renewal comes from Outcomes…
The summer of 1976 was full of global events. Bur for me, I had 2 remaining Outcomes to close before heading off to college. First, ironically, I had gotten good enough at Student Congress – an actual NFL event – to qualify for the National Debate Tournament in Colorado Springs. Second, I had been selected as an exchange student for the Lions Club to spend 6 weeks in Sweden. The bad news is that those events overlapped. I was able to get an exception for the Lions’ Club, which meant I could complete the competition, placing fourth in the nation in Student Congress. It was a decent Outcome, and fun, but without renewal, I had to race off … and was now landing in Sweden with no idea if I had a place to stay ….
… the beauty of the Lions Club event was that all the students across Texas came together at DFW for flights together for most of the way over. I missed that… so flew alone at barely 17 to JFK, to change planes, fly to Frankfurt… and then fly to Stockholm. It was 24 hours total, and as I walked down the terminal, I had an American flag pinned to my shirt. A nice-looking man had a Swedish flag pinned to his shirt. We shook hands, and he confirmed he was with the Lions Club. I climbed into his car for the 2-hour drive north. He showed me to a bedroom, and I asked if I could call home to tell my folks I had arrived safely, where I was, and the name of the people I was staying with… After that, I said I would love to take a nap….
… oddly calming…
Yusuf Islam was the name that Steven Georgiou/Cat Stevens took on July 4, 1978, 2 years after my trip to his native Sweden. He related strongly to the story of Joseph/Yusuf from both the Qur’an and the Old Testament. He felt similarly bought and sold by the music industry, and upon conversion said to Rolling Stone magazine, “I had found the spiritual home I’d been seeking for most of my life. And if you listen to my music and lyrics, like “Peace Train” and “On The Road To Find Out”, it clearly shows my yearning for direction and the spiritual path I was traveling.”
For many years, his dropping out of the music business was precisely what he wanted, able to focus on his journey of faith completely, and raising a family that now includes one son, 4 daughters, and nine grandchildren. However, that peace was rocked in 1988 when fellow Londonite Salman Rushdie published The Satanic Verses, sparking a fatwa to be declared by the Ayatollah Khomeini, a name that all of the world by that point knew…
… until you are called back to…
Conflicting reports are attributed to Yusuf (Cat) supporting the call for Rushdie to be killed, which he has denied ever since, and I am not going to take time to belabor the point here. Some artists, like 10,000 Maniacs, deleted their versions of songs like Peace Train from their albums, while others, like Dolly Parton, actively recorded some of his older hits. The band U2 actively supported Rushdie and eventually invited him to the stage at Wembley to a standing ovation..
The good news is that post-9/11 and particularly again after the Iraq war, Yusuf has slowly come back to the music world. One story says his son brought him a guitar, and suggested that his music was needed now more than ever. He tried to play an F chord – one of the hardest by the way – and found it. He has slowly started to dip his toe back into the music world, including an album, Back to Earth, in 2017, and a re-recording of Tea for the Tillerman 2, which was released in the eventful year of 2020.
… your renewal…
… I awoke a little after 5 pm and thought “Great – man I am hungry!” Time for dinner. I walked out, and everyone smiled. They said I had slept … for 24 hours. Literally, my body needed to renew for an entire day. The cumulative effect of graduation, the National Tournament competition, and the international flights finally caught up with me. There are too many memories to record here, but suffice it to say this was not the first or last time that I ran the tank to empty 😉
I suspect many of you have similar stories in your background that helped form who you are… and I hope the last few years have helped you dig down into that foundation. The challenges we face will require more of us than we can even anticipate for different Outcomes. It will take some risk-taking – conversations that are not easy, boundaries you need to reassess, maybe even going a few extra miles to seek out different ones. I have friends who have taken the opportunity to drive across the country rather than fly… and I hope that more of us will start to work through our caution and fears to open up possibilities to get to know each other in new and different ways.
… and your Faith?
My new Swedish family went to church together… on July 4, 1976 – a Sunday. The hymns were all in… Swedish 😉 But at least one of them I knew… because the “English” version had been a top 10 hit for Cat/Yusuf … Morning has Broken. As we sang on what in Sweden was just another Sunday, we observed the US celebrating 200 years – a very short speck in history. It was strangely renewing to be out of the country for that… and to see what America means to the world.
As I wrap up this reflection on Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam, I welcome his voice, spirit, and observations back to our musical world. We can use his spirit of renewal. And while I had planned on using Morning Has Broken for this Sunday/renewal day, one song kept coming up in my playlist over and over lately. From his first “new” album, Mona Bone Jakon, I believe the song encapsulates much of what I experienced in 1976 at the Nationals, in Sweden… and still today. It is in the spirit of holding my views lightly, and leaving room for yours… and that conversation that creates the renewal we all need so much right now. I think that Cat/Yusuf would also find this song an appropriate Outcome to cap off his music, and this season for me… Maybe I’m Right…
Now maybe you’re right and maybe you’re wrong
But I ain’t gonna argue with you no more
I’ve done it for too long.
It was getting so good why then, where did it go?
I can’t think about it no more tell me if you know.
You were loving me, I was loving you
But now there ain’t nothing but regretting
Nothing, nothing but regretting everything we do.
I put up with your lies like you put up with mine,
But God knows we should have stopped somewhere,
We could have taken the time,
But time has turned, yes, some call it the end.
So tell me, tell me did you really love me like a friend?
You know you don’t have to pretend,
It’s all over now It’ll never happen again, no no no,
It’ll never happen again , it won’t happen again
Never, never, never, it’ll never happen again
No, no, no, no
So maybe you’re right, and maybe you’re wrong
But I ain’t gonna argue with you no more
I’ve done it for too long.
It was getting so good why then, where did it go?
I can’t think about it no more tell me if you know.
You were loving me, I was loving you
But now there ain’t nothing but regretting
