Tuesday's Musical Notes - "Crazy" (Gnarls Barkley)

Welcome to the 1st Tuesday of March!!!  If you have ice on the ground you may find yourself with a little cabin fever!!!  Well the doctor is in and he has the cure of your stay at home blues.  Feelin' better yet?  It's The 1st round of March Madness at Tuesday's Musical Notes!!!  We're winding down to the selection day for the Big Dance, and the teams are playing there hardest for the opportunity to play for the National title.  For the first time in several year the Musical Notes' beloved Arkansas Razorbacks are even in the discussion to make it to the tourney.  With that in mind the next 4 weeks are destined to be tension-filled, bracket-breaking, and musically minded...well at least if you are one of the hundreds of avid fans of Tuesday's Musical Note....you might even say that the next month will be filled with craziness!!!

  "Crazy" - Gnarls Barkley

 

Let's face it.  March has the tendency to be an unpredictable month.  You never can tell what the weather will be like (2 inches of sleet on the ground as The Notes gets posted).  The celebration of Jesus' triumphant resurrection is celebrated in March...sometimes.  Daylight savings time changes our sleep patterns for the next 2 weeks (Don't forget to set your clocks ahead an hour Saturday night!) Many spring break plans are made...well maybe not this year.  And college basketball's premier event, the NCAA tournament begins.  It certainly seem like an interesting way to break out of winter and start spring. You just never know what will happen when the seasons meet.  For that matter, you never know what will happen when individuals meet.

  Such was the case when when Thomas DeCarlo Calloway met Brian Joseph Burton.  You may know them better by their solo act names of Cee Lo Green and Dangermouse. Gnarls Barkley is a play on the name of NBA player Charles Barkley  (who many thought had actually done the recording). They hold the distinction for having crazy sales of their first single from their collaborative album St. Elsewhere.    The album debuted at #20 on the US charts.  It is one of the first album releases to be available as a download before it was made available as a hard copy. (St. Elsewhere was released 1 week ahead of its intended street date on iTunes)   "Crazy" would go on to be the 1st single to top the UK charts by sales of downloads.  It would be reminiscent of the soul sounds of the '60s that were produced out of Motown. 

If you have children of any age you may have experienced a time in your relationship where you thought they were crazy.  No seriously, they did something disobedient that was so absurd your thought was to have them psychiatrically analyzed. The Notes confesses to hearing the words, "ARE YOU CRAZY" come out of our parents and sometimes even supervisors mouths when our behavior was "out of the expectation" in a bad way. (Sorry Bart!!!)  We also confess to having said the same words in the same tone of voice to those we supervised and our children when they did not meet the expectation, which is just a fancy way of saying we were disobedient or just plain 'ol didn't mind.  Even God has those times where He wonders if we don't need some mental help.  It is recorded in the Bible that God was frustrated and angry at those He had hand selected to worship Him and spread His Name throughout the world.  The book of Deuteronomy is filled with the rabbinical laws (laws of Moses) that the Israelites were to obey.  To this day, many Jewish people strive to live by the laws that were given to Moses and the children of Israel during the Exodus wanderings.  But thanks to Jesus, we have been freed from the overwhelming bondage that those laws would cause us to be under.  Jesus taught us to love God above all else and love our neighbor as ourself.  If we did those 2 things consistently, we would not have time for the disobedient, crazy things that we find ourselves doing.  But we digress....

 

One who was crazy or mentally imbalanced in the Bible was seen in much the same light as they are today.  Regardless of how much we may try to help those who have issues, we must admit that there is a stigma attached to those with mental disabilities. Many of the people of Jesus time thought  Him to be crazy.  The Message paraphrase puts one such occasion this way:

John 8:48-51

The Message (MSG)

I Am Who I Am

⁴⁸ The Jews then said, “That clinches it. We were right all along when we called you a Samaritan and said you were crazy—demon-possessed!”

^49-51 Jesus said, “I’m not crazy. I simply honor my Father, while you dishonor me. I am not trying to get anything for myself. God intends something gloriously grand here and is making the decisions that will bring it about. I say this with absolute confidence. If you practice what I’m telling you, you’ll never have to look death in the face.”

Imagine if we were to go around making such claims.  It would if you or I claimed to be the Son of God.  We aren't.  But it wasn't crazy for Jesus to proclaim it because He was.  (yep, stole that one from Miracle on 34th Street)  Jesus even endured the torture of crucifixion by continuing to make claims such as the one in John. 

So as we enter into the "crazy" month of March, with its time changes and weather changes, let us not forget the One who never changes.  Let us not forget that we may be seen as crazy for being a disciple of Jesus.  Let us not allow the crazy distractions of this world to keep us from becoming more like Him... 

'Til Tuesday

Serving HIM by serving you,

Randy