Tugged

I am heightened in the recesses of my brain:  awakened, now.  Dizzy with explanation, every moment a puzzle to be worked, and I - the life - that is about to be rearranged and altered into a very new picture of profound similarity and difference.

As of November 30th, 2008, I have accepted the call to serve as the next pastor for the congregation of believers known as Greencastle Presbyterian Church (read the letter I wrote to the congregation here - click on "pastor's message").  On December 2nd, the opposite side of that "hello" was sent out to my current congregation.  Leave-taking and Home-making are now the realities that shape my mind and days.  We are in the process of disengagement and engagement.  It is not easy.  In fact, it is like the stringing out of my heart and mind - a tug of war of excitement and sadness.

For those of my friends that I have been scarce to, forgive my absence.  I - again - look forward to connecting with you as I move into yet another place of learning and life.

Wes

Closing Time

This won't mean much to many, but the Executive Inn Rivermont in Owensboro shut its doors this past Monday. The "Big E" offered lodging, convention space, dining and entertainment down by the river. As you can tell from the picture above, it's heyday clearly was in a bygone era. Opened in 1977, it was big news for Owensboro - making the town into a city and allowing the wider world into a "know-your-neighbor" town. Johnny Cash played here back when Hee-Haw was still prime viewing for America.

The "Big E" was an investment into what Owensboro might be. "Should be" some said. And, yet, there was never the complete conviction from the whole community. Indeed, for the vast majority of its life, the hotel existed because of the vision of outsiders - entrepreneurs come to town to transform a place. Which is probably why it finds itself out of business. It is also precisely why its closing is now all the talk of the town. A community's identity is on the line again. Questions about purpose and future are subconsciously at play. People at Barney's eating a plate lunch are talking. Coworkers are stopping in hallways to reminisce and bemoan.

A few days ago, the headline in the Messenger-Inquirer (local newspaper) read "Hotel Still Waiting for White-Knight." The hope was for Savior, Messiah. The assumption was that having a hotel, convention center and entertainment location was a good thing - yes - but that in order for the good to survive something outside of the people would have to make it so. But, even if a white knight rode into town, cleared the debts off the books and reopened the hotel, would that really be beneficial to this community? Probably not.

The larger issue at play here, and the very reason that people across Daviess County are talking about the hotel’s closing as if it were a death in the family, is identity. The Executive Inn's closing has the smell of finality, even death to a degree. It’s not that the Executive Inn has been everything for the city recently. There are more promising places and ventures in town, but for pure symbolism the "Big E" held the collective breath of the community. When it was built, the community's chest swelled with pride. Now, deflation is working its way through the people.

This is also precisely why this single event has gripped me. I am captured by the symbolism of the Executive Inn and by the meaning of its demise. I - being called to enter into this community to embrace these people, to find where God is active in this place and to invite people to lift up their eyes to see God at work and to join that work - have to ask the question: what does this say about this community?

I think - for one - it says that a community can only nourish and sustain something it believes. Not what John Bays - recent entrepreneur and owner of the "Big E" - believes. Not in what corporate demographic studies believe. In Owensboro – for better and for worse – success depends not on the value of the initiative but on the support of the community.

The Executive Inn’s closing also says – to me – that this community doesn’t quite know where it is headed, which isn’t either good or bad. It simply is. A crossroad is present. Built upon eras and generations of remaining true to its provincial heritage, Owensboro is once again wondering if it will have a place in the future. Will it be forgotten? Will it be relevant? And is relevancy the single most important quality for a community?

Approximately six years ago, First Presbyterian Church of Owensboro lost its head pastor after a tenuous season, conflicted season. It was a shock to the system – reverberating uncomfortably close to the sound of a death knell. After roughly 150 years of existence as a community, the church was faced with the dramatic reality that life is not a guarantee. The future seemed more like something that would have to be secured through prayer, hard work and commitment.

Since the departure of the pastor in 2002, the church has done much. But I am left to wonder if all that the church has done is change management. The church has called a new head pastor, myself as an associate, a new youth director and a new musician. But, for the most part, these additions have been additions from outside the traditional community (i.e. – not locally grown developments). A few new initiatives have grown from within the community, including a thriving fellowship group for the 50 plus crowd.

But, overall, the church seems at risk of hoping and letting other people create a new life for them. That may get them down the road a bit further, but it won’t save them. Efforts have been made to get conversations going amongst the people about its future, about its hopes. But, largely those deeper questions have been parlayed into talk of building or remodeling the church facility, which may or may not be necessary. Still, the main question is this: where do these people want to go? How are they discerning where God is and where God is leading them? What do they hope?

Just over two years ago, the first building in Owensboro I set foot in was the Executive Inn Rivermont. I was met inside its cavernous, antiquated confines by a sweet woman who would shortly lead me over to First Presbyterian Church – a few miles away from the "Big E." Time will tell how close the two buildings are. Time will tell what the community decides to do with these two establishments. For me, it is my hope that the community will rise up even as the buildings they once honored face uncertain times.

There is a season for everything. I season to pluck up and a season to plant. God knows which is which.

Wes

Hope

Several people inquired into my mental health after I posted "Poverty" a few weeks ago.  Some were even close to checking me in for monitoring and psychological evaluations.  Okay, you were right.  That was dark.

Without trying to convince you that I am not deeply depressed, I do want to say briefly that writing is therapeutic for me.  So, writing those thoughts helps me expunge the emotions that otherwise might take me down.  

Anyhow, I owe it to you, and - more importantly - myself to go in the other direction tonight.  So, here you go.

I got home on Tuesday afternoon in a vibrant mood.  The sun was out, a caressing, uplifting surprise - especially given that a remnant of a serious snow fall still lingered in those places in our roof that escaped solar elimination.  That same snow fall also brought the usual filth and grime that accumulates on curbs and cars.  So, I took the opportunity to take Wyatt over to the local car wash - hoping he would enjoy the chance to spray winter away as much as I would.

I figured there would be a good many cars at the car wash.  There were and there weren't.  The car wash included four bays for manual washing, and one automatic run through.  Each was filled, but there were no other cars waiting anywhere.  Upon turning into the car wash, I faced a probability game, and logically pulled in behind a blue Chevy pick-up that I felt was far cleaner than most others.  

I've been to the car wash enough this season to know that each car typically requires seven or so minutes of washing.  By the looks of the Chevy, I figured there was maybe two minutes left of quarters.  Playing Mr. Cool and Super Dad altogether, I leisurely put the parking break on, got out of the car, went around to the other side and cradled Wyatt out of his protective shell of a car seat.  

I then took him over to the coin machine, and deposited three singles into the slender opening - trying to explain the absurd and magical wonder of how one dollar equals four quarters.  After I had multiplied three to make twelve, I strolled back to my car, expecting the Chevy to be gone.  

Instead, I found the woman who also had a small girl with her applying a soapy foam with a brush, a technique which meant there were many more minutes of waiting ahead of me.  Sure enough, as the woman continued to cleanse her truck, other bays began to empty.  I contemplated trying to maneuver my car such that I could steal the opening - much like we all do at the grocery store.  Then, I thought better.

Parking my need for expediency, I simply sat watching the woman thoroughly extinguish the dirt, from inside the deep caverns of the wheel, off the bumper.  Meanwhile, I also began to watch the small community of folk who were now going about their own rhythms with efficient anonymity:  the young "Jack and Dianne" couple in the Ford Probe, the Latino brothers or cousins in the ark-like American cruiser, the blue collar man digging in his car for quarters.

 

A car pulled up even behind me, setting the deepest queue at two.  And still the woman continued to spray her Chevy as though it would never see a speck of dirt again.  By this time, I had given up on my need for progress and had settled into the pleasant confines of release.  Wyatt lay comfortably on my chest.  I had been calming and soothing him of his fear of the whirling brush in the automatic vacuum that looked somewhat like a Sesame street character in a tornado.  His initial fear turning into a soothing posture of dependency and trust.  

Maybe that is what won the woman over.  I do not know.  I never saw her take a long look at me and my child.  Her attention was perpetually upon the sole duty of cleansing, so much so that I began to wonder if she would ever break the cycle.  The blue paint on her truck sparkled brilliantly, and she even took a solid minute to spray away the dirt that lingered at the based of her freshly groomed industrial horse - an act I took as both economically stupid and immeasurably centered.  I was doing much more than waiting by now.  I was watching, learning even.  Which is precisely why I was more awed than aghast when I saw her reaching into her jeans for what I already knew contained a wellspring of quarters.  

She headed over to a small panel that looked something like the display of a pay-phone, and, just out of line of my vision, began to eliminate the bundle in her hand.  

I was mystified by this point, ready to expect anything.  But, somehow, I knew precisely what she was doing, and I couldn't do anything except just accept it for what it was:  grace.

And that is what I found as I rolled our little car into the washing bay:  eight minutes and twenty three seconds of grace put into my life's clock.  That's probably just about the same amount of time I sat there with my son watching the world go by, and enjoying the beautiful day.  That's what she bought me.  Not a free car wash.  She bought me time, the very thing I am working against so often, the very thing I seek to wrestle into my own terms and hopes.

That's quite a gift.  I'm just sorry I could only leave five minutes and twenty eight seconds for the next guy.  

Wes  

Poverty

It snowed here again.  Winter is lingering, and my soul is rejecting this ongoing plunge into dying.  The worst of it:  the undying optimism inside my soul that says that things will get better, things will get warmer, which dies daily as soon as I check the weather and see that the there will be no hope for sun or warmth - at least not in any near future that meteorogolists can see.

I did see the sun today, but it was humiliated and veiled, cloaked by smoky clouds.  I saw it at the end of my journey back from Hopkinsville, KY - the place where they mark two torturous events in our nation's history:  a woeful stopping point on The Trail of Tears and the forming place for Jefferson Davis.  I don't think it harsh to call it a miserable place, although I know that is a terrible thing to say of any place.

All of today is amounting to a picture of poverty in my mind.  And, I am ashamed and afraid of that image, as though I have to explain it to my friends or - worse - acknowledge that maybe my life is impoverished.  

I saw a whole living room of garbage upon someone's lawn this afternoon.  Not in Hopkinsville, I am afraid ... in my town, in Owensboro.  The snow was spitting crosswise upon the heap of some family's mismanagement and reckless abandonment.  I hated it.  

Daily I see a town deeply imbedded in poverty - the likes I have not known since the earliest of my own days.  It calls up in my mind the old lumber yard I once knew on 9th street, a voidless realm of emptiness - a building full of ghostly vacating.  Life left it.  I feel like that is what is happening to this land that I now know, not just one building here or one building there, but the whole of the countryside and even the inner core of Owensboro.

The tallest building - perhaps - in Owensboro is a cylinder shaped hotel that has come into disrepair.  It was the beacon of a new Owensboro that never found any compatriots.  It stepped out in a city where many are chiefly concerned about staying in.

Someone recently bought it for under $250,000 - hoping to turn a profit on it somehow.  They will not.  The building is dead and needs to be leveled.  But, instead it stands as a humiliating reminder that there was a time when this city was poised to move forward with our country, and it did not.

Perhaps I sound condemning.  I'm not trying to be.  I'm trying to speak to what I am discovering it means to live where there are more worries about a city dying than there are about dealing with overcrowding and crime.  

I am not immune from it, and that is why it bothers me.  That is part of what it has meant to call this place home for me.  I know there is poverty here.  And what I mean by that is an absence of nourishing, enriching streams that feed a people.  Call it hubris if you'd like - a sense that I know what this community needs when I have not been here long.  But, I don't think that's true.   

Time may tell.  Time will tell.

Wes

Chowdown Town

Below you can read an article that appeared today in the local Owensboro newspaper. Apparently, the Big O is a hot spot for restaurants (specifically chain restaurants). Now, keep in mind that living in Pasadena gave Anna and I something like 430 restaurants to choose from - almost all of those being locally owned and operated (many of them ethnically based). Then, there's Owensboro, which has a handful of local places to eat, and a gazillion chain stores.

What can I say? Some notoriety is damnable - including being told you like to eat in a nation of over-eaters.

One last thing: the same magazine also handed out a "clean plate" award to various restaurants who served an outstanding dish or entree. Not surprisingly, most of the winners on this list were from bigger cities such as Chicago, NY, Washington D.C. and New Orleans. And, much to my delight, Pie 'N Burger in Pasadena made it for a burger and a slice of pie (In 'N Out also made the stingy list for their burger, fries and chocolate shake delights).

I guess it's a question of quantity versus quality. If you want more food than you can stomach, come to Owensboro. If you want a fine meal that will keep you coming back for more, ... well ...

We do have Famous Bistro, Old Hickory, House of Canton, and Skeeter's, which are - truly - wonderful places to eat in Owensboro. But, come on ... Pie 'N Burger. What's better than that?

Survey finds city 'chowdown town'

11/12/2007

Owensboro 7th best restaurant market

By Keith Lawrence

Messenger-Inquirer

The self-proclaimed "Barbecue Capital of the World" -- also known as "Chowdown Town" -- is getting some national attention for its appetite.

Restaurant Business magazine's November issue ranks Owensboro as the seventh best market nationally for restaurants -- right behind Las Vegas.

Myrtle Beach, S.C., topped the list, followed by Fort Walton Beach, Fla.; Flagstaff, Ariz.; Ocean City, N.J.; and Honolulu.

The Owensboro metropolitan area -- Daviess, Hancock and McLean counties -- has 188 restaurants, the magazine said.

That's the fewest of any of Kentucky's five metros.

But local restaurants will take in an estimated $273.9 million this year -- an average of $1.46 million each, the magazine said.

That's nearly double the $751,704 in sales the average restaurant in Louisville sees, the magazine reported.

Even Las Vegas, No. 6 in the survey, reported smaller average sales per restaurant -- $1.2 million -- than Owensboro. But that city has 4,266 restaurants to share its $4.8 billion in restaurant sales.

"We're about to close two restaurant deals in Highland Pointe," Brad Anderson, a partner in Gulfstream Enterprises, said Wednesday. "Neither is in Owensboro now."

That company is developing Highland Pointe, Woodlands Plaza and Gateway Commons in the Kentucky 54 area.

Anderson said he's working with six to eight restaurant chains now, trying to negotiate deals along that corridor.

"Owensboro is getting a lot of attention already," he said. "And this should help."

Culver's Frozen Custard and ButterBurgers, a national chain with more than 340 stores, opened a Highland Pointe location six months ago.

Work is nearing completion on Roca Bar, a pizza restaurant next door. And a Louisville group is developing a Japanese restaurant in the strip center next to Kohl's in Woodlands Plaza.

"Business has been great," Tyler Shookman, co-owner of the Culver's franchise, said Wednesday. "Our sales are above average for Culver's locations. And we're looking at an even better future with the new hospital, hotel, arena and convention center coming out here."

Restaurant Business wrote: "Owensboro, on the Ohio River 100 miles west of Louisville, is also gearing up for development. Underway is a $40 million riverfront development with a marina and river walk; a $400 million medical center and the $390 million Gateway Commons, with a hotel, convention center and arena."

"That's great advertising," said Nick Cambron, chairman of the Greater Owensboro Chamber of Commerce. "There's a lot going on in Owensboro."

Cambron, a Realtor, said he's working with several restaurant chains that are looking at the Kentucky 54 corridor now.

"This area is a retail mecca," he said.

The magazine's Restaurant Growth Index studied 363 metropolitan areas, looking at total sales, total number of restaurants, per capita income and other factors.

Life in General

Representatives from a local Christian mission spoke to our congregation last night - trying to help our church understand the needs facing persons with serious addictions or other destructive habits that are ruining their lives. Shortly after enjoying a good plate of ham, potato casserole, green beans, and pineapple upside-down cake, the audience was shown a video with testimonies from people who had used or were using the mission's services. One of the men in the video quoted some advice a staff member had given him as he was in the gutter so to speak: "It isn't that you want to die; you just don't know how to live."

Bullseye. That line lodged itself into my conscience, germinating a number of other thoughts and conversations that lay dormant. How do we live? That is - isn't it - the essence of it all. What path are we intended to follow, what rules are intended to instruct our days?

I also read recently that the Hebrew tradition sought to answer those questions for us. Torah is meant to give instruction for living - all of it. Author A. J. Jacobs - a Jew by birth but not by practice (until recently) - has been making waves by drawing out this conclusion. He literally tried to follow the Bible for an entire year. His sense was that the prescriptions for holy living truly were profitable.

The Christian Scriptures too seek to illuminate a way of life: discipleship or a life-long willingness to follow the pattern of Christ. I have been reconnecting with this reality by tapping into some modern teachers like Dallas Willard and Richard Foster all over again. These two men have put in significant time studying and communicating answers to the question, "How do we live?" Foster in particular has established Renovare - an ecumenical effort to give Christians and churches a deeper appreciation for the long, deep history of others who have sought to answer this question. The resources that Foster and others are producing through Renovare are some of the most helpful and hopeful I've come across in a long time.

Of particular value is the book Streams of Living Water: Celebrating the Great Traditions of Christian Faith. The simple aim of this book is to present clearly how various traditions have tried to live faithfully God's call to be disciples of Christ. According to this study, there are six streams of thought and action: contemplative, holiness, charismatic/spirit-empowered, social justice, evangelical, and incarnational.

As I work with and minister to people of varying social and economic situations, the knowledge of how to live is clearly missing ... and I say that for my own soul much of the time. Our culture is good at determining how to be successful, how to progress, how to compete and win. But, there is very little awareness of how to live a good life - well, aside from the materialistic, shallow definitions given to us through television ads and billboards.

Those streams of culture - or more likely flood waters - are quick to suggest that meaning comes through acquisition and possession. But, the more I read rich souls and study Scripture, the more I get the sense that the good life comes through a deep awareness of God in all of life and through practices and habits that train us to be more deeply and fully aware of God. There is no easy way around it: living well means a good deal of training and preparing to live well. This - I am aware - flies in the face of what Dallas Willard calls "vampire Christianity" where we willingly take the blood of Christ for our forgiveness and peace of mind but abandon a life of decency, justice and holiness as the cross that it is (click here for more; Willard cites A. W. Tozer as the source of this modern heresy).

This takes me back to the voices of homeless men and women I heard last night on the DVD. When you get to the point of homelessness - of being down and out - there really isn't anything you can buy or obtain that will get you out of the pit. At the bottom is only a long, arduous path of recovery, which includes learning all over again how to live: how to manage money, how to say no to destructive forces and yes to positive habits. That's about it. Well, there are two other critical things - two things the Christian tradition holds dearly:

1. The role of the Spirit in leading our regeneration in Christ.
2. The value of community and ceremonies to help us remember that we are not in this alone.

Without those two realities, our efforts - so others have said - amounts to strict legalism, frustration, and ultimately a return to despair.

So, there it is: we all have a need to know how to live well. I guess that's why Joel Osteen can sell a ton of books and why self-help is now quintessentially American. People are dying to live well. And, if someone can promise to help you in that endeavor (especially with an ivory smile), why wouldn't you want to listen. It is even more complicated because there is a great deal of truth in these self-help methods and "positive Christianity" efforts.

But (and I swear this will be the last thing), there is a problem with that stream ... and to illustrate, I want to tell you about Cool Whip.

Cool Whip promises to have 50% less calories than real whipped cream. The assumption here is that you'll consume less calories, but it denies the underlying problem: people don't need less calories; they need a different understanding of how to eat.

In the same way, we don't need better products (specifically new and flashy ones) to live better. What we need are ancient, proven rhythms and postures. To hand ourselves over to the current best seller is to let in any number of "additives" that may just be counterproductive, if not destructive. So, that's it. I just finally had some pieces of the puzzle fall into place after a long period of looking long and hard at disorder.

Shalom,

Wes

Little Farm Boy

Hot as Hades

Goodness gracious it is hot in Owensboro!

I rode home from work today, and I kept expecting an inferno the size of a city block just around the corner. That would presume that a wave of fiery exhaust was spewing from something the fire department could at least contain. But, noooo, the heat I felt on the way home was nothing but the searing sun and heavy humidity - turning Owensboro into a kiln.

I think this is what walking the rim of a volcano feels like.

Weather predictions have the heat ranging in the mid 90's (low 100's) with the heat index for the rest of the weekend and well into next week.

Wyatt and I go outside for some play time most afternoons when I get home, but even those are becoming unbearable. Thankfully, there is some shade to protect us. I am still nervous that the grass (or worse, myself) might suffer instantaneous combustion.

Just to make sure you know I'm not lying ... here is the weather report from the National Weather Service:

...DANGEROUS AFTERNOON HEAT INDEX VALUES EXPECTED NEXT WEEK...

WIDESPREAD HEAT INDEX READINGS BETWEEN 100 TO 105 DEGREES ARE
EXPECTED TO OCCUR...BEGINNING OVER PARTS OF SOUTHEAST MISSOURI
AND SOUTHWEST ILLINOIS SUNDAY AFTERNOON...AND OVERSPREADING THE
REMAINDER OF THE QUAD STATE REGION EACH AFTERNOON THROUGH MOST OF
NEXT WEEK.

A LARGE AREA OF HIGH PRESSURE WILL BECOME ENTRENCHED ACROSS THE
REGION STARTING THIS WEEKEND AND EXTENDING THROUGH AT LEAST THE
MIDDLE OF NEXT WEEK. HEAT AND HUMIDITY WILL CONTINUE TO BUILD AND
LEAD TO SOME OF THE HOTTEST WEATHER SO FAR THIS SUMMER.

AFTERNOON HIGH TEMPERATURES ARE EXPECTED TO RISE INTO THE MIDDLE
AND UPPER 90S....WITH DAYTIME RELATIVE HUMIDITIES EXPECTED TO
REMAIN AT OR ABOVE 50 PERCENT. THE COMBINATION OF THE HEAT AND
HUMIDITY...AS WELL AS RELATIVELY LIGHT WINDS WILL PRODUCE HEAT
INDEX VALUES IN THE EXTREME CAUTION TO DANGER CATEGORY...WITH
READINGS RANGING FROM 100 TO 105 DEGREES.

HERE A FEW TIPS TO GUARD AGAINST THE UPCOMING HEAT WAVE...

STAY OUT OF THE SUN...WHEN POSSIBLE.

SLOW DOWN. ANY STRENUOUS ACTIVITY SHOULD BE REDUCED...ELIMINATED
OR RESCHEDULED TO THE COOLEST TIME OF THE DAY.

DRESS IN LIGHT COLORED CLOTHING THAT REFLECTS HEAT AND SUNLIGHT.

DRINK PLENTY OF WATER OR OTHER NON ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES. BE SURE TO
DRINK FLUIDS...EVEN IF YOU DO NOT FEEL THIRSTY.

PERSONS WITH SPECIAL MEDICAL CONDITIONS SHOULD CHECK WITH THEIR
DOCTOR ON HOW TO DEAL WITH MEDICATIONS...FLUIDS AND DIET DURING HOT WEATHER.

THOSE ESPECIALLY SENSITIVE TO HEAT SHOULD SEEK SHELTER IN A COOL
PLACE. IF A COOL PLACE IS NOT IMMEDIATELY AVAILABLE...CONTACT YOUR
LOCAL GOVERNMENT OR COMMUNITY AGENCY TO FIND AIR CONDITIONED
LOCATIONS TO STAY IN DURING THE HOTTEST PART OF THE DAY.

IF YOU HAVE LIVESTOCK OR PETS...MAKE SURE THAT THEY ARE PROVIDED
WITH PLENTY OF WATER AND SHADE...WHEN POSSIBLE.

FINALLY...TAKE TIME OUT TO CHECK ON THOSE NEIGHBORS OR FAMILY
MEMBERS THAT MAY BE PARTICULARLY SENSITIVE TO HEAT.

Le Deluge

Before le deluge ...


Our neighbors slowly detest us in deep places for le deluge released upon the streets ...


A snapshot of some bargain shopping ...


Wyatt calling for reinforcements ...


Le deluge carries away many small items ...


But what about the furniture "le deluge"?

I Never Saw a Butterfly

During the terrible reign of darkness that was Nazi Germany, a "model ghetto" was set up in Terezin that would come to house 15,000 children ages 8-15. Fewer than a 1,000 of the children would survive. Even more heartbreaking, this children's prison camp contained a large percentage of artistic, creative kids - some of whom left behind brief glimpses of the profound gifts that never made it to maturation. Included in these artistic testimonies were sketches and poems. Composer Charles Davidson went on to set a few of the poems to music.

On Monday night, the North Carolina Boys Choir stopped in Owensboro as part of a two week tour throughout the South and Midwest. They came prepared to sing many pieces - pieces from Bach, Mendelssohn, Rutter - and the final portion of their performance contained one of the Terezin poems as composed by Davidson. It is simply called Birdsong:

Birdsong

He doesn't know the world at all who stays in his nest and doesn't go out.
He doesn't know what the birds know best, nor what I want to sing about,
That the world is full of loveliness. When dew drops sparkle in the grass,
And earth's a-flood with morning light. A blackbird sings upon a bush
To greet the morning after night. Then I know how fine it is to be alive.
Hey try to open up your hearts to beauty, go to the woods someday
And weave a wreath of memory there. Then, if tears obscure your way,
You'll know how wonderful it is to be alive. To be alive!

A Song by Natalie Merchant

"Owensboro"

Well, I lived in a town
Way down south
By the name of Owensboro
And I worked in a mill
With the rest of the "trash"
As we're often called
As you know

Well, we rise up early
In the morning
And we work all day real hard
To buy our little meat and bread
Buy sugar, tea, and lard

Well, our children
Grow up unlearned
With no time to go to school
Almost before they learn to walk
They learn to spin and spool

Well, the folks in town
They dress so fine
And spend their money free
But they would hardly look
At a factory hand
Who dresses like you or me

Would you let them wear
Their watches fine
Let them wear their gems
And pearly strings

But when that day
Of judgement comes
They'll have to share
Their pretty things