Who Are You People?

I haven’t updated in a while. What can I tell you? Life intrudes.

I seem to get more involved in church all the time, and music is also a factor. And increasingly, my Internet activities are directed toward the church these days. I set up a private forum for our Armorbearers, and I’m the administrator. We also have email accounts under our domain name.

It’s great to have a website where all the talk is centered around God, and we don’t have to worry about trolls and boors getting in. It has improved our communication tremendously. We don’t have a lot of time to get together when we’re not serving at church, so the forum allows us to get to know each other and brainstorm.

I would say “fellowship,” but that word always grates on my nerves. It makes hanging out sound like a chore. Like something you need lessons to do. And I don’t like using nouns as verbs. No one says, “My wife and I relationshipped last night.”

Jargon has a way of alienating people, and that’s the last thing Christians want to do. We’re trying to sell people the best product in existence. We don’t want to turn them off unnecessarily.

Music is going better and better. The Chinese guitar is still making me happy, although I am starting to realize the pickups are not great. I set my Strat up with elevens, and it feels wonderful and sounds great, but the same strings don’t sound as “hot” on the Riviera. I might go crazy and buy some Lollars eventually. I’m not the first one to be disappointed in this guitar’s pickups.

It’s exciting to be getting to the point where I can tell good pickups from bad ones.

The Strat has Fender Texas Special pickups, and they sound wonderful. I don’t know whether the American Roadhouse Strat was popular when it came out, but it’s awfully similar to the SRV clone they put out, and that guitar was supposed to sound like Stevie Ray Vaughan’s.

I almost bought a resonator guitar. I found a fantastic Ebay deal. Luckily for me, I got outsniped. Otherwise it would be on the way.

Why do I want a resonator guitar? Because I want to take my banjo skills and apply them to the guitar. You can do this with an electric guitar, but it seems more natural with a resonator guitar. I already have the picks; I even have an old blues book. Fingerpicks can do things a flatpick can’t do, and vice-versa. There is no point in limiting myself when I already have the fundamental training.

It turns out there is a good music store in Naples. I guess that’s two hours away. They sell National Guitars. Maybe when I get a few blues numbers working, I’ll head out there and see what they have. I like the wood-body sound. They make a big guitar called the El Trovador, and the sound is wonderful. Another model, the Estralita, is also easy on the ear. There is no point in trying to find a good music store in Miami. This city is allergic to sophistication and culture. Like I always say, we don’t even have LATIN culture. If Andres Segovia lived here, he would have to work at Burger King. This is a city of Fender Squiers and cheap electric pianos.

Another discovery: Beard Guitars. They make great resonator models. They lean toward the Dobro, however. I’ve never been a big bluegrass Dobro fan. Purists would hang me for saying this, but bluegrass uses short notes, and that doesn’t work with a Dobro. Why buy an instrument with tremendous sustain, when every song you play is made up of eighth notes?

Check out this video. It shows what a Dobro can do if you don’t clip the notes.

I’ve seen some of that guy’s other videos, and he’s not a virtuoso, so presumably, he is only beginning to tap the instrument’s potential here.

To me, sustain means versatility. You can play short notes on a Dobro, but you can’t play long notes on a banjo.

I still have my old flamenco guitar. Maybe it would be a good choice for learning acoustic blues, until I’m good enough to know what to upgrade to.

I need to start writing new music down. I’m keeping up with bluegrass, mainly for the exercise, and it’s extremely easy to write tablature for it. Sometimes a new arrangement will go shooting through my head, and it’s like having a subway train go by six inches in front of my face. I have to write this stuff down.

I don’t know how often I’ll blog from now on. It’s great to be out of the political snakepit.

God’s Own Cake and the Devil’s Music

I took the Tower of Babel cake to church to get rid of it. It was a great success. Now they want more. I have piles of bananas scattered on the kitchen counter, fresh from the trees in my yard. I guess I’ll freeze what I can’t cook immediately and put the rest in cakes.

My nam wa banana tree finally produced. The bananas are very nice. They’re finger-sized bananas, but they’re not like the lemony guineos we always have in the markets in Miami. They’re very sweet, and they have a smooth texture. It’s a little like banana ice cream.

God keeps working in my life. Last week I led some of the armorbearers on the first Armorbearer Freedom Fast, and Mike joined in. Some of us were fasting to beat gluttony. I was fasting in support of the others. Mike called and said he went to a restaurant after the fast and ordered a kid’s portion. He couldn’t face a regular-size meal. In the past, it has always been hard for Mike to face regular-sized meals, but that was because they were too small. His new attitude is incredible.

I worked at church on Sunday, and when I left at nearly 4 p.m., I hadn’t eaten anything except a piece of cake. I didn’t want more food, but I made myself stop at Five Guys. I got a bacon cheeseburger, Cajun fries, and a large Coke. I ate two thirds of the burger and a third of the fries. I drank half of the Coke. I threw everything else out. I didn’t want it. Today I went to breakfast with my dad, and I left a fourth of my nova bagel on the plate. Not bad. My Armorbearer friend who was fasting because of his weight said he tried to eat something he usually enjoys, and it made him sick, so he couldn’t do it.

Fasting works. My pants and belts do not lie. We are getting supernatural results. And my dad is witnessing all of it, which is also great. One day, we’ll get him.

Church continues to amaze me. I keep meeting extraordinary people there. One of the new Armorbearers is a drummer. His name is Travis. I started talking to him yesterday. I asked him if the drums were his only instruments. He said he played TWELVE, and he listed them. And he said he played them WELL, so apparently it’s not like Prince, who claims he can play forty but probably includes instruments that made noises because he accidentally sat on them in the studio.

I know everyone thinks Prince is a genius. When I see him do something that indicates talent, I will agree. So far, all I’ve seen are weak pop tunes. And he holds a purple guitar sometimes. Wait. I think it’s white. Anyway, I haven’t heard any solos yet.

Travis got a full scholarship to college, based on his ability. That’s what he does now. He said it was largely based on his sight-reading skills. He actually knows who my trombone-virtuoso cousin is, which is astonishing.

So now we have two professional musicians in the group, and they’re not three-chord wonders or rappers. They are real musicians.

The other musician, Zachary, is trying to find a hundred-watt tube amp he can afford. He said he would consider building one, if he had the skills. I used to build temperature and current controls for diode lasers in college, and I have a ton of tools. He sent me links to some sites that have amp plans. Interesting.

One of the guys bought a Bushmaster AR-15. He brought it in for us to look at. We were handing it around and admiring it in a back room. I said, “You know, church has CHANGED since I was a kid.” That cracked Travis up.

My music is going really well. The bluegrass is coming up to speed. My left hand has only had five weeks to get strong, and that’s not enough. When I use a capo (makes fretting easier), I get a taste of what my playing will be like in another month or two. I plan to continue playing bluegrass, simply because it’s great for my technique and it’s wasteful to throw away a whole genre you’ve already learned.

I was suffering with online blues lessons, but I couldn’t take it any more. I got a ZZ Top book, and I started working on “Tube Snake Boogie.” I realize this is not good music for a Christian to work on, but hear me out. The guitar stuff is all blues-based, and it’s HOT. It will get me into electric blues via the side door, and it will help me get familiar with my instruments and amps. I don’t plan to sing this filth in the sanctuary.

I struggled for a week, but today I got it working. I put new strings on my flamenco guitar (like a classical guitar, with a cutaway and a different sound), and I started using it for practice. This is much easier on me than my dreadnought and heavy hollowbody. It allows me to practice pretty painlessly. I actually got through the first page and a half.

I may get hollered at for saying it, but so far, as I expected, this stuff is a complete joke compared to bluegrass. True, you have to go up the neck more, but so what? I’m using elevens, and the guitar’s action is very light. I’m playing at half the speed of bluegrass (or less), the strings are kinder to my hands, and the licks are child’s play. The only real problems are getting used to playing over pickups and coping with the light strings. When you’re used to blasting thirteens at maybe eight notes a second, you can barely feel elevens.

When I used to try to play Stevie Ray Vaughan material, it was difficult, but then he played very fast, and he didn’t cheat by using his left hand to play the notes. He did it just like a bluegrass guitarist.

I’ve noticed that some rock guitarists play runs that seem very fast, but their right hands aren’t keeping up with the notes. Evidently, you can effectively double your speed by hammering on and pulling off and bending the strings with your left hand, between right-hand notes. I wonder how many of these guys could cope with bluegrass. I know some of them have been there; Steve Morse does both styles.

I had a feeling this would turn out to be easy, simply because I know the kind of people who play rock. They are not known for being industrious. Rock guitar isn’t about artistry and sacrifice. It’s about looking cool and attracting shallow women so you can fornicate. That’s what got Pete Townshend started. I know there must be many rock guitarists who woodshed all the time and aren’t afraid of difficult material, but a lot of this stuff appears to be based on using two fingers, the way you might when you’re stoned in the back of a tour bus. And everyone loves nines, and I don’t think that’s totally based on professionalism. It just might have something to do with lack of character, in some cases.

When you play an electric guitar, the gadgetry does a whole lot of the work. It’s pretty cushy compared to killing yourself to get music out of an acoustic.

I look forward to getting a grip on this form of music, and then I want to do a reverse Ray Charles. I want to use bluesy sounds to make music for God. I know you’re supposed to go the other way, ripping off gospel and using it to play secular music. I don’t see why I can’t turn the tables.

I’m glad I held onto that flamenco guitar.

Tisha B’Av is about to start, so if you’re fasting in sympathy with Israel and the Jews, it’s time to get on it.

Life is wonderful.

Fast Over

This morning, my church’s Armorbearers ended a two-day fast. I wrote about it earlier.

Man, do I feel better. Some people say they feel closer to God during a fast. I feel farther away. I get a headache. I feel depressed. It’s pretty bad. I always look forward to the renewed sensation of his presence that comes when I finally eat.

Last night, I felt a powerful sensation of faith as I ended the day in prayer, but that’s not the same as feeling God’s presence. Imagine you’re in prison. This is the difference between a visit and receiving a care package. The care package is great, but you still want the visit.

I hope this fast accomplished things. The person who got it going is a fellow AB with a bad weight problem. I would really like to see him get free. I would like to see the others get free, too, and I would like a renewal of my own weight-loss miracle, as well as better discipline to handle things like lust and covetousness.

The fast was not fun. On the first day, I noticed it was hard to practice the guitar because my hands were weak. On the second day, I decided to skip practice. My arm was sore anyway, so it needed the rest. I had a nutritious Pop Tart breakfast today, but I am still not 100%.

Through an interesting set of circumstances, I learned about a great Christian singer yesterday. Her name is Grace Williams. I won’t bother you with the details, but I came across her on TV, and it turned out I had an unopened Grace Williams CD in my house, so I played it.

It’s wonderful stuff. As music per se, I would not call it great art, but as music intended to help you get in touch with God, it’s first-rate. It’s what Enya might have done, had she been a Christian.

Grace Williams says she startled her family by praying and singing in tongues at a very early age, and she says this is the “new song” the Bible mentions prophetically. I was startled. I have had the same idea run through my mind. Ever since our church’s Rendezvous conference a while back, I have had the ability to sing in the Spirit. It’s very strange. When I’m at church, I just open my mouth, and I automatically get harmony. Very helpful, since I can never learn all the words to the songs they play. It brings a powerful sense of peace and God’s presence.

Here is what Psalm 40 says:

1 I waited patiently for the Lord; and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry.

2 He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings.

3 And he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God: many shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in the Lord.

We tend to dash right by language like that, assuming it’s just intended to be flowery and poetic, but it has to have a real meaning. God does not flap his lips just to hear his head roar. His word does not return to him void. Every word means something. If the Psalms say there is a new song that will convert people and make them believers, it has to be true, and I very much doubt that David was referring to the Psalms themselves. Nobody every listened to Psalm 40 and “feared” because of it and “trusted in the Lord.” It’s a fine psalm, but it’s not that fine. If God led David to say this about Psalm 40, God exaggerated, and he does not do that.

I’m assuming David wrote this psalm, because he wrote so many. I don’t know that he wrote this one. Whoever it was, God spoke through him.

The rabbi of a nearby Messianic synagogue wants to go shooting with us and get our help in forming an armorbearer squad. Pretty cool. Hope that happens in a week or two.

Life is good. I can’t wait for lunch.

God Restores

I got two prayer requests this weekend. First, Heather:

Mom had to have an MRI because they think there is a mass on her hip(she’s been in terrible pain for several months now). I pray it’s benign. Could you please pray that whatever it is, is benign?

Also could you pray for Mike and Kelly Bowling (singing group The Bowlings)? They were in a tour bus wreck in Charlotte NC yesterday (on their way to spread the love of the Lord with a singing gig). He is the brother in law to my cousin Kim. Mike is from here in London, he had to be air-lifted to the hospital. Kelly and Mike are in the hospital.

Also my mom’s cousin Tim’s son Dennis Blevins has just been diagnosed with a brain tumor. It is not known whether it is cancerous or not. And we are praying that it is not.

Second, reader Tim:

Please pray for my wife Rhonda who had complications following childbirth (twins) on the 2nd of July. She has fluid build up in lungs and body and needs it to drain away.

Sorry for not blogging more. I have been very busy with church, and I set up an Internet forum for our Armorbearers, so a lot of my online energy has been redirected.

I let Manlygrub.com expire. I was not promoting the cookbook, since it’s not the kind of material I want to be known for in the future. Thanks, everyone who bought a copy or participated in the forum.

Music practice is going incredibly well. One of the reasons I gave up music is that my memory seemed to be fading. Over the last two weeks, however, I’ve found that things have been coming back to me, just as I felt they would before I got started. Maybe God was speaking to me. I never state, without doubt, that God spoke to me, because I’m reluctant to risk giving him credit for stupid ideas that actually came from me. If I ever say God spoke to me, you better believe I had a vision or something. I have seen too many idiots claim God told them things that were pure nonsense. If God wants me to tell people he spoke to me, he better let me hear a voice.

Last night I was playing the guitar when suddenly, I tore off a lick I forgot maybe fifteen years ago. I used to find it impossible to play well, but last night, it came out pretty good. Not perfect, but about as well as I ever played it, which is not what you would expect after two weeks of practice. If I’m playing it this well now, it means I’m going to be playing it extremely well in a month, when my hands are nearly awake.

I made a new friend of the young man who played the blues at church a couple weeks back. He’s an Armorbearer now. We talk guitar all the time. He suggested putting thirteens on my new Chinese blues machine, and yesterday, I found a set at Guitar Center. The only ones they had were D’Addario XLs. I use D’Addario Phosphor Bronze mediums on my bluegrass guitars, so I have no reason to complain about D’Addario.

The sound of the guitar is vastly improved. That makes sense. Acoustic guitars sound like crap when light strings are used. Light strings are a compromise. No one really expects them to sound good. They exist to make playing easier. They’re great for teenage kids who pick up the guitar three times a month so they can play badly while stoned. If light strings sounded good, medium and heavy strings would not exist. Who would tear up his fingers for no good reason?

I may end up dropping down to elevens some day; I will see how it goes. With electronic fakery, you can improve the sound of light strings, so it may be that thirteens are overkill. For an acoustic, light strings are just plain bad. They’re fine if all you do is strum a Japanese acoustic with a warped neck while singing Dan Fogelberg tunes and sweating estrogen, but if you really play the instrument, they’re sad. Vocalists who like to hold unmiked guitars while performing can get away with bad strings and cheap guitars. It’s different when the instrument has to be heard.

I had to lower the bridge a little because the increased string tension increased the height of the action, but I didn’t lower it enough to ruin the sound. A lot of guitarists don’t realize a high action sounds better, but it’s true. If you lower the action as much as possible, the guitar’s sound will get so dull it’s not worth playing. I think this is why a good neck is important. My Taylor’s neck is perfect, so I can get a very good action while not ruining the tone.

I still can’t believe how good the Chinese Epiphone is. The action is very good. The sound is very good. It looks beautiful. Seems like the perfect choice for a beater. Good enough to play well, but not too good to take on the road. I was looking into new pickups, but now that I see how good strings change the tone, I am no longer shopping.

Here’s something nutty. I bought strap locks for the new guitar, plus a really pimptastic strap (much gaudier than I wanted), and when I put the strap on, I realized I didn’t need the locks.

Americans can’t make a guitar that will hold onto a strap; it’s just too hard for us. It’s an engineering mystery. After a hundred years, we still can’t get it right. I guess all the good guitar-button engineers in America got snapped up by NASA.

The Chinese put big buttons on my Epiphone, solving the problem instantly. No drilling. No gadgets. I can’t even take the strap off after I practice. I should buy Epiphone buttons for my other guitars. Buttons that don’t work are a disgrace. Guitars should have giant warning stickers, letting buyers know they’re about to drop their expensive instruments on the floor.

Don’t forget Heather and Tim.

Four-Minute Vacation

Genesis 12:3: “And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.”

Here is the proof:

Flerb

Here is today’s fun guitar news.

I realized I had to get a few effects. You can’t just play the guitar through an amp. Oh, no. You have to have reverb, plus maybe a wah pedal and an overdrive. I got a wonderful inexpensive tube amp, but it has no reverb, and even though it can be limited to 1/4 watt, it’s a little hard to drive it with enough power to get good distortion. So I’ve been shopping and fiddling around.

I ended up with a Pedaltrain pedalboard. This is a thing you attach pedals and a power supply to. It lies on the ground, and you work the pedals with your feet. You’ve seen guitar players use them.

I am not in love with my old Blues Driver pedal (which I think I killed today anyway), so I started looking for new and relatively cheap replacements. I loved the way the Boss Super Overdrive sounded on Youtube, but the Guitar Center kid convinced me I really needed an Ibanez Tube Screamer, so I decided to give it a shot. I also loved the way the Boss Fender FRV-1 sounded on Youtube. But the Guitar Center kid convinced me I needed a Holy Grail. So I got one. I also got a Voodoo power supply.

I came home, fiddled with the pedals, decided they were okay, and put them and the power supply on the board.

I wanted a tiny board, because I don’t plan on collecting a large number of pedals. But Guitar Center had an outrageous deal on a PT1, which is a middle-sized Pedaltrain only Guitar Center sells. So that’s what I got.

I’m fairly sure I destroyed the Blues Driver by using the wrong power cord. I believe I reversed the polarity, frying something or other. But I never liked that pedal anyway.

The Epiphone Riviera continues to please, although I have started to agree with online reviewers who say the pickups lack brightness. Should I return it to the store or get new pickups? Not sure. It’s so cheap, I hate to get rid of it. It seems to be a great guitar to take with me if I play elsewhere, because it’s nearly disposable. Maybe new pickups would be a good investment.

The bluegrass is going EXTREMELY well. I had forgotten how good I used to be. It’s a shame I’m not a big bluegrass fan. I can really make a flattop quack in pain. When you play bluegrass, you have to use a big, obnoxious guitar and heavy strings, and you have to dominate the instrument and essentially torture it to force good sound out of it. I can do that. The good players really work the instrument. Ordinary players will just let it lope. That kills the passion and compresses the dynamics. You have to beat the guitar to death.

I am blessed with two phenomenal flattops. Right now, I’m using my old Taylor 710. It’s like a Martin D35, but when I bought it, I compared it to a Martin, and it was vastly superior. It has tons of bass, a piercing, ringing, sweet treble, and an incredible action, and it’s extremely responsive. If Martin has ever made a guitar with a decent action, I have not tried it.

Some people pick on Taylors, claiming they’re overrated, and that they’re slapped together in giant factories where no one cares how they sound. Whatever. Mine has Mr. Taylor’s signature on it, and the serial number is under 7,000, so maybe they made them better when mine rolled out. It’s great, regardless of what other Taylors are like. And the sound keeps improving as it ages.

While I was shopping for pedals, I heard a thing called a Fat Sandwich, made by Way Huge. I thought it sounded tremendous. When I get to the point where I understand pedals, I may try one.

I wish my fingers would harden up already. I begin every day’s practice on the wimpy strings of an electric guitar, and that’s no strain, but when I move to the dreadnought, I get about twenty minutes of playing before the pain sets in. And while I am now strong enough to play well with a 0.88-mm Dunlop pick, I lack endurance. I want to upgrade to the 1.0-mm pick as soon as I can.

It’s a blast to make real music again. I’m looking forward to the day when I can do it on the electric guitars as well as the Taylor. Right now, the contrast is horrendous.

Get Down, Get Down

What on earth is going on in Al Gore’s head?

Conservatives all said he was nuts back in 2000, when he tried to run George Bush off the debate platform. Are we being proven right today?

The massage story is horrendous. It suggests the man has completely lost his mind. The lust, I can understand. The alleged whining and groping and the “second chakra” reference sound symptomatic of heavy-duty mental illness.

Maybe none of it is true.

I don’t know how to react to the story. Christians are not supposed to listen to gossip, and we are not supposed to pass it on. But is it gossip when it involves a major political figure who has power over our lives?

It occurred to me yesterday that no matter how wacky we accuse the left of being, we nearly always turn out to be understating the case. This is literally true. On the other hand, a Republican was forced out of office for going to a sex club with his own wife, and another was crucified for saying the nonsense word “macaca.” It’s like we view Republican sins with a microscope (and Photoshop and audio dubbing and LSD, if necessary), but when the offender is liberal, we turn the microscope around so everything shrinks down to nothing.

Gore is now claiming he’s innocent. Maybe he is. But the accuser says she has a certain type of physical evidence which is irrefutible and impossible to fake. What will he say if she turns out to be telling the truth? Lies have a lot of power, but there are some problems they can’t fix. He lied about the polar bears and all that other environmental stuff, and he protected his lies by shutting out the press. You can’t shut a grand jury out. You can’t tell a prosecutor you’re not taking calls.

Some public figures get so full of themselves, they essentially force the press to go after them. Like John Wayne Gacy taunting the cops. The press will work very hard to protect a liberal, but eventually, they get fed up. It becomes a matter of pride with them. They start to feel used. Then you end up with Tom Fiedler waiting in the bushes to catch Gary Hart and Donna Rice. Or the John Edwards story. To a liberal politician, the press is like a forgiving parole officer. Sooner or later, they get out the cuffs and slap you down.

If the press gives up and realizes it has to eat Al Gore, things could get very messy. There is so much candy in the pinata, it will be raining for years. When you’re on top, no one will touch you, but once you fall, everyone has a dime to drop on you. All the cheesy things Gore has done over the decades will fall on him like the bail of a rat trap.

It is a sorry spectacle. Of course, we should pray he gets right with God and gets past this.

Things are going well here. Guitar practice is going great, and I am learning about amps and effects. I’ve decided to keep my cheap Chinese Epiphone, and I’m considering getting a pedalboard.

I’m frustrated by the left-hand work. I’m studying Fretboard Logic, and I’m studying the electric blues, and I’m getting into all kinds of stretches I never had to do when playing bluegrass. The progress is actually pretty fast, but because I have to have the stretches and bars down before I can really accomplish anything, I sometimes feel like I’m stuck in hardening cement. Thank God, the flatpicking is going quicker.

I’m starting to wonder if the blues is appropriate for worship music. I’m beginning to believe it is. Satan took sex, which is very close to God’s heart, and he turned it into something God’s people tend to malign. Maybe he did the same thing with blue notes and rhythm. The word “blues,” itself, is a deception. Blues music tends to be extremely upbeat and joyful, but because of the name and some of the lyrics, people think of it as depressing music. Go to a B.B. King concert and see if you see anyone sad in the crowd. WAKE UP. Labels don’t create reality. You could call it “pineapple-flavored music,” but it wouldn’t make it true.

I heard a blues worship tune in my head this morning. I may write it down. It would pep things up between bland tunes where people wave their arms and murmur “You are good oh how good wow you are good” over and over.

Sure Looks Like It

I just got done with guitar practice.

I still can’t believe the quality of the Epiphone Riviera I bought. The action is better than my Fender’s or my Gibson’s, and the sound is wonderful. God bless the Chinese.

I’m having pain in my right elbow. Evidently, at my advanced age, you can’t just jump to a 1.0-mm Dunlop pick after years of doing nothing. So I’m using a 0.8-mm pick until I feel better. Oddly, my left hand, which I have truly abused, feels fine.

Today I had a big breakthrough. I’m still working on the movable bar chords in Fretboard Fundamentals. Up through yesterday, I could only practice them for about a minute before running around the room screaming in pain (perhaps I exaggerate). Today I’m up to two and a half minutes, and I was able to stand practicing ten minutes, with short breaks!

Yesterday I started working on Fred Sokolow’s Rockabilly Guitar lessons (online), and I thought there was no way I could do what he was asking. But today I’m making the stretch between the first and fifth frets fairly well. This is a huge jump for one day. It gives me hope.

I wish I knew what kind of strings to put on the Riviera. I bought DR brand strings, but I only got them because the kid at Guitar Center likes them. I got 9s because that’s what people say you should use when you play the blues, but it’s hard for me to accept light strings, because my bluegrass experience showed me that the heavier strings are, the better they sound. I got the DRs for the Blueshawk and the Strat, but I haven’t put them on yet. Maybe I could get away with 11s on the Riviera. I believe it has a shorter scale than the Blueshawk, so heavier strings should be easier to get away with.

If I keep up with this, eventually I’ll need a real guitar. Maybe I can make the Strat or the Blueshawk work, but my experience with the Riviera has me thinking about a serious hollow-body guitar with a Bigsby and single-coil pickups. I made myself a promise. Six months from the day I started practicing, I will buy myself an electric guitar that SMOKES. Maybe something crazy like a Collings. Why not? New Gibsons are so expensive, there is no reason not to look at obscure high-end guitars.

A vintage instrument might be a good buy, but I would only want one that had been kept in a closet. I don’t trust guitars that have been played a lot, because they’re more likely to have hidden botched repairs, and they’re more likely to be fakes. Besides, I’m pretty sure the instruments they make now are the best they’ve ever been. That’s true of acoustics, so why shouldn’t it be true of electrics?

Here’s something weird. Today I remembered how to play an entire bluegrass song, and I have no idea what the name is. “Salt” something or other, I think. I’m not sure.

Off to church. On Saturday, CeCe Winans and Papa San are having a concert at our church, and I’m going to be working as an Armorbearer. Nutty, huh? Tonight we’re hosting a band from Australia.

Life rocks.

On Second Thought, Don’t

I can no longer keep up with the good stuff God does in my life. I just don’t have time to blog it all.

On Saturday, I cooked for our church’s Rhythms Lounge event. Young people come to the cafe and perform. Some play music, some recite, and others sing. This weekend, we had a guest performer: Zach Freeman, the son of two of our pastors. He plays guitar and sings.

What a show we had. We have a regular house band composed of church members; oddly, it’s not the same band that plays during worship. They jammed with Zach for maybe an hour. We heard a lot of blues and even a long funk session.

I can’t describe the quality of the playing. I had no idea these kids were this good. They were so tight, you would think they had been playing together for years.

Zach started off with his Strat and some effects, and he created an ambience you could almost swim in. I wish we had recorded it. Ordinarily I’m not a big fan of reverb and sustain pedals, but he used them to draw us into a world that did not exist before he started playing.

When the other players got going, we heard bass licks that started and stopped the show at will. The keyboard player, who claimed he couldn’t play blues, performed gymnastics that had everyone gasping. When it was over, the whole crowd started yelling and crying out. A friend of mine leaned over and said, “They’re praising God in Creole.”

I couldn’t ask for a better end to my first week of renewed guitar practice.

It gets even weirder. I have a new guitar! For a long time, I’ve wanted a thinline Gibson guitar with single-coil pickups and a Bigsby, but doubting that I would use it, I never gave in to temptation. This week I started reading up on Epiphone guitars. This is Gibson’s Asian line. Ordinarily, I won’t go near an Asian instrument; Japanese dreadnoughts sound like cigar boxes and have actions that tear up your hands. But I kept reading reviews, and I thought to myself, “If I get one of these things, I have 30 days to try it out, and if it works, it will be a fantastic asset, and the price will be so low, even if I get a better instrument later, I’ll be able to drag this one when I travel without worrying about what happens to it.”

I drove down US1 to buy some bird seed, and I was praying in the Spirit while I drove (good way to redeem the time), and I started thinking about Guitar Center. I felt I couldn’t stop myself, so I decided to go with it. I went in and found an Epiphone Riviera on the wall. I still didn’t intend to buy it. I asked the salesman a few questions, looked it over, and told him I would take it. I felt like I had to do it. I think he nearly fainted. I didn’t even ask to play it. There was no point.

This guitar was made in China. They get spotty reviews that go in two directions. Some instruments are written off as junk. Other buyers say they can’t understand how Epiphone can sell such gorgeous instruments at this price point. It looks like I’m in the latter group. This thing is virtually flawless. It sounds good. It plays well. So far, I’ve only been able to find one tiny imperfection in it. And it cost about 13% of what a new Gibson would cost. I could put a thousand dollars’ worth of upgrades into it and still be way ahead.

I don’t know what the story is. Maybe it was God. Maybe I just like shiny new stuff too much. But I try to walk by faith, and this felt like God’s urging, so I didn’t want to screw it up.

On Saturday, the music materials I ordered arrived. I got a copy of Tony Rice Guitar, plus Dan Crary’s Flatpicker’s Guide, plus a giant tablature book called The Big Slab of Tab. I used to play things from these books, many years ago. Back then, I had some trouble with a little bit of the Tony Rice stuff, but as I noted the other day, my practice habits were completely wrong. Fifteen minutes a day.

I got these books because I feel that God is restoring my life and undoing past failures (and also because I owed Tony Rice a royalty).

I’ve been working on the tunes, and it’s crazy, but there is a big long Tony Rice lick I could never conquer in the past, and after two days, I nearly have it beat. I figure I should be able to play coherently, with the correct super-heavy Dunlop pick, within a week. Maybe I’ll upload an MP3 when that happens.

To get back to church, I cooked for the first two services yesterday, and then I served as an Armorbearer at the last service, and I attended a meeting at which we welcomed four new ABs. Guess who one of them is? Zach Freeman. He goes to college in another state, but he’ll be here all summer. I spoke up and informed him of the rule that ABs have to give each other free guitar lessons, and he said, “I GOT you.” Ha!

I keep meeting remarkable people at my church, semi-ghetto though it may be. The background of the people is totally unrelated to their potential and the contents of their hearts. Some are from the neighborhood, which is pretty depressed. Some are from areas that are more affluent. But there are incredible human beings there, from all sorts of different areas.

When I met Zach on Saturday, I was looking forward to meeting a young man everyone admired so much, but he treated ME like a celebrity. He kept talking about my cheesecake and how great it was. I’m just the guy in the kitchen. He, not me, was the talk of the church. It’s wild, how God raises up powerful people and keeps them humble. With his help, an camel really can go through the eye of a needle.

I may have to make him pay off on that lesson thing, although when he sees how hopeless I am, he may wish he had kept silent.

Another new AB has a wonderful trait we needed badly: he’s Cuban. That means he can FISH. And we need that, if we are going to keep angling for my dad. We talked about dolphin fishing, and he told me a few things even I didn’t know. So I’m hoping we can get him on the boat in a few days. He’s also a professional photographer, so maybe we can preserve a few images.

We don’t get very many Cubans in our church. Strange. I know a bunch of Puerto Ricans, though. God tends to recruit from the bottom of society, and Cubans are at the top.

Today I got up, hoping to rest after a busy weekend, and what did I see on Drudge’s page? The Supreme Court has INCORPORATED THE SECOND AMENDMENT. At least, that’s my understanding of it. I don’t think I’m exaggerating, but I haven’t read the opinion. I’m sure liberal judges and lawyers will do their best to interpret incorporation out of the decision. Anyway, Wayne LaPierre says firearms bans can no longer be enforced anywhere in the US. This is gigantic news. God has worked a real wonder.

For a long time, I’ve believed God was going to preserve and expand our gun rights, even as our government pushed farther and farther in the directions of sexual perversion, anti-Semitism, military weakness, weak boarders, and socialism. It looks like I was hearing from God, and not from my own limited mind.

An evil time is coming. When it does, people will remember the Jewish names Madoff, Stearns, Goldman, Sachs, Bernanke, Emanuel, Frank, and Geithner. I think these names will be used to justify a wave of anti-Semitic barbarism. In that day, Christians and Jews who have armed themselves, bought rural land, and learned how to use tools will be way ahead of the game. I strongly suspect God is getting us ready. This decision will certainly help.

What will God do next? I can’t even guess. The spectacle is exhausting me.

King of the Closet

Yesterday I had a major guitar breakthrough. I think I connected with an amp and electric guitar.

I already had two amps. One is a Fender Blues Jr. (tubes) and the other is a cheapo solid-state Crate. The Crate is just unforgivable; I only got it because it gave me some hope of getting distortion at low volumes. The Blues Jr. sounds fine but doesn’t do much until you turn it up (or maybe I don’t know how to use it).

I picked up a Vox AC4TV (tubes), and I cranked the power down to 1/4 watt, which is 1/60 of what the Blues Jr. consumes. It didn’t sound all that great. I had the tone control up pretty high, because I thought this would fuzz up the tone, and I had the volume control very low, because…silly me…I thought this would reduce the volume.

I decided to try it the other way around. The amp only has two sound controls, so it’s not like I had a big choice. I turned the volume way up and turned the tone way down. What did I get? Neat fuzzy distortion, like Otis Rush. Actually, it’s more like his voice than his guitar. It sounded wonderful. I couldn’t put the guitar down.

A long time ago, when I was shopping for an electric guitar, I found an ES355 (or was it an ES330?) which had a similar sound. This is the sound I like.

Don’t try to help me understand why “volume” means “tone” and “tone” means “volume.” I don’t care. It works.

“COINCIDENTALLY,” I’ll be cooking for my church’s Saturday-night Rhythms Lounge event tomorrow, and guess who the guest is? Zachary Freeman. He’s a jazz and blues guitarist. His mom is a pastor at the church. Pretty cool. I haven’t heard him, but people at church rave about him.

IT’S COINCIDENCE! DARWIN! DARWIN! SOCIALISM! VIVA CHE! OBAMA WILL SAVE US!

Whatever. You believe what you want. I’m going to stay connected to the power supply.

My miracle weight loss is continuing. I put on a few pounds while I worked on desserts for my church, and I also discovered Five Guys, so I have been concerned. Today I weighed myself, and it appears that the weight loss is progressing again. Fantastic. Only God could do this. I don’t diet; I’m not gifted with perfect willpower. I’m just not a fat person any more. It’s as if I had been born to be thin. I hope I knock off ten more pounds, so none of my pants will be able to intimidate me. I wore my super-thin black jeans to church on Wednesday. I still need to lose an inch to make them comfortable. I bought them for riding motorcycles; grease and dirt don’t show up much on black jeans.

I got to the range yesterday and chronographed some 10mm ammunition. I don’t have the results before me, but it looks like 12 grains of No. 7 powder will give me good results, and 12.5 might be ideal. At 12 grains, I get 1200 fps, and I want 1250. One disappointment: my Wolf primers seem hard. Two out of twenty failed to go off on the first try. This is fine for target practice, but for self-defense, I’m going to need something like Federal. I am told Federal primers are the softest.

The primers and cases looked okay after firing.

The gun shoots great. My accuracy was affected by the way I had to contort myself to fire through the chronograph, but I shot more than well enough to splatter an assailant’s brains. The recoil tires my hand a little, though, so I think the gun would tend to lose accuracy after a dozen or two dozen rounds. Not enough to matter in a self-defense situation, but it would be annoying in practice sessions.

The consistency of the handloads (especially the low-powered target rounds) was very good. I plan to load defensive rounds one at a time, for total confidence, but for routine target shooting, I think I can rely on my powder measure.

I also tried my Bill Springfield AR trigger. It’s better than the stock trigger, which is not exactly a surprise. I’m not sure I love it, though. Still seems a little balky.

I had to buy cheesy PMC .308 ammo, because I left my Radway Green at home. I don’t know how good PMC rifle ammuntion is, but their pistol ammunition is the worst I’ve tried.

Yesterday, I was shooting into an area the size of a baseball at 100 yards. Acceptable under the circumstances, but I would like to do better. A range officer who shoots .308 says reloading is the only answer. If I start reloading, I think it will be time to consider a .260 Remington upper, which was my real goal anyway. Maybe the .308 upper was a mistake. It looks like I can’t do precision shooting with cheap ammo, so the money I save may be a hollow blessing. Still, if times get really hard, cheap ammo in large quantities may be a real asset, and I can’t get that in .260.

The Leupold scope is a dream come true. I don’t even understand all the knobs yet. The field of view is gorgeous, and everything is sharp.

Speaking of hard times, a man named Hank Kunneman appeared on Sid Roth’s show yesterday, claiming to be a prophet. He said God had showed up a couple of things. First, the next couple of years will be pretty rough, and it will seem like Obama is doing very poorly. Second, God intends to reverse some of the bad legislation Obama has signed, and he intends to change the Supreme Court.

He reminded us to pray for our leaders, and he was right about that. I think Obama is an embarrassment and an obstacle to God’s work, but I have resolved to pray, daily, that God will change his heart and the hearts of our other leaders. The Bible tells us we have a duty to pray for our leaders, so I’m going to stay on it. I also pray that God will take down leaders who refuse to change, replacing them with godly men. So I’m covered either way!

I hate to say it, but I feel bad for Obama. I believe he is in for a long stretch of humiliation, and if he doesn’t get right with God and the Jews, there probably won’t be any end to it. Remember Nebuchadnezzar, wandering around on all fours, eating grass.

I don’t know if Hank Kunneman is the real thing or not, so caveat emptor.

I’m out.

“Blue” Never Really Meant “Sad”

This is my third day of guitar practice, and again, I can’t believe how fast I’m picking things up. I had this nutty intuition that God was going to help me with my creaky memory, and I kid you not, it seems to be happening.

I put new strings on my old Taylor 710 (the manly 710 with the three-piece back, not the new two-piece one which is probably endorsed by Richard Simmons). I also picked up some more junk at Guitar Center. I got two bags of rubbery nylon Dunlop picks (black and dark grey, which means insanely heavy and super heavy), and I grabbed a Vox AC4TV amp. I was going to wait, but the Blues Jr. was taking up half of the room, and I figured I could always take advantage of Guitar Center’s 30-day policy if it didn’t work out.

I contacted Gibson about fixing the gouge in the neck of my old Blueshawk. I never gave that guitar a fair chance, and I want it fixed up. The Strat has a much better action, but there is something about the Blueshawk…it seems more alive. It has very tall frets, so you can get all sorts of expressive effects by varying the pressure, and it’s very light and easy to hold, and it has lots of weird electronics. Well, not “lots.” It has a Varitone with a bypass doodad, plus three P100 pickups with a dummy coil. It has more doodads than I can intelligently use; I’ll put it that way.

The Strat’s action is much better, although that may be a matter of truss rod adjustment. That guitar is super-refined, in terms of fit and finish. It still looks the way it did when I brought it home, too.

I started doing exercises from the book Fretboard Logic, and while my left hand is pretty hopeless when it comes to barring the neck, I have the basic positions mastered and can move through them without hesitation. I suppose it will take a while to develop the musculature for barring. I never really had it in the past, because bluegrass occurs between the first and fifth frets, where you don’t have to bar anything.

I learned something about intonation. This should have been obvious. Electric guitars have always annoyed me because they wander off-key. I thought they had inherent intonation problems. Fretboard Logic says the problem may be caused by excessive fretting pressure. Duh. Why didn’t that occur to me before? Here I am, used to playing huge guitars with 13s on them, and I’m trying to fret wimpy electrics with 9s. OF COURSE I press too hard. Anyway, the discovery, pathetic though it may be, is kind of a breakthrough.

I thought it would take me a while to get to the point where I could swing a fat pick through heavy strings instead of plucking them (this is essential to good timing), but I was doing it today, no problems. That’s a relief. I managed to play The Temperance Reel competently, and I made great progress re-learning Dan Crarys Memories of Mozart. I ought to have it in the bag by Monday or Tuesday!

I ordered a copy of Tony Rice Guitar, the book containing the tablature for The Temperance Reel. I learned the tune from a photocopy years ago (I think), and I felt I should pay the man his royalty and get the real thing. I also ordered a new copy of Dan Crary’s Flatpicking Guide, because it comes with a CD instead of the old wax phonograph cylinder cassette my moldy copy came with.

I don’t have that much interest in bluegrass per se, but I would like to be capable of playing the tunes I used to play, and bluegrass is a fantastic hand workout, so it should be helpful. And I have been thinking of using my flatpicking skills to play other types of music. There is no reason you can’t do that, and there is nothing like the sound of a dreadnaught or jumbo played with a heavy pick.

The Vox seems like a great amp, although I’m not qualified to say. The sound is very good, and I’m very glad I bought an amp capable of being limited to 1/4 watt, because it’s STILL loud, if it’s not adjusted carefully. I was nuts, buying a 15-watt Blues Jr. Maybe I can use it if I play in a bigger room or play in public.

I have some ideas about the electric guitar. I’d like to develop some tunes like “Trouble of the World,” which Mahalia Jackson used to sing. This stuff is great Christian music, and it radiates soul like nobody’s business. The right arrangement and tone could bring people to their knees. We have a lot of white-bread music in the church these days. Not everyone grew up in the Brady household. A little flavor would be a good addition to our current fare. When our worship team does reggae, it’s wonderful. I think it would be great to bring soul back to worship music.

Some of Mahalia Jackson’s material wasn’t worthy of her, but this one is great.

Here:

Here’s another great performance. Why did Gershwin let DuBose Heyward get away with writing only two verses?

Cheesecake Rejection

I got a call from Mike yesterday. He has been on the road with his son, who is a hot football prospect. They were touring schools. I got on him about going to church, and he swears he is going to try. It can be very discouraging, trying to get people to attend. After a while, you feel like letting the issue drop and devoting your attention to something else. But I think he may get serious now that he has time.

While I was on the phone, we talked food. Here is the idea that hit me: pineapple upside-down cake made with banana nut bread. You make two cakes and put the pineapple stuff between them. Then on top…carrot cake icing.

Is that sick or what? I can’t wait to try it. It’s the most beautiful cake idea I’ve ever heard of. I think Mike levitated when I brought it up.

I’ve been having trouble baking for my church. They keep wasting the food I make. I baked three cheesecakes last week, and today I found out they weren’t putting them on display. I made raspberry sauce, and I bought red and yellow raspberries to scatter on the cake, and I guess it’s all ruined now.

I don’t want to be a pain, but I informed the pastor who runs the cafe that I don’t want to bake any more until I know they’re going to sell the food. It’s stupid to show up at two p.m. on a Saturday and bake for four hours when you know they’re going to throw the food out later.

In other news, I have been fiddling with music practice for two days now. Yesterday I installed Dunlop Straploks on my electric guitars. I don’t know why electric guitars come with such useless strap buttons, but my Blueshawk has a nasty dent in it, which it got on the day I learned I needed locking buttons. I don’t want that to happen again.

Why don’t they use steel eyes instead of buttons? It’s so obvious. Put a spring-loaded connector (like the one on a dog leash) at each end of the strap, put a fabric sleeve over it to prevent scratching, and you’re all set. The Dunlop things work, but the concept is incredibly stupid.

I researched amps. It looks like the best amp for practice is a tube amp with virtually no power. Like four watts. I have a 15-watt amp, and it’s tough to set the knobs so it sounds good but doesn’t blow me out of the house. Wish I had known this back when I got it. Vox makes a 4-watt practice amp which can be driven hard at power levels as low as 1/4 watt. Maybe some day I’ll try one.

The practice went way better than I expected. I picked things up surprisingly quickly. I’m devoting part of the time to studying the workings of the fretboard. I have a book called Fretboard Logic, and I’m doing the exercises. Maybe this will open the instrument up to me. In any case, I have to have some kind of music in my life, and guitar is convenient.

Guess I should get rid of the cornet.

Morning in Coral Gables

I keep waking up happy to be alive and eager to get out there and get things done. This can be pretty tiresome to the people around you. It’s like having Kathy Lee Gifford sneak up behind you and hug you all the time, while singing “You Light up my Life.”

I have realized I have to make a musical decision. I have to pick one or two instruments, pick them up, work on them seriously, and forget the rest. Otherwise I will have no music in my life.

I’m thinking piano and guitar are the way to go. Their versatility is too hard to pass up.

Last night I took out a couple of my guitars and started playing around with them. I’m going to pick up a few needed accessories and form a plan. Yes, Christians can plan. It’s not really a sin, regardless of the way we generally behave.

Last week the main guitarist at my church introduced himself. This kid can really play. I told him how impressed I was with his work, and naturally, he was so humble about it, it was hard to get the message into his head. We talked about guitar, and I told him I ought to hire him to give me lessons so I could overcome my problems with electric instruments. He said I should get in touch any time. Man, I may do that.

My Internet use is dropping off. I think that’s good. It gives me more time to do real things, as contrasted with virtual ones. Maybe I can funnel some of the new time into music.

I really blew it with the guitar. I used to play very well, but I only practiced 15 minutes a day. I figured that if I couldn’t learn something with that much practice, it was impossible for me. When I started piano, I practiced a lot more than that, and I realized that even if you have some talent, you benefit a lot from long practice sessions. I could have been an excellent guitar player, but I didn’t have the right mindset or sufficient character.

God is working to restore things I’ve lost. I have reason to believe that my memory is improving. If that’s true, I have an opportunity to get real benefit from music practice. I want to try it out and see. For a long time, I had problems, learning too slowly and forgetting what I had learned. I know I sound crazy, but I don’t think those things are going to happen any more.

Right now I feel like life is full of opportunity again. I feel that some of my lost potential has been returned to me.

Hope I’m right.

If You’re Ever in Thebes, Drop by the Palace

Just got back from church. I should be more precise: just finished eating a burger from Five Guys, which I bought on the way home from church.

The weekend was a blur. On Friday night, we had all-church prayer, which was fantastic. On Saturday, we had a Marketplace Ministry event where we heard from Brian Klemmer, a well-known motivational speaker. I drove home, bought food and cooking equipment, drove back, and made two cheesecakes and three loaves of banana nut bread, and then I hung out at our cafe for Rhythms Lounge, our Saturday-night youth event. It’s sort of like a beat bar, only with no drugs or alcohol (that we know of).

Got up this morning, drove to church, made six dozen garlic rolls and dough for 12 pizzas. Worked through two services. Sat for the third service, taking a brief break to assemble and bake two pizzas. Got out my rotary hammer and drilled some giant holes in the floor of the kitchen to see if I could remove some old angle iron supports. Went to an armorbearer meeting. Went to Five Guys.

Today at the cafe, people were eating my brownies, cheesecake, pizza, garlic rolls, banana nut bread, and pineapple-cream cheese spread. All on the same day. I can’t believe all the crap I can cook now, and how fast I can do it.

People kept asking if I was the food guy and telling me how great everything was. It was hilarious. “Try the cheesecake.” “I don’t like blueberries.” “I know, but trust me, TRY THE CHEESECAKE.”

It’s wonderful to do well at something and get a little recognition. I’m positive God gives me recipes, but I still get to prepare them, so I’m in the chain of success somewhere.

I was thinking about it yesterday. I’ve been involved in several things at church, but the only authorities who have followed through with the things they’ve involved me in have been the Armorbearer and cafe guys. The Armorbearer guys don’t have all that much advancement or opportunity to provide me, so there has been a limit to what I could do for them. The cafe guy had more problems I could fix, and he gave me support and got out of the way, and now I’m paying off for him like a slot machine.

The pastor involved me with a book he wanted to write, but then he hired a PR chief to be in charge of all writing jobs, and the Haiti mess popped up, and suddenly, the book was not a priority. Piles of dead bodies were rotting in the streets of Port au Prince, so the book had to be put on the back burner while charity logistics were worked out. I did some writing for the Haiti relief effort, but the PR boss hasn’t asked me to do anything in months. I guess someone else is doing the work.

It’s a little weird. Given my unusual set of skills, I could have done a lot for them, had I been included, but God has his own plans, and I ended up doing security and making food. As far as I know, nothing is happening with the church’s book-writing plans, but because I got so much support in the kitchen, the cafe is blossoming like a rose.

I assume there was a purpose in the way things worked out. It has been fantastic for me, so I can’t complain. I love what I’m doing.

Sometimes I wonder whether the folks at church are truly aware of what I can do; I could have gone to Haiti and created a blog about it and gotten a lot of traffic, and I could have done photography and written books about it. These things would have been very easy for me, and I don’t think anyone else at my church could get it done. I’ll put it this way: they haven’t done it. But ideas that make sense in the natural are often wrong. “There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.” Things are probably going exactly as they should be.

I’m meeting all sorts of people, which is good for me. On Saturday nights, twice a month, I’m in a cafe full of kids in their teens to early twenties, mostly of Haitian descent. As an Armorbearer, I get to meet various speakers and teachers. I’m going to be doing krav maga again, and I may conceivably exercise. I’m learning all sorts of things about running a restaurant, and I’m becoming a very efficient institutional cook. I even get to use my tools sometimes. I’ve done welding for the church, and now I’m working on removing old steel from their floor.

It’s not bad.

God puts people in authority over us, and he helps shape their decisions. Look at Joseph and Jacob, in their dealings with Pharaoh and Laban. I’m not comparing the good people at my church to a couple of heathens, but the same principle applies. You will not always understand the decisions your authorities make, and sometimes they will seem crazy, but you should not be quick to react with rebellion and disrespect, because sometimes, a crazy decision has a supernatural cause contrived for your benefit.

Weird stuff keeps happening to me. Since the Rendezvous conference last month, I’ve found that when I pray in the Spirit, I’m actually singing, because there is a melody to it. And I generally seem more musical. I used to hear all sorts of musical variations in my head, but I was frustrated because I didn’t hear many completely new tunes. Now I’m starting to hear entire melodies. I need to start writing them down. And I used to have a funny problem when I sang in church: I couldn’t harmonize, which is usually pretty effortless for me. I thought it was because the music was so loud I couldn’t hear myself, but that was wrong, because now, all sorts of harmonic variations are coming out. There’s more to it than that, but that’s all I feel like saying. Something supernatural is definitely going on.

I have a pretty wild testimony. Nutty things are going on, but generally, the people around me have almost no interest whatsoever. Sometimes I have the strange sensation that I’m invisible. I tend to think my testimony is like a cake in the oven. I want to take it out now, but God wants it to stay in the oven until it’s completely ready, so for the moment, nobody wants to hear it. As a result, people who read this blog know more about it than people I go to church with.

Maybe Joseph felt this way when he was stuck in Egypt, forced to live in luxury and power while his relatives were still dirt-farming in Israel. I feel like I’m being restrained for the present, but even though I’m not doing anything impressive or significant on the grand scale, life is very, very pleasant.

I am considering turning my banana-nut bread recipe into doughnuts and adding coconut glaze. Thought I’d throw that in just to horrify everyone before posting this entry.

Not by Sight

I should finish writing about my trip to Washington, DC, for the National Day of Prayer. I left you at the National Holocaust Memorial.

After our tour, Mike and I were stuck in the city. The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews had a dinner scheduled, and we did not have enough time to go home and shower. We made our way to the Crowne Plaza on K Street and headed downstairs to the banquet room.

They had a table set up, with little gift bags for everyone. I got a package of Dead Sea girly stuff. Mud pack or something. We also received Rabbi Eckstein’s latest CD. He sings.

We met a number of donors and IFCJ staffers. One of the staffers is a food critic. She said she would like to see my cookbook. I didn’t know what to say about that. It’s not the kind of material Christians ordinarily read.

The Rabbi showed up, and each of us got to pose for a photo with him. Very nice guy. Not stand-offish at all. No entourage. No hovering assistants to keep donors away. He even posed with Mike, who, as I have noted before, isn’t even a donor!

We sat at our tables in the banquet room, and food started coming out, and speakers appeared. I was amazed that prayer in the name of Jesus was tolerated.

I shouldn’t even have to point out that almost all of the donors were Christians.

The Rabbi spoke. He said he did not want to talk politics, but he referred, in a general way, to the problems Israel was having with the current U.S. administration. Barack Obama is not a conservative Christian, and he does not have the pro-Israel attitude conservatives expect when they nominate a candidate. He sees Israel and the Jews as spoiled by previous administrations, and he is determined to bring about “even-handedness” in our dealings in the Middle East.

“Even-handedness.” There are about 15 million Jews on earth. They have one tiny country they can flee to when persecuted. They have 1.2 billion Muslim counterparts, many of whom are determined to destroy Israel, and many of whom hope to exterminate the Jewish people. But our President wants “even-handedness.”

I can’t tell you how good it felt, watching an Orthodox rabbi tell us he was frustrated by a liberal administration and pleased to have the support of conservative Christians.

He gave us a song or two, using a beautiful guitar a supporter made. And we heard from some other speakers, and then we had conversation.

My table was wonderful. We started talking about weapons and tools and so on. We had a Pentagon employee (Army, I think) and a retired military guy and his wife, and most of us were on exactly the same frequency. Linda (the IFCJ rep who invited me) told everyone about my cookbook and my guns and tools, and we started exchanging information and opinions.

I think Mike was a little weirded out. We were sitting with total strangers, yet there was an instant rapport. We were talking about prophecy and how America was declining, and one of the guys started quoting Perry Stone, whom I have mentioned to Mike many times. Everyone wanted to know about concealed carry and reloading and so on, and I told them what I knew.

There was one couple–Baptists, probably–who seemed almost taken aback by the passion and conviction we all displayed. But the rest of us were completely caught up, like no other group at the dinner. I told Mike that when you start walking by faith, this kind of thing happens all the time. I said, “It’s going to keep happening for the rest of your life.”

By the end, we were talking like old friends.

The next morning, Mike and I got up and headed for DC again, to hear the Israeli ambassador. His name is Michael Oren, and we were scheduled to hear him at the Ninth Annual Israel Solidarity Event, at the Israeli Embassy!

I spent four months on a kibbutz in 1984, and for a long time, I’ve longed to return to Israel. The embassy is considered part of Israel, so it was a pretty good substitute.

We met some of our new friends outside the security building, and we made our way through the metal detector. It was odd to hear the peculiar, brusque Israeli accent again as the guards and staffers worked to get us checked in.

Before we began, a pianist and singer performed Hatikvah, the national anthem of Israel. Funny thing, it’s based on the same folk melody as Smetana’s Die Moldau, which was one of my mother’s favorite pieces of music. When Hatikvah was banned by the British Mandate, some radio stations played Die Moldau in order to get around the prohibition.

The Star-Spangled Banner followed.

Christian speakers including Gary Bauer preceded the ambassador. They talked about the worldwide increase in anti-Semitism and the need to stand by Israel’s side in these strange times. Once again, prayer in the name of Jesus was permitted. Amazing.

I believe the only Israeli speakers were Noam Katz (Minister for Public Diplomacy) and Michael Oren. If memory serves, Mr. Katz openly admitted that American conservative Christians were the best friends Israel had. It may have been Ambassador Oren, but I don’t remember it that way. In any case, it was stirring. What a change in the Jewish perspective.

Ambassador Oren was wonderful. He’s a historian (born in the US and schooled at Princeton and Columbia), and he told about American’s long association with Israel and the Jews. He told us that one of the Founding Fathers proposed putting Moses and the Hebrews on our national seal, as a metaphor for our crossing the Atlantic and leaving the British behind. The British were our Egyptians. Ambassador Oren also pointed out that a surprising number of early Americans were schooled in the Hebrew language, and many believed it to be the language of heaven.

When the Israelis spoke, a serious-looking young man stood to the side of the podium, staring out over the crowd. I took him to be a Mossad bodyguard. An armorbearer! Just like me, except he actually knew what he was doing.

I found myself seated next to a donor I hadn’t met before. We found ourselves talking a great deal. She and her husband had been at the dinner, and a group had prayed for him, and his ear had been healed. She complained that now he could hear her muttering about him!

She asked about my church, and I told her about Trinity, and that we belonged to the Assemblies of God. The woman I was talking to said she thought it was a sign that she should check out a local AG church she had wanted to visit. A lady in front of us turned around and said she was AG, too. I seem to have made a much better impression on people than I had any right to.

I told her what I could about charismatic Christianity. I believe prayer in the Spirit builds us up (as the Bible claims), and that it gives us faith and changes us from within.

Naturally, I also talked to her about food. I took her email address and told her she could have any recipe she wanted. Since then, we have corresponded. Her husband’s ear, which had been screwed up for years, is still fine.

I was glad I had managed to be of some use. When you walk by faith, God chooses the people you meet.

I touched the stones of the courtyard on the way out, saying goodbye to Israel once again.

I can’t tell you everything that happened on Saturday; it’s fairly private. We went to the air and space museum at the Smithsonian. I felt like God was showing me the wonders he had done for this country before it turned away from him. I wondered what was in store, as our rebellion continued.

On Sunday, Mike and I went to church. His wife wanted to take their son fishing, so they didn’t go. But Mike was very gung-ho. I got him to go to Trinity Assembly of God in Lanham, Maryland. I found it on the web a while back, and it looked promising. And how about that name? Same as my church in Miami Gardens.

We got to the church, and I told Mike to pick seats for us. I was confident that God would do something weird with his choice. We ended up near the back on the right.

The music was very good, and I even knew some of the songs. I guess charismatics tend to gravitate toward the same hymns.

Mike has been having some difficulties with his family. I don’t want to say more than that. Guess what day God picked to get us in church together? Mother’s Day. The whole service was about wives and mothers. Very appropriate.

Before things really got going, we heard some testimony from a lady whose prayer for a baby had been answered. When I heard her voice, it was another great surprise. Many of the people in the church were black, but until she spoke, I didn’t know they were island people. Just like Trinity in Miami Gardens! How did that happen? We were in Maryland, not Florida. They had Hispanics, too. The pastor’s name is Tino. The only other Tino I know goes to Trinity.

The pastor had us pray sort of randomly early on. This is not unusual at a charismatic church. Mike and I went at it, and as we did, each of us felt a big hand land on his shoulder. An older man in the row behind us was praying for us, asking God to take us in hand and change us and make us his instruments. It was wonderful. I turned and thanked him.

When the prayer was done, the pastor sent a Mother’s Day bouquet to his own mother, who was attending. The person with the flowers walked right toward us and then past us. To a lady in the row behind us. Standing next to the man who prayed. Evidently, Mike chose seats directly in front of the pastor’s dad.

The pastor’s wife gave the sermon. She talked about great female figures in the Bible. Ruth, Esther, Deborah, and so on. But toward the end, she became agitated and kept saying she felt like she had to talk about restoring marriages and families. She started talking about all the things the church had to offer. Counseling and prayer and so on. And she kept repeating, “You have to do the work. You have to do the work!” This is exactly what I tell Mike all the time. You can’t wait to get your life in order before you turn to God, because he’s the one who fixes your life. You have to make time and go.

She became so agitated, she began speaking in tongues, which Mike found a little alarming. But that’s part of the package.

He has gone back to the church since our visit, and I’m hoping he’ll join. How many “coincidences” do you need to witness before you give up and get on board?

I accidentally left my IFCJ gift bag in Mike’s car. Now he’ll have everything he needs, if he decides to do a Dead Sea mud pack.

There wasn’t much more to the trip than that. We went to Five Guys again, and then I got on a plane.

If you read all three installments of the story, it should be obvious to you that I was guided on this trip, and so were the people around me. This is what my life is like these days. I am not perfect in obedience or faith, but I am on the path, and I am seeing God’s power in my life. The Bible says he lifts us out of the miry clay and sets our feet upon a rock and establishes our goings. It is absolutely true.

I wish I had time to write up all the things I’ve seen. I can understand why the Gospels say the world could not contain enough books to hold the complete story of Jesus’s ministry. I’m a nobody, and I can’t even cover what happens to me.