Healing Companionship #50

Reverend Jacob Watson:

I think the important thing is to provide a sacred opportunity, a sacred conversation. By sacred I mean when there's two of you talking, both of you know that you're not the only ones in the room, that there is something, somebody, something larger than the two of you there and present. Expressing natural emotions opens up pathways to the spirit. It's as if it cleans out and clears out pathways to the spirit.

Jon Patrick Walker:

You know, I felt very blessed in a funny way. Obviously never would have wanted her to get sick. But the first the fact that she was sick gave us this chance to really care for her and it afforded us a lot of time to say all the things we wanted to say to really connect in a deep way through caring for her through this illness.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Hello, this is Dr. Lisa Belisle and you are listening to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and podcast show number 50, Healing Companionship, airing for the first time on August 26, 2012 on WLOB and WPEI Radio Portland, Maine. Today's guests include the Reverend Jacob Watson, founder of the Chaplaincy Institute of Maine, and also John Patrick Walker, actor, musician, songwriter and now member of JP Walker and the Guilty Party. We think that healing companionship is a good topic to talk about because it's something that I see in my practice all the time. The need for a healing companion. When times get rough or even just attempting to slog through the daily life, it means a lot to have someone by your side, someone who can reflect with you, someone who can offer perspective, and someone who can see how things have been for you or over the long term. Many of my patients have been with me for many years, beginning when I was a family practice doctor and have followed me into my Chinese medicine, integrative medicine and acupuncture practice and I've been able to offer them, well again perspective on the issues they've been facing, whether it's dealing with grief or weight loss or pain management. It's easy for me to look back over the course of my time with them and find things that can be helpful and hopeful, which is very important. This is specific to my medical practice, of course, but the same holds true in the areas of spirituality. This is why we've asked the Reverend Jacob Watson to come talk with us today, because this is his specialty. A former grief counselor, he founded the Chaplaincy Institute of Maine more than a decade ago and now also has a private practice where he offers spiritual companionship to individuals. John Patrick Walker found himself in the presence of a very interesting spiritual and healing companion, one that he never even really met over the course of his time spent dealing with his mother's illness and eventual death. And he turned to music as a type of companion to help him through this grieving process. Thank you for joining us on our Healing Companionship show. I will be speaking with the Reverend Jacob Watson and my co host Genevieve Morgan will be joining us in our conversation with John Patrick Walker. We hope you Enjoy this the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is pleased to be sponsored by the University of New England. As part of our collaboration, we offer weekly a segment we call Wellness Innovations. This week's Wellness Innovation comes directly out of the University of New England, which was recently awarded a $10 million National Institutes of Health grant to conduct research and establish a center on the neurobiology of Pain. The five year award will be used to establish the UNE center of Biomedical Research Excellence for the Study of Pain and Sensory Function. This center aims to significantly contribute to the scientific understanding of the neurobiology of chronic pain and sensory function, facilitating the discovery and development of new therapies. For more information on this Wellness Innovation, visit drlisabelisle.com for more information on this very innovative school, the University of New England, visit une.edu

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

we are speaking with the Reverend Jacob Watson of the Chaplaincy Institute of Maine. In one of our earlier shows we spoke with Angie Arndt, also of the Chaplaincy Institute of Maine, and this show is a little bit different, so we thank you for being here. Reverend Watson, thank you.

Reverend Jacob Watson:

I'd like to dedicate our time together to the alleviation of suffering everywhere, to the healing of everyone everywhere.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Thank you for that. Angie Art did a nice job representing the Chaplaincy Institute of Maine. But for those who haven't heard about the Chaplaincy Institute of Maine or chime, could you tell us a little bit more about that?

Reverend Jacob Watson:

CHIME is an interfaith chaplaincy school with a two year program to train individuals who want to deepen their own spiritual practice, but also who want to be interfaith ministers and serve the world. An interfaith minister is someone who's trained to be fully present with no agenda and be accepting of anyone's spiritual or religious path. And I add to people with no spiritual or religious path because there are those individuals out there today. In this context, a companion is someone who is, again, I'll use those words again, fully present. Someone who is able to be with you and not interrupt you what's going on. It could be a friend, it could be a professional, it could be spontaneously someone you meet on the street, but someone who is very attuned to not only what you're saying, but what's in your heart. That kind of deep spiritual companion.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Why is the idea of a spiritual companion important to you?

Reverend Jacob Watson:

It's important to me, and it's important to me because I think it's important to the world. Many of the students that walk through our door say that they're lonely, that they've been on a spiritual path or a spiritual quest for quite a long time, but they haven't been able to tell anybody about it. They've been afraid of judgments, perhaps, or they might have come from a religion that didn't accept how they evolved as a spiritual being in their teens and later years. So they're wanting that companionship, that deep companionship that involves acceptance. Deep acceptance, a lack of judgment, but also an encouragement, I think. An encouragement to be truly who you are at both the emotional and the spiritual level.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Why are people so lonely?

Reverend Jacob Watson:

Well, take a look at our culture. Our culture doesn't like emotion. Our culture likes to cover things up and distract people from what's really going on. And the only to go back to the word healing, the only way that we can heal is to be truthful about who we are, to say the truth about what happened to us, the experience the trauma and express the natural emotions about that trauma, what that was, the pain, the sadness, the suffering, the loss, the anger, the fear. And one of the natural emotions is also love, because tragedy brings that feeling up as well. So the way to move through these experiences is to offer the companionship that involves expressing your natural emotions. That's a phrase that goes back to Kubler Ross. Elizabeth Kubler Ross. The natural emotions. We're human, therefore we feel. Or maybe it's we feel, therefore we're human.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

That sounds very intimate.

Reverend Jacob Watson:

It is. That's a good descriptive word. It's very intimate. And that. I think that's what the conversation is about. It is a very intimate conversation, whether it's you with your friend or you with your counselor or you with the sand dunes at Crescent Beach State park or in the woods in Sebago.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

In my practice, I've noticed that there is trauma and different levels of pain associated with that trauma. But many people don't want to talk about it for fear of seeming as if they're complaining. How does a spiritual or healing companion help people walk that line between expressing their pain and. And seeming as though they're complaining?

Reverend Jacob Watson:

It's a continuum. You have a right to complain. Life does victimize us. But you don't have to stay there. I think the important thing is to provide a sacred opportunity, a sacred conversation. By sacred, I mean when there's two of you talking, both of you know that you're not the only ones in the room, that there is something, somebody, something larger than the two of you there and present. So it gives it a sacred tone. And then it provides the safety, I think, for the feelings to come out, the natural emotions. But you don't stay there. That's the critical part, I think. For me, expressing natural emotions opens up pathways to the spirit. It's as if it cleans out and clears out pathways to the spirit.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I found that intimacy can be a very intimidating thing for some people and that people are afraid of it. How can a healing or spiritual companion help individuals move past that fear?

Reverend Jacob Watson:

The best word is invitation. Provide the invitation and the setting. I suppose privacy helps at first, but the invitation to be who you really are, to say, this hurts and this is what happened, never mind what other people thought happened. This is my experience of what happened. A personal example. For years, I was a grief counselor. I had helped my friend Bill Hemmons start the center for Grieving Children. And I had a full, meaningful practice. And yet there was a still small voice inside. And I didn't know what it was saying. It was saying something about God, something about the divine, but I really couldn't figure it out. Then my counseling office caught fire. I mean, literally caught fire and burned. And I was sitting on the sidewalk outside, looking at smoke coming out of my counseling office, knowing that my records and my books and the things that people had given Me from workshops and so forth, going up in smoke and flames. That woke me up. Within a year, I was back in school, and I finally understood that people were bringing me as a counselor. They were bringing me their broken hearts and their wounded spirits. And when I got that, I said, all right, back to school. So I was studying for a Doctor of Ministry and chaplaincy ordination.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

It's very interesting that your office burned down because it was no longer a still, small voice. It was instead an enormous burning bush.

Reverend Jacob Watson:

Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Why were you ignoring the still, small voice?

Reverend Jacob Watson:

Because I was so involved in the trappings of the world. I had a nice practice. I was busy with my family. I was involved in the community, the distraction of everyday life, I think. And I needed something like that. Most of us do. Many of the individuals, whether back when I was a counselor or now as a minister, providing spiritual companionship. People bring their tragedy into those sacred conversations. And those losses, those really tough events in a person's life, wake people up. And it's not pretty. It's very, very hard. I mean, somebody in deep grief needs to go through that, and it's painful. There's a lot of deep, authentic emotion. That's the bottom line, I think, their deep feeling, their sadness, their anger. People are pissed off about what happened to them, and rightfully so. But they don't need to stay there. They can express that in a sacred environment, a sacred companionship.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You mentioned Elisabeth Kubler Ross, and her seminal work was on death and dying, which outlines the stages of grief. Could you give our listeners an idea of what these stages of grief are?

Reverend Jacob Watson:

Well, I think the best thing was that the culture was ready to hear that, that there were stages. What was not so good is that you hear those stages and you think, well, okay, what's next? As if there were a prescription for that. Well, if I'm not into the anger, am I into the bargaining phase or the depression stage? So while her great gift to us was to open up the conversation as usual, the culture takes it too literally and doesn't see the metaphor behind it. I'll say a word about the depression, because I think that's quite prevalent in our culture. We take pills to deal with it, but the idea of depression is that it damps down all your feelings. You don't feel anything. You don't feel like getting out of bed in the morning. And yet, if you can allow one feeling, the culture would like a formula. It doesn't matter what feeling it is. If you can allow one feeling to come up, that moves away from depression, because you're beginning to express your natural emotions. And that's the key. Letting one feeling come up and be externalized was Elizabeth's name. That is putting outside into the world, into the conversation, the companionship conversation, what's inside, putting that out into the world. And it takes courage to do that, and it takes safety to do that. And it takes a safe person to listen to that. But that's the point, to let that come up and come out. There's movement. Something is happening. You express one feeling and that the need to express that feeling drops away a little bit, therefore leaving room for the next feeling, whatever it is. And the key is it doesn't matter what it is, but it's another feeling. It's another authentic, another natural emotion to come up. And that movement, that continuous movement, sometimes on your own, sometimes at Crescent Beach Sebago, but sometimes with a counselor, with an individual, with an interfaith minister, that movement is what's healthy. And the notion of being stuck, I mean, that's common. We use that in our language. I don't know what to do, whether to take this job or this relationship. I feel stuck about that. That's the key, that that cycle is indeed impeded. It's gotten stuck. So anything you do to move that, anything you do is helpful.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Is that a place where our listeners might seek healing or spiritual companionship, perhaps where they're feeling stuck? If they've suffered a job loss or undergone grieving through a death or other types of trauma?

Reverend Jacob Watson:

Yeah, that would be a. A clue. That would be a signpost pointing in the direction of working with someone. But I have to say too, that no one can do this work for you. We would like that people come into my office or they come into the chaplaincy program sometimes, or they come into a therapist's office, grief counselor's office, and they would like the other person to do the work. But no one can do this work but the individual who is going through it. And again, moving through it. That's the key phrase, moving through it. I'm reminded of a quote I like from Andrew Harvey, who's been a chime workshop leader and a wonderful translator and I think, modern day mystic. But Andrew says you will be graced by the necessary catastrophes. That's only the first half. You will be graced by the necessary catastrophes. They will take away your hiding places and reveal unbelievable beauty. They will take away your hiding places and reveal unbelievable beauty.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Why is it that in our culture we are so afraid of going to those dark places.

Reverend Jacob Watson:

We're afraid of losing our it's usually interior status or composure. And yet that's precisely what's required. And what people discover, I think, is that they may have a lot of anger, they may have a lot of grief, they may have a lot of sadness, but they are not that anger. It's a feeling that comes and eventually as they externalize it, it goes. And underneath that, that which doesn't change is their spirit, who they really are. At the bottom, bottom level, the deepest level, their spirit doesn't change. It's natural to be afraid of the unknown. And many people don't have a sense of who they are as a spiritual being because there's all this overlay that the culture requires us, or we think it requires us to have a role, a particular kind of ego, a particular kind of image in the world. And those things come and go. Some of those are voluntary. We choose to have a certain career or job. We choose to be a parent. We choose how to parent. Some are involuntary, a car accident or a sudden death, but those come and go. What's underneath that that doesn't change is your spirit who you are as a spiritual being.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

From what I remember of Angie Arndt's conversation, the first year at the Chaplaincy Institute of Maine is about dissembling. It's about taking apart formerly held ideas. What if people are not willing to let go of some of their ideas and dissemble what they've previously known? They went there thinking that they were going to be chaplains.

Reverend Jacob Watson:

I don't think it's difficult to get people to go there because it doesn't work that way. Anyway. People come to Chime. And they have heard us say, in the summer, when they're circling around and they're deciding whether to apply or not, they hear us say that the first year is the way of contemplation and the second year is the way of action. But then they get there and they find themselves in an environment which is encouraging them to go deeper and look at themselves. And the program's designed that way because the foundation of being an effective interfaith minister, and I think a healthy human being, is to know yourself, to know thyself, and to know what your triggers are, to know what your history is and not get stuck. There's that word again in your history, certainly. But to keep that. That circle going and be more and more aware of who you are so that you can be fully present for other people. When you're a minister and you're with another person, it's critical that you leave your agenda at the door. And if people say, I don't have any agenda, everybody has an agenda. I have an agenda. The important thing is to leave it at the door so that you're fully present and available for that person in the sacred conversation, in the healing, companionship conversation.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I love the word contemplation. It's reminiscent of sunrises and Crescent Beach. But when you think about contemplation and what it truly means, sometimes it's not pretty. It means really struggling with your own mind and your own thoughts. Is this something you've had to do in your life?

Reverend Jacob Watson:

You mean like last night? I appreciate your honesty in the sense that it's not pretty, your words. And I think what you're saying is that it hurts or it's not who we want to be in that moment, but the gift it's giving you is that it's who you are at that moment. It's the truth. And we can put different labels on it. We can call it not pretty, or it's inconvenient, I have to get to work, etc. But it's truth. And that underlies an authentic life. And I think, you know, as I think back to being a hospice chaplain and spending a lot of time with families when a family member is dying. There was a theme about wanting to live a life as the person that you are and not pretending to be someone else. That that is a wish to let go over time of the roles that sometimes we play ourselves, sometimes the roles that society or our family members or other people put on us. But to let go of the roles over time and allow to Emerge, the authentic self. I mean, we're human. Life continues until we die. And then there's. That's another program after that. But I think, yeah, it's ongoing. It's ongoing. The challenge to be authentic and who you are, both as an emotional being and a spiritual being. So I think the divine or God, whatever name we have for the larger self, everything that's behind everything or above all of us, that quality, that divinity wants realness, wants authenticity. I don't know any other way to say it. God doesn't abide fools or people that play roles, that have extraordinary egos, that have needs. It's about being who you are. And a lot of times people come into chaplaincy or if they have a conversation with me where I'm providing spiritual companionship, their sometimes stated, sometimes unstated wish is that, oh, well, if I become more spiritual, I'm not going to hurt so much or I'm not going to cry, or I'm not going to be pissed off and angry or I won't wake up at 3am really raging about something. The opposite is probably true, that the more that you uncover the roles and divest yourself of the roles, you're going to feel more. But there will be, I think, a confidence and an understanding, A, that you're not alone, that God is with you and encouraging you, and B, you will feel that depth of authenticity. And it doesn't matter what other people say or do because you are living your life, your own life, which no one else can do for you.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Talk to us about the importance of space.

Reverend Jacob Watson:

Well, space means lots of things. It means physical space. And a great quality of the Hindu religion is that there is in most Hindu homes, there's space. There's spiritual sacred space. Everywhere you look, there's a flower, there's an icon talking about including closets and bedrooms and bathrooms. It's everywhere. So there's the notion of creating sacred space wherever you are. There's a notion too, I think, of a being. I don't think you have to be a minister to do this at all, but someone who carries sacred space with them so that when, I mean, I have some friends like this, I know that when I'm with them there is a sacred quality about our conversation. We're not going to talk about trivia, we're going to get right to it. So there's that kind of space, the emotional and spiritual space of a conversation. I don't know what else to say about space except that there's the 3am kind of space where I wake up and sometimes the moon has found its way in the window and it's shining on my face and wants me to get up. Sometimes my heart is racing because I have a feeling that needs to be expressed somehow. Or sometimes my mind is going, there's an intellectual list I have to put down on paper. But that kind of space keeps you alive, I think, if you can be aware of that. And again, coming back to that circle, keeping it moving, keeping it moving, keeping it expressed. It's why the Chime program has a very strong component of art, using the word art in a very broad way, so that the expression of whatever it is that's inside has a form to come out into the world.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And is there also space in silence?

Reverend Jacob Watson:

Of course, yeah. Our culture, it can be a revolutionary act to walk into your job and say, let's have a moment of silence before the staff meeting. Somebody says, well, we've got a whole list of things we have to. No, let's have a moment of silence. That can be, I suppose, evolutionary but revolutionary as well. We start everything at Chime, whether it's our classes or our workshops, and particularly our board of trustees meetings, with a moment of silence. Yes, I'm going to ring the Tibetan bowl once. We'll drop into some silence and then I'll ring the bowl again at the conclusion. Sa. Rumi, you may know, is the best selling poet in this country and has been for 10 years. And it is no accident that he lived and worked in Afghanistan. I mean, he walked the streets of Baghdad and brings to us, I think, much encouragement to be authentic, to let go of the roles. A helper of hearts. Don't look down on the heart, even if it's not behaving well. Even in that shape, the heart is more precious than the teachings of the exalted saints. The broken heart is where God looks. How lucky is the soul that mends the heart. For God, consoling the heart that is broken into hundreds of pieces is better than going on pilgrimage. God's treasures are buried in ruined hearts. If you put on the belt of service and serve hearts like a slave or servant, the roads to all the secrets will open before your eyes. If you want peace and glory, forget about your earthly honors and and try to please the hearts. If you become a helper of hearts, springs of wisdom will flow from your heart. The water of life will run from your mouth like a torrent. Your breath will become medicine like the breath of Jesus. Be silent even if you have 200 tongues in each hair on your head, you won't be able to explain the heart. I'm glad to share that with you.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Thank you for that. Reverend Watson, how do people find out more about your organization?

Reverend Jacob Watson:

Well, Chime has a website, chimeofmain.org and it's a good website up to date. And we have various events that are open to the public during the summer and also during the school year. So those are listed on the website chimeofmain.org and if some of our listeners

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

would like to speak with you directly,

Reverend Jacob Watson:

I'm reminded of what we were saying earlier, that sometimes groups or organizations are not what people are seeking. So sometimes individuals are looking for somebody in a more intimate and private setting. And I work with people in that way as well. And My number is 761-2522 and I have a website, ReverJacobWatson.com and I'm in the phone book as well. Yeah, it's been a privilege to talk with you. I appreciate it. I really do.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

John McCain, our audio guru, has been trying to get you on the show for the past year, and apparently the time is now, right?

Reverend Jacob Watson:

Apparently so.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So thank you for joining us today and enlightening us with your conversation about spiritual and healing companionship.

Reverend Jacob Watson:

Really, it's been a privilege. Thank you.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Today on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast, our topic is Healing Companionship. And with us to speak about this topic is John Patrick Walker of JP Walker and the Guilty Party. John Patrick is an actor and a musician and a good friend of our co host, Genevieve Morgan. Hi, John.

Jon Patrick Walker:

Hi, Genevieve.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Hi, Lisa. Hi. Good to see you. And also in the studio, we have Jenny. Your manager.

Jon Patrick Walker:

That's right, my manager and my dog.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yes. So she won't be speaking to us, but she is here. She's your companion.

Reverend Jacob Watson:

Yes.

Jon Patrick Walker:

She'll make sure everything is on the up and up. And if we have any concerns, we can talk to Jenny.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yeah, she seems very Zen right now.

Jon Patrick Walker:

She is. So that's good in the moment at all times.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Good mellow energy. I know there was a very good reason that Genevieve wanted you to come in today, and it's not just because you're friends. You've had some significant things happen in your life recently.

Jon Patrick Walker:

I have, yeah. I'm 44 years old, and so there's that just sort of midlife. Just being 44 is just kind of amazing and miraculous. And this past fall, I lost my mom to ovarian cancer. She and I were very close. I'm an only child, and my parents divorced when I was 4, but they had shared custody. It was an amicable divorce. But my childhood experience growing up with my mom and my dad, you know, I was very close to both of them, sort of on this individual, one on one dynamic. And she. Yeah. So in, let's see, April of 2010, she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. At the time, she was living here in Portland and had moved up here a couple years prior to. To sort of start a new life. She had a boyfriend that lives in Brunswick, and she decided to move up here and kind of, you know, see what life was like up here, to be closer with him and so forth. She was diagnosed in 2010, and, you know, it was pretty serious, and it was very clear that she would need, you know, some real help. And there was no way she could come back to Portland. She wanted to get treatment either in New Haven, where that's where I grew up, and actually that's where she was diagnosed, coincidentally, or in New York for treatment. So we ended up, my wife and I ended up taking her in, and she was with us for the rest of her life, which was, you know, a little more than two years or less. Than two years. I should say about a year and a half. So it was a really challenging, you know, as you can imagine, to take a really sick person into your home, but also very, you know, I felt very blessed in a funny way. Obviously, never would have wanted her to get sick, but the fact that she was sick gave us this chance to really care for her. And, you know, it afforded us a lot of time to say all the things we wanted to say to really, you know, connect in a deep way through, you know, caring for her through this illness.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And that must have been interesting because. Do I understand you have children as well?

Jon Patrick Walker:

Yeah, we have two girls. My eldest is about to turn 10, and I have a seven and a half year old as well. And so for them, too, I feel like they'll never forget her, you know, whereas, you know, if she had never lived with us for those months, they're young enough that it might be like, oh, yeah, Grandma. I don't remember her that well, but she was with us day in, day out for. For those months, and they were very close with her and got to spend a lot of time with her. So that was another sort of blessing that came out of the illness.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

One of the things we were speaking about with Reverend Jacob Watson before this interview was about the idea of being a companion to somebody in stress and grief. And you were dealing with your own grief, but you were also needing to be a companion to your mother.

Jon Patrick Walker:

That's right.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So that must have been very difficult for you.

Jon Patrick Walker:

It was. I mean, I was. The grieving process started before she actually passed away because she was so sick and it was so clear that she wasn't going to ultimately get better. We might buy her some time with treatment and so forth, and we did buy her some time, but it's. As an only child, you know, as the only son, I felt this deep sense of, gosh, I wish I could make her better. I feel like I somehow should be able to make her better, knowing rationally that, of course, you know, I'm not superhuman. But you. You just. I couldn't help but have this. This just feeling of God, if there's any, you know, if there's anything I could do to make her better. But I. What I could do was love her and care for her and be there for her. And so I feel like I did as much as I sort of could do. And I felt blessed that I. That we had the room in our home, that we had the time. As you know, my wife and I are both actors, musicians, so forth. So there's a lot of free time. We're sort of freelance lives that we lead. It'd be harder if I was a doctor or a lawyer or something, you know, to take care of my mother in the intense way that I was able to. So it was definitely an intense and challenging but deeply spiritual and kind of moving experience to go through and sort of usher her into the next life or whatever's on the other side.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Do you have a spiritual practice or a religion that you subscribe to or.

Jon Patrick Walker:

My mom and I moved into a Buddhist Zen center when I was about 8 and we lived there for a couple years, then we moved away, then we moved back for a couple years. We did a lot of moving in my childhood, although we stayed in and around the New Haven area where I grew up. So I do have Buddhist leanings, but I wouldn't call myself a Buddhist. I do consider myself to be a very spiritual person, but I'm more drawn to the sort of mystical side of things where you can just connect directly to the higher power, whatever that is, the universe, God. I don't subscribe to any particular religion.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Talk to us about what happened after your mother died because you were clearly bereaved. You were grieving, but then some things started to happen for you.

Jon Patrick Walker:

Yeah, I mean, it was really interesting. Sort of out of the ashes of, literally and figuratively of her passing emerged this chapter in my life that I really didn't see coming. She passed away in October of this past year of 2011, but in the summer before she died, she was very ill. At that point, she was in the hospital and wasn't going to be coming out of the hospital. And I was up doing a play in Williamstown, Massachusetts. She was down in New York. And I was. This one day I received an email. I have a Facebook account and I received an email, as people do, that said, so and so wants to be friends with you on Facebook. This so and so had a very distinct and unusual name that just put a big smile on my face. The person's name is and was and is Fode Bojang. F O D A Y B O J A N G Fode Bojang wants to be friends with. Now, normally, if someone randomly friended me and I had no idea who they were, I probably would just delete the email. But because this man had such an unusual name, I was curious. So I went to his page and he had a very friendly face, but there was very little information on the page. He had seven other friends, so he was clearly new to Facebook. He had his date of birth. We were about the same age. He was born in 1968. So it said he lived on a farm. It said that he had a secondary education. That was it. There was no marital status. There was no where he's from, where he lives. So I was just really taken in by this sort of mystery man that wanted to be my friend. And one day I was hanging out with my kids and I had my guitar, and I had kind of told them about this name, and we were all sort of saying Fo de Bojang, Foto Bojang, because we just thought it was so fun to say. And this one day, I started strumming the guitar and I actually started playing the song Louie Louie by the Kingsman. But I was singing Fode Bojang instead of Louie Louie, right? And out of that came an actual original song that just sort of. I said, hey, well, if I change this chord, and I do that, that's kind of cool. A song about Fode Bojang. It sounds good to sing it. It feels good to sing it. And there was an alliteration that was very pleasing. Fode Bojang friended. I got friended by Fote Bojang on Facebook. You know, it just was kind of too good to pass up. So I wrote a song, and as soon as I had it written, it took a few days to sort of get the bridge put in and the right verses and all that. But when it was done, I got this. I got goosebumps. And I thought to myself, I've got to go into a studio and record the song now. I had been in bands in high school and in college, and in my 20s, I was making demos and playing guitar and did a couple little solo gigs. But for the last 12, 13 years, the guitar had pretty much been collecting dust. As it so often happens with people. You get married, you have a family career. I really wasn't playing occasionally. I would, of course, always be drawn back to it. And I did write a couple songs in my 30s, but they sat in a drawer somewhere. At any rate, I write this song. I decide I gotta go record it. A week later, I'm in Maine, and a friend of mine lives in Nashville, Tennessee, and he's a musician. So I just tell him what's going on, and he says, well, hey, come to Nashville. I have friends. My best friend has a studio. I have all these great musician friends. We could do it. It wouldn't have to cost you very much. Take a couple days. You Have a song. Great. So in September, late September, we'd gone back to New York at the end of the summer, spending a lot of time with my mom. But we took those couple days, went down, recorded the song. It was just a dream. It was just a magical, wonderful experience. I thought, this is the greatest thing I could do. It was just so much fun. And I got back to New York, I was able to play that song from my mom. She was kind of getting near the end, but I played her the song. She was thrilled by it and really loved it. Within two weeks, I had a band, which, again, was just completely unexpected. But I had a friend who had recently opened a bar, and I said, can I come play some songs at your bar? He said, yeah, but it's too bad you don't have a band. So I sort of scratched my head and thought, yeah, that'd be cool to have a band, but how am I gonna get a band together? That sounds impossible. Well, I do know a few people made three phone calls, got three yeses immediately. So now I have a band. So, you know, two weeks after getting back from Nashville, I'm in practice with my band. Two weeks later or about a week later, my mom goes into hospice. And about a week after that, she passes away. And I got to be with her at the very end and holding her hand as she took her last breath. So that was a very moving and deep experience. So now, though, out of this place of incredible grief, I've suddenly got this new creative outlet that I didn't have as an actor. I've been an actor for 20 years. You're very at the mercy of other people's opinions, other people's projects. You're waiting for the phone to ring. You have an audition. You get a call back, oh, you were so great. But, you know, we're gonna go another way. You know, I've gotten a lot of work. I've supported myself as an actor, but it's a. It can be a very frustrating career. But with the music, I suddenly had this. This, you know, very empowering, self empowering realization that, hey, you know, I can make music that doesn't have to be just a hobby that I don't have any time for. I can start to make time for my music. And so out of the grief, I was able to, you know, I had this band, and I decided, I'm going back to Nashville. I have songs in this drawer. Let me go look at these songs. Some of them were pretty great. They needed some work, they needed some shaping But I started working on these older songs, kept writing, got some new songs, and ended up going back to Nashville three other times. And here I am in, you know, a year. A year after getting this email from Foti Bojang. I have an album, and I'm very, very proud of it and really excited. And I think. I think it's got a lot of potential. I really do. But it's just eerie because what if Fote Bojang hadn't friended me? I mean, honestly, would I have made this record? I mean, it was not in my consciousness. I was not thinking about it. So you just. It's just one of those. One of those turns in your life that comes from a very unexpected place.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And maybe if you hadn't been going through what you were going through, you might not have been open to it.

Jon Patrick Walker:

Well, exactly. Exactly. I think just the year I'd spent caring for my mom, it's like my nerve endings were exposed, which is difficult. But it also does kind of open you up to the creative impulse in a different kind of way because you just suddenly feel like, man, life is so fragile. Life is so precious. And again, being 40, you know, being in my mid-40s, and you sort of go, well, what do I really want to do? Do I want to just keep waiting for the phone to ring, or do I want to find something that gives me incredible joy that I can do right now and share with people?

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And so can you do that for us right now? Share it with us. Your song Photo Bojang.

Jon Patrick Walker:

Sure. I'll play a little foto. Bojang.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Is this the first. First time people in Maine are gonna

Jon Patrick Walker:

hear this song for the album, actually. Well, I was at Cafe Lompoc up on. In Bar harbor last week at a. At their. At the. You know, it was like an open mic night and I went and played this. So a select few Mainers have heard this song before, but this will be the first time I'm playing it for you all. So this is. This is the song that started. I'll just play a little a Little bit for you, just to give you a taste. I don't know where he lives, but I know he's a farmer. I know what it looks like. I don't know what it say, but Faute Bojang, who wants to be my friend said he wants to be my friend in a worse way. Fau de beauje friended in me. Faute Bojang, he likes me too. Faute Bojang, he friended me the other day I got friendly by a faux de Bojang. Thanks for listening.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So in a weird way, do you think that Fode Bojang became your spiritual, your healing companion?

Jon Patrick Walker:

You know, in a funny way he did. It's kind of eerie, it's kind of uncanny, but it's. Yeah, you're not the first person to say, is Fode Bojang God? That's what someone said to me, you know, a few weeks ago. Maybe, maybe I don't know.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

All of the above.

Jon Patrick Walker:

Yeah, exactly. Who knows? But it was, it was, it was pretty cool how it all. How it all happened and what.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So, and what about your bandmates? I mean, the interesting thing for me is that you had just gone through this almost two year period of really having to kind of hunker down and be with your mom and your family and really have to do a lot of intensive one on one stuff. And did these bandmates of yours provide spiritual companionship at a time where you really needed to get out into the world again?

Jon Patrick Walker:

Well, like I said, the band actually was formed literally about two weeks before she passed away. So absolutely. I mean, it was a huge support that I just, you know, never would have again expected or thought to ask for, but it just kind of happened. And really this year has really. I just, I sort of hard to imagine how difficult this year would have been if I hadn't had the music, if I hadn't been giving myself permission to go into that place and explore in that creative way. If I hadn't had the band, if I hadn't made the album, I don't know, it would have been, you know, it was a hard year anyway, but there was a lot of joy out of all the music. And the thing is, my mom was a huge lover of music. I mean, half the reason that I'm as musical as I am, probably more than half, frankly, is growing up, you know, with my mom, listening to Joni Mitchell endlessly, Stevie Wonder, Pink Floyd, Dark side of the Moon. You know, these albums are the soundtrack of my childhood. Crosby, Stills and Nash and Paul Simon. There goes Ryman Simon and, you know, Harry Nilsson, all these singer songwriters and, you know, rock and roll bands. And it was a huge part of my childhood and I always just loved music deeply. So I have that to thank her for. And so this really feels sort of like giving a gift back to her in some spiritual way. There's a song on the album which maybe there'll be time for you to hear a recording that was written for my mom after she. After she passed, that's on the record, called Miss yous Mama. And the title sort of says it all. But the whole thing's really. I mean, I dedicate the record to the women in my life, to my wife and children, and to my mom. But then I also dedicate it to my dad because how can I leave my dad out of it?

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Do you think that part of what going back and bringing your mom into your life enabled you to do was to, in some interesting way, return to some piece of your childhood that maybe needed healing, that maybe needed sort of bringing back around? And similarly, the guitar, where you said it had been gathering dust, but music was really joyful for you and it was something you did in your childhood. I mean, was there sort of a returning back to this youthful element that kind of brought you back to life in some way?

Jon Patrick Walker:

Absolutely. I mean, one of the most amazing things of all of this is the fact that my dad, who I mentioned earlier, they divorced in 1972 or 3. My dad was a huge presence at the end for her. The summer, last summer when I was up in Williamstown and wrote the song and doing this play. I was going down every day off, driving down to the city and being with my mom. But my dad ended up being there day in, day out for my mom. And he told me and her that summer that he realized that she was the love of his life. He's single, he was married a second time and then divorced. He's been a bachelor for the last 20 odd years. But he said, she's the love of my life. And my mom referred to him near the end as her rock. She was like, well, Bruce was my rock. So as a child of divorce, it was incredibly healing to see them coming back together in a certain way. It wasn't romantic, wasn't anything of that nature, but it was. They reconnected in a very deep way. So that was an unbelievably healing thing for the child within me that I think has always felt just confused and hurt by. By the divorce in some way. Even though, again, it was an amicable divorce. And, you know, they had shared custody of me. So it was about as. About as painless as you could ask of a divorce, but it was still a divorce. So that was a very unexpected and wonderful thing that happened.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

It's appropriate that you're in here talking with us today. We really appreciate your music and tell us when the album's coming out and where people can find it.

Jon Patrick Walker:

The album should be out hopefully. Hopefully. I would say backtober. Safe. Guess they'll be vinyl. I'm gonna go, you know, make records. And there'll be CDs. I'm sure the album will be available on itunes and probably available for free listening on Spotify so people can look for it. It'll be called John Patrick Walker. The Guilty Party will be the name of the album.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Facebook page.

Jon Patrick Walker:

Yes, there's a Facebook page. There'll be a website. There isn't one yet. I have to get some help with that.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, it sounds like you have no problem attracting the right help into your life the right way.

Jon Patrick Walker:

It seems like if you just ask for it, the universe will give you what you need.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Very good. Thanks so much for joining us.

Jon Patrick Walker:

Thank you. It's a pleasure.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

As a special gift to you, our listener, we offer a brief piece from John Patrick Walker's upcoming album. We hope you enjoy

Jon Patrick Walker:

I hung your rings upon the altar here and gave your clothes away.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

We hope you've enjoyed today's show on Healing companionship featuring the Reverend Jacob Watson, founder of the Chaplaincy Institute of Maine, and actor, musician and songwriter John Patrick Walker. For more information on our guests, visit drlisabelisle.com please. Also like us on Facebook and take a moment to let us know what you think of our shows. Thank you to our sponsors who make possible the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast every week. We appreciate their being part of our world. This is Dr. Lisa Belisle. Thank you for being part of our world. May you have a bountiful life.