Kingdom Harbor

I could write for days about the deep appreciation Keri, the kids and I have for Dolly Parton. But I wouldn’t know where to start or where to end.

I was the guy on the plane and by the pool in Florida reading a Dolly biography this past spring break. I’m the dad playing “Here You Come Again” in pubs with my 11 year old daughter. Last Christmas break we were watching Dolly’s “Coat of Many Colors” movie. We stayed in Dolly’s DreamMore Resort hotel a few years back on our spring break to Pigeon Forge and Dollywood. Just a couple months ago, Abby’s dance recital featured her all bedazzled and dancing to “9 to 5” (see below). Just a few days ago, Abby sang “Here You Come Again” to a room full of seniors (see below). As for me and my house, we love Dolly.

Last week I performed Neil Diamond’s song “Play Me” which has this beautiful refrain,

You are the sun, I am the moon,

You are the words, I am the tune,

Play me.

I then tacked on a 2-minute testimony saying, “Since giving my life to Christ I have had one primary goal: to be an instrument in God’s hands, to let God use my time, talents and treasure for his purposes. In a word, to let God play me.” I expand on this theme in my book The Father’s Song, and St. Paul riffs on this truth in Romans 15 where he writes:

“May our dependably steady and warmly personal God develop maturity in you so that you get along with each other as well as Jesus gets along with us all. Then we’ll be a choir—not our voices only, but our very lives singing in harmony in a stunning anthem to the God and Father of our Master Jesus” (Romans 15:3 The Message).

Again, I won’t try to write a tribute here. I’ll just keep singing her songs and sharing them with others. But I think Dolly’s universal appeal and peerless winsomeness had a lot to do with the fact that she was an instrument in God’s hands and the melody of her life was very much in sync with the higher Melody of the Father’s Song and the “rhythms of grace” that flowed from her Christian faith.

I did come across the following tribute on X from @Biblicalman which resonates with me. I’ll post a video of my recent show at the bottom with Abby singing “Here You Come Again” and me singing “Play Me.” Thank you, Dolly.

A TRIBUTE

Dolly Parton is dead, and the church never knew what to do with her. Half my feed is posting rhinestones today. The other half never trusted her, because she would not wear the uniform.

She never preached a sermon. She just did the works.

One man. Fifty-eight years. In an industry that eats marriages. No scandal reel, no reality show, no trading up. Just Carl, and a promise kept until death did them part.

She could have built towers in Nashville. Instead she built in the mountains she came from, so the people she came from could work.

Two hundred million books. Given away to children, free, no strings, while the rest of us argued about what to read.

A million dollars for a vaccine in the middle of a plague, and she called it what it was: helping.

She was a feminist who never used the word, a superstar who never left home, and a believer who never made you watch her pray.

“Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.” James 2:18.

We spent years asking whether she was one of ours.

She never asked whether we were one of hers. She was too busy feeding children.

I do not know her heart. That was never my job. I know her works, because the whole county she came from lives on them.

“Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.” Matthew 7:20.

You want to honor her today? Put down the tribute post. Put a book in a kid’s hands. Stay married. Do the works. That was the whole sermon. She just never said it out loud.

[Video: Abby sings two songs, and then I do “Play Me” followed by testimony (24:10-36:04)]