Domes - Our Monthly Newsletter
Dunbar UCC
October 21, 2007
Jeremiah 3133-34
Luke 18:1
Faith Like Purple Haze
- It was either 1967 or 68 when I first heard of the guitarist named Jimi Hendrix play a song called Purple Haze, and I’ve never been the same since. I’ve taken some guitar lessons on and off since then -- and since July I’ve been going twice. I bring a CD of Hendrix and the teacher and I sit and play along with the songs I select -- Hey Joe, Purple Haze, Red House. I don’t learn quickly, so every week, we go over just a few notes. It’s a slow process. I started learning these songs when I was 12, so it’s been about 41 years. I can’t play Red House yet, but maybe by this time next year.
- What is it about these songs that I spend the better part of my life trying to learn them? Is it the lyrics? “Purple haze, all in my brain, lately things just don’t seem the same. Actin’ funny, but I don’t know why. ‘Scuse me while I kiss the sky....” Maybe you’re hooked on that song too. We can’t explain why we’re drawn to whatever it is that attracts us. For me it’s Jimi Hendrix and guitars and Jesus Christ. And there’s no reason why -- it’s just how things are.
- But even if you’re not into Hendrix or guitars -- I know that one passion that we have in common is Jesus Christ. You and I may be different -- but what brings us together is this man who lived 2000 years ago and who some people believe is what God would look like if he were a human being.
- The question is: what do we do with him? How do we know him? Where does he want us to go?
- Each of us has to figure those out alone. But there’s a lot that music can teach us about how we do this. To learn a song -- to play an instrument well -- we have to pick it up every day -- and live with it. Eventually it becomes second-nature. You don’t have to think about what chord or note to play -- the fingers just go there. But you have to do it every day. Jimi Hendrix even took his guitar to bed with him.
- The psalmist said: “O how I love your law. It is my meditation all day long.” Jesus said we need to pray always, and not give up. Maybe God will give us the grace to do this -- to have Jesus Christ in our thoughts all day long. To bring him to bed with us at night, and wake up with him in the morning, to bring him on our walks, or in the car, to invite him to all our meals. What a gift that would be -- to have him on our mind all the time. After many years of doing this, we might be kind, as he was kind. We might hate violence and war as he hated it. We might love our enemies as he loved them. Like a song we’ve been learning for 30 or 40 years, the way of Jesus Christ could become second-nature to us. One day an act of kindness might come out of us -- and we won’t even realize we were being kind. And the truth is -- it won’t be us. It will be Jesus Christ and we’ll play him like a song we know by heart.