Jackson Browne, the gray haired dude, and life

The next time you're on YouTube, enter "Jackson Browne For Everyman Claremont." You'll get a homemade video of Jackson Browne singing the classic For Everyman at the Claremont Folk Music Festival in 2008. This song is sort of a response to the Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young hit song Wooden Ships, which depicts an escapist dream of someone getting on a ship and escaping from a world of trouble.

I've been a Jackson Browne fan since 1976 when I heard The Pretender. And before you remind me, yes, I know... he's an anti-war, anti-nuclear, anti-alotastuff 60's hippie deluxe. Doesn't mean I can't like his music, does it?

To me, his songs are works of art, or as Bruce Springsteen put it when he inducted Jackson Browne into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004, "As I listened that night, I knew this guy was simply one of the best. Each song was like a diamond. And my first thought was, damn, he’s good. My second thought, I need less words."

Anyway, back to YouTube. At 00:54, the camera pans away from the singer, and captures the top of a full head of graying hair, a fan, listening to the legendary singer, who is now sporting a very gray beard in this video shot in 2008, his sixtieth year. And the singer sings these words, "Seems like I've always been looking for some other place to get it together. Where with a few of my friends I could give up the race, maybe find something better."

And I got to thinking, there's nothing wrong about going to a small concert with your favorite singer. There's nothing wrong with going gray. There's nothing wrong with being sixty. There's nothing wrong with listening to lyrics about striving for something better. There is a lot of wrong in not doing anything about it.

I'm fifty-one, I don't have any gray hair, truth be told, I don't have much hair at all. My family and I decided two and a half years ago, that we would be different. Vickie did not grow up with the sounds of Jackson Browne, but she knows what I'm saying. I don't want to be the gray headed guy sitting at a concert, listening to a singer sing about giving up the race and finding something better, and going home to the boring life of the one who pretends to be living out his faith, but really only tweets, blogs, facebooks, e-mails, and talks about it, and wonders a lot what could have been, then gets up the next morning, only to find himself in the same melancholy rhythm of a life that is long on comfort and short on purpose.

So here we are, our life is uncertain to some extent, we may not be homeowners for long, we may be driving old cars with warning lights lit on the dash, but that's OK. You know why?

Because our children can't wait to go to Costa Rica to serve the Lord. They love to serve food to the homeless. They love doing our bible studies together, during the school day and at night, because we have real stories to share and tell and laugh about together. They haven't just read and memorized "Go, ye therefore, unto all nations, and make disciples of men." They've done it. We've served together in our neighborhood, in a nearby city, and in a country many miles away. We've lived just a little piece of what Jesus wants us to be. Together. And there's nothing I would trade for that experience.

So, listening to Jackson Browne may put you to sleep or turn your stomach. That's OK. But don't miss the message. Go.