...As long as we never forget how to stop and pray"
This morning I went walking with the dogs and I got to thinking about my life. I thought the words "my life" as I was pondering, and suddenly and unexpectedly something hit my brain. Maybe this has happened to you before. At the sound of the words I was instantly brought into the world of song with the melody of "My Life," a song by none other than Plus One - the Christian Boy Band (yes there is / was such a thing) that became hugely popular in Contemporary Christian music circles about a decade ago. I was introduced to them by my step dad, who somehow acquired a cassette tape of their music, which we would often listen to in the car on the way to church.
When I was sixteen I went to see Jaci Velasquez in concert, and Plus One were the opening act. It was incredible. I've never seen a more most fleshly, hormone-infested, oversexed and idolatrous church event in my life, before or after. Girls were SCREAMING at the tops of their lungs, reaching out their arms and and furiously waving their hands, hoping to be touched. Looking like they might faint. The boy-singers, in-between making short melodic jumps, shoulder-shrugs and other subtle dance moves, would smile with their big brown eyes while singing and reaching out to brush the fingers of some group of lucky, desperate girls. Then they would wipe the sweat off their own face and back away to let the next boy have his moment. It was innocent indecency in its most glorious form. The purest impurity ever. It only could have been better if someone would have thrown a pair of underwear on the stage.
I don't know what it was that made our youth pastors and parents willing to let us take down our hair and experience our sexuality with such shameless vigor for one bright moment, like a night in the sun with some sweet, forbidden fruit. Perhaps they thought that falling in love with Nate, Gabe, Jeremy, Jason and Nathan would cause us to fall more in love with Jesus, by proxy.
Okay, I'll admit that I did later end up acquiring their album (on compact disc, thanks anyways Step dad and welcome to Century #21) and was a fan for a short time in my life.
This really wasn't what I had hoped to meditate on and ponder in the field with my dogs today, but this is what can happen when I let my mind wander.
Does anybody remember what happened to them? I'm curious about them and about whatever might have happened to the presumably short-lived phenomenon of Christian boy-bands...
This morning I went walking with the dogs and I got to thinking about my life. I thought the words "my life" as I was pondering, and suddenly and unexpectedly something hit my brain. Maybe this has happened to you before. At the sound of the words I was instantly brought into the world of song with the melody of "My Life," a song by none other than Plus One - the Christian Boy Band (yes there is / was such a thing) that became hugely popular in Contemporary Christian music circles about a decade ago. I was introduced to them by my step dad, who somehow acquired a cassette tape of their music, which we would often listen to in the car on the way to church.
When I was sixteen I went to see Jaci Velasquez in concert, and Plus One were the opening act. It was incredible. I've never seen a more most fleshly, hormone-infested, oversexed and idolatrous church event in my life, before or after. Girls were SCREAMING at the tops of their lungs, reaching out their arms and and furiously waving their hands, hoping to be touched. Looking like they might faint. The boy-singers, in-between making short melodic jumps, shoulder-shrugs and other subtle dance moves, would smile with their big brown eyes while singing and reaching out to brush the fingers of some group of lucky, desperate girls. Then they would wipe the sweat off their own face and back away to let the next boy have his moment. It was innocent indecency in its most glorious form. The purest impurity ever. It only could have been better if someone would have thrown a pair of underwear on the stage.
I don't know what it was that made our youth pastors and parents willing to let us take down our hair and experience our sexuality with such shameless vigor for one bright moment, like a night in the sun with some sweet, forbidden fruit. Perhaps they thought that falling in love with Nate, Gabe, Jeremy, Jason and Nathan would cause us to fall more in love with Jesus, by proxy.
There was a meet-the-artist-and-get-their-autograph type of event at a Christian bookstore prior to the show that my friends from youth group and I attended. I didn't have one of Plus One's CD's to sign, so I had them sign a paper plate. It might have even been a used paper plate. I still have it in a photo album, with a photo of them that I cut out of a piece of Christian news media or magazine that I found at the concert.
Okay, I'll admit that I did later end up acquiring their album (on compact disc, thanks anyways Step dad and welcome to Century #21) and was a fan for a short time in my life.
This really wasn't what I had hoped to meditate on and ponder in the field with my dogs today, but this is what can happen when I let my mind wander.
Does anybody remember what happened to them? I'm curious about them and about whatever might have happened to the presumably short-lived phenomenon of Christian boy-bands...
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