Thanksgiving – Whatcha Gonna Do?

I listened last week to a version of a Bob Dylan song recorded recently by Tim Easton and the McCrary Sisters to raise awareness and support for the Nashville Rescue Mission, a homeless shelter and addiction recovery centre. The song is Whatcha Gonna Do and this is a really fine new version.

Being a bit of  Dylan fan, I’d heard the song before (on The Bootleg Series Volume 9: The Witmark Demos), but had rather forgotten it. It’s a version of an old spiritual, which asks the sobering question “Oh my Lord, what shall I do…when death comes a-creeping in the room.” Something I guess most of us would prefer not to think about too closely.

I then stumbled upon an excellent post by Sean Curnyn in The Cinch Review from 2014, who points out that Dylan has recorded several versions of the song. The one covered by Tim Easton was in fact the Witmark Demo version, the latest of three versions. Curnyn goes through the lyrical changes in each Dylan version, and prefers the version where the questions posed by each verse of the song are as follows:

First verse: Tell me what you’re gonna do when death comes creepin’ in your door

Second verse: Tell me what you’re gonna do when the devil calls your cards

Third verse: Tell me what you’re gonna do when the shadow comes into your room

Fourth verse: Tell me what you’re gonna do when your water turns to wine

Previously Dylan had had the 4^th verse question as Tell me what you’re gonna do when death comes knockin’ on your door.

This he finds interesting because there is a deliberate change here from contemplating the disasters of life – death, misfortune and evil, the “shadow.” Whether we like it or not, we all, sooner or later, have to face the shadow, or “the devil” (be it the consequences of our own foolish actions or, ill-treatment by others) and, last of all, death, of those we care about and, inevitably, our own. The ancient wisdom writers of Israel thought carefully about these sort of questions, when they wrote about “walking through the valley of the shadow of death,” and wondered where to go “in the day of trouble.” Their conclusion was that the only safe refuge was in “the Lord.”

Important as these questions are, Dylan takes us a step further when he asks “what you’re gonna do when your water turns to wine?” recalling, probably very deliberately, the wedding at Cana where Jesus turned the water into wine. What happens when something good happens, when something turns out, perhaps surprisingly, to be a blessing, when you encounter a moment of grace, when, perhaps, it seems like a miracle? How do we respond? Do we take it for granted? Do we enjoy the moment and then rush on to whatever’s next? Do we think it’s our right?

Or do we pause and be thankful? Gratitude is a powerful thing. Research shows that choosing to focus on good things makes you feel better than focusing on bad things, and that choosing gratitude can also bring out the best in those around us. It doesn’t just happen, however – we need to cultivate “interior gratitude,” the practice of giving thanks privately, and along with that, “exterior gratitude,” publically expressing our gratitude.  Someone has suggested writing two short emails each morning to friends, family or colleagues, thanking them for what they do – I’m gonna give that one a try.

It’s said that truly happy people find ways to give thanks for the little, insignificant things that happen in life – in this thanksgiving week, Dylan’s question is pertinent: asks “what you’re gonna do when your water turns to wine?”

Whatcha gonna do?

Who’s got the “Worried Blues?”

These are worrying times, for sure. The world seems an increasingly unstable place. In the past we may have just heard about conflicts and trouble in various parts of the world, but the very connectedness and interdependence of the world – particularly its trading and financial systems – means that we’re much more likely to be affected by events in far-flung places. People are worried. We’re assailed on all sides by things that cause us anxiety – being laid off, performing well enough in our jobs, our own health and that of those we love, having enough money to get by, or how our children are doing – who are they hanging out with, are they taking drugs – and the list goes on endlessly.

For some people, worry spirals into a real problem – about 18% of adults in the United States suffer from anxiety disorders, which are the most common mental illness there, according to the Anxiety and Depression Society of America. In the UK, anxiety disorders affect around 9% of the population.

Worry, of course, is a key ingredient of many blues songs. Worried Life Blues is a song that has become one of the most recorded blues songs of all time. Originally recorded by Major “Big Maceo” Merriweather in 1941, it has been recorded by Sonny Boy Williams, Honeyboy Edwards and B B King, as well as more recent artists like Keith Richards, Eric Clapton, North Mississippi Allstars and Bob Dylan. Blind Lemon Jefferson from Texas, one of the most popular blues artists of the 1920s, also had the “worried blues”:

Worried so bad, can’t tell my stockin’ from my shoes

Worried so bad, can’t tell my stockin’ from my shoes

I laid down last night with Lemon’s lowdown worried blues

(Lemon’s Worried Blues)

Bluesman Huddie Ledbetter, better known as Leadbelly said, “Blues was composed up by the Negro people when they was under slavery. They was worried.” African Americans during the early decades of the twentieth century when the blues were emerging had plenty of reason to be worried, not just when they were under slavery. Jim Crow laws, systems of peonage, sundown towns, rampant discrimination, all served to form an environment in the South where black people had good reason to be worried – there were real fears of being wrongly accused, of not pleasing the boss, of being lynched or kidnapped for peonage on a farm or mine. Their lives, like that of the poor everywhere around the world, were filled with uncertainty and good reason for worry.

But whether we’re faced with hard lives of poverty or not, we all of us, get the worried blues from time to time. For some of us there is no real substance to our worry – it’s just a symptom of a grasping, accumulating age, which leaves us needlessly anxious about things we don’t have but feel we want, or how we match up to certain standards of status. Whatever the source of the worry that assails us all at times, Blind Willie Johnson seems to have the answer. In his song Trouble Soon Be Over, Johnson addresses the harsh reality of his own life, where he was blinded as a boy and lived his life in considerable poverty – “Well, though my burden may be heavy, my enemies crush me down. ” But, this weight need not be too heavy, he says, because, “Christ is my burden bearer, He’s my only friend.”  The song goes on to say that, if we take “Jesus’ yoke upon us and live a Christian life,” then “trouble will soon be over.”

Jesus’s words in the Sermon on the Mount powerfully address our worried minds: “Don’t be anxious…your heavenly father knows…seek first the kingdom of God and God’s justice, and you will have everything you need.”

There’s the crux of it, the anti-dote to anxiety – finding ways to pursue justice, to helping make things right in the world. This is at the heart of what Jesus called the “kingdom of God.” The funny things is, that when we get radically connected to the poor and those suffering injustice in the world, our own worries kind of fade into the background. As Bob Dylan recently said – “no matter how bad you got it, somebody else has got it worse.” Here’s the cure for the anxiety of the age.

Bob Dylan’s Remedy for the Holiday Blues

A couple of days ago, I happened upon a short Christmas message from Bob Dylan, on the subject of the Christmas blues. In his characteristic laconic drawl, Bob notes that the holiday season, which should be full of joy, can, for some, be a time of loneliness and sadness. Family times like Christmas are often reminders of lost loved ones, and for those alone, the sense of isolation can become acute.

Bob’s remedy for the holiday blues? “You don’t need Dr Phil…you don’t need me. Just go out and help someone more unfortunate than you.” Bob suggests going to a soup kitchen, or a retirement home, maybe even a prison” to find someone to be with and to bring some cheer to. “No matter how bad you have it, somebody got it worse.”

Bob’s spot on with this bit of advice – it’s amazing how just taking your eyes and attention of yourself and your own problems, and starting to focus on the difficulties someone else has, suddenly makes your own situation look, well, not so bad after all.

The trouble is, we’re completely saturated with messages from the advertising, entertainment and media industries that tell us we need this or that product or experience or upgrade to be really beautiful / successful / happy / fulfilled. It can be hard to resist. We get sucked in to thinking about all those things we don’t have, but maybe could have – and, aside from not enjoying the things we have, we end up anxious, unsettled, our lives dominated by what we consume.

Go ahead. Just buy it.

Bob’s got the answer for the blues that arise from all of that. As Jesus famously said – “If you love your life, you’ll lose it.” It’s those who “care nothing for their lives” that have the best reward (John 12.25). My experience has been that the people who seem to be able to do this best are those who have very little – I recall my great discomfort sitting in a little slum hut in India, being served food that I knew the family could barely afford. But their neighbourliness, their care for the stranger, their hospitality was, for them, the most important thing.

The most important things for us sadly, are precisely that – things – stuff we can do without. Bob reminds us this Christmas that the short-lived pleasure of getting more stuff, often followed by the desire to acquire yet more stuff has a simple remedy – “instead of adding to the sadness in the world, why not lend a hand, help somebody out. And not just at Christmas, why don’t you give it a try all year round.”