stuff i think

who's chasing who

Last night, as I did my late night ritual of quickly surfing through all the major news websites (just in case there's been an emergency and the President has not been able to reach me, I guess) I plugged my headphones into my iBook and listened to some internet radio stations. Internet radio is great in that you can almost always find what you want, and often commercial free. Last night I found one of those stations that play '80's music....

There is something within the mind of a person that convinces them that the pinnacle of music culture probably happened in their late teens or early twenties. Perhaps that's when they had money to spend on cd's, I don't know...but everyone looks back fondly on those times. This explains why, even while brushing my teeth this morning, I could not shake myself of the chorus to Van Halen's "Why Can't This Be Love?".

In what seems to be a radical shift of thought..my study in the Psalms has me in Psalm 23 this morning. This is probably the most quoted Psalm of all time...it was read at every cowboy funeral in every western ever made. As they shoveled dirt onto the body of Bart the Cattle Ruslter, someone would suddenly get religion, produce a little Gideon Bible, and read "The Lord is my shepherd...I shall not want...", as if that some how absolved them of the fact that only moments ago, they plugged Bart in the back with a Colt .45.

The closing of that chapter strikes me this morning....surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life...as I read that I wondered "Do they follow me?" Is there a wake of goodness that follows wherever I go? I seem to leave a path of destruction and misunderstanding. A little further investigation shows that word "follow" to be better translated as "doggedly pursue...chase after...".

That changes things. I...you...everyone on the planet...we're pursued by love. Through our experiences and social mishaps, over our own objections and under our defenses, Love Personified doggedly pursues. Offering every opportunity to receive Love, we often keep it at arms' distance...partially out of fear, partially out of lack of willingness to surrender wholly to another - even when that Other is Love.

If anyone sees Eddie Van Halen, tell him that this is why this must be love.