Western Songlines: Following an Eastern Jesus in a Western World

By David Brisbin

The creation stories of Australia's Aborigines set to music and chant are the songlines that have guided them through inner and outer landscapes for 60,000 years. What guides us today in the West? Those of us who say we follow Jesus of Nazareth point to Scripture as our guide, but what we believe about Scripture and life itself changes everything. We need permission to question our beliefs about our belief to see if the map our songs are singing is taking us anywhere we really want to go. "What good are our beliefs about God if they don't make our lives and relationships sing out loud right herenow? We live at the level of life-sweaty, bloody, beautiful life. If our spirituality can't withstand the intensity of that life, if it can't endure and thrive there, then what good is it? It's not truth, and it's not saving or liberating either."As a companion book, Western Songlines picks up where The Fifth Way left off. There is virtually no major concept of Jesus' message and teaching that we can take at face value, that we can read as a "simple" meaning once translated into our own language. But even after we reconsider the deep Hebrew meaning of Jesus' words and life, what are the conclusions we should be drawing about our own lives and meaning? Jesus sang the written songlines of his people as the map of his passage through life, but along the Way, he heard his Father singing new songs that he sang to his followers and have now been passed down to us as the written songlines of our time. But Jesus' Way cannot simply be bequeathed; it must be experienced to be true, and if we don't follow those songlines on journeys of our own, we'll never hear our Father singing the songs that will change the very way we view life and love and relationship. Western Songlines looks at twelve key issues in our lives-inspiration, acceptance, salvation, intent, discernment, rebirth, love, trust, presence, contentment, destiny, release-and in the music of Jesus' Aramaic message, listens for songs that can guide us over our Western terrain and take us where Jesus' Way is really pointing.As pioneering Christian singer/songwriter Chris Falson writes in his endorsement of The Fifth Way series, "Reading The Fifth Way is like spending time with the author, Dave Brisbin, who has a gift of making simple the complicated religious mess we have collectively made of Christianity. He is a voice in the wilderness and a breath of fresh air. If you consider yourself a follower of Jesus, then The Fifth Way may help you discover the path your heart has long been seeking." And pastor/author Chuck Smith Jr. writes, "... believers are asking whether there is another way to walk with God that depends more on Spirit than structure and in practice is more organic than programmatic. Dave Brisbin's answer is 'Yes There is The Fifth Way.' Of all the books in the Christian marketplace today why should you read this one? To renew your mind, refresh your heart, and restore your soul."

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1522891749
• ISBN13: 9781522891741
• Release Date: February 2016
• Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
• Length: 242 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.0" x 9.0"