Big Front Porch/Tricia Walker

Wise men still seek Him….

Tricia — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 04:01:37 +0000

Epiphany…January 6…the end of the Advent-Christmas-Epiphany cycle…I had a lovely time at Secluseval, even with awful weather on Christmas Day. It was 70 degrees on Christmas Eve and my sister and I enjoyed the sunshine on the Big Front Porch once again. I then had the wonderful opportunity to participate in a New Year’s retreat at a very special place called Laity Lodge out in west Texas. My friend, Buddy Greene, invited me to be one of the musicians for the retreat, and I never miss a chance to play music with Buddy. Another old friend, Scotty Smith, was the speaker for the retreat, and his focus for the retreat was Epiphany…taking a deeper look at how God ‘broke through’ then and continues to ‘break through’ now to those in this world. I sang…I rested…I feasted…I shared community with others who are seekers…it was a glorious time and I am grateful to have been a part of it. I hope to carry the spirit and grace of the retreat into every day of this new year…may your days ahead be filled with hope, good health, peace, and grace…pax, Tricia

The Longest Night of the Year…

Tricia — Fri, 21 Dec 2012 00:43:44 +0000

Advent…the season of waiting…and tonight is the longest night of the year….but there is hope in this dark night of waiting even with the unspeakable sorrow of Newtown and the uncertainty of what lies ahead in 2013. I had the privilege of singing last night for some beautiful patients and caregivers at our local hospital…there was birth and death and the fearful waiting of the emergency room all within three floors of each other, and yet music held us together for a short while during the cold night.

I came home to read an Advent selection by Brennan Manning titled, “Shipwrecked At The Stable.” Manning writes of how the world does not understand vulnerability and how the spirituality of Bethlehem is incomprehensible to the advertising industry…how true. But in his commentary on the mystery of Bethlehem and the trivialization of the divine scandal, Manning quotes the Spanish author, Jose` Ortega, whose thoughts of being shipwrecked resonated with me in this Advent season:

“And this is the simple truth…that to live is to feel oneself lost. Whoever accepts this has already begun to find himself, to be on firm ground. Instinctively, as do the shipwrecked, he will look around for something to which to cling, and that tragic, ruthless glance, absolutely sincere because it is a question of his salvation, will cause him to bring order to the chaos of his life. These are the only genuine ideas; the ideas of the shipwrecked. All the rest is rhetoric, posturing, farce. He who does not really feel himself lost, is without remission; that is to say, he never finds himself, never comes up against his own reality.”

Those who are shipwrecked cannot bring along baggage from the past…they can only be in the here and now, facing the reality that they are lost…we are lost…but we are captivated at the Bethlehem stable by joy and wonder, and the Child there is the One to whom we cling.

This Christmas, whether you find yourself literally at home or at home within your heart, may you find peace and comfort there in knowing that there is Hope for the shipwrecked….from the Big Front Porch to your home,

Tricia

Here is the Music Player. You need to installl flash player to show this cool thing!

“Come ye who labor…”

Tricia — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 18:42:55 +0000

A good Labor Day to all of you from the Big Front Porch!

I confess that I’m ashamed to see that my last post was back during the spring, so I figure I owe you BFP fans some summertime catching up, in you’ll indulge me:)

The summer somehow, as summers seem to do, FLEW by, and we’re already two weeks into the fall semester…how did that happen? But the farmers are fully into the harvest and the sounds of football teams and high school bands fills the air on Friday nights, so it must be fall…..even if the actually temperature today in the Delta will hit 100 degrees!

A recap of this summer from the Big Front Porch includes a wonderful trip with friends to the Greenbrier in West Virginia in late May. Nice to be in the mountains again sitting on another beautiful big front porch talking about life and stuff…

City of New Orleans

Ol’ Skool Revue at the Chicago Blues Festival

Got down from the mountain in time to accompany the Ol’ Skool Revue band from the DMI for a performance at the Chicago Blues Festival in June. It was a fun adventure riding the City of New Orleans north through the night to the Windy City, a journey made by many Mississippi musicians over the years, altering the development of American music…nice to still be part of that.

Hopped off the train, took a day or two and then headed back up the road to Music City (Nashville) for the annual “Songs From The Heart” workshop/concert with cancer patients, caregivers, and professionals at the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center. Some of the participants this year really took ownership of their song as well as their performance. There’s a CD and a DVD in the works…songwriting at its purest. It is always a privilege and an honor to try and help put those feelings into words and music.

Late June brought me the opportunity to join my pals, Buddy Greene and Jeff Taylor, in a benefit concert on behalf of Faith Hospice in Michigan at Dr. John Mulder’s home on the banks of the Grand River. What a magical, beautiful evening, full of good music, good food, and good fellowship all for a good cause…it doesn’t get much better than that.

July 4? Vacation? What’s that?

The DMI Summer Camp for high school students interested in the music industry was held in mid-July, and we had a GREAT group of campers this year….some unexpected collaborations between unlikely pairing of students brought about some very original works, not to mention opportunities for getting to know each other in a way that shows we’re not so different after all…

Looking for a song hook…

Of course, there was the yearly summer gathering of the Ya Yas at the Alluvian in Greenwood for much needed R & R among old friends, but let’s just say what happens at the Alluvian stays at the Alluvian and leave it there…

The Big Front Porch had the opportunity to work on a very cool CD project with three of my favorite singer/songwriters: Kate Campbell, Tom Kimmel, and Pierce Pettis. They perform together as The New Agrarians, and they were looking for an opportunity to work on a recording project together. All the planets lined up to have them record in Studio B at the Delta Music Institute, and it was a BLAST! They’ll be finishing up the project in Nashville, but trust me…you’ll want to watch for this CD if you’re a fan of literate Southern storytelling in song….there’s some amazing work on this record.

Time to harvest….

And so that brought me to early August…a few days of re-grouping before the business of DMI kicked back in. I made a dash to the Coast and a dash to Secluseval and enjoyed the relatively uneventful days here on the Big Front Porch in the Delta. And now we’re in full swing again…harvest time.

I’ve got some new ideas in the pipeline for my next recording project so I’ll keep my nose to the grindstone and begin to flesh out characters and situations and histories and see where it leads…stay tuned.

I promise I’ll try and get on the Big Front Porch sooner than later…let me hear from you…we’ll sit awhile and catch up.

Pax,

Tricia

Reflections on a Green Birthday…

Tricia — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 20:21:52 +0000

Well, I left the comfort of the Porch this weekend to celebrate my birthday, and what a birthday celebration it was! I was invited to march in the 30th Annual Mal’s St. Paddy’s Parade as a part of the ‘O Tux Society by Malcolm White hizownself!

Ready for the 'O Tux Society

In being part of such a sea of green, I thought it proper to sport the Fighting Okra to represent Delta State, and it was quite a conversation starter. What a kick to enjoy the Pet Parade, the Children’s parade, and then march through a crowd of 65,000 people, strutting to a Dixieland brass band and exchanging flowers for kisses! Where else can that many people of all shapes, kinds, colors, and sizes get together and be NICE to each other?

M-I-S-S-I-S-S-I-P-P-I!

My sister joined me for this celebration as she, too, celebrates a March birthday. We were both born in Jackson, Mississippi, and so we had a chance to ride through some of the old neighborhoods to see what we could remember, who lived where, etc…

Driving back to the Delta on this fourth Sunday of Lent, looking out onto the ready fields, I took time to listen to some podcasts of messages by Keith Tonkel, pastor of Wells United Methodist Church in Jackson. Keith and the ministry of Wells had a profound impact upon me during my young adult years, and hearing him continue to preach the Gospel in such a clear and loving way was a sweet encouragement. Those messages and seeing the tractors in the fields turning up the ground was a good reminder that, by grace, God is still keeping His promise to ‘make all things new.’

Here’s hoping you had a good and ‘green’ weekend and that your hearts and spirits are encouraged with the coming of spring. Let me know what’s ‘springing’ up in your world….

Ready for St. Patrick's Day!

Pax, Tricia

West Coast to Big River….and the beginning of Lent…

Tricia — Sat, 25 Feb 2012 04:28:46 +0000

Crab cake at Monmouth

Evening, one and all, from some of the loveliest big front porches in America…on the bluffs overlooking Ol’ Man River right here in Natchez, Mississippi, where I gave a presentation today at the 23rd Annual Natchez Literary and Cinema Celebration with my good friend and fellow wanderer, Davis Raines, one of this country’s most brilliant and underappreciated songwriters. We dazzled ‘em with a little program entitled, “Come and Listen to My Story: Melodic Narrative in Country Music.” Sounds impressive, don’t you think? Anyway, the good friends and neighbors seemed to enjoy it, and we celebrated our success with a lovely ‘sit down’ dinner at Monmouth, one of the beautiful plantation homes of Natchez.

Fighting Okra catching some rays in Malibu...

Only two weeks ago, I was on the porch of a wonderful beachside eatery called Malibu Seafood, having Pacific snapper while watching the blue surf crash on the sandy shores so far from our own Gulf of Mexico. I was with a group of civic leaders from Cleveland, Mississippi who attended Mississippi Night at the GRAMMY Museum at L.A. Live. Quite the festive affair…a lovely time was had by all as the group begins the groundwork for our own GRAMMY Museum Mississippi to be built on the campus of Delta State University. More to come on that…

With such a whirlwind of days flying by, the sacred season of Lent sort of snuck up on me, but I did keep my calendar clear enough to attend Ash Wednesday service at my church earlier this week. I hope for me, and for all of you, that this season will be meaningful and will draw us closer into God’s heart as we learn to deny ourselves daily in order to follow Him more closely. Someone shared this cool Lenten calendar with me called Busted Halo…contemporary and practical.

Won’t be long now until the Mal’s St. Paddy’s Day parade in Jackson, Mississippi. This is the 30th year of the parade, and I plan to attend and do a little marching myself…stay tuned and I’ll let you know how it goes…should be fun:)

Until then, travel safe and take a little time this spring to sit on your Porch with a glass of sweet tea and ponder all the new life around you…miracles, one and all, great and small…pax.