Happy Independence Day!!! Today is the 247th birthday of the Constitutional Republic of the United States of America!!! This is the 12th Tuesday's Musical Notes that celebrates the United States' declaration of independence from Great Britain. As a recap, our first Independence Day-themed Musical Note was Tuesday's Musical Notes - "God Bless The USA" (Lee Greenwood) and last year's celebration featured "Let's Say It With Firecrackers/Song Of Freedom Medley" (Bing Crosby and the Chorus of the Paramount Pictures release Holiday Inn). Take a minute and check out the archives to the left and see exactly how we have celebrated this very important holiday for our country over the years. Yup, over there on the left...Go to each year...then the first note in July...almost there...now CLICK! 
You might have noticed as you clicked on each year that today's Notes marks only the 2nd time in our 12 years together that our annual celebration of freedom arrives on a Tuesday. So it's a great day to celebrate for more than one reason!!! Here, for your reading enjoyment is the 1st time. "I feel good!!!": Tuesday's Musical Notes - "Living In America" (James Brown)
With this sampling of musical fare, maybe just maybe, you have gotten a taste of what it's like around here in Notesland! We confess to knowing more about some kinds of music than others but take great strides in keeping an open mind about our featured songs and try our best to showcase as many genres as we possibly can. As you look across the landscape of Tuesday's Musical Notes, we think it is pretty obvious that...
Today's featured song comes from Sheryl Crow's self-titled second album. Oddly enough, it was her second attempt at releasing a record bearing her name as the title but the only one released due to the previous project being shelved by Crow and her producers. Some of the tracks from that album have leaked into digital platforms but to date, none of the record's releases have appeared as singles or been released to radio.
That made Crow's debut album, Tuesday Night Music Club. As the title suggested this album was a collective of songwriters who got together to make music, and if the title can be trusted, on the best day of the week! The album had several prominent releases, including the late-blooming, Grammy-nominated, #2 smash hit, "All I Wanna Do" (Tuesday's Musical Notes - "All I Wanna Do" (Sheryl Crow)).
While mired in some legal wranglings about songwriting credits from the other collective members, Tuesday Night Music Club and "All I Wanna Do" were enough to spur the success of Crow's second self-titled effort. This time around it did make it to record stores and radio and was all Sheryl Crow as producer and principal singer/songwriter. The results were 5 singles, 2 of which peaked in the top twenty, including today's song which topped the charts at #11.
"Everyday Is A Winding Road" was the second single from the album. While not breaking the top ten in the US, it went all the way to #1 in Canada, the fourth and final of Crow's singles to do so in the Great White North, eh! Back in the good 'ol USA it was nominated for "Song of the Year" at the 1998 Grammy Awards but lost out to Shawn Colvin's "Sunny Came Home".
While departing from producing and songwriting collaborations, Sheryl Crow did utilize other pop musicians as inspiration and as backing vocals for the song. The band Crowded House (Tuesday's Musical Notes - "Saturday Sun" (Crowded House)) had two members involved. Lead singer Neil Finn provided backing vocals on the song and drummer Paul Hester is said to have provided the inspiration.
"Everyday Is A Winding Road" is a story song detailing the introspective journey of life. In this case, as we go down the winding road with the ride provided by our intellectual vending machine repairman, we see that lyrically the song travels along a curvilinear pathway paralleling that of most everyone's life. Rarely does the road go straight for very long but regardless of the bends, the road, as does life, continues.
This departure from straight streets is beautiful in that rarely can you expect a given journey to be exactly the same as a previous one, even if it is on the same road...or for the same purpose.
Tuesday's Musical Notes is in the process of traveling down the winding roads of the Bible. We started on April 9, 2019, reminding our readers of the great stories that are in the Bible in only the way that Tuesday's Musical Notes can. (Tuesday's Musical Notes - "Beginnings"(Chicago)) We have attempted to tell these stories in as close to chronological order as possible and look forward to the coming weeks as we "jump in, let's go, lay back, and enjoy the show". For the next several weeks we will hit some of the stories from Paul's Missionary Journeys. We thought however that it might be helpful if we began with a brief overview and very broad interpretation of the Scripture as written by Dr. Luke.
In our passage today, we see that the growing church in Antioch was led by men who completely sought the Lord. These men were described as being very much in tune with the Holy Spirit which instructed them to set apart Barnabas and Saul for the first-ever intentional mission trip. The purpose of this trip was to tell the story of Jesus to those they encountered, both Jew and Gentile, but predominantly Gentile. What we discover in chapter 13 is followed by 2 more such treks. I have been told my whole life there were 4 mission trips made by Paul, yet in this portion of Acts, we only see the Bible telling us about 3 specifically. Scattered throughout Paul's letters and other non-Biblical historical documents from the time, we get the indication that Paul may have gone as far as Spain or it is possible the final mission trip was Paul's journey to Rome where he was eventually martyred, yet no Scripture is explicit in telling about the account of the journey down that winding road. Here is a great article that presents an overview of each of the places Paul and his compatriots ministered as they went on these crusades. "Paul’s Missionary Journeys: The Beginner’s Guide" by Ryan Nelson, July 6, 2020 overviewbible.com
As we have seen in the life of Saul/Paul so far, every day has its own set of unique twists and turns. What started out for Saul as a mission for persecution winds up being a series of missions of ministry and disciple building among those that devout Jews considered "unclean". He finds himself meeting a myriad of people and situations, that he could have never envisioned as he set out on his original road to Damascus. Tuesday's Musical Notes - "Doctor My Eyes" (Jackson Browne) The Scripture detailing this journey is filled with the perfect example of how everybody gets high, everybody gets low, these are the days where anything goes. And all along the way Paul seems to be saying, "I get a little bit closer to feeling fine."
Regardless of the number of mission trips taken by Paul and his ministry partners, this 5-and-a-half-year period begins the church age. At every stop that Paul and his companions make they have specific intents, which ultimately lead to a church, albeit sometimes a church that consists of one family, that is planted and lives that are changed because of the message of Jesus. We will explore some of those specific intents and the resultant stories that come from them in the coming weeks. Stay tuned!
Ultimately, Acts 13-20 tells the story of the Gospel of Jesus being spread throughout the known world. Jesus' love and sacrifice touched people all along the way as Paul, Barnabas, Mark, Silas, and others, told those who were swimming in a sea of anarchy of the transformative power, peace, hope, and yes freedom, that a relationship with Jesus can bring. These first missionaries are responsible for taking the Gospel to folks who were probably asking, "I'm just wondering why I feel so all alone
Why I'm a stranger in my own life?" The answer for them then, and for us now, is Jesus.
As we celebrate the freedoms we enjoy in this country, let us never forget to tell everyone we encounter about the freedoms that we have because of Jesus as everyday is a winding road...
'Til Tuesday,
Loving HIM by Loving You,
randy
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