Hiding Safe Inside the Music

I made a list the other day of the 50 most influential albums on my life. I know some of you probably don't put influential and music together very often but it is a major fact of my life. The first music in my life was singing hymns in church. Choruses didn't exist back then. As the years go by I find myself more and more grateful that I was raised in that tradition.

My mom and dad didn't listen to the radio at all as far as I can remember. I'm not really sure what kind of music my dad likes or if he even cares about it. My mom on the other hand loved southern gospel music, mostly quartets. I don't know that any of the quartets caught my ears but I do remember listening to a ladies trio called the johnson sisters out of Birmingham. For some reason I have always thought that I heard them in concert once when I was very small.

Anyway, the album that we had contained a version of swing down chariot that I absolutely loved. I always liked it better than Elvis's version with the Jordanaires or the Imperials I forget which. I brought the album home with me at Christmas and it's still good though not as good as I remember. That song was probably the closest I got to rock and roll for the first 6 years of my life. it didn't make my list of most influencial albums but it probably should have.

Another album that I was really into growing up wasn't an album at all it was a 78 single of Little Jimmie Dickens doing I'll be back a Sunday, Sunday which was actually side B. Side A was take an old cold tater and wait but it was serious song and Sunday was hilarious at least to me as a kid. It is one of the few songs that I have been unable to find a recording of. My folks must have thrown out all their 78's because it's not at the house anymore, and it doesn't exist on any available albums. I actually talked with a long time member of his band last year but I'm not sure he even knew the song. I knew I liked obscure stuff but this is ridiculous.

We had a box set of country songs that I'm not exactly sure where it came from. It was one of those As Seen On TV sets. i think there were 4 or 5 albums of music of classic country from the late 60's. the songs that I remember most were Kenny Rogers and the first edition singing Ruby, don't take your love to town and roger miller's King of the Road.

Those didn't make it onto my list either but they certainly went through my head enough.

When I use the term influencial I don't mean that they were musically influencial though they probably were but rather they helped shape me into who I am in some way, some almost unspeakable way. I lived in a world of music. I lived, and breathed it. It was my life, because though no one could tell on the outside on the inside I had no life by the time I was 5 or 6.

That's probably hard to imagine I know.

I've been taking my life back now for close to 20 years and I find that I am more alive than ever before. Music is still a big part of my life but it isn't my life any more. I will always be grateful that God helped save me through music by allowing me to hide in it until I could find better ways of taking care of myself.

Living in Babylon

I heard a lot of good words on the tv yesterday. reverend Joseph Lowery prayed a prayer that has the internet buzzing with many calling it racist. I just thought he was doing some fine ryhming. So did Obama, he laughed in the middle of the prayer. But the part that grab my attention the most was his last sentence: Let all who do justice and love mercy say amen.

Like I said I heard a lot of good words yesterday. Good words wrongly defined.

Over a million people shouted amen to that statement. A million people who have defined Justice and mercy on their own terms, in the image of their own God and have no understanding of the Biblical meaning of the words. To be honest most of them don't care. Our country doesn't give a shit about what the bible means we just want to co-opt the words and use them to serve our own agendas.

Welcome to babylon.

There is a promise that will come true: Every knee shall bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is LORD.

The job is filled. No other need apply.

90 miles from hell

I have children 90 miles from the gaza strip.

That is a sobering thought. Before I even realized that I was thinking what if the whole creation of Israel thing in 48 or whenever it was was the work of the devil to distract christians from doing what christians are supposed to be doing -Advancing the Kingdom of God. How much of our money goes to support a nation of unbelievers? since when are unbelievers the chosen of God? the New Testament is replete with verses that tell us that just because you are a natural born Jew doesn't mean that you are one of the chosen few. the church is Israel now. More than likely there will be just as many jews in hell proportionately as any other nation on this planet.

Israel the modern nation was created by bad theology and guilt.

The bad theology is called dispensationalism which developed in the late 1800's out of the plymouth bretheren movement with the addition of a few prophecies by some lady whose name I can't remember and John Darby.

The guilt came from the horrible treatment of Germany after world war one which directly led to the rise of Hitler and ultimately the Holocaust. So if your stupidity causes several million people to die in ovens then just steal some land from some unrelated people in the middle east and give it to their sworn enemies. sounds like a simple plan to me.

When will the church stop supporting atheists and unbelievers in the hopes of speeding the return of Jesus who is more than likely just going to say depart from me I never knew you to most of them?

There I got it out of my system.