Jesus Manifesto: Remembering Rich Mullins

I'm a little late in remembering Rich Mullins, whose death was 10 years ago last month. I was in the car on my way to Grace Covenant Church in Clay, NY to do a school of evangelism when I heard the news that Rich Mullins died. I remember having a hard time focusing and keeping it together during the class that evening. We saw Rich in concert 3 times. His music spoke to my soul. I never knew him but felt like we were friends and kindred spirits. He was never a good evangelical. Neither am I. Even within the past few weeks I've thought of his lyrics as I watched believers from a variety of churches work together to serve Jesus: And if I were a painter I do not know which I'd paint The calling of the ancient stars or assembling of the saints And there's so much beauty around us for just two eyes to see But everywhere I go I'm looking Relevant Magazine tribute. Here In America Rich Mullins Genesis 13:17 Saints and children we have gathered here to hear the sacred story And I'm glad to bring it to you with my best rhyming and rhythm 'Cause I know the thirsty listen and down to the waters come And the Holy King of Israel loves me here in America And if you listen to my songs I hope you hear the water falling I hope you feel the oceans crashing on the coast of north New England I wish I could be there just to see them, two summers past I was And the Holy King of Israel loves me here in America And if I were a painter I do not know which I'd paint The calling of the ancient stars or assembling of the saints And there's so much beauty around us for just two eyes to see But everywhere I go I'm looking And once I went to Appalachia for my father he was born there And I saw the mountains waking with the innocence of children And my soul is still there with them wrapped in the songs they brought And the Holy King of Israel loves me here in America And I've seen by the highways on a million exit ramps Those two-legged memorials to the laws of happenstance Waiting for four-wheeled messiahs to take them home again But I am home anywhere if You are where I am And if you listen to my songs I hope you hear the water falling I hope you feel the oceans crashing on the coast of north New England I wish I could be there just to see them, two summers past I was And the Holy King of Israel loves me here in America Land of My Sojourn Rich Mullins and Beaker Joshua 2:1-24, Psalm 137:1-6, First Peter 1:17 And the coal trucks come a-runnin' With their bellies full of coal And their big wheels a-hummin' Down this road that lies open like the soul of a woman Who hid the spies who were lookin' For the land of the milk and the honey And this road she is a woman She was made from a rib Cut from the sides of these mountains Oh these great sleeping Adams Who are lonely even here in paradise Lonely for somebody to kiss them and I'll sing my song, and I'll sing my song In the land of my sojourn And the lady in the harbor She still holds her torch out To those huddled masses who are Yearning for a freedom that still eludes them The immigrant's children see their brightest dreams shattered Here on the New Jersey shoreline in the Greed and the glitter of those high-tech casinos But some mendicants wander off into a cathedral And they stoop in the silence And there their prayers are still whispered And I'll sing their song, and I'll sing their song In the land of my sojourn Nobody tells you when you get born here How much you'll come to love it And how you'll never belong here So I call you my country And I'll be lonely for my home And I wish that I could take you there with me And down the brown brick spine of some dirty blind alley All those drain pipes are drippin' out the last Sons Of Thunder While off in the distance the smoke stacks Were belching back this city's best answer And the countryside was pocked With all of those mail pouch posters Thrown up on the rotting sideboards of These rundown stables like the one that Christ was born in When the old world started dying And the new world started coming on And I'll sing His song, and I'll sing His song In the land of my sojourn In the land of my sojourn And I will sing His song In the land of my sojourn