1 | Three Little Birds

The music starts at 7:04 in the podcast.
Hope is flexible, bendable, and brilliantly uncomplicated. It can also be bright, like a piece of glow-in-the-dark silly putty in the basement. Or warm and inviting like a sunny morning with birds on the window.

Which is what Bob Marley sings about in "Three Little Birds."  This is one of those cheerful, uplifting songs that inspires people to look for the good.

The optimism of the phrase, "Every little thing is going to be alright," knows no limits. Knowing some of the upheaval going on when he wrote this, there's bound to be more to it that the simple hope it talks about. But there is the beauty in it. It's open to interpretation for all of us to make it our own, regardless of what circumstances inspired it.

It makes the song timeless and immortal.

For me, this song represents my first venture into learning a new instrument, which is a neat and tidy spark of hope all by itself.  My good friend, who is also the head of the music ministry, basically forced me into learning the baritone ukulele so I could serve more people. I was more than hesitant. More like resistant. Not that I didn't want to learn it, but I didn't believe I could. I was old, after all... (I know, 40 isn't old, but your fingers are stiffer and slower than they were at 15, for sure.) With his direction and "encouragement," I looked up how-to-play-ukulele videos and bought a baritone uke off of Amazon. His suggestion of a baritone was perfect. Not only does it have a lower register that fits my voice better, it's kind of like training wheels for the guitar. The chord positions are very much like guitar (which happens to be my favorite instrument), so if I ever got "hopeful" enough, I could transition to playing the guitar fairly quickly. Bless him for suggesting such a perfectly optimistic beginning instrument.

In the early fall, with autumn leaves changing, I began to strum out the chords of this little gem of a song. It was simple enough, but my fingers were slow to change to the chords. Two dedicated weeks later, I finally got my fingers and callouses to smoothly slide across the frets. Three simple chords for Three Little Birds.

But there's more to this one.

It's Gemma*.
Gemma is my very first client that I was given to as a single minister. Gemma is a young mom who had a terrible accident. Not able to communicate, Gemma is permanently paralyzed. When I met with her mom, she told me that Gemma liked Bob Dylan. So, I made it my goal to learn a Bob Dylan song just for Gemma. This sweet song fit the bill perfectly.

So, it's the first song I learned on my bari, and it's the first song I shared as a solo minister, with Gemma, who could probably use all the hope she can get.

Thank goodness the song was brilliantly uncomplicated. Like Hope is.

What brings you hope?

*name changed.