In Memory of Dan Fogelberg

I subbed today at the middle school and when I got my class settled on their task, I got on line to check my email and check the headlines. I was stunned to read that folk-rock singer and songwriter Dan Fogelberg passed away on Sunday morning from prostate cancer. He was 56.

I was surprised how shaken I was about it.

Dan Fogelberg (DF) was pretty popular back in the 70's and 80's. He had a number of hits and put out some great music. A friend that worked at a record store introduced me to his music when he gave me DF first album, "Home Free." I was swept away with its very first cords on "To the Morning" and stirred with the lyrics of the closing song, "The River."

Shortly after receiving the album DF came to town and a couple of friends and I went to hear him. It was a wonderful evening of folk and rock with his back-up band "Fools Gold." His closing song "There's a Place in the World for a Gambler" got the entire crowd singing and we sang the song all the way home.

His music served as an essential part of my life's soundtrack. When I graduated and hit the road with those same dear friends for a month, traveling down the east coast, we wore out his tapes. When I moved into the dorm on campus, it was the music of Fogelberg that filled our room. When a dear friend was in a bad place and couldn't see it, it was DF song "As the Raven Flies" that I would play around him.

I don't know what place his life was in when he died, whether he had a faith in Christ or not, but in some of his songs there was a longing for more, a soul searching for answers. When he released his album "Nether Lands," the first song caused several of us to wonder if maybe, just maybe, he had found Christ:

High on this mountain
The clouds down below
I'm feeling so strong and alive
From this rocky perch
I'll continue to search
For the wind and the snow and the sky
Oh I want a lover and I want some friends
And I want to live in the sun
And I want to do all the things that I never have done
Sunny bright mornings and pale moonlit nights
Keep me from feeling alone
Now I'm learning to fly and this freedom is like
Nothing that I've ever known
Oh I've seen the bottom and I've been on top
But mostly I've lived in between
And where do you go when you get to the end of your dream
Off in the Nether Lands I heard the sound
Like the beating of heavenly wings
And deep in my brain I can hear a refrain
Of my soul as she rises and sings
Anthems to glory and anthems to love
And hymns filled with earthly delight
Like the songs that the darkness composes to worship the light
Once in a vision I came on some woods
And stood at a fork in the road
My choices were clear yet I froze with the fear
Of not knowing which way to go
Oh, one road was simple acceptance of life
The other road offered sweet peace
When I made my decision
My vision became my release

That song still makes my soul soar when I listen to it and, whether or not it was a result of the discovering of Christ in his life, it certainly made me sing it in praise to my Lord!

I wrote my wife this morning and told her I lost a dear friend yesterday. I hope that in his struggle to live, that he came to meet Christ. Believing that all good things come from God, I believe that Dan Fogelberg's music was a gift from God. It will always touch me and fill me with wonderful and sad memories. But I hope that, as his music lives on, that God will us it for His Glory and touch another soul who is searching for the Nether Lands.

Thank you Dan for touching my life with your music.



Check out his website at http://www.danfogelberg.com/news.html

From the mid 70's

From 2003

Saturday morning in bed

I've been lying in bed for the last hour listening to Will Ackerman on my computer trying to decide if I want to get up or not. It's probably time but I look outside and it's gray and breezy and I'm sure it's chilly. Still, I wonder if I should get up, get dressed and take my dog for a walk in the woods down the road.

I have a strange feeling of disconnect today. Actually, I've had it for several days now. I've had this deep internal yearning to be someplace else, far away, deep in the woods or on top of a mountain, someplace secluded and private. I find myself watching the Travel Channel, shows about Alaska, Ireland, Scotland, Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon, and my heart stirs and my mind says, "I want to be there." Though part of my feeling is because I am enraptured with those places and want to visit them, my mood now has to do with the idea that, if I'm not here, but there, then I don't have to deal with the stuff that's here.

But I know that, as much as I would like to be there - someplace else, it wouldn't be long before I started to feel this way again and long to be back over here. The reason? Because where ever I may go, there I am and I am the reason that I feel this disconnect. It has more to do with me and my emotional reaction to the season (Christmas and Winter) of busyness and gray, my soon to be 50th birthday, and some other things, that cause me to have this stirring of being "there" than "here".

My other choice is just to stay in bed for the rest of the day - which won't work because I have a lovely wife and daughter at home that won't let me stay in bed. They will get me up and get me to do something because that is what I need to do. Climbing mountains or walking in the woods can't take place while in your bed.

I think I'll get up.