I begin thinking about how people do or do not look at blogs and if it was a kind of intrusive behavior to observe someones thoughts without them knowing. This idea of watching or observing has been peculating through my life of late. I know I have made this public and so I allow people a window in which to look at the unusual things that run through my head. (at least filtered most of the time) One of the ways this subject has been coming to me is in music. I think media, thoughts and experiences in my life have a way of sensing the pulse on my soul. The song is ” People Watching” by Jack Johnson the lyrics go this way:
“People Watching”
Well I’m just people watching
The other people watching me
And we’re all people watching
The other people watching we
We’re as lonely as we wanted to be
We’re all as lonely as we wanted to be
Just as lonely as we wanted to be
I’m just you, you’re just me
But it’s only true if we believe
Well there really ain’t no use in stopping
What nobody never told me not to do
So I’ll keep people watching, watching me now
Finding my way back to you……
I will admit I do like to sit and watch people also so how is that different then what I explained above? Is that bad? I have also been intrigued by the study of Sociology which is the study of human behavior in many different ways. I used to think I was not comfortable with this peaking into people lives but realize that it is vital and important. It is the sharing of one selves that others begin to see what and who you really are. It also allows for others to understand the experiences you have had in the past in which have made you become who you are and why you are the way you are. In doing this it also allows other to keep accountability for you through out your life. I think this is a lost art because of its destructive reputation and the way it has been used in the past. The very idea of having accountability with a group of people helping you discern your life and situations can be a very healthy thing in a community of Love. The Quakers have a great way of doing this with groups called “discernment groups”. [For over 350 years of Quakerism, the Friends have placed a high value on decision-making in community. They have redefined their process into what Chuck Orwiler calls “the art of voluntary attention practiced within a culture of listening,”3 or more simply, corporate discernment. Friends have been intentional about corporate discernment, and whether they like it or not, they have valuable lessons to share lessons which can foster the most creative, most unified, and most dynamic]…. groups.
I started to rethink this idea after I read the liner notes of a Johnny Cash album written for children. (getting into Johnny Cash and thought this would be a interesting insight into his work) Here are the liner notes on fatherhood written by Johnny Cash’s son about his father:
Johnny Cash: Father, Friend, and Fisherman
My father loved children.
I remember, when I was young, my father taking me to the skating rink. He would load up a bunch of my cousins, friends and myself, and off we would go for a big Friday night in downtown Hendersonville. Anyone, who ever saw my dad skate, could never forget. On the rink, he was dangerous, and had little control. this did not stop him from going at it with all he had. By the end of the night he was usually as sore and bruised up as me, if not more so.
Sometimes, we would just get in his long black Fleetwood Cadillac and drive, looking for a place to fish. We would find some creek or stream somewhere and get out our poles. We would sit for hours, just he and I. Nothing else in the world mattered during those quiet times together except the bobber, the bait and the fish. We caught thousands.
He loved the movies. In the 1970s, when Christopher Reeve’s “Superman” was released, he rented out an entire theater for an afternoon showing, and loaded up the whole second and third grade classes from my school in buses and took us all to the movies, some one hundred eighty-plus kids. Dad became forever endeared to my schoolmates’ hearts for this.
My father loved children.
This was the father I knew, a fun loving, easy going, laughing man who was, in scores of ways, as big a kid as I have ever been. I think that is the biggest reason Dad loved children so much: He was a kid himself. For a large part of my life my father was free in his heart, the most important thing in the world to him, just to have fun.
I see the dark, foreboding figure of Johnny Cash far too much these days. The dark side of John R. Cash is real and significant, but there is another that is just as true, and for us, those who love the man, even more important to remember:
The big kid.
He always would have rather laughed than cried.
John Carter Cash 3/1/06
This insight into Johnny’s Cash life gave us a great deal of information into his relationship with this father and how he looks at fatherhood. “Walk the line” showed this tension in their relationship yet I think living in community means reflecting on the world around us and others holding you accountable for your actions. People appropriately and lovingly participation in asking you to live a life with Christ. Even if it seems intrusive. We should remember our finer moments and our moments that are not so great. Here’s to people watching in loving accountable communities that make us better people. Let our lives messyness show who we really are. Eric
