Living In Eden

They spend time playing with the animals as all the wild animals are as tame as our house pets.  They go find the fruit of their choice to eat.  Maybe a peach or a mango.  After eating the fruit they decide to plant the seeds so they go to the edge of the garden to a clearing and plant the seeds.  As they plant, they start slinging dirt at each other and that leads to wrestling with each other.  As they roll on the ground, staring in each other's eyes, their hearts are full of love and so they make love right there and God is pleased with all of this.  

You see that is the life that we were created to live.  Everything else in our lives is there because we have added it.  

So, when any of us looks and see a glimpse of paradise, we see a glimpse of Eden and the longing that we have to be there is a reminder of what we were created for.  

When someone talks about being married to their soulmate, they have a glimpse of Eden and they are experiencing the relationship that we were created to experience.  

When we can understand what life was like in Eden, then we can understand the relationships that causes God to smile now.  We can also start to understand how things will be in the next kingdom.

Those are the thoughts that I have been pondering about these past few months.

My Review of the CD, "Back To Basics" by Jeff Pike

Along with the CD that Jeff put out with Hugo Durate, he has also put out a new CD of his own stuff.  This CD is a little different than most CD's as it is just one man and one instrument.  Sometimes that instrument was a piano and sometimes it was a guitar.  The music on the CD is a combination of older songs as well as new and never released before songs.

Of all the times that I have heard Jeff play, there has only been one time that I have seen him play with a full band.  Most of the time his gigs have been him and Hugo and maybe a couple of other guitarists who are also soloists.  The sound of those concerts mirror what Jeff has done on this CD.  It is not every musician that can sound good,  playing and singing by themselves but Jeff does good.

The sound of this Cd is a lot like the solo artists that I grew with in the 70's and I really love it.

Review of the CD, "Chill Before Use" by The Frozen Gringos

The Frozen Gringos are Hugo Durate and Jeff Pike.  Each of them are successful musicians who are the lead singer in their own bands.  They have come together for a couple of successful musical tours that have taken to areas where they do not get to travel to with their full bans too often.  The success of those tours have led to this CD.

Now the music of this CD was completely done by Jeff and Hugo, with Henry Jordan filling in the missing gaps.  All of the music on this CD is original music that was written by Hugo, and Hugo sings the lead on 12 of the 13 songs, with Jeff singing the lead on The Music Box.

Now my opinion of the CD is probably skewed because I really like both artists as musicians as well as friends, but I really like the CD and I rate it higher than some famous musicians who have released CD's this year with a lot of fanfare.

Outside looking in

I have been off this week on vacation, and how did I spend my vacation you ask?  I spent the week watching music venues that my friends were attending in Key West Fl.  There was this event down there called Meeting Of The Minds (MOTM for short).  Many of my friends went down there for this event.  One of the main things that goes on during this time is that a lot of musicians that play in the musical sub-genre called Trop Rock, will pack the town with concerts.  Some the places where these musicians perform, put the concerts on web cam where you can watch them for free.  Watching these free concerts is how I spent my vacation.  So this week, I have been on the outside looking inside all week.

If I reduced the story of my life into one catch phrase it would be "Outside looking inside".  Whenever I have been in group situations, this tends to be the case.  People tend want to be around me only until someone "cooler" comes along.  From the time that I was a kid, this has been the case.  Even my date life could be described that way as most of the girls that I dated in High School would go out with me (usually only once) and then find that someone who was a better match (one or two are still married to those guys even after all these years and I think that is great).  It makes no difference what venue that I am in, whether it is work, church, family or whatever it tends to play out this way and I find that I spend my time looking at couples and small groups and wonder if they are doing as well as it appears to me that they are.

Now I am not complaining.  Life has been this way for so long, that I have problems being on the inside in group situations.  I just don't know how to conduct myself and so I usually do or say something that will put people off.   Although I really do enjoy it the times people go out of their way to make sure that I am included.

The problem with this type of life is that you spend your life being disconnected.  I believe that loving relationships is what makes a life complete and you don't get that when you live outside looking inside. I find myself being like Casper the ghost at times as I look for people who will be my friend.  Other times I tend to feel like the Beast in "Beauty and The Beast"  as I feel like people will take one look at me and decide that they do not want to associate with me.

These are not good places to be.  The irony of this blog is that I feel like I have found a few people who want to be friends with me at this time and that makes all the difference in the world.  And by the way, as I type this blog, I have a concert from Koz's Green World Gallery on in another window and now back to the music.