New Single from Carriacou

I am happy to announce the release of my new single to you my beloved fans!

Western African Marketplace is the new single from my upcoming EP  The Pilgrimage! I am excited to follow up my previous work with something tottaly fresh and inspired. This will hard to get by the online critics but I am positive that true music lovers near and far will respond well to my new venture.

I have to admit that 2009 was as successful as despairing. The balance of fame and my personal life were new and as a result I wanted to make an album that was not burdened by either of those infuences. I wanted to make something that was a true to me as it was true to the human spirit. I know that is a loaded comment but hopefully you will hear with these new works something that is intangible but touching in the same way.

In 2010 I went on a journey to find myself and leave the struggle of fame and life behind. I traveled with some ethnomusicologists ( it means the study of ethnic music to the not so saavy) to Ghana – which is actually the country my family has descended from. This blog is the story of how I got to this point. I had a vision of a beautiful red-head girl in the jungle inviting me to discover ancient music with her. It was a powerful dream that left me spinning for days. I tried to shake the vision but it had captivated me and I had trouble just existing in my own space -if you know what I mean.  I came to the conclusion for me to shake the vision would be to give in to it… more later…

Stay tuned for new music and thanks for your support!

Life after God

Life is full of pain and pleasure. Sometimes the two are intermingled for their own purposes. Sometimes they are intermingled to prove the others’ validity and to spur on life as a whole. The protagonist of the novel ‘Life after God’ by Douglas Copeland is affectively living this paradox. Recently a man separated from his wife and enduring a painful divorce, he reminisces through his pleasure filled rolodex of memories to find the reasoning for his existence and trials. He rifles through great loss and despair to find that he was once a man happier than happy could be. He learns through his own narration that one of life’s most simple pleasures is whole relationship and he also learns the pain of it as well.

Douglas Copeland goes through the protagonist’s life with effortless recollection – as though it were his own memoirs that he was writing. There is nothing held back in this dialogue with the reader. One of the most revealing texts in the book brings light to the protagonist journey. He reflects on his happiest moments as a young 20 something bachelor and documents this tale: “The radio would be turned on, full of love songs and rock music but I don’t think we believed in the love songs, either then, or now. Ours was a life lived in the paradise…Life was charmed without politics or religion. It was the life of children of the children of the pioneers – life after God – a life of earthly salvation on the edge of heaven” (Copeland 273).  The protagonist reflects on these thoughts while barreling through the mountains of British Columbia after a nights romp at a friend’s pool. They skinny dipped and fumbled around aimlessly through the night. They were in love with just being alive – this was his happiest moment. After reflecting on his divorce for pages and pages he finally finds his happy thought – a world without responsibilities.

The reader is spun around through so many ups and downs of the protagonists journey that it is almost refreshing to just camp on this one idea and not feel rushed into more fleeting memories. It is almost as though the reader is invited to just pause and enjoy this moment with the protagonist. It is ethereal as the protagonist goes into detail about his time with friends – it is life that touches corners with heaven in dream like reference. Copeland does a fantastic job of just painting this despair of the protagonist as almost a journey – as though every responsibility of the narrators life had fogged up his most precious of memories.

Copeland just stops short of perfect nirvana when he steps upon this quote. The protagonist slips down his mindless walk down memory lane into a sort of conclusion. “I think there was a trade-off somewhere along the line. I think the price we paid for our golden life was an inability to fully believe in love; instead we gained an irony that scorched everything it touched, and I wonder if this irony is the price we paid for the loss of God”(Copeland 273). This almost seemed out of place in my reading. It is read as though the protagonist is punishing himself for being so happy once. It is almost uncalled for. As the novel goes on, it is evident to see what the protagonist meant. He describes his friends’ life in detail and reveals that all lived their lives in search of this nirvana that they experienced as 20-somethings but could never attain in their adulthood.

I wonder sometimes whether or not it is possible to waste your time here on earth. Every experience has it s purpose- everything has its time. All our experiences make us into who we are and it is our choice whether or not we let it change us for good. Everything happens for a reason – both pain and pleasure have their time and who can argue with their arrival. I have made some big mistakes in life but it is enough for me to say that those experiences have shaped me enormously and make me who I am today. Is it possible to regret anything when everything goes back to earth from which it came? Just to have lived should be enough. This is what I believe Copeland was dreaming about as he wrote this. He was dreaming of a world that owes us nothing and we owe it nothing but to enjoy it while it lasts. The protagonist is equating a loss of god with a loss of responsibility. God makes us responsible for the way we live and anything outside of that is just irony. What a pleasant fantasy.

Just putting myself in the shoes of the narrator was so refreshing for the moment until Copeland wakes the reader with the fact that responsibility makes the journey what it is – there is no pain or pleasure without responsibility – responsibility to friends and family and to community. The protagonists journey was what it was becuase of who he spent it with and how they spent their time. It is a wonderful fantasy ( dare I say in our western individualism) to release ourselves from all responsibility but the bliss is short.

‘Lost-ness’

“Lostness” – I cannot help but utter those words in light of Douglas Copeland’s ‘Life after God’. This is most certainly a book that has not held back any punches on the subject of relational break down in North American culture. Life after God is the story of a man recovering from marital despair and destruction. It is a pleasant search for the logic in an illogical world. The protagonist stammers and stumbles through post-modern imagery until he comes to the conclusion that he is part of the ongoing despair that is the vanity of modernity.

Douglas Copeland writes the story from the position of the narrator. The protagonist is battling with his recent divorce and is trying his best to reconnect his life in a logical format that he may give his daughter reason to hope in the light of grief. It is sad to watch as the protagonist goes deeper and deeper into despair. He tries his best to give an accurate picture of what went wrong in their relationship: “Being alone here now, all of my old fears are erupting- the fears I thought I had buried forever by getting married: fear of loneliness; fear that I would never experience real love; fear that someone would fall in love with me, get extremely close and then pull the plug; fear that love is only important up until a certain point” (Copeland 143). The protagonist is so overwhelmed with his predicament that he has fallen into a state of ethereal reflection – almost an out of body experience. He races through memories to help paint his daughter a picture of what happened to her parents’ marriage. He is so consumed by fear that he must write them down. He realizes that the comfort of intimate relationship did not make up for the absence of purpose found in him.

The novel streams back and forth through life memories with the protagonist on an almost pilgrimage in search of life meaning. I feel as though Copeland is leading the reader down a similar path. It appears as that the narrator is struggling through the fears of being ‘in love and out of love’ that the narrator is offering the reader an opportunity to do some soul searching. It is incredible what can be observed. Copeland goes on to give the perspective of the wife now separated as the story continues. “She phones me from her mother’s house and we talk every day. This is better than nothing. She says she has fallen out of love with me. She says she is confused. She says she feels lost…But she says there is a difference. She tells me at least when she was younger she felt lost in her own special way. Now she feels just like everyone else” (Copeland 138). Now Copeland shows the other side. The wife is now just as confused as the protagonist. The separation did not solve anything. How come their union did not give their equaled ‘lostness’ a rest? Copeland does not resolve the issue easily. Both of their troubled perspectives are essential to understanding the novel.

Why do people assume that being in a relationship will cure the loneliness or lostness?  I think it is incredibly annoying to come across young and naïve belief systems about relationships. The more I learn about relationship the more I realize I do not know anything. The protagonists and his wife are both coping openly with their insecurities in light of the break up which is uncovering some very clear misunderstandings about their expectations. Loneliness or lostness could come from many different factors. What would make someone think that joining lives with someone else’s lostness will produce wholeness? People have to learn how to come to terms with their fears of being loved and unloved before engaging in serious relationships. Why does every other serious decision in our lives need preparation but people think that relationships do not? It is even naïve of me to even say  this in light if my own incompleteness/loneliness/lostness. It is a challenging thing to face put there hope for those who acknowledge this deficiency before they race into relationships.

Television

I must admit that whilst reading ‘Invisible Monsters’ by Chuck Palahniuk, I awakened to a disturbing fact. Television is a great bird’s eye view into the world as mankind would assume God watches the universe. Television is such a great observation tool – the participant is taken to a new world and places that their predecessors could have never beheld or even understood. “‘Television really does make us God…When you watch daytime dramas; you can look in on anybody. There’s a different life on every channel, and almost every hour the lives change.’” (Palahniuk 79-80). In a novel full of grotesque images of the North American decline in moral aptitude, I had become suddenly aware. Palahniuk’s nihilism final caught up to me. It is true.  We have become our own gods as onto ourselves. Television helps the participant to observe, judge, redeem, and entertain themselves in culture and life as it progresses – it is part of the machine in our society to make assume full control over who we want to be.

The quote stems from a car drive into B.C. with the story’s protagonist Shannon and her new friends. Shannon, Brandy Alexander and Seth are the weirdest combination of people you can find in a novel. Seth is an aspiring transsexual, Brandy is a full-blown transsexual and Shannon is a disposed model in wish of a plastic surgeon to recover her face after an automobile accident. They are the Three’s Company of 2006 – mutilated, in a world onto themselves and desperately not funny! Seth goes into his rant about television but it is a great description of what is happening in the world of the novel’s characters. Seth and Brandy Alexander have fully become their own gods. Shannon has not reached the fullness of her mock-deity yet but desires so whole –heartedly to change her fate in life by paying for a plastic surgeon. “‘The same way that a compact disk is not responsible for what is recorded on it, that’s how we are. You’re about as free to act as a programmed computer. You’re about as one of a kind as a dollar bill… There is no real you in you…Even your physical body, all your cells will be replaced within eight years’ ” (Palahniuk 218).  Brandy who is a god – has been given the full authority by society, television, movies, and beauty magazines to give Shannon this most holy proverb. She is changing Shannon’s theology/philosophy and deceiving her that she is who she wants to be – that her lot in life was just pure malice on behalf of fate/god or whomever. It was just that in this moment that Palahniuk proves that today’s society is obsessed with godhood. Television is only a reflection of what our society truly desires but will never have.

What is most disturbing in this moment is that Palahniuk does not let the reader get away from the despair of his content. You cannot fully celebrate with Shannon as she goes in for plastic surgery. The reader knows that she is losing part of her herself as she goes for the procedure.  She offers her body as a living sacrifice and is left as a shell of her former self. In essence, Shannon is not becoming a new deity as Seth or Brandy would suggest. She is become what they want her to be – a shell of their former selves. It appears that the control that Shannon desires is not really control but the opposite. It is also very disturbing as the reader progresses with the story because Palahniuk jumps from one period in Shannon’s story to another – as though you’re actually watching her life on television and flicking through channels! Even the Palahniuk’s style of writing gives the reader a bird’s eye view into Shannon’s life but it does not give you the power to change the outcome. Sadly as the story unravels itself you find out that Shannon follows Brandy Alexander into all kinds of trouble – realizing that she was not in a god-figure to put hope in – she realizes that she needed an actual birds – eye view into her own life.

‘god’-parents

Chuck Palahniuk’s ‘Invisible Monsters’ has been a challenging book to read. It is a brutally honest tale about the pressures placed on women in a materialistic society. It is a most sad depiction of what this society does to the mind of young women as they battle to attain the attention that they believe is so necessary to their existence. Palahniuk is full of 21^st Century jargon and sex talk as he describes the protagonist’s, Shannon, story as a narrative. The reader can almost feel isolated by the subject matter if they cannot recognize the flurry of make-up products and high-line fashion accessories roll by on the pages. As the story unfolds, it is easy for the reader to feel the inundation and pressure of satisfying the status quo of women’s fashion and style.

It is the story of Shannon McFarlane who has suffered an incredibly life-changing car accident that leaves her face mangled and unappealing. She is a model and as assumed, the disfigurations have ended her career as well as her desire to live. Living before for the public eye was entirely what she lived for and now she must look into her past to find the depths of her inner person which has been lost in the race for beauty and affection.

Shannon reflects on her life in a non-chronological fashion as the reader progresses. Everything is non-linear with the story starting at the end of her story and periodically racing back to her childhood whilst skipping years and details in the flow. At one point in the novel, Shannon reflects on her relationship with modeling friend and confidant, Evie. Evie makes an eye opening quote in passing conversation. It appears to be the purpose statement of the entire story: “‘It’s too lonely at my real house,’ ” Evie would say, ‘And I hate how I don’t feel real enough unless people are watching.’ (Palahniuk 69). Evie and Shannon are sitting in a department store after model school classes are over. They ‘play house’ in a model kitchen and bedroom set in the department store. I am moved by how focused Palahniuk is by drawing the reader into the confines of the protagonists’ prison. The very fact that they are models playing in a model home speaks volumes to the characters’ conditions. The two girls spend all day in modeling school analyzing how they look and being analyzed by the world around them on how they look! They can’t escape their desires and at the same time do not desire to.  This is climaxed by Evie’s quote.

As the reader continues on it appears that both Evie and Shannon struggled with achieving the affections of their parents. They felt shunned by their parents in favor of their siblings and continued to struggle into adulthood with feelings of inferiority. Shannon expresses this in her own way: “‘Because I really, really, really want my brother to be dead. Because my folks want him dead. Because my life is just easier if he is dead. Because this way. I’m an only child. Because it’s my turn damn it. My turn.’” (Palahniuk 75). The delivery is stunning and shocking. Shannon gives this confessional to an equally shocked Evie. Her passion on the subject seems undeserved and is a strong contrast to the perfect model home and even the seemingly perfect models in dialogue.

I am always disturbed by the extent to which parents are actually ‘gods’ to their children. Parents automatically fill that role form birth. Nothing makes sense until they make it. We know love because of how they love, we know pain because of how they handle it or deliver it – they have created a world for us to live by which we had no control over the setting or place. When we get to the place where we realize that our parents are flesh and blood like us we look for an existential figure to fill the void. We need someone new that we can put absolute trust in. The sad thing is that they still created the world we live in and until we release them from their God-status, our parents’ dos and don’ts will forever guide our path.

Evie’s quote resonates so well with the subject of the ‘god’-parent. The attention that the girls felt was missing from their existence, made being alone and unwatched painful. It reminded them painfully of their invisibility in the eyes of their parents. Such memories were unbearable – the abandonment still as poignant as it ever was. If no one is watching who even knows we exist? In a world where parents are more commonly known for their ability to abandon family, it is not uncommon that many abandon a belief in God. If even your parents who witnessed your birth and are flesh and bone do not desire you – what would make you believe an all-powerful unseen God will? These questions leave invisible little girls and weightless little boys desperate for the attention of the world around them which is here today and gone tomorrow.

End of the Road

‘The Road’ is a classic tale of endless despair and post-apocalyptic imagery. It screams of a world where the every aspiration of warring nations and feuding corporations come to pass. Not in heroic fashion but in the bleak and utter destruction of all creation! Nothing lives and all that was beautiful is a memory.

In ‘The Road’ Cormac McCarthy takes the reader on a journey with a nameless man and his son. They travel along a road south of an unforeseen yet approaching nuclear winter. The story ends with the death of the man and so does their travels along the road. “He slept close to his father that night and held him but when he woke in the morning his father was cold and stiff. He sat there a long time weeping and then he got up and walked out through the woods to the road.” (McCarthy 281). The road in this story is a character in itself. It winds and weaves and follows the storyline. It helps the reader look into the past and is a glance into the future.

The characters are blessed and cursed by the road that guides them south. The road is almost an existential god –figure – an unexplained phenomenon that had no beginning and no end to the characters. Only by faith do they brace the trials and tribulations of traversing the road. “At the bottom of the field they crashed through a stand of dead cane and out into the road and crossed into the woods on the far side. He redoubled his grip on the boy’s wrist. ‘Run’, he whispered….if they came down the drive they would see him running through the trees with the boy…He fell to the ground and pulled the boy to him… ‘Are they going to kill us Papa? ’ ” (McCarthy 112). This portion of the book comes from the most frightening period of the book. It has appeared that the road had finally led the man and the boy to a place of refuge – an abandoned plantation house – but when they entered they were met by a devoured corpse and naked and decrepit people huddled in the basement. In terror they fled back to the road that brought them there. They could do nothing but hide in the shelter that the road brought. It would have made sense to run down the road but they would have surely been followed. They hid in the cane troughs along the road to find shelter.

The man follows the road and leads his son in the way of the road – all its curves and turns and detours. There dependency on having a way to the south – over the knowledge of where and why makes the road a very important element to the story. At the conclusion of the story, the man who has been suffering with a lung disease is finally succumbing to his ailment. He dies and leaves the boy alone in the wilderness. The boy must then surrender to the only other dependant within his bleak and sorrowful existence – the road.

“When he came back he knelt beside his father and said his name over and over again…He stayed three days and then walked out to the road…he looked down the road and he looked back the way they had come. Someone was coming.” ( McCarthy 281). At this point of the novel, the reader can be expected to have given up all hope as well. In accordance with the elements of the story, the reader cannot help but feel the ultimate despair of the boy who has just lost his father and is now against the elements on his own. The boy was left a pistol by his father – his only inheritance. He could kill himself or he could go back to his only source of hope the road. This existential and all-powerful god-figure that is the road – has brought pain as well as hope. It had to be trusted whether the boy could trust it or not. It was all that could save him now. This makes a strong conclusion to the story as the bereaved boy looks down the road at a figure coming towards him. It could have been hope embodied but it also could have been a cannibal.

“‘Where’s the man you were with?

He died.

Was that your father?

Yes. He was my papa.

I think you should come with me.

Are you one of the good guys? …

He looked at the sky. As if there was anything to be seen. He looked at the boy.

Yeah, he said. I’m one of the good guys.’ ” (McCarthy 281)

This is an incredible element of the story. When it appeared that things could not get any worse – as was accustom to the progression of the story – the road was again providing hope for tomorrow. Life was worth living again and the boy could move on. The story ends with the boy joining the new man and his family. The sovereign road knew what the boy needed and provided it aptly – or at least you could give cause to that kind of reasoning.

Hope

The word terrific is derived from the word terror. Modern English and colloquial English often uses the word terrific as the praise of something and I would like to continue that tradition but only in its finest form. ‘The Road’ by Cormac McCarthy of which I have been reading is filled with post-apocalyptic descriptions that make you terrified of the future. Terror is at every corner as the book laboriously describes the journey of a father and a son and their journey due south of what can be assumed is a forthcoming nuclear winter.

“When your dreams are of some world that never was or of some world that will never be and you are happy again then you will have given up. Do you understand? And you can’t give up. I won’t let you.” (McCarthy 189).

The son wakes from his sleep with a dream that he could not tell his father. The dream had terrified the son and so his father responded with this quotation. Because the setting of the story is so bleak, the reader wonders if it can get any worse. The hopelessness I have felt in reading this story is an accomplishment on part of the author. I hoped that the son would have dreamt of something hope-giving and at least the father would offer some sense of hope in return for his son’s terror. In the end, this quotation is all the reader is left with on this subject which leads me to believe that this was a mild sedative for the son as the continued on their harrowed journey or that this was no comfort at all and the boy was left to shoulder his nightmare alone.

There is an interesting tug and war between the father and the son in this story.

They are both together in this story for the greater good of each other but as the story progresses it is easy to see that paths are drifting apart. The father possibly having seen the world before its current desperate state has lost all hope or faith in mankind. Everyone is an enemy and only his life and his son’s life is of value. (The content of the novel would lead you to believe this). But it is interesting that though Cormac fills the reader with all this terror in describing a desperate post-apocalyptic role – hope is born ever so slightly through the eyes of the son. The son is compassionate and wants to lend a hand to bystanders on the road as his he and his father travel.

Why did the father tell his son that being happy again was giving up? Did he want him to lose hope? As if hope was the disease at root amongst them that was entertaining relief but was never to be. The disappointment of never finding that relief appears to be the Father’s most unbearable thought and so if he could rob his son of it than they could be closer together or at least he would not be alone in his despair. The comparison to be made is that it is the hopelessness of the people around them that was leading them to cannibalism and all other perversions. Hope is a human ability. It sets us apart and as the father goes farther and farther into hopelessness it is easy to see his humanity fades. Even if the future is hopeless there is hope in community, sharing and relationship. I am sounding like a humanist but this is what the son desires on his journey and I believe it can be exemplified in all strong human ties.

In today’s society, there is much to celebrate as far as freedom or choice and speech and health care. There is not much reason to lose hope but many do. There are those around the world (I know this is a commonly used ploy but entertain me a bit) who have little but are content with their lot. The onslaught of depression in this society is uncharacteristic to most of the world’s population.  It appears to me that our individualization of society has worn most people thin. People should not minimalize their neighbors problems whether depression or cancer in the body – I do not attempt to do that either! The difference that I can see in the developing nations I have seen and the developed nation I live in is community in the face of despair. Hope is contagious in community and people should not wait for the ‘big’ trials to arise before building hope in community.

Treasure

I was personally blown away by how my recent read of “The Alchemist” had ended.  In ‘the Alchemist’, the protagonist Santiago is drawn from his home in Spain; across northern Africa to Egypt.  He is in search of a treasure given to him in a dream. He reaches the Pyramids in Egypt in search of his treasure. When he arrives he finds more than his treasure.

“As he was attempting to pull out the rocks he encountered, he heard footsteps. Several figures approached him…’What are you doing here?’, one of the figures demanded. Because he was terrified, the boy didn’t answer….’What are you hiding there?’…But one of them seized the boy and yanked him back out of the hole. Another who was searching the boy’s bags, found the piece of gold. ‘He’s probably got more gold hidden in the ground’” (Coelho162).

Santiago’s journey is divided into special encounters along the way to Egypt. He meets a gypsy in Spain, the King of Salem, an English sojourner and finally a wise Alchemist who helps him learn how to listen to the Soul of the World.  The Soul of the World is the invisible force leading Santiago through experience of peril and rapturous joy. The Alchemist teaches Santiago how to listen to this invisible force for inspiration in finding his Personal legend (treasure). An Alchemist is a man of mythology who would be able to turn lead to gold.  In history an alchemist was a man who experimented with the raw sciences of the past – somewhere between chemistry and medicine. This Alchemist believed in the transformation of the material world into something new and beautiful than its original make.

“‘This is why alchemy exists,’ the boy said. So that everyone will search for his treasure, find it, and then want to be better than he was in his former life. Lead will play its role until the world has no further need for lead; and then lead will have turned itself to gold.’ ”(Coelho 150)

Santiago is brought to Egypt and takes shelter with traveling caravans of nomads fleeing tribal wars in the desert.  During his time in the desert Santiago receives an omen from the Soul of the World. An omen was a sign in nature foreshadowing uncontrollable circumstances either good or bad. The omen that Santiago receives is a call of pure terror to his traveling caravan. The tribal wars have divided the desert with marauding caravans taking their fill of the desert’s inhabitants in pursuit of wealth to fuel their war. The sheiks of Santiago’s camp are terrified by his omen. They threaten to kill him unless he can turn himself into the wind – like a real teller of omens! Santiago, who has never heard of such a miracle, is put into a strange corner with the impossible.

“The boy reached through to the Soul of The World, and saw that it was part of the Soul of God. And he saw that the soul of God was his own soul. And that he, a boy, could perform miracles…When the simum (desert wind) ceased to blow, everyone looked to the place where the boy had been. But he was no longer there; he was standing next to a sand-covered sentinel, on the far side of the camp.” (Coelho 153).

What is not explained in the quote is that Santiago meditates and communes his spirit with the wind the sun and the desert. He speaks to them about the soul of world until Santiago realizes that he is communing with the Soul of God. Santiago’s act of surrender in seeking the knowledge of God – instead of his own knowledge, helped him to see that the power to transform miracles was within himself. It was not until he was able to risk failing in transforming into the wind that he was able to be transformed.

I do not know how many times in my own life that I have been threatened by circumstance to ‘risk my life’. I am not talking about death-defying acts of any sort – though sometimes they do arrive on occasion. I am talking about my esteem, my pride, my honor, my well-being – all examples of my life. Every time I am faced with a situation that seems impossible, humbling or intimidating I am reminded that it is those moments that are my greatest moments. When life is easy and everything comes at no-cost, life is disinteresting and boring. There is no growth and no joy of achievement. Even though everything in me wants it that way, I submit to risk. I take the opportunity to deny myself – just in case, I might gain life instead.

“The boy fell to the sand, nearly unconscious. The leader shook him and said, “We’re leaving.” But before they left, he came back to the boy and said, “You’re not going to die…you’ll learn that a man shouldn’t be so stupid. Two years ago right here on this spot I had a reoccurring dream too. I dreamt that I should travel to Spain …and I was told that I would find a hidden treasure. But I’m not so stupid as to cross an entire desert just because of recurrent dream.” (Coelho 163)

When I read this I was filled with dread and amazement at the same time. What Coelho had accomplished here in the final paragraphs of this novel was spectacular. It was like an ancient proverb brought to life. It was like a treasure itself to find as I read on. The desert robber in the story had a dream about finding treasure right in the same place that Santiago had started his journey. Santiago had learned so many valuable things on his journey. He had learned how to talk to God which is undoubtly the greatest gift of all. He even learned how to turn himself into the wind! Yet the dread I felt was that this desert robbers’ dream was ignored because he failed to risk. He failed to follow his dream. God gave the dream to Santiago and he risked much to find it.

How many times in my own life have I failed to capture the precious and indispensable tenets of life because I failed to risk? Maybe just a helping hand, an opened door, a listening ear for someone who needed it could have been the open door to true treasure – which as some may know, is the pleasure and company of God. It’s nice to have those warm fuzzy feelings by doing something nice for others but I believe there is more to our lifetime here than making good for ourselves. The pursuit of self – preservation is wearing people thin and I am included. There is more to life in taking a risk and denying your pleasure or comfort for the comfort of others. It is an eternal quality that is hard to quantify. Or we can just be desert robbers, combing the desert for those who have found treasure or dare I say the ‘Soul of the World’, so we can steal it from them to make up for the dread of what we have lost?

Shepherds

I have recently completed reading ‘The Alchemist’ by Paulo Coelho. The Alchemist is a riveting tale of adventure, mystery and discovery. It is a phenomenal third person glance at the story of an Andalusian boy named Santiago. The story starts with Santiago as a shepherd boy with dreams of travel. He is sent away on a search for treasure by the guidance of the King of Salem, Melchizedek. On his journey, he is assisted by many different characters but none as namely as the Alchemist who helps him find his Personal Legend.

This is a very touching story that is full of deep meaning. The part one of the novel starts off with Santiago alone in an abandoned church. He ponders his life as a shepherd.

“If I became a monster today and decided to kill them (the sheep in his care), one by one, they would become aware only after the most of the flock had been slaughtered, thought the boy. They trust me, and they’ve forgotten how to rely on their own instincts because I lead them to nourishment”(Coelho 7).

The beauty of how this novel is written is found in the readers’ ability to interpret storylines and narratives as their own experiences. For the sake of my Bible College studies and focus on Christian leadership, I became aware of this quote through the eyes of participant observer on the local church. I tried to avoid the analogy of sheep and shepherd but it was far too compelling!

A distinct idea was drawn immediately as I read that quote. The local church can be like a helpless flock of sheep in some ways. Churchgoers are human and their leaders are no different. What happens when the one who is supposed to guide and protect is deceiving and ‘devouring’ congregants? I like how Coelho describes the sheep with this line:  “They trust me, and they’ve forgotten how to rely on their own instincts because I lead them to nourishment.” I believe in some ways, that churches have become so dependant on Biblical teaching and nourishment from their church leaders, that they have not learned how to personalize the gospel in their own lives. They have forgotten how to rely on their own instincts; they have forgotten how to lean on the Holy Spirit for guidance. How many times have churchgoers forgotten that their human pastors are just that – human!  They can become willfully deceived and disillusioned by pastors. Instead of making themselves accountable to the Bible and prayer, they can be heart-broken by ‘holier than thou’ assumptions of leadership. The only good shepherd is Christ and pastors are humbly aligned in sub-service of the good shepherd’s leading.