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THE
GRANDVIEW STORY |
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Clearly, we are in living in a time that is unique in the history of the world. In this, the 21st century (those who can afford it), have more instantaneous access (at least electronically) to this planet in it’s entirety, than at any other point in history. Fortunes shift throughout cyber-space at the keypad entry of a password and the click of a mouse. Business empires rise and fall, all in a day’s trading. Actual power and influence held by governments is dwindling as ‘Big Business’ becomes the driving force of this ‘global’ economy. More art, film, entertainment, technological, recreational, philosophical, spiritual and lifestyle choices are available than ever before. Yet, amidst it all, this is a world of uncertainty, fear and rejection. In the hearts of many . . . lack of meaning . . . . lack of purpose . . . . lack of love. It
is in this age of uncertainty that I have found the very meaning
of life, . . and it is out of this desire to help others to have the opportunity to do the same that Grandview Records was established and officially launched in November 2004, by a handful of amazing people and myself, Dale Hembrow. I was born on the Gold Coast, Australia in 1980 and spent all of my childhood and schooling years living in this beautiful but sheltered . . and somewhat superficial tourist Mecca. My family attended a fairly conservative Lutheran Church and I received my schooling at a non-denominational Christian College (although I didn’t actually know anyone who attended my school that openly admitted to being Christian). As a child, I was always a day-dreamer, analytical, shy, a romantic and somewhat of a loner. In church, left to my own thoughts and devices, I started to questioning the reality of God at an unhealthily young age. I was forced to attend very dry and rigid services by my parents (my mother played the organ in the traditional service) at 7am most Sundays (thankfully, my parents took my brothers and I to the beach after church each week and fed us junk food as a reward). In church however, my thoughts through the service were largely of personal sin, fear, guilt, heaven and hell. I can’t remember understanding the relationship and this radical love that I feel today. However, I don’t regret that time in Church as a child. I was taught many things that now make sense to me and in that time developed a strong sense of morality and social conscience that has carried through even to today. In my junior school years (age 6-12), I performed extremely well academically. I also played a lot of sport, particularly swimming. I actually used to compete against Grant Hackett on the Gold Coast swimming circuit. He was pretty much the same height then as he is now, so he kinda dominated. I did however beat him once in a 50m butterfly event. To this day, I still believe it was due to his swimmers falling off when he dived into the pool but I guess we will never know. Despite achieving highly in most of the things I put my hand to, I found fitting in socially, quite difficult. While I generally hung around what might have been considered the ‘cool’ crowd, I was never fully accepted and felt unable to be myself, time and again bowing to the weight of the desire to be cool. One of the greatest regrets of my life was in grade 6. When a girl that I had a huge crush on asked me out, I said no because one of my friends made fun of me. Turns out I made her cry. . . . . I’m sorry Martina. My high-schooling continued in much the same vein. I felt quite outcast and alone much of the time, drawing deeper into myself. The highlight of those years was taking up the electric guitar when I was 15. I practised tirelessly and developed a sense of personal identity through my music and finally had some hero figures to aspire to, albeit rockstars who had generally died of asphyxiation in their own vomit at the age of 27 (everyone needs a hero). I started my first band, a punk/rock outfit called “Draven” when I was 16, singing and playing bass guitar. Song-writing and general jamming allowed me express my individuality and to create something positive out of the often bleak and hopeless emotions I felt. The songs were often about failed romances, anger and brokenness. In high-school I would inevitably be drunk or stoned at parties. I felt that it was the only way I could be social. My relationship with my parents was at the best distant, at worst, quite violent. While I still performed exceptionally well at school, I lacked passion in anything apart from music. However, in my heart, I always felt a certain pulse of destiny . . . a sense of fate that at that time I never quite understood. Drugs, Sex, Rock'n'Roll . . . & Philosophy After I graduated high school in 1997, I moved to Brisbane to study a combined degree in Engineering/Arts at UQ, moving into a residential college and living on campus. In the next 2 years my life consisted of drugs, sex, rock’n’roll . . . . and philosophy. In the midst of inebriation and procrastination I developed a strong desire for truth. I began to become interested in Buddhist and Taoist notions of spirituality, in particular developing my own ideas on the subject of religion and spirituality. Nevertheless, I still felt a lack of direction in my life. Due to this, I looked to fill this void in relationships with girls that were loud, passionate and had strong opinions, since I was lacking in those areas. After a very short and torrid relationship with one of these girls (who happened to be my best friend) I fell into a horrific depression that nearly ended my life, towards the end 1999. For about four months I moved back into my parents place on the Gold Coast, very rarely leaving the house, hardly being able to string a sentence together even with my family. The highlights of my day were playing Mortal Kombat with my brother and the occasional movie and tenpin bowling game which would in some way keep my mind off of my own dark thoughts. Despite having so much free time, I stopped playing and writing music completely. The Year 2000 - (for better & for worse) Thankfully, the turn of the millenium did spell a change for me. Although the world didn’t end or the global financial systems crash, I did launch into an adventure would forever change my life. Around that time I read “The Hobbit,” and like Bilbo Baggins, I would journey to far away lands, getting far more than I had bargained for. I undertook a university student exchange to Lund, a university town in the south of Sweden, somehow climbing out of my depression just in time. Almost overnight, I was the life of the party, able to talk to anybody and open to anything new and exciting. It was in Sweden that I had my first really close contact with some Christians around my own age, in particular one enchanting Canadian girl, who at one point, I became quite good friends with. I began to research the historical validity of the Bible and I found a couple of websites that made me reconsider my beliefs. However, it wasn’t til much later, that I would consider these things much more deeply. I believe that God showed me visions of my future and this time was filled with a sense of destiny, renewed calling in life and a passion to help people. But it was also wild, uncontrolled and manic. I quit engineering, came home and continued to study arts, majoring in political science and philosophy, with bold plans to become an influential writer, politician and change the world as we know it. (at the age of 19 . . right?) As I came to terms with the reality that my bold, manic plans were to be much more difficult than I had hoped or imagined I slowly felt back into another depression in the second half of the year 2000. This depression was perhaps even deeper than the first, filled with an even greater sense of failure. It was in this time, that I really began to distrust my mind. I attempted to move into a dormitory on campus but unable to find the courage to socialize or even visit the food hall, I hit an all-time low. I decided that I wanted the pain to end and made a serious attempt on my life. After spending several hours at the top of the chemistry building at the University of Queensland, I realized that I didn’t have it in me to see if I might possibly be able to fly. So for some ridiculous reason I chose to ingest an entire bottle of 50 panadeine (paracetomol and codeine) tablets. Incidentally this is a remarkably stupid and painful way to try to kill yourself but nonetheless my tortured mind approved. As the liver poisoning kicked in, after a scenic drive to Mt., Tamborine (I guess I was looking for something beautiful to live for) I somehow ended up driving to my parents place and my mother realized something was wrong. I confessed and she raced me to the hospital. Thankfully, they treated me in time to avoid permanent liver damage and I ended up back living back at my parents place, dropping out of university and working full-time in the liquor store at my father’s pub, moving stock and manning the sales counter. I didn’t particularly enjoy the idea of selling alcohol or alcoholics (even though there were some great specials) but it was great for me to be keeping active, relatively social and out of the house. It was towards the end of that year that my life once again change forever. I applied for a music production degree at the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, somehow scraping together a few recordings and to my surprise and relief, I got accepted into the course. I was finally following my passion and this was to be the beginning of a new stage of my life. I again moved back to Brisbane, share-housing with some muso friends from high-school. Up to this point all of the members of the house were very familiar with the daily use of marijuana but when I moved in, there was a general consensus that everyone was quitting. Funnily enough we did quite well for a while, however, the pot was replaced by Jim Beam and before long we had a collection of at least 20 Jim Beam bottles in our kitchen before every finally got back onto the pot and the house’s desire for social lives and passions to succeed, were sucked through the cone-piece of the dirty bong in our living room(maybe a tad melodramatic?). It was actually in that house in the Western suburbs of Brisbane that Grandview Records was first conceived. My housemate had just recently gone through a manic, spiritual experience quite similar to myself, and as we dreamed together of changing the world, we decided to start a studio and a record label. I asked my father for a loan and we got started in setting up a recording studio in the house. It was great for a while, until things began to crumble, due to a turbulent mix of youthful and emotional immaturity, impatience on my behalf, drug use and paranoia. While I was never a daily user of pot, towards the end of 2001 I began to buy my own stashes and was stoned pretty much constantly for a that last month or so. I dropped uni back to only 1 subject, got fired from my job at the Regatta hotel and found myself sliding into depression for the 3rd time in 3 years. I remember thinking, “I can’t do this again,” and I think I called out to God in a way that I hadn’t really done before. It was around that time that the September 11 tragedy occurred. I remember feeling an emotion coldness towards the event that I found quite disturbing. I was definitely at a breaking point; my endurance to deal with my manic-depressive cycles was waning. Here enters the hero of the tale!! At that time, the house that I lived in was directly across the road from a small state school. Each Sunday I would hear great live music drifting from the basketball gymnasium. Eventually my curiosity got the better of me and, having a passion for music and all things musical, I proceeded to investigate. I eventually found out that, instead of a school rock band rehearsing each week, it was actually a weekly church service! It was around this time that my drug habit was peaking, I was sliding into depression and I was desperate to find something real. Eventually, one Sunday, I bit the bullet and despite my fears . . and my dwindling social skills, I attended a night church service. I remember being confounded at the quality and the genre of the music, the physically expressive manner in which people worshiped God and a less-formal structure to the service than I had grown up with. I actually told one of my Christian friends in the week after, “I visited this cult church across the road from my house last Sunday . . . . .Will you come with me sometime!?” While the service kinda freaked me out, a couple of people spoke to me after the service, showing a genuine love and concern that I hadn’t really experienced before. After attending church that Sunday, God wouldn’t leave me alone. A leader from one of the church camps I attended growing up began working at my preferred financial institution (I can’t believe she remembered me). I got approached during a lunch time at my university by a member of an evangelical Christian group and had an in-depth discussion about Christianity (and Buddhism). Also, on the bus home one day, I saw a girl who attended the church and got into a great conversation with her (turns out she had actually been praying and fasting for me). This all happened in the space of a few days and as I had always believed in fate and signs from the universe, for the next few weeks I tried my hardest not to get stoned until night time on a Sunday, so I could make it to another service. Eventually I made it along. I continued to attend on Sunday nights each from from then on and a few weeks later, I responded to the weekly invitation to come to the front at the end of the service to give Jesus my life and to have one of the church leaders pray for me. I still remember the day quite vividly, however it was not the words that the gentlemen prayed (what I actually do remember was his rancid breath) but as he prayed for me I felt like I was getting lifted off the ground. I looked around to find that no-one was lifting me up. I felt an awesome sensation of something akin to pins and needles (quite pleasurable though) sweeping through my body and before my eyes. I now know that familiar sensation to be the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit but at the time I was absolutely blown away. For the first time I was powerfully confronted with this truth. God is real . . . God is here . . . God is powerful . . . God cares about me. Grandview Records Take 2 - the JC files That was about three and a half years ago. And while my journey has been at times difficult in many ways, I strongly believe that all of my struggles, both before I accepted Jesus into my life, as well as those subsequent to that day, have been for a reason, preparing me for my life’s purpose. It is because of these very struggles, both with my own intellectual barriers to faith but also in trying to understand why so many people in our society choose to ignore the truth, that I have set up Grandview as it is today. Since Christianity (at least Christianity that holds the Bible to be true) is a faith that gives little or no room for other religious 'truths,' to be simultaneously true, it was extremely important to me to know that I had chosen the right religion and that Jesus really is the only way to God. All around me I had seen the radical change in people's lives due to developing a relationship with Jesus. I needed to know that it was real, not some kind of placebo to bring hope. For me to make a decision to wholeheartedly encourage my friends, family and others to choose the path I had chosen, I needed to know that I wasn't leading them up the garden path 'so to speak.' So I launched myself into the study of biblical creation theory, the study of apologetics (support for the truth of the Bible) and I sought out God to show me beyond a shadow of a doubt of His truth and His reality. Needless to say, God met my cry, however I don't feel it is appropriate to recall those experiences. What I will say is that the more I learned about the Bible and the study of creation, creation science, the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy and the historical accuracy of the Bible, the more satisfied I was with the absolute realiability of the Bible. Those who seek God out honestly with their minds and also with their hearts, but also with enough humility to discard old, misguided beliefs will find God through Jesus, this I can assure you!! My life isn't perfect . . . far from it. Even in the last year I have gone through some some very difficult times as I deal with insecurities from my past. God is helping me consolidate my character. Sometimes my temper gets the better of me and everyday I fall from grace. What I do know now, is that if I let Him, Jesus will guide my every step and as soon as I ask Him, he washes away my mistakes as if they never even happened. The truth IS out there, but I know now that the truth lives in me . . . . . . . and his name is Jesus Christ. With Love to you All, Dale Hembrow |
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