Love Notes

by Bill Love

On March 6, 2002, Dave Hoekstra wrote in the Chicago Sun Times about the death of Harlan Howard. He wrote that once Harlan Howard told him: “When someone says they wrote a song in 10 minutes, what they mean is they wrote from a lifetime in 10 minutes. All their knowledge. All their rhyming ability. All the bad songs. All that goes into it. Then when you write it down, it’s like writing a letter. You don’t stop. I’m just saying it isn’t that easy. You don’t write a hit song in 10 minutes.”

Since Howard wrote more than 100 country music hits, including “Heartaches by the Number,” “Busted,” and “I Fall to Pieces,” perhaps we can assume he knew what he was talking about.

Not every song that Harlan Howard wrote was a hit, including those that were recorded and those that were not. Not every sermon I preach is great. Some, I believe, have reached the level of literature, of art. Some are so good that I enjoy having the opportunity to preach them again. Even the most pedestrian of them was the best that I had in me that week. And, often to my surprise, those I regarded lightly have touched a hearer.

Each has had my lifetime brought to it in the study of the text, in the fashioning of the text into sermon form, in the way I sought to illustrate the text and life. Each had as much of my lifetime as I could access that week and as much clarity as I could bring to it. I believe as well that each hearer brings to worship a lifetime to hear as well as they can that week. We bring our experience, our wisdom, our successes, our failures, our pride, our shame. And sometimes it all comes together.

Mark Twain said that the difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug. The gospel is a Word with the power of lightning, and often we articulate it with the power of a lightning bug. Maybe we’re willing to settle for that. Maybe we suspect how much power it really has and can only approximate some of its power as we struggle with ourselves, our lives, our faith.

And sometimes, when we least expect it or are unaware of it, all of our lives including what we think of as failures comes together and shows itself in some act of kindness that would not have been possible except for all there is of us.

In the National Review, Dave Shiflett reported that Harlan Howard said, “A lot of the songs you write are nothing but pencil sharpeners. They might not be any good but by writing them you prepare yourself for the time the great idea comes along.”

Garrison Keillor lamented that he had not been asked to speak at graduation at Lake Wobegon High School. He reckoned that they were afraid of what he might say. This was when he was leaving the original Prairie Home Companion, which he had built from nothing, at the peak of its popularity. That, he thought, offended their conservative, midwestern work ethic.

He said that what he would tell the graduates is that they have a lot of failure ahead of them about which they know nothing now. They have been sheltered from the failures that life has for them. The failures will, he said, change them, and they will never be able to change back to the people they had been.

But, he said, the failures would tie them to other people. They would notice others and be able to enjoy one of the great pleasures in life: to take pleasure in other people – just watching them. When you fail at enough things, you know what others are going through. And when you survive your failures, you love life more.

Through these “pencil sharpener” experiences perhaps even more than through our successes, our character is formed, and we are ready to write our own hit song.