Forever Friends

I want to see the trees
Turning in the Autumn just before the snow
I want to hear the birds
Chirping through the window just before they go

And we will miss the sunshine that you would always bring

But if we hold on to Christ
Be faithful, true believers
We will meet again
And if we search in our hearts
We will always find you
Our forever friends

And as we take this journey
There is always leaving, but there are no farewells
‘Cause friends are friends forever
If we’ve a common Savior, we pray He keeps you well

So don’t lose heart ’cause you’re just a prayer away

But if we hold on to Christ
Be faithful, true believers
He will lead us home
And if we search in our hearts
We will always find you
Right where you belong

But if we hold on to Christ
Be faithful, true believers
We will meet again
And if we search in our hearts
We will always find you
Our forever friends

And as we take this journey
There is always leaving, but there are no farewells

- Shawn White (1998)

I wrote this song for some friends who were moving out of town at our congregation. I gave them a copy of the lyrics and when we had visited them in Prescott, they had framed them and hung them up in their new home. This past Sunday evening we had been invited over the to Dunn’s home to hang out with the teens and as usual, Allan and Jayme wanted me to bring over my guitar, so I did. I didn’t know at the time that this was going to be Ross’ final Sunday with the group since we was moving back to Texas on Friday. Even though I hadn’t played this song in about six years, I was able to pull off about 2 or 3 times for it after the initial playing. Ross and some others requested that I get it recorded so I will work on doing that for them over the next few weeks and get a copy sent to Ross as well.

Interesting side note: this is the last song I have written. I haven’t written a complete song since this time, although I’ve started quite a few that seemed like they were going somewhere. Looking back, time does fly. I didn’t realize I hadn’t written anything new in the last nine years. In a way, it’s rather sad, especially when I used to be able to knock out a at least a couple of songs a month.

Sock Heaven

Out of the wringer, into the dryer
Spins the clothes higher
Squeezing out static and shocks
Little stockings tumbling ’round together
Couldn’t cling forever
Now I’m missing one of my socks

Lord, where do they go?

One pile waits with their god in a box
The other pile nervously mocks heaven
Misfits lost in the dryer, take heart
Maybe there’s a place up in sock heaven

Out of the wringer, into the dryer
Couldn’t just retire
Had to try tempting the fates
One little band spinning ’round together
Couldn’t cling forever
God, I think I’m losing my mates

Seven good years, followed by a feeling I’d hit the glass ceiling
Maybe I’d best disappear
Pick any market
Pick a straitjacket
If you can’t act it
Misfit, you don’t belong here

Lord, where do we go?

One pile waits with their god in a box
The other pile nervously mocks heaven
Misfits lost in the dryer, take heart
Maybe there’s a place up in sock heaven

Didn’t want a platform to build a new church
Didn’t want a mansion in rock heaven
Didn’t want more than to be understood
Maybe there’s a place up in sock heaven

Lord, where do we go?

We’re gathered here to ask the Lord’s blessing
Maybe not his blessing
Maybe we’re not asking at all
Out of the box with every good intention
Did you fail to mention
This time we were destined to crawl?
And every day that we died just a little more
I was sure you were sovereignly watching us dangle
I don’t get it now
But I’ll get it when
In sock heaven I see it all from your angle

One pile waits with their god in a box
The other pile nervously mocks heaven
Misfits lost in the dryer, take heart
Maybe there’s a place up in sock heaven

God’s got his saints up in sock heaven

- Steve Taylor, Squint (1993)

This is Steve commenting on this song:

“When I retired from gospel music, it wasn’t because I was angry or disenchanted or anything like that, it was just because, frankly, it felt like it was time to do something else. It felt like if I would have stayed in at that point–I had completed my contract, I had an offer to do another one–I think there was something inherent in the offer, it was sort of like, ‘We want you to keep selling a lot of a records, and you really need to become at least somewhat more mainstream in your approach to this.’ And so if I would have stayed in at that point, I probably would have been doing it for the wrong motives, because financial security would have been, probably, primary in my motive, but the thought of sort of becoming more mainstream was not very appealing.

“It just felt like it was time to do something else and I really wasn’t angry or disenchanted or anything, it just felt like, ‘Boy, this is great timing here. Let’s go do something else.’ At that point, my wife and I went to England for a few months (it’s easier to hear God when everybody speaks with a different accent or something, I don’t know), but the decision to start the band came about sort of naturally with just other believers–’what if we try this?’

“I think the band idea at it’s root was a good idea. We approached our forming of the band and sort of the way we put it together with a lot of prayer and a lot of right intentions. The fact of the matter is, as I look back, I don’t know why it didn’t work like we hoped it would, and, in fact, the song Sock Heaven is pretty much asking that same question. I think that if there was one sort of key point when I made the decision ‘I want to do another solo album and I want to do it on a gospel label,’ it was in talking with my pastor who had been a fan of the bands and liked what we did. But he said to me that he felt like maybe we had done a better job defining what we weren’t than defining what we were.

“I think that really nailed it–to me, I just need a sense of vision and especially a sense of mission. So now, I mean, I got back in started writing songs; the songs came more urgently. I think part of it was just not having had a particular sense of mission for the last four years; I just had it very clearly and distinctly. I feel that to be able to sing about your faith in a pointed way is actually an honor.”

Worldview Thinking

Worldview Defined

For an over simplified answer to what is a worldview, it is a collective set of beliefs through which we view and understand the world we live in. Since everyone views and understands the world in some particular way, everyone has a worldview whether they are aware of it or not. One’s worldview colors everything they see about the world and it has often been compared to the lenses in eyeglasses. When the correct lenses are used the world is in much sharper focus, but with incorrect lenses the world tends to be blurry. In a similar way, a correct worldview is going to allow a better understanding of the world whereas an incorrect worldview is going to fragment and distort one’s understanding.

Central Worldview Beliefs

All worldviews contain at least five clusters of beliefs. While they could contain other beliefs, these five are the most basic and central to all worldviews and they typically define the distinctions between competing belief systems.

1. God
What does a persons worldview say about God? Does God exist? What is God’s nature? Is there only one God or multiple? Is God personal or impersonal?

2. Metaphysics
Metaphysics is the study of ultimate reality. This cluster of beliefs deals with questions such as what is the relationship between God and the universe? Has the universe eternally existed or did it have a beginning? Is the universe best understood as a deterministic, mechanical process, or is there purpose to it? What is the ultimate nature of the universe? Is the cosmos material, spiritua, or something else? Is it possible for a supernatural reality to act within nature? Are miracles possible?

3. Epistemology
This is the theory of knowledge. How we come to know things about the world and how we can trust what we know is reliable information. This deals with questions of the following nature: Can we trust our senses to give us adequate knowledge about the world? What are the proper roles of reason and sense experience in knowledge? Can we understand our own states of consciousness in ways other than through reason or our senses? Are our intuitions more, or less, dependable than our perceptions of the world outside of us? Is truth relative or must it be the same for all beings? What is the relationship between reason and religious faith? Is the scientific method the best way to gather knowledge about the world? Is knowledge about God possible? If it is, then how can we know God? Can God reveal himself to man? Can God reveal information to man? What is the relationship between the mind of God and the mind of man?

4. Ethics
Ethical beliefs deal with the moral judgments about single actions and why a particular action is wrong or right. So questions of this nature would be something along the lines of: Are there moral laws that govern human conduct? If so, what are they? Are moral laws the same for everyone, everywhere? Or is morality subjective and limited to a personal context? Are moral laws discovered or invented? Do moral laws transcend cultural, historical, individual boundaries?

5. Anthropology
Anthropology deals with our beliefs about the nature of human beings. Relavent questions would include: Are human beings free or are they mindless atoms bound by deterministic forces? Are human beings only material bodies? Or are they a combination of the immaterial and the material? How is the soul, or mind, related to the body? How do you distinguish the two? Does physical death end the existence of the human person? Or is there conscious survival after death? Are there rewards and punishment after death? Are human beings basically good or evil?

Evaluating Worldviews: The Four Tests

A cohesive and comprehensive worldview is one where all these clusters of belief work together to make a complete and accurate picture of the world without contradiction. In order to see if a worldview can hold up under scrutiny, there are four tests which can be used to evaluate its validity and strength.

1. The Test of Reason
This is a test of logic. Does what a person believe about each of the central clusters adhere to a logically consistent structure void of contradiction? Any presence of a logical contradiction is a sign of error and any sign of error must be abandoned. Anytime we run into an inconsistency it ought to raise a red flag within the conceptual framework because it can ultimately be fatal in the overall scheme of the belief system. However, as important as the test of logic is, it cannot be the only criteria for evaluating a worldview. The important rule of thumb to remember about logic is that it is never a positive test for truth. It is a negative test in the sense that logic helps us detect the presence of error, but it does not guarantee the presence of truth. We need the other test to help with that.

2. The Test of Outer Experience
Our worldviews should be relevant to what we know about the world and ourselves. How does what we believe accurately reflect the world we interact with? If we claim that the world is flat, or if the earth is the central point in our solar system and we know for a fact that these are not the case, then our outer experience proves that belief within our worldview wrong and again we need to trade that belief for one that more accurately reflects how the world really is.

3. The Test of Inner Experience
How does a particular worldview accurately portray what I know about myself? For instance, am I someone who hopes, thinks, experiences pleasure and pain, believes, and desires? Am I conscious of times when I am right and other times when I am wrong? Do I ever experience guilt for failing to do what is morally right? Am I someone who remembers the past, conscious of the present, and anticipatory of the future? In light of all these questions, along with many more that could be added to the list, the overarching question is how does my worldview understand and answer these questions? Worldviews that either rejects or ignores the inner world ought to cause much suspicion.

4. The Test of Practice
Worldviews should not just be limited to the philosophical testing or the theoretical realm, but it also must be lived out in the world. So the final test is can the worldview actually be lived out. Can it not just be lived out, but can it be lived out consistently and in harmony with everything else they believe that comprises their worldview. The alternative is that if the worldview is not lived out consistently, then do they borrow from a competing worldview.

Dr. Francis Schaeffer’s apologetical method was based on his belief that the Christian worldview was the only worldview that could accurately answer the five central clusters of believe listed above, and each cluster can pass the four tests thereby resulting in a comprehensive and cohesive view of the world. He also believed that any and every competing worldview had fatal flaws inherent in them and that the only way people could make any sort of sense of them during the evaluation phase was that they had to borrow from the Christian worldview, otherwise their view would self-destruct under its own weight of error. He developed a very specific technique for uncovering these flaws which was called “taking-the-roof-off” where, by way of conversation, he would “take-the-roof-off” of their inconsistency and show that it was unlivable and illogical.

We Interrupt This Program

…for station identification.

Very busy. Hope to be posting again soon.

and now back to our regularly scheduled program…

If I Were

If I Were (listen - 4:59)

If I were the devil I wouldn’t wear red
I wouldn’t have horns or a pitch-fork
I wouldn’t breathe fire ’cause it might give me away

But if I were the devil you’d never know
I’d befriend you quick and corrupt you slow
So you won’t notice until it’s far too late

If I were the devil
If I were the devil

If I were the devil I’d spend all day
Lowering standards of what’s okay
To think, to say, to watch on your TV

I’d break down the value of promises kept
And fade out truth till there’s nothing left
Sow gossip and lies popping up as thick as weeds

If I were the devil
If I were the devil

I might not be as foreign as you think
‘Cause I wouldn’t only show my evil side
I’ve got the time and patience just to wait
To steal your soul just one sin at a time

Like I would
If I were

No I’m not the devil but if I was
I’d take God’s people and split ‘em up
To keep their minds off who their called to be

So they’re no longer fighting over living or dead
It’s “is it the body or just bread”
While all the unfed die hungry on the street

If I were the devil
If I were the devil

I might not be as foreign as you think
‘Cause I wouldn’t only show my evil side
I’ve got the time and patience just to wait
To steal your soul just one sin at a time

Like I would
If I were

See I’d make moms and dads that never stick around
And pain so bad you have to drink to drown
And guilt so I could kick you when you’re down

And I would
If I were

If I were the devil I wouldn’t wear red
And wouldn’t breathe fire ’cause it might give me away

- Andy Gullahorn, Room To Breathe (2005)

Fantastic song and a good reminder. If I get a chance I’ll try to put the song up so you can hear what it is like. I do not own his first CD, but I would highly recommend Room To Breathe - I love it.

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