Songs in the key of change

Songs in the key of change

A musician and Rotary Peace Fellow wants us to listen more closely to the stories we’re telling.

(Reprinted from the November Issue of Rotary Magazine)

David LaMotte understands the power of a good story. Need proof? Look no further than the opening chapter of his book, You Are Changing the World: Whether You Like it or Not. There you will find the gripping account of a sudden illness that, in 2001, seemed like a stroke and left the 32-year-old LaMotte incapable of speaking and feeling sensation in his extremities. The things taken from him, as he explains in the book, were his words and his hands, a catastrophic loss for a man who made his living, and found spiritual sustenance, as a guitarist, singer, and songwriter.

Spoiler alert: LaMotte survived the ordeal, though that should be evident given that, 23 years later, he’s still around to discuss what happened. “As a professional musician, it’s easy to get self-absorbed,” the Rotary Peace Fellow says today. “What happened to me in 2001 made me reevaluate where I was putting my energy. I resolved to return my focus outward.”

But if LaMotte understands the power of a good story, he also recognizes the importance of closely examining the stories we tell, what we hope to accomplish with them, and the truth they contain or perhaps, unintentionally, conceal. To ensure that people make good decisions, he says, it’s important to be cognizant of the stories we’re telling and the stories we’re hearing.

But before delving into all that, here’s a quick look at LaMotte’s own story. The youngest of four children, he grew up in Sarasota, Florida. “We lived in the manse across the street from the church where my father was the Presbyterian minister. I remember being introduced to lots of different kinds of people at dinner.” Those meals, he says, imbued him with a “desire for connection across the lines that divide us.”

LaMotte also grew up listening to the music his older siblings liked, especially the singer-songwriters Neil Young, Jackson Browne, and Carole King. He began playing guitar in his teens, confining his playing to his bedroom. Finally, in college at James Madison University in Virginia, he began appearing at open mic nights. “I moved from performing covers to playing songs that I had made up,” he recalls. “It meant a lot to me that people were touched by my songs.”

He graduated from college with two deep but divergent passions: music and mediation, an effective method of conflict resolution. Torn between the two, LaMotte gave himself two years to make it as a musician, which, against all odds (to hear him tell it), he succeeded in doing. Today he has 11 albums to his credit and has performed more than 3,500 concerts around the world, some with the Abraham Jam, a musical collaboration between a Jew (Billy Jonas), a Muslim (Dawud Wharnsby), and a Christian (LaMotte). Today he identifies as a “Quakertarian.” “I’m a passionate amateur theologian, and my spirituality is pretty broad,” he says. “I have a foot planted in both religious traditions”: the Presbyterian teachings of his youth and the Quaker precepts that have informed his adulthood.

And then, having succeeded as a musician, LaMotte set his career compass in another direction: the University of Queensland as a Rotary Peace Fellow. Accompanied by his wife, Deanna LaMotte, and their infant son, Mason, he spent a year in Australia earning a master’s in international studies with a focus on peace and conflict resolution.

“I was keenly aware of the privilege that the fellowship was,” says LaMotte, who bridges the Rotary members of District 7670 (North Carolina) for making his fellowship possible and the members of his Queensland cohort for enriching the experience. “They were all extraordinary people, a microcosm of the entire Rotary world. I’m ready to hand it back to contribute, and I learned a lot from them.”

Today, LaMotte continues to work with Senderos Guatemala (which translates to Guatemala Pathways), an arts, education, and mentoring program that he and Deanna founded after honeymooning in Guatemala. He also devotes time to public speaking engagements, including a recent TEDx Talk in Asheville, North Carolina (near his home in Black Mountain), that has accumulated more than 30,000 views online.

Called “Why Heroes Don’t Change the World,” the 18-minute speech, in addition to confirming LaMotte’s mentoring storytelling, is an invitation to challenge a predominant storyline that he fears undercuts our ability to accomplish effective change. (LaMotte considers this same topic in his book, which has been used in some college courses.) For too long, he says, we rely on the hero narrative, where “somebody really special comes forward” to solve the problem in a moment of crisis and then the problem is fixed.” Not only that, he worries that this narrative robs us of from having to do anything other than wait, watch, and applaud. In a way that could affect the very things we tell ourselves, “I have to find one single amazing special hero who can rescue the whole history of the world, or at least do something extraordinarily heroic effectively endorsed as already a problem by themselves,” he says. “We simply never have an answer for.”

Returning to the story of Rosa Parks, and the Montgomery bus boycott nearly 70 years ago, LaMotte uncovers lesser-known details about the network of support behind the boycott, unfolding a much more complete tale that relies on what he calls the actual narrative. The upshot is that the boycott succeeded because of ongoing efforts by a group of well-prepared and well-organized people. “They did not wait until the hero broke out to build the frustration.” he says, speaking metaphorically. “They had been working for years. They were ready to go.”

LaMotte finishes by offering some words of wisdom and posing a question. “The truth is it’s hard to write to think you can change the world,” he says. “It’s naive to think no change can be in the world and possibly, everything you do changes the world and takes effort. We need you. So which changes will you make?”

— GEOFFREY JOHNSON