Way back when I was in Seminary School
There was a person there
who put forth the proposition
that you can petition the Lord with prayer
Petition the Lord with prayer
Petition the Lord with prayer
YOU CANNOT PETITION THE LORD WITH PRAYER!
So says Jim Morrison of The Doors in their classic song The Soft Parade, a crazed psychedelically jazzed explosion of different tempos thrown together into one song.
Growing up in Port Wentworth, Georgia ... a tiny Mill town with with a mill, Mr. Cowart's Drug Store, Frank Daughtery's gas station and an abandoned saw mill in the woods that we magically transformed into a fort ...
Jerry Rogers at WSGA introduced me to the world. Jerry was (and remains) the greatest DJ ever and now runs his own independent station which is the one I listen to most these days.
I first met him at a High School dance at the Starland Dairy in Pooler, Georiga. He showed up with hair down to his shoulders, stacks of records a microphone and just dripped of coolness. He may as well have been one of The Beatles.
Growing up in Southern Baptist land which was still coming to terms with the reality that black people are equal, you couldn't drink on Sundays and sex was something never discussed and rarely achieved ...
Jerry Rogers represented the outside world of rock-and-roll. New ideas and ways of thinking were exploding and Jerry delivered them personally to my house in a Mill Town.
Later, I remember him introducing the bands that played at the Savannah Civic Center. We all flocked to see The James Gang, Emerson Lake & Palmer, Grand Fund Railroad, Eric Clapton and ... The Osmond Brothers, Olivia Newton-John and The Carpenters. Jerry was the Master of Ceremonies and he was bringing the world to us.
Then he did this FM station and the music got better and deeper.
I remember sitting in my bedroom for hours listening to him introduce me ... everything.
And I specifically remember hearing The Doors do The Soft Parade which begins with this little sermon that was contrary to everything I'd ever been taught at the First Baptist Church of Port Wentworth. "Way back when I was in Seminary School ..."
The funny thing is that now I can say that and mean it. Way back when I was in Seminary School with Guy Sayles, Mitch Wesley and Bill Berry, I heard lots of talk about petitioning the Lord with prayer.
Ask and it shall be given.
Sometimes that's true.
Most times its not.
Or if it is, then not in the way that I asked for it.
I've asked for a lot of things and have gotten many.
Other times God said "No", "HELL NO!" or "Maybe later."
It's OK.
God's awful busy.
Today, I live on Tybee which is one of the affirmatively answered prayers, around the corner from Jerry Rogers who remains a hero and an icon, and later this morning I'm playing guitar in Samuel Adam's Bar Church Band ... where the Lord will be petitioned with prayer.
It's all good Karma.
So today is the day that the Lord has made ...
Let's rock and roll!
