" dude, i'm a plumber": Rob Bell interview excerpts

From "Tying the Clouds Together:
Rob Bell's metaphors and references make his listeners stretch, but his wisdom for preachers is down to earth."
A Leadership interview with Rob Bell
LINK

Your sermons are known for pulling from unexpected sources—everything from art history to quantum physics. Why?

When Jacob woke up after his vision of angels ascending and descending on the ladder, he declared, "Surely God was in this place and I did not know it." And Jesus says, "My Father is always at work even to this very day." Jesus lives with an awareness, an assumption that God is here and he's at work. Dallas Willard calls this "the God-bathed world." This has deeply shaped me...

what about the sermon structure?

There's a whole world of screenwriting wisdom that we can tap into as preachers. There are storytelling insights about arc, tension, narrative, perspective, point of view—these things aren't taught in most seminaries, but they're essential to understanding how stories work, which means they're incredibly helpful in understanding the Bible.

Imagine a pastor on Thursday staring at this obscure passage in the life of David trying to figure out where the sermon is. One playwright says, "When in doubt, just have a different character give the line." And suddenly it clicks—do the sermon from the perspective of Uriah. Boom! Just one little adjustment and all of a sudden the whole thing works. My experience has been that the modern preaching, teaching, training system doesn't tap people into all this. The imagination involved in the art of the sermon can end up being stifled...

What else have you found unhelpful when preaching?

Focusing too much on something in the text that is an issue of hairsplitting debate among theologians. You are assuming that people care as much about the debate as you do. Somebody may be sitting there thinking, "Dude, I'm a plumber. I didn't know that was a debate, and I didn't know that it needed to be resolved. I'm just trying to figure out life with God and you spent sixteen minutes letting me know that you understood the origins of this particular Greek word." Some things just aren't helpful...

Your NOOMA video series has been popular. What do you think about the increasing number of preachers and churches using video technology to expand their reach?

It's powerful but there's also a dark side. Video is not church. You put images and music on a screen, and people will listen. But it's also dangerous. You're playing with fire. I think video technology deserves to be scrutinized heavily.

Go a little deeper. What makes video dangerous?

I don't think we know yet what the long-term impact will be on disciple-making. In 10 years we may discover what particular kind of Christ follower is formed by video preaching. I see warning lights on my dashboard. It's unclear what video may do to the ways we conceive of life together.

In the New Testament, there are 43 "one another" passages, and during a Sunday morning service you might be able to practice three or four of them. And as the service gets large, you can probably do fewer. A massive group setting is also dangerous. You can come, sit, listen, and go home and think, I've been to church, even if you haven't practiced any "one anothers." And with video that only gets more intense. I'm not sure that's the direction we want to be heading.

We want to be calling people to deep bonds of solidarity with one another. We may gather in a massive group, but from the stage I often say, "This is just a church service. Church is actually about caring for one another, and serving one another, and speaking truth to one another in love. Don't get the two confused."

LINK full interview

shimmering, vulnerable, evocative, provocative : my amazon review of The Violet Burning's "Strength"

My amazon review of The Violet Burning's "Strength":

It is absolutely unbelievable that this review of mine is apparently the first and only (so far) Amazon customer review of what is widely recognized as not only a beautiful and seminal classic, but even the first modern worship album (and a decade ahead of its time, to boot).

Since it's a 1992 album that has gone through seasons of being out of print, I can only guess this is a new listing on amazon.

Or..because I belong to it, I guess I forget  how small, select, and underground the collective circle of that "WIDELY recognized" is.

Best kept secret, indeed.

But don't take my word for it (though you are about to hear it)! Just look at some of the references to this CD in reviews of other Violet Burning CDs here on Amazon.com (That it is inevitably hinted at, and referenced, in many of these reviews suggests its watershed status). Read respected critics like Kim Gentes of Worshipmusic.com: "one of the best worship albums I had ever heard in my life...delicate, evocative and worshipful genius."

Even those of us who were Violet Burning fans from the first (raw, punk-ish) album were unprepared for the intimate and ethereal texture...no, atmosphere..created by this music. The passion of the first album remained: but is somehow dialed down sonically, even as it is amped up in sensitivity. It's all channeled through intimate confession, not through a Marshall amp attack, at least this time.

Songwriter and frontman Michael Pritzl may not have intended this as a worship album, and it can indeed be listened to without that framework and worldview, but I do need to say that no album released before or after has facilitated such renewal, worship, and tears in me than this. Scenes from its soundscape, whether through a literal playing of the disc, or whether through those deep recesses of my brain and soul where this music is forever embedded, have probably blessed my every day for almost twenty years.

That's likely because this is a passionate man pouring out his private broken/overflowing heart in a public place.

The haunting (female) background =vocals of Jamie Eichler, the gamble of a string section that more than payed off..wow, what to mention first? It's got to be "The Song of the Harlot," an evocative, provocative, holy and hushed ballad, a retelling of the woman of loose reputation who washed Jesus' feet with her hair. If you never figured the word "whore" could  be appropriately sung in a "Christian" song (a prayer even), but could be the only fitting word, you haven't heard the way the line "If I could be anyone at all, let me be the whore at Your feet" is delivered here.

The only thing offensive here is the truth that "so may times I have been the whore."

But what is a (brilliant) cover of the Beatles "Eleanor Rigby" doing, cueing itself up next on an album that is to me pure "worship"? Believe me, it belongs and segues perfectly in the context.
That "no one was saved" has never hurt more...and never made more sense more.

The sound is largely different than any other Violets album (except the later, "A Stranger in This Place," in which retooled songs from "Strength" and other CDs are included from a "vibe" perspective.) Many of their albums are guitar-driven, fueled by distortion and reminders of The Cure or My Bloody Valentine. "Strength" is quieter (a million degrees more so than its successor, the brooding, grungy self-titled album). To call "Strength" "acoustic" is not quite fair (though the almost-too-personal to listen to album closer, "Through My Tears" largely fits that description): for one, some great electric guitar solos are in the mix "No One Like You". For two, if you need points of comparison, you might think Radiohead, some Depeche Mode...and (though they weren't around yet) Delirious at their most vulnerable and inventive. However. all those points of reference are partly right and dead wrong.
The unique sound must be sampled and experienced.

Those in Christian circles will be blown away at the release date of this disc. Pritzl and team were so pioneering. One hears here hints of the best worship music releases since then (and none of the cookie-cutterness of the worst), but in 1992 the whole genre didn't even exist.

The Violet Burning singlehandedly prefigured and created it.

That alone merits the 5 stars accompanying this review.

The album comes off like reading Pritzl's journal set to the music that existed before it, and was birthed by it. One feels almost voyeuristic, catching him in a confession booth or God-encounter.

I haven't even mentioned the overall lyrical and theological theme, as the sonics are so good they can be enjoyed on their own. But that is impossible for me, as even the instruments draw me to the end of myself and limits of my humanity. Which is precisely the point.

---

I cannot divorce the album from its own suggested theme: In the liner notes one finds the Scriptural reference ,"the weakness of God is stronger than the strength of man."
Some of the songs, like "The Face of Beauty" celebrate the radical self-emptying of Christ, and the strength-in-weakness motif of much of the New Testament.

I feeler stronger in faith every time I even think of this album.

Thank God for Strength.
--

Others of my Violet Burning reviews:

• 
  
  

  the most listenable "unlistenable" album ever made

• 
  
  

  a Violet Burning classic

 

 

"i find i relate more to the sinners than i do to the saints"

"When i read the Bible, i find i relate more to the sinners than i do to the saints,"
he said.

Is that OK?
Is that as it should be
(as long as it is understood as it should be?)?

Watch this clip of The Violet Burning's classic "Song of the Harlot."

If it doesn't move you at
all, that's OK.
But you may be on the wrong blog (try a site that can't offend you, like this one).

I have been overwhelmed by this song/praying with it since its first appearance in 1992.
Thanks to Diane for the original tip: I might not even be alive without this band;
(even though they almost killed me once ..see this).
On a snowy day in Chicago, as the first Gulf War was breaking out, Diane handed me a cassette, suggesting I might like this new band.

To say she was right is a huge understatement. Every day since then has been somehow tethered to that day.

Oh, by the way, this song (inevitably) includes the "w" word:
the whore at Your feet."

Again, that is as it should be,
if you interpret it as it was meant to be.

More on whores, holy and otherwise:

• 
  

• Let me be a whore

• Architects and Prostitutes

• Freakonomics @ Church: Prostitutes or Architects?

Yes, we had this band at our church..how could we not.

The singer cannot not pray through guitar.

Bless 'em, send 'em money.

And a bonus:
a very different song here from the very different next (1996) album

(see: the most listenable "unlistenable" album ever made),

but a psalm indeed.

Though it sounds like the desperate cry of someone not sure they are a sinner or saint.

Is that OK?

Seducing Sinners

Contrary to what beloved Saint Steve may think (he has already stalk-read this post and groaned),
the farthest thing from my mind and intent is to trip people up sexually..

I just know that the church's failure to be honest..even mention and address/redress...sexuality is one reason for "oh, the shape we're in."

I do admit choosing provocative post titles to shameless attract sex-addict googlers over to this site..partly as a parody, but partly because it works.

I joked with Ryan on this post:

Lindsay, Britney and Amy go into a bar ...

about tricking surfers into visiting Christian sites.

I have no intent of tracking ISPs..

But I was surprised that my experiment (click title above for details) produced NO results that I noticed..

but the two recent posts that seem to bringing in surfers and stealthers from all over the world
are the one that promised:

• "Taylor Swift gets non-nude and sloshed on stage"

and that addressed:

• The "Fresno Drop"

It's the economic times that brought on the latter;
and the sexonomic times that brought in the former.

Or are they both the same phenomenon/obsexxion?

Even though I rebel against "attractional church,"

whatever gets 'em in the door.
(a safe click above, he he..)

Let me be a whore

Fred Phelps (of "God hates fags"infamy) thinks I am (click this); and I freely admit it.

Of course I'm a whore..at least I want to be.

Not the kind Eugene Peterson has suggested many pastors are (here);
or the type God has used Cheap Trick to warn me about (here)
hopefully not a "myspace friend whore" (but note how many "friends" I have there)

but the kind Michael Pritzl confesses to be in this song.

Michael often introduces this song by noting that "it seems like the only time Jesus had harsh words for anyone is when they thought they were better than someone else."



In the night, the harlot moves across the floor
She turns the handle on the door
One hundred eyes
seem to look right through her
Why she's there, they're not sure

Behind her love she falls down to her knees
Without a word she begins to weep
And her tears they fall
down upon his feet
And she smothers them with kisses
She dries them with her hair

In my life, sorrow has kissed my lonely heart
Fear of man tears me apart
And I've tried, but many times I've loved the world
Many times I've been the whore
I've cried a million tears, maybe more
So many times I have been the whore
I will fall down on my knees I will sing, "I love, my love.."
I will weep, "I love, my love.."
I will sing cause I love, my love

And my tears will fall down upon Your feet
Let me smother them with kisses
Let me dry them with my hair
If I could be anyone at all
If I could be anyone at all
Let me be the whore at Your feet

My tears will fall down upon Your feet Let me smother them with kisses Let me dry them with my hair If I could be anyone at all If I could be anyone at all Let me be the whore at Your feet ............

Let Your mercy triumph over judgement
over me

i love You,Lord
My God
My Strength
in weakness

-Michael J.Pritzl

U2's Tainted Love Songs to the Tainted Church..emphasis on "Last Night on Earth"

"Jesus, I love You."

Classic worship lyric.

I know; yawn yada...

Borders on the trite, as true as it is..

...which is why the devout worshipper who penned it (who writes in the liner notes that "hopefully I have expressed my faith without cheesy slogans") followed up in the next line with an abductive (non) non-sequitur :

"...but I don't understand Your wife."

!

Should we continue?

"....She wears such funny makeup, and she always wants to fight..."


This delightful lovetweak  (not torchsong) at the church (the bride/wife/harlot of Jesus); embedded in Brian Healey's lyric, is hilariously serious. The whole song/prayer must be read and reckoned with (here)....though I haven't heard wind of any churches besides ours utilizing it in an official gathering.
For years, it has been my favorite psalm-lament about/to the church.

But now I am asking:

Which U2 songs might be..in part.."love songs to the church"?

Besides the...partly right....answer:

All of them.

..especially if we leave ample room in love for a bit of hate.

In typical fashion these "love songs"...sometimes depending on the era of U2's "long obedience in the same direction", or even the twist in tone laden in a single line with double entendre..may be torch songs, swan songs, all-out worship songs, love/hate songs....

..all in the same song.

Bono, also abductive, loves to wear a pair of doxes to church.

Lovers quarrels are mandatory for honest people of faith who are after the long haul and long obedience.

Tainted love, indeed.

Even though Christianity Today doesn't get it.



One of the most obvious "self-confessed" U2 songs "to the church" is "Crumbs From Your Table, " a lyric Bono has often made painfully clear is from Africa to the West/Western church.

"You ate all your friends."
Yeah, that's a lover's quarrel...
..with many within the Wife who can talk too much..like me..
(Two of Bono's mentors, Bruce Cockburnere and Martin Luther King have relevant and articulate words for our many words).

And there's "Please," a plea with the church to "get off its knees" and quit praying (better yet, continue praying) as one moves into active engagement with the world.

There's "American Prayer," which Bono introduced at World Aids Day as being "just a message to the church...to give sanctuary to the HIV-positive...what's the problem?"

Jesus has a problem bride.
I am sometimes a bitch.

But it was Ben's post (hat tip) which I found through Len (toque-tip) that triggered my wondering what other songs from the U2 canon/cannon were in effect tough-lovesongs to Jesus's unwieldy Wife.

I soon repented of not preaching the full gospel all these years; of not "preaching the (full) U2 catalog"....when that catalog had been shipped (sometimes C.O.D.) to the church.

Ben flat-out stated; as-if-everyone knew it...that one U2 song was a "love song to the church."

"When I read the lyrics of this song as the recipient, as a member of the Church to whom Bono is singing, it strikes a chord with me," he says about...

"One."

Fascinating.

I had never seen it. . I remembered Bono's original inspiration for the defining line "we're one, but not the same" (a note he wrote to Dalai Lama, respectfully declining an invitation to a meeting celebrating spiritual "sameness"); the usual " gay son and his father" or "can we still be friends though divorced" spins, but "love song to the church"?


"Have you come here for forgiveness?
Have you come to raise the dead?
Have you come here to play Jesus to the lepers in your head?"

If Bono is asking the church this triad, perhaps the expected answer is "yes."

The "we get to carry each other...sisters, brothers" did always hotlink me to Sam's words to Frodo: "I can't carry (your burden) for you; but I can carry you."

That's not only "Lord of the Ring's" thesis on friendship; it's church; it's Galatians 6: 1; 10.

And note how often Bono changes the last line to "Have you come here to play Jesus?...I did."

Maybe instead of/in addition to being an admission of messianic complex; the 'I did' is a humble desire to "do the works of Jesus"; to be "Jesus with skin on"; to get up off ones knees (literally) and be a Sam carrying Frodo.


U2's close friend Guggi offers that "One," though multiplex, is fundamentally about "the breakdown of one relationship and the starting up of another one."

Re-read that quote; and ask if the new relationship might be with the same person
(church). Isn't that the means and media by which all of us accept our marriage to the church/Christ?

So spend some time with Ben's blog on "One." His thesis is worth pursuing.

I have another song in mind.

I needed to do a quick googling to see if anyone else was crazy enough to interpret this particular song as "to the church." I immediately found:

"Could this song be about the church?," (as JPrentice asked).

And Beth Maynard wondering (in response to Rudy Carrasco's question) if it could be a "stewardship song" (Help me, Beth, the original post is no longer online).

As I listened to different live versions of this song on YouTube; I also heard--for the first time-- the haunting, daunting refrain in some versions:

"Could you believe in something/Would you believe in someone?"

Of course that sounds evangelistic; but as questions to the church, they penetrate deeper.

The single version of this lovesick song includes this line; as does the official video.

Both cause me to consider the "she" in "Last Night on Earth" as  (as much as she may appear to be instead/also an addict) the very Bride of Christ: the SheChurch.

For a number of reasons, if the girl in the video is the church, theological implications abound and astound. We first meet her veritably hijacking the band's car; as they pick her up and immediately navigate a speedy U-turn (metanoia?) , Bono pleading at 2:45; "Could you believe in someone?" And watch as she assumes a fairly obvious crucifixion pose, and a subsequent death-resurrection. (maybe two of each):


U2 - Last night on Earth by Angkor
(see also 'Last Night On Earth' video meaning?)

In the Edmonton version he confesses (or confesses on behalf of the "she")
that the last night on earth "feels like a bird flying high in the northern sky...but my feet are sometimes tied to the ground." Church!








Eventually on tour (see opening of the Sao Paulo clip), he began nightly introducing the song with a rant culminating in "I wanted to meet God, but you sold me religion.."




Of course that's addressed to the church. Who else sells their soul and kills their birthright in order to sell the seeker some useless religion?

"She's at the bus stop with the 'NEWS OF THE WORLD' and the sun/ sun, sun,here it comes" can be spun several ways. Note the following:

-"News of the World" is the name of a British tabloid. "Sun" is used all over the U2 catalog as symbol for God/Jesus ("Sun"). So she could be the informed and appropriately worldly church Karl Barth hoped for; the 'she' with "the Bible in one hand, and the newspaper in the other."

-"The Sun" is also a tabloid; so she may instead be ODing on cheep and cheesy news sources. As in one reviewer's take:

He even manages to take a detail another singer would use against her -- her love of tabloids -- and turn it into an image that quotes one of the Beatles' loveliest songs: "She's at the bus stop with the 'News of the World' and the 'Sun,' sun, here it comes." As befits an album named "Pop," U2 is both acknowledging the discontents of a disposable culture and rushing headfirst into its pleasures.
-Charles Taylor's review of "Pop" for Salon Magazine

-The Beatles reference is surely intentional. No accident it is the one Beatles song ("Here Comes The Son") that many agree is about the "Son" . It has been song in churches as such.

Speaking of cheesy; let's address what at first glance is the cheesy pun of sun/Son. One wonderful video (skip church and watch it here; 3rd video from top) even suggests that Jesus himself is tired of that corny connection..But I believe (along with no cheesy evangelical: the Mormon philospher Mark Wathrall) that "sun" representing "Son" is so clearly and consistently in Bono's mind and lexicon ("The sun is sometimes eclipsed by the Moon/ I don't see You when she walks in the room...", "Staring at the Sun..happy to go blind", "I'll be up with the Sun/I'm not coming down" to give only three examples) that we cannot not consider it a candidate here. She's at the bus stop with a tabloid and Jesus.


I ponder as well "She feels the ground is giving way; but she feels we're better off that way."

At her best, the church recognizes that the "ground" she has long trusted (modernity, koinonitis, the good-old-boys club, a "just preach Jesus; none of this liberal social action stuff") is no longer tenable..which is good news as God is desiring to re-build the church on more solid (ironic term; as this "new" solid ground will often feel more fluid, free, flexible...and "more malleble than you think," as Bono has said about history) ground: postmodern, missional, multicultural, holistic (I know, all buzzwords; forgive me)

At her worst, the church is in covenant and in bed with, and embedded with, the decidedly wrong foundations:

"If the foundations are destroyed, what will the righteous do?" (Psalm 11:3)

Maybe the righteous Wife will default to "not waiting for a savior to come...she'll be dead soon."

But could it be that "not waiting for a savior to come" is a positive pose, if one is not seeking only "pie in the sky when we die," and "so heavenly minded that we're no earthy good." If it entails interceding and activating the Kingdom and its healing and justice in the here and now; not waiting on the there-and then.

I long for the streets to have no name on earth as it is in heaven.

Charles Taylor again:

If skepticism creeps in about the state of things, so does a conviction about the necessity (and the thrill) of living in the moment. "She feels the ground is giving way," Bono sings about the young woman who's the subject of "Last Night on Earth," "but she thinks we're better off that way." ... As befits an album named "Pop," U2 is both acknowledging the discontents of a disposable culture and rushing headfirst into its pleasures.
-Charles Taylor's review of "Pop" for Salon Magazine

"Necessity and thrill of living in the moment."

Of course it would take a notoriously non-Christian magazine writer to interpret Bono's prophecy to the church. Like deCaussade and Brother Lawrence, to love mentally/sacramentally and quietly/quietistically in the present moment; yet not deny the sensual, perhaps sexual "thrill" of such a quest is to be false to biblical faith.

Or as Bono himself said about Elvis in a stunning and overlooked Rolling Stone article:

It seems a dangerous place, to have belief and longing in the same heart. It can only be at the point of desperation that mystery can have a seat at the table. This is the space where U2 has lingered in for years, drawing people to their passionate story and a longing for a different Kingdom here on earth. It is only natural that many would resource this voice to find a prophetic word for the world we live in now.

When Elvis was upset and feeling out of kilter, he would leave the big house and go down to his little gym, where there was a piano. With no one else around, his choice would always be gospel, losing and finding himself in the old spirituals. He was happiest when he was singing his way back to spiritual safety. But he didn't stay long enough. Self-loathing was waiting back up at the house, where Elvis was seen shooting at his TV screens, the Bible open beside him at St. Paul's great ode to love, Corinthians 13. Elvis clearly didn't believe God's grace was amazing enough.
(source, big thanks to Mother Beth)

"Self-loathing was waiting for," and often found in the closet of, the she/church of "Last Night on Earth." And its often fear of our sexuality that causes us to sublimate; not elevate.
Rabbi Jeffrey Cohen (Keep in mind he likely knows nothing of U2):

Prayer is not something the pray-er just recites...it is an
experience he enters into. There is no room for inhibition; singing and dancing
are essential means by which he expresses his emotional cleaving to God….but
such ardor/desire for God has to be so overwhelming that any extraneous thoughts
are excluded…If distractions are erotic in nature…and he faces up to the
predominance of the sexual urge at both conscious and subconscious levels, and
its capacity to intrude even during prayer...then he has learned to take
measures…by introducing the (ancient) doctrine of the "elevation of strange
thoughts." This is a Chasidic Jewish technique not of sublimation, but of
thought conversion, whereby the beauty or desirability of the woman is latched
upon and used not as a sexual but rather as a mental and spiritual stimulus. We
are taught to "elevate" these thoughts by substituting the beauty of God for the
physical beauty that is currently bewitching us. The praying person has learned to
immediately contrast the pale reflection of beauty that humans are endowed with,
on the one hand, and the supreme Divine source of authentic and enduring beauty,
on the other…This is not sublimation; This is elevation. (source)

.



Of course the rabbi was unknowingly commenting on yet another U2 song here: "Elevation."



"Elvis was happiest, " Bono proffers, " when he was singing his way back to spiritual safety. But he didn't stay long enough."

I want to stay in the song long enough; tethered to Jesus and the rest of his Bride; safe as I risk engaging the world; free to live as if this were the last night on earth.

I am, as Gavin Friday commented on the song at hand, part and parcel of the flawed, addictive "wild woman who gives you a charge of energy."
Sometimes I prefer to be "in the church but not of it."



And to come full circle to Brian Healy's song, as part of the Holy Wife, I plead:

So don't mistake my anger for bitterness and strife
Because on bended knees I'm begging you please
Jesus, talk to your wife .

So I pledge to get up off my bended knees, and do something about the problem:
the church.
That is:  me.

She is me.

Architects and Prostitutes

Since I am devoting some time to pondering architecture as a model for spiritual leadership...see my thoughts so far here..

And since one of my other front-burner topics has been pastors prostituting their calling..
see especially I Eugene Peterson here, and below:

"American pastors are abandoning their posts, left and right, and at an alarming rate. They are not leaving their churches and getting other jobs. Congregations still pay their salaries. Their names remain on the church stationary and they continue to appear in pulpits on Sundays. But they are abandoning their posts, their calling. They have gone whoring after other gods. What they do with their time under the guise of pastoral ministry hasn't the remotest connection with what the church's pastors have done for most of twenty centuries..."
-Eugene Peterson

...and since I recently started scribling notes comparing/contrasting arhitecture and prostitution as (positive and negative!) paradigms for ministry(hear especially The Violet Burning's "The Song of the Harlot," one of the most moving worship songs of all time:"If I could be anyone at all/Let me be the whore at Your feet")...

I shouldn't have been surprised to find(re-find) this(click title):


Freakonomics @ Church: Prostitutes or Architects?

and this:

“Whenever you see the word “Client” in something to do with building, you know there just has to be an architect involved because no one else in the building game ever refers to anyone as “clients.” It is such a strange word, isn’t it? In a shop you are a customer, on a train you are a passenger, in a hospital you are a patient, in a class you are a student, in the economy at large you’d be a consumer. But client? The only people who have clients are lawyers, architects and prostitutes, all of whom have to live with the reputation that they are simply out to screw you. Only the prostitute is honest about it" (link)

and this..

So far, I have concluded I want to be an architect/whore. Put that on your business card, Scott?

I have mentioned needing to interview Arc-architect Scott to see what I can learn and glean about pastoring. Now I need to...seriously..interview some literal prostitutes as well..

!!

??
---

"Song of the Harlot"
(c)by Mchael Pritzl
Recorded by the Violet Burning
www.thevioletburning.com

In the night, the harlot moves across the floor
She turns the handle on the door
One hundred eyes
seem to look right through her
Why she's there, they're not sure

Behind her love she falls down to her knees
Without a word she begins to weep
And her tears they fall down upon his feet
And she smothers them with kisses
She dries them with her hair

In my life, sorrow has kissed my lonely heart
Fear of man tears me apart
And I've tried, but many times I've loved the world
Many times I've been the whore
I've cried a million tears, maybe more
So many times I have been the whore
I will fall down on my knees I will sing, "I love, my love.."
I will weep, "I love, my love.."
I will sing cause I love, my love

And my tears will fall down upon Your feet
Let me smother them with kisses
Let me dry them with my hair
If I could be anyone at all
If I could be anyone at all
Let me be the whore at Your feet

My tears will fall down upon Your feet Let me smother them with kisses Let me dry them with my hair If I could be anyone at all If I could be anyone at all Let me be the whore at Your feet ............

Let Your mercy triumph over judgement
over me

i love You,Lord
My God
My Strength
in weakness

-Michael J.Pritzl