Dear Reader,
In the spirit of keeping things real, I haven’t felt much like writing this week. This past Sunday evening, I sat with a friend (a first responder) who started her day with a call to an early morning murder-suicide; from there, I felt weary and depressed - by more shootings, more immigration woes, and more immoral policies and increasing deficits going unquestioned.
Unknowingly, several readers picked up my spirits this week in response to last Friday’s Spring Break edition. I received this short note of encouragement from a busy wife and mother:
“Thank you for your encouragement/challenge in Second Drafts this week. Everything from your Spring Break introduction to your call to pursue the ordinary. That's all I have time to say this morning, but it is as heartfelt as can be. Please remember to love your family well today. They are a GREAT treasure!”
This email of fatherly solidarity came in yesterday:
“These thoughts (RE: Spring Break) resonate with me so much. As a father of many children, I carry this society-imposed expectation that I should be out there running the roads like Clark Griswold, giving my brood ‘memories’ that will, in turn, make them better people and thankful for having such a glorious paterfamilias.
One problem is I've too often been overworked and underpaid for much of my children's years. The idea of taking any time off (during Spring or Summer) usually came at quite a cost. Another problem is that, as an unreconstructed introvert (with irredeemable bookworm tendencies), the idea of long hours consumed at theme parks, beaches, or other traditional ‘vacation’ fare seemed exhausting.
At this point in my email, I should probably insert some deft twist of how I've managed to untangle this issue. But I haven't. My children remain encumbered with their utter mediocrity of a father.
Such is life.”
Finally, this message from a former teaching colleague meant a lot as well:
“Say, Craig, I thought I should mention that I've much enjoyed your Second Drafts, particularly the last couple of them. I hope they are as much fun to write as they are to read, though I know that few things worth reading seldom are. At any rate, well done, and best to you and the rest of the Dunhams.”
I keep waiting for hate mail, but my subscribers are too kind. So, after a heavy week (and as a way of saying thanks), I’m treating you to something lighter for this weekend. Thanks to those who wrote, and whether you wrote or not, thanks as always for reading.
Craig
Hot Takes
In light of the week it’s been, I’m taking a break from Hot Takes. Go home, world, you’re drunk.
Hold on Tight (with Open Hands)
Just yesterday (maybe it was yesterday - I don’t do much on LinkedIn, so it might have been a while ago), I received this message:
“Hi, Craig. I was a camper at Eagle Lake in the mid-90’s and was impacted by your music. Some lyrics have resonated deeply at different seasons - ‘So I’ll hold on tight with open hands, my wildest dreams and best made plans...’ Would you be willing to share the full lyrics to this song? Peace.”
I perused the profile and saw a bearded man wearing a coat and tie looking back at me, reminding me how old I am. The “mid-90’s” (when I was in my mid-20’s) were 25 years ago, I thought to myself; this man is probably at least 35, maybe even 40 by now. Always honored to hear from campers from back in the day, I typed out a response:
“Great hearing from you (and forgive me if this is a slow response to your request). Let me do you one better in terms of ‘Hold On Tight (with Open Hands)’; here's a link where you can download the song, so enjoy! Thanks for touching base. It means a lot that the song meant something to you. It still does to me.”
I then uploaded the song to SoundCloud and listened to it a few times before copying the link and hitting the “send” button. In doing so, I remembered (vaguely) writing the song back in 1994, as well as why it’s always been a personal favorite.
About the Song
Keep in mind, I recorded this song 27 years ago. To my ears at least, the arrangement sounds only a bit dated (my producer, Lori Shane, used to call me “King of the Boop Boops” because of all the percussion I used to enjoy programming), and though I’ve never been a true lead vocalist, I was at least developing a style that I didn’t mind hearing over and over by that second album (I had recorded my first camp album the year before, which is not as fun for me to listen to since that was my first singing lead).
Musically, “Hold on Tight (with Open Hands)” was one of the first songs I ever wrote and recorded that turned out almost exactly as I first heard it in my head. All of us are products of our influences, and I was always a big Phil Collins fan; thus, it’s no surprise that the keyboard sounds, percussion track, and big gated snare drum sound the way they do (even if 13 years after Face Value…ahem).
Around that time (1994, not 1981), I remember coming across Howard Jones’ 1992 album, In the Running, whose final cut, “City Song,” gave me a musical template for a long, slow-building song, over which I also heard in my head an extended Emerson, Lake, and Palmer analog outro that musically matched the “setting of the face toward Jerusalem” lyric and vibe. Engineer and keyboardist extraordinaire Mike Hilger played that synth part (he also programmed the bass) and simply made the thing soar.
Lyrically, these were the words of a 23-year-old trying to find his way. One year out of college, single (but not wanting to be), and living in Jack and Shaunda McQueeney’s basement along with their four young kids - Katlyn, Kelsey, Cole, and Cara - in Colorado Springs, I was a year into raising financial support, living below the poverty line, and trying to help turn around a struggling Christian summer camp.
In addition to the marketing and promotion, I spent a lot of time alone on the road following up and recruiting campers, and (unfortunately) much less time than I wanted writing and recording music for the summers (it used to be that artists took an entire year to write and record an album; I had to do it in a month). Oh, and I was also trying to figure out who I was and how to follow Jesus, both of which felt like futile attempts at times.
Meeting Megan
To complicate things even more, I’d met Megan the previous summer (she had been on the kitchen staff at Eagle Lake), but neither of us knew what to do about each other then or during the school year, as she was still in college at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater. Though the hemispheres of my brain were just beginning to connect as a young male, I was thankfully beginning to put some things together about who she was and might end up being in my life.
Unbeknownst to Megan (I didn’t communicate my intentions to her until the end of that year, basically proposing marriage when I proposed we begin courting), several of my journal entries at the beginning of 1994 were about her, with this one - dated February 7 - being the most bold:
“Turned 23 on Saturday and would have forgotten completely about it had not Megan King (from OSU) remembered with a card and present.
Speaking of Megan, last night was so strange as she was all I was thinking about. Finally (and almost out of frustration), I sat up in bed and prayer for Megan - confidence, quiet spirit, find the man the Lord has for her. Then I thought of Proverbs 31 and I really meditated on the idea of charm and beauty fleeting, but really trying to find a woman who fears the Lord, one like Megan.
There’s something about Megan that is very attractive to me - her dorm room is a page out of Victoria Magazine and her creativity is amazing when she sews, pastes, etc. She would make a wonderful mother and a tremendously supportive wife and partner. Her attention to details and the many ways she always encourages me often causes my heart to run ever so slightly her way. She still seems young in her walk but I see her heart - so pure - hidden beneath her many insecurities of merely being a young girl on her way to becoming a woman of excellence. Last night she was heavy on my heart and I prayed for her, both as a friend for a friend and as a husband for his wife.”
It was sometime in the midst of all this that I read Luke 14:25-33 and penned the music and lyrics for “Hold on Tight (with Open Hands)”. My only journal entry alluding to the song is from March 9, 1994, when I was writing on the farm in Illinois the week before I made my way to Chicago, where I recorded:
“Thankful for the extra time as well as the good work done yesterday and this morning. ‘Hold on Tight (with Open Hands)’ is going to be unreal.”
While perhaps too overly impressed with myself, I remember being simply grateful that the song was coming together - not only musically, but also in capturing lyrically so much of the doubt and confusion of what I had been wrestling through personally. Those are always the best and truest songs. Here are the lyrics:
“Well, here I am again, Lord
Both hands behind my back
I’m hiding what You’re wanting
And hoping You won’t ask
To give to You this life I’m holding
To let it go and lay it on the line
But I know this life is not my own, Lord
I cannot keep what is not mineSo I’ll hold on tight with open hands
My wildest dreams and my best made plans
I pray I’ll see and understand what life can be
When I hold on tight with open handsLike the man who builds a tower
I’ve thought about the cost
Of being Your disciple
Of carrying my cross
Like the king about to go to battle
Who finds out there’s no way to win
I come to You broken and defeated
Not giving up, just giving inAnd I’ll hold on tight with open hands
My wildest dreams and my best made plans
I pray I’ll see and understand what life can be
When I hold on tight with open handsShow me You’re faithful, Lord, to always walk beside me
Speak to my heart so that I know
That You will uphold my life with the righteous of Your hands
If I will just open mine and let goAnd hold on tight with open hands
My wildest dreams and my best made plans
I pray I’ll see and understand what life can be
When I hold on tight with open hands”
The thing I love about the song is the resolution at the end; not a resolution satisfied with an answer (particularly since one is never given), but one of being resolved to the journey, regardless of where it leads. As the song finds its groove and the synth and drums really kick in, I imagine a weary traveler - having taken rest and pondered and prayed along an endlessly dusty road - rising to his feet, slinging his backpack over his shoulder, and setting off again into the unknown, determined to eventually arrive at the destination God would show him.
Maybe this is what the former camper - then in his early teens, now possibly in his early forties - needed: a song to resonate with as to how hard things can be, as well as a reminder to keep going and to trust - to hold on tight with open hands, which is as impossible a paradox to mentally embrace as to physically do.
But this the call of Jesus: to consider the cost, to recognize the battle, and to respond in faith by following Him. This is all - and everything - we are called to do. As the Scriptures remind us,
“Blessed are those whose strength is in You,
whose hearts are set on pilgrimage.”
Psalm 84:5 (NIV)
Well, here I am again, Lord…
Posterity: “We Aren’t the World”
Each week, I choose a post from the past that seems apropos of something (of course, you’re always welcome to search the archives yourself whenever you like).
This week’s Posterity post is from February 10, 2008. Titled, “We Aren’t the World: On Today’s Music,” it gets a little at what I still find lacking in popular music these days.
Peaches’ Picks
Just started this one this week. Ross Douthat, a Catholic who writes an opinion column a couple times a week for the New York Times, introduces plenty of cultural comparison of 21st century America with that of the now defunct Roman Empire, and his so-called “four horsemen” of stagnation, sterility, sclerosis, and repetition are an analytical deep dive into American decadence.
Douthat sums up his intro with the words of fellow Catholic G.K. Chesterton, who said, “There was nothing left that could conquer Rome, but there was also nothing left that could improve it.” As Douthat writes, “...the dilemma that...Chesterton described is now not Rome’s but ours.”
Fresh & Random Videos
Here's a really well-done video and accompanying article about the potential and future of quantum computing. My company, Montana Instruments, is part of IonQ’s supply chain, and one of our designs makes a cameo at 3:25.
After two-and-a-half months of Sunday afternoon recording sessions, I’m hanging up my cravat as Tom Parker and saying farewell to Jane Austen’s Sanditon. Here is the final episode of our Sanditon sequel - Parker Brothers Build the Boardwalk - written, directed, and produced by my good friend, Carol Lisa OBrien, and meticulously edited by friend Jay Smith and his theatrical enabler, Kim (also an Eagle Lake alum).
Other shout-outs go to my youngest daughter Millie as Alison Heywood (who did not get her stellar acting ability from me), Caroline Knight, Founder and Chair of the Jane Austen Literacy Foundation (and also our narrator), as well as the rest of the 30 or so members of the cast from all over the world (Australia, UK, Ireland, Canada, U.S.) who made this a fun and unique experience during COVID times.
Until next week…
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