remembering

September is my birth month...and as the song goes, a time to try and remember. We just remembered the victims of 9/ll, and that oddly enough was my mother's birthday. I'm glad she wasn't around to see such a thing. The handsome guy in the picture is someone I remember through his music. I wish I had known him personally. Singer/songwriter/musician Rich Mullins died too young and tragically Sept. 19th, 1997. I've been trying to write this blog for days, and just haven't been able to upload a video. But maybe that's better, because hopefully folks will look up his name and his music and listen for themselves. Rich died nine days after going into an abandoned church and recording the raw music for what would have been his final CD. The songs are remarkable. All of his songs are. They are timeless in a day when bubblegum pop and manufactured music dominates even the Christian music world. His songs are honest, sometimes complex lyrically and musically, whimsical and deeply profound, yet they speak to all of us as individuals, seekers and mature believers. And they are American in the tradition of Copeland. I wanted to include the lyrics to a favorite off of this CD which was finished, thanks to his band, the Ragamuffins. It's called "The Jesus Record".

Jesus

Jesus...they say You walked upon the water once
When You lived as all men do
Please teach me how to walk the way You did
Because I want to walk with You

Jesus...they say You taught a lame man how to dance
When he had never stood without a crutch
Here am I holding out my withered hands
And I'm just waiting to be touched

Jesus...write me into Your story...whisper it to me
And let me know I'm Yours

Jesus...they say You spoke and calmed an angry wave
That was tossed across a stormy sea
Please teach me how to listen, how to obey
Cause there's a storm inside of me

Jesus...they drove the cold nails through Your tired hands
And rolled stone to seal Your grave
Feels like the devil's rolled a stone onto my heart
Will You roll that stone away?

I feel like I know this man through his songs-and I wish there were more of them, but what Rich Mullins left behind was a musical generation finding new ways to worship. And live.