I wonder if our struggle is irrelevant in a way.  It is relevant in the fact that in the struggle we learn, we unfold, and we become more and more ourselves but it is irrelevant that our path can cause us pain and difficulty.   I was listening to a great singer songwriter named Sam Baker talking about a song he wrote about watching a family die in front of his eyes.  He was in a train and someone had put a bomb in it.  A family of three was killed and his own body was ripped apart.  His hands, voice, ears all severely damaged.   He wrote a wonderful song called Broken Fingers about it and the interviewer was asking him about how difficult it must be to sing the song.  He replied that his struggle and difficulty singing it was irrelevant.  It was his job to tell the story, it was his job to write songs not matter how painful they might be to him.  As I struggle on my own path and I am sure as you struggle on yours I often feel like, “this is too hard, too painful, too much” but this man’s words reminded me that it is actually irrelevant in a way.  The point is to find your gifts….your God given gifts….and to pursue them no matter what.  Yes, it may be painful, hard, financially ridiculous, difficult but we must keep on the path.   We have a job to do while we are here and lessons to learn.   If we are story tellers or painters or social workers or parents we must struggle and push on.  The difficulty is part of the journey.  Nobody said it would be easy, nobody said life is about roses and soft pillows.  Our life is one big story - one big song and we have to sing it, live it because it is our job to live it no matter where it takes us with arms open. 

We were in Yreka, CA last weekend playing a summer concert and as we were playing the song Just Say Anything I was feeling very centered, very in the moment.  As we reached the end of the song and it began to build I looked down to see a girl with downs-syndrome who had been dancing the whole time standing at the front of the stage with her arms wide open singing as loud as she could with head tilted back and eyes to the sky.  She has struggles and problems I cannot imagine but there she was arms wide open and with strained voice singing out loud.   May we all learn from that one beautiful moment.

If you get a chance check out Sam Baker at www.sambakermusic.com His album Mercy and Pretty World are wonderful.  He ends each album with a song that has the line “everyone is at the mercy of another one’s dreams.”  Which is a post unto itself.  I posted both songs here.

Broken Fingers off of the album Pretty World

Mercy off of the album Mercy

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“Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing true or beautiful makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore, we are saved by love.”

~Reinhold Niebuhr~

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The promise of absolutely everything you want is what this world full of 9 to 5 jobs, credit cards, and commercials offers us.  So beautiful is it’s siren’s call we widen our eyes and get in line and then wait and wait and wait.   Sometimes we figure out ways to push our way forward to get ahead, to get more.   Never noticing that with each push forward we are only losing, never gaining, only the illusion of gain. How cheaply we sell ourselves…..our moments….our sunrises…..our passion…..our family…..our children….our breathe for paper clips and check stubs.  The trick is not to get absolutely everything you want but to gratefully and grace-full-ly accept everything you absolutely need, even when it is painful –to see clearly that the things we need, the things that are life giving, light breathing are the very things that we toss aside (often gleefully encouraged to), ignore, run from, fear, and bury because they are not always easy.  There is struggle involved.  There is the facing and accepting of things we would rather not face nor accept so we sell - everything must go - passion, integrity, life, heat, light, the feeling of being alive all must go for the promise of getting EVERYTHing we think we want…..better car…better house….easier life.  And when everything we wanted breaks down, as it most inevitably does, what are we left with?  When the repo man comes and claims what is his are we not left with only the ashes of life that could have been?  Do we only realize then, that we sold everything of value for nothing of substanance.  Do we realize that we have been gorging ourselves on sand?  It is time for us to turn our head and leave behind our pursuit of everything we absolultely want and begin the struggle towards accepting everything we absolutely need.

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Something that rang true to my heart as I sat underneath the trees today reading.

If God is found in our hard times, then all of life, no matter how apparently insignificant or difficult, can open us to God’s work among us.  To be grateful does not mean repressing our remembered hurts.  But as we come to God with our hurts –honestly, not superficially– something life changing can begin slowly to happen.  We discover how God is the One who invites us to healing.  We realize that any dance of celebration must weave both the sorrows and the blessings into a joyful step.  ~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

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There is an interesting story in Luke in the Bible.  Jesus is talking to his disciples about prayer and he tells a story of a man who has unexpected guests and has no food for them.  So, he goes to the house of a friend and knocks on the door asking for bread.  The friend says “no”, the kids are asleep, the door is locked and he can’t get up to give him anything.  The man keeps knocking on the door…..knocking on the door.  Jesus says that if you keep knocking,  standing your ground, waking up the neighbors and because the man is your friend, he will get up and give you whatever you need.  Jesus goes on to say, “Ask and you shall receive” and to “be direct” with God.  His point in this story regarding prayer seems to be to keep asking….to be persistent…..to keep struggling, to keep pleading, to stand your ground, and to keep knocking until the door is answered.  It is not quite as simple as sending up a prayer and the next day getting what you want.  Jesus speaks of struggling and keeping at it even if nothing comes because eventually something will.   I am reminded of a story that Benjie in the band told me years ago of his teacher Livingston Taylor at the Berkelee School of Music asking the class what the most important thing was to make it in music.  After several answers of Talent, Skill, practice…etc he finally said it was persistence.  I think when we are persistent about something it is because our heart is there….love is there…and in a way God is there, the one who put this passion inside of us.    Persistence implies some passion.  What are you persistent about in your life?  What are you persistent about in your prayers to God?  The point seems to be to keep calling out in the darkness for an answer, to keep knocking on the door with bended knee until the door creaks open and the light hits us and the bread we have been asking for is given.  It is not an easy answer but it is an honest one.  Too many religious charlatens speak of prayer as an ATM that requires little thought and energy but if we are to truly be people of the spirit than we must realize that prayer takes more effort, more heart, more presistence than that.

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As I struggle with all the things life can throw at you sometimes: doubts, old family wounds, fear, feeling lost….I keep coming to the questions that always need to be asked.  Where is God in this?  What can I learn from this….what is the lesson for me here?  Where is God in this suffering and most importantly, Where is the Gift in this for me?  When I do this, it centers me and suddenly the darkness is just a temporary passing like a car on freeway.  Too often our response to life is to shut down, hide away, distract ourselves, scream without listening, ask without giving space our silence for an answer.  More important than the answer….is to ask the questions.

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The things that we get attached to in this life often lead us to folly: an idea, or concept, or passion, or principle, is nothing if it is static or we wish it to be static…..never changing.  When I hold on to old ideas of someone or something I get tied down and the tension begins.  “Why won’t things be the way I want them”, I ask myself or at least I think that is the question and frustration deep inside the brain.  The soul moves and adapts and accepts like water and when I am at my best I remember this.  I don’t hold on to old hurts, I don’t judge people for who I think they are based on who they were, I bend and sway when the wind blows cold and hard instead of running full force with rusty sword in hand into it (this only leaves me worn out and tired and usually broken) and most importantly I don’t close out the light inside of me and hide it away under some false sense of protecting it…..it only thrives and bursts when I let it burn….unabashed, unprotected, reckless and without so many strings - ropes - twine holding it down and in.

5 a.m., Be Still, Five A.M., God\, christianity, faith, life, peace, prayer, religion, spirituality, trent yaconelli, trust | 1 Comment »

The band and I are off on a radio tour to help promote the CD.  If you are in the area of any of these stations please call in and let them know you appreciate Five A.M. being played on their station.  Thanks all.  I will get back to writing soon.

Monday May 12 Eugene OR 11:30AM KRVM live on air

Tuesday May 13 Portland OR Noon KINK live on air at 3:30 p.m.

Wed. May 14 Seattle WA 11:30AM  KMTT (The Mountain) live for staff

Thursday May 15 Spokane WA - Sand Point ID 2:00 KPND live on air

Friday May 16 Kalispell, MT  11:00 KVRO live on air

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Got a few emails regarding writing more to be honest I am just plain too tired these days.  I have a lot I would like to write about but with the band taking off right now and life always taking off it is hard to find some quiet time when I am not exhausted.  I will try and get something posted this weekend.  The Be Still video is still on, it just got postponed as the band does some Radio promo touring and work on promoting the new album.  Should be back writing and running on nothing but coffee next week. 

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A few weeks ago I finished playing a gig at the Rockit room in San Francisco, walked off the stage, got in my car and headed for Yreka to attend a funeral.  As I drove through the night I was listening to some of the last talks that my dad gave for possible use in an upcoming book my family is putting together.  My father had a few stories about funerals.  Funerals he gave for people who had been hurt and damaged by the church and never returned.  One story was of a woman whose son committed suicide and the church refused to do the service or let him into the cemetery.  She had attended the church her whole life. My Dad began that service by apologizing to the woman on behalf of the church and said she was right to not attend anymore because it was not in line with anything that Jesus would have done.   As I drove into the wee hours of the morning I remember shaking my head and thinking, “who are these people” and what is wrong with them to believe they had the right to exclude people from God’s grace.  Around 4:30 a.m. I pulled over around Mt. Shasta to get a hotel.  I couldn’t find one available or at a decent price so I moved on.  I knew of a Motel 6 not too far so I decided to go there, right before I got there I saw another hotel off the freeway and for some reason cut across the lanes to exit even though it was probably too expensive for a 4 hour stay.  I walked in to see a very tired looking woman with dark circles around her eyes sitting behind the desk.  I asked her about a room and she said they were full but then said she had a suite and would give it to me for cheap so I took it.  When I told her my name she looked up and said, “Any relation to Mike Yaconelli?”  I told her yes and then she began to say some very nice things about my Dad but she also began to speak about her life.  She said she was involved heavily in the church, doing missionary work, training missionaries and that her husband had talked about being a pastor but then he got sick.  He has had 15 surgeries and then recently spiraled into a depression.  The Church she said has run from them since that happened and now her kids don’t want to have anything to do with church after seeing its treatment of their father.  I understood now that the tiredness I saw on her face was not from lack of sleep but from a weary heart that has been pushed and cast aside.  I looked at her and said, “I am so sorry.”  She looked away and then I said again, “no really I am so sorry that happened to you.  It is ironic that the people that should be running towards you in your time of need are often the ones that run away.”  She looked away again and then began speaking of my room and how to get there.  As I went up to my room I felt I needed to do more so I wrote this letter to her and sent it to the hotel.

A ~

~For some reason I felt compelled to write you.  I feel that I came across your path for a reason so here it goes.  When Jesus was alive he had many problems with religious people and those who spoke for the church just as you have but remember they do not speak for God or Jesus.  Anyone who claims to has just proven that they are in fact not.  The beauty of Jesus is that we do not need the church to find him, speak to him, listen to him and follow him.  Do not let the people who claim to be the gatekeepers push you off the path or darken your heart.  Their only intention is to not go in themselves and to keep everyone out as Jesus himself pointed out.  I believe that Jesus would be disappointed with these people who use his name in order to exclude others while exalting themselves but that is not for us to know.  Our only goal in this life is to stay true to our hearts and seek out the soft whisper of God where ever that may lead us.  Your children are right to not want to attend that church because their hearts have told them the truth….”this is not how spiritual people behave.” They understand that the real Jesus would not behave in this way.   Do not mistake the Church or these gatekeepers as God’s megaphone.  God needs no megaphone to reach you, he is already present in you and it is underneath the noise that you will always find him.  I wish you, your family, and your husband peace and healing during this time of hardship.   ~

Maybe it is not my place to apologize for the actions of others to be honest I really don’t know.   I think it is our job as people who are struggling to follow the voice to reach out and help our fellow travelers when they get knocked down because when we do than maybe we open a window in our own souls for God to shine through us.

5 a.m., Five A.M., God\, Jesus, Uncategorized, christianity, faith, life, mike yaconelli, peace, prayer, religion, spirituality | 4 Comments »

“ Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredom and pain of it, no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste and smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it, because in the last analysis, all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.”

~ Frederick Buechner

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The will of the One who sent us is that we be the one who was sent.  What we do is meant to be lived out of the context of discovering and becoming the person we are.  ~ Robert Benson

 How many of us have let the world, society, our friends, our family distort who it is we really are and thus not fulfill the will of the One who sent us.  Underneath our skin our heart remembers the instructions it was given.  It tries to tell us by jumping out of our chests when we do something that makes us feel alive and gives God pleasure.  At what price have we all sold ourselves and the chance to please God when we waste our time with Jobs we hate, places we can’t stand to live, relationships we are too lazy to leave or fix, things that we need to say that we leave tucked away, or opportunities that we are given to grow and burn bright that we ignore?  At one point in my life I sat in my apartment too afraid to live, too apathetic to try but then I felt God’s pleasure when I played my guitar and sang and I let the quick beating of my heart begin to lead the way.   I wasted quite a few years that I will never get back but the important thing now is that I have begun and it is never too late.  Every moment contains the chance to begin again.

As you read this in your office or home take a moment to look around you, take a moment to search the dark corners inside of you and ask yourself: When do you feel God’s pleasure and what are you prepared to do right now in this very moment to pursue it?

5 a.m., Be Still, God\, christianity, faith, life, peace, prayer, religion, spirituality, trent yaconelli, vocation | 2 Comments »

I had a close friend of the family pass away over the weekend.  I head home on Thursday to the funeral.  It is strange thinking that we are all marching towards this cliff.  Each generation slowly moving towards its end as bit by bit people drop off until finally there is no one left but the generation behind us.  I was reading Robert Benson’s book Between the Dreaming and the Coming True and he was speaking of how we have come from God and will return to God.  So what is the point?  The point that he makes that totally rings true to me is it must be because we are here to learn something.  If you believe that God knew us before we were born and whispered our name and thus our life into existence than you believe that before you were…..you were.  So why are we here?  If you are totally in God’s pressence and Grace than how can you understand Grace, Mercy, compassion, love, sorrow, pain, peace, loneliness…etc.   How can we understand ”hello” if we have never said good-bye. We are here to learn and experience this separation from the One so we can truly understand. 

I think of my sons.  Before I had them I had some sort of concept of Grace but not really.   I thought I really understood love when I married my wife but marriage is based on both unconditional and conditional love.  I never really understood loving someone no matter what and without conditions.  I don’t think I ever would have if not for my children.  The moment they were born the lesson began.  My depth of understanding love and the reaches of my love extended beyond.  Suddenly I began to understand God’s grace for us because I recognized it in the love I have for my children.  No matter what they do in life I will love them absolutely even when they do something I do not approve of because it is a love not based on conditions.  How could I have ever had some concept of the grace given to me if I had never experienced giving it myself?  We are here to learn.  So as many teachers have said look  at each experience of sorrow, joy, loss, laughter, grief, anger, peace, and love as a new chance to learn and broaden yourself.   What a difficult but wonderful way to look at the world and each experience that comes into our lives.  Looking at each moment, emotion and experience and asking, ”what does this have to teach me.”   The world is nothing more than a giant classroom but one in which can either greet each day ready to learn or as another chance to ignore by accepting the rules meant to distract such as “he who dies with the most toys wins.”  The lessons we are here to learn are always arriving, always being presented to us.  It is up to us to decide if we are ready to grab our notebooks and pencils and be students.

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Some updates for the Be Still video.  First I would like to say how wonderful and amazing that so many fans and ML blog readers want to be apart of this video.  We are feeling like this thing could really be big if we do it right.  I thought I would do an update because many of you have been emailing.  Right now we are putting together a list of suggestions for the signs and people who want to be a part of the video.  We are going to be setting up days for people in certain areas to meet with the directors and camera men to get shots and we will also have many of you do video shots on your own.  For those of you on your own we will contact you with specifics: sign height, camera angle, rez…etc.  For those of you who have some ideas or issues that you would like to speak to the directors please email me or  the two head directors Don Lewis and Dustin Gould.  dlew022@gmail.com  and dcg47films@aol.com 

 We are trying to have the video shot and edited by the end of April.  We are also changing the format to say, “Be Still for…”  For example “Be Still for Hope”  “Be still for Peace”  “Be Still for those without a voice”  It makes it more universal.  Once again, SUGGESTIONS are still wide open and so far the band, the directors and myself love all of the suggestions coming in so keep them coming.  I will update again next week when we have a concrete deadline.  Thanks everyone.  Oh yes, and please pass this along to anybody you know around the world and the country who have video cameras and would be willing to shoot something for the vid. 

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My son started T-ball last week.  He is 4, turning 5 in a few days.  I sat out on the grass watching him run out to work on catching flys with one of the coaches and my heart sank just a little bit as I realized……now it begins: the competition, the sizing up, who has the best arm, who is the fastest, who can hit, who cannot.  The world would start to influence my son no matter what I did or did not do from now on; bit by bit.  As I sat and watched I observed a kid probably the same age as my son get hit in the face with line drive.  His first instinct was to run to his dad who was out in the field as an assistant coach but then one of the coaches began yelling, “nice stop! Way to go! Now pick it up and toss it in.”  The boy stood there for a moment and then reached down, picked up the ball, spun around and fired it back in.  “All right way to go Champ!  Walk it off!  Way to take one for the team!” The coach yelled out.  The boy clearly hurt was looking towards his Dad, looking at the ground and then back to his Dad.  He wanted to run to his Dad and be held - to be comforted for a moment but the world was already beginning its lesson to a young boy, “Hide your pain.  Never show weakness.  Stuff it down.”  The boy stood for a second longer staring at the ground and he began to shake.  His Dad, who seemed just as confused as what to do also, finally seemed to say, “screw it” and walked straight to his son and hugged him, asking the boy if he was ok.  The boy embraced his dad and cried for a while and then went back to playing.  That was all he needed.  Just a moment with his Dad.  Just a moment when someone said, “hey are you ok?” and showed some compassion, some concern. 

This is who we should be as spiritual people…as people who believe in God and a higher power.  We are the people who are not interested in the lessons being taught by the world, in fact we disrupt it.  When we see pain and suffering we walk towards it, we embrace it, we hold a person’s hand when there is nothing to be said and we love no matter what.  We ignore the noise of the world telling us to stuff it down, to hold it in, to smile when we feel like crying - to ignore, deminish and side step.  We speak the truth but more importantly - MOST importantly - we live it.  This little scene that played out on the great baseball field of life happens every single day of every single moment with our husbands and wives, lovers and friends, children and family…etc.   And in each of those moments we are given a chance to practice.  We are given a chance to embrace.  We are given a chance to not only save but to be saved. 

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