This One Goes Out to You

For my husband on his birthday

Dear Andrew,

There wasn’t much to look forward to as a teenager on a Friday night in Murray, Kentucky, but we did have Cryin’, Lovin’, or Leavin’. This was a radio show on Froggy 103.7, which gave airtime to over-sharers who wanted to send out messages of personal importance by way of a song request. As the title of the show suggests, the DJ asked each caller to choose a category which best described them. Were they: (A) Cryin’ over the one they weren’t with, (B) Lovin’ the one they were with, or (C) Leavin’ the one they shouldn’t be with?

“Hello, this is Froggy 103. Are you cryin’, lovin’, or leavin’ tonight?”

The show offered a very public way to say very private things, and for us teenagers it was prime-time entertainment.

Sometimes my friends and I would get bored with all the loving, and we would call in some fictional leavings to stir the pot.

”I’m done with John!” one of us would call in and say, “This one goes out to him!” The DJ would play “Bye, Bye” by Jo Dee Messina, and we would sing out our fictional anger over fictional John’s fictional cheating right there in my bedroom. This was cathartic in a way that I can’t explain to someone who has never been a teenage girl before; I’m sorry, Andrew. You’ll just have to trust me.

One Friday night, I was alone, and bored, and listening to the radio. I was also having actual feelings over a boy who was breaking my heart. Lord help the teenager with actual feelings, and please get the phone out of her hand, because she will do things she will later regret. The thing I did was call Froggy 103 as someone cryin’. I don’t remember which song I requested, but I do remember that I had enough sense to change both my name and the name of the boy who was making me cry. There’s not really a guidebook for how to live as a teenager in a small town, but I’d say one good rule of thumb is not to call the local radio station expecting to be anonymous. I was found out in the lunch line the next week. That boy and I didn’t work out anyway, and aren’t we both glad?

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Now that we are able to be our own DJs with music streaming services, we don’t listen to the radio much anymore. But just the other day, driving around town, I decided to turn on the radio for nostalgia’s sake. I found a classic country station and settled there. I haven’t told you this story yet, Andrew, but something sort of magical happened that day. (This is a good lesson for me: magical things are more likely to happen when I let life come at me like a surprise instead of trying to curate everything.) Anyway, an old Robert Earl Keen song came on: “Feelin’ Good Again.” Do you know it? Of course you know it. I thought I did. I started humming along, because I knew the tune, but the words were coming at me as something new. I stopped humming and got caught up in the story.

In the beginning is a man, standing on Main Street, seemingly coming out of a dark night of the soul:

A chill north wind was blowin', but the spring was comin' on
As I wondered to myself just how long I had been gone

The man walks down a flight of stairs into a local bar. He discovers that all of his friends are there, which is one kind of grace. From here out, grace keeps barreling toward him, unbidden: his favorite band is playing; his friends, who were on the brink of divorce, now look happily married; he discovers cash in his pocket to buy a round for everyone; the crowd starts singing along to the chorus of his favorite song. In short, the night sparkles.

Before I realized it, this song was stirring up a holy longing in me—For that perfect day when under every turned rock is a gift; When around every corner is grace; When the surprises are only good surprises; When the Father’s gifts are not stones or serpents, but bread and fish.

Then Robert Earl Keen sings,

I wanted you to see 'em all, I wished that you were there

And I knew exactly what he meant. I could feel it in my bones. I know those brief and fleeting moments of that Glad Eternal Day breaking into these time-bound days. And if this world sparkles with eternity when I am without you, I feel ache alongside my joy. Because I want for you to see it all; I wish that you were there. If any grace comes rushing toward me, it has your name on it too. And I’m restless until you’re in the path with me.

When people say that something “rang true” for them, I understand what they mean, in an intellectual sort of way. But the glad surprise of the last lines of this song made me feel as though someone really did crawl inside me and ring a bell in my soul:

I looked across the room and saw you standing on the stair
And when I caught your eye, saw you break into a grin
It feels so good, feelin’ good again

I want you to know that I saw your face when I heard these lines, and thought about how often I’m looking across the room for you. And how glad I am when you show up. In many ways, it’s been a hard year for us. In more ways, this is just a hard world for anyone to live in. As a pastor, you’ve been invited into the presence of troubles you can’t mend.¹ As a father, you’ve carried the burdens of our children as if the burdens were your own. As a husband and my friend, you’ve climbed into the pit with me when it’s been very dark and deep. But you do it all with one eye on eternity. You invite us to long for the coming feast without delaying our joy.

So here I am again, a girl with actual feelings sending out a private message in a public way. I’m not afraid to be found out this time. If I were able to call into Cryin’, Lovin’, or Leavin’ tonight, I would finally be able to request a song as someone who is lovin’. And this is what I’d say:

Happy birthday, Andrew Harwell. Thank you for all of the ways you invite that Glad Eternal Day into our lives here on earth. I’ll always be looking across the room to try and catch your eye. This one goes out to you…

1. This is from a favorite quote from Wendell Berry’s story, “A Desirable Woman.” Describing a minister he says: “Williams Milby had the gift of comforting. He carried with him, not by his will, it seemed, but by the purest gift, the very presence of comfort. And yet even as it were a comfort to others, it could be a bafflement and a burden to him. His calling, and the respect accorded to it, admitted him into the presence of troubles he could not mend.”