Still Loving the Disheveled Bride

For the past thirty-five years, by choice, I've been in and around Christian Churches of almost every description. Utterly setting aside for a moment how one might assess my overall fidelity to the Faith, my best intention has been to be about the business St. Paul writes of in his Epistle to the Church at Philippi: "Be keener than ever to work out the salvation that God has given you with a proper sense of awe and responsibility. For it is God who is at work within you, giving you the will and the power to achieve his purpose." (Philippians 2:12b Phillips Translation).

To me this has always meant that, while there are some things only God can do, we are still called to participate in our own lives. This is not a gussied-up version of "God helps those who help themselves" which, while unbiblical, has its merits in context. But neither is it "Just let go and let God" with the sense that our lives are merely on Cosmic Cruise Control until the end of our collective human road-trip.

Ray Bradbury: A Brief Appreciation

Earlier this week author Ray Bradbury passed away at the age of 91. If you like to read at all and you're of a "classic" age (borrowing that adjective from Coca-Cola marketing because classic is so much friendlier than just plain old), it's fairly unlikely that you haven't, at least, heard of him or read him.

Underwriting and Overwriting

Underwriting in terms of tightening up "songcraft" and Overwriting by being too un-creatively "obvious". This could, perhaps, apply to all songwriters writing for all types of listeners. But this dual malaise is particularly represented in a lot modern/post-modern songwriting intended for a Christian audience, one I'm fairly familiar with.

Prophetic Warning or Panic for Sale?

A few years ago NBC had what I considered to be a brilliant ad campaign for an extended period of summer reruns. NBC's pitch was "If you haven't seen it, it's new to you." We're invariably and habitually attracted to the "new". I can put out an album and the next week be fielding questions about when my next new album is coming out.

Anyway, my point in that brief preface is to link to a 2007 video with Andrew Keen which was recorded at Google Corporate Headquarters. This speech was given the day his book The Cult of the Amateur was released. (I haven't read it yet.) He seems to be a polarizing figure, as all provocateurs have a tendency to be I suppose. But I think he sounds an important clarion call worth paying attention to.

Crowded at the Summit

Today I was going to write a little about the "offense" of the Christian Gospel message. (Although I'm as committed a Christian as I know how to be, not every post here will make that obvious.)

Before starting, I Googled the phrase "gospel is offensive" to determine where St. Paul writes about this. Several places it turns out. But it was also a little daunting to find references to a couple dozen blog posts which, in one way or another, were making my point and, I expect, doing a better job than I would do.

G. K. "Fills In" for Me Today

As I write, I'm off to bed in a few minutes with an early call tomorrow. My Church (St. Matthew's in Newport Beach, CA) is hosting a Synod Meeting and I'll be there all day and evening. So, I'll be Blog MIA today. But I'm posting one of my very favorite quotes from the eminently quotable G.K. Chesterton.

This little gem is also on my personal "Rules of the Road" list.
See my 5/26 post "The Right Thing Usually Happens the Wrong Way".

"The artistic temperament is a disease that afflicts amateurs." -- G. K. Chesterton

Vetting an Idea: "House Call Concerts"

[This is a lengthy, against-basic-blog-rules post. Please give it a couple paragraphs at least. And, if so inclined, kindly comment, re-post, email, link, etc. Much appreciated.]

In mid-2008, a woman emailed a question to me that, to put it mildly, caught me off guard. She essentially asked, "My Husband is a big fan of your music. He has terminal cancer. Would you sing at his funeral?"

The Adjective That Dare Not Speak Its Name

Several years ago my Wife and I were at an Emergent Church Conference. (For those not fluent in Churchianity-speak, "emergent" is the catch-all term for a large cadre of people trying to figure out what comes next in Christian Faith and practice. Oftentimes that can be quite helpful, other times it seems a heartfelt but misguided effort to redefine terms. It's one thing to gussy up the terminology, it's quite another to do it for real and and to do it well. If we're just trying to re-brand apples by convincing people they're really oranges, what's the point?. But that's a whole 'nother blog post.)

Memorial Day 2012

The majority of us commemorate those who died from a generalized distance.

Others have to painfully remember and mourn up close and specifically.

My heart, in all it's blessed ignorance, goes out to them.

In Defense of Occasional Worry

Bobby McFerrin's catchy 1988 song notwithstanding, sometimes it's downright difficult to "Don't Worry, Be Happy". But I would argue that you're probably in much better shape if you can occasionally "Be Happy Because You Can Still Worry". Of course, as Desi would intone to Lucy, I "have some es-plainin' to do".