Love is Like a Magic Penny

I was remembering this song earlier because it is just so spot on for how I feel about love and, well, doesn't it make a fabulous analogy? We used to sing it at primary school and thought it was just silly but I am struck these day by how beautiful the sentiment is:

Love is something if you give it away,
Give it away, give it away.
Love is something if you give it away,
You end up having more

It's just like a magic penny,
Hold it tight and you won't have any.
Lend it, spend it, and you'll have so many
They'll roll all over the floor.

For love is something if you give it away,
Give it away, give it away.
Love is something if you give it away,
You end up having more.

Money's dandy and we like to use it,
But love is better if you don't refuse it.
It's a treasure and you'll never lose it
Unless you lock up your door.

For love is something if you give it away,
Give it away, give it away.
Love is something if you give it away,
You end up having more.

So let's go dancing till the break of day,
And if there's a piper, we can pay.
For love is something if you give it away,
You end up having more.

For love is something if you give it away,
Give it away, give it away.
Love is something if you give it away,
You end up having more.

I'd never heard the other verses before, I really like them a lot and am particularly struck by the dancing analogy.

An afterthought:

Hmmmmm, actually, why not. I say this because I am both cheekily joking and deadly serious and because it seems to me to have come up quite naturally. I am only doing a quick post tonight because I have to get up early tomorrow and run 10 km for the sake of love (link). On a swollen ankle and with a slightly infected mega blister no less. I don't say this to moan or to brag. I say it because it is an analogy for sacrifice bringing freedom and if you read what I wrote at the link above it goes into more detail that I don't have time for tonight.

Love Running (link) is the name of the project. The pain of tomorrow is no patch on the suffering of African children, addicted prostitutes and grieving families. The cost of sponsorship is no patch on the difference only a small amount of money can make to those lives. It would stop being a metaphor if that magic penny found its way into my justgiving account before tomorrow morning - love would actually have increased in the world. This post did not start off intending to be a request for money but I just don't see why it shouldn't end as one. Freedom is the key to fullness of life, which is what I keep banging on about. I think giving away love would bring freedom to both you and thousands of others... how can I deprive anyone of that opportunity?

X-Men Origins and Divine DJing

I went to see this tonight. It don't know how good it was. It think it might have been very bad but I was so busy being analogised that I didn't care.

In short: there is a whole lot of evil out there that needs fighting.

Other things that happened to me today were - God took me shopping and bought me a new prophetic T-shirt. It says:

TRUE LOVE FOREVER

Amen to that.

I am aware of late just How Much more there is than this life. I don't think I care anymore about what is going to happen to me, I just want to have metal bound to my skeleton so I am strong enough to fight the baddies. You have to be riled up to feel like this and I reckon I have been by all the tragedy. No matter how much it hurts - the liberation of thousands of caged, abused, helpless victims is what matters. I think sometimes the shit has to hit the fan to really see this. The trappings have to be stripped away. The security in the fleeting things let go.

It is good. When we have a total eclipse of the heart (link) we realise that forever just has to start tonight. The harsh truth that things are falling apart stands but there is still love in the dark and, with the help of some fortified mutation, there are a whole load of captives needing to be released all the more urgently now.

Jesus was my DJ all the way home, see. Another of the many pertinent tracks that came up random on my ipod was "The Man in Black" by Johnny Cash himself. He was kinda pissed at the way of things too.

This is my verse in particular:

"Ah, I'd love to wear a rainbow every day,
And tell the world that everything's OK,
But I'll try to carry off a little darkness on my back,
'Til things are brighter, I'm the Man In Black."

I don't know if things are bright enough yet for a rainbow. "'Til we start to make a move to make a few things right"... are we doing that enough? Clearly no.

But Wolverine was a pretty angry man. I don't want my passion at loss to turn me black. I think, all this said, it is still rainbow time now. After all, if we gotta imagine that brighter future (link) then I suppose we gotta wear the rainbow to show we believe.

If you wanna see the rainbow you gotta put up with the rain. One more prophecy from Johnny... Yesterday, whilst praying for rain to stop, this track (link) popped up (straight after this one (link) actually!). At the end a monologue that linked to the next song about cotton pickin' played. This is what it said:

"My mother always said if you look for it, if you’re committed to the Lord, that there’s a blessing that will always come in times of adversity. Well I couldn’t see it, you know, a blessing in that flood that run us out of our home for two weeks... but we came back from the hills and the blessing was there alright. The land was covered with rich black river dirt… and Daddy planted the cotton crop… and the cotton grew taller that next year than ever before. And everything good happened at pickin’ time if anything good was gonna happen. And that year we had a great pickin’ time."

Sometimes my stupid hope gets me into trouble, when I just can't help using it for the irrelevant stuff. But I reckon with all the rain that's been falling lately I might just need it to keep a hold of this significant promise of blessed white fields to come.

Turn around bright eyes. Head to higher ground. Forever, true love, starts tonight. We're just a step from heaven (link). There may be pain in the night but joy comes in the morning (link) and, though we're soaking through and through, He's handing us a towel (link). Hope. Sometimes it's all we got. I think it might be all the more important now.

Tomorrow I will wear some rainbows, whether I feel like it or not. And the new T-shirt, of course - it's all about the True Love... 'cause it lasts Forever.

"Let's start at the very beginning..."

The birth of a blog.

We begin on Easter day because this blog is the result of a lenten fast. I will tweak my layout, add some more details and who knows what else in due course... but today is about getting started and the title tells enough for now.

So for a first post we do, of course, have an Easter theme. I was thinking a few weeks ago about how many people call themselves Christians (I'm one of them by the way) and how this can mean a whole host of different things. For me the belief in and attempted following of Jesus Christ is a necessary element but this isn't true for everyone it seems. The next day I came across the music for a song that did quite a good job of expressing how I feel about the Christian life so I'll let the lyrics tell you what Christianity means to me:

Beneath the cross of Jesus
I find a place to stand,
And wonder at such mercy
That calls me as I am;
For hands that should discard me
Hold wounds which tell me, "Come."
Beneath the cross of Jesus
My unworthy soul is won.

Beneath the cross of Jesus
His family is my own—
Once strangers chasing selfish dreams,
Now one through grace alone.
How could I now dishonour
The ones that You have loved?
Beneath the cross of Jesus
See the children called by God.

Beneath the cross of Jesus—
The path before the crown—
We follow in His footsteps
Where promised hope is found.
How great the joy before us
To be His perfect bride;
Beneath the cross of Jesus
We will gladly live our lives.

It's by Keith and Kristyn Getty and you can listen to it here: http://www.gettydirect.com if you like.

So. Yeah. I've wanted to share that for a while and now I have a blog again I can!

Living gladly beneath the cross of Jesus. This is my analogy for Christianity and so for my life. Hence I post it first - because it comes first. The cross itself is a symbol for oh so many things, perhaps the most basic and powerful being death. There are many more but they are not for today.

For today, Easter, is about what comes next. After the cross. After death. The day of resurrection and rebirth. The day that means new life. And what better analogy for this blog is there?! A new blog that comes from the death of an old blog; which is in itself a metaphor for the beginning of a new chapter in life that follows from the end of the last; which has only been possible through the death of Jesus and His life changing resurrection power!

It seems to me that having the cross at the beginning - of this blog, this life, everything - is "a very good place to start".