Obit: The old me...

Subject: Obit: The old me...
From: FriendOfFrancis
Date: 18 Aug 04 - 07:49 PM

Hey 'Catters,

          My name is Steve Beisser. I used to belong to this group under a few different names... some of you will remember me, others might not. Anyway, I am here for a specific reason...

    I want to ask the forgiveness of the group for the ways in which I probably offended people in the past with a very narrow and hurtful attitude towards life, specifically in the practice of my particular faith, which at the time could have rightly been called fundamentalist Christianity. I have gained so much more insight into God's grace and mercy toward me that I now realize how little of it I shared with others. I have grown in my understanding not only of faith, but of the true and proper way in which my brothers and sisters throughout the history of the church have lived that faith. I have chosen the Mudcat name 'FriendOfFrancis' as a tribute to a recently discovered hero of mine, Francis of Assisi. He was a man so in love with Jesus that he literally divested himself of a fortune in inheritance and family status and lived as a beggar, serving others meekly and with humilty without complaining. I would like, as best I know how and by God's grace, to be your humble friend and servant in helping us all to learn from each other and appreciate the precious gift of music that God has given us. Thanks for your time. Be blessed.

In Him,

Steve
FriendOfFrancis

Subject: RE: Obit: The old me...
From: wysiwyg
Date: 18 Aug 04 - 08:06 PM

Hi Steve,

Last time you re-arrived, some people thought I was being, well, unforgiving toward you. Maybe it's just me, but I just like things to be, um, what they purport to be. And I have found in life that a truly repentant heart understands why people may not trust right away. You see, a sign of true repentance is realizing that trust and forgiveness are not the same thing.

So I thought since the New You is so open, I'd like to just ask you a coupla questions.

Have you already contacted Joe Offer to deactivate any other member names you may have been using, as you did in the past?

Also, will you be asking people for free guitars again?

Also, what's new since the last time you re-arrived and asked forgiveness?

~Susan

Subject: RE: Obit: The old me...
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 18 Aug 04 - 08:39 PM

Hey, Friend of Francis! Any friend of Francis is a friend of mine. My wife and I are planning to go to Italy and Greece next spring and one of the sites that I am most looking forward is the church at Assisi, built on the site of the church St. Francis built.

As long as you don't require me to watch Brother Moon, Sister Sun, or whatever it's called, I'll be happy. I don't know how they managed to turn such a humnle, strong person as St. Francis into such an insipid movie.

I wasn't here when you roomed these halls before, so I have nothing to forgive. But, everyone in here has aid or done something that needed forgiveness. Me included.

Why should you be any different?

Jerry of Derby

Subject: RE: Obit: The old me...
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 18 Aug 04 - 08:41 PM

Foergive my typo0s...

Jerry

Subject: RE: Obit: The old me...
From: SINSULL
Date: 18 Aug 04 - 08:46 PM

Anne Rice did a job on poor St. Francis. Have a look at her vampire series.

Meantime, I too do not remember you. Perhaps you were before my time. I really have no need of a humble servant but if you are here to share what you know about music (on top) or care to join the silliness below the line, welcome.

Why not just join as a new member and leave the baggage behind?
SINSULL

Subject: RE: Obit: The old me...
From: FriendOfFrancis
Date: 18 Aug 04 - 08:52 PM

Hey, I LIKE "Brother Sun, Sister Moon"... I know it's not the best movie, but at least it was made by a sincere Catholic (Zeffirelli) and Donovan Leitch does some fine psychedelic/folk variations on Francis' songs and writings. It sure beats the network-TV Jesus movies they've made over the last few years... they were one of the reasons I gave up TV altogether. It's just videos/DVDs for us now.... anyway, lucky you, going to Assisi... the story of the San Damiano chapel is one of my favorites.

    And for the record (smile), I am not any different at all... I hope we all learn that someday. God calls each of us to love Him and recieve the gift He has given in Christ... the way to receive a gift like that is to admit you don't deserve it. When we all get humble instead of proud, God can forgive and heal us.

    You have nothing to forgive, true, but I am glad you are a person who would be willing if it were necessary. That is a precious treasure from God.

In Him,

FoF+

Subject: RE: Obit: The old me...
From: harpgirl
Date: 18 Aug 04 - 09:12 PM

If you want to redeem yourself with me send me an old Gibson, a check for four thousand dollars, and make help Martin Gibson with his desire to fit in...You will then receive a gift certifiate for a three day stay at the NYCFTTS.

Subject: RE: Obit: The old me...
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 18 Aug 04 - 09:56 PM

BOF: You look like the right person to give my video of Brother Sun Sister Moon to. I'll have to see if I can find it. If you want it, PM with your mailing address and if I still have it, it's yours.

Jerry

Subject: RE: Obit: The old me...
From: open mike
Date: 18 Aug 04 - 10:17 PM

beware your "be blessed" salutation may be mis construed to be from another mud catter (or maybe not another>>) here who has since changed it to say "best wishes"
i think since this is a music place if yo have anything to say about music then ok but if your goal is for prostheletizing you are in the wrong room.

Subject: RE: Obit: The old me...
From: Bobert
Date: 18 Aug 04 - 10:40 PM

Well, praise be to God. Sometimes He just has to take you aside fir a little reminder that love, forgiveness and tolerance are the cornerstones. He will take care of the final accounting.

The finest thing that we can do to glorify God is speak of our faith and as we do we are also demonstarting that so much of our lives are in His hands. Your testimonial here is wonderful, Steve, and I have this good feeling that it was God speaking thru you. I'm sure you feel that, too, and I'm sure that you have taken time to thank God for this blessing.

Your brother in Christ.

Bobert

Subject: RE: Obit: The old me...
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 19 Aug 04 - 02:00 PM

You're right of course, openmike. This is not a forum for proselytizing. I'm not even sure that proselytizing ever works. I try to avoid it as much as I can, but sometimes we all feel moved to speak out strongly about things that we believe in, whether it's music, politics, or matters of faith. That's different than trying to convert someone to our faith, or politics. Or to convince them that Dylan is reall a fine singer :-)

Jerry

Subject: RE: Obit: The old me...
From: GUEST,Guest, FriendOfFrancis
Date: 19 Aug 04 - 02:05 PM

Indeed, forgive me if I sound as though I am proselytizing... I simply tend to refer to almost everything from my place of faith. I am not trying to convince anyone of anything with arguments, quotes or logic... if anything ever works to convince, it is the demonstration of truth lived, not the persuasiveness of truth spoken.

    I have recieved a warm welcome and the proper injunctions against further insensitivity (from people who know who they are). I feel that I have a place here, keeping in mind that I must do all diligence to contribute to the lifting up of people and ideas as opposed to their destruction. Thank you, all.

FoF+

Subject: RE: Obit: The old me...
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 19 Aug 04 - 02:22 PM

Not to worry, FOF. Just glad to have you here.

Jerry

Subject: RE: Obit: The old me...
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 Aug 04 - 02:27 PM

Ah. Well, friendly greetings from the Hawk. If you are among peacemakers now, then you will find much useful work ahead of you.

Subject: RE: Obit: The old me...
From: wysiwyg
Date: 19 Aug 04 - 02:32 PM

Steve, thanks for the nice PM in response to my question. Usually thread posts addressed to someone are answered by that person in the threads, if they wish to address them, and PMs are used to answer PMs. Also, it's not considered polite to quote PMs or refer to facts shared in PMs, in the threads. So if you think others might be interested in the replies you gave me, it's not OK for me to fill them in, but you can.

Best of luck this go-round,

~Susan

Subject: Lyr Add: CAROL OF THE CREATURES (Sydney Carter)
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 19 Aug 04 - 03:45 PM

Assisi is wonderful Jerry - I only spent half a day there, but I long to get back there again.

My father was stationed there for a but during the war, and I think it was about the only part of his time in the Army he used to recall with a sense of evident joy.

Sydney Carter wrote a version of St Francis' Carol of the Creatures - it's on "Lovely as the Dances" together with George Fox, Julian of Norwich, amd John Ball.

Creator high and holy,
To you all praise and power belong.
Let all men listen
To the carol of your creatures.
You are the end
And the beginning of their song.

Chorus
Oh, leap and carol to the Lord, I say,
Show what he has done.
Oho, leap and carol to the Lord, I say,
Show him like the sun.
And first I call my Brother Sun,
For by that light I see
The leaping of the holy One
That called the light to be.

I call upon my Sister Moon,
I love that gentle light,
And all the stars so sharp and clear
That shiver in the night.
Chorus

I call on you my Brother Wind,
By weather foul or fair,
You show the likeness of the Lord
I breathe him like the air.
Chorus

I call on you my Sister Water,
Come down from the sky,
And show the likeness of the Lord
I drink him or I die.
Chorus

I call on you my Brother Fire,
In yellow light and red
You leap and carol to the Lord
With sparks around your head.
Chorus

My Sister Death you call me
To leap and carol I cannot say no.
I am a dancer,
To the end and the beginning
Of all the leaping
And the carolling I go.
Chorus

Come all you men and women too,
Show pity and forgive.
For by your love you show the Lord
And with Him you shall live.

Subject: RE: Obit: The old me...
From: Once Famous
Date: 19 Aug 04 - 06:09 PM

I knew a chick named Francis who had a nice ass.

sorry, Millions don't accept Jesus as their savior.

Subject: RE: Obit: The old me...
From: Bill D
Date: 19 Aug 04 - 07:00 PM

"The finest thing that we can do to glorify God is speak of our faith"

but not just anywhere .....there is a time & place.

"Your testimonial here is wonderful, Steve,"....no, it is NOT to the majority.

sorry, but there is a line between discussing and preaching....
---------------------------------------------------------------------

"Indeed, forgive me if I sound as though I am proselytizing... I simply tend to refer to almost everything from my place of faith."

well, you will either see the folly of that, or you will not. If you CANNOT talk without 'witnessing', you will have the predictable replies.

Subject: RE: Obit: The old me...
From: GUEST,I am as You are as We all are
Date: 19 Aug 04 - 07:54 PM

"Millions don't accept Jesus as their savior."

That's perfectly all right, Martin. Jesus accepts them, as do Buddha, Krishna, Zoroaster and all the other Prophets of God. It's the unenlightened man who is hung up on exclusivity and "belonging to the club". God and the Prophets don't work in that fashion, regardless of what you may have heard from various ill-informed people about it. Every human is a son or daughter of God, and a good parent loves all the children in the family, not just some of them.

Subject: RE: Obit: The old me...
From: wysiwyg
Date: 19 Aug 04 - 08:01 PM

...I must do all diligence to contribute to the lifting up of people and ideas....

Naw, you're running right past the point again, Steve. Just be yourself. If Jesus is indeed part of who you are, He will show through without you having to work at it.

Um, it's a bit early to conclude you have a special mission here. Be one of the schmielzos, here, not someone who presumes to preach to them.

Get to know people.

Wait until you have a circle of friends, to promote anything.

Focus on music.

And listen to BillD. He's a nice, nice man with a good head on his shoulders.

~Susan

Subject: RE: Obit: The old me...
From: Bobert
Date: 19 Aug 04 - 09:38 PM

Yo, BillD. This thread is about Faith so, hey, yer gonna find some folks who are going to be talking about their Faith... I have learned here at Mudcat when it it not appropriate to interject my Faith and, fir the most part, have been sensitive to those who might be offended or feel my posts are not in line...

Peace,

Bobert

Subject: RE: Obit: The old me...
From: Once Famous
Date: 19 Aug 04 - 09:47 PM

Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, Zoroaster and all the other Prophets of God are not the prophets of my God, who is the true God of the people of Israel.

There is no mention of any of them in the Old Testament or the Torah.

They are all unacceptable. Good people, perhaps, or nicely carved idols.

Subject: RE: Obit: The old me...
From: Justa Picker
Date: 19 Aug 04 - 10:08 PM

"That's perfectly all right, Martin. Jesus accepts them, as do Buddha, Krishna, Zoroaster and all the other Prophets of God"

I didn't realize all these deities had an agent, and authorized you to speak on their collective behalves. Nice work if you can get it. :-)

Subject: RE: Obit: The old me...
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Aug 04 - 10:09 PM

Martin,

Your Intolerant Religious Bigotry is no shock, or even surprise, it is just expected from you.

Subject: RE: Obit: The old me...
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 19 Aug 04 - 10:13 PM

You're all crazy!

Subject: RE: Obit: The old me...
From: Once Famous
Date: 19 Aug 04 - 10:14 PM

Guest

Can you find your balls and post under your normal identity? No, you are a coward.


It's not bigotry, you idiot. Bhudda is portrayed as a statue in just about every case. Jesus is portrayed as the most goyisha looking shagitz.

I don't need that, choir boy.

Subject: RE: Obit: The old me...
From: Amos
Date: 19 Aug 04 - 10:23 PM

Jesus, what a clutch of weird-do-wells.

Forgive them, Whoever...they know not what they do...thanks, Ma'am.

A

Subject: RE: Obit: The old me...
From: Once Famous
Date: 19 Aug 04 - 10:26 PM

Don't pinch her butt.

Subject: RE: Obit: The old me...
From: GUEST,Jeremiah McCaw
Date: 20 Aug 04 - 07:34 AM

Good God! Wouldja give it a rest!

(Irony and :-) quite intentional)

Subject: RE: Obit: The old me...
From: GUEST,John O'Lennaine
Date: 20 Aug 04 - 08:22 AM

Yahweh was a minor diety in the ancient Hebrew pantheon. A war god.

Subject: RE: Obit: The old me...
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 20 Aug 04 - 08:43 AM

I hate it when that sort of thing happens to a thread.

Subject: RE: Obit: The old me...
From: GUEST,John O'Lennaine
Date: 20 Aug 04 - 09:01 AM

What sort of thing?

Subject: RE: Obit: The old me...
From: Once Famous
Date: 20 Aug 04 - 10:28 AM

"Yahweh was a minor diety in the ancient Hebrew pantheon. A war god."

You learned that while studying for your bar mitzvah, right? have another beer, mick.

Subject: RE: Obit: The old me...
From: wysiwyg
Date: 20 Aug 04 - 10:41 AM

Well, Steve, this is a fine example of what tends to happen when anyone's religiosity goes over the limit of what a large number of people can tolerate. You see, your intentions about what you post are not actually the point-- the point is, all that really matters here (till people know you REAL WELL) is how they take whatever you say, and these are people who've had enough, enough, very enough of the topic and the messes that have always accompanied it in this medium. In other words, you're jumping on toes that are already pretty sore from previous experiences, making them even more sore for the next time someone innocently "goes there."

But never mind. I didn't listen when they tried to tell me that, either. :~)

~Susan

Subject: RE: Obit: The old me...
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 20 Aug 04 - 11:36 AM

"...at least it was made by a sincere Catholic..." A peculiar endorsement, FoF. Cardinal Ratzinger, the Vatican's top theologian (in fact head of the Inquisition), is presumably a sincere catholic. He starts from the premise that every church outside catholicism is in error. Well OK, they probably are, but there's the laughable implication that his own is not.

"Um, it's a bit early to conclude you have a special mission here." Thus spake WYSIWYG (I love the "um"s). Well certainly WYSIWYG, aka Praise(!), held off for a few days after her first post, but she's more than made up for that slow start. My advice, FoF, would be to carry on the way you've started, and if you Christians start squabbling among yourselves, please keep it in the threads. None of this burying it in PMs.

Subject: RE: Obit: The old me...
From: Joe Offer
Date: 20 Aug 04 - 01:16 PM

Hey, Peter - Ratzinger's upper management. So is the Pope. Have you ever met a sincere person in upper mangement? I suppose there are some, but they're rare. Don't judge the rest of Catholics on what their chief executives do. Chief executives are necessary evils - but, oftentimes, they ARE evil. Up there in the rarefied air, they just don't see life the way the rest of us do.
As for Ratzinger, I don't think there are many in the Catholic Church who would accuse him of sincerity. His game is power and authority - not sincerity. The Pope seems to have a fair amount of sincerity, but not Ratzinger. Ratzinger is the chief doctrine man, the Dick Cheney of the Vatican.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Obit: The old me...
From: GUEST,Clint Keller
Date: 20 Aug 04 - 03:39 PM

"Have you ever met a sincere person in upper mangement? I suppose there are some, but they're rare."

I'm afraid that's right, and it's sad. Maybe there's something wrong with strong authority structures in general. Power does indeed tend to corrupt.

clint

Subject: RE: Obit: The old me...
From: Sorcha
Date: 20 Aug 04 - 07:35 PM

Good Grief Charley Brown......just leave me alone to believe what I want to and I'll leave you alone too. In other words, Shut the Fuck Up.

Subject: RE: Obit: The old me...
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 20 Aug 04 - 08:15 PM

Joe, if you and all sincere Catholics were to rise like lions after slumber/In unvanquishable number and slay your capitalist bosses, the world would be a better place. Ye are many, they are few.

For the evil influence of the cardinals to prevail (and there are parts of the world where their writ DOES still run) it requires only that sincere Catholics do nothing. I think that's what the guy said.

What's the big deal about running a church without a CEO? Plenty of churches manage that way, except that they're maybe out-performed a bit on the wealth-creating side. (But all that wealth is slipping away fast, so what the hell?)

OK I admit citing Ratzinger was going to extremes. I was just pointing up the absurd sweep of FoF's generalisation. But I'm not convinced by your theory that Ratzinger's the baddie and the Pope's the goodie. Jean-Paul has allowed his favourite cardinal to speak with the authority of the Vatican on some fairly major and divisive issues, not least the one I quoted in my earlier post. So at best he's George W to Ratzinger's Cheney.

Subject: RE: Obit: The old me...
From: GUEST,S. Boteach
Date: 20 Aug 04 - 10:43 PM

"There is no mention of any of them in the Old Testament or the Torah."

Mr. Gibson,

I am quite shocked that you, as a Jew, would refer to "the Old Testament."

The concept of "Old" and "New" Testaments is a Christan construct that was created to delegitimaize Judaism in the sense that the "New Testament" has superceded the "Old Testament," the books that Jews know as the Tanach (Torah, Neveim, Chetuvim).

A Jewish person does not delegitimate Judaidm by refering to the Tanach as the the "Old Testament."

Based on the totality of your writing in this forum, I must conclude that you are, in fact, an anti-Semite seeking to discredit Jewish people and Judaism via expressions of bigotry that some ignorant people might take to be typical of Jews.

Shame on you.

S. Boteach

Subject: RE: Obit: The old me...
From: khandu
Date: 20 Aug 04 - 11:12 PM

They used to call him Jesus
Long time ago
They're still calling him Jesus
Dont you know
They crossed the wood and hanged him
A long time ago
They still misunderstand him
Those who dont know
And in the evening his love will lead the blind
In every secret corner there in your mind
(Cat Stevens)

Subject: RE: Obit: The old me...
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 21 Aug 04 - 12:17 AM

The title of this thread says it all... he's back to his old self...

If I were going to make comments based on religion, I would think of saying that he must be a Christian, as he seems to believe in Ressurection....

And by using the 'Obit' header, he tried to keep it above the line...

Subject: RE: Obit: The old me...
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 21 Aug 04 - 12:21 AM

I meant Martin "Dingo" Gibson, of course, and he didn't start this thread - I know, but the originator did.