Go West

For Every Song, a Story:
Go West

Santa Barbara.

Communion & Liberation retreat.  “What moved Christ to compassion?”  Jesus was moved... by our need. Compassion, not contempt.  “How different than the way we look at ourselves.”

Sweet balm.  Man, did I need it.

I was mad as hell.  At my bishop, my father, my people.  Mad at myself and my heart, all cracked stone and bloody powder. I was sideways, needing something, and fast.

I ran West.  Like every man does.

Had to regain the center, the child, some softness.

Retreats to Big Sur, vast coastal spaces fighting a death match with my desire. Bloody affairs, but ah, sweet life they were.  Wrestle with that rocky, windy, salty, tall tree and wild water God, a tough terrain you just had to respect.

It hit me all at once, like a sweet violence.  Vastness without, vastness within.  The same, we were.  Kin.  Plates shift, magma boils over. 

Eruption.

First ash, lots of tired grey old ash.  Then, fissure breached.  Ah, sweet fire.  Out came the lava, out came the pen. I wrote and wrote and wrote, the words my tears, every word a fresh breath of hope.

Withered aspirations, beginning to revive.  California, she became sacrament, mouthpiece of the Almighty, tellin me it was good to be alive.

Something new began that day.  New era, new life.  Nothing easy, you won’t never hear me say that.  New.