Importance of Music
Current mood:  contemplative
Category: Life

It is funny how certain faiths don't advocate the use of music. I am reminded when Cat Stevens became a Muslim, and quit his music because they do not believe in the art.
But in my faith, it has always been "If you sing you pray twice".
 Recently however he has been doing some things musically and sharing his gifts for our benefit.
I know the power of silence and "LISTENING" has a place for us as well.
sometimes we do have to shut up and just "be" and just mabey God will speak to us if we are open to it.
Some of us however feel that we are called to compose music that will somehow influence others in a positive way, that not enough is going on to combat the "bad" message that is being put out there.
I think about how I have lived a parallel existence to Marilyn Manson.
 I think of how close I was behind the scenes, as he was practicing in the basement of the Agora theatre in Cleveland, I was planning contemporary Liturgies in Church.
How I managed the building and collected rents where he had met his future managers, the Cueilla brothers at the Empire concert club, where there was much dirt, deceit and dishonesty.
How their quest for money and business made most of them (unwittingly) become participants for peoples souls.

I downloaded a picture a few years ago of a Cleveland student named Asa Coon, who was 14 at the time, Coon, armed with .22 caliber and .38 caliber revolvers with extra rounds of ammunition, and a sachet holding three knives, walked into the fourth floor of the building at approximately 1:15 p.m, and first shot Michael Peek, 14, in the chest,who attempted to disarm him by punching him in the face.^[4]His second victim was Darnell Rodgers, 17, who was shot and injured inthe elbow, following the shooting and injuring of two teachers: DavidKachadourian, a math teacher, 57, shot in the back, and Michael Grassie, a social studies teacher, 42, shot in the chest. Coon thenentered a classroom where he committed suicide via a gunshot to the head.

In addition to the gunman's fatality, three students and two teachers were injured in the attack:

The picture was taken by a Policeman from his cell phone camera and there was a lot of controversy surrounding this, because it was shared on the internet. This incident took place less than a mile from where Manson got his break..... I guess the thing that stuck in my mind really, was the fact that this troubled 14 year old boy lying in a pool of his own blood, was wearing a Marilyn Manson T-shirt as plain as day. No Copy, No words, just a picture of Marilyn Manson on his chest.

Last year my daughter and I went on a "Haunted Cleveland Tour" that she had won, and as we went into the basement of the Agora Theatre on Euclid Ave. (reportedly Haunted), the guide pointed out that Marilyn Manson had used this dirty ugly, dark space to practice when he stayed in Cleveland.

I observed how some people on the tour was looking around in "Awe", like they were somehow on "Hallowed Ground"

I sometimes feel that these things happen to me for a reason, I feel some sense of responsibility to do something,  I do believe in fate and also that we have a chance to change things for the better if we choose.

God has richly blessed me in my life, in spite of the fuss I may put up at times, and I do believe I may have something to share.

I hope that in some small way I can do something to help the Asa Coons in the world, by giving them an alternative. You see, I was once not much different from him. I walked the same streets, attended the same school system and had the broken home and abuse that many of us city children suffer with.

I don't mean to ramble on or to "preach".

My only qualification is Life experience, and a calling of sorts.  May God help us to make a difference.

"Music soothes the savage soul" is a quote I remember that I think is appropriate here.

I cant help thinking, Perhaps if Mr. Coon had been turned on to some other Music with a wholesome message, it may have been a different outcome.

I pray that he is at rest and that God has mercy on his soul.

Thanks for listening.