It's a street in a strange world
A man walks down the street
He says why am I soft in the middle now
Why am I soft in the middle
The rest of my life is so hard
I need a photo-opportunity
I want a shot at redemption
Don’t want to end up a cartoon
In a cartoon graveyard
Bonedigger bonedigger
Dogs in the moonlight
Far away my well-lit door
Mr. beerbelly beerbelly
Get these mutts away from me
You know I don’t find this stuff amusing anymore
If you’ll be my bodyguard
I can be your long lost pal
I can call you betty
And betty when you call me
You can call me al
A man walks down the street
He says why am I short of attention
Got a short little span of attention
And wo my nights are so long
Where’s my wife and family
What if I die here
Who’ll be my role-model
Now that my role-model is
Gone gone
He ducked back down the alley
With some roly-poly little bat-faced girl
All along along
There were incidents and accidents
There were hints and allegations
If you’ll be my bodyguard
I can be your long lost pal
I can call you betty
And betty when you call me
You can call me al
Call me al
A man walks down the street
It’s a street in a strange world
Maybe it’s the third world
Maybe it’s his first time around
He doesn’t speak the language
He holds no currency
He is a foreign man
He is surrounded by the sound
The sound
Cattle in the marketplace
Scatterlings and orphanages
He looks around, around
He sees angels in the architecture
Spinning in infinity
He says amen! and hallelujah!
If you’ll be my bodyguard
I can be your long lost pal
I can call you betty
And betty when you call me
You can call me al
Call me al
There is something in this song that expresses so beautifully the feeling of being a foreigner to the world... not just in this place, but to the whold world... feeling as though there may not be any peice of the face of this earth to which those around you look at you and say, "You're from here, right?"... and then the man in the song looks up to the "angels in the architecture" and realizes the joy and beauty in every millimeter of space God put here and give Him the praise He is due...
My life is "a street in a strange world". I can honestly say that the most at home I have ever felt was in Haifa when I was serving there... but maybe that's not true. Perhaps it was when I was at home in Seneca with my family... or when I was at Louis and Melissa's house in Columbia... or perhaps when I was coming down the river in a kayak... or the last time I sat on my mom's lap or yesterday at lunch with my dad... or when I was... oh, I don't know where. I find myself frequently in an interested between-place in my emotions and thoughts. I feel equally as much a complete stranger to my life and as familiar and safe and comfortable as I have ever been.
I feel the clarity I prayed for on pilgrimage... thank God... the only thing that was clear before was that the vast majority of the bits and peices comprising my life were lost and losing and on hold and paused and making me ill. I don't feel that way anymore, and I am heading in a definate direction that makes me feel like the sun has come out and is in a nice, slow rise. This feels deeply... deeply...
d e e p l y g o o d.
Every day doesn't feel like a waste of a perfectly good life. I work with some really good people. I have a particularly amazing family and an assortment of best friends that I never could have dreamed better.
I haven't been able to write about pilgrimage. Something somewhere deep in my soul is still chewing on that experience. I can, however, say that I have never felt so solid before in my life. I can only chalk it up to getting on my hands and knees and shamelessly begging for it. I must have been an interesting pilgrim... I always wondered what kind of pilgrim I would be.
(NOTE: I'm talking about Baha'i pilgrimage. If you don't know what that is, please ask me. In short, I was here ----> www.bahaipictures.com for the purpose of praying and thinking in the most special places in the world. Baha'is have to wait for years and years for an invitation to go to Haifa and Acre, Israel on pilgrimage.)
Anyway.
So I often wondered whether I would be one of those pilgrims that wanders around staring at things in wonder and awe... or one of those that bursts into tears at the drop of a hat... or one of those that feels the need to talk to everyone around them and figure out who these people are and what they're about or (the one I loathe the most) the kind that seems to feel the need to flirt with everything of the opposite sex that moves.
There are, of couse, many other kinds and everyone's experience is different and whatever, but mind was none of the above. I am still not ready to talk about what I felt. I think I just don't want to talk about it as though it were a walk in th park or something that just happened and should be reported on. I want to just let my soul speak it when it's ready and just continue to tell people that it was wonderful and great and powerful and whatever else comes to mind as it does. I'm waiting to feel the need to sort through all of it out loud at some point, but the urge hasn't yet come upon me. Maybe it's just too big. So far, I've been really selfish about my pilgrimage. I was selfish about it when I was there, and maybe that's just continuing... who knows?
He says why am I soft in the middle now
Why am I soft in the middle
The rest of my life is so hard
I need a photo-opportunity
I want a shot at redemption
Don’t want to end up a cartoon
In a cartoon graveyard
Bonedigger bonedigger
Dogs in the moonlight
Far away my well-lit door
Mr. beerbelly beerbelly
Get these mutts away from me
You know I don’t find this stuff amusing anymore
If you’ll be my bodyguard
I can be your long lost pal
I can call you betty
And betty when you call me
You can call me al
A man walks down the street
He says why am I short of attention
Got a short little span of attention
And wo my nights are so long
Where’s my wife and family
What if I die here
Who’ll be my role-model
Now that my role-model is
Gone gone
He ducked back down the alley
With some roly-poly little bat-faced girl
All along along
There were incidents and accidents
There were hints and allegations
If you’ll be my bodyguard
I can be your long lost pal
I can call you betty
And betty when you call me
You can call me al
Call me al
A man walks down the street
It’s a street in a strange world
Maybe it’s the third world
Maybe it’s his first time around
He doesn’t speak the language
He holds no currency
He is a foreign man
He is surrounded by the sound
The sound
Cattle in the marketplace
Scatterlings and orphanages
He looks around, around
He sees angels in the architecture
Spinning in infinity
He says amen! and hallelujah!
If you’ll be my bodyguard
I can be your long lost pal
I can call you betty
And betty when you call me
You can call me al
Call me al
There is something in this song that expresses so beautifully the feeling of being a foreigner to the world... not just in this place, but to the whold world... feeling as though there may not be any peice of the face of this earth to which those around you look at you and say, "You're from here, right?"... and then the man in the song looks up to the "angels in the architecture" and realizes the joy and beauty in every millimeter of space God put here and give Him the praise He is due...
My life is "a street in a strange world". I can honestly say that the most at home I have ever felt was in Haifa when I was serving there... but maybe that's not true. Perhaps it was when I was at home in Seneca with my family... or when I was at Louis and Melissa's house in Columbia... or perhaps when I was coming down the river in a kayak... or the last time I sat on my mom's lap or yesterday at lunch with my dad... or when I was... oh, I don't know where. I find myself frequently in an interested between-place in my emotions and thoughts. I feel equally as much a complete stranger to my life and as familiar and safe and comfortable as I have ever been.
I feel the clarity I prayed for on pilgrimage... thank God... the only thing that was clear before was that the vast majority of the bits and peices comprising my life were lost and losing and on hold and paused and making me ill. I don't feel that way anymore, and I am heading in a definate direction that makes me feel like the sun has come out and is in a nice, slow rise. This feels deeply... deeply...
d e e p l y g o o d.
Every day doesn't feel like a waste of a perfectly good life. I work with some really good people. I have a particularly amazing family and an assortment of best friends that I never could have dreamed better.
I haven't been able to write about pilgrimage. Something somewhere deep in my soul is still chewing on that experience. I can, however, say that I have never felt so solid before in my life. I can only chalk it up to getting on my hands and knees and shamelessly begging for it. I must have been an interesting pilgrim... I always wondered what kind of pilgrim I would be.
(NOTE: I'm talking about Baha'i pilgrimage. If you don't know what that is, please ask me. In short, I was here ----> www.bahaipictures.com for the purpose of praying and thinking in the most special places in the world. Baha'is have to wait for years and years for an invitation to go to Haifa and Acre, Israel on pilgrimage.)
Anyway.
So I often wondered whether I would be one of those pilgrims that wanders around staring at things in wonder and awe... or one of those that bursts into tears at the drop of a hat... or one of those that feels the need to talk to everyone around them and figure out who these people are and what they're about or (the one I loathe the most) the kind that seems to feel the need to flirt with everything of the opposite sex that moves.
There are, of couse, many other kinds and everyone's experience is different and whatever, but mind was none of the above. I am still not ready to talk about what I felt. I think I just don't want to talk about it as though it were a walk in th park or something that just happened and should be reported on. I want to just let my soul speak it when it's ready and just continue to tell people that it was wonderful and great and powerful and whatever else comes to mind as it does. I'm waiting to feel the need to sort through all of it out loud at some point, but the urge hasn't yet come upon me. Maybe it's just too big. So far, I've been really selfish about my pilgrimage. I was selfish about it when I was there, and maybe that's just continuing... who knows?