by the Rev. Ben Robertson
When I served in Memphis, for a few years I was a volunteer disc jockey with WEVL, 89.9 FM. Spinning the platters in a town with such a rich music history was a gas, and the gig reminded me of when I was a DJ in college, but after a while I gave it up because I missed cooking breakfast for my kids and driving them to school.
When I programmed my last show, friends who knew it would be my last show almost all asked, “what will be your last song?” I didn’t know. I wanted it to be perfect – the perfect synthesis of a toe-tapping beat and profound lyrics, but not well-known, as befits the WEVL hipster MO. After much hemming and hawing, I finally settled on “Closer to Fine” by the Indigo Girls. While the tune definitely met the first two of my criteria, it certainly did not the third. For Indigo Girls fans, “Closer to Fine” was their first big hit and for many years was their traditional concert closer (like the Stones’ “Satisfaction” or R.E.M.’s “It’s the End of the World as We Know It”). Here’s an interesting bit of music trivia: when “Closer to Fine” was released in 1989, Indigo Girls was nominated for a Best New Artist Grammy, but they lost to Milli Vanilli! I blame it on the rain.
“Closer”‘s lyrics are powerful, and they still speak to me today. The song ends,
We go to the doctor, we go to the mountains
We look to the children, we drink from the fountains
Yeah, we go to the bible, we go through the workout
We read up on revival, we stand up for the lookout
There’s more than one answer to these questions
Pointing me in a crooked line
The less I seek my source for some definitive
Closer I am to fine
On the journey of life, if you are like me, we plan a certain course: birth, school, more school, internship, job, grad school, better job, spouse, kids, career, retirement, grandkids, dotage, death. Or something like that. And on that journey, we seek guidance to enforce our plan (see the aforementioned doctors and fountains). But then real life happens (see the questions and crooked lines), and the journey goes somewhere you never anticipated. And those unanticipated jogs and kinks can be tragic, they can be tedious, and they can be amazing. But, I find, that that when I am on those unplanned paths, I discover some beautiful folks walking with me, awesome experiences I never would have known, and a God who has watched over me (and probably laughed at my plan) the whole time. And, in those moments, as the Indigo Girls sing, I am closer to fine.
Maybe I won’t plan so much for a while. Instead, I’ll see if the kids are hungry for breakfast.