Life and... Elton John?

You know, life is funny sometimes, isn't it?  There are times that are deathly serious; times which defy humor.  Other times, we are caught unawares by a silly moment.  I suppose it is under this auspice that I follow up such a heartfelt entry with one that is more light-hearted.

I was feeling particularly nostalgic, so I decided to do a couple of searches on YouTube.  Some times, I search for events which I remember from years gone by...  I can't always say why I do this exactly, except that maybe I am trying to recapture something (hence the nostalgia).  At times, I look for speeches, newscasts, songs, videos, movie clips...  just to dive into the past.  Maybe, in the great tradition of all humanity, I am trying to make some sense of my experiences through reliving them somehow.

This said, I came across some Elton John videos on the 'Tube.  Yes, back in the day, I was quite the Elton John fan.  Of my CD collection, a very large portion consisted of Elton's works.  The songwriting (especially when our man Reg teamed up with his pal Bernie), and, of course, the terrific voice coupled to produce some of my favorite songs.  Even after ten years or more of not hearing them, I found myself singing along step for step.  Yes, I sang with Elton.  I am comfortable admitting that.

One of my favorite albums was "Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy."  This title track, shortened, was my computer password for 4 years...  I literally hummed it to myself nearly every time I logged on.  The story of Sir Elton's friendship with Bernie Taupin, it is a fun song with a certain defiant tone.  

The final track, "Curtains," is still one of my favorite songs of all time.  It is so beautiful and wistful.  It draws us back through time, to young love, to emotion so pure that it is almost embarrassing in the cynical eyes of adulthood.  I hadn't heard this in... about 10 years, and picked it right up.  "A once upon a time..."

In fact, what really stunned me about "Curtains" was that the alternative/grunge band Alice In Chains did a cover of it!  Whoa.  It was actually pretty good.  

But I will tell you this...  if you have never heard the Live in Australia album, wherein Elton performs with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (1986)...  well, I just don't know what to tell you about that.  Your heart is cold.  It is marvelous.  Terrific.  Ya oughta give it a listen.  

I am really not kidding about this.  Out of all the CD's I have ever heard, in any genre, it may well be my favorite album.  It is pretty "wow" stuff.  The songs themselves are great.  The symphony is amazing.  Elton brings it.  

Just look at the song list.  "60 years on" recounts an aged soldier... a veteran of a terrible war, looking at the end of his life in despair.  "I need you to turn to" may be one of the most amazing love songs of modern music, but it gets little press.  Speaking of quintessential love songs, this rendition of "Your Song" is marvelous.  His voice has that sincere gravelly sound to it... with an orchestra behind it.  

"Tonight," the song of a broken hearted lover, is a masterpiece.  It tells of a man trying to reach out to a bitter lover, looking for peace and reconciliation.  A man desperate for some sign that this love may be healed.  I don't know exactly why, but the love songs that bespeak of hardship or long suffering seem more true somehow.  "Sorry seems to be the hardest word" follows this same vein.

In his introduction to "The Greatest Discovery," Elton tells us that the lyrics to this song are among his favorites.  As we "watch" a little boy meeting his new baby brother for the first time, we marvel along with him.  It is beautiful.  

These are not the only songs on this particular album...  but this gives a taste.  The album runs the gamut of emotion...  sorrow, joy, alienation, despair, hope, love, foreboding, whimsy...  it's there.  Of course, it is all performed by one of our generation's best singer-songwriters...  did I mention that he performs with an orchestra?  

Why share this exactly?  Maybe I wanted to see how many friends I have that will actually still be talking to me after I admit how much I like Elton John!  I dunno.  I just know that this album almost always takes my breath away when I hear it.  I find myself singing along and even shedding a tear...  it is rich stuff.

Maybe that's just how life is.      

       

 

Garden School Graduation 2009

This is the text of the speech I gave to the Garden School's 2009 graduating class, May 16, 2009.  It was a tough, emotional speech to give, but I hope that it rang true to those who heard it.  Being that I have dreamed of giving such a speech for some years now, it was a deep privilege.  My thanks to my students for asking me to offer these words on such a momentous day.  More than words...

************

(To the crowd as a whole.)

Hello.  My name is Patrick Koschak, otherwise known as the Benevolent Dictator to these Seniors.  I have had the privilege of being their teacher this year in home room class, and they have asked me to be here today in order to share some parting words of wisdom with them.  On behalf of our Seniors, I would like to welcome all of you to the 2009 Garden School Graduation ceremony.  Family and friends, acquaintances and gate-crashers, talking animals and other carbon based lifeforms; you are all welcome here today.  

         (To the Seniors)

You have made it.  Good job.  I am so very, very proud of each of you.   

Here I stand.  I am here to offer something to you.  This day is about the six of you, but this speech will probably sound more like it’s about me.  For those who know me, this may not come as a surprise!  You see, without my experience, I would have nothing at all to say, so in some ways these things must always be autobiographical…  Forgive me if I seem to drift off course.

I remember many moons ago when I sat at my own graduation.  It was in the year of the red grass, before the white man came, when the Buffalo still roamed the prairie, but I remember it still.  I remember feeling torn, or maybe a little confused over what was going on. 

         Maybe now, you find yourself feeling that way.  On the one hand, this is just another day.  A minute is still 60 seconds... still 24 hours in the day.  Tomorrow will be just another day.  You will not undergo some kind of mysterious transformation in the night  that will cause hair to grow out of new orifices…  well, that might happen, but aside from that, tomorrow is just another day to you…

         However, there is still this thought tugging at your mind that this is not just another day.  There are many people that you all have talked with these past months who seem to think that this is a big deal, and that gives you reason to doubt what you want to believe about this event.  Despite the youthful bravado you might display, you are a little unsure.

I might suggest that the rest of us here know that this day means something.  We can look back over these years and mark the passage of our own lives.  Time, and its’ twin brother Experience, have given us an insight that is often dismissed by the young.  Whether it be cultural construct, or the most real of passages, your graduation marks a new direction, a distinct dispensation.

         Doubtless you have heard about what awaits you.  Its’ various names have been invoked by parents and teachers in varying tones of warning and concern, almost like a boogey man.  You have wondered what, exactly, it is or what the big deal is about.  You have heard it described in various ways.  You are surrounded by it, but you might feel like you don’t understand it.  It crouches in wait for you tomorrow…      

         In case you haven’t guessed it, I am talking about the Real World.  Oh, don’t roll your eyes.  This phrase is not, in my mind, meant to imply that your experience thus far is less real or unreal somehow.  This does not dismiss your lives up to this point as childishly unimportant.  Saying youth is somehow unimportant is a lie straight from Hell. 

Instead, I want to suggest that it is one of those things not to be feared or scoffed at, but taken seriously.  You see, graduates, it is a perspective gained after the fact... similar to the Heavenly perspective in Lewis’ Great Divorce…  you probably don’t really get it yet, but one day, I pray you will.  Right now, in your hormone-clouded, expectant minds, you probably don’t want another unknowable hanging over you… but it is what it is. 

The Real World is a place filled with the most dire of consequences and the deepest of joys.  It can be a grey town, or a bright country.  It is made up of damaged hearts, unfulfilled dreams, dashed hopes, inexpressible beauty, new life, and incredible triumphs.  The valleys are desperately, terribly low, but the mountains..  oh the mountains …  are so,so majestic…  The Real World is a different sort of reality.  It is almost like the Matrix that way.  (Pardon the lame pop cultural reference… but I am trying here!)

Now, like Morpheus, I am here to offer you a choice.  In this instance, you have no choice about whether to be a part of this particular Matrix.  The choice that I am suggesting is this: how will you live in the Matrix?  Who will you serve?  Which pill will you choose? 

On the one hand, you can go through life cautiously constructing an altar to your own ego.  You can live in a way that disregards contrary opinions and the people that express them.  You can probably find a comfortable job, maybe even a little pile of money.  You might find another person to share all of this with.  You could end up with a nice house on the edge of the grey town, alone in your own mind, after arriving safely at death. 

         On the other hand, you can choose to really live.  No, it isn’t a simple matter of breathe in – breathe out; that’s the other choice.  This is adventure.  This is hardship.  This is eternal glory and reward!!  This is ultimate reality.  But this one will cost you something.  It will require you to give up your life…  to become a literal, living sacrifice.

         WHAT!!! 

Mr. K, we didn’t ask you to come here to talk like that!!!  We wanted you to be goofy… to say some outlandish stuff to make this a fun event!  Good grief!  What are you talking about this kind of stuff for…?

         My friends, (you are my friends) I can speak no other way and give the gravity of this event its’ due.  This is a send off, a farewell, as one part of your life ends and another begins.  I would be remiss if I did not give this word of encouragement and warning.  It must be so.

         This living sacrifice thing is real stuff.  You must give up your life to gain it.  Remember Jim Elliot who said: “He is no fool who gives up what he can not keep to gain what he can not lose.”  But remember, it is a LIVING sacrifice we are talking about…

         What does this kind of thing look like? We see a single woman volunteering in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit so that she can hold the newborn crack babies and whisper to them about Jesus… in case they don’t survive.  We see another young woman vow never to enjoy a family of her own, so that she can devote her life to the poor in the slums of Calcutta.  We see a young man, new wife and children in tow, leave everything he knows to go live in a jungle, to bring the Gospel to people who would eventually kill him. 

         We see it echoed in a father who might take a job that grants a short check, but allows him to be at every little league game.  We see an elderly woman with poor eyesight studying the scriptures in order to share with her Kindergarten Sunday School class.  We see a young mom up late with crying babies, humming them to sleep with the gentle sound of old hymns.  We see it in an old man, who rises early in the morning to build a fire and to make breakfast for his wife of 50 years, until the day that she wakes up to a cold house…

         Do you see now?  Did you catch a glimpse?  These are living sacrifices…  Most of them will be forgotten by the uncaring rush of time, but I tell you that their footsteps echo on into eternity.  These are not sudden, passionate sacrifices, made once for all in a moment.  These are the stalwart, devoted hearts of people who are living for a future time.  Some of them might die young, some might live in poverty, most will bear heavy burdens… but all of them will be rewarded. 

         And THAT is what I hope for you.  I hope… and hope… and pray and hope…  that each of you will live in such a way that warrants rich eternal reward.  Oh, I ache to see you before the Throne in that day, being blessed by the Fount of all Blessing.  Truly, for Him and Through Him and To Him are all things… 

I hope that you will remember that our Heavenly Father sees all things, and rewards every action in perfect fairness… and Grace.  I hope that you will remember that He always gives the greatest rewards…  serving Him is ALWAYS worth it.  I hope that you will remember, like Anne Kiemel, that He walks every lonely road with you.  Oh, how I hope!

         So that is what this is all about today.  I am not alone in hoping so much for you.  Your parents and teachers and friends… all of us hope for you.  We are anxious to see what masterpieces you paint with the canvases of your lives.  The road is tough…  Failure is a very real possibility…  But the reward is ever before you…  Oh how we hope…

In ancient times, the LORD gave Moses a prayer of blessing for his priests to recite to the Israelites who came to give offering in the Temple.  I would like to share that with you for my closing.  It is from the book of Numbers, chapter 6.

"May The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you; the LORD turn his face toward you and give you peace."                            

Thank you.  Thank you very much.