Background Music

Before going to my class, the one I'm teaching every Monday morning, I stop for a cup of coffee. This morning I move quickly and leave enough time for a short walk and a sit down coffee break.

The music in the background is bluegrass and blues. There's a communal feel to this music-- sets me thinking about love and loss and yesterdays and tomorrows.

When I lived in the south my next-door neighbor who came from the Deep South—Benoit, Mississippi— loved to sing. In the afternoon she might take out her guitar, sit at her honey toned kitchen table and sing folk songs. There was always that blues quality even if it the lyrics were upbeat.

She also played hymns on a small piano or on the guitar. It was in her house that I first heard an English group singing a very upbeat contemporary rock hymn. I can see the album cover, but the name of the group eludes me.

But the music she liked best were old ballads--the kind that have numerous verses and tell long tales that often end poorly. Then sometimes she'd sing a fast paced “She'll Be Coming Around the Mountain" or "When the Saints Come Marching In”.

I've always been drawn to folk music. It speaks to me--encourages me--acts as a gadfly. Makes we wonder why I do what I do. Goads me into political stances and places—places Peace signs in front of me and asks me to act.

Maybe it's the plaintive sound that resonates. There's a soul searching inherent in that music.

It is almost time to leave and yet the music holds me fast. I hear the strum of the guitar--the clarity of the notes, the lament—

"Never Go Away..

There's also the call to engage with the world...

Time to leave.