Why write when you can show? Well, why show when you can sing?
I was born across the state line. I was born in the nearest hospital from our home. Sometimes, when a small human bursts from a uterus, you find the nearest hospital from your home. So, I am Kansas-born and Missouri-raised.
I live now on that same small piece of land, near my birthplace, land which belongs to the Osage people. Osage means, “calm water,” or “mid-water,” and this name is the essence of the Ozarks.
The Lake of the Ozarks is not far from me. It was created from the damming of the Osage River in the early twentieth century. At the time being the largest man-made lake in the United States, it proclaims the dichotomy of this land: the beautiful reminder of the unfailing healing that I find in it, and the painful insistence that we have taken it hostage.
I seek reconciliation, a little at a time, as I stick my fingers in the dirt, as I prune my apple trees, and as I prepare this place for inhabitance. The church folks often talk about the temple, a peculiar name we have for the body and the soul. This temple is a sacred institution. I am reminded that as this temple is inhabited by holiness, the spaces we inhabit also become sacred, the people we see are also clothed with dignity. I am reminded that the Lord does not labor on a home in which he does not intend to live. And so if I expect the Lord living in my temple to change me, how then could I not expect the land I’m on to be changed, to be redeemed, and for the people I’m with to be lifted up, also?
As a child, my mother read Laura Elizabeth Ingalls Wilder to me, and I grew up playing the fiddle, like Laura’s father. That music lifted my spirits, and to this day, reminds me of home. I attended university in Midtown Detroit, and I found myself at graduation holding a degree in Music Composition and a minor in English. I then, obviously, started working in the automotive industry.
Wilder is strange for me now, with her brilliance and blindness, with her moments of holy portrayals of white family and horrific portrayals of native family. But she still holds this truth, which to me, is self evident: that our stories define us.
My own life is strange to me now, too. I am a pseudo industrial engineer, process designer, and tree hugger. My joys are writing words and sounds, listening to words and sounds, and hearing the wind touch the tall trees on my small farm, and singing with the birds in the early spring.
I am a student of one Jesus of Nazareth, a man who, like me, worked with his hands, and a child who, like me, was born across the state line. You probably know by now that my writing often pokes the church and the evangelical culture in which I was raised. Some folks think me a stick in the mud, which might be gloomy or glorious, depending on your willingness to play in the rain.
If you claim to be Christian, don’t tell me. Show me. But if you claim to love Jesus, don’t show me, sing to me.
Oh, this is where I write. I guess you already know that.
Love, John
Regarding Life 