My 31 Year Love Affair With Christian Music

I was 13 years old in 1981 and I had just moved to Florida from New York. From high rises to hick town. I could not have been more out of my element. I started to going to a camp called Life For Youth Camp, and that is where we met. My CIT leaders, Bill and Laurel, were driving me home and her beautiful sound came through their crappy car stereo. It was an old school artist named Denny Correll. He was the first Christian rock and roll artist I had ever heard. Technically, it was more disco (think Love Boat Theme) than Rock and Roll, with a touch of blues and gospel, but man, was she gorgeous.

The songs touched me, especially a song called Living Water that had a wicked, hot horn section. She had me. The back beat, the pace, the Joe Cocker-esque voice, swooned me. It was love at first listen. The song came from an album called Walking In The Light. Only at the writing of this piece, did I find a digital version of this album. Up until today I played the album, the vinyl, version. My lady is a class act. In fact, the picture attached to the right, is the framed album I keep in my office. When I get sentimental, she plays those horns and takes me back to where we first met.

She wasn't just music I listened to; I danced with her, exercised with her, and in 1989, we even acted together. I spent a year in a one-year discipleship school called Master Commission. This was the year she taught me how to tell a story through an art form called Human Video. For this year we toured around Arizona and California, her and I, telling stories of redemption and hope, to the lost and the hopeless. We performed at schools, detention centers, nursing homes, and out in the street. She told a story like Bobby Flay cooks, with heart and passion.

When I worked at a radio station, as a Saturday night jock, I shared her with the world and the audience was totally into her. I have used her to intro my sermons and let her bring others to a place to pause and reflect. She challenges each generation to live, love, and seek higher ground. To be honest, there is nothing she cannot do, but that does not mean she does everything well.

My soul partner has not always been kind to me. She's spewed out some nonsense over the years that I could not make sense of. It was almost like she was being controlled by selfish people and forced to produce disingenuous melodies for money. She's been manipulated for money and whored out for a buck, but I waited patiently for her to return.

This kind of behavior continues from time to time, but she still shines. The best of her brings tears to my eyes and fire to my soul. She can still make me dance, shout, and sing in the shower. She has been with me in the darkest times, consoling me and in my happiest moments when shes directed my attention to the Most High. I owe her a lot. When she is wayward, I go back to our song,the one I heard many yeas ago, with the hot horn section; and I wait until she finds her way back.

There was a time I couldn't stand her. I would listen to other sirens sing other songs, but no one touched me like her. Though we were apart, I could hear her words and melody play around my mind, Our song would play, and she'd win my heart again.