I hear more and more that the United States is becoming more polarized… that our leaders in Washington are much more worried about attacking each other than they are about finding solutions to our economic, environmental and social woes. Popular wisdom has it that mudslinging has reached an all-time high… that Tea Partiers and Coffee Partiers are fighting battles hotter than their beverage of choice and can find no common ground(s). CNN and Fox News seem to be objecting to being objective and disagreeing on not only what is right and wrong, but what is real and unreal.

On this Memorial Day Weekend, as thoughts turn to those who serve, have served, fought and died in the US Armed Forces, we sometimes wonder if even they know what they’re fighting for… After all, we as a country can’t even agree on what is real and not real, let alone what is right and wrong… and we’re not being shot at or dodging IEDs thousands of miles away from our homes and loved ones. Soldiers fighting in our  current war in Afghanistan have a relatively clear-cut mission compared to those who fought in the US Civil War, where brothers fought brothers.  It must have been very hard for them to know what they were fighting for when their families couldn’t even agree. 

The truth is they do know — there is no argument about what they fight for. It is not for the government, the president or any political party. They don’t fight for the country itself nor is it for the flag, mom or apple pie.  When US soldiers go to war, whether it be in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, National Guard or Coast Guard, they go to fight for one thing.  And that thing is less than a piece of paper and greater than the greatest army on earth. It is for the ideas that make up the United States Constitution.

The United States armed services are unique in that when they enlist, their oath is to a set of ideals. They don’t swear to defend god or country or king or state or flag. To them, all of that is second to a document that puts the rights of individual citizens as paramount. 

In fact, US soldiers swear to defend the constitution against any enemy foreign or domestic. Every officer from the president to a lieutenant is sworn to disobey any order that violates the constitution of the United States.  What a way to set up an army. Here’s a gun — now you have to obey me unless I get out of line.

At the end of the day, all of us — coffee party, tea party, beer bash (I’m starting that one) — agree that our right to discuss, to disagree, to speak our minds and to not worry about who might be listening is worth fighting for… and dying for. 

And we owe an eternal debt of gratitude to those who took this oath, an oath that at they were willing to sacrifice everything for.  

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; That I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.

Photo credit: Arlington National Cemetery by Bruce Dale, published in National Geographic, June 2007

Running at Innsbrook is a special kind of experience.

I’ve run in a lot of great places. Chicago, Sanibel, the Rocky Mountains…but Innsbrook offers a fantastic combination of pleasure and pain that is just sort of rare.

The hills at Innsbrook — that would be the pain part for those following along from home — present some fantastic challenges. Sometimes they are straight up, other times our hills will present a long slow burn (literally). There are a couple hills that I swear are a half mile long. One particularly insideous hill is a short steep climb that leads into a turn followed by a long slow burn. That hill has been likened to a relationship in which you thought you where there for fun and just when you think all is good, your partner starts talking about commitment. Hill running inspires some funny thoughts.

The pleasure part of Innsbrook running more than makes up for the pain of the treacherous hills. Every steep hill at Innsbrook is crowned with a vista, or a lake view or a ridge run through a wooded glade. The views at Innsbrook are beautiful in every season and seemed to be heightened by the runner’s endorphen-laced brain. The woodland scenes, beautiful on a normal day, are inspired poetry to chemically enhance sensibilities.

Who wouldn’t want this — all the fun of a mental pharmacopoeia and none of the high cost, health risks and possibility of a new housing situation with a roomie named Bubba.

Honestly — after some thought, I wouldn’t want it…at least not for the runner’s high. I can do without the endorphin rush. I’ve that found a more mild version of runners’ high induced by a cold beer, imbibed on our a-frame deck in a hammock on a spring day is a pretty good substitute. And the trip up into the hammock is a much gentler exercise than trotting up one of Innsbrook’s formidable hills. And they say gentle exercise is good, right?

So if not for the brain chemicals, why run? To build up fitness? Why, sure, until the moment when you have to drop out of your routine for a couple weeks and six months of progress is gone! I will never understand why it take so long to get to a point where you feel like you are running well, and yet it can be lost so quickly. For fitness, I’ll take walking any day.

No, over all, there’s only one good reason I have ever come up with for running, I do it for God. And that is probably not what most people were expecting to see — that is unless you read the title.

We have a wonderful classical music festival here at Innsbrook — and I have become acquainted with more classical composers in the last ten years than I thought I would in a lifetime. I’ve learned much about their music and I can even pronounce some of their names. (You wouldn’t believe how Kodaly is pronounced.) But my favorite composer really hasn’t changed.. as Radar O’Reilly once so aptly put it…”aaaahhhhh…Bach”.

Bach’s music is the perfect combination of mathematical precision and unimaginable beauty. It is that moment when all of physics come together to make a sunset and you forget you are watching light bending over the horizon  and then refracting through particles of water and then stimulating the nerves in the back of the eye and finally sending electrical impulses to the brain. What you see are glorious reds, fiery oranges and yellows lighting up the sky. What began as a complex physical and chemical reaction becomes beauty in the mind of the beholder… and that’s what Bach does so well. All of those perfectly timed and chosen sound vibrations come together to create the most unimaginable beauty — truly form from chaos.

And what, you say, does that have to do with running for God? Well what Bach did doesn’t have anything to do with it…why he did it absolutely does. Bach wrote the letter s.D.g. at the end of each of his compositions — “Soli Deo Gloria” which in Latin means “To God alone be the Glory.”

He believed that everything we do should be done as well as possible to honor God. He believed that everyone can create music or art worthy of God. Bach said, “Anyone can do what I did, they just have to work as hard as I did.” He also famously said that “composing music is easy, you just have to play the right notes at the right times.”

Bach wrote these letters as his “signature” on many of the over 10,000 pages of music that he wrote.

As I think about running, I think about Bach’s idea that whatever we do, we do to honor God.  When we stretch, when we push ourselves, when we do something as well as we can, it does bring us out of ourselves and we focus on a higher purpose — and we sort of lose ourselves as we blend with the symmetry of the universe.

We use our brain, our body and our spirit to create beauty or ideas… and that beauty is found in the oddest places… in a well-pitched fastball or a sailboat riding the edge of the wind or a horse and rider working as one or even an out-of-shape 45-year-old slogging up a gravel road in Warren County, topping a hill and taking in a crimson sunset over Lake Aspen.  It’s easy to disappear into the glory of finding a second wind as you open your stride crossing a dam with sparkling lakes on each side, alone with the sunlight on your back, the smell of a warm breeze coming off the lake and the pat, pat, pat of your feet keeping time with the woods’ sounds.

Carl Sagan said, “We are a way for the universe to know itself.” And whether it’s planting a garden, running through the woods of Innsbrook or writing the Toccata and Fugue in D minor, we are at our best when we endeavor not for ourselves but as a tribute to the wonder of creation.

s.D.g.

He writes a goal for himself every year, tracks it and reports on the results when the year is done. He has annual goals and life goals. And every year he goes a month or so at the beginning of the year expressing his disappointment at my inability to draw my own life into such sharp relief. At the end of each year he laments that I have let another unplanned, unfocused year pass by.

I don’t disagree that having a life goal and mission would allow me to accomplish greater things and perhaps even draw greater satisfaction from life. But my problem is, and has always been, that the decision of what is important enough to commit my life to seems to demand the prerequisite of knowing what is important in life. And I just haven’t figured that out yet. What if I would commit my life to the wrong thing? Wouldn’t that be terrible?

So instead of taking a chance on committing to the wrong goal, I commit to none — and go about being living proof of the John Lennon quotation, “Life is what happens when you are busy doing something else.”

But like John Lennon, my life is not without accomplishment. Though I haven’t changed the face of world culture as he did (yet anyway), I have created a life for myself that would have been beyond my dreams graduating from college. I write for a living — I’m deeply involved in my passion of music. My job also takes me outdoors a great deal — and I get to run a kids’ camp during the summer. I have three boys, an unbelievable wife, and live in a great community where I have met a lot of fantastic people. All of this is without benefit of life goals.

The funny thing is if I would have set life goals for myself — these things would have been key. I look at Ed Boyce, the guy who founded Innsbrook, and wonder if our 8,000-acre community was part of a grand plan he had. Some how I doubt it. And yet he has accomplished so much and has affected so many lives in a profound way.

I have a theory. Perhaps achievement goals really aren’t what are important. I have tossed around on the tide like flotsam and jetsam without a tiller and still have been gently deposited on the island of my dreams. The only thing I can figure might have guided my course is that I have always done the things I love and have done them as well as I could. I think there is probably something to the idea that when you focus on what you love and are interested in, those things are drawn to you.

So perhaps by not being always focused on distant goals, I was better able to see what was there in front of me, not missing opportunities. Often the heart is a better guide for living in the present than the mind.

So here I sit, lack of resolve wholly intact. And I am facing the prospect of breaking the news to my friend that once again, I am without a New Year goal.

But perhaps this year I can find a little red meat to throw him (or baked quinoa in my case). I think the resolutions that make real sense are those that help us live better in the present — exercising, eating well, sleeping more, spending time with those I love, being outside, laughing, writing, discussing and reading.

I have come to the conclusion that my boat seems to work well without my hand on the tiller so I’m content to leave my destination unknown. But living well could provide a fresh set of sails to make the trip that much better.

It’s right between Grover and Glencoe. Newcomers call it Wildwood. 

Anyway, as an eight-year-old, I was a newcomer myself, a transplanted native from the ”tough streets” of Creve Coeur. So when I was set free in Wildwood on 40 acres of farmland, I was somewhat amazed by the amount and variety of wild plants. It was quite a change from my suburban background where the list of wild plants was grass… ok, that was it. And the one plant that really got my attention was stinging nettle.

Stinging nettle is remarkably common anywhere there are creeks, and we had one that ran right through the middle of our farm. It’s not a plant easily ignored or missed. It is waist high (or better), has big green leaves, a square stem… oh, and covered with little hairs that ooze with a burning toxin.

Plants that attack are a long way from the lush lawns of Creve Coeur where my biggest horticultural adventure had been an encounter with Rainbow Swiss Chard at the corner Tom Boy grocery store.

So the area arond the creek on our Pond farm took on a sort of “no man’s land” feel for me, which I generally avoided unless enticed beyond reason by water striders skating the creek’s surface, an obvious leopard frog or some other irresistable creek occurance. And then I just dashed through the nettle hoping for the best.  Growing up, I had no love for the stuff.

Fast forward 35 years to our A-frame chalet at Innsbrook. It sits on a hilltop overlooking about three acres of floodland and just about every inch of ground is covered by – guess what – stinging nettle.

My first plan was to give our local agricultural products company a boost by purchasing copious amounts of Roundup — but I’m a little hesitant to spray herbicides where I know my “weed rat” children will be tramping — so I researched stinging nettle on Wikipedia to ferret out what it’s natural enemy might be — and that’s when I learned that it’s really pretty useful stuff.

Next to hemp, stinging nettle is the best Missouri plant with which to make rope out (thankfully my Innsbrook lot is not covered with the former plant– it would harken to an entirely different stage of my life).

The fibers of sting nettle (and hemp) can be stripped out, wetted and twisted into a very stong cord which is great for all sorts of things. I also learned that another creekside plant, jewel weed, has a sap that quickly quiets the burn of stinging nettle.

Apparently, nettle also makes a good, nourishing tea, and the leaves have a spinach quality when eaten (though I haven’t had the courage to try that).

In short, the part of our Innsbrook woods that had once been a “no-man’s land” has now become a source of food stuff and fiber — a real boon to our woodland hideaway.

I still crash into the stinging nettle (now followed by three enthusiastic weed rats) but it is no longer to chase frogs or water striders, and the woods seem to be a much friendlier place.

I’ll probably hear this question 20 times in the next couple days. At office meetings, at kids’ activities, when I meet friends, and undoubtedly in about 300 e-mails. The kids will bring home art projects about what they’re thankful for, and I will hear countless celebrities rattling off what they are thankful for.

And as many times as I hear the question – I’ll hear the same answers, “my health, my family, my friends.” Of course the kids will give more immediate answers. “We’re having spaghetti for dinner” or “The new Transformers movie” or maybe “no homework over Thanksgiving.”  And of course the celebs will be thankful for “hope” or “love” or “the milk of human kindness.” Not one of them will mention their seaside place in Santa Barbara or the new addition to their 12-car garage.

A funny thing happens though, when you ask someone what they are thankful for.  They get a sort of searching look on their face – just for a moment. It’s the same look that you can see on the face of guys wandering aimlessly through grocery store – the guys who “didn’t need to make a list.”

“Now what was I supposed to get?” they ask themselves.

And as if this would come as a surprise to any one – I have a theory about this. I think we are all pre-programmed to focus on the next objective. This seems like it would be a natural tendency, after all, for tens of thousands of years – at least until the invention of the Paleolithic agriculture, ziplocks and refrigerators–food was a day-to-day thing. So being thankful for the blueberry bush that served as breakfast probably wasn’t a terribly helpful trait. What really counted was finding the next one that would provide dinner.

Deep inside of us, I don’t think we have forgotten that lesson. Every day is about the next accomplishment – the raise, the commission, the kids’ next report cards – it’s the unwavering march toward one’s own eventual death… “What’s next? What’s next? What’s next?” Rest in peace.

Or if it’s not the blueberry bush that’s the focus, it’s the other end of the food chain that occupies the caveman mind: trying to avoid being eaten by a cave bear.

It’s a bit of a mental gear change to stop thinking about the next blueberry bush or cave bear. And while many readers might be saying “I have ziplock bags and no fear of cave bears,” I think we just have different names for those things today. Instead of blueberry bushes, we worry about 401Ks and instead of cave bears, it’s Swine Flu.

And even when we stop to think about what we’re grateful for, we still don’t leave hunter-gatherer mode. “I’m grateful that my family is healthy” (not being eaten by cave bears) and “I’m grateful for my home and prosperity” (blueberry bush). It seems like most of what we’re thankful for boils down to getting what we desire and escaping what scares us.

I have found that being at Innsbrook can provide a path out of the hunter-gatherer mindset. When I am focused on the beauty of nature, watching sunlight on the lake or hearing the breeze in the treetops or the call of a loon in the evening (sorry – I recently went to Wisconsin), it’s possible to stop thinking about the bear and the bush. In fact – it’s possible to just think about nothing. When I wander down a trail or sit by a creek and listen to the water or smelling the fall leaves or crisp air, my caveman mind stops its constant dialogue and I just experience.

And then, with a mind full of nothing, the most amazing thing happens. I don’t have to reach outside myself to think of what I’m thankful for. Instead, it radiates from inside me. There’s no grocery list pause. All I am is thankful. (And not for the presence of bush nor lack of bear.)

Instead of being thankful for the Dow topping 10,000, I’m thankful for the amazing beauty that surrounds me each day and the sights and sounds and smells of being.

Instead of being thankful for the health of friends and family, I find myself glowing with gratitude for knowing them… for their smiles and their unique characteristics and the very miracle of their being… thankful that the universe came together to create something that laughs and loves and jokes and appreciates beauty.

Thanksgiving is the perfect time to prepare our minds for the holiday season that follows — the season where we celebrate light in the darkness of winter, where we focus on hope.

When we stop thinking about the bear and the bush… when we quiet our minds… when we let the thankfulness that is within us rush forth… there is nothing left but hope.

So I guess I’m most thankful for times when I think of nothing, and experience gratitude in everything.

Photo credits: David Rentfrow (leaves) and Laura Hahn (creek)

I like that saying a lot. Heck, who am I kidding, I like most sayings a lot, which is kind of a paradox, because I have always believed sweeping generalizations are inherently wrong and typically a path to bad thinking. But I am also very prone to look for shortcuts, and often “old sayings” or truisms are just that — a shortcut to summing up how the world works.

Now, having gotten that off my chest… “Out of the mouths of babes.” My family was recently driving through Innsbrook in our minivan (hereafter referred to as the “family truckster”).  Someone put an empty drink bottle in a mixed trash bag. Four-year-old Riley asked, “Is that going in recycling?” 

I answered, “Probably not. It will probably get thrown in the gas station trash can when we stop on the way home.”

And Riley replied, “But you’re killing Innsbrook.”

His comment caught me off guard. I asked him to explain. He said that since recycling keeps trash out of trash mountains (we drive by a huge one on our way to his grandmother’s house), we’re killing Innsbrook by not recycling.  And for him, Innsbrook is synonymous with nature.

Of course, Riley doesn’t understand that Innsbrook’s security staff is more than capable of keeping the East St. Louis trash mountain from expanding through our gates and that the danger of a rogue bauxite mine popping up on the Innsbrook landscape is low indeed.

But what he does seem to understand is the truism, “Ask not for whom the bell tolls,  it tolls for thee.” (I really do like these.)  Because all of Riley’s nature play is done at Innsbrook, he tends to see Innsbrook as what suffers when we don’t recycle — and for him that’s crucial, because Innsbrook is kind of a panacea for him.  Whenever Riley wants to cheer someone up, he says, “Imagine we’re at Innsbrook.” And one’s personal panacea is not something to mess up by putting trash in the wrong bin.

And really, as it turns out, Riley’s more right than I realized. Here’s how recycling saves Innsbrook:

• Recycling one ton of newspaper saves enough energy to heat a home for six weeks lowering all our energy costs.
• Recycling one ton of plastic saves almost four barrels of oil.
• Recycling one glass bottle saves enough energy to light a 100-watt bulb for four hours.
• The 953,900 tons of material recycled in our area in 2003 saved enough electricity to completely power 124,000 homes for one year.
• By recycling 116,000 ton of paper last year, more than 1.8 million trees are still standing.
• In 2003 recycling in our area reduced green house emissions by more than 536,000 metric tons of carbon equivalent, which is comparable to the carbon emissions of 405,000 cars.

So, all in all, recycling saves the air we breath at Innsbrook, it slows global warming, it preserves trees, it brings down heating costs and the price we pay at the pump.

That’s just a few of the ways recycling has kept our trash-happy society from “killing Innsbrook.”

At Innsbrook, we have adopted a recycling program that has literally cut our annual contribution to landfills in half. Today, 50% of the residential trash that goes out of Innsbrook is recycled by volume. Nationally, 33% of municipal trash is recycled (measured by weight). To really know how we stack up, we will have to find a way to measure the weight of Innsbrook’s recycling — but irregardless, we have come a long way. 

But of course, we can always do better. Germany is one of the top recycling countries in the world with 46% of its trash (by weight) going to recycling.

What can Innsbrook residents do to “not kill Innsbrook”? First and foremost, RECYCLE! Second, make sure you don’t put any non-recyclables in our recycling dumpsters.  It ruins the entire load and everything in those recycle dumpsters goes to landfills. And finally — talk it up with your neighbors.

As a country and a community, we’ve come a long way in not killing Innsbrook — but we can do even better.

So as a reward to our four loyal followers, I thought I’d share a couple Innsbrook Insider tips in this edition. First, the blackberries are ripe at Innsbrook. Almost anywhere you go right now, there are blackberry bushes along the road — in some areas, incredibly plentiful. My second tip:   Thierbach’s Orchard is a fantastic place to spend a summer morning in Warren County on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays — that’s when the pick-your-own farm in Marthasville is open. Currently peaches and blackberries are ready to harvest — which brings up a story.

Last week, my wife and I took our three boys blackberry picking at Innsbrook. We found a place that is literally covered with bushes scattered in tall grass (no, I’m not going to tell you exactly where — reader loyalty only buys so much).

Our three boys plunged into the brush and immediately began crawling under the bushes to get the best clusters of ripe berries. The birds tend to get the ones on the top of the bushes first — see there’s another benefit of reading this blog.

They quickly discovered that blackberry bushes fight back with hook-shaped thorns that grab and hold onto pickers whose movements are not slow and careful. After a while, all three boys caught on and the amount of “ows” began to die down. When the picking was complete though, they were covered with scratches and five-year-old Riley’s legs were bleeding freely. But all three boys sported huge smiles, purple hands and many cups of berries.

Now that the harvest bug had gotten into them (along with multiple chiggers) they demanded an immediate trip to Thierbachs to go peach picking. So several days later, we headed over there on a beautiful overcast morning with the temperature in the low 70s.

The boys picked three bags of peaches immediately, and were ready to start a fourth when they noticed that Thierbachs also had blackberries.  

We traded in our peach bags for berry trays, waled over to the huge stands of bushes and began picking. The berries were much larger that the wild ones we had been harvesting a couple days earlier and there was another difference — no thorns.

Apparently the geniusses at some plant science company found a way to breed blackberries without thorns. The immediate reaction was delight.

But after a while, I noticed 11-year-old Aedan looking a little somber. A little questioning revealed that he missed the thorns. “I don’t know, it just isn’t right without them,” he said.

Honestly, I agreed. Not only are the domestic berries inferior to the wild in taste, the picking experience just wasn’t the same. Yes, we weren’t getting scratched, but in a way, the scratches are kind of nice. It’s part of the experience.

In the wild, you feel the berries, you enjoy the chaos of meadow plants they thrive in — sumac, grasses and wild flowers. Birds are everywhere and by the end of the day, you’re almost guaranteed to see a deer. On the farm, the rows are neatly trimmed, the grass is cut and the berries present themselves at picking height on thornless stems. “Now what’s wrong with that,” at least one of our four readers is asking.

Honestly, I don’t know — perhaps it’s that I feel, hear, smell and see so much more when picking the wild berries. The philosopher Fredrick Nietzsche had an idea the future of virtue would be reduced to what is comfortable — no good, no evil — just expedient.  All regard will be for moderation and careful living “he will have little pleasures in the day and little pleasures in the evening.” Thornless blackberries would make sense to him. Nietzsche believed that “last man,” as he called him, would be long-lived and would live very carefully. “They will have their little pleasures for the day, and their little pleasures for the night, but they have a regard for health”.

Another philosopher, Thomas Hobbs, believed similarly to Nitzsche that the future of man was to abandon quest to live good lives and instead, man should strive to live comfortable ones. 

In Hobbes’ world, all of education oriented to the highest good is replaced by education with the sole goal of avoiding death and preserving physical comfort. The aim is no longer to teach men how to live well; it is to “enlarge the power and empire of mankind in general over the universe.”

And so we have thornless blackberries.  We have neat rows of bushes that produce berries at perfect picking height — safe, comfotable and lacking the chaos of the wild berries.

But then Nietzsche countered that it is the chaos that lives inside of us that gives birth to stars. He believed that the height of the human condition welcomed change, chaos and experience. With that in mind, I think I’ll take the thorns.

After all, my favorite philosopher, 20th-century sage Jimmy Buffett, said, ”Let the winds of change blow over my head, I’d rather die while I’m living than live while I’m dead“

Kids from ages 6 to 13 spend five hours a day at Innsbrook’s farmhouse area in the shade of our giant Mulberry trees learning about everything from Tibetan prayer flags to printing to drama to how to build a cardboard boat.

Here I am trying to keep my cardboard boat afloat!

My favorite part of the week though is the  nature hike. I take two groups of 25 kids on a walk along Innsbrook’s Tyrolean Trail where we identify leaves, trees, berries, etcetera. And then we plunge into the forest to follow and old horse trail that crosses the creek two or three times.

It’s a wonderful circular hike and the kids enjoy splashing through the creek and mucking through the mud on the horse trail. It’s amazing to me to see how some kids just love being in the woods — mud, water, bugs — not much phases them.

With this particular group of kids, I think that’s partially a function of being Innsbrook kids and living in A-frames where their playgrounds are a couple acres of woods. By the way, there is a great book about the benefits of raising kids that are woods savy — it’s called the “The Last Child in the Woods” by Richard Louv. Click here to learn more.

This year the hike through the woods was particularly muddy which most of the kids delighted in but a couple found troublesome because their crocs were being sucked off their feet into the mire. Here’s a side note — crocs are not the best choice for hikes.

One little girl — about kindergarten age — lost her pink crocs in the muck and then into the slop and pretty much lost it refusing to go on.

I helped her up and offered to carry her through the rest of the mud. She immediately agreed and when I picked her up she buried her head in my chest and cried. The counselor that was with us dug up her shoes and we all walked down the slope to the creek where the rest of the group had stopped.

The creek in this spot is beautiful — shallow riffles a couple of inches deep about 12 feet wide. The water sparkles with the sunlight that filters through the Sycamores that form a canopy 70 or so feet above. The edges of the creek are lined with wildflowers, bladder nut and lush vegetation.

We all washed the mud off and the other campers helped my young charge restore the pink to her crocs. It was kind of a special Innsbrook moment – 25 kids standing in a creek dappled with sunlight in the middle of the woods helping each other scape the mud off and doing quite a bit of creek play in the process. By the time we left the creek, we were smiling, clean and ready for more hiking.

My passenger was not to be pried of my hip — she preferred being carried. But she was done crying and by the end of the hike, was pointing out the dragonflies that danced along the trail.

We came out of the woods together, clean, smiling and one big family. It seems like that moment in the creek was a little bit of a metaphor of what Innsbrook and frankly, any escape into the wild should be. It’s an opportunity to scrape off the muck of everyday life, to regain our balance, to play a little and leave our tragedies behind — and when we return “from the creek”, we are again ourselves.

My comeback is always, “everyone is welcome in, we just have to know who’s here in order to keep unattended second homes safe”.

Usually that gets and eye roll and that’s the end of the conversation. But I always want to shamke the person and say, “no…you really don’t know how wonderful the people in this community are”.

Innsbrook people will do anything for you and always want take part in what’s going on. They are an adventuresome, social and easy-going bunch. And more than anything, they seem to love to see and do.  They also are not easily discouraged as we saw this Independence Day.

Every year Innsbrook celebrates Independence Day with one of the largest fireworks shows in the Midwest and the entire cost of the show is donated by Innsbrook Property Owners and vendors. And there are always about 10,000 people out to watch the display over Lake Aspen.

This year, as the moment was arriving for the first shells to be fired in conjunction with the Star Spangled Banner, the clouds absolutely opened up.

This was not just a sprinkle, it was a gully washer. The rain kept up for about 20 minutes and torrents of water flowed down the hillside, over Lionshead beach and into the lake.

Most folks were prepared for the weather and didn’t leave their lawn chairs. Others ran for cover beneath hospitality tents or with neighbors. Others retreated to their cars to wait out the storm.

During the storm I watched the American Flag across the lake in the fireworks field. It was clearly visible in the flashes of lightning and between waves of rain. I found myself wondering if maybe that’s how Francis Scott Key felt as he sat on the ship in Baltimore Harbor, looking at Fort McHenry, with the “bombs bursting in air, giving proof through the night that our flag was still there”. I could imagine him hoping to see the flag, but I also could imagine that he was resolved to see the flag, almost willing it. We Americans are good at that — willing our way to success. Even in days when people believe Americans have lost their resolve, it still seems to show up when needed.

When the rain was finished, the announcement went out that the show would go on and there was a huge cheer from the crowd.

The opening bars of the Star Spangled Banner rang out across the lake and the soaked crowd stood as one, to salute a symbol that stands for the “home of the free and the brave” today due to the resolution of so many.

The following pyrotechnic display was the best I ever saw. We didn’t need a rainbow to follow that thunderstorm — we created our own rainbow with it’s own thunder. And it didn’t hurt that the retreating storm echoed the aerial blasts with flashes of lightning in the distance.  

Following the display, the crowd gave the loudest applause I have ever heard at an Innsbrook Fireworks show.

As the crowd started back to their cars, I heard one soaking wet little boy say with a huge smile on his face, “this was the most awesome night ever”.

I heard later, a lot of the surrounding cities cancelled their shows or moved them to Sunday. But as I thought about Francis Scott Key, and the little boy who stuck it out and had ”the most awesome night ever”, I came to the conclusion that a little resolve definitely has its rewards.

We mostly focus on string and piano chamber music with some woodwinds and brass thrown in for good measure.

But there is something strange in hearing the first notes of cello or violin as the festival starts. Certainly there’s a great feeling of anticipation and happiness that this beautiful music has returned to our community. But the strange part is that deep down I always experience an uncanny sense of familiarity.

Like a lot of those deep-down emotions, I really don’t know where that feeling comes from — it’s not like I have a violinists following me along Innsbrook’s nature trails, or a pianist on board as I paddle around Lake Innsbrook and I swear there is no cellist in sight as I sit on my deck and watch the trees sway.

And yet, as I listened to Chris Shmitt perform a Chopin barcarolle for the first time I feel a familiarity, listening to David Requiro preform Cassado’s Danse du diable vert, I’m overwhelmed with a sense that something that I always new deep down to be true was being demonstrated before me for the world to see. It was an odd mix of vindication and jubilation Click here to hear.

But why — why the familiarity? Why the feeling of confirmation? Why do I want to yell “See! See! I told you so!” in a hushed concert hall while a world-class musician performs?

Usually when my mind plays little tricks on me like that I tend to take the “ignore it and it will go away” strategy. But this feeling was not so obliging. In fact when I heard our Innsbrook Orchestra play Barbar’s Adagio for Strings, ignoring the wash of  familiarity would be like ignoring an ocean wave as it rolls you “gently” through the surf.

Barber’s Adagio is familiar — not because it evokes sense of American soldiers being fired upon in the movie Platoon — it is familiar because in spite of that unfortunate connection, Barber’s  masterpiece traces the landscape of our lives.

It follows the pattern of our striving, our celebration…yes even glory and then it gently sets us down again. The first part of the part of the adagio introduces a hero and then follows that hero as he ascends toward a discovery of his ultimate potential. About three quarters through the music absolutely soars, like the sound of a chorus of stars — it’s a perfect crystallization of light and music. I know that’s corny, but I have never been able to think of a better analogy.

Authur Sullivan wrote a poem called “The Lost Chord” as his brother lay dying. he likened a chord that he stumbled upon to “a harmonious echo from our discordant life”. Sullivan went on to say that the music “layed on his fevered spirit with a touch of infinite calm”.

After the revelation of the chords, the adagio gently drifts back to earth, almost reminiscent of a leaf drifting gently down. That’s probably why Barber’s adagio is so often used in memorial services. It was even performed as a tribute to the 9-11 victims in 2001 with Leonard Slatkin conducting.

But to be used as only as a memorial is somewhat of an injustice to the adagio. It is much more about living than about dying. It is a “harmonious echo to our discordant lives” as Sullivan so aptly said — as is the other music that we enjoy at Innsbrook every June.

Living day to day can be like sitting in a orchestra playing our parts. As we are surrounded by the musicians in our section and then the rest of the orchestra, it can get pretty discordant at times. In fact, there are times that we’re not sure that what we do makes sense at all. But when we hear it come  back as an echo mixed with the rest of the orchestra — that is the world around us, it all makes sense. There is harmony in the music we hear!

And when those echos show up in the music we are blessed with every June at Innsbrook, the sounds that left us in caucophany come back blended with the rest of the universe in perfect harmony, we want to stand up and yell, “See! See! I knew it made sense! I told you so!”