Books Etc

I wanted to be like Jesus … But I didn’t wanna be a Christian

Connie found the Barry McGuire site the other nite to listen to some of that cool old Christian rock. There she found some interesting paragraphs from his biography.

“When I was a little boy, my grandmother told me something I’ve never forgotten. I was probably about five, maybe six years old. She used to take care of me during the day when my mom worked. One day she said to me, ‘You know, Barry, one day when you grow up, you’re gonna know the truth, and the truth is gonna set you free.’ Now, I didn’t know that came out of the Bible. I didn’t even know there was a Bible. I was just a little kid. My grandmother told me that. And I knew she loved me, and boy, I knew I loved her. And when I grew up, sure enough, I wanted to be free. I mean who doesn’t want to be free? And certainly, a lie has never set anyone free. So if anything was gonna set me free, it had to be the truth.

“And along came the 60s. And boy, I was the right age at the right time in the wrong place, you might say. And hey, I wanted to be free. Boy, I sang ‘Eve of Destruction’ lookin’ to be free. I went to Broadway. I did a show on Broadway called HAIR. I played the male lead in the original Broadway cast, lookin’ to be free. And the very lifestyle that we were promoting was, as I looked around me I saw my friends, one, two, three at a time goin’ down: drug overdose, suicide, sexually transmitted diseases. The very lifestyle we were promoting was killing us all.

“So I left Broadway, I came back out to California. And I was livin’ with a friend of mine, Denny Doherty, up on the Appian Way. And he used to joke and tease me, ’cause I was still lookin’ for truth, and every time a new teacher or sage or somebody, Meyer Baba, Sai Baba, Hadji Baba, any Baba would do, I mean I was down there in the front row, ya know, ‘Humna Baba, lay the truth on me, man!’ I was hummin’ and bobbin’ and goin’ for it. And Denny says, ‘Ah, you belong to the Guru of the Month Club.’ I mean, anybody, I didn’t care. If they had a word, I was down there tryin’ to learn the truth. And they said a lot of things that were true, but I just couldn’t somehow get it right inside of me.

“And I was just about to give up, and one day I went over to a friend’s house, Eric Hord. He used to be the lead guitar player for The Mamas and Papas, and he always had a big bowl of marijuana under his coffee table. And man, I had this bowl out that morning, I had three papers glued together. I figured he’s only gonna lay one joint on me, so I’ll make the biggest one I can roll. And I look down on this particular day, there’s a little paper back book layin’ on the table next to the grass, and it’s called Good News for Modern Man. And I thought, ‘Hey, I’m a modern man. I could use some good news.’ I mean, everybody was dyin’ all around me. So I took the book home with me, didn’t know what it was. Got by myself, opened it up, and right on the first flyleaf page in the book it says, ‘The New Testament in Modern English.’ I got so angry. ‘Ah, look at this! Them Jesus Freaks, man! They’re disguisin’ the Bible!’ Threw it on the floor, I didn’t wanna read the Bible! Give me a break! And it layed there for days. I was hopin’ someone would come along and throw it away. I didn’t wanna throw it away, ’cause I knew what it was, the Bible, and just in case, you don’t wanna be responsible. Who knows? But it layed there for days, weeks, months actually. I mean, when somethin’ hit the floor in my house, the next person to pick it up was an archaeologist. I mean, that was some future dig.

“And I was there one day by myself. And there this little book somehow kept surfacing above the trash. And the wind was blowing through the window catching the pages. It was flickin’ its pages, flick, flick, flick, flick, flick. ‘Read me!’ it said to me. And truthfully, just out of bored, sarcastic curiosity, I picked up The Life and Times of Jesus Christ. And for the first time in my life, I stopped looking at Christians, I stopped looking at denominations, organizations, Catholics, Protestants, ya know, all this stuff that goes on in His name. And I took a look at Him, examined what He had to say. How He treated His personal friends. What He had to say to the people in the street, the alcoholics, the prostitutes, the homosexuals, the thieves, liars, robbers. What he had to say about the military people, the political leaders, the spiritual leaders (which is about the scariest thing he had to say to anybody). How He treated the little children when they came around. And everything that Jesus had to say, as I put it to the test against what I knew to be true through my own life experience, I couldn’t find anything wrong with His words. There’s no double meaning, no hidden agenda. It was all out front. And then He said thirteen words that changed my life, because I saw this was the answer to my personal eve of destruction. He said, ‘Love God with all your heart, and love your neighbor as your self.’

How simple can it get? And I realized that if all of us in the whole world lived according to those two simple instructions — I don’t care what your concept of God is, you could be a Buddhist, you could be B’hai, you could be, ya know, whatever it is, Christian, just your concept of God — love God with all your heart and love your neighbor as your self, and our world would change. How simple can it get? We wouldn’t need a police force anymore, and we wouldn’t need armies and navies and prisons and welfare systems. We wouldn’t need lawyers and politicians. Two simple pieces of instruction: Love God with all my heart, and love my neighbor as my self.

And I wanted to be like Jesus. I thought, ‘Man, this is my guy!’ But I didn’t wanna be a Christian, see. I wanted to be like Him, but I didn’t wanna be like all them. I thought if I said yes to Jesus I’d have to get a powder blue leisure suit — remember those? — white shoes, ya know, walk around smilin’ a lot. I couldn’t do that.

You can see more at his site.

Visits: 55

Leave a Reply to Anonymous X

7 Comments

  • I would just like to say that I think it is great that you have found your truth.
    I say your truth because I think the truth is subjective, but if you have found a deep,
    meaningful and lasting happiness then you are on the right path.
    You are wise to say that loving your concept of God and loving your neighbour as your self
    will make a positive difference in life. I’m Buddhist, and my concept of the creator-god is
    that we all create our own worlds, we are God, so to love God is to love yourself. The Buddha
    taught, and Buddhists practise through loving-kindness meditation, that you must truly love
    yourself before you can really radiate that love to anybody else (your neighbours).
    My advice to those who have left, let’s call it ‘constructive criticism’ on this page, is that
    you will find the value that so many others have in all religious, spiritual or philosophical
    teachings if you look for it. And remember that it is all too easy to point fingers and
    find faults with other people, when in fact it may be you who is fallible.

  • there are too darn many religious people not enough spiritual people. God isnt a religion, his kind of religion was/is to feed the hungry visit the homeless and widows… thats too simple though took us humans to complicate God.. and HIS way..
    personal relationship is the only thing that changed me a personal encounter with the maker of my heart. Life has never been the same.. duty the word the church building rites rituals ect ect are DEAD with out the spirit of God … and there is waaaaaaaaaaay too much of that going on…
    karen
    areyouwalkinginlove2@yahoo.com

 
Share
Share
Tweet