Christa Wells

With small pangs of heartbreak, I allowed him to turn 6-years-old.

Twice that day he leaned close and whispered: I’m six.

He’s trying it on.

He’s turning, we’re all turning; officially exiting “Chapter of the Small Child.”

(sigh)

We’ve spent a lot of time here.

Years ago, when I tossed my graduation cap high in the air along with 500 other high schoolers, I seriously couldn’t beLIEVE the moment had ACTUALLY arrived.  I’d dreamed about it for so long but sort of thought I’d keep dreaming and never really get there.

Before that, I’d spent all my growing years as the daughter of an army officer,  relocating every 1-4 years, living in 12 different houses before I’d finished high school.

Our North Carolina-born&raised kids can’t fathom that, recently asked if it was as terrible as it sounds.  Honestly, no…it wasn’t.  (until high school!).

The thing is, when you live in the military, you EXPECT to move.

You are always aware that your life – as you know it – is temporary.

When I was six, there was no thought of staying anywhere.  And the people in your community?  THEY don’t stay either – also moving in and out, so you’re all in the same boat.  I’m sure the experience of a military WIFE is a whole different story, but for us kids…it was what we knew and expected.

The anticipation of relocation shaped relationships, but not always in the way you might assume.  We were pretty quick to dive in, declare our “best friends.”  Bobbi Jo, Jennifer, Jodi, Jennifer, Leslie, Merri, Megan, Jeff, Monica&Jen, Laurel…cherished friendships.  Hearts broke at year’s end when the movers showed up, but in the meantime?  Let’s play!!

Everything moved.  And we knew it.

Everything still moves, on a swift current that lets us touch beauty just before it wrinkles, enjoy a few minutes of good health before the bad, feel the weight of wealth in our palms before it is spent, relish a full house before an empty nest…life before death.

We anticipate, we release. Over and over and over, every day.

If these are the things we trust to keep us afloat, we will find our very selves swept downstream, because they are not meant to stick around for long…only to stretch and point toward the unseen, which will not be taken away, will not be destroyed by moth, rust, or old age.

So…I let him move on, my last little downy head.  He moved on to age six, and tomorrow he will move out to some other life away from his mother.

And she will grieve for a time, but she will not be swept away.  Because what she holds onto is the Unmoving Love that holds onto her.

(Artwork by master calligrapher Timothy Botts*)

*Several weeks ago, when the 5-year-old whispered up to me during the worship service: Why don’t miracles happen NOW?…I thought of the modern-day healings and visions I’ve read about, but I knew he meant: Why can’t I see a miracle?

Tonight I heard a pastor speak about God found in places we don’t think to look.  A manger?  On the outskirts of town? Or…back a few pages to the days of David…a transient tent for the ark of the covenant?  I think seeing Him in unexpected places is miraculous.  I think the Maker reaching down into the Story…seeing us, wanting us…that’s miraculous, marvelous.  Yes, Samuel, miracles DO still happen.  So here I repost a past reflection on miracles of Light we witness here in the dark, against all odds…with added artwork from someone I admire very much.  A Joyful Christmas Celebration to You and Yours this week of the Glorious, Miraculous Birth.*

When something life-giving falls from us who are riddled with want…a word of kindness or sympathy…an inconvenient act of generosity…isn’t it a miracle?

If something touched by our trembling fingers grows gold and winged, soars … finds entrance to another human soul…isn’t it a miracle?

When a child looks you in your tired eyes and reaches a small hand, adoring…

Isn’t it…miraculous?

When a friend hears the pained confession,

and stays…

(artwork by master calligrapher Timothy Botts)

When we find ourselves swept off our seats in laughter, even though…

Is it not the most welcome kind of miracle?

When work comes along, finally…

When the work is completed…

When an improbable friendship is born…

When we find a fragile opening to forgiveness…

When something lost is found…

something broken healed…

something caged released…

When one creature carries and nurtures another in the caverns of its own body…

When the crocus smiles from snowy earth

and strangers share a meal…

When brothers and sisters pave new ways…

When suffering sweeps over and still we see light and truth and love and hope…

(artwork by master calligrapher Timothy Botts)

When the artist creates…

When the creator loves…

When the lover saves…

And the savior lives!

may we be moved to see the marvels of things in motion here…

the miraculous, gorgeous possibilities which rise from the ashes of ”reality”

providing what is needed for Life.

A related listen:  Sara Groves – Miracle

*GIFT IDEA…Beautiful new book of calligraphic art released by Timothy Botts!

One of the most beautiful things about the Thanksgiving table is that in the name of gratitude, people come together, gathering their best plates, family recipes, laughing children, a year of stories.

This is the way we celebrate.

Despite a flailing economy and a multitude of reasons for sorrow, we celebrate the evidence of a good God who has gifted us in countless ways, and when it appears the light is going down on the beauty of earth, we gather together and wait expectantly the coming of the true sunrise.

In honor of this day of coming together, different members of one Body, I offer a song.

This is a demo of a song, “Sunrise,” I wrote several years ago with the mega-talented Matt Bronleewe.  A gift to your table from both of ours this Thanksgiving.

Sunrise-Christa Wells/Matt Bronleewe

Sunrise (Bronlewee/Wells)

One brings a song and one beats the drum

One builds a shelter so others will come

One starts a fire, and one grinds the grain

We are gathered from the fields and the rain

Strangers with one strange hope

We’re coming for the sunrise

As the light is going down

Watching the sun rise

Father, let your kingdom come

One holds the cup and one pours the wine

One carries children who carry the light

One speaks the Truth for others to hear

We are gathered from far and near

Gathered in our joy and fear

Chorus

This, this is the body

This is Your bride, the bride in waiting

We are gathered from the fields and the rain

Strangers with one strange hope

One brings a song and one beats the drum

One builds a shelter so others will come

One starts a fire, and one sees the sun

Must.Write.Now.

It’s a bit obvious when the songwriter in this house has stayed away too long from writing, because she starts getting just a LITTLE bit grumpy.  A TINY bit irritable.  Easily IRKED.  Not by political leaders or financial crises or even by semi-big deals like being behind (again) on emails or (chronically) filing paperwork.

It’s much less rational than that.  Where there is no solitude, there is much loud exhaling at the very presence of human beings.  People and their people-y things, like shoes…hunger…chatter.

It’s not pretty…

So…for the well-being of my family: to writing I return.

…

Where have all the good ideas gone?

The writing road is often a thrill-ride attempt to grab all those great ideas that hover in cartoon bubbles around your head before they pop.

“Except when it’s not.”  (Dr. Seuss)

Sometimes I honestly wonder if maybe I’ve written my last good song, because: Where did all the ideas go?!

They arrive through books, blogs, sermons and (yes) conversations (those people-y things).  Soak…write…soak…write…soak…

I’ve been soaking for a while now without the wave rising up.  These past couple of weeks, I sense the swell coming but something isn’t quite there.  And I’m beginning to think it’s not always about the idea…

…….

What’s the Problem?

Sometimes it’s about trying to write in a way that’s akin to taking a quiet bath in the middle of Times Square.  And the billboards and traffic?  My own brain.

Maybe we fall into Consciousness and can’t get up?   Maybe the noise of a thousand tiny people in our heads telling us how to be and sound and watch out for this and don’t do that gets in the way of us carving out something fresh and true?

I forget to light the candle of Intuition that has always led the way …

Any writer can break down a great song for you and tell you why it works…AFTER it’s written.  More often than not, we’re not actually thinking about those things during the process.  Occasionally, a listener will point something out that looks like great crafting, and it’s a delight to hear, because I had never consciously worked it out.

We practice, study, listen and pack all the structural tips in the back closet of the brain.  But the really natural, poignant writing happens in The Writing Room.

…

The Writing Room

The Writing Room is not a physical place but a mental Safe Room, where almost everything the writer needs lives.  Stacks and drawers of metaphors, images, memories, stories, poetry, vocabulary, rhythm and rhyme line the walls (if you’re messy like me…maybe yours is more orderly).

Self-consciousness is most definitely NOT in the room.  Self-consciousness takes up lots of space, distracts from and suffocates art.

On a great day, the process is vertical, spiritual, intuitive. In that space we are free to focus every fiber on serving the song at hand. In that space, every syllable matters, every melodic nuance is measured and shaped, but it happens not in a lab but on a birthing table.

Like any good birthing room, the baby is delivered after hard labor in a safe and relatively serene environment.  And she looks a little like her parent and a LOT like a brand new thing that never existed before.

Steve Jobs died.

And a few days after that, I wept as I drove home from Tennessee.

Because of Steve Jobs? Not exactly…but sort of.

I’d just started down the long gravel drive, my parents waving in the rearview mirror, shouting their love…and suddenly all these years of being alive here together were also disappearing in the rearview mirror, and I faced ahead of me the likelihood of traveling on without them one day.

As she’d leaned into the truck for a last hug, Mom had said: Sometimes I wish you were still my little girl.

And as often happens, I stayed quiet while my heart said: Me, too.

I am not actually a worrier or a dweller on death and mortality. I do spy heaven on the horizon. But we all know time moves too quickly when you’re having fun, too slowly when you’re waiting.

My parents will turn 65 soon, and as amazing and energetic as they continue to be, they aren’t exactly the same as they were at 42. And 42 is the age they have been in my mind for the last 23 years.

Earlier in the week, I’d picked up a magazine from the big farm table in their kitchen and read this quote from Steve Jobs:

“Remembering you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap
of thinking you have something to lose.”

And I thought: Maybe he’s right.

I’d spent several days writing, meeting, and recording in Nashville. When I’m there, I’m both invigorated by the city’s creative energy and also a bit intimidated and out of place with the industry side. I told Nicole: When I’m writing from home, it’s like a hot tub. Dealing with business out here feels like climbing out of the tub and into a pool of sharks.

Sometimes, I just want to pull away…keep myself and my work in safer places where I don’t risk rejection.  Where I don’t have to deal with fear and insecurity.

But I read that quote in my parents’ home, and I gave myself a little talking-to that went something like this:

Okay, listen you. You’re going to die.

You may have a few brief years before your parents stop feeling strong enough to get on the trampoline. A few quick years to be brave and share the music that grows in your soul. A few fleeting years before your little ones grow wings and fly.

A few years left. At best.

So, seriously. SERIOUSLY. What exactly do you have to lose?

Do you really want to spend even one day whining or holding back because someone might not approve? Certainly, since the dawn of time humans have faced far bigger hurdles, greater resistance.

Stop looking for permission.  Love your Maker.  Love His people.  Make the Greatest.Work.You.Can make…in Him and for Him.

What do we have to lose?

Even as I ask it, I know the answer.  For me, what I have to lose is your esteem.  I have been a life-long approval junkie, now happily on the mend, but not wholly rid of it.

I write songs to communicate with other people, but I write also to imbed more deeply in my own soul the truths I know I’m in need of.

I wrote this for Allison and also for me:

“There’s no way to earn what you’ve already got…nothing to lose when you’re loved from the start…”

I have all that I need.  I really do.  And there’s nothing I can do to make Him love me more, nothing to make Him love me less.  If you know God through His son, this is true of you also.

Let us boldly love and boldly make,

and let us repent of the moments lost to self-pity/self-consciousness/self-preservation,

because tomorrow we may die and all we’ll have is what we’ve given away. (a truth found in a long ago Ann Voskamp post)

Thank you, Steve Jobs, for the reminder.

——————————————————————-

*For any of you struggling with people-pleasing/approval-seeking/perfectionism…may I recommend?

When People Are Big and God is Small (Ed Welch)

Grace for the Good Girl (Emily P. Freeman)

I heard the front door close behind him before I was even out of bed. I’d overslept.

Now I’m slurping coffee and lighting candles, reading from the One Year Bible. Sizzling sausage. This is the tranquil intro.

Tapping out a bass line in email responses.

I can hear the rushing water of the shower upstairs over tiny tan shoulders. Her small, high-pitched soprano sings out indiscernible words, bouncing off bathroom walls, floating through every room in the house.

A fork tap taps against a bowl of peaches in the kitchen.

The dishwasher we forgot to run last night is now swishing away at work.

Pointer pup and grumpy old cat stand off near the feeding area, hissing and growling, and my brain buzzes with the things I meant to have done this morning. With the plans on the calendar and preparations for this and that.
Here comes the build.

The drowsy silence of early day quickly swells into song. This is the surround sound of our daily life.

But I remember when it was completely different. When I was 23, new in town, and it was only him and me in our little rental. When I decided to wait a few weeks before looking for work, thinking I’d spend the hours songwriting. Within a few days, I was sure the silence would swallow me up whole.

No friends. No work. No idea what to do with the songs I was accumulating. No place to be. No family around. And a painful distance between even the two of us.

Every week was blank, looming at me like open jaws of a great abyss.

A different season completely. God is conducting a magnificent symphony here. Now, if I occasionally long for something on earth, it’s rest, time, occasional silence.

But I know some of you are where I was. You don’t hear His music. Only the sound of isolation, insignificance, uncertainty. You attempt to eek out a melody, but it just keeps meandering and never seems to amount to anything.

Please hear this.

It matters that you keep breathing air into those holes. It matters that you get up in the morning and do what has been placed in front of you and use whatever has been placed in your hands.

There is no “Arrival” gate in life. You are already, today, doing the plan. If you think otherwise, wait until you achieve one of your life goals, and see how quickly you’re swept on into the next movement. The next thing.
Instead…when you hear no music, make music.

This is what Love does. Find someone who needs to be sung to.

Today we will, if we leave home, cross paths with someone who needs to be sung to. What he needs may not be our “special gift.” Maybe what she is hungry for is not what we feel like giving or something that will further our own interests.

That’s okay. Sing anyway. Sing truth, with a smile, a conversation, a hand on a shoulder, a small gift, an act of service, a shared bit of time. Then you’ll begin to hear.

To live joyfully, we must stop trying to make ourselves happy.

If your own home is too quiet, if your own mind too haunting…spend less time there.

How I WISH I could go back, have my 23-year-old self hear this. How I wish my self-absorbed 16-year-old self could have understood it. How I hope to remember it today, when I am tempted to become consumed with myself and my own efforts, and I start to hear only noise.

I’m desperate to hear the layers of harmony in His song. He IS singing, you know. We’ve just got to train our ears to hear it. And watch for the build.

(a repost this morning, as I consider the seasons of life…)

And by “she,” I mean me.

Or I.

Whatever. That’s the point.

I’m turning less young this week, and I’ve been learning…slowly..painfully slowly… the art of letting my SELF…go.

Before I ever again look at a woman and think “sad how she’s let herself go,” I’m going to lean in (which, granted, might cause her some alarm) and see what’s behind the eyes.

I’ll look for things like…

The sparkle of joy that comes with freedom from obsessing over fashion trends, from running a politically-correct check on every syllable, from conforming to cultural ideas of cool (which are, by the way, initiated and enforced by our youngest members, who are gloriously creative but who also have way more time on their hands than they ever will again – no offense intended, young friends).

The laughter of a person who has stopped trying to pretend she didn’t just trip (literally or figuratively) and just enjoys the humanity of it all. Chuckles at the past, because what’s done is done. Smiles at the present because imperfect is more interesting, and good & bad both pass quickly. Sideways grins at the future because it’s a mystery, and mystery is fun.

The boldness of an artist who doesn’t have time to waste or words to mince, but has something to say, to share, and is determined to be about it.

The courage to walk a different way, to risk being misunderstood by her peers, criticized by the peanut gallery, laughed at by the young, or condescended to by the old.

The  inward peace of a soul who knows her destination, and

the wisdom of one who recognizes the silliness of our performing.

When I observe these things in a person, I know I’ve met someone who has made some real progress in letting go of SELF-ness and all its derivatives: self-consciousness, self-pity, self-centeredness, self-reliance…

And, ah, it is so inspiring to meet free people!

Here we are in the presence of GREATNESS as we walk across this magnificent stage, but don’t we completely miss the show when all we can think about is whether or not our make up is still in place (applies to men, too, figuratively), or whether people are watching or approving or laughing or not?

May we grow free as we grow older.  In doing so, we will actually grow younger, because bondage accelerates aging.

As my friend and worship director said from the pulpit recently:

You are not nearly as big a deal as you think you are.

On the other hand, you and I have the potential to leave a serious footprint here for the kingdom of God, if we can just keep ourSELVES out of the way.

Although my brain is a constant buzz of activity, I find it hard to, carve out time to journal.  Most weeks the best I can muster is the jotting of 3 or 4 sentences of prayer and a few song ideas on scraps of paper, alongside the “get milk & eggs” list.  Solitary time is scarce and reserved mainly for reading, prayer and songwriting.  Thus, you get a video this week instead of deep thoughts. And next week…I’ll be at Masterpiece, so you might just get some cool & fun photos of our mayhem there.

But I did have an extremely enjoyable weekend up in Indianapolis, not far from my alma mater Anderson University, visiting funny & talented college friends, my awesome 4-wheeling cousins and making music.  Here you’ll see  a beautifully filmed “How Emptiness Sings” shared Sunday morning.  Thank you, Northview, for inviting me to talk & sing.  It was an honor to worship with you all.

How Emptiness Sings from Northview Church on Vimeo.

She’s nearly 16, but her face is un-made-up, baby soft.  Her way of dressing, her way of carrying herself, not typical of her generation; she is both older and younger than her peers.  At one moment she bashfully tucks herself behind her father – and then she can’t help herself, and her mouth opens and eyes search the tops of walls for words.

“I didn’t see how God could accept me…I’m so prideful, sinful, and I thought He might not take me…”

Hands, fingers move in the air and her eyes grow watery and red as the words tumble out…

“But I just thought: there’s nothing else out there.  There’s nothing else worth living for. So I told Him: Even if you can’t take me, even if I’m not enough…I’m still going to serve you anyway, because You are the only thing worth living for…”

I was still on my feet, but my spirit wanted to sit down.  My eyes were fixed on this beautiful creature standing in front of me, not yet out of the nest, unable to commit heinous crimes or live a life of outward depravity.  But she knows her heart and is certain of her unworthiness before a holy God.

But it wasn’t even that…It was the second part:

“Even if you can’t take me…I’m going to serve you anyway.”

Do I feel this way?

Is this the way we live?

Do I give myself to anything, not only not demanding a return…not only not expecting…but believing I do not deserve?

Do we really, really believe that everything is gifted and not earned, grace? “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God…” (Ephesians 2:8)

Will we keep making music, art, without awards or recognition?

Will we prepare food if no one expresses gratitude for our efforts?

Will we wash the feet of people who seemingly have nothing to offer us, or people whose company we do not enjoy?

Will we remain faithfully at our post, during seasons where the fruit of our labor is unseen?

Do I agree with this young girl?

With this…

“For a day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of   my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness.” (Psalm 84:10)

I want it to be true of me, that I live by this:  Even if… yet I will serve you.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

“Even if you can’t take me…”

And her father turned to her and said: “But…you couldn’t feel that way if He hadn’t already taken you.”

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

And my heart sang:

Glory to God, Glory to God…my life for the glory of God!

If you want to make a musician really happy, give us a chance to play side by side with some of our favorite fellow artists. It’s just…well…it’s just special. Like a kid in a candy shop. And it doesn’t hurt that some of the pressure of carrying a whole concert by yourself is relieved. I know I’m not the only singer/songwriter who gets bored with herself and appreciates a little variety.

SO. If you are anywhere near Durham, NC, on JUNE 17,and you come on downtown to the Reality Center (916 Lamond Avenue) with me, Wade Baynham (formerly of The Basics), and Carolina Story (Ben & Emily Roberts – East Nashville’s cutest musical couple)…you’ll be so happy you did.

Icing on the cake: the other great musicians coming alongside of us – Dale Baker (drums), Tim Carless (electric), and David Kline (bass).

I’m serious. I LOVE these people. You will love these people. And their music.

AND: we’re playing for donations. So, no financial excuses.

Check them out: