Non-fiction often tells a story more compelling than fiction. That’s why I enjoy documentaries so much.
I remember thinking about Maine in the winter and the founder of Burt’s Bees when writing this song.
It’s a creative loneliness…pure in a sense.
That deep feeling of experience and being alone and telling the story. The stories we tell ourselves drive us to become who we are. God with us or God against us or No God. All of these ideas deeply affect who we are.
I often think of the Christmas story and how that frames the winter holiday season.
Even the secular Christmas story has a powerful undertone. I recently read a blog title that said, Why We Need Santa Clause More Than Ever.
Really? Do we need to buy more stuff?
There’s a black hole so deep in our society that throwing material wealth in it won’t help. We are poor and starving in America–we don’t have joy, we’ve lost hope, and we don’t remember the story:
For God so loved the world that He gave His only son…
Poor Boy King
Lyrics
I’m undressing this pretension
To nakedly descend
Where only music heals
What words can’t mend
I’ve changed with seasons…
Tenor, soldier sing a song for me
In defiance of trenches, blood, and mire
Of a virgin’s womb on Christmas day
Born to set the world on fire
Emmanuel
Poor boy King
God with us
A poet with a beard now gray
Carving into a tree
Asking what evokes emotion
With beggar, shiner eyes his poetry
Light that sings
Fluttering angel’s wings
God with us