Ashplant, Out of Dry Ground

[Copperfox]

I, Joseph Richard Ravitts, long A in the last name, am known here as Copperfox. I have done live-action roleplay under the embellished alias of STEPHEN COPPERFOX AMADEUS. The Copperfox name >first< arose because, in youth, I regularly played Dungeons & Dragons at a comicbook store. I saw a short-lived comic series about a swordsman hero named Iron Wolf. Ability dice refused to let my primary fighter character be a major tough guy like Iron Wolf....... so I settled for being "Copper Fox."

We all have obscure- to-the-world-at-large memories. Mine include being a >decidedly< obscure young Christian singer-composer in my native state of Illinois. My way-back history in "Jesus music" has a SUPER-obscure tie-in with ancient history >and< with Isaiah 53.

The legendary Achilles carried a spear whose shaft was carven from the trunk of an ash-tree sapling, hence an "ASH PLANT." Then I saw Isaiah's reference to a plant shoot rising out of dry ground, and dusty soil could seem like ashes. So, like the Mister Lewis whom I would get to know only later, I stepped from Nordic and Greco-Roman simile to Biblical simile..... thence to Biblical faith.

Learning to play autoharp and thus accompany myself singing, it wasn't very long before I put together an acoustic Jesus-music band called Ashplant. This had the merit that no one else was using it. We had fun. My sister Tammy was one of my bandmates, playing an upright bass. Our first public performance was at Sinnissippi Park Bandshell in Rockford, as part of a Christian event called Fellowship Under the Son. Bonus: that's where I first met pianist Joe Whitchurch, who was destined to perform at my eventual wedding to the former Mary Scudellari. Still more: I also met Dave Fogderud, who ran a Christian coffeehouse in Beloit, Wisconsin, called The Overflowing Cup. I would later perform there, both alone and with others.

Fast-forward more than five decades, and, though by no means giving up on life, I feel more like the "dry ground" in Isaiah 53. But Wood Nymph keeps me grounded, no pun intended. She and I have sung in church, and on lots of highway drives. These days....... well, I >don't< feel inclined to let old age have everything its own way. Accordingly, if the Emperor-Over-Sea permits it, Wood Nymph and I will become a two-person Jesus band, called Out of Dry Ground.

 

[Copperfox]

Dang! Here I'm telling about widely separated periods in a history of acoustic Christian music. Remarkably, this parallels a real- world experience revolving around one special woman. Geralyn, already saluted by poems of mine, was in my life as a pal when my first wife Mary was living. Decades later, Geralyn has re-emerged (remotely) as a resident of Atlantic-coast Florida.

The above is just an analogy. Several T.D.L. members know about Geralyn's current afflictions. There's already intercession in progress for her needs. _Here_ I'm running my own variant of "Gone, Away and Returned."

Ashplant lasted for around a year; Out of Dry Ground has not yet gotten an audience. In between these, I spent around five years in a totally different Jesus-music ministry: The Knights of the Lord's Table. With me in that band were Kevin Johnson, Joe Whitchurch, Randy Graceffa, Dave Cevene and Rich Whippler.

The next eight or ten posts will mostly be about the songs we did.

Note that no less a person than _Geralyn_ showed me where YouTube had preserved the full _album_ "Knights of the Lord's Table." Since you now can find it for yourself on YouTube, I will share words for _other_ songs which I wrote alone or with Kevin. It's possible that some of what I share here will duplicate items in my old thread "A Christian Life in Lyrics," but not much. Everything here which I wrote _alone_ will be expressly indicated as such.

 

[Copperfox]

"SIR WILFRID AND REBECCA" by Joseph "Copperfox" Ravitts {long A in my last name}

In the courtyard of castle stood a Jewish maid, Rebecca, accused of working sorceries from Hell.
All the witnesses were liars, and the judges all were bigots;
they hated her for being a child of Israel.
They boasted they were Christians, but if they had read their Bibles, in Genesis, twelfth chapter and third verse,
They would have seen the promise which God had given Abram, that all who cursed His people, God would curse.

Bless the seed of Abraham! God has not forsaken them; He loves them, and He wants us to agree.
Bless the seed of Abraham! God has not forsaken them; they still belong as branches on His tree.

But they didn't read their Bibles; they preferred their own commandments, and so they piled the firewood at the stake.
If a champion would save her, they agreed to spare the maiden; but that looked like a danger
no man would dare to take.

For on the field, Sir Brian, a murderous Crusader, stood by to fight and kill whoever came.
None there were so courageous as to defy his power to save a Jewish damsel from the flame.

Bless the seed, etc. \\ Instrumental "middle eight" follows.

In the nick of time, Sir Wilfrid took the challenge for Rebecca; none better knew her innocence than he.
In the name of truth and justice he went forth to fight Sir Brian, and God's own hand from Heaven gave Wilfrid victory.
Thus rescued by Sir Wilfrid of Ivanhoe from burning, Rebecca lived, and God was glorified.
But Ivanhoe's example too often goes unheeded; come, Christians, let us be on Jacob's side!

Bless the seed-- (twice)

KEVIN JOHNSON HAD AN OPPORTUNITY WHICH I NEVER HAD: TO VISIT ISRAEL. {I _would_ have had the same opportunity in the Navy, but the same terrorists who pretend to be innocent victims, canceled the chance for my shipmates and me.} Kevin, having the good fortune to go ashore _without_ Hamas rockets descending, had a solid-gold chance to sing "Willie and Becky" for a senior Israeli Defense Force officer.

 

[Mister Eclectic]

OKAY, FOR NEWBIES OR LATE RETURNEES: UNDERSTAND THAT I, MISTER ECLECTIC, AM THE _SAME_ PERSON AS COPPERFOX.

Let me provide a glance at Kevin's early musical efforts.

Before I began collaborating with him, Kevin wrote a song which resembled Led Zeppelin's song "Black Dog" by sharply jumping between only-instruments and only-voice. What I remember of Kevin's lyrics was like this: "I wanna tell you all about about the shape I'm in: \\ I met Jesus, and He saved me from all my sin. \\ But just don't ask me what I think of you; \\ I might not give the answer that you want me to."

_After_ I became acquainted with Kevin, he wrote probably his most gently introspective lyrics. The minor-key song, "Epistle of a Day," imagined how he would feel God's presence amid a semi- wild mountain setting. I now remember only the opening and concluding lines.

First: "Oh, as the sunlight softly besets me, \\ So does the love of my Savior, I know....."

And finally: "Now as I turn to the fire in my cabin, \\ I hold within the precious memory \\ of my dear Lord and the love He has given, \\ and of this day He brought to me."


_Both_ of these lyric sets foreshadowed a perennial tension in Kevin's ministry: the tension between "Am I focusing on God at the expense of caring about fellow mortals?" and "Am I focusing on fellow mortals at the expense of honoring God?" I was along (almost literally to his last breath) for this ride which I came to call "the minefield marathon."

 

[Copperfox]

After my time with Knights of the Lord's Table, but long before Dancing Lawn existed, I did a short stint with a short-lived comedy club in Rockford, Illinois, Called "GADZOOKS," it welcomed family-friendly comedy in song OR speech. My biggest single contribution was a parody of the famous country- western song "Ghost Riders in the Sky," Watch this space for my lyrics, which reflect my having worked at a Red Lobster restaurant. That chain treated the servers like dirt. Red Lobster, as a franchise, deserves the decline in business which it suffered in later years.

"GHOST WAITERS IN THE SKY"

######### #######

 

[Copperfox]

Aslan only knows why, but I can't get the above post to let me in for editing. So........


While driving to a restaurant one dark and cloudy day,
I saw a phantom vision in the sky along the way:
Saw tables flying overhead, and seated in the chairs
Were folks who looked like skeletons, all giving hungry stare.

Yippy-aye-eh, yippy-aye-oh, ghost diners in the sky.

And following these ghostly tables through the wind and storms
Came ghostly men and women, all in tattered uniforms.
They tried to reach their customers with dishes piled up high;
But they never could run fast enough, and I heard their mournful cry.

Yippy-aye-eh, yippee-aye-oh, ghost waiters in the sky.

I asked one ghostly waiter, "Is this endless chase I see
Your punishment for serving earthly tables rottenly?"
"Well, not exactly," he replied. "The waiters who've been rude
Get put in that first group of ghosts, who never get their food.

"But my group is the customers, and managers as well,
Whose griping and unfair demands made work a living hell
For waiters who were seldom thanked, though they did their best.
Now it's our turn, forever, to run and never rest."

Yippy-aye-eh, yippee-aye-oh, ghost diners in the sky.
Tips are unpaid, yippee-aye-oh, ghost diners in-- the-- SKYYYYYYYYYYYY !!!!!