Larry Norman Message Board

As I start to type this message I don't know where to begin.  Perhaps the overwhelming number of people leaving messages will take away from any insecurities I have about leaving a message or statement here.  'Cause you probably won't ever get to this one....

 During the late 1970s I was an increasingly alienated teenager growing up and trying to be the good Christian kid that every expected me to be.  I was really reaching out to a lot of people tyring to connect,  and as someone who was also creative I was looking for other Christians who I could watch, listen to and learn things from. Larry Norman was one of those few Christian musicians that I would even listen to.  There was something in the things he wrote; his perceptions that I could really relate to. I sensed he was trying to create something outside the hoo-hum Christian framework that had existed up to that time.  And I really needed that.

I met him twice - once at Virginia Tech in the Fall of 1978 and again later at Culpepper, VA a year or so later (1979?). I  remember calling a work associate of his and hearing out about the airplane accident in 1986 and his memory loss problems and being asked to pray for him.  I tried to communicate one more time, years later, when I moved to Laurel Canyon Blvd. in Los Angeles, where he had an office up the street from where I lived. I left him a tape of some of my animation, I don't know whether he ever got it, though, but that's cool.

This evening, I got out my dusty old vinyl album of "Only Visiting This Planet" and started singing some of the songs.  'Brought back a lot of memories.

I know Larry was a guy with a lot of issues that a lot of people didn't know about.  But, all of us have issues, I've got mine and I can only hope that when I am gone people will forgive me for my rough edges. Those edges that I have tried so hard for so many years to get rid of or hide, and finally decided that I would have to live with them and ask God to use those edges as well as the rest of me in his service.  I know that every Christian in glory wants all of us to focus on Christ, not on ourselves, or anyone else, and just to keep pressing on towards the higher call. They are cheering us on to finish the race.

Thanks for the music Larry and your sense of humor and the encouragement I received from listening to you. 

God bless and speak to your family in their time of loss and may God's peace comfort them and draw them closer together.

Well, this is it, Man.  This is the end of my chain of words and the beginning of a new chapter in all our lives.  I'll miss you. Even when I didn't keep up with you it was just good to know that you were around.  No doubt about it.
Well, bye...for now!!  I'll show you some better animation in heaven, anyways.
- JHW