Festivals for any reason whatsoever and deep fried wondermiss eats!

Things I love about NOLA....you can walk anywhere and drink. And they throw a festival for any reason..a fest equals food,music and fun. Today is the Italian fest and parade. Last week was the Irish parade where they dressed in green and threw cabbage and potatoes at the crowd. next week they are having a Tennesee Williams fest. They have a "STELLA!!!!!" shout off like the movie "Street Car named Desire"....love this town..wish I felt better to get out more. Allison and I had lunch at yet another amazing hole in the wall. Jack Dempsey. Piles of deep fried wondermiss eats. Whoever did the cooking there sure knew his stuff. I had the red fish platter with mac and cheeze. Crisp and crunchy on the outside and dripping juicey inside. Allison had the combo half fried oysters and catfish. Oyster she gave me was to die for,crisp crunchy,and when you bit into it it exploded with briny juice. I am a SLAVE to oysters!!!Been noticing the shrimp at the stores have been comming in really large,fat and pink..yum.

Travels on Trolly

The last two days I had to visit the clinic. I road the trolly. Interesting riding the trolly with the people of NOLA. Lots of poor,black folk. I catch the ride back in front of "40 ouncer" pit stop. Lotta guys standing around drinking out of brown paper bags. Today I sat next to an elder black man who said he was 90 years old. He looked good for his age. These are just the wonderful salt of the earth types who give this city such a vibrant interesting soul. Yesterday I noticed this fella who was dressed all in green. He was an older man with a shaved head,wearing gold rimmed glasses. He was doned with a green derby,light green shirt,green tie, three piece green pinstrip suit with matching green socks and shoes. Striking. Today as I road back from my doctors visit I saw the same guy in the next car. Today he was imcauletly dressed in an off color suit with a marron strips and matching tie,doned by a straw hat. Who is this man? Maybe he's retired and just spends his day showing off his wardrobe on the trolly?...This is such and interesting city.

Why ask Why and Faith vs Fear.

I am married to a very amazing woman. Absolutley the sharpest, smartest woman I've ever known and it is an honor to share a life with her. She challenges me way of thinking all the time,especially on spirtual matters. It is good for me. I wonder at times if believers really know what they believe and why. Just tonight Allison told me she thought early on in my Christain life I had been sold a bill of goods that didn't stand up to reality. It's refreshing having someone say that. She and I couldn't come from backgrounds more different. She grew up in a good normal Christain family..I got saved thru the Jesus people movment and prior to that the only time I ever heard my Dad pray was twice a year. Holidays. There was no religion in my up bringing. So when I stumbled into all this..I knew NOTHING. Except I had had an encounter with Christ that utterly changed everything about me. Allison went to a Methodist church. Just good people trying to serve God and help each other along the way. I got filled with Spirit and wound up smack dab in the middle of the Charismatic movement back then. Frankly as a "Jesus Freak" we all had a bit of mis trust to standard churchhes and frankly many of them didn't really know what to do with long haired ex whatevers to find a place for us. A buddy of mine once said he felt like our generation was a bit lost and not sure where we fit into the big picture. Charimatics preach a lot of stuff. Living in health,wealth and victory every day. I learned a long time ago to stop asking "Why". In my trials I've tried to see things in this light,"What is it here that I can learn and become a better person"I've been divorced twice, Been homeless,broke and near out of my mind with grief over loss. But on the other hand I've had times of wonderful joy and have felt loved and accepted. I guess at my age I spend time looking back taking stock. Seasons. The Bible says to everything there is a season. I believe in my life so much of what I've been thru and learned is a preparation for what God ultimatly has for me to do. I've studied the lives of many successful people. Looking for a common thread. I'm still looking. A very strange thing happened starting in 06. I lost interest in playing music. I still played but somewhere there the joy and passion vanished. It scared me. Music had been a defining factor in my life since I was a kid. It was because of music that I learned so many other things. I really didn't know what to do with myself. So I studied wealth. I read all kinds of books about everything on the subject. Spent hours learning about investing. I studied the rich. What makes them different than us. If there was a common thread is they look at money way different than I do. They started young collecting and working. I have known a few in my life who just seem to have a knack at making money. A tallent I wish I had. I did get this. It is a skill that can be learned. Finally at the end I came to this..I'm a musican, I really am more concerned about the down beat than the bottom line. Allison and I talk sometimes about it. I tell her if we ever won the lottery it would scare the hell out of me. She is always catching me and pointing out how I talk myself out of success. She is good for me.
The Bible says the just shall live by faith. Here is what I have learned about a Christain approach to wealth. It's really not ours. We are simply stewards over what God gives us. We may toil in the field and benefit from it but He is the owner. I've seen to many times where to much success can destroy a life. As with anything not enough causes suffering to much can to. Fear. I've had it snap at my soul my whole life. I have experienced amazing instances of God's provision. All my years in LA there were time after time God provided. Here is one I'll share. I was going thru this horrible divorce. I had lost everything. I was sleeping on my sisters couch in Anchorage at the time. I had come back from Fairbanks after another vain attempt to reconcile with my future ex-wife. Why in the face of all the pain and betrayal she had heaped I couldn't say. But there I was. My brother In-law was busy with his business and my sister was sick at the hospital. I was so broke I had to hitch hike home. To add insult to injury my leather jacket zipper had broke and it was 20 below. I was miserable. My older sister had given me a new Bible and for some reason I had it on me as I stood shivering on the side of the road. I noticed a truck had pulled over so I ran up and jumped in. There was this latino guy who saw my bible and asked if I was a believer(even though at the time I felt like anything but)I said yes. He said he never picks up hitch hikers but God told him to pick me up.(I was thankful cuz I was really cold) So we started talking and I opened up about what I was going thru. This brother whose name I never even got had a Word from God me(for all I knew he could have been an angel in disguise)He said two things..One,that if my wife didn't repent and straighten up in time God would hand pick someone else for me and that He was going to begin as the bible says"Make the Crooked ways Strait" This was like someone throwing a drownding man life saver. I felt God's peace and despite all I was suffering I felt his hand upon my shoulder. The brother even gave me a ride right up to my sisters door. Precious are moments like that. Within a few weeks I returned to Fairbanks and was offered a fulltime possition at the mental health place I had been doing relief work for which gave me the income to rebuild my life. I did finally finish my divorce.The benefits helped pay for 3 years of therapy that helped heal me and in time I met and married this truly amazing woman. Allison my best friend and true soul mate. the Bible says He will never leave us nor forsake us. That day truly proved that to me. God is good. Praise Him...amen

God's People and Me.

I am 54. I have been a "Born Again,Spirit Filled" Christian since the age of 15. I'm pushing 40 years. All my life. At 17 God called my to music. In a very unconventional way. It has been an honor but a trial too. I've played so much music,written so many songs. I've played for Govenors,Senitors and simple folk as well. Saints and sinners. Just about everything in between. It has been difficult in my relationship with God's people to explain what I do,why I'm doing it and the daily struggles I encounter to keep doing it. This "Rock and Roll Cross" I carry at times is light as a feather other times heavy as threshing stone. I think all servents with a call on their lives feel the same way at times. My wife Allison and I share (amoung other things) this thing I call "the loneliness of being different". In all my Christian journey there was only one fellowship I went to that seemed to understand. I was living in LA and we started to attend Pasedena Four Square. The pastor there was someone who made a deep and lasting impression on me. Ralf Torrez. Ralf had been raised up under Jack Hayford of Church on the Way. He was the youth pastor for many year. That period of my life I had been going thru one hard time after another. Of all the pastors I've had he was the only one who understood that our struggles were not for lack of character but rather a season of testing. This was something so basic to the Christain walk that I wondered why it seemed to excape everyone else. It is sad when your brethern make life that much harder by the insults and put downs. Ralf and his church will forever hold a tender place in my soul.
Community. The yearning to be a part of a family. My problem was growing up I had a scewwed perspective on family. During the 70's and early 80's my home church empraced the "Sheparding/Accountability"movement espoused by such bible teachers as Bob Mumford,Don Bashum. I still hold these guys in very high regard. I profitted greatly in my walk from their teaching but the practical day to day application of "being covered" and "accountable"...frankly was just to damn harsh. I remember telling a friend that I felt like going to church was like punching a time card. I think this was the first crack in my relationship to God's people. I began to lose something there. When I first got saved I was in church every time the doors were open. There was such Joy in worshipping God. I was so hungry then for His Word. I loved everybody and everybody loved me. I was young I know,but then it was a special time. It became a point of going to church out of obligation rather than joy. And for a guy like me it got boring. I began to feel like the shoes no longer fit.
When I returned to Alaska after 8 years in LA I came back home a very different person than who had left. I was now a professional musician. I had school,records and a tour under my belt. It was then that I stepped into the life of a working musician. Problem was the hours kept me away from church. I was also mired in a horrible marriage that had been coming apart for years. Between the two I stumbled and stumbled hard. The next thing you know 14 years had gone by. I had maintained many of my relationships with my brethern I just got real skiddish and gun shy when being around to many of them. Here is a case in point. I'm sitting in a church once in LA during a revival. Sitting there minding my own business just as saved as I'd ever been yet here comes some well meaning believer who starts sharing Christ with me..I guess I look like a sinner. What it has been for me all these years is frankly fitting in. I just couldn't relate to the average pew sitting church goer. It's not that I feel in any way shape or form superior. Just different.
I've said all that to say this..I repent. I feel guilty for all those years of not being a productive member of a fellowship. But in a real sence I became a victum of the charismatic movement. Starting with the shame and guilt producing Sheparding movement and ending with my divorce. So maybe I'll take my wives advice..go to a "nice" church..well enough of my rant today..on ward Christian soilders.