Wishing We'd All Be Ready

I just learned today that Larry Norman passed away this last Sunday at 2:45am. He was 60 years old.

Larry Norman was an early hero of mine. As a high school aged Jesus person his revolutionary music encouraged me with the counter culture nature of the gospel. We appreciated how he asked "why should the devil have all the good music?". He encouraged us to pick up those guitars and keep playing those drums.

Probably his most famous song was "I wish we'd all been ready." The theology was probably not spot on but the sentiment was.

He dictated these last words to a friend several hours before he breathed his last...

(from his brother Charles website)

I feel like a prize in a box of cracker jacks with God's hand reaching down to pick me up. I have been under medical care for months. My wounds are getting bigger. I have trouble breathing. I am ready to fly home.

My brother Charles is right, I won't be here much longer. I can't do anything about it. My heart is too weak. I want to say goodbye to everyone. In the past you have generously supported me with prayer and finance and we will probably still need financial help.

My plan is to be buried in a simple pine box with some flowers inside. But still it will be costly because of funeral arrangement, transportation to the gravesite, entombment, coordination, legal papers etc. However money is not really what I need, I want to say I love you.

I'd like to push back the darkness with my bravest effort. There will be a funeral posted here on the website, in case some of you want to attend. We are not sure of the date when I will die. Goodbye, farewell, we will meet again.

Goodbye, farewell, we'll meet again
Somewhere beyond the sky.
I pray that you will stay with God
Goodbye, my friends, goodbye.

Larry

Tell me more...

I'm learning something here. I mean right here - through this blog page.

I was hesitant to write about my mundane weekend thinking no one would be interested and yet it generated 6 comments. Plus several people that commented personally in normal day to day contact so my "feedback" on that post was the most I've had so far. Not that I live for the feedback - but I like it - I like that "connected" feeling.

Now here's what I'm learning but I got to be a little more transparent to make my point. I always thought my "philosophiocal" stuff was a little more interesting, more substantial, more "earth moving", more revelational than my sharing about my weekend. But maybe people connect more with stories than with ideologies or philosophies. Hmmm...

Maybe I need to change the title of my page (and the focus) - I really don't like the it anyway. Who wants to here someone "raving" anyway.

Any suggestions? For a name I mean.

My weekend

OK - I usually don't write about the what I did - at least not very extensively. And usually it has to be somewhat extraordinary. Or sometimes I chronicle an event that has taught me a moral or life lesson. (Of course you can look over my blogging history and see I haven't real deep history in any of the aforementioned).

But - I do find it interesting when my blogging buddies post updates so here's mine from this last weekend.

I was supposed to go winter camping this weekend. Yeah a Polar Bear. I have done this in the past with my brother and brother-in-law in particular and we have some great trips in the past twenty years. But this year when it came time to go - I just couldn't do it. I just couldn't get motivated to get ready. I did go on an overnighter with Andrew and his buddies on the first part of January and I think that fixed me up for winter camping this year.

This weather this weekend would have been perfect for a winter camping trip around here. So I kept doing the would-a could-a should-a thing in my mind.

I don't like when I do that.

What I did instead of winter camping (see! I can't stop doing it) this weekend:

• Read a lot of the new Ken Follet novel "World Without End" that Eric got me for Christmas.
• Figured out some cool stuff I could do on my Blackberry after I installed a microSD card on it. I downloaded some cool podcasts and pictures and a video.
  
• Spent some time marveling how small they can make memory now! It's incredible!
  
• Packaged up my Sony CyberShot camera to send in for repair. Hopefully - it's still under warranty. Well, it is still under warranty but I'm not sure if it's warranteed against child abuse.
• Worked at the Inn on Friday.
  
• Worked at the Inn on Saturday for four hours.
• Went out with our good friends Jay and Rita for our first annual Tie1On Christmas party. (I know tie one on sounds like what we did but it's the name of Rita and Brenda's custom sewing business - They graciously treated their husbands to a great meal at the Iron Bridge Inn. I had Kentucky Bourbon Prime Rib - it was awesome.
  
• Went to New Hope on Sunday - listened to Paul preach a good message on John 14.
• Read some more Ken Follet.
• Read a little more about home brewing.
• Spent a lot of time researching "intentional communities" and co-housing projects - this idea is really fascinating to me.

I think I did some other stuff too but now I got to finish out the weekend by getting Christian to youth group, hanging out with Steve and Vicki and John and Michele and then going to Eric's soccer game.

I told you there is a Copernicus Revolution going on!

Jim Henderson, founder of Off the Map, speaks to the paradigm shift going on in our culture (and hopefully, churches) which I was trying to speak to in my thoughts/rave/post on Copernicus - Does It Really Matter? From his article...

Peter Drucker said, “Every few hundred years in Western society there occurs a sharp transformation. Within a few short decades, society rearranges itself… We are currently living through such a transformation.” Apparently, Drucker believed that we’re currently living through a cultural transformation unlike anything that has happened since the 18th Century. That would include the American Revolution, the Civil War, World Wars I and II, the atomic bomb and even the Beatles! What if there’s a Copernican Revolution going on and we don’t “see” it, what if we’re on the wrong side again?

His complete article can be found here - where he asks "Where could you take Jesus to church and not feel like you had to explain it to him?"

Another wise guy

I love this quote -

Ministry cannot be about maintenance, but it is about gathering, about embrace, about welcoming home all sorts of and conditions of people; home is a place for mother tongue, of basic soul food, of old stories told and treasured, of being at ease, known by name, belonging without qualifying for membership.

— Walter Brueggemann

Numbness

The end of the year and the beginning of a new one always puts me in a reflective mood. I feel like I go into a cave of sorts every year at this time and deeper each year I get older. (And dang, I keep getting older every year).

Numbness is the descriptor for where I'm at right now. I've got so much to be thankful for and so many good things are going on. But I feel numb.

Like when a body part goes to sleep while your just sitting there. Or you don't even have to be sitting. (I've ridden my bike before and even while working up a sweat my "seat" has gone to sleep.)

I feel like something's asleep and I've got to get up and move around or change positions to get the nerve connections back on line.

Quote from a wise guy

Boars Head Tavern has posted a great quote from Eugene Peterson:

What other church is there besides institutional? There’s nobody who doesn’t have problems with the church, because there’s sin in the church. But there’s no other place to be a Christian except the church. There’s sin in the local bank. There’s sin in the grocery stores. I really don’t understand this naïve criticism of the institution. I really don’t get it. Frederick von Hugel said the institution of the church is like the bark on the tree. There’s no life in the bark. It’s dead wood. But it protects the life of the tree within. And the tree grows and grows. If you take the bark off, it’s prone to disease, dehydration, death. So, yes, the church is dead but it protects something alive. And when you try to have a church without bark, it doesn’t last long. It disappears, gets sick, and it’s prone to all kinds of disease, heresy, and narcissism. (Eugene Peterson)