One of my favorite songs at Falcon Ridge is Susan Werner’s, “May I Suggest?”, especially when covered by Red Molly with their tight harmonies.

May I suggest
May I suggest to you
May I suggest this is the best part of your life
May I suggest
This time is blessed for you
This time is blessed and shining almost blinding bright

So, I was excited to hear Susan Werner sing at the Gospel WakeUp Call. Yet instead of singing something that would inspire the crowd to show a little more love to strangers, she spent her time casting judgment on those often criticized for being too judgmental, “creepy preachers, With their narrow minds and very wide lapels”. As if the CoExist bumper sticker on so many people’s cars at Falcon Ridge, didn’t include room to CoExist with some Christians.

My disillusionment was already growing by the time she got to “May I Suggest”, which is why one line, I’d always loved before, struck me as particularly disturbing. On Friday of Falcon Ridge, Isaac James Houston was stillborn. For months, I had been praying for his parents, who had struggled so hard to conceive a child.

May I suggest continues,

There is a world
That's been addressed to you
Addressed to you, intended only for your eyes
A secret world
Like a treasure chest to you
Of private scenes and brilliant dreams that mesmerise
A lover's trusting smile
A tiny baby's hands

A tiny baby’s hands. Margaret posted

I've been given a memory box of things - Isaac's footprints and handprints

A tiny baby’s hands: they can bring great joy, and great sadness. I tried to hold both the joy and sadness in my heart at Falcon Ridge, which I’ve always thought was about the closest to heaven I’ve ever gotten to on earth.

As part of my own journey recently, I’ve been reading “My Bright Abyss: Meditation of a Modern Believer” by Christian Wiman. The second chapter is “Sorrow’s Flower” and seems to speak well to this holding of joy and grief at the same time.

While I hope that Susan never has to experience the grief that Margaret is experiencing or that Christian writes about, but I do hope that she might get a better understanding of the faith that sustains people during incredible suffering, and become more compassionate, even to those whose religion she despises.

So, instead of listening to “May I Suggest” this evening, I am listening to Fallen Flowers by Willy Welch. It is a song we wrote for some friends of ours who had also just lost a baby way too early.

In the moment of the passing of a child from the world
as his silent roars like thunder in the night
continue to remember when your rage will not be still
and the morning seems too far away to promise any light…
faith is all we’re given like a lantern in the night
so guard it for his glory
its our only weapon in the fight.