Dear Mr. Jon Bellion,

As an artist, human, and child of God, you have touched my life in some pretty awesome ways. What I love most about you is the profound joy that you exude in the ways that you make music, present yourself to your fans, and they way you approach faith and your life.

But I am writing to you, Mr. Bellion, not just to tell you about how good you are, but to let you know of the impact that the fruits of your joy are having on the world around you. You see, I am currently a few thousand miles from Long Island, in a place called the Solomon Islands. I am about four weeks through a six week program, where I am living with the local Archbishop (and fellow Long Islander) and teaching at a nearby secondary school. My college, Providence College, sends up to ten students abroad each year to experience the vibrance of the Dominican tradition, and be immersed in the various blends of the Catholic faith and native cultures of the foreign country. I even used (and cited!) some of your song lyrics in my lengthy application letters—I hope that is okay with you!

I absolutely loved the first two and a half weeks of learning and becoming acclimated in the Solomon Islands! I started to make many great friends, dove headfirst into a deeper devotion to prayer, and began learning how to control a classroom full of 13-year-olds. Part of my second week saw me traveling to a very isolated section of the Solomon Islands, on the island of Makira, to partake in the confirmation masses for 200+ soldiers for Christ. When I arrived back, I started to finally settle in to the daily routine in Honiara, consisting of morning mass, riding the bus with some of my students to school, teaching math, and then walking back to hang around with the hundreds of kids that frequented Holy Cross Cathedral before evening prayer, dinner, and bed.

However, as I settled into this routine, I think I fell into a bit of a rut and got too comfortable with my surroundings, which made me start to feel a little weird about my whole experience so far. I say this because I got pretty sick for a few days at the end of my third week, and maybe it was the fever, but maybe also it was an inappropriate anticipation that was starting to grow in my mind as it sought to run free from the present moment, but I started to lose hope in why I was here in the Solomons. Why did I even come to the Solomon Islands? How do I compare to the other Smith Fellows? Why don’t I have all the answers already?

But then the all to familiar words came into my head: “Maybe I don’t know… but maybe, that is okay… I guess if I knew tomorrow, I guess I wouldn’t need faith, I guess if I never fell, I guess I wouldn’t need grace, I guess if I knew His plans, I guess He wouldn’t be God…”

Mr. Bellion, I had forgotten the key to joy: gratitude for the current moment. You know you have it when you never want the moment to end… when you never want the bus that you are in to reach the foot of the hill at Holy Cross Cathedral. There were plenty of times after school where I could not wait for the bus to stop at Central Market beneath Holy Cross, where the traffic was backed up so much, I was sharing sweat with my neighbor, and falling asleep against the window. One time in particular, when I was sick, I think I prayed for the bus to drop me off right at the Bishop’s house, so that I would have an uninterrupted walk to the bathroom.

But, now, Mr. Bellion, my prayers sound like this:

Thank you, Lord, for allowing me to be.

Thank you, Lord, for allowing me to be here.

Thank you, Lord, for allowing me to be here now.

Thank you, Lord, for allowing me to be here now, with
your people.

Thank you, Lord, for allowing me to be here now, with your
people, and your joy.

Amen.

God used your music, Mr. Jon Bellion, to spark this shift in my perspective. You see, right before I got sick, I was lounging on Bishop’s deck, the social hub of all the youth of Holy Cross Cathedral [because of the perfect layout for storying, the impeccably breathtaking view of the Iron Bottom Sound, and the ever-flowing “lemon,” a drink that seems to keep the Solomon Islands running (maybe I’ll use the “Solomon Islands runs on Lemon” joke tomorrow, and no one will laugh, because they don’t know what Dunkin is…{sorry for all the brackets})] and was sharing music with a great musician and year 10 student, Junior David, and his year 12, good friend—and now a very important and beloved guardian angel blo mi—Jefferey. After adding a few of their songs to my favorites playlist, I showed them a song or two from an Australian guitarist, Jacob Lee, before finally showing them a few of your songs. I simply love your piece, “Hand of God – Outro,” and per my usual procedure before I show anyone that song, I made them listen to a healthy portion of your The Human Condition album to fully prime them for the end of “Hand of God – Outro.” Well, one of those songs, “New York Soul – Pt. ii,” instantly became Jefferey’s favorite song of all time, to the point that he will walk around the courts after school with a speaker dangling around his neck, playing it on repeat for the whole of Honiara to hear.

Okay, now fast-forwarding through my sickness, and landing on my post-bedridden-doubts, enter: World Youth Day?

The youth of a few local parishes took it upon themselves to develop, orchestrate, and enjoy their own World Youth Day, a week chock-full of sports, food, talks, sleeping under the stars, and most importantly, prayer. This year will be the first ever, modelled after a similar design of Bishop’s at his last parish in Malaita. The youths have been preparing for months now, where they have hosted numerous logistics meetings, massive clean-ups, and intense training sessions (for the athletic events!). One such training event was a friendly soccer match between the Holy Cross Cathedral team (my team!) and the Tenagi parish team. The abbreviated match went well, although I did not partake as I was still resting from my illness, and after we all caught a bus back to Holy Cross. But this was no ordinary bus.

It was the same idea with the buses we take on the way to school, except instead of fitting 15, this one had space for about 24. I think we squeezed 30 into it. My guardian angel, Jefferey, pulled out the speaker, and gave me a wink. I knew what he wanted, and with the dwindling 5% on my phone, I played “New York Soul – Pt.ii.” He then caught my attention and said, “stand up and dance.” In almost any other circumstance, in any other moving vehicle, in any other country, I would have just laughed and stayed seated. But there was no buckle keeping my butt on the seat. Even if there was, very little could keep me in my seat after standing in the middle of the field after the match with close to 100 male catholic youths (students, colleagues, coaches, catechists, random children…) holding hands, praying, praising, and planning for the week to come. These guys were mostly my age, but more importantly, because of the past few weeks, were brothers in Christ. So yes, I stood up and did a little dance, got a few laughs, and sat down after a few seconds. But then Jefferey said, “dance and sing the words!” You best believe that I got right back up in my seat and finished off the song! But my dear friend Jefferey was not satisfied with just listening to the song one time, Mr. Bellion.

The entire ride home, we must have listened to your song about 8 times, with the guys smacking the seats to hold the beat for me while I belted out your words at the top of my lungs. Every time I reached your line “My joy lies in the Son, and you should jump on that,” I made a point to really annunciate my English for the guys, for which I was met with a thunderous wave of whoops and cheers at the reference to Jesus as the greatest source of joy. Any close friend of mine would know that this* was absolutely me experiencing a moment greater than I could even hope to conceive for myself.

~ ~ ~

In today’s homily, Bishop Chris preached about humility. The issue with the doubts floating through my head was that “I” was quite literally at the center of all of them. I was asking the completely wrong questions.

The current moment isn’t about me, just as it isn’t about you either. It’s all about God, all the time. As His providence plays out before our eyes, we need to faithfully glorify Him in how we exist in His moment, because they are His gifts to us. Because we are His beloved children, we can share in His joy each and every moment if we chose to.

Instead, I should have been asking for guidance in how to be grateful for the opportunity, what I can learn from it, and how I can love those around me with it.

I learned this lesson as we grew closer to the Cathedral. I didn’t want to get out of that bus, for fear of leaving that moment of pure joy and unexpected adoration. But here’s the thing: speakers are portable, so the party doesn’t have to end, and so too are memories, which can act as sparks to ignite future flames. Sure, I will probably never have another moment or experience quite like the one I had tonight. “But maybe that’s okay,” because I can have faith that God is leading me through to many other unimaginably memorable moments, as I follow Jesus on the pathway to His Kingdom. The path is definitely not straight—mainly because I am “Human”—, but that is why I have the church, the sacraments, my brothers and sisters, and the ingredients that made up the memories such as the one I just had.

Now I pray for traffic, because it gives you more time to spend with the lessons and the joy in the current moment. Everything is okay when you are present; it is then that you are in the “Hand of God.” And we can know this because Jesus wrote it on a cross, and across our hearts. And now I know a part of what He wrote is: “you, my beloved child, are mine.”

God Bless,

A brother in Christ

*I was singing to Bellion after a soccer match at the top of my lungs, feeling completely accepted by a community as we all were praising Our Lord with an evergreen joy.