Simple Days

Life was simple in 2003. My main source of stress was getting the levels right for artists I nearly idolized at the time, making sure speakers didn't feed back. The perks? Getting paid to go to concerts instead of paying for them.

Whoops..a little bit of feedback in this one....

This was the show for which Jared and I launched a massive sidewalk-chalk publicity campaign. I don't think it worked too well, because most attendees came over from IWU. But it sure was fun, anyway.

(but wait, there's more.)

I've been enjoying All Delighted People, but now...It gets better!

Favorite Directors

I love Wes Anderson because he, basically, makes the same movie every time.
I love Danny Boyle because he never comes anywhere close to making the same movie every time.

If you only know the man for Slumdog Millionaire, please make sure you watch Millions as soon as possible, and if you wouldn't mind a sort of apocalyptic zombie-ish flick, watch 28 Days Later as soon as possible after that.

Preaching

I preached a sermon again this past Sunday.

It's weird for me to say that. Erica, too, said she almost busted up laughing out loud in the middle of the sermon the second time through when she realized what exactly I was doing.

It's an awe-some weight of a responsibility and a privilege. It's weird to look out on an audience and see different people listening (or not). The mother of a student I taught my first year at public school, my brother, my brother-in-law, my third grade teacher, the man who asked me when I was in college why I wasn't becoming a pastor. After the service, I also found out the boy who I helped on the bus when he was in kindergarten and I was in middle school was there, all grown up, fresh out of college, landed a bit impressive corporate job, haven't seen him since he was six and boy was that weird and wonderful.

This time around was a painful experience in some ways, mostly because of the difficult preparation, which my dad reminded me afterwards is spiritual warfare, which makes total sense and I can say I completely felt that. And as much as people say I seem comfortable behind the pulpit, it's incredibly uncomfortable. In part because I find myself saying things behind the pulpit that I would never have the guts to say one-on-one. A sort of boldness I don't normally have. I hope it's not the safety of a pulpit that's making me that audacious and rather the Spirit, but I suppose that's something to keep checking myself on.

I thought about tracking down my public speaking professor from college to tell her I've been preaching every once in a while now. She'd be surprised, I think, because I never did very well for her. I think she always kinda laughed at me. I hated writing speeches about nothing. I wrote my persuasive speech on the importance of brushing teeth--so maybe it's my own fault--but how excited could I get about that? And really, I guess I'm becoming more and more aware that preaching is a lot different than public speaking. I read this today--John Piper talking about how he learned to preach--and could really relate to it in a lot of ways.

It's not a comfortable thing by any means. I find myself saying these words each time I get up to do it: "When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power."

I also like and hate watching how a sermon develops and evolves. There are so many bits and pieces of ideas laying on the floor when you're done. So many things you are so excited about but that simply don't fit. I might be piecing some of those things together in the coming days here, if I can find the time.

And I continue to be embarrassed as I keep hearing feedback about my somewhat controversial, or at least surprising, closing statement in the second service that included a thought about "going out for a drink with a friend"--something that, in this particular church, I would say is rather severely taboo. It most definitely was not in the notes, but it was an idea I had talked about the night before with Erica, and while I think as it rolled flippantly off the tongue that morning I was meaning coffee, tea, or soda, it definitely did not sound that way. But at least it got people talking and hopefully thinking, and while I definitely didn't mean to say it, and I'm definitely a little embarrassed by it, I'm not so sure I'm going apologize for it just yet.

Most sons borrow tools from their dad.

This dad borrows tools from his son.

Delighted, indeed

In typical fashion, I must keep you up to date with all things Sufjan. He dropped an unexpected bomb today, showing us what he's been doing in secret all this time. A new EP! But not just any EP, an EP that's SIXTY minutes long! Of course! Available for immediate download for only $5! Best of all, for all you Sufjan-skeptics out there, you can stream it all you want! Get all the info right HERE! Or skip right ahead to downloading HERE! AAAHHHHH!!!!!

Wait! Even better! You don't even have to leave the comfort of this website! You can listen right here!!!!!! Press the little play triangle! Sufjan's gone all viral on us!!!



...doing my part in keeping the hype-machine going in the blogosphere. That's why I'm using so many exclamation points.

Whistle While You Work

In some recent studies these verses were pointed out from Job 38.

"Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation?
Tell me, if you understand.
Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!
Who stretched a measuring line across it?
On what were its footings set,
or who laid its cornerstone-
while the morning stars sang together
and all the angels shouted for joy?"

While the Creator was busy placing footings and laying cornerstones, stars were singing and angels were shouting.

In other words, he put on some music before getting to work.

You know how Billy Collins likes to put on jazz when he writes his poetry? Or how Andy Warhol liked hanging out with The Velvet Underground so much? Or how the construction workers next door set their beat up radio dial to the classic rock station? Or the farmers blast country music in the pickup? Or grandma hums a hymn as she peels carrots at the sink?

Could it be that whistling while we work is ingrained in our very nature, part of being created in the image of the First Creator? When we insist on putting on some music before getting to work, could it be it's because that's exactly what He did at the very beginning of time?

Big enough for you?

We're downsizing our possessions, and I finally sold my first item on Craigslist. Third time's a charm I guess, because
First, the Little Tikes playhouse was too small for a 2 year-old and 5 year-old to share.
Then, the bicycle kid seat was too small for a 38-pound child.
But thankfully, this humidifier was big enough for this guy's cigar humidor.

Now, the question is, in this age of plasma flat screens, what sucker is going to buy the world's heaviest 27" TV purchased specifically to fit inside an ugly entertainment center, also for sale?

Litany

This video determines that part of developing the kid's mother tongue in a foreign country will be mandatory poetry memorization. And the only poems allowed will be ones that don't rhyme, because that makes it sound so much more sophisticated and serious.

Text here.
Billy Collin's comical recitation here.
...gems like these are the payoff for using my wife's Facebook account. Thanks to Abby.

THIS IS FOR LUNDY...

...and others like him.
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If I had traveled into NYC on August 5th,

I would have chosen to see this instead of Arcade Fire at Madison Square Garden.

Andrew Bird at the Guggenheim.

But He's a Big Fan, really

So, maybe Arcade Fire wasn't the last big American fling we thought it was, since Sufjan Stevens announced this big tour.

He'll be making a stop pretty close to us in North Carolina while we're there.

I'm all set to purchase the tickets, but I can't find any information on whether or not toddlers are allowed. I assume they are, if nothing says that they aren't, but do they need their own ticket? A child rate, at least? Smuggle him in a backpack?

Help me out, Ticketmaster!! Give me answers!!

Distraction

In between nervous breakdowns, our stop-motion-aficionado-friend Dan brought over this clever and whimsical and bizarre and silly little French flick. After making fresh tomato sandwiches and eating other various bits of fresh produce including purple carrots, we laid on the floor and watched "A Town Called Panic" on our ceiling.

Word Play

Exquisite Delight

Somedays I feel a little sorry for Darwin, always so quickly written off and criticized and scoffed at by us Christians, and I'm never quite sure if it's completely fair or not. This little article I ran across today definitely has some truth--enough that I'm reposting it here--and yet at the same time I feel as though it's written with slight chuckle of disdain, maybe drawing a caricature at times that's too convenient.

But that's not the point. The point is this tragic quote from Darwin's autobiography:

"Up to the age of 30 or beyond it, poetry of many kinds…gave me great pleasure, and even as a schoolboy I took intense delight in Shakespeare…. Formerly pictures gave me considerable, and music very great, delight. But now for many years I cannot endure to read a line of poetry: I have tried to read Shakespeare, and found it so intolerably dull that it nauseated me. I have also almost lost any taste for pictures or music… I retain some taste for fine scenery, but it does not cause me the exquisite delight which it formerly did… My mind seems to have become a kind of machine for grinding general laws out of large collections of facts, but why this should have caused the atrophy of that part of the brain alone, on which the higher tastes depend, I cannot conceive… The loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness, and may possibly be injurious to the intellect, and more probably to the moral character, by enfeebling the emotional part of our nature."

Why he ended up feeling this way is mostly conjecture--and that's my beef with the article, I guess. But for me, today, it's a great reminder to lighten up, not be so serious all the time, enjoy God's good gifts, as in fact we've been doing in the past weeks with family. Vacations can be an invigorating act of worship.

[Besides enjoying the nature this past week--including watching families of loons and a bald eagle--there was also finally reading "The Little Prince" for the first time and writing music with Wes over top of the drone that the motor of the boat was setting.]

Darwin the man aside, I cannot accept that the people who create symphonies and poems, nor the people who enjoy them, came about through a long and slow process of change over time. And I am thankful for a creative God who fashioned us with an "emotional part of our nature," ready to create and delight.

And so, if that's part of our being made in the image of God, if that's part of worship, then here's a caricature of my own that may or may not be true: it's sad that many times American Christians experience more "atrophy of that part of the brain" than the average person.

Over the past five years, I've tried to encourage my sphere of influence to exercise "that part of the brain" a bit more. There has been slow and steady success, but there have also been times where I'm tempted to just keep to myself, letting all of us believe it's extra-curricular, nice but ultimately unnecessary for the Christian. Take it or leave it.

But, just as Darwin reminds me today, I keep coming back to the idea that, no, it's still pretty important.