Tex-Mex Karaoke
Tonight my wife and I had dinner with a friend of ours who has just gotten back from a year and a half of mission work in Belgium. We went to eat at a popular locally-owned Tex-Mex place, and they sat us down right next to the karaoke machine. I must say I am not opposed to karaoke, and have had the unique experience of participating in the activity in its country of origin, but I have never associated Tex-Mex with karaoke. No one else in the restaurant did either. So the VJ, a stocky latino in his late thirties, was forced to stand up there by himself and sing the hits of the 70s, 80s, and 90s on his own.
Needless to say, it was very difficult to learn about mission work in Belgium, and I don’t think I heard a thing my soft-spoken wife said all night. I heard Journey, though, and some George Strait. Or is it spelled Straight? Either way, I did not hear about the unique challenges facing missionaries in Belgium.
There is too much noise in my life. When I am at home alone, if I don’t have a TV going, if I can’t hear the hum of my computer, or if there is no music playing somewhere, I get uncomfortable. Our neighborhood is on the outskirts of suburbia, built on what was once someone’s farm. Our little subdivision is actually nestled between two farms, one that looks to be an unused inheritance which an old orphan is reluctant to sell, and the other a functioning Clydesdale farm. At night, walking to the community mailbox, the silence is deafening. My active imagination creates packs of wild dogs or crazed madmen who only live in the country as active threats to my trek to retrieve the bills. I have been conditioned by too many afternoon movies to fear threats that are not there. I have been conditioned by too many afternoon movies to flee the quiet.
I have always needed a lot of time to myself. I have always needed to get out and move around a bit so I could day-dream and think. I need it to not only process my life, but also create. My mind moves at a thousand miles an hour. If I don’t take time to stop and get control of all my random thoughts, then they shoot off into space and are lost forever. Some of the ones I lost as a child just made it to the ouskirts of our solar system. I imagine an alien space craft capturing them and learning about West Texas, in particular the habits of horned frogs. It would be great if one day humanity figured out how to exceed light speed and warp time space. They’d find my lost thoughts out near Vega, and they would return them to me. I would be very old, and I can imagine giving them to my quiet grandchild … the one who has taken up painting.
In all honesty, many thoughts have escaped of late. It is the thing that is most missing in my life. I need quiet time. I need it to catch these thoughts, and I need it to talk to God. Lately my prayers have been a shopping list of needs, wants, frustration … I have been sending up Miss America prayers (you know, world peace). I have not stopped to listen for the still, quiet voice.
Listening. That’s what it means to wrangle thoughts. I can’t control them, I can only listen to them and let them take me where I need to go. I need to listen to what my heart is saying. If I don’t do that, how can I expect to create anything of worth? Creation requires a divine spark. If I am not listening to the still, small voice, how will I get a flame going?
I think creativity was one of God’s greatest gifts to mankind. I believe it is truly how we are made in his image. And while our creative power pales in comparison to His, he has still given us the ability to share in the same creative process that put the stars in the night sky. He created the stars to reveal His glory. We paint starry nights to reveal His glory. And in glorifying Him, we understand Him better, and we know Him more fully.
I think that all art is divine. Just as God’s creation was not intended to be corrupted, the art of humanity is not the result of corruption, though it can be easily twisted. It is no coincidence when redemption and agape end up in “secular” songs and stories.
That being said, when I look at my own life, and I feel that personal contributions to creation from myself are lacking, I realize that unless I take time out of the day to stop listening to the noise so I can truly listen, nothing will change.
Though I might become a star on the Tex-Mex Karaoke circuit.
January 28th, 2009 at 4:07 pm
I get so jealous when I read about the great authors or artists. Their lives were spent seemingly in so much liesure! They took loads of time to just absorb, reflect, meditate. I always find when I cut this part of my life out, my work suffers, but work demands that I produce more while thinking less!