Shakesthegrounds Rumblings

[Shakesthecoffecan]

Well I still have time, I am still at home, I might make it to the office later.

That is one of two things I love about my job, I can work from home, go in when I want, the other is I can drink on the job and I have found no other situation where that is possible.

Now that does not mean I do drink on the job, but if I wanted to I could.

[CellarDweller]

I've already had my day made.

That's great!  So glad your day had such a good start!

[Shakesthecoffecan]

The past few days I have been studying on how in the past, or even in the present, men who are religious (i.e. Christian) who have same sex attraction, may have found/find an outlet for their attraction Thur their devotion to Jesus.

This came about a while back when I saw one of those "Real Men Love Jesus" bumperstickers. Now I don;t know what they mean when they say "Real Men" but I assume they are excluding other men, but I digress. This got me to thinking of the tearful faces I have seen on services televised from the great mega churches of the land. There does seem to be an undercurrent of male bonding/devotion to Jesus of Nazareth, and it is totally accepted and/or not talked about. This is not meant to incroach upon the believes heartfelt desire for personal salvation.

The hymnals are full of songs of praise and love and devotion to the man, and when you consider the male dominated field the church has traditionally been and that men were writing the songs, like this one, which anyone from down south has heart at the funeral parlor on an organ played by a woman named Mabel:

IN THE GARDEN
Words & Music: C. Austin Miles, 1868-1946

I come to the garden alone
While the dew is still on the roses
And the voice I hear falling on my ear
The Son of God discloses.

Refrain

And He walks with me, and He talks with me,
And He tells me I am His own;
And the joy we share as we tarry there,
None other has ever known.

He speaks, and the sound of His voice,
Is so sweet the birds hush their singing,
And the melody that He gave to me
Within my heart is ringing.

Refrain

I’d stay in the garden with Him
Though the night around me be falling,
But He bids me go; through the voice of woe
His voice to me is calling.

Refrain

Now I have checked out C. Austin Miles, he has living descendants, so he was not an old bachelor living in a an apartment over a butcher in Philly. But the words, read them with an open mind, what love he has. How many men have sang them on sunday, standing next to their wives and families, concentrating on Jesus, and blocking out  whoever it is they are trying not to remember.

Or maybe it is my over active imagination, wanting to rewrite history and make everthing a little bent. What do you think?

[Scott6373]

Put in the context you suggest, I find the text quite interesting.  I echoes the "Song of Solomon", which is the closest the Bible will ever get to sex.  Hmmmm...amazing how one can interpret the word of God as they choose...oops...did I say that?

[Shakesthecoffecan]

Lynne told me she read the Song of Solomon at a wedding last weekend, and I told her I hoped it wasn;t the Toni Morrison version, that would take all day.

[loneleeb3]

I love that hymn!
I know it is not in the vein of what you were writing about, but I can hear my Nannie and her sister, my Great Aunt Roxie, singing this song at Sugar Grove Baptist Church. The windows are open and a cool moutain breeze is ruffling the yellowed shear curtains that were at one time white. The old straight backed piano is banging out the accompnying music and no one is singing in the same key!
I'm laying in the pew looking up at them drinking my grape juice!
Thank you for bringing that precious memory to me today!

[Jeff Wrangler]

IN THE GARDEN
Words & Music: C. Austin Miles, 1868-1946

I come to the garden alone
While the dew is still on the roses
And the voice I hear falling on my ear
The Son of God discloses.

Refrain

And He walks with me, and He talks with me,
And He tells me I am His own;
And the joy we share as we tarry there,
None other has ever known.

He speaks, and the sound of His voice,
Is so sweet the birds hush their singing,
And the melody that He gave to me
Within my heart is ringing.

Refrain

I’d stay in the garden with Him
Though the night around me be falling,
But He bids me go; through the voice of woe
His voice to me is calling.

Refrain

That was my mother's favorite hymn.  Mother was raised in a small denomination that became a part of the current United Methodist Church. She always said she wanted it "sung" at her funeral. When she died very unexectedly, our Lutheran pastor dug it out of the Methodist hymnal, but when he asked about singing it, I didn't think my dad and I could stand that without falling apart, so we just had the pastor read the lyrics from the pulpit. Just plain gutless, I guess. ...

Sorry, Mother. ... 

[Scott6373]

That was my mother's favorite hymn.  Mother was raised in a small denomination that became a part of the current United Methodist Church. She always said she wanted it "sung" at her funeral. When she died very unexectedly, our Lutheran pastor dug it out of the Methodist hymnal, but when he asked about singing it, I didn't think my dad and I could stand that without falling apart, so we just had the pastor read the lyrics from the pulpit. Just plain gutless, I guess. ...

Sorry, Mother. ... 

So...imagine what it's like to feel oblilged to sing at every family funeral.  I sang at my father's and my brothers.  Rick's father's and his 24 year old nieces.  People ask me how I do that, and all I say, is that it's like a light switch that I turn on and off.

[Shakesthecoffecan]

Well Jeff you had to do what you had to do at the time, I donlt thinks she would have wanted you all falling apart at her funeral, and the words were read. You still ave the song, you can sing it everyday and be connected to her.
And I am sure your father shared in the decision.

Now you wanna talk about gutless, I could not bring myself to look at my father after he died. I refused to go near the coffin when it was open. I had heard my mother say all her life all she could remember of her father was his laying in the coffin (she was 12) and i didn;t want to risk it (I was 22). I have dreams even now that he is still out there some place and I gotta find him. I think it was because I never saw his body.

[Shakesthecoffecan]

I know what you mean Scott, when we buried my sister, my mother wanted me to get up and read somethign she wrote from the pulpit. We filed in and I sat there looking at her picture on the alter and was terrified, how the hell was I going to do this? Well, I just did. Time came and I got up there and relaxed and it was the most natural thing in the world.