Alcohol, People, and Love.

Alcohol seems to be a pretty hot topic in the Maritimes these days; or perhaps I've just run into it a lot recently. I find I don't like the taste of beer too often and the histamines in wine usually gives me a headache and mild head congestion . So I guess I'm stuck with the hard stuff.

Like anything, alcohol can also be abused, can kill and hurt many people, not just the person it controls but their families, friends, coworkers, and even strangers.

On the flip side, one reason I like alcohol is I find that it's a great tool to help me get to know a lot of things about a person quite quickly. Within minutes I can usually find out the following about a person:

1. Their convictions about alcohol. I.E. Are they open or closed minded about it? Do they know what the Word has to say about it? This could give some insight into their study/discussion habits.

2. Their parents convictions about alcohol. What type of family history and environment they grew up in. Has there been abuse in their past or family's past?

Sometimes, depending on how open a person is, you can get a general feeling of where a person is at spiritually.

When I'm in a bar I see a lot of people who are hurting. Some of whom people would call social outcasts. Jesus spent a lot of time with the social outcasts of his day. Matthew 8:16, Matthew 9:10-11, Mark 2:17, are just a few verses. The conservatives of his time disagreed with what he did, who he spent time with and a lot of his philosophies.

I think there are conservative Christians today that don't go to bars or other places that todays outcasts, broken, sick and hurting people spend their free time. They think it's wrong and Christians should not go there. They also condone and discourage other believers who want to minister there. I have two close friends who were asked to stop leading worship in their local church because they played music in a bar. That churches pastor even supported their ministry. They soon left the church because they couldn't serve; a few months later the pastor was asked to resign. I wonder how these people relate to their culture and community? I'm not saying you have to go to bars, I just get frustrated with their mindset.

Most times, when I think about it, I feel anger towards these people and then sometimes I feel sad and honestly pray for them... and what's my point you might ask? Well if I ask myself, the response is "Who bloody cares!?" as I am gently reminded that the one who died for me and the social outcasts also died for and loves very conservative people. I am also reminded, ironically enough (see last blog), of the U2 song "When I look at the world" from the All that you can't Leave Behind album and the line "I can't see what you see, when I look at the world." I pray that Christ would help me see people as He does.

I guess 1 Cor 13:1-3 sums up what I'm trying to say. Jesus had a great pair of love tinted glasses. Forget about what I wrote above... sorry there weren't more pics to entertain you...

The Ground Beneath Her Feet.

First I want to thank everyone for their encouraging comments so far. I’ve never been much of a writer in the past. I guess I’m very much a night owl, and find my creative side shows itself in the early hours of the morning usually between 1 and 3am. I wanted to put the music up for the song below but I haven’t figured out a quick and easy way to do that yet....

So it’s 1:30AM and I just got home from downtown. [Rant On] CJLU put on a concert calling it a “Free pre Rolling Stones Party” kind of a lame name if you ask me but “Christian Music” and “effective methods of evangelism” on a Friday night in downtown Halifax are discussions best left for another blog.[Rant Off] I was, however, encouraged by the caliber of art/music that local Christians are writing these days. I enjoyed the band Grounded. I think these guys have a talent that very few bands have locally. I quickly spoke with the guitarist / singer who wrote what I thought was the best song they played called Caramel Wings. He said he didn’t think it was a good song at first because he wrote it at a low point in his life. That’s exactly what made it a great song; because hurt is all something we can relate to.

Well, I guess I’m rambling on a bit. One of the bands that has stood the test of time in my life is U2. This song called The Ground beneath Her Feet is a bit of a rare one but one of my favorites. It was written for a movie called Million Dollar Hotel. I saw it once, very artsy, so kind of a flop by Hollywood standards.


Here are the words…

All my life I worshiped her
Her golden voice, her beauty's beat.
How she made us feel, how she made me real.

And the ground beneath her feet
And the ground beneath her feet

And now I can’t be sure of anything
Black is white, and cold is heat
For what I worshipped stole my love away

Was the ground beneath her feet
Was the ground beneath her feet

Go lightly down your darkened way, go lightly underground
I’ll be down there in another day
I won’t rest until your found.

Let me love you, let me rescue you
Let me bring you where two roads meet
Oh come back above, where there is only love

Only love…

My oh my, my oh my….

Let me love you true, let me rescue you
Let me bring you to where two roads meet

My oh my, my oh my….

The lyrics suit the story line of the movie naturally, but I like to read into them a bit more. They can mean different things for different people.

A Rock and a Hard Place

A little known fact is that I like to take a small rock from places I've visited. From Meat Cove Cape Breton to Tressels Beach California they help me to remember the short time I spent there.

In May of this year, when the band was on tour out west, a few of us took a day off to go hiking. I can honestly say that this was one of the most physically challenging things I have ever done. It took about 4.5 hours to hike up. Oddly enough, going down is quite hard on the legs as well.

Mt. Lady Macdonald in Canmore, AB. 8546 ft. (2605m)

On our way up.

My final approach. Canmore below.

This is what the top of a mountain looks like. Straight drop either way.
(Thanks for the pics Kirk)

So on my way up, during one of my many breaks, I thought that this would be a good memory and thought I'd look for a small token to remember Lady Mac by. A little while later Kirk hands me a small flat stone and says "God wanted me to give you this." I said something to the effect of "Thanks, I was waiting to find it." For the next few hard hours I held onto that rock in the palm of my hand, gasping for breath, contemplating quiting, scrambling to reach the summit. Climbing a mountain is a spiritual experience.


Sometimes when you're in a hard place, a rock is all you have to hang onto...