Music to the soul

Bob Dylan's albums have to grow on you. He is almost 70 but still doing 169 concerts per year - on the road!Amazing rambler!Amazing energy!And he won an Oscar recently for a movie theme song.
They asked him once, how do you remember all the words to your songs?
'It's easy,'he replied in his non-chalant way,'a song is like a path in a field: once you find it you just walk on. A good song walks by itself. It's a memory and you just relive it.'
When you buy a Dylan album, you listen and think, this is nothing special. You put it away for a while. Then you listen again, and later on again. And then you find it grew on you. Some of the phrases, some of the tunes, some of the rhythms got stuck somewhere, inside, in your memory bank. It made a pathway in your sub-conscious. His songs all sound like, 'I've heard that somewhere before.'But they are new, they just have a ancient sound to them.
In one of his latest albums, Modern Times, he sings Workingman's Blues. There is a phrase that sort of stick out in the song:'sometimes no one wants what you've got, sometimes you can't give it away!'
at first it sounds like you have heard that phrase before, but you haven't, not quite like Dylan expresses it with his rusty aged voice.
Life has a way to creep into your heart unnoticed - like a Dylan song. You don't quite know if you chose to remember something, but when you search your heart, there it is, loud and clear, almost like a label. You don't always know why. But if you look back on your life certain things just stuck in your mind.
Looking back on my life as a commando in the South African army, I remember things I did not try to remember. I forgot some things I thought I would remember. The same with school, the same with distant family members and friends.
Songs have got a way to remind you of what is inside you, where you were when you first heard it, it triggers a memory that got stuck inside and you have to stop and consider it for a moment, it speaks, it echoes and it resounds in your soul, it haunts you, it revives you, it excites you, it gives you comfort and courage to carry on.
That is the power of music. We all need songs in our lives.
David praised God who gave him songs in the night. In the worst time of our lives God gives us songs to strengthen our resolve and to remind us of what He has buried deep inside of our spirits.
Let us keep on singing, humming tunes, whistling while we work (except the glass blower, like my brother-in-law Murray always jokes!)
Let us put some melody in our lives today and in someone else's life. Stop and sing. Listen to a good old tune. Don't worry if no one else likes it. It is meant for you. Only you. It is what your soul needs now. It is a vitamin tablet for your soul.
Shakespeare said, If music is the food of love, play on, play on!

That's not what ships were made for

I reached a forlorn Outback town in New South Wales called Gilgandra where I and my two unique band members performed Gospel songs in an AOG church and afterwards drove for miles and miles on dirt roads to get to the station (Aussie for farm) where we lodged for the night and I felt I was in the middle of nowhere.
The home was in a dishevelled state: especially the bathroom. There was no shower wall or curtain. Puddles of water were everywhere. The dirty clothes and towels were strewn all over the damp floor. The toothpaste tube was half squeezed out and the top was nowhere to be seen. The toothbrushes suited the scene: the brushes were pushed out from over-use. The basin was dirty with rings of dirt mounting one on the other.
For someone like me who came from a pristine Victorian albeit Afrikaner home where the table cloth and matching serviettes were starched and rows of cutlery were used for the four course meal, it was a bit nerve wracking to view the bathroom where no one seemed to mind the state it was in.
I remember looking at my watch. It was about midnight. I suddenly felt an overwhelming sense of purposeless welling up in me.
‘What on earth am I doing in a place like this?’
I felt that our ‘call’ to be in Australia was suddenly so useless. I felt like a misfit, the proverbial square peg in a round hole. Australia didn’t receive us well. What on earth am I still doing here, in the Outback trying to preach and sing the Gospel? The offerings hardly get me from place to place. My wife and kids are hoping I bring something back from this exhausting mission’s tour, but alas, I can foresee nothing positive about my efforts any more.
A sense of sadness crept over me and I felt as dark inside as it was outside. An Emu was circling the house making unearthly noises, like a stone dropping into a water container.
I washed my face in the dirty washing bowl, avoiding the dirty toothbrushes. Then I looked for a towel. They were all damp and used before. Then I spotted some behind the door hoping they would at least be clean, but to my dismay they were dirty too. I took one to dry my face. The smell of the towel was so off-putting that it made me nauseas.
As I lifted the towel an old, torn poster collapsed towards the floor. The towel was propping it up behind the door. I pushed the poster back up and then stared at it for a while.
It was a picture of an old sailing boat in a storm: mast cracked, sails torn and waves bashing over the deck with seamen sprawling for cover and hanging onto the ropes.
‘That’s exactly how I feel inside,’ I thought.
As I straightened it out I noticed the inscription at the bottom.
‘A ship is safe in a harbour; but that is not what ships were made for!’ was all it said.
I took it in and started weeping, silently at first, but audibly after a while. I sank to my knees with the dirty towel in my hands. I understood the message so clearly.
I could have been safe and sound in my own country, South Africa, with a secure 9-5 job and loving parents and friends around me and my family: instead we chose to obey our call to Australia as missionaries. Here I am, in the middle of nowhere, feeling lost in all the storms of life, and at the moment nothing makes sense any more. But like the old ship I have precious cargo to convey to the other shore. I have something to give, even if it is just to minister to a few people in the Outback.
Fairdinkum!
The poster and its inscription inspired me and gave me new courage to carry on and do what I came to do! I learned an important lesson: Christians are safe in churches, but that is not what Christians were made for!
Jesus said, ‘Go into the whole world and make disciples of all nations!’
At least I have obeyed the great commission. At least I’ve given it my best shot!
Since then I have been to 66 nations now…as the great old hymn Amazing Grace says,
‘Through many dangers, toils and snares
I have already come
It’s grace that brought me safe thus far
And grace will lead me home.’
‘Amazing grace how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me
I once was lost but now I’m found
I was blind but now I see.’
Amazing Grace was written by Newton, a slave trader, who faced many a storm at sea, and survived to tell the tale. Perhaps that picture would have touched him deeply as well. It touched me for sure. It changed my life. It changed my attitude. It gave me a will to live and to do something meaningful with my life.

How quickly we forget

How quickly we forget!
My friend Victor Ferrer said, ‘I will never forget you!’ as we embraced saying goodbye at New York harbour when I boarded the HMS Mormac Bay to sail via Rio de Janeiro to Cape Town.
‘Don’t say that!’ I told him, ‘you never know what happens!’
‘No, I will never forget you, because you are my best friend! You are my brother!’
Vic and I were at Miracle Valley Bible College in Arizona. He is Puerto Rican and I am South African. (They were amazed that I was not black!) After College he invited me to stay with him and his Mom in 89th Street East, New York, close to Central Park. He taught me the ways of New York. You don’t stop to help someone who collapses on the side walk or you will be involved in court cases for years! You don’t jog alone in Central Park at any time of day or night – you might get clubbed! You set your alarm clock to wake you at 3 am to watch your favourite movie! You go to one movie after another or to Broadway – there is so much to do! And then he took me to The Bronx where he grew up and we ate rice and beans with his Aunty Carmelita. He greeted the gangs with their baseball bats, knuckle dusters and chains waving at us, because he knew them well.
‘Wave your bible at them – they have respect for a bible. They won’t do anything to us if they see you have a bible. Smile, don’t look so nervous!’ We went to an underground church where I preached.
We watched them cut down a metal fire hose connection on the side walk and watched how they created their own car wash for all the people living there! You don’t see any police in The Bronx. I felt like David Wilkerson and Nicky Cruz from ‘The Cross and the Switchblade’ fame!
His Mother thought she looked like Marilyn Munroe and used to look at herself in the mirror and ask me, ‘what do you think?’ I had to agree – I was living with them!
And when my time came to leave, he went with me to the quay and stood there with his dimpled smile and curly black hair and dark brown eyes staring at me, telling me he would never forget me. He gave me his leather bible cover, which I still use till this day – with his name on it.
We corresponded for a few years and then one day he stopped writing. I wondered what the matter was. Finally he wrote back: ‘Don’t ever write to me again! I have met this girl who is an atheist and I fell in love with her. She convinced me that all this Christian stuff is a waste of time that other people designed to make everyone feel guilty. You are part of that world and I have left it behind now. I am no longer your friend. Goodbye!’
What a shock it was! My friend Victor told me off! An Atheist girl swept him off his feet!
I never heard from him again. I often think of him, when I open my bible and see his name on the inside cover. I wonder how Victor is these days. I tried to find him on the internet, but to no avail. He has not surfaced again.
How quickly we forget…
Jesus introduced Communion so that His followers would not forget Him that quickly. 'Do this in my remembrance, whenever you get together,' he told them. They are still doing it today, 2000 years later. Eternal friendship lasts longer...

The Source

When I was in my late teens my uncle bombarded me with self-help books: how to win through intimidation, Al Koran's philosophy on psychic techniques to make money; metaphysical affirmations that spiritualists use, Christian Science and Positive Thinking of Norman Vincent Peale, and success recipes galore, Napoleon Hill's exhaustive hard cover volume of Laws of Success from which the popular paper back was taken, How to think and grow rich; naturalist health text books, and many other types of self advancement books which he gave me to read, sometimes ten at a time, because I am a fast reader, to change my way of thinking.
I did read all of them and then one day, I took them all back to him and said, 'I prefer to stick to what I read in the Bible for a foundation for the rest of my life.'
'Suit yourself,' he said and packed the books away, one by one, in his bookshelf.
He ended up being divorced several times and left the ministry for a while and got involved in all sorts of businesses. He sold all the churches which his father, my grandfather, had built up to start his own denomination and moved to America with his one son.
Then in Australia, when Nola and I worked as worship leaders in the largest Charismatic Church in Australia at that time, the pastor forced me to attend a self-motivational course which all his staff members had to go through. He listened to the motivational tapes all day long in his car. And he built a lot of that stuff into his sermons on Sundays.'I can run this church without the Holy Spirit and no one will ever notice it!' he boasted.
The CEO of the motivational company asked me a bit about myself and then when I saw his stiff leg protruding from behind his desk I inquired about it.
'This is what your God did to me. I was a Methodist minister and I struggled to make a living just like all of you do. And then I was in a car accident and they put a steel rod into my leg. Now I can't walk properly. I left the ministry and started this business. I can make you famous and rich. I have made your pastor famous and rich. I can make anyone famous and rich!' he boasted and mentioned the name of a famous hair dresser in Brisbane and a famous tennis player in Australia that epitomized his success theories.
Suddenly I got up and said, 'I do not need your course, thank you, I prefer not to get anything from you.' I walked out. He screamed after me and told me I would never make it without him. He called me some names which I prefer not to repeat. He was a bitter and a twisted man and I didn't want his influence in my life at all.
Outside, when I got to my car, I raised both my hands skywards and made a vow: 'If the Holy Spirit cannot make me successful in what I have to do, I want no other help!'
I stuck to my vow through the years. I have now preached and ministered in 61 nations in 27 years and we have helped to plant and establish scores of churches. We have produced many LP's, tapes, CD's, Video films and DVD's, books, manuals, bible school material, life skills courses and life coaching manuals which have been distributed through many countries. We have produced musicals, held great concerts and trained more than a thousand people in our bible school.
Perhaps it is not 'rich and famous' but it is a life well spent so far and I hope to continue doing so as long as I have breath. I made a vow when I was 19 years old, on a snow covered hillside outside Leimbach, near Zurich in Switzerland, that I would serve God and humanity as long as I was spared and kept healthy.
The Bible has been my main source of inspiration all these years and I have trained many, many people how to hear from God from an Open Bible.

Roger Federer's thinking process

Roger Federer was surprisingly knocked out of the clay court competition in the second round by a 40th seeded player. The post match interview had him scratching his head trying to explain this strange phenomenon.
'It becomes so easy to win that one forget just how hard it is to dominate this tennis circuit. But a loss is perhaps just what is needed to wake you up again. When you keep on winning you stop thinking about how you are going to play and take things for granted. You do not think of how to play agains the next opponent and then something like this happens. You have to check your thoughts and change your thinking in order to win again.'
Notice how many times he referred to 'think'. There is a key here. How man thinks; so is he. Every action has been pre-meditated, good or bad. If you can think through something and think strongly enough, it will bring the required result.
There are the uncontrollable issues that you just have to accept as they come your way, but having clear thoughts about what you do is very important, if you are the world's best tennis player or not.
The apostolic injunction is to continually renew your mind with the Word of God - to begin to think the thoughts of God. Jesus rebuked Peter for thinking the thoughts of the flesh instead of the thoughts of God. Later on Paul tells us to learn to think about things that are 'above' and not 'beneath'.
There is an elevated thought life that rises above the things that want to drag you down all the time. It is a controlled thought life that leads to a life of self-control.
Roger Federer clearly told us all that it is important how we think about things in our life. The mouth speaks out of the abundance of the heart. And the small rudder that determines the ship's course is like the tongue that controls our lives.
It is good to take some time off to just think through issues and determine which course to take or which thoughts to allow or disallow.
Clear conceptual thinking is something very valuable. We have to learn to excerice our minds, just as we excercise our bodies and learn to excercise our spirits as well. But that is another story all together...

Buzz Lightyear

I met Buzz Aldrin when he came to Johannesburg many years ago. I had to accompany Marli Kelly on the pinao. She was asked sing a song before Buzz spoke. I sat next to him on the platform. His wife and daughter was with him.
The first thing I noticed was his funny shoes. He explained that all the men who went to the moon returned with some physical defect. 'We're not made to walk on the moon,' he told me. The arches of his feet sank permanently and he had to wear specially built up shoes.
He wasn't a believer on the way to the moon but after that experience and on the way back he changed his mind. 'There has to be a God if you see how beautiful the earth is from space,' he told me.
My grandmother on my mother's side saw a vision in 1965 of a man in a cumbersome white suit walking on the moon. He was wearing a helmet. We laughed at her and sometimes even mocked her as we watched the full moon rising.
'There's Ouma's man on the moon!'
In 1968 my granny sat at the kitchen table of my Uncle in P.E. listening to the radio anouncing the first landing on the moon. Neil Armstrong's famous words came over the air from outer space,'one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind!'

They named Buzz Lightyear after Buzz Aldrin. The comic character always goes beyond existing borders: to infinity and beyond!

Buzz told me about the extreme tests they had to go through to eliminate all the hopefulls until they only had a handful men left over to select the first team to walk on the moon. They had to be made of the right stuff. They had to be able to handle extreme pressure. If you make the wrong decision up there you destroy the mission and the men who are with you.

J. F. Kennedy said, 'you ask, 'why go to the moon?', and I say, 'why not?' We choose to go to the moon!'

I remember those days. There were some old folks who refused to believe it was happening. They said,'it's a capitalist trick of the Americans!' Just like the guy they found in the jungle who was still fighting the war in Borneo 32 years after the war had ended!

Bob Dylan sang, 'The times they are a changin',
ccome gather round people wherever you roam,
and admit that the waters around your head has grown
And accept it that soon you'll be drenched to the bone
If your time to be here is worth saving
And you better start swimmming or you'll sink like stone
For the times they are a changin'

A prophet in song, Dylan, for surely times have changed, incredibly. And those who do not change with it, fall far behind...in business, education, electronics or church...especially church...they want to continue as if their rituals are everlasting...and the times have already changed!

Buzz is a comic character to today's kids - to me he was a real hero.

Every Generation

Every Generation
Mike & the Mechanics sang a song, ‘Every Generation blames the one before…’ and then tells how he tried to communicate with his own father but just wasn’t able to ‘ In the Living Years’.
I heard this song the first day after my own father died. It made me weep. I sat alone in a hotel room in Bloemfontein and sobbed. I missed my father. His death came suddenly. I had read a scripture an hour before he died: ‘go ahead without me, I am an old man and I will just make your journey cumbersome.’ An hour later my mother phoned me and said, ‘Boetie, don’t get a fright, but your dad passed away this morning.’
We were all going to East London as a family for a holiday to watch Aje, my first son, play cricket for Northern Transvaal Primary Schools in the Perm Week. My dad greeted him at the airport when he received his Provincial colours.
That is the last time we saw him here on earth. It was sad. I remember going to my parent’s house and he was already taken away to the mortuary. My mother showed me where he laid. She was busy in her bathroom and he was in his, shaving. Then he gasped for his breath, three times, and she heard him collapse. When she opened the bathroom door he was lying on the floor with his head on the ledge of the shower. It happened in three seconds. In three seconds he exchanged the earthly for the eternal realm. He stepped over from this life to the life hereafter. Death was the doorway for him into another world.
I drove back to our home in 57 Marais Street, Brooklyn, Pretoria (now Tswane) that we rented from an old farmer. I decided to go for a morning swim. As I dived into the cold pool on that warm summer’s day, 12th of the 12th 1989, I felt the coolness of the water release the heat in my body and as I came up out of the water I said goodbye to my father: ‘Goodbye Oupa!’ I released his spirit to leave the earth – that’s how I felt.
It was not difficult for me to bury him. I had to conduct the service in Alberton Apostolilc Faith Mission Church hall and in the graveyard I threw the last sand on his coffin. My sister cried a lot. For some reason she wanted my golden Cross Ballpoint Pen and I gave it to her, but she dropped it into the grave onto the coffin. I let it go. It was buried with him in his grave like the old Pharaoh’s took their golden wealth with them into the pyramids.
Before he died he told me, ‘I have no regrets, my son.’ Few people can say that. He also used to say, ‘if you want to die by faith, you have to live by faith.’ Something else he was known for was a saying, ‘born once, die twice; born twice, die once.’ This referred to the second death which is an eternal separation from God. If you are born again by spirit and water (John 3:3-5) you will once experience the physical death and not the spiritual death.
I miss my dad. We had our misunderstandings, but in the end we loved one another to overlook the differences and accept each other as we are. He was a militarist and a planner; I am an artist and a non-conformist.
Every generation has its differences. He grew up in the depression years and during two world wars. He knew what it was like to rebuild lives after devastating wars. Every penny counted. I grew up in the Hippie Revolution and went to university in the Woodstock year, ’69. Long hair and floral shirts, bell bottom jeans and high heel boots…wasn’t what he wanted to see in his son. And then I became an actor…the worst nightmare for a pastor in a Pentecostal Church!
But later on I became a missionary and he used to listen to me preach – differently – and even made some notes which I have with me today.
God bless his heart for all he did for me and for all he was: he was a simple man and kept a middle of the road existence, no fancy cars or clothes. He saved what he could and left some money for my mother to survive on. We inherited a small amount eventually that helped us along the way.
He gave up a lucrative business career and sold his brass and iron factory in Alrode to use the money in the full time ministry to subsidise us as a family for the salary was small and the pension hardly enough to buy bread and milk every day! He gave up his life for the Gospel’s sake, and for that I highly honour him. Few men of his calibre would have done the same. But because he was in the ministry, like both my grandparents and my uncle, I entered the mission field and my son Aje is now the 4th Generation preacher! We might not be wealthy factory owners, but we have a wealth hidden in the preaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. That is our riches!