If heaven weren’t so far away—-Justin Moore
This was a surpise. Jeremy Stover, Justin’s amazing producer emailed us this link, with a video of us tracking this song. To tell you the truth, I really don’t remember there being cameras there, but I don’t remember a lot of stuff. This is a great song, I really hope it goes #1. It’s still going up the charts. This is not the official video, but the CMT studio version. Love stuff like this, it gives people a chance to see their tunes being made.
Lily, Papaman, and Maggie enjoying a tea party
I’m not sure if anyone “Likes” being tickled. Oooh! Hold me down and tickle me! Uh uh. For some reason, Lorrie says that when I’m tickled, I get violent. Like a bugged-eyed, crazed maniac trying to get loose from certain death. Like an animal that would rather knaw his arm off than go through this inane torture.
Have I made my point? I’m very ticklish. Nope, not pleasant. Then why is it that my 2 oldest boys looooove to hold me down and tickle me???!!! I used to not allow it. No way Jose. This is a tickle free zone. “No Tickling allowed,” your table is now ready.
But I’ve learned one thing. My boys love to wrestle, tickle, and roll around. There is something about boys and their dad’s rough housing. It’s primeval. It’s instinctual for boys to want to play rough with their dads. It also goes without saying that mom’s don’t like rough housing. You’re gonna hurt the boys!! Why do we do this as parents? We do it because our kids need it. This is one of the languages that they speak, and when we speak their language, we tell them that they mean something, that they are worth us doing stuff that we might not want to do.
Such is the story when my 4 and 6 year old (at the time) daughters invited me to a tea party in their room. I totally had to go. What kind of dad would I be if I turned my two daughters down. So I reluctantly went into their room. The table was all set. Tea was made. There was just one problem. Papa (for those of you that don’t know, I’m called papaman instead of Dad, my choice) wasn’t dressed for tea. Hmmm. Let’s see. After a few minutes of rifling through all of the dress up boxes, we came up with a feather boa, a magic princess wand, and some star shaped sunglasses that would have made Elton John envious. We had a wonderful time!! The tea, which of course I think was water, was perfect for the girls. They wouldn’t have had a better time if the queen of England were with us. (I guess they just had to settle for Queen of the Harden house, but let’s not go there).
In that moment, I hope I showed my girls that I truly love them. I would exchange all of my parental, adult dignity, to make them happy. And quite often, as parents we do.
two of my boys, Kieran and Taylor
I’m getting better at being tickled. My sons, hopefully know now that they won’t die an accidental death if they dive bomb on me. I actually laugh now and try and wrestle back. I’d better. Pretty soon, at the rate their growing, they are both gonna kick my…..
My oldest daughter, Anya, is turning 17 in June…That is huge! She will have the opportunity to celebrate her birthday in Nairobi, Kenya!
How stinkin’ cool is that!!
She is going on a mission trip with a team of amazing people from our church, Crosspoint Community Church. When I was in college I went on a mission trip to Europe with our Choir. It was very cool! About a year into my marriage, I was able to go on a mission trip with my husband. We went to Russia, Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania, with an amazing ministry run by Jim Gilbert. It was awesome, life changing. Tom did mission trips to Haiti, all through high school, with a group called New Directions, as well as trips while he was in college.
As life as gone on and I have had my 6 children, my mission days have been on hold. I want to go back out, it just isn’t my season.
It is Anya’s time!
You can follow her journey here: Anyanairobihopenow
I am so very excited for her!!! She is going with an amazing team led by Rhonda Hewett, (you can link to her blog) has the opportunity to work with an amazing ministry run by Garry and Brenda Kean. She and the others will be working at the Kibera Slums and other places.
Here are some pictures that Rhonda has sent me over the years.
Here is a letter that Anya has written as she is looking for support for her trip. If you’d like to help financially you can send a check to the address at the bottom of the letter. If you would like to help in prayer, that would be awesome, and definitely needed and appreciated. You can follow Anya’s blog, or Rhonda’s blog and keep up to date, now and this summer. Also they are both on twitter, @anya36 and @rhonree, you can follow their journey while they are on their trip, in real time…The blessing of technology, I love twitter!!
The letter:
Dear Friends and Family,
I hope you all have had a wonderful 2011 so far! I have some exciting news. On June 3rd I am leaving on a plane to go to Nairobi, Kenya for a mission trip. I’ll be gone through the 15th. Thirteen people and I are going to be serving the men, women and children of the local slums around Nairobi (including the Kibera Slum of the movie, The Constant Gardener). We will be working with Brenda and Garry Kean and their church New Song Nairobi and Jacaranda, their sewing ministry. It is going to be a heart-wrenching, powerful, wonderful journey, and I cannot wait!
This trip is going to be my first trip out of the country so I am a little bit nervous, but very excited! We are leaving on Friday morning to fly to Chicago, from there to London and then finally to Kenya! We will be there until Wednesday the fifteenth, which means I will get to spend my 17th birthday there! Four of the people going are some of my best friends ever, three of which have never been to Nairobi either, so we shall get to experience it together. We are all very excited.
Brenda and Garry Kean are the founders of New Song Nairobi, and Jacaranda Sewing Ministries. They have been living in Nairobi for several years now and have been working with the people of the slums since they moved there. The Jacaranda sewing ministry is a group of women from the slums making and sewing many different things like purses, dolls, bags, suitcases and aprons. They then sell these items outside of Africa in places like the United States to raise money. This money keeps these people off of the street. A lot of these items will be brought back with us to sell and make money for them, if you are interested in buying something, let me know when I get back!
While our team is there, we are going to be serving many people in different ways. We will be visiting several different slums around Nairobi, talking to and praying with many different people. We are going to be working with kids in VBS and maybe even a sports camp as well. Our goal is to show these kids that they are loved not just by us, but by God as well. We will also be visiting the Jacaranda sewing ministry and teaching the women some different techniques and ways to paint their crafts. One particular thing I am excited about is the privilege of getting to help lead worship for some different people there. Needless to say, we are going to be busy.
There are two things I need help with. The first is funding. For the trip altogether, I need have $3,000 by the end of March. This is a huge amount of money for a 16 year old to raise! If you can help in any way, any amount of money would make a difference. If not, you can help me with my other need, which is prayer. $3,000 is a big goal, and I could use all the prayer I can get, both financially and for the ministry while I’m there. The checks are tax deductible, and are made out to Crosspoint Community Church, with Anya Harden in the memo, and are sent to Rhonda Hewett (our team leader) at:
Rhonda Hewett
301 Mill Run Circle
Nashville, TN 37221
Thank you so much!
Love,
Anya
There are times when behind a plain, nondescript door, lies a magic land. In an average glance out the window, there is a once in a year sunset. In a small present with brown paper sack wrapping, there is a Faberge egg encrusted with diamonds.
Ok, Ok!! Stop trying to be poetic! Alright then! Just allow me the momentary illusion of thinking I can write.
Basically my point is this. Sometimes really big things happen with small, quiet invitations.
The other night I was getting ready for bed. I had my really cool new pajama pants on that Lor gave me for Christmas. They are pj pants with a print of 1980′s acid washed jeans on them. They are way cool! No, they are rad! Now if I just had my mullet back! But I digress.
It was late, probably around midnight, the woodstove in our bedroom was quietly roaring and I was tired. My time after the kids go to bed is sacred to me. It’s the part of the day when I can actually have quiet and peace. Unlike the other 19 hours of the day, but again, I further digress.
So as I was going into the kitchen to do my evening light turn-off, my 16 year old daughter grabbed my arm and quietly said, “hey, come on, let’s go for a walk.” Deep sigh. I thought, “really?” I could hear the warm comfy bed calling me as a refuge to the 3 inches of new snow on the ground outside. Not to mention it was in the 20″s. Brrr.
Strangely enough, I said, “ok.” Went and got dressed, put a hat on and my heavy coat and went outside.
Anya joined me about 10 minutes later, I was thinking she wanted to take some night time photos. So we start walking. “Did you bring your camera?” “Nope” hmmmmm?
The night air was cold, the snow crunched under our feet as we trudged toward the woods. She told me about nights when she came out by herself to take pics. “I stood over there one evening for a long time,” she said. Hmmm. Maybe she needs to talk. Ok.
Anya's self portait in the snow
We walked precariously up a hillside, rutted by erosion, and I contemplated how to play drums with a broken foot. Safely, we got to the top of the hill as the quick moving clouds would allow the moon to turn the midnight snow into a bright, glowing blueness. We could see down onto the pond. The night time scene was truly breathtaking. She told me about the trees that fell from the hillside into the pond during the flood back in May. I hadn’t been back there since then. She told me about bringing her friends there to shoot pictures.
We walked on past the downed oaks and the ice covered blackness of the pond and continued on into the hills. It was a beautiful walk. The moon was our flashlight, and lit up the snow so we could see where we were going. We walked and talked, not about anything deep or thoughtful, but about stuff. About her sitting in a downed tree the shape of a chair, she took a self portrait there. And that rotten tree has a bees nest in it. She would sit and watch the bees fly in and out.
As we got to the point in the woods where we needed to turn around I realized that she just needed to spend time with her “Papa.” It didn’t have to be deep, philosophical, or life changing. She didn’t have to reveal her innermost secrets. She just wanted to hang with her dad. I felt really good. It warmed me on the inside. My feet however were still cold!
What an opportunity I would have missed if I would have said “Anya, I’m tired, I’ll take a raincheck, goodnight!” I would have gone to bed and one of life’s precious moments would have gone unlived.
Anya may eventually forget our nighttime walk in the snow. In time the memories may fade. But for me, I’ll never forget it as long as I live. It was a gift. One presented quietly, without a lot of fanfare. In a plain wrapper, if you will. But inside was a priceless jewel that made my life richer. I’m glad I didn’t say no.
I would love to hear your thoughts.
There are some days when a song drops out of the heavens. Bang! I remember specifically walking in my bedroom to get something and the entire melody of a song popped in my head. One time I was in the kitchen, babysitting the entire eating machine Harden brood during dinner, and an idea and a melody popped in my head. I wrote it with a friend of mine, Kevin “Swine” Grantt in about 2 hours the next week.
The very first cut I ever got was a song called “Sleeping With the Telephone,” which Reba cut on her Duets record.
We were putting an addition on the house, I was working full time doing session work, touring on Reba’s gig, and literally putting every spare minute into doing about 85% of the work to build this addition myself. So one night my wife saw that I had just collapsed after working on the house, and she said, “honey, can we pleeeeeze go down to the studio and write?”
Now at that particular minute, I would have rather set myself on fire than have to get up and go down to the studio and try to write a song. My creative tank was on “E”. Actually, the yellow warning light was on. But being the good husband I am, I said “sure honey!!,” with a fake plastic smile on my face!!!!
We sat down, I pulled out the guitar, and I had just learned this new tuning called DADGAD, so I tuned the guitar and literally started playing this melody from top to bottom. It literally fell out. A celestial heavenly window opened and plop, here’s your melody.
Now my wife, Lorrie has a unique gift. She can hear one of my melodies and tell me exactly what that melody is in a song form. In my mind, this melody was a very alty, young, indie band kind of song. She proceeds to say “no, it’s a Reba song, it’s a duet between a soldier’s wife and a policeman’s wife.” I picked up my jaw off the floor, and said, “really!!???” I’d never heard of this put in a song before, so I called a good friend and genius lyricist, Don Rollins, who in a few days came over and we had the song written in 2 hours. He really is amazing to watch.
We demo’d it the next day, and in 3 weeks Reba cut it. See how easy it was!!!!!! I say that uber facetiously, with a slight edge of bitterness and a crusty dose of cynicism in my voice because right now, it’s darn near impossible to get a song cut. In fact right now, it’s easier to take over a small country with an army of 2nd graders than it is to get a song cut. But laughingly, I digress!!!
The whole purpose of this blog post is this. The things in life that come easy are the exceptions and not the rule. Most of the time when I write, it takes time. You have to “prime the pump,” like the old timey wells, you’d pump and pump with no water coming out, then suddenly whoosh!
Writing is the same way. Some days, you have to work hard to get anything, and some days it falls out. The trick is, being there for either scenario. I once heard a quote that said, “the art of writing is the art of applying the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair” (Mary Heaton Vorse (1874-1966). I love this quote!!! It’s that silly discipline thingy that keeps popping it’s ugly head up, like the ground hog in Caddyshack.
The days that you really have to work hard totally make you appreciate the ones where it falls out. And lemme tell you, just like when I play golf and hit a straight, down the middle, beautiful drive, it don’t happen often enough! But it happens just enough that it makes me want to come back and try it again. Wait a minute, golf…I remember that game! Oh yeah! That’s a game that people with a life play!!! Oops, crusty cynicism again…sorry folks.
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Lemme just get this out of the way right now. The reason that I went into music, is that I STINK at sports!! Ok, boy do I feel better! Can I get off this couch now!!!
In my brief, ineffective childhood career in little league, I actually learned a couple of lessons. One is, you can’t play in little league unless you know how to play baseball, and you learn how to play baseball by being in little league…..except…they won’t let you play if you can’t play. Right now envision my 210lbs mastiff Angus chasing his tail. Good. Ok, I’m back on the couch.
Johny Bench, catcher for the world champions Cincinatti Reds
I however did get to do a brief stint at catcher. I loved the catcher position. My catcher hero was Johny Bench. What a stud!
My little league coach taught me that I needed to be “Batblind.” This means that you catch the ball whether the player hits it or not. In other words, you ignore the batter. Pretend that he’s not swinging. It’s really hard to do, but it’s vital for a catcher, otherwise, you’ll get hit with a baseball!
I got the idea for this post actually while playing drums in Fargo, ND, at the Fargodome, playing for Reba. She was singing a very tender and quiet song, and this guy holding a beer was yelling at her. “I love you Reba!!!!” She was literally singing through this overzealous fan, and not allowing him to distract her. She’s a master of this. She doesn’t ignore the crowds, she generally responds to them when appropriate, but when she’s singing, she’s focused on the song. She won’t stop for every scream and yell. She’s batblind.
I love this metaphor because in our daily pursuits we have a lot of distractions. They are like gnats around our face. Have you ever taken a nice walk through the woods and you have this one bug that makes it his number one goal to fly into your eyeball? AAAHHH!!!!! Infuriating!
Pursuing anything meaningful in life is going to require long term focus and determination. In my own life, I had so many opportunities to quit. (Fortunately, I’m not qualified to do anything else!) At many times, I would have been quite justified in throwing in the towel. But something kept me Batblind. Life swings at us like a crazed medieval warrior. Things that want to distract you, to discourage you, and to make you quit. I’m determined to catch the ball regardless of whether the ball makes it to the glove.
Are we determined to follow through, or are we going to flinch and give into the gnats? Could I cram anymore metaphors into this post? Maybe 1 more college student into the vw bettle. Stop it!!!
So be batblind, or your going to get dinged by a 96mpg pitch! Ouch! That’s about the most sports talk you’ll ever hear come from me. I won’t even get into my high school wrestling career. pathetic.
Bernard Gordon conducting the Southern Guilford band
It’s a typical day on the road, we’re in Philadelphia, I’m doing my typical road day routine in a very untypical and blessed job. We had a great sound checked today with Reba and Kelly Clarkson. We’ve eaten dinner and now I’m in the back of the bus catching up on tweets and emails when I happen upon one from a friend of mine in North Carolina, Philip Cox. Philip and I were in high school band together in the drum line. He works in a law office in Greensboro, where I grew up.
I remember it like it was yesterday, we would walk into the band room, the sound of cacophony, talking, banging, and utter chaos. And then there was the smell. Bernard Gordon had an office in the band room and he did 2 things there (other than general band stuff). He smoked cigarettes like a chimney and he practiced his golf swing. Back then, you could smoke darn near anywhere, including in school.
Mr Gordon was a shorter man with curly hair and a pot belly. He had a high pitched voice that reminded me of the reindeer “coach” in Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer.
We were a very small band in a fairly small school. My school was literally 400 yards up the street from our house, waaaay out in the country. It was tobacco fields, houses and this high school.
We weren’t very good, but then, we were the Southern Guilford High School band and we got the job done.
Anyway, I digress. There are pivotal moments in your life when someone says something to you, something that may change the course of your life. You never forget the words that are spoken, like God takes them and brands them into your head. In that moment, whoever is speaking may not think too much about what they are saying. To them it’s nothing earth shattering. But one day in high school band, a few simple words rocked my world.
We were talking about my future and Mr. Gordon suddenly said “You know, you could be one of the best drummers in the world if you want to.”
I’m not really sure what he said after that, because that phrase hit me like a stray tennis racket. I can’t remember an entire year of trigonometry, but decades later, I still remember Mr. Gordon saying those words. And in that moment, he literally changed my destiny.
Would I have pursued music if he hadn’t have said it? Perhaps. Maybe. But he convinced me that day that I could be the best in the world. I didn’t think that before. I knew that I was decent at the drums. But he spoke something into me that transformed my thinking.
I’m sure he never gave it a second thought. But I sure have. All the time. It has helped me keep going in rough times. I drew strength from that remark. Clung to it when I wanted to quit.
The words we speak to others can do many things. They can bring life, hope, and happiness. Or they can tear down, discourage, and damage. And we may not even know that we are doing either.
I’m convinced that when we stand before God, we’re really gonna be surprised how our words affected people. I know Mr. Gordon will find out what his meant to me. He may be surprised. I have so wanted over the past few years to reconnect with him and share with him my achievements and how he played a role in that. Endless facebook and Google searches however proved fruitless.
Philip Cox informed me that Bernard Gordon passed away last year. I had no idea. I want to dedicate this blog post to him and his memory. Thank you Bernard Gordon, from the bottom of my heart. Your words helped shape my future. I’ll never forget what you have done for me.
What words have people spoken to you that unbeknownst to them, have changed your life? I would love your thoughts and comments.
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