Lyrical Friday: Influence

I can taste the fruit of Eve.

I'm aware of sickness, death, and disease.

The results of her choices were vast.

Eve was the first but she wasn't the last.

If I were honest with myself,

Had I been standing at that tree,

My mouth and my hands would be covered with fruit.

Things I shouldn't know and things I shouldn't see.

Remind me of this with every decision.

Generations will reap what I sow.

I can pass on a curse or a blessing to those I will never know. ...

To my great-great-great-granddaughter, live in peace.

To my great-great-great-grandson, live in peace.

--Generations, by Sara Groves

I could write about more than one song on this CD. I listened to it over and over when I first got it, in 2001. Some other time, I'll tell you about "Painting Pictures of Egypt," which practically became my theme song that year.

But in the midst of the hardest time in my life, "Generations" inexplicably gave me hope. I was mourning my miscarriage and our preceding years of infertility. I was losing hope that I would ever bear a child.

And then this song would play, and I would sing along to the repeated bridge: "To my great-great-great-granddaughter, live in peace. To my great-great-great-grandson, live in peace." And a spark of hope ignited.

I listened to this album almost at random yesterday, and some of the other songs threw me right back to 2001. I am not in that emotional place anymore, and I'm glad of it. But "Generations," well. Here I am in the midst of it. Every decision I make...every knee-jerk reaction to criticize, every complaint, every spontaneous hug, every silly face...they are all imprinted in my little daughter's memory. And, God willing, someday she will have children, and my mothering will most certainly influence hers.

Parenting also gives you more insight about your family of origin. Both Jon and I grew up in (more-or-less) intact families with parents who did their level best to love us well. So many others did not. The two of us started out with this advantage, and that influences so much about who we are and how we parent, what we expect from family life and from each other.

I hope that we can give Katrina the very best of our families' legacies, and the very best of ourselves. I hope that Katrina will give any children she mothers the best of us, and the best of herself. And I always want to remember...despite the routine, the bad days, the sometime-sense that I am not accomplishing anything, that generations could reap what I sow. What do I want that harvest to be?

To my great-great-great grandchildren...live in peace.

Lyrical Friday: Growing Up Together

I have fallen for another she can make her own way home And even if she asked me now I'd let her go alone
I useta see her up the chapel when she went to Sunday Mass
And when she'd go to receive, I'd kneel down there
And watch her pass
The glory of her ass

I useta to love her, I useta love her once
A long, long time ago ...

D'you remember her collecting for concern on Christmas Eve
She was on a forty-eight hour fast just water and black tea
I walked right up and made an ostentatious contribution
And I winked at her to tell her I'd seduce her in the future
When she's feelin looser

--I Useta Lover , by P. Cunniffe, D. Carton, L. Moran, P. Stevens




Christmas day, sitting around
Full with food we washed it down
Your thirteenth year my only boy
So grown up and so short a time
Just a simple nylon string
To strum along and get the swing
To wish you luck beneath the stars
I wrote this song with your guitar....

Seems like only yesterday
It was Power Rangers all the way
Then Lego stuff and dinosaurs
This year for you your own guitar
I hope it makes you many friends
Brings you fun for hours on end
Takes you places you'd never be
That's what my one did for me

--Your Guitar, by L. Moran, D. Carton, J. Moran


I wasn't yet 21 when I left for Ireland. Never been on a plane before. Never been out of the country before, except to the Canadian side of Niagara Falls. I was newly engaged.

In 1991, you didn't have to be in Ireland too long before hearing The Saw Doctors. They had at least two singles at the top of the Irish charts, and a best-selling album. As I recall, the U.S. music scene was still pretty deep in the cynical, depressing grunge period. Nirvana and all that. The Saw Doctors' music was fun. Often funny, irreverent, always clever, and it made you want to dance. My friends and I went to a Saw Doctors concert not far from Galway. No reserved seats...no seats at all, if I remember correctly. The venue was a big room with a little stage up front, reminiscent of a cafeteria/auditorium in a high school. I was surprised at how accessible the band was. The difference between being number one in a small country and in a large one, I suppose.

Recently, I saw the movie Music and Lyrics, in which Hugh Grant plays a has-been 80s pop star who needs Drew Barrymore's lyrics to make a comeback. It was a sweet movie, though perhaps best appreciated by those of us who remember when Wham! and a-ha were the hottest things going. One of the aspects I liked was that Grant's character was relatively happy being a has-been, performing at high school reunions and smallish theme parks. He told Barrymore that he was depressed, bitter, etc., when his star first started falling. But after some years, when "retro" became cool again, he and his fans rediscovered each other. His fans, now in their thirties and forties, were glad to see him again. And he was glad to see them, too. I can't remember if the character said it or if I thought it, but it was like the singer and his fans had grown up together and were both looking back fondly on their youth.

The Saw Doctors weren't quite as young as I was 16 years ago, but both they and I have gotten older. They are still making music. (At least, the two original frontmen are.) It's still fun. It's still good-hearted and sometimes irreverant. But they've moved from chronicling teen-age crushes to describing a teen-age son.

I still smile when I listen to "I Useta Lover," and as Katrina approaches her fifth birthday, I've been thinking how fast the years fly. And that light-hearted band I heard when I was at the cusp of adulthood had more staying power than I would have predicted in 1991. It's almost like we grew up together.

Lyrical Friday: Thoughts on Faith

Ah, the news of my impending death
Came at a really bad time for me
Yeah, the news of my impending death
Any other day might have been ok

I was starting to track with my inner guide
I was getting in touch with my feminine side
But when the doctor starts whistling "happy trails"
Tends to take a bit of wind out of the old sails . . .

I'd built iron man stalls in the northern wild
I'd played cabbage patch dolls with my inner child
Now i'm getting sealed bids for a granite vault
And i'm pretty sure this is my parents' fault

--The Lament of Desmond R.G. Underwood-Frederick IV by Steve Taylor




When nothing satisfies you
When nothing satisfies you
When nothing satisfies you
Hold my hand

--When Nothing Satisfies by Jennifer Knapp


I like to read O Magazine because it has longer, more thoughtful articles than most women's magazines. Don't get me wrong, there are still plenty of pages devoted to such world-changing topics as "stuff Oprah wants you to buy" and "fashion trends that you can follow if you have a spare thousand dollars for this hot new designer dress."

But the real articles tend toward the narrative, personal experiences, and sometimes even a feature article about someone doing some good in the world, rather than the "10 Ways To Improve Your Pathetic Life" that you get in other women's magazines.

The most recent issue of the magazine, though, did its readers a disservice, I think. The issue's theme was "faith." As is the standard format for the magazine, there were a number of articles, most relatively short, written by a variety of contributers. Some of the stories were quite lovely, all were well-written, and at least one brought up some interesting insights. But the magazine had already lost me by that time.

"YOU GOTTA HAVE FAITH" the introductory section said. "It doesn't have to be a God thing. You don't have to be religious. But when you're all alone on troubled waters, you need something to hold on to..."

Seriously? It doesn't matter what you believe in, only that you believe in something?

This sentiment is standard Oprah/O Magazine stuff, and, perhaps the sentiment of a good many people in American society. It goes even beyond the idea that all religions have truth. Because O Magazine says faith doesn't "have to be religious."

No. I just can't agree. The object of faith is important. What you believe (or, as Christians say, who you believe in) in shapes you. The mere fact that you believe distinguishes you from the athiest or the nihilist, perhaps, but even they believe in their non-belief.

And (although "the terrorists" are getting to be like "Hitler" in over-the-top comparisons) I venture to say that Muslim extremists are pretty high up on the "strong faith" scale.

Think about what a person's life would look like who had faith in:

• a vengeful, demanding god


• a merciful god


• his/her own abilities


• his/her own feelings (another Oprah gospel)


• the power of money


• other people


• Mother Earth


• aliens


• nothing

Faith matters, yes. But faith is only the act of holding on. Our lives sometimes depend on what--on who--we're holding on to.

Lyrical Friday

what am i supposed to do about it now?

past regrets and long laments they find me somehow

o, what am i supposed to do about it now?

what have i to do but fall down?


--Fall Down, by Jennifer Knapp