MUSIC NOTES ROBYN HUBBARD
Open Heart, Open Hand He leans forward, elbows on blue jean knees, face in hands, silent. With eyes clamped in a squint, he appears to be waiting for words that will not come. I am interviewing singer/songwriter David Wilcox, an artist whose work I have relished for 15 years, a man from whom a river of poetry flows unhindered — at least when on stage or in the midst of a song. I’m wondering now if I’ve asked the right question. When he finally speaks I am surprised by the space between his words. He seems to be mining his depths to bring forth rough diamonds. I begin to consider Wilcox more as a sculptor than a poet, a man who chooses raw material carefully and works precisely, chiseling away all that impedes beauty. The singer’s winsome appeal on stage — his easy laughter, natural poise, and genuine offering of love to his audience — must spring from this commitment to the truth. His willingness to dig, prod, question, and contemplate the deepest places in his soul is the reason his songs resonate with so many earnest truth seekers. Sitting now with this gentle, pensive man who searches for words like a mountain climber feels for a foothold, I glimpse the arduous process behind Wilcox’s seemingly effortless songs. Wilcox describes his concerts as conversations beginning with ordinary small talk and moving on to deeper content, “to the things that really matter.” He builds trust with his audience by considering where he is with them after each song. He often makes spontaneous decisions regarding the songs he will sing next, depending on the connection he makes with his listeners. “The
audience thinks it’s me, and I think it’s them! Not like I have to prepare them for what I want to say, more like I have to get out of the way to allow for the right song at the right time for the right person.” Audiences in small venues across the United States appreciate these intimate conversations, Wilcox’s candor, sense of humor, and his sudden outbursts of hysterical laughter. He cocks his head and appears to be listening to instructions in his heart as he deftly plays with his guitar until he finds the place to start. I feel “a little pull in my chest that says ‘speak.’ If I trust it and say the thing on
the tip of my tongue, I have a sense that I am listening and being present with what this moment requires. If I doubt it and ask where it’s going, it can suddenly stop and I have no idea where I’m going!” Wilcox’s transparency can make you feel as if you know him and he knows you. He puts language to your longing and pain where before tears and ache were their only expression. He strokes his guitar and you are comforted. Songs like “Rise” (Into the Mystery, 2003) whisper the possibility of hope following a crushing loss. PRISM 2010
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I know that a heart can just get buried/Stone by stone, crushing hope until it dies/Far away, but the message somehow carries/Beloved, it is time for you to rise up/ With a sudden sense of wonder/Though the promise goes unspoken/As the joy comes to your eyes/When the joy comes to your eyes/From the burden you’ve been under/For your soul was never broken. But this easy familiarity comes with a price. Listening to “Beyond Belief ” (Open Hand, 2009), Wilcox’s confession that “Jesus called me a hypocrite,” you can sense the uneasiness of being known too well. Where once you delighted, “He’s singing to me!” you now hear yourself saying, “Uh-oh, I think he’s talking to me.” Jesus called me a hypocrite/when I said I’d spread the word/He said, “How can you teach of love/unless you live what you have heard?/Faith can’t be your fortress/arrogant with pride/ Come walk here beside me with the humble ones outside/And be the mercy, all my people need the peace/This fightover faith won’t bring them relief/ I love them beyond belief.” Wilcox declares himself “lucky” to have grown up in a family without a faith tradition. Both his parents were weary from the weight of their own traditions, he explains, and in their desire not to burden their son, they erased the lines and structures of institutional religion. But Wilcox recalls his growing awareness of the spirit, a sense that there was more to life than meets the eye. “I had no language for my experience of the sacred. I would wonder if anyone knows this sacred truth and if so, why isn’t anyone talking about it? Then I heard stories about this crazy carpenter and I began to realize that there was a lot of company for this mystic journey!” As any visitor to his website can see, Wilcox loves a challenging journey. Whether shooting down the highway in his silver bullet Airstream trailer in
search of the back roads of America or touching down on the ancient soil of the Holy Lands in search of his “true home,” Wilcox has a hunger to explore the broader vistas. Like the red-haired heroine of the title track of Open Hand, Wilcox prefers to stand breathless at the edge of a cliff where “she can feel the wind right now wash away her tracks and plans, if you really want to live this life, gotta hold it with an open hand.” Wilcox’s music encourages, by its own risk-taking and curious nature, an allout search for the grace and mercy of God. “God is not ashamed to speak in the language we understand. Where you search is where you are searched for,” Wilcox tells me. “We struggle with how to describe the feeling of being fully human, fully alive. Our hearts say, ‘Come on,’ somehow engage with the part of you that has this sacred yearning, a hunger that doesn’t end with you and your
selfish desires. There is a bigger life that we are part of, that we are made for.” Wilcox fans will attest to his ability to set your heart on fire for great adventure. Wilcox refers to his music as medicine, an antidote for our common longings. And on his website he literally prescribes songs for various ailments of the heart. Need strength for getting through a shattering experience? Click here to listen to “Perfect Storm.” Need a song that can bear you up after the loss of a loved one? Try “Vista.” How about some fun songs about kids and parenting? Play “I Saw You First.” If you need mercy, forgiveness, or to get free of addiction; if you’re depressed or too hurt to love; if you need to appreciate either “your beautiful quirky self ” or “this wild world”— there is a song for you. And then there are the songs for “the adventure of faith”— for when you’re losing it or are just fed up with
religious institutions — a simple click and the medicine flows.Wilcox’s generosity with his music is another reason he’s so lovable. Treat yourself to a selection of his favorites before you buy a CD. The whole song is yours to enjoy at DavidWilcox.com. On stage or off, David Wilcox invites us to adventure alongside him. His songs are a passionate exhortation to lace up our boots, trudge the path, wind our way through the wonder and paradox of life with our eyes and hands wide open, enjoying “the high view and the muddy miles, the free wing and the earthly trail, the deep heart and the endless sky.” I’m in, how about you? Robyn Hubbard is an in-home therapist working with at-risk kids and their families in Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley. Since she spends a lot of time driving to appointments, she often takes David Wilcox along for the ride.
tin roofs now. Srey Pek is gone. Her father died of AIDS late last year. In January her mother took her and moved away against the wishes of her grandfather. Srey Nao’s father died of AIDS years ago, and her mother has worked hard ever since earning a dollar a day. Srey Nao dropped out of school last December and took a job in a shoe factory. She earns $45 a month, so her family can count on having food on the table. Transformation is one of Hang’s favorite words. With his limited English vocabulary, he talks about bad people who have become good, like the volunteers who help build the houses. Some were formerly troublemakers, drinking heavily and gambling, but now they exude strength and dignity as servants and leaders. He dreams aloud about the village no longer being known as a bird’s nest but as a community of peace and hope. The mango rain is not a suffering rain. It is a gift of life that transforms the fruit. For the people of Andong Village, Hang is like a mango rain, a tangible gift of God’s love in a hard season, and the fruit of it is sweet. Q
Mango Rain continued from page 21. runs.You can hear it when the Bible is read and songs are sung with a simple message of Jesus as the way, truth, and life. But this story is not a fairy tale, although the homes of Srey Nao and Srey Pek — along with 40 others — have sturdy
Andrew Gray is a founding director of Project Friends (ProjectFriends.org).As international staff with Church Resource Ministries (CRMLeaders.org), he and his wife help volunteers from Japan connect with partners in Cambodia to serve in simple ways, to lose their illusions, and to encounter life-transforming love.
Students and Andong Village friends Srey Nao (left) and Srey Pek.
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