A Poem for Thought

How to express this struggle
Inside, Depressed, I ponder.

I think about my sorrow grown,
made large by circumstance untold.

To worry is my biggest charge today
I wonder why fate has led me here?

A place where destiny, unkown, does rattle me
My path seems only certain to... dissapoint.

What is this agony? My struggle, sorrow, worry, disapointment?
The failure to be loved and love with equal tenderness.

Erickson's Psychosocial stages

He's really right you know. We all have a common crisis we deal with in various stages of life. Old people deal with Integrity, middle aged folk deal with generativity(did I accomplish anything?), and we (young adults) deal with Intimacy vs. Isolation. I feel this crisis almost daliy; not even business can get rid of it. I think about deeper friendships and who might be a good candidate. Yet many of my relationships remain shallow, I feel condemned to isolation. to make is worse, it seems even more hopeless when it comes to intimacy in romatic relationships.

I haven't really had any deep relationships in this category (noteworthy or not). The closest thing I come to is listening to Jazz ballads (see previous post). I can almost imagine a romantic slow dance (yes a guy can find that to be a good thing too). I'm not just talking a desire for physical intimacy, this is a deep longing foe a soul mate; someone to talk to about everything. Someone who I know I can be open with; I don't have to watch my words, they can just flow. I'd like to not worry about saying the wrong things. Instead, I'd love to vent, rant, or just talk.

Erickson says that if the crisis goes unmet it can result in stunted psychological growth. I don't want to be an unwhole person. More personally, I don't want to feel alone. We are a loner culture but deep inside lies a desire for meaningful relationships. I want that.

But Why during Homecoming week?

It seems like Homecoming week is the perfect week for assesment and projects. I don't have time to participate in activities becuase of my class work. Certainly if all I did was school work and homecoming events I could pull it off, but that's not going to happen. I need some free time. Let me jsut hit on my main point of anger.

In woodwind pedagogy class we have a flute test on friday. I have to be able to proficiently play on an instrument I can't get even tone on. I can't play all of the notes I have to know; this envolves developin the embrocure, which one cannot to in two weeks. I have practiced the perscribed amount of time yet I am struggling. But I'm not the only one, all the other non-woodwind players are stuggling (all four of us) but Thompson is having trouble seeing through the crowd of flautists to understand our frustration. We definetly need more time becuse I don't have more than thirty minutes a day to spend on this stuff. I can barely make thirty minutes becuase of stamina and sheer anger an not being able to play the note in tune.

I'm fuming.....

We've got spirit how about you!

It's depressing how anti-school sirit I am. I cringe at the sign of a campus event and avoid the homecoming cheer like the plague. Why don't I like school spirit? Maybe it stems from my aversion to people in high school who were full of spirit (since that's not the only thing they were full of it's not suprising I found them less than enjoyable to be around). Perhaps I simply believe that the energy produced with school spirit is contrived. I mean, does anyone really care about campus image that much or think our school is "the best"? Which leads me to perhaps the main reason for not being "spirit-filled"; It seems like even the worst schools have school spirit (which in and of itself is not bad). When schools get hyped up about school pride bad things can happen; violence, anger, wasting of time to learn dumb cheers.

Actually, now that I think about it, the main reason for not liking school pride is due to the condescensionthat accopanies it. We look down on those who don't like to participate (like me), the introverts are undesireable (me again), and we resort to a constant contest for who is the biggest school fan. We end up holding it over each other as a trophy. "I led the group in the cheer", or "I have been to every event" just push down those that either don't have time
or even those that can go but don't show their enthusiams as well as others.

That's why I am anit-school spirit.
Or maybe it's because......

Worship Ghettos

My dad made a good analogy today regarding the "privitization" of worship music. One group prefers Traditional Hymns while another prefers Choruses. Why do we divide over the how our music sounds? Can't we all just get along?

I say that to be funny bu there is a point to it. When we focus on style differences and decide one type is our preferred choice we forget the object of our worship. I think we should seriously conisder style choices, but the conclusion should be an eclectic blend of quality worship that both proclaims the greatness of God and our longing for him. We need to praise, honor and adore God; this type of worship can be found (textually) in hymns and gospel music (there are eceptions and also other style s I will most likely neglect to mention so please don't condemn my opinion becuase of the details).

Choruses (the music of the 90's until today [yes even earlier to starting with songs like "as the deer"]) are a great way to express the personal nature of our relationship with God. We express our yearning for the creator and the emotions associated with knowing God. These are great but more often than not we have a "worship diet" rich in this type of music. Our overdosing get to the point of hedonistic pleasure seeking, where we "worship" to get spiritually high instead of to honor God. We should have a blanced diet and remeber to praise God as well.
To illustrate this point; I was watching a worship music dvd (fre from Family Christian) it had music from Paul Baloche, Israel and the New Breed, Darlene Zschech, and other famous worship leaders. There were nine songs in all and eight of them expressed the worshipper's point of view (using mainly I, Me, My vocabulary). These are good songs (I really like Paul Baloche's "Offering") but we need a good balance. It's time to step out of our segregated churches and integrate other worship cultures. Perhaps we could stand a little "spiritual busing"?

Jazz Ballads

What is a good Jazz Ballad?

I'm listening to some of my jazz ballads from iTunes
-Sonny Rollins "You Don't Know What Love Is"
-John Coltrane "In a Sentimental Mood"
-Miles Davis "When I Fall in Love"
- Wynton Marsalis "End Of A Love Affair"
- Ellington "Chelsea Bridge"
- Basie "Lil' Darling"

What makes these ballads great? Yes, the music is well written; the chords create some amazing colors but I don't have that sound, that essence that is , well, essential, to jazz ballads. (commas anyone?)
So what am I hearing? It's something Emotional, Spiritual, Physical, Sexual (can I say that, Bethelites might read this!!). Great Jazz ballads have the essence of romance injected into them. Their sound pierces you deeply. A single held note says many things; they have an urgency in them that says, I love you. They say I just want to hold you close and then tell us what it feels like when you do. Great Jazz ballads make you want to find someone to share the music with (if you don't already have that person). They say, ah! Yes! The is what love really is. I can't completely explain what they say, in fact each persons experience is subjectuve; what says to me "Love" might say to you "Pain". Maybe is says both?
One of the greatest things Jazz ballads have taught me is that love and pain are inexplicably tied together. Love is pain and pain is love; not is the meaning that love is always painful. But someone crying evokes a feeling of love. "That person is hurting and I feel for them" or "I love you so much it hurts". These feelings are urges that want to burst out of our skins and yell, but that won't do enough. Words will not say all that is involved that's why Rollins, Coltrane, Miles, Wynton, Ellington, and Basie played it.

Being Real

How do you stay real when it comes to sin?
I've tried sometimes, I've been sincere, I've wanted to change but still I go back to the old ways of doing things. How does forgiveness work when I'm constantly asking to forgiven fro the same things. Shouldn't we change, get better, become more like christ? yet here I am; the same as always, a few minor changes in theology etc. but none the better for it. I still ignore the poor, the needy, and focus on what pleases me. And I don't mean those higher pleasures that we should be striving for. I mean those piddly little things that satisfy us in the moment but offer no lasting solutions.

Oh how I want Jesus to return ans put an end to this!!

Read the last post first

And I forgot to say. I beleive that if your seek the truth you will find it. Ask God to aid you in this pursuit of truth and it will inevitably lead you to him.

But it has to be scripturally based!!!

I have a serious problem; I don't think that the Bible is the only true source of Christian knowledge. I believe it is good to create beliefs based on experience and other sources. I think it is ok to search out the truth in nature, in the writings of nonchristians, and in yourself. And worst of all, I don't think the Bible was meant to be God's rule book for man.

The Bible is a book, yes it is inspired but it is still a book. The writers of the bible we real people and they injected the book with their own personality and soul. God didn't take over people's bodies to make them write what he wanted them to; he worked through them (that's the miracle) to make a Book that is both timely and timeless.

Experience, in my opinion, is valid. God gives us experience and sensations in this world and I belive his eternal truth in found withint these things. Yes, other bad things can also be found, but He did create the world. I'm sick of people yelling that everything we do has to be 100% straight out of the Bible. If people bow and sing in worship we can too, but if they didn't paint, write, or do other activities as worship they must not be valid. If all of this is a good way to go about things what did the early christians do before the canonization of scripture? They must have been totally lost. Oh yeah! tha's right, they flourished dispite this "handicap".


Don't get me wrong I love the Bible; in fact, I believe realizing that the Bible is a group of inspired but human documents makes it all the more powerful. How did God ispire these people yet leave their humanity intact? It amazes me that we can find something like this fresh Book that is true for all people, at all times, and in all places, yet was written in cultural context. The majority of movies made tewnty, or thirty, years ago are completely irrelevanttoday but this Book was written of the course of thousands of years and the final "Chapter" was written around two thousand years before today! And we find new fresh ideas in new cultural contexts. Bring the bible into modernism and you find one things and bring it into postmodernism and you find something completely differnt (not opposite just different). Take this book to an African tribe and it will mean something new to them too. There is power in this ability to be both in and outside of cultural context. Of course, we have to be careful when dealing with context (how much culture are our conclusions) But God promises the Holy Spirit so he has our back covered.

Oh yeah, the Bible is awesome. But so are the writings of C.S. Lweis, Brian McLaren, the music of Beethoven, U2, etc. and the art of Michelangelo and Jackson Pollack. Find God in everything and you will see life in an entirely new way even if everything you believe afterwards isn't directly coming from the mouth of Paul.

Mystic

What is missing in today's modern church? Why aren't people of my generation coming; fewer and fewer millennials are going to church and it's not becuase they aren't spiritual.
We, as a collective generation, believe in some higher power (generally). We know there are things that can't be explained and we like the mystery. The modern age, especially the age of reason, gave us science and logic which have tired to explain eveything. The thing is not everything is explainable. You would think the church would understand that more than most, but our preachers either attept to explain them or never approach the subject.

Also, what happened to the beauty associated with Christianity. Baroque arcitecture evokes feelings of spirituality and reminds us of the divine. Yet, most of our churches look like office buildings. Don't send me to a sterile, lifeless building to encounter a mystical God. We forget how important our other senses are; yes we are thinking things, but we are also feeling, hearing, seeing things (Thank you Descartes).

I think you get my Point. Now go encounter a God who is mysterious and alive.

Seriously

It's been a very long time since I have written here and I have grown tremendously.
I read many different things this past summer and done some stuff as well but the most impacting thing was learning about a New Way of Thinking About Christianity (caps for emphasis).

I read books by Brian McLaren that opened my mind to postmodern, postprotestant, post(lots of things), christianity. I have found that, along with a large portion of my generation, I am fed up with the church today. Rather, I already new that but I learned why it's true. I am sick of ungenuine worship, sterile buildings, formulaic services, "seeker friendly" churches, anti- Catholic biases, and many other things (mainly tracing back to modernism).

regarding woship, I have found a desire to embrace "emerging worship". I desire to integrate ancient practices and ancient music, remember the value of prayer, and get back to the core of what worship is. Let's engage the senses and not neglect the nonmusical churchgoers. Maybe there are varied forms of expression? Since when was hand raising manditory?

I'm really interested in integrating my worship ideas into Vespers at Bethel. What about singing chant? How about using art or poetry? Could we do something with responsorial reading of the psalms set to a melody determined by the leader? Let's find Bethel's unique worship voice insteadd of playing the same things that we can buy at the Christian Book Store (including playing just like the CD).


Well, enough for now. I can't think with all the noise (my roomate is playing a compy game)

Later