true conversations, part 1

hi.

here is the transcript of an exchange last night between rachel and caleb:

caleb: mom, is "the grinch" in the bible?
rachel: no, it's not a story in the bible.
caleb: they should put it in the bible.
rachel: why?
caleb: god doesn't want us to take away christmas and that's what the grinch was doing.

the letter U

hi. three months, one week, and two days later....


i like the letter U. the letter U can symbolize many things:

- it's one way we can avoid expending too much energy as we email or chat with someone, but still effectively communicate in the second person: e.g., "i luv u" & "c u latr".

- it's how we can abbreviate the word university, as in "howard u.", or "UNC", or my alma mater, "wassamatta u."

- it's the 21st letter of the alphabet, helpful in spelling words such as umbrella, undulate, vacuum, and most importantly, untumultuous**.

- it's a picture of a change in direction, as in u-turn.

i like that last symbol, especially in this time of advent, as we consider the trajectory this world was on 2000 years ago. god sent his incarnation, and we all have the opportunity to accept this gift of love and repent, which mr. webster tells us means "to turn from sin and change one's mind". now, i don't look at the actions of my life and think, "dang...i really need to stop all these horrible things I'm doing and be a better person." frankly, i'm not sure god looks at our lives and demands that of us either. but he does want our hearts to turn to and our eyes to be fixed on him.

may it be.


** - this is the only word in the english language that contains five (5) u's.

"but the fruit of the spirit is....anxiety??!!"

hi.

no. it's not anxiety. but even in doing life in the spirit* i find, especially during this time of year, that's what is occupying the driver's seat. why?! i don't know. so i pray for my family and friends -- and heck, i'll even throw you the reader in there! -- that this anxiety and stress would somehow be turned into the spiritual fruits of (especially) love, joy, and peace.

love - that it would inhabit all our relationships and interactions: those closest to us as well as those we don't even know
joy - that we would go about even the most mundane events of our day with its perspective
peace - that it would wholly undergird us, especially knowing that most things are in Someone Else's control

yes.

*NOTE - i was gonna write "trying to do life in the spirit", but true spirit-life has nothing to do with "trying".

fired?

hi.

one hears sometimes of pastors and ministers (not to mention congressmen, CEO's, educators...) being terminated for a single act of indiscretion. perhaps it is right that they are.

but if i were to go to my church's elder board and say, "hey, i've been really inattentive and terse with my family recently", or "i've found myself lately looking too closely at all sorts of hot women", or "i am having some serious struggles with assigning too much value to material wealth and 'things' -- and i've got the credit card bills to prove it", would i be asked to resign? probably not. why?

is it live, or...

hi.

music is my life. you don't have to know me that well to know that well. i love to perform it, talk about it, listen to it, write it, recommend it, worship through it, see others play it, delight in others' enjoyment of it.

but what is music? seems like a silly question, right? is it the piece of paper with little black dots on it handed to you at choir practice? is it the cd you throw into the car stereo? is it the 0's and 1's dancing their way from your iPod to your earbuds?

i submit that these are all mere representations of music. (this is not a novel concept.) music is organic. it is alive. beethoven copied down what he wanted his fifth symphony to sound like, but in essence each performance of it, each interpretation, is a brand new creation. the studio wizardry that went into the making of revolver and sgt. pepper produced some unbelievable stuff, but i'm sure those guys would even agree that they are but snapshots, and that in many ways 30th january 1969 yielded a truer musical moment. it's also why jazz is jazz; the idiom's very nature is one of letting the music happen right now. kind of blue would have been a muuuuch different record (and the purpose defeated) if miles & co. had laid down the tunes in more than one pass.

you musicians out there have probably participated in an impromptu jam session at some point in your "careers". 'member that? you probably do, because it was such a moment! some of my most creative musical nuggets have come via extemporaneous singing or playing. it's magical. by both performer and listener, music is best experienced live. we must heed the words of a wise sage: "you gotta lose yourself in the music, the moment, you own it, you better never let it go (whoa)..." mmmm -- i can taste mom's spaghetti right now.

gotta go. got rehearsal tonight. can't wait.

[by the way, best live show i've ever been to: indigo girls @ war memorial auditorium, greensboro, nc - 23rd june 2005.]

take your pick

last post of the day. i promise.

i want to tell you about two friends that both have gigs this coming friday night, 10th august:

- jim mcconnell, aka 'jimimac', will be playing some jazz gee-tar at restaurant starlu in durham from 6:30 to 10:00. he really good.

- jeff crawford, aka 'hib hibner', will be playing (with full band, which includes another friend of mine) a CD release party at nightlight in chapel hill at like 9:30-ish. some great songs on this new record.

heck. check 'em both out.

'i'm so vain, i probably think this life is about me...'

hi.


levi wants to be wendy from peter pan for halloween. he was insistent about it this morning to the point of tears and writhing on the floor. not quite sure what's going on there.


anyway...


each day is a confirmation that doing life is hard (yeah, and...?). the fine line of selfishness and selflessness is a tightrope. i have found that i absolutely love helping people out with little unexpected everyday things, like taking some stranger's dishes up to the bin for them at foster's or something -- not so i may be then be showered with admiration and approval (that would happen regardless), but that i may, in the name of love, brighten someone's life in a simple way.

why is it, then, that there are (more) times when i don't feel like doing that? a true christian would always be looking out for the welfare of others, right? is it wrong, then, to look out for 'number one' every once in a while? when does taking care of myself -- and expecting others to do the same -- turn into selfish living? wouldn't it be more beneficial for the kingdom if i took my sons' college funds (which right now have about $3.75 each, mind you) and gave that money to someone who really needs it? truthfully, i don't ever need to buy another piece of clothing for myself ever again; i've got more than enough, so why do i not ever ask my neighbors if i can buy their clothes for them instead?

self-preservation and entitlement are the order of the day in our society. whether i realize and/or admit it or not, those are not things which i am shunning all that much myself, even though i claim to want to. how do we christians live counter-culturally in this way, living out christ's example as servanthood to the world, but still provide the necessities for ourselves and our families?

geez, i went from carrying off a dirty dish for someone to becoming obedient to death! i believe the essence is the same. i want live and serve and love the way jesus did.

"(punctu'ation) question...!?"

i expect to hear from rebecca, but anyone can assist me here.

i was talking to someone the other day about the menu at foster's market. now - would that be foster's's menu? foster's menu? foster's' menu? eye suppose it could be referred to as the foster's menu. or perhaps we should just stick to the menu at foster's. help a brother out.

gone phishin'

hi.

as you can see from my 'current ear food', i'm obsessed with phish right now. they're so good. check 'em out if you don't know them. go buy rift or a picture of nectar.

now. go.

i love ben, but...

hi.

rachel and i and 22,315 of our closest friends went to see john mayer and ben folds (with james morrison) at raleigh's enormo-dome on tuesday evening. as you could imagine, most of the tanned-skin, cell-phone-toting nineteen-year-old girls were there for mister mayer (and rightly so: he's sooo dreamy) and i thought for months that this was an odd duo to be touring together. i mean, i like them both, but they seem, musically or demographically, to neither overlap nor compliment. however, the result was successful: great performances, top-notch backing bands, terrific showmanship - a great call all the way around, except for one thing.

the king of irony outdid himself a few years ago by setting dr. dre's "b-tches ain't sh-t" (i'm not sure what i accomplish by gouging the i's out, but there you are) to foldsian melody and instrumentation with at once hilarious and sublime results. it has become a BF show favorite. prior to this night i had wondered if he would do the song. "surely not," i thought. "this isn't really his show."

he did it. and i thought he shouldn't have.

i'm not intending to be self-righteous; in fact, it's not at all that nat stine was embarrassed by this crass song. it's more that nat stine was embarrassed by this crass song being heard by twenty-thousand-plus tanned-skin, cell-phone-toting...you know -- most of them there to see the other guy. [i know a teenager who was there with her parents. awkward.] i am a huh-yooge BF fan (thanks in large part to my bro-in-law), and his wonderfully whiny reflections on the ironies of love and life often result in some four-letter sunday school words. his honesty is quite engaging and endearing. this song goes beyond the occasional throwaway cuss to an onslaught of graphic images and word-pictures that i believe were inappropriate for that particular crowd.

(am i getting old?)

when an artist headlines a show, that crowd is theirs. ben folds engages, involves, and loves his audience as few others can. however, on this occasion i would have expected ben to recognize whom 90% of people were there to see and not expose them all to the funny-but-dirty family inside joke.

'the pearl' lyrics

here are the lyrics to the song:

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

the pearl
emmylou harris

o the dragons are gonna fly tonight
they're circling low and inside tonight
it's another round in the losing fight
out along the great divide tonight

we are aging soldiers in an ancient war
seeking out some half-remembered shore
we drink our fill and still we thirst for more
asking if there's no heaven what is this hunger for?

our path is worn our feet are poorly shod
we lift up our prayer against the odds
and fear the silence is the voice of god
and we cry alleluia, alleluia
we cry alleluia

sorrow is constant and the joys are brief
the seasons come and bring no sweet relief
time is a brutal but a careless thief
who takes our lot but leaves behind the grief

it is the heart that kills us in the end
just one more old broken bone that cannot mend
as it was now and ever shall be amen
and we cry alleluia, alleluia
we cry alleluia

so there'll be no guiding light for you and me
we are not sailors lost out on the sea
we were always headed toward eternity
hoping for a glimpse of galilee

like falling stars from the universe we are hurled
down through the long loneliness of the world
until we behold the pain become the pearl
cryin' alleluia, alleluia
we cry alleluia

and we cry alleluia, alleluia
we cry alleluia...

©2000 nonesuch records

"until we behold the pain become the pearl..."

hi.

i sang a song in church yesterday called "the pearl", written by emmylou harris. it's a beautiful reflection on our humanness and the pain and suffering which are part and parcel of living in skin, but that we are not without hope, even if it really seems like it.

i pray that those of you that were there were as moved by the song as i am -- not so much by my performance, i hope, but by what the song speaks to (and perhaps by JimiMac's virtuosic mandolin playing). one reason i like the song is that it won't fit snugly into the 'normal' canon of contemporary christian musical worship expressions -- just like the grain of sand which yields the titular pearl, perhaps -- but instead authentically expresses that being a broken human really does suck most of the time, and that out of those depths is produced a more honest heart-cry of "alleluia". it seems that much christian pop music avoids this subject in favor of happier, more immediately hopeful themes (though, thankfully, there is some some evidence that this is changing).

i found a nice article about these concepts and emmylou's music, specifically her record red dirt girl of which "the pearl" is the opening track. i think i had always dismissed emmylou as just another country singer, based partly on my father's incessant rotation of trio back in 1987. but i picked up wrecking ball (produced by daniel lanois) a few years ago, love it, and have been told that i need to experience more of her lexicon.

i'm on it, like an oyster on a pearl.

sorry...but then again, not so much

hi. sorry for not posting. we were in michigan.

but then again, not so sorry. we were in michigan. i'll tell you all about it in a future post.

i wanna solicit your ideas. the bible church is going to be focusing on LOVE this fall. our worship gatherings will reflect this, and i would love know ideas you have for songs, poems, and other expressions that express this well. obviously, it is a very broad subject, so feel free to roam that vast landscape for any cool creative nuggets. i would love to see people's notion of love to be challenged, expanded, reimagined. what is loving our neighbor? how can we really apply the parable of the 'good samaritan'? what does loving god mean? how is god's love for us manifested in our lives? is it more than just 'knowing' or 'feeling' that god loves us? what are some ways we humans distort love and expressions of love? how does this world actually love well? i'm having a mini- planning meeting about looking at the fall today, so i may know more after that.

help me out. thanks.

SLS & BCS

hi.

those of you with last names stine, falcetta, or carnall will immediately recognize that first set of three letters. for those of you lesser beings, those letters stand for "skinny little shit", the nickname that my mother betsy carnall stine and her cohorts assigned to her beloved frank sinatra.

so i threw some SLS in the cd player the other day and was almost immediately hit with tears, his remarkable voice triggering memories of my mother. there is not a specific song, and there is not a specific memory which comes to mind, but rather kind of general, happy, thankful thoughts of and for her life. that happens occasionally when i think of her. i didn't shed a tear the day she died, nor at her memorial service (just barely). but about every four to six months, something will connect emotionally/mentally and the tears will gather.

but man oh man, the man could sing. he really did make each song his own, and you can hear how much better he did it at 65 than at 30. i am glad to have "inherited" her four-disc set the complete capitol singles collection, and am looking forward to becoming more acquainted with it.

thank you, bets, for modeling taste in good music.

bon jovi

hi. i'm still breathing real good. thanks for prayin'/askin'/carin'/lovin'/touchin'/squeezin'...

in august of 1993, my friend twitch was a youth ministry intern in gaithersburg, md. some friends and i went down to do a concert for the high-schoolers. a lot of it was christian-type stuff, but we also did a stripped-down version of bon jovi's classic "living on a prayer". (in 2007, we remember that song with an eye-roll and a grin, but in '93 it was still nice and relevant...kinda.) we did it with the intention of building a "cultural bridge": something to allow these kids to connect their culture to the expression of their faith. i remember that being one of the highlights of the concert.


there are many, many examples in our music and other media that express, as mark acuff has put it, "the heart-cry of our culture". for a long time, the church has made indelible distinctions between secular and sacred. it's not nearly that dichotomic. i think of the examples of jesus and paul, who each used cultural tools to teach the eternal truths of the kingdom of god. jesus's parables about farming, servants, virgins, mustard seeds, and expensive pearls may not have much direct impact on our 21st-century ears, but for folks in judea, circa 31 a.d., they provided an avenue of understanding that the pharisees' teaching probably did not. paul, speaking to the high council in athens, quoted back to them their own poet aratos, bridging the "unknown" to the known.

the important thing here is that jesus and paul both studied and knew their culture well and could therefore speak its language. it's no less important today for the church to adopt this posture; in fact it may be more important in the post-christian west.


there is a book that i borrowed from someone (and need to give back) called a matrix of meanings, written by a couple of fuller seminary professors. though i borrowed/usurped it three years ago, i have only read about thirty pages of it (just another brick paving the road to hell), but i know people who have taken courses from these guys and have read their book, and were very impressed by both. also, if anyone knows of records/songs/artists that express well these temporal-eternal tensions, please point me in their direction.

thanks.

nasal passage*

*it was either this or "POST: nasal drip".


hi. sorry i've been out o' commission. i have good excuses.


so i had my nasal polyp surgery two weeks ago today. i went under general anesthesia for a little over two hours (my first time ever experiencing that -- dada no likey), and they shaved out the polyps and straightened my deviated septum. dr. clarke shoved some packing up in there to help it all heal in place.

[warning: please put down your strawberry smoothie for this next paragraph.]

i (slowly) woke up and needed water NOW, so they got me some 'ice chips'. apparently, i had vomited pretty violently at some point right before i awoke; of course, i have zero recollection of this. i also had this "drip-pad" right under my nostrils to soak up the flow of blood. not the most physically ideal situation to wake up to.

i totaled about six (6) hours of sleep the next four days and nights, mostly due to the inability to breathe out m'nose. it wasn't 'til monday afternoon that i began to feel "normal": some of the packing had begun to dissolve, which provided some airflow out m'nostrils. wednesday morning i went to dr. clarke and he sucked out most of the rest of the gunk that was up there. that was the turning point; my first inhalation after that was evidence enough that this surgery was worth it. i was already breathing better than i had in literally years.

it's now two weeks later, and i am a new man. seriously. before the surgery, i would ordinarily wake up about every 90 minutes-2 hours most every night (and fall right back to sleep, but it still was interruptive). the last seven days have consisted of full-ish nights of sleep (barring my three-day trip to boston last weekend to my sister's kick-ass party for getting her Ph.D.), and i feel better every day!! i'm so thankful.

dr. clarke is tha man. i told him he changed my life. he took it well.

i am not a forty-six-year-old female

but i gotta tell you: i really, really love josh groban's voice. seriously.

who's with me?

anyone? anyone at all....

hmmm.

community is still basic

hi.


to paraphrase, uh...something else i've heard before, seven days of not blogging makes one weak. i apologize to the tens of thousands of you all that have had to endure the stagnancy of eyesuppose of late.

i was talking with a college-age friend of mine recently, and she expressed some things that made me realize that there are many of us that feel like we (a) can't and (b) shouldn't have to depend or lean heavily upon others in times of physical, emotional, and spiritual need, and that it's a sign of weakness to do so.

to quote john keating: excrement.

i had similar thoughts when i was in college. going "away" to school caused me to consider the need to make my relationship with god "my own" rather than just My Parents' Faith 2.0. this is valuable in many ways, often even if it means completely abandoning one's journey with god and eventually coming back to a more authentic expression of faith that perhaps looks nothing like our parents'.

those four years at gordon college were fundamental in my spiritual formation. being in an intensely christian environment has its dangers and drawbacks, but the friendships i formed (not to mention that hot chick that i met my senior year) were crucial as i grew in faith and in the knowledge of the lord. but as you get out into the "real world", we were told, you've got to find a way to maintain your christianity (which usually meant espousing the right morality in the face of this immoral culture). now that you are no longer going to be in a solely christian environment, hopefully you will be strong enough and wise enough to survive on your own.

excrement.

not only should we lean and depend on each other, we really can't not do that and expect to have a viable faith that truly reflects god's heart, which is inherently communal. the church is not a cadre of individual pods (a visual from number 13 comes to mind), but a true community formed by god for his purpose. this is true in our times of communal worship as well. as i asserted in my last post about this subject, our worship is far too often expressed inside our "me-and-god" pods when we show up sunday morning.

i've been talking with people about how our church community can have a more relational, "horizontal" experience when we come together on sunday morning. our space is set-up in a manner that would make that a challenge, what with the chairs all facing the action coming from the big lit stage and all. there have been some special times of interaction through small-group prayer or an extended greeting time or breaking up into groups to discuss a topic for a few moments. another way this has been accomplished is through having people share a tidbit about what's going on in their lives, how they are living out his mission in their worlds, or how the grace and love of god and his community have carried them through pain and struggle.

my friend keith, one of the wiser men ever, illustrated this in the example of a song that dorinda holley sang in church a year or two ago. while it sounded beautiful on its own, the song was made even more meaningful by the fact that he knew what tough things were going on in her life during that time. in this way he (and others with whom she was in community) was able to come alongside her and praise god and lament with her in her pain.

excellent.

in good standing(s)

hi.

all i want to say today is that i'm just so happy.

thanks.

hate/love/hate

hi.


there's a fine article on the last page of the 28th may 2007 issue of time magazine. it's one of probably thousands of pieces written over the last ten days about jerry falwell and his "legacy". i found it to be well written, not coming down on either "side". here's a quote from near the end of the article:


Falwell practiced the politics of division, flinging damnation at those who resisted his vision of a Godly America. Now a rising generation of Christian leaders is looking to bring people together: the politics of division may be a shrewd electoral strategy but a shallow spiritual one. Their God is bigger than their party, more mysterious, more forgiving and more embracing. (my emboldening)


it makes me very happy to see a publication like time give some props to christians. they haven't had much reason to, goodness knows; we christians have not made the best name for ourselves (or for christ) in this country, and that goes back many decades.


still, i consider john's words -- in both his gospel (quoting jesus) and in his first epistle -- as he puts forth the fact that the world is going to hate us for being followers of jesus, and that this shouldn't surprise us. followers of christ are a "peculiar people", says peter; our standing as such puts us at odds with the rest of the world. it causes me to consider a crazy thought: was jerry falwell doing something right? much of the world thought pretty ill of him -- hated him, even -- so isn't that some indication that the stand he took and the ideologies he championed in christ's name were well-founded?


not necessarily.


the biggest distinction between christ and anything else that could command our loyalty is summed up in one simple word: love. love is what we are to put on first and most, because it brings people together, not rips them apart. love is the greatest thing; without it, we may as well not even talk, think, act, or believe. love is the only thing that matters when it's all said and done. to love is the greatest commandment. love is the only thing we owe anyone, but we owe it to everyone. love is what motivated god to come to us in the first place, which alone is reason enough to think it's important.


love manifests itself most profoundly when it is done in an environment of hate, just as a light is brightest when it is shining in the dark. again, we see this exemplified in christ. we're called to that as well: to love the rejected, to show compassion and grace to those who are hard to love. we human-types were not all that lovable ourselves, but god still did.


my good friend brian made a keen observation that evangelical christians are often much more interested in being right than being loving. my prayer is that the "rising generation of christian leaders" to which time is referring will allow, yea insist, that the latter trump the former. the reverend falwell probably loved well in several (perhaps even most) areas of his life, but in those public arenas where christians are most scrutinized, he does not escape reinforcing a rigid legalism that the world perceives to be the universal "christian" social/political/theological worldview. sadly, the result is, well...the world hating us.


what then did jesus and john mean?

dirty, twiggy, leafy, rocky worship

hi.


before i start, let me disclaim the fact that some of the posts on this blog will be admittedly superfluous, like all those pithy sports stats (here's another one, by the way: the average wild pitch/passed ball is responsible for .27 runs). but i promise that there will occasionally be some substance.

this post, for instance, is an attempt at that.

much of our song repertoire and liturgy contains lofty concepts such as 'holiness', 'majesty', and 'glory', as well as some well-intentioned-but-seldom-carried-out postures such as bowing, lifting hands, dancing, and kneeling.

can the church allow its worship language to be more earthy? (actually, i would love to avoid that somewhat-hackneyed adjective; perhaps the title of this post suggests some alternatives.) what would that sound/look/feel like? i don't think there should be an abandonment of acknowledging the eternal, unattainable attributes of god (and thus worshipping him because of those things), but i'd love to see us groan for god more often from a place of authentic down-and-dirty humanness.

perhaps you've seen a movie or cartoon in which a servant comes in and ridiculously over-humbles himself in the presence of his authority, groveling and desperately spitting out adulations. we giggle at him because he is not being genuine. i sometimes feel like that when i am "declaring the majesty" or "proclaiming the glory": that i am using overly-biblical or -christianized words and images when i'm not even sure of their meaning.

there's a great scene from my favorite movie of all time where the title character is trying to "sell" to the emperor and his court the idea of composing an opera based on beaumarchais' character of figaro: a very earthy, very human subject. there was considerable objection to this, the court making its own case that this subject is devoid of the "elevated themes" they perceive to be the proper content for such a work. mozart protests, saying, "come on now. be honest! which one of you wouldn't rather listen to his hairdresser than hercules? or horatius, or orpheus -- people so lofty they sound as if they shit marble!" (then from one of the court comes one of my favorite lines: "govern your tongue, mozart. how dare you!")

we live, love, and worship in a tension of brokenness and hope, of time and eternity. indeed, all of worship is a mystery, offered up in faith, but the heaviness of the human burden is undeniably real. while we do have some moments of transcendence and clarity in our lives -- less often than we are willing to admit, yet more often than we think, perhaps? -- 99.44% of the time we are bound to our humanness, usually painfully so. purely based on numbers, this is the place from where the vast percentage of our worship is expressed, both individually and communally. julie miller's broken things expresses this as well as any song i've ever known.

psalm 33:13-15 states well how god knows our hearts -- broken, human, earthen as they are. he made the things, after all. let's offer them to back to him. he wants them. no matter how many times they've been dragged through the dirt, twigs, leaves, and rocks, he accepts them and makes them what they should be.

thanks for reading.

count with me

hi. count with me.

there was this rookie pitcher named tyler clippard who got the win for the skankees last night. i want you to see how many times a newspaper headline, a sports anchor, or a talk show host make reference to this new "yankee clippard".

ready..........go.

list boy lives! - part the second

nat's top fifteen favorite films of all time:

15. beautiful girls (1996)
14. lost in translation (2003)
13. the matrix (1999)
12. the godfather (1972)
11. star wars: episode iv - a new hope (1977)
10. the paper (1994)
9. quiz show (1994)
8. chariots of fire (1981)
7. forrest gump (1994)
6. casablanca (1942)
5. dead poets society (1989)
4. tootsie (1982)
3. magnolia (1999)
2. the shawshank redemption (1994)
1. amadeus (1984)

list boy lives! - part the first

nat's ten favorite albums of all time (in alphabetical order; i have no ranking):

• achtung baby - u2 (1991)
• dulcinea - toad the wet sprocket (1994)
• odessey and oracle - the zombies (1968)
• revolver - the beatles (1966)
• so - peter gabriel (1986)
• ten summoner's tales - sting (1993)
• the beatles (a.k.a. the white album) - the beatles (1968)
• the bends - radiohead (1995)
• the joshua tree - u2 (1987)
• xo - elliott smith (1998)

a very cool stat, actually...

hi.

either steve kerr or robert horry was on the roster of every nba championship team from the 1993-1994 season through the 2002-2003 season. (horry also won in 2005 with the spurs.)

it's all about the J, baby.

NOTE: this is my last post about sports statistics for a while -- say, four days.

importance is relative, part deux

hi.

statisticians are funny. actually, i would have loved to be one. honestly. i admired anthony "walking statbook" gates in high school who knew every big and little number in NFL history.

still, statisticians are funny. i saw and heard a couple of where-the-aitch-did-they-find-that-one stats about the sox' victory last night over the tigers:

- boston has now won its last 27 games in which it has scored five or more runs, the longest current streak of its kind in the majors.

- they became "only" the ninth team in MLB history to lead a league or division by eight or more games entering 15th may.

upon further review, the first one actually has some merit to it. props to the sox' offense and defense. but that second one...hmmmm. a styx song comes to mind.

see ya.

it ain't just for surfing anymore

hi.

about four years ago -- i assume after seeing it on some 'greatest albums of all time' list(s) -- i purchased the beach boys' pet sounds. i quickly discovered it's got everything that nat loves about a record*: fantastic vocal arrangement, inventive melodies, brilliant orchestrations. and all this spawned from a twenty-four-year-old mastermind.

speaking of twenty-something musical masterminds, my friend jeff lent me SMiLE t'other day. i had loosely known the story of it: how it was to be the mother of all follow-ups, but got shelved in early '67 because of musical and artistic ideas too advanced for the public (and the record execs), as well as brian's deteriorating mental health. he resurrected it in 2004, rerecorded the tracks, and released it as a solo album.

holy freaking brilliant transcendency of musical and lyrical conception and design, batman.

perhaps like many, before familiarizing myself with the intricacies of pet sounds, i perceived the boys (and thus dismissed them) purely through the lens of "surfin' usa" or "i get around" - the latter of which, in retro-retrospect, is a fantastic composition in its own right. for those of you that still think that, check out these two masterpieces of recorded sound. in fact, go buy them right now. these are not merely the brain-droppings of a few sand-blasted surf dogs looking to get their music played at every beach party from ventura to vero, but rather some of the most important musical and spiritual statements of the decade, if not in all of pop music.

thanks for reading.



* - i feel the same about the zombies' odessey & oracle [sic], another brilliant non-beatles release from the 60's.

community is basic

hi.

i heard a great message on community yesterday from dave ward. he talked about people being "god's plan a". yes, yes, and yes.

i feel that we need a 'reset' of our understanding of what it means to be a follower of jesus. most evangelical christians have been conditioned to believe that in order to be a follower of christ, one must make an individual, personal decision to do that, and that subsequently one's faith is lived out in a similar framework: how's my devotional life? how's my walk? am i living for the lord? how was my worship experience last sunday? this is also reflected (quite ironically) in many of the songs we sing during community worship which are sung from the first-person singular "I" rather than the plural "we", which would obviously make more sense given the context.

as the next generation of jesus-followers emerges (including those two boys at the top of the page), how can they be taught to perceive community as basic to their identity as a christian? it's comforting to know that many people born after 1966 or so seem to have a natural proclivity toward, and reliance on, community, that it's fundamental to our existence. i'm excited for the church to learn something about community from us!

i think i have a lot to say about this. more later...

calebstine.com

hi.

i discovered that there is a calebstine.com. funny. i might email him and applaud him (or his parents, i guess) on his name.

importance is relative

hi.

i laughed.

sportscasters do this all the time (back me up here, the): i just watched a little clip from last night's game 2 of the spurs-suns series (where steve "where have all the white boys gone" nash was the phat). the anchor said something about "critical game three" coming up in a couple days.

when you're engaged in a sport that you care about, especially when getting paid pretty well for it, especially when playing at the NBA level, especially when in the playoffs, especially when in a series as heated as that superb southwestern match-up, isn't every freaking game critical???

just wondering.

what the aitch?

hi.

how do you reading this right now know i have a blog??!! i hadn't come out of the blogzet yet, i thought. i guess it wouldn't be that hard to discover; if i've commented on yours, it'd just take you two clicks to get to mine. that, and the fact that bill is one of the most resourceful people i know.

i guess i'll have to do some real work on this thing now that it's open for business.

thanks for reading. all of you...

57

hi.

rachel and i rented bobby last evening. lemme clarify: i saw it, but she watched about 57% before falling asleep. come to think of it, rachel has probably fallen asleep during 57% of the movies we've ever "watched" "together".

i can't say i blame her. on a scale of 1 to 100, it was only about a 57. while the premise was compelling -- the stories of several guests at l.a.'s ambassador hotel converge on the night of robert kennedy's victory in the california primary as well as his assassination -- the delivery was less than stellar. speaking of stars, the film had plenty of power in that department, perhaps too much, which may have been its weakness. rachel was making comparisons to good night, and good luck., observing that bobby lacked the palpable drama and strong writing good night... had.

still, though i was born five years (and almost seven days) after these events, i was moved to think what this country would have been like with president robert kennedy in the white house for eight years, which i presume would probably have occurred. things would have been -- and thus would now be -- very different it seems: race relations, class distinctions, our role in the vietnam (and subsequently any) war. i'm no expert, but i think that difference would be nice right now.

still, it was nice to sit down and watch a movie with my wife...or at least watch a movie with my wife there. i feel like we hadn't done that in 57 weeks.

thanks for reading.

this is the first one

hi.

i am excited to finally get something going here. in fact, it is kind of a new thing for me. i have never ever ever been a willing journaler (-ist?); it's not an expression that comes completely natural to me. consequently, however, i have noticed that i have many thoughts about life, god, worship, music, culture, humanity, irony, food, family, community, sports, etc., that i wanna get down on "paper" -- perhaps in an arena that will somehow give others some encouragement for the journey. i've known many people with excellent blogs, and though 'eye suppose' will not equal their journalistic quality, i still hope and believe that my experiences and insights will somehow do some good for some people.

thanks for reading.