The Chain

In the mid-seventies, my mom, sister and I moved from the church I had been baptized in, and the one my mom had grown up in, to Park Street Baptist Church.  Fitting in with the youth group was not much of a problem for one considered by some to be "backward," another southern term.  One of the memorable things about this period was the pastor's daughter and her husband were huge Fleetwood Mac fans, and my musical taste at this point did not include such a group as Fleetwood Mac, I think primarily because they did not get a lot of radio play.

A few years later, I would gain an appreciation for Fleetwood Mac, especially their album Tusk.  Tusk reached # 4 on Billboard despite later being deemed a failure by the record label, largely because of the huge cost of producing the record (over $1,000,000) and the comparison to the success of Rumours over two and a half years earlier.  The title track of the album (the primary reason I wanted this album) was recorded with the University of Southern California "Spirit of Troy" Trojan Marching Band, setting a record for the highest number of musicians playing on a single.  And it earned the USC Marching Band a platinum record,

But many years earlier, Fleetwood Mac formed from the players from other bands in London.  Primarily a blues band, they made the transition to rock with some personnel changes in 1969, just two years after their formation.  For the next six years they delivered six albums, none of which enjoyed the commercial success of the albums from their next period, when Lindsay Buckingham and Stevie Nicks joined the group.  But an interesting fact for their early years is that in 1968, Fleetwood Mac released a few singles not yet on wither of their first two albums.  One of these would become a bigger hit two years later for another blues band, this one from San Francisco - Santana.  The song, Black Magic Woman.

You might ask at this juncture "So?".  Well, like an episode of  the late TV show Lost, there are connections, often between the most unlikely of points of time and space.  Remember me telling you about listening to records at my cousin Tony's house?  Carlos Santana's arrangement and recording of Black Magic Woman/Gypsy Queen was one of my favorites.  In this version, the verses are sung by Gregg Rolie, later of Journey fame with Aynsley Dunbar, formerly the drummer of John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers, which also included Fleetwood Mac founder Peter Green, John McVie and Mick Fleetwood in the late 1960's.  Again, you might ask, "So?".

Just as in a recent episode of Lost, we all get pulled back into the memories of our past.  Revisiting places, people and events that sometime seem as if it were just yesterday.  Other times, the memory might be a little more fuzzy, more distant, but there is enough there to elicit a smile or a tear.  In these moments, there is no danger, physically, to the one experiencing the moment, but, even though it may not be acknowledged, there is a constant.  That which serves to bring us back to the here and now.

In the seemingly ever-changing circumstances of this journey I am on, I take great comfort in re-living many of the memories of my past, both recent and far-away.  Because I see God all through the days of my life, my remembrances are not soured by regrets.  Of course there are some "I wish . . ." moments, but no regrets, for everything has been ordered by God to work in me that which he purposed.  And the constant in my life is God.  Even when I moved away, he was there, working the details that would move me back to him in repentance and in deeper love for what he had accomplished for me.

Fleetwood Mac sings "I can still hear you saying you would never break the chain," ("The Chain," Rumours, 1977).  But the only thing that remains is God, for he was and is and will be.  He alone is faithful to his word and his character.  We are not, at least not in this life, no matter how we try.  Even with his strength and help, we are still human enough to be fickle and can be turned by a whim.  God's unchangeable faithfulness is cause enough to be confident in the blessings of the past, the work of today and the hope of tomorrow.  Praise be to God for his steadfastness.

Tonight, shrimp and rice casserole, mixed greens salad, sourdough bread, chocolate peanut butter bars, and pumpkin bread full of love warmed our house.