Are you an Elvis fan? You may have picked up in the news this week that had he still been alive it would have been Elvis’ 80th birthday. Elvis Aaron Presley was born on 8 January 1935 and tragically died on 16 August 1977. Regarded as one of the most significant cultural icons of the 20th century, he is often referred to as "the King of Rock and Roll", or simply, "the King".
I enjoy listening to his music. My favourite song probably is The Wonder of You closely followed by Can’t Help Falling in Love with You (yes, I’m a great romantic!) They say that Presley’s musical influence originated from gospel. His mother recalled that from the age of two, at the Assembly of God church in Tupelo attended by the family, "he would slide down off my lap, run into the aisle and scramble up to the platform. There he would stand looking at the choir and trying to sing with them.” In his teenage years his musical interests were wide-ranging, and he was deeply informed about African American musical idioms as well as white ones.
Elvis was very distinctive in his style and was one of the central figures in the development of this new style of music called rockability which changed the global music style. Elvis knew exactly what his music style was. He had clarity of vision as what he wanted to sound like. He had his eyes clearly open and focussed to the sound and style he wanted to communicate and because of this he contributed to there being a total change in the music people were listening to. Musically, he knew who he was and worked hard to communicate that.
As we come to Commitment Sunday today, the theme for this year is Open Your Eyes. It’s an opportunity for us to refresh our view of what we want to be. To clearly open our eyes and focus on what we want to communicate to and contribute as Christians to the world around us. Vision & Commitment 2015 encourages us to look afresh at what we know, to be humbled by grace so as to see what is right and true, to highlight injustice and to seek to make a difference.
Today we commit our lives afresh to living how God would want, may we open our eyes, our ears, our hearts and our minds to clearly know the vision God has for us and for his Kingdom. May we catch ‘the vision splendid of a world which is to be, when the pardoning love of Jesus freely flows from sea to sea. When all men from strife and anger, greed and selfishness are free, when the nations live together in sweet peace and harmony’ (Doris N Rendell)
Captain Clare