On Jul 16, 2009, at 2:05 PM, steve phillips asked:

Hi Barry,
When I became a Christian back in the 70′s someone gave me a tape of some of your Christian music and it came to mean so much to me. Just today I listened to a song of yours in which you said, ” I’m not gonna sing about anyone but Jesus.” I am curious to know how your relationship with Christ is today after all these years.

On Jul 16, 2009 at 4.41 PM, barry mcguire answered:

Hi Steve,

Rather than write an epilogue of my adventures in Christ, let me just say that we have discovered in the act of total surrender to reality, (The Truth) itself, that the journey (The Way) itself, IS the goal (Christ/The Life) itself. We have never known such peace, such assurance, we have never been filled with such expectancy, such hope, such knowing, that Christ IS living WITHIN every heart. The question is not, “Is Christ (The Life) IN us?” The question is, “Are WE IN HIM?”

Love you heaps my friend,

Barry

The Identity of Love:
Poem By: Brennon McGuire © 2008-Christmas Poem

Love has had its way
Ways with how broken sounds
How pain can sing
Loves truest song

-Love knows not
So, Love, knows all
As all come to not
Yet Love makes time for times scale

-Love knows dirt, feces, AIDS, and, Death
Love pushes all sentient to the brink of insanity
Love allows for the war of freedom
Love is no kind friend my friend, rather Love is an enemy

-Like the bitter taste of a broad spectrum anti-biotic
For, look! Babies are born only to blow candles out
Until, candles, take all of its breath, blown, until there is no more life to blow out
Love has always said though, to mourn at ones birth, to rejoice at ones death
-
Love knows not wakeful friends
For they, as we, the semi-conscious, can’t form even one cohesive sentence
For they, as we, are distracted with dreams, visions, Hollywood’s non-linear vintage
We are like old paintings, fitting awkwardly, as Love gazes onward

Love is not on our page
We are in Loves memory
As Love is known to re-write
Love has also been known to tear, rip, erase, even burn, when at ends with non

-Perhaps this is why Love likes to listen to a baby’s breath
To remember the time when Love was all there was
Perhaps to know the weakness of bitterness
For Love is a vice unto itself, no pomp, no pretense, no make-up, no, no’s All is yes
-
-So, watch, as, Love fly’s to the storms, off Africa’s coast
Where flies breed in open sores
Where fashion is the smell of death
Where the look of stick figures are without powder compacts

-This is Love
Perhaps not, or, ever-divine
Perhaps never a graceful being of mortal rules
Perhaps, that is the point, where we, all-ways let free to flight, as three is our Love

-One man, like one bird
One woman, like one nest
And, finally, the third, One death, One Love, and…
One friend, found of two, a tree, named three loving the sum of two.

I just received this email from a friend and it touched my heart so deeply, I had to post it for you all to read.

THE CAB RIDE

*Twenty years ago, I drove a cab for a living. *One night I took a fare at 2:30 am, when I arrived to collect, the building was dark except for a single light in a ground floor window. Under these circumstances, many drivers would just honk once. But I had seen too many impoverished people who depended on taxis as their only means of transportation. Unless a situation smelled of danger, I always went to the door. This passenger might be someone who needs my assistance, I reasoned to myself. So I walked to the door and knocked. ‘Just a minute’, answered a frail, elderly voice. I could hear something being dragged across the floor.

After a long pause, the door opened. A small woman in her 80′s stood before me. She was wearing a print dress and a pill box hat with a veil pinned on it, like somebody out of a 1940′s movie. By her side was a small nylon suitcase The apartment looked as if no one had lived in it for years. All the furniture was covered with sheets. There were no clocks on the walls, nor any knickknacks or utensils on the counters. In the corner was a cardboard box filled with photos and glassware. ‘Would you carry my bag out to the car?’ she said. I took the suitcase to the cab, and then returned to assist the woman.

She took my arm and we walked slowly toward the curb. She kept thanking me for my kindness. ‘It’s nothing’, I told her. ‘I just try to treat my passengers the way I would want my mother treated’. ‘Oh, you’re such a good boy’, she said. When we got in the cab, she gave me an address, and then asked, ‘Could you drive through downtown?’ ‘It’s not the shortest way,’ I answered quickly. ‘Oh, I don’t mind,’ she said ‘I’m in no hurry. I’m on my way to a hospice’. I looked in the rear-view mirror. Her eyes were glistening. ‘I don’t have any family left,’ she continued. ‘The doctor says I don’t have very long.’ I quietly reached over and shut off the meter. ‘What route would you like me to take?’ I asked.

For the next two hours, we drove through the city. She showed me the building where she had once worked as an elevator operator. We drove through the neighborhood where she and her husband had lived when they were newlyweds. She had me pull up in front of a furniture warehouse that had once been a ballroom where she had gone dancing as a girl. Sometimes she’d ask me to slow in front of a particular building or corner and would sit staring into the darkness, saying nothing.

As the first hint of sun was creasing the horizon, she suddenly said, ‘I’tired. Let’s go now’ We drove in silence to the address she had given me. It was a low building, like a small convalescent home, with a driveway that passed under a portico. Two orderlies came out to the cab as soon as we pulled up. They were solicitous and intent, watching her every move. They must have been expecting her. I opened the trunk and took the small suitcase to the door. The woman was already seated in a wheelchair.

‘How much do I owe you?’ she asked, reaching into her purse. ‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘You have to make a living,’ she answered. ‘There are other passengers,’ I responded. Almost without thinking, I bent and gave her a hug. She held onto me tightly. ‘You gave an old woman a little moment of joy,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’ I squeezed her hand, and then walked into the dim morning light. Behind me, a door shut. It was the sound of the closing of a life.

I didn’t pick up any more passengers that shift. I drove aimlessly lost in thought. For the rest of that day, I could hardly talk. What if that woman had gotten an angry driver, or one who was impatient to end his shift? What if I had refused to take the run, or had honked once, then driven away? On a quick review, I don’t think that I have done anything more important in my life.

We’re conditioned to think that our lives revolve around great moments. But great moments often catch us unaware-beautifully wrapped in what others may consider a small one. PEOPLE MAY NOT REMEMBER EXACTLY WHAT ‘YOU DID, OR WHAT YOU SAID, ~BUT~ THEY WILL ALWAYS REMEMBER HOW YOU MADE THEM FEEL. Life may not be the party we hoped for, but while we are here we might as well dance.

Gidday mates,

Just received this on my incoming email and thought it so important, I wanted to blog it for all to read. So have a look at what John Fischer has written and I have a few thoughts to follow it up.

CATCH OF THE DAY

Love like Jesus

by John Fischer

I opened a newsletter this morning from my good friend Robbie Goldman who heads up Dry Bones, a ministry to homeless teenagers in downtown Denver, and found a sobering conclusion to our discussions this week about Christians leading with the hellfire and brimstone message. The lead story is all about Robbie and his staff’s shock and awe over the behavior of Christian protesters at the Democratic National Convention in Denver earlier this summer where signs like “Ask me why YOU deserve HELL,” and “WARNING: Baby Killing Women, Party Animals, Rebellious Women, So Called Christians, Liberals, Jesus Mockers, Porno Freaks, Muslims, Drunks, Homosexuals, Sex Addicts, Mormons… GOD WILL JUDGE YOU!” greeted them along with insults hurled from the holders of those signs, as in “Can you even read?” and “What planet are you from?”

“We watched the spectacle with a growing sense of despair and sadness,” Robbie wrote. “I was sick to my stomach. The scene was one of the single most heartbreaking experiences of my life.”

Examples like this may be extreme cases of misrepresenting Christ, but harboring even the slightest attitude of judgment or hatred is only a matter of being a few degrees away from this. It’s headed in the same direction. To the degree that we let any of these feelings take hold, we might as well be a sign-holding screamer of insulting epithets.

“I walked away with my co-workers; some of us were crying. Others like me simply walked in silent shock. Above all the emotions – sadness, anger, shame – I felt something else that had a stronger pull. I was motivated and rejuvenated. More than ever I was convinced of my job, and your job, to love. We must re-define Christianity to a watching world.

“What if we became a group of people known for the way we love homosexuals? What if we became a group of people known for coming alongside those struggling with addictions? What if we became a group of people known for the way we embrace people of other religions and backgrounds? What if we became a group of people known for the way we love women who have had, or are thinking about having abortions? What if instead of calling these women murderers, we told them how much they and their children are worth? What if we decided right now, today, to adopt would-be-aborted babies? We tell young women not to have abortions, but are we willing to give them another option?”

Robbie concluded with, “I am convinced that when we love like Jesus, we are slowly but surely helping to prepare someone’s heart for God to do His work. Love well, brothers and sisters. Re-define Christ for the people in your life with love and see what happens.”

And I can’t help but think that whoever carried that sign about the Baby Killers and Porno Freaks is in for a big surprise when he is eventually welcomed into heaven by all the people his sign condemned. There will be tears.

[For more on this subject, see: "The Separation of Church and Hate: Finding the Way to Real Cultural Change" and more of my related articles for Breakpoint.org at http://www.breakpoint.org/listings.aspid=159&display=Display+by+Author&authorId=1436]

[For more on Dry Bones, see www.drybonesdenver.org]

BARRY’S COMMENTS :

My Comments are just my personal thoughts, and with additional information, my world view changes from day to day. The truth of it is, we can know 99% about all there is to know, but the 1% we don’t know will totally change our understanding of the 99% that we did know……”His mercies are new every morning as our Spirit is renewed daily.” I’m not the same person today that I was yesterday, and I’ll not be the same person tomorrow that I am today. As we die to ourselves daily, we are moment by moment transformed into the image of Christ, and we can say like Paul, “It is no longer I that live, but Christ that lives in me,” as we will have become ONE with Him.

We know that Christ died for ALL of mankind. His blood has purchased the forgiveness of every sin committed by every sinner. The tragedy is, so few people know they have been forgiven, and how will they ever experience this forgiveness if they see and hear only hatred and judgement streaming from our eyes and lips. It doesn’t matter how much scripture we can recite or what comes out of our mouths, if people can’t see Christ in our eyes, everything else has the sound of clanging brass.

Since Christ has established forgiveness for all, how dare we judge anyone whom Christ gave His life to forgive. Our only mandate is to love one another, and to do good to those who do not yet understand they are forgiven.

Barry

Every sixty seconds we spend angry, upset or mad, is a full minute of happiness we’ll never get back SO Forgive quickly, Kiss slowly, Love truly, Laugh uncontrollably, And never regret anything that made you smile.

Life may not be the party we hoped for, but while we’re here we should dance.

Well, we all see things differently don’t we. I mean, if you had a thousand people holding hands in a big circle, put an elephant down in the middle of them, and asked them to describe what they were seeing, they’d give you a thousand different descriptions of the elephant. In fact, our left eye even sees things differently than our right eye – that’s why we have two of them, to give us depth perception.

Eighteen months ago I had never heard of the name Obama. I know nothing about the man. He just seems to have popped up out of the political quagmire. I believe NOTHING that comes out of Washington. Democrats/Republicans – flip sides of the same coin, and the whole political system is broken and very possibly unfixable. To me, the President of the United States is nothing more than a hood ornament on an automobile. Every four years the entire nation is caught up in this great “dog and pony” show or should I say “elephant and donkey” show, and are totally distracted from the true forces that are driving this international society. I could go on and on, but suffice it to say, no, I won’t be voting either for Obama or McCain. My wife is voting for McCain as she says she has to vote her conscience, but living here in California, I think the whole state is going to go for Obama anyway, so it doesn’t matter.

My interest is not in the hood ornament, but in the person behind the wheel, and none of us “plebs” have a clue who that is. We just watched a series on television called Rome. It was like watching our modern politicians not caring how many have to die, telling whatever lies they feel will get them the most votes, so I have to declare myself a-political! From my perspective the answer lies within the human heart – problem is most of us human beings find out heads to be no longer connected to our hearts. Instead of giving $700 billion to the bankers and investors who got us into this mess in the first place, they could have divided that money up and given it to the citizens of the United States. It would have come to over $50 thousand dollars per person over 18 years old – can you imagine what that would have done to boost our economy, but no, they don’t give the money to the grass roots and let it percolate up to the top. They pour truckloads of money into the pockets of greedy, selfish, immoral human beings and it doesn’t appear they really care about “Main Street” as they call it, where the working class lives.

Anyway, sorry to have gone on like this, but I was triggered this morning with a political question and I feel the solution will never come from politics. (NEVER)

Ghandi had the right idea. He was assassinated. Anwar Sadat was a man of peace. He was assassinated. Martin Luther King spoke of the brotherhood of man. He was assassinated. John Kennedy wanted to get us out of Vietnam. He was assassinated. Jesus Christ gave us a message of forgiveness and love. He was assassinated. Socrates apparently did all he could to get people to think for themselves and not let others tell them what to do. He was assassinated. That’s why I take an a-political stand in this world I find myself living in.

Peace to you all, my friends, and you are my friends, ’cause there ain’t nobody gonna tell me who my friends are or who they aren’t.

Barry

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2007
Barry McGuire Interview – November 16, 2007

-Copyright 2007 Stain Free Media-

SFM: Speaking to us from his home in Fresno, California, we’re very happy to have Barry McGuire. Barry, how are are you?

B: Good morning, good morning, I’m great. I haven’t had my first cup of coffee yet, but that’s alright.

SFM: Well, this oughta be interesting then.

B: Yeah, exactly.

SFM: Let’s jump right in. What exactly is “Trippin’ The 60′s”?

B: A friend of mine, Terry Talbot, came up to me nearly a year ago, maybe ten or eleven months ago and said, “Ya know, McGuire, you have all these great stories that you tell, so why don’t we do a show where you tell all your stories and we’ll sing all the songs that take place around all those moments in your life?” And so we put together the show and at first I thought we’d call it “Trippin’ On The 60′s” and then Terry said, “Let’s just call it “Trippin’ the 60′s”. Its just taking a trip through the 60′s. Actually, it’s not nostalgic. It’s taking the songs and the truth that was in those songs from the 60′s and bringing them into the present moment. Living the truth now. It’s not going back to the 60′s, it’s pulling the 60′s into the present moment. I still sing “Eve of Destruction”, not to go back, but because the song is more valid today than it was in 1965 when I first recorded it. Every one of the songs that we sing are more valid today than they were when we first sang them 40 years ago. So that’s what it’s all about. And there’s a lot of great songs that were written and recorded during that time period. And we only sing songs by the people that we hung out with, like Stephen Stills, David Crosby, Roger McGuinn, the Loving Spoonful, John Sebastian, Hoyt Axton, Tim Hardin, John Denver. People that we knew personally and were on stage singing with them. It’s not a cover pack, it’s us singing songs that we sung with a lot of our friends that aren’t around anymore to sing them.

SFM: You alluded to “Eve of Destruction”. When you recorded that song written by Phil Sloan in 1965, it went to #1 on both the Cashbox and Billboard Charts. How did that change your life?

B: Well, it didn’t. (laughing) Not even a little bit. When I sang “Eve”, I had left the Christy’s (New Christy Minstrels) having already had a gold album with a song I had written called “Green, Green” and I recorded that song with them and it became a huge hit for us. And because of that I hung out with people that I would have never been able to hang out with otherwise. And I saw that most of them were unhappy. Most of them were empty and unfulfilled. One time Sinatra had a little gathering at his house in Palm Springs. And at the end of the evening , he had his forehead against the wall and his drink in his left hand, punching the wall with his right hand, saying, “I’m bored, bored, bored”, ‘punch, punch, punch’, and I’m thinking, “Frank is bored?” I mean, what’s it take to not be bored? Why should I spend any more of my energy trying to get what he had if he’s not happy? And so I left the Christy’s and went looking for value in life and to find what brings contentment to the human soul. “Eve of Destruction” was really just pointing out the hypocrisy of our society; the spiritual, political, military, industrial and social hypocrisy. “You hate your next door neighbor….You’re old enough to kill, but not for voting.” Nobody was asking any questions and the song was filled with questions. No answers, just questions. Well, it was labelled a ‘protest song’, and I thought, “Well, that’s silly. It’s not a protest song, it’s a diagnostic song.” If you go to a doctor and he tells you that you have cancer, do you call him a ‘protest doctor’? That’s what “Eve of Destruction” was, a diagnostic of societal hypocrisy.

SFM: I believe you actually referred to it as a ‘love song’ at one time.

B: Yeah, well, it was. It was gently trying to wake people up, ya know? “Hey folks, we have a major problem here.” If somebody is driving a car and they go to sleep at the wheel, the most loving thing in the world you can do is wake them up. (laughing) So the song was trying to wake people up and it woke a few people, but like I said, it had no answers, only questions. So then I got a call to go back and do “Hair”, on Broadway because somebody had seen me in “The President’s Analyst” (with James Coburn). It was Tommy Smothers. They had money invested in the show. So I went and did “Hair” for a year and I thought there were answers there, and there were a few, but the very lifestyle we were living at the time was killing us. In a ten year period I had lost 16 of my personal friends from drug overdoses, suicides and sexually transmitted diseases. Something was missing so I left New York and came back to California looking for the answer and actually reached a point where I gave up. I didn’t think there was an answer. And then I just stumbled into the Person of Christ, and it wasn’t Christianity or religion, it was just understanding Who and What Christ is and what the universe is all about. What time and space and matter and energy is all about. Where it came from and what my opportunity at this moment is. It’s a long journey and it’s impossible to put it into one little conversation. Basically it just comes to living in the moment. Living now. Now is the only source of life in the universe. Right now. The past is dead, the future’s a fantasy, ‘now’ is reality. So if you live in ‘now’, you’re living in Christ because Christ is ‘now’. I ask people, “Where is Jesus?” They usually say, “…….uh…….Well, He’s living in my heart.” You mean there’s a little bubble in your heart with a tiny little person living there? “Well, no….” C’mon, think this through. Let’s ask some real questions here. (laughing)

SFM: What happened to you, as you tell it, “in that house just off Mulholland Drive in Stone Canyon up in the Hollywood Hills”? What happened to you that day?

B: Well, I had been struggling. I read the words of Jesus in this little modern translation of His story and the thing that caught my attention was when He said to love God with all your heart, soul and mind and love your neighbor as yourself. And I thought, man, if there’s an answer to the “Eve of Destruction”, then that’s it. If everybody lived according to those two little bits of instruction we wouldn’t need the military, the government, lawyers, jails or welfare systems because we would all be taking care of each other. We would realize that ‘you’re me, I’m you and we are all together, (singing) goo-goo-g’joob’. Right? (laughing) That’s the truth. (singing) ‘Close your eyes and point your finger on a map and let it linger. Anyplace you point your finger to, there’s someone with the same blood-type as you.” Isn’t that amazing? We’re all brothers and sisters in blood. And the ‘lie’ is what separates us. To think that I’m different from you or that the Muslims are different from Buddhists or Buddhists are different from Christians or white is different from black or Asians are different from Indians is the stupidity of human thinking that’s brought the world to the brink of annihilation.

SFM: If I’m not mistaken, you’ve released about 20 albums since becoming a follower of Jesus. How did life change for you as a folk singer who suddenly started following Christ? How did the ‘old friends’ react?

B: They were happy that I had found something that turned me right-side-up. I was a capsized ship that was slowly sinking into the depths and all of a sudden they saw me right-side-up, sails full, racing off over the waters of life. And they were all very pleased for me. It wasn’t THEIR cup of tea. They didn’t understand Christ. See, the problem is, and this is tragic, it’s almost like the Name of Jesus has become the enemy of the Person of Jesus. So many acts of hypocrisy, self-aggrandizement, greed, empire-building have taken place and so many millions of people have been slaughtered, burned alive, skinned and then boiled in oil in the Name of Christ; from the Crusades all the way through to the ‘Christian’ gunmen in Beirut, the Catholics and Protestants murdering each other in Ireland…. There’s nothing more divided in the world than Christianity because everyone thinks that their little take on it is the right take and they’re the one who has the Word of God. Christ said, “Call no man ‘rabbi’ or ‘teacher’ or ‘father’.” But, “the Holy Spirit will come and dwell within us and lead us into the fullness of Truth”. “In the counsel of many is wisdom”, but the Kingdom of God lies within us. And so many things have gone on in the Name of Jesus that have nothing to do with the Truth of Christ. And as soon as they mention His Name, this preconceived image of fundamentalist Christianity with all the finger-pointing and condemnation is all people see. So at that point they don’t hear another word we have to say. That’s why I wrote “Cosmic Cowboy” because I was trying to paint a verbal picture of Christ in a way that would allow people to catch a glimpse of Christ before they actually knew Who it was they were looking at. We have Christ dressed up in this Western uniform and in this little box. The Scripture says, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life”. The word “Truth”, as it appears in the original Greek language means “Reality”. The Word also tells us to humble ourselves under the Mighty Hand of God. Well, what is the ‘Hand of God’? Is that the ‘Hand of God’ painted on the ceiling of the Sisteen Chapel reaching out to touch Adam’s hand? Is the ‘Hand of God’ the clergy or doctrine? Where can you go and escape the ‘Hand of God’? Nowhere! Ok, so what IS ‘Reality’? You cannot escape ‘Reality’. Wherever you go, there you are. You can go to the moon and there’s still ‘Reality’. We are in the inescapable grip of ‘Reality’. To me, ‘Reality’, itself, is the Hand of God. And if I just surrender to ‘Reality’, I’m surrendering to the Hand of God. I’m surrendering to what God is providing for me to experience. Things happen to me that are uncomfortable because God is trying to show me that those areas of discomfort are nothing more than entities living within me that are not true. Anytime I’m emotionally upset, that’s just something within me that’s not true. It’s telling me a lie and at that moment I’m living a lie. This is my perspective. You may have a different perspective, but this is mine. Jesus is the Way, the Reality and the Life. Life itself is Christ. Life itself is the Godhead. The ‘Way’ is nothing more than the unfolding of the present moment. The ‘Way’ is surrender to ‘Reality’. And then it’s at that moment we discover Life. So, it’s been an incredible journey for me. I’ve never known a peace that I’m starting to slip into. I’m just trusting God no matter what happens. I’m saying, “Bring it on, Lord!”. I don’t want any of these untruths, these enemy strongholds living within me. And ‘Reality’ exposes them. My wife and I used to say at the beginning of our relationship, “If something gets your goat, it’s because you got a goat to get.” (laughing) It’s not the ‘something’, it’s the ‘goat’ that lives within me. How can I help someone get a splinter out of their eye when I’ve got beams and logs in my own eye?!? These ‘goats’, these ‘dragons’, these ‘splinters’, these ‘strong men’, whatever you want to call ‘em, they’re all the same thing. ‘Multiple personalities’ that dwell within us. Psychology and everyone’s saying the same thing, they’re just using different words. You can call it a ‘demon’ or you can call it a ‘multiple personality’ or you can call it a ‘stronghold’ or you can call it an ‘altar to something that dwells within us’ or you can call it a ‘parasite’; a psychological thought-parasite that’s sucking the life out of us. The ‘Reality’ of Christ will deliver us from our parasites. To be totally parasite-free, wouldn’t that be awesome?!? (laughing)

SFM: I’m shifting gears here, Barry…….Recently I saw a beautiful picture of you and your lovely wife, Mari (pronounced ‘Mah-ree’, as I was instructed) obviously laughing and giggling like a couple of kids on Prom Night. I mean, c’mon, Barry, get a room!! (Barry laughing hysterically, thank goodness)

B: It’s been 34 years and she’s my best friend.

SFM: How did you first meet?

B: She first came to California from New Zealand with a team of about 18 other people to go through a discipleship training school in Fresno. We met casually and probably over the next six months saw each other maybe a half dozen times in the office or out and about. And then the day before she went back to New Zealand, she was with her boss, my dear friend, Winky Pratney and he was taking his wife and his mom and dad to Disneyland. I had a concert in Anaheim that evening, so I joined them. The whole thing was God just weaving our lives together. I didn’t know she was going to be with them and she didn’t know that I was going to meet Winky, so there I was sitting in front of the Magic Castle when up they walked. And when we rode the rides, there was Winky and his wife, Faye, and Bill and Lynn, Winky’s mom and dad and Mari. So, Mari and I would ride all the rides together and she was so beautiful, but I had so totally violated that part of my life. I thought there was no way I could have a healthy relationship with a lady. I thought I had totally destroyed that part of my life. That was my big sin. My deep addiction was sexual promiscuity. So I had given up and thought I’d live celibate the rest of my life. Then one year later I met Mari and a year after that we got married. So we just talked while hanging out at Disneyland. She was going back to her brother’s the next day and I told her to drop me a line and let me know how it’s going. About a month later I got a letter and we starting writing back and forth. And about a year after that I wrote and asked her if she would marry me. She wrote back and said she would. So the first time I actually kissed her was when she got off the airplane two weeks before we got married. She was with her mom and I kissed her, too; about the same amount of passion in both kisses. (laughing) We were all just standing there, dumbfounded; “Well, what do we do now?” So I took them over to my mom’s house and dropped them off and two weeks later we got married.

SFM: You spent a considerable amount of time in New Zealand in the 80′s, didn’t you?

B: We lived there for about six years, but we didn’t want our children to grow up with a New Zealand mindset. The world is a lot bigger than the New Zealanders believe it to be.

SFM: Could you tell me a little bit about your children and grandchildren?

B: Well, my daughter is a high school teacher working on her Master’s in Counseling, because there are so many hurting kids with destroyed homelives. How can you take kids who have experienced nothing but violence and alcoholism and drug abuse and profanity and sexual promiscuity and expect them to learn anything at school? It’s insane and then the teacher gets blamed because the child is not graduating. She has two little girls, Michaela and Meguire. She wanted to keep the ‘McGuire’ name, so we call her ‘Meg’, for ‘Meguire’. She’s delightful. And Michaela can walk out into the yard and hold her finger up in the air, call out, and a praying mantis and dragonflies will come land on her finger. She’s such an ‘earth-angel’. She’s awesome. We just spent the whole day yesterday with those two little ones and had tons of fun. My son is suffering from bi-polar disorder, an associative disorder, altered personalities, multiple personalities because he was abused by a family member when he was a young child and it’s totally shattered him. So he’s struggling up out of that hole. And he’s also ‘wired’. He’s a genius. He sees reality as it really is. He sees all the leeches and the parasites and the lies that people tell, just through kinesiological body language and facial expressions. It’s all there to be seen. Some people have that gift and he’s one of ‘em. And he writes the most incredible poetry and music that we’ve ever heard in our life. He’s the keyboard player.

SFM: Well, I’m going to close with a brief quote from your website, www.barrymcguire.com. You write, “I spend hours, days and weeks just hanging out with my wife. 34 years married. She’s my best friend. We laugh, talk, read and play with our grandchildren. Life has become a wondrous thing for me.”

B: It’s true! (laughing)

SFM: ‘Legacy-building’ seems to be a big thing these days. In closing, could you share with us what it is you would like people to say about Barry McGuire years from now?

B: Yeah, I would like it to be said that, “from his perspective, he spoke the truth.” From MY perspective. If you had a thousand people holding hands and standing in a circle and you put an elephant down in the middle of the circle, and said, “Ok, what does the elephant look like?” Well, you don’t tell what the person standing next to you says or what the person 50 people down the row says just so you’ll be accepted. You tell what you see; an honest description of what the elephant looks like. A lot of us don’t tell the truth. We say, “Oh, look at the beautiful clothes that the king is wearing.” The king doesn’t have a stitch on. But since we don’t want to be rejected by the crowd, we go along with what everyone else is saying. The thing is, if everyone tells the truth about what the truth looks like and we all get to know the other person’s view, then we’ll get a pretty good understanding of what the elephant looks like. We have such a narrow perspective. I mean, God is a pretty big elephant and I just have my little narrow perspective, but if I tell the truth about what I see, and you tell the truth about what you see and then we compare our truths, our picture gets a little bigger; a little more accurate.

SFM: Barry, thank you very much and send our love to Mari.

B: I will. She just walked in from cutting some roses and has a bouquet she’s putting on the table.

With that and a few more comments on how to go about getting “Trippin’ The 60′s” to come to Texas, we ended our conversation.

Thanks, Barry.

Posted by STAIN FREE MEDIA at 9:26 AM

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

 

INCOMING EMAIL

 

I just received an email from a lady, thought it might be interesting for some of you to read.

 

It seems too many Christians are looking for Christ’s return as an easy out as far as the worlds problems go, particularly environmental problems i.e. global warming.  As a self described “old hippie”, hopefully you’re not one of them.

 

Hi Lisa,

 

Well, I don’t know about Christ’s soon physical returning.  People have been thinking He’s going to be coming back any minute for the last two thousand years.  For me, and Mari, He’s already come back!  He lives within us and we live in Him as best we can.  The ancient scriptures say, “we live, breathe, move, and have our being in Him.”  Our constant goal is to stay focused on this present moment, and to pour one hundred percent of our energy and attention into the demands and requirements of each moment we experience, like answering this email right now.  Taking no thought of yesterday or projecting nothing into the mysteries that await us tomorrow.  This present moment is all we have.  If we can’t find our salvation NOW, the second coming isn’t going to do much for us.

 

Although I am a surrendered disciple of Christ, I can’t call myself a Christian.  To me, that would be like calling myself a “humble”.  Like saying, “Oh yes, I belong to the church of humility.  We’re all humbles over there.”  I would be honored if someone saw enough of Christ in my life to call me by His name, a Christ-ian.  So many acts of hypocrisy and greed and depraved murder have been perpetrated in the name of Jesus, it’s very difficult these days for anyone to see Him as He actually IS.  A forgiver of all mankind, every one, every single soul in the world has been forgiven, the problem is, so few know it.  And guilt and greed seem to be the killers of mankind and all life on our planet.

 

Wow, I didn’t know I was going to get on a roll, but the question you asked got me going.

 

Barry

 

Easter Sunday, April 16th, 2006

9.25 p.m. Pacific time

 

 

I just received this Easter Peace Poem from a dear friend who lives in Wisconsin.  I asked him if I could post it on my blog page for all to read and he graciously said yes.  So as you read it, what does it make you think about?

 

 

“I submit the attached and pasted writing for your consideration. May the

blessings of Peace be with you this Easter season.”

 Joe Hovel

 

 

Easter Peace Poem 

 

Somewhat routine-

tanks in the desert,

fighter jets,

cluster bombs,

cruise missiles.

Painful agonizing death,

torturous death.

Macabre  reality-

living human beings,

bleeding , groaning,

suffering.

Torn from family and friends,

collateral damage or grim witness.

A nasty job-

ordered to soldiers,

but necessary ?

Business of killing-

part of  maintaining empire.

 

WAR-

 population control,

 absolute power,

 corporate dominance,

 valueless life.

 The bottom side of  capitalism,

 in public display.

 Signature event:

 PAX AMERICANA.

 Peace American style.

 render to the USA

 or face the consequence.

 Business as usual,

 another day,

 another killing.

 

 HO-HUM !

 But alas;

 Jesus crucified;

 Jesus resurrected.

 All nations take notice-

 a greater power upon us.

 Oppressed peoples;

 awaken,

 a new way is  available,

 PEACE is promised.

 Only one option-

 [ to power and  authority,  mislead no more]

 Non violent resistance.

 Faith in the living GOD ,

 is  resistance.

 Jesus, revolutionary-

 exposed governmental rulers

 as bloody murderers,

 as illegitimate usurpers of Moral authority.

 Jesus  calls us;

 count the costs,

 weigh allegiances,

 recognize a Greater Power.

 PAX CHRISTI or pax americana.

 Life                 or      death.

 Choose life eternal.

 

 

 

Thursday, February 16, 2006

 

Why my Wife and I Have Cell Phones

 

In 1977, Mari and I lived in Silvercreek, Washington with our six-month-old son Brennon. We lived on an isolated, twenty acre piece of land in a little five room farmhouse that shook when you walked across the floor.

 

Silvercreek is about five miles down the road from Mossyrock, just fifty miles or so North of Mt St. Helens.

 

In those early days of our marriage, we had only one car, a Dodge panel van; it was a hundred miles to the nearest airport. I was doing two concerts a week on a pretty regular basis, Friday and Saturday nights, so that meant leaving home early Thursday morning and not returning until late Sunday evening. That left Mari (no cell phone) stranded without a car for four days a week. We only knew two or three families living in the area and of course, there in southern Washington, it rained for weeks at a time without a break.

 

It was early spring, and I was singing at a youth convention in Oshkosh Wisconsin. My part of the program ended on a Saturday night. I had been talking with Mari (no cell phone) on a land-line (that’s all we had in those days), and I knew she was really feeling alone, vulnerable, and abandoned. So I told her I’d try to catch an earlier flight the next morning and do my best to get home before dark.

 

So, instead of leaving Oshkosh at 9:A.M., I left at 6:A.M. That meant I had to leave my hotel room at 4:30 to catch the shuttle to the airport. Not wanting to wake up my roommate, I didn’t even turn on the lights that morning. I just tiptoed around the room getting my stuff together and then quietly pulled the door shut behind me as I left.

 

On the connector flight from Oshkosh to Chicago O’Hare, I realized I had left my van keys back in my hotel room. As soon as we landed, I called Mario, my roomy (no cell phone), to tell him about the keys, but he was already off into his day. So, I left a message for him at the desk, telling him what I had done and asked if he could send the keys out to the Portland Air Terminal (PDX) on the next flight. Then I called my concert coordinator, Jerry (no cell phone) Melrose, who lived in Los Angeles. I told him about my situation, and asked if he could follow up on my call to the hotel in Oshkosh and try to get my keys sent out to PDX. Then I called Mari (no cell phone), telling her all that had happened and I told her I would do my best to get home as soon as possible.

 

They called my flight to Portland and off I flew.

 

Upon my arrival at PDX I once again called the hotel in Oshkosh, trying to get in touch with (no cell phone) Mario. I was out of change, so I asked the operator if she would charge the call (no cell phone) to my home number. She went off line for a moment and then came back on saying, yes, the charge had been accepted, and my call was put through. Mario was still not in his room and nobody knew where he was. So I asked the desk attendant if anyone there had received a call from Melrose about my car keys.  He asked around and came back with a big “NO”, nobody knew anything about a phone call from a Jerry Melrose.

 

So there I was, at the Portland Air Terminal, nearly a hundred miles from home with no keys to my van.

 

I went out to the gas station located in the airport parking lot; and asked the attendant if he knew how to hot wire a car. He said, “no, he didn’t”.  I asked if I could use his phone (no cell phone) to call the Police station, maybe they could tell me how to get my car started. The Police told me they didn’t give out that kind of information. I told them I couldn’t find any car thieves listed in the phone book and that’s why I’d called them.  Then the officer got a bit snippety with me and that was the end of our conversation.

 

The gas station manager had a thought saying, maybe his boss might know how to hot wire the car. So he gave him a call (no cell phone). Yes!  His boss came right over and wired up my car. Then using a screwdriver to short the starter motor, zoom, zoom my car was running. The only problem was I had to break the wind wing on the passenger’s door to gain access to the inside of the van, but hey, I was on my way home, so I really didn’t care.

 

I pulled out onto I-5 heading north and I was one happy camper… thinking all my troubles were behind me; I was on my way home.

 

Then it started to rain… Hard. A hard, hard, downpour. I couldn’t use my windshield wipers because my ignition wasn’t turned on. I could barely see where I was going so I thought I’d better turn on my headlights so no one would run into me. But because my van was hot wired, when I turned my lights on, a full charge from the alternator totally bypassing the voltage regulator, zapped its way into my electrical system through the light switch. Instantly, every light bulb in my van blew out. As soon as I saw the lights flaring I turned off the lights, but it was too late. The electrical surge had fused the points in the distributor and I was now running on two barely firing cylinders.

 

Popity, popity, Chugady, pop, Chugady, pop, chug, chug. I was driving a doomed automobile and I knew it. The best I could do was get this thing off to the side of the road. As I pulled onto the apron, the rattling engine gave up the ghost and totally died.

 

In order to try and restart the car I knew I’d be getting soaking wet in the downpour. So, I popped the hood, grabbed my screwdriver and opened the door. Just as I swung the door open, a big eighteen wheeler doin’ about sixty-five miles an hour went roaring past and the back draft caught my door and slammed it all the way forward, springing the hinges and warping the door.  So, now my driver’s side door is sprung and won’t close properly.  I get out of the van and slam the door shut half a dozen times trying to bend the hinges back so the door will stay closed. Then I’m off around the front of the van with my screw driver and start shorting out the starter motor, trying to get the engine running again. It’s like standing under a waterfall but I do get the engine, cough, cough, sputter, sputtering and I run around trying to get my foot on the gas peddle before the motor stops.  I’m pump, pump, pumping the peddle like crazy, the engine rattles and sputters and then it backfires to a stop. So I get a packing box from the back of the van and wedge it against the accelerator, grab my screwdriver and I’m back out in the rain doing my newly learned car starting trick. This time when it kicks over, it actually starts to rev up a bit, so I slam the hood and charge around leaping into the van slamming my right foot down on the accelerator and pop sputter pop I have a barely running engine and it’s five miles to the next off ramp. But I had just passed an off ramp so I decided to back up and exit off the on ramp.  It was still raining so hard I couldn’t see what I was backing into so I ran into the guardrail and wiped out the right side of my van.

 

Finally, I got back on I-5 heading south and found a service station that was open. As I pulled into the parking area my van once again died a horrible coughing and wheezing death.

 

I used their phone to call Mari (no cell phone) at home. She was worried sick, not knowing what had become of me. I found out that when I called Oshkosh and billed it to my home phone, the operator had phoned her and asked if she would accept a long distance charge from Barry McGuire. She said, yes she would, and then waited for me to say “hello”. She waited and waited.  She thought I was calling home.  I wasn’t, I was calling Oshkosh, but she didn’t know that.  She wanted to tell me that she had Kathy take a set of van keys to the Greyhound bus station and they were waiting for me at the Portland bus station. Also, Jerry Melrose had called her and asked if I had picked up the keys that were waiting for me at the United Baggage claim at PBX. He had reached Mario after all, and the keys had been sent out on the next flight to Portland.

 

Mari called Kathy, asked if she would drive down to pick me up, and give me a ride home.

 

I finally got home that night about midnight. Three days later, they called me and told me my van was ready for me to come and pick it up.

 

And that’s why my wife and I have cell phones.

 

That’s it for now.

 

BMcG