Back in the day (about 1970 to be inexact), a poet named Gil Scott Heron wrote a poem about the black revolution that was taking place in America. The summer of love had had its day and much was happening on the home front. I have the CD of him reciting the poem to music—pre-rap mind you—and it was a real event.

There is a lot I could say about those times but I am having a hard time even finding the shift key on this keyboard—so suffice it to say—the thought occurred to me on the way home from church today about this song in relation to what is happening in Lakeland, Florida.

It is a juxtaposition for sure.

I have watched the revival in Lakeland on my computer many times. It is broadcast every evening on "God TV" from 7 pm until 10 or 11 o'clock. As many as 12 thousand people have turned out on any given night and many salvations and  healings have taken place. Many have taken this awakening back to their hometowns. And that is a good thing.

What I thought the other day is this. As it was in the early church so it will be today. Revival (the revolution) will take place in living rooms and at dinner tables throughout the land. It won't be televised, it won't be rehearsed, but it will be "real" and it will take place. I can't speak to Lakeland or Toronto or other places where the spirit of God breaks out. But I can say that in the end, it will be personal and it will take place all over the land.

What follows is Gil Scott-Heron's poem from the seventies.

Artist: Gil Scott-Heron
Song: The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

You will not be able to stay home, brother.
You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out.
You will not be able to lose yourself on skag and skip,
Skip out for beer during commercials,
Because the revolution will not be televised.

The revolution will not be televised.
The revolution will not be brought to you by Xerox
In 4 parts without commercial interruptions.
The revolution will not show you pictures of Nixon
blowing a bugle and leading a charge by John
Mitchell, General Abrams and Spiro Agnew to eat
hog maws confiscated from a Harlem sanctuary.
The revolution will not be televised.

The revolution will not be brought to you by the
Schaefer Award Theatre and will not star Natalie
Woods and Steve McQueen or Bullwinkle and Julia.
The revolution will not give your mouth sex appeal.
The revolution will not get rid of the nubs.
The revolution will not make you look five pounds
thinner, because the revolution will not be televised, Brother.

There will be no pictures of you and Willie May
pushing that shopping cart down the block on the dead run,
or trying to slide that color television into a stolen ambulance.
NBC will not be able predict the winner at 8:32
or report from 29 districts.
The revolution will not be televised.

There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down
brothers in the instant replay.
There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down
brothers in the instant replay.
There will be no pictures of Whitney Young being
run out of Harlem on a rail with a brand new process.
There will be no slow motion or still life of Roy
Wilkens strolling through Watts in a Red, Black and
Green liberation jumpsuit that he had been saving
For just the proper occasion.

Green Acres, The Beverly Hillbillies, and Hooterville
Junction will no longer be so damned relevant, and
women will not care if Dick finally gets down with
Jane on Search for Tomorrow because Black people
will be in the street looking for a brighter day.
The revolution will not be televised.

There will be no highlights on the eleven o'clock
news and no pictures of hairy armed women
liberationists and Jackie Onassis blowing her nose.
The theme song will not be written by Jim Webb,
Francis Scott Key, nor sung by Glen Campbell, Tom
Jones, Johnny Cash, Englebert Humperdink, or the Rare Earth.
The revolution will not be televised.

The revolution will not be right back after a message
bbout a white tornado, white lightning, or white people.
You will not have to worry about a dove in your
bedroom, a tiger in your tank, or the giant in your toilet bowl.
The revolution will not go better with Coke.
The revolution will not fight the germs that may cause bad breath.
The revolution will put you in the driver's seat.

The revolution will not be televised, will not be televised,
will not be televised, will not be televised.
The revolution will be no re-run brothers;
The revolution will be live.

        

Today began as one of those mornings, where the traffic I found myself in as I took my daughter to school, had me locked into a slower pace than I would have chosen for myself. It was so slow and then slower still—and as I couldn't find a way out of it—I settled back, and determined not to bump the car in front of me, watched the many drivers talking on their cell-phones, applying makeup and seemingly picking what was left of their sausage biscuit out of their teeth.

Like water finding its' own level, the motion of the morning rush to school, to work and to parts unknown was measured not so much to annoy me as it was to create a safe zone for each car that took its place in this medley of daily activity.

It is sort of like "The Long Ride" with some significant departures off the beaten path along the way. Not that I intended for any of this to take place—but I guess that is what makes life here on earth interesting and more complex than we could have ever thought or imagined.

And that is mostly the good part.

The past few weeks have been filled with much introspection and discovery about myself and those around me.

I could postulate that this part of the journey began with me reading a book that had been given to my wife by a friend of ours. The conversation went something like this: "I just read a book and I liked it so much I have ordered one for you," my wife's friend said. And sure enough, the very next day there was a package on our front porch from Amazon with a hardcover copy of "The Shack" in it. It is always fun to get a gift and even more fun to open a new highly recommended book. And two people reading the same book is a sure test to any relationship—but hey, that is why bookmarks were created in the first place.

The Shack, like any good book, takes you on a ride that you never imagined you would be taking. It is the story of a father's pain, his traveling a traumatic path for much too long and his headlong encounter with the trinity of God the Father, the Son and of course the Holy Spirit. In the process he finds a freedom that can only be described as supernatural in total essence. It is a story that can send shivers up your back and bring tears to your eyes all in the space of one or two pages or paragraphs. At the end of it all, I felt as though I had been lifted to a new height and that some cobwebs had been removed from my mind and my life.

I don't think my journey has been changed as much as my perspective about the very same journey has been transfigured somehow. Life is still lived out one footfall in front of another, but what I have the potential to do with each moment is now a bit clearer and not completely hidden behind lots of dark clouds.

Reading The Shack set the stage for what was to happen next—a weekly trip to a church about an hour from Boone where I was invited to play percussion, etc. with a praise team as a part of what is being called "The Kingdom Chronicles." My farmer friend Alan Smith is directing the Saturday evening get-together's. I say directing because it is much more than him just leading the meetings, he is much like a conductor in his approach to seeing a group of people come together and get something out of it. In addition to being a dairy farmer, Alan also oversees Stoney Point Christian Publications. Most of the stuff that has been happening in Taylorsville is available online including the music and teaching notes.

Suffice it to say, interacting with these musicians and being given total freedom to create a musical space has been invigorating and very freeing. It has somehow scratched the itch I was feeling creatively and at the same time released me from feeling as though I have to play in order to be accepted—if that makes any sense. In other words, when you get to do what you are created to do, then what you do becomes an offering instead of a point of validation—although you receive ample acceptance in the giving itself.

In the midst of all of this happening in my life, my brother, whom I had not talked with in about five years, called me out of the blue to chat and update me on his where-a-bouts.

Then my uncle from Michigan, my dad's youngest brother, called and said he would be in town and would I like for him to stop by. It had been many, many years since I had seen him as well and his visit was to play a big role in the healing process I am experiencing in my everyday life.

There is much more to say about all of this but I think I have come to the end of what I can explain in a day. Miracles of all kinds are all around us, we just have to have eyes to see them for them to become a reality in our time and space.

Enjoy your ride today.

        

I have been re-miss in my blogging duties these past few weeks and for that I ask for your understanding—there has been a lot of stuff going on and I just haven't had the time time to organize my thoughts enough and put them into words. On the other side of that—I am still trying to make sense of everything that has been happening in my life. Call it blog-block or just a time out—it essentially means the same.

On the one hand, my wife—who knows me as well as anyone—says that I am stuck in the past. And in a sense she is right—although I would beg to differ with her that I am really just using the past as a literary vehicle to move into and explain today and the future. Yet she is right. I am stuck and have been for some time.

God designed me to be a plane that flies into the heavenly realms and I have spent a lot of my life on the tarmac moving this way and that without ever making it to the runway itself. (Can You Relate?)

In the past couple of weeks, I have taken a call from my brother who I have not talked with in several years. I have been visited by my Michigan uncle and cousin who I haven't seen since the early nineties. I have also been invited to play music with a praise and worship team that I have admired for several years.

And that is just the beginning.

Having been a Christian for most of my adult life, I have come to the awareness that what seems random at the time it is happening is often a part of what might be called a "grander scheme" of things. While I can't connect every dot together to form a picture of my life and show how everything relates to one another, the feeling of destiny is often just under the surface of my day to day existence.

Life is filled with what I have termed "window of opportunity" times. These are distinct moments when we can step from one level of reality into another—from one place of being into the next life moment. Often the keys to unlocking this window or door are presented to us in a subtle way or can occur in one of those "light bulb" moments.

In all of this I am not talking about getting that car or bike or fishing pole that you have always wanted—I am mostly referring to human potential and the steps we take that lead us into becoming a person of maturity.

It is my belief at this time that we were created by God to live a life of substance and purpose and that each of us has a destiny—so to speak—built into our very DNA. A plan and purpose that only we can uniquely fulfill. We are not cookie cutter creatures that come out of the oven all looking the same but very distinct creations with the potential to become beings that interact very deeply with everyone and all that surrounds us.

Everything that we do creatively is an attempt to connect with and add meaning and comprehension to our journey here on earth. And this creativity is not just limited to the arts but includes science and math and yes, even the psychology of our everyday encounters with one another.

All this having been said—it is also my belief that we can get stuck in certain areas of personal growth and if not released can end our lives never having fully lived or reached the potential that was in our original design. Hopefully as you read these words and my attempt to explain the last few weeks of my life, you can pick up on the thoughts that are not written down—the spirit of what is being said that exists in the space between the very words themselves.

As a I alluded to earlier, we are beings that were created to fly in heavenly places and yet spend most of our time scratching around on the ground looking for food like chickens. Events in our lives that have gone unresolved have clipped our wings in a spiritual sense and when left, all piled up inside, kept us from fully being all that we were created to be.

This is sort of abstract thinking to the degree I have not given an event or moment in time to pin this all to. For the sake of clarity, lets just say that when I was a child, parts of who I was becoming stopped growing because of some external event or trauma. Fast forward to adulthood and I can only reach my full potential to the degree that these areas of wounding are healed and put behind me. I firmly believe that we are all works in progress and that God has never stopped interacting in our lives to bring us into this fully alive maturity. He knows our needs even before we ask. He knows where we have stopped up places in our innermost being and has never quit working to bring events and circumstances into our lives that will facilitate our breakthroughs. There is a plan and purpose for each of our lives and until we discover this plan we will never fly as high as we were intended to. That there are windows and doors that show up in our lives and lead us to discovery of self and one another is a gift from God to a people that were created in the very image of this self-same God.

I don't want to remain on the ground, weighed down by all the baggage that life can heap on us—crippled inside by all the hurts and wounds that I have not been willing to let go of for whatever reason. Life on this earth is short and I for one am tired of only feeling half-full.

During these trying times, I believe that for those who seek, we are being given a "heavenly" opportunity to unload all the baggage that has kept us from soaring. What we have carried around to our detriment for all these years can be unloaded in a matter of minutes if we are listening in the spiritual realm and take the time to respond. Only when we are free and living fully alive can we then take that same presence into our relationships and the lives of those around us.

        

I guess my awareness of the "Long Ride" began when I quit high school about two or three months before graduation and hitchhiked to New York City with a friend who tended toward being a little weird—but in the overall scheme of things, quite normal for the times we were living in.

I think his name was Ray and he was a little timid about going to NYC, but with my never-may-care attitude as his shield, he packed his bags and joined me on the side of the I-94 expressway for our trip to the Big Apple. We had both met a guy who was attending the high school I was in who said that he knew people in New York who would put us up and help us find our way. But that is another story for quite a different day—and perhaps not one I am really ready to take out of the vault.

Suffice it to say, I stayed in New York long after Ray headed back home to who knows what and I eventually moved on to San Francisco during what was to become the Summer of Love. It could have really been called the Summer of Music and everybody would have understood. When I arrived in Haight Ashbury, just south of the Golden Gate Park, there were hippies lined up against the stores on both sides of the street that eventually ran into the park. I remember lots of Hell's Angel types mixed in and a steady line of people going into what we called the "free clinic". This was where all the people who believed in 'free love" ended up for their penicillin shots—if you get my drift.

Several blocks away and running parallel to the street was pan-handle park, where a group calling themselves the "diggers" would cook some kind of pasta dish every night to feed the hundreds of youth who had found their way to the city. They lived in a house that was not to far from where the Grateful Dead lived and I remember eating spaghetti with the rest of the "street people" on several occasions. As was my lot, I found people who let me sleep in their houses and hang out with them—it was only later I was to realize that my heavenly father was looking out for me during these formative times.

And did I mention that I was not that far from the Straight Theater at the corner of Haight and Cole streets. This was a smaller and hippier version of the giant Fillmore auditorium more or less run by Bill Graham and the one that most people remember when they think of Frisco's music scene. The Straight saw the Grateful Dead, Country Joe and the Fish, Moby Grape, and the Jefferson Airplane perform—just to mention a few of more or less local bands that were featured. What I remember most is the light shows that filled the giant screen on the stage behind the bands. The colors would move to the sounds of the music and were really quite sophisticated in a late sixties kind of way. I think they also used strobes and black lights in addition to the colored water and oil mixes on top of an old opaque projector in the back of the room. And of course, everybody danced—if you can call bouncing up and down to the beat of the music for several hours—dancing? I remember evangelist Kenneth Copeland saying at one of his events that if the church behaved the way they should (meaning energetic dancing to the worship music) there would be no need to go to a work out center. He is probably right.

But it was really all about hanging out and enjoying the music. I always thought that they had so many concerts because they wanted to keep all the people occupied and off the streets and maybe there is a bit of ironic truth hidden in that belief—maybe not.

There were also the concerts in Golden Gate Park on the weekends which featured bands like Steve Miller and the Airplane. And the nightly jams in the Panhandle Park after a free meal at the hands of the Diggers. Not quite utopia but an attempt to find the road that led to the long ride indeed. I was seventeen and convinced that there was more to life than a job in daddies car lot after high school graduation. I was just a kid from a small town in Michigan looking for something a little more permanent and dare I say eternal. Something I could believe in and become a part of and really during those times the music held it all together—although in a loose sort of sloppy hippie way.

The plaintive cries of the Jefferson Airplane to love somebody, to Strawberry Fields and Penny Lanes; Donovan's Mellow Yellow, the Butterfield Blue's Band's, East West and the Door's Light My Fire, paved the way for Jimi Hendrick, U2 and even contemporary Christian praise and worship music. Today I listen to Misty Edwards, Joanne McFatter, Chris Tomlin, Hillsong and Morningstar music. Good music always opens up the doors of perception or leads us into a better understanding of just where it is we stand.

And yes, sometimes the rhythm even follows us on that after dinner walk with our significant other or on that long 25 mile bike ride in the country. It is always with us, just the way God told us that He would always be there as well.

From Haight Ashbury to today is not that far apart when you consider how very long eternity must really be. Enjoy your ride today and your history as well and remember that you haven't heard all the music that can be listened to yet.

        

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