ENCOUNTER [with drums... an a challenge]

I just got home from ENCOUNTER. WOW. I loved the drums! Encounter is an evening of worship at LW. I listened to my King Crimson "Double Drums" concert this week in anticipation. The evening went way beyond what I expected. As tonight drew near I was flooded with some interesting thoughts. I have been enjoying praise music, as well as "music for Him", or... I might call it "music for US". On the way home I couldn't help sing along to Magnificent by U2. "...I was born, I was born, to sing for you. I didn't have a choice, but to lift you up, & sing whatever song, you wanted me to. I give you back my voice. From the womb... Justified, till we die, you & I will magnify, oh The Magnificent..." I've been reading some of my favorite Psalms...[from The Message]

Psalm 8

A David Psalm

God, brilliant Lord, yours is a household name.
Nursing infants gurgle choruses about you;
toddlers shout the songs
That drown out enemy talk,
and silence atheist babble.

I look up at your macro-skies, dark and enormous,
your handmade sky-jewelry,
Moon and stars mounted in their settings.
Then I look at my micro-self and wonder,
Why do you bother with us?
Why take a second look our way?

Yet we've so narrowly missed being gods,
bright with Eden's dawn light.
You put us in charge of your handcrafted world,
repeated to us your Genesis-charge,
Made us lords of sheep and cattle,
even animals out in the wild,
Birds flying and fish swimming,
whales singing in the ocean deeps.

God, brilliant Lord,
your name echoes around the world.

[this is just one, 2 others are Psalm 4, & Psalm 98 -which is where a playlist I have "98 to infinity" gets it's name]

Anyway, The drummers came out, some from the back of the auditorium. They played buckets. I've seen it done... just not in church! I loved that 3 of our worship team spoke. [Chris, Connie, & Gordon] I may post of things they spoke about, very wonderful. However this post is getting long. LW's art gallery had it's opening tonight as well. I loved the paintings. Bright almost neon colors in some. The textures of others. ...and a challenge. The artist, Melody Hogan, was challenged to paint, a new painting, everyday, for 100 days. ...wow, so I had to ask: "was it hard?" [duh] She said it was very hard. She had friends encourage her to keep pressing on, to push through to the end... I may try this. Not with painting! No I don't want to hurt anyone. I'm thinking of it from perhaps a blog or poem standpoint. [mostly I feel a prompt to write poems] 100 days -in a row! ...I'm thinking about it. I'm praying about it. I'll let you know [probably whether I like telling you or not, huh? -since you'll pick up on my choice here]
I'm going to post some songs that have been resonating this week on Blipfm. [oh, I'm on there as b'slandscapesofaudio which is "B's Landscapes of Audio"]
now... for something that's been going through my head all day... since I heard the U2 classic "I still haven't found what I'm looking for" on the radio earlier.........

Uncovered
by the call

You surround me
covered
you seduce
my soul
all my fears
uncovered
as my life
unfolds
in the warmth
of your heart
you awake my senses
I was torn
in doubt
loosing all defenses
when you called
me out
i return
to the heart
of a love
eternal
waiting there
for me

"...Sometimes the night was beautiful
Sometimes the sky was so far away
Sometimes it seemed to stoop so close
You could touch it but your heart would break
Sometimes the morning came too soon
Sometimes the day could be so hot
There was so much work left to do
But so much You'd already done..."
-sometimes by step by Rich Mullins from The World as Best as I can remember it vol. 2.
if there is nothing new under the sun, then this is the world as best as I can remember it...

the end of the night, when the drummers came back out for sometimes by step, reminded me of a story of a friend seeing Mullins perform "I see You" as the concert ending song. The crowd was so into it that: as the musicians, one by one, left the stage, they kept singing. Then Mullins left, & they kept right on singing that song...out of the auditorium, while picking up their coats... you didn't stop hearing the chorus -even in the parking lot, until you closed your car door... cool,huh.
oh... & the playing buckets, I saw [& met, actually] Rich Mullins play "Screen door" on those old Moose cups from Hardee's, in a similar fashion. makes me think of another Mullins tune... "...& you never know who God is gonna use, a princess or a baby, or maybe even you, & me..."

"...like a desert needs rain, like a town needs a name, I need Your love...
like coming home, & you don't know where you've been, like black coffee, like nicotine, I need Your love..."

[to the tune of "I still haven't found what I'm looking for"...]
....and you're still
what I find
I was looking for
more beautiful
than what I put there
in your place before...

...thank you oh God, for drums... & for the people who play them...
thank you oh God, for songs
...& for the people who write & play them...
thank you oh God,
for being You,
& loving me....
I could write a million poems,
& I'd only be getting started
on how wonderful You are.......