Blog 105 – 8.28.15

During my brief stint as a preacher when I was a young man I used to use a Bible verse to launch my sermons or lessons as it were. I still love the words of the Bible and my head and heart are full of them and they often come to me as I think about the wonders of this adventure in time and space. But I draw inspiration for my writings from other sources as well.  Books, movies, songs, people I have met, and conversations with them all serve to get my creative juices flowing. But I will let you be the judge of that.

Many of the songs my daughter Emily picked out for me have come to mean a great deal to me. One of those songs Wasting Time With You has the following lines:

I don’t want to be an actor
Always on the stage
I don’t want to be a writer
With my thoughts out on the page.

But the thing is that the last two lines of that verse is exactly what I have wanted to do since I was a boy. I understand that many people do not want their personal and private thoughts out on a page for all the world to see. A dear friend cautioned me recently of the danger of putting myself out there too much. I appreciate the caring and tender concern but that is what writers do, actors, painters, and most everyone else mentioned in the rest of the above song as well. The young man who sings that all he really wants to do is “waste his time with you.” Is content to share with just one. Some of us crave, desire, wish, want to share our story with a bigger audience.

Some may think the hours I spend putting my thoughts on the page are a waste of time. I do not. If I can find a way to say what you are thinking in a way that entertains, provokes further thought, and encourages you to make the most of your life well that is perhaps aiming a bit high. If I can just touch another human heart and make them smile or shed a happy tear, that my friends is all the reward I need to keep writing, to keep trying to find another way to say those three little words, “I love you” in a new and more believable way.

We all need to hear it and often, that we are loved, appreciated for the unique and magnificent beings we truly are. When I was a young man a song came out called The Number One Fan Of The Man From Tennessee. Since I am from Tennessee originally it had a special appeal to me. It is a song about a young man, a singer traveling around the country. He calls home to his girl and says, “Please come to Boston…to Denver…to L.A.” But her answer is always the same:

“No, Boy, you come home to me, ’cause there ain’t no gold and there ain’t nobody like me. I’m the number one fan of the man from Tennessee.”

Who among us would not want to be loved by a self assured person like that. I am here to remind you that you are. Our brother, Jesus, died on a cross to emphasize that message. I am not willing to die to get my message across to you but to write it to you daily, in as many different ways as I can think of, for as many days as I have left on this journey. Well, that is my continuing mission to go where no one has gone before, or at least to greater lengths to remind you how much you are valued and important to the Universe. Though a small speck we might appear, at first glance, we are important shining stars by which other travelers are able to steer a truer course through the Cosmos.

Your friend and fellow traveler,
David White