They say they want the Kingdom, but they don't want God in it.

Let the late Mr. Cash touch your soul with this classic cover of Nine Inch Nails' "Hurt."

I made a mistake this week. Biggest of my life. It was out of pride.

Let me explain.

I try to follow my God through the example of Christ. Sometimes I succeed. Most often I fail. For most of my adult life I have been failing, and suffering the consequences by myself as a single man. Then not long ago I found myself no longer single, and thus the consequences touched someone I loved as well as myself.

I thought I was a good person. I thought I was a good person because I followed a set of rules. Not the rules of any Church or Creed but the rules I set up in my own heart to try and make myself righteous in the eyes of God. I was wrong, and I got lazy as a result. I loved myself more than her. I knew it. I knew in the core of my soul that I was doing wrong, and I wasn't seeking God, nor wise counsel, and I allowed myself in the lust of my eyes and the pride of my life and my lack of faith to grow afraid.

You were the one that told me, Babe. You tried to tell me. The opposite of love isn't hate, it's Fear. Fear that creeps into your soul and eats whatever courage you had in your own strength right out from underneath you. And when that's left, and in your stubborn pride you fail to seek God or at least good advice, you got nothing to go on but balls and white knuckles and that will only get you so far. I could have done it on white knuckles, Babe, holding on to the knowledge that I was doing the right thing, even if I didn't feel it, but I didn't. I knew in my lack of faith I was wrong and marrying you wasn't going to work if I didn't fix myself.

My history of Wrong Things goes back to before I met you, when I lived for money and fast machines and the road. Not bad things of themselves, but I let them crowd out my love for an almighty saving God and His own people, all the time thinking of the day when I would get myself Straight if a woman came around that I wanted to keep. But I didn't, because you can't reverse 9 years of bad priorities on a dime and expect to love someone the way they need to be loved, if you've been practicing selfishness for so long.

So in my Fear, I tried to do a Right Thing to cover up my long history of Wrong Things. I succeeded about as much with my fig leaf as Adam and Eve did with theirs. And instead I did the wrongest thing of all and broke your sad, pure little heart.

Wrong doesn't exist on its own right. Wrong perpetuates because folks try to do the right things the wrong way. And I went about it the wrongest way I could find. I insulted your intellect and your spirit and your womanhood, ostensibly to save you from future hurt, but really because I just could not be bothered to change. Granted, I didn't know how, but God gives grace to the humble. He resists the proud. And how I resisted him back!

I can never make it up to you. There is not a hope or a kind word, not enough love or money in the world to undo the things I said to you and the selfish spirit in which I said them.

I can't ask for you back. I won't say that I love you, when it is plain to see that before God and Man I don't love you nearly as much as I love my own self. All I ask is forgiveness. I don't deserve it. I may never know if I get it.

I can't return to my old ways. I'll need to find a way to be among people and love them as best I can, and work out my salvation with fear and trembling. I cannot seek the Road for my consolation, for the road is the Law, and there is no grace to be found there, pondering my sin above the noise of my wheels turning turning and the wind in my ears.

All I know is to seek grace. The grace of God is free to those that ask. He has laid me low, and he in his wisdom must raise me up.

But I may still wander a little.

Drugs and Redemption

Shinedown, while not a Southern Rock band, is definitely influenced by their origins in Jacksonville, FL. Their roots have occasionally influenced their music videos as well. The video for the first song of theirs I discovered, "Second Chance," was filmed on Ann Maria Island on Florida's Gulf Coast, and the hit song "Diamond Eyes" was said by singer Brent Smith to embody the "spirit of the South." So I was pleased, but not surprised, to discover this video for the 2009 hit "Save Me."

The video features scenery and characters you would find anywhere in the Deep South, arranged around a loose theme about addiction and redemption--corresponding to, one would assume, Brent Smith's own addiction and his later struggle get clean after the birth of his son.

Some of the actors, particularly at the bar and funeral scenes, appear to be professionals. However the scenes with the dirt bike, as well as the various shots of people by houses and in rooms make it appear that they just put out a casting call for local people to show up and look interesting. Works for me.

This video was a little above and beyond for me thanks to the implicit Christian imagery in the lines--

Jump in the water

Jump in with me

Jumn on the altar

Lay down with me

--which of course allude directly to the rite of baptism, and prostrating one's self publicly in desperation and repentance. All that of course in addition to the title, which could be taken in a theological sense.

The central scene of the video, of course, is what appears to be a living-room funeral. An interesting irony I take from the situation presented is that you can be proud, you can try to keep your struggles a secret--but if you try to make it on your own and fail? Well, a funeral is pretty public. 

While Shinedown is far from a Christian band, and none of their members are openly Christian, it is refreshing for me to come across these religious references--even in a traditional sense--in modern, hard driving rock, which tends to be largely godless.

Inaugural Post

Greetings.

Welcome to my shiny new blog. This will be an outlet for me to discuss cars, bikes, and the vagaries of Southern culture. I hope you will find it entertaining and informative.

I am located in Upstate South Carolina, an area full of history and culture. I explore SC and the surrounding states in my red 2002 "Eclipse of Doom" and, if the weather is good and the insurance is paid up, on my 2002 Suzuki SV650S.

So have a look around, grab a glass of sweet tea, and put your feet up on the porch while we watch the world go by and learn what we can.

Speed Machine. Ware Shoals, SC at dawn.