DREAM WEAVER

I'm practicing for a wedding. I don't do weddings. Not because I'm above it but because I'm not that good. You have to be an actual singer to pull off a song you didn't write, in public, with any amount of confidence. Scary.

I wouldn't do this for just anyone. But for the Dream Weaver I'd do anything, as long as it's legal in the majority of states and doesn't involve clowns. Clowns scare me more than songs I didn't write. Dressing as a clown and singing a song I didn't write - now that's hell.

I called Jamie years ago when I was working in a cell (office) over at Brentwood-Benson Music Publishing as the archive guy - sitting for eight hours a day burning reels of Southern Gospel from the seventies onto CDs to be stored in a vault somewhere for safe keeping. I drove in rush hour traffic. I wore slacks. And a tie. I used a PC. I was miserable.

Jamie oversaw all volunteers at out church but also, I'd heard, had a knack for unsticking people - helping them figure out what they're true talents are and sending them off in a direction where those talents can be put to good use. Basically, she's a guidance counselor.

The guidance counselor at my high school offered little guidance. I walked into Mrs.Mosely's office my Senior year and agonized for an hour or more about the excruciating choice I had to make between art school and music school. "What about architecture? You get to draw and it's a more substantial occupation with a greater earning potential," she guided.

When Jamie took my first phone call she never mentioned earning potential. She listened. Then she promised to get back to me. She did. She used weird language I'd never heard from Mrs.Mosley. She wanted to help me find my "passion" and figure out what my "shape" is and then discover where that "shape" fits in the church and the world around me. And after just a few of these strange but enlightening conversations the fog cleared for me. I could see what I was made to be and had a good idea of what my next moves in life should be.

Three years later I was teaching a bible study at church, working in the preschool department on Sunday mornings and making music for a living. I signed a poster for her: "To the Dream Weaver." The name just sort of stuck.

Jamie's office is still a home away from home for me. She's a friend in the truest sense of the word - a no nonsense friend. She sits straight up at her desk, a pen and a legal pad at the ready and asks, "Tell me what to pray for. How are you really doing? Do you need money? How's your colon?" And when I'm being dramatic, she tells me. When I'm thinking too little of myself, she tells me that too. And when she needs something from me she asks without hesitation.

"I want you to sing at my daughter's wedding. Are you busy rock star?"

No. I'm not. Of course, I'm thinking now I should have just told her singing at weddings isn't my shape.

Time to practice.