The Ship

Grandma Ruth had lived a hard life, had many regrets but found Jesus in her later years watching Billy Graham on T.V. This poem was read at her funeral, and I recalled it and sent it out at my Father’s passing. It is a powerful reminder that for the believer, we lose nothing by death. We are simply changing addresses for the Far Country.

Without Your Love

I had just arrived for my second semester at Bible School. It was like arriving on another planet.  Me, from California, landing at a strange and scary place called Oak Cliff, Texas.  I had survived my first semester but was already homesick for home when I boarded that red-eye flight arriving on a hot, humid, and stormy Texas September morning at 6 am. I was sick- really sick. 102 fever, the full run of flu awfuls battering my body and my mind. I passed out in the airport restroom. I revived, and my ride picked me up to take me to the apartment I would be staying in, the “dorm,” which due to overcrowding, was temporarily packed with three guys in one bedroom, and five of us on cots in the living room.

I immediately went to bed, fever raging, feeling more alone, scared, and hopeless than I’d ever felt before. I stayed in bed for two days, visited only once by a student I knew from my first semester.

I hurt, inside and out. “God, I can’t do this!” I hoarsely whispered. “I can’t make it, even for a second without Your love.”

I picked up my guitar when everyone was gone to class, and this song just poured out from start to finish. It was true then. It is true now.

Beautiful Feet

I loved talking to people about Jesus. I loved evangelism, witnessing, going out with “The Four Spiritual Laws” and leading people on the streets to Jesus. I published a street paper when I was about 17, and I think we passed out two or three thousand of them before the last edition of “The Last Edition.” I was never happier than when I could tell people what Jesus did for me, and what He would do for them if they received Him. It was joyful, life-giving. And this verse from Isaiah said it all:

“How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of him who brings good tidings.”

I sang this at a church once, and a little boy drew a picture for me: Two feet sticking out of the top of a mountain. It was priceless. I have kept it ever since!

Run and take the message everywhere!

Child

I had just spoken at a large church, and at the altar got to talk and pray with a lot of people. One young person poured out their tears and their pain of watching a loved one slowly succumb to illness and pass away. But they also shared their testimony of Jesus bringing them through and filling their life again with joy and hope. I was so moved that late that night, alone in the church Sunday School room, I began to play on an old piano. I don’t read music or know how to play chords on a piano, but as I felt the pain of that young person’s ordeal, the lyrics and chords just poured out in five minutes. I dedicate it to all those who have felt the loss of a loved one. Weeping may endure for a night, but joy WILL come in the morning.

Greg’s Song

Greg was my prophet-friend in High School, was loyal, committed to Jesus, a writer like me, and willing to tell me the truth and encourage me in my new walk with Jesus. He kept me from completely falling away during a moment of great failure when I was sixteen. He pulled me back from the edge of shipwreck and steadied me until I stood.

His departure to Bible school far away was painful. He was a rare friend and it would be hard to say goodbye, if just for a while. So, as I did when I could not express my emotions in person, I put them in a song. I gave him a small silver sword to remind him that we were brother warriors in the Kingdom.

And I gave him this song.

He remains that warrior to this day.

Someday…

As The Ruin Falls

CS Lewis penned these brutally honest lyrics. And though the words were a bit archaic, I understood every word. I was the parrot. I was the selfish fake. I watched the ruins of my self-life fall. And I experienced that pain of watching the Ruin of what I had built fall, and then the loving Hand that brought me back from exile and grow man.

I first heard a musical rendition of this poem by Phil Keaggy, and I hope this spoken word version will touch some hearts as the poem and Phil’s version did mine.

Spirit of Your Love

This was the third song I had written, following the aforementioned failure and need to return to the dependence of a helpless lamb needing a Shepherd to carry me through. My confession: I’m just a broken mess. Your redeeming love is my only hope. I surrender to You…

Backslider’s Song

One of two more lighthearted type songs I wrote in my very early days of songwriting. Borrowing bits from hymns and popular choruses of the day, it’s the dilemma of a believer who has accepted Jesus as Savior but not as Lord. With apologies to my spiritual mother Audrey Mieir, who gave me her permission to use a snippet from the beautiful song “His Name is Wonderful”, and must now be shaking her head at trusting me with this one. We will discuss this when I get Home, I am fairly sure…

New Age Salvation

As a young Christian, I saw the birth of the New Age “Age of Aquarius” infiltrate every level of society, from music to television, movies to toys. When Jefferson Airplane became Jefferson Starship, it occurred to me that a lot of New Age groups were waiting for the “ascended masters” (aka aliens, UFO’s) to come and rescue mankind from destruction. Then came the tragic suicides of cult members of the “Heaven’s Gate” group, and the scary activities of the “Raelian” cult.

This song was originally entitled “Starship Salvation” but as more and more people fell into New Age thought were waiting for the “ascended masters” to redeem us, and as more and more people found themselves lost and without help in our New Age world, the song morphed into New Age Salvation. What was true then is true now: New Age salvation isn’t going to come. Jesus is.

Down in the Zero

A vignette, a small picture into a world so, so many of us can relate to. Being lost and alone, separated from family, betrayed by friends, down in the bottom of the dregs of life, hurting and not seeing a way out, just knowing we want to go Home. We want to be forgiven. We want to be free.

Prodigal

This is a song for ALL of us who have known the depths of sin and the precious redemptive love of our Father through the forgiveness of His Son.

Jesus tells our story in this parable about a son who takes his whole inheritance and squanders it on sin and depravity. He ends up eating what pigs eat. He comes to himself and thinks, I can’t go home and be a son anymore, but maybe I can be a servant. This is a story of his – our – fall from grace and return Home.

We’re ALL looking for our Father.

I’ll Fly Away

Originally envisioned as a part of the last song on this album, a wonderful rendition by Molly Passutti, from which we were able to include that part in the final song, seemed a beautiful and encouraging stand-alone take on this marvelous church standard written by Albert E. Brumley. (Used with permission.)

Stranger to this Place

This is the first new song that I had written in over 30 years. It came to me as I learned of a friend’s passing, one of the latest in a long series of losses I had walked through for many years. I was grief-weary. I had just started playing guitar again and discussing the possibility of recording some of these songs.

I started strumming some chords, and they were, not angry, just somber – and within a week, one night, the first words poured out. It was followed by other words, personal glimpses into very intimate losses of family.Then, hope strung the gems together, and it became permission to grieve, but more importantly, the hope that Jesus promised us that in His Father’s house are many mansions, and He went to prepare a place for us.

This song ties up this album’s story and answers the question to that deep longing for the Far Country: There IS a place – far beyond this broken world.

We’re just strangers to this place.

GR