Over the Rhine: Finding Our Tribe

Guest post by Linford Detweiler

The following post is adapted from a talk given at the Glen Workshop in Santa Fe, New Mexico, August 7, 2014.

Hello. I’m Linford Detweiler. I’m one half of the band Over the Rhine, and my wife and I are leading the songwriting workshop this week.

I asked Greg when I saw first saw him here a few days ago—I was just thinking out loud—if there was any significance to the fact that both Over the Rhine and Image were celebrating 25^th anniversaries this year. Neither of us could pinpoint anything immediate, but Greg did remind us that we would be getting together in October at his alma mater up in Michigan. You see, Hillsdale College is welcoming Greg Wolfe back to campus to recognize his contributions to the world of art and faith and the conversation that continues to evolve around the two—a dialogue and a dance that Greg has made his life’s work and passion.

Greg joked and said, Yeah, the prodigal son returns. And I said, Yeah right. What could possibly be prodigal about your achievements?

And then Greg explained something that I must confess, sent a chill along my spine and caused a bit of an epiphany. He said, actually, Hillsdale College was more than a little conservative, especially politically, and although he greatly appreciated aspects of his education, he was being groomed to enter the political fray. He said that it if he had not chosen a different path other than the one that was being laid out for him, he could be on Fox News right now wearing a bowtie.

And suddenly it made sense. Can you imagine the glee and the genuine excitement of Greg’s handlers, having found this brilliant young student, with a curious, expansive mind, seemingly boundless energy, a student who was an obvious visionary in the making, not to mention a brilliant writer and public speaker?

Obviously, he needed to be fully recruited for his home team to help win the debate—you know, the one with the never ending parade of talking heads bickering in oversimplified sound bites? I’m sure Greg could have made a killing, and could be driving around LA right now in a black Mercedes.

But we were standing downstairs in the hallway by the cafeteria, and I looked around and it was buzzing with this newly-arrived community, that had come in from all over the USA and beyond, and I saw people who I’ve come to think of as extended family, and suddenly it all went quiet. The hallway and the cafeteria were empty except for a few summer students. I glimpsed a world in which Image journal and the Glen had never existed.

I was a little like George Bailey in It’s A Wonderful Life. And, like George, glimpsing this alternate reality scared the living shit out of me.

You see those of us who found Image in its early years, and eventually discovered the community that has grown out of these Glen Workshops, have come to embrace these ongoing gifts with a sense of inevitability. We feel like we have stumbled home somehow, found our tribe—and what is more inevitable than eventually finding your way home? And of course the trouble with what feels like home is it’s so easy to take it for granted—it’s all too easy to assume it’s always been there and always will be.

Not so.

I glimpsed the reality that as with most good things, Image and the Glen required someone approaching two roads diverging and taking the one less traveled, the one with no roadmap, the one that made mentors raise a few eyebrows and perhaps express some disappointment or even veiled disapproval. I was reminded that a world without Image and the Glen requires only a small leap of the imagination.

One more question I’m considering—and I confess it’s something that occurred to me for the first time this week.

Karin and I are celebrating 25 years in the music business. Somehow we wrote songs, and made records and navigated the obligatory shark-filled waters and lived to tell about it.

But for the first time, the question has really occurred to me this week: would we have made it to year 25 if we hadn’t discovered this community? Barry mentioned in his eloquent love letter to Glen West last night, the friendships and the love that emerge from this gathering, but he didn’t mention the fact that some of us have received an education here.

During some dark days that grace was and is sufficient.

I can’t tell you how many bits of Glen conversation, or overheard phrases, or fragments of ideas have shown up in our songs—but rest assured, it’s happened more than a few times.

Karin and I always leave Glen West with the renewed slow burn of desire to do our best work. Doing our best work feels at least in part like a debt of gratitude to this community, and a debt that we hope to repay.

Folks, the music industry is a mess. The publishing world is a mess. You’ve heard the metaphors: it’s the Wild West out there, and nobody quite knows what the future holds. There is no record label or institution that is going to guarantee the survival of what we do. Only the people that have come to appreciate the work can guarantee its survival.

So if you appreciate this community, and have found it nourishing and inspiring, believe in the version of the world where it continues not only exist but flourish.

The world without Image and the Glen is a world that feels like the lights have dimmed a little. The hallways have gone a little quieter, missing conversations no longer taking place. Some artists would undoubtedly go back to their corners and the old isolations of having to explain it, justify it, rather than returning home to the real work and spiritual discipline of just trying to make it good.

So thank you Greg for choosing the less traveled road. Thank you Image team for your resilience and commitment. Image and the Glen have been a gift to Karin and me and to many.

Yes, a week can change a life. The truth of the matter is, this week has already changed many lives. May there be many more changed lives to come.

Image has been a place for like-minded artists to meet, co-create, and discuss for the past 25 years. To support Image, click here.

Linford Detweiler is a co-founder, with his wife Karin Bergquist, of the band Over the Rhine. Together they have release sixteen critically-acclaimed studio albums.