Jive Monkey Gold: Worship Writing Community Part Four

Sojourn Worship Songwriting Community, pt. 4

On August 24, Mike Cosper held a meeting for all the artists at Sojourn -- a big meeting, since Sojourn is a very artsy church. We filled the first ten rows or so of the Highland Christian Fellowship building -- poets sitting next to musicians, painters next to songwriters, film-makers next to vocalists, and so on. I found it to be exciting.

Mike issued the challenge for everyone to step their game up, not only as individuals -- not even primarily as individuals -- but as a collective unit. He wanted everyone to pick up the ball and run with it, to get together with each other, come up with new ideas on how to use the arts to glorify God and edify the church. He said he and the Sojourn elders were looking for people to take initiative and start new ventures, explore new opportunities.

This was music to my ears -- exactly what I had always wanted.

In the first three installments of this series, I've talked about several of the key players in the foundation of the writers' group -- all wonderful, talented people who had been contributing to Sojourn through music long before I came aboard. This is a good point to bring Lorie King into the story -- one of my best friends and most trusted, respected confidants. Cheryl Rupp said recently on her blog that if there were such a thing as reincarnation, then Lorie and I would have had to have been siblings in a past life. I understand what she meant.

Lorie is also an effective worship leader, one of the best singers I've ever heard, and a budding songwriter. She and I began discussing the establishment of a tightly-knit songwriting group in light of Mike's requests. Actually, Lorie had helped me assimilate into Sojourn and, regarding a songwriting group, think things through every step of the way (it was she who, after we'd met in November 2004 at the Mindy Smith show, had introduced me to Jeremy Quillo) and continues to do so. She's more than my right hand, and truthfully, if I'd never come to Sojourn she probably could have organized everything herself if she weren't so busy with all the important things she does for our community.

I always bounce ideas off of Lorie, not only to solicit advice on my thoughts, but to get her opinions on how to build the group. She even edits my own songs as soon as I can get them typed up (I wouldn't ask anyone to read my illegible scrawl), and has in fact helped me polish a few songs so much that I've given her co-writing credits just to keep things honest.

On August 26, after Lorie and I had talked for a couple of days following the meeting, I sent Mike an email entitled, "So you said to take initiative ..."

I outlined the idea of having an official songwriters' group that would, at least initially, center around an informal monthly workshop. All writers would be encouraged to attend, as well as those who would like to help in the process -- musicians, vocalists, those who had an interest in songwriting but didn't know how to begin. I thought that only an official effort by the church could get people of different personalities and stylistic backgrounds together. I wrote in part:

"We don't need all the singer-songwriters to cling together, we don't need all the expert musicians to just hang out and jam all the time, we don't need the hardcore theologians huddled up alone somewhere. We needs teams where a poet connects with an instrumental whiz, where a street-wise rock-singer who didn't even grow up in church connects with someone who's been singing p&w since preschool, we need Dylanologists who connect with hymnologists, we need space-rock afficianados talking to collectors of black spirituals ...

" ... we need to start off with a simple roundtable and invite people to share something they've written, and usher in a spirit of collaboration. Not only should we want more songwriters to develop, we should want more songwriters to work with each other. That's how we're going to really break out of molds, and not only produce better art, but become more "one" with each other .... Not that we'll ever stop writing individually -- that is the most convenient way to write, and it is a way that God frequently chooses to work through, but I think we will be pleased with what can happen if all the music makers (from writers, musicians, vocalists, and even the congregation as a whole) are on the same mission to "sing a new song" to the Lord."

Even then, I was hesitant to say, "Let me lead this." I would have been perfectly willing to simply present my ideas and have Mike, Lorie, Jeremy, Jay or someone else run with it. I got an email back from Mike on the 29th though, saying, "I’m all about this, but you need to drive it. Whatever you need to make that happen, we’ll make it happen."

Well then, it was time to crank the engine. I compiled a list of all the songwriters I knew about at Sojourn, sent them an email explaining what was about to happen, and said that the first monthly workshop would be held the second Sunday night in September. I posted the same information on www.sojourn.com in case I'd missed anyone. Lorie and Jeremy also passed the word around. I had about 10 songwriters on my list. I thought if half of them showed up for the first meeting, we'd have something solid to build on for the future.

We held that first meeting in a small room behind the baptistry of the Highland Christian Fellowship. We had six writers: Jeremy, Jay, Mike, Lorie, Rebecca Dennison, and me. I thought we got off to a good start. Jay and I each played songs we had written and solicited advice from the others. Lorie passed out lyrics that she'd come up with. Everyone offered a unique perspective, and seemed to be pleased afterwards with this initial meeting.

TO BE CONTINUED ....

Blogwatch

A. I took a half-day and just got into work. Now I don't have time to write a blog column today, and, um, neither does Rabby, I'm sure. So all my Monkey Maniacs can read the new column from my dorky little sister. She tells about her house and asks some questions about mercy and grace.

B. No one has left any comments describing the state of their souls! What, you don't think a blogthing quiz can accurately describe something like that?

Inside My Soul, Apparently

What Your Soul Really Looks Like

You are quite expressive and thoughtful. You see the world in a way that others are blind to. You are a grounded person, but you also leave room for imagination and dreams. You feet may be on the ground, but you're head is in the clouds. You see yourself with pretty objective eyes. How you view yourself is almost exactly how other people view you. Your near future is all about change, but in very small steps. The end of the journey looks far, but it's much closer than you realize. For you, love is all about caring and comfort. You couldn't fall in love with someone you didn't trust.

Inside the Room of Your Soul

Holmes, I presume?

Open to me thy heart of heart's deep core,
Or never say that I am dear to thee;
Call me not Friend, if thou keep close the door
That leads into thine inmost sympathy.

-- Oliver Wendell Holmes

Cross Promotion

Hello, Monkey Maniacs. It's me, Love Caddy B-Dawg, the Forlorn Moonpuppy. We are doing something a little different today here on Jive To The Monkey. Yesterday's events in the comments section of my "Which X-Man Are You" post were certainly cataclysmic. What went on afterwards, however, is a story of hope and renewal.

My old friend Rabby invited the antagonists, Harvey and Sebastian, on his award-winning blog "The Briar Patch" to talk about it. The first portion of this interview is up right now at Rabby's blog. I encourage all of my Monkey Maniacs to check out this blog to read the further adventure of Harvey, Sebastian, and that dastardly Camille. I may have Rabby himself on this show at a later date to give some analysis. We'll talk about what we've all learned through this ordeal, and we'll talk about the pervasiveness of violence in our society. So stay tuned to Jive To The Monkey as well as The Briar Patch for all the latest developments.

Tragedy

We here at Jive To The Monkey regret to inform you that, this afternoon, regular Jive Monkey commenter Harvey Brown was shot in the comments section of the X-Man post in a fit of jealous rage that had taken hold of Sebastian, who loves Camille.

We here at Jive To The Monkey cannot condone such violence, and will take strong measures to make sure something like this never happens again, or at least doesn't get to be common-place.

The gun, a pistol Super Soaker (TM) squirted Harvey really hard in his right eye, causing some temporary vision loss and a regretable incident involving Harvey's bladder control.

He is convalescing at home, and with your prayers, should make a full recovery.

Loving God, Loving Each Other

Dr. Tom and I both go to Sojourn Community Church in Louisville. Tom recently posted a passage on our church's web discussion board, and I gave my thoughts on it. I thought I'd share it with you Monkey Maniacs too, because I think that it can become easy for all of us to see our Christian walk only in terms of our inter-relation with God, when in fact scripture says that if we can't love each other, whom we can see, then how can we claim to love God? For you Southern Gospel lovers: there is a Gaither Vocal Band song called "Loving God, Loving Each Other," that says, in part:

Sometimes we make it harder
Than in really is --
Fill books with explanations of The Way.
When if we'd stop and listen,
And break a little bread,
We would hear the Master say,

'Loving God, loving each other,
Making music with my friends ...
Loving God, loving each other,
And the Story never ends.' "

Anyway, here is part of the church website thread:

Tom Branch
Discussion Addict
Posts: 1055
This verse really stood out the other night...I thought I would share it with everyone...tell me what the verse means to you? I'm curious to see everyone's reaction.

11 May God himself, our Father, and our Lord Jesus make it possible for us to come to you very soon.

12 And may the Lord make your love grow and overflow to each other and to everyone else, just as our love overflows toward you.

13 As a result, Christ will make your hearts strong, blameless, and holy when you stand before God our Father on that day when our Lord Jesus comes with all those who belong to him.


Bobby Gilles
Discussion Addict
Posts: 1498
Verse 13, "As a result ..." I think that is a crucial phrase. Our spirituality isn't an individual pursuit, and nor can we be considered Godly when our love is directed exclusively heaven-ward. God commands us to love each other, to go to each other, to encourage, teach, admonish, celebrate and mourn with each other.

What X-Man Are You?

You Are Cyclops

Dedicated and responsible, you will always remain loyal to your cause. You are a commanding leader - after all, you can kill someone just by looking at them. Power: force beams from your eyes

Which of the X-Men Are You?

More Miller

Thoughts from Donald Miller, "Searching For God Knows What," c. 2004:

"One writer said that what we commonly think of as love is really the desire to be loved. I know that is true for me, and it has been true for years, that often when I want somebody to like me, I am really wanting them to say that I am redeemed, that I am not a loser, that I can stay in the boat, stay in the circus, that my act redeems me.

"In this sense, as harsh as some of Jesus' words are, they are also beautiful and comforting. No more worrying about what an audience thinks, no more trying to elbow our way to the top. We have Him instead, a God who redeems our identity for us, giving us His righteousness.

"I read this painful passage in Eugene Peterson's translation of the book of Galatians the other day that sums up life in the lifeboat, life in the circus:

Gal. 5:19-21) It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time: repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; trinket gods; magic-show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided pursuits; the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community. I could go on.

"I kept thinking about all this and I wanted it all to end...

"Imagine how much a man's life would change if he trusted that he was loved by God? He could interact with the poor and not show partiality, he could love his wife easily and not expect her to redeem him, he would be slow to anger because redemption was no longer at stake, he could be wise and giving with his money because money no longer represented points, he could give up on formulaic religion, knowing that checking stuff off a spiritual to-do list was a worthless pursuit, he would have confidence and the ability to laugh at himself, and he could love people without expecting anything in return. It would be quite beautiful, really."

Here's Another:

Another poem for you today:

In Memory of W. B. Yeats
by W. H. Auden


I
He disappeared in the dead of winter:
The brooks were frozen, the airports almost deserted,
And snow disfigured the public statues;
The mercury sank in the mouth of the dying day.
What instruments we have agree
The day of his death was a dark cold day.

Far from his illness
The wolves ran on through the evergreen forests,
The peasant river was untempted by the fashionable quays;
By mourning tongues
The death of the poet was kept from his poems.

But for him it was his last afternoon as himself,
An afternoon of nurses and rumours;
The provinces of his body revolted,
The squares of his mind were empty,
Silence invaded the suburbs,
The current of his feeling failed; he became his admirers.

Now he is scattered among a hundred cities
And wholly given over to unfamiliar affections,
To find his happiness in another kind of wood
And be punished under a foreign code of conscience.
The words of a dead man
Are modified in the guts of the living.

But in the importance and noise of to-morrow
When the brokers are roaring like beasts on the floor of the Bourse,
And the poor have the sufferings to which they are fairly accustomed,
And each in the cell of himself is almost convinced of his freedom,
A few thousand will think of this day
As one thinks of a day when one did something slightly unusual.

What instruments we have agree
The day of his death was a dark cold day.



II




You were silly like us; your gift survived it all:
The parish of rich women, physical decay,
Yourself. Mad Ireland hurt you into poetry.
Now Ireland has her madness and her weather still,
For poetry makes nothing happen: it survives
In the valley of its making where executives
Would never want to tamper, flows on south
From ranches of isolation and the busy griefs,
Raw towns that we believe and die in; it survives,
A way of happening, a mouth.






III




Earth, receive an honoured guest:
William Yeats is laid to rest.
Let the Irish vessel lie
Emptied of its poetry.

In the nightmare of the dark
All the dogs of Europe bark,
And the living nations wait,
Each sequestered in its hate;

Intellectual disgrace
Stares from every human face,
And the seas of pity lie
Locked and frozen in each eye.

Follow, poet, follow right
To the bottom of the night,
With your unconstraining voice
Still persuade us to rejoice;

With the farming of a verse
Make a vineyard of the curse,
Sing of human unsuccess
In a rapture of distress;

In the deserts of the heart
Let the healing fountain start,
In the prison of his days
Teach the free man how to praise.




From Another Time by W. H. Auden, published by Random House. Copyright © 1940 W. H. Auden, renewed by The Estate of W. H. Auden.

A Little Poetry

I had intended to share a reading selection from the book I'm reading, but I left the book at home. So ... been a while since I shared a poem with you:

somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond
by e. e. cummings


somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look will easily unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands

Worship songwriting community, part three

I had tried to visit Woody (Guthrie) regularly ... Woody had been confined to Greystone Hospital in Morristown, New Jersey, and I would usually take the bus there from the Port Authority terminal, make the hour-and-a-half ride and then walk the rest of the half mile up the hill to the hospital, a gloomy and threatening granite building .... Usually I'd play him his songs during the afternoon. Sometimes he'd ask for specific ones -- "Rangers Command," "Do Re Me," "Dust Bowl Blues," "Pretty Boy Floyd," "Tom Joad," the song he'd written after seeing the movie "The Grapes of Wrath." I knew all those songs and many more.
Bob Dylan, Chronicles, vol. 1


The image of a young, pre-celebrity Bob Dylan traveling 90 minutes one way to trudge up a hill and play a few songs for his dying hero, in an asylum, is worthy of consideration. Dylan is wrongly held by many to be an archetype of the modern, unBiblical model of the artist as a recluse, a lone rebel, in need of no one, understood by no one. The truth is that not only did Dylan feel an extreme debt and amount of gratitude toward his musical forebears and mentors, but he constantly surrounded himself with others in his set, trading notes, swapping tales, helping with gigs.

After establishing the Biblical basis for creative community, stemming from the eternal trinity and existing throughout both testaments, Michael Card writes, in "Scribbling In The Sand":

Historically, the greatest periods of creativity have been the result of community. The Renaissance, that great flowering of creativity, faith, and imagination, was largely the result of the coming together of communities or schools of artists. Da Vinci, Michelangelo and practically every other artist of name was a product of a creative community or "school." In the context of such a "school," which usually centered around a single "master," the young artist would be apprenticed for a period of months or years.
In such early schools creative input was given within the context of community, that is, within a context of respect and trust. The community encouraged excellence and an aesthetic accountability. The freedom to experiment and even to fail was a vital part of the experience of every young apprentice. The image of the lonely, tormented artist came largely with the modern era.

These are the kinds of things I meditated on from the time I joined Sojourn up until the creation, this past September, of the monthly songwriting workshops. These are the kinds of things I'd been thinking about for many years previous, too, but I had no one to turn to -- no local Christian songwriting mentors or peers, really.

Several of the songwriters at Sojourn have told me similar stories -- Chad Lewis, for one. Chad has a clear, powerful dulcet voice and a minstrel's flair for telling stories through his songs. He's been writing alone now for awhile, and, like me, is glad to have fellow Christian songwriters to bounce ideas off of. I'll tell you more about a collaboration between he and I in a later edition of this series.

Jay Eubanks is another one. Jay is "Bonofied." What I mean by that is, well -- here's a tidbit from a story Dylan tells about having dinner with Bono, the lead singer of U2, in "Chronicles, vol. 1":

Spending time with Bono was like eating dinner on a train -- feels like you're moving, going somewhere. Bono's got the soul of an ancient poet ....

That's what it feels like to talk to Bonofied Jay Eubanks -- you're going somewhere. You can feel the movement, the heart of the sojourn you're taking together, the discoveries you're making and the trail-markings you're leaving together so that those who come this way later will have an easier time sticking to the path.

Anyway, Jay and I were talking recently about a great song of his that we workshopped at the last monthly group meeting. He told me how much he prefered to create in community, and to get the feedback. It's interesting to me that a good, experienced writer like Jay, who is capable of creating in a vacuum if need be, is so high on community, while lesser artists I've known cannot divest themselves of their own pride and over-protectiveness, insisting that no one can really judge their work because no one "understands" them. Such a notion does not come from a Biblical framework, it comes from pride and insecurity. The team that has assembled at Sojourn understands this.

Enough can't be said about the importance of apprenticeship. From Card:

Apprenticeship reminds us once again that creativity does not occur in a vacuum; it requires a community. From apprenticeship the community acquires new artists, artists who have been spared innumerable dead ends because a "master" has taken them in hand and passed on a wealth of experience...
Apprenticeship is discouraged in the industrial world for two reasons. First, the commercial system is based on individualism (celebrityism). Second, production schedules rarely afford the time required for someone to be nurtured in his or her craft. In the absence of community, the artist experiences a sense of aloneness and defeat.

We have a diverse crew -- folkies, rockers. Theologians, poets. Amateur hymnologists and praise chorus afficionados. Everyone brings something different to the table. We also have varying degrees of experience -- "Masters" and "pupils," you might say, but I'd argue that everyone acts in both capacities on occasion. I have learned a lot from the others. In turn, many of them have asked me to help them with various compositions, and I think I have provided good food for thought on occassion. We have writers who have been at this for years, and some who are just starting, but there is a good level of respect across the board.


I don't mean to imply that we have "arrived" though. The whole thing is still on the ground floor. And that's where I was getting to in the last installment of this series, before I took this lengthy aside to tell you some of my thoughts -- why I think creative community is so important to the church (and the Church).

Part Four will pick up chronologically with the birth of the monthly songwriting workshops, the core of our songwriting community.

Paste Top Living Songwriters

The latest issue of Paste Magazine contains their list of the Top 100 living songwriters. Here is their top 30:

30. John Prine
29. Tom Petty
28. Robbie Robertson (The Band)
27. Radiohead (Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood, Colin Greenwood, Ed O'Brien, Phil Selway)
26. R.E.M. (Peter Buck, Bill Berry, Mike Mills, Michael Stipe)
25. Chuck Berry
24. Jeff Tweedy (Wilco, Uncle Tupelo, Golden Smog, Loose Fur, etc.)
23. Elton John & Bernie Taupin
22. Lucinda Williams
21. Lou Reed (Velvet Underground)

20. Van Morrison
19. Patty Griffin
18. U2 (Bono, The Edge, Larry Mullen Jr., Adam Clayton)
17. Holland-Dozier-Holland
16. David Bowie
15. Willie Nelson
14. Stevie Wonder
13. Paul Simon
12. Mick Jagger & Keith Richards (The Rolling Stones)
11. Randy Newman

The Top 10

10. Prince
9. Joni Mitchell
8. Elvis Costello
7. Brian Wilson (The Beach Boys)
6. Leonard Cohen
5. Paul McCartney (The Beatles, Wings)
4. Tom Waits & Kathleen Brennan
3. Bruce Springsteen
2. Neil Young (Buffalo Sprinfield, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
1. Bob Dylan

A Little Something

Here's a little poetry for you. I was looking through some of my old song lyrics and came across this from last year. It's got a pretty good melody. But anyway:

Would you rest beneath an oak with me
When you really want to run?
Would you be content with a shady tree
When you'd rather feel the sun?
I would trade my shade,
I would melt away
Just to prove you are the one.
Would you rest beneath an oak with me
When you really want to run?

Would you walk one hour in the dark with me
Through the forest of despair,
'neath a blood-red moon while the hungry tune
Of a lone wolf fills the air?
I would walk alone
Miles from home
Through hell if you were there.
Would you walk one hour in the dark with me
Through the forest of despair?

Would you watch and pray so faithfully
At the spot where last I stood?
Would you hang a wreath on your door for me
Till I finally make it home?
I would bleed for you
Till the valley of
My last stand drips with blood.
Would you watch and pray so faithfully
At the spot where last I stood?

Would you take the witness stand for me
If the world calls me a shame?
Would you cling to your belief in me
If they all deny my name?
I would hang for you
In the noose -- I'd face those who
Say you're to blame.
Would you take the witness stand for me
If the world calls me a shame?

Inside The Mind And Heart Of Your's Truly

As promised, here are excerpts of the report I got when I took the Meyers-Briggs test. It turns out I am a rare type (only 2% of the population is like me, which explains ya'll thinking that I'm weird 8-) that is labeled "INFJ," which stands for Introspective Intuitive Feeling Judge. And no, it doesn't mean I have a problem with "Judge not lest ye be judged." Well, actually I DO have to make sure I don't set myself up as the Holy judge. But anyway, that's not quite what it means. But you can read all about that stuff if you want. Here are some excerpts from the report about me, along with italicized quotes from me, giving you my thoughts on some of these assessments:

INFJs may fantasize about getting revenge on those who victimize the defenseless. The concept of 'poetic justice' is appealing to the INFJ. True. The easiest example is the fact that when my childhood friend Jennifer was murdered back in '92, I fantasized for years about getting the killer. He was executed last year. It doesn't really make me feel good that he was executed, although I'm glad he's not on the streets. But yeah, I am a protective person and I do have thoughts of avenging innocent victims, although actually I've never even so much as punched anyone.

"There's something rotten in Denmark." Accurately suspicious about others' motives, INFJs are not easily led. These are the people that you can rarely fool any of the time. Though affable and sympathetic to most, INFJs are selective about their friends. Such a friendship is a symbiotic bond that transcends mere words. What a great way of describing something I've always felt in my closest relationships: "a symbiotic bond that transcends mere words." Yup. The people I love are very dear to me.

INFJs have a knack for fluency in language and facility in communication. In addition, nonverbal sensitivity enables the INFJ to know and be known by others intimately.

Writing, counseling, public service and even politics are areas where INFJs frequently find their niche. Writing? Naw ... 8-)


Introverted intuitives, INFJs enjoy a greater clarity of perception of inner, unconscious processes than all but their INTJ cousins. So don't try to fool me. I'm onto your games.


INFJs, like many other FJ types, find themselves caught between the desire to express their wealth of feelings and moral conclusions about the actions and attitudes of others, and the awareness of the consequences of unbridled candor. Some vent the attending emotions in private, to trusted allies. Such confidants are chosen with care, for INFJs are well aware of the treachery that can reside in the hearts of mortals.YUP!!! This particular combination of introverted intuition and extraverted feeling provides INFJs with the raw material from which perceptive counselors are shaped.



Sensing, however, is the weakest of the INFJ's arsenal and the most vulnerable. INFJs, like their fellow intuitives, may be so absorbed in intuitive perceiving that they become oblivious to physical reality. Unfortunately this is true. When I was a teen my mom would call the phenomenon "Bobby's world." I'd be daydreaming, writing a song or something in my head, or whatever, oblivious to the world around me. And when I ride the bus to work, I have to be very careful not to become too absorbed in the world of whatever book I'm reading, or I'll miss my stop. It happened last week, in fact. And one time about 4 years ago, I was thinking or something and I GOT ON THE WRONG BUS HOME! And of course started reading, so I didn't realize it for quite a while, when I looked out the bus window and didn't recognize where I was. I had to ride the bus all the way back to the TARC station downtown and then call someone to come pick me up. It was like 7 pm by then.


Strongly humanitarian in outlook, INFJs tend to be idealists, and because of their J preference for closure and completion, they are generally "doers" as well as dreamers. This rare combination of vision and practicality often results in INFJs taking a disproportionate amount of responsibility in the various causes to which so many of them seem to be drawn. Sometimes I can take on too much when I feel passionately about something, or when I'm helping a friend, or when I'm in love. ;-)



They are, in fact, sometimes mistaken for extroverts because they appear so outgoing and are so genuinely interested in people -- a product of the Feeling function they most readily show to the world.YES!!! Totally true. I mean, I'm not a wallflower, and I like new experiences, and I try to branch out in a purposeful manner, and I have a need to communicate as well as to entertain, so some people think I'm this big extrovert. I'm totally not. I'm happiest with my little family, small circle of good friends, significant other ... and I look forward to big planned events periodically, but there are other times when I think it's just gonna be me and my good buddy or buddies, you know, a small group, and then it turns out to be a big group and my initial thought is always, "Oh crap. Well, I WAS looking forward to this but now it's kind of gotten out of hand." It depends. When I'm in a relationship I definitely need my quality time with my girl. And even when I'm not, I need my time with my closer friends. On the contrary, INFJs are true introverts, who can only be emotionally intimate and fulfilled with a chosen few from among their long-term friends, family, or obvious "soul mates." Yup. It's funny how people have a different perception of me based upon when and where they see me. Like, I remember in school, depending on what class people shared with me, I might be described as a class clown, or a popular kid, or a ham, while in another class I might be described as a shy kid, soft-spoken, bookish. Most people who know me well though, would say that I'm shy at first but then fun when you really get to know me.


In their own way, INFJs are just as much "systems builders" as are INTJs; the difference lies in that most INFJ "systems" are founded on human beings and human values,YES, YES, YES!!! rather than information and technology. Their systems may for these reasons be conceptually "blurrier" than analogous NT ones, harder to measure in strict numerical terms, and easier to take for granted -- yet it is these same underlying reasons which make the resulting contributions to society so vital and profound.

Blogwatch

I have to give props to seminary student and fellow Sojourner Christine Hnat for this insightful blog column. She includes excerpts from Carolyn Curtis James, author of "Lost Women Of The Bible." It's an interesting look at the single Christian woman perspective, but it also goes into James' perception of what a Godly husband would want from her, and how that changed when she got married. Here is part of it, without Christine's apt comments of course:

“I played by the rules, dated only Christians, wasn’t wild or rebellious, read my Bible, prayed, and faithfully served the church. Yet, instead of building my life around a husband and children, I was on my own, protecting and providing for myself. Who was I as a woman and what was my purpose in life if I never married or had a family? Had I misread the Bible’s teaching about women or was something wrong with me?”

A decade later, she finally married:

“My husband appreciated a fine meal as much as any man. But he wanted more of me than cooking, cleaning house, and raising kids. He wanted (he says ‘needed’) the experience and knowledge I brought into our marriage. He sought and valued my interaction in his work, my counsel in decisions, and my collaboration in tackling the problems that came our way. He wanted a partner, not a dependent. Instead of rendering my career temporary, unnecessary, or possibly a threat, marriage gave my vocation, gifts, and contributions a new sense of mission.”

I think this is a great example of what a big world it is -- people think that all Godly men want the same thing, or that all Godly women want (or should want) the same thing out of marriage. And in a larger sense, this is certainly true. But how the "two-in-one" and "helpmate" stuff is played out will look differently in different relationships. It's not one-size fits all. Thought-provoking stuff.

A REAL Personality Test

Okay, so these little personality tests I've been posting are fun, and often revealing, but now I want everyone to take a REAL one that is so accurate it blows my mind. It's a free online version of the famous Meyers-Briggs test. Lorie got me to take it a few months ago -- it's pretty much gone through half of Sojourn (my church here in Louisville). Since that time I've also made several new acquaintances and my Nightriders (secret society of super hero best friends) take it, and everyone who has taken it agrees that it present a very good snap shot of who they are as a person.

There's a book, sadly out of print, that goes along with it called "Sixteen Ways To Love Your Lover." There are some other books, still in print, by the same authors that use this personality test system, but I haven't read them yet. Anyway, this "Sixteen Ways ..." book (which you could get used from amazon.com) is fascinating because it looks at all the 16 basic personality types and tells you how to understand yourself and your mate, and how to better relate. For instance, if you're a Judger and your partner is a Perceiver, or if you're an Extrovert and your partner is an Introvert, it tells you why they react a certain way when you say or do this or that, and why YOU react the way you do to them, and what you could each do to understand each other better and to make yourself better understood, etc., etc., etc. It's a very helpful book not just for lovers but friends, family members, coworkers, partners -- anyone with whom you have interpersonal communications.

Here is the link to take the test. Do it! I know most of you people. Some of you, I have your email addresses. Some of you, I know where you live. I will hound you till you take this test and tell me what you are. You can post it in the comments here or shoot me an email. And seriously, it's fun, although you're going to need to set aside 10-15 minutes to take the test.

And later on today, Monkey Maniacs, I will tell you what I scored on the test and will print excerpts from what it said about me, as well as my own comments regarding what I think of the various things said about me. If nothing else, you'll find it an interesting case study into the mind of yours truly -- Love Caddy B-Dawg, The Forlorn Moonpuppy. All I can say is, when I took this test and read the assessment, I thought, "Wow ... this thing has a more accurate assessment of me than people who have known me for years." Fascinating.

Your Love Style is Agape

You are a caring, kind, and selfless partner. Unsurprisingly, your love style is the most rare. You are willing to sacrfice your world for your sweetie. Except it doesn't really feel like sacrifice to you. For you, nothing feels better than giving to the one you love.

What's Your Love Style?

You Are Ned Flanders

A good neighbor and a devout Christian, you are a community leader. And you are called to make the world a better place, especially for left handed people. You will be remembered for: your goofy expressions - "hi-dilly, ho-dilly!" Your life philosophy: "I've done everything the Bible says - even the stuff that contradicts the other stuff!"

The Simpsons Personality Test

'Bout Time For Another Quiz

You Communicate With Your Ears

You love conversations, both as a listener and a talker. What people say is important to you, and you're often most affected by words, not actions. You love to hear complements from others. And when you're upset, you often talk to yourself. Music is very important to you. It's difficult to find you without your iPod.

How Do You Communicate?

Greatest of Institutions

And I am now listening to this week's installment of Theme Time Radio Hour with host Bob Dylan on XM satellite radio. The theme this week is "weddings," which Dylan calls the "greatest of institutions." An old swing song called "Wedding Bells," by Fred Rich, is the first song on this week's show.

"I get a lonesome feeling
When I hear those church bells chime.
Those wedding bells are breaking up
That old gang of mine."

I am wistful now. I'm in a wistful mood.

The song ends and Dylan notes that Rich died on September 8, 1956. I was born September 8, 1971. Not that I'm making anything of it -- I'm just in a wistful frame of mind, and connections -- any connections -- are intriguing to me now.

Great Derek Webb Song

Over the past couple years, the song that I've gone back and listened to more than any other is "Lover" by Derek Webb. It's such an amazing song from top to bottom. It's from his "She Must And Shall Go Free" record, the first one he made after leaving Caedmon's Call. Here are the lyrics. Enjoy:

Like a man comes to an altar
I came into this town
With the world upon my shoulders
and promises passed down
I went into the water
My father, he was pleased
I built it and I’ll tear it down
So you will be set free

But I found thieves and salesmen
Living in my father's house
I know how they got in here
and I know how to get them out
I’m turning this place over
From floor to balcony
and then just like these doves and sheep
Oh, you will be set free

I’ve always been a lover
From before I drew a breath
Some things I loved easy
and some I’ll love to death
Because love's no politician
It listens carefully

So of those who come, I can't lose one
So you will be set free

But go on and take my picture
Go on and make me up
I’ll still be your defender
You’ll be my missing son
And I’ll send out an army
Just to bring you back to me

And regardless of your brother's lies
Oh, you will be set free

I am my beloved’s
and my beloved’s mine
So you bring all your history
I’ll bring the bread and wine
and we'll have us a party
Where all drinks are on me

And as surely as the rising sun
Oh, you will be set free

c. Derek Webb

What do you think?

Same River Twice: conclusion

continued ....

He looked at Parker, Darren and Brandon, singing as if this crowd were no different than any other. Even Phil at the piano. Well, Marshall wouldn’t settle for obscurity. Not this time.

~

“He’s got the fire! He’s got the fire!” Prophet Bart shouted, waving his black leather King James Bible in the air as Marshall sprinted down the aisle, infused with the gift of unknown tongues (though if anyone were listening closely, they’d note a resemblance between Marshall’s holy speech and that of his favorite cartoon character, Speedy Gonzalez: “Ariba, ariba! Undulay, undulay, ariba!”).

These nuts are in great shape, Marshall thought, already winded on his second lap around. He had no idea what his band mates thought of this, because he couldn’t take his eyes off the tottering, stumbling, leaping congregation, not to mention those passed out on the floor, some of whom were still speaking in tongues. He nearly collided with several worshipers, but he couldn’t slow his pace because two joyous runners had caught up to him and were riding at his heels, one repeatedly shouting, “Hosanna!” while the other screamed words that sounded maybe Japanese. Marshall couldn’t slow down, couldn’t stop, and couldn’t veer out of the way. He began screaming “Stop, stop!” to no avail.

Only Prophet Bart heard him, and mistook his plea for a request to God to ease up on the blessing. “No, Lord! Pour it on him, pressed down, heaped up, and running over!” Bart shouted.

The concrete support pole that stood between the back of the sanctuary and the vestibule was … hard. Harder than a beer pitcher. And of course it had always stood there, helping hold the roof up, but Marshall had not seen it. Not until his frantic course brought him smack into it and down to the floor, where he had a religious experience of his own. A long, dark tunnel, a bright light at the end, and a bearded man with a shepherd staff up ahead, waving Marshall off and commanding, “Go back. Go back. And straighten up.”

So Marshall turned around and journeyed long and far through the dark tunnel. When he could march no more, the tunnel vanished and he found himself staring up from a hospital bed into the amused, grizzled face of his neighbor, Carl.

~

And that is how Marshall Jameson came to be a fine Christian example, though ever an outspoken critic of the Pentecostal experience. He lost his place in the Ohio River Boys quartet to Buddy Jack Finkelstein, who went back to “Ben” after laying his burdens at Jesus’ feet. All Marshall said when Carl broke the news to him was, “But he’s Jewish.”

“Same as Jesus, son,” Carl had said.

Marshall now leads young children in Bible songs at the Same River Community Church. All the mothers rave about his ministry, though a few were appalled when he rewrote “Jesus Loves The Little Children” for the upcoming pageant:

Jesus even loves the bald ‘uns.
Folks who’ve lost their hair, like me.
He don’t care about our domes
If we’ve made our hearts his home;
Hairy folks are hell-bound if they disagree.

But one new convert loved it. A nice, single girl who said Marshall has an “amazing gift.” Her name is Jenny Lou Murphy, and she’s agreed to go with Marshall to the church hayride this coming Saturday.

THE END

Today Is The Day

Today's the day, Monkey Maniacs, for the conclusion of "Same River Twice." Look here later this afternoon.

Here's something from Donald Miller's "Searching For God Knows What." He's been thinking about what would happen if he were an alien, come to observe our species -- what he would think. This is the note he guesses he'd write to his fellow aliens when he went back home:

"Humans, as a species, are constantly, and in every way, comparing themselves to one another, which, given the brief nature of their existence, seems an oddity and, for that matter, a waste. Nevertheless, this is the driving influence behind every human's social development, their emotional health and sense of joy, and, sadly, their greatest tragedies. It is as though something that helped them function and live well has gone missing, and they are pining for that missing thing in all sorts of odd methods, none of which are working. The greater tragedy is that very few people understand they have the disease. This seems strange as well because it is obvious. To be sure, it is killing them, and yet sustaining their social and economic systems. They are an entirely beautiful people with a terrible problem."

Miller goes on to imagine what this alien would think if he were to visit with Miller and his friend Grant while they were watching a basketball game on TV:

" 'Why do they do that?' the alien might say. 'It's a game, a competition,' Grant and I would answer. 'But why? Why do they play the game? What are they trying to decide?'

" 'They are trying to decide who is the better basketball team,' Grant and I would say. 'The better basketball team?' the alien might question, wondering out loud why twenty thousand people would show up to find out which basketball team was better than the other.

"Feeling a little judged, Grant and I might change the channel to find that new show on E! called 'Rank,' the show that ranks people from best to worst, based on some random criteria. The episode might count down to who is the most eligible bachelor, who is the hottest couple, who has the best boobs, best eyes, best smile, whatever. Then ... we might turn the channel to that show 'Survivor,' and then over to "The Bachelor,' ...

" 'You guys,' the alien might say, 'you are obsessed. You have to wear a certain kind of clothes, drive a certain car, speak a certain way, live in a certain neighborhood, whatever, all of it so you can be higher on an invisible hierarchy ... You are trying to feel right by comparing yourselves to others ...' "

Same River Twice, part six

continued from Friday, June 16, 2006

Ten days later Marshall slapped Old Spice on his freshly shaven face, laced up his red silk tie and otherwise prepared for his first gospel concert. Parker had decided to debut him at a small church. Place called the Upper Room Hallelujah Apostolic Heavenly Fire Holiness Last Days Tabernacle. A wooden mission on Fifth Street. Seated about seventy-five. The Ohio River Boys were to be the first group from outside the “Pentecostal Experience,” whatever that was, to perform at their monthly hymn sing. “Should be a lively crowd,” Parker had said.

~

Lively indeed. Incredible buzz, even with the building only two-thirds full. “Only the faithful,” said Prophet Bart, founder, pastor, music minister, and groundskeeper of the Tabernacle. His skinny five-and-a-half-foot frame radiated more something, maybe call it power, than Marshall had hitherto known. Enough that it scared him, so he hid in a bathroom behind the baptistery until Bart began the service, quickly whipping his flock into a frenzy that rivaled those Marshall had witnessed in his heavy metal, mosh pit days, without the Lord of Darkness makeup, body-piercings and drugs. These people -- these plain-dressing, no frills, middle-aged to elderly people, didn’t need drugs to go bonkers. Parker had to nudge Marshall onto the pulpit when the time came to open their set with “I’ll Fly Away,” sans the head-rubbing lyrics.

A passel of elderly women with beehive hairdos danced circles around each other ten feet from where Marshall, white knuckles gripping his microphone, sang. Behind the women, row after row of “glory” shouting, hallelujah, get-on-down-the-road, pew-jumping, sin-denouncing, activity provided Marshall with his first glimpse of the Pentecostal experience. His fellow Baptist singers kept cool, opening their mouths wide, smiling as they sang, just like in practice. They moved from song to song, occasionally exhorting the revelers, who needed no encouragement, to “give Jesus a great big hand-clap of praise” in between songs.

Marshall saw his latest chance evaporating, the latest river changing under his feet. No gentle hymn sings, no Family Fun Nights or Afternoon-Singing-and-Dinner-On-The-Ground where regular old God-fearing Americans would gather at his feet and applaud him as he sang simple songs of faith. Instead, this, this … carnage.

Two men in the back began running laps around the sanctuary as they screamed praises. R-u-n-n-i-n-g. Two more men and a lady with hair to her knees joined in. They wove in and out of clusters of hand-waving, dancing worshipers, yet none collided. Half of these wackos had their eyes closed. How were they not colliding?

And all the babbling! Fifteen, twenty people shouting in some unidentifiable language. Marshall had heard of speaking in tongues, much like he’d heard of people walking on hot coals or resting on beds of nails, yet here they were in front of him, including a couple of the pew-jumping lap-runners, twisting, leaping, pivoting miraculously to avoid trampling stationery worshipers and a few others who had collapsed, “slain in the Spirit,” in heaps on the hardwood floor.

“Get on key,” Parker hissed in between the chorus and the second verse of “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.” Marshall tried, but what did it matter? The Ohio River Boys had become irrelevant, standing like bean poles while the earth all around shook with Holy Ghost thunder. Irrelevant as always, Marshall thought. Marginalized in his first concert. Might as well be singing “How Much Is That Doggie In The Window.”

He looked at Parker, Darren and Brandon, singing as if this crowd were no different than any other. Even Phil at the piano. Well, Marshall wouldn’t settle for obscurity. Not this time.

~

“He’s got the fire! He’s got the fire!” Prophet Bart shouted, waving his black leather King James Bible in the air as Marshall sprinted down the aisle,

to be continued

Back Into The Swing Of Things

Look here at Jive To The Monkey later today for the next installment in the short story "Same River Twice." I'll have it up sometime mid-afternoon for all of you Monkey Maniacs.

Hope your weekend was good. I enjoyed mine for the most part. I don't typically use this blog as a diary or confessional-type of place, and I'm cognizant of the fact that literally any weird stranger can hop on a blog (oh, but not that any of you blog viewers, and particularly the commenters, are weird strangers. Weird, yes, but not really strangers. More like an e-Posse). Because of this I seldom mention my kids on this blog -- I have three wonderful little boys that I have partial custody of, with my ex-wife.

Anyway, Father's Day is typically a hard day for me (along with Thanksgiving and Christmas) because the realization that I can't be with them all the time is stronger on such a day. I'd had them over this past weekend, but it was tough, as it always is to a lesser extent, to take them back yesterday evening and drop them off with my ex, her guy, and their twin babies. It kind of put me in a funk for the rest of the evening. At least, though, I got to partake in a "No Direction Home" party with some friends. We finished up what we'd started a couple weeks ago, this time watching the second of two discs in the Scorcese-directed DVD documentary of Bob Dylan's early performing years, "No Direction Home." We had pizza too, which of course is always a good thing. So that was better than staying home and moping by myself, though I probably wasn't that great a conversationalist at the party.

Oh, and kudos go out to Mr. Tom Branch. He has now confessed to being the characters "Butterfinger" and "Milli" last week in the comment section of this blog. Good one Tom. You weren't fooling me on "Milli" although it took me a while to realize which person was doing it (your movie comment was a giveaway) but I had no idea who Butterfinger was. If I hadn't already named you a Monkey Maniac of the Day, I'd give you the award again. In fact, go ahead and take it.

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, children of all ages -- Tom Branch is the first two-time winner of the prestigious Monkey Maniac Of The Day award. I like to reward and encourage interesting blog comments, so hat's off to you, Dr. Tom.

And ya'll come back later for the next installment of "Same River Twice," to see what happens when Marshall performs with the Ohio River Boys at the Upper Room Hallelujah Apostolic Heavenly Fire Holiness Last Days Tabernacle.

Happy Fathers' Day, Dad

FATHER'S DAY QUOTES

He didn't tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it. ~Clarence Budington Kelland


My father used to play with my brother and me in the yard. Mother would come out and say, "You're tearing up the grass." "We're not raising grass," Dad would reply. "We're raising boys." ~Harmon Killebrew


One father is more than a hundred Schoolemasters. ~George Herbert, Outlandish Proverbs, 1640


Fatherhood is pretending the present you love most is soap-on-a-rope. ~Bill Cosby


Father! - to God himself we cannot give a holier name. ~William Wordsworth


Henry James once defined life as that predicament which precedes death, and certainly nobody owes you a debt of honor or gratitude for getting him into that predicament. But a child does owe his father a debt, if Dad, having gotten him into this peck of trouble, takes off his coat and buckles down to the job of showing his son how best to crash through it. ~Clarence Budington Kelland


A father is always making his baby into a little woman. And when she is a woman he turns her back again. ~Enid Bagnold


It is not flesh and blood but the heart which makes us fathers and sons. ~Johann Schiller


A father carries pictures where his money used to be. ~Author Unknown


Blessed indeed is the man who hears many gentle voices call him father! ~Lydia M. Child, Philothea: A Romance, 1836


When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years. ~Mark Twain, "Old Times on the Mississippi" Atlantic Monthly, 1874


Old as she was, she still missed her daddy sometimes. ~Gloria Naylor


There's something like a line of gold thread running through a man's words when he talks to his daughter, and gradually over the years it gets to be long enough for you to pick up in your hands and weave into a cloth that feels like love itself. ~John Gregory Brown, Decorations in a Ruined Cemetery, 1994


It kills you to see them grow up. But I guess it would kill you quicker if they didn't. ~Barbara Kingsolver, Animal Dreams


It would seem that something which means poverty, disorder and violence every single day should be avoided entirely, but the desire to beget children is a natural urge. ~Phyllis Diller


Are we not like two volumes of one book? ~Marceline Desbordes-Valmore


Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body. ~Elizabeth Stone


Never raise your hand to your kids. It leaves your groin unprotected. ~Red Buttons


I don't care how poor a man is; if he has family, he's rich. ~M*A*S*H, Colonel Potter


There's one sad truth in life I've found
While journeying east and west -
The only folks we really wound
Are those we love the best.
We flatter those we scarcely know,
We please the fleeting guest,
And deal full many a thoughtless blow
To those who love us best.
~Ella Wheeler Wilcox


Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all out, just as they are, chaff and grain together, certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness blow the rest away. ~Dinah Craik


Sherman made the terrible discovery that men make about their fathers sooner or later... that the man before him was not an aging father but a boy, a boy much like himself, a boy who grew up and had a child of his own and, as best he could, out of a sense of duty and, perhaps love, adopted a role called Being a Father so that his child would have something mythical and infinitely important: a Protector, who would keep a lid on all the chaotic and catastrophic possibilities of life. ~Tom Wolfe, The Bonfire of the Vanities


Spread the diaper in the position of the diamond with you at bat. Then fold second base down to home and set the baby on the pitcher's mound. Put first base and third together, bring up home plate and pin the three together. Of course, in case of rain, you gotta call the game and start all over again. ~Jimmy Piersal, on how to diaper a baby, 1968

Jive Monkey Gold: Sojourn Worship Writing, Part Two

We'll return to the story, "Same River Twice" on Monday. Now here's a repeat of Part 2 of the Sojourn Songwriting articles:

Sojourn Worship Songwriting Community, pt. 2

At a Mindy Smith concert in Headliners, I met a couple people who had participated on that old songwriting thread. From there I ended up meeting several others, including two of Sojourn's main songwriters, Jeremy Quillo and Rebecca Dennison.

Everyone I talked to remembered the thread and was still favorably disposed to the idea of a forum or regular series of meetings. No one wanted to facilitate, however. In general, everyone was already spread too thin, either having recently gotten married, started a family, gone back to school, or any number of responsibilities. A couple people even said, informally, "Why don't you start something up?"

I was loathe to jump right in, though. My own personality has been slightly distrustful of, and cautious around, newcomers who immediately swoop into a business, church, or social group and start changing things around. I believe in "look before you leap." A person should quietly lay the groundwork, forge relationships, and prove himself. At the very least he should prove he isn't going to be a flash in the pan; here today, gone tomorrow.

Also, my marriage had just ended a few months previous. I was still reeling from that, and I was hesitant to overextend myself or even to put myself forward as a model/ leader of anything. I needed to ground myself in solid Biblical teaching and relationships like never before, and pray for the Lord to lead me in whatever way I should go. Shortly before the divorce, I had started attending a Bible college with hopes of eventually entering into the preaching ministry. After the divorce I clearly heard God say, "I'm not going to let you go that route, but I have other ways in which I would like you to impact the Church and the culture if you'll humble yourself, let Me renew and restore you, and not run ahead of My plans."

So with these things in mind I put the idea of an official songwriting community on the backburner. I did pitch the idea to a couple more people at Sojourn, always hoping that someone else would say, "That's a great idea. I'll take control." What I always heard was, "That's a great idea. You should do something about it."

I continued to work on my own songs. I'd grown up in church, but we never did what you'd call "worship songs" or "praise choruses." Not even psalms set to new music. We did hymns, gospel standards, and newer examples of what Harold Best calls "witness music," music designed to talk about what God has done in the singer's personal life. Think about the kind of music you hear on Christian radio (although much of it is substandard) and you'll get the idea. It's not exactly the same lyric style as worship writing, so I had to struggle to understand what makes a good worship song. Jeremy Quillo was especially helpful to me in this regard.

I eventually met with Mike Cosper, Worship Arts Director at Sojourn, to play some of my songs for him and get an idea of where I stood developmentally, and where I might fit in as a songwriter. I didn't really want to be a worship leader, in front of people -- again, partly because of having recently gone through a divorce, but also in large part because Sojourn already has so many singers -- great singers, at that. I believe in the saying, "If you've got two people doing the exact same thing, then one of them isn't necessary." So I told Mike that, although I have led worship before, I'm really most interested in working behind the scenes as a writer.

He listened to several songs, had some comments. He liked some better than others. Didn't think any of them were bad, but a couple stood out as being more "ready" than the rest. And actually, the last song I played him turned out to be the one that got him excited.

I almost didn't share it, because it was a bluegrass-infused tune. Everyone knows that bluegrass isn't a very popular sound in the modern Church. I just took a chance in playing it because Sojourn has a reputation for musical pluralism and eclecticism, which I'm sure is due in part to Mike's leadership -- or is at least encouraged in this regard through Mike's leadership. Plus, I liked the lyrics, which are based in large part on the Athanasian Creed -- a forceful statement of the doctrine of the trinity. And I figured, "What the heck. I'll just throw everything on the wall and see what sticks." The song was called "One Almighty God." Mike asked me to develop the verses a little more, which I did, and then he asked for a copy of it so one of his worship leaders could learn it for performance at a later time.

Jeremy helped me develop some other songs a few months later. I was still writing -- some worship songs, some ... not. I never know what to call it. I know the easiest way is to say "secular songs," but the whole sacred/ secular dichotomy has become ridiculous. Anyway, I was still writing, but still yearning for a close-knit community of writers who would share, collaborate, encourage, and advise. One of Sojourn's essential beliefs is that we were created for community. I believe artists should be in community with other artists. This is, in general, the feeling among the artists I've talked with at Sojourn, but again, no one felt the specific call to spearhead a songwriting fellowship at this time.

TO BE CONTINUED

Same River Twice, part five

continued from previos post ....

Still, he mastered the songs and formed friendships with Darren, Brandon, and Phil, though occasionally he heard “pinhead” under someone’s breath, followed by dopey grins and stifled chuckles. And they kept glossing over his songwriting prowess. Like after the first time he witnessed their performance, before he’d learned enough to join in. He’d sat enthralled on the front pew of the Sunny Face Christian Church, relishing the crowd response to his group. Two hundred clean-cut, smiling parishioners clapping, singing along, sometimes holding hands … the perfect fans: responsive enough to make it fun for the entertainers; reserved enough that no one was going to get thwacked on the head with anything just for staring at someone like a Jenny Lou Murphy.

Later, Marshall and his partners crowded into a booth at Shoney’s. “I been getting some ideas how to liven things up on some of them old standards we do,” he said.

Raised eyebrows. Maybe a hushed “pinhead.” Parker hardly moved his mouth as he said, “What do you mean,” as low as his Irish tenor voice box would allow.

“Just kinda fine-tune some of the lyrics. Nothing big.”

Phil -- slick-haired, pointy-nosed Phil, most likely the source of the “pinhead” taunts, said, “You got a sample there, sport?”

Marshall knew the suspense value of hesitation. He cut out a square waffle bite with his fork, swirled it in some maple syrup, and chewed it good and plenty before swallowing. Then, with everyone awaiting his response, he said, “Like on ‘I’ll Fly Away,’ where we sing:

When I die, hallelujah by and by …

we change it to:

When I’m dead, God will rub my weary head.

Silence. Several beats. Parker scratched his chin, said, “Mmmm,” and thought a while longer. Then said, “I’m not sure of the theological implications there, Marshall. God being some kind of head-rubber.”

“I do love a good head-rub,” Darren said.

“Some do,” replied Parker. “Some do. In fact-a-business, a lot do. I can see where half the congregation down at Your Move Baptist would like it, but the other half? We’d probably split right down the middle, with the half in favor of Marshall’s lyrics splintering off, forming a rival church.”

Phil said, “Likely call themselves the ‘Head-Rubbing Baptists’ or something.”

Parker said, “I don’t think the world needs one more Baptist sect. What we need is a unity of believers. Those lyrics -- no getting around it: they’re divisive.”

“Inflammatory,” Phil added.

Marshall felt tears well up inside. “I don’t mean to bring division to the Body of Christ.”

“No, no. Of course you don’t,” Darren said.

“Let’s just forget about it,” Parker said.

“It’s for the best,” Brandon said.

They let it go, and Marshall felt for the first time the grace of his singing brethren.

Ten days later Marshall slapped Old Spice on his freshly shaven face, laced up his red silk tie and otherwise prepared for his first gospel concert. Parker had decided to debut him at a small church. Place called the Upper Room Hallelujah Apostolic Heavenly Fire Holiness Last Days Tabernacle ...

To Be Continued ....

Same River Twice, part 4

... so when he met Parker, Darren, Brandon and Phil (the pianist) he shook hands with the confidence that he was destined for the second tenor role with the Ohio River Boys.

Reality is a terrible thing. And so, thought Marshall, is Parker Sanders. The portly, Old Spice-smelling tenor hissed at Marshall after nearly every bar of every song during the hour-long tryout, which consisted mainly of hymns and old revival meeting sing-a-longs. Hissed at him to find his part, enunciate, straighten his posture, breathe, pay attention to the other parts, stop singing from his throat, stop singing through his nose, project … the tyrant had Marshall wishing he were back at Earl’s, enduring taunts, stopping flying pitchers with his head, and making eyes at Jenny Lou when not unconscious due to said flying pitcher. At least then, when not unconscious due to said flying pitcher, he could slur his words and breathe whenever he wanted.

Still, he craved this spot. The Ohio River Boys rocked. Their three voices sounded like twenty. They soared high, plunged low, and blazed forward on toe-tappers, then lullabied through peaceful hymns. Marshall had to get a piece of this action. To find himself on stage with an appreciative, sober, worshipful audience. And if they weren’t worshiping him per se, well, it’s not like the object of their praise would come down to claim it.

Not knowing that Parker would have hissed at King David himself during an audition, Marshall held little hope when they shut him out in the hall so they could vote. The minutes crept and the decibel level inside the choir room rose to combative levels. He pressed his ear to the door in time to hear something about “crazy Uncle Carl” and then either Brandon or Phil say “that pinhead.”

He jerked his ear away. “Me,” he thought. “Are they calling me a pinhead?”

Before he could eavesdrop again, Parker opened the door. “You’re in,” he said. “You need a lot of practice and a vocal strengthening regimen. And memorize our songs real quick-like. We hate singing trio.”

Marshall referred to the next few weeks as “vocal boot camp,” a period of unlearning the sloppy habits he’d developed in other styles and learning patience, because he longed daily for Parker’s death. Still, he mastered the songs and formed friendships with Darren, Brandon, and Phil, though occasionally he heard “pinhead” under someone’s breath, followed by dopey grins and stifled chuckles. And they kept glossing over his songwriting prowess. Like after the first time he

TO BE CONTINUED ....

Same River Twice, part 3

CONTINUED FROM THE PREVIOUS POST ....


Marshall furrowed his brow. “I done tried to land a song on the Christian charts, Carl. Afore we met. Little rap tune.” Marshall stood and looked to the street and each neighbor’s yard. Quiet as usual.

“Now Marshall, what I mean is --“

“No Carl, I wanna do it for you. Goes like this:” He began spitting out his words, staccato, machine-gun style, gesturing and gyrating, slightly at first, then more so ….

Jesus and his posse in the market one day,
They seen a mean woman with her head spinning ‘round.
Her eyes a burning read but her lips were all grey,
Talking real evil ‘bout burning up the town.

Witness, witness, can I get a witness?
Witness, witness -- word up!

Carl wanted to interject but words failed him, so Marshall continued:

Everybody started leavin’
Cuz the girl, she had a demon,
But Jesus He said, Jesus He said, Jesus He said --

“Everybody get down with me.
I’m the smack-talking savior from Galilee.
Gonna throw down on the street,
Gonna pop this sucka till she knows she been beat.”

“MARSHALL! What the hell!”

“Just getting started, Carl.”

“No, no, no! I feel like I just seen someone set fire to a sanctuary.”

Marshall sat down and buried his face in his hands, pressing his long fingers into his bulbous, smooth head. “That’s almost exactly what they said at the record company.”

Carl took his tumbler in Marshall’s house as Marshall continued to sit in his lawn chair, face down. Carl sat the tumbler on Marshall’s kitchen sink. He remained standing and fished out a business card from his wallet. He grinned as he examined the card, then stifled a chuckle. “These poor bastards,” he said. He walked back outside and handed Marshall the card. “Now that’s the address for Parker Sanders, the leader and tenor singer of the Ohio River Boys.”

Marshall studied the card as Carl described quartet gospel music -- the high part, the low part, the two in between, all harmonizing on piano-driven songs about God, heaven, and all the fixings. Marshall tried to cut Carl off a time or two because he already knew this stuff. His grandfather had been in such a quartet years ago, and his mother had dragged him to church for the first fourteen years of his life and guilt-tripped him into two more before he’d run off to the Delta to reinvent the blues.

“Important thing is the harmony, boy. You got to know your role. And you got to project. Diaphragm singing. And lose the twang. Same thing with that raspy, breathy voice you worked up back in your coffee house singing days. You got to sing out strong. And e-nun-ci-ate.”

He droned on while Marshall thought, why not? If these Ohio River Boys check out okay, this might be his break. Think of all these born-againers, always turning up at the polls to make life rough for the abortionists and atheists and communists and all that other stuff you hear them squawking about. Why, it’s a HUGE built-in audience. Plus, he wouldn’t even have to play guitar. Be a lot easier just to sing and play at the same time. And no more lugging around the beat-up acoustic. So after Carl said his piece, Marshall sent the old goat home and called Parker to set up an audition time.

~

Marshall auditioned in the empty choir room of the Your Move Baptist Church. He’d already gone over the embarrassing stuff on the phone with high-pitched Parker, questions like “When did you get saved? Do you believe in the inerrancy of God’s holy word? Are you a proponent of clean, moral living?” Marshall hadn’t been raised in church for nothing; he knew how to handle these queries. Also his children’s choir days had taught him a few things about harmony, so when he met Parker, Darren, Brandon and Phil (the pianist) he shook hands with the confidence that he was destined for the second tenor role with the Ohio River Boys.

Reality is a terrible thing.

TO BE CONTINUED ....

Same River Twice, a short story. Part Two

Continued from the previous post ....

“That’s it,” he said the next day to his elderly, suburban neighbor Carl as they sipped tea on Marshall’s peeling front porch. “I’m done. They don’t want no new singers in country music.”

“Now Marshall, one little butt-kicking don’t mean nothing.”

“No, no, it’s not -- that may be the straw that shot the camel, but it’s more to it than that. Them old boys don’t like my songs. They don’t understand the subtlety of my lyrics -- those country fans.”

Carl chugged the remainder of his tea and started grinding the ice with his dentures, expecting Marshall to go on, but he didn’t, so Carl spit the ice back into his tumbler. “Son,” he said, “let me spell it out straight. Ever since I known you, you’ve been trying to make it in the music business. Now I seen you try folk, rock, folk rock, punk rock, reggae, disco -- ”

“Carl!”

“I said disco -- you tried it, you can’t deny it, I was there when you wrote your little ‘Disco Stalin’ song.”

“I was making a serious statement with it, is all.”

“And you been through every other kinda musical phase. Now it seems to me you need to decide who you is and who you ain’t.”

Marshall sighed and watched a couple cars zip through his quiet neighborhood. Not many cars came through, but when they did, they came fast. He said, “You know that saying, ‘You never step in the same river twice?’ Because by the time you put your foot down, it’s already different water and sediment and all?”

“I’ve heard tell.”

“That’s the music business! Every time I study the music scene, no matter what style, by the time I learn my covers and write my new stuff, make some contacts, get my wardrobe adjusted and all, everything changes. Like when I done bluegrass and it was all about newgrass -- electric fiddles and reinterpretations of Stones’ songs, mixing in some jazz riffs, you know. But by the time I got my festival gig, everyone was all into retro, earthy mountain music. Throwback bluegrass.”

“What you need is something that don’t change.”

“Least not till I’ve made my mark. I’m tired of showing up feeling like a jackass in a bull-riding competition.”

Carl studied the melting ice in his tumbler. Soon it would be too small to chomp. He stifled a subversive smile. “Know what don’t change, son? The gospel.”

“What?”

“Gospel of Jesus Christ, boy. ‘Same yesterday, today, and day after.’ You need to get you in with a gospel singing quartet. I know just the one. My nephew Darren sings baritone. The Ohio River Boys.”

Marshall furrowed his brow. “I done tried to land a song on the Christian charts, Carl. Afore we met. Little rap tune.” Marshall stood

TO BE CONTINUED

Will Marshall perform his Jesus Rap for Carl? Will he attempt to join the Ohio River Boys? Will someone knock him out again? These and other questions answered next time, in Part Three of "Same River Twice."

Same River Twice, part one

SAME RIVER TWICE -- a serialized short story by Bobby Gilles -- Part One:

SAME RIVER TWICE
2006, by Bobby Gilles

Marshall Jameson gave up on country music the night he got clocked on the head with a beer pitcher from the only less authentic redneck at Earl’s Saloon in Louisville than himself: “Buddy Jack” Finkelstein (the former “Ben” Finkelstein, through at least the large percentage of his 36 years that he’d spent as a casual acquaintance of Marshall). Buddy Jack, like Marshall, had gone country about six months ago, and had since acquired about a half dozen Wrangler jeans and shirts, a belt buckle bigger than the World Boxing Championship title belt, a coon dog and a rifle, some proficiency with the rifle but none with the dog, a cowboy hat, cowboy boots, a pickup truck, a collection of George Strait CD’s, a tackle box full of every imaginable fishing lure except one that would lure fish, and an addiction to chewing tobacco.

Buddy Jack had done it to win a bosomy redhead, Jenny Lou Murphy, but Marshall had done it to cash in on a rumored abundance of opportunities for young troubadours of the latest “New Nashville” sound. So there he stood, six foot, prematurely bald but with a certain boyish attractiveness, big-boned and freckle faced, on a creaky, dim-lit stage at Earl’s, singing an original tune halfway through his forty minute set. A piece he’d written called “My Big Ol’ Feet:”

My big ol’ feet, they want you back.
They always seem to make tracks to your door.
My desperate fingers -- they dial your number,
But my heart doesn’t want you anymore.

He’d conceived it as a love song, but then, he’d been drunk at the time, crying as the words seeped from his pen onto a page of the pocket-sized pad that housed all his song ideas. Now, sober and performing for forty or so mostly indifferent carousers, their backs to him as they swapped tales, traded jokes, flirted, squabbled, and ordered more rounds, he sensed that some might regard his lyrics with more humor than pathos. Especially the handful of drunks who were paying attention, laughing, stomping, making “foot” jokes each time he sang the chorus.

He’d have switched back to his repertoire of standards if not for the starry-eyed attention of Jenny Lou, who, though unknown to him, had entered the saloon with Buddy Jack. And if Marshall had remembered that easy-going, “aw shucks” Buddy Jack had once been hypersensitive Benjamin, he wouldn’t have crooned straight at Jenny Lou. Croon he did, though, and so halfway through the final chorus, he noticed from the corner of his eye that something unusual was airborne and on the way. A second later the lukewarm beer splattered his shirt and guitar, and in another second the plastic pitcher bonked his forehead and dropped him to the floor, where he hit his head again and lost consciousness.

TO BE CONTINUED ....

It's Story-Time, Folks

Over the next several days here on Jive To The Monkey, I will be running a serialized version of my short story "Same River Twice." Check here daily for updated episodes of this story about identitity, change, disgrace, redemption, music, division within the body of Christ, and maybe some other stuff.

Um ... that all sounds serious. And it's true but, um ... don't necessarily look for it to be a serious tone. That's all I'll say. But check back here soon, and periodically thereafter, for "Same River Twice."

Sleep Deprivation, Blown Tires, Yardsales, Swimming, Salsa, and Melodies

So I don't do very many diary-type entries on my blog, and nor shall I ever. But it's a Sunday afternoon and I'm taking a break from house work so I might as well write a little something.
Anyway, here's the score with me lately: I stayed up too late every night last week and of course had to go to work the next day bright and early, so by Friday I was feeling worn out. Thought I'd not plan anything and just turn in early. But some of my best friends were gonna watch a DVD at a little place I call Hall Hall (home of the Hall's) so I swung over there since I hadn't gotten to hang out with them in a while.
Then on the way home my right front tire blew out. Thankfully there were no cars near me, and rather than spin all over the road and maybe off of it, the car just swerved to the shoulder and sort of skidded straight down the loose gravel until I breaked. Put on my spare, went home.
But then I couldn't go straight to sleep because I was too keyed up about the tire thing, so I played guitar for a bit. Wrote a melody for a collaborator's song. Who knows if it will go over but I like it. It's meditative.
Anyway, then I had to be up early to go yard-saling with friends, so that was another night of little sleep. Had a great time walking through the yard sales and eating at Cracker Barrel, and then I was off to buy a new tire. By the time I got that taken care of, I should have gone home and taken a nap, but instead I went swimming because the weather was so much nicer than had been predicted.
Unfortunately, that meant that by the time I was supposed to go salsa dancing with my little companeros late that night, I was dog-tired. So I missed out on that but I did finally get a good, full-night's sleep. Whenever I miss a chance to do something fun with friends, though, it makes me a little depressed the next day. I haven't gone dancing for one full month so I could have used the practice and I'm sure it would have been fun.
I do have to say though, that I don't really "get" those kind of theme dancing nights. You know, like "salsa night" or "swing night." You mean we're only gonna do one kind of dance all night long? No cha cha, no waltz (those are my favorites, by the way)? But that's neither here nor there.
Anyway, I slept in this morning, did some reading, played around online, did some laundry, dishes, etc. I feel back on track now. Ready to kick a little booty down in the alley. Just kidding. But seriously, I'm back in the saddle again. I feel a song coming on or something. And I hear the new Garrison Keillor/ Robert Altman movie based on Keillor's funky radio show "Prarie Home Companion" is supposed to be great. Need to see that one soon.
And now, as my old pal Rabby would say, "I've got to get out of here."

Worship Songwriting Workshops

For the next couple of months I will take one day out of each week to reprint the story of the birth and early months of the Sojourn Worship Songwriting Workshop, beginning today. If you're in the Louisville metro area and would like to join us, please email me for more info. There's a link to my email address on the blog page. Now here is part one, as it first appeared last December:

Sojourn Worship Songwriting Community

"... I was having dinner at Johnny Cash's house outside of Nashville. There were a lot of songwriters there. Joni Mitchell, Graham Nash, Harland Howard, Kris Kristofferson ... Joe and Janette Carter ... cousins to June Carter, Johnny's wife.
After dinner, everybody sat around in the rustic living room with high wooden beams ... We sat in a circle and each songwriter would play a song and pass the guitar to the next player. Usually, there'd be comments made like, "You really nailed that one."
-- Bob Dylan, "Chronicles, vol. 1"

This is the kind of thing that I'd always wanted to be a part of: a community of songwriters. Michael Card writes about the importance of developing inner-communities of artists within the church in his "Scribbling In The Sand: Christ and Creativity." He stresses the Biblical basis and model for community, and out of that develops at outline for a structure based on constructive criticism, apprenticeship, aesthetic accountability, freedom to experiment, and unqualified acceptance.

Each of these areas has a faux counterpart in the world of commercial artistry. For instance, artistic criticism in the world usually comes after the fact, when it can't do much good. And it's usually provided by someone who doesn't know, let alone care about, the artist. The criticism isn't designed to be constructive, it's designed to tell a consumer which product to buy.

Concerning the freedom to experiment, Card writes:

"Artists must be free to try seemingly foolish things, experiments that at the outset seem doomed to failure, if for no other reason than to be able to discover ... what does not work for them. When the dust from the debacle clears, when the cacophonies stop echoing, artists need to know that their acceptance, their value as a person, has not been damaged in any way. So what, try again. The community will always be there for them."

Card then proposes the creation of a Covenant Artist Alliance that is guided by these purposes:

1. To provide a structure for genuine community.
2. To provide a covenant to which artists and their supporting resource people can commit themselves, uniting them in purpose and vision.
3. To provide a means of aesthetic accountability within the community.
4. To provide a place where apprenticeship can happen.
5. To support a speaker series and forum for the community at large.
6. To provide a retreat center for covenant members.
7. To place in community artists and resource people so the spirit of the covenant can be lived out in the day-to-day "business" of creativity.

As a long-time songwriter who was only just beginning to learn the ropes of worship songwriting, I was looking for something like this when I began going to Sojourn in the Fall of 2004. One day, while looking through old discussion threads in the Sojourn chat room, I came across a worship songwriting discussion that had begun a year previous and died out a few months before I had begun attending. It seemed like the discussion was leaning in the direction of creating this thing that I was looking for. One person, Mike Cosper, even wrote about Card's book and the Alliance. Yet the discussion thread died out in midstream. I couldn't tell if it had "went underground," if interest had waned, or what.

TO BE CONTINUED ....

How Much Do You Weigh?

You Should Weigh 205

If you weigh less than this, you either have a fast metabolism or are about to gain weight. If you weigh more than this, you may be losing a few pounds soon!

How Much Do You Weigh?

I love my XM radio

So much stuff on commercial-free satellite radio that you can't find anywhere else. I am currently listening to Boone Creeke's "Mississippi Queen" on the bluegrass station. This morning I listened to the blues station for awhile, and then the folk station. Later this afternoon I'm gonna close out my work week with some jazz. Then on the way home I think I'll listen to modern singer-songwriter stuff.

This is the livin'!

Jive Monkey Gold: Achy Breaky Heart and Jesus

True Stories #1: Achy Breaky Heart and Jesus (reprint from February 2005)

I felt like The Man. Only a year or so out of high school, and I had quickly gone from being a backup dj at a southern gospel radio station to permanent morning drive-time status, with the station's highest ratings ever, a national gospel award nomination, and ... I had recently become the music director, which meant I got to determine our play list (of course, we'll ignore the fact that, as a low-wattage, AM, religious station, we probably had less than 20,000 listeners, most of whom were old enough to be my parents or grandparents. I still thought I was cool).

Drunk with power -- oh yes, I was, though I wouldn't have admitted it then. You see, record companies routinely sent me their artist's singles, and I alone had the power to decide whether my station would play them, and if they would become hits on our chart, which would then be reported to the national charting organizations (we'll discuss the hilarious and bogus nature of "hit music charts" another day).

But on this particular day, I was about to encounter the full weight of CCM (Cheesy Christian Music). After the secretary delivered my mail, I opened up a package to receive a new single from a gospel family group (we'll call them "The Andersons"). I looked at the title of their single -- it was called "Jesus Will Heal Your Achy Breaky Heart". Yes, people this was when Billy Ray Cyrus was riding high with the ultimate country-pop aural cotton candy experience. So with the grim fascination of witnessing a train wreck, I slid the CD into my office player, wondering if they were really, really, going to do what I thought they were going to do.

They did. Loud and clear, in that already too-familiar melody:
Jesus can heal your achy breaky heart
I just want you to understand ....

Whoa boy. Two dj's ran to my office, eager to hear -- even eager to play it on the air! As a witnessing tool! I had to get rough ... and believe me, when I left the station that day, I left with the disc. Didn't want anyone to dig for it in my trash and play it on the air while the cat was away.

Two days later I got a call from "Paul" the radio promotions guy at "Morningbutter Records" in Nashville. "Did you get 'Achy Breaky Heart' yet?" he said.

"Yes," I said. "Dude, I can't play that."

"Why? It's already in the Top 10 of at least 20 other stations."

"It's corny."

"Aw, come on, man. You're in Louisville. I thought Kentucky was big on country music."

"Country, yes. But corn grows in Illinois."

We went back-and-forth, and it was a mighty tussle. Radio guys don't like to mess with record company guys -- they have the power to cut us off from all the comp tickets and freebee CD's, t-shirts, and "I love Jesus" key chains we're used to getting, not to mention access to their bands for interviews, tag lines, and other niceties. But I drew a line in the sand. Yes, I became a man.

He called me back the next month. 'Achy Breaky Heart' was already the #14 song in the national southern gospel chart -- a very impressive first-month feat on a chart that is notoriously slow and backward. But I held my ground, with the full knowledge that, no doubt, countless souls would forever reject the gospel of Jesus Christ because I, Bobby Gilles, had refused to allow "Jesus Can Heal Your Achy Breaky Heart" on my station. It still keeps me up at nights.

The next month, sanity took control. The achy breaky song had fallen to #37. A month later, it was gone from the chart, and those music directors who had been responsible for its meteoric rise were hiding in the shadows, like two people who kiss in front of a room full of people, only to discover later that they're cousins.

As an aside, let me add that, in no wise do I think that all Christian bands are a part of the Cheesy Christian Music genre, and I would also say that many southern gospel groups have a commitment to quality that far eclipses most of what is heard on secular radio. Nevertheless, "Jesus Can Heal Your Achy Breaky Heart" was not the first, and would not be the last, substandard, cheesy rip-off of a substandard, cheesy secular song, band, book, movie, or t-shirt. But it was my nemesis, and I dealt it a fatal blow, at least in Louisville. Where is Mayor Abramson with my merit badge?

Stay tuned next week for another edition of True Stories (#2 perhaps? Am I linear? Am I chronological?)

The People Have Spoken: More Tozer

Here is another excerpt from one of my favorite books, "The Pursuit Of God," by A.W. Tozer:

"Another source of burden is artificiality. I am sure that most people live in secret fear that some day they will be careless and by chance an enemy or friend will be allowed to peep into their poor, empty souls. So they are never relaxed. Bright people are tense and alert in fear that they may be trapped into saying something common or stupid ....

Advertising is largely based upon this habit of pretense. "Courses" are offered in this or that field of human learning frankly appealing to the victim's desire to shine at a party. Books are sold, clothes and cosmetics are peddled by playing continually upon this desire to appear what we are not. Artificiality is one curse that will drop away the moment we kneel at Jesus' feet and surrender ourselves to His meekness. Then we will not care what people think of us so long as God is pleased. Then what we are will be everything; what we appear will take its place far down the scale of interest for us. Apart from sin we have nothing of which to be ashamed. Only an evil desire to shine makes us want to appear other than we are."

What Kind Of Soul Are You?

You Are a Prophet Soul

You are a gentle soul, with good intentions toward everyone. Selfless and kind, you have great faith in people. Sometimes this faith can lead to disappoinment in the long run. No matter what, you deal with everything in a calm and balanced way. You are a good interpreter, very sensitive, intuitive, caring, and gentle. Concerned about the world, you are good at predicting people's feelings. A seeker of wisdom, you are a life long learner looking for purpose and meaning. You are a great thinker and communicator, but not necessarily a doer. Souls you are most compatible with: Bright Star Soul and Dreaming Soul

What Kind of Soul Are You?