Chris Maxwell's Newsletter

Another Day Along the Way
Thursday, December 31, 2009

Another day,
The last day of the year. So much on my mind.

We returned for Christmas to a city where we lived for years. Many years - 24 years, actually. A city of theme parks and sunshine and friends. The lakes, the alligators, the planes. Traffic and toll roads and restaurants. The visit reminded me of what I had invested so much of my time and self into. Glancing back after a few years away reveals much.

We spent time with our oldest son and his wife. Now 500 miles north, we miss them. And their baby on the way. What will their son face? Where will they live? What are God's plans for each of their individual lives and the life of that family?

I played football with my three sons. They have aged, but they are young. I am not. I loved each pass, each run, each touchdown. I loved each timeout to get my breath. I remembered when I was the tallest and the fastest.

We played on the property of a church where I served as pastor for many years. I recalled people and events and sermons and songs. I felt joy and sadness and hope and grief simultaneously. My memories and feelings mixed together like a salad hosting a variety of vegetables. Some taste great. Some aren't very delicious but are said to be healthy. Some are best left off the plate. Memories can be like that.

And now? On a kitchen table typing after breakfast. I woke early. Time alone. To think, to pray, to eat, to meditate. Time to write.

I looked at the date and shook my head. A year ends. With so much still on my to-do-list and so much on my mind. I mentally hear two Bruce Cockburn songs: The Last Night of the World and The Coldest Night of the Year. I continue contemplating the new lyrics and music from Christine Dente's Voyage, and the words in James Bryan Smith's book, The Good and Beautiful God.

I think of previous years - they all ended. I think of future years and wonder: What will they bring to the table? How will they end? How will we respond?

During this year's final hours, can't we all take time to evaluate and set new goals while letting peace and joy flavor our moods? Can't we dream big, refusing to allow past failures control future possibilities? Can't we look in the mirror and smile? Can't we glance at the number 2010 and realize life contains more than the numbers of bank accounts, stat sheets, and success evaluations? Can't we forgive others? Can't we forgive ourselves? Can't we receive forgiveness from the Forgiver? Can't we love and live life?

Well, my early morning text from our oldest son caused me to hit pause. This time last week we were together; today we are 500 miles apart. He wrote, "I'm up early. Sitting at the table looking for you." A little moisture came through my eyes - but, since we're told men don't cry, I'm not sure what that wet stuff was. I texted back; I prayed again, missing our first born son who will soon be a dad himself.

Then, I felt like Someone Else was voicing a statement using those same words. He didn't text it or facebook it or email it. But He spoke it in silence, so only my inner self could hear it. Someone Else said, "I'm sitting at the table waiting for you."

Our Lover and Creator is looking for us, waiting for us. Let us join Him at the table. He has prepared it. Even in our past and future years of enemies, He has prepared a table. Let's not rush past the meal; let's pause. Let's sit at the table. Let's end and begin a year beside our Maker.

Along the way,
Chris Maxwell

Powerful Statement: Spiritual formation always works the delicate balance between the personal appropriation of spiritual truth and the reality that our faith is a historically grounded community event. Both the individual aspects of our faith and its communal reality need to be part of our spiritual formation.(Spiritual Formation as if the Church Mattered: Growing in Christ through Community, James C. Wilhoit)

LISTEN TO THE STORY: A Word to the World

Another Day Along the Way
Sunday, December 13, 2009

Another day,
A December day of rain in Georgia. Falcons lose a close game to the undefeated Saints. Students complete their work and leave for Christmas break in two days. Friends gather to discuss life and pain and hope.

I'm already thinking of dreams and goals for next year, though still shocked that the numbers will be 2010. I'm finishing assignments, praying for friends, reading three new books, and wondering what the future holds for us all. I think about our grandchild to be born this summer and about our middle son graduating college this spring: What awaits them? I think about family together for Christmas, remembering Decembers past and seeking to enjoy this moment in time.

In our hurry, can we slow down a little? In our plans, can we include time for those who are usually unnoticed? In our selfishness, can we remember a season about a baby, a promise, a hope, and a life?

Yes, we can. We can pause and meditate and remember. We can pray and forgive and be forgiven. We can love and laugh and listen. We can notice and hug and be. Just be.

For me, reading and writing help that process. Here are a few suggestions of words to see and hear over the holidays. They're not holiday hits to help you hurry through the mall. Hit your radio for those. These words will challenge, dare, inform, inspire. A few words might convict you; a few words might comfort you. But let the words come to you, as we remember a Word arriving many years ago....

The article America's Ugliest Crime, by my friend Charles J. Powell, in Charisma:

http://www.charismamag.com/index.php/features/2009/november/23558-stop-child-slavery-now

The article A Voice for Sanity, by Sarah Pulliam Bailey, about my friend Lee Grady:

http://www.ctlibrary.com/ct/2009/november/33.42.html

The new CD by Christine Dente (I'll write more about this in a future Another Day), Voyage:

http://www.christinedente.net/

The book, The Good and Beautiful God, by James Bryan Smith:

http://www.ivpress.com/cgi-ivpress/author.pl/author_id=6377

The magazine, Conversations:

http://conversationsjournal.com/

And, an article I wrote back in December 2001:

http://www.chrismaxwellweb.com/assets/pdf/GodDreamingOfWhite.pdf

Enjoy the words you hear and see. Go after a few more books, many more songs, and many, many, many more words. Read. Listen. Receive. Learn. Welcoming a variety of stories all related somehow to the Story. In a season of hurry and food and gladness and pain, welcome the Story. Make room. And, be. Just be.

Along the way,
Chris Maxwell

Powerful Statement: The Word became flesh and blood,
and moved into the neighborhood.
We saw the glory with our own eyes,
the one-of-a-kind glory,
like Father, like Son,
Generous inside and out,
true from start to finish.
(John 1:14, The Message)

Another Day Along the Way
Friday, December 4, 2009

Another day,

I first heard Bill Mallonee and Vigilantes of Love live in Michigan. I began keeping up with each CD, each song, each season of their journey. Last summer, Bill and I met in Athens for a nice chat. I continue hearing his music, evaluating his lyrics; we continue our conversations and notes about songs and life. Today, listen in on our chat.

Chris: Bill, take us back in time and tell us how you started writing songs, playing music, and doing concerts.

Bill: I was given a little 4 track recorder on loan for doing a drum session; a friend loaned it to me for two weeks. I think I wrote about 7 songs that became the first set of a band I started in Athens, GA, called Windows and Walls. This would have been 1985; I was still learning the basics, of course. But almost from the start I poured my energies into writing songs. They just showed up. I might have written about 50 the first year and I've maintained that pace for a long spell. I think what really happened was some sort of dam of raw emotion gave way and I began searching, through song, how to give voice to all the dark and noisy tapes that had been spinning in my head since I was a kid.

Chris: How did VOL (Vigilantes of Love) come up with their name?

Bill: We're fast forwarding to 1991 at this point, Chris. The name came from a song by post punk band called New Order; a song called Love Vigilante was the steal. I needed a name for a show that had just been booked with my new un-named band as the opener. The band was just me and an accordion player. It was very folk-rock with a touch of punk. Pretty ramped up stuff and heart-on-the-sleeve spiritual stuff. I morphed the name from the New Order song just to have something to give to the local press before the show. I guess almost 20 years later, it "stuck."

Chris: How does it feel to be ranked as a top songwriter?

Bill: Feels good. I work hard at it. I love the places a good song can take a person. So much of life, comes bubbling up through our spirits and it rarely has words to describe it. I think that's where good art comes in. It gives substance, even if for a fleeting moment, to the deeper truths that live inside of us and that are all around us.

But before I give a song out "live" or commit it to record, it has to take ME personally somewhere. I've put out about 25 albums now and probably written 1500 songs. And I can say that if they didn't significantly move me on some level, then they never got finished.

Chris: What is the hardest part of being an artist in these days?

Bill: I've been lucky in that inspiration has never been hard to find. So much of my work tends towards the melancholy and confessional. But the hardest part is just making it financially, really. You'd be tempted to think that after all the great press that's been written on my records and songs over the years, that I'd be somewhat stable. Nothing could be farther from the truth. It's actually worsened over the last 3 years.

Chris: Some have said that you do not fit in either the Christian market or the general market. Give us your perspective on that.

Bill: I dunno. I tell folks that I'm a believer in Christ; I've staked my life on that first Easter morn and Jesus' empty tomb. And those truths, especially their deeper ramifications, show up in my songs continually. But they show up in my experience and heart first. If it doesn't then it's just propaganda, and we're deluged by that every day. I tell folks that it is my faith but not my agenda, when it comes to the song, the stage, the performance. That being said, I do believe that our wholeness is entered into and begun to be realized in Christ.

The only way for artists who are Christians to be relevant to the world at large, is to simply be themselves. Be transparent, honest, authentic. Find YOUR own voice, not someone else's. And that'll be your journey, because you'll spend a lifetime doing it.

Chris: You recently lost your dad. How did you feel?

Bill: He was a tender and simple man in many ways. A brilliant inventor. He invented indoor/outdoor carpet. True. He never saw a penny for it - the corporations he worked for taking it all. He eventually became very depressed and drank a lot later in life. I think it was his way of coping with the deep disappointment. He taught me love for music. He played jazz drums. Loved a good martini, Frank Sinatra and my mother dearly. He died of cancer in March this year. I miss him, but I think he's in a "better place," as they say. I think he was ready to go home.

Chris: Speaking of tough times, you have been through many. Talk to us a little about your own personal struggles and how music has helped you cope.

Bill: After years of record after record getting great press, but not breaking us to a level of being able to even provide for my family, I got extremely depressed and vulnerable. It destroyed my already weakening marriage. I was very cruel and a coward about how it finally came apart. I am sorry to the core of my being for my behavior. But even the failures had their seed in years of denial, disappointments and rejections, both personal and professional. I think people had no idea how much risk was taken to run Vigilantes of Love. I was trying to swallow all this heartache and pretend nothing was wrong.

The subsequent divorce was plenty of fodder for folks to walk away, so to speak. Really, most of my fans just walked away or, worse still, picked up stones to throw. I was not brazen about my failures in any way. I was honest and deeply sorry with everyone I had hurt. But, I realized that my life and marriage had been put up on some celebrity pedestal and that somehow, at least in these people's minds, I had personally betrayed them. I had many acquaintances, but no real friends I could turn to in my hour of need.

Chris: Since that season, what is your latest music saying to listeners?

Bill: I'm very happy to be "out of the dark" a bit. The new songs from a project I'm doing are being released as EPs called Works Progress Administration. I've done 5 EPs so far, each has about 5-7 songs on it; they are all available for download at: http://VOLsounds.com . They're WPA vols 1-4; all recorded on a 4 track so they are VERY earthy and immediate. I'm just really happy with the results.

Thematically? Your heart's gonna break, so don't be surprised. Grieve all that you lost, or grieve what wasn't recognized in your life. You'll get used to waiting, praying; but "resurrections" are God's business, it seems. Bear one another's burdens. Even look for one or two to bear for your friends. Affirm the best in each other. Don't give your heart to illusions. Stay close to all that's good in your life, in each other and all that God gives you. Talk to your Heavenly Father through out the day; be aware of just how much heartache there is in the world and in your own skin. Treat all, everyone with respect, mercy and grace. The new songs are still all wrapped up in the poetry of the road and my life as an Americana songwriter. I tell folks, "It's a good gig, if you can get it."

Chris: How do you seek to influence others?

Bill: I don't think about that, really, Chris. You can only be who you are. "The life you live is the loudest Gospel you'll ever preach," I've heard it said. I just try to be authentic and real. I try to bring a little light to wherever I'm playing that night. Just be yourself, and do your best; that's hard enough.

Chris: If someone could paste some of your lyrics in their daily reminder to bring them hope for that day, what would you suggest?

Bill: Oh, can't even remotely answer that. With over a 1000 songs, that would be impossible. BUT, I have a brand new song called "Kick In," on the new WPA 5 EP, "Cabin Songs." It's a very sad, tender ballad, really; in it I suggest the Apostles "lacked something" to put their message across. I say, "What they really needed was trains and train stations, ports of entry and love songs and power pop; They needed fiddle tunes and reels, high and lonesome and lots of pedal steel....to put it all across; And doesn't every age need its own words...to grieve all that it lost?"

That last line might be the reason I do what I do: "...and doesn't every age need its own words...to grieve all that it lost?"

I thank Bill for his honesty. What can we learn through Bill's painful journey, from his authenticity, from his music? How can we find hope during seasons of death, disappointment, depression, divorce? In the month of December - when many people feel sadness while their neighbors celebrate with joy - how can we care for them when they need friends? What songs do we sing privately in prayer, releasing our hurt and receiving the healing of confessions? What songs do our lives sing in public so that others will hear of love?

Along the way,
Chris Maxwell

Powerful Statements: "My position is all too clear; I'm bringing up the strategic rear."
(Bill Mallonee, Starry Eyed)

"But many who are first will be last, and the last first."
(Jesus - Mark 10:31)

http://www.billmallonee.net/

http://www.volsounds.com/store/process.php?pname=ShopfrontProcess-Start