Nifty Noodles/ Alma Mater
11/30/05 Lakeland, FL
Thirty three years ago I left the campus of what was then SouthEastern Bible College. First time I’ve been back. It’s now called SouthEastern University… it’s grown.

The President, one Mark Rutland was surprisingly impressive to me upon hearing him in the morning chapel I sung for. There is an enthusiasm here that was gravely missing in my day. “ You accepting Christ is not the good news” he says “it’s that Christ accepts you!” he expounds upon the simple truth of encouraging and validating each other. “Christ loves to be praised and we as his children can love to be praised as well”…

I thought back to all my trouble with church over my lifetime and this was the key missing component… not much personal validation or acknowledgement… last thing I heard before being expelled from this school some thirty years ago stuck with me to this day… “you are not missionary material”. I think about how many I’ve known who grew up in church, cynical now…feeling discounted for their sins and punished severely for their mistakes. Shame, guilt, and judgement in simple spoken words and the quoting of scripture designed to make you comply and follow the rules.

No one is still here from those days… it’s like I came back from the dead to see a part of my past… yea, the ghost of Christmas future actually. Things are changing in good ways. Mark Rutland is ambitious and he’s done his personal homework with God I believe. I was here to add color to a live recording of their college Choir and singing groups..

It is Pentecostal Enthusiasm better behaved perhaps. I searched my soul about where I’ve come since the days of old. Feeling just a little worn around the edges. I wouldn’t change my history but I don’t know what God expects in bringing me back to my past. I am waiting for insight here.

I am comfortable in my own skin these days… but I still hear that nagging lie perhaps in the back of my head… “You don’t belong here”. I felt just a little removed from the intensity of youth this evening. Never the less the comments from 20 year olds was flattering. Funny how when I was young I didn’t belong cause everyone was older and now it’s the same cause everyone is younger. It’s just one of the lies I tell myself. I need to fight that lie.

I played for a short thirty minutes as something of a “half time” show during their recording. I also added some screaming ad libs to one of their worship songs. The amazing highlight in this highly charged spiritual event was my final song… “What a Wonderful World”… everyone joined me singing spontaneously. It worked! I was singing “I see baby’s cryin and I watch em grow.. they’ll learn much more than I’ll ever know”… it was a moment that felt like a passing of the baton to the next generation and I felt really good about it.

I also ran into some old alumni. In the exchange of conversation there was acknowledgement of hardships in life and a kind of survival story. And there was almost a spontaneous feeling of “I love you” after all was said and done simply because we’ve shared the same time slot in the passing of generations. “I see friends shaking hands saying how do you do…they’re really saying I love you”…” And I think to myself …What a Wonderful World”

O.k. so there’s that… Bryan D

Nifty Noodles/ Return To Beyond
11/30/05 New Port Richie… Calvary Chapel Worship Center.
There is no church to my knowledge quite like this one. It’s growing too… it’s the church for the Attention Deficit. The Worship music “gallops” with the drive of a U2 song most of the time. 17 people in the band as well as a volunteer choir. The music was a refreshing version of worship to me, it starts about thirty minutes before the service is listed to start. And then there are “flag wavers” who parade around the church during the singing and people praying as they circle the church. It’s all quite interesting and original in approach.

I treat the whole experience as a trip to a different culture altogether. It’s like leaving the U.S. for a different land. There is a considerable “biker” presence in the parking lot.

I met a few brethren from the Heavens Saints motorcycle club as I was given the opportunity to ride another Harley around all afternoon. No helmet law in Florida and no windshield on this bike. It was cold for me…(around 62 degrees which feels like 52 on the bike) The wind in my face is a great way to take the wrinkle lines out for a while.. a natural face lift. It stimulates the tears ducts nicely.. It kinda straightens yer hair too 8).

Thursday is their midweek service and I was given the bulk of the time to sing. I opened with a couple of regular songs and requests and then on to the new NehoSoul Christmas stuff. This Christmas, Christmas Comes But Once A Year, Silent Night, Christmas Time Is Here, Peace and What a Wonderful World.

Didn’t say much that I recall other than to mention that I’ve “Lost a lot of family members this year and Christmas will never quite be the same”. Some times Christmases run together in a nice even flow and then there is a disruption and a redefinition. I was speaking more of my divorce than the loss of my two uncles and my grandmother. The point was made and I dedicated Peace to “myself”… Nuff said as it were… the lyrics are my theme song these days. “I have come from so far away down the road of my own mistakes in the hope you could hear me pray Oh Lord… keep me in your reach”..

God has ‘returned me” to my days of old I think just to show me the real side of all people and to show me how I’ve seen their behaviors in a limited perspective in my youth… I only saw what hurt me and what left me feeling that I didn’t belong, I concluded (without all the information) that I couldn’t be spiritual if I had to act like them, and the lie that I should tender my resignation from Christianity because I didn’t fit a particular behavior pattern. This of course all goes away when I begin to “improve my conscious contact with God” himself. That’s the great thing about intimacy! You Know and are known by one in a way that might not be like anyone else’s relationship with the same person.

O.K. so there’s that. Bryan d

Nifty Noodles/ At Home
11/29/05 Dallas, TX
I flew in the night before to do a morning t.v. show here… “At Home”… I assumed I was being picked up and put up… not so… So I called my friend Noel Cookman and he dropped everything and came to the airport. What a great hang it was… I stayed at his house and we watched Monday Night Football at a sports bar with a screen the size of Texas.

I was irritated at first that the t.v. show didn’t offer any services to the guests on their show…”we don’t ask for money on the show”.. they told me.. and then I was fine with it.

I did Christmas Time Is Here and This Christmas… did a small happy interview but still acknowledged the newness of this particular Christmas as a result of “lost family members”.

Of course that would include my still living Ex wife but it included Two uncles and my Grandmother who all passed away this year. A writer for Thomas Nelson was on… Mark Attebury… his book? “ walking with God on a road you NEVER wanted to Travel”…. He gave me a copy that I intend to read. Interesting timing.

I’m beginning to look for connections and insights in a new way lately… “all things work together for my good!” It’s like a giant game of connect the dots that I’m playing. Seems like everything has a way of connecting to something else in my life if I’m paying attention. I’m reading my circumstances in a whole new way like a game of cards… playing the hand I’m dealt and risking the bet, taking a chance.

O.k. so “Gitter Done”! Bryan D

Nifty Noodles/ Mid Week Celebration
11/12/05 Fairfield, CA
Played a Wednesday night celebration for Celebrate Recovery’s in Northern California just north of Oakland…it was held at Liberty Christian Center. It didn’t seem much like a 12 step presentation however as churches try to adjust the delivery of the recovery message to fit their own background. It was clearly a more “Pentecostal” approach.

I was told I’d be doing 40 to 50 minutes but with all the “Testimonies” and teaching I did closer to 20. But the set was eventually received well as I ended with “I’ll always have Jesus”

I hadn’t planned to end there but my time was up and it seemed to fit the program that was being delivered quite well.

I met the son of one of the original players in Tower OF Power, one of my favorite all time bands… Lonel Williams was singing with the church praise band who filled in at the recovery event. His dad played on all the original great songs of early TOP. I met some wonderful folks here and the time was quite enjoyable and warm.

But I also ran into some “Christian catch phrases” that triggered some of my own anxiety and need for recovery from spiritual abuse…and maybe too my own “misbelief”…. The words? “anointed”… and “a Christian is known by his fruits”… the latter was thrown out by a woman back stage who came off judgmental in her delivery… suggesting that one might not be a Christian if he isn’t doing all the “right” things. I cringe when I hear it….fruit of course is born once in four seasons… what happens if you meet someone claiming Christ who is in the winter of their soul and they look kind of barren? What happens when someone’s leaves are falling.. looks a lot like a fruitless life! I told her.

I also came across a comment too of “you’d be more successful if God could really anoint you”… the inference that “anointing” of God is a ticket to financial success and a larger visible ministry. This is my recovery! Trying to sort out the damage these kind of comments have made on me… being around Christians who are constantly spouting “fixisms”.

You ever tried to put something together and had way too many people standing around you telling you how to do it? That’s what church feels like to me sometimes. Because I work in this arena so much I hear lots of “pontification” that is not coming from a personal moral inventory but rather directed at someone else in a sort of suspicious way suggesting that someone else needs to work on their spiritual life and “I’m gonna help”. I know we all have to “work out our salvation in fear and trembling”. But I have been “Overexposed” to the gospel to the point of pure distraction in the last thirty years. This is where I go home now… and call up a friend and once again work through my own insecurities about not being good enough for God because my “performance” spiritually doesn’t look as good as “expected”. This is where I go home and sit alone and try to renew my conscious contact with the God of my understanding… and ask him… “can you love me if I don’t get this right?… if I am disobedient and obstinate about your plan verses mine?… and what is your plan for me?… where are we going dad?.. are we ever gonna get there?…. How much longer oh lord!

O.K. so there’s that… still working on my own issues ….Bryan D

Nifty Noodles/ Relief?
11/5/05 Minneapolis Up Front Event Center… Katrina Relief Benefit Concert
I have several musical friends here including Greg Haage who inspired the idea to do a live recording… and Twin Cities was born… we had to pull it because of unfinished paper work in permission slips from the artists I played with (only one objected to the release but it was enough). And so we moved on. But I returned a few times to Minneapolis… once for a church that was reasonably successful with the K.C. Orchestra… but then there came the “Relief shows”… first for the tsunami disaster… and it snowed eight inches and the turn out was poor… but now I’ve returned for the Katrina Relief concert… it’s a three day event that had full color posters and radio adds…but last night… there were no more than 15 people in the hall when I played… I ran the set like it was a full house and the system sounded great… played a lot of Christmas stuff for the first time… This is where “Blacking the house” is important… you can still perform and I really didn’t mind.

Oswald Chambers was interesting this morning in light of my questions about the purpose of yesterday… “if you are going to be used by God, he will take you through a multitude of experiences that are not meant for you at all ,they are meant to make you useful in his hands, and to enable you to understand what transpires in other souls so that you will never be surprised at what you come across”…wow is that timely or what?

Truth is there was an Overeaters 12 step convention at the hotel we were staying in and I found myself talking to several in recovery…found myself talking about my “higher Power” and why I personally don’t use the “Group” as such…several may come to my concert tonight… and if not I passed out some radiorehab C.D.s maybe that’s the real purpose for my trip who knows…

Tonight I was listed with Ray Charles' daughter, Sheila Raye Charles… she was a no show… probably drove by and saw that no one was there…some 30 people were there I was told before I arrived but by nine thirty when I came on there was maybe 20 at best… I closed my eyes and sang “unto the lord” as it were… and finished only tonight my optimistic outlook wasn’t as shiney after the gig… I spent a lot of time here doing nothing before playing for no one…I was happy to go home by morning…

O.K. so Whatever…. Lets find something else to NOT be surprised by when I come across it… Bryan D

Nifty Noodles/ INSP
11/04/05 Charlotte N.C.
I discovered a poor mindset in my own thinking this morning… yesterday I sung four Christmas songs on the Inspiration Network did and interview with a couple hosting their own show… don’t recall the name of the actual show… but I spent the morning at this conservative Christian t.v. studio talking to phone prayer warriors and cameramen with old Sweet C albums and make up artists and wanna be t.v. producers running errands… the thing is I never met anyone there that I didn’t like immediately…and then I discovered that I carry a defensive position in my mind about “religious” people!

It has dawned on me that I stereo type anyone associated with heavy Christian buzz words like “Inspiration” or anything with “worship” attached to it… as something of the “enemy”… sure I’ve had some uncomfortable dealings with controlling religious people who are more interested in converting souls to their own point of view… suggesting “If you don’t know Jesus the way I know Jesus then you don’t know Jesus”….but here there was none of that!

This morning, I’ve been reading a book called “telling yourself the truth”… and I’m looking at my own negative “self talk”… found one phrase immediately …”spiritual people aren’t gonna like me”… and without realizing it I begin to act on that thought… by distancing myself and protecting against “spiritual abuse” from those who may have no intention themselves of treating me this way. I can see how as the book says … “you act on what you believe” in this case I am reacting to my own negative self talk. Don’t worry I’m not gonna turn into a “positive confession” fanatic… but I am gonna consider the way I think poorly and how it affects my happiness….well there’s another negative thought right there that I tell myself… “if I embrace a positive truth …I will turn into an obnoxious fanatic”…

O.k. so there’s something to think about…. Bryan D

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