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I write this the day after the Moody Blues
concert at the Centre on Father’s Day. Gayle
and I were blessed to receive free tickets to
the concert and she hurried home from
Indianapolis watching Gracie so that we could go
to dinner then drive downtown and attend the
concert. From the moment we parked I could tell
that this would be a retro event of the first
order. Gayle and I grew up with the sounds of
the Moody Blues. We still have several of their
vinyl records (trust me, they’re coming back),
and I have their greatest hits on my iPod and
listen to them often. We saw several tie-dyed
shirts and dresses, a lot of long, thin hair,
and a few folks who might have been time
travelers from the sixties. But what we saw
mostly were a bunch of folks our age with a look
of expectation.
For those of you who do not know or don’t
remember, The Moody Blues was a 60’s band from
England who pioneered a sound that became known
as an “orchestral wave sound.” Many of their
songs had a distinct psychedelic tone to them.
But they also have a distinct searching flavor
that so many 60’s and 70’s songs contain. That
generation was searching for something deeper
than had been handed to them by their culture.
We had seen too many people in which we had
placed hope gunned down and too many cities on
fire for all the wrong reasons. But search we
did.
We listen to the familiar, “Tuesday Afternoon”,
“Isn’t Life Strange”, “The Other Side of Life”,
and “I Know You’re Out There Somewhere”. And,
while many of these songs speak of finding love
in a special someone, they are hauntingly
familiar to the search that every human being
undertakes in one way or another. We all long
for love. We never quite find it unless we find
real love, and God tells us in scripture that he
IS love. Listen to these lyrics: “I know
you’re out there somewhere, somewhere,
somewhere. I know I’ll find you somehow,
somehow, somehow. And somehow I’ll return to
you again.”
Most of you know that we sing a secular song
nearly every week to start our LifeLifters and
11 a.m. services. And after the concert last
night, I realized that many Moody Blues songs
fit our fall preaching series, “Getting on
Course: GPS (God Positioning System).” Several
years ago we began doing this to introduce the
concept that if we look we can see God
everywhere (He is omnipresent after all), and I
have so many tell me that it has helped them to
see God in their everyday lives.
Last night, I saw a lot of people, musicians and
concert goers alike, filled with the music and
theme of searching for love. I hope more people
find it.
Pastor Jeff
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Our Staff
