The High Lonesome

"Art has the power to render sorrow beautiful, make loneliness a shared experience, and transform despair into hope.”

-Brene Brown in 'Braving The Wilderness'

When I drive by the old house with the brick chimney on Mike's land and the hoarfrost glistens on the willows that frame it, grass shines golden through the snow and the far off forest line is misty blue on a winters morning, then the old ache of nostalgia hits. Don Wilson once tacked a pair of blue jeans and shirts up to the side of the building as a practical joke and the painting of that is way back in my art journals. I've sketched that building often after a hoarfrost morning and I'll paint it more until it's gone because it's always there on the drive to school. It's a piece of old times, a tiny reminder in our busy lives of change and decay.

Hugh McKervill asked for current photos of any old buildings left here from his Sinbuster days in the 1950's. I rambled around the woods nearby and took photos of light streaming through a tumbling kitchen roof onto an old sink, a store building with a fur coat left in the corner, a school with a full length chalkboard still on one wall but a hole in the ceiling where water comes in throughout the years seasons. Hugh sent back a line from a hymn, "Change and decay in all around I see, O Thou who changest not, abide with me."

Good people have moved away, friends have changed and water keeps flowing under the Carrot River bridge. We walk along our trail and sort ourselves out again and again. The old ache comes when we remember days gone by and close relationships and small children who grew up and make their own decisions now.

Part of change is inevitable but the best things in relationships do last and can be hearkened back to. They say the old wailing sound in bluegrass music comes from soldiers who returned from war and felt the changes in them and in others as they walked the mountain trails and they hollered out in a high lonesome sound. When they incorporated that sound into music they shared it and connected people with it. When we acknowledge our pain and grief, our hurts and our nostalgia, we have courage to share it. In sharing, we change despair into hope. Only in connecting with others can we discover strength. When I talk about missing someone, grieving past good times, I choose to do that with someone who feels the same to gain courage from them, from how they're coping.

Perhaps I try to share my lonely burden with someone and they dismiss it or reply with a changed topic, I realize they're not feeling like me and it deepens the void in me, makes me feel a little more lonely. I can't blame them though because I've often disregarded others' feelings exactly the same. As the world sorts people into political sects and the internet hones our search requests by giving us the same things we tend to look at, it feels we divide and weaken ourselves. Somehow I need to stay vulnerable and soft enough to understand others emotions and help them feel heard and understood. People need safe spaces of no judgement to help them connect and find hope.

When my folks went to the old sorghum festival a few week ago in the Smoky Mountains, I knew the sights and smells and moments they were experiencing. Dad sent an audio of some live bluegrass gospel and that pang struck deeper. I was lonely for the old days of being a child and rambling through the Georgia mountain village with my siblings, walking over the wooden bridge and hearing the bubbling stream going over rocks, peeking in the dark smokehouse to smell the sharp scent of hams hanging from the roof, watching the blacksmith strike his hammer at red hot iron, hearing the sorghum juice getting squeezed out through rollers run by a hit and miss engine. I missed the old days. I shared the bluegrass audio and a sister in law acknowledged how I must wish I was there. Then I felt better, soothed and not so alone. Silly and vain probably because she also has parents away who she misses but we shared an understanding.

I'll feel lonely again. It might be when I'm bussing school children and I see the old house on Mikes quarter decorated by hoarfrost. Drive by empty homes and unplowed driveways. I'll miss people who moved away. I might even miss something as far away as the old friendly neighbour Don who used to come see my garden and give me tips that I still use. I hope I won't discard that lonesome ache but grasp it as a chance to reach out and connect with someone.

I've researched Vincent Van Goph's life, his art, his letters that read like poetry. He felt the high lonesome often. He felt it so much that he was in a mental asylum for awhile and gets viewed as a crazy man. He cut his ear off, after all. Surely he was mad. But maybe he lost his life in such a tragic way because he forgot to let the loneliness help him reach out. Sometimes we get so lonely and sorted off into camps and groups that we forget we need variety and start being protective and defensive. I feel like I even do this in my Christian religion sometimes. I forget how I need diversity in people.

I can't just associate with mad artists all the time, we'd go mad together. I need a mechanic and carpenter like my Dad to inspire me to paint a tractor for him, I need my husband who gets me to paint cows faces, I need people who are grieving to inspire me to pull out the stone engraver and try to cut a picture into hard stone. I need a whole variety of people around me to round out myself and to help me reach deeper. Each person helps me reach another brush mark and each brush mark helps me reach another person.

My husband can use music as his springboard to connection, I can talk baking with a friend, some men sit and talk cows while others discuss grain farming. The more we learn, the more rounded out we get as people and the further we can reach. "The truest form of art is loving people," Van Goph said. It seems like love, this attraction towards someone, should create a curiousity about them. What makes them flow? What is their passion? Find it, learn something.

Jesus didn't sort people into factions by their wealth or status or success or clothes or acquaintances. Somehow He saw past all the trappings and He saw someone to love. He didn't ask them to stop being individuals with passions but He did say, "Learn of me." I want to get more curious about Jesus and learn more of Him.

When the high lonesome has sorted me out as completely alone in this world, despair swamps and drives me down like it did Van Goph in his last days, let me find hope in The One Who I truly need to connect with. A calm focus on Jesus can keep me above the waves and keep me walking forward. His Word is truth no matter what all the voices say, I can rest when I tell him about the loneliness. He can love me when I feel sorted out and discarded. After all, He told the story of a Shepherd going out to find a lamb and carry it home. He says He cares for the humble sparrow.

He also helps me take time for others' loneliness sometimes and inspires me not to sort them into a group but to embrace them as my people. I pray I can take time to understand and not be dismissive of other's pain.

Brene Brown says "If we can find a way to feel hurt rather than spread hurt, then we can create change." Seems like that can go with the saying, "Hurt people hurt people." When conversation gets into a touchy area and I feel hurt coming, I'm liable to react. To withdraw or lash out. Or if I sense another's hurt, I can be creating a reactive experience. If I lean into the pain and acknowledge the hurt aloud in a healthy way with them, it can turn into a deepening of a friendship rather than a volatile breaking and destroying. Silence is sometimes the worst reaction, a refusal to talk about when things hurt. Healing in relationships rarely happens till there is some rumble language about what went wrong. It takes a cautious step in wording to not create more disaster but it's a lot better than silence through the years.

I have had relationships with areas we just don't go. I caused hurt and I know I did because they refused to talk about it or anything near it. I just had to wait and pray for God's time and healing to repair the fractured fraying cords between us and I also had to lean into being partly wrong and partly right and ready to talk when they showed signs of openness.

I don't know why I wrote all these rambling thoughts , just thoughts I'd been thinking because I drove past the old house on Mike's quarter on a hoarfrost covered morning and I missed them snuggled into their cozy home nearby. And now I don't miss them because we were just together but I still ache for old times and old ways. I ache for the many people who aren't around anymore who used to be everyday friends. I know history proves that nothing stays the same but oh, why can't I keep all my people near me and things just exactly the same? I feel like reacting, blaming circumstances and people for all the effects of change. I have to lean into the pain though and say " I miss them because I love them. I miss the old days because they were good times. That love and good times is a blessing that will last."

Only Our Creator stays the same from beginning to end and through Jesus we can find safety and solace in Him.

"Hold Thou the cross before my closing eyes, shine through the gloom and point me to the skies. Heaven's morning breaks and earth's vain shadows flee, in life, in death, O Lord abide with me."