Those who wish to stereotype modern worship music do so by referring to them as 7-11 songs, that is, seven words repeated eleven times.
For some songs, of course, that has been true. With any stereotype one can always find a couple of examples to ‘prove’ it.
Someone the other day applied the ‘7-11’ label to traditional hymnody: Seven verses, eleven concepts. Again, a stereotype, but it caused me to chuckle all the same.
Ultimately, one will read when one believes that there is some value in a book which makes the effort to mine that value worth it. Being told ‘you must read this’ does not lead us to read. A curious longing to know new things, to go new places, to think new thoughts – that will motivate readers.
Of course, that just removes the question one step backward. But when one is stricken with the desire to know, there is no vehicle better than a well written book to give us what we seek. This by Emily Dickinson:
There is no frigate like a book
To take us lands away,
Nor any coursers like a page
Of prancing poetry.This traverse may the poorest take
Without oppress of toll;
How frugal is the chariot
That bears a human soul!
The movie Nim’s Island has a wonderfully imaginative illustration of this. The main character, a book consuming Dakota Fanning, Jr., is pictured reading in bed, and her bedroom disappears, leaving her in the desert with the action of the hero about whom she is reading happening on about her. A great scene in a moderately good movie illustrating so well Dickinson’s sentiments.
Technorati Tags: Literature
Every good thing can go bad.
I’ve been kept awake behind the wheel on many through the night drives by listening to a book on CD. Now, with the iPod, I can store reams of pages ready for listening whenever I hit the open road. My wife listens to books when she exercises. My son has an hour commute each way to school each day. He fills the time not by mind-numbing talk radio, but by listening to books on his iPod. These are great things.
So how can this go bad? I asked my son about some good PRINT books that he has lying around, and he told me that he is just having a hard time getting into them. He said, “I fear I’m losing my patience with print.”
Is it possible that the changing way we get our information these days is changing the very nature of the way we think? That of course has been the concern of Neil Postman and is an idea updated and explored in this Atlantic article.
Maybe I’m old fashioned. But there is something sad about growing impatient with print.
Technorati Tags: Books
Mike the Hiker (here and here) is nearly finished with his 2000+ mile trek up the Appalachian Trail. Wow. His wife predicts he will reach the summit of Mt. Katahdin on Wednesday. What an amazing achievement, and the fulfillment, for him, of a lifelong dream.
Paul the Paralympian is in Beijing, where the US Paralympic basketball team has won its first game against Israel. His wife reports that everything there is spectacular.
Technorati Tags: Dreams
Some people are moved to read by curiosity. Others are moved by high fuel prices. Whatever it takes…:)
Responding to the high cost of gasoline, the author of the following resorted to some drastic measures:
I have made a drastic change to my summertime habits in order to save a few bucks – or to at least make myself think I did. It’s an “old school” habit that many might think is far too extreme in the age of television, radio and the Internet. Still, it saves on electricity, eats up a lot of free time and doesn’t cost very much at all. Better yet, you don’t have to step one foot out of your home, but your mind thinks you’re 600 miles away, or 1,200, or whatever the case may be.
Regardless, it’s a win-win situation for both you and your pocketbook.
Since June, the approach to my cost-saving strategy has been simple:
Step 1: Pick up a book.
Step 2: Read it.
Step 3: Relax and repeat.
Read the whole article here.
I sat recently for a brief conversation with a man who had retired after having taught at Manatee High School for 34 years. One of the things that he felt constrained to mention was what to him was the deterioration in the ability of kids to speak. As if to illustrate this a young ball player was interviewed prior to a recent Rays game who filled up every pause with ‘you know’. I was, you know, embarrassed, you know, for, you know, him. I think the man would have had a lot of value to say, but it was very hard to listen.
All of that leads me to quote, one last time, from David McCullough’s commencement address to the students at Boston University. His comments are, like, awesome, dude.
“And please, please, do what you can to cure the verbal virus that seems increasingly rampant among your generation. I’m talking about the relentless, wearisome use of the words, ‘like,’ and ‘you know,’ and ‘awesome,’ and ‘actually.’ Listen to yourselves as you speak.
”Just imagine if in his inaugural address John F. Kennedy had said, ‘Ask not what your country can, you know, do for you, but what you can, like, do for your country actually.’“
Technorati Tags: Speaking
Filling baseball stadiums and filling sanctuaries share a lot more in common than we might imagine.
I used to think that he Tampa Bay Devil Rays were no more than an out of place minor league dumping ground. I attended a few games, mostly through the gifts of others, but often found the experience frustrated by poor facilities, bad parking, and high food prices.
Then, late last summer, the team began to win ball games. After adding some veteran players in the off-season (and exorcising the ‘Devil’ from their name) pundits began to predict that the newly christened Rays might actually finish the season at .500 for the first time in history.
Now, they are within 28 games of the end of the season, have one of the best records in all of baseball, and are on track to make the playoffs. It is crazy around here – so crazy that my son Seth, who on most days would not care what ANY sports team was doing, came over Sunday night to watch the game on TV with me.
As thrilling as this is for us locally, the story that is now dominating national and local media is the supposed poor attendance at the games. A Sportscenter anchor snipped, for example, that all 14 fans at the park for one of the games cheered.
All who live here are being SCOLDED for not coming out to support their team. It is the scolding that interests me, but first the facts:
On Saturday I looked at the stats. The Rays through 69 home games were drawing an average of 21,106 at each game. That puts them near the bottom of major league cities in attendance. However, what no one seems to notice is that this is an increase of nearly 30% over the same number of games last year. So, no, they are not packing the place like the Chicago or New York teams, but the fan base is growing, a fan base that for 8 or 9 years was severely alienated by ownership.
Would that Hope Presbyterian Church had seen a 30% increase in the past year!
So, we are scolded. We are told repeatedly that we ought to be ashamed. That we need to get out and support our team. That the empty seats have a depressive impact upon the players. That we are the laughing stock of the major league. And so on.
How effective, really, is it to ‘guilt’ people into an entertainment activity? Have the extra 5000 people per game come because they have ‘felt bad’? Will 10,000 more come because they feel they must? Did I attend last night’s game because I felt guilty? Hardly.
But when we see empty seats in church, how do we respond? Do we look to see if we have done something to alienate people? Often, I fear, we are tempted to scold. We tell people they must come. We pester them. We can so easily fall into the pattern of attempting to shame and guilt people into active participation in the life of the church. (Or Bible study, fellowship activity, small group, or whatever.)
Guilt and shame is not going to have any more lasting impact in the church than it does with the fans of a major league ball team. Those who come will come when coming is a delight. and coming will be a delight when they fall in love with Jesus and discover that he is met in worshiping with and gathering with his people.
If we who are in the church seek that delight, and find it, and celebrate it others will come. And we won’t have to shame them or guilt them, or even have a winning record.
On September 19, a group at Hope Church is organizing a trip to Tropicana Field to watch the Rays play. Desiring to go, but concerned about her physical ability to get to the ball park, a member of the congregation asked
“Is there handicapped parking close by? Once inside would there be a long, long walk and many stairs to climb?”
This person is concerned that if the walk is too long, the climb too steep, the obstacles too great, that she would not be able to go, though she would love to do so.
What are elders to do? In order to scope out the situation for this dear saint, two of us are heading up to the ball park tonight to measure the distances, count the steps, and generally assess the situation for this member. And, of course, while we are there, we might as well stay for the game.
Is that love, or what?
Look for us on ESPN. We’ll be the ones revealing the pains of sacrifice on our faces.
I don’t know how long this will be accessible on line, but it is not only a clear assessment of the place of homosexuality in the pantheon of sin and a model for how to express such convictions in a public forum. Here is a portion.
“Unknown to most people, God really does care about those who struggle with being gay. To God, it’s not the unpardonable or worse thing. It’s simply one way people try to deal with the internal pain and chaos of the heart. It organizes our experience and feelings into a framework that makes sense to us. This is true for those who are Christians and those who aren’t.
”The good news is that God can handle it. No issue of the human heart is off limits or too taboo for him to understand or take on. He came to take upon himself those events and things that cause us the greatest pain and shame. However he won’t just take away bad and uncomfortable feelings. If he did, he would really be short-changing us.
“Although he always accepts us in whatever state we come to him, his love for us is such that he will never leave us where he finds us. God often intervenes with a dangerous and disruptive kind of love. It tends to topple the castles we’ve built.”
John Freeman is a compassionate and bold man who directs Harvest USA. We are nurturing a hope that he will be able to speak at HPC sometime this winter. Read the whole article. It is not long.
Note: Here is another helpful approach to this public debate.
Technorati Tags: Homsexuality
We had a great weekend of movie watching last week. A rare ‘dud-free’ experience.
The first was a movie with a troubling and depressive title, God Grew Tired of Us. It is yet another movie spawned by the ongoing genocide in southern Sudan. But this one focuses not on Sudan itself, but on the experiences of three young Sudanese men, driven as boys from their homeland, who after years in an Kenyan refugee camp, the only world they really knew, were received into the United States. To hear their perceptions of US culture and to watch their introduction to this strange way of life is poignant and fascinating. What is humbling is the sense of family ties and of generosity these men demonstrate. We think the world owes us so much; they work with great diligence to give what they can to those they hardly know. Quite a story.
Secondly we watched Whisper of the Heart, a G-rated animated Japanese romance. Is that enough to attract you? It was written by the Japanese animated master Hayao Miyazaki (writer and director of Oscar winner Spirited Away). Barb thought it was a little slow, though I didn’t. I found the story to be arresting, the characters intriguing and believable (teenagers in Japan and the US must not be that much different), and the hand-drawn animation absolutely stunning. It is worth watching.
Finally, we watched the recent release Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day with Frances McDormand (a favorite of mine) and Amy Adams (a favorite of everyone). There is a lot of innuendo in this film, but nothing really offensive. It is a quick moving, well written story which kept us engaged dramatically and with laughter for its entire 90 minutes. It was a satisfying bit of fun.
Technorati Tags: Movies
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