Author: crdahlberg

The Parade Moves On

Radio studios used to house vast libraries of vinyl 33-1/3 RPM records, whose shallow, delicate grooves stored arrangements of voices and instruments in precious acoustic tracks. Archived melody and poetry of ambitious musicians lived in these studios, in records all lined up next to each other in vertical symmetry. These musical neighbors all waited patiently for their moment of release to radio’s air waves. These were the fruits—vinyl or even CD’s—of musical dreamweavers.

Not so much any more. Today, Nashville’s Acme Radio’s entire musical library of digital recordings might fill a portable drive not much larger than a ubiquitous cell phone. Technology seems to push both musical storage and musical performers in a quick-change-is-good lifestyle.

In today’s ephemeral digital world, the names and faces of celebrities struggle to briefly stay relevant. Soon the parade moves on to an ever-newer performer, whose fame may be destined to dissolve even faster.

Well-earned achievements may pass quickly in this flash-to-flame life. Deep within, some of us may long for that which lasts longer than a spectacular but fleeting solar eclipse.

The thing that stands out in contrast in this fleeting world is something that stands firm, maintains excellence, and speaks truth. A voice that cries in the wilderness might just set our hearts aright one more time.

The Clock Has No Hands

The alt-right doesn’t suit me. The alt-left is a figment of someone’s imagination.

For we who want to both change the way things are and the way things are going, there’s another option.

It’s alt-reality.

Alt-reality is an alternative reality in which we feed our neighbors and starve the television set.

Alt-reality chooses to sit at the foot of the table instead of at the head of the table.

Alt-reality judges sparingly and deflects hurtful adjectives.

Alt-reality possesses both patience and conviction.

Alt-reality listens before it speaks.

Alt-reality endures; it never stops. That’s why the alt-reality clock has no hands.

Meditation

Meditation: a written or spoken discourse expressing considered thoughts on a subject.

Some folks say mediation is better described as chewing cud. In a spiritual context, we bring up Scriptures and chew over and over again, making sense of them in our life context.

The prolific songwriter Neil Sedaka writes ferociously hard-to-forget melodies. He is also capable of turning out novelette-length inane lyrics— “where is he going with this hot mess?”

Too many words, too many thoughts, too much brain noise are the enemies of meditation. In the car today, a scripture song smothered me, verses tumbling out too many words for meditation. There was no time to slow down and sort them out. No pause, no refrain, no chance to consolidate noteworthy insights.

In short, not a chance for meditation.

Meditation filters out extraneous noise, letting significance rise to the fore and draining off the rest. It takes slowing way down. It takes parsing a phrase or a word and shelving the rest for the moment.

Without sleep, the brain cannot process life’s quick parade of daily happenings. Without meditation, we cannot understand which of these life events are really significant, and why.

Like an unforgettable refrain in a song, meditation consolidates and plays the life-defining stuff back to us, a sound track that keeps our lives on track.

Pick me! Pick me!

There is a sort of competition to be the one that is noticed. There are so many other folks that are similar but better, more readily chosen, more noticeable than ourselves. But it’s not really a competition. Attaining our own fulfillment means that each of us serves the true purpose for which we were uniquely created, to fill a particular niche. It’s a narrow niche. Among the masses, we are unnoticed. But within our own wheelhouse, we are each invaluable.