Well, I batted 0-fer yesterday. Work intervened, so no skipping over to the Monday night volunteer celebration. And that, in turn, meant I crashed upon landing home. So one more day is all I plead for. For now.

One bit of newsiness to share today has to do with another anniversary:

The Texas leg of their tour is as follows:

11/04/09 - Dallas, TX (House of Blues)
11/05/09 - Houston, TX (House of Blues)
11/06/09 - San Antonio, TX (Scoutbar)

The downloadable version of the CD is available on Amazon and all the other usual online shops.

I didn't get into Stryper until Soldiers Under Command, but very quickly went back to the record store to get my vinyl copy of Yellow & Black Attack. For a handful of years, they represented nothing more significant to me than a good band with a message that I neither objected to nor saw compete agreement with. After being born again, the band became something of a church to me as I realized that there wasn't a physical church that I felt comfortable in.

I recently stumbled across an interview with another musician (Linford Detweiler of Over the Rhine). In it, he tries to describe the influence of authors, rather than other musicians, have had on his music. In the process, I think he also sums up a bit of the role that music played for the first 17 years of my own spiritual journey:

Words and books have been exceedingly important to me all my life. In fact, when I quit the church, people like C.S. Lewis, Frederick Buechner, Thomas Merton, Flannery O'Connor, Annie Dillard and others were almost missionary-like in their ability to instruct, delight and carry me at times. They certainly helped keep me interested in spiritual issues and dilemmas.

Just substitute musicians for authors and you've got the first 17 years of my walk. I've since dug far deeper into the author list than I did back then and am probably getting closer to the point I think Linford is expressing here. More on that tonight. Hopefully.