It has long been joked and understood that I am the glorious, difficult to describe, anomaly that happens when hippies have children and raise them on hearty diet of Jesus Christ, Joan Baez and Dr. Seuss. I was sung to sleep with James Taylor tunes and taught to recite the Apostles Creed. My musical intake consisted of John Rutter on Sunday mornings and Jimi Hendrix on the drive home. Grandpa schooled us in Pete Seeger's expansive catalogue. Mom steeped us in words and melody of John Denver tunes.
She was a dedicated and devoted fan. Denver's words, perspective and bond to nature served as her poetic anchors. She valued his insight and articulation of the human spirit tremendously and looked to his eloquence for my name. The second stanza to "Zachary and Jennifer" poetically dreams of the naming of children :
And we want to call her Jennifer
And she'll dance in fields of flowers
And she'll sing in summer showers
Lending music to the time
Oh we want to live forever
In this mirror see tomorrow
All the joy and all the sorrow
We can only hope to share
I come from a family that relies heavily on the tradition of using family names. Though my middle name is family inspired, my given first name, Jennifer, was trendy for the time and pulled from the song.
In my late teens, feeling cheated by barely having a "meaningful" name I questioned my mother on her thought process. She told me, "When you were born, I knew in my spirit that those words fit you and reflected you. You were different. You needed those words in your story".
I'm thankful for the gift of my mother's keen insight and the grounding in knowledge that I was named out of her search to plant courage and strength within a child she had barely met but knew deeply. She knew that joy and sorrow were the forecast. And Hope was the umbrella.
In this path to my name is the recognition that she understood me as both brain and heart. Creator and thinker. She recognized the depths of my complexities and though she often struggled to understand the complex nuances of my total self, she never once wavered in love.
I grew up with the virtual companionship and presence of John Denver. His music rang in the Oklahoma air and floated on a textured vinyl cadence in our home as we went about our day. We listened to him on repeat on our summer drives to the mountains. We would talk about his work, his poetry, his activism and his heart for adoption.
Frequently referred to as a "old soul", Denver's music was nourishment for my young and tender, yet prematurely tired and struggling spirit. I was born exactly one minute before Ronald Regan was sworn in for a second term. I was steeped in the poetry and resistance that named and claimed the generation that birthed me; a generation that history records as a generation of public servants, change makers and faithful resisters. Through sacred and secular stories and song, I felt the pull of the ancient-made-modern Christian imperative to speak truth to power. The courage was solicited within my core through art and music.
My mother's parenting battle cry was for us to use our powers for the Common Good. Write a letter to the elected official. Send the notecard for no reason. Make the phone call. Wonder out loud. Linger over coffee and conversation. Be present. Take time to create, with both words and images. It's all important. It's all about people.
John Denver's music provided the background for life lessons, tearful teenage car conversations and the bewildering time spent in hospitals. It was constant and
dependable.
Today, I visited the Grammy Museum's traveling John Denver exhibit. I was a little surprised by how stunned and stilled I felt walking into a room full of artifacts of a beloved modern day poet. He has gifted words to my passions and melodies to my journeys.
The experience
was part time travel, part permanent wake, part awe, part sorrow. There was deep ache for life gone too soon, both his and my mother's. They were both in their mid 50's when they left the earth. Both blazed through life with fierceness and intensity. Both had so much more to say.
In that space, There was connection: The transcending connection of music to memories; memories to song; song to meaning; meaning to feeling and the once was to the here now. It was the connection to The Love that holds you when the music is not enough to carry you; the connection to the music when The Love is too mysterious to trust. It was connection among us and beyond us.
This earth no longer has John Denver, but we have what he created: his art, his words, his legacy. We are connected to him, to his music and to others who share affinity for his work.
I am indebted to his lasting contributions to our culture, social lexicon and collective memory. Those contributions grant me vibrant connection to the person who worked so diligently to plant and water seeds of faith and art within my being. She knew her task was to enable me to be bold enough embrace my humanity with a willing spirit. Though the musical legacy of John Denver, an irreplaceable connection to the one who fought for my life and thought deeply about my name is alive and well years after her death.
Today, I was reminded that one of the greatest gifts we are given is the gift of each other so that we may live in community. This reminder came to me in the enduring, far-reaching lyrics written years before I was born, the passion of super fans (of both musicians and Jesus ), the company of a like-minded contemporary, and the mystery that always present.
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