The Rainmakers - "Let My People Go Go" - ORIGINAL VIDEO - stereo HQ

This was me This is me? I remeber playing this song on the jukebox a few years ago and telling people how this was the "Gospel according to Plinth. A fine concoction of music, alcohol and humour and old time relijun (lol). Thank God my heart has been moved but it I still find the video entertaining.

Furniture - Brilliant Mind 1986 OK

I know I blog allot or Face book allot about music. It's just who I am. I think about a song I love and now with YouTube it becomes a reality. Right here right now (thanks Jesus Jones). I love music and somehow I can relate it to my world no matter what the discussion. Its a hard habit to break (Chicago). I sit in church and I am enjoying a sermon and BAM! something gets said that brings a song to my mind. I have hundreds of church bulletins sitting in a box with simple scribbles or tiny in depth paragraphs written in every open space (the Kinks). Somehow my love for pop culture is Gods gift to me for relating my life and love for my music for the masses (Depeche Mode). My last pun is what I am is what I am is whatever that mindless dribble she speaks.( Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians). Did I mention my love for the 80" movies?

raise your hands if your sure

I remember back in Byron Center Michigan when I was in the 7th grade we had a new family came to our church. They were the Stoudt family from New Era Michigan. They had 5 or 6 kids that I can remember and all ended being exceptional athletes. He was a school teacher and his wife looked like she came off the set of "A Little House On The Prairie" Kind of willowy and tired from raising 6 kids. Anyway on one Sunday evening during the hymn sing I was sitting next to mom and my brother Mike when all of a sudden Mr and Mrs Stoudt raised their right hands up toward the ceiling. I looked at my brother Mike and said "holy crap" I could just imagine that they had a box full of rattlesnakes in their basement. I'm sure there were a whole bunch of christians feeling a little uncomfortable that evening. Anyway many moons later I am in a church where raising hands up high or extending hands outward or pointing your finger upright is the norm for allot of the folks. My wife Hazel does the right hand up like she is taking an oath or else thinks she's Sitting Bull. It just makes me think. What is the right hand gesture for the right occasion or song or feeling. Is there a more worship position or a total depravity position or a hey this is what I am comfortable with position. I am sure a few friends of mine are thinking that they would like to use their hands to strangle me right now. I remember one time in our church service we were singing "Awesome God" by Michal W Smith and I raised my right hand kind of sheepishly at first and then right up straight in the air. After the service a guy came up to me and said "I saw that you are spiritual and I think you should be on our Evangelism Explosion team. I have never raised my hand again in our church. Its just all that CRC conservatism haunting me. I know that next time I think about using hand gestures in worship I will be sure!

Jacobs Ladder

Oooh Nelly I have this Huey Lewis and the News song going through my head right now. The song is "Jacobs Ladder" and I am not sure what the lyrics to the song are but I get the general idea? At least enough to get a idea flowing through my head. Earlier in my life I could relate to "I Want a New Drug" or "Working For A Living" or even now with the "The Power of Love" thanks to Hazel and Iris and Lily. I seem to have alot of struggles with God lately. Is this a struggle with God? or is it Satan getting to my head and giving me some doubts about Gods plan in my life. I am not a lamb that will sit quietly by the still waters and rest when I feel I have some issues. I do not think that this is really a bad thing. Jacob wrestled with God for a night and woke up with a sore hip. I can wrestle with God also and raise some serious questions and hopefully come out of it with more than a sore hip or a bad song running through my head.

lament

I remember back when I was in high school our church merged with another church that was having some problems. The ended up driving the their preacher away because of power struggles in the consistory and other "prominent members?" My father was the lucky man who became the pastor of the new merged church. It took about a year to realise that the power struggles were still there and my dad being the strong willed man he was sure to have conflict. This led to many miserable Sunday dinners where at some point my Mom would end up crying and my Dad would just look blankly at his plate. This created quite an impression on me as you could imagine. As soon as I went to College I barely set foot in a church for more than years. I would go once in awhile just to make my mother happy. Flash forward 30 years and I'm sitting on the Consistory of my present Church. After attending this Church for 8 years I have learned who the power brokers are and who on the current Consistory are among them. This week their were some decisions made that I really disagreed with. I voiced my opinion and was thanked by our Pastor for my concern. It was one of the areas where I really wanted to unload but I decided to keep it civil due to the nature of my concern. Getting into a character issue about a person just didn't seem to be of "good character". Who am I to judge anyone after all? The rest of this week I have been thinking about the situation. Am I a concerned member of the Consistory or am I one of the disgruntled power seekers . Are my actions making somebody else cry in their mash potatoes?.

ROCK STAR

Last night I came as close to being a rock star as I ever will become. I was sitting back in the living room relaxing after cleaning the kitchen and decided to put some music on. I pulled out the first Cars album from my 80's record collection and put it on my turn table. This is probably one of my all time favorite albums because the music is amazing and the memories that go with it are great and maybe a little scary. I know all the lyrics and started singing along with "your all I got tonight". Iris and Lily heard the music and came into the room and started dancing. As I sang along Lily climbed on my lap and just sat in my arm and listened. Iris decided to climb on my lap and clap her hands and shake her hair all over while I was still singing along. They were my two little groupies and all three of us were having fun. Another positive memory has been added to my memory for every time I hear the first Cars album!

Enlightenment

Enlightenment: the acts or means of enlightening. The state of being enlightened. What a concept. People in power fear it. People who are enlightened become empowered. It has happened All throughout history and even the church. When the common people began to read and the Bible was printed in their common language they became enlightened. WOW we actually had a reformation. A long time ago I left the church due to bad experiences as a preachers kid and that made a great excuse to party and sleep in on Sunday morning. Seven years ago I was brought back to the church through my wife and God took hold of my heart and gave me a desire to not only become a Christian again, but to become a leader. I was given the church's blessing to go to seminars on church prayer, healing, spiritual development, small group development and many more. I studied three years of Vantage Point 3 to train on how to be a great leader and lead others in the church to become enpowered and great responsible 'CHRIST LIKE' leaders themselves. I was becoming enlightened. I quickly found out that those who have positions of power and personal agendas in a church are not comfortable with enlightenment. They become uncomfortable and disguise their personal agendas as things that are best for the church. I think the crusades probably were a good example of this. Satan is a clever person.

Nothing

Saturday Hazel and I were heading downtown with the kids to go to the childrens museum and do our part to be part of the "art prize" scene. Things have been kind of tight in our budget lately and this kind of raises the stress level in our marriage. We were talking about some things we would like to do before the end of the year and after a few minutes she looks at me and says "how can we do this we have nothing". I can of took it like a left punch to chin and just drove without any comment. As we headed downtown I exited on wealthy street and took a left down division near oakes. This is a section of town where the homeless people hang out and wait for the soup kitchen to open. I pulled over to the side of the road and looked at Hazel and said. "This is what having nothing is" It was kind of rude, but I just felt it was a message I wanted to make.

A tale of 2 cakes

A few weeks ago I had the chance to go to a birthday party for a friends child. We had a very good time socializing and enjoying a nice lunch by the lake. About an hour after lunch my daughter Iris came up to me and said "daddy I want some cake". I looked over at the cake and it was sitting on the table untouched. I said "you have to wait until they cut it". The host did give each person who wanted it a cupcake and that was fine with me. About an hour later it was time to go and Iris still wanted a piece of cake. It was still uncut. I noticed a few finger streaks through it as Iris and Lily managed to get a finger into the frosting. We left and I said to my wife Hazel "I wonder what the deal was with the cake?". We decided they might be saving it for a second party and just went home happy.
A few days later it was my birthday and Hazel went down to Costco and bought one of their very delicious birthday cakes. She kind of surprised me (yeah right) by having it waiting for me as I entered a church Bible study that evening. After the Bible study the group sang "happy birthday" and we sliced the cake for the 25 or so people who wanted it. The next day I received many emails from people who said they enjoyed the cake and how they brought pieces home for their kids. It just gave me great pleasure knowing so many people enjoyed the cake.

The next week I ran into the host of the party and said "thanks for the nice lunch" She looked at me and said "your welcome". I found out later that she told Hazel how sad it was that they ended up feeding the cake to their cats and throwing out the leftover cupcakes. It was just kind of a depressing thought.

It made me realise just how special it is to share the good things in life. Our faith without works is dead. By not sharing the news of Jesus Christ and what he can do for us is kind of like having a nice cake and just letting it spoil in the fridge. The pleasure we will receive by sharing salvation with others will make the salvation we receive all that much greater. You can have your cake and eat it, but it is much sweeter to share it!