So, I was in the North Georgia mountains this weekend. A lake is nestled quietly between hills that are too many shades of green to accurately describe. The silver blue of fading day shimmers off the lake until the only lights left are the stars and the occasional glow of a house perched among the trees like a firefly.
There is almost no way not to be relaxed there. Even the boat cops joke with you about farmer's tans when they pull you over.
Being as we were in the hill country, sittin' around playin' corn hole and spades, I got a hankerin' for some good ol' bluegrass. First thing I did when I got home was take a nap. Second thing was to hop on itunes and look for the essence of the weekend in song.
Enter, banjo.
It is impossible to be tense when there's some skilled banjo pickin' goin' on. Makes a soul want to drop the g's on present progressive verbs and stretch vowels like homemade caramel.
I love the power of music to affect spirit. It touches us in places words can't access. It crosses between the physical world and the spiritual and can draw us to places we'd never find without a trail of notes to lead the way.
My new bluegrass songs draw me to the quiet, simple times. To a life that isn't go, go, go. Where the fastest thing moving is the banjo man's fingers. But boy, can they fly.
So, even while I'm pressing near ten miles over the speed limit, my soul is chuckin' a bean bag at a big painted board that done-been cut with a hole. That thur's the three point hole, ya see. If'n y'all git the bag in thur, yer durn good at corn-holin'.
Thank you, God, for music in all it's forms, and especially--today--for the banjo.
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