Category: Music/Spirituality

Living Inside Your Love (1976) by Earl Klugh

Lord My Chef Sunday Music by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, 25 May 2025
Photo by author, Angels’ Hills Retreat and Spirituality Center, Tagaytay City, 18 April 2025.

We shift this Sunday into jazz with Earl Klugh’s sophisticated Living Inside Your Love to slow cool down our simmering summer and to feel more the meaning of the Mass readings today as we enter the penultimate week of Easter.

We were already in our early teens when we discovered Earl Klugh along with other jazz greats with the opening of the country’s first and only jazz radio station 101.9 WK-FM in the late 70’s. Maybe it was part of growing up when we experimented on a lot of things for more adventures that I found myself venturing into jazz from rock and pop music, switching from RJ to RT and then WK.

For me, Earl Klugh was the jazz version of rock’s Eric Clapton or Carlos Santana. Klugh has that certain touch or pluck in his guitar that can make you be in love, not necessarily be in love with anyone. It is a nakaka-in love ma-in love na feeling! That is why we remembered his Living Inside Your Love piece from his second studio album released in 1976 by the legendary Blue Note Records and Liberty Records produced by another jazz great, Dave Grusin.

Actually, we just realized today Living Inside sounds like a prelude to the turn of the century’s new age music where Klugh’s masterful playing of the guitar taking the centerstage of a great symphony backed up with cool vocals repeating just a few lines and stanzas of simple verses over and over that is similar with the vision of John in this Sunday’s second reading from the Book of Revelation when he saw and experienced the “new heaven, new earth” in the great luminous light of God who is himself the temple in the city (https://lordmychef.com/2025/05/24/easter-is-god-dwelling-in-us/). See how Klugh inserted the vocals into his great guitar music enhanced by a symphony like John’s vision of heaven:

Can't get over the feeling
Living inside your love
I never want to lose the feeling
Living inside your love

Baby, you made my life so free
Living inside your love
You're just where I want to be
Living inside your love

Baby, you made my life so free
Living inside your love
You're just where I want to be
Living inside your love

Very interesting with his wonderful guitar music, Klugh’s lyrics – though sparse and repetitive – were loaded in meaning. Consider the line “living inside your love” which is exactly what Jesus said at the Last Supper, “Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him” (John 14:23).

“Living inside one’s love” is what we call as “Divine indwelling”, that is, our home is in God – and with any one we love!

Moreover, consider also Klugh’s first line in his next stanza, “Baby, you made my life so free/ Living inside your love/ You’re where I want to be/ Living inside your love.”

When we love, we enter a relationship that becomes our dwelling, our home where we become free – free to love more, free to be faithful. When we truly love like Christ, the more we find ourselves more free to love, more free in everything because being free is choosing always what is good. We believe that more than a stroke of genius, it was also a kind of divine inspiration about true love that made Klugh at put at the end of this 1976 classic the longer stanza that actually repeated inn order to stress the truth of his first two stanzas.

Can't get over the feeling
Living inside your love
I never want to lose the feeling
Living inside your love
Can't get over the feeling
Living inside your love
I never want to lose the feeling
Living inside your love
I can't get over the feeling
Living inside your love
I never want to lose the feeling
Living inside your love
I can't get over the feeling
Living inside your love

Here is Earl Klugh’s lovely Living Inside Your Love. Have a lovely Sunday and week ahead.

From YouTube.com

If You Don’t Know Me By Now (1989) cover by Simply Red

Lord My Chef Sunday Music, Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, 11 May 2025
Photo by author, Hidden Valley Spring Resort, Calauan, Laguna, February 2025.

It is the Good Shepherd Sunday and also the eve of local elections in our country. Clearly God is speaking to us today of the need to vote wisely by choosing candidates who can be like good shepherds who will lead our nation to greener pastures.

What a tragedy that despite our being a predominantly Christian nation not only in Asia but in the whole world, we have continued to lag in growth and development because we have consistently put into office corrupt and inept officials.

That is why this Sunday we have chosen Simply Red’s 1989 cover of Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes’ original hit in 1972, If You Don’t Know Me by Now. It is a love song of a man’s lament of how his beloved has failed to “know” him so well that they quarrel so often.

Sing the song everybody, c'mon
If you don't know me by now (Moldova!)
You will never never never know me, ooh

Now all the things that we've been through
You should understand me like I understand you
Now girl I know the difference between right and wrong
I ain't gonna do nothing to upset our happy home

Oh, don't get so excited
When I come home a little late at night
You know, we only act like children
When we argue, fuss and fight

Are we not like that in the Philippines? We cannot move forward as we keep on quarreling because we put the wrong people in government. We never think of the greater majority and of the future generations. Worst, we refuse to accept what we know! We know the candidate as corrupt and shallow yet many still vote for them. We know that the candidates are just popular as actors and actresses without any background at all in governance yet many still elect them into office doing nothing except to entertain.

In a deeper sense, it is in knowing that we are able to love most like Jesus Christ in today’s gospel when he declared “My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish” (Jn.10:27-28). For the Jews, knowing another person is more of the heart than of the mind; knowing another person is having a relationship not just being aware of one’s name and address.

Knowing and loving work hand in hand: only Jesus can love us immensely despite his knowing of our flaws and weaknesses and sins. Though it is difficult for us humans to imitate, the most we can do is first of all within ourselves to have that self-knowledge that leads us to accept who we really are to become a better person. Anyone who truly loves God and the country will always choose the best candidate for any office after an effort of knowing everything about them. To hear and follow the Good Shepherd means we choose the best, we reject the worst who are often the most sinful.

Candidates who truly love the country, on the other hand, will never pursue an office if they know in themselves they are not capable of the job ahead. It is something they must learn to accept despite their popularity or desire to be in any position.

Like what the song says, nobody’s perfect but if we work hard to know the other person including ourselves, things can get better for more understanding and acceptance. And love.

We all got our own funny moods
I've got mine, I'll bet you woman, you got yours too
You better trust in me, like I trust in you
As long as we'll be together, it should be so easy to do

Just get yourself together
Or we might as well say goodbye
What good is a love affair
When you can't see eye to eye? Oh
If you don't know me by now (if you don't know me, baby)
You will never, never, never know me (no you won't) ooh
No you won't, no you won't, no you won't
If you don't know me by now (twenty long years, we've been together)
You will never, never, never know me ooh (oh)
If you don't know me by now
You will never, never, never know me (no you won't) ooh

We love the original but we find Simply Red Mick Hucknall’s version so moving, especially the live one from Sydney Opera House in 2010. Enjoy.

From Youtube.com

*Please, know your candidates tomorrow and vote wisely. Together let us build a better tomorrow for all of us despite our flaws and weaknesses.

“Pick Up the Pieces” by Average White Band (1974)

Lord My Chef Sunday Music by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, 20 April 2025
Photo by author, Atok, Benguet 27 December 2024.

Blessed happy Easter everyone!

We have long been planning to have this instrumental piece in our featured music every Sunday but it was only now we have realized this is most perfect during Easter when Jesus Christ in his Resurrection is telling us to “pick up the pieces” of life amid its many darkness and emptiness.

That is the grace and surprise of Easter: in Christ’s dying and rising to life, death has become a blessing to us all as we have come to share in his glorious resurrection too.

Despite that feeling of emptiness within and in our homes, of the irrevocable reality they are gone forever never to join us in our meals and bonding like Christmas, of never hearing their voices again nor be able to hug and embrace them can be shattering, the angel’s reminder to Mary Magdalene and companion women at the empty tomb echoes in our hearts too: “Why do you seek the living one among the dead? He is not here, but he has been raised. Remember what he said to you while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners and be crucified, and rise on the third day.” And they remembered his words (Luke 24:5-8). https://lordmychef.com/2025/04/20/easter-is-god-surprising-us/

Released in 1974 in the UK by a group of Scotsmen musicians who called themselves as Average White Band or AWB, “Pick Up the Pieces” did not perform well in the charts until it was released later in October that same year in the US where it stayed on the top singles in February 1975. According to the late Molly Duncan who was the band’s saxophonist, he had disagreed in releasing the song that had no lyrics only other than the shout “pick up the pieces.”

Moreover, the title spoke so well of their situation at that time when they were hardly noticed in the music scene, not making any money at all until it was released in the US where radio stations took notice of its funky beat’s good vibes. The single eventually became AWB’s turning point that is why the more we find it so appropriately Easter in nature.

We have been aware of the music itself in the 1970’s but it was only in 2010 when we found out its artists –AWB – after Daryl Hall guested AWB bassist-guitarist and co-founder Alan Gorrie in his internet show Live From Daryl’s House. It was a superb performance as usual by Daryl Hall and his musicians but of course, we always prefer the original. Here is AWB with their classic “Pick Up the Pieces” which we believe Jesus would also approve as part of his Easter soundtrack. Amen.

From YouTube.com.

“My Ever ChangingMoods” (1984) by the Style Council

Lord My Chef Sunday Music by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, 13 April 2025
Photo by author, Sacred Heart Novitiate, Novaliches, QC, 17 March 2025.

Today we begin the Holy Week with the celebration of Palm Sunday in the Lord’s Passion.

See how since the entry of Jesus to Jerusalem more than 2000 years ago, nothing much have really changed among us – we are still the same fickle-minded people who would sing “Hosanna in the highest” and later shout “crucify him! crucify him!”.

Everybody wants to become better, each one wishing for so many things without really realizing the good things we are hoping for are all right in front us if we could just open our eyes or listen more or perhaps have a change of heart to realize everyday is a Palm Sunday too for us when God comes right into us to fulfill us.

However, many times whether in our wishful thinking or future-looking and planning, it is highly probable that what we long for is already present to us.

As we begin the Holy Week with the celebration of Palm Sunday in the Lord’s Passion, we are reminded by the liturgy with its long readings how so often in life, we just need to see with different eyes, hear with different ears, expect with different hearts to find fulfillment, peace and joy.

The sad truth is that many times, we really do not know what we want and most of all, we also do not know what we are doing because we are so far from Jesus Christ. https://lordmychef.com/2025/04/12/when-we-do-not-know-what-we-are-doing/

The night before I wrote my homily yesterday, I was posting some reels in my Instagram account when one of the music I used was the Style Council’s 1984 hit “My Ever Changing Moods”. Composed by the group founder Paul Weller who shot to fame in the 1970’s as lead singer and guitarist of the British rock band The Jam, “My Ever Changing Moods” is the Style Council’s fifth single.

Aside from Weller’s superb vocals, “My Ever Changing Moods” is so remarkable in what shall we describe as “subtle intensity” – ang tindi ng dating as we say. Despite the message conveyed by its title, the song is heavy in meanings that can stir one’s soul with its light and easy poetry yet so penetrating. That is why we right away felt its direct link with Palm Sunday.

Daylight turns to moonlight and I'm at my best
Praising the way it all works, and gazing upon the rest, yeah
The cool before the warm, the calm after the storm
The cool before the warm, the calm after the storm

I wish to stay forever, letting this be my food
Oh, but I'm caught up in a whirlwind
And my ever changing moods, yeah

Many times in life, we forget that reality of how everything is like the weather that shifts and changes in a rhythmic pattern, “Daylight turns to moonlight…the cool before the warm, the calm after the storm.” The key is openness to these changes happening in us and around us.

Though Weller and critics claim of the song’s political undertones, we see something deeper, something spiritual that we find it so appropriate in this time as we enter the holiest days of the year. Notice these final four stanzas how they convey love and order, something so similar to Jesus Christ’s first words when crucified more than 2000 years ago, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do” (Lk.23:24).

Teardrops turn to children who've never had the time
To commit the sins they pay for through another's evil mind
The love after the hate, the love we leave too late
The love after the hate, the love we leave too late

I wish we'd wake up one day, an' everyone feel moved
Oh, but we're caught up in the dailies
And an ever changing mood, yeah

Evil turns to statues and masses form a line
But I know which way I'd run to, if the choice was mine
The past is knowledge, the present our mistake
And the future we always leave too late

I wish we'd come to our senses and see there is no truth
In those who promote the confusion
For this ever changing mood, yeah
Photo by author, Sacred Heart Novitiate, Novaliches, QC, 17 March 2025.

What do we really know at all that we continue to crucify Jesus today, nailing him on the cross with our many sins as we pretend and assume to know so many things in life?

To know in the Jewish mind is to have a relationship, an activity more of the heart than of the mind. To know is to love, to care. Therefore, when Jesus prayed to the Father to forgive them for they know not what they do is to forgive them because they refuse to love which is what sin is all about. And that is what we still do not know until now – to love, to care for one another that we keep on crucifying Jesus Christ.

Until now, we pretend to know a lot that some nations resort to wars while some blind followers insist on what they know as right while evading the truth with their fake news being spread to cover crimes and atrocities. Until now we pretend to know what we are doing that everyday everywhere is a road rage happening often costing lives senselessly because many insist on their rights. And the confusions and quarrels and deaths continue because we do not know what we are doing. Like Paul Weller, we pray to Jesus that we’d come to our senses and see there is no truth// In those who promote the confusion// For this ever changing mood, yeah.

For this piece, we chose the slow version on piano of Style Council’s “My Ever Changing Moods” to be more attuned with Palm Sunday; you may check their original music video which is equally excellent.

From YouTube.com

“I Don’t Know How to Love Him” (1971) by Yvonne Elliman

Lord My Chef Sunday Music by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, 06 April 2025

This is the second time we have featured Ms. Yvonne Elliman’s I Don’t Know How to Love Him in our Sunday Music at this time of the year when the Sunday gospel is about the woman caught committing adultery.

Every time that story comes up, my mind automatically links it with this song sang by Ms. Elliman in both the Broadway and movie versions of the rock-opera Jesus Christ, Superstar where she played the role as Mary Magdalene who was believed for a long time as the woman caught committing adultery. Modern biblical scholarships have long debunked that belief but that song by Andrew Lloyd Weber and Tim Rice plus Elliman’s amazing interpretation has given us with so many perspectives about the gospel itself.

One thing we realized this year is how we – like the woman caught committing adultery meet Jesus Christ face-to-face to experience his immense love and mercy and forgiveness.

We encounter Jesus when we disarm ourselves of our false securities and pretenses, masks and camouflages that all cover our sins. It is when we come face-to-face with our sinful self when we eventually meet Jesus face-to-face too because that is when we surrender in silence like the woman caught in adultery and the mob to some degree because all the charges against us are true.

See also that it is only the fourth gospel that Jesus is portrayed “bending” low – first here before the woman caught committing adultery and secondly at the washing of the feet of his Apostles at their Last Supper. How lovely is that sight to behold, dear friends! Imagine God bending before us, giving us like the sinful woman and the mob that space for us to confront our true self, to realize and accept the whole realities we are all interconnected in love.

Only the woman remained – like the eleven Apostles at the Last Supper – because she was the only one willing to change, probably sorrowful and contrite for her sins. Contrary to our fears, Jesus has only love and mercy, kindness and forgiveness to anyone contrite and sorrowful of one’s sin that so unlike with the people’s wrath and anger, judgment and condemnation. St. Augustine perfectly described that moment in today’s gospel, Relicti sunt duo; misera et miserecordia (Two were left; misery and mercy). https://lordmychef.com/2025/04/05/lent-is-encountering-jesus/

Now, look at the first two stanzas of I Don’t Know How to Love Him:

I don't know how to love him
What to do, how to move him
I've been changed, yes really changed
In these past few days
When I've seen myself
I seem like someone else

I don't know how to take this
I don't see why he moves me
He's a man
He's just a man
And I've had so many
Men before
In very many ways
He's just one more

See the conversion and transformation of the woman caught in adultery expressed by Ms. Elliman in the song: I’ve been changed, yes really changed/ In these past few days/ When I’ve seen myself/ I seem like someone else. It is one of the great ironies in life: when we are most vulnerable and weakest, that is when we are also most truest to our self, that is when we truly grow and mature in life!

And this was all possible because of the gift of love and mercy of Jesus Christ, of encountering the Lord and Savior Himself in our own brokenness which the song and the singer captured so perfectly, He’s just a man/ And I’ve had so many men before/ In very many ways/ He’s just one more.

How amazing that the lyrics and the rendition blended perfectly, making us realize how Jesus is just like any other man but not just another additional man; Jesus is MORE than any one because He is the only who truly loves us most, offering us forgiveness once we strip ourselves naked before Him of all our sins and pride and pretensions. God’s love in Jesus Christ is beyond imagining. This we have seen in the parable of the prodigal son and now in the story of the woman caught committing adultery. Do not let your past sins prevent you from meeting Jesus face-to-face to finally experience that inner peace and joy you have been missing and searching for so long.

We are now in the final Sunday in Lent, next week is Palm Sunday, the start of the Holy Week. We can never experience the joy of Easter unless we join Christ’s Passion of emptying ourselves of sins and pride to be filled with His humility, justice and love.

Here is the lovely Ms. Elliman with her superb singing of I Don’t Know How to Love Him, hoping this helps you prepare in this final week of Lent.

From YouTube.com.

“I Keep Forgettin’ (Everytime You’re Near)” by Michael McDonald

Lord My Chef Sunday Music by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, 30 March 2025
Photo by author, ceiling lights, Canyon Woods Resort, Batangas, 16 March 2025

Glad to be back dear friends with our Sunday music featuring secular music that echoes the good news of Jesus Christ. So excited with today’s feature because it is by one of our favorite musicians, Michael McDonald.

McDonald is that most unique voice in many of Steely Dan’s hits in the early 70’s where he got recognized, thus becoming the most sought partner of other great artists like Christopher Cross before settling with the Doobie Brothers with their signature song What A Fool Believes.

After leaving the Doobies in the early 80’s, McDonald came up with his first solo album called If That’s What It Takes from which came out our featured song I Keep Forgettin’ in 1982.

I keep forgettin' we're not in love anymore
I keep forgettin' things will never be the same again
I keep forgettin' how you made that so clear
I keep forgettin'

Everytime you're near
Everytime I see you smile
Hear your "hello"
Saying you can only stay a while

And I know that it's hard for you
To say the things that we both know are true
But tell me how come

While praying over our beautiful gospel this fourth Sunday in Lent (Laetare or Rejoice Sunday), I could hear McDonald singing this lovely song at the back of my mind that became the inspiration for our Sunday homily:

We do not tell God and our family and friends that we don’t love them but our walking away from them tells that so clearly. However, as we refuse to love when we sin, that is also when we deny the love right in our hearts, that we cannot stop loving because whatever we take after we have left are actually the very love of God and of our family and friends! 

There is nothing truly ours in this world and because of God’s Mystery, we never lose His gift of love within us that when things get worst in our lives, it is the same love that gives us the spark to hope and believe again. It was that love that the youngest son missed and realized despite all his dramas as he went home to his loving father just like us too (https://lordmychef.com/2025/03/29/mystery-of-god-mystery-of-sin/).

Can we really forget or delete permanently a love that is especially so true, so great? In the parable of the prodigal son heard in churches this Sunday, Jesus reminds us that every time we sin – that is, when we refuse to love – we deny His very love in our hearts that remains there, only to be recognized or rediscovered by us when we are down like the prodigal son. That love of God we keep denying eventually is the very same love that gives us the spark to hope and believe again when we realized the foolishness we have done with our sins.

In this song by McDonald, we are reminded too of the same truth: we cannot forget nor deny the love we have especially to a beloved sweetheart even if things do not turn out well, when we part ways because our relationship wouldn’t work. The love remains there, is it not? Most often, we simply mature in our perceptions and relationships and yes, love because that love remains there.

How much more with God’s love?

Now, imagine Jesus Chris singing this McDonald hit?

And yes, that’s how He feels for us: God “keeps forgettin’ we’re not in love anymore” when we sin and yet, He keeps blessing us. Because, God simply loves us so much that even if we refuse to love Him, He still loves us, waiting for us to return to him like the loving father in the parable of the prodigal son.

That is why – rightly – the Doobies got another hit called Jesus Is Alright With Me but that’s for another piece perhaps this Holy Week.

Here now is Michael McDonald in his first solo hit, I Keep Forgettin’…. have a blessed, rockin’ week ahead, everyone.

From YouTube.com

The Prophet Isaiah and Tears for Fears

40 Shades of Lent by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, 07 March 2025
Photo from nationalshrine.org of Prophet Isaiah at the crypt church inside the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington DC.

While praying last night the first reading this Friday after Ash Wednesday, my attention was drawn to the Prophet Isaiah’s very strong words declaring, Thus says the Lord God: Cry out full-throated and unsparingly, lift up your voice like a trumpet blast; tell my people their wickedness, and the house of Jacob their sins” (Is. 58:1-9).

Immediately my imaginations ran high with images of Formula cars racing full-throttle on tracks with their deafening sound waxed by the odorous burning of their tires that segued into the cool, opening synth music later with drums and bass of Tears of Fears’ 1984 hit Shout.

Whoa! It was really a rock and roll moment with the Lord last night that was suddenly punctuated with an emergency sick call in the ICU of our hospital where I serve as chaplain. After half an hour when I got back in my room, I finished my prayer and listened to more music by Tears for Fears that I realized Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith are modern Isaiahs!

But first, the Prophet Isaiah who is one of the four major prophets of the Old Testament.

Photo from nationalshrine.org of Prophet Isaiah at the south entrance of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington DC.

While in third year high school seminary in the early 80’s, our religion teacher Msgr. Narsing Sampana assigned me to report this great prophet. I thought it was a punishment because the Book of Isaiah is one of the longest and most difficult in the whole Bible. But looking back as I would always tell Msgr. Narsing, I learned a lot from him that after nine years of leaving the seminary, I have always loved Prophet Isaiah and his book that eventually helped me rediscovered my priestly vocation later in life.

It was Isaiah who prophesied the birth of the Messiah by the Blessed Virgin that he is widely read during the Advent Season as he warned the people too of the coming judgment of God for their sins; hence, his frequent reading in this season of Lent.

It was from his book that the lyrics were taken in one of the most loved Filipino Church music Hindi Kita Malilimutan by Jesuit Father Manoling Francisco that came out on the year we graduated in high school, 1982.

Isaiah was a very bold prophet who spoke strongly against evil and sins particularly injustice among the Israelites of his time, including of their king. He minced no words in speaking for God like today when he said “Cry out full-throated” which is to express confidently through shouting, with strong feeling and without limits.

That was Isaiah, a bold speaker yet also spoke with words filled with hope in God’s love and mercy on us. He is the kind of witness we need these days when many Christians especially Catholics disturbingly quiet about the many issues going on like wokism pretending to be for equality and justice through the social media.

Photo by Denniz Futalan on Pexels.com

In the Church, we need an Isaiah with some bishops and priests selectively silent in disciplining the clergy so immersed in abuses not only sexual in nature but also pertaining to finances and even our liturgy. How sad when bishops and priests attack government officials and politicians for their corruption but keep their eyes and mouth shut with clerical abuses in all forms. These rampant abuses within the Church is manifested in the ever growing abuses of the liturgy itself. Check your social media feeds to see how some priests contradicted the very spirit of Lent with their pompous novelties in imposing ashes on the faithful two days ago. No wonder, even those in other sects and cults came out in the streets with their “own” kind of Ash Wednesday rituals as if it is kanya-kanya lang style like what some priests did.

An Isaiah is what we really need in the Church in this time of synodality that sadly this early could end up as another set of documents to gather dust in parish bodegas.

Photo from bbc.com 2022 before the release of Tears for Fears “The Tipping Point”, their first since 2004.

This is where we find the enduring duo of Orzabal and Smith who make up Tears for Fears a modern Isaiah with their prophetic songs.

With everybody wanting to rule the world – pun intended – their Shout is so Lenten in nature. It is exactly what Isaiah meant 2800 years ago when he said “cry out full-throated” that Tears for Fears perfectly first sang in 1984:

Shout
Shout
Let it all out
These are the things I can do without
Come on
I'm talking to you
Come on

Shout
Shout
Let it all out
These are the things I can do without
Come on
I'm talking to you
Come on

In violent times
You shouldn't have to sell your soul
In black and white
They really, really ought to know

Those one track minds
That took you for a working boy
Kiss them goodbye
You shouldn't have to jump for joy
You shouldn't have to jump for joy

Shout
Shout
Let it all out
These are the things I can do without
Come on
I'm talking to you
Come on

They gave you life
And in return you gave them hell
As cold as ice
I hope we live to tell the tale
I hope we live to tell the tale
From imdb.com.

From their second album Songs from the Big Chair, Shout is Tears for Fears second biggest hit after Everybody Wants to Rule the World released in 1985. Orzabal admitted on many occasions that Shout was a “simple song about protest”.

Their lyrics are clearly prophetic, a witnessing of their very lives since the 80’s until now. We are so glad that Tears for Fears have rereleased Shout recently with both of them still having the energy and conviction in playing this song despite their shorter and white hair. Being prophetic is witnessing or walking our talk like Orzabal and Smith. Like a good wine, they sound better in their latest music videos with their song taking a life of its own that gladly many young people have embraced too like us 40 years ago.

Let us join Tears for Fears shouting and standing for the same calls for justice they first shouted in 1984 that was also shouted full-throated by Isaiah in 800 BC. Have a blessed weekend, everyone!

Here’s Tears for Fears original music video for Shout for your rock and roll reflection this first Friday of Lent 2025.

From YouTube.com.

“Stand by Me” by Ben E. King (1962)

The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Music by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, 26 January 2025
Photo of the cast of the 1986 film “Stand By Me” from goldenglobes.com.

Glad to be back with our Sunday music after six months of absence! Hope you are doing well as we keep our good old music playing.

We cannot resist linking Ben E. King’s 1962 classic Stand By Me with our Sunday gospel about Jesus “standing” at the synagogue one sabbath day to proclaim the Sacred Scripture to his town folks in Nazareth. I have known the song all along having grown with old music at home but fell in love with it only in 1986 when it was adapted as the title of a coming-of-age movie called Stand By Me.

The song’s lyrics perfectly blended with the story of the movie based on Stephen King’s novella The Body, of how four teenagers in Oregon went on a hike to find the dead body of a missing boy. Though the song played only at the end of the movie as the main character closed his narration of what happened after to their friendship as young boys standing by each other, their hike was filled with so many misadventures and realizations that underscored the noble aspirations for fidelity and truth, love and care as well as importance of family we find exactly in the beautiful lyrics by King which is about his standing by his beloved.

When the night has come
And the land is dark
And the moon is the only light we'll see
No, I won't be afraid
Oh, I won't be afraid
Just as long as you stand
Stand by me

So darlin', darlin', stand by me
Oh, stand by me
Oh, stand
Stand by me, stand by me

If the sky that we look upon
Should tumble and fall
Or the mountain should crumble to the sea
I won't cry, I won't cry
No, I won't shed a tear
Just as long as you stand
Stand by me

And darlin', darlin', stand by me
Oh, stand by me
Oh, stand now
Stand by me, stand by me

And darlin', darlin', stand by me
Oh, stand by me
Oh, stand now
Stand by me, stand by me

Whenever you're in trouble won't you stand by me
Oh, stand by me
Won't you stand by

We remembered the song Stand By Me while praying over this Sunday’s homily as we focused on Jesus always standing for what is true and good, what is just and fair and most especially, for His standing for each one of us always despite our weaknesses and sins. That is why we said in our homily that what matters most in life is not where we sit but where we stand (https://lordmychef.com/2025/01/25/standing-with-jesus-standing-like-jesus/).

As we go on a rest this Sunday, let us recall and remember our family and friends we have stood by all these years as well as those who stood by our side too while praying for those who have left us or betrayed us including those we have deserted too. Through all these standing and falling, there is always Jesus remaining, always standing by our side because He loves us, giving us all the chances to rise and stand again for Him and with Him through our family and friends. Have a blessed Sunday!

From YouTube.com, no copyright infringements intended except to enjoy good music.

Job, St. Francis of Assisi, and… Pocahontas

The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Friday, Memorial of St. Francis of Assisi, 04 October 2024
Job 38:1, 12-21; 40:3-5     <*{{{{><  +  ><}}}}*>     Luke 10:13-16
Photo by Fr. Bien Miguel, Diocese of Antipolo, 25 September 2024.

This is actually a rejoinder to our prayer earlier published today on the Memorial of St. Francis of Assisi. And how I love the first reading today, of God’s “speech” to Job’s lamentations that remind us all of the wonder and majesty of creation St. Francis of Assisi highly regarded in his life and teachings.

The Lord addressed Job out of the storm and said: “Have you ever in your lifetime commanded the morning and shown the dawn its place for taking hold of the ends of the earth, till the wicked are shaken from its surface? Have you entered into the sources of the sea, or walked about in the depths of the abyss? have the gates of death been shown to you, or have you seen the gates of darkness? Have you comprehended the breadth of the earth? Tell me, if you know all” (Job 38:1, 12-13, 16-18).

How interesting too these words written about 2700 years ago in the Middle East are echoed in our own time in theme song of the Disney movie Pocahontas, “The Color of the Wind”:

Have you ever heard the wolf cry to the blue corn moon
Or asked the grinning bobcat why he grinned?
Can you sing with all the voices of the mountain?
Can you paint with all the colors of the wind?
Can you paint with all the colors of the wind?
Photo by author, Sacred Heart Novitiate, Novaliches, QC, 20 March 2024.

Like Job, who was a fictional character, Pocahontas went through a lot of great sufferings beyond explanations which is the aim of the authors of the Book of Job – to reflect on the mystery of human sufferings and misery amid a loving God.

It is easy to understand our sufferings in life when we are the ones who have caused them like making wrong choices and decisions or simply not exerting enough efforts to our endeavors or projects.

The most painful sufferings that are really bothersome are those we feel “undeserved” at all like getting a rare cancer and disease, being offended by someone close to us despite our being good to them, or like Pocahontas who was then living in peace and quiet until the English colonizers came to America who kidnapped and gang raped her.

I have never seen that Disney movie Pocahontas that is loosely based on the life of a native American Indian woman Pocahontas whose actual name was Matoaka; she was the daughter of the Chief of the Powhatan tribe in Chesapeake, Virginia during the early 1600’s.

According to historians, there was really no romance at all between Pocahontas and the British colonizer Captain John Smith as portrayed in the Disney movie. After getting pregnant from that gangrape, Pocahontas was forced to marry the English explorer John Rolfe as a condition for her release that only made her life filled with great sufferings and humiliations until her death.

Though a work of fiction but a fruit of prayerful reflections about life’s realities unlike the Disney movie Pocahontas, Job suffered severely when he lost his children, properties and livestock in a single day. Worst of all, he was stricken with a rare disease and left to the care of a “nagging” wife and three friends who wanted him to curse God or admit his guilt for a sin for which God was punishing him.

But Job’s conscience was clear, remaining faithful to God throughout all his sufferings. His complaints and cries were actually a voicing out of his inner pains to God, an expression of his trust in Him, “But as for me, I know that my Vindicator lives, and that he will at last stand forth upon the dust… And from my flesh I shall see God; my inmost being is consumed with longing” (Job 19:25, 27).

Job like us today was not seeking any answer nor explanation at all for his sufferings; he cries to God like us because we believe only God can save us. We do not cry or air our pains to someone we do not trust or believe in; the same is true why we cry and complain to God!

God’s response to Job’s laments remind us today of the need for us to see the whole picture we are into in this vast universe, of how everyone and everything is interconnected in God through His own Son Jesus Christ.

Notice how the author structured the speech of God of seeming opposites in life: commanding the morning and being shown the dawn in verse 12; sources of the sea and depths of the abyss in verse 16; and, gates of death and gates of darkness in verse 17. Jewish thought at that time was so structured that they saw everything distinctly different like morning and dawn, sea and abyss, death and darkness. That explains why they were so strict with the letters of the law that they eventually forgot the primacy of the human person which Jesus tried to emphasized to them in His teachings and healings. Jesus came to show us how everything and everyone in this whole creation is linked together, interrelated in God through Him.

This He did when He died on the Cross.

Photo by Fr. Gerry Pascual of the fresco at the Assisi Basilica, Italy, 2019.

It is sad that St. Francis of Assisi is often “romanticized” by many nature lovers even by some “new agers” for his love for nature and animals. More than sentimental reasons, St. Francis’ love and concern for nature and animals were all the result of his deep love and devotion to Jesus Christ crucified found daily in the celebration of the Holy Eucharist.

St. Francis realized and experienced the interconnectedness of everything and everyone in his own sufferings and pains in life he humbly embraced and accepted as we see in that verse we pray at every Station of the Cross he had composed:

V. We adore You, O Lord Jesus Christ, and we bless you. R. Because by Your holy Cross, You have redeemed the world.

For his love for the Cross and his own sufferings, Jesus blessed St. Francis with the stigmata, His five wounds at His crucifixion.

Photo by Fr. Gerry Pascual, Sculpture of the young St. Francis in Assisi, Italy, 2019.

After receiving those wounds, St. Francis was blinded as he went through severe sufferings after going through well-intentioned surgeries that went so bad. He was in his 40’s at that time and despite his great sufferings, it was during that period when he produced so many great writings we all cherish until now, notably the Canticle of the Sun where we find his famous expressions “brother sun, sister moon, and cousin death” – the very same things God expressed to Job in that speech out of the storm in our first reading today that is echoed by Disney’s Pocahontas in the theme “The Color of the Wind”.

But unlike that Disney movie that sugarcoats life’s realities of sufferings and pains, both Job and St. Francis of Assisi remind us today that the more we embrace our pains and sufferings in life like them, the more we see life’s wholeness, our oneness in God and the rest of His creations when seen in the light of the Cross of Jesus Christ.

When we see this oneness and interconnectedness in life, that is when we actually grow and mature, become fruitful as we find fulfillment in life despite the difficulties and pains we go through. Have a blessed weekend everyone! Happy feast day too to our Franciscan brothers and sisters!

From YouTube.com.