beauty in imperfection

when david and sarah got married they gave guests a gift - a heart made out of metal and attached with ribbon was a strip of card... on each was a subject line from the emails they sent each other as they got to know one another (at least that's how i remember it) - mine says, sometimes you just gotta sing... it is one of my most treasured posessions...

::

on tuesday night, chris created a reflective space for team fury as ben calls us... this family by choice...

chris played this track. he said he could play this every day... it's a hymn...

it reminds me of days at least a decade ago... of the many nights spent in whelans in wexford street, when playing every few weeks in dublin kept food on david gray's table... playing to a devoted and faithful few hundred who came everytime, intimate spaces...

i think of the evangelical worship nights i went to and the disconnection i felt and i wonder if it is great part because in whelans, with a pint of guinness in hand, i found my prophets... david gray... glenn hansard... jeff buckley... mark eitzel... shawn colvin...the song writers and performers who were my worship leaders... where i felt connected...

i have a copy of white ladder signed to me by david gray... i was there the night in whelans he played the new material, using the looping tracks nervously... that was the last time i saw him play...it was all about to change... soon he played in the point theatre to an audience of thousands...but those of there that night shared something... as with glenn we were the ones who knew that record companies treat you like shit, who loved the message, the music, the person... there was such intimacy in that venue... as stox says of the frames... you only understand when you experience the crowd... the audience is the experience, of the bridge that exists in a great dublin gig... the mutuality... the trust...the intensity of emotion... singer pours their heart out and the audience does the same... gives it all right back...

this track takes me back to the place where i worshipped... to that den of sin and beauty... 300 crammed in jeek to jowl... there i found god... i felt god... where a part of me was being drawn out... where i loved with authenticity... where i understood...

::

i am a non-religious person looking for a religious experience...
::chris carter::

::

Weight on my shoulders
but I’m walking so tall
out into the new horizon
wonder in everything
no matter how great or small
howlin' like the midnight
howlin' like the midnight sun
and this ain't no pale reflection
this is the real thing
new horizon
new horizon within

And your heart ain't yours to control
no matter how tight the reigns
love will find it's own direction
a time to reap, a time to sow
and many a time to cry in vain
but now the time to celebrate
the glory of this imperfection
same thing that's scrawled across the stars
is written under our skin
new horizon
new horizon within

Things come too easy, I get suspicious
things come too slow, I get bored
if it don't work out I get superstitious
but if it does, oh my word

So I’m gathering all the remnants of beauty
from this wilderness in spin
and now I’m gonna light my own flame
'cause I’m charged with the radiance of the dawn
that's been so long breaking
now there ain't nowhere
there ain't nowhere I won't write your name
there's a time to search for understanding
sometime you just gotta sing
new horizon
new horizon within

Baby there's no need to get precious
when you know that everything must change
complacency, it can be so vicious
turn this love into a cage

Same thing that's scrawled across the stars
is written under our skin
new horizon
new horizon within

New Horizons, david gray, from Flesh.

LB,x