Liz Rog, Feb. 6, 2011
Recently I endured three weeks of an illness that battered my body and tried my
spirit. One night during the third week, at home with my family, we looked out the
window and saw the bobbing of headlamps coming toward our house on the
driveway. We went outside to see who was coming and beheld dozens of friends
gathered in a circle outside our door singing songs together. I knew instantly: they
had come to sing for me, to help me toward healing and to comfort me on my way.
My body collapsed with sweet release from some cosmic loneliness and an from
ecstatic joy. They sang on; I sat sobbing as the ancient vibrations of our oneness
rang through me. It was our blessed community, come to show love and offer
grounding in one of the world’s oldest ways.
Among those 40‐some gathered were people from many realms of my life: some of
my oldest friends, people I had known for all of the 30 years I’ve lived in Decorah;
people whom I’ve only known for only a few years; little children, young adults,
families, singles, people with grown children, and older people. There were people
with whom I’d had only easy relations, and others with whom there had been
interpersonal struggles over the years, perhaps never even resolved but somehow
melted away anyway by the passing of time. Here in this moment they were all one,
all part of the body of being that is called by so many names: Love, or God, or
Beloved Community…
Though I sing often with groups large and small, for me this night of receiving songs
was something completely new. I’ve sung alone with just a family member or two in
hospital rooms and home bedsides at the time of a birth or an illness; I’ve sung in
circles for the pure joy of song; I’ve sung songs old and new with happy groups of
children. Large groups of us have even sung songs to those who have lost loved ones
to death. But this kind of circle – this group that comes by night, stands out under
the stars, sings song after song and doesn’t ask anything from the one in need – I’ve
only been part of from the singing side. I don’t know why I never thought of doing
this before for sick or sad people in our community – perhaps I had to first receive it
in order to know how important it is.
I begin with this story because it so perfectly depicts life over time in a community.
We live in separate homes, but we live together, passing by on the street, coming
together for potlucks and events, sharing childcare and ideas. It’s slow, this coming
to know each other and building up memories and stories – it doesn’t happen in a
year or two. There are disagreements, smallnesses that we wish we could take back
later, crises of relationships that last too many years. But I have seen this in the 30
years of loving this place: everything all smoothes over eventually. Like the waters
of a stream running over rough stones, time gentles the sharpness. Time is kind.
Time‐in‐place also grants that our personal gifts and passions, once planted, can
grow into something larger than ourselves. This, too, I’ve seen again and again:
someone comes around who loves to dance in a certain way, and in a decade or two
that way of dance is considered everyone’s, it’s thought to be indigenous to this
place. Someone else finds a way to show a few friends their kite‐making and flying
skills; because of that a whole group of kids grows up making and flying kites and
thinking of that as a normal part of childhood. A small group of friends sets out to
encourage and assist the planting of more vegetable gardens in the town, and before
you know it we think of ourselves as the vegetable garden town. Like the waters of a
stream that wear a path in the stones below, our staying in one place means that our
passions and actions make new pathways in these places. It takes time. What a deep
pleasure it is to know that the humble actions of our days and weeks are forging
enduring bonds between our own soul and the soul of the people‐place where we
live.
In that way, this singing at my back door was a most amazing gift. I’ve been planting
song‐seeds here for 30 years, and many of the songs that were sung on this most
special night were those I had learned from and passed along among these people.
Some of them made sure to tell me that they knew these songs because of my
incessant insistence that there be songs sung whenever we gather.
These songs no more come from me than the land or the stars come from anyone.
All I did was stay in one place long enough that my particular passions could come
to be seen as a normal part of what we do here. Others here have contributed their
own passion for music in similar ways, and still others have contributed entirely
different but equally essential ideas and skills. I didn’t know about this truth when I
was younger – it’s not something that was addressed in school! – but now that I do
know, I want to tell the world.
So the gift of song was given back to me, at perhaps the first time in my life when I
had no song to be found within me. This dear community – the particular group of
people who were able to come on this particular night, representing others who also
would come to any such gathering for anyone – gave me a gift that will in turn have
its eternal effect on our shared home. They showed us a new idea – not a new idea in
the world certainly, but a new idea here. They came together to this place at this
time and made it a real thing for us all to remember and to carry forward.
And carry it forward we will. Before my friends had even finished singing I made a
personal commitment to carrying on with this new tradition. I will invite people to
come learn songs together and keep them fresh so that we can be ready when
someone is in need. What shapes might this take? I’m imagining that sometimes
we’ll come to sing as a surprise as they did for me, and other times we will wait for
an invitation. Sometimes the groups will be of three or four people, and other times
dozens can come. We’ll figure it out over time. The point is, one person ‐ our friend
Emily ‐ invited some people to do this on this one particular night, and now it will
become another tradition among our ever‐growing list of caring ways to serve each
other. We’ll never know how far the ripples go, nor what ripples have come here to
inspire us.
When I first came to Decorah and learned about one community activity or another
that took place here – a monthly potluck, an annual swimming party, a quilting
group, work bees, dances in the old school house, etcetera – I assumed that those
things had been taking place since before anyone could recall. Once I’d been around
a while I began to learn that these forever‐seeming local cultural norms were, in
fact, started perhaps only 10 years earlier, by people still actively involved in them.
What power we have to shape our communities, so quickly!
Already the children who were part of that circle at my back door are destined to
grow up thinking that this is something that has always been: when we are sick or
sad, we come together and sing loving songs. Maybe someday they will learn that
they were there that night our singing began to take this particular form, and then
they too will begin to know to the power each person has to create their community.
Staying in one place long enough, one can notice the special things of that place and
learn to appreciate their roots. Whether you are 25 or 55, it’s not too late to start
staying put, for once you adopt an attitude of curiosity and commitment to a place,
you can easily ride on the place‐wisdom of those who have been there before you.
They will tell you the stories, help you know the links between local people and
their passions, help you see the sacred history on which you now will paint your
colors. Just begin to stay, to ask, to listen, to be part of the making.
This book is about the traditions of this place called Decorah. Many of them have
ancient roots from which we have re‐created something new in the space of our
own short lifetimes. It’s pretty easy to take good ideas from our ancestors and mix
them with our own creations – the only hard thing can be getting started. Don’t be
afraid. At the beginning it is rough‐hewn and unpredictable, an unclear, amorphous,
ungrounded‐seeming mess of half‐realized dreams. But stick around and keep at it
and before you know it, you realize that what you thought you had to do alone is
now the joy of many. Maybe each song that you long ago timidly invited others to
sing with you will come back someday in a full chorus of jubilant singers who know
that the songs are theirs, forever, and always were.
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