Hi there!!! It's Tuesday and time for Tuesday's Musical Notes, your weekly excursion into the world of music and mixed meanings! Today, we find our intrepid adventurers (that would be you) in search of the source of all things Tuesday's Musical Notesish. Your guide (that would be me, Randy) has plotted a course through a series of newsletter articles. 
"What is so different about these articles?", you ask. I reply "These are the artifacts of a newsletter series written at a time of great introspection. These writings segue into a weekly email sent to friends. One of those friends suggested turning the email into a blog. (Thanks again Heath!!!) With that encouragement, Tuesday's Musical Notes was birthed into the blog you know today, with 480 entries and almost 60,000 reads worldwide." . You continue, "Wow! What was the topic of this newly unberthed newsletter submission?" I began telling the tale, "You see, it really is a message that is very timely for the world today, as I hope all of Tuesday Musical Notes will be. But this one is a bit different..."
"What is so different about these articles?", you ask. I reply "These are the artifacts of a newsletter series written at a time of great introspection. These writings segue into a weekly email sent to friends. One of those friends suggested turning the email into a blog. (Thanks again Heath!!!) With that encouragement, Tuesday's Musical Notes was birthed into the blog you know today, with 480 entries and almost 60,000 reads worldwide." . You continue, "Wow! What was the topic of this newly unberthed newsletter submission?" I began telling the tale, "You see, it really is a message that is very timely for the world today, as I hope all of Tuesday Musical Notes will be. But this one is a bit different..."
"Go on" you encourage. "Well, while we have the document in its entirety, there are only parts that are understandable in today's context. Let me see, ok, here goes..."
(from the document)
1986 was a
great year. I proposed. She accepted. We got married. 23 years and
3 children later we are still married and one of my favorite bands
from 1986 had one of the highest grossing concert tours ever.
Genesis was a powerhouse band in 1986. Their album Invisible Touch, their 13th, included 5 top five singles including the quirky, cold war parable Land of Confusion. The video for Land of Confusion is one that is hard to forget. It featured puppets that caricatured 67 personalities from entertainment and politics created by the United Kingdom's sketch show Splitting Image. One of the lyrics is hauntingly prophetic of our time.
Oh Superman where are you now
- When everything's gone wrong somehow
- The men of steel, the men of power
- Are losing control by the hour.
- (end of the excerpt)
"Has it been that long?" I wondered out loud. "What do you mean?" you queried. I explained. "You see, it has now been 35 years since she said "yes", and those 3 children have turned into 3 children and 4 grandchildren!" "Congratulations!" You exclaimed. "Thanks, but the document is incomplete. It should have elaborated on the fact that the referenced video won a Grammy in the Best Concept Video category, which only lasted 2 years, 1988-1989. ("Land of Confusion" won in 1988 and Weird Al Yakovic's "Fat" won in 1989) and that the "Land of Confusion" video lost the MTV Video of the Year award to former Genesis frontman Peter Gabriel's "Sledgehammer" video at the 1987 Video Awards show.
My narrative continued, "It also should have expounded on the fact that one scene towards the end of the video is akin to the last song of the Live Aid concert from the previous year where all the artists came out on stage and sang "We Are the World" (Tuesday's Musical Notes - "We Are the World" (USA for Africa)) as the encore song for the concert.
I proceeded, "Over the last few weeks, we have included Genesis in several Tuesday's Musical Notes. You can go back over the last month or so and discover lists that I've included of all of their featured songs at The Notes."
"This is an incredible find!" You exclaimed! "No, the song is never really the most important part of Tuesday's Musical Notes," I lovingly corrected. "What? We thought your blog was about music and..." I interrupted, "It is. However, it is never intended to be the focal point of the blog, only the bridge to the much more important thought." "And this one, boy, does it have some relatable overtones..."
In the last year, we have been traveling through the Bible attempting to highlight its great stories. This journey finds us realistically at the end of the Old Testament. If you've been on this journey with us, you know that we have just ended with the book of 2nd Chronicles. While the chronology of the nation of Israel ends in 2nd Chronicles, it is picked up in the New Testament (400+ years later).
There are many more books in the Old Testament, 25 in fact if you look at the nonchronological order. Some of these books, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, and Song of Solomon, were interspersed throughout the history of what we have already encountered. (Job, probably around the time of Abraham (Tuesday's Musical Notes - "Nowhere Man" (The Beatles)
The remaining books of the Old Testament, are the stories of the prophets and prophecies that occurred during the time of the Kings and the eventual subjugation of both the Northern Kingdom of Israel and the Southern Kingdom of Judah. This geopolitical, as well as religious shape of the kingdoms during these years, could certainly be described as both kingdoms being lands of confusion.
Our focus becomes looking at God's chosen people, the Israelites, now divided into two kingdoms and their captivity, first by the Babylonians and then the Medo-Persians. These events are all captured in the chapters of 2 Chronicles.
As you can see, the kings of Israel for the most part were not great leaders nor good people. There are so many parallels between Israel's downfall and the situation we see most of the world, and more specifically the United States of America, in now. We are truly living in a land of confusion as men of power are losing control, or at the very least fighting for control, by the hour. What they realize is how very little control they actually have.
Many times in the Bible, especially in the New Testament teachings of Jesus, humans are referred to as sheep. Sheep follow a shepherd. It doesn't matter whether that shepherd is good at his job or not. That is how trusting, or stupid, the sheep are. The apostle Paul wrote a letter to his protege Timothy that describes these very phenomena, and the responsibility a shepherd has to his sheep. 2 Timothy 4:1-5 NASB/AMP/KJV
But back in the Old Testament, personal responsibility was elaborated on by one of the prophets of the time, Isaiah, who put things into perspective pretty well...
" Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil Who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness; Who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes And clever in their own sight!"
"...there's too many men, too many people, making too many problems, and not much love to go 'round, can't you see this is a land of confusion..." writes Mike Rutherford, lyricist of "Land of Confusion" (for more on Mike Rutherford, do a "Mike + the Mechanics" search in the box, upper left. Seems that Mike may have been reading a bit of Isaiah or Timothy to me.
"So what does all this mean?" you ask as we ponder over the remnant of the newsletter article. "It's simple.", I responded. "To rid the land of confusion, we must expound Jesus' love to the world. His coming to the world as a sacrifice for our wrongdoing through His betrayal, death, burial, and resurrection gives Him the credibility to be the only Shepherd on which we rely. It is only by His love and His shepherding that we find it in ourselves to prefer other people over ourselves. It no longer becomes a struggle on our behalf to obtain power, but a determination to see God's will come to pass on the world." "So" you concur, "essentially...This is the world we live in and these are the hands we're given, use them, and let's start trying, to make it a place worth living in..." "We should have the desire to love God AND to love others so much that we get rid of our land of confusion." Encouraged by your understanding I responded, "Without a doubt! We can use this remnant of a newsletter that is only a decade old, to tell of a love that is eternally old and by doing so, we become a magnetic force of the love of Jesus. "...this is the time, this is the place, so we look to the future..."
'Til Tuesday,
Loving HIM by Loving You,
randy
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