I went to school at Dallas Christian School and had quite a few close friends attend Abilene Christian University which is begining its lectureship next week that is holding a session entitled From Rage to Ecstacy: U2 and the Psalms about which Beth at U2 Sermons, one of my favorite sites, posted about yesterday.
Wierd.
Last night, nearly twenty years after accepting the award for their definative album, The Joshua Tree, U2 took the Grammy stage and accepted the Album of the Year award for How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb. Bono spent the bulk of his acceptance speech praising the other nominees which included Paul McCartney, Gwen Stefani, and Kanye West. He’s a class act that Bono. Class Act!
Not only was HTDAAB named album of the year but it won every award that it was nominated for including Rock Album of the Year, Song of the Year (Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own), Best Rock Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocal, and Best Rock Song (City of Blinding Lights).
Best. Band. Ever.
Disclaimer:
I’m not a Katie Couric fan.
A couple of weeks ago I took a handful of students to visit my alma mater. The trip was great and my students really enjoyed themselves.
Unfortuanately, we had to board our dog at the kennel for the weekend. We have had Buttercup for almost 3 years and she has never been sick or ill. When we picked her up she had a urinary tract infection and developed the saddest, most pathetic cough I’ve ever heard. After spending only one weekend at the kennel all cooped up in her cage, our heathy, beautiful dog got sick.
That got me thinking about our spiritual lives…
Specifically, I began thinking about our brothers and sisters in Galatia. See I feel like I’ve been traveling through Galatia for nearly a year. Over the summer I felt like I had rented a house on the outskirts of the region. I’ve read through Paul’s letter probably 100 times over the past 6-8 months. I have been living with Paul’s letter- reading it over and over- trying to understand it. The people in Galatia were spiritually sick. They had been forced into cages and forced into following a gospel that was more than they could bear. Paul’s pain for them could be felt in the opening of his letter to them:
I am shocked that you are turning away so soon from God, who in his love and mercy called you to share the eternal life he gives through Christ. You are already following a different way that pretends to be the Good News but is not the Good News at all. You are being fooled by those who twist and change the truth concerning Christ. Let God’s curse fall on anyone, including myself, who preaches any other message than the one we told you about. Even if an angel comes from heaven and preaches any other message, let him be forever cursed. I will say it again: If anyone preaches any other gospel than the one you welcomed, let God’s curse fall upon that person. (Galatians 1:6-9 NLT)
Can people get spiritually sick from being caged up and chained to unrealisitic and unbiblical expectations? Paul thought so. Thankfully, the gospel of Jesus Christ brings life.
I love these two passages:
You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love. The entire law is summed up in a single command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other. (Galatians 5:13-15 NIV)
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. (Galatians 5:22-25 NIV)
Buttercup is finally over her kennel cough. All she needed was a little check up and some medicine.
Thankfully, we serve the ultimate hearler, Jesus Christ. He will cure whatever ails us. we find healing in His wings.
Holy Father, please search our hearts and cleanse us of anything that is not of you. Make us whole and capable of living our lives for You and You alone. Amen
It’s Going to Be Alright
by Sara Groves and Gordon Kennedy
It’s going to be alright
It’s going to be alright
I can tell by your eyes that you’re not getting any sleep
And you try to rise above it, but feel you’re sinking in too deep
Oh, oh I believe, I believe that
It’s going to be alright
It’s going to be alright
I believe you’ll outlive this pain in you heart
And you’ll gain such a strength from what is tearing you apart
Oh, oh I believe I believe that
It’s going to be alright
It’s going to be alright
When some time has past us, and the story if retold
It will mirror the strength and the courage in your soul
Oh, oh, I believe I believe,
I believe
I believe
I did not come here to offer you cliches
I will not pretend to know of all your pain
Just when you cannot, then I will hold out faith, for you
It’s going to be alright
It’s going to be alright
You’re all that I have and you’re all that I need
Each and every day I pray to get to know you please
I want to be close to you, yes I’m so hungry
You’re like water for my soul when it gets thirsty
Without you there’s no me
You’re the air that I breathe
Sometimes the world is dark and I just can’t see
With these, demons surround all around to bring me down to negativity
But I believe, yes I believe, I said I believe
I’ll stand on my own two feet
Won’t be brought down on one knee
Fight with all of my might and get these demons to flee
Hashem’s rays fire blaze burn bright and I believe
Out of darkness comes light, twilight unto the heights
Crown Heights burnin’ up all through till midnight
Said, thank you to my God, now I finally got it right
And I’ll fight with all of my heart, and all a’ my soul, and all a’ my might
Strip away the layers and reveal your soul
Got to give yourself up and then you become whole
You’re a slave to yourself and you don’t even know
You want to live the fast life but your brain moves slow
If you’re trying to stay high then you’re bound to stay low
You want God but you can’t deflate your ego
If you’re already there then there’s nowhere to go
If you’re cup’s already full then its bound to overflow
If you’re drowning in the water’s and you can’t stay afloat
Ask Hashem for mercy and he’ll throw you a rope
You’re looking for help from God you say he couldn’t be found
Looking up to the sky and searchin’ beneath the ground
Like a King without his Crown
Yes, you keep fallin’ down
You really want to live but can’t get rid of your frown
Tried to reach unto the heights and wound bound down on the ground
Given up your pride and the you heard a sound
Out of night comes day and out of day comes light
Nullified to the One like sunlight in a ray,
Makin’ room for his love and a fire gone blaze
King Without a Crown
Matisyahu
It is raining pretty hard here today in the Southeast. I just can’t get this tune out of my head. A great song for nasty weather.
Kite
All That You Can’t Leave Behind
U2
Something is about to give
I can feel it coming
I think I know what it is
I’m not afraid to die
I’m not afraid to live
And when I’m flat on my back
I hope to feel like I did
‘Cause hardness, it sets in
You need some protection
The thinner the skin
I want you to know
That you don’t need me anymore
I want you to know
You don’t need anyone, anything at allWho’s to say where the wind will take you
Who’s to say what it is will break you
I don’t know which way the wind will blow
Who’s to know when the time has come around
Don’t wanna see you cry
I know this is not goodbyeIn summer I can taste the salt in the sea
There’s a kite blowing out of control on a breeze
I wonder what’s gonna happen to you
You wonder what has happened to me
I’m a man, I’m not a child
A man who sees the shadow behind your eyesWho’s to say where the wind will take you
Who’s to say what it is will break you
I don’t know where the wind will blow
Who’s to know when the time has come around
I don’t wanna see you cry
I know that this is not goodbyeDid I waste it
Not so much I couldn’t taste it
Life should be fragrant
Rooftop to the basement
The last of the rockstars
When hip-hop drove the big cars
In the time when new media
Was the big idea
That was the big idea
The best thing about the new Disney-Pixar partnership isn’t the creative synergy that can occur. It isn’t the amazing story telling & visual prowess that will dazzle movie goers for years to come and it isn’t even the money to be made.
No, the best thing about the Disney-Pixar parnership is this: Pixar chief asserts his authority over Disney by axing ‘Toy Story 3’.
John Lasseter, the creative chief of Pixar Animation Studios, has wasted no time asserting who is boss after Pixar’s takeover by Walt Disney – by stopping production of Toy Story 3, the controversial sequel to the two wildly successful animated films.
Mr Lasseter was deeply opposed to the idea but Disney went ahead, as it owns the intellectual property, putting 100 scriptwriters, animators and other creative staff to work on Toy Story 3 at its own Walt Disney Studios animation complex in Burbank, California.
“Toy Story 3” we hardly knew you. Now Disney can redirect most of its creative team back to churning out movies about theme park rides. I am dying for the white-knuckle-thrill-a-minute-feature-length movie adaptation of Big Thunder Mountain coming out in the Spring 2007.
I am currently writing this from my favorite coffee shop on the planet: Midnight Oil. I’ve got a Mr. Blonde (White Chocolate Mocha), it’s raining, and I’m reading a good book. I’ve been reading through Eugene Peterson’s Eat This Book: a Conversation in the Art of Spiritual Reading. This is the second of five books Peterson is writing on the subject of “spiritual theology.” Last year’s Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places was the first in this series and was a challenging read. Eat This Book is considerably shorter but so far has been just as riveting. Here are some snipits from chapters 1 & 2:
“Spiritual Reading”: reading that enters our souls as food enters our stomachs, spreads through our blood, and become holiness and love and wisdom. (4)
The Christian Scriptures are the primary text for Christian spirituality. Christian spirituality is, in its entirety, rooted in and shaped by the scriptual text. We don’t form our personal spiritual lives out of a random assemblage of favorite texts in combination with individual circumstances; we are formed by the Holy Spirit in accordance with the text of Holy Scripture. God does not put us in charge of forming our personal spiritualities. We grow in accordance with the revealed Word implanted in us by the Spirit. (15)
I want to pull Christian Scriptures back from the magins where they have been so rudely elbowed by their glamorous compeditors, and reestablish them at the center as the text for living the Christian life deeply and well. I want to confront and expose this replacement of the authoritative Bible by the authoritative self. I want to place personal eperience under the authority of the Bible and not over it. I want to set the Bible before us as the text by which we live our lives, the text that stands in such sturdy contrast to the potpourri of religious psychology, self-development, mystical experimentation, and devotional dilettantism that has come to characterize so much of what takes cover under the ubrella of “spirituality.” (17)
Most of us carry around a handful of essential commands that keep us on track: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart… Love your neighbor… Honor your father and mother… Repent and believe… Remeber the Sabbath.. Be not anxious… Give thanks at all times… Pray without ceasing… Follow me… Go and tell… Take up your cross…” Add this to your repertoire: Eat this book. Not merely Read your Bible but Eat this book.
Christians feed on Scripture. Holy Scripture nurtures the holy community as food nurtures the human body. Christians don’t simply learn or study or use Scripture; we assimilate it, take it into our lives in such a way that it gets metabolized into acts of love, cups of cold water, missions into all the world, healing, and evangelism and justice in Jesus’ name, hands raised in adoration of the Father, feet washed in company with the Son. (18)
My Enemies Are Men Like Me
Mockingbird
Derek Wbb
(vs. 1)
i have come to give you life
and to show you how to live it
i have come to make things right
to heal their ears and show you how to forgive them
because i would rather die
i would rather die
i would rather die
than to take your life
(chorus)
how can i kill the ones i’m supposed to love
my enemies are men like me
i will protest the sword if it’s not wielded well
my enemies are men like me
peace by way of war is like purity by way of fornication
it’s like telling someone murder is wrong
and then showing them by way of execution
because i would rather die
i would rather die
i would rather die
than to take your life
(chorus)
how can i kill the ones i’m supposed to love
my enemies are men like me
i will protest the sword if it’s not wielded well
my enemies are men like me
when justice is bought and sold just like weapons of war
the ones who always pay are the poorest of the poor