Reflections from group foster care, and an interview with Deborah Garrison

Author: John Lucas Kovasckitz with Deborah Garrison

During our engagement and the first year of our marriage, Danielle and I worked at a home for teens who had been victims of sexual abuse. We worked the night shift in separate cottages - seven at night to seven in the morning. Before that job, I had never pulled an all-nighter. 

A few of the teens we worked with had been trafficked, most had been raped or criminally abused or neglected, and all had experienced significant trauma. Most had subsequently bounced around repeatedly within the system - for many it was their fifteenth, thirtieth, fiftieth placement. Some, for good reason, had completely given up. I called the police a lot. Once, accidentally at four in the morning while playing music in the laundry room. The dispatcher thanked me for the concert.

Danielle and I became incredibly tired...physically, emotionally, spiritually. We quit our jobs and traveled the country, believing that once we found our next home our lives would look completely different. As it turned out, we eventually felt peace about applying for The Crossnore School - also in group foster care, a stone's throw away from our last job - and moved back to the same small mountain town we had left behind. Life is funny that way sometimes. 

For the past two years, Danielle and I have poured ourselves into the work. As young twenty-somethings, we raised up to ten children at a time - our youngest a ten month old baby to our oldest at eighteen...and every cottage has a dog. It was messy, frustrating, joyful, heartbreaking, and beautiful all at once - as life often is.

As an illustration, I remember part of the cottage (including Danielle) was knocked off their feet with a stomach bug. In the same five minutes, I was cleaning up vomit, breaking up an argument, changing a diaper, and scrambling to help with a nose bleed. I remember thinking vividly, this is the most horrible day, but I wouldn't want to be anywhere else. 

At Crossnore I have seen Danielle's heart grow and ache for justice - sometimes even for a glimmer of hope. Because some days our best efforts seem utterly useless within a broken system and a broken world...a world where babies grow up with drugs in their cribs, when young girls have bruises on their bodies, in a world of seemingly endless cycles of abuse, and at many times we have held helpless frustration with "the system" of overworked social workers, DSS, dismissive judges, and the world's solutions for justice amidst brokenness. 

And this is just a few counties. In America, the land of the free...holding liberty and justice for all.

Through the great overflow of pain and beauty came "Bruises", which ends:

For I have wept for bruises
On the backs of those too young
But I cling to the Father
Who calls us all His own

May your heart never grow hard
May your eyes always see beauty
Though you sometimes need to weep
Though you sometimes need to fight
May joy come in the morning
May darkness find the light

And may you never give up, may you never give up
May you never give up on love

This is what I wish to be the anthem of my life: that despite whatever darkness we experience, love is stronger...that wherever there is love there is hope.

Someone who has walked this out with her life better than almost anyone I have met is Deborah Garrison. Ms. Deborah was a cottage parent for over seventeen years - fourteen at Crossnore - and was our next door neighbor for most of our time at Crossnore. Deborah recently accepted a position on campus as a case manager, and also serves as a GAL (Guardian ad Litem - a volunteer appointed to advocate for abused or neglected children in court). 

Ms. Deborah is a Mama Bear. She's fierce. You don't mess with her, and you certainly don't mess with her kids. But talk to her for five minutes, or read her interview below, and you'll see why I believe Deborah to be one of the great Mothers of our generation. She emanates love.

Deborah has helped to raise hundreds of children throughout her years as a cottage parent. I've known her as a mother and a grandmother, and I've seen the proud pictures of her grandkids - she's Nana and her husband Mike is PopPop. I had assumed this family was biological, but to further show the heart and character of Deborah, she writes: "The kids who I call my kids (and are my kids) all aged out of the system, left Crossnore, yet adopted me as their Mother...the two of them that had children have adopted me as the grandmother to their children...nothing legal on earth [laughs]. We are the family that God put together. I stopped telling people that they weren't biologically mine because to me or Mike there is no difference. They are our children and grandchildren."

When Danielle and I were first getting to know Ms. Deborah, I asked her how long she had been a cottage parent. She replied: "Fifteen years, and I'll be here when you leave." It wasn't spoken out of ill-will, meanness, or conceit. It was fact. As if to say: this is what I have put my hand to; this is my life's work.

And she was right. After two years, Danielle and I are moving on from our roles as cottage parents. After traveling, we plan to come back to the general area, at least for awhile. We would like to volunteer with Crossnore if we can, but are not planning to re-enter direct care...although because of what we have seen an experienced, we do deeply feel the eventual calling to foster and adopt. Some days this prospect is scarier than others. 

I have great respect and admiration for those like Ms. Deborah, who have poured themselves into selfless work requiring so much for such a great length of time. As a cottage parent, you essentially move every week. Change is promised - kids are in and out, and goodbyes can be wrecking. There are several children that we have helped to raise for a short period of time that we would have dropped everything to adopt, had we been given the legal opportunity. Our two years is the general life span for cottage parents. I can't imagine this cycle seven or eight times over. 

I have not known Ms. Deborah for much of the span of her life, but I believe that the darkness she has encountered has only made her more aware of the light within. And that is where bravery grows and thrives. 

Ms. Deborah is a collector of stories, and she holds a lot from over the years. Most of the stories she keeps are told either with laughter, or with tears and a hand over her heart. It's an honor to share a bit of hers. 

Can you give a basic timeline of your life up to this point?

Deborah: People always ask me where I am from, but that isn’t such an easy question for me to answer. I have never really lived in any one place for more than three years (if that) my entire life. I have moved and lived in at least 18 different places and houses in my life. My family struggled living below the poverty line, but that is not what I remember. I remember giving what we had to others who were in even greater need. My Mom and Dad would take care of so many kids and people all around us. I learned that many times the needs of people can be met not with money or material things, but with kind gestures, encouraging words, listening ears, hugs, tears, and a simple prayer. I learned that you treat others how you want to be treated (how God wants you to treat them)...not the way you think they deserve because of how they treat you or how they act.

Many times I would watch both my Mom and Dad give of themselves and their hearts to those who stabbed them in the back or treated them without respect or regard. However, they never retaliated or had ill will or wishes. They put into practice what Jesus teaches about turning the other cheek. It means to not just ignore or pretend it didn’t happen when someone treats you wrong...it’s acknowledging the wrong, and treating the person not just with love, but out of love. Never expect the person to change or have a positive reaction to that love either. I watched many times people react with even worse bitterness or malice...in which they would still be treated with kindness and love.

My Mom used to be called “Mother Goose” because kids of all ages would flock to her and surround her. We would always take these walks around the neighborhoods which would start with just her and the four of us girls. By the end, there would be a whole crowd of kids following laughing and playing. They didn’t follow her because of any other reason than she would listen to them and show genuine care for them. At night, our family would kneel next to the couch and my Dad would lead us in our prayers together...praying for missionaries, our neighbors, loved ones, and those who we felt just needed prayer. I could go into further details of exact events and transitions, but everything in my life goes back to the fundamentals that I learned from my loving and amazing parents.

In a profession with high turnover rates and burnout, what were some of your motivations to keep with it as a Cottage Parent...day by day, week by week?

Deborah: I don’t mean to sound cliché...but God. There were hundreds of times I wanted to leave, lost my temper, got tired of being treated disrespectfully by the very people who I was trying to help...I received disrespect from coworkers, and witnessed injustice in “the system”, etc. But at the end of the day, I would ask for God’s will and He would always tell me to keep teaching about His love to these kids. So when I got/get caught up in those moments that make me feel like I can’t go on I remember...in my lowest time, in my worst time, in my most defiant time...God is always there with His love. And when my eyes look at Him all of my emotions, weariness, and hopelessness melts away and I feel His love and strength. Every day I quote at least once one of my two favorite simple hymns... “Lord I need thee, Lord I need thee. Every hour I need thee” and/or “Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face...and the things of earth will grow strangely dim...in the light of His Glory and Grace.”

Can you share a couple of your favorite stories or moments throughout the years?

Deborah: The stories...oh the stories! I can tell stories all day long [laughs]. But my favorite moments aren't necessarily a story...it's seeing the face of a child who is seeing the ocean for the first time. The witnessing of tears of fear and sorrow when a child first arrives in my care turn to tears from laughter and joy when they learn they are safe and loved. The screams of joy riding the Tower of Terror at Disney World and realizing it’s not just their joyful scream, but mine as well. “I love you, Ms. Deborah” heard thousands of times over the years. The joy of watching a child who never thought they could graduate high school walk across the stage to get their diploma. Walking around in Walmart only to hear my name, and look to see a smiling face greeting me and I'll listen as they tell me of their spouses, children, and hearing them thank me for loving them when they felt they were unlovable…

I will tell one story that may sound simple, but to me is a testament to how blessings happen out of a simple act. Years ago, I was working in a cottage who was mostly younger children and just a few teen girls. That week a teen girl had come to live in the cottage. She was very withdrawn and did not talk much, and my heart just broke for her because of all the trauma and the neglect she had gone through. I woke up on Saturday and got ready to fix breakfast before everyone woke up. I decided I would make blueberry muffins from scratch and started my task. As the muffins cooked in the oven, little heads started poking out of doors and wandered in to see what was for breakfast. The new girl came out eventually, and I offered her a muffin with a smile. She looked at me and then stared at the plate of muffins without a word. I set it down on the counter thinking she didn’t want any and was a little heartbroken because I just wanted to make her feel loved.

She sat at the counter and picked up a muffin and took a bite. She then looked at me and tears filled her eyes. She went running back to her room and I could hear her crying. I went back to check on her, and she turned around and grabbed me in a hug hold and just cried and cried. I just hugged her back. After a minute or so, she thanked me for the muffins. I sort of laughed and told her she was welcome. She told me I didn’t understand how much they meant, and proceeded to tell me that when she and her younger brother were little they had a toy oven. She said that everyone in their house did drugs and many times they would have to cook or make food for themselves. She said many times there was not food. So she would pretend to make blueberry muffins for her and her brother in their toy oven and they would pretend to eat them. She said that she knew that God had a plan for her at Crossnore because only He knew that her prayer as a child was that one day she could eat blueberry muffins for real. I made blueberry muffins for her every single Saturday morning [laughs]. To this day, every time I see a muffin I think of her and remember that even the simplest of tasks can bring a blessing to someone.

Transitioning from direct care to your roles as a GAL and Case Manager, what will you miss, and what excites you about the future?

Deborah: I will miss tucking the kids in bed and praying with them, watching them play and hearing their laughter, fixing skinned up knees and kissing booboos, hugs in the mornings, after school (and well...any other time), helping a child fall back to sleep after they have woken up from a nightmare, I will miss everything [laughs]. My role as a GAL however brings its own excitement too...I get to be a more direct advocate between “the system” and the child, be more vocal about a child’s rights, supporting social workers so that they can in turn provide better services for their children, and I love taking part in court for my GAL cases to give my advice and insight to the judge.

As an [adopted] mother and grandmother, and a caretaker in a motherly role for hundreds of children throughout the years, what do you hope to have passed - and to continue to pass - on to the next generation through your life?

Deborah: That the conditions of the world don’t reflect a lack of love from our Father...it’s Him who we need look to in order to find hope and strength. I also want them to learn from me what my parents taught me - like I said in the first question...to give love even when others don’t give love to you. That is the ultimate example to me of the love that our Father has for us.

Deborah with husband, Mike.

How to get involved: 

For those at least fairly local to the NC mountains, one of the most impactful ways to invest in a child's life at Crossnore is to become a Visiting Resource. These volunteers commit to visits (usually weekly Sunday visits), and after trust is established can take the child off campus. Focused time with a caring adult outside of the facility can be immensely beneficial for a child or teen. If you would like to consider starting the process to become a Visiting Resource for a child or sibling group at The Crossnore School, contact:
Courtney Lane, Annual Giving and Outreach Coordinator
(828) 733-4305
clane@crossnore.org

For more information on the North Carolina Guardian ad Litem program (your own respective state should also have its own program):
https://volunteerforgal.org

For more information on adoption or foster care within your own home, contact your local DSS agency, or at Crossnore:
Gretchen Goers
Foster Care Supervisor and Licensing Specialist
(828) 733-4305
ggoers@crossnore.org

For more information on The Crossnore School and Children's Home:
https://www.crossnore.org

Do it while you're young, and do it when you're old.

Author: John Lucas Kovasckitz

Eight months ago, Danielle and I moved out of the house we were renting. It was hard to swallow spending about $1,000 a month to store our belongings and the bed we slept in maybe 10 nights of each month. We purged many of our things and stored the rest, and haven’t looked back.

OK, sure, we look back often. But we would do it all again without hesitation.

Half of the month we have been Cottage Parents at The Crossnore School raising nine children, the other half we have been childless and relentlessly relying on the kindness of others for a place to stay in their homes...camping, sleeping in the van we built out (now sold!), and occasionally staying in fancy hotels and Airbnbs. We’ve spent time in Vermont, Maine, DC, Chicago, and have gotten to know the woods of the North Carolina mountains much better.

 

Do it while you’re young, people have told us.

When I was younger, I was much more pragmatic than I am today. I saved and scrimped the money I earned...I worked hard. I was pushing mowers and raking leaves at ten. At twelve I was saving for a down payment on a house, and calculating mortgages while actively searching the market. Around that time I was also occasionally stuffing envelopes for a state senator, whom I remember giving me eight bucks from the Good Fairy (the more grown-up version of the Tooth Fairy) for losing a tooth over lunch. I cleaned houses before starting at fifteen with a fresh worker’s permit in hand at a nationally known quick-service restaurant, where it was my pleasure to work for the next four and a half years. At eighteen I was working full time, going to school full time, and generally getting straight A’s.

I’m twenty-six now. Twelve year old Lucas would certainly have expected future twenty-six year old me to have it a bit more together. I’m married, which is good...but certainly lacking the biological kids and the mortgage and the formidable career which I don’t necessarily love but that I don’t necessarily hate that pays all of the necessary bills and feeds the 401k.

I blame it on my liberal education and my free-spirited wife. And to make twelve year old me even happier, we’re going a bit further.

We’re quitting our jobs after working the shift through Thanksgiving with our kids, and we’re flying out January 1st for New Zealand. We currently have flights booked from New Zealand to Australia, Bali, Laos, Thailand, Nepal, and India. We will then probably spend some time in Europe before heading back to the United States. All told, we’re planning on living out of our packs for six or seven months.

Joining us through Nepal is our fearless companion Emily Dobberstein, one of our best friends...who is also currently a Cottage Parent and living out of her car when not working. Isn’t there a saying about crazy attracting crazy? Emily was part of our crew for our trip to Iceland, and lived with us for awhile when we had our house. Emily is someone that we (are hoping) we will not kill (or vice versa) in stressful situations and close quarters, including occasionally our three-person tent.

We’re planning on doing some of the Great Walks and farming in New Zealand (between staying with our new Kiwi bestie - Courtney, we’re coming for you!), and staying with some of Danielle’s friends and their fresh youngins in Australia. We’ve booked some honeymoon suites in Bali, we’re doing an extended moped trip in Laos, and we’re planning on tackling the Annapurna Circuit in Nepal. We’ve applied to stay and work at an orphanage in India, and we’re hoping to attend a silent meditation retreat in Thailand.

 

Do it while you’re young, people have told us...but occasionally the tone has implied that maybe we’re not that young anymore and we should really start getting our s--- together.

But here’s the thing: sometimes I’m afraid, and sometimes pragmatic twelve year old me talks the loudest, but I don’t want to stop taking risks and dreaming when I’m older.

 

I want to do things that are scary and exciting and different when I’m middle-aged, and after I have kids, and after I retire, and all of the other milestones that we’ve put up for ourselves as the markers of when we aren’t allowed to dream anymore.

And as a declaration in that spirit of faith (close your ears, twelve year old Lucas), unless something bigger and better and full of life is put in my path, I want to pursue music and my other creative avenues full time when I return to the States. And I hope that you help to hold me to that. I believe that what I create is important, and deserves more than my leftover time.

I hope that you haven’t read in this post a self-righteous attack on having houses or kids or comfort. My eventual dream includes a piece of land with a garden to putter in, kids underfoot, and a house with a piano and a big kitchen. What I hope you’ve read is a sometimes-shaky-voiced-declaration that you don’t have to settle for what you’re “supposed” to do - by this world’s standards, for a successful life - when it doesn’t make you come alive. My wife helped to teach me that.

I hope that you will follow along with our journey, and I hope you forge your own. Here’s to bravery, no matter our ages.

An interview with Benjamin James

Author: John Lucas Kovasckitz with Benjamin James Roberts

(Mobile devices are fine, but due to the visual aspects included, this interview is best viewed via a computer.)

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Ben, by trade, is a musician, photographer, and videographer. Sliding in and out of his different creative roles he requires two personas to keep things straight: Benjamin James for music and Ben Roberts for his visual work.

Ben is also one of my favorite people on the planet, a man who holds my deepest respect.

He's consistently been one of my closest allies for my own creative pursuits - freely sharing his advice and experiences, contributing to my work (he's played piano and provided vocals for both "Promised Land" and "A Thousand Cathedrals"), and his opinion is one I value extremely highly. But above all, I value Ben as my friend and brother. 

He stood by my side on my wedding day and left it all on the dance floor, we've explored Iceland together with our spouses and good friends ("Love Teach Me" below - filmed on our trip), and we've sipped a lot of tea together asking the difficult questions of faith, philosophy, and how we are to live. 

Ben is a listener, a deep observer, and subsequently a teacher by example. And when he sets his mind to something, he's all in...and it shows in his work and in his life. 

Ben's work is simultaneously abstract and deeply personal; to this point, the subject of a great portion of his conceptually visual work is his wife, Lydia. Ben's portfolio is breathtaking (pieces placed throughout his interview, and a link at its conclusion) and he has amassed recordings of over 30 (incredible) songs in the past few years.

Check out his portfolio, dive into his music, check out his synth skills (currently on a U.S. tour in John Mark McMillan's band through mid-November), but first: keep scrolling. Ben's interview has nuggets of gold, folks.

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In a variety of avenues, you make your living by being creative. What are some of your practices to remain creatively sharp, and what advice would you have for others to help to foster and grow their own inner creative flames?

Ben: Practice is really the key word for me here. I used to think of creativity as some kind of magical process in which the gods randomly chose a tortured artist to be their mouthpiece for a day. This view sometimes fosters the absurd belief that an artist doesn’t have any “influences” but just creates things out of thin air, regardless of their cultural situation. Instead, I think it’s more accurate to define the creative process as a discovery of unexpected connections. In other words, the creative person is able to combine things that everyone else thinks are incompatible. With this in mind, the practice of creativity involves gathering as many influences as possible and seeing how they might work together. Legos provide a good analogy: you can create something nice with a few legos, but the more building blocks you have, the more interesting a structure you can build. The magic of legos, and creativity in general, is not the fact that the individual legos can combine to create a structure, but that different combinations will be created depending on who is building.

For me, staying creatively sharp requires: 1. A constant gathering of influences that I find inspiring and excellent (new music, new photography, new videos). And 2. Developing my skill set enough that I am able to actually make my ideas a reality. Another analogy: let’s say that inspiration is water and your skill set is a funnel. The larger your funnel - aka, the greater your skill set - the more water can come through. You can see why it’s important to keep your skill set and your influences well balanced; there’s no use gathering an ocean of influences if your funnel will only let it trickle out. Conversely, there’s no use, from a creative standpoint, in developing your skill but not gathering enough inspiration to do something new and exciting.

To put it simply: practice a lot, and constantly expose yourself to amazing work other people are doing in the same area.

If, for example, you are a writer, read the best, most beautiful books in the world. Then, figure out why those books are the best, use whatever you find in your own writing (practice), then repeat the process with an author of a totally different style. It really doesn’t have to be much more complicated than that. Imagine the style of Victor Hugo (who wrote Les Miserables) paired with the science fiction storytelling of Isaac Asimov (The Foundation Trilogy, I Robot). Or, in music, what do you get when you add Kendrick Lamar with Bob Dylan and Bon Iver? Could be pretty interesting. The last thing I would say is to simply refuse to stop creating. Of course it feels terrible when somebody doesn’t like something you’ve made, but as long as you keep going, you’ll eventually make something that you can be proud of and that other people will appreciate.  

Your latest album is entitled “Change Is Everything”. What are some of the physical and spiritual foundations of this thesis that you have found to hold true? Also, personally – either currently or aspirationally – how do you see yourself transforming and evolving?

Ben: Well first I want to preface by saying that the statement "Change is Everything" is a metaphysical claim that has some strong implications and brings with it a whole set of difficult philosophical problems which I am not qualified to solve. Instead, maybe I'll focus on why the idea interested me in the first place and what it could mean for the way we approach reality.

For me, spirituality was always tied in some way or another to the natural world. My Mom jokes sometimes that all it takes to make me happy is camping and food. But my relationship to the natural world really changed when I began learning about sustainability and humanity's relationship to the planet in general. At that point, treating the planet (and my body as a part of the planet) appropriately became an ethical problem. That was all fine, but I was still aware that there were deep problems in the way I saw things. I had heard someone say that the less you know about philosophy the more likely you are to be controlled by it. That was definitely true for me. I was approaching the world as if Aristotle's work on Physics and Metaphysics were still the authoritative understanding of nature. In that way of thinking, the world is made of substances whose natural state is to be at rest, separate from other things. Everything that moves only does so as a result of being "pushed" by a mover. Rene Descartes, a French philosopher in the 17th century, carried this line of thought further by positing the existence of two different substances that the world was made of. The first of these substances was matter, the second spirit, or mind. Following from the definition of substance these two things were necessarily separate in the strongest sense of the word. We then have a world in which the mind is completely separate from matter, and matter is made of isolated things that do not depend on anything else for their existence. It’s a lonely, valueless picture of the universe.

This is no longer the dominant view of science. But I think that this line of thought has contributed much to the lack of value we place in our planet, as well as our feeling that we are somehow separate from it. It's much easier for me to destroy my own body or dump plastic in the ocean if I think that matter has no inherent value and that I am not ultimately affected by anything that happens to it.

So with this in mind, I've been trying to explore new ways of looking at myself and the world. That is the real subtext of the new album. For me, saying that "Change is Everything" is a way of resolving some of these problems. It's a reference to Process philosophy, which says that the world is not made of things; the world is made of events. These events are then composed entirely of relationships; everything is in the process of becoming. This can seem pretty non-intuitive but think about this: if we could live for a billion years, objects like rocks - which seem very permanent - would look like a momentary getting together of sand. Another helpful visualization is the fact that glass, although it appears to be solid, is technically a slow moving liquid. It's common to look at something like a flower and to assume that it is separate from everything else, but why should we believe this? There are no such things as flower atoms. A flower is made of completely non-flower elements. When springtime comes the sun, the dirt and the rain are drawn up into a beautiful symphony that we call "flower". But how can we understand the flower without referencing the rain? Or the rain without understanding the clouds? Or the clouds without talking about the ocean? The ocean without the rivers? Or the dirt without talking about the minerals and the worms? How can we talk about the sun without mentioning the Milky Way? In this way, our flower is not just itself, it is the entire universe as expressed in a pretty little plant. The same is true of us humans. As Carl Sagan once said, "We are made of star stuff".

In a process view of reality, relationships are fundamental. But these cannot be two things in relationship, then we are just using Descartes' vocabulary. We are in the habit of thinking of things like "left" and "right" as two separate entities in relationship with one another. But imagine a 12-inch ruler: it has a right side and a left side, and is connected by the tick marks that run across its surface. But if we cut it in half we haven't separated the left from the right, we have only created a new left and right. That's because left and right go together. It's very useful to talk about them like they are separated - and we should continue to do so, for the sake of convenience - but we have to keep in mind that we are imposing an arbitrary distinction, and that distinction is most likely not a characteristic of the physical object. Now to stretch our analogy as far as possible: replace the 12-inch ruler with the universe itself and the process view of reality as made of ever-changing relationships comes into focus. It is similar to the root systems of redwood trees. Although Redwoods seem incredibly tall, their root system is comparatively tiny. In order to remain standing, they spread their roots as far out as possible and mingle with the roots of other redwoods, and collectively they are able to stand. Nothing exists in isolation, everything depends on everything else.

Another consequence of this line of thinking is that the idea of a Self dissolves. If I am not just a thing that changes but a set of ever-changing relationships then there can be no fundamental distinction between myself and the world. And further, who I am in this moment is not who I was or who I will be. This is very much in line with my experience. When I think of who I was in high school I barely recognize myself. I've found that every experience changes me on some level. There is also potential for a therapeutic approach to life latent in this. If everything is always changing, it is useless to try to hold on so tight to things. When something bad happens it's natural to adapt to that situation in whatever way we can, and then continue to act that way whenever an analogous situation arises. This can be helpful and important for a time, but once the situation has changed and we are no longer in danger, we need to be able to re-adapt to our new environment in a way that is appropriate and non-destructive. I'm not saying that all of our traumas would be resolved if we would just be in the moment and realize that things have changed since the original trauma occurred. But I am saying is that this understanding of things gives us a way to work through those issues on a daily and even momentary basis.

One of the things I love about you is your thirst and quest for knowledge, and the subsequent excitement of discovery and understanding. What’s “blowing your mind” these days, and what have been some of the monumental books or texts in your personal quest that you would recommend?

Ben: Currently my mind is being blown wide open by science, philosophy and critical thinking. Up until the presidential election last year I was mostly against these things, thinking that they were dangerous to the creative process and hopelessly inadequate attempts to get at the truth. I think I was wrong. In a world of “alternative facts” and “fake news” I don’t think we have the luxury of subscribing to such weak epistemological foundations (by epistemology I mean “how we know what we know” and “why we believe certain things”). This sounds a little academic, but bear with me. I realized that the foundation for most of my beliefs had nothing to do with evidence but with my desire for things to be a certain way. This caused me a lot of anxiety because I was constantly being confronted by a reality that didn’t act the way I thought it should, and as a result I had to either change my beliefs in such moments or try to ignore/suppress the evidence that was telling me I was wrong. Most events in our lives aren’t intense enough to warrant a total change in belief system, but some demand it. And when we find ourselves in those situations my experience has been that it is dangerous to ignore the facts. Of all epistemological systems I know of, I think that the scientific method is most aware of this. That is because science is attempting to explain the world not as it should be, but how it is. And it turns out that scientist are actually serious about this. If new evidence suggests that the current explanation is inadequate, they will try to find a better explanation. In this sense, nothing in science is sacred except truth itself. While this certainly shouldn’t be applied to every area of our lives (especially not Ethics), I think we could all learn something from this approach.

Smartphones and the internet have made information more available than food for some people. And if that constant stream of information is here to stay, we will all need a better way of figuring out what we should or should not believe. If the only criteria for our believing something is whether or not we like it, or whether or not it works to our advantage, we are setting ourselves up for a lot of disappointment, and even more anxiety. I’m finding that skepticism and critical thinking are a really good way of addressing this problem. And, ironically, they have actually increased my sense of wonder and imagination. It turns out that reality is sometimes more interesting and crazy than anything we could have thought of.

But I do want to reiterate that, at this point, I'm not trying to say that science and philosophy are the only valid way of seeking truth. I just think that they are very important for maintaining a strong democracy as well as a strong belief system.

Here are some books that have been really influential for me. I can’t say that I agree with everything in these books, but they have changed me nonetheless:

Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand     

Ishmael - Daniel Quinn

Animal Farm - George Orwell

The Perennial Philosophy - Aldous Huxley

A Psychological Approach to the Trinity - Carl Jung

Discourse on Inequality Among Mankind - Jean Jacques Rousseau

Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Germinal - Emile Zola

The Three Pillars of Zen - Phillip Kaplan

Zen Mind, Beginners Mind - Shunryu Suzuki

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Robert Pirsig

The Story of Philosophy - Will Durant

A Brief History of Time - Stephen Hawking

Reality is Not What it Seems - Carlo Rovelli

The Demon-Haunted World - Carl Sagan

Currently reading: The Big Picture by Sean Carrol and The Brothers Karamozov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Connect with Ben: 

http://www.benrobertsphoto.com

Instagram: @benjaminjamesmusic

Music: Spotify / iTunes

A Lament, An Observation, and A Meditation

Author: John Lucas Kovasckitz

Three poems, written in the woods of Maine.

A Lament - 

Our Father, who art in heaven,
why must you live so far away?

It’s pleasant enough here, I think.

We wait every week for an hour or two,
wondering if you’ll show up. 

I’m the bell-ringer, 
to let you know where to come.
Our church has a big tree
and a red door
and is next to the graveyard
where my father is buried. 

You’re the only father I have now.

Sunday mornings,
we sing holy, holy, amen - 
our choir of shopkeeper sinners
and mechanic sinners
and housewife sinners
and barely-scraping-by sinners
and barely-old-enough-to-be-a-sinner sinners
but still sinners all the same.

We read the book you wrote,
and taste the stale body
and the bitter blood
of your son. 

We give money
to mail to you in heaven,
or perhaps it’s here waiting for you to spend
however you would like.

We sit
very
still

On wooden pews,
and say “brother” and “sister”
to each other
for we are a family
while we wait.

But you’ve never come. 

Or, at least, I’ve never seen you.

I know you’re busy,
taking care of other sinners.
And for the hungry Negroes in Africa
who would be very happy
to eat what is left on my plate.

But one day
I would very much like to see you.

//

An Observation - 

I’ve heard that Jesus doesn’t care much for the rich,
and he’s got my vote for that - 
bunch of oil-loving greedy bastards. 
Easy enough, I’d say.

And there’s a tax in place for the poor,
and I pay it good and proper;
for we are a Christian nation, 
and we can’t have beggars in our cities
for the love of Christ now can we?

And for the beggars overseas, 
God help them,
for if they can’t bring in a decent politician
there’s really nothing that can be done - 
on our end, besides. 
So that all squares away the poor.

But what about the middle class?

The tax-paying, 
God-fearing, 
Bible-believing,
Hard-working,
Middle class? 

For we are taxed, we are - 
until we’re red around the eyes
and white in the face
and blue about the gills.

Does Jesus care that I can’t afford the doctor?
Or insurance?
Or university for the children?
Or the mortgage?
And if the son of God knows how in the bloody hell…
I apologize, you see I get a bit worked up over the matter.
If the son of God knows how I am to retire,
He should inform me, for I haven’t a clue. 

I’m as grateful as I can be that He paid the price for my sins,
truly I am. 
But if Jesus can’t start getting his act together,
I may be forced to rescind my vote.

//

A Meditation - 

I receive you.

(Wait)

I receive you.

(Oh spirit, be still)

I receive you.

(Oh breath, mix with wind)

I receive you.

I give you.

I receive you.

I give you.

I receive you.

(Rise, bless and be blessed)

I bless you. 

I bless you.

I bless you. 

Make my fingers sticky
with the sap of blessings.
I bless the trees
and their outstretched hands.

I bless the soil, 
from Whom all blessings rise. 

Rise, and bless.
Kneel, and bless.

I bless the seeds,
and their unrelenting hope.
And I bless the dead,
for soon they will hold the hope of the seed.

Death and life.
Growth and soil.

Rise, and bless.
Kneel, and bless.
Give, and receive.

//

John Lucas song spotlight - Son of God

Author: John Lucas Kovasckitz

Tomorrow, those of us in the States will celebrate America's birthday. It's been a few years since I've been able to partake, but the Kovasckitz family tradition is to gather in the small town of Hope Mills, NC for the 4th of July. My grandparents' house is on Main Street, and the annual parade passes right in front of their house. My grandpa, who passed away a couple of years ago, would dress up Newt (his large stuffed gorilla) in his typical Notre Dame Fighting Irish shirt with an American flag in its hand. Newt would sit on grandpa's lap, and would wave at the floats.

The kids (and the more competitive aunts and uncles - Aunt Di, I'm looking at you), would line chairs and towels as close to the road as possible, but we didn't stay in our seats much. We would scramble for the candy thrown by the beauty pageant queens, the firefighters, and the clowns. Later, we would bring the loot to the living room, where the cousins would wager their Tootsie Rolls and Starbursts within fairly intense Texas Hold'em showdowns for the glory and spoils. We would then play croquet or football in the yard until we got too hot, swim, and then repeat until the fireworks that night. Not to be forgotten, Kovasckitzs are well known for their ability to eat large quantities of food, and our power would be on grand display throughout the day.

I have loved celebrating the 4th of July, and I will do so tomorrow. And yet, I know some of you will relate when I say that the holiday brings with it mixed emotions...especially this year. 

There's a twinge of hesitation to shoot explosives into the air and to holler in celebration of an empire that rose to power through the genocide of the lands' native peoples, and on the backs of slaves pulled from their own homeland. I find it hard to raise my glass to a nation that spends more on our military than the next eight nations combined, which has caused untold destruction and death. This year the United States is in quite lonely company with our decision to pull out of the global agreement to acknowledge and to attempt to combat climate change. It is also no secret that I am not a supporter of POTUS 45: Donald J. Trump...

And yet, this is my homeland. This is the land that I love. And I believe that she is already beautiful, and that she can be made even greater. Not the empire, but the land. The people. 

I'm going to spend tomorrow with my wife and family, grateful for the life that I have been given. I'm going to shoot off fireworks for our friends, Josh and Carolyn, who welcomed their newborn son Jonas into the world today. I'm going to drink to the Redwoods, the Grand Tetons, the coast of Washington State, and the Blue Ridge Mountains. 

God bless America.

God bless America with eyes for the poor. God bless America with a people that stands up against the empire. God bless America with discomfort. God bless America with a thriving economy of love and compassion. God bless America with humility. God bless America with the ability to see those outside of our borders as equals, as brothers and sisters of the human race - even those with brown skin and without resources. God bless America with death and rebirth.

I am no longer able to pledge allegiance to the flag. I can't place my hand over my heart and say the words. The empire - America - is not my God. And I think perhaps often we get the two confused.

When God is on our side, our economy flourishes.

When God is on our side, our military is victorious. 

When God is on our side, our church buildings are full. The offering plates overflow.

Deeper still.

When God is on our side, we have a beautiful partner. 

When God is on our side, we can always pay our bills.

When God is on our side, the disease goes away. 

When God is on our side, we are a white-American-heterosexual-Christian, a former wretch saved by grace, but now practically perfect in every way.

I think God is less concerned with choosing sides than dwelling within. Dwelling within those inside and outside of our constructed borders. That said, I don't believe that God dwells on the side of the empire...the empires of our nations and corporations, our churches, or our own personal empires.

We all hold empires inside of our chests. We personally pledge allegiance to comfort-food-sex-sleep-entertainment-power-wealth-fame.

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done. Give me the bravery to value the kingdom unseen above the empire that is seen.

I recently recorded an album called "A Thousand Cathedrals". Available on all empires of music: Spotify, iTunes, Bandcamp, Apple Music, etc...

There are a couple of songs in particular that draw on the theme of empires, one of them being Son of God. I've gotten a fair amount of requests to explain a bit of the heart behind the lyrics, which are based on the temptations of Jesus (found in Matthew 4). In the passage, Jesus is tempted by Satan, or the devil...the enemy of God. I see in this being the collection or representation of evil - (at least in this case) it seems that it is an inner conflict, perhaps the ego of Jesus himself. For if Jesus was fully man, he must have battled his own ego, as do we all. On a bit of a side note, I find it fairly interesting that it seems the devil is quite good at quoting scripture...

If you're the son of God...

The song begins with the temptations of Jesus by Satan, and slowly progresses into our own temptations of Jesus. Protect my borders, crush the heads of my enemies. Give me comfort. Protect my empire.

And I believe that the response the song builds to is the response of God, when we act out of a state of empire instead of kingdom. Kingdom being that which manifests God through the fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control. Empire is that which builds a kingdom in our own image: jealousy, lust, selfishness, greed, injustice, revenge...

Away from me, I never knew you.

Remember, my creation, my love, that which is inside of you. Be made wild again. 

I invite you to meditate on the passage, and then to listen to the song as you read through the lyrics. And tomorrow, let us celebrate kingdom and not empire.

Thy kingdom come, Father. Thy will be done. 

Amen and amen.

---

Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”

Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’"

Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written:

“‘He will command his angels concerning you,
    and they will lift you up in their hands,
    so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”

Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”

Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”

Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’"

Matthew 4:1-10

If you're the son of God
Throw yourself down
Surely your father will heed your call
Surely the angels will catch your fall

If you're the son of God
Then why do you starve? 
Turn the rocks into loaves of bread
Find pleasure in the evening within your bed

If you're the son of God
Then why is there pain? 
Are you weak, or are you not good? 
Oh will you be defeated by a cross of wood? 

If you're the son of God
Vanquish my enemies
Protect my borders and securities
And crush the heads of those who'd rob my peace

Oh praise the son of God
The one who has set me free
He is my passage from the gates of hell
He is my refuge from the infidel

Oh praise the son of God
Who knows my every will
For pleasure is the blessing, child
And I must have my fill

Away from me, away from me
I never knew you
You are the cell that holds my child within
Fling open the doors and be made wild again
Away from me, away from me
I never knew you