Tuesday's Musical Notes - "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" (Pat Benatar)

Hello!!!  It's Tuesday!!!  Time for tripping the light fantastic down the road of musical musings and trepidatious trivia.  That's right folks, you have found today's...wait for it...Tuesday's Musical Notes!!!  Only 11 more shopping Tuesdays before Christmas...let's not rush it though shall we.  Today our trek will take us to that wonderful time known as the 80's!!!  Where we explore strange new hair dos, we seek out new guitar riffs and odd drum solos, and we boldly go where no blog has gone before... cue Alexander Courage...engage...or fire away!  Welcome To The Notes!!!

"Hit Me With Your Best Shot" - Pat Benetar from the 1980 album Crimes Of Passion

If you were to ask folks about female Rock-n-Roll acts of the '80s, some of these bands may come to the forefront of your conversation, Heart, The Go-Go's, The Bangles (Tuesday's Musical Notes - "Walk Like An Egyptian"),  and Bananarama (Tuesday's Musical Notes - "Cruel Summer").  Also included in your ponderings would be solo acts like Madonna ( Tuesday's Musical Notes - "Holiday"), Tina Turner, Joan Jett, and Stevie Nicks.  Usually in at least the top 5 of everyone's list would be the MTV sweetheart of the 80's Pat Benatar.  

She originally began training to be a classical music star and had plans to go to Julliard.  Thankfully for fans all around the world, Patricia Mae Andrzejewski, changed her vocational  path after pursuing careers in health education, marrying her high school sweetheart, and becoming a bank teller.  She would begin to pursue her singing career in 1973.  For the next 7 years she would hone her stage persona by playing local venues and became a regular at New York's Catch A Rising Star Comedy Club.  In 1979 she would sign with Chrysalis and record her first album, In The Heat Of The Night.  In 1980 Pat Benatar would become a musical star as the first single from her Crimes Of Passion album, "You Better Run", would be the 2nd video featured on the brand new music video network, MTV and its second single,  "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" would go as high as #9 on the charts.  She would score a Grammy Award for Best Female Rock Performance for the album in 1980 and ovver the course of the next 10 years, Pat Benatar would be nominated 8 times in that category.  While not achieving the chart success that she had in the 80's, Benatar continues to tour giving her best shot to  millions of fans worldwide.

Did you hear the one about the American Olympic shooter?  Unfortunately, truth is stranger than any fictional punchline we could come up with...meet Matthew Emmons...

In the 2004 Athens Olympics, Matthew Emmons. an American Gold Medal Sport Shooter, was in  line to win his 2nd Gold medal.  He had a comfortable lead going into the final round of competition and then the unthinkable happened.  He got into his stance, lined up the shot, and fired...bullseye...into the wrong target.  He was disqualified from the event for shooting the wrong target.  Not his best shot.  He missed the mark altogether.  Flash forward to the 2008 Beijing Olympics.  Matthew Emmons once again is dominating the sport shooting competition.  Again, he has a comfortable lead.  Only this time he misses the target completely as he misfired his weapon while getting into his stance.  He moved from 1st place to 8th.  Not his best shot either...Matthew Emmons continues to be one of the United States best shooters, but unfortunately he is known for these two instances of missing the mark.  You can read more about Matthew and his on and off the range battles in this article from Yahoo sports:  U.S. shooter Matt Emmons doesn't think of himself as a choker despite mishaps in Athens, Beijing. 

In archery, if the target is missed completely it is called a miss.  Missing the bulls-eye but hitting the target is called a sin.  This is a word that we hear much about in the context of the Bible.  The Biblical concept of the word "sin" is one of separation.  Let's face it, we are all "real tough cookies, with long histories" and have junk in our life in which we take little pride.  Paul in his letter to the  Roman church puts it this way, "All have sinned and come short of the glory of God".  What does that mean?  For it to mean anything, you must have a foundational belief system that is based on the Bible.  If you believe the Bible, you remember quickly that God can not be in the presence of anything that is not pure.  Darkness and light cannot coexist in the same place.  Neither can holiness and sin.  When Adam and Eve disobeyed God while living in Paradise, they made a choice of disobedience.  This required God to be separated from them.  From that point forward, sin/separation from God, has been man's destiny while on this earth.  If Adam and Eve, who were created by our perfect God and were placed in a perfect place, chose imperfection, how much more likely are we to chose imperfection...which we do everyday.  

There is a price that must be paid for this decision to chose separation.  The Bible says that payment is death.  Again in his letter to the Roman church, Paul says that the "wages of sin is death."  Fortunately, Paul doesn't stop there, he continues.."but the gift of God is eternal life, through Christ Jesus our Lord."  So there is a way that those who are separated can be brought back together, but restoration requires sacrifice.  John, one of Jesus' disciples wrote this:  "For God so loved the world that He GAVE His only Son..."  God made the sacrifice so that you and I wouldn't have to pay the wages for our sin.  He gave Jesus as a sacrifice.  Jesus paid our debt.  Jesus died so we could live.  Jesus physically rose 3 days after his tortuous death and was seen by followers.  He is coming again to receive his followers into a new paradise.  Friend, please understand that today's Notes is not intended to judge.   Each day of my life is filled with the struggle to make right decisions. In short, each day of my life is filled with sin. The good news is that while I may have to abide by the consequences of poor decisions in this life, those consequences do not follow me when I die or am received by Jesus when He returns!  

The Bible says that all we have to do to hit the bulls-eye and attain eternal life with God is believe Jesus is who He said He was, the Son of God.  We hit it right in the middle when we say yes to His leadership over every aspect of our lives.  We will have temptations, and we will do wrong, we will miss the bullseye on occasion and sometimes even the target, but when that occurs, we can say with confidence to the enemy..."Knock me down it's all in vain, I get right back on my feet again"...fire away!

"Til Tuesday

Serving HIM by serving you,

Randy