https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZSAuu_AJ3A
Please click on the above link to hear the song, ‘Land of Opportunity.’ (Still trying to figure out this new app.🙂)
When we landed in America nearly 30 years ago, I began recording my impressions. Our first album of songs was The Voyage of the Bright Hostage.
As I have recently listened again to some of these songs I realize now, how well founded my healthy skepticism was about “The New World’” we were encountering.
‘Land of Opportunity’ is a phrase Bobby Kennedy uses in his response to the State of the Union address recently delivered by Joe Biden, (Conservative commentators called it , ‘The most hateful and divisive SOTU ever given.’)
Kennedy laments the downward spiral of the country from what he remembers as a boy. The statistics he uses to back up his argument are shocking! Here is his speech.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0yvc2Qhn5E&t=5s
The gist of my song is a questioning of people’s motivation in grasping this ‘opportunity.’
It struck me when we arrived that a prevailing spirit over America was “Show business” …..focusing on ‘appearances’ and ‘turning a profit’. You could call it Fame and Fortune as centered in Holywood on the west coast and New York on the east.
Scripture warns us about ‘looking on the outward ‘appearance’ when ‘God looks on ‘the heart’ and asks the question, ‘What shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world and looses his own soul?’ Rather we are told ‘the only thing that matters is faith working through love.’(Gal.5:6)
When I ran the New York City Marathon in 1998 I was invited to lead a pre race worship time for the runners with “Lord Jesus We Enthrone You”.
I recall afterwards our driving up out of the city. Behind us lay the Twin Towers, representing the financial capital of Babylon. In the back seat Abby began singing once again, ‘Lord Jesus we enthrone You ……we proclaim you are King of New York…..Come Lord Jesus and take your place here.’
Gilbert (or Joshua as he was then) seated beside her, began laughing.
‘What are you laughing at?” I asked.
‘ Ha!” He said, “ I can see playing cards coming out of Abby’s mouth as she is singing.”
‘What are they?’ I asked.
‘A King, Queen, Jack, Ten and Ace.” He said.
Father whispered, “ It is a ‘royal flush’. I am coming to take my place as King of New York, but first there will be a flushing out of evil.”
Two years later we witnessed the destruction of those Twin Towers and the start of the uncovering of America’s widespread institutional corruption.
Another early assignment had us walking down Holywood Boulevard, in L.A, again proclaiming Jesus King, and inviting him to come and take his place, in Babylon’s entertainment capital.
I had a sudden urge to find a Restroom and relieve myself, so dashed in through the first hopeful looking doorway available. Having discharged my load, (physical and spiritual) I emerged out on the street again, to be greeted by our LA host.
‘Ha! You just went to the toilet in the Kodak Theatre…….That is where the Oscars – the Academy Awards ceremony takes place !’
Again I sensed Father say, “I will come and take my place here too and it will involve again a ‘’royal flush’ as I purge out evil and corruption.’
Over these last years, we have seen this happening more and more.
Bobby Kennedy ends by appealing for a restoration of the vision that motivated the Puritans and Pilgrim Fathers, that this land be ‘a City set upon a hill.’ bringing light to the world.
Boston, the city from which Kennedy came was where that vision was first cast by Puritan John Winthrop whose group settled there.
Interestingly Boston was also the city to which our son Robin had to go to have his leg amputated a few years ago.
His journey through ‘the valley of the shadow of death.’ gave birth to the song , City of Light about ‘faith working through love.’
Click here to listen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J39FfzcCLL0
I believe God’s purpose for this nation as ‘a beacon of hope’ for the world, after it’s ’near death experience’,……will indeed come to pass.
It’s time for ‘kingdom show business’!
We are having our own City of Light show at the Big Green House on the hill, this coming Saturday. All are welcome……
