Arcadia

Did I ever tell you I saw Ladysmith Black Mambazo perform live? You would’ve liked it, I think, or at least I hope. It was in Los Angeles, the downtown part, which your mother and I did not really frequent that often. We stayed mostly in the Pasadena area. Except every once in a while, we would take off and go really far away – sometimes as far away as Northern California. Or we would go to San Diego or maybe just over to the west side of that great city. I wish you could see it, like we saw it. No doubt you’ll make it back out there again. I figure that will be a quest you’ll always sense you need to make – especially when you start to hear people’s reactions when you tell them you were born in Arcadia, California.

It really is quite amazing to think you were born there. Arcadia, I think, holds special worth in the subconscious of humanity – a certain ideal city even back to the great philosophers of the early civilized world. Where did I just read that, in a commentary on the Gospel of John if I’m not mistaken? This is what I found in the dictionary:

Ar·ca·di·a
1 A region of ancient Greece in the Peloponnesus. Its inhabitants, relatively isolated from the rest of the known civilized world, proverbially lived a simple, pastoral life.
2 A city of southern California, a residential suburb of Los Angeles at the foot of the San Gabriel Mountains. Population: 48,290

There really are treasures in history; it’s sad we’ve become so concerned about present matters. I guess we’re not much different than any age. There’s probably only a remnant every generation that keeps the treasures – the richest things in life. Thank God they do.

You’d do well to unearth those treasures. I hope to teach you about those things even if I only do so by my own peculiar behaviors. Maybe you’ll see some strange books sitting on my shelf, and you’ll wonder why I’ve got a book and not a magazine. Actually, you’ll probably just wonder why I don’t use the internet for everything. But maybe you’ll get past that and actually take one of my books down from the shelf and read it; maybe it will become something like a wardrobe leading to Narnia. Even that probably doesn’t make sense; but, again, I hope it does.

There’s a lot of history that isn’t beautiful. You should know that too. In fact, it just makes history all the more important. Even now, while you sleep tonight, there is a battle going on in the Middle East – a war as old as our oldest stories. It’s sad. Many things have changed: weapons, boundaries, languages, cities, religions. Still, the warring keeps going. But to me the wars are even more senseless when people dismiss their history. Wisdom says we should learn from our mistakes, but there are many who cannot even remember twenty-five years. Perhaps it is too much to ask of humanity. We are so very limited.

I have been wondering to myself this week if a great many of our sins are not the product of limits. That’s stating the obvious. I’m aware of that, but, still, it has a certain profundity in my life right now. Clearly there are evil forces at play in the world, and all you have to do is pick up the paper to know what terrible atrocities we are capable of committing. I shudder even now as I recall a story I read today: ghastly. Perhaps by this time you’re old enough to realize the world is so full of such shocking cruelty that I don’t even have to give details; you’re mind might be able to imagine the severity of it all. I hope not. I hope innocence persists in you somehow. Indeed, I am sorry I’ve even gone on this tangent.

I only meant to make a point. I was going to say how much our media and world is consumed with evil. Evil makes money, I suppose. But, what I was thinking about was the underside of evil – the stuff that lingers deep beneath the surface of news stories, stuff like brokenness and abuse and tragedy. These three things seem to me like the great mass of ice resting beneath a iceberg you may also someday see. Just like our curious gawking at icebergs, we do spend much time looking at evil. Perhaps we are drawn to its presence in sorrowful admission that all of us are marked with brokenness and abuse and tragedy.

Now I’ve depressed myself. But, at the same time, I’ve reminded myself why I began this letter to you. I wanted to tell you about Ladysmith Black Mambazo. I bought their cd tonight on iTunes – a compilation of their greatest hits. They are a South African a cappella group, and their sounds are rich with peace and deep with comfort. I first heard them sing on a Paul Simon cd – your father’s favorite musician. They seemed like a great nation of prophets and peacemakers (even though they are only a handful of men), and it didn’t take much for me to envision them singing round a fire on an African plain. This was when I wanted very much to travel to Africa, to experience a land I believed was heaven on earth. I never knew what tragedies are bound in its soil, what struggles it knows even today.

That’s the history of Africa, though. But, like I said, even the sad parts of history enrich our present somehow. Right now, remembering the sadness of that land just adds to my appreciation of hearing Ladysmith Black Mambazo. They are caressing my ears in this prolonged night without sleep. They are carving out some space to hear the world again in innocence. I am thankful to God for their songs. Their last song on this album is a prayer, and I also give thanks to God for that; I find it much easier to pray a song than force the words on my own.

That’s how I felt that night in Los Angeles when I saw the group live – like I was praying or at least part of a spiritual congregation. It was beautiful. It was a summer evening in August or something like that. It could be hot in the summer there, and it had been that day. But, when you get to the heart of that city – unlike other cities – the weather could actually become pleasant in the evening with cool breezes running from the Pacific over city streets all the way to the skyscrapers. We arrived early with our friends Todd and Danielle, ate some bread and drank some wine. It was a public square of sorts in the middle of some executive buildings. In the middle of these rising monuments of modernity there was a stage down by a fountain. Perhaps I should call it a modern amphitheater – hard to explain really. I wish I could tell you more so you could track it down somehow.

Anyhow, they came out after some minor performances. I was thrilled to see them, a sort of life-long dream for me. The best part was I didn’t have to work very hard to see it. Before I knew it, there they were: Ladysmith Black Mambazo – a group of eight or so African men, dressed brilliantly with white shoes. I cannot forget the absolute whiteness of their shoes. Their dancing was crisp like that too.

I don’t know if you’ve seen someone sing live yet, but if you have perhaps you’ll notice that they’re nervous or that they really have to strain to make their voices work. This group didn’t seem to suffer any of these normal limitations. They just seemed to sing out of their gladness, as if they were just singing us a story their family had memorized ages ago. It was like how I imagine the nomads sang in biblical times – especially when they sang in their native tongue since it was so tribal and sure. Their song was their culture. I’m speaking now of Ladysmith Black Mambazo again, but I guess I could say the same for the Hittites. What are our cultural songs? I hope these have not been completely lost upon you and your peers. I fear they may already have been for me.

I guess we’ll both just have to listen very closely to the songs of the whole earth. There may yet be a few songs worth remembering and singing. I hope we might be like the remnant that has carried forth the treasures of fine literature and great thought. It is so rich to live close to those rivers; it is so hard to discern where they have disappeared beneath the surface.

[This piece was heavily – and I mean heavily – influenced by the book Gilead by Marilynne Robinson. I highly commend the book to you, and I hope my own stream of consciousness has not insulted her gift. Perhaps I should place a brief excerpt from Gilead on this page?]