Band Practice with the Trees

School is catching up with me. So I haven’t had time to write an original this week, but I have a backlog of songs for just this occasion. This song I wrote 3 and half years ago after my first full summer in Philadelphia.

You Are a Glove


Download it: Here

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I have been getting up early these days. Not of my own accord, but I can’t wake up early two days a week and have my body think that it should sleep in on the rest of the time. So generally I make some coffee and sit out on the back balcony. I may have one of the best balconies in my apartment. Some people have to share their balcony with people from other apartments (and their balconies are significantly smaller than mine as well). However, since my studio apartment is on the corner of the building, I have a giant balcony that wraps around the corner of the building, and I have it all to myself. There is a wonderful view of the mountains and the rows of tall palm trees that line the streets of Pasadena. Seeing the palm trees conquering over there commercial center from a distance is far more comforting than walking among them amidst the hustle and bustle.

The trees are incredibly calming to me. I can see why Paul talks of those who have put there trust in the creation rather than the creator. There is a certain tranquility and transcendence that one experiences in the calmness of the morning enjoying the trees’ subtle sway (though of course sun and rain likely had more impact on the daily lives of the people Paul was referencing). But I like to think of Isaiah 55 (and maybe that Sufjan Stevens song). Isaiah 55 is an amazingly hopeful segment of promise... “Come all you who are thirsty…”

You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands (Isa 55:12, NIV).

I like to sit in the stillness and imagine that the subtle sway of the trees is a warming up for future rejoicing. They have a show coming up and they are practicing for the coming of peace and wholeness. It may be silly, but so much of the world is what we allow ourselves to see. I like to think that I am in friendly competition with the trees. They are warming up their praise, and I don’t want to be undone. I am thankful for the days that my heart is warming up along with them (or the term Paul uses splagchna, which roughly translates as “emotional organs,” Phlm 12 [intestines?]. Let my intestines sing! Let whatever sing). The trees remind me as walk throughout the day to always be thankful, not because of what they are, but who sustains them. I’m waiting to hear what it sounds like when the mountains just to my right break out in song (though this is California, so I hope it doesn’t resemble and earthquake).