One Way Out

My wife and I finished off our mini-vacation today by experiencing a little of the "Roots 'n Blues 'n BBQ" Festival in Columbia, Missouri. It was a beautiful day and a great crowd gathered for three stages of R & B music plus great food. As my wife, our son, and I wandered past one of the stages, a real good blues guitarist played something I recognized. It was his version of "One Way Out." It took me a moment to figure out what it was, but he was doing his rendition of this blues classic. (My favorite version is the live performance of "One Way Out" done by the Allman Brothers Band at the Fillmore concerts in 1971. Am I old, or what?!?) I'll bet that song's been done a thousand different ways by scores of different musicians.

I'm no music expert; I'm barely a music novice. I really like blues and jazz, though. I'm drawn to these styles by the fact that songs are never done exactly the same way from one artist to the next or even from one time to the next. You know full well you're listening to jazz or blues, and you recognize songs, but you delight in how the song changes from one performer to the next, one audience to the next, or one moment to the next.

I think there's health in that, and I think Jesus-followers can take a lesson from it. Sometimes we get fixed and stodgy about the form in which we deliver the good news of Jesus Christ. We decide that it has to be a certain way, or we have to repeat it exactly the same way, regardless of how audiences, circumstances, and times vary. Or we bend and reshape it so much to go with the current flow, that the core of it becomes unrecognizable. Jazz and blues do neither. "One Way Out" is always "One Way Out," but it's new and fresh every time.

Postings will be spotty again this week. My wife is having surgery on Monday. All should go well. Prayers will be appreciate. Keep on paddling, and I'll catch up soon.