| February 26th, 2001 - I Was Goth Before Goth Was Cool When I was a teenager, much of what I did was for image. I wanted to project a certain facade. I knew much of it was a mask that would appear attractive to my peers. I was going for a certain look. A crunk that would appeal to those that were so-called cool. The type of music I listened to, the clothes I wore, the attitude I carried were all part of a self-designed presentation that said, I am somebody. I loved the bizarre, outlandish, the dark and mysterious, the thriller, the horror show� Alice Cooper, the Doors, Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, and Pink Floyd were among my favorite music groups. It wasn�t called goth or grunge back then. It was called being a "freak" or an "acid head". We wore our hair long and unruly, we sometimes wore black top hats, we dressed in flannel shirts, jean jackets (Levi�s) or long black coats, patches on our blue jeans� I had a hangman�s noose dangling from my closet doorway, model cars that I set on fire with lighter fluid and melted down to look like an auto accident, I wrote around the base of my bed in black-light paints the words "war" and "hate" (instead of peace and love), I had a self-made, stitched voodoo doll complete with labels which named different groups like Nazis, Communists, Militants to be stuck on it with hat pins. My friends and I modeled our lives after a counter culture group known as The Merry Pranksters (from a book called The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test). I projected a visage of death. I was given to being destructive and crazy in order to strike fear in the hearts of those who already had reputations of being dangerous and to ward off potential foes. What is it that makes us lean in the direction we lean? What determines our particular persuasions, shapes our life�s forces, etc.? Jesus puts it this way, "�But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemes: these are the things which defile a man�" (Matthew 15: 18-20) Just what does the bible mean when it speaks of the heart of man? The simplest definition is this: the heart of man is the junction where the spirit, the emotions, the psyche (or soul) and the bodily appetites meet. In psycho-babble terms, it is the composite Id, Ego, and Eros. When a man receives Christ, he is mystically joined with him in his death, burial and resurrection to a new life. His spirit becomes regenerated instantly and his soul begins a renewal process which theologians refer to as sanctification. Before being united with Christ, the spirit of man is dead. He can only produce out from that spiritual disposition a life force which generates more death. He is of the spirit of this world (a fallen member of a fallen creation). "For what man knows the things of man, except by the spirit of man which is in him? Even so the things of God no man knows, except by the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God�" (I Corinthians 2: 11, 12) God came into earth and became a flesh and blood man to set us free from this spirit of the world, the spirit of corruption and decay. "Forasmuch then as the children (us) are made partakers of flesh and blood (in these earthly bodies), he also himself likewise took part of the same (became a flesh and blood man); that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them (set us free) who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage." (Hebrews 2: 14, 15) Did you get that? Jesus has given power to us to overcome death (the current degenerative state of this world) by beating satan at his own game. He became the bait to lure the devil into a trap that would result in satan�s power over us being destroyed, and our being delivered from bondage to fear! Take Him as your Lord and Savior. Let him have his rightful place on the throne of your heart. You can experience, as I have, freedom from bondage through the fear of death. |