Curious

Halloween really wasn't the same this year without a house full of people awkwardly intermingling in absurd costumes, but we were glad for the opportunity to spread the creativity and fun to Knoxville, TN. Erica's friend Erin got in on the action, volunteering at the last minute to be a pillow for Erica, the tooth fairy.

Turns out I was quite a celebrity with the kids. It took me a while to figure it out, but all of a sudden realized kids were staring at me with looks of awe. Several followed me for a ways without me knowing it, until I finally turned around to notice and could shake their hands.

One girl, probably around age 3 or 4 and dressed like Spiderman in a dress, asked, "What's your name?"
"I'm the man in the Yellow Hat," I said while shaking her hand, "and you must be Spider Woman?"
"Noooo! I'm Spider GIRL!"

It's probably fair to say our costumes weren't quite on par with other years, but if you saw what my wife did with such limited resources (ie: no tape, no cardboard, no glue, no string, no miscellaneous craft drawer, and a Wal-Mart 30 min away), you'd be quite impressed. The hat, for example? Made the night before out of the only 4 sheets of yellow construction paper we had in our apartment and the spray adhesive her mom sent earlier this month.

And it's in the details, too. The tooth-fairy necklace had quarters glued to it.

More Childlike Wisdom

here

Never As Good as it Looked

...but man did it look good.

What they weren't showing you: 3 hours of tedious set up for 10 seconds of action, the clumsy kid that accidentally bumps it before you're finished, the plastic ridges that make it really hard to set up the dominoes on end. And the rocket never worked. Of course it didn't.

You were right, I was wrong...

There's this long and repetitive and borderline-obnoxious song by Howard Hello, two songs, actually, that are back to back on the album and flow into one another. Besides its 5/4 time signature, I really like that it builds and builds instrumentally until finally, the singer starts singing for the first time in several minutes, a simple but revolutionary line, over and over so that you can't run away from it: "You were right, I was wrong..."

Another way of saying what was said here is this:

It's our natural inclination to focus on what we're doing right and what everyone else is doing wrong.

What would happen if we reversed that, looking at what we're doing wrong and what everyone else is doing right?

Now, it might not be healthy to stay there and only there, of course, but what a place to start!

First Impressions

• This was not an album for a solitary listening party. This is meant to be shared and discussed. I really missed the crew from the Illinois party.
  
• I can honestly say I'm glad this wasn't another "50 state" album.
• 5 year gaps between albums free up the artist for innovation. That's a good thing.
• But at the same time, I love that you can hear snippets of every past Sufjan album tied up somewhere in here.

This is a prime example of artist as prophet, in so many ways.

First, the obvious: the music is confounding. It's hard to get through all the bleeps and bloops and ticks and tocks that start to fade together. This is a long way off from the mellow acoustic guitar and banjo that wooed so many listeners in the past. To stick with it takes a bit of persistence and perseverance. Those willing to seek and find will be rewarded. "Don't be distracted," we hear again and again.

In his most blatant moment, he says plainly, "Do yourself a favor and get real, get right with the Lord." I'm not sure how I feel about that lyric myself, as it seems to fit more with Audio Adrenaline than it does here. But a prophet will come out and say what he means at the right time, which is why he prefaces the statements with "Prophets, speak what's on your mind!" And like most prophets, he admits immediately after in the next song, "I'll talk but I know you won't listen to me. Oh you wouldn't say it, but you wanted to."

Like any good prophet, the full range of emotions is here. Pain and confusion, a desire for freedom, even fear, and moments of meditation, reflection, peace, and joy.

I'm looking forward to sitting down with any lyrics I can get my hands on, but after the first listen, I get this overwhelming feeling that Stevens, again in his apocalyptic prophecy, is pointing out the hell we've made for ourselves. Our misguided desires have gotten us, well, not much of anywhere. "I want nothing less than pleasure...we made such a mess together..." And where will all of this lead? There are ways out, and there are moments of relief, but it could very well get worse before it gets better. Harrowing stuff.

And I wonder if the synthesizers and drum machines and processors and computers have anything to do with that 21st century hell we have on our hands, as if to say the more we run things through our complex technology the further and further we get from anything real and relatable.

So, those are first impressions. I was expecting a different reaction from previous albums--the reaction where I get really excited and ready to burst and wanting to tell everybody about it. (See this reaction from four years ago.) Nope. Same reaction, with the realization that this is even richer than before. [It may not be the album I destress with, or the album I listen to while watching lightning storms, but it will be the album I really dig into.]

Why this reaction? His quote from this New York Times article explains what I've sensed in his music all along: “I believe that music is a spiritual language. My everyday self is pretty mundane and boring, but when I’m making music it allows for me to communicate a kind of transcendence that I can’t communicate otherwise.”

If you're interested in hearing the new album for yourself, visit here. You can stream for free...just don't expect it to be background music for the office.

What are the Adz

It's a beautiful Sabbath. The wife and kid are napping. At 12:52, I've already consumed too much coffee for one day. I've been waiting for this free moment for over a week, and so, I am about to finally immerse myself in Sufjan Steven's The Age of Adz for the first time. The best audio options are iPod earbuds. I'll take it. Unusual for moments like these, I'm going in with realistic expectations, maybe even expecting to be disappointed, or at least puzzled. I'll let you know how it goes.

On a Lighter Note

1. I ate a Pink Lady apple today for the first time. Pretty sure it was the best apple I've ever eaten. I want to describe it as "fruity" but that doesn't make much sense since an apple is already a fruit. But seriously, it had a sort of crazy grapefruit taste to it or something. And apples in North Carolina are super crisp. Seriously.

2. Tonight I watched a praying mantis attack a daddy-long-legger then proceed to eat it immediately. It was fascinating and exhilarating. Coolest insects ever, hands down. Proof that God is the originator of sci-fi. I feel weird being this excited about it.
(That's a katydid in the back, another wild creature, whom we expect to find dead in the morning.)

Art of Anderson

Choose one:
A) Field trip to San Francisco
B) Christmas Presents
C) All of the above

Haven't seen this much fun since Terrible Yellow Eyes.

Good Reminder

The creative power that made light out of nothingness is the same creative power that illuminates our minds to know the unknowable.

"For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ." 2 Cor 4:6

The powerful spirit that gave Christ victory over death is the same powerful spirit that gives life to us, lifting us out of deadness.

"And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you." Rom 8:11

For you, Christian, from an Artist

I am not an artist. To be honest, I really don't even know that much about art. I do my best to appreciate it, and often succeed, even if I don't always understand it.

Part of "my call" (I've been wanting to write about that concept, too) to "full-time ministry" (still getting used to that term, too), as lame as it might sound, was a revelation that I'm passionate about a lot of things I'm not very good at. For just one example, I feel really strongly about somehow bringing the arts back into the church, but I'm not an artist myself. And so there was this revelation that maybe God gave me all these strange desires that I couldn't complete myself in order to encourage others to put their gifts to good use.

So, for the rest of you Christians who aren't artists, this eloquent and powerful letter was written for you. Do not be tempted to think of it as an artist whining because he feels left out. We've done that for too long, and that's exactly the problem. I challenge you to read with a bit of empathy, trying to understand, eyes to see, ears to hear.

Members of One Another

Our instructor has an incredible ability to make the heady, brilliant, deep stuff quite relatable. A sort of simple explanation sends one spinning and searching, all of a sudden realizing, in a sense, that, there's a lot more here than I ever realized.

One small slice of class today looked at Eph 4:25. The NIV gives us Americans plenty of wiggle room:

Speak truthfully, for we are all members of one body.

Still plenty of room for individuality within this group, a separate identity, you're your own person who checks in but maintains some amount of freedom. Speak truthfully, then, so that the group can function well.

The NAS, a bit more literal I'm told, paints a different picture, which may feel a little uncomfortable, but seems a whole lot more meaningful.

Speak truth with your neighbor, for we are members of one another.

Whoa. You mean, it's more than just joining a group? I'm a part of you, and you're a part of me? This is "spousal language" as we were told this morning. In community we are knit together, we rub off on each other. I carry others in myself, and hopefully, others carry pieces of me in themselves. This is a whole different reason to speak truthfully, as now you are robbing a person of the opportunity to add the real you to themselves, and in a sense, you are lying to yourself, too! (Hmm...maybe that's getting a bit too "out there"...?)

And this members-of-one-another-business is a real picture of the Trinity, isn't? We've been saying all along that being made in the image of The Trinity has shaped our need for community, but I'm not sure how often we're talking about this type of community. It's so much deeper than we Westerners realize.

And it gets me quickly thinking: who is a member of me? This part of my identity is mom and and that part is dad, then there's brother and sister, teachers, mentors, role models, friends, those iron-sharpens-iron partners.

And further, of whom am I a member? And scarier, has that been beneficial to their identity? Or detrimental?

Childlike Exploration of Sounds

Lots was said today about becoming childlike in language learning. I'll direct you here for more details.

My favorite thought? A two year-old enthusiastically mimicking the words, "Oh, Wow!" over and over again, purely because she loves the sound of it, the feeling of the word as it moves through her mouth, rounded and bouncing and whole. Again! Again!

I don't know if I'll ever get to that point of being so care-free about language learning that I can just sit and enjoy a word for what it is, but I sure like the idea. And I guess that's what makes a good poet, too, huh?

Today makes me want to retire and write for the rest of my life about being childlike. On the other hand, how could one say things better than the likes of Chesterton?

"A child kicks his legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again”; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony.

But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.

The repetition in Nature may not be a mere recurrence; it may be a theatrical ENCORE."

Wisdom

So, I promise I'm not trying to compete with my wife's pretty wonderful photoblog. This speckled mountain is just one small slice of the beauty we saw this weekend, including a trip on the Blue Ridge Parkway to Pisgah Mountain and some hiking today at Linville Gorge. I didn't know it going in, but Western North Carolina is a pretty beautiful place to be. My only regret is wishing we had a bit more time to sit and rest and bask.

The main lookout at Linville Gorge is one of the most spectacular views I've seen, and it's called Wiseman's View. Is that because a wise man would pick this particular spot to look at nearby ridges and peaks? Or is it because, in taking in this view, a man becomes wise?

I prefer to to think it's the latter. Views like these bring proper perspective.

Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand,
or with the breadth of his hand marked off the heavens?
Who has held the dust of the earth in a basket,
or weighed the mountains on the scales
and the hills in a balance?
Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
and his understanding no one can fathom.

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom,
and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.

Weird

Worthless and Meaningful Stuff 2

I saw this quote hanging next to a painting in Paris once:

"Remember that a picture--before being a warhorse, a nude woman, or an anecdote--is essentially a flat surface covered with colors in a certain order."
-Maurice Denis

Worthless and Meaningful Stuff

One of the big conundrums of this beast we might call missionary life is what to do with all the stuff.

It's not so much an issue of stewardship. You can ship all your stuff across the ocean or replace everything on that side and either way you would pretty much break even. That's not so much the issue. I wish it were, because it would make some decisions a lot easier.

The issue is do you care about your stuff or don't you? And that's not as simple as it sounds. Like a chameleon or a schizophrenic, one minute you're ready to load the dumpster and go empty-handed, and the next minute you're hanging on with all your might, bursting into tears.

Of course, it's just stuff. If you don't throw it out now, your kids will when you die. You can't take it with you, and no one else wants it, so why hold on? And of course there's plenty of room to condemn materialism, or quote Christ telling his disciples to take nothing--no food and not even an extra cloak. Good and valid and challenging points. And those are the moments where you say, "Let's do something radical and go with absolutely nothing."

But of course, it's more than just stuff. The most insignificant and trivial of things all of a sudden become meaningful. A present from so-and-so, our first such-and-such, the thing we had when this happened, or the trinket from that-special-place. Or just something I really enjoy. No we don't need it, but yes, it's meaningful.

It sounds silly, but why does it happen so easily?

Yes, there is a certain amount of idolatry going on. But could it be something besides that? Not just that? Made in the image of The Creator, are we not designed to create meaning? We take the most ordinary and mundane items, breathe life into them, and make them significant, valuable, meaningful. We find beauty in unusual places, and thus, we're not always ready and willing to let go. Where others see trash, we see a story, a history, or a potential future. The object is known, it is ours, there is value.

And is this not exactly what The Creator has done? Taking dust, forming it, and declaring it "good." Taking a people senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless, worthless and calling them his own.

Can't we rejoice in the fact that he didn't discard you and me?

I'm not saying that gives me good reason to pack up all my junk and keep it with me. This is no justification for materialism. But at the very least, it explains why deciding what to take and what to leave behind is so difficult.