Sunday message

Whenever I get on my dashboard, being a statistic-minded person, I check to see whether I have any new followers or not.  And if I do (And if you look at the current count, you see it doesn't happen all THAT often), I make a point of visiting their profile and/or their blog page.Because I think it's the honorable thing to do, and plus, I am curious about them and why they showed up on my shores.  Many times, it's because I've commented on their blogs; sometimes, I can only assume, it's because they want me to follow them. Because they like statistics, too, or they have something to sell.

A few days ago, I acquired a new follower, and I dutifully went to their site.  And really, I'm still scratching my head over what I found.  Because their blog was basically taking ideas or characters from the Bible, putting a negative spin on them, and writing it up as a "humourous" news story.  Honestly, I don't know if their just trying to have fun, or they are a closet atheist trying to grind their axe.  Either way, it was uncomfortable to me because respect for God and respect for Jesus was one of the first lessons I learned in life.

When I was little, my mom read her Catholic prayer book every morning after dad left for work.  Her first silent 15 minutes to 1/2 hour every day was spent with God.  From her I learned ironclad faith that God is real, and He is what He says.  And, I learned the reverence in which He deserves to be held.

Mom sent me to Catholic school,  which taught me to have God in my life every day.  I felt bad for the CCD kids for whom God was a "Crap, I have to go to class on Saturday" experience.  And I learned what sin was, and its terrible consequences.

Along about seventh grade, the Gideons came to our school and gave us all New Testaments, which for most of us was our first real exposure to the Bible.  There I learned how Jesus told us not to pray in vain repititions, and questioned the Rosary for the first time.  I learned that we were to rely on Christ alone, pray to God alone, which threw everything I'd been taught about Mary and the saints out of whack.  Thus I got a Bible of my own, and learned to question.  And I learned that mom's answer, "Because it's in the Bible!" (e.g. when I asked her about life on other planets) wasn't good enough- unless I could find the verse that backed it up.

Later, I learned the concept of being born again, which was a rough one to come to terms with because of all that Catholic training I was beginning to question.  It took coming to the dead end of a dark road to get past the fear of Hellfire and casting out in an entirely new boat and make that step.

I would learn the concept of service and doing it His way the very hard way.  I was scared when I was asked to teach a Sunday School.  But God directed me, against my own will and fears, and walked with me every step of the way for some time.  But then I was asked to be a Deacon.  Unlike SS, where it was just my fear in the way, I had a pretty good idea that this was NOT the way I was supposed to go.  But I was told that my convictions were baseless and that I would do fine, and I told myself that hey, SS worked out.  Maybe this is just God's way of pushing me.  It was not, and it started a chain of events that culimnated many months later with my leaving the church, the pastor leaving the church, and seven in ten regular attnders going elsewhere.

In a hellish season in a trailer park on Moeller Road, I learned that I had a huge problem with controlling situations.  I had to learn the hard way that some things work better when you put them in God's hands, or even someone else more knowledgable (than me, not God!) These last two, I wish I would have learned MUCH earlier, how much better my life would have been!

And finally, over the years on this blog, I am learning what fights are worth fighting, and which are not.  Napoleon fought only when he had to for success; so, too, in WWI, the Germans finally learned (too late) that the only way to overcome the trench war they found themselves in was to Keep advancing, go around the rough spots, and clean them out afterwards, once their connection with their fellows was cut.  Progress didn't mean fighting for every square inch, but steady moving forward, and relying on the reserves to clean things up afterwards.  Two lessons come from this:  Knowing which is a fight you're called to battle, on the idea of reaching the goal being more important; and making sure that you have a well trained force in reserve.  The other combatants treated the reserve as those either to untrained to be of value, or those too shell-shocked to be good in a firefight.  Thus, even if they had done it this way, they would have gotten nowhere.

What does this have to do with God? Consider:  Most of us fight the battle loudly, across a wide swath- and only on Sunday. We thunder our Sunday guns, go charging out to overwhelm the enemy.  Monday comes, the counter-attack begins, and we run back to the trench until Sunday's guns fire once more.  The "German model" would be: Establish a strong reserve through prayer, discipline, reading the word, contact with fellow-travellers; Don't concentrate on moving the whole line, just the part you're assigned; Leave the rough spots to God (Martin's Second Law:  Jesus said tell the mountain to move, not go out and try to pick it up yourself);  and keep moving foreward, step by step, every day.

And what does this have to do with this "new follower"?  Just that, whatever the deal is, it's not a fight worth going on her blog and fighting.  My part is not to battle him/her, but to share what I learn as I move foreward every day.  And to keep in mind the lessons I have already learned, especially in this case, the lesson of the respect and reverence God should be held in.

That's Why God Made The Radio

As promised, I went out this weekend and bought me the new Beach Boys lp.  Released for their 50th anniversary, it is the first lp of all-new stuff since 1992, and the first to have as original a lineup as is still possible- originals Brian Wilson, Mike Love, and David Marks, and long timers Bruce Johnston and Al Jardine.  My thoughts?

I hate to say I enjoy it more than Pet Sounds after just 3 sit-throughs.  But it is a very special album.

THINK ABOUT THE DAYS...

A short, haunting instrumental of french horn and piano.  Sets the mood well.

THAT'S WHY GOD MADE THE RADIO...

Capturing memories from afar
In my car...

This is the lead single, and quickly eliminates the question, "Do they still have it?"  Just a great summer cruising song.

ISN'T IT TIME...

Every time I think of you
All those things we used to do
Remember the nights we spent just you and I
Little did we know how the time would fly...

Like the title track, this has a co-write from Jim Peterik (Ides Of March, Survivor) and also are the only songs the boys will be doing live.  My son listened to the first verse and chorus and downloaded it to his phone.  The first part of the lp is kind of a double entendre- you can take it as the band getting back together, or that lost love from your past...

SPRING VACATION...

Spring Vacation, Good vibrations
Summer weather, We're back together
Easy money, ain't life funny
What's it to ya, Halelelujah...

The most obviously "band's back together" song on the disc.  One reviewer thinks that's a negative.  Didn't stop it from being the first one to really catch in my mind.  Brian, Mike, and Joe Thomas wrote this one, as well as co-writes on most of the songs.

THE PRIVATE LIFE OF BILL AND SUE...

California to Mexico
Everybody's just got to know
Dallas Texas to Monterrey
Wasting time on a sunny day
Santa Barbara to Jersey Shore
At the line in the grocery store
Everybody I ever knew
The Private Life Of Bill And Sue...

You'd think that a song about a fictitious reality TV show might be the dumbest on the disc.  But one listen to the chorus changes that.  Maybe musically the best on the record. 

SHELTER...

I'll give you shelter from the storm
and a house to keep you warm
I'll give you shelter through the night
and a chance to make this right...

Another song about trying to re-ignite a lost love, and probably my favorite.  The last chorus really gets me.

DAYBREAK OVER THE OCEAN...

 No cool lines to pull out here, just a tremendous "bring my baby back" chorus from Mike and his kids, 46-year-old Hayleigh and 44-year-old Christian.  Written and sung by Mike, it was originally done on both of his solo lps- neither of which got released for some stupid reason.

BEACES IN MY MIND...

Here the lp begins its turn from uptempo "let's get back together" to a more somber, "it won't come true" theme.  Big drums from John Cowsill.

STRANGE WORLD...

Multi-colorful lives we run
to catch a glimpse of the setting sun...

An ode to the people who just don't fit in... except with each other.

THE HIDDEN SUITE:
1. FROM THERE TO BACK AGAIN

You've been thinking 'bout some things we used to do
Thinking 'bout when life was still in front of you...

2. PACIFIC COAST HIGHWAY

My life, I'm better off alone
My life, I'm better on my own...

3. SUMMER'S GONE

Summer's gone
It's finally sinking in
One day begins
another ends
I live them all and back again...

Originally this was going to be a six-song suite, but was cut to these three.  We're not young any more, we can't find what we once were so long ago.  Summer's Gone was at first intended by Brian as the last song on the last Beach Boys album... Now he's not so sure this is the end.  It was written in 1998 with some crucial help from a visiting Jon Bon Jovi, who termed the song "Brian's 'My Way' ", which is as good a way to put it as any.

The lp starts with the dream of making what was once, a long time ago, new again.  It ends with the realization that sunsets, summers, loves, and lives all come to an end eventually.  If you are my age, this is a very hit-home record.  If you are a fan of Pet Sounds and Smile, this will be an instant classic for you.  If you just long to hear music- real music- once again, you'll enjoy it.

I'm not a big fan of Doonesbury, but I remember a few years back, one of the characters was dying in a hospital bed.  Another came in and played Pet Sounds for him.  He told her, "That's not a record, it's our lives!"  That's Why God Made The Radio is the other end of our lives.

Summer's gone
I'm gonna sit and watch the waves
We laugh, we cry,
We live, then die
And dream about our yesterday....

Prelude to time machine

I woke up at 4 this a.m.- about 30 minutes ago- and couldn't get to sleep. Whether a symptom of or a defense against, I began thinking about the year of our time machine 1976 and all the things that were happening or about to happen in my life. And the more I remembered, I began to wonder how I would have gotten through without the music.

This was the year I began to transition from the safe haven of Ron Gregory and WOWO to the exotic and dangerous territory of WMEE. Hence my first real tastes of the Rolling Stones and Led Zep, and songs like the Isley's Fight The Power. We were just coming off the trauma of the mid-year replacement in 8th grade of Mr. Walker with Mr. Stork- a replacement we had caused and felt horrible about. A trauma that was mitigated somewhat by the fact that ol' Stork was a decent enough chap for a mildly-repentant hippie. This was the season in which I learned to cuss- unfortunately- and got my first inklings about the nature of sex, and of love beyond the grade school crush of the month.

The safe haven of life in a tiny Catholic school was soon to end forever, an ending I've never truly gotten over in my heart. Soon I would be facing not only the new experience of high school and having to find basically a whole new field of friends (and vastly different relationships with those who remained), but doing in it in an environment where the population of one classroom was close to the size of four GRADES at my old school. I would not only be facing malicious bullying for the first time, but also religious prejudice, which absolutely took me off guard.

I would be facing this in a new framework personally. A lifelong two-handsful of warts would evaporate almost overnight because ( I swear to God this worked) I cut a potato in two, rubbed it on the damned things, and threw it backwards over my shoulder, never seeing where it landed. That was the good side.

The bad side was that I was just months away from my mom's tearful announcement that she had Leukemia and her swift and painful rush to death just weeks before I started high school. Not only was I facing figuring out how one lived without a mother, but I was doing it while taking up her position as the victim of my dad's emotional bullying when drunk. At least this was a transition in the fact that I had been getting more of it anyway as I got older. But now I was getting it all, not to mention the guilt and grief dad felt over mom's passing plus his own very sober and very real trauma of having to be a dad learning to raise a son alone, a son who was learning how to be a father's child alone. It was not a fun time between us.

Mom's death changed the whole structure of our family. The days of Thanksgivings and Christmases with the whole family together vanished in a eyeblink. Rumblings started over doc's treatment of mom and over who got what. And the house got a lot quieter. My faith had begun to change as well, the result of getting a New Testament from the Gideons and actually getting to read a Bible for myself for the first time instead of the pre-digested pieces that Church and school had taught me all my life. Things like Mary, the rosary, confession, purgatory, and most important, salvation came into question. If God gave us the Bible, why wasn't the Bible the last word?

I met my oldest friend this year, the one I mentioned on last night's post, along with her brother. This family became a HUGE part of the transitions going on. We would go on to become the core of our high-school "clique"- the clique that encompassed all those who could never fit into any other clique. This group, and my appointment as the "official" joke-teller to the seniors, were all that bought me survival through my freshmen year.

Did I mention I became a freshman that year? That encompasses all the teenage angst at its genesis, all that "life or death" crap we went through back then, never knowing better until we were too old to do anything about it. Jobs, careers, college, all became part of the worry-set this year. And to top it all off, the two true loves of my life, the Oakland Athletics and the Miami Dolphins, were beginning their own transitions. The A's were about to go from three time world series champs and 5 time division winners to a club that needed good luck and a stiff breeze at their backs to avoid 100 losses every year. The Dolphins would soon have their first losing season in the NFL- something that had been unthinkable for 6 years now.

If anything caused my hatred of change, this year was it. And the only sane and good thing I could wrap around me was the music. And as we shall see, even it was changing. A year like the summer of '75 would never come again. As Don Henley would later sing, this was the end of the innocence. I sometime get crap over on bestalbumsever.com for my top 50 list. Why do you not have any new stuff? How do you explain to a 20-something that it's because these are the years you LIVED through?

First thing I remember was askin' papa, "Why?",

For there were many things I didn't know.

And Daddy always smiled; took me by the hand,

Sayin', "Someday you'll understand."

Well, I'm here to tell you now each and ev'ry mother's son

You better learn it fast; you better learn it young,

'Cause, "Someday" Never Comes.

The circle

The last few weeks something has been gnawing at me, and I've not told anyone. Sometimes a thing like this bugs you and you think it silly or petty, or believe no one will understand, or they'll take it the wrong way, or that puttting it to words will give it a reality it doesn't already have. But I'm going to go ahead and try to explain it now. Understand, this is not something that is depressing me, or making it impossible to function or unable to deal or what have you. It is more on the lines of a feeling of resignation.

When we're born (in my theory), we are at the bottom of a huge circle- a circle of life. Immediately, we begin crawling uphill. At first, we do not take note that the horizon we are moving toward is constantly moving away. But in our teen years, as we approach the far right side of the circle, we become acutely aware that a) our life is upside down, b) we can't see where we are going to be, and c) we are constantly going uphill. It is the hardest part of the circle, and the easiest to jump off of through suicide, drugs, etc.

Eventually, though, we round that corner at young adulthood and while we're still going uphill, at least our feet are underneath us; and while we can still only see to our horizon, we now have a grasp of the concept and move forward accordingly, realizing that we have (some) control over what we build and accomplish along the way. Also, as things slip below the horizon behind us, older memories and events take on less and less importance for us.

In the meantime, when we are born, we have this long arc of potential, running the other direction along the circle. Like a gas tank from God, it starts out full. But as we move one way through life, it burns up the other way like a fuse in a Bugs Bunny cartoon. Our choices, our circumstances, our mistakes, and the time we take to reach each place on our side of the circle effects how fast the fuse burns. But it always burns, and it burns towards us.

Then you approach the top of the circle. And no matter how full your life has been or how many years it takes to get there, you'll come to a day when you start to see the smoke from that smouldering fuse, smell it a ways off like the burning of autumn leaves. And at that point, you know that the goals and the things you hoped were still over the horizon- another marriage, a house on the lake, the great American novel you've tried to write- that they just aren't there. That what you have is what you'll get and who you are is who you'll be. This is where I am- seeing the things that I consider the "good old days" slipping out of reach, and seeing that smouldering fuse before me. Always before in life, you never had to accept that, and now you have no other choice.

One of the great comic book arcs of all time was Don MacGregor and P. Craig Russel's run on Amazing Adventures- the "Killraven, war of the worlds" series. And the most beautiful comic ever written was the last issue of that series, #39, in 1976. I bring this up because within this story- titled "Mourning Prey"- is woven a poem by MacGregor that fits my feeling perfectly.

Look at it there in the night-dark marsh;
you see it,
you've seen it before.
Seen it and denied it,
denied its existance a thousand times.
All the while knowing
knowing it is there
Caterpillers in the mind,
devouring reason.
Deny it, deny it again,
and it will still be there come morning light.
One of these days, you'll just have to face it.

Look at it, out there in the sun-splashed trees;
you see it,
you've seen it before.
Though you have never Really seen it,
you acknowledge its existance
and reluctantly grant it its beauty,
and pretend to care that you know its there.
Rather butterflies than caterpillars,
banish the caterpillars.
Replace them with delicate butterflies
and delude yourself into believing you'll never face it.

Ask the question, Killraven.
No.
Are you afraid to ask the question?
Yes.
What do you fear?
The pain that comes when the question is asked; also, the answer.
But you will ask it, despite all that?
Yes.
Then ask.
Where do they go? And why?
They do not know, save that
it is meant for them.
They do not need a reason.
They are individual fliers hearing
the same call.
And you let them go?
There is no other choice.

Look at it out there in the sunsets and the dawns;
you see it,
you've seen it before.
The truth unaltered,
and one day you will have to face it.

________________________________________________

By the way, Scrappy got one back from Mr. Bunny Rabbit last night. When I openned the gate to take the trash out, our little friend was about 10 feet outside, and Scrappy took off after him before he could say, "Holy crap!" Needless to say, Scrappy was leashed and didn't catch him, but just maybe Mr. Bunny Rabbit will have a little more respect for him henceforth. This puts us at 5 bunny sightings.