Garage Band

There is something really comforting to me about a Massachusetts accent. If you’ve ever lived there you might know what I mean, and if you haven’t lived there you might just think it’s weird, but there’s something very comforting to me because that was the sound I heard my whole life wherever I went except for in my own home. My parents came from New York, and they moved to a little town just North of Boston before I was born. The rest of my family had been born in New York, so I’m the only real New Englander, born and raised there, and I lived there until I went to college and began my long trek into a new life. My parents never took on the accent of our town, but you can hear it in the voices of some of my siblings. I never took it on either – when I was in acting class in college the voice teacher told me I had what was considered to be an American accent, something that didn’t pin me to anywhere in particular and that could be very useful for voiceovers. I forget the actual name he gave the accent but I think it had something to do with the Midwest. Oh, yes, it's coming back to me now, "Standard Stage Classic."

When I was home recently – and I do consider Massachusetts to be my home, even though I lived in New York City for more than 20 years and another seven where I am now – when I was home, and I started to hear the accents, it made me want to move back there again. I’m at a time in my life, and a place in my life, where I’m just not seeing the promises of God right now, and it was all I could do to get on the bus and come back to a life that just seems to be causing me stress and strain and heartache. I’d run into someone I’d known in High School – we had been in a garage rock band together, something that I still have a hard time believing I did. I was a real geek in High School and all through my younger life – I’m still a geek now, but I’ve finally accepted who I am and it doesn’t bother me. Back then, I was a real geek and I didn’t want to be one – I wanted to be the kind of girl who was in a garage band and somehow or other, thank you Jesus, I was. It came about because I was in a youth orchestra in Boston, and one of the guys from my High School was in it too. He was a percussionist, and a serious one, but he was also a real lover of rock music and played drums with a band. We used to share rides to orchestra rehearsals on Sundays – he was about a year older than I was or maybe two, and he was in the older group, but we rehearsed at the same time. He asked me one day if I’d like to sing back-up in his band, and I said yes. Those guys were some of the most fun and the sweetest, but some of them were big partiers. I’d never seen anything like that except for when my brother would come home sometimes with his friends and even then he tried to hide it. We always knew, but we let him think we didn’t. These guys were right out in the open about it, and they invited me to parties too – sometimes to sing, but sometimes just to hang out. And they always looked after me – if they heard the cops were on the way they’d get me out of there. When I ran into one of the guys in the supermarket, I didn’t recognize him until he started saying the band and the names of the guys. It brought it all back and it was such a good feeling to know that he still remembered me and those good old times.

When we’re born again, God takes all the junk from our lives and starts to clean it up. It’s like going into a house full of stuff and finding those things that are treasures that can be cleaned up and kept among the old moldy things that need to be thrown away. I grew up in a farmhouse from 1723, and you can still find things there, in the attic, in the barn, underground when you dig outside, things that look like they’re done for, things that are all messed up with the mess they‘ve been in, things that have taken on the dirt and decay of the other things they’ve been thrown in with. Some of those things are too long gone to try to salvage, but then there are others that you can clean up pretty easily, and they’re things that will last and that have character and a beauty all their own.

2 Corinthians 5:17 tells us, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold all things are become new.” That comes from a section titled, “We Are Christ’s Ambassadors,” in the King James Version, or in the New Living Translation, “We are God’s Ambassadors.” The King James is wonderful, but The New Living Translation has something much simpler and I think easier to drink in, “So we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view. At one time we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view. How differently we know Him now! This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life has gone; a new life has begun! And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to Himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to Him. For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. And He gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making His appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, ‘Come back to God!’ For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ.” (2 Corinthians 5:16-21)

In our garage band we sang all the rock greats, and a lot of Led Zeppelin. I didn’t know the lyrics before I joined, and they helped me learn the songs. Our lead singer had a real rock voice, but it was lower, and they wanted someone who could sing the high notes and that was me. I still sing those songs with the harmony I learned, and I hear us in my head right along with the bands whose songs they were. “In the days of my youth I was told what it means to be a man . . . Now I’ve reached that age I try to do all those things the best I can . . . But no matter how I try I find my way to the same old jam . . . Good times, bad times, you know I’ve had my share . . . ”

In the days of my youth I was told a lot of things, but one thing I never was told was what it means to be in Christ. I spent years trying to do all the things I was told in the best way I could, but without God, it was really impossible. I got by, but barely, I had some good times and a lot of bad times, and no matter how I tried I found myself in the same old jam time after time after time. I thank God every day that my old life has gone and a new life has begun, and that He no longer counts my sins against me. And I am speaking for Christ when I say, “Come back to God!” because I know that with Him the best of times is yet to come. Those good old times are not lost - nothing that is good is lost when we come to Christ - but the bad times and the jams and the mess and muck and all the things we'd rather forget are gone, because He makes all things new.

Blessings,

Jannie Susan