In a famous Saturday Night Live (SNL) clip, Christopher Walken, who plays the character Bruce Dickensen, is a music producer listening to a band (Blue Oyster Cult) featuring Will Ferrell, who is playing the cow bell. It’s a hilarious clip you can find on YouTube (More Cowbell-SNL).
In the end, Bruce Dickensen says “Fella’s, I’ve got a fever…and the only prescription is more cow bell…”
In this blog, I want to talk about another type of “fever,” the fever caused by a lack of peace in this crazy world. And the best prescription I know is a rediscovery of our own true identity and the peace that comes along with it.
In the SNL clip, the only thing that could make the recording a success was “more cow bell.” In this world of uncertainty, I want to suggest that if “more cow bell” is compared to the peace in rediscovering our own true identity, then we need more of that to cure the fever that afflicts us.
I’ve written much about this topic in the books I’ve authored (i.e. Launching Leaders, An Empowering Journey for a New Generation). I’ve studied this topic in great depth, which doesn’t make me an expert, but a continuous seeker. I share in this article a little different angle than that which I have previously written about.
At certain times in our lives, we may feel like we need to go back to ground zero and rediscover who we are all over again. At other seasons of life, it may feel like it we’re fairly well connected to our sense of self and it’s a matter of staying the course, following the promptings of our inner voice, and remaining true to who we are. At still other moments, our sense of identity may feel like a cold and barren winter landscape, and the thought of pulling our bleak winter selves out can seem like a daunting task. In these moments it can be helpful to remember that our core identity, our inner self, is never dead, but merely dormant, waiting for the thaw of spring and the cycle of life and renewal. In any case, the process of discovering and rediscovering ourselves is an ongoing journey.
What takes us away from the core identity that brings us daily peace? It may be we are on the hamster wheel of work, trying to make a living wage. It may be the many demands of children going in a hundred different directions. It may be that we are sucked into the social media rivers that go nowhere as we keep trying to create relevance out of thin air. It could legitimately be stress that paralyzes as we feel helpless to control the external forces of world conflict. It could be that a combination of all of this has caused loneliness and even depression to afflict us as we feel we are drowning and have no control over outcomes.
As the band in the SNL clip were advised to…”Lay down more cow bell,” in our comparison, we need to figure out how to take away the fever of worldly chaos by finding the peace that still can exist in the rediscovery or our own true identity.
This process is not complicated – it requires a little space and time. A way to connect with our inner voice. George Washington Carver said: “I love to think of nature as unlimited broadcasting stations, through which God speaks to us every day, every hour…How do I talk to a little flower? Through it I talk to the infinite. And what is the infinite? It is that silent, small voice…that still, small voice.”
Ironically, I have learned in my daily prayer walk to speak openly to the flowers and trees and birds who grace my walk. I express gratitude for their existence and what I sense from them. This simple process allows me to appreciate the small and simple things, and at the same time, focus on what matters most. Where do we fit into this tapestry of life?
Thomas Merton, who was an American Trappist monk, theologian, mystic, and poet, expressed what he called a solitude of vocation as he wrote:
“To pray and work in the morning and to labor and rest in the afternoon, and to sit still again in meditation in the evening when night falls upon that land and when the silence fills itself with darkness and with stars. This is a true and special vocation. There are few who are willing to belong completely to such silence, to let it soak into their bones, to breathe nothing but silence……”
And therein lies the key. We have to be WILLING to make space for a different path. Innately, we know there is more to life and our existence—-more than fitting into the world’s narrative.
We will continue this conversation in Part Two.
