Don't blame Tony Bennett

My tastes in music run the gamut...rock, blues, jazz, some classical, new age, alt-country, old school soul. I love great musicians and great singers, especially great singers. The majority of the rock bands I listened to while I was growing up was due to their great vocals. I still love to hear great singers, no matter their genre (well, almost no matter their genre...some genre trains I just can't get on, no matter how good the vocals...those who know me best know the specific train to which I am referring).

While rock and blues have made up my primary lifelong playlist, a lot of music from the 1940's-60s really appeals to me, again most of it primarily featuring great singers. I love Sinatra, Bing, Dean, Rosemary, so many from that era. But the singer from that time and genre who still captivates me the most is Tony Bennett. I don't care what I'm doing or where I am, if I hear Tony's voice, I stop and enjoy the pure genius of his rich, lush voice. I know many feel the same way and Tony has been and remains an inspiration to countless singers of multiple generations.

With that as a backdrop, here's the point of today's blog. Tony's birthday was earlier this month (August 3) and one of the tributes to him that I read online was from a music critic who said Tony inspired him to become a music critic. I really found this interesting, as so many singers over the last half century have credited Tony with inspiring them to sing, but this is the first time I've seen a critic credit an artist for inspiring them to a career of critique (or criticism, depending on the critic and artist).

This got me thinking about the difference between participation and observation, the divide between creativity and commentary. I know numerous people who do both, but in each case their observation and commentary comes from the foundation of their creativity, from the fact that they participate in the creative process rather than just add their opinion about what someone else has done. Their right to critique has been earned by their own engagement in the struggle to bring something to life that probably no one else can...or should.

None of this is to beat up the music critic who paid tribute to Tony. Who knows, maybe he has turned readers on to several artists who otherwise may not have been known by that section of the music-loving world? Maybe he can't sing or play or note, but his love for music is so great that this is the way he can be part of something that brings joy to all of us?

But, we're surrounded by critics on every front today, most of whom seem bent on bringing something other than joy to our shared journey. Maybe they criticize because they don't believe in their gift? Maybe they don't know what their gift is? Maybe they're just scared and over time became mean as well, so dumping on someone else's gift and courage is the only thing they're any good at anymore?

Whatever has made the critic the critic, you and I still have the opportunity (every day) to decide in which part of the process we will spend our time and how we will use what is inside us. Call it a gift, call it talent, call it inspiration, call it a calling...whatever you call it, something that only you can create is waiting for you to do just that...create it. Write it, build it, video it, choreograph it, speak it, sing it, whatever it means to create it. And most of you know what your "it" is.

In The War of Art, Steven Pressfield writes, "The professional learns to recognize envy-driven criticism and to take it for what it is: the supreme compliment. The critic hates most that which he would have done himself if had had the guts." Maybe part of your calling and mine is to give the perpetual critic something to hate.

Don't hide from yourself or "it" today. Create. Show up for work today. Show up for yourself. Critics need something to talk about. The rest of us need something to inspire us, move us, teach us, transform us, as well as something to sing along to.

A Dangerous Decision

I recently learned that someone who I have watched from a distance has undergone a significant life-change...one that that they were neither expecting or wanting. This life-change was self-induced, even though they have chosen to not see it that way. The point on which several people who have observed this life-change seem to agree is that the change was necessary. This individual was out of control, becoming more and more damaging to people who had no way to protect themselves. And the person most at risk for suffering irreversible damage was the individual about whom I am writing.

So a life-change has come to them, but it has also come for them, even if they do not currently recognize it as such. When I first heard of their change, an unexpected thought (more like a prayer) came to mind: Please give them the grace to develop some grace. This is not a sentiment I expected to have for this person, because I definitely agreed that they needed a life-change before they brought any more reputational harm to people they seemed to care nothing about. My tendency in cases like this is to say, "Good, this is what needed to happen to them," and then I move on (in the interest of full-disclosure, I did say this initially, but then moved on to the grace thought/prayer).

"Please give them the grace to develop some grace." Upon having the thought, I was not and have not been able to shake its implications. If grace is something we are able to develop, then that development only matters if we then become people who extend that grace. And when we decide to make the extension of grace part of our basic operating system, then we have just made a very dangerous decision.

Before I explain why I believe this is dangerous, let me explain what I mean by grace. Some readers will immediately default to phrases involving unmerited favor, etc., but I'd like to put it a bit plainer, which hopefully makes the whole idea of grace more accessible to each of us. By grace I am simply referring to giving others the benefit of the doubt, even when everything in us is screaming to not do so. In addition, I believe extending grace means that I am going to value your humanity as much as my own, thereby allowing for your flaws in the same way I make room for mine.

What makes this dangerous is if I actually do this, I take something away from myself that I tend to hold pretty closely and dearly...my perceived right to dismiss you as a person, as well as to hope that what I most need for myself is not available to you. In other words, I remove from my operating system those attitudes and actions that protect me from you, making me open to being wounded by your flaws and struggles. Maybe the most dangerous aspect of this is that I take away my insistence that you must pay for what your flaws have done to myself and others.

So if I am to truly become fully human, I must allow you the space to do the same. Nothing new or ground-breaking about that statement, but operating this way will change who we are at our core and that is no small thing. The act of becoming fully human, as we are intended to be, is definitely process-driven and I believe developing grace is part of that process. This process is...

...inconvenient...not always satisfying...dangerous....ultimately transformational. This is grace.

Wake-up call

"I've been absent from my own life." Those were the words I spoke to a friend recently to describe both where I've been and who I've been for the better part of the last 18 months. For people who do not know me well and who observe my day-to-day activity, such a statement might be a surprise. For those who do know me well (of which there aren't many), I'm sure the statement is no surprise.

Life piles up on us, typically while we're busy with the things we mistakenly believe are central to living. But as most of us know, the un-examined, un-intentional life over time becomes empty and un-sustainable. At least that's what it became for me. Those words spoken to my friend came at the end of a day where an undeniable wake-up call was being offered to me. It wasn't a wake-up call of thundering voices and events, but was instead made up of small components of a day-long theme. It was an invitation. I said yes.

What I have needed to wake up from really isn't important. Bad stuff happens to all of us. We all get hurt, disappointed, misused. We lose sight of dreams. We lose sight of ourselves. I allowed the external hurt and disappointment to cloud over the dreams and selfhood I know to be true. I have begun the process of coming back to life, back to myself, reclaiming hope and true identity in the process.

And it is a process. I have not DONE this, but am instead returning to DOING it. To be absent from one's life does happen one day at a time and then the days pile up, turning into weeks, turning into far too much time. The reclaiming of one's life happens the same way. I know this, but there is a difference between the knowledge of it and the practice of it. And to practice it is to begin to reclaim the days and weeks, thereby reclaiming oneself.

The wake-up call keeps coming and I'm doing my best to answer it each day. It's nice to be present in my own life again. Hope that's true for you as well today.