Boundless Love -- Dennis Loewen

 

This rocker evidently had a transformation, at least musically. He and his high school/college buddies achieved some fame, but as so often happens with musical acts, the union of their paths did not last, and so Dennis Loewen found another avenue following his early rock and roll days. He was a native Kansan (see the state’s seal here), most likely the place and the influence that helped trigger his song about a “Boundless Love” he proclaimed by the late 1970s. Dennis evidently felt by 1979 that his life, despite its pitfalls, was one in which he could rejoice immeasurably. Nothing could overcome the touchstone of this faith he’d encountered. It was a love that may have left him with questions, but its lure had an enduring quality. Mystery, yet illumination – that may best describe Dennis’ response to the One extending this bit of grace in his direction.    

 

Dennis Loewen found life after his high school/college days of the 1960s and early 1970s did not mean desolation, even after his rock and roll band split up. Dennis was a lead vocalist, and he also played keyboards and guitars, while seven of his high school friends in Hays, Kansas provided a variety of other instrumental background for a hip rock-and-roll group called the Fabulous Flippers, which was known in a 10-state area of the American Midwest. Although the group was successful for several years, it ultimately went through some evolutions and eventually disbanded after 1972. Nevertheless, the fellowship and notoriety of the Flippers stuck with Dennis and the others, so that they performed again as recently as 2011, with Dennis revising his role as lead vocalist (see one link below). It’s evident that they must have really loved what they had experienced together. In the time between their breakup and reunion, Dennis expounded on another love, the ‘boundless’ one that had his attention in 1979. Though what moved Dennis to write and sing about this Divine love is unknown, some elements of his rock-and-roll beginnings lingered on the album called Profile, in which nine other songs are included. The album was described as being in the Folk Rock/Soft rock style when it was released in 1979. Dennis mentions a couple of themes in ‘Boundless Love’ that give us clues about his frame of mind. He was a confessing struggler, mentioning being ‘weary’, ‘fall(ing) down’, and going ‘astray’ (v.1); and, he felt at times like his world was crumbling, ‘fall(ing) all around’ (v.2). Prayer (vv.1 and 2) was Dennis’ refuge, the place where he could find ‘Him’. Loewen is not shy about admitting that he didn’t ‘understand’ everything about God (v.2), and perhaps that is part of the secret draw of discovering God – finding Him to be bottomless, ‘boundless’ as Dennis reiterates throughout, with His gift of love. Friends in a band may separate after a mountaintop experience that lasts a few years, but the relationship with God never has to reach a parting of the ways.  

 

Dennis would probably admit he loved making music with his Fabulous Flipper mates; perhaps that was part of why he was extolling God for ‘my life’ and ‘select(ing) me’ (chorus of ‘Boundless Love’). Indeed, one of the things in Dennis’ life that is apparent is the long-lasting nature of his friendships with those bandmates from his youth and early adult years, including a time in 2017 when some of them gathered at the deathbed of their drummer-friend, Jerry Tamen (see link below). That’s a bittersweet moment, remembering a friendship of over 50 years that is at its end. Wouldn’t it be great if friendships didn’t have to end? In ‘Boundless Love’, it seems that Dennis had encountered such a friendship.          

 

This site provides a brief profile of the author-composer: https://www.discogs.com/artist/3090388-Dennis-Loewen

See here also for information on album on which the song appears: https://www.discogs.com/Dennis-Loewen-Profile/release/5180419

 

Here’s a version of the song by the artist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JBDi8A_zTo

 

See here for description of the band the author-composer helped form in the 1960s: https://www.pipestonestar.com/articles/rock-roll-memories-those-amazing-men-from-lawrence-the-fabulous-flippers/

 

See the reunion group of Fabulous Flippers performing here in 2011: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGzU0d4KN0M

 

Article describing death of one of the Fabulous Flippers: https://www.hutchnews.com/fcebdfab-5599-5ced-bfaf-467efce93c9f.html

Must Jesus Bear the Cross Alone? -- Thomas Shepherd and others

 

A 17^th Century English preacher was apparently mulling over a sermon, and was also at odds with the exercise of his faith. This was not an isolated mental and emotional state, even across many decades and centuries, as subsequent authors took up Thomas Shepherd’s original verse in 1693 that asks “Must Jesus Bear the Cross Alone?”, and added to it. George Allen and Henry Beecher were Shepherd’s successors 150 years after the first verse was penned, completing the five-verse collaborative effort by the mid-1800s. All three shared a connection to the God they chose to serve, through the music and poetry that lives on. It’s a lesson for those of us who pick up an old tune or poem today. Get in touch with that God-given musical-spiritual glue that bonds people several centuries apart today.     

 

The 28-year old Thomas Shepherd was an Anglican minister in 1693, who was thinking over a sermon about the cross his Christ bore at Calvary, and about how he might best serve Him for the remainder of his life. He apparently placed himself in the great apostle Peter’s sandals at first, the man who chose to be crucified upside down because he considered himself unworthy to be executed in exactly the same position as Jesus; his original thought was later changed to reflect the question regarding Jesus’ cross. Thomas apparently wanted fellowship with this Jesus in not just a casual way – how could he suffer for him, or in other words, what was his cross? Was his current assignment a sufficient way to mimic the God who suffered and was executed? Was the magnificent church building and the prominent position he held as priest in a congregation at Buckinghamshire (northwest of London) really sacrificial? It’s not a stretch to infer that the following year’s decision that Thomas made was part of his cross, when he left the Church of England and became an independent minister. He eventually found himself ministering to believers in a barn, prior to a chapel being built for this body of Christian believers at Bocking (east of London, near the coast), where he remained for the rest of his life (nearly 40 years).

 

Over a century later, Shepherd’s one-verse poem-question had travelled across the Atlantic Ocean and found its way into the hands of George Allen, a professor of music at Oberlin College in Ohio in 1844. Just over a decade later, a pastor named Henry Ward Beecher also picked up Shepherd’s poem in Brooklyn, New York in 1855. Both Allen and Beecher added verses to underscore the Christian’s response to the cross at life’s end; any burden bore during life was worth what His cross bought. We know not the circumstances that spurred Allen and Beecher to add verses about this symbol of sacrifice, and whether in fact either of them knew of Shepherd’s ministerial path across the ocean. The crown that these two poetic successors expected to receive in His presence was enough. It’s the same crown exchanged for a cross-bearing life to a 17^th Century Englishman and to these 19^th Century Americans. You think it’s the same one in the 21^st Century? Same God, same cross, same crown, I’m betting.   

 

See more information on the song story in these sources: The Complete Book of Hymns – Inspiring Stories About 600 Hymns and Praise Songs by William J. Petersen and Ardythe Petersen, Tyndale House Publishers, 2006; and Amazing Grace: 366 Inspiring Hymn Stories for Daily Devotions by Kenneth W. Osbeck, Kregel Publications, 1990.

 

Also see this link, showing all five original verses: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/m/u/s/t/mustjesu.htm

 

Also see this link for author’s biography: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/s/h/e/p/shepherd_t.htm 

In Christ Alone -- Keith Getty and Stuart Townend

 

He heard the music first, and that’s what challenged him to adorn those sounds with poetry as consequential as the notes he’d just heard. That’s how Stuart Townend describes the sequence of events that drove him to write the words for “In Christ Alone” when he heard Keith Getty’s music in 2001. Stuart’s words focus the energy of the music onto thoughts about the Christ, the centerpiece of history. It was the beginning of the Getty-Townend song-writing relationship, one which has spawned a number of subsequent collaborative efforts. It’s appropriate that their partnership began with this song, one which centers on the foundation of their common belief, something that will never grow old or stale. In fact, the great thing about the Townend-Getty subject here is that it will be new forever; He died once, and rose to live forever, beckoning all of us to follow.

 

Stuart Townend found in Keith Getty’s music what he calls ‘gravitas’, a visceral sense that touched him so that he wanted words to match what the music engendered. You can read and hear Stuart’s words about this episode for yourself – see the first link below. It’s sufficient to say here that Stuart thought the only way to adequately match the music he’d heard was to concentrate on the Messiah, Jesus. Just Him, and what He means to all of us, that you and I can ‘stand’ and ‘live’ as a result of Him – that’s Stuart’s emphasis in his poem. His words need no further embellishment. Enjoy what you can read and hear for a few moments...    

 

Christianity is an ancient belief, many centuries older in fact than the picture shown above, which is reportedly the oldest known icon-image of Christ, from the 6^th Century. This depiction of Christ was discovered in a monastery (St. Catherine’s) in the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt. Its artistic characteristics could be the subject of many pages of discussion, perhaps metaphorical for how deeply a people could go in an examination of Christ Himself and His impact on humanity. One interesting morsel of this artwork is the facial features of the Christ depicted here, something that reminds one of the import of Stuart Townend’s poem lauding Him. Look closely, and you can see that this image shows two different facial expressions; note the left side of the face (right side, as you look at it) has a shadowy look, with a deeper-toned cheekbone and eye, while the opposite side is clear, pure – leading to speculation that these two visages represent His Divine and human natures, accomplished simultaneously. He’s the only one who has accomplished this fusion perfectly -- Him alone. That’s worthy of a song, as Stuart and Keith remind us.

 

See here for the song story: https://www.stuarttownend.co.uk/song/in-christ-alone/

 

See information here on the song: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Christ_Alone

 

See discussion of the artwork here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ_Pantocrator