California
CALIFORNIA
Wasted my days at the Alternative
The summer before they closed it down
Turned a corner store into a coffeeshop
Like a little piece of California in our town
If they told you, you were lost
In our palace of poets you'd be found
With a guitar, or an inkpen
Idea burning bright
Candles flickered on until the unwelcome sun
Like us all just barely hanging on
To the moment that we shine
CHORUS:
Wish I was in California
Somebody teach me how to smile
Like you did, like I wish you’d do again.
Who was I,
When I laid my head down in your lap
Who was I with you and them? I wanna be him again
That smile we passed around
Didn't go home with anyone
Kept it there as our little secret
They can’t steal away with all their whitewashed sin
Besides who would understand
That we don't care for where you're going
Who you were, or what you've done
All we know is to take you as we find you
And to play our anthems, as you sing along
CHORUS:
Wish I was in California
Somebody teach me how to smile
Like you did, like I wish you’d do again.
Who was I,
When I laid my head down in your lap
Who was I with you and them? I wanna be him again
We learned a little about this life
You've got to choose your destination well
But be in no rush,
You'll get there soon enough
Don't have to live between each crisis in the making
Just gotta let a well known stranger's song
Carry you along
Wish I was in California
Somebody teach me how to smile
Like you did, like I wish you’d do again
Who is black-n-white inside
And wouldn't give it all
Just to be, collecting
Colors as they fall
Out of grace and a palace of poets
Here we're safe
From a world of war and rage
In August they closed ourAlternative
Said we spoke our minds to loud
What were we supposed to choose?
Black and White Dreams or Walking Round all Black and Blue
From this small town attitude and small town abuse?
CHORUS:
Wish I was in California
Somebody teach me how to smile
Like you did, like I wish you’d do again.
Who was I,
When I laid my head down in your lap
Who was I with you and them? I wanna be him again
“California” is about finding a place where you belong. Many of the heroes of the Scriptures never belonged anywhere such as David the shepherd boy who was not even a consideration in his own father’s mind when a prophet knocked on the front door asking to choose from his sons a future King of Israel, Joseph was so hated his 11 brothers that they threw him into an abandoned cistern to die, and Gideon openly admitted that he was absolutely no one in a family absolutely full of nobodies, and these are its national heroes not to mention the prophets of the land.
Sometimes the price of the gift (or passion and talent that delivers the message) is the loneliness, nearly always before the gift is called to serve its purpose like in the lives of King David and Joseph the Governor and Gideon the General who were mostly celebrated after what was in them arose. Sometimes the gifting never finds a place where it belongs except with the one who gave it, as we see in the lives of Jeremiah and Ezekiel and all the Prophets. Their Creator was their reward and He spoke with them directly and clearly, as He did with Abraham, as a man does with a friend, and this relationship saved the lives of not only Abraham but also those he loved, it also saved the life of Baruch who was Jeremiah’s Scribe (a man who was promised that even in calamities, his life would be preserved as a prize of war).
“And the Scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”—and he was called a friend of God.” Jacob 2:23
My story began in a Southern Town so small that it failed to merit its own traffic light, or a library, or a bookstore, or a movie theater, or any of the places that teach youths first how to dream. The elementary school where we spent our days as the children of factory workers and mechanics and construction workers and sometimes as the only safe place we knew to escape the chaos of home failed to merit Art Classes, or an R.O.T.C. or Language Classes or even Sports Teams, again, the places that teach you how to dream at first had not been built for us. There was however love from the teachers and the staff, perhaps not understanding of my heart which I am certain you understand, but love simply because it was their duty and because I was a child and all children need to be loved by those who guard their world or the next generation crumbles, as small town folks just know. For this love I am always grateful, but also always lonely, as my roots were planted in very isolated soil. When I become older I joined the Air Force and that allowed me to travel and to eventually go to college, but in the middle there was this place called “The Alternative”.
“The Alternative” was a coffee shop in a few towns over, which had graduated to six full red lights I believe but not quite a Wal-Mart (how the success of a town is measured in the South). The purple front door of the Alternative was the first door I had ever walked into that was safe for poets and artists and thinkers and dreamers, where we were celebrated instead of just tolerated and someone cared to unwrap the gifts we each held to include our words and our voice and our thoughts.
Alternative was the first coffee shop I had ever rested my mind at actually (at the age of 19) and it was truly a “Palace of poet’s where we are safe, from a world at war and rage”, as the words that I penned there speak of. Some of the local teenage musicians set my lyrics to music for the first time in my life, so in more ways than one it helped me find my voice. The friends at the Alternative were not frightened by my black nail paint, or my love of Anne Rice novels or fascination with Ancient Near Eastern Religions or any of the other paths I wandered off on that seemed to frighten other people. Perhaps others were frightened for themselves because they didn’t understand why I was on the path I was walking, or perhaps they were concerned for me because they knew where those paths would lead me if I were to continue on them, and looking back I should have been frightened for me as well. In either regard they kept their distance and I was glad for that as the night is like a haven for so many of us who have learned that the light shows us for all we aren’t.
The Alternative closed and I joined the Air Force before I could drift any further from the path my mother prayed that I would follow, in fact it was only open for one Summer I believe. For the one Summer we all shared the Alternative we were sheltered from the rains of misunderstanding, the cold winds of ignorance, the ugliness of the mundane and hopeless, we had a “Little California in our Town”.
—
Wasted my days at the Alternative
The summer before they closed it down
Turned a corner store into a coffeeshop
Like a little piece of California in our town
If they told you, you were lost
In our palace of poets you'd be found
With a guitar, or an inkpen
Idea burning bright
Candles flickered on until the unwelcome sun
Like us all just barely hanging on
To the moment that we shine
CHORUS:
Wish I was in California
Somebody teach me how to smile
Like you did, like I wish you’d do again.
Who was I,
When I laid my head down in your lap
Who was I with you and them? I wanna be him again
That smile we passed around
Didn't go home with anyone
Kept it there as our little secret
They can’t steal away with all their whitewashed sin
Besides who would understand
That we don't care for where you're going
Who you were, or what you've done
All we know is to take you as we find you
And to play our anthems, as you sing along
CHORUS:
Wish I was in California
Somebody teach me how to smile
Like you did, like I wish you’d do again.
Who was I,
When I laid my head down in your lap
Who was I with you and them? I wanna be him again
We learned a little about this life
You've got to choose your destination well
But be in no rush,
You'll get there soon enough
Don't have to live between each crisis in the making
Just gotta let a well known stranger's song
Carry you along
Wish I was in California
Somebody teach me how to smile
Like you did, like I wish you’d do again
Who is black-n-white inside
And wouldn't give it all
Just to be, collecting
Colors as they fall
Out of grace and a palace of poets
Here we're safe
From a world of war and rage
In August they closed ourAlternative
Said we spoke our minds to loud
What were we supposed to choose?
Black and White Dreams or Walking Round all Black and Blue
From this small town attitude and small town abuse?
CHORUS:
Wish I was in California
Somebody teach me how to smile
Like you did, like I wish you’d do again.
Who was I,
When I laid my head down in your lap
Who was I with you and them? I wanna be him again
“California” is about finding a place where you belong. Many of the heroes of the Scriptures never belonged anywhere such as David the shepherd boy who was not even a consideration in his own father’s mind when a prophet knocked on the front door asking to choose from his sons a future King of Israel, Joseph was so hated his 11 brothers that they threw him into an abandoned cistern to die, and Gideon openly admitted that he was absolutely no one in a family absolutely full of nobodies, and these are its national heroes not to mention the prophets of the land.
Sometimes the price of the gift (or passion and talent that delivers the message) is the loneliness, nearly always before the gift is called to serve its purpose like in the lives of King David and Joseph the Governor and Gideon the General who were mostly celebrated after what was in them arose. Sometimes the gifting never finds a place where it belongs except with the one who gave it, as we see in the lives of Jeremiah and Ezekiel and all the Prophets. Their Creator was their reward and He spoke with them directly and clearly, as He did with Abraham, as a man does with a friend, and this relationship saved the lives of not only Abraham but also those he loved, it also saved the life of Baruch who was Jeremiah’s Scribe (a man who was promised that even in calamities, his life would be preserved as a prize of war).
“And the Scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”—and he was called a friend of God.” Jacob 2:23
My story began in a Southern Town so small that it failed to merit its own traffic light, or a library, or a bookstore, or a movie theater, or any of the places that teach youths first how to dream. The elementary school where we spent our days as the children of factory workers and mechanics and construction workers and sometimes as the only safe place we knew to escape the chaos of home failed to merit Art Classes, or an R.O.T.C. or Language Classes or even Sports Teams, again, the places that teach you how to dream at first had not been built for us. There was however love from the teachers and the staff, perhaps not understanding of my heart which I am certain you understand, but love simply because it was their duty and because I was a child and all children need to be loved by those who guard their world or the next generation crumbles, as small town folks just know. For this love I am always grateful, but also always lonely, as my roots were planted in very isolated soil. When I become older I joined the Air Force and that allowed me to travel and to eventually go to college, but in the middle there was this place called “The Alternative”.
“The Alternative” was a coffee shop in a few towns over, which had graduated to six full red lights I believe but not quite a Wal-Mart (how the success of a town is measured in the South). The purple front door of the Alternative was the first door I had ever walked into that was safe for poets and artists and thinkers and dreamers, where we were celebrated instead of just tolerated and someone cared to unwrap the gifts we each held to include our words and our voice and our thoughts.
Alternative was the first coffee shop I had ever rested my mind at actually (at the age of 19) and it was truly a “Palace of poet’s where we are safe, from a world at war and rage”, as the words that I penned there speak of. Some of the local teenage musicians set my lyrics to music for the first time in my life, so in more ways than one it helped me find my voice. The friends at the Alternative were not frightened by my black nail paint, or my love of Anne Rice novels or fascination with Ancient Near Eastern Religions or any of the other paths I wandered off on that seemed to frighten other people. Perhaps others were frightened for themselves because they didn’t understand why I was on the path I was walking, or perhaps they were concerned for me because they knew where those paths would lead me if I were to continue on them, and looking back I should have been frightened for me as well. In either regard they kept their distance and I was glad for that as the night is like a haven for so many of us who have learned that the light shows us for all we aren’t.
The Alternative closed and I joined the Air Force before I could drift any further from the path my mother prayed that I would follow, in fact it was only open for one Summer I believe. For the one Summer we all shared the Alternative we were sheltered from the rains of misunderstanding, the cold winds of ignorance, the ugliness of the mundane and hopeless, we had a “Little California in our Town”.
Prayer for Those Seeking A California
To The Artist who has Crafted us all
We come to you asking for Homes in other Hearts
We asked that we be Assigned to our own Tribes
We Petition you boldly for our Place in Your Kingdom
We seek from you a Palace of Poets where we are Safe
We ask that you remember we are Orphans in this World at War and Rage
We Plead that other Eyes and Hearts may See
We ask that they see how you Stitched us with Purpose and Molded us with a Plan
We ask that they understand the Mission we have been asked to Bear like a Ring
We ask You for Fellow Travelers as Comrades and Muses and Friends
We ask for the Names on our White Stones to be Read as we Sleep and Dream
“He who has an ear, let him hear what the Ruach is saying to Messiah’s communities. To the one who overcomes I will give some of the hidden manna,[ and I will give him a white stone—and written on the stone a new name that no one knows except the one who receives it.”
Revelation 2:17 Tree of Life Version
Resource: http://healingartsprojectinc.org/
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