It's a Good Friday

Hello

Way back in the day, when I used to play guitar at church, I would take the hymns we were practicing and change the music. It's amazing to see how versatile some of these 300 year old lyrics really are. I'd change them up into country, jazz, and rock.  One of my favourites was turning Blessed Assurance into a 90's hip hop rap. Just imagine it.

Anyway, I came across Leo who does something similar with current songs. Here's Adele's Hello. I think it's better than the original.

When The Man Comes Around

My friend recently found out her husband is dying. The doctors say he has less than 5 years to live. He could be dead tomorrow. There's no operation and no medication that can stop this. Only a miracle will change the inevitable.

I don't know what it would be like to know how little time you have left on this side of eternity. I'm sure it would make any person re-evaluate their life. We all know we have a limited number of days but we all assume that those days numbers in the tens of thousands. I mentioned in early blog posts about sudden illnesses and deaths that affected people I know much earlier in life than is expected. My cousin lost his wife to ALS. A coworker has learned she has MS. They were both younger than I am. Another coworker lost his daughter to cancer. She wasn't even 10. My parents are currently older than their parents were when they died. No one knows for sure how many days or years they have left. And yet, I would guess that we waste so much of our time on things that don't matter in the larger scheme of things.

My friend is preparing to be a widow in her 30s with 3 kids under the age of 9. Now that the reality of mortality has set in their priorities have changed. Life is not about going to work right now, even though money will be important in the future. They want to spend time together. They want to make videos for their kids to remember their dad.

I'm planning to live beyond 100 years old. How should I prioritize? Do I live like today is the first day of the rest of my life or live like today will be my last? What's the middle ground?

Solstice

It's my favourite time of the year. The shortest day of the year. Once again, every day for the next 6 months is going to be a little longer, a little brighter, than the day before. We made it.

OK GO! Does It Again

Thunderstruck

Sometimes a classic transcends all boundaries.

Ear Candy

Sing Like You Used To, Dance When You Want To

I've been missing music in my life lately.
Time to wake up from my slumber, open up my eyes.
I haven't touched my guitar in over a year.
I haven't really sat down and enjoyed music much lately.

I'm taking a little time out tonight to change that.

Done.

Cumulative

It all adds up.

Truer words have never been spoken.

A final product is the result of cumulative steps.

I always wanted to play the piano. I'm not sure why. I remember as a kid playing "air" piano on a long drive home from Calgary with my dad in his old orange truck. Stevie Wonder's version of That's What Friends Are For was on the radio. As best as I can recall, I played "air" piano and sang that song over and over for at least an hour after the song ended on the radio. I wonder how good a piano player I could be today if I started taking lessons back then. That's a quarter century of practice. I'm sure I'd at least be decent.

I'm amazed how well I play the guitar. I know I'm not the greatest, but I remember the first time I picked up a guitar. I was 13, in grade 8, in my French teacher's classroom, over the lunch hour. I couldn't strum. I could barely hold down a string without fretting out. My pinky had no co-ordination. I had no musical theory. I joke that I managed to cram 2 years of lessons into 2 decades. I would never have imagined back then the skill level I would have today. I can jam. I can solo. I can improvize. I can learn and improve and entertain. All because of the cumulative effects of a few lessons and a few practice sessions over the years. Had I really worked hard at it, I'm sure I could be light years ahead of my ability at the moment, but, nonetheless, I'm decent.

Unfortunately, I've learned other things over time as well. I learned early on in my childhood to fear rejection, people, relationships, affection, physical contact. And unfortunately those experiences were just as cumulative as learning to play the guitar. I "learned" I wasn't worthy of relationships, that no one could like the real me, and that I would be isolated and alone for the rest of my life. Unfortunately I learned those lessons very well. It's only been recently that I've actively and intentionally embarked on a new path. I'm undoing the cumulative damage from my past. I'm gaining small victories in my life. One at a time. And they are cumulative too. I wish I started this a long time ago, but I suppose it's better late than never. Areas of my life I thought were closed up forever are beginning to open again.

I think the thing I learned, and am learning daily, is that possibilities beyond what I thought were possible even a short time ago, are well within my reach. All I had to do was reach for them.

While I was practicing the guitar one day a guy showed up in my classroom. I think he was a former student. He whipped out one of the guitars and started playing a song I had never heard before by a band I didn't know anything about, except that they were evil. Back then I never could have imagined that all these years later I could be rocking out on my guitar playing that exact same song just as skilfully, if not more so, than that guy who walked into my classroom. I'm curious to see what other things I will accomplish in the future that I couldn't even comprehend in my past.

Modern Worship Music

OK,

This will be my last post on why I dislike most "Christian" music (worship songs in particular).

I'll begin by saying that I don't hate all "Christian" music or worship music, just half of it. Admit it, you know every other song is pretty much identical. Same progression, timing, words, "feeling". Ugh. Apparently I'm not the only one who's thought this.

I apologize if the following video offends anyone. (But it's true.)

You can listen to the whole song by clicking here (if you really want to).

Now compare that to some of the "classics".

It's a Good Friday

Learning To Walk Again

I'm Back

I've been gone a while. Temporarily interrupted. Now I'm back. It feels good.

"Christian" Music

I have a love/hate relationship with music dubbed "Christian". I find a very large portion of it boring and uncreative. It's sad that those inspired by the Creator of the universe can "create" such a bland product only a few syllables removed from being a Beiber ballad. I know that taste in music can vary so I try not to be too hard on styles I'm not a huge fan of (country) because you may not like what I'm in to (hard rock). So, looking below the surface, what makes music "Christian"? The simple answer is absolutely nothing. Being a Christian is a choice influenced by belief and so only human beings may be "Christians". If I were a "Christian" farmer, would my "Christian" produce be any holier than that agnostic farmer down the grid road? Nope. It may even be worse. 

Obviously music, and lyrics in particular, come from life experiences and so there there will be songs that originate from a Christian perspective and songs that speak to my Christian perspective. That doesn't make any song particularly "Christian" though. Having said all that I think lyrics are what ultimately push a song under the "Christian" umbrella or not. Like I said earlier, I'm not a huge fan of "Christian" music because of it's blandness, both lyrical and musical, although I am a fan of many artists that are Christians. One guy I have found myself appreciating more and more is Matt Maher because of his lyrics. I've linked to some of his songs before, HERE and HERE and HERE. I guess this post is just an excuse to share a couple more songs of his I like.

All Truth Belongs To God

I'm Awesome VII

Number 7

I'm musical. I can't sing. I can't dance. But I love music. Guitar is my instrument but I fool around on drums and piano. And I like to try my hand at different instruments if I get a chance. A little country gospel on the banjo or a little Final Countdown on the accordion. It's all good. I have a song in my heart, on my mind, on the radio and on my ipod. Music is an important part of my life. I'm trying to think of a positive way to spin this... This makes me awesome because... I can serenade you at the drop of a hat.

Musical

Ok Go

Ok Go is an interesting band. They write a lot of catchy little songs, had a few selected for the Guitar Hero video games, appeared on Sesame Street, The Muppet Show and made an appearance in the Docu-movie The Greatest Story Ever Sold by Morgan Spurlock (of Super Size Me fame). The band gained prominence because of a short 3 minute video they made and released on youtube for their song Here It Goes Again. Although the band has released a lot of "normal" music videos as well, I thought I would put together a collection of their more unique and visually interesting videos for your viewing pleasure

Here It Goes Again

A Million Ways To Be Cruel

Do What You Want

White Knuckles

Needing/Getting

End Love

This Too Shall Pass (Single Shot Band Version)

This Too Shall Pass (Single Shot Rube Goldberg Version)

Muppet Show

Confessions

Excerpt from the Confessions of Saint Augustine (written a little before 400AD):

Urged to reflect upon myself, I entered under your guidance the innermost places of my being; but only because you had become my helper was I able to do so. I entered, then, and with the vision of my spirit, such as it was, I saw the incommutable light far above my spiritual ken and transcending my mind: not this common light which every carnal eye can see, nor any light of the same order; but greater, as though this common light were shining much more powerfully, far more brightly, and so extensively as to fill the universe. The light I saw was not the common light at all, but something different, utterly different, from all those things. Nor was it higher than my mind in the sense that oil floats on water or the sky is above the earth; it was exalted because this very light made me, and I was below it because by it I was made. Anyone who knows truth knows this light.

O eternal Truth, true Love, and beloved Eternity, you are my God, and for you I sigh day and night. As I first began to know you, you lifted me up and showed me that, while that which I might see exists indeed, I was not yet capable of seeing it. Your rays beamed intensely on me, beating back my feeble gaze, and I trembled with love and dread. I knew myself to be far away from you in a region of unlikeness, and I seemed to hear your voice from on high: “I am the food of the mature: grow, then, and you shall eat me. You will not change me into yourself like bodily food; but you will be changed into me”.

Accordingly I looked for a way to gain the strength I needed to enjoy you, but I did not find it until I embraced the mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus, who is also God, supreme over all things and blessed for ever. He called out, proclaiming I am the Way and Truth and the Life, nor had I known him as the food which, though I was not yet strong enough to eat it, he had mingled with our flesh, for the Word became flesh so that your Wisdom, through whom you created all things, might become for us the milk adapted to our infancy.

Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new, late have I loved you!  You were within me, but I was outside, and it was there that I searched for you.  In my unloveliness I plunged into the lovely things which you created.  You were with me, but I was not with you.  Created things kept me from you; yet if they had not been in you they would not have been at all.  You called, you shouted, and you broke through my deafness.  You flashed, you shone, and you dispelled my blindness.  You breathed your fragrance on me; I drew in breath and now I pant for you.  I have tasted you, now I hunger and thirst for more.  You touched me, and I burned for your peace.

Alive

Eleven years ago today was a horrible day for obvious reasons.
On that day P.O.D. released their Satellite cd with Alive as its first single. On a day of fear and death the number one song on the radio was about hope and life by 4 Christian guys who grew up on "the wrong side of the tracks" but saw what Jesus had done in their lives.



Eleven years later P.O.D.'s newest release is climbing the charts and its first single Lost In Forever is number one on the Rock Charts.



Followed closely by Higher



and Murdered Love

Struck A Chord

I was thinking about things and listening to this song a couple days ago. It really seemed to strike a chord with me. I guess I am a little unwell.
Hopefully I will feel a little more like this each day.

I've been thinking a lot lately.
I don't know if I'll put many of those thoughts online.

I still want to stay true to my mission statement, to allow you to get to know me, but the next few posts are probably going to be about me getting to know me. You are welcome to meet me on this journey as well. Sometimes I feel like I should have it all figured out and be more definite and decisive but there are still things in life I am trying to wrap my brain around. I don't have all the answers but I am willing to seek and hopefully find.

Stay tuned for a flurry of somewhat unrelated ideas and thoughts. (In my brain they are all related but you are not in here with me so you may not see the rhyme or reason to it.)