New Layout?

I'm not really sure if I like this or not. It's a little hard to read. Any comments? Should I change it to something else? I really liked the simple black, but it was getting a little old and I had to change it.

Shawn

Happy Cerebral Cortex

Oh boy - I'm not entirely sure what this says about me, but I'm as giddy as a little school girl...

After dinner tonight Davina let me go and buy a 5 volume set of Dr. Francis Schaeffer's writings titled "The Complete Works of Francis A. Schaeffer". Yes, I'm beside myself because I have literature of a Christian Philosophical nature. I know, probably not as exciting to some - but to me, it's sublime. :)

Now I just need to work my reading schedule around Packer games - I guess I can read between plays - lol

Shawn

Smug [MM]

Strike this little pose
Chin up in the air
Lips together tightly
Nostrils in a flare
Now look like you care
Very nice!

Practice in the mirror
Brushing back a tear
Very sincere
A promising career could begin right here at home
If you've got that smug...
That smug...

chorus:
Hey mama hey mama lookee what your little babies all have become
Hey mama hey mama don't it ever make you wish you'd been a nun?
Vain and fickle, were we weaned on a pickle?
Is it in our blood?
Rome is burning
We're here turning smug

Strike another pose
Power politics
Swallow their conventions
Get your power fix
We love to mud wrestle
We love to be politically Koreshed

Practice that smug
Post it like a man
One part Master Limbaugh
Two parts Madame Streisand
Now pretend you're in a band
My, my, we're looking smug
Very very very very

(chorus)

All you smug-starved millions in the thick of the search
Welcome to our church
Whatcha wanna solve?
We can help you evolve from merely self-righteous
To perfectly smug

Strike the proud pose of our country club brethren
Friendly as a tomb
Fragrant as the bottom of a locker-room broom
Now what's the matter?
Hey...get off your knees...that part don't come 'til later...
God will not be pleased...

(chorus)
Hey mama hey mama lookee what your little babies all have become...
Rome is cooking
My, we're looking smug

- Steve Taylor, Squint (1993)

Ah, another fine gem by one Mr. Steve Taylor. This is off his final studio album (so far). I hope he does find it necessary to release another CD sometime.

Shawn

Can't Beat 'em? Ban 'em!

I guess if you can't win the debate then you can legislate someone's view as being illegal instead. Fantastic! And they cry foul because they don't want the religious people legislating their morality, yet it is okay for them to do so. It appears that California has passed SB 1437 into law this week. What is it? The summary states that SB 1437

expressly prohibits textbooks, instructional materials, and school-sponsored activities from “reflecting adversely” on transsexuality, bisexuality, or homosexuality. Instructional materials could not only say “a husband and wife,” but must include “two wives who are married lesbians.” Sex education assemblies would have to include information on sex changes (to avoid “reflecting adversely”).

To read the entire law, you can go either here: Official Site or here: Campaign for Children and Families

Shawn

The Silence of God [MM]*

It's enough to drive a man crazy; it'll break a man's faith
It's enough to make him wonder if he's ever been sane
When he's bleating for comfort from Thy staff and Thy rod
And the heaven's only answer is the silence of God

It'll shake a man's timbers when he loses his heart
When he has to remember what broke him apart
This yoke may be easy, but this burden is not
When the crying fields are frozen by the silence of God

And if a man has got to listen to the voices of the mob
Who are reeling in the throes of all the happiness they've got
When they tell you all their troubles have been nailed up to that cross
Then what about the times when even followers get lost?
'Cause we all get lost sometimes...

There's a statue you Jesus on a monastary knoll
In the hills of Kentucky, all quiet and cold
And He's kneeling in the garden, as silent as a stone
All His friends are sleeping and He's weeping all alone

And the Man of all sorrows, He never forgot
What sorrow is carried by the hearts that he bought
So when the questions dissolve into the silence of God
The aching may remain, but the breaking does not
The aching may remain, but the breaking does not
In Holy, lonesome echo of the silence of God

- Andrew Peterson, Love & Thunder (2003)
* [MM] - Music Mondays

After Steve Taylor and Rich Mullins, Andrew Peterson is my favorite singer/songwriter. He has a great story-telling gift much like Rich did. His songs are very genuine and honest and you can really hear it through the music.

Shawn

Burning Bushes [MM]*

I've never seen a dead man come to life or seen a blind man get his sight,
I've never seen water turn to wine.
It isn't that I don't believe but it would be easier for me
If you would just send down a sign.
I remember the childlike innocence. A faith with no coincidence.
The world around was living proof.
Has that world just disappeared or is it me that isn't clear
how to recognize it's You.

I'm praying for a miracle to let me know You're listening.
Waiting for a lightening bolt to strike.
Walking through a garden of a thousand burning bushes
Looking up to Heaven for a sign.

I walk through the water and the waves looking for a drop of rain
but You're still not coming through.
Maybe its new eyes that I need or maybe it takes more faith to see
I'm drowning in the truth.

I'm praying for a miracle to let me know You're listening.
Waiting for a lightening bolt to strike.
Walking through a garden of a thousand burning bushes
Looking up to Heaven for a sign.

- Andy Gullahorn, Room to Breathe (2002)

* [MM] - stands for Music Mondays :)

So what is Andy singing about here? Being a musician/songwriter myself I never really cared much when people tried to "figure out" what I was trying to say in a song. So at the risk of impropriety, I'll give my thoughts on what I think Andy is saying.

I was in a conversation Saturday morning at breakfast with a fellow Canyon member and we were talking about Maple trees and syrup, peanutbutter, pineapples and cotton plants. Strange things to talk about I suppose, but the context was that she moved here from a foreign country and she had never seen these things in real life until she came to the States. She talked about taking pictures of these things (except the syrup and peanutbutter - those things she took back with her on a visit back "home") and mailing the photos back to family. She talked about how we don't think about them here in this country because it's all around us - how we just take it for granted.

Isaiah said a similar thing during his communion talk yesterday - but he was talking about the freedom to worship. How we don't appreciate it the same way as he does because he knows what it is like to be without that freedom.

I think this song is about how we've reduced the Wonder and Miraculous into the Ordinary and Common Place. We are so used to the miracles that happen everyday that we forget that they are miracles and we just come to expect them. When they don't happen, then we become indignant and use language like "it's unfair" or "I deserve". We ask for more proof when all the while we are drowning in it if we would take the time just to "see" it, but that's the problem. We've become so immersed in it, so surrounded by the day-to-day events in our lives, that we cease "to see them" or if we do, we don't see them as miracles but as entitlements.

Andy's right - we're walking in a garden of a thousand burning bushes, looking up to Heaven for a sign.

Shawn

Sad news...

I'm a huge penguin fan - if I could manage to keep one as a pet, I would. This is a sad story...Penguins dive into trouble on their southward journey.

Hope the rest of their adventure is uneventful.

Shawn

Drive, He Said

On a desert road that steamed the sky
with the windows up and the air on high
I was off the stage, I was on the mend
with a solo drive to a holiday weekend
my thirsty car came to a stop at the Reptile Gardens Curio Shop
when a wind came hissing through the vents,
and I felt my sneakers growing tense
my forehead broke in a cold, cold sweat--
in the rearview mirror was a silhouette
then I heard the doorlocks take a dive
and a whisper screamed "Don't turn around, just drive"

Scratch! Dressed in red--pointy tail and horn-rimmed head
and a widow's peak like Eddie Munster
I sat frozen in my seat--"We haven't had the chance to meet...
are you a singing telegram or something?"
he just flashed a hellish smile--"Let's go driving for a while"
he held something in his hand I'd never seen before
it was my Chevrolet's pink slip

Scratch! Evil eye
"Step on it, boy, if you want to stay alive" he said
"Don't look surprised, you know what I want
I've lived for years inside your trunk, so drive" he said
"Let's get talking business, son--you ain't fooling anyone
I know just what you want to be--now it's time to work for me, so drive"

If this is a nasty dream
I'd prefer to wake up here
I believe the point is clear...

Scratch! Out of my car!
He said "Ha! I've come too far...
besides, I kinda like the velour seatcovers"
God, help me! What do I do?
"Shut up boy, it's too late for you...now drive!
all you phonies get it wrong--double lives take half us long
should have kept your windows clean--now I'm part of this machine
you've got a good 80,000 miles left
before the recall..."

If this is a nasty dream
I believe the point's quite clear
I'd prefer to wake up here

I started humming Amazing Grace
he said "Come on, boy, give me a break"
so I hit the brakes with both my feet
and sent two horns through the bucket seat
then the locks shot up as the grace came down
I said "Here's the keys--I'll be walking back to town..."

- Steve Taylor, On The Fritz (1985)

It's significance for me? Well, the first time I ever tuned into a radio station dedicated to playing only "Christian" music (whatever that means), the song was playing. I had just been baptized and I thought that was the thing I was supposed to do, so I turned to FM dial down to the low end of the spectrum and this song came blaring through the speakers. I was hooked on Steve Taylors music immediately. I think I still have this on vinyl somewhere (yeah, I still own a record player too), but I haven't thumbed through my record collection in awhile.

Shawn

Music Mondays

Well, I have been thinking about doing this for several months now and I still don't know how this is going to turn out. Each Monday I'll post lyrics from one of my favorite artists and, if I have time, I'll comment on it as well. This first few posts will be dedicated to my all-time favorite Christian writer Steve Taylor. He was a lyrical G.K. Chesterton of sorts, but with melody and instruments and probably a bit more sarcastic/cynical.

Shawn

What was your favorite bit?

It was a long bit of posting, C.S. Lewis' The Weight of Glory. But now that it is all up, what was your favorite part and why?

My favorite section is the final two paragraphs. But, if pressed, I would have to say the last paragraph is amazing. It's not so muc that it is new in what he has to say, but the way he says it, "there are no ordinary people." Attach that to his idea that it is Nature and governments and the like that are really mortal and the rest of us are immortal really boggles the brain. The thought that has stayed with me the longest, and the one that I try to keep at the front of my head at all times is "All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all polititcs." Wow!

The other idea, which acturally runs through the ntire paragraph, but he explicitly writes about at the beginning and end is in reference to our neighbors. Particularly that our neighbor is a home for for God's Glory. If God dwells in us and we are also destined for glory, then there does exist in us, and our neighbors, "the glorifier and the glorified." It is a thought difficult to grasp - I definitely feel dwarfed by it.

Shawn

The Weight of Glory: Part 15 of 15

Meanwhile the cross comes before the crown and tomorrow is a Monday morning. A cleft has opened in the pitiless walls of the world, and we are invited to follow our great Captain inside. The following Him is, of course, the essential point. That being so, it may be asked what practical use there is in the speculations which I have been indulging. I can think of at least one such use. It may be possible for each to think too much of his own potential glory hereafter; it is hardly possible for him to think too often or too deeply about that of his neighbour. The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbour's glory should be laid daily on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken. It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all polititcs. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilization - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendours. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously - no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner - no mere tolerance or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment. Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbour is the holiest object presented to your senses. If he is your Christian neighbour he is holy in almost the same way, for in him also Christ vere latitat - the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself, is truly hidden.

Shawn

The Weight of Glory: Part 14 of 15

And in there, in beyond Nature, we shall eat of the tree of life. At present, if we are reborn in Christ, the spirit in us lives directly on God; but the mind, and still more the body, receives life from Him at a thousand removes - through our ancestors, through our food, through the elements. The faint, far-off results of those energies which God's creative rapture implanted in matter when He made the worlds are what we now call physical pleasures; and even thus filtered, they are too much for our present management. What would it be to taste at the fountain-head that stream of which even these lower reaches prove so intoxicating? Yet that, I believe, is what lies before us. The whole man is to drink joy from the fountain of joy. As St. Augustine said, the rapture of the saved soul will "flow over" into the glorified body. In the light of our present specialized and depraved appetites we cannot imagine this torrens voluptatis, and I warn everyone seriously not to try. But it must be mentioned, to drive out thoughts even more misleading - thoughts that what is saved is a mere ghost, or that the risen body lives in numb insensibility. The body was made for the Lord, and these dismal fancies are wide of the mark.

Shawn