I didn't play at church last Sunday morning...usually on Saturdays and Sundays you can catch me playing at the church that has become my church home FBCI in Arvada Colo....This past Sunday was different. I was up at my Brothers house wanting to get out for awhile at night like I usually do (musician standard time) So I look for Wifi Coffee shops or maybe a movie.
I had just seen "Secretariat" which is a great film by the way and was going to see it again when I turned right and happened to see a church just starting it's service.
It was called "Journey" I believe, and so I pulled in not knowing anybody and walked into the foyer asking a young man, "where is the service being held?" He very cordially pointed me around a corner and I heard it.
On the video screen was the pastor talking about "a million miles in a thousand years" By Donald Miller. This book is significant to me because my former band mate, Steve Taylor, is one of the characters in the book and I actually met Donald Miller last summer at a fund raiser I was running a Vid. Cam for S.T. at in Denver, and the two of them spend a lot of the first part of the book talking about his relationship with Steve and Ben Pearson writing the screenplay for "Blue Like Jazz."
I call them God moments, when I know without a doubt that God is talking to me....call me crazy. But I did NOT invent the internet.
Steve and I go all the way back to high school where we played in Jazz Band together in, uh...1976. It's just kinda weird how our relationship has weaved in and out, wait, did I say In-n-out? How 'bout a double double with cheese and those fresh cut Fries...never mind. Where was I? Oh yeah, The pastor is talking about the book and weaving it into Esther from the Bible. You see Esther had a lot of conflict to deal with. She was the Queen to Xerxes and back then if you ticked off the King you could be in a lot of trouble, as in, losing your head kind of trouble....enough about feminism....
So Esther figures out that This guy Haman is a bad dude, a Jew hater, kinda like Hitler only older, and he was also one of the Kings close advisers. That's bad for Esther because she's Jewish, and Haman convinces the King to annihilate all the Jews because he's like Hitler, only older.
So you may ask what does this have to do with Donald Miller and my Former Band mate? Well, In "A million Miles in a thousand Years" Donald and Steve keep talking about "Conflict" a lot.
In fact, as they're writing the screen play, a Teacher of screenwriting tells them that you have to put your Characters through Conflict, and Severe Testing. Because nobody wants to see a movie that has all nice people that are always nice to all other nice people all the nice time. Instead, great stories are about conflict and what happens to resolve that conflict. Sort of like Esther, who has to inform the King (her husband) that this guy Haman is deceiving his highness and is one slippery Jew hating slime ball.
Now just telling the king and approaching him in the wrong way can get her killed so she uses her charm and gets the King to agree to a few dinner parties where She exposes this troglodyte Haman and the Jewish people get saved....you can guess what happens to Haman and it's not good...
So all this just to point out that if you miss Church one Sunday (Something I don't recommend BTW), go check out some place you've never checked out before and see if God talks to you too.
You May be surprised!
Remember, I'm just the Sax Player...:) Copyright, 2010
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