Blog 2132 – 07.28.2021

Not Listening Still, Perhaps Someday They Will

I remember as a young man thinking that many well-known, at least in certain circles, Christian singers, used their songs as an opportunity to get to preach. Blogging is a lot like preaching as people share their stories and life experiences hoping to guide others around some of the pitfalls that they themselves or others have encountered. I am always on the lookout for an interesting anecdote or inspiring picture or quote to uses as a launching pad for a blog. I like to sing as well as to write and have over two-hundred and fifty cover songs recorded that I often pick from to try to illustrate or support whatever point I am trying to make.

Today the song itself was the inspiration for the blog, so in a sense I am only preaching so I can get a chance to sing. I have never pretended either to be a great writer or a great singer. Terms like great are best used by others for accessing the success of our efforts. So I just try to write and make a joyful noise hoping that something I write or that I sing may encourage someone else as it has so often me to read or to hear an encouraging word from wherever or whoever it came.

The song Vincent, also known as Starry, Starry Night, has long been a favorite of mine to listen to and to try to sing along with. Since I was about eleven years old I have written thousands of rhyming poems and committed to memory thousands of rhyming song lyrics that spoke to my heart. Many of the best lessons that have gotten through to me came packaged in the rhyming lyrics of songs.

In the song Vincent the writer and singer in the repeated chorus says:

The final chorus is changed slightly:

Don McLean first wrote and recorded the song in 1971. It was very popular and widely heard. Thirty years later in 2001, Josh Groban released his version of Don McLean’s famous song. Josh was not presumptuous enough to try to change the lyrics or even the arrangement, but I could not resist changing the last line to: “Perhaps someday they will.” It is my hope and belief that everyone will “get it” eventually. Some of us slow learners may take several lifetimes to learn to listen and several more to understand just Who and Whose we truly are, but the love letters delivered by the prophets, prophetesses, speakers, writers, singers, sculptures, and artists will I believe get the message across eventually to everyone. “You are loved, you are lovable, you are altogether lovely, for you are Love Himself/Herself.”

Your friend and fellow traveler,

David White

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1J6W6kC4gHNSMXCToLV67Gy9eX98gtA-E/view?usp=drivesdk

Starry, Starry Night (Vincent)