Hey
friends! I'm pleased to announce a new blog / venture!
Thanks to all of you who have read and followed this blog over the last year!
This will be my last post on this platform BUT I hope as you read on you will be kind enough to checkout my new blog.
This has been a
amazing season for me and your support and encouragement has been fuel
for my heart. Thanks for your kindness and love. My new blog is called
"That Life" and the venture is my desire to work privately and
confidentially with those who long for transformation and greater
fulfillment. I hope you enjoy the new blog! www.thatlife.com
Jim Trick
Tuesday, April 30, 2013
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
The me&thee Coffeehouse
From time to time, I just have to write about my
town. I can’t help it. I love Marblehead Massachusetts. Haverhill is my heritage but Marblehead has
become my heart. Marblehead is a true
community. We say good morning to each other,
look after our neighbors and smile when we pass each other on the street. We “keep it local” and appreciate the magic
that is in this little seaport town. (I sill love you Haverhill)
One of the things that I love about our town is
that there seems to be a time honored tradition around every corner. I suspect I will write about all of them at
some point. Today it’s the me & thee
coffeehouse.
As their official web site notes:
“The me&thee
coffeehouse is one of the oldest and most respected acoustic venues in the
United States. And its rise to the top has been no accident. It’s the result of
thousands of hours of volunteer love and labor from hundreds of people through
the years who have given of themselves to provide a warm and professional atmosphere
for music to thrive.”
To
have this complete gem of an acoustic venue within a couple hundred feet of my
front door is an absolute gift. Each
week a beautiful, old New England church building is transformed into a world
class listening room, featuring live performances, from the likes of Tom
Rush, Pete Seeger, Patty Larkin, Greg Brown, Dar Williams, Suzanne Vega, Bill
Staines, Tracy Chapman, and now for the very first time Jim Trick!
I’ve
been in the audience for more me&thee shows than I can count. I’m happy to
report that on February 1st I will be enjoying this great venue from
the other side of the microphone. I will
indeed be holding onto a guitar and sharing a bunch of original tunes, both old
and new. I am honored and so excited to
be sharing this night with me&thee veterans, my dear friends, MAEVE.
For old school “Headers” (those who were
either born at the ol Marblehead “Mary
Allie” hospital or at home on the kitchen floor) to those of you new to our
beloved Marblehead, I invite you to either discover or rediscover this
wonderful coffeehouse.
Even if
you don’t dig the music (which I know you will) there will be enough baked
goods and hot beverages to distract you into a sugary state of bliss.
Kidding
aside, the me&thee is labor of love for those who continue to make it
breathe. I hope that on Feb 1st you will
go to Shubies, grab a bottle of wine, have an early dinner at Five
Corners Kitchen, be at the me&thee for 7:30 and after the show, go home and
drink your wine and with a joyful sigh say
“I love this town”.
Sunday, December 16, 2012
Vigil for Connecticut
I was asked to lead a candle light vigil , in response the CT tragedy, last night in Swampscott MA. Here are my notes.
Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak whispers the
o'er-fraught heart and bids it break. ~William Shakespeare
It is a brisk early
winter evening here in New England.
And we stand here
united in sacred posture and in solidarity with our neighbors in Connecticut.
Some who are in this
very moment enduring a sadness and grief so profound that their lives will be
forever changed.
We gather as members of
a community, a community not unlike Newtown CT. Those things that often
divide us matter not in moments like this.
Religion
Politics
Opinion after opinion
that we hold tight to on a normal day we let go of on a day like this.
Sorrow makes us all children again - destroys
all differences of intellect. The wisest know nothing. ~Ralph
Waldo Emerson
As we gather with sad
hearts, may we not miss the sweetness that exists simply in having each other.
Moments of silence can be
hard because our minds are always going and its can be hard to slow down.
Meditation
1. Silent prayers or
simple compassionate contemplation for the families impacted by Friday’s tragic
event.
2. Silently list
and think about the things in your life that you are thankful for
3. A moment of
silence as we consider ways in which can bring greater peace to specific
situations in our own lives and relationships in the hope that we would live
differently in tribute to those who have lost lives and loved ones.
I am standing on the sea
shore,
A ship sails in the
morning breeze and starts for the ocean.
She is an object of
beauty and I stand watching her
Till at last she fades on
the horizon and someone at my side says:
"She is gone."
Gone! Where?
Gone from my sight - that
is all.
She is just as large in
the masts, hull and spars as she was when I saw her
And just as able to bear
her load of living freight to its destination.
The diminished size and
total loss of sight is in me,
not in her.
And just at the moment
when someone at my side says,
"She is gone",
There are others who are
watching her coming, and other voices take up a glad shout:
"There she
comes"
- and that is
dying. An horizon and just the limit of our sight.
Lift us up, Oh Lord, that
we may see further.
Bishop Brent
1862 - 1926
"All the world is full of suffering. It is also
full of overcoming it."
-
Helen Keller
God we call on you in
this moment to bring Your promised strength and peace to our neighbors in
Connecticut.
As we wrestle with
questions and wide range of emotions we pray for clarity and for a deeper
gratitude for the blessings in our lives that we often take for granted. Amen
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
How are things?
How are things?
Lately when people ask me how I am or how things are going I
reply by saying
“I don’t have any real problems… I have things that I complain about but no
actual problems”.
It has been a good season and I think my blessings are
magnified because I have a handful of people dear to me who are courageously
wading through some very serious challenges.
Lets face it; none of us get out of this life without
hardships and pain. My dear friend and
songwriting partner Rachel Taylor just released a song she wrote called
Heartbreak Is For Everyone. The title communicates my point.
The fact remains that some problems are not born of
circumstance and tragedy but rather by the undeveloped parts of our
character.
Envy
Insecurity
Entitlement
Fear
Laziness
These characteristics are the farmland of pseudo problems
and are an actual problem in and of themselves.
Anthony de Mello, in his final work entitled The Way To Love,
invites his readers to contrast two feelings.
How does it feel when people say you are doing a good job?
What’s it like when you are respected and receiving affirmation?
Contrasted with
How does it feel when you observe the wonder of creation?
When you see a mountain range, a sunset, a newborn baby or the ocean? How does
it impact you?
The first feeling is nice but its temporary. If you try to be grounded in that sphere you
are likely to be let down.
The other visual is constant and reminds us of our place in
the world. It demonstrates a blessing
beyond our circumstances and inspires gratitude and humility.
Humility is not the enemy of confidence.
Gratitude crushes feelings of entitlement.
Wonder fuels enthusiasm.
Compassion heals bitterness.
How are things?
Thursday, May 31, 2012
1/2 down 1/2 to go..... seriousy
"I have
learned, that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and
endeavors to live the life he has imagined, he will meet with a success
unexpected in common hours." Henry David Thoreau
Ok friends...
Here we are at the half way point. 2012
is half over and I can't believe it either.
When I started this blog in January it was full of hope. I write today with hope and a pinch of
desperation. If at the mention of our halfway point you cringe, shudder and
lament,then you know exactly what I mean.
In January I
published a long inspirational list. It contained all the things I was going to
consume, how I was going to move and the attitude of my heart. (you can go back
and read it if you want) as a blog entry it got great response and as for
becoming reality it... Ummm.... Well... It's one heck of a list! My hard lesson
is the list making does not equal life living and our days will not live
themselves... They will go on, they will continue, they will pass us by if we
are not careful, but they will not live.
In order for there to be life in our days we must put it there.
There is a
part of your heart so familiar and yet so neglected that in the depths of your
most intimate thoughts you scratch your head in despair wondering how you have
not gotten further in that one area. You
have plotted and secretly planned. You
have wondered and researched. You have even made lists. The one thing you have
not been able to do is act. That one spark of definable, measurable forward
motion has not happened... At least not in a while.
I don't write today with
answers, explanations or a five point plan. I do write to remind you that you
are not alone and the one step you are waiting to take can happen anytime. Like
right now for example. Make the call, pick up the pen, apply for it...yes you
can.. Yes you can... Yes I can.
Today I
recommit to the hope of January but with the fire of June.
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Uncle Dick Trick
My father’s
side of our family is from upstate New York.
Tupper lake, Herkimer county, VanHornesville and other towns named for
the native tribes that made up the Adirondack region that i cant pronounce let
alone spell.
Every summer
we would spend a week or two with my grandmother as well as aunts, uncles and
cousins. While our home life here in
Massachusetts was conservative and tame our New York tribe was anything
but. I was old enough to know what a
cocktail party was and just socially literate enough to be able to accurately
interpret conversations the adults would have the morning after. I loved those visits. Hitting the throughway heading east was
always sad for me.
Missing my
family really meant missing my uncle Dick.
He took me fishing and his wife at the time would take me on walks
beside the rocky creek that ran along my grandmother’s yard. It was from this creek that i first got a
taste of fly-fishing. I carried the
wicker creel, uncle Dick caught and cleaned the trout and together we cooked
ate our catch for breakfast. As strange
as it may sound, there is nothing like a native, brook trout for
breakfast.
Some years
later my father had become very ill and my mother and I decided an upstate trip
would put a little wind in our sails. A day
or two after our arrival uncle Dick decided we should visit his hunting
camp. Aunt Caroline , my cousins
Richard, Adam and my mother were traveling to camp in the Jeep Wagoneer, while
uncle Dick and I were in his beat up, ol powder blue ford pick up. I was delighted to have time with him and I
think he knew I needed it.
Uncle Dick is
a world-class watercolor artist.
Painting and teaching art is all he has ever done professionally. Add to a celebrated career as an artist the
fact that a few years ago he was inducted into the Ohio Northern University’s
football hall of fame, you begin to get a picture of the kind of man he
is. He works with wood, journals, paints,
cooks, dreams, lectures, listens, watches, hunts, fishes with a fly rod, loves, ties trout
flies, raises, repairs, addresses, constructs, defends, and
corrects,.
We made our
way through the tree-lined road and as he drove he instructed. Occasionally he would slow down and point to
a particular stretch of road and explain why a particular scene would make a
good painting. You or I may have not
noticed a difference but after he explained about color, composition and light
it all made sense. Time with my uncle
enabled me to see the landscape differently.
The following lesson has enabled me to view differently the landscape of
my heart.
“God and
family first” Uncle Dick said. He then repeated it, making sure that I was
paying attention. I was. I always listened when he talked. “God and family first and then this is the
order, art, fly fishing and hunting.
Those are my passions and those are my pursuits. I have unapologetically built my life around
these things and it is with these activities that I fill my days”.
He would carry
on talking about the virtue of finding one’s true passion and the importance of
filling our lives with those things. I
was a teenager and I have never forgotten this lesson. It has shaped a great deal of how I think and
helped to form my world view.
For me its
God, family and friends first, then music, fly fishing and cooking. These items
are the deep call and longing of my heart.
They enable me to say no to things that do not fit and they are the
ever-growing sunrise on the horizon of my years.
What are your
days made of? What are your passions?
Are you pursuing them? What’s the
chore, responsibility or “day job” holding you back? Just curious…
In exchange for your thoughts I offer uncle Dick’s Stroganoff
recipe. Here it is in his own
words. Enjoy.
Ingredients
1 onion, diced
or sliced thin
1 lb. lean
hamburger (venison or beef)
1 lb. good
smoked bacon
1 can
condensed mushroom soup
1 pint of sour
cream
Optional:
canned or fresh sliced mushrooms
Brown onion in
a pan. Add more if you like it, less if
you don’t. Remove the onions from the
pan. Sometimes I add small cooked
mushrooms, or fresh sliced mushrooms or any other kind as long as they are well
cooked.
Brown the
hamburger. I always use venison, but
it’s easier and less costly to buy beef hamburger at a store, rather than
harvest a deer. More fun with the
hunting.
Drain the meat
and remove it from the pan.
Cook the
bacon. I like bacon, but like the deer,
much less costly to just buy a pound of bacon.
I like the $6 kind, and apple smoked or at least smoked. Pan fry, microwave or otherwise cook very
crisp, so it crumbles in your hand.
Drain, pat dry, and throw out all the bacon grease. Crumble the bacon into ½ inch pieces.
Mix the bacon,
onion, and hamburger in a pan and add a can of condensed mushroom soup.
Stir in at
least a pint of sour cream.
Serve hot over
anything. I like flat egg noodles, but
rice, toast, spaghetti noodles or almost anything works because the taste is so
great you’ll be eating it out of the pan.
I never make a
small batch because it freezes really well and you can add greater or lesser
amounts of ingredients as you like. I
learned this from a friend in college and have never had it fail. We also like it with canned venison, but you
do have that deer problem. You could try
beef, steak or almost any beef, which I have tried. I like lots of sour cream, not the low fat or
anything like that. The bacon is the
key, I think.
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Love and Guns
Can you
remember the first time you felt love?
Not the butterflies associated with your first crush or the day you laid
eyes on the one you just knew you would marry.
Can you remember the first time the concept of love as a feeling and an
experience entered your world? I can.
Long before
the strangle hold of political correctness and cultural emasculation, little
boys played with toy guns. Cops and robbers, good guys and bad guys, war games,
and yes even the now taboo cowboys and Indians.
We built and defended back yard forts, ducked and rolled, hid in trees
and threw caps, pellets and self made sound effects that would make the hottest
beat boxer in the world say “dang”. We “played guns”.
They looked
real. The classic, silver, simulated six
shooter that smelled perpetually of sulfur, the rat tat tat of toy machine guns
and everything in between. There was no
red tip on the barrel and the cylinder on my toy revolver worked just like my
Dad’s real one. My arsenal was full and my time was my own.
My neighborhood
friends and I would do battle non-stop, day in, and day out. Never did we hear
anything about it not being “nice” or anyone worrying that we would one day
fall into a life of crime. We were boys.
It’s what we did. Proof of my parent’s support of my firearm
obsession was a summer stop at New Hampshire’s Six Gun City. Here in New England we have some pretty
incredible tourist attractions. Clarks
bears, Santa’s Village, Lost river, Story Land and more obscure places like
Laconia’s (now defunct) Chief Red Dawn’s Indian Village to name a few.
My favorite
however was always Six Gun City. In the
70’s it looked like a western ghost town.
There were a few rides and every day they had stuntmen dressed as
cowboys putting on shows. Today there is
a waterslide and it has become an ultra modern, old time ghost town. I don’t know if they host old time gunfights
anymore. But this is not a story about
gunfights. This is a story about love.
We spent the
night at a motel, which was also a first and my excitement made it nearly
impossible to sleep. It also made it
utterly impossible for me to let my parents sleep in. They didn’t seem to mind and that is where
the love story begins. I was dressed and
ready to go. On this day being “dressed
and ready to go” included a cowboy hat, bandana, gun belt and that shiny silver
cap gun that I waxed about earlier.
Standing in the
motel room, a chubby little over excited cowboy I squealed to my mom the
questions “are you happy?” And “are you
having fun?”. “I am happy when I know
you’re happy” she replied.
I am happy
when I know you’re happy… I was six or
seven at the time and I have never forgotten that moment. Love is a lot of things to a lot of people. We understand it in different ways and we see
it clearly in some moments more than others.
In all the ways we attempt to show love to others in our lives I am
convinced that love is beautifully displayed when we are joyful in the joy of
others and when we learn to love what our loved ones love.
Who do you
love? What do they love? How do you show them love?
Is your love
for them tailored to them or to you?
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