I'll See You In Heaven Larry

I didn't see it covered on CNN, and it went mostly unnoticed by the public at large, but a man I greatly respect as a person and as an artist passed away this week. Or rather, he passed on into the real life that awaits all of us who believe in Jesus as he did.

He was one of the first and most influential of the modern breed of Christian artists. Larry Norman spoke and wrote openly, sincerely and with gut wrenching honesty of both his faith and his personal struggles. Always thought of as too much of a rock-n-roller and "long haired hippie freak" by the Christian establishment, and too much of a "Jesus freak" for the music world at large, he none the less won a following among a substantial number of us. Although, with his musical talent and lyrical transparency, he deserved a much wider audience.

Whether writing about personal heart ache, as in "Pardon Me", or about politics, as in "Reader's Digest", or about his unabashed Christian beliefs in songs such as "I Am a Servant", "Why Don't You Look Into Jesus", or "I Wish We'd All Been Ready", he never failed to touch me deeply. He was a true artist who knew how to turn a phrase, and how to painstakingly craft and deftly produce a song.

His trilogy of albums "Only Visiting This Planet", "So Long Ago The Garden" and "In Another Land" were some of my very favorite albums in my formative years and contain songs that to this day are still some of my favorites. They also rank consistently high in "Best Christian Albums Ever" lists.

I will always regret that I did not get to see him in person in this life. I know that I will see him in the next life, the real life, along with Kieth Green, Gene Eugene, Mark Heard, Rich Mullins and other talented believers who passed on at much too young an age.