood to manhood, you have never been boring. You were different from the moment you were born, loudly announcing your entrance. Your laugh as a baby was the deepest, most robust belly laugh to ever come out of so tiny a body. I would make faces and get Michael to perform for you just to hear that laugh.

Your childhood was a magical time for me. You were sweet, generous, and the most considerate kid I ever knew. I don’t think anyone ever gave you a piece of candy you didn’t offer to give to someone else or at least share. I used to worry about you because you had no “killer instinct” in sports. When we enrolled you in a soccer league you hated to score because you felt badly for the kid on goal. On many occasions when you were winning a race, I watched with a strange mixture of admiration and frustration as you would slow up before the finish line so Dean, your best friend, could catch up and cross the line beside you.

I can also remember when you came under conviction for sin. I worried that you were too young, but you were persistent. I kept putting you off, explaining that you might need to wait a while. Finally, one night after church you brought me my Bible, looking at me with pleading eyes and said, “I need to be saved NOW!” As soon as you trusted the Lord, I noticed your prayers change from the repetitive petitions of a little boy to the heart cries of a young believer. I would listen in wonder as you prayed for specific things that spoke to situations of which you couldn’t possibly be aware.

I worried about you when we left Lexington and moved to Louisville. You were only twelve, and your entire identity was about to change. No longer the pastor’s son, you suddenly found yourself going to church without me even being there because I was gone preaching somewhere on Sundays. But you did great, making friends easily and establishing your own identity. You were unconsciously cool, comfortable in your own skin, as at home with senior citizens as with your peers. I always have admired that trait in you. You have as many friends in their forties as twenty-somethings. You can enjoy hanging with Twister and Barkley, both in their eighties, as you do with Les or Will or Jake.

I used to enjoy terrifying you that I would embarrass you in front of a girl. I let you think that I was capable of saying something so creatively awful, so deliciously humiliating, that you stayed just a little on edge. When you were with a girl I would look at you and simply smile and you would wonder what I was about to say. I don’t think I ever really did it though—at least, not nearly as potently as you imagined. The only thing I remember doing is when you and some girl were going to a basketball game. You were too young to drive and I had to take you. Holding your breath all the way there, when I left the two of you at the game, you opened the car door for her and, holding her hand, began to walk away from the car and toward the door. You thought you had escaped, that you had made it—when suddenly I lowered the window and shouted after you, “Don’t forget to put that ointment on your sores at nine o’clock.” You know what I love about you, though? You enjoyed the humor of that as much as I did.

Soon after high school I watched you begin to make a series of bad decisions, to stray away from the things that your mom and I had taught you. Like many—perhaps most—parents and their children, we had some tough times. You had to learn for yourself that the values you had learned were worth having. You made mistakes, suffered consequences, and went through stages of repentance and restoration. Through it all, your spirit remained open to me. We never had a time in which we discounted one another, rejected one another, or failed to remember how much we love each other. I cannot recall exactly what it was or when it was, but I have a distinct memory of a time when we had a very tough phone conversation. I was angry and aggravated and so were you. But when the conversation was over, you ended it the way all of our phone conversations end. “Bye, Dad. I love you.” The knowledge that we loved one another so much got us through those times.

Your adventurous spirit has been a constant joy to behold as well as an occasional source of concern. You climb mountains, you camp out in zero-degree weather, you rappel off cliffs, and you have even jumped and killed a deer with a knife. No job has ever been too hard or too dirty for you. I am convinced that adventurous spirit will one day make you a great force for the gospel.


The time you spent with David Miller was like college and graduate school combined. Your decision to travel with him, driving his RV, meeting his personal needs, working at his deer camp, and hearing him preach day in and day out, was a good decision. Perhaps more than at any time in your life you learned what it means to be a servant. Though you had always struggled with getting up in the morning, even with an alarm, you suddenly were able to rouse yourself from sleep in the middle of the night when you heard his faint call. Working 7 days a week and virtually 24 hours a day was great preparation for marriage and its relentless requirement for vigilance and effort. When you came home after nine months of working with David, you were very different than when you left. You soon found Candace, though you had known and dated each other previously, and you were certain that the Lord wanted the two of you to be together for life. I know this: you could never do better. We love her. If the Lord blesses you with children—even if you don’t make one of them a III—your mother and I can not think of anyone we would rather be the mother of our grandchildren and the companion of our son.


Today marks a turning of a page for both of us. As you begin a new chapter, you close one for me and nudge me one step closer to old age. While you face the challenges and temptations of a young man, I walk that dangerous path of middle age where so many have been lost and ultimately drowned in a flood of ego and unrealized dreams. We must pray for one another and trust our Father to keep us in love with Him, with our wives, and with those who desperately need to know Him. May our marriages model His love for His bride, His sacrifice and sanctification of her.

Of all the things I remember about you, one thing dominates. Two years ago, when you ran the triathlon in Florida, the day was unusually hot for May. You had made it through the swim and the bike phases with admirable strength and a very good time. When you finished the first of three laps of the run, I was stunned at how well you were doing. I remember thinking that you were in great shape to finish in your optimal time. I walked up the hill, about a quarter of a mile from the checkpoint, and sat down in the grass, waiting for you to pass me and complete your second lap. The time in which you should have finished that lap came and went, and still I waited. Twenty minutes, thirty minutes later you still had not finished that lap. I knew you were in trouble, but I could do nothing but wait.

When I saw you come over that hill and into my sight, my heart broke. Your run had ebbed away to a slow, painful walk. As you drew nearer I noticed your calves, all cramped and disfigured, and with every step I saw you suffer. Standing up, I walked to you and we began to talk. You explained how the cramps had come, in spite of all your efforts and measures you took to avoid it, your body just couldn’t keep up with the dehydration of the struggle and the heat. You still had one lap to go, another four and a half miles to complete your 70-mile course. You had every right to stop. Surely the little medal and the bumper sticker you would be awarded weren’t worth the pain I saw etched into your face. I told you that you would have another day, another race, that there was no shame in stopping now.

You realized that I had used the word “stop” euphemistically, and you rejected my attempt to soften what you knew it would really be. “Quitting is not an option,” you told me. And with your body drained of hydration, your muscles spasming in a cramped and cruel rebellion, you walked on until you crossed the finish line.

As wonderful as Candace is, as fulfilling as marriage may be, unimaginable and unforeseeable challenges lie ahead of you. I can give you no better advice and no wiser words than those you spoke in the race that day. Quitting is not an option.

If you are as determined to love your wife, if you are as focused on serving her, if you are as committed to crossing the finish line with her by your side, you will be a Man among men.

Love always,

Dad

I Know He's a Jehovah's Witness, but the man can shred your face off

In keeping with the title of my blog, I confess that I am in awe of great musicians. Call me a wannabe, a frustrated musician, or whatever you think fits, but I love to hear great guitar, and I really enjoy music from the Beatles. That's why, at Michael's suggestion, I tuned in to VH-1's tribute to George Harrison a year ago or so. The entire program was great, but then I experienced a bona fide moment of awe (Baptist preachers aren't allowed Zen moments).

Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne, and George's son Dhani were performing an incredible version of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," and then Prince showed up and took it to another level entirely. Some of Prince's antics were completely unrehearsed, as you can tell by Dhani's face. You better cover yours if you watch this. You might get hurt.




Just as a reminder, Jake Shimabukuro gives a virtuoso performance of the same song on a ukelele.

Payday Someday by R. G. Lee

Several of my students have asked about this, so here you go.

My Birthday CD's

My son, Michael, now a youth pastor and a PhD student at Southern, has an encyclopedic knowledge of music. His tastes are eclectic, his understanding deep. He knows his stuff.

Last year, he started making me compilation CD's, a la High Fidelity. The first one he made bore the title, "You Gave Me Life and Raised Me . . . I Made You This CD . . . Now We're Even." I was stunned how expertly he chose music that I had never heard, yet he intuitively knew I would like. Each song said something personal to me, a message from my son, but it also fit my own wide-ranging tastes.

Tuesday was my 48th birthday, so Michael made me a double CD compilation, "You Made It This Far . . . High Five." Now here, for the first time, and for your listening pleasure (sort of) is Michael's list of songs and his explanation of each one. See how many of these songs or artists you know, and why they mean something between me and my son.

Dad,

These two CD’s are small tokens of my affection for you. These are ways that I can take something that I love and give it to someone whom I love. You spend so much time on the road traveling to school and to preach. One of the things that I cherished most from my childhood was the times that I could travel with you and hear you preach. I loved the way that you would sharpen me, teach me, and make me laugh. I can’t take those trips anymore, but since I can’t be with you and Mom can’t always travel with you, I hope that this will provide you a couple of hours of enjoyment and remind you as you sing along at the top of your lungs that you have a son who idolizes you and who is incredibly proud of you and who loves you.

Here is my feeble attempt at liner notes for these albums. I just wanted to explain my choices of these songs and let you know a little bit about the artists.

Michael

“You Made It This Far . . . High Five” Disc 1

The Birthday Present – Loudon Wainwright III – The reflections of a man turning 48 and approaching 50. Few songwriters write with the insight and humor of Wainwright.

Funk #48 – James Gang – I think the title could serve as you theme for the next year. The good news is that the James Gang also recorded Funk #49, so you can be covered next year too.

Stupid Questions – Keller Williams – Not only did I think that you would be impressed by the guitar playing of Keller Williams, but I thought a song dedicated to all kinds of stupid questions that are asked would be appropriate for a professor and one who had to take road trips with me.

Super Freak – Bruce Hornsby and Ricky Skaggs – Bluegrass interpretations of Rick James classics . . . That’s Just the Way It Is!

Country Boy – Albert Lee – You can take the boy out of the country but you can’t take the country out of the boy. One of the things that I have always loved about you is that no matter how sophisticated your surroundings have forced you to become, nor how brilliant and eloquent you are in a pulpit, lecture or classroom, it is still possible to detect that little boy roaming the banks of creeks of Christian County. Also, Albert Lee is one of the best pickers in music, enjoy.

The Story of Hamlet – Richard Thompson – I know that you love Shakespeare and acoustic guitar and this is the marriage of both. Thompson, a guitar master, tells the story of Hamlet with great wit and in an impressive swing style. You have introduced me to so much great literature, now it is my turn to share a bit of culture with you.

Business Time – Flight of the Conchords – I don’t need to say anything.

Old Turkey Buzzard – Jose Feliciano – Now you can learn more than the chorus. I know how much you love that Letterman has resurrected this Quincy Jones classic, plus it was worth it to see Mom’s face when I told her this was on the CD.

Chan Chan – Buena Vista Social Club – I know that there has always been a little bit of a fascination with Cuban culture for you so here is a collaboration from some of its most accomplished musicians.

A Menina Danca – Novos Baianos – Brazil is in your blood, so I figured that it should be represented on this CD. I have never been a fan of bossa nova like you, but I love the music of the Tropicalia movement.

Os Alquimistas Estão Chegando Os Alquimistas – Jorge Ben Jor – Beautiful guitar and a mingling of bossa nova, samba, and pop. You will have to translate it for me. I hope that it doesn’t say anything too strange.

Stone Flower – Santana – You love Jobim, and you love interpretations of Jobim. I know that you have a vast collection of covers of his music, but to the best of my knowledge this is one that you don’t have, and perhaps were not aware of.

Lost in the Flood – Bruce Springsteen – You know how much I love “the Bruce,” and this is him at his best. Recorded live in London in 1976 this is one of the most passionate performances ever caught on tape by anyone at anytime. Hopefully this will cause his stock to rise in your eyes.

Ocean – John Butler Trio – This is one of the finest performances I have ever heard on a guitar. Butler is an Australian musician who plays the twelve string (among other instruments). The man is a beast and should get more attention stateside.

Falling Slowly – The Frames – I’m sure that you have heard the Oscar-winning version of this song, but this is the performance by Glen Hansard’s band. It has a fuller sound and packs a bit more of a punch.

Mutineer – Warren Zevon – One of my favorite songwriters at his most tender. There is something I love about songs that are achingly beautiful, but still have a mean, cynical bite.

Tower of Song – Leonard Cohen – One of the few songwriters who is truly a poet (and a Buddhist monk). This is his meditation on aging and music. A perfect end to the first disc.



“You Made It This Far . . . High Five” Disc 2

Old Before My Time – The Allman Brothers Band – This song was included for two reasons. Primarily this song was intended as a tongue in cheek homage to your aging, but at the same time you know that no “mixtape” bears my signature without some Allman Brothers. Gregg’s voice conveys the wisdom that your life displays (I mean that as a compliment).

Fire and Rain – Bobby Womack – There is no James Taylor song you haven’t heard or don’t have, but I enjoy this version of a JT classic. Not as melancholy as the original, but a nice touch on a masterpiece of popular music.

Ain’t No Sunshine – Eva Cassidy – Another cover of a staple of popular music. I know that this is one of your favorite Bill Withers songs, but it is a good cover. Eva Cassidy was one of the great interpreters of popular music, but she died of cancer soon after getting her break. A truly beautiful voice.

Been Smoking Too Long – Nick Drake - This Nick Drake outtake never made it on an official album, but it completes this set of “smoky” songs. Drake was another talent not recognized in his lifetime, and one who left too few songs. He was the greatest of the British folk acts of the late 60’s

False Hearted Lover Blues – Levon Helm – After battling throat cancer for years Levon Helm recently released a collection of the songs of his childhood. There is not another voice that conjures up the South like Helm’s. This sounds like something The Band could have recorded in their prime.

Tibdi Waka – Vusi Mahlasela – For years Mahlasela was the champion of the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa. In his homeland he is called “The Voice.” He recently signed to Dave Matthews' ATO Records label and released his first album in America. His voice is so beautiful and Derek Trucks provides some great slide guitar work to give a raw texture to the music.

Roll Um Easy – Little Feat – One of the greatest bands that no one listens to, except for me and Mark Opatik. Lowell George was one of the greatest musicians of all time and Little Feat was a terrific band. The gentle song with some sweet slide steel is a perfect compliment to Tibdi Waka.

Jesus On the Mainline – Ry Cooder – Now Cooder is known more for his scores for movies like Crossroads and Paris, Texas, but he was one of the pioneers of roots rock. Cooder is the greatest living slide player, and his playing on this traditional spiritual is impeccable. It also serves as a completion to the trilogy of acoustic slide blues.

I’ll Fly Away – The Word – Moving from acoustic slide to a pedal steel is this blazing cover of the familiar gospel tune. The Word is comprised of John Medeski, members of the North Mississippi Allstars, and the star of this song, Robert Randolph. Randolph grew up playing in a Church of God in Christ in the northeast and was discovered at a sacred steel conference in Florida. This song will transport you to church. Someone needs to get this guy to play a revival somewhere around here.

Peace Like a River – Paul Simon – He was called by David Halberstam, “Popular music’s answer to Eliot and Yates.” This song is from his first solo album and is gospel via the Jewish section of Brooklyn.

Treetop Flyer – Stephen Stills – Like Paul Simon, Stephen Stills comprises part of one of your favorite bands. Stills is one of the most underrated guitarists in popular music (cf. Black Queen on Four Way Street). This song is just Stills and a guitar telling the story of a crop duster. It makes me think back to our days in Marion when we would watch the planes fly over the cotton fields, and be glad that we were not in the air with them.

Please Read the Letter – Robert Plant and Alison Krauss – A marriage of one of your favorites and one of mine. Who would have thought that the voice of Valhalla would work so well with the voice of Appalachia, but it does. This song was originally done on Robert Plant and Jimmy Page’s album Walking to Clarksdale. I still like this song, even though the Plant/Krauss tour is delaying the hopefully inevitable Led Zeppelin reunion tour.

Don’t Think Twice It’s All Right – Susan Tedeschi – Susan Tedeschi is a Berkeley trained guitarist and singer covering one of Dylan’s greatest songs. Here is yet another way for you to admire his talent without having to listen to his voice.

Crazy – Ray LaMontagne – Ray LaMontagne is one of the leaders of the new singer/songwriter movement and while he has done some great songs on his own, this cover of the Gnarls Barkley tune is awesome. One of the great things about the original was how over the top it was and one of the things that makes this cover so great is how stripped down it is.

Eleanor Rigby – Caetano Veloso – Something – Booker T. and the M.G.’s – Oh Darling! – George Benson – A Day in the Life – Wes Montgomery – This CD opened with my second favorite band and closes with a medley of songs by the greatest band ever. Eleanor Rigby has that samba/bossa nova feel to it and has some great Brazilian guitar work. Something (Frank Sinatra’s favorite Lennon/McCartney song) is performed here by Booker T. and the M.G.’s. They were the house band at Memphis’ Stax studios. This is from their album “McLemore Ave.” which features instrumental covers of songs from Abbey Road. As an aside most of the musicians from Booker T and the M.G.’s were featured in the Blues Brother’s band. Oh Darling is from George Benson’s album “The Other Side of Abbey Road” which is his take on some of the songs from your favorite Beatles album. Benson is the man that Les Paul calls the greatest guitarist of all-time, but Wes Montgomery is the guitarist whom Benson labels the best. Montgomery is noted for how he plays in multiple octaves simultaneously. In my opinion (which I highly value – to borrow a line from you) the Beatles recording of A Day in the Life is the greatest piece of popular music ever recorded and this meditation on the “dailyness” of life serves as an appropriate conclusion to this CD celebrating yours. It is also appropriate that the Beatles should close out this CD. My obsession with music all began because I wanted to hang out with you and you were watching the Beatles Anthology when ABC aired it. So thanks, not for the music, but for all the time you spent with me and all you invested in me to shape my thinking, my behavior, my tastes, and most importantly to guide me in my relationship with Christ, to make me a better husband, a better pastor, and a better man.

I love you dad. Happy Birthday.