Ep13 In The Shadow Of The Mountain C.L.Knox stories

The speaker reflects on their experiences traveling with Hoagie and attending concerts in the 60s. They mention seeing artists like Frank Zappa, Johnny Winter, and the Moody Blues while under the influence of drugs. They also discuss their spiritual beliefs and the importance of understanding the Christian story in today's secular culture. The speaker shares a personal story about feeling dirty and repenting after being involved in questionable behavior. They emphasize the significance of living a righteous and holy life. in my truck again, episode 13. A lot of the stuff that I said last week, I never finished really talking about the camp. Perhaps, like, there's some reason I wanted to tell the story was partly because of its embrace of progressive ideologies even in the in the 60s. I looked up the website for those camps now. I think there's six camps there now and I think there might have been four in 68, but they incorporate a lot of progressive ideas and and their system now. They always did and that's what they were selling. And if you don't know anything about Quakers, that doesn't mean anything to you maybe, but the Quaker movement was one of the early Christian movements in North America that really sought to understand who God truly was. So just things I didn't say about that. I mean, every story, I'm just throwing it out there. So I'm trying to get the points across that influenced me. When I was traveling up and down the coast of California with Hoagie, I turned 12 there. My mom sent us, I mentioned it before, but it was either $100 a month or $100 every other week or something like that. And the money went to, Hoagie took care of it. Like, I didn't get it. He took it because he was the adult. It's comical in some ways, but that money typically went for concert tickets. We could get food and and drugs other ways. You know, get money by selling. That was Hoagie's thing. He sold drugs. And he was connected with people in California. But we just, we went to a lot of concerts as we traveled around. Went and saw Frank Zappa. He put out an album with a different group of musicians than the Mothers of Invention. He put it out with a group and he called it Hot Rats. And it included Captain Beefheart, which if you're familiar with that sort of alternative music of that era, Zappa in particular, very intelligent, very intelligent, but super, super progressive as well. And his views of music and philosophy of life and politics. He had some interesting ideas ahead of his time in some ways. So we saw it, we went to that concert and the warm up for that concert was Johnny Winter, which he's amazing to watch, like, super, super guitar player, blues rock. And at that particular concert, he had his brother Edgar playing drums. And so we got to see Edgar Winter before he was famous in his own right. He did play a song on the keyboards. In fact, I honestly don't remember what the song was. But I mean, it could have been that hit that he, he had Monster, I think it was called. It was, it was good. I mean, it was entertaining. And, you know, Frank Zappa was good. Anyway, I can reflect back on a bunch of different Steve Miller band, Country Joe and the Fish, other bands that were not so well known at the time, but they were up and coming for sure. But this particular concert, and every concert, we took acid before we went, or I did. Sometimes Hoagie was taking other stuff, Acid Plus, probably. This, this one concert, there was the band, the Moody Blues, like, I just loved them. They were, they were so ripe for, or I was so ripe for their kind of music with the whole taking LSD and finding messages in the songs. And, and, you know, I had this sense of being able to step outside of time and look at things in the future, things in the past and pull them all together. Now, I don't recall having those kinds of feelings or impressions about myself other than when I was stoned on acid. Though, I think, you know, you do have flashbacks and things like that. But I often would have an acid trip where I could, it was like I was outside of time. Anyway, this was one of those times. So we got these tickets to go to see the Moody Blues in Berkeley. We were staying with some friends in Berkeley. And they had a big house and there was a bunch of people, which was real common in my memory from that time. People just lived in big houses together because nobody could afford one. Kind of like today. Anyway, so we, we were getting ready, we're going to go, we're going to catch the bus. So we take our acid and we head out. And Hoagie at that time was, he was, he was a pretty hedonistic guy. Anyway, he had the opportunity to shoot some heroin. So he did. I never shot anything in my life. So if there's something to be proud of, I guess it's that I never, I never took the needle. But Hoagie took some heroin, he also took some acid. He was just blitzed. And we're walking to the bus. And I guess we got to the bus station or we're standing at a stop sign or a crosswalk or something. And there was this raggedy old ass hippie there. And Hoagie's like, Hey, man, we're gonna go see the Moody Blues. And it's gonna be far out, man, you know, that kind of thing. And the hippie was like, Oh, I wish I could go. And Hoagie went, Hey, man, I have an extra ticket. And he pulled out a ticket and he gave it to the dude. It was my ticket, because he wasn't giving him his own ticket. He only had two tickets, my ticket and his ticket. So he gave my ticket to this guy. And I'm like, Hey, that was my ticket. And Hoagie was like, Oh, man, sorry, man. And I said, Well, what am I going to do? You know, I'm, what am I supposed to do now? And so there was a bit of a argument and tussle. I mean, he was 20 something and I was 12. It's not like I carried a lot of weight. So anyway, there was this other lady that a girl that was going with us and she said, Well, I won't go. Here's my ticket, somebody, you know, find somebody for that one too. And she came back to the house with me. So the two of us are stoned on acid. And we go back to the house and we pulled out all of the all of the Moody Blues albums that we had. And we just played them over and over again. And during that time, when we were both stoned on acid, it was like we were both there. We both felt like we had this vision of being in the stadium and watching the concert like we were there. I wouldn't be surprised if we listened to the songs that they were singing. And I wouldn't be surprised if we weren't. But anyway, we, that whole experience happened a number of times where it's like, I felt like I was removed from reality in this timeline and put into another timeline. And it may have started with that, that one Grateful Dead concert, but I had seen the Grateful Dead a lot of times before that. And I think it was already well, I was well on my way to feeling like I transverse time or I, you know, something like in in my early Christian life, I believed it might have been a prophetic gift. And we say stuff like that. And people that don't understand Christianity, and the different types or different views of Christianity, they won't get that. So in fact, in general, I would say that people in our culture, and this is part of the reason why I'm saying saying these things is they don't know the biblical story. They don't know the Christian story. They don't know why Christ came and died on a cross. They may have heard that said before that Jesus died for your sins or something like that. But they don't know what that's about. I mean, and we have basically, in our culture now we have these, there's more than two views, but there are these basically these two predominant views in that the one would be the the view of secularism, which is of man, and the view that our culture runs mostly on secularist views now, not on, on spiritual views, not on the view of Christianity. So that misnomer that we're a Christian nation, which I've mentioned before, too, is it's we're not. In fact, were we ever? No, I don't think so. Part of what I want to do is get the story known, like help people understand, if you don't know the story, I want to share the story. I want to include that story with my story, because they are intermingled. That's how, that's how I grew how I lived my whole life, even when I wasn't paying attention to it, it was paying attention to me. And I think that's true for, in reality, it's true for everybody. I mean, if you, if you ignore God, if you take a secular view of, you know, it's all by accident, there is no God, there is no Creator. It helps you form all of your other opinions of what's true and what reality is. And yet, if you have a viewpoint of there is a Creator God, and He created everything, and He is holy, because of who He is, His, He has this standard, and it's not, it's not like something He can cast off. It's who He is, right? It's, He is intrinsically holy, and then defining what that word means. You know, holy, one of the, one way that I would describe holy, like I remember, I was involved in something that was, I mean, it wasn't horrible, it was questionable, you know, behavior, and this was as an adult, as a Christian adult. And as this event unfolded, which I don't want to go into now, maybe someday, maybe in a book, whatever, I, I came away feeling dirty, I came away from the whole thing feeling like I had been part of a dirty occurrence. And I walked away from it thinking, you know, feeling like, I don't know if you've ever worn a white shirt. I mean, most of us worn white shirts or white clothes, you know, but, and you get a spot on it, you know, just like whatever, a little drop of coffee, you're drinking a coffee, and there's a little, just a little drop, it's, and so in that spot, it's tan colored instead of white, or, or you're eating spaghetti sauce, and just a little bit of spaghetti sauce, like not even a drip, just a spot, like a splash, but it's red, it comes out red on your white shirt. That's how I felt. I felt like I had moved away from living a righteous and a holy life, which is something I want, not for judgment's sake, but for to have that closer relationship with God, who I, how I view God. And that, it caused a sense of repentance. I mean, these words, you may not know what they mean, but I wanted to turn away from that incident. And I wanted to, I want to, I wanted to apologize to everybody, but doesn't change the fact that the incident happens. There is nothing that can change the fact that the incident happened. And I, I wrote letters to the people that were involved. And I basically I use that example of how I feel like I was where I wear a white shirt, and my white shirt has a stain on it. And I'm, I'm sorry, I'm sorry that I was part of this. And I, I'm sorry that you were part of it because of me, whatever. And I, those are the things to be, you know, for me to try and be instant in and, and it worked for me, it, I felt better. But I still have this relationship with God, you know, and this is like a talk about justice for the last two, two things. And I leave out mercy, like, where, you know, we talk about mercy, as though it's, you know, it's, it's a good thing. But the problem with mercy is, if you are merciful to somebody who's guilty, and that person who is guilty has offended somebody else, and you grant them mercy, then you have shown a lack of compassion for the person who was, was offended or wronged by the person who you just gave mercy to. So that's why I said before, somebody always pays, somebody always suffers from an injustice. And they're minor to major to whatever, I mean, there's murder, and there's all kinds of things you could talk about. But, and this is one of the things we don't, we don't, like, if you know, any of the Bible, like the Old Testament is a lot of stories and, and, and lessons that come from stories, and words from God to prophets, and poetry, a lot of poetry, and history, tons of history, like, so basically, the stories are historic stories, though some of them are poetic, or, you know, interpret them a number of different ways. So there's one story of David, you've heard of David and Goliath, probably, even people that don't know much about the Bible have heard, a lot of them have heard about David and Goliath, where David, this young man, he's, I think they believe he was about 16 at the time, he slays a giant with, with a sling and a rock, and it sinks the rock into the middle of the guy's forehead, and then he cuts his, cuts the giant's head off with his own sword. It's, you know, it's, it's, it's sort of the introduction to who David is, this man who trusted God above everything, but David was also a man, and the Bible often would say that David was a man after God's own heart. He, he wrote many of the psalms and songs, he was a, an artist, like a songwriter and a musician. And if you read this, like it's, his life is really interesting, and it takes up a large portion of the Old Testament, comparatively speaking. But there's a, there's a point after David becomes king, he becomes king of Israel, not then, it was probably some 40 years later before he became king. But he becomes king, and he, as he's established himself as king, he's got a number of kids that are in line to take his place on the throne when he dies, and he's got wives and concubines, which God warned the kings of Israel against such thing, and he was, David was the second king. They didn't make it past one king without going against God's laws and rules for the kings. It was just, that's just, it just shows what humanity is like, and that's basically the Old Testament, what it does is showing humanity and God, who God really is. And so, anyway, so David lusts after this woman, Bathsheba, you may have heard of this story, it's been made into movies, David and Bathsheba. He lusts after her, she's married, and he sends, David sends the, her husband, who's a soldier, out to battle, and tells the general, the commander of his armies, to push this guy forward with a group of archers or whoever it was, and then at the last minute, pull everybody back so that he gets killed. So, he murdered him, basically, because he ended up getting Bathsheba, David got Bathsheba pregnant. So, it was, he murdered this guy to hide his own, his sin, but that's just more sin. So, he had an adulterous relationship, got a married woman pregnant, and anyway, then Nathan, the prophet, who ministered or talked, worked closely with David, a prophet of God, he came and told David a story of a rich man traveling into another man's country, and he meets another, the king of that country, and the king, who's got tons and tons of sheep and cattle, he takes the poor farmer next door, he takes his little sheep, his little lamb, and slaughters it and serves it up as a meal for the traveling wealthy man, and when Nathan tells the king David this story, David, he's furious, he said, that man should pay ten times what he took. This is a sin to God, and this, Nathan, after he tells a story and sees David's reaction, he goes, you're the man, David, and David immediately recognizes that he was involved in this atrocious, like this was, he's the king of the land, he's supposed to be a godly man, he's handpicked by God to be the king, and he recognizes his sin in that. And he's, you know, he's unrepentant, I mean, he's repentant, he's sorry, but what can he do, you know, and Nathan says, don't worry, God has taken your sin. Now, in reality, there was no mechanism for God to take his sin, I mean, God is God, but God's a holy God, so how can this holy God justify letting the king off, but there's still Bathsheba has lost her husband, there's still the murder of her husband. And the thing is, is there's a number of stories in the Old Testament where God says, don't worry, I'm taking your sin, you're not going to suffer for your sin. The fact of the matter is, is from the beginning, back in Genesis, God had a way out, and that was Jesus on the cross, and that's the point of Christianity. There's all of these sins, there's sins from the past, I mean, it talks about it in, if you want to look again, Romans 3, I think it's 25, so right in there, Romans chapter 3, 25, 24, somewhere in there, where he says, Christ came and died for past sins, for our sins of the past, and that's not just ours, it's our forefathers' sins, for the sins that were committed and no recompense, that's mercy now. But in order for mercy to be just, somebody must pay, and so that's Jesus came, the perfect man, the man who never sinned. And like I said before, people don't have a problem with Jesus, usually they have a problem with the church and with Christians. So, I'm trying to help you to understand, you know, how does it come out of my story? Well, there's the looking down the future, but there's also this ability to forgive. You have to understand, we all have a tendency to want peace with our, we all, we have a tendency to want peace with our fellow man. It took me a long time to get over what Hoagie did, a long time. Like, it was one of those things, I was a kid, he was an adult, but like I said before, these people related to me like I was one of them. They didn't treat me typically like a 12-year-old, except, you know, in a case like that, who's going to win out? Well, not the 12-year-old. He got the ticket, I didn't. He got the ticket, I didn't. And when we got to Canada and Hoagie came up to Canada with us, there was two communes formed. You know, I guess I'm going to have to tell it later. I will tell this story, like it's the continuing story of Hoagie and my relationship with him. Anyway, here we go, another one, another one in the books. I got a song, it's a new song. I've been writing songs thinking of specific people, and I started doing that probably 15 years ago. So, a lot of the songs just have a person's name, and they relate to more than one person. So, this song, hopefully I can get it to where I'm not embarrassed to release it. Nobody's ever heard it before. It's called Hannah. Hopefully I can get it out and not be too embarrassed about the quality of it. It has promise, just the production quality. Anyway, see you next time, number 14, I guess. Just trying to make it plain. I'm trying to make it understandable. It's everything I say. It's everything I feel. It's everything I know to be. Can you hear me when I say it? Can you hear me when I say it? No, no, no, no, no, no. You're saying, I don't want no part of the words you're saying. No, no, no, no, no. You want no part of these games I'm playing. Now, that's a lot to let go. You've got a lot of things to do. You've got all those possessions. You can't be falling down to the level of your own shame. You said I need something easier. Something I can hold on to without letting go of who I am. That's important to you and to yourself. You've got to hear me when I call. You've got to hear me when I say your name. You've got to see me now. I've been found. You've got a lot of choosing to do. There's no time in the running. You must decide, decide what you're looking for. There's no time to know when you're still young. The road is narrow. There's no time. The road is narrow. There's no time. The gate is narrow. There's no time. It's not as hard as the world would have you know. You've got to let go. Let God know you want to be free. Oh, don't you understand? You should have taken it in. I am just one voice. And if you don't hear me, you're making a choice. Yes, I'm just one voice making a choice. It doesn't have to be so difficult to know. It costs you nothing. It costs him everything. Make your choice. Make your choice. You make your choice. You make your choice and live or die. It costs you nothing. It costs him everything. It costs you nothing. It costs him everything. Don't you know? Make your choice. Make your choice. And you live, you live, you live, you live or you die. You live or you die. You live or you die. you