Currently Listening Only Visiting This Planet see related

One Way

Oh man, I am truly almost in tears. I am serious. Larry Norman, the guy that
was a total voice to his generation during the late 60s and 70s died today. He
was the guy that I listened to over and over again as I was learning how to be a
Christian in high school. He was the guy that I thought I should totally be
like. 

This is a pretty rough youtube recording but you should listen to him. He
wrote this song, "the Great American Novel," in the early 70s when the Vietnam war had torn
the nation apart for a decade, ignited social movements and had begun to turn
nasty with forays into Cambodia and Laos. He was at the Vanguard of a movement
of hippies that had become burned out and pretty disillusioned with the limits
of free love, narcotic experimentation and eastern mysticism. 

Beginning in LA, he and others like him comitted to live simply and connect Christ with
alternative culture. Wearing the same long hair and unkempt clothes as the
culture around them, Norman and others pledged to take Christ to the streets.
Calling themselves 'Jesus People' they recast Christ as hippy. Long hair,
sandals, beard, Jesus became the alternative to a counter-culture that had lost
its way, vearing into self-absoption and narcissism. Simplicity, faith, trust,
these were the antidotes to modern societies' problems: "I don't have all the
answers, I've only got one, that a man leaves his darkness when he follows the
Son," became for Norman the foundation for a social and religious movement. At
times edging close to Millenarianism with songs such as "Wish we'd all been
ready" Norman seemed to tap into fears of destruction brought on by the Cold
War, Civil Rights-turned-militant, and growing economic a political turmoil in
the Middle East. Through it all, he sustained a clear vision of Christ as modern savior. 
With songs such as "Why should the Devil have all the good music," Norman challened the 
Christian status quo, advocating that Christianity and rock and roll could sing sweetly
with one another. The Jesus People slogan, "One Way," became an emblem for a generation of 
young Christians who rediscovered traditional Christianity through the lens of hippy culture. At 
many concerts, Norman would finish songs and the audience would simply point a finger upwards and say 
"One Way." His album, Only Visiting This Planet is widely considered the best contemporary Christian recording
project in the first twenty years of the genre.
 
However, when I heard him the first time, I just wanted to be radical for Jesus
like him. He gave me a model for following God when I was very young: all or nothing. Obviously this
might temper with age, but at the time, that is just what I needed.
 
A version of "The Great American Novel" by Larry Norman
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTlr-73DQq8
 

good friday

Like snow. devils and dust

Poem by Sarilyn

on alienation and meaning

poem by steve

i want to live free and see God.
just to love my brother, my sister, and touch the hand of my neighbor
only i find that this frog in my throat chokes me from saying kind words
like a mouth full of dirt, the words just dribble down my chin
but water that rushes over me and breaks the silence of years lets these shouts follow from trembling lips
and we swim in the tears of our deliverance and we speak for generations