Sic semper
It’s not that screaming my head off is the goal, or a stated intention upon waking, or caused by a valued colleague of the yoga persuasion doing her good deed of soothing the populous with spine stretches and a mediation on lovingkindness to yourself, your friends, and not your enemies, because that’s a strong word, but those who might have rankled you, and now open your eyes…
I dig her work. (And her patience. She’s seen me before.) She finished. Showtime. Somehow, the microphone suggested something once the speakers were plugged in and said populous waited for their music expectantly.
You see, a DJ speaks to the people with a microphone, but who speaks to the DJ? The microphone. He gives advice like Sic semper tyrannis et amicis qui non saltant–Thus always to tyrants and friends who do not dance.
Today he said Hey man, remember those auctioneer videos you watched?
Suddenly, I did.
“DO I HAVE A SONG REQUEST? I HAVE ONE-SONG-REQUEST-DO-I-HAVE-TWO-YES-I-HAVE-TWO-SONG-REQUESTS-DOWN-HERE-NOW-DO-I-HEAR-THREE-THREE-TO-THE-LADY-IN-THE-BACK-NOW-FOUR-NOW-FIVE-FIVE-SONG-REQUESTS…”
And we were off, kind of like that time my brother calmed the cat down and I showed up with a laser pointer.
(Big thanks to the funky crew out at the VA home in Richmond for getting this song stuck in my head for days. I dig it.)
Then I talked to a new pal who’s got a cross to bear and a storm cloud on the horizon. He had a request. A good one. So I played it. More people had more good songs to hear, so we played them, and we all lived the afternoon together, frail, eternal, falling, rising, singing, listening.
The more people tell me about living, the more I take things seriously–like grief, flowers, dying, the chicken dance, taking a moment to say hello, and funk songs.
Another pal in another home casually referred to “my ministry”. What an idea. What an idea. I’m still chewing on it. Man that’s something to live up to with every fiber, with utmost humility, aiming for a purity of effort that someday might be worthy of that title; a glimmer in the jungle of irrelevant things, something to strive for. What could possibly be a better goal?
Man that hit like a ton of bricks.
What’s yours?
–Josh