I was reminded this weekend of a scene in Forrest Gump. Where leuitenant Dan is laying on the floor, his legs lost to the war. And he says “what am I gonna do now?”

I had a miraculous intervention this month in last minute gigs that made the difference in the outcome of Christmas for my family. I sang through the flu to make it happen. And God showed me the real celebration of Christmas. It’s the beginning of “Divine Intervention”.

“God often speaks to us directly through the circumstances we are in” I told the Jubalee crowd on sunday morning. “Sometimes God’s direction is seen as more of an inconvenience” at least in the way I react.

But in my ‘affirmities’ I felt a connection to all who are facing a different kind of Christmas this year. It seems everyone is facing a tighter budget and leaner times. But hardship has a way of sharpening our focus that I believe is unopposed by God himself. It is something of an unwanted opportunity for personal and spiritual growth.

And I opened my presentation with “what a wonderful world”! God has a plan. and we miss it because of the obstacles often. “I think to myself” has to come first in this song. It has to. I can see a wonderful world with a deeper thought process.

In the Serenity Prayer it adds, “accepting hardship as a pathway to peace” . Peace is easier sung about than posessed. Even on the advent of celebrating the birth of the Prince of Peace. I’d rather have it than sing about it for that matter.

And as I “Came home for Christmas ” this week I had that along with a wonderful gratitude for home and family and the satisfaction of making ends meet (with a little help from God’s friends and himself)
Merry Christmas to all I say… make the best of your circumstances and look for the gifts in the hardships. they are there… ‘wrapped beneath our tree’.

It was a wonderful Christmas despite the noticeably fewer gifts all around last year. My sons were over on Christmas night. Devin particularly is entertaining all by himself but I was aware with a call before he came over that he was embarrassed about not having any money to purchase gifts. It was to the point he was reluctant to join us in the opening of presents.

We’d cleaned up all the discarded wrapping and were wrapping up the evening. Devin was the last to leave. We walked him out to his car and said our goodbyes. When my wife and I came back in, I noticed an envelope lying on the floor beside the tree. Thinking I’d missed some trash I was headed to the waste paper basket when I realized it had been unopened.

There was no name on it. Inside it simply read: TO: Dad, Thanks for being so awesome. you’re such a talented person and I’m proud to say I’m your son. Sorry I didn’t have any real presents this year, …I may pick you up stuff once I get covered! I love you and thanks for everything.

He went on to write personal letters to my wife and her daughters pointing out simple thoughts and feelings about each of them. But he didn’t want to be there when we opened it probably thinking it would be dismissed as a “nice” gesture.

I wasn’t prepared for the wave of emotion that swept over me in that moment. Suddenly everything about Christmas changed. I never thought I could have such strong feelings for my kids and the gift they are all by themselves. Especially when they suddenly shine through the heart like that. It was just pure sincerity that topped all the gifts I don’t remember now.

Just words! ? unpoetical, nothing clever or humorous even…. just heart felt! And I have never seen him the same since. This Christmas I think I’ll just share my heartfelt words too. You can’t put a price on what sticks in your heart.

Monday night looked more like a Saturday night at Disneyland. House of Blues was packed, standing room only for the 25th anniversary of Christian Metal Band “Stryper”. I made the 40 minute trip down. Not because I needed a douse of way back then. I’d never seen a Stryper show in their heyday as it was also my own. I too played every week and musically we weren’t likely to find ourselves on the same stage ever.

But in the last six years I’ve met each of the band members in other situations. Tim Gaines even playin with the NehoSoul Band. Oz Fox lives in So. Cal. and Michael Sweet shared the stage with me as a presenter at the Dove Awards a few years ago. Robert has given me an in-depth conversation about the “art of visual time keeping”.

Last night there were no pot bellied, balding Rock Stars on stage though. It was like a new and improved version of Stryper. They came off strong, energetic and delivered a blistering set of their highlight metal meyhem, including an accurate cover of “Peace of Mind” by Boston.
The twin guitar leads we’re unbelievably precise. I knew that Oz Fox could play but Michael Sweet too had fantastic musical delivery. Together they were two hammers on a white hot blade. And I begin to realize that these guys we’re reveling in what they were born to do. They were cooking with no cobwebs in the kitchen!

I sat there thinking “these guys are gonna do this for 16 weeks on the road..nearing their 50′S !!!??? I was proud to know em all. And to have been a contemporary in Christian Music too, twenty five years ago.

I can see why Jesus spent so much time in the desert. Pretty much free of distraction! Doesn’t mean that the wind doesn’t kick up though. I heard a guy talkin about “raining mud’ in Arizona. “there’s so much dust in the air sometimes that when it rains it turns the dust into little mud drops before it hits the ground!

The ride from Riverside to Surprise Arizona for a friday night bike/recovery event at Radiant Church took ten hours! It’s still not close to “winter” in Az. and the heat has a way of draining the fluids out of your body without being noticed.

Dehydration is recognized in a delirious fuzziness and fatigue when you get off the bike. I was there by six p.m. as I pulled into a parking lot filled with motorcycles and music.

I struggled to sing but the air was so dry I found myself backing off the high notes just to insure I could get to the end of the set. It was a giddy experience and I was supposed to be offering my recovery testimony, but somehow it didn’t feel “safe” to be that honest.

I focused on pointing out that having a relationship with God does not keep you from addiction. Part of the process of redemption is overcoming your fears and sometimes in facing life we run! It doesn’t mean that God isn’t actively guiding us. (of course I just said that better now than then)

Saturday morning came too soon with a concert and Hogwash Book signing at the Harley Dealership in Chandler. The whole thing was put on by Tom Anthony of  Black Sheep HDFC. From 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. I hung out talking to bikers and employees and old friends, including a resurrected Rich Davis and his wife, who manned the book table all afternoon.

I followed a biker band called HAWG WILD. They did great covers of classic biker approved tunes, including a killer version of “Mississippi Queen” . The singer was perfect for these cuts!

Following that was not a comfortable thought for me. Bringing unfamiliar tunes in a style that isn’t quite the norm for “call of the wild”. With the help of eucalyptus lozenges I was able to bring power vocals to “Papa Ain’t Gonna Quit” and “I love you so”. but the stage was set up facing the parking lot and everyone listening was behind me in on the patio in the shade!

I signed books around 3p.m. and we sold more books than music! Bikers are a shifty lot, and aren’t known to hang around long but this afternoon there was never less than a hundred people milling about even with several riding clubs coming and going throughout the day.

Matt Chiappetta, manager at Chandler Harley Dealership gave me a “Gift card” worth 250. dollars for purchases at local dealers. I didn’t waste any time in shopping right then and there. I bought some night riding glasses and a couple of things for Jezebel. I haven’t put so much as a refrigerator magnet on my bike in the last year. I spend most of my “Motorcycle money” keepin Jez running.

And thanks to the mechanic at Chandler Harley for stayin overtime to fix my friend James’ bike so we got ride home on sunday morning! We “sewed to the wind” so to speak and reaped the whirlwind on the way home. High winds had us changing lanes alot and stopping to tighten our chin straps.

My son Devin has been singin my songs along with me for most of his life. He sang “Short People” with me once on stage and I wrote a song with him in his early years on the guitar. But his music taste is far from my own and his approach vocally is quite different from mine.

I always saw myself as too “old school” for his interest but he surprised me two months ago in saying he goes back to my songs for “motivation” in his acting. “yer dad’s songs cover all the emotions” he said someone told him. He’s an entertainer for sure and passionate about lyrics and or scripts. He was playin me Jason Mraz tunes all the way down to the studio and singing every word.

He sang in the children’s choir on “Christmas is Jesus” project some twenty years ago. But yesterday was a first in that he is featured in the opening verse! “the tape doesn’t lie” I laughed with him as he heard is early pitch problems in the quick passes with the track. He didn’t seem nervous at all but on the mic he struggled with the melodies and my particular phrasing.

So we let him sing along to my demo vocal track of the melody and he was spot on! it even sounded interesting to hear, in the first chorus, him in the foreground with his dad in the background singing unison. We kept it!

There were some moments where, as he sang the same notes with me, it sounded like the same voice in a remarkable doubling effect. You couldn’t tell it was two people some 31 years apart in age.
The duet vocal parts in the song are not exact or perfectly streamlined but I kinda liked it being a little rough around the edges it feels right when you think of a father son relationship. On the harmonies in this song.. I’m just pushin everything hard and he’s kinda floatin along! 8)… typical father son interaction.

His voice is softer and he doesn’t hit notes with the kind of “aggression” his old man does. But it speaks to me of his comfort-ability with who he is. As I sang the “father’s verse” and chorus there is a line that says “and I see as a father… the proudest father’s son”… it took me three passes to sing it without choking up!

The song does not really reach the depth of emotions that I was feeling and that bothers me a lot. It might not be the song I would have written for my own experience with my sons! and I left with a heaviness about the regrets I have of being gone so much when my boys were young.

Devin was buoyant, if not almost indifferent after the five hours we put in. “I’m gonna make a hat and print on it” he smiled as I dropped him at his car..”today is a good day for humble pie!”
He won’t need that hat when he hears the final production!

Promoter/pastor/psychologist: Jesse Sena invited me back to Pueblo again but this time offered to fly my wife out for a little RnR. We took him up on it. My first “Fly Date” with my wife. She traveled better than I thought she would. Of course a three day trip requires an 80 lb. suitcase!

We got there a day early to find freezing temperatures and I was thinking maybe I should have packed a little heavier too. Still we strolled the Riverwalk and the antique side of town. Watched it snow a little, and spent time at a local spa. She was in heaven there.

Saturday, I stopped by the Outpost Harley Davidson Dealer. We tried to line up an official HOGWASH signing event but could not make that happen on short notice. So I dropped a book by the owners office and drooled on a few bikes. And I found some summer riding gloves “half off”. The place was packed mostly for the “heated suit” sale.

The icy cold weather might have been a deterrent for some. But the concert at the Performing Arts Center downtown came off in top flight fashion. Great concert venue and a very intimate setting. “I played em all the old stuff”. I threw in several new guitar driven tunes and finished with the latest from Still Dancin’. I talked alot too.. about the changes in my life and how amazing it is that God sometimes has to pull the rug out from under you to give you something better.

Concerts for me these days come with a great deal of personal insight. “I’m one of those who’ve been there and done that” I told someone back stage. There is an overall lack of a  ‘need to impress’ now a days. Presentations feel more like an afterglow, talking about adjusting to new changes, and what God is like to me now. I see the audience more like a group of fellow survivors of hardships and misunderstandings of by gone days.

Gone is that hero worship, celebrity impression, and show off arrogance. The fact was Pueblo was a living room experience from top to bottom. The songs were the stories of my journey to date. And I met real people. I almost invited six of the singers with the opening band, on stage to sing with with me. (they were singing along anyway) the local talent was great!

Sunday morning I made a surprise visit to a local pentecostal flag waving church. The pastor, a transplant from Southern California, gave me most of the service after introducing me as part of his own testimony of salvation and discovery of music to live by. And the feeling was pretty much the same as the night before. Relaxed, insightful, surprising even to me. I offered an unassuming service to a local body of believers.

On the way to the airport in Colorado Springs we drove through the Garden of the Gods, a spectacular assortment of free standing other worldly rock formations. all the trees were tinseled with ice, giving it that almost Christmas feel.

The jokes on the way to the airport were non stop and the laughter never stopped. It was that healing kind of celebration that is so good for the soul. It never felt like work to me. How honored I am to still do what I have done for most of my life. Especially seeing the value from a higher perspective than ever before. I am truely grateful for the untold blessings of a life enriched with insight and perspective.