Restoration Weekend
a series of playlists
Friday
Whoaaa… the doubt is real. We just destroyed something we held onto for so long. Maybe even decades. Could this be the end? All our planning. We just took a sledgehammer to the thing and now… we have plans to rebuild. Plans that we are hopeful will unfold in a way that brings us a return on our investment. Our money, our time, our sweat. Oh, so much sweat.
can we do this?
I took a sledgehammer to a framework I had built for myself because I knew it was time for something new. It hurt. Like, it hurt a lot. The doubt was real. I gained a life partner. We added some kids to our lives. We bought our first home. I switched trades while always honing a craft.
We lost a brother. We felt like a landslide took us out. We tried to get healthy. I wanted to isolate.
HUMANS MOVE SO FAST
so #^@<!ng fast
I recovered. I wrote some tunes. I wanted to heal. I watched others around me struggle. A mother, my mother, really started to struggle.
WE LOST OUR MOTHER
what the actual #^@<
Often this causes me to tremble, and yet we feel so supported. Our communities showed up for us. We just keep doing the next right thing. Life is full of so much light and dark, all at the same time.
but the dark is sooo dark
Spring. Yes Spring! Here we are! Don’t we want to rush to joy? To church on Sunday. To the vibrant pastel colors. To Easter brunch. Oh, how I love Sunday brunch.
let’s pause.
Let’s take a moment to reflect and contemplate the doubt that is so real.
what if the world is a hopeless place?
This is my Friday playlist.
Saturday
Gray morning holds its breath between, a hush where thunder used to be — the world in muted, careful hues, the churchyard wrapped in slow relief.
Hands that hung the final nails now fold like small, obedient wings; stones cool beneath noon’s dusty light, and lilies sleep with folded things.
Questions sift like ash and dust, footfalls soft on worn cobblestone; the sky keeps watch in patient blue, as if the story waits alone.
Children drift with pockets full of coins or crumbs, of simple hope; old women tie their scarves tighter, counting seams where sorrows cope.
Candles gutter, then persist, a line of tiny, steadfast suns; some faces tilt toward nothingness, some turn to memory’s thin lungs.
Between the ending and the dawn, time stretches, fragile, thin, and wide; Saturday is the careful pause where sorrow and a promise bide.
No trumpet yet, no sudden light — only the slow, attentive earth, keeping vigil for the coming stir, for tenderness to name new birth.
That is a poem written by AI…
My password for everything in the digital world is often some variation of “i am human”. It’s a reminder that, although we are tethered to these devices in our modern world, I am human.
that poem lacks a human heart
I think this exercise of posting playlists for each of these days is my way of inviting others into my humanity. Music connects us. Attending a live music event bonds the people in the shared room like no other experience. In our grief, in our doubt, connecting with people in real life is my preferred path forward.
Oh, wouldn’t it be nice to be naked and suspended in warm liquid, plugged into an artificial intelligence that allows us to fulfill our dreams and fantasies in our minds? It would be sooo comfortable. Like the most comfortable thing you could do. No worries about where to find food. No fear of death. Stimulated by a matrix of fantastical experiences.
let’s just float
I go about my day just wanting to stand bare feet in mud because when I live on a screen…
i’m not sure what is real
I started to feel okay with uncertainty because of people like Rachel Held Evans
who unfortunately, died so young
I had no idea that the sledgehammer I took to my faith framework would prepare me to grapple with the loss of our brother. I had no idea I would need it to deal with the loss of my mother. I had no idea it would prepare me to understand the loss of an aunt whom I never got a chance to meet. I had no idea I would become friends with someone I wouldn’t even know for a full year.
we are surviving
This is my Sader-day playlist.