Of Billie Holiday and Backsliding

I love Billie Holiday. I hate backsliding. By Billie Holiday I mean, of course, the black jazz singer from the 30s-60s. By backsliding I mean, maybe not so of course, the action that happens in our spiritual lives following a mountain top experience - as we slide back down that mountain that we had just so recently been on top of - where we lose that feeling of spiritual high.

I love one and hate the other, why would I lump them together? A lot of reasons.

I can't explain to any rational person why I love Billie Holiday's voice. "That sexy old black smoker voice is so hot," just doesn't seem to cut it. I know I'm not alone on this one. She is a popular singer, but I don't have one good reason that I could use to tell anyone why I love listening to her. --- I don't know why I backslide. I don't enjoy doing it. No part of me thinks, "Hey, you should leave that great feeling of being loved and forgiven for that feeling of loneliness and isolation that accompanies a denial of God." And, yet, I always backslide. I'm not alone. Everyone backslides.

I can't sing along with Billie Holiday. I have no capacity to sing in a fashion that even comes close to her style. I can't do it. I sing along with every other piece of music I like (barring Chinese Techno for obvious reasons), but I can't sing along with Billie. I don't even try. --- When I'm backsliding there's nothing I can do to stop it. I can't decide that I'm going to be back on top of that mountain. I have tried in the past, but I can't do it. I know that God proves Himself to me in those valleys of life. If I trust in God, and know that at some point I will get to see the splender of that mountain again - then I will be able to live victoriously in the valley; that's where life (and ultimately non-Christians) are. That mountain top can't last forever, why try and deny reality and pretend that you're always at a spritual high.

" That sparkle in your eyes is gone / Your smile is just a careless yawn / You're breaking my heart / You've changed." - Billie Holiday (You've Changed)

Oh Miss Holiday, thanks for seeing right through me. Sometimes God uses even drug crazed dead jazz vocalists to teach us a lesson about faith. (And some people think that God can't even use female pastors.) God knows where our hearts are - he knows we will come off the mountains - and, I think, that's part of the plan.