My father passed away 4 years ago on this day.  Strange how everything about that day and the day of his accident,  the 29th, will come rushing through my head like a tempest.  I remember everything: what I was doing, the phone call, rushing to get my clothes in a bag, driving through the night with my brother Mark and sister Jill, talking most of the way but getting quieter and crying more the closer we got to the hospital.  I remember the corridors of the hospital, the door of the ICU opening and seeing my grandfather with his arms open as we walked towards him.  I walked into his room surrounded by glass and stood next to him holding his hand.  He was gone.  I knew it.  But I could feel something still lingering there.  Waiting to go.  Waiting to say good bye.  Last night I sat in my car driving home from a band meeting looking at my hand….seeing my Dad’s hand in my own.  They are looking more and more like his.  His DNA, his blood, his footprint there on my skin but my life underneath.  I miss the long talks, the nights under the stars smoking a cigar with him and discussing the world….discussing God.  Life is brief but Life True wonderful beautiful terrifying LIFE  is like an apple breaking from a tree; it only exists in the falling, only in the space between the tree and the ground.  My Dad’s life was deeply flawed, deeply passionate, riddled with mistakes, and riddled with beauty…….as I am sure will be my own…..but it was quit a ride, as he would say, on the way down.  Loving and living big is the way we honor the dead….not hiding in depression in a hole.  We will be back with them soon enough…..our time is still here walking this earth….so everyday I focus on the letting go instead of the holding on.  I focus on letting go of the tree and letting myself fall because it is in those moments of flight and fall that I find life and God.  I thank my father today for that beautiful lesson.

 Below is an excerpt from what I wrote and preformed at his memorial in San Diego.

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MIKE YACONELLI MEMORIAL SERVICE
November 15, 2003
Trent Yaconelli

 The reason I played this song at my Dad’s service is because it was his favorite song of mine. I play in a rock band called Five A.M. that travels around the western states. We are not a Christian band. At one point my Dad came to see me play and pointed out the songs he really liked which all had a spiritual element to them. He also said, “You know Trent you do a lot of songs that have the sex and rock-n-roll type theme but you are a better writer than that. Don’t be afraid to dig deeper and write more songs from the heart.” That was a turning point for me as a writer. I was writing songs that I knew the people in the bars and clubs I played in wanted to hear but I had a whole book of songs written down and in my head they needed to hear. I wrote “inside out” and when my Dad heard it he loved it. He loved the fact that I was singing Hallelujah in a room full of people…some drunk, lonely, broken, or lost. He told me those were the people that needed to hear that message the most. When the band was passing through Yreka my Dad asked me to play this song and few others at his church, that day will always be a proud and happy memory for me. The song is about not closing yourself off to the world. That even though terrible things happen, even though it is difficult, even though there will be times when you want to crawl in your house and never come out you must live open because once you close down you begin to lose the capacity to love and receive love. Life is hard but in the midst of our own brokenness we must push forward and live boldly, forgive easily, laugh often, risk everything, and love big. My father did and I think that is why he liked this song.

Inside Out (hear the song)

I want to be inside out let my heart go walking about
And I will see everything in front of me
I want to let the light come in, no more walls to fence me in
And I will see the son in front of me

I will reach and I will crawl but I will be alive through it all
And I will bleed and I will shout
I will feel love again, when I am inside out

I want to be inside out face my armies of fear and doubt
And I will see them fall in front of me
I want to cross oceans of sand and feel the breath of god on my hands
And I will see water in front of me.

I will reach and I will crawl but I will be alive through it all
And I will bleed and I will shout
I will feel love again, when I am inside out

Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah

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 One of the most beautiful things we did at my father’s funeral was to have him in a plain pine casket.  We then invited everyone up to draw, color, write whatever the wanted to on the casket.  Below is a picture of Sadie who is the heart of my Dad’s Church Grace Community Church in Yreka and a dear friend.

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Today I was in the studio recording vocal tracks.  You spend alot of time singing the same song over and over trying to catch the subtleties of an emotion, phrase, or time and place.  You sing it harder or breathier and then you realize you are trying too hard so you try and get your head out of the way and let the light or voice that is already there shine through.  Maybe I got it….maybe I didn’t…the point is in the trying.  It is what song writing is about.  you try and build a song like a structure around a feeling, emotion, a story, around matters of the heart so you have contained something you can point to.    You never really capture it but you can frame it just long enough so the listener will pause.  You hope you catch that bit of air, that bit of emotion long enough for the listener to get a sense what it was about almost like smell or taste.  I was thinking about this as our producer went over and over different takes trying to find the best ones.  This is what true spirituality tries to do.  When you go into one of the old churches or synagogues it is often not the building that silences me it is the feel…..the vibe…..the air in between….the same thing I chase after in a song.  It is what the building points to.  Too many religions have become about the building, about the management of the building, about accounts and donations and building funds and outreach campaigns.  Too many of us are about the same thing, the look of our house or our car, who are friends are and what social status we are in.  All of these things are walls built up to hold in…..to protect…what exactly?  Are we trying to protect our lives or our souls?  What is it that you and I are trying to give a place to – to house within the confines of our skin? 

In the end it is only brick and stone, skin and bone, money and material things if we give no thought or care to the space in between as we go about our lives. You and I can build as fancy an outside structure as we want but it means nothing if we are not trying to point to something indescribable, untouchable, and utterly amazing on the inside…..our soul….our heart….the place where God dwells.  How does your life point to that place?  How much time have you spent on the writing of your song?  I think of all the time (me included) people spend on their bodies, tightening, perfuming, strengthening, beautifying…etc and how little we spend on the space in between our heart and skin.  How little time we all spend on the care of our own soul.  I keep writing songs because it points to something in me, in you, in everything.  I fail often but the point is doing the work.  The same with life and the care of the soul.  The point is being a craftsman at who we are and creating a space on the outside that contains and points to the light on the inside. 

photo by the leafmaker

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Major General Antonio M. Tacuba, who served in Iraq and wrote a report critical of torture carried out at Abu Ghraib prison, phoned the Franciscan and Jesuit priests the night before to convey his support and to express his belief that “history will honor your actions.” Their lawyer, Bill Quigley, shared General Tacuba’s words of support with the court.

 From Father Vitale: ”

“We will keep trying to stop the teaching and practice of torture whether we are sent to jail or out. We have done our part. Now it is up to every woman and man of conscience to do their part to stop the injustice of torture.”

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So far we have completed drum tracking, bass tracking and rearranging structurally some of the songs.  My example song “Distance” for you all has been radically changed.  I will try and get a copy for you soon so you can see how dramatically a song can change.  The overall feeling from the Producer was the song was too long so about a minute 30 seconds was taken off.  I have to cut some lyrics and move around the bridge so I will probably do some rewriting so the story still makes sense.  Yesterday we finished up guitars on two songs: Raise the Sun an all out rocker and Lipstick a mid tempo pop song.

 Production of a video began in LA for the song Still in Love with You that has some huge spiritual overtones that I think you all are going to love.  We got some big names to appear in the video also.  Unfortunately, I had to be in the studio yesterday so I was unable to go but I heard it was amazing.  They blocked off a block in LA to shoot it.  There is a Remix Version of Still in Love with You on our Myspace site.  Just put up yesterday and will be the version in the video.   This new mix is by Mark Needham who mixed the Killers, Chris Isaak, Michelle Brank, Fleetwood Mac and others.  It has a little more of an edge than the last mix.  Hope you like it. 

 The video is about the violence and hatred in this world…the horrible things we do to each other all under the watchful eye of God.  There is a Jesus type figure in the video also who is carrying the sins of the world on his back….sacraficing himself for us as God watches.  God sending the message of “I am still in love with you” while being heartbroken over the things we do to each other.  Proceeds from the video will go to the amazing Franciscan Priest Father Vitale and his organization Pace e Bene.  This is a man who truly walks the walk.  PLEASE READ this article on his arrest and conviction for trying to deliver a message.  I know many of you will be disturbed by his actions or say, “Yes peace is nice but we have to protect our country!”  I would hope more of you are disturbed that a 75 year old Franciscan Priest is being sent to a Federal Prison for making a point about torture.  We can protect our country without falling to this level.  Torture is wrong, wrong, wrong and how can we claim any moral high ground when we are torturing people and if you do not believe we are or have than you need to read more or view the pics of Abu Grab.  I honestly do not care if you are a Republican or Democrat, if you claim to be a Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim or follow any spiritual path you cannot support this.  Yes we should protect ourselves and our country but torture is not the way.

 pic above of Zach Hammer (lead guitar on left) and me during basic tracks at In the Pocket

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Today we started recording….finally.  I just got back a few hours ago.  I am going to try and post some bits of songs so you can see how a song evolves but I am not sure I will be able to do it the way I would like.  I was going to post it acoustic, then recorded live in a rehearsal, then a few days into recording, a few days after that etc but I don’t know if I will have time.  I don’t have an acoustic version of the song called Distance that we are currently working on but I do have practice version. This song is about two people living together, once in love but have now grown far far apart.   The idea of the song came to me from watching a couple close to me who live in a big home.  yes, it is dangerous to be friends with a songwriter.  It is amazing the lengths that people will go to to not say the things that need to be said, to avoid dealing with the elephant in the room, or to cross the space between them in their own home.  Tonight we tore this song apart and tried to get it right and cut the fat.  Tomorrow we will try and get the drum tracks once again and then move on to something else.

 Once again.  This is a rough rough version recorded in a garage with four mics when we were working out the concept of the song but you will get the idea.

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 pic by Shawna McHenry

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It is interesting to me the lengths our culture will go to blame someone, something, or some group.  For some people life is so easily split up into right and wrong, black and white, true and false.  I can’t help but observe that these same people cannot let anything in life pass by with out placing a value judgement on it.  My very statement above will piss some off to no end.  They will claim this is the problem with people: they don’t see there is right and wrong….MURDER is bad…..incest is Bad…they will scream…”your problem Trent is you make everything grey.”  My point is yes, I see something as clearly right and clearly wrong but not everything and further more it is not my job here on this earth to place value judgements on everything. 

The Moral Majority as they call themselves I believe practice the ancient ritual of the scapegoat.  Many cultures did this.  The Hebrews would take a goat which would represent all of their sins and then send it out to die.  It is where the term “scapegoat” came from.  This is what I see in religion today.  Various groups finding other groups to place their own sins upon and then take out their hatred and condemnation on them.  It is the classic bully mentality.  If one feels weak or insecure go and pound on someone weaker….that way you will be/feel strong.  If you believe God is within us or the kingdom heaven is within us than you must see everything is possible within us; light and dark.  Jung called the shadow side all of the things that we repress and push down; lust, avarice, greed, hatred, anger…etc.   I knew a man who wears a very big smile on his face, was known in the community I grew up in  as a “good person”, religious, pious, …etc but was filled with anger.  He is the perfect example of - remove the log from your eye before pointing out the splinter in another.  He judged, he condemned, he pointed at all and everyone that he deemed unworthy and it was always under the surface.  I was speaking to him of some families that needed help and he said, “ya but you have to be careful.  some of these families have more money than you do.  they just pretend to be poor so they can get a government check.”  He went on to tell me about all the other groups who are frauds, liars, free loaders…etc.  Each statement laced with scripture from the old testament.  I remember walking away from that conversation with a very different view than he thought he was giving me.  It is him who I thought was the fraud as he hid behind the cloak of piousness and religion.  I saw no compassion in his eyes or in his words.  He used religion as an instrument to smash down all those that he despised, was afraid of, or most importantly those that showed characteristics that he repressed in himself.  Many churches have created a world in which one has to repress everything because only the Perfect can receive God’s love.   But when we repress we only give something more power, we only hide it deeper in the dark where it festers and turns into something worse usually.  Now we have many on the religious right getting caught literally with their pants down, preachers with prostitutes gay and straight, leaders of mega churches getting caught on drugs, so called righteous men being prosecuted for embezzlement….all living lavishly.   The more we hide away our humanness, the less human we become and the more we head towards darkness.  The church I grew up in as a boy, my Father’s church,  people admitted to their ups and downs.  They openly prayed for the strength not to have another drink, or to talk to their daughter that they hadn’t seen in 10 years, to forgive their wife who cheated on them.  It is only in the light that we can walk a truly spiritual and life giving path. 

 That man I spoke of above who condemned everyone was actually the father of one of my friends….was convicted of embezzlement, tax evasion, and ended up leaving his wife for one of his friends wives.  I wish I was making it up.

pic by Shawna McHenry

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I have spent the last 6 days arguing with and talking to lawyers.  Once you enter the lawyer vortex you live in a paranoid world were everybody is either screwing you, about to screw you, making plans to screw you or has already screwed you.   I could not sleep (I am a terrible sleeper anyways) from the stress and now I am sick which always comes after being stressed out for so long.  I was supposed to be in the studio starting last Monday but instead was on the phone sometimes two at a time as everything unravelled.  With as much as I talk about and try to practice staying grounded and being present in life I am just like everyone else and often get swept away with details, what if’s, plans, and drama…drama…drama.  My wife at one point held on to me as I was pacing back and forth on the phone.  She said, “you know this will all work out the way it is supposed to in the end anyways.  If you are supposed to move forward with your Producer you will, if not than someone else will emerge.   Your anxiety will not change anything.  So calm down.  Your kids have been trying to play with you for two days straight.”  She was right….everything would go the way it would go regardless of the amount of stress I put into it.  For two days I had paced the floors with both my 4 year old and 1 year old following behind me grabbing my pajama bottoms as I would get irritated.

 ”therefore do not be anxious for tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself, let the days own trouble be sufficient for that day”   I have always loved that quote from Matthew but it is amazing how often I forget it.  I put down the phone and wrestled with my two sons for an hour and as I did I could feel me shoulders drop and the stress leaving my back and neck.   My boys laughing and smiling as I threw them through the air and bounced them on the bed.  So consumed with things I could neither really control or change at that time I had once again forgotten what actually mattered.  At the end of the day when my life is over what will be remembered of the past few days of my life.  Will lawyers and history books remember all of the discussions we had about details in a contract or our talks about possible intentions of some third party or will the only thing that will have actually had any impact was an hour spent playing with my boys.  As my life ends, my guess is, my sons lives will continue with a memory of the days when their Dad would wrestle with them throwing them high into the air and catching them softly because each moment I spend with them giving them my attention is another way of showing them I love them.  Everything else I do most likely be erased but the love I leave behind will move from my sons to theirs.  The next day this whole fight against stress and plans and control and lack of control..etc would all begin again.  It will be one I am sure to have on a daily basis but I am learning, I am getting clearer, I am closing in on what actually matters.  Now if I can just hold onto it.  ~

Band Update: Things have worked out and the band will head to the studio on Tuesday.  At that time I will try and post some of the songs as they move from pre production to basics to tracking so you can see how a song is developed.

life, music, spirituality | 2 Comments »

So today I am on my way to work and as I like to do I am bouncing around between Liberal radio and Conservative Radio…..somewhere in the middle has got to be the truth right?  Anyways, I stumble onto Dr. Laura and something catches my ear because the woman is talking about how her relationship with here friend is unbalanced.  So I listen.  Turns out her friend is dying and now their relationship is unbalanced because he only calls her when he needs something.  Like someone to talk to about the fact he is dying or someone to pick something up for him because he is dying.  She feels it is unfair because she can no longer call him when she has needs….ya know….because he is dying and all.  She goes on to ask if she should talk to him about this?  This is the concept of Balance gone horribly horribly wrong.  She felt in order for their relationship to work their always had to be equal give and take…..balance.  She went so far that she felt it was unfair that he needed more attention and was ignoring her needs as HE WAS DYING.  D.L. tried to save her from behaving like an idiot but too late.  She still ended the call saying, “so I shouldn’t talk to him about what I am feeling?”

Sometimes things in your life need more attention.  Sometimes in relationships you have to give more to the other person….sometimes you have to give all.  If you are keeping track in order to then cash in at a later time so things can be fair and balanced you will never live a whole life.  Your life will be filled with score cards and check marks.

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I got lost on the Internet last night.  Through my stats page I can see who is linking to my blog site so I go and check out what they have to say and often then click on people on their blog-roll.  It is like a strange little path that you keep going further and further until suddenly you are saying, “where the hell am I?”  I ended up in Midwest conservative evangelical Christian Blog land and I was blown away by the things being said there.  All of these Christian blogs going on and on about how homosexuality is the most important Christian Issue facing today and must be stopped before homosexual soldiers come and turn their kids gay (not kidding), pro life marches, support for Bush and the war because Bush loves Jesus, and rants about Islam and other religions, rants about democrats and liberals and equating them with Satan……wow.  So much finger pointing, judgement and outright hate.  You could feel the spittle flying off of their lips as they screamed through their computers.  When did Christianity become so filled with finger pointing, so filled with righteous indignation, so filled with fear and a lust for a militaristic approach to getting the “word” out.  Lots of talk of Christian soldiers, battles, swords of truth, wearing God’s armor ”kicking ass for Jesus.”  Here is a quote from Actor Stephen Baldwin who is leading a group of macho guys to talk to the troops in Iraq. “”God has called me to go and make disciples of the youth of America. That is what I am going to try to do, and if you try to stop me I am going to break your face.”  Here is a picture of the T shirts they have supporting their organization….by the way your tax dollars are funding this group to go to Iraq.   SEE BELOW  The T-shirt reads “UFC – Ultimate Fighting Character. Bet you can’t whip me. Because J.C. [Jesus Christ] lives in me.” Below the in-your-bloody-face message is the tag-line, “Until every soldier hears the truth: OSU Tour.” If you can’t see the picture clearly it is of a buffed out guy straddling another and punching him in the face while the other guy is trying to cover his face.  But there is nothing the guy on the bottom can do because the other guy has KICK ASS JESUS POWER!  YA! YAAAA…….uh…..ya……right? 

Because when Jesus was taken to Pontius Pilate and sent to be crucified, it is explained in the book of Matthew that what happened was Jesus said, “oh Ya, Crucify this!”  He then scissor kicked Pilate who fell backwards onto a roman fountain and was impaled.  Jesus then used his super laser eye vision and burnt a hole through the Roman Soldiers heads…..he then flew off to do a manly bare chested prayer when God asked him to actually let himself be crucified.  Once again from the book of Matthew: “Jesus said unto his Father after being asked to sacrifice himself:  I guess someone is going to have to do it.  None of these chickenshits have the guts.”  He then flew to the cross and nailed himself to it. 

I know the message of love and forgiveness, of grace and salvation is not very sexy but please can we stop trying to turn Jesus or any other spiritual figure into some sort of Hollywood Kick Ass Die Hard Guy.  Please.  It cheapens the message and it cheapens all of us who do not speak out against it.  Whether you believe in Jesus or not you have to admit his message was revolutionary.  So revolutionary that we are still talking about it today.  He didn’t need t-shirts and video games and cool christian rock shows to get it out there.  His message spoke for itself.  Why can’t we get out of the way with our window dressings and words and let it speak for itself today.  I know the world is scary right now, the world was scary in Jesus’ time also but his answer wasn’t violence, fear or hatred.  He brought a message of Love and Compassion for ourselves and one another…..he brought to us grace.  Unfortunately, we are still so far away from understanding it.

by the way talk2action has a great post on this.

christianity, religion, spirituality | 7 Comments »

I have been thinking about the concept of balance for the past few weeks.  I have yet to fully catch all my thoughts but I thought I would write some of them down before I hit the studio next week and I am swamped.

We have been taught about the importance of balance in life: Job, marriage, relationship, kids, mortgage, passion, spirituality…etc should all be given equal time.  If we spend too much time at work, other things suffer.  Too much time on ourselves, we start dropping the ball with family.  Recently I was asked “how do you balance everything between your family, your job, your music, the band and your writing.”  My answer: “I don’t.”  I am not very good at balancing.  I suspect none of us are, and more than that I think “balance” is an illusion.  In fact I think the concept of Balance causes more stress in ones life.  Why do we think everything needs equal time and also when you take that thought deeper you find there is an assumption that things are SEPARATE.  They are not.  It as if we are being asked to try and balance without realizing we are laying flat on our backs…..how does one balance while laying on their back?  You don’t.  All is connected in our lives: job, marriage, passions, kids, relationships are all one inside of us.  It is impossibile to balance these things.  The focus should be on awareness.  Paying attention to all of these things as we pass through them.  Noticing when our attention needs to shift as we realize our partner is struggling with depression or unrest, noticing when our kids are breaking down often because they are craving more attention from us, noticing in our own hearts when disconnectedness is starting to creep in and noticing when we need to pull our energy inwards.  It is all one.  Another analogy would be our life is like a garden.  Everything is growing at the same time but some things require our attention during certain moments and if we are not aware than we miss that moment and then things begin to suffer.  At different points we need to tend to different things.  I notice this alot with my sons.  During some months my son Easton needs to be held alot, carried around, and close by to my wife and I.  The following month he will wonder off on his own to work on his own projects not caring if we are there or not.  Three months later my son Wilder is scared to sleep alone, wants to go everywhere with me, gets upset when I go to work.  The following month all is well.  My attention and my love is always there for my boys but during some moments it needs to be more attentive.  Does this mean my love for my other son is taken and given to the other?  Does this mean I then must rush to shower attention on one of my sons to balance things out?  Nonsense.  My love is constant it is only my awareness of one need or another that is changing.

There is no tight rope to walk.  I have also realized that how I play with my kids, talk to my wife, do my job, preform at gig, or sit quietly watching the sun go down ALL effects each other.  My moments of silence give me energy to play with my kids, my conversations with my wife give me confidence to pursue my passion of music, my passion for music and songwriting pushes me to have more quiet/reflective time…etc.  All is connected.  If we treat all of the aspects in our lives as ”things” that we need to balance, we will spend our time exhausted running from one to another.

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