I have known more than my share of grief and pain. I have experienced the kind of grief and pain that comes as no cause of your own and I have known the other kind, mountains of self-imposed grief and pain.  Depressive pain that last years. I have shared more than my allotment of anger but one thing I also know is I have experienced large doses of peace.  I have experienced large doses of self-imposed peace as in the kind of peace that comes over you after you just took in a nice big fatty.  Standing on a tee box looking out over a well-manicured golf course on a soft late spring day where the air is still cool and the sun feels good on your face.  Sliding down a perfectly groomed run, early on a winters morning with mountain peaks jumping skyward all around you, the sun coming up, blue bird skies ahead, you were first chair, no other tracks before you.  All seems to be well within you soul….

And… as well, a kind of peace I believe only the Spirit can give as a gift.   A kind of peace that comes even in the worst of circumstances, that doesn’t require circumstance to be in your favor to know it.   So I think, for myself I can know the difference and I believe strongly there is.

God said: You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”

In my opinion two religions or world views were established in that moment.  One world view was tied to the tree of Life…  All others were tied to the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil… Pagan.  Now I am not using Pagan in the strictest sense of the word and some people will want to call me out on that, I know because some have.  My hindsight or my experience, to me, tells me that for myself, when I choose the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, at some point I have to manufacture my peace and I have found ways to do that as I described above, but when I choose the Tree of Life as my source then I receive a different kind of peace that comes from somewhere else in side of me that is not of me.   This song, No Pagan tries to describe what that second kind of peace feels like… It surely is a peace that passes all understanding, its one of the most desirable things I have found in this world and it comes as a result choosing the Tree of Life… Jesus.

So that is one layer.  Another layer is a recent song a thing I went through.  After decades of wanting to move to Colorado, after a near year of discussion I decided not to and that story is covered in another song and another blog post…  A few weeks after that step began a peace fell over me and thus this song.