Great post John. I LOVE Jackson Brown. He wrote some of his best and most mature material at the age of 16!! I like what he stood for in his early career with the likes of James Taylor and Joni Mitchell…counter cultural in a positive, peaceful and non-confrontational way. Their music really represents to me the soul of an idealist who is battling with his or her place in a world where they don’t belong.

No matter our age we can still make small positive changes, love others and choose the what is right in our heart. The battle of life is within us.

Great Post John!

14 — Thanks. Glad to contribute.

18 — This reminds me a lot of C.S. Lewis’ “Pilgrim’s Regress,” an allegorical work about his spiritual journey. The main character has a vision of a beautiful place, and spends much of his life either trying to find it, pretending he’s already there, or rejecting the idea of the beautiful place as a delusion of his youth.

I think our spiritual lives have highs and lows, like the tides, but we expect that the highs will just get higher, or that the lows will just get lower. When we have felt to sing the song of redeeming love, we want that to be forever, but it’s not. We cool down again. The Brother of Jared saw God, and then got chewed out by God for not praying enough — it happens to everybody. And then, when we find our paradigms impoverished, and our expectations aren’t lived up to, we get frustrated and sulky and want to give God the finger and pretend we don’t need him. We are sure we don’t need him, or the Church, and that it’s over with, but, then, we find our way back again — not always, but often. We want to be hot or cold, but we do some lukewarm along the way also.

I think a bit of cooling off is okay, but we need to repent, renew our faith, and build toward new levels, rather than coasting along the plateaus, and we need to do this fairly often.

I’m also comforted by the teaching of a Rabbi that says that the Sabbath isn’t meant to be an obligation. It’s meant to be something that we look forward to as our reward for toiling for the other six days. We toil SO THAT we can experience the Sabbath.

When it does begin to seem that this land of contrasts and the experience of having a body is more toil than joy, it comforts me to think that the joys and spiritual rewards are worth it all.

Jared, I understand your reaction, but it also wasn’t necessary.

Let’s try to be civil, folks – especially on such a great thread.

I suppose you’re referring to #17 regarding a hymn. I don’t know the hymns very well so I asked a question of those who might have an answer.

I enjoyed the thread. It seems you got a head full of whatever, and feel like running off at the mouth. I didn’t accuse anyone, but you did.

He then asked: Have you found a way to successfully escape.

Escape what? The disappointment of the flickering candle of faith as an adult that was once so full and bright as a youth.

The escape came for me when in a crisis I found the Lord. My experience with the Lord was, and is, far more than I ever thought possible as a youth. When I was up against the wall of my faith I turned to the Lord with enough of what is required that I was given a Book of Mormon kind of experience that changed me forever.

What I didn’t understand as a youth was the price I would have to pay to know the Lord.

So I took my guitar
And I threw down some chords
And some words I could sing without shame

And I soon had a song
I played it around
For some friends but they all said the same

They said music’s for fools
You should go back to school
The future is prisms and math

So I did what they said
Now my children are fed
‘Cause they pay me to do what I’m asked

I forgot all my songs
The words now are wrong
And I burned my guitar in a rage

But the fire came to rest
In your white velvet breast
So somehow I just know that it’s safe

In an interview for Linescratchers, I asked Alan about this. I have pretty much given up my childish dreams of being a “rock star” when I grow up, but his song almost made me feel guilty in a way. However, he answered somewhat evasively, because music isn’t something you really “give up” just because you don’t want to do it for a career:

“People dream, put their heart into something, and eventually have to justify it with reality. It’s a fluke to be able to make a living on just music. I have many friends who are more deserving of a career in music, but for one reason or another, life has taken them elsewhere. “Salesman” is definitely about that, but also about the fact that no matter what, nothing can touch that relationship with music – not even time. Music is an eternal gift. I imagine that any celestial or millennial state will be filled with more musical opportunity than we can possibly imagine, and everyone will be glad for every moment they had with it on Earth – even just 5 minutes of nostalgic strumming by yourself.”

You know he has an interesting point. Someday we will see time as it really is: eternal. The odd nature of time and causality leads me to believe that time as we experience it now is an illusion. Then, we will see every moment in our lives as ever-present, not as something in the distant past. It actually just increases our responsibility to make every second count.

I could include some song lyrics, but nothing comes to mind that fits this.

Fred sits alone at his desk in the dark
There’s an awkward young shadow that waits in the hall
He’s cleared all his things and he’s put them in boxes
Things that remind him: ‘Life has been good’
Twenty-five years
He’s worked at the paper
A man’s here to take him downstairs
And I’m sorry, Mr. Jones
It’s time
There was no party, there were no songs
‘Cause today’s just a day like the day that he started
No one is left here that knows his first name
And life barrels on like a runaway train
Where the passengers change
They don’t change anything
You get off; someone else can get on
And I’m sorry, Mr. Jones
It’s time
Streetlight shines through the shades
Casting lines on the floor, and lines on his face
He reflects on the day
Fred gets his paints out and goes to the basement
Projecting some slides onto a plain white
Canvas and traces it
Fills in the spaces
He turns off the slides, and it doesn’t look right
Yeah, and all of these bastards
Have taken his place
He’s forgotten but not yet gone
And I’m sorry, Mr. Jones
And I’m sorry, Mr. Jones
And I’m sorry, Mr. Jones
It’s time

I worry sometimes that I’m setting myself for the “forgotten but not yet gone” in my professional, personal, and religious life. I think there are times, whether long or short, when we end up blinding ourselves to what’s really going on in the game. We settle in and “life barrels on like a runaway train,” and then we finally “wonder when will [we] write our masterpiece” and “want to know what became of the changes” we dreamed of. And then once again perhaps we realize that in all of it we’ve slipped a bit away from what it is to be LDS (or at least what it should be). How many mid-life crises do you think are allowed?

You go to work, work hard all day
At the end of the week, you collect your pay
That’s just where it’s at
It’s as simple as that

You pay your bills the best that you can
But the rising cost sure hurts a family man
While the rich man gets fat
it’s as simple as that

And the money goes so fast it ain’t funny

Your mind’s made up to get that house on the hill
But you just don’t know if you ever will
Because you can’t get the cash
It’s as simple as that

Cause the man from the bank, he
won’t give you a loan
Without putting a mortgage on all that you own
A tit for a tat
It’s a simple as that

And the money goes so fast it ain’t funny
Before you know it the kids are all grown
And married off with kids of their own
And it’s all in the past
It’s as simple as that

You’ve reached the autumn of your life
And all that’s left is you and your wife
And a dog and a cat
It’s as simple as that

And the money goes so fast it ain’t funny
It’s as simple as that

Bravo! Yet another opposing truth made manifest!

Life really is about navigating opposing paradoxes, isn’t it?

As Bonner Ritchie always says….”The opposite of one great truth is not a lie, but another great truth.”

Faith and knowledge.
Mercy and justice.
Activism and security.
Intellect and emotion.

“Angry Young Man”

“Give a moment or two to the angry young man,
With his foot in his mouth and his heart in his hand.
He’s been stabbed in the back, he’s been misunderstood,
It’s a comfort to know his intentions are good.
He sits in a room with a lock on the door,
With his maps and his medals laid out on the floor
And he likes to be known as the angry young man.
I believe I’ve passed the age of consciousness & righteous rage
I found that just surviving was a noble fight.
I once believed in causes too, I had my pointless point of view,
Life went on no matter who was wrong or right, ohhhhh”

And who of us hasn’t felt that way, ever?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-DoRYYHJL8

Pangs of silence
From the room upstairs
How’s the view there?
Do you read what they’re saying about you?
That you’re no fun
Since the war was won
In fact, you have become all of the things you’ve always run away from

The ascent of Stan
Textbook hippie man
Get rest while you can

So where’d the years go?
All the time we had?
Being poor was not such a drag in hindsight
And you wonder why your father was so resigned
Now you don’t wonder any more

The ascent of Stan
Textbook hippie man
Textbook hippie man
Get rest while you can

Stan: Once you wanted revolution
Stan: Now you’re the institution
Stan: How’s it feel to be the man?
It’s no fun to be the man

And now, watch it all go down

The ascent of Stan
Textbook hippie man
(Stan)
Textbook hippie man
Get rest while you can

Stan: Once you wanted revolution
Stan: Now you’re the institution
Stan: How’s it feel to be the man?

It’s no fun to be the man

James — Great song! Thanks!!!! I love Billy Joel, but have never heard that song before. Here’s a link for those interested….

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOwtkQWyoT8