From the 2009 album Balm in Gilead, a title heavily implying healing at work, a once Grammy Award New Artist, Rickie Lee Jones collaborates this month with the Franciscan Sisters of Christian Charity to offer His Jeweled Floor. Enjoy the gorgeous ambience of this inspirational song calling to mind John’s Gospel “in my Father’s house there are many dwelling places” (Jn 14:2). Rickie, artist, songwriter and producer plays all the instruments except bass and accordian with an inner fire that is burning brightly with the light of faith. She is a musical genius fearlessly comfortable sharing intensely personal songs. (Photo: Fred Graber, Fred Graber Photography, Madison, WI) Click here for further Franciscan Sisters of Christian Charity comments.
About Rickie Lee Jones
Rickie Lee Jones is the second of three daughters and one son who are of Welsh and Irish ancestry. She was born in Chicago, Illinois. Her parents, Richard Loris Jones and Bettye Jane Jones, both had peripatetic childhoods: her father lived from hand to mouth in a number of transient hotels, and rode the rails, wandering the country. Her mother was an orphan. She has described her family as “lower-middle-class-hillbilly-hipster.
Rickie Lee says:
I believe that heaven, as Christ said, is inside of us. Words are imprecise; any sentence can mean many things, and I suppose that is the nature of our existence here; we cannot seem to get a true meaning from anything. It could be this or that. That is as the Buddhists discovered, the illusionary aspect of life in this dimension.
The Hindus express God correctly too, suggesting that it is a multi-faceted expression of heads that have different personalities and jobs. That helps bring order to the whole supreme being thing. I rather think all these ideas are interpretations of limited language, for there are no words to describe what God is, God exists outside this realm.
But for the part that is aware of God, inside of us, and only inside of us, God can be said to be us, because we are aware of God, and we are the only beings at the train station taking down his telegraph message. So we interpret signals, then we speak the dots into a language, and we deliver the message. But all of this is only symbolic of the true nature of God. Once we understand that faith means we cannot interpret the message, ever, in its true language, that we trust that we have at least heard the telegraph machine, and that everyone all over the world is trying to deliver messages, and that this in itself is a great thing, then we can feel that we are a part of God manifesting here. But to say we have the answer and only we know, this is not faith. To say we have heard the music of the wires, and although you have not heard it, I cannot make you hear it, but I know that it is, and hope that I bring you solace and joy, this is a message of compassion that we can deliver to others.
I think all the rules set up by the humans about how to run a church is just that, and the church has its place. But the greatest thing is the quiet moment inside each of us, when we are soothed by God’s loving hand, missing our dead parents, hurt by our friends, betrayed by our actions or emotions. Psychiatrists say we have created our own parent to sooth us. And why not? That is the interpretation of miraculous events, a language that cannot interpret God cannot find a way to include God in its interpretation. But we know that this is God’s work, the creation of evolution, the timeless space, the gift of concept of Genesis, what an incredible book, in which someone tries to explain to us that creation took place, first of all, and second, that how amazing it is that first there was nothing, and then here was something. That says it all.
For me, the more I learn, the more evidence of God, of the incredible intricacy is more proof of a point of origin. To me, God is not an human personality playing hide n seek with mankind. Why did you let these bad things happen? God creates a framework, and is the framework, and experiences the framework, just as we do, are.
He (God) creates every action has an equal and opposite reaction, but then he creates a bit of chaos or it would all be a clock, and nothing would ever change. We can lean in any direction to discover the workings of things, but we cannot ever understand.
To read Rickie Lee’s complete comments click here.
Lyrics: His Jeweled Floor
And when you arrive
shining and new
Forgotten by the fear and pain
you put your body through
On His Jeweled Floor
We are every one
Laying in His starry arms,
On His Jeweled Floor we are standing now
See me as I am…You’ll come in the afternoon
of a hard travelin’ day
Blown by a stormy sky
that finally passes away
On His Jeweled Floor
We will meet again
He holds us all in His starry arms
On His Jeweled Floor I am standing now
Can you see me as I am?
There are no demons, only angels
Life will surely fade
Spend it loving tenderly
Or Shiva at your grave,
Sit shiva at your grave,
On His Jeweled Floor
we will all be there
He holds us all in His starry arms
On His Jeweled Floor no one ever falls
Can you see me as I am,
as we dance a thousand suns?
Websites:http://www.greatbigisland.com/rickie_sales.htm http://www.rickieleejones.com/
