We Are The Ones WE've Been Waiting For!

Nothing worth having... Comes without some kind of fight

I've started a new blog (yeah yeah yeah... I know) with the intention of expressing things from my heart in ways that I might not otherwise express them.

The name is "Bleeding Daylight" and the address is http://kickingatdarkness.blogspot.com. The title and the address come from a Bruce Cockburn song on the incomparable album "Stealing Fire" (that's the cover there over on the side). The line that I stole the title and address from is "Nothing worth having comes without some kind of fight, you've got to kick at the darkness til it bleeds daylight" from the song "Lovers in a Dangerous Time." This is a song which to me has always described the reality and the struggle of attempting to stay alive and awake in the contemporary world, especially, but not exclusively, in the U.S.

The album was released almost 25 years ago and it is perhaps even more poignant now than it was then.The first time I heard that line, sitting on my couch in San Francisco, not long after a trip to Nicaragua in the early 80s, I was knocked over and knocked out. It did, and still does, what art is meant to do; it calls us, even drives us, to our better selves.

I am hoping that Bleeding Daylight will do the same.. if not for you, at least for me.

And it is, after all... about me.

The Day The Music Died

I just heard that Larry Norman died on Sunday. I'll have more to say (and play) about him a bit later when I've had time to put together my feelings on the matter.

The thing that I find surprising at this moment is how much this has affected me, and how sad I feel. I was with Larry only a few times over a period of twenty years, but the thing that is more significant - as I reflect on him, his music, and his life - is how much his influence (particularly when I was a teenager in Arizona) affected (and/or reflected) much of what I came to believe then, and still believe now.

His ability to link life, politics, action, and faith is what became for me the vital reality of my life. It is, quite unfortunately, something which so many "Christians" on today's political scene (not to mention today's "Christian Music" scene) seem to have missed entirely.

For Larry, his God was real and vital and present, and he was one of the first people to help me understand that for myself.

I'll miss ya Larry.