Cabinet!

The amp is taking shape. It’s about 10 1/2″ long, in case you can’t judge.

I’m sorry I chose to form a chassis from sheet aluminum, because the aluminum is so flimsy. It will work fine in the plywood cabinet I’m building, but I think it would have been better to make the whole thing from wood. I am told the fire risk is pretty low with tubes this small, and I think it would be easier to fireproof the wood than it is to drill and bend a chassis with precision.

It’s funny; sometimes precision woodworking is easier than precision metalworking, but usually, it’s the other way around.

I’ve learned a few things about holes in thin materials. I stupidly figured I could cut nice holes in thin aluminum, using metal bits and Forstner bits. The Forstner holes aren’t too bad, but some of the metal-bit holes are triangular. No one will ever see them, but still. Another thing: I should have pre-punched the metal to keep the bits from wandering. Even on a drill press, bits roam.

Apparently, I should have used knockout punches. These are chisely sort of things that cut round holes in metal. They’re usually used on electrical boxes. I found an incredible tool while researching this. Harbor Freight sells them for $90. It’s a hydraulic pump that attaches to a device that pops holes out of metal. You drill a guide hole, attach a die to the metal and pump, pump the handle, and pop out holes up to 3″ in diameter, in steel up to 1/8″ thick. That’s astounding. And the reviews say the tool WORKS. Think of the hilarious pranks you could do with a tool like that.

I’ve also discovered step bits, and I bought a set of 4.

I’ve been using scrap wood to make the cabinet. I can see why Doug Stowe (the box guy) uses the table saw so much. If you can rout, resaw, and thickness on the table saw, you can save a ton of time and get extremely precise results. The only problem is that there are limits to the types of cuts you can do. And anyone who knows his stuff will realize instantly that you used the table saw.

I cut dadoes inside the plywood to hold the screen and wood panel, as well as the divider between the screen and panel. I also put dadoes in the top and bottom of the divider, which, itself, was created on the table saw. I plan to run a 1/4″ radius router around the whole box when it’s done.

Someone just suggested Tolex to cover it. Maybe I’ll do that. But the wood panel will be lacquer or solid paint. I’ll hose the screen with grill paint. I have to get the rust off somehow. Maybe naval jelly.

I don’t know how to install Tolex, or if it will work with this front panel. I guess I can look at my Fenders and see how it works.

I should be able to get this thing finished and running tomorrow. The speaker hasn’t arrived, but I can use my Super Champ as a cabinet.

This is so much easier than making guitars. I can’t even tell you.

Next amp: a submini I can put in the pocket of my cargo shorts.

Ps. 37:4!

More

Something I forgot to post: if you’re trying to fab an aluminum electronics chassis, don’t bother with the souped-up foil they sell at Home Depot. Buy a pizza pan for four bucks. It’s much more rigid, and it will make a fairly big chassis. You can find them at Gordon Food Service or other restaurant supply stores.

Self-Help Preachers Deliver Believers From Their Cash

All sorts of amazing things are happening in my life. All the things I started to suspect about the Holy Spirit about 20 years ago are turning out to be true, and I’m also learning that many conventional notions about God are wrong.

It can be frustrating, seeing things work for me and then being unable to convince other people to try them. But at least I’m getting mine! I would rather see everyone move forward, but if I can only help myself and a few others, I’m still doing something worthwhile. Fixing one life is a major achievement, and that’s especially obvious when that life is your own.

The Jews say that if you save a life, you save a nation. That’s a reference to the descendants who could have been erased. But when Christians interpret that saying, they take it a step further. We believe a person can have spiritual descendants who are not related to him genetically. We believe we are spiritual descendants of Abraham. I suppose if I help two or three people, they may go on to help a lot of others. So I should not be concerned.

Jesus managed to get through to 12 primary spiritual heirs, and then he added Saul of Tarsus. He did pretty well with that small group.

This morning I started thinking about the fatherless. Who are they? I’ve always taken this term to refer to people whose fathers have died. But is that right? I don’t think so. Biblically, it refers to something else.

Generally, human parents do a bad job. They don’t pass on useful knowledge or habits. They would rather watch TV and waste time in stupid, worthless, selfish pursuits than get involved with their kids. They don’t know who their children’s teachers are. They squander the money they should have passed on. They provide horrific examples. And the things we inherit from them–their legacies–are corrupt and disappointing. Some of the things we inherit are addictions and filthy character traits. Instead of being blessed by what they pass on, we may be poisoned.

Proverbs 13:22 says a good man leaves an inheritance for his children’s children. But what does that mean? If you don’t pass on a big pile of money when you die, are you unrighteous? I don’t think so.

What is an inherited fortune? Is it money and possessions? Is this what you really want to inherit from your parents? It shouldn’t be the main focus. Because if you receive these things, without receiving the ability to make use of them, they will be a curse to you. You’ll lose your money. You’ll be surrounded by people who contemn you and take advantage of you. You’ll spend on things that bring you no advantage.

On the other hand, what if your parents raise you correctly? What if they put you in touch with God, teach you good habits, force you to become educated, and show you how to earn and handle money? What if they pack you with useful wisdom that blesses you every day of your life? You’ll be blessed all the time, regardless of what you possess at a given moment.

Miami is full of rich Cubans. Almost none of them were rich when they got to America. Many were rich in Cuba and lost everything when they left. How did they get it back? The answer is simple. They took their inheritances with them. Their real fortunes were inside them. They had the skills and knowledge and habits of successful people, so as soon as they got away from socialism, they began to succeed again. This is why charity is so frustrating. Take a thousand random people, separate them from their money, turn them loose in a foreign country, and in ten years, the poor ones and their kids will generally still be poor, and the rich ones will be rich again.

This explains what the word “inheritance” means to me, in Proverbs 13:22. It means things of lasting value, accumulated over time. If you have a real, lasting inheritance, the other things–money and possessions–will come to you in time.

This is the essence of conservative thought. Liberals think they love the poor because they throw other people’s confiscated money at them. Conservatives know that mindless charity is harmful. You may look righteous and feel wonderful about yourself when you give a bum twenty dollars, but then you’re not around to see him smoking the crack you bought for him. You don’t see the junkie aspirate the vomit you bought for him.

Conservatives know that the best thing you can do for a poor person is to motivate and empower him to care for himself. We know that money plus poor people equals more poor people, unless the money is spent correctly.

Christianity goes beyond mere conservatism. Spirit-filled Christians know that merely thinking about the best way to help the poor will not get us far. Only the Holy Spirit can tell us what to give and whom to give it to.

On Saturday, a bum waved a cup at me while I was driving. I don’t just look away from bums. That’s cowardly. I looked right at him and shook my head. He needed to know that his guilt trips weren’t fooling everyone. He needed to have that knowledge inside him after I drove away, so he would question his choices. Shame is the beginning of growth. It is spiritual penicillin.

Later in the day, I had an opportunity to help someone out, not just in the natural, but with prayer and practical, applicable knowledge concerning how to get blessed by God. When I shook my head at the guy with the cup (who was probably a drunk), it was done in public. The things I did for the other person were done privately. Only three people will ever know what I did. That’s how Christianity is. It’s not about grandstanding and winning approval. It’s not about singing in a charity video, which drives millions of people to your concerts and makes you even richer. It’s not about performing in a telethon and crying and hugging babies for the camera. It’s about doing what the Holy Spirit tells you to do, and counting on God to decide what the proper reward is.

Our parents raise us poorly. They don’t give us the tools we need to become blessed and stay blessed. Only God’s transforming power can keep us prosperous and happy. Parents can’t do it. They fail as a matter of course. So in a sense, we are all fatherless.

The Psalms say that when our mothers and fathers abandon us, God will take us up. They say he will guide us with his eye (this is a gift of the Spirit, which comes through prayer in tongues). They say he will deliver us from our enemies and teach us his ways. I now believe this is what God means when he says he will be a father to the fatherless. He has a magnificent inheritance prepared for every one of us, and we are supposed to receive a huge down payment right here on earth, but we can’t get it as long as we expect other people to take care of us, or as long as we expect to be able to take care of ourselves.

God gives advances. Read Paul’s writings, and you’ll see it. Think in terms of earnest money and down payments. The language is there, right in front of you. The fruit and the gifts of the Spirit are advances on the inheritances we will receive, in their fullness, in paradise. With them come earthly blessings like health, peace, and success. Jesus said we were to seek God’s kingdom and his righteousness, and that then the other things would be added to us. “Kingdom” refers to the gifts of the Spirit, which are God’s power. “Righteousness” refers to the fruit of the Spirit, which are God’s righteous nature. These things will come into us as we drink the “living water,” which means praying in tongues.

God is our GPS, and like GPS, he works through signals that originate outside us. If you don’t turn on the receiver, expect to keep driving in circles.

In my church, some people are getting this, and many are not. We are distracted by intinerant teachers who give great speeches but don’t know anything. We have a real problem with self-help gurus coming in, disguised as holy men. These guys come in and pump us up with positive thinking and material stolen from Werner Erhard and the Landmark Forum and Dr. Phil, and they try to tell us it’s Christianity. And we buy their expensive DVDs, books, and seminars.

They always give some stuff away, because that makes them look generous. Give away a nickel in order to make a dollar. But they sell, sell, sell. And we buy.

Real Christianity cannot be learned in a seminar. I think Tony Robbins is great, and you will probably get some benefit if you pay him money. You will probably benefit from any positive-thinking coach, to a limited extent. But Jesus is FREE, and his path is SIMPLE. You don’t need a ridiculous seminar. You don’t need to think positive. You don’t need stupid slogans. You don’t have to run around shouting, “My SINKING is caused by my THINKING,” or, “My bank account will RISE because my EYES are on the PRIZE,” or whatever.

I just made those up, by the way, so don’t bother Googling them. We hear things that are just as dumb, so I felt entitled to make up a couple on the fly.

Here’s how real Christianity works. Here is real power that will save you and your descendants and fill you with power. Admit you sin. Admit you can’t help yourself. Accept Jesus. Get baptized in water. Get baptized with the Holy Spirit. Then pray in tongues as much as you can stand, every day. THAT’S MY SEMINAR. I will not charge you a thousand dollars a day to sit in a smelly hotel ballroom and be emotionally abused by cynical “trainers.” I will not tell you you’re not allowed to get up and pee. I will not sell you a $2 DVD for $50. I will not torment you for four days and THEN TELL YOU THERE IS ANOTHER SEMINAR YOU HAVE TO TAKE, IF YOU REALLY, REALLY WANT TO MAKE JESUS HAPPY AND SEE YOUR WARTS FALL OFF.

I used to wonder if God would give me a ministry that would make me money. I wondered if that would be my job. But there’s just no way. Everything I know, I just gave away in six sentences. There’s nothing left to charge for! I’m totally serious! Take those six sentences and RUN! Don’t ever read this blog again, unless you feel like it. You know every truly useful thing I can teach you. Do what I say, and God will do the rest.

You want a Proverbs 13:22 inheritance? You want wisdom other people have accumulated over the courses of their lives? Here’s a juicy piece: anyone who calls himself a life coach or motivational speaker is almost certainly useless. The true goal of a life coach is not to help you change your life. The true goal is to CONVINCE YOU TO OVERPAY HIM FOR BAD ADVICE.

Take that to the bank. It’s gold. I will gladly repeat it while they’re lighting the wood to burn me at the stake.

You want proof? Pay a life coach thirty grand, attend his seminar, and then fail as a human being. See if he comes to help you, while you’re holding the razor to your wrists. Obviously, he won’t. Your misery will mean absolutely nothing to him, in the unlikely event he ever learns of it. He’ll be busy nailing other suckers. Now, pay a life coach thirty grand and then cancel the charge on your credit card. WOW, will he spring into action! Lawyers! Collection agencies! Credit bureaus! The works, baby! Where his treasure is, there his heart will be also!

Here’s what the con artists say: change your thinking, and you will change your circumstances. Here is what God says: “Not by power, nor by might, but by my SPIRIT.” Positive thinking never healed anyone of anything. It never raised a single dead person. It never got anyone God’s favor. Those things come through faith, and faith is not positive thinking. Faith is a supernatural belief that pours through you after you’ve been baptized with the Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit himself, believing and letting you share in the sensation. It is not the same thing as ordinary belief.

Positive thinking just helps you to do better with your natural tools. Faith activates God’s supernatural tools. Positive thinking didn’t part the Red Sea. Supernatural forces did, in response to one man’s willingness to walk by faith.

If your parents blew it, forgive them. You shouldn’t have relied on them in the first place. At their very best, they could not have done what only God can do. God will be your father, for real. He will fix. He will repair. He will restore. He will be with you–inside you–moment by moment. God is all about the present and the future, so don’t glue yourself to the past and blame the people who let you down. Move on, as you were born to. This is the single best reason to forgive people. Living in resentment, bitterness, and unforgiveness is like trying to drive while looking out the rear window. Every good thing God has planned for you is in the other direction, and unlike the things behind you, they can be changed.

If you want to send me thirty grand, I would sure appreciate it. After all, I saved you airfare and a nasty hotel bill. But if you choose to be stingy instead, I forgive you. Mr. Holy; that’s me.

& Someone Slap Biff

Okay, here is my tube amp.

That’s a Firefly PCB I bought on Ebay. In retrospect, I wish I had used a generic PCB, so I could arrange stuff however I wanted. But this is much faster and less intimidating.

Here’s how it looked when I started.

Here it is a day or two later.

The white thing is a sheet of aluminum with a template glued to it with 3M spray adhesive. The Internet is amazing. I printed out a Firefly build guide and glued this page to the metal. After that, it was just a matter of drilling and cutting. As of this moment, the paper is off, the holes are drilled, the power cord hole has been cut, and the adhesive has been removed. It turns out the adhesive doesn’t REALLY come off all that well with denatured alcohol or acetone. Brake part cleaner is the way to go.

Cutting out the sheet on the table saw was pretty terrifying. Perhaps I need to rethink that method. You need fingers to play the guitar.

I’m already unhappy with this amp! It turns out you can make one that’s even less powerful. It’s called a “Murder One,” and the designer put the schematic on the web, so any idiot (not naming names here) can download it and make the amp.

The Murder One is about the size of a miniature cereal box, with a tube or two sticking out of the side. THAT is small.

I’m only starting to realize how badly most guitarists get ripped off. They go to Guitar Center and see 40-watt tube amps, and they think, “Man, is that the biggest I can afford?” Then they take them home and find out they’re so loud they can literally cause partial deafness. Not only that; they can’t make good sounds at comfortable sound levels. So people end up with big, expensive amps that are nearly useless in a home setting.

The market for small amps should be huge. Every guitarist needs one, except for those who are already deaf. I guess people are just too ignorant to want them. I certainly was.

I’ve read that you can drive two 4×12 speaker cabinets with one of these tiny amps. Can that possibly be right? The term “4×12” means four twelve-inch speakers.

I love working on this thing. It’s so much easier than building a guitar. Making electronic devices is not hard, if you have a schematic. Making the wooden parts is what sucks.

It should be up and running by Tuesday. I receive the remaining electronic parts tomorrow, and I should have the wooden stuff done sometime Monday. I’ll let you know how it works.

I am well on my way to becoming a mad scientist. I feel like I should build a guy with scissors for hands. Or a Delorean that will take me back to 1985, so I can somehow prevent Lady Gaga and American Idol from happening. Or maybe I could go back to 1975 and abort rap. And disco.

I’ll tell you how bad it is. I accidentally ordered two pineapple-sized 0.22mF Orange Drop capacitors for this thing, instead of 0.022mF. Looking through my capacitor collection, I found I had THREE spares. Same brand. Same everything. I thought I had failed to order 1N4007 diodes, so I looked through my diode drawer. Yes, I have a diode drawer. I managed to find a 1N4007 in there before realizing the new ones were in the stuff that’s coming Monday.

If civilization collapses, my garage will be a pretty good place to hole up. Unfortunately, it’s taken. And I have enough ammunition to create a very discouraging crescent of bodies around the doors. Not that I would do that. On account of I am all holy and whatnot.

Ps. 37:4!

I Know Very Little

Thought I’d update people on my musical progress.

I now have…I am too lazy to count…maybe six electric guitars? I got three Japanese jobs, which are very slick, quality items. I got my Chinese Epiphone Riviera P93. I got a Telecaster American Special. Plus my older instruments.

I got them all for different reasons. None were expensive. I planned to get myself a really sweet high-end guitar on January 8 (Elvis’s birthday), as a reward for studying for 6 months, and I got various affordable instruments to simulate the expensive guitars I was considering. The Japanese Les Pauls are sort of like Gibson Les Pauls. The Riviera and the Japanese ES335 clone are sort of like ES335s. You can see what I was trying to do.

I stuck a Stetsbar vibrato on the Telecaster. You’re not really supposed to do that, but you can imagine how much I care about tradition. The Stetsbar is made by an entrepreneur named Eric Stets. It’s very nice, but it doesn’t really fit a Telecaster without substantial grief. The bridge pickup hole presses against the pickup wires and shorts them out, and it prevents you from raising the pickup to the correct height. And you have to shim the neck to make it work, and the shim he provides is real garbage, so you have to make one, using your garage full of expensive woodworking machines. Which you probably don’t have, but I do.

I had to put the Stetsbar on my milling machine and hollow out an area on the underside to provide clearance for the pickup wires. How many people, realistically, are going to be able to get something like that done? Finding a machine shop is a real pain for most people. For me, it amounted to walking five feet across the garage.

Now it fits, but I would not recommend it to anyone else. Unless you know me or someone like me, you may have serious problems putting one of these on a Telecaster. Hopefully the manufacturer will find the time to make the needed changes. Everyone gives the vibrato rave reviews, so it appears to be worth the effort.

I have not completed my walnut Telecaster clone. I got to the point where it was nearly ready to finish, and and there was a problem with the grain matching where I redid the neck pocket, so I procrastinated for months instead of deciding what to do. I promise I’ll get it done.

My History Les Paul clone sat idle for a long time, because I could not get the Harmonic Designs Z90 pickups to work. For some reason, the bridge pickup gave me a resistance figure of 0Ω, which was something like 10,000Ω short. In other words, a short. I got them to agree to look at it, but before I packed it up to send it in, I checked the resistance, and it was back to normal. So I must have caused the problem. Now it’s installed, along with big American potentiometers and Orange Drop capacitors. The neck pickup is really nice. The bridge pickup is not quite as wonderful, but that may just reflect my love of neck pickup sounds. The guitar looks magnificent. I bought tortoise-shell pickup covers, which have a pretty severe pimp quotient.

I stuck Pearly Gates humbuckers on my ES335 clone. Very nice. I think I have the action a little too low, however. That can adversely affect the sound. Seems a little thin at the bridge.

The surprising winner, out of all the instruments, is the Epiphone Riviera. If you like the blues, BUY one of these things. Don’t fool around. Just buy it. Make sure you get one that has a good neck and no major QC problems. Then put Lollar P90s on it, and change the tone capacitor. You won’t believe the sounds that will come out of it. Just beautiful.

You’ll have to learn how to work the knobs and switch. This thing has three pickups, which seems like a dumb idea, but it works. To isolate the end pickups, you have to turn the middle volume down to zero. To isolate the middle pickup, turn the end pickups down. The selector switch will not mute the middle pickup, so you have to do it with the knobs. Once you get this straight, the guitar starts to make sense.

I’m taking lessons now, from a guy at church. He’s one of the Armorbearers. He’s a fantastic blues guitarist and vocalist. Just a blast to listen to. I took the ES335 clone to him, and he liked it a lot. Keep in mind: this is a top-quality instrument, put together better than a Gibson. A week later, I let him try the $500 Chinese Epiphone, and he said it was better. I have to agree. It plays a little easier, and the tones are sweeter. All told, I have about $1000 in it, which isn’t bad for a semihollow with a Bigsby, three boutique pickups, and a great SKB case.

I have a pile of amps. I got a Vox AC4TV with a 1/4-watt setting, figuring it would be good for low level play. It’s not bad, but it’s not phenomenal. I also tried a Bugera V5, which attenuates to 1/10 watt. Again, nice, but not amazing. At the moment, I really like my Blues Jr. and my Super Champ XD. Between the two, I’d probably keep the Super Champ. It’s easier to work with at low levels, and it has built-in effects which are useful when you have to go somewhere and you don’t want to carry pedals. But the Blues Jr. is also very good.

My lesson guy wants to build amps. I told him about my insane tool collection, and we made a decision. Free lessons for me; free tool access for him. We’re going to try to build a Super Reverb clone, if he ever gets around to buying the parts. It won’t be very hard. It’s just soldering and turning screws. You don’t have to build anything from scratch.

As preparation, I’ve decided to build a Firefly amp. This is a well-known DIY design. It puts out less than a watt, without attenuation. I’m hoping it will give me improved sound at low levels. I’m going to put a crappy, insensitive 12″ Weber speaker on it. The description on the Weber site gives me hope that this speaker will strain the amp and improve the sound, and that it will have the kind of coarse sound a blues amp should have. If not, it will still be fun to put together. The only hard part (far as I know) is building the external cabinet, and I’ve already designed it and roughed out the wood. I want to use a separate cabinet so I can take the Firefly head with me and use it on different cabinets.

The junk to make the amp is on order. I hope to have the cabinet basically finished before anything arrives.

Zach (lesson guy) has me working on F scales, which will make my left hand work better. The scales have all sorts of hideous stretches in them. My finger joints are actually sore these days. I hope this stuff works out.

On the music side, I’m practicing “I Know a Little” every day. Steve Gaines was an incredible guitarist, and the intro to this song is murder. I thought I would never get it. He plays at 220 beats per second, and the moves would take some effort at a third of that speed. I’ve been pounding on it for weeks. I think most people would have given up by now, but I remember two things. First, I went back to school at age 30 and got a physics degree, after failing math in high school. That makes almost anything look easy. Second, when I learned to flatpick, I was convinced it would never work, because after several months, I still could not do it. Then it came together, showing me that the body and brain can develop brand new abilities over time. Flatpicking is a totally unnatural activity. It took me about 6 months to grow the right neurons or whatever. Fretting works the same way, so I know I’ll eventually overcome the left-hand challenges in this song.

I have changed the way I hold the pick twice, which means I’ve done it three different ways. This is irritating, because every time I change it, I have to get new muscles to work, and I have to get the brain connections going. But I think it was necessary. I played for years, not realizing I was making very dumb ergonomic choices.

I’ve also tried different picks. I started out with the rubbery black and grey nylon Dunlop picks I used for bluegrass, and I’ve tried other things. I bought some stubby Dunlop jazz picks, decided they were worthless, and gave them to Zach. He went off to college, returned after a number of months, and came back and thanked me for the great picks. Naturally, I had to try them again, and it turned out they were very well-suited to my new way of holding the pick, and to playing fast passages like the ones in the Skynyrd tune. Live and learn.

I keep trying new picks. This week I received some Greg Koch instructional DVDs, and I noticed he was using a giant triangular pick. This guy can REALLY play, so I dug through my mountain of unused picks and got out a hard green Dunlop triangle. Sure enough, it works. Don’t ask me to explain this, but it’s just as fast as the tiny stubby pick, but it’s much, much easier to hang onto, so my hand feels more relaxed, and I get more “swing” in the music. I have other picks which are physically much more like the little pick, but the huge Dunlop is the only one that gives similar performance. Weird.

For SRV tone, Koch uses a Super Reverb with a Tube Screamer and a Clyde pedal. The tone is perfect. That got me thinking about my Tube Screamer, which I had given up on, and I started rooting around the web. I learned something strange. To get SRV-type grit, you turn up the volume and turn down the drive. Isn’t THAT special? What could be more irritating than finding out the knobs don’t do what their names say they do? I started turning up the volume on my distortion and overdrive pedals, and now I’m in a whole new world of tone. Even my Pork Loin is doing great things.

Tonight I got the Epiphone out and fired up the Super Champ. I used the big green pick and various pedals, and I worked on “I Know a Little.” The picking started to work correctly. The swing kicked in. Finally, I got some expression into it. And I was even able to throw in some filler notes to make me happy. I started to realize this was eventually going to work, and that it wouldn’t be long. I began hearing wonderful variations in my head. I just have to keep working on sight-reading, so I can write this stuff down.

I’m trying to avoid working on my only other tune, “Tube Snake Boogie.” I just don’t like working on a song about cheap sex. I had a breakthrough tonight, so I guess I’ll be able to put that song behind me and replace it.

I keep finding myself thrown together with musicians at church. I’ve gotten to know the two main guitarists pretty well, and I do what I can for them. They give me a lot of great tips. Zach is an Armorbearer, and he’s also a fan of my pizza. One of the other Armorbearers plays twelve instruments and writes arrangements. He’s supposed to be a brutal talent. I talked to him the other day about his future, and about the frustration of putting up with bad Christian music, and I suggested he and some of the people he knows come to my house to work on music. I have a big piano, five guitar amps, and a big living room. And my dad would love to meet some good musicians. So we’re planning to do that. We have a world-class vocalist. Guy from Haiti. Maybe we can drag him into this. I keep telling him he’s going to be famous. He’s so humble, I’m afraid he’ll underestimate his gift and end up doing something else with his life.

So to recap, I’ll be making guitars in the garage. The guys will be jamming and writing music in the living room. And Zach and I are going to build an amp. Crazy.

Psalm 34 says God gives us the desires of my heart. My dream has always been to make music. I know that sounds wrong, to anyone who thinks of me as a writer or a cook, but those are my second and third choices. And building things I design has also been one of my dreams. I wonder where God is going to go with this.

He definitely knocked a bunch of frustrating barriers out of my way. I have the right instrument. I have the time and wherewithal and tools to do the things I want to do. I even learned which pick to use and how to hold it. The little bricks are arranging themselves into a coherent structure. I could not have done that on my own.

I have a feeling things are going to start moving for me in a little over two weeks. I’ll be passing a major milestone in my life, and for reasons I don’t want to go into here, I think it will be a pivotal time. Things are being cleared out of my way. I believe real progress is going to start toward the end of the month. I’m just mentioning it here so that if I talk about it after it happens, no one will be able to accuse me of faking a prediction. Not that it’s a prediction. Just a strong hunch, based on certain facts.

Forget Wind Farms; This is the Real Thing

I want to thank everybody who commented on the last piece I wrote. It shocks me to learn that God has managed to impact people through this site. It’s very encouraging, and it makes me feel that my effort has not been wasted, even with the drastic dropoff in traffic.

It’s funny; whenever I mention my lack of enthusiasm for blogging, people seem to get the idea that I’m threatening to quit. I don’t have any reason to quit, and the piece wasn’t about quitting. Maintaining this site at the present pace requires virtually no effort, and the hosting bill is paid, so I have no plans to disappear.

All sorts of stuff is happening in my life. It’s hard to decide what to write about.

Here’s something good. Maybe from a selfish standpoint, this is the most important thing that has happened. I think I now walk in the spiritual gift of joy.

As readers know, I am a big Holy Spirit man. I don’t believe human effort amounts to much. Human beings can’t even diet successfully, yet somehow, we think we create our success and our blessings. Does that make sense? I think it’s stupid. I believe every good thing–every breath–comes from God’s generosity. I think we are powerless to affect our circumstances in meaningful, lasting ways. I believe that only the transforming power of the Holy Spirit can improve us. And I think this comes through the baptism with the Spirit and prayer in tongues.

In the first letter to Timothy, Paul said, “For bodily exercise profiteth little: but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.” He was talking about self-denial and hard work. He was talking about the things we do for God in our own strength. And he didn’t say these things were “pretty important” or even “a little less important than prayer and faith.” He said they profited little. He used a word meaning something like “puny” or “disesteemed.”

Think about that. “Puny”! That’s you, driving the church bus for 20 years. That’s you, swearing off all forms of alcohol. That’s you, becoming a nun or a priest and giving up normal, healthy sexual activity. That’s you, making a ridiculous pilgrimage on your bloodied knees, carrying a cross you made in your garage. This is what your extraordinary effort and self-sacrifice amount to, when they’re not initiated by the Holy Spirit. On the other hand, Paul could cure someone of cancer and lead him to eternal life by obediently handing him a handkerchief.

Seriously, think about it. What do you think God prefers? The hard work you do after trying to GUESS what he wants, or the easy jobs you do after you wait for him to guide you?

Mainstream Pharisees–oops, I meant “Christians”–will never agree with me on this. People love to punish themselves. They love to feel cleansed by suffering. They love to think they earned God’s forgiveness, and that they’ve obligated him through their wondrous works. And they like doing what they want to do for God, instead of the scary things he might tell them to do, if they listened!

They hate to give that stuff up. The sad (he said facetiously) truth is, that stuff is all “dung,” to use Paul’s expression. Worthless. You can’t earn anything. You are a welfare recipient. God owes you nothing, nothing, NOTHING. You will never be able to make up for the evil you’ve done, and you will never be able to stand in God’s presence without shame. Not in this lifetime.

The up side of this is that good things come from shame. We give shame a bad rap, but it’s really a blessing. It gives you perspective. It helps you not to get carried away by your own super-amazing holiness. It reminds you where you came from. It keeps gratitude and humility alive in you. Never criticize shame. It’s like criticizing penicillin.

Anyway, I keep seeing my understanding of the Holy Spirit and tongues confirmed. Now that I think about it, I have never seen it disproven in even the smallest way. I get confirmation after confirmation. I believe that the more you pray in tongues, the more God makes you similar to him, if you are willing to be changed. Part of the change is the fruit of the Spirit, and one of the fruit is the gift of joy.

I don’t think “joy” refers to bizarre religious ecstasy of the type that leads to you becoming the inspiration for gaudy concrete statues people put on their lawns. I don’t think it means you stand around with your hands spread out, staring at heaven with goofy look on your face. I think it means you feel like you’re winning. You have energy. You have gratitude. You have positive expectations which flow from a supernatural source inside you. You constantly sense the too-wonderful things God is doing for you. And this makes you strong. Like Nehemiah said (or like Ezra said, depending on who wrote the book), the joy of the Lord is our strength.

Let’s see what the Greek says. In Galatians 5:22, it’s something the Greeks call “chara,” and it is defined as something like cheerfulness, or being calmly happy or well-off. In Nehemiah 8:10, the Hebrew word is “chedvah,” which means “gladness” or “rejoicing.” This works for me. When I feel what I believe to be supernatural joy, I feel calm and assured, and I feel that the reason for the joy is God’s generosity. In other words, I feel sure God is at work doing great things for me. That makes me “well-off.” Therefore I have the sensation of rejoicing. The word “rejoice” is like “celebrate.” It suggests happiness that comes after something good occurs. That’s what I feel. It’s a reaction. I react to the good things God has done for me, and the good things my faith says he is DOING for me (and for others).

I feel this a lot of the time. I highly recommend it. It’s much better than caffeine, cocaine, Ritalin, or even (this is high praise) a good steak followed by cheesecake. It’s better than the hypomania I used to feel as a result of my peculiar brain chemistry.

I have often said that I believed drug abuse was a sad effort to fake the sensations God wants to put in us supernaturally, and now I believe it more than ever. I’ve tried antidepressants. I’ve tried alcohol. I’ve had those wonderful pills dentists give people after they pull their wisdom teeth. This is better, and it doesn’t come with a crash or a rebound. It’s like a stock market average that keeps going UP and UP and UP. It’s clean. It’s safe. It’s beneficial. It’s hypoallergenic, gluten-free, low in carbon emissions, and organic. It IS addictive, but that turns out to be a plus.

When you read the Bible, you see some pretty ridiculous examples of happy behavior. For example, Paul and Silas got flogged, which is a horrible, bloody, scarring torture, and then they were thrown in a filthy jail. Instead of venting and whining, which is what I would have done, they started singing and praising God, even staying up late to do it. And then God released them from jail, and the jailer and his house got saved, and everybody REJOICED. They must have been nuts. When I see things like this, the only explanation that makes sense to me is the supernatural gift of joy.

To most people, joy is…well, let’s be real. To many people, joy is a rumor. Something they will never experience. Everyone experiences misery, but not everyone knows joy. Anyway, to people who occasionally have happiness, joy is generally linked to circumstances. You land a great job. You find someone to have sex with on a given night. You manage to get a high enough credit limit to charge a $2000 Chanel purse. Stupid things like that. To a Spirit-filled Christian, joy is different. It wells up inside you. It isn’t external circumstances, reaching inside you and transforming you. It’s your Spirit-given understanding of your circumstances, seemingly reaching out from inside you and transforming THEM.

Our perception of the world around us changes because of the work of the Spirit within us. We know that all things work together for our good, regardless of how they look at a given instant. And the scripture that confirms this is about prayer in tongues! See for yourself! Some preacher on TV or a disk pointed this out to me the other night. It’s in Romans 8:

Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God.

And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.

We are to be conformed to the image of Jesus. How do we do that? By gaining his power and his character or righteousness. What is his power? The gifts of the Spirit. What is his character? The fruit of the Spirit. How do we get these things? Prayer in tongues! “The Spirit itself maketh intercession for us.” Incidentally, the Spirit is actually a “he,” not an “it,” but still. We are the little brothers and sisters of Jesus, and we are expected to grow to be like him, and tongues make this happen.

The older I get, the better I feel. Life gets better and better and better, and it won’t even stop when I die. Good things keep happening to me. My enemies can’t get at me, because as a member of God’s team, I now have reason to expect to be defended. My dreams are coming true. I’m not swimming in oatmeal any more. Life is no longer one step forward followed by five steps back.

I don’t understand non-charismatics who claim to be full of joy, just because they’re forgiven and somewhat cleaned up. I am suspicious of them, truthfully. I think sometimes Christians exaggerate their happiness. They feel like they SHOULD be happy, so they pretend. Maybe they think that admitting they’re not happy is insulting to God. Or they feel that they have to claim to be happy, in order for their faith to bring them happiness. I don’t know how other people feel, or whether their joy is real, but I know I’m telling the truth. I believe this is a supernatural gift, so I am here to testify. See if it works for you.