Chuck

If I woke up on the morning of October 30th content in my resolution that there was no God, why have I blogged all this blabber ‘n’ smoke about God and faith ever since? Why not just go about my happy existence and leave it at that?

The truth is, October 30th became a jump off point for me, a beginning rather than the end of a long quest of searching and pondering. The truth is, I want very much to believe in God but in order to get there, I’ve had to eliminate every preconception I ever had about His, his, her or its reality.

I was brought up Episcopalian, was born again for a period, fellowshipped with Baptists for an even briefer time, dropped everything for years and went back to being an Episcopalian after 9/11 albeit only for a couple of years. Now, after all that, I’ve wiped the slate clean. But that doesn’t mean the search is over or that I’ve turned my back on the whole thing. Not in the least.

As honestly as I can put it, for years I worshipped and followed a man. A mortal man. A guy named Chuck who was known to many as Colorblind James. I played in his band; I was his brother-in-law; I was for all intents and purposes his disciple. I learned at his feet. I learned from being with him. I took the wisdom in his songs seriously. I took it as gospel.

When Chuck announced to me once that “I see people for who they really are…bar none!” I believed him. The questions that he asked such as “Why Should I Stand Up?” became my questions. The direct and compassionate declaration of “You Need Somebody On Your Side” was comforting, astute, and came on like a clarion call.

Lyrically, he took on the big issues with an assuredness and self-confidence that made and makes most songwriters pale and wither by comparison. His peers were Dylan and Randy Newman. His heroes were Michael Hurley, Blind Willie McTell, Paul Siebel, and Jim Kweskin. He was very much a leader and I was very much his devout follower.

His books were Moby Dick and the Bible, in that order. Moby Dick spoke of how life really is. The Bible spoke of how life should be. From the two he distilled his own vision of the cruel and harsh realities of life softened only by the possibilities of compassion, love and the human spirit. With spirit we are capable of anything.

The spirit of a man never dies. It is capable, once the earthly shell has died, of returning as a book under a businessman’s arm or the score of a baseball game. I’ve seen and witnessed the truth of what Chuck expressed. Spirit is passed on from one to another. Once it has emanated from an individual, it can’t be destroyed. It moves on from individual to individual, from the businessman to the crowd at the stadium.

And that spirit is joy and abandonment. Letting go and completely being engulfed in the moment: the moment when the intellect can’t hope to catch up with the flow of life that has taken control. That’s God. That’s the now. The right now. Here and Now. And Chuck understood it wasn’t his alone to own. It belongs to everybody. Anyone who has ears to hear and a heart that beats.

Chuck was a self-described atheist who utterly believed in spirit. Spirit was everything. It was what one sought in the course of daily activity. It was all that one needed to seek. It was indescribable until it revealed itself in a crystalline moment. It was Here and Now. Utterly.