Don’t Stop Believing
“Just a small town girl, livin’ in a lonely world, she took the midnight train goin’ anywhere. Just a city boy, born and raised in south Detroit, he took the midnight train goin’ anywhere.”
Those lyrics were sung by the famous rock band Journey in 1981, spent 13 weeks on the top 40 chart, peaking at #9. Since the songs emergence years ago, its popularity has reached epic proportions in the last few years. The 2005 Chicago White Sox used the song as their motivation towards winning their first pennant since 1917. The L.A. Dodgers play at during home games in their “8th inning stretch.” Locally, Fort Zumwalt North High School used it for their school during their team’s playoff run a year ago. When the song played on MTV’s Laguna Beach, it immediately jumped to the top of the itunes chart. Numerous TV shows have used the song and “All Music Guide” labeled the beginning chords as “one of the best opening keyboard riffs in rock.”
So what is so special about a song that states “some will win, some will lose, some are going to sing the blues?” Why is there such an infatuation with a long song written 25 years ago about a boy growing up in South Detroit when anyone in Michigan will tell you there is no such place (people living there call it Downriver).
I believe this song is so popular because it is a story about mankind’s search for true love, and how difficult finding one’s love seems to have become.
Times may have changed, swatches and tight rolls may have been replaced by cell phones and sagging jeans. But it seems the increasingly high age for marriage has produced a new kind of lonely people who are developing an inherent sense that the right person may never be found. When a 28 year old has been burned so often by bad relationships that he may be perfectly willing to admit that marriage is never in his future because he feels people only let him down, there is great heartache.
You know what I think? I think people are looking for love in the wrong place.
The Bible says a lot about love. 1 John 4:7-8 states “Dear friends, let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been fathered by God and knows God. The person who does not love does not know God, because God is love.” If we are having trouble searching for love, my strong suggestion would be to start first and foremost with God. For God has the type of love that goes on and on and on and on.
EARTHQUAKE…HERE?
At 4:37am Friday morning, a 5.2 Richter Scale registered earthquake hit the Midwest with the epicenter in Mount Carmel, Illinois. Though my own snoozing body didn’t wake up, when I arrived at school I heard stories of cabinets shaking, dishes rattling, and one of my friends who sleeps on a rollaway bed actually had his bed…roll a way…about 12 inches from the wall. After talking with my brother who lives in the far western suburbs of Chicago, his house was shaken too.
Sure enough, this minor shift in the earth’s crust will recall the historical legends that took place in 1811 when the New Madrid fault exploded causing the grandest earthquake in the history of the Continental United States. On that day, a series of earthquakes began that would make the 1906 quake in San Francisco looked like an autumn rain in comparison. The earthquake was felt for a range of up to 50,000 square miles, made the church bells ring in Boston, and even altered the flow of the Mississippi River. The 400 people living in New Madrid, Missouri got knocked out of their beds as folks riding on boats got tipped over like a tsunami. The good news is that the death toll was minimal because of the scarce population, but if and when it hits again, that stat won’t be duplicated.
Why does the earth quake? Well, it’s a sudden release of energy that creates seismic waves. These waves manifest themselves on the earth’s surface in the form of displaced or shaking ground. Though people commonly refer to California when thinking of them, about every 400 years a mega-disaster is due right here in suburban St. Louis.
Does Your Earth Quake? Are the problems of life, the seismic waves that hit all of us, too much to handle? I dunno. I am not really that old and I am not really that wise, but I have lived long enough to know that there are thousands and thousands of people living life in this area absolutely terrified to think about their future. For one reason or another, their life is on what I would call “shaky ground.” If you’re foundation is on sand, maybe it is time to find more of a rocky soil. If that’s case, can I suggest to you…Jesus. Why? Because none of us really know when the next quake is going to hit.