"The Times are a-Changing So Fast that We are a-Dizzy" (Dec. 2008)

I know in my monthly musings here that I have both marveled at and lamented the dizzying pace of change in our lives. Still, when I reflect on all that has transpired in the four weeks since I last sat at this desk to share my thoughts with you, I am astounded and astonished.

While Bob Dylan's words became an anthem for the tumultous 60s, what I hear in my head these days is a cacophony, plain and simple. In these past few weeks, we have witnessed history with Barack Obama's election, and horrific tragedy through terrorism in Mumbai. We have watched Wall Street collapsing, and a deadly stampede at Wal-Mart by a herd hellbent on saving a few bucks on holiday gift-giving. Gas prices have dropped over a dollar a gallon, and a whole lot more people are getting busy looking for new gigs to feed their families.

We hear frightful comparisons to the Great Depression, and stories of hope many of us never dreamed we'd hear in our lifetime. Regardless of how these events may or may not have affected you personally, one must be aware of the uniqueness of these times we're living in, and I'm sure like me you wonder - what next?

I don't have the answers, any more than people who get paid a lot more than I and are supposed to be experts seem to. What I can tell you is where I have been during these weeks - in people's houses. That's right, with other people, in their own homes.

In the past few weeks I have done house concerts in some incredible and unique homes. A house built by hand and heart bit by bit over three decades from recovered wood and materials along the shores of Cape Cod. A sunset vista nestled just beneath the Blue Ridge Parkway high above downtown Asheville NC. An over 200 year old working farm near Schenectady NY. And an exquisitely restored barn on a hilltop right here in Loudoun County, and straight out of Southern Living magazine. From all these disparate settings, with different people, many of whom I've not met previously, I found a common theme.

We need music now more than ever. It has been easy for us to let it slip away from us these past few years, as our lives have gotten busier, and content pours into our homes from computers and cable, radios and mobile devices. We've gotten tuned into the sounds of music as the soundtrack to something else we're doing, humming away in the background, perhaps to save ourselves from the sounds of silence.

But over these last few weeks, I have felt lucky and privileged to be a momentary focal point - a source for stories and a safe haven for emotions that we too often let get buried beneath the onslaught of the Information Age. Just as Woody Guthrie's songs can bring our imagination back to the Depression or the Dust Bowl, or Dylan's songs became the soundtrack to the turmoil that defined the "Assassination Generation", so too do these hard times require companionship of melody and rhythm, lyric and meter. I've heard so many heartwarming comments after these shows lately, from people grateful for the stories and for the reminder that music did and does matter to them greatly.

This isn't meant to be a story about me, or my music, but to make a bigger point. Your soundtrack to these difficult days is already here as well constantly being created - in playlists and CDs, in concert halls and living room parlor concerts. It's beckoning you, ready to be your companion again, to comfort, to remember, to touch, to heal. If my songs or albums play some small role in that soundtrack in these weeks and months ahead, I'd be honored. But more importantly, perhaps the challenge of navigating such tumultuous change is that we need to remember to bring some things familiar and welcome along with us into a brave new and scary world.

Meanwhile, I too am eager to see where things go, and how things play out. Hope is a powerful thing. Many greeted the election results with understandable disappointment and more. But no doubt most of us never dreamed we would see this event in our lifetime. Rather than focus on the specifics, I say instead that if this is possible, what else might be too?

No doubt the road ahead will have bumps, hairpin turns and steep dropoffs, like the one winding its way up the side of the mountain to that house concert near Asheville. But it is a new road, and throughout my life that has always been enough to excite me - to seek what lies around the next bend and over the next horizon. Let the journey continue, into those uncharted lands ahead.

With apologies for the length of my thoughts this month, I sign off with two final thoughts. Thank you. For reading. For coming to those house concerts, or hosting them. For listening to my music, and for being interested in what this one of six billion people on planet Earth has to say. I am deeply moved that you do, and deeply grateful. And to you and yours during the holiday season upon us during these historic times, remember that much of what we have brought with us in our hearts and heads to each holiday season is still here. May those time-honored things bring joy and grounding to your home, and may the music ring loud and clear.

Happy holidays from our home to yours!