Friday Free for All

Happy Friday everyone! Time to write about whatever is on my mind outside of my Catholic faith. I was talking to a friend of mine online yesterday and I thought that todays blog would be about music. In particular secular music in the world. I ve been very involved in my faith for about 5 years now, and some people wonder how I can be so involved in my faith yet still listen to music of the world. If you looked at my CD collection you would see such a wide variety of music from classical, jazz,80s, hair bands, alternative, and drum corp. I have listened to radio shows on Christian stations that have said once you become a Christian you have to get rid of all these satanic influences in your life and just listen to Christian hymns all day. I have even debated some of these talk show hosts on the air. I absolutely love listening to Catholic speakers and Catholic radio, however sometimes I just need to unwind and put in a good song that used to help me through tough times as a teenager or young adult. I can listen to Something to Believe In by Poison, and I find myself singing along with Bret Michaels about the hardships of life and turning to Jesus to answer his questions. Also Van Halen's I Can't Stop Loving You (A song about lifelong love between husband and wife). Warrant has a song called Heaven, (Another song about love and commitment). Firehouse has many good songs about love between husband and wife: Love of a Lifetime, I live my life for you to name a couple. The reason I picked this genre of music and its examples is because it is the most criticized for having songs about sex drugs and immorality. Did they engage in this type of stuff? Absolutely, but that does not mean every single song is immoral and that you can't get something positive out of it. I think the biggest problem I used to have was being scrupulous. I do not think God wants us to live that way. So for any of you out there that think that all secular music is evil listen to some of the songs I mentioned. I hope that they will bring you close to God just like they did for me.