Love's Gonna Carry Me Home...

It doesn't happen frequently, but for me there are distinct times when it feels like my heart swells up, and it moves up so far that it is jamming my Adam's apple up my windpipe...and it moves down so far that it is just sitting like a rhino on the top of my stomach. Sometimes I'm pretty sure it is the Carne Asada plate from Taqueria Arandas down on Burnet(my latest favorite hole-in-the-wall Mexican food joint in Austin), but most of the time it has to do with a readily identifiable, yet rarely explicable heaviness about life in the chaos lane. I say rarely because this happens to be one of those instances when I know what watering hole in the jungle this rhino drip-dried out from. I know, in this case, that part of it is very very good. I'll get to see all three of my beautiful daughters in a couple of weeks as they make their way home from Portland, Nashville and Arlington. They are all grown-up, independent women at 20, 21 and 24, so I am a realist about the eventuality of their taking their places in the world geographically separated from where my place in the world is... so, I genuinely treasure the times we can be all together. Like last September when they all came in to attend the Austin City Limits Music Festival, and like this holiday season when they will be home for Christmas and for two weddings shortly after Christmas... Hannah's life-long best bud, Katelin Calvert... and our dear friend and traveling guitar hero, Randy Williams.

I also know the other reason for the heaviness is my prayer and concern for my friends Scott, Sarah and Thomas Bickle. I tried to talk about them Sunday as I shared with our faith community, and had to stop several times to compose myself...Thomas, some of you may recall from earlier posts is two years old and has been courageously battling brain tumors since he was 7 months old...the tumors have the upper hand at this moment. Sarah and I talked today and I know I bored her to tears, but I didn't want to let her off of the phone (which is a shock to many of you who know that I am a terrible phone conversationalist...just don't do well on the phone). Somehow her voice kept me connected to the three of them. They are amazing people...

So anyway...I came across this video of one of my favorite singer/songwriters, Pierce Pettis (also famous in my book for being sweet Grace's dad). Watching and listening didn't budge the rhino, but I kinda reconciled his presence there as a deep heaviness that made me swallow harder, breath freer, and trust a little deeper.

And I really do believe Pierce...LOVE's the only thing that can carry us home.

Pling...Pling...

dg