At the height of his success and popularity in 1974, Al Green was attacked by a former girlfriend Mary Woodson, who broke into his house and threw a bowl of boiling hot porridge over him as he showered, inflicting second degree burns on his stomach, arms and back. After the assault, Woodson shot herself. Deeply shaken, Green, who had always been a keen church-goer, saw the violent attack as a sign from God that he should turn to religion and join the Ministry.

By 1976, Green had bought his own church in Memphis and become a fully ordained Pastor for the Gospel Tabernacle. Green’s popularity and sales both began to slip, and in 1977, he was injured whilst performing on stage, and again interpreted the incident as a message from God. Later that year, Green built his own personal recording studio, and started to begin work of producing his own records, focusing mainly on gospel music releases. From 1981 to 1989, Green won eight soul gospel performance Grammys, but none of his work from this period was very well received by the mainstream record-buying public.

It was with great anticipation and excitement then that news of Green’s return to the R&B sound that had made him famous was received. In 2003, Green released ‘I Can’t Stop’ on the jazz label, Blue Note. It saw Green collaborating once again with producer Willie Mitchell as well as legendary soul guitarist Mabon “Teenie” Hodges, who had co-written many of Green’s ‘70s hits. ‘I Can’t Stop’ was a revelation, and a true return to form, recalling the glory days of Memphis soul, with Green wailing, crooning and moaning through twelve new original compositions.

Green also began to tour extensively again and in 2006, he headlined the Indy Jazz Festival in Indianapolis, Indiana, an annual celebration of jazz and soul music, which has also seen performances by BB King, Kool & The Gang and Norah Jones. There is no shortage of hotels in Indianapolis available to suit the needs of anyone wishing to attend the festival, which takes place in White River State Park in every June.

With his touring, preaching and a follow-up album due soon (reportedly featuring an appearance from Roots member Ahmir “?uestlove” Thompson), it seems Green is determined to live up to the title of his comeback album.

It was one of the most cold-blooded mass killings during the prohibition mob wars in Chicago. The elimination of six mobsters and one mechanic, who just happened to be in the garage when the execution squad arrived, took place after they were lined up against the wall and machine-gunned in the back.

The execution was ordered by the notorious Al Capone, leader of the South Side Italian which was engaged in a protracted dispute with the North Side Irish/ German gang, fronted by George ‘Bugs’ Moran, the target of the St. Valentine killing. Tensions had been running high for some time as the rival gangs disputed the rights to Chicago bootlegging and control of local dog tracks. As the rivalry escalated, so did the violence leading to murders and many failed attempts to kill members of each other’s gangs.

The enmity between Moran and Capone had simmered for many years and this was Capone’s attempt to finally rid himself of his troublesome rival. His grudge had been harboured for three years when Moran had previously tried to murder Capone at the gang boss’ hotel in Chicago and ever since Capone had vowed to get even.

Posing as policemen in full uniform, two gangsters inflicted the coup de grace on the six mobsters and unfortunate mechanic, but Moran – the real target of the attack – was late getting there and so escaped death. But, even though he lived, the massacre effectively put an end to Moran’s gangland escapades in Chicago. Although he outlived Capone, he was later jailed twice for robbery and died of lung cancer aged 63, ironically riddled by cancer and not bullets, as many had predicted.

With the Chicago police unable to pin any of the murders or extensive racketeering laid at Capone’s door, the mobster was eventually jailed for 11 years for tax evasion served mostly at Alcatraz, but was released after just six years, out early for good behaviour. However, his health has seriously deteriorated and soon after he died of a heart attack at the age of 48.

The garage where the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre took place was demolished in 1967 and ironically is now a landscaped parking lot for a nursing home.

The Poet, Robert Burns

Robert Burns’s family raised seven children on sparse, rented farmland on the west coast of Scotland. The family cottage still stands as a proud tourist attraction. The family farm was not successful and the family moved from farm to farm. Life on the farm in western Scotland was harsh and Robert worked long hours with his father.

Burn’s father recognized the value of education and he managed to hire a local teacher to tutor Robert. He was an extremely bright student, mastering Shakespeare, current poets, French, Latin, philosophy, politics, geography, theology, and mathematics. His father read the Bible during the evenings around the cottage fireplace and Robert became an expert on the Bible and a devout Church member.

Robert Burns wrote his first poem at age 15. The poem was called “Handsome Nell” and was about his first love for a girl named Nellie Blair. Throughout his life, Burns was a charming and witty man, attracting the attention of numerous women. A dozen or more women can be identified as the inspiration for various poems. Burns wrote many famous love poems, including “A Red, Red Rose” and “One Fond Kiss.”

Here’s an excerpt from “Handsome Nell.”

“O once I loved a bonnie lass,

Aye, and I love her still;

And whilst that virtue warms my breast,

I’ll love my handsome Nell.”

Burns, in a later comment on this poem, stated that he had “never had the least thought or inclination of turning poet till I got once heartily in love, and then rhyme and song were, in a manner, the spontaneous language of my heart.”

The Turning Point

In 1786, at age 27, Robert Burns went through a major turning point in his life. He suffered a disappointing love affair with Jean Armour, who was pregnant with his twin sons. The local community and Armour’s father were outraged by the affair and her father rejected Burns’s offer of marriage.

Dejected and depressed, Burns made plans to leave Scotland and sail to Jamaica in the West Indies. To finance the trip, Burns submitted a volume of his poetry for publication.

The publication of 612 copies in a simple, unbound volume was called “Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect,” also sometimes known as “The Kilmarnock Edition.” The poems were well received in Edinburgh by socialites who were enchanted by the poems and amazed that a poor farmer could write so well.

So, instead of planning his escape to a new world, Burns planned a trip to Edinburgh. His confident manner, ingratiating style, and his obvious wit and intelligence brought Burns popularity and admiration. Soon, a second publication of his work was executed in Edinburgh.

The Growing Popularity

During his stay in Edinburgh, Robert Burns met printer James Johnson, who planned a project to print all of the folk songs in Scotland. This project enthralled Burns and embarked upon a journey throughout Scotland to collect as many folk songs as possible. Burns collected over 300 songs and wrote a few himself, including “A Red, Red Rose.”

One of the results of his travels throughout Scotland was that Robert Burns ingratiated himself to everyone he met and he rose to national prominence and popularity.

The collected songs were published by Johnson in six volumes and by George Thomson in a five volume set.

Another happy outcome of this turning point in Robert Burns’s life is that he was able to return home and marry his beloved Jean Armour, now with the blessing of her family.

Robert Burns continued to collect and write songs for The Scots Musical Museum, an anthology of traditional Scottish lyrical poems, until his untimely death from rheumatic heart disease in 1796.

Within a few years of his death groups of Robert Burns’s friends and fans gathered to promote his memory and to celebrate his life. By 1801, five years after his death, groups met on the anniversary of his death, but later they began to meet on the anniversary of his birth, January 25. Now there are many Burns clubs and societies who celebrate his memory with dinners, including haggis, and readings of his works.

The Poem, “A Red, Red Rose”

One of the most famous songs that Robert Burns wrote for this project and first published in 1794 was “A Red, Red Rose.” Burns wrote it as a traditional ballad, four verses of four lines each.

“A Red, Red Rose” begins with a quatrain containing two similes. Burns compares his love with a springtime blooming rose and then with a sweet melody. These are popular poetic images and this is the stanza most commonly quoted from the poem.

The second and third stanzas become increasingly complex, ending with the metaphor of the “sands of life,” or hourglass. One the one hand we are given the image of his love lasting until the seas run dry and the rocks melt with the sun, wonderfully poetic images. On the other hand Burns reminds us of the passage of time and the changes that result. That recalls the first stanza and its image of a red rose, newly sprung in June, which we know from experience will change and decay with time. These are complex and competing images, typical of the more mature Robert Burns.

The final stanza wraps up the poem’s complexity with a farewell and a promise of return.

“A Red, Red Rose” is written as a ballad with four stanzas of four lines each. Each stanza has alternating lines of four beats, or iambs, and three beats. The first and third lines have four iambs, consisting of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable, as in da-dah, da-dah, da-dah, da-dah. The second and fourth lines consist of three iambs. This form of verse is well adapted for singing or recitation and originated in the days when poetry existed in verbal rather than written form.

A Red, Red Rose

by Robert Burns

O my luve’s like a red, red rose.

That’s newly sprung in June;

O my luve’s like a melodie

That’s sweetly play’d in tune.

As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,

So deep in luve am I;

And I will love thee still, my Dear,

Till a’the seas gang dry.

Till a’ the seas gang dry, my Dear,

And the rocks melt wi’ the sun:

I will luve thee still, my Dear,

While the sands o’life shall run.

And fare thee weel my only Luve!

And fare thee weel a while!

And I will come again, my Luve,

Tho’ it were ten thousand mile!

It was a voice of kindness that knew me completely. A Spirit that comforted me when my journey in this world was hard. A loving Savior that helped me carry the difficult burdens of life with lightness and a freedom that could only have been sent by a supernatural power.

1 John 2: 27, “But as for you, Christ has poured out his Spirit on you. As long as his Spirit remains in you, you do not need anyone to teach you. For his Spirit teaches you about everything, and what he teaches is true, not false. Obey the Spirit’s teaching, then, and remain in union with Christ.”

Listening to the voice of the Spirit of God is one of the most difficult things to discern. You must be trained by God’s Spirit in order to know the difference between His Spirit and the voice of Satan’s evil spirit demons, who want to destroy a person’s life.

When Adam and Eve ate the apple our world changed into a battleground. A war between good and evil where the Spirit world interacted with the human world. Our minds became the greatest battle field of them all because that is where the Spirit interacts with our consciousness.

1 John 3: 19-21, “This, then, is how we will know that we belong to the truth; this is how we will be confident in God’s presence. If our conscience condemns us, we know that God is greater than our conscience and that he knows everything. And so, my dear friends, if our conscience does not condemn us, we have courage in God’s presence.”

The first lesson you must learn as you endeavor to understand the voices you hear within your consciousness is the difference between God and Satan. Remember the Spirit of God is the voice of truth and love. Satan is the voice of condemnation and hate.

I have been an upholster for over thirty years and God taught me to listen when I needed help on a difficult pattern match or if I needed insight when I was changing the style of a piece of furniture. God’s voice was a flash of an idea that led me to do my job easier. It was a whisper that directed me to cut fabric in a certain way. The Spirit of truth never forced an idea on me, it came gently. When I obeyed the voice it made my work easier. The loving voice of my Savior made me an excellent upholster, who loved my job.

God, helping me in my job and directing me so I wouldn’t make mistakes, shows how much He cares about people. He wanted me to do well and He gave me the gift of knowledge that helped me to do upholstery work. This taught me that He cared that I had the money I needed in order to live.

The Spirit directed me on how to behave in my relationships. I was never to give into anger, jealousy or rage. I was to be peaceful, caring and loving to those around me. This is not an easy thing to do because everyone is easily persuaded by their emotions to hold onto offenses that others do to them.

1 John 19-21, “We love because God first loved us. If someone says he loves God, but hates his brother, he is a liar. For he cannot love God, whom he has not seen, if he does not love his brother, whom he has seen. The command that Christ has given us is this: whoever loves God must love his brother also.”

Reading my Bible and allowing it to control my human nature with the right way to treat people helped me to know God’s will for my life. We must love others in order to do what is right. We are not to give into our own selfish desires which lead us down paths that are not God, but Satan.

Satan’s voice leads us down paths that abuse our bodies through excessive drinking or smoking that is geared to rob us of our life. He frustrates our ability to make a living by having us fight with our co-workers. He makes us blind to what we are doing wrong in work so we will fail.

Satan wants to make us take revenge on those who do us wrong. This is the reason so many countries are at war today. This is why there are gangs who fight against other gangs. Violence and murder are an everyday occurrence with those who give into their human nature and listen to Satan’s evil voice.

1 John 3: 7-10, “Let no one deceive you, my children! Whoever does what is right is righteous just as Christ is righteous. Whoever continues to sin belongs to the Devil, because the Devil has sinned from the very beginning. The Son of God appeared for this very reason, to destroy what the Devil had done.

Whoever is a child of God does not continue to sin, for God’s very nature is in him; and because God is his Father, he cannot continue to sin. Here is a clear difference between God’s children and the Devil’s children: anyone who does not do what is right or does not love his brother is not God’s child.”

Now we can see clearly through scriptures the spiritual battle that surrounds each person’s life. To acknowledge the unseen spiritual battle is to gain wisdom on why bad things happen to people. Interpreting the voices help us when we go through difficult things in the world like sickness, natural disasters, loss of a loved one and tragedies that normally come to people.

I have a Christian friend who went through a severe sickness that put her in the hospital where she almost died. Her whole life was in crisis because when she was sick she could not earn the money she needed in order to pay her bills. In her hopelessness she began hearing a voice that repeated over and over again that she was going to die. When she confided in me over what was happening, I told her the voice was not God, but Satan. God is the giver of life in a corrupt and evil world. Satan wants to destroy life.

Learning to hear the voice of God directs us so we can live! God cares about every part of our life. He wants us to succeed in our work. He wants us to love each other. He wants us to know the difference between good and bad. He desires that we have a close relationship with Him so we will not be led into sin by Satan’s evil voice of lies.

When God stated He loved me like the moon. I knew it was Him, because God loves people. The moon’s light is like the rays of knowledge that opens up a person’s mind to truth. Just like the moon lights up the world at night, God’s followers are to be a shining light of love for the world.