Musings

I went to a show on Friday. I'm embarrassed to say that it was the first show I've been to in a few years. It was a benefit concert with opening bands I had never heard of. Really I was there to see my favorite ska band ever. But I need to find some new music... I feel like such an old person when all I listen to are CD's I bought 7-10 years ago. So I listened to the opening bands too. The first band took the stage. Cue fog machine and fancy lights, and background track with a creepy voice recording for the creepy-looking guitarist to mouth along to... I'm not impressed. Really the music wasn't terrible. It was a flashback relief to FEEL bass instead of straining to hear it beneath the vocals (which is what happens at most churches--the primary place I hear live music these days). I was reminded of my "bass chick" days, as the lead singer thrashed/danced around with intensity I could never fake. As he stood on the monitors in his skinny jeans and prompte

I think relevance isn't about being "cool." It's probably not even so much about culture. I think it's about pointing out God's work. I was thinking about how I love hand-made stuff, how I love beautiful things like waterfalls and paintings and music and trees and fire and clouds and people--people who live for important things and hold their ground respectfully, people who are humble and want to teach others, people who are quick to encourage and full of joy--and how confessing these things as being from God makes Him relevant. A lot of people seem to experience His relevance in the opposite way--He allows/causes disasters and trauma, He fuels the radical conservative politicians and TV preachers, or He is absent and harsh (based on loneliness and guilt). One of the things that has stood out to me from Donald Miller (I'm reading Blue Like Jazz now) is how people do things because of what affects their hearts: I don't believe I will ever walk awa

This book I've been reading has been rocking my socks off. I bought it several years ago--it is one of many books which I've packed and unpacked each time I've moved and thought, "I wish I had time to read that right now." I've been reading a chapter a day for the last week or so. And every day I get that "Man, I wish everyone could read this book!" feeling. It's a Christian book, a creative telling of the Gospel, that I would feel totally comfortable recommending to my non-Christian peers. Searching for God Knows What  (there are super cheap used copies on Amazon, if I'm convincing you it might be worth reading). For those of us Christians who talk a lot about ideas and trends and like to analyze often, there has been lots of talk about postmodernity, narrative, our need for relationship, what the Gospel is, etc. Some people enjoy reading thick books by theologians to understand such things. Others want things that are easier to read in or

In many ways, being in Grad. School/Seminary is incredibly overwhelming. Do you ever try to read something--maybe an article online--with somebody else, and the other person is reading much faster than you, so they turn the page/scroll before you're ready, and you feel like you're missing half of the article? That's something of what grad. school feels like... like I want somebody to slow things down so I can actually process them and fit it all together and analyze things. Unless I want to take one class per semester and be a student for life (which I wouldn't mind all that much, if it didn't feel so impractical), I'm realizing that will never happen. Anyway, in spite of not being able to actually take in all of the complexity of what I'm supposed to be learning, there have been some big themes which I've noticed.... those paradigm shifters, those lightbulb "a-ha!" moments. In example, marital counseling is complex, because people are compl