Everything's Still All Right

Every Easter I listen to 'Jesus Christ Superstar'. I've been doing this since I was 13. I'm not a practicing Christian, and as wife my jokes, 'even if he did practice – he wouldn't be any good at it.'
My grandfather was a Church of Christ minister. My mother was his only child. My father was a rock'n'roll, catholic bad boy. Neither family was thrilled when Mom and Dad ran off at 18 and got married, but tempers cooled when I was born. A grandchild has a way of breaching those spiritual divides.
When my sister and I were young my parents split the difference and gave us a little from the protestant menu and a little from the catholic side. The idea was that we'd be free to choose when we were older, but as the 60s progressed, religious services gave way to sleeping in late. By the time we moved to Saudi Arabia in 1971, Vacation Bible School was no longer a requirement in our secular household.
The next eight years were spent in Muslim countries. Five years in Sunni Saudi Arabia and three years in Shia Iran. I heard the prayer call five times a day. I watched our houseboy pray in the backyard while I ate my breakfast, and I saw multitudes of pilgrims make the Haj to Mecca. When I hear the prayer call on television or in a movie, it feels like home to me.
During our time in the Middle East we always came back to the States for Christmas. One holiday season my sister and I received the Jesus Christ Superstar album as a gift from our grandfather, a man who thought of rock'n'roll as the devil's music. That he would go into a record store and buy this album says volumes to me – it was an act of love. I'm certain that he felt my parents were raising 'heathen' children (which they were) and that he feared for our immortal souls. Perhaps by giving us this hippie rock music he could steer us back into the light. My sister and I absolutely loved Jesus Christ Superstar. We set about learning all the words and performing it to each other. She liked to sing the Jesus and Mary parts, and I, of course, wanted to sing the Judas and Pilate roles – boys will be boys.
It didn't work out as my grandfather had hoped. We weren't musically inspired back into the fold, but it did have an impact. I was a preacher's grandson. I'd read the King James Bible by the time I was 10, and I could even quote some scripture and verse, but it didn't touch me. Superstar did. It got me thinking about politics, love, friendship, sacrifice and hypocrisy in ways that nothing from the pulpit had. Rock'n'roll was my religion and Jesus was rockin' with the best of them.
Every Easter I play Jesus Christ Superstar and I think of my grandfather. Thank you, Papa, wherever you are in that great unknown. I always loved you and everything's still all right.