I heart Steve Almond...to a point. He wrote a terrific piece about iTunes and when his new book, Rock and Roll Will save Your Life , comes out later this month, I will be one of first to stand in line for a copy.
When I first encountered iTunes, I was agog. After amassing music, I had more than 4000 albums, most of them stacked in my basement.
oh boy, a guy after my own heart.
Not only was my musical archive more organized, it was portable too. Thanks to the wonders of the ever -shrinking iPod, I could carry thousands of songs with me whenever I went on a device barely larger than a postage stamp...I'm pretty sure I would have proclaimed you the Messiah.
Heaven, I'm in heaven...
But for all the joys of such wizardry I've been experiencing a creeping sense of dread recently about iTunes... SAY WHAT!
...I considered listening to am album am activity i and of itself, It is not something I did while working on homework, let alone while checking em-mail or thumbing out text message.
This is where the Amish come in... wait for it. Mr Almond goes on to explain his view that music is pure and that we are moved it to the background. Filling our real lives with technology and leaving the joy of music behind. He couldn't be further from the truth. Sue Bender, Plain and Simple, taught me much about the Amish that I will never forget. God might have not heard my prayers to become Amish but by adoption, I will always be one of them and this is what she taught me.
For the Amish, everything is a ritual.
Doing the dishes
Mowing the lawn
baking bread
quilting, canning, hanging out the laundry,
picking fresh produce, weeding
no distinction is made between the sacred and the everyday
No distinction is made between the sacred and the everyday...
That is what Mr Almond is missing. The music is part of the everyday now and there is no us and them, it is we. It is the way life should be. My experience has been I am better at life when I remember the sacred and the everyday. Here's more.
Not knowing and learning to be comfortable with not knowing, is a great discovery.
Leave room for the unexpected
It's time to celebrate the lives we have
I spent a great deal of time living vicariously thru Sue Bender and the Amish. They changed my life. Mr Almond has it half right, now he just has to go celebrate the life he has...
