This isn't an epitaph. But I'm also writing as if it might be one someday soon.
As I was finishing up writing yesterday's post, I was reminded of the reason my once-former band, Ring Shout, started getting together again: our drummer, Mark, unexpectedly passed away in February, and although we've been a few years removed from COVID and the associated shutdowns, the bands never quite coalesced the same. I know my "excuse": I met my love right before COVID took over the country, and part of us getting serious about someday being married is that I had to change my priorities. My career needed to change (it was already underway), but I needed to build toward something greater. That required going back to school, which I did until other interruptions came along.
So, my band days were over. But, even with that, Ring Shout & Friends never quite re-formed. A new band, made up of a good chunk of Ring Shout & Friends "alums" started playing again (I think) sometime in 2021. Although I was asked about participating, I declined and instead gave my blessing for them to plug in another keyboardist in my place. But that band was more of a cover band, and from what I understand, their mission was to perform more at, let's say, politically-themed events. Yeah, I would have been out nonetheless if I hadn't already been proactive in stepping away to focus on building a new career and what was at the time a new blossoming relationship.
Just about all of the members from Ring Shout (now with the "& Friends" extension dropped) as well as this offshoot cover band attended Mark's funeral. It was indeed a catching up, and in some sense a realization of what was lost with his passing. Ironically, Mark was one of the other people not included in this cover band, but unlike me, it doesn't sound like they even invited him to participate. But he still jammed occasionally with other members of our community of musicians and was otherwise still active on the music scene with his other groups up until the time of his passing.
But the dinner after the funeral service was only one of two reasons Ring Shout (minus the "& Friends" extension) started getting together to jam on old tunes. The other was that the offshoot band started falling apart, due to apparently more reasons than I realize, but primarily (I think) because it was also revealed at the funeral that the ringleader who organized it had fallen ill. He's been diagnosed with Stage 4 prostate cancer. He fell ill sometime last summer, and as of February he was already on the upswing. But as the few of us who had gathered in May to rehearse were packing up for the night, one of the guys informed the rest of us that "around now" he was set to undergo either surgery or another round of intensive chemo therapy. Or both.
Because he's still alive as of this post, I don't feel right sharing his real name. So I'm calling him "Guitar Hero," because that moniker perfectly fits his band persona. He is what I would call a "virtuoso guitarist" but he also has the "rizz" (borrowing a Gen Z term!) to fit said moniker.
Sadly, "Guitar Hero" was one of the individuals on a short list of people back in 2019 that I realized I needed to remove from my life. (As such, meeting my love and going through the COVID era with the accompanying shutdowns provided the perfect cover for me to remove him and a few others from my life.) The short version is, he falls under the category of what Apostle Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 15:33 [Do not be misled: “Bad company corrupts good character.” (NIV)].
The longer version includes the knowledge that I believe his musical inspiration is demonic and that he actually has served the devil in his life. At a house party gig rehearsal in May 2019 he shared how a demon waking him up early one morning to tell him that he (the demon) was going to play "lucky games" with him that day inspired him to write a song with that as the title. Then we were spared from playing a different song (I believe that he had composed) at a gig that December because one of the other singers had caught a cold and declined to sing. That song's lyrics basically were from the perspective of the devil punishing someone "for their own good." I freaked out in rehearsal when this was added to the set list (it was introduced last-minute, at the last rehearsal, in fact), and relieved when it turned out we weren't going to do it at the gig.
The thing is, I had been deceived about Guitar Hero almost the entire time he and I had performed in bands together. When we first met some years prior, he was akin to the happy-go-lucky kid who just wanted to jump around, jam, and perform. At our very first gig together (a very loosey-goosey coffeeshop event where the crowd was essentially made of family and friends of the bandmembers) I started playing the intro to The Who's "Baba O'Riley" as a joke in between songs (I heard this song every day in homeroom my senior year in high school, so I basically had it memorized). Right as I was about to stop, he and the other bandmembers jumped in, and we played the song. It was fun.
But that happy-go-lucky dude gradually turned into a sort of manipulative control freak, and I didn't notice a thing until 2018 when Guitar Hero abruptly pulled out of a gig (another coffeeshop event that had multiple moving parts and desperately needed his participation to put it all together). I remember seeing the email where he stated as such. Whatever the issues were, I could tell he was ticked even before opening it to read. After multiple fruitless reaching-out attempts by another bandmember and I, we did the gig but completely lost trust in the guy. The reasons he had given for being upset and pulling out were completely bogus, and to additionally refuse to be available for further discussion really threw me off. I did forgive him, although it took some time.
But it was during this forgiveness process (and after I had completely forgiven him) that God revealed to me the truth about Guitar Hero: he was not only not "just on the cusp of salvation" (he clearly knew about Jesus Christ, and he believed in recovery and worked for several different organizations that had recovery and healing programs) but rather he was instead in outright rebellion against Him. All that "compassionate care" that he preached and appeared to practice turned out to be a lie in a lot of ways. The other bandmember who had gotten burned by Guitar Hero along with me in 2018 still didn't see it, and he inexplicably chose to trust him again after the initial heartbreak and betrayal pain had worn off.
Nonetheless, I was shocked in February when I found out Guitar Hero had been diagnosed with cancer, and that it was already at Stage 4. Even as I'm writing this, I'm still coming to grips with the very real possibility that he may not be long for this world. It's one thing to have boundaries and decide not to ever perform with him in any gig where original music is involved (which is what I've since decided). It's quite another when life and death are involved. He needs Jesus, and he needs to know that, contrary to what he's been taught, and contrary to what he's believed his entire adult life (and perhaps childhood as well), Jesus Christ still loves him and is willing to forgive everything, if he would only receive Him as Savior and put his trust in Him as the Lord of his life.
The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. 2 Peter 3:9, NIV
In October I believe I was handed a new (of sorts) job by God: to open people's hearts to Jesus. That may include Guitar Hero, and it may also include the other bandmembers mentioned in the previous post, including the one who slammed all "white Christian nationalists" for wanting to have more babies (I'm actually not offended at his comment; my reaction is more of a "scratching my head" / "shaking my head"). I haven't really had a whole lot of opportunities to pray / ask God about what He wants to with my life after marriage, but there's a good chance that the things that are in play now, even ahead of the wedding, will play a role in what is to come and/or be revealed.
Still, I cannot trust myself. I still try to, and it's terrible. I need God to do the work He wants, and for Him to have His way, and I still have a lot of work to do on just that alone.
The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? “I the Lord search the heart and examine the mind, to reward each person according to their conduct, according to what their deeds deserve.” Jeremiah 17:9-10, NIV
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