Apprenticeship and This Too Shall Pass

There’s this amazing indie documentary that not many have seen called Danielson: A Family Movie. It’s about Daniel Smith, aka Brother Danielson, and his indie-music playing, modestly successful, bizarre, brilliant, wearing nurse outfits to promote the healing of God while playing music in dive bars, family.

The documentary is about faith, doing what you love, and staying true to your creative voice. As you watch a very driven and determined Brother Danielson, you can’t help but wonder if he’s insane or a genius, and then you land that most likely it’s both.

As the documentary progresses, a very nuanced storyline interweaves throughout—simple, barely visible, and yet profound. Whenever one of the Danielson Family can’t make a show, someone has to fill in and one guy in particular seems to show up more than most—a skinny, likable, quiet, brown-haired man who, at 24 or 25 years old, takes it with a smile and laughs as Daniel’s 18-year-old brother teaches him how to play a song.

This guy ends up filling in for every family member and playing almost every instrument in the band. Then as the family begins to move on and pursue their own life, and it’s just Daniel playing by himself, there’s the skinny brown-haired guy carrying Daniel’s equipment, helping Daniel slip into his Nine-Fruit Tree costume (yes, he wears a tree), and then going to the back of the stage to play the banjo.

Then Brother Danielson helps this brown-haired guy produce a record called Seven Swans. Then this brown-haired guy begins opening for Brother Danielson’s shows. Then this brown-haired guy produces his own record called Illinois.

Then this humble skinny guy named Sufjan becomes the critically acclaimed, selling out amphitheaters, hailed for creating one of the most important albums of the decade, Sufjan Stevens.

DON’T LEAD THE BAND

So many of us desire and dream of being front and center on stage, and we focus all our energy on getting there.

When maybe a better use of our time would be to become a roadie. To be a backup singer. To be the guy behind the guy so that you can learn everything about being the guy yourself.

Because even though we think we know how to do what we want to do—we don’t.

And even though we know we’re ready for the big stage front and center—we’re not.

We must learn how to do as they do before we can do for ourselves.

You’ll be much better at leading your own band if you’ve learned how to play all the instruments yourself.

You’ve most likely heard this one before, but I think it’s worth repeating. Your twenties will pass. So will your thirties, forties, etc. This decade of your life will turn into the next one. This season might feel like forever, but in reality it is fleeting. We never know when the petal on the rose is going to drop. All we know is that it always does.

All these things that we think will never change, will change. And most of the time, we don’t even know when that change has occurred. Like seeing a picture of yourself from two years ago and then looking in the mirror, shocked that you look more different than you realized, the new lines on your face telling you the truth of your time travel.

I often joke about parenthood that once you think you’ve got it all figured out and you understand the stage of life your kids are in, it’s already changed and they’re about to surprise you! So enjoy the good while it’s there and don’t stress too much about the bad. The thing that feels like a failure in the present might lead to your greatest gift in the future.

Winter becomes spring, the freezing chill of the night becomes the refreshing dew of the morning. So, relax! Take deep breaths. You don’t even know what you don’t know right now. And that’s good to know! Don’t cling so tightly to completely understanding every nuance of why things are happening the way they are.

Trust. Have hope. Take a step forward in faith. Hold the present like a butterfly in the palm of your hand. If you cling too tightly to the wings, it will never fly again. Hold it loosely and enjoy the beautiful colors while it’s there. Basically, if you freak out and try to white knuckle this life, you’re going to crush the poor thing.

Nostalgia is a funny thing. We become melancholy, wishing we could go back to a season that we failed to appreciate in the present because we were wishing we could be somewhere else in the future. Nostalgia can distort our image of what was, that actually wasn’t. Don’t wish you could go back to some place that never actually existed.

Each season of life carries the pain and joy of living it. The pain and frustration you’re going through now will pass, so take hope and solace that a change is coming. Every book comes to an end. Like this one. This too shall pass. (Unless of course the author has come in and added some amazing bonus content or something …)