Jimmy Need-Ham?

   There's a question we ask everyday. We ask it regardless of what we know because sometimes we fear we know nothing or that what we know is a lie. We ask what is real. We crave the genuine--hunger for the sincere. We want to to know. What is power? Knowledge. Let us be honest it turns the planet, keeps the discussion, made the stoics thrive and the school boys tarry. However, I struggle saying that we as humans just want to know. I believe at our core we want to know the truth because that is real, that is absolute. And if we believe there is truth, we believe there is an absolute. Yet, my point is not to probe philosophy. I am not wide enough or inventive enough to carry on the conversation. My point is to introduce the artist I will focus on in April.
      Jimmy Needham wrote the preface to the book on being real. He did not write the book because he gives to pages to the Rock of Ages. God fills them and receives the glory boasting more than a story. Music often acts as poetry--it is cryptic. Sometimes that is effective. Yet, sometimes we need something straight up. As someone who grew up in church I had heard my fair share of Gospel hooks. They were gentle and lovely and to the right people--beautiful I am sure. However, sometimes they lacked the reality of life and struggle that we go through. Jimmy manages to perfectly capture the balance with class and everything else. Overall, Jimmy is honest. That is why I love music. It allows us to say something we could not before. It makes our shabby and our shambles sound like sweet melodies. It takes our honest and makes it truer through the speakers. It teaches us how to speak. And we become strong enough to speak through more than just the speakers.

 

"Open your mouth, open it wide
Quit singing songs for a minute tonight
You can love with your hands, you can love with your deeds
How will they know if we don't even, won't even, don't even speak?"

Speak, Jimmy Needham