IN THE BUBBA ZONE

• "ON THE OBSCURITY OF WORDS AND CLARITY OF THINGS." - CHARLES SIMIC -

It all started with a visit from Brenda Lowry and Bubba (Joshua) Murrell a few days ago. Brenda arrived on the heels of a trip to Washington, DC where she was honored with a first place award for composing music and lyrics to a song entitled “America’s Story in Art,” in a contest sponsored by the national DAR. Bubba, a Grammy award winner in music, showed us his video digital images he had created using Planet Coaster made by a UK enterprise named Frontier Company. These talented New Iberians perform in a religious program they wrote and produced called "Women at the Well," and in a blues music duet, "Blue Merlot."

We lunched with the Sisters at the Convent of the Order of St. Mary, Sewanee where we started a conversation about creativity and the proliferation of artists in south Louisiana, particularly in New Iberia, site of my winter residence. We continued this conversation as we drove down the Mountain into the valley and pulled into the railroad museum at Cowan, Tennessee. I was collecting information about the Cowan Pusher District and Cumberland Mountain Tunnel built by the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad in 1849. This small museum wasn’t totally air-conditioned but we had to drag Bubba away as he’s attracted to all things technical and is always collecting data about “What makes this thing work?” 

Later, we had dinner at the new Octo-π (Octopi) Pizza and Wine Bar Bar in Sewanee where gourmet pizza has been perfected, revisiting the subject of creativity over Cthulhu and Blue Ring Sting pizzas. Once we re-entered this subject, Bubba went into something the four of us call “The Bubba Zone,” a zone in which he moves from anecdotes about quirky characters to origins of music, aerodynamics, and interpretations of the Bible. He’s a genius, and Brenda is the only person I know who can stop him when the hour grows late. He also grows a lush garden in Loreauvile, Louisiana and is the one friend I have who might be able to converse with higher mathematicians about the origins of the zero.

A day after my friends’ visit, we drove to Blue Ridge in North Georgia where I love to visit when peach season is launched. Also, the town lays claim to pursuits in art, music…even has a playhouse. It’s located in Fannin County, Georgia, known as the gateway to the Blue Ridge Mountains, with the Cohutta Ridge rising in the west and the Blue Ridge to the south and east.The Cherokees called the Cohuttas “the poles of the shed” holding up their sky, and they farmed in the Blue Ridge Mountains in the warmer months, leaving the area in the winter for the Cherokee village of Aska.

At one time, the town of Blue Ridge was a health resort because it featured pure mineral waters. One hundred thousand acres of the land in Fannin County is managed by the US Forest Service, and during the 1940s, the wonderful CCC boys reforested acres and acres across Fannin County.

On the way to Blue Ridge, we stopped for lunch at the edge of Ellijay where we had a real country meal — fried chicken, turnip greens, green beans, mashed potatoes, and cornbread. The restaurant was crowded, even at 1 p.m., and we had to wait a spell for lunch, but we felt like we had entered the Bubba Zone when a man sitting at a table close to us took off his outer shirt and, dressed in his white undershirt, began telling a story. It seems that he knew a man he said was such a champion fisherman, he could catch fish in a mud puddle in the middle of the road. The friend had serious mental problems brought on by age, but the guy in the white undershirt actually saw this apparition fishing in the middle of the road, picked him up, and took him to his girlfriend’s house… sans fish. 

This story led to the raconteur’s tale about finding a vertebrae in a cave that had an arrow deeply imbedded in it, which he brought to the attention of experts who identified the arrow as the point of a spear probably thrown by an atlatl but couldn’t identify the huge vertebrae. This raconteur left before I could approach him for an interview, so I settled for strawberry cobbler that my friend Vickie kept urging me to order, exaggerating my southeast Louisiana drawl. However, I wouldn’t have received any notice because the Georgia accent around me was so thick my drawl wouldn’t have impressed anyone.

More about the Bubba Zone later. Also, when I arrive back in Sewanee this week, I hope to review New Iberian Margaret Simon’s new book, Bayou Song.

Photographs: selfie of Brenda and Bubba and train engine by Victoria Sullivan

HEAVEN, HOPE, AND HURRICANES

Chapel of Community of St. Mary

This rainy day in south Louisiana, I read that the sun is shining on my second home in Sewanee, Tennessee, and my thoughts center on an event that will take place there soon after we arrive for the spring and summer season. At Sewanee, we worship in a chapel of the Community of St. Mary, a community that has been a presence on The Mountain for over a century. We're also on the Advisory Board of this Community and associates of the Order of St. Mary, and I often preach and “deacon” at services held in St. Mary’s chapel. This year, the Sisters, Board, Associates, students, and friends are hosting a spring gala entitled “Heaven, Hope, and Hurricanes” in support of an Organic Prayer Internship Program that includes young men and women who have helped expand the ministry of St. Mary into the community and the larger world.

Sister Madeleine Mary, Mother Superior of the Community of St. Mary, writes that “these interns have experienced intentional community and Benedictine practice and spirituality, as well as learned about the organic relationship between care for the body, the soul, and the earth,” and she’s excited about hosting this first gala event sponsored by the Community. It will include dinner, a silent auction, and a program of music given by our long-time New Iberia, Louisiana friends, Brenda Lowry and Joshua Murrell.

Brenda and Joshua will feature songs of hope and healing that they’ve written and recorded for their “Women at the Well” program, a collection of songs written from the point of view of some of Christ’s women disciples. They have presented the original music in parish halls, churches, private homes, and retreat centers throughout the country.

Brenda and Bubbs, songwriters and performers

These talented musicians will also present selections from a recording they made as “Blue Merlot,” their “B&B on the Rock” signature, many of which are based on hurricane recovery after Hurricane Katrina. Brenda writes: “When you’re sitting at your kitchen door, watching the water rise and realizing that there’s not a thing you can do about if, you learn something about surrender. And at some point, you laugh because the alternative is too ugly. Then that night, when the wind and rain have finally calmed, you see the Milky Way like never before, because there are no lights anywhere…and the beauty takes your breath away.” Those feelings inspired the music for special selections Brenda and Joshua (aka “Bubba”) will perform after intermission at the gala event.

I realize that many of my blog readers aren’t in Tennessee, but some of you may wish to help sponsor this event, and donations can be made to the Sisters of St. Mary, 1100 St. Mary’s Lane, Sewanee,TN 37375 so that the interns can continue to live, work, study, and pray at the Convent. They will help the gardens to flourish, worship to be enriched, and can engage in the life of a Benedictine monastic order. $1,000 will allow eight people to attend and participate in this benefit. The gala is scheduled for the evening of April 9, 2016 in Cravens Hall at Sewanee, and if you need more details, write to Sr. Madeleine Mary at the above address.

BLACKBERRY, DOGWOOD WINTER

"You can count on blackberry winters to make the berries good," a Tennessee native told me recently. Well, the berries should be good this year, for since my return to Sewanee, TN, we have experienced either a blackberry winter or a dogwood winter. Both plants survived well in the midst of unexpected "cold snaps," as we call them in New Iberia. Temps have dipped into the 40's, and most natives, who have shucked off their winter woolies, are still wearing jackets and warm socks these chilly mornings.

I love to see the dogwoods flowering and the butterflies and moths visiting the two trees in my yard, despite the winter-like cold. I don't know who would cut down these beauties, but I've read that dogwood is often used for cutting boards, golf clubs, tool handles, and mountain dulcimers. Blasphemy!

 "Spring has returned. The earth is like a child that knows poems," the poet Rainer Maria Rilke wrote. And every morning, I tune in to the weather channel, hoping that the almanac predictions of more cold for May 9, 10, and 11 will not come about while I chant "Spring has returned." It's time for fireflies to emerge, for the chigger season to begin, and for seasonal allergies to kick in. Lil Pulitzer says that despite the forecasts, we should "live like its spring."

So, I went down to the Valley to purchase herb seedlings and plants for the small bed in our backyard. Dianthus, mint, rosemary, yarrow, and sage weathered the bitter cold of a hard winter here, and the Dianthus plants bloom apace. I planted more Dianthus, sage, rosemary, tarragon, and oregano. However, on the heels of the cold temps, heavy rain fell on my new plantings, and I pray that they will withstand the rain and the possibility of more dogwood winter weather in May.

My good friend Brenda Lowry of New Iberia, Louisiana, who writes, sings, and records music, sent me copies of Psalms for the 21st Century she's presently composing, and I think that one entitled "Rise" belongs in this rhapsodizing about spring. The Psalm writing is a new venture for Brenda, who was recently on the road with Bubba Murrell, performing "Women at the Well," a collection of songs for which they wrote both lyrics and music to honor my ordination as a deacon sixteen years ago. Their road tour took them as far afield as Baltimore, Maryland where they performed at Episcopal and Unity churches before spring arrived.

Here are excerpts from Brenda's Psalm entitled "Rise:"

Rise up, oh life, from ashes thought to be dust
turned into newness as the seasons turn.
Drawn within the darkness, silent sleep
recreated from the essence of before...

Breaking out and breaking through as does a seed
or a winged creature from cocoon
whatever was before is forever changed;
disillusion washed away in renewal...

Rise again, oh Joy, rise again!
Greet the dawn with anticipation
for in the fullness of all that is all
rise, new life, and fill the world anew.
Antiphon.: Rise anew, and bring new hope into the world.