Thirty three years of "Radio" and the only thing I've got to show for it is an addiction to writing.
The average on-air radio show requires "four talk breaks" per hour times a "five hour show" times "six days a week" times "33 years." That's somewhere close to 195,920 times I've interrupted your favorite song.
Eventually the crime festers the soul causing a surface level zit like explosion spewing green, white and yellow gooky junk all over the long term intended vision.
At least with writing I can turn a horridly punctuated interview with my left hand into a conversation read by internet wanderers in Russia, Sweden, Chili, Egypt and Latvia. The latest Blog ratings reveal 24,212 daily readers. Which is nothing inside the offices of Social Media experts whose livelihoods depend on fingers dumping brain mildew on your computer screen.
People that write are Artists. Artists need creativity to breathe. Invisibly Artists project huge waves of truth and change the size of Hurricane Sandy across the frozen tundra, through dried river shores, in between mountain peaks that open to uncultivated valleys carved out by wind, fire and rain. And in the end a circle is met at the center of every new beginning.
Try saying that on the radio without a Program Director busting down the door screaming, "Shut up! Just shut the hell up!"
I once had an Operations Manager that looked me deep in the eyes and clearly said, "Your energy is too much for me. If you do your job right, I'll never have to come anywhere near you."
I bet I've closed my eyes more than 195,920 radio talk breaks and gently asked, "God...what do you want from me?"
About three or four times in the average lifespan the typically average human shape crosses paths with other journeyman wearing the same soul but offered through separate experiences. For brief periods of disguised musical notes, business decisions and concept flickering is replaced by harmony which eliminates the need for surface level zit like explosions spewing green, white and yellow gooky junk all over the long term intended visions.
What? Exactly! Your greatest moments aren't gone. Only opportunity.
How many fingers are held up when taking the time to identify the most influential people in your adult life? The inner eye is forever fixed on the depth of what they offered creating huge holes in a landscaped perception. Nobody else matters! Everybody in the hall is a face you'll easily forget. Let that moment begin now. Gulp!
I could write 24,212 pages about Nathan Richie. He's a Social Media Prophet and is treated just like a Bible character. One day the world will stop and listen. I can't predict it! But when it happens just know he's lived it. Which has now earned me 25,001 pages from him on how incredibly out of place that identification was.
Jonathan is no different! If what's been made available for spiritual travel would hold off on the preaching and begin teaching this nearly unseen crack in granite might have just enough tork in a spork to spoon feed the weakest of weak and stronger than space with its infinite levels of blackness.
Everyday people are incredible books. But we choose to read a Kindle, Nook or IPad instead.
A 7.7 earthquake shakes Canada this past Saturday and barely a headlines makes it to the front page of Face Book. Hurricane Sandy sports a Halloween costume resembling the winds of the Wicked Witch in the Wizard of OZ and poof we're expected to sweep up her mess.
Rather than chase down free offers and 20% off deals at Barnes and Noble...I've decided to dig a ditch through the center of a "human" book titled Jonathan The Moses Of Rock.
It seems the closer we get to December 21, 2012 ...the less people are talking about the Mayan Calendar. An economy that won't recover, no real choice for President, now an earthquake and the largest most expensive hurricane. From a Preacher's side of the pulpit; what are we left to think?
Jonathan from connectingroad.com :
The Mayans, as bad ass builders and thinkers that they were (and their descendants are), might have been interested in predicting the end of the world...or maybe they decided that they didn't need more than a few centuries worth of calendar, or maybe their calendar companies just ran out of paper. I wouldn't bet on Dec. 21 being the end, but then, what do I know? I still watch wrestling.
I would say, on the basis of real science, that the impact of Sandy might have more to do with rising sea levels than with a mysterious, random and arbitrary, end of the world. Some dumb ass preacher will no doubt say that the storm is God's wrath, but some other dumb ass preacher could also say it's God's way of reminding us that government has a role.
Check out U2's song, The End of the World
Arroe: It seems completely natural to be instantly drawn to religion during incredible moments of having no control. Is Religion a Peaceful Freedom?
Jonathan from connectingroad.com :
"Peaceful freedom," huh? Religious institutions are messed up because human beings are messed up; sometimes we dress up our "messed up" with religion. I don't think institutions or religion can ever provide freedom because the very word implies a closing of the box. How can an institution be so arrogant to suggest that it, as an institution of messed up individuals, say it has the power to provide peaceful freedom, as if it possesses it? That said, I think that the teachings and events and experiences that inspired the major religious movements all have some peace to offer. Most all of them, at that level, suggest that real peace and real freedom aren't material possessions. When religion isn't coercive, many of them have a lot of peace and a lot of freedom and a lot of peaceful freedom to offer. The problem with religion is that many of the rogue religions have charismatic leaders who exploit their followers, and many of the major ones will face a potential depression from within the prison of their own fears that a depression could cost them their own financial stability. Jesus had a lot to say, for example, about life being more than what we wear or how financially stable we are. In fact, Jesus said a lot about finding the life that is really living--and it was a lot deeper than just morality or going to church and certainly more than the size of a bank account. There are a lot of preachers and religious leaders who stand to lose a lot if we go to back to the recession, or, worse, if the economy collapses--but they won't lose as much as others because most religious institutions are pretty solid financially.
Here's the trick, money has always been one of the greatest seductions away from spirituality because money offers the illusion of security and freedom--a fool's gold version of peace. It offers the illusion of the power to control our own destinies which I suppose it does to the extent that it affords the opportunity to build or to travel or "own" stuff. But each of those often function on the backs of someone or something. Real peaceful freedom would have to arise from knowing that we are a part of the bigger narrative of creation and life and soul. One of the things that I soooo dig about Jesus as a teacher is his persistent insistence that there is so much more going on around us than we have ever imagined. Buddhism has made an entire way of life around mindfulness and interconnectedness. If a depression does happen, the people who are truest to what their religions were intended to be will be the beggars showing others where to find the bread, not the ones hoarding their wealth or exploiting others to get more of it.
Arroe: Even with modern technology haven't we been retrained to think only the strong survive but only if you have the latest smart phone?
Jonathan from connectingroad.com :
Survival of the fittest? Well, if the fittest are the only ones who survive, then it does include everyone because any "others" have already died or not "survived." Natural selection gets all messed up thanks to free will--and the opposable thumb. No joke. Technology and willfulness create a different level of natural selection. There is something instinctive in human beings, and monkeys, too, that makes us want to care about the weaker members of the pack instead of abandoning them. But free will means that we can choose a life of throwing poo, throwing our weak family members away, or we can choose to throw ourselves into the graceful interconnectedness of life--that's what Gandhi, Jesus, Martin, Siddhartha, and others have taught and lived. We can use the opposable thumb to throw poo and throw spears, or we can use it to stack stones and heap compassion on the world.
Arroe: You opened my eyes to taking a better look at the New Age Rock being played on 1065 The End. I'm almost convinced that there's serious Bible thumping happening and or incredible life changing lyrics.
Jonathan from connectingroad.com :
How long have you got....Yes, there are are prophets dressed up as poets, hundreds of them. Music changes us more than we realize. Many of these folks are talking about real life, real stuff. The Chili Peppers, Pearl Jam, and G & R, for example, all have huge hit songs about homelessness, for example. The Eagles couldn't stop themselves from shining light on excess, exploitation, and over development. Because of their honesty and lack of formal theological training, I think they might actually be more in tune with what the Creator has in mind for us. Hell, folks can ridicule U2 and Bono for being good enough to be popular, but they aren't auto-tuned and what they sing about is real stuff. They are damn good poets, which makes them quite subversive as poets. Tupac was an amazing poet and he surely to show the world what he knew from Baltimore. A prophet, after all, isn't the person who predicts the future but the person who sees most clearly what happens in the present, the trajectory our present puts us on. A long and transcendent guitar solo from Mike McCready is like the staff that parts the seas, though. Shirley Manson's energy and voice and honesty do heal. No way around it. I'm not saying that I want Slash as a social, but surely a social voice--I'd rather attend the worship service that Slash creates than the one Joel Osteen creates; it's more real. I believe that God gave him that remarkable ability to pull something out of his own guts that lifts my soul to some transcendent place. I believe that the mystical sounds of harmony and rhythm and poetry are among the ways God speaks to us without us realizing it. The industry of music is a totally different thing, altogether--talking about depth and substance with honesty is harder than the Pavlovian exercise of seducing folks to buy a product, so maybe we don't need to go down this road.
Check this out for a sample of what I mean: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJru0g3e9iI
Arroe: Through voting we are giving ourselves away. Going to work every day we are giving ourselves away. We've evolved into the generation that has nothing.
Jonathan from connectingroad.com :
Can we talk about this one? the question about having nothing, that is. There is a line in a prayer that I pray that says, "Let me have all things, let me have nothing. I freely and heartily yield myself to thy pleasure and disposal...thou art mine and I am thine....So be it." Wouldn't we all do better if we could just say, "so be it" instead of trying to control everything? The image that we often get of having nothing is of being pathetic, sad, broken down, destitute. But what if it just means that we aren't possessed by possessions? Maybe then we wouldnt feel like we have to do violence to protect them or get more of them. Nothing, no-thing....hmm. Possession is a really evocative word, isn't it? We give ourselves to that which matters most to us. I'd rather give myself to (allow myself to be possessed by?) a person I love than to an inanimate object or some abstract notion of power made tangible. But it's tricky because that kind of vulnerability is easily exploited--see also abusive relationships. But love and trust are hard to embrace when opposed to wealth and power--they are no things (nothings). Yet, when you've really been possessed by love, by absolute trust, all the money and power in the world can't compare.
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