Ozzy Eye Opener

He looks scary.  Is he?

I'll never forget the first time I heard an Ozzy Osborne song.  I was in my late teens.
I could not believe my ears.
I was flabbergasted.
Shocked.
Completely blown away.
BY HOW HARMLESS IT WAS.
My whole life my parents had warned me about the great and terrible Oz. The Christian books and magazines my parents got in the mail warned about this dangerous rock star who bit the heads off of bats, killed puppies and worshipped Satan. (At least at his better concerts.)  "Ozzy" was the name that came to every good Christian's mind when they thought of how Satanic secular music was getting.  Ozzy was the hood ornament on the Devil-Mobile that was headed over the cliff at Demon's Point.
And I bought into all of it without ever hearing ONE NOTE of an Ozzy song.
So when the first note of "Over the Mountain" started, I expected to hear a really angry, thrashing guitar, and a really angry, screaming man and instead what I got was a catchy melodic riff and lyrics that went like this:
Over the mountain, take me across the skySomething in my vision, something deep insideWhere did I wander?  Where did you think I wandered to?I see life's magic astral plane.  I travel through.What?!  Where is the "I love Satan"?  The "666"?  Where is the anger?  The God hating?  I listened to the next few lines...I heard them tell me that this land of dreams was nowI told them I had ridden shooting stars and I would show them how...Riding shooting stars?  What's next UNICORNS?!?  And why is he singing like he's in a musical and not screaming?  I expected to hear rage instead I get this sing-songy guy?  What is going on?This is no exaggeration.  This was really what went through my head.  I listened to many more Ozzy songs.  (I still think the "Crazy Train" has one of the best rock guitar riffs EVER.)  I listened and listened, but couldn't find any lyrics that had anything to do with devil worship. I could find plenty of lyrics that made no sense at all to me, some that I think Ozzy probably wrote when he was high (Was he ever not high?), but nothing as offensive as his supposed concert behavior.Was that even true I wondered?Evidently, those stories about his bat biting and puppy squashing were really just a bunch of urban legends that Ozzy let run rampant because it helped build up his concert audiences. Nothing sells tickets to angry teens like rumors of mass violence and mayhem.
Bottom line -  I didn't know what I didn't know.  I believed what I had heard about Ozzy without ever examining him or his music for myself.  I have since outgrown his music a bit, but I haven't outgrown the lesson.I learned it again the other day.  I got Tweet'ed a warning about the "A Beka" books that some Christian and home school teachers use.  The textbooks cover the usual topics - history, science, etc. but are written from a conservative Christian perspective.In other words...The earth is about 8,000 years old.  At most.Dinosaurs and man lived together.  (Cool! Land of the Lost was a reality show!)The KKK was kind of misunderstood.  They actually had some good points despite all the lynchings, cross burnings, beatings and other stuff.I am generalizing above, but you get the point.  Here is a link to the blog that talked about the PBS article: (Keep in mind this is an anti-Christian blog, so don't expect it to be kind.  But still...)I Can't Believe What's In These Textbooks!When I read the blog, I stopped when I got to the part where the author mentions Bob Jones University Press and A Beca Textbooks. My mouth dropped open slightly. My Mom went to Bob Jones.My Dad home-schooled me using these Beka Textbooks.Holy cow, I'm a spawn child of some kind of crazy cult!  I have been brainwashed!  No wonder I though Ozzy was Lucifer himself!  No wonder I no nothing about evolution!  This explains why I have no real concept of history or science or psychology except that everything happened because God wanted it to!  I have DOWNED THE CHRISTIAN KOOL AID!  Why don't I just crawl into a bunk bed with my Nikes on with the rest of the crazies and off myself so I can get to comet Hale-Bopp??!?Ok, so maybe I over-reacted a bit.  I'm not going to off myself.  I got a great education growing up.  My parents are top notch, respected teachers.  True, my Dad did home-school me (and my brother and sister) from pre-school through 3rd grade using the Beka books. From 4th grade on I went to private Christian - mainly Baptist - schools and I can't remember if they used Beka textbooks -- I don't think so, but we definitely used textbooks approved by the American Christian Schools International and Bible believing Baptists everywhere.And my Mom did go to Bob Jones University.  I remember her describing what dating was like at this South Carolina Christian college.  I was an teen and couldn't wait to hear about my Mom dating.  Did she go to a drive in?  A sock-hop? Maybe a Sadie-Hawkins dance?Nope.You and your chaperoned date got to sit on chairs in a room with other chaperoned couples and talk. This was after you walked across campus, not together, INDIVIDUALLY following the appropriate colored stripe that had been marked on the sidewalks to tell boys and girls where they could and could not walk.  Really.I remember my Dad teasing my Mom about going to Bob Jones, because even he recognized that Bob Jones makes most conservative Christian colleges look like Chico State.  But Dad, you still used Beka! I grew up reading from books that say the Great Depression probably wasn't as bad as the liberals made it sound.OK, to be fair, I am sure most of what is in Beka books is just basic stuff that everyone can agree on.  After all, a proton is a proton and the Pilgrims landed in America in 1620 no matter what you believe.  (Please note however that God created every single proton that has ever or will ever exist and the Pilgrims may have battled the Jamestown T-Rex.)But still, I realized both when I read this blog entry and when I heard Ozzy's music for the first time:I don't know what I don't know.So I need to do some thinking for myself.  I need to discover, study, read, ponder, question, struggle, understand FOR MYSELF.It hasn't been easy.  I drank the Baptist flavored Kool Aid for a long time. (It has a lingering after-taste.) And as all children do (until they become teenagers), I took what my parents said as Gospel.  I believed what I read in every Christian book, what I was taught in every Christian class, what I heard in every Sunday School lesson.  I decided I need to find out for myself what this Gospel is all about.  Not what Bob Jones, or Beka or any one else says it is, but what it REALLY is.  It all started with "Over the Mountain."Thanks Ozzy for opening my ears and my eyes.Just go easy on the puppies, please.
-Hope A. Horner, 2012www.hopehorner.comTwitter: @HopeNote

When God Went "Stephen King"

If you've ever seen a Stephen King movie you know that somewhere in the movie, King is going to show up.  He'll be some inconsequential character--a minister at a funeral, a janitor at a school, but he will show up in his own movie, speaking the words he wrote, playing a bit part in a scene he created.  Alfred Hitchcock used to do it, too. It's rare, but sometimes the artist enters his work.  The creator enters the world he created.
Sound familiar?
"Yeah, Yeah, I know. Baby Jesus. Mary, Joseph. Bethlehem."
But wait a minute. Think about that manger moment --
The God who created the womb, enters one.
The God who created the world is born into it.  
The Master Architect of all that is, puts down his pencil and enters his drawing.  
The Expert Watchmaker sets his watch to the time he created and controls.  
The Master Creator gets his feet dirty in the dust from which he created man.
It's like Shakespeare going into battle with Hamlet.
Michelangelo painting himself into "The Last Supper."
Rodgers & Hammerstein singing "Do Re Mi" with Sister Maria in the Sound of Music.
Only WAY more amazing.
Because Jesus plays no "bit part." He's not an extra.  He is not a stagnant oily image on a canvas.  He is not a character in a play who shows up in some miscellaneous scene.  He is GOD.  And God doesn't come into the world as Jesus to sing and dance. He comes as God on a mission of reconciliation.  He lives, teaches, serves and ultimately sacrifices his life and rises again so all of creation can come into harmony with its Creator. Seeing Stephen King in one of his movies is fun.  Seeing Jesus as Emmanuel (God With Us) is astounding.
OK, so the Creator comes into his Creation.  But who created the Creator? Who Created God?
This was asked at a debate I was listening to lately and the answer was simple:
No one.
God is not created.  He is the un-created Creator. He just is.  He was, He is, He will be.  We can't see him through a telescope, put him on a chronological timeline or in a test-tube.  He created the telescope, timeline and test-tube, just like the play right, artist or movie maker creates plays, paintings or films.  If Stephen King hadn't made it a habit to write himself into his own movies, we would never look for him there.  We wouldn't expect to find him in a scene interacting with one of his characters.  We would watch (or read) Carrie and Kujo and Pet Cemetery and never find him and we'd be OK with that because we know the artist doesn't have to appear in his work. Most artists don't.  They are certainly reflected in their work--experiences, attitudes and creativity are expressed there, but they can't always be found there.
I can certainly see God reflected in the world - in nature, music, loving relationships and the like, but I am not going to fly into outer space like the first Russian astronaut did and come back with this report:  "Well, I was out there, I looked around and I didn't see God."
That's like peering into a tent and wondering why the tent maker isn't inside.
God can't be found in outer space or anywhere else.  According to astronaut Colonel Jeff Williams who spent six months at the Space Station - God can be seen, but not found in outer space. There is evidence for him there in the motion, beauty, order and complexity of our galaxy, but you aren't go to look out of the window of the Space Shuttle and see God and the Man in the Moon having Cappuccino.
The best look we have at God is when we look at the life of Jesus. It's been 2013 years since then--when God went "Stephen King" and entered his work. He'll be back.  There's a sequel in the works.

-Hope A. Horner, 2013
www.hopehorner.com
Follow on Twitter @ HopeNote