it's all about the rhythm section.

this one of the first things I learned when I started playing 13 years ago. and everyone in the band reminded me of it constantly. when I first sat down on that first Sunday morning to play at my church, I think every member of the church came up to me at one point or another before we started and said, "you know the drums are the most important part." or "it's all about the drums and bass" 

   this even bled into learning guitar, when I picked it up I soon realized that, even on it, the notes, the volume, every other part of the music I played hinged on the rhythm. piano was the same way. 88 keys laid in front of me, but which ones I was playing was always secondary to the rhythm I played them with.

life moves in rhythm.

there is this poet named Solomon in the Bible wrote a poem called Eccesiastes, most of which is very depressing as the writer strives to find meaning in life. but what starts as very a very pointless, useless life, begins to take shape in chapter 3 when he starts noticing that everything in life moves with cadence, with a rhythm.

   and this groove, as he says in the first 2 verses, is set by God.

so God is the drummer?

the chapter goes on seeming to dig out of the dreary state earlier and gets lively as he writes the rhythm of life he sees it going on around him.

he says:

God sets the time of birth, and the time of death.

the time for planting and the time for harvesting.

the time for killing and the time for healing

the time for tearing down and the time for building up.

the time for sorrow and the time for Joy.

the time for mourning and the time for dancing. 

the time for not making love, and the time to make it...

it keeps going and each one is worth thinking about, but the point is it's all cyclic, or rhythmic.

and God is setting it.

this is so easy for us forget this, especially when we are caught in the down times. 

but up times will come.

they always do,

even if you can't see it.

remember that Solomon wrote this poem at what seemed like the end of his country's high point. they had been blessed, they had turned away again, and were just a few years away from the darkest time in their history another 8oo or years of slavery to empires. empires that would come and go, passing the people of Israel from one to the next like a baton.

but the big crescendo (lifting up) was coming wasn't it.

I wander if that's what he meant by "time for killing, time for healing" and "time for mourning time for dancing" and so on. it sounds a lot like the old and new testaments doesn't it?

so, when you feel at the end of your rope, like it couldn't get any worse, like you aren't in control of anything, 

May you remember that you aren't in control.

God is.

He wrote the song, He knows the speed, He directs the major and minor movements, the upbeats and the downbeats. and the big crescendo is coming...