DRUGS OR JESUS

My favorite album of the year has to be Tim McGraw's "Live Like You Were Dying". Its a rare thing when I find myself loving every song on a CD, but McGraw's latest CD does it for me. McGraw's is a great artist - pushing himself to new heights musically and now he's acting in films - he did a great job in last year's "Friday Night Lights". He also seems to have a very contemplative side to him.

Next week they hand out the Dove Awards at the GMA Music Awards. McGraw's song "Drugs or Jesus" is the song that should win Best Song Of The Year. Unfortunately, because of the strange way the GMA determines what is Christian music and what is not - it doesn't even qualify for a nomination.

The song starts by setting the stage: too often our world segregates us, our experience, the way we live, into "right/wrong, bad/good." We are set apart from a needed embrace.

In my hometown
Everything's still black and white
It's a long long way from wrong to right
From Sunday morning to Saturday night

The bridge of the song speaks to what connects us all - the universal desire for real acceptance. Something I here echoed everyday in my office from those within the faith and without.

Everybody wants acceptance
We all just want some proof
Everyone's just looking for the truth

The song goes on to describe what happens when we internalize the judgmental attitudes that are so prevalent among the faithful. How that turns to self-hatred and blocks our ability to experience God's love and acceptance.

My whole life
I tried to run I've tride to hide
From the stained glass windows in my mind
Refusing to let God's light shine down on me
Down on me

The bottom line for McGraw - we need compassion for ourselves and everyone else - we all want the same thing.

Everybody just wants to get high
Sit and watch a perfect world go by
We're all lookin' for love and meaning in our lives
There's not much space between us
Drugs or Jesus

Finding the connection between us all, breaks down a barrier - it opens up the skylight and lets in the light of love. We can then sing along with McGraw's closing refrain:

Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah!

Something about this song hits the heart in the right spot. Its gritty, real, and true instead of tame and correct.

Why not take a listen to "Drugs Or Jesus" and the rest of the album as well! I would love to hear what you think!

http://www.timmcgraw.com/

Much Grace,
Mark

THE LION, THE WITCH, AND THE WAR ON ART!

In the March 27th, 2005 Denver Post article titled "When Religion And Art Collide", I learned that The Westboro Baptist Church led by the Kansas pastor Fred Phelps was protesting the Arvada Center. The Arvada Center has been a fun place to take my children for many years. Uh-oh? What went wrong?

It seems that Westboro Baptist and Fred got wind that some of the Arvada Center's funding comes from the Denver based Gay & Lesbian Fund for Colorado. Fred and his crew were outraged and immediately began to plan a picket, dusted off their "God Hates Gays" banners, and headed for Arvada. Shirley Phelps-Roper had this to say about the Arvada Center, "They are about the business of enabling and promoting and assisting the homosexual agenda. That's their primary mission."

At about the same time as I read this, I recalled that my daughter had gone with her entire first grade class to the Arvada Center just a few weeks prior. How had their little innocent minds been corrupted? What filth? What heresy - had the homosexual money produced? Then I remembered.

NARNIA!

Yep, Narnia. As in the work of the great Christian icon, C.S. Lewis: The Chronicles Of Narnia. My daughter, along with every precious mind in her class, had been indoctrinated with Christianity that day. They had been forced to watch a play, full of Gospel themes, based on the classic, "The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe." And, as you would guess, loved every minute of it. Especially, Aslan, the lion and the central Christ figure in the story.

As in the case of every other clash between art and religion I have been witness to...this one was based in fear. And in this case, a fear grounded primarily in the most anti-Christian message possible: hate. Phelps-Roper went on to say, "They enable sin because they carry the big lie that God loves everyone!"

After all the hoopla, it seems clear that the real threat to my daughter was not from The Arvada Center, The Gay and Lesbian Fund of Colorado, or C.S. Lewis, but from a group of really bad actors holding signs in front of the theater.

Best,
Mark