Larry Norman

Many, many years ago, a babe to contemporary Christian music, I feel in love with a song that Larry Norman sang called, "I Am A Servant". I don't know that music was so very well done or had a delightful melody. As memory serves, it was just Norman and the piano, kind of high and a little squeaky in places. It was the lyrics that spoke to my heart and I found the song and learned to play it on my guitar. Many a sad moment was spent, hiding in my bedroom with my guitar singing, "I am a servant, I am waiting for my call. I've been unfaithful so I sit here in the hall. How can you use me, when I've never given all? How can you choose me, when you know I quickly fall." Getting to the end of the song always made me feel a little better, though sometimes I had to sing it over and over and over.

Funny how music seems to speak to the soul in ways that words and thought cannot. It wasn't Christian music that taught me this though. My dad was a musician and music was a part of my upbringing. I was surrounded by it all my life and before I was ten I was addicted to musicals. I sang with great enthusiasm all of the leading roles. I was Maria primping in my bedroom singing "Tonight, Tonight" from West Side Story, Liza Doolittle singing "Just you Wait" and "Show Me" in My Fair Lady. I never could warm up too much to South Pacific, but I was delightful as Maria in the Sound of Music, and I wasn't too bad as Laurie in Oklahoma. I like Aunt Eller's songs better and Laurie seemed like such a goose, it was hard to play her with enthusiasm. In the privacy of my room, I would play those albums over and over again, singing and dancing and I was absolutely fabulous! In fact, I feel sure it was only small minded jealousy that kept my father from launching my career on the big screen. He just couldn't bear the competition, I think.

When I hit middle school my tastes changed some and I became a fan of Black Sabbath. Don't anyone throw something at me, or remind me this was hardly a Christ centered group. All I know is this, when I played "Fluff" and closed my eyes, it was as close to heaven as I knew how to get. It drew such pictures for me of beautiful mountains and rolling hills, I just knew I was closer to God when I heard it. James Taylor and Dan Fogelberg and The Who and The Doors and Billy Joe, Led Zeppelin and Lynyrd Skynyrd, Three Dog Night and Charlie Daniels, Bread, ABBA, and BTO all followed. All of them were comfort to me and companionship. To this day if I am driving along on a sunny day, the music is blaring and I am singing at the top of my lungs. I have had folks pass me and tell me later they thought I was having a fit until they realized I was singing. This could be why I never made it to the big screen!!!

Sometime in college I discovered the radio station and contemporary Christian music. I loved my three hour show every week and listened to all kinds of music getting ready for it. This is where Larry Norman entered my musical life, and Keith Green and Randy Stonehill, Amy Grant, Sandy Patti and Steve Green. As I attended a Christian college, some of these singers made an appearance on campus which added to the attraction and adoption. Today, my musical tastes are pretty varied, I love lots of genres but have never been able to warm up to country. All those years of being told not to sing through my nose, I guess!!

After I found Larry Norman and learned to play "I am a Servant", I found Keith Green and learned to play "My Eyes are Dry" and spent many hours making this my prayer to God. "My eyes are dry, my faith is old. My heart is hard, my prayers are cold. But I know how I ought to be, alive to You and dead to me." In time, my soul would be soothed and I would be ready to go on again. In recent years I have added more songs to the list when I have no words. Michael Smith's "Let it Rain" has brought me to tears, sitting at my desk, arms raised and in my mind, the flood gates of heaven open. Paul Baloche singing "What can I do but thank You? What can I do but give my life to do?" My friend Greg has recorded a CD with a cut called "Micah's Song". The words are pretty but its the music that transports me. One day, such joy welled up inside of me, I had to call him to tell him so.

Isn't God amazing, and so resourceful! He has made music a means of grace, where we can experience God in ways that go beyond our intellect, our imaginations and our vocabulary. He finds ways to speak where words could never be adequate. True worship that flows from the heart seems to flow best not in the spoken word but it the melodies of the heart. The book of Psalm lives that witness, the hymns of the faith echo it and the contemporary interpretation simply follows in the Spirit of worship handed down through the ages. And you thought you were just rocking out.

Next time you pass me on the road, and I look like I could be having a fit, it's probably just worship going on! Turn on your own tunes, and join in!

Lost in Time

I have been off becoming wiser. Yes, I have been to the Church of the Resurrection Leadership Institute for making better Methodists. That isn't really what it is, only a little pet name. I was there with all my very dearest friends, a very intimate gathering of about 2000 people from 600 plus churches, learning some new stuff, getting fired up and getting send back to use what I learned. You wouldn't think this was a new concept but I have met people who seem astonished that we are expected to use what we learn. Apparently, the time spent in training is like the wizard confab the nice wizard from Oz was heading to when he couldn't wait for Dorothy. I am not a real wizard so this explains why I keep thinking if we use what we learn we will actually further the Kingdom. This is what fake wizards do to mess things up, you know what I mean?

Anyway, there I was with all the others, when in a moment I was lost in time. I was watching a conductor direct an orchestra and a choir in Kansas City, but at the same time I was in a high school auditorium in Hampton, PA watching my dad direct a choir while the orchestra played behind him. The music is gone from my memory but my dad was very real, very alive and there were things about him that seemed very tangible in the moment. I could almost see his mannerisms come to life in the conductor in Kansas. I can see his choir and I can watch him run his hand through his hair and I am a very small girl again.

How funny that there are memories stored in our minds that are so vivid when conjured by a stimulus that we are right back into the midst of them again. Having suffered through a recent bought of the whatever is going around gunk, I came upon a television show about a woman who is not functioning well in her thirties who has the chance to go back to moments of regret and relive them. I do not want this kind of a memory, but the nice ones that stir lovely thoughts are very pleasant. My dad has been dead now for 11 years and it was very nice to have him very close by in an element where he always shone brightly.

What of those memories that are harder, when they come pounding back and make our tummies flop over and our anxiety levels climb. I know what I tend to do: whoops, don't think about that. Turn that off. Completely! Sorry I opened that drawer, or door or thought! Recently someone shared a dream with me that deals with an unresolved sorrow for her. As she shared with me, I was calling upon God to give me inspiration. I remember having these kinds of dreams and the hunger within to have closure in these areas of sadness and grief, regret and remorse. I suggested what has been suggested to me in these areas, to invite God into the memory, to the dream and ask Him to bring resolution and redemption. As most of us do not get the do-over our hearts desire and I am pretty sure I would mess it up if I were given the opportunity, this is the only way some of those moments are healed and resolved.

I have recently been in touch with high school friends through Facebook. Not a bad thing really, and with them came some wonderful memories. I have been having some of those anyway since I have been organizing the youth structure at church and they are reminders of myself a while back. Those reminders also can open up doors that I would just as soon remain closed. Those things I said or did that bothered me, the decisions that I made that closed some doors forever, and the feeling of sadness or shame or frustration washes over me again. Instead of swiftly shutting the door as I have for years, I have been trying to sit very still and invite God into the memory. Somehow after I tell Him how I feel and discuss the whole thing with Him, the intensity of the emotion has faded and I am able to let go of some of the hurt. Is it gone? I don't know. Bet it doesn't have the same intensity that it once did.

This is a mystery truly. How does God, who is timeless, enter into all time and heal up a grown up woman who has an injured little girl inside? Who knows. I am just grateful. And now, I am off to use that stuff I learned. Sure hope the wizards don't find out and report me.

Ripple Effect

Recently I have been pondering ponds. It's a fascinating event for water watchers anyway. Water watchers really don't need a reason to settle down to a good solitary time of ripple reflection, but recently I have been pondering the impact we have on the pools we have been placed in, and the impact the pool has on us.

This too is not exactly a new reflection. I have given thought to the day I am invited to swim out of this water and into water eternal. It is my wish that when I am no longer in this pool, the ripples left behind will have some lasting impact. I would hate to leave the kind of ripples that sort of fade into other ripples until they just dissolve into nothingness. I want Oswald Chambers ripples. I want to leave behind some insight or vision or thought or even funny story that inspires a generation I will never meet to love God with all of their hearts, souls, minds and strength. Who wouldn't want to leave ripples like this?

The pondering of late though hasn't been how to leave the pool, but how to live in it well. I have been taking on a lot of water recently. I have some big splashers in my pool. Have you ever tiptoed into the pool, the water maybe a little chilly and you are easing your way in? And as you get maybe up to your calves, a big splasher moves your way and begins to unleash a tidal wave of water your way until you are soaked and freezing? Then even after you are completely wet and into the water up to your chin, they continue to float past and cover your head with a little more from time to time? Worse, they dig their feet into the bottom and churn up as much dirt as possible so the water becomes cloudy and then muddy and then loses its clear crispness and becomes sludge. Here's what I want to know: is this illegal? If it is not illegal: can you fill a civil suit over this? Get a restraining order against big splashers? Tell on them to someone in authority, assuming we still have someone in authority?

Let me say freely, I am sure I must have been a big splasher at one point. If you follow the Sound of Music theology - nothing comes from nothing, nothing ever could, so somewhere in my youth or childhood, I must have done something bad - then it only seems logical I must have spent some time soaking others. However, since I am a proud supporter of grace, and believe in unmerited mercy in splash forgiveness, I want you to know I want the deluge stopped.

I have appealed to the the local pool police and they agree the splashing is unfortunate, they wish the splashing would stop, but they seem unable to get it done. They are suffering just as much as I am, there is some muttering about being in sales not in management, but ultimately we stand in the poor together, sighing and petitioning the Keeper of all Water to make our pool perturber stop.

I believe this is why the numbers in the ponds and pools and lakes and other water bodies are decreasing. I have been told this is because we are poor at inviting others to come on in, the water is warm. I am sure we can always get better at this, but I believe where we drop the ball is that once they get into the pond, we do nothing to help them live there well, to encourage them to find deeper waters and to be a good pool mate. What we do in my humble opinion (which is not humble or I would not share it with you) is get some good stuff and add it to the atmosphere and the water and we hope in doing so pond people will be transformed. Because God is a gracious God, strangely enough despite our ineptness, sometimes this works. Only because it also sometimes does not, we are left to deal with the consequences of poorly equipping pond people to learn to live well in the water. Why would any self respecting land dweller want to climb into a pool of splashy, muddy, stirred up water?

I can only say this about my own water observations. When I finally observed 'the water' for the first time from the eyes of it's Creator, I saw beautiful, clear, cold, refreshing, inviting water and not only did I thirst for it, my whole being longed to be submerged into the depths. I didn't want to swim in it, I wanted to be consumed by it. It takes a lot of my time these days to look past the muck that has churned up around me to remember that vision of the pool as it was intended to be. It was easy to invite people into the refreshing and renewing water, to teach them how good it was further up and higher in, to lead them through the paths I had taken to experience such glorious splendor. There are some days now when I find it harder to encourage others to get in, I have seen the sludge and some of it gets on me and it makes me feel nasty and it clogs my lungs.

We aren't powerless here. It doesn't have to be this way. We could choose to be deliberate about how we live in the pool and how we teach others to do so. I have seen the clear water and I am sure if others could see it too, the numbers in the pool would swell. I think if you look it up, you would find that was Scriptural, in a paraphrased kind of way. In a world, according to God, interpreted by me way. I kind of like the way that sounds. In fact, my favorite way.

Would someone toss me a life jacket?