Brand New Day

It may be worth noting that it has been nearly a year since my last post.

God is an amazing God.  He will follow us wherever we meander along our walk with Him.

Expressing my faith - no, expressing what I know and have seen of God's truths - through artistic means, is air to me.  I forget from time to time how vital that expression is for my feeling of fulfillment in life, but when I remember, the realization is sharp.  Someday I may not have the ability to sing.  Voices grow weaker and shakier with age, and singing God's message through Christina Aguilara, Pink, Alanis ... that's my air.  I am already partially deaf in one ear; some day I may not be able to hear new passionate pop artists on the radio speaking God's words into my heart.  And for almost an entire year I have not breathed modern music air from my radio.

Well it's a brand new day.

A couple weeks ago, one of my favorite people to hear speak reminded me that God sees me.  Not just when I come to Him, rushing to Him with my ideas and plans, but just as much when I am wandering away, or timidly keeping my distance.  He is there, loving me, knowing me, waiting for me as a father waits for his child.  Even when I am struggling, in the depths of my own versions of hell, He is there beside me and within me, ready to start fresh, asking to be my everything.  There is nowhere too far for Him.

My return to this blog may not seem quite so melodramatic as the above paragraph describes.  Yet the truth that God has seen me, fighting for sleep with two young kids, stepping over clutter, balancing too many plates on too tiny of sticks, losing my keys, my wallet, my wedding rings, my mind ... there is something freeing in knowing that He has seen all of that and has been there the whole time.  He has seen me forgetting to breathe my air and He stands here offering it to me still.

Coming back to this blog is like Sting's lyrics - finding an old photo of someone I love, recognizing that old smile I've been thinking of, and turning the clock right back to zero.  It's not the blog which I love.  I'm a horrible blogger.  It's what I find when I hear God's message in an unexpected place, and the compulsion I have to share what I hear with other people.  Once upon a time I had other venues for that impulse - singing, performing, and speaking to congregations about the connection between God's word and the art around us every day.  But for everything there is a season, and those opportunities happen to be out of season right now.  This little blog project was designed to fill that space, and today it feels like a breath of fresh air.

Sting isn't the easiest to understand; you can read the lyrics here.

This song says a dozen other things to me as well.  I hope you find an insight of your own in it!

Happy

Spring is here!!!

Ok, it's probably not.  Based on Ohio weather trends it's likely to snow tomorrow.  But today was sunshine and warmth, even as giant chunks of ice still lay melting from the past week's cold.  It was the kind of day that found me driving with the windows partially down, singing and dancing in the car with my boys.

I love days like this, where even though the concerns in my life aren't any more or less than they were yesterday or will be tomorrow, the sun comes out and that's enough to remind me that life is what it is - happy.  Am I still as much in debt today as I am when it's dark and snowy?  You bet.  Are my kids every bit as sleepless in this pseudo-spring as they are in the depths of winter?  Absolutely.  But for whatever reason as soon as I can comfortably leave the house without a coat I feel unencumbered not only by bulky outerwear, but by the constraints of every inner burden I've been carrying around as well.

It was only fitting when this song came on during our happy sunshine-y drive:

We all need reminders that happiness is a truth, not something that we can only experience as life's circumstances allow.  It's a different kind of happiness, I think, than the glee that does come from things going our way - the whole 'everything's coming up roses' feeling.  The happiness I'm referring to is a deeper sense of peace, a feeling of being spiritually and emotionally ok in the face of even the bad situations.  I admit I'm not the best at this.

"It might seem crazy what I'm about to say ... I'm happy ..."  I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances ... I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through Him ... - Philippians 4

In Mexico I prayed once with a woman who was living in what I would generously call a shack, constructed out of a random collection of materials found in a nearby landfill and tacked together to make walls and roof, with bedsheets standing in for any missing wall space.  An elderly woman with very very little to her name, her prayer request was for her relatives who lived in a part of Mexico that she described as "very poor.  They have nothing."  She spoke of how blessed she was, and how worried she was for them because they didn't have the kind of blessings she had.

What? ...  That perspective on life changed me.  I don't believe she was necessarily speaking about physical provisions, but I also don't believe that physical provisions is how this woman measures blessings.  As she spoke there was a sense that she was connected to an internal satisfaction that came by way of her closeness to God, her relationships, her ability to view the value of life as separate from the daily necessities of life itself.

I hope today is filled with joy for you, not because life is going well, or because you have a guarantee that things will get better, because you don't.  I hope you are filled with joy because of the truth of who you are as a child of God.  It's not about money trouble, it's not about family drama, it's not about meetings, presentations, bills, auto repairs, or grades.  It's about the sun rising and setting each day on another opportunity to be in God's presence.

"Here come bad news ... give me all you got, and don't hold back ... I'll be just fine ... Can't nothing bring me down.  Your love is too high."  We are hard pressed ... but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair ... struck down, but not destroyed ... Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.  - 2Corinthians 4

Everything

There are very few people who will truly love the whole version of ourselves.  Who, once they see some of the rawer forms of our negative traits, will embrace us all the more.  I would dare say that the vast majority of us cannot even love ourselves with that kind of all-encompassing completeness.  I see the darker sides of myself and respond with self-judgment, self-loathing, self-contempt, and shame.

And yet all of us have those darker sides.  At our core, our personalities include positive and negative, and the same person in different contexts can demonstrate both compassion and apathy, humility and arrogance, patience and anger.  I pretty much just described myself.

That's where God comes in, and, of course, the brilliant Alanis Morissette giving us His truth.  If you're unfamiliar with Alanis, I'll tell you she's up there with the Psalms as one of my favorite sources of God's truth.  This song is a great example why:

[If you're listening with children nearby, the 2nd version removes the one instance of the word a**hole.  If there aren't kids around, use the 1st one - let's be honest and call ourselves what we are sometimes.]

Go back through those lyrics and see where you find yourself being described: withholding? wise? brave? mistrusting? blame-shifting? gorgeous?  Depending on the day, I can be each one of those descriptions, though I do a better job hiding some of them than others.

Our God is one who, despite our best efforts to hide it, see all of us.  He chooses to love us when we are at our most awful and our most divine, with an unconditional love beyond what we can even offer to ourselves, much less those around us.

"You see everything, you see every part"  You have searched me, LORD, and You know me ... You perceive my thoughts from afar ... You are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue, You, LORD, know it completely.  -Psalm 139  

"There's not anything to which you can't relate"  We do not have a high priest [Jesus] who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are ... -Hebrews 4

"And you're still here"  ... neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God ... -Romans 8

And this section preaches the most truth to me:

"What I resist persists and speaks louder than I know.  What I resist, you love, no matter how low or high I go"  Where can I go from Your Spirit? Where can I flee from Your presence? If I go up to the heavens, You are there; if I make my bed in the depths, You are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there Your hand will guide me ... will hold me fast. -Psalm 139

How often do I fight losing battles against my own negative traits, resisting with all my might, yet unable to suppress them?  But God meets us where we are regardless.  We can't sink too low for Him, no matter what, and we certainly will never be too high for Him to reach.

Brave & Say

This wasn't the direction I planned to go with my second post, but my three year old has been singing the song "Brave" by Sara Bareilles over and over (and over, and over, and over ...) for several days straight, and I just can't escape it.  So I've decided to embrace.

I mentioned previously that the way in which a work of art holds value to an individual may not be the same as how it originally held value to the artist.  Similarly, the same work of art can be valued on a number of different planes simultaneously - when listening to a song in the context of a breakup, you hear it one way, in the context of the birth of a child, you hear it differently, and all the while you may still be able to hear the social message it was originally written to express.

It's important not to take away from the intended message of this particular song.  The obvious messages are significant, and absolutely in line with biblical truth in their own right.  Leaving those in place, I think it's possible to shift our ears to a spiritual filter and hear another layer too.  What if, as you listen, the lyrics are heard as God's words to you about your relationship with Him?  Try it:

When is the last time you really prayed?  I mean the kind of prayer where your heart pours out everything, baring your thoughts good and bad to a God who's only desire is to know you, to see all the parts of who you are?  I know I'm not alone in feeling trapped underneath the things I won't say to Him, living in a metaphorical dark cave of solitude that I've made through my own silence, especially when it comes to what I'm honestly thinking of God Himself.  Yet I hear Him in these lyrics calling me out - "Let the words fall out, stop holding them in, say what you want to say so I can move towards you in love.  There's nothing you can say that I can't handle - I want to see all of you."

Being a 30-something, I personally can't think of Sara Bareilles' lyrics without hearing John Mayer's "Say" in my head, and actually, that song continues this theme of God pressing us to speak to Him openly, vulnerably, without reservation:

Maybe today's the day to take the battles we're fighting in our heads and hash them out with God boldly, honestly, without fear.

"Even if your hands are shaking and your faith is broken ... say what you need to say."

Livin' On The Edge

I believe in God's truth. It's written all over the world around us, the situations we find ourselves in, the art created by people from every culture and walk of life ... Sure, God's message is in the Bible. But the same message is present as we rock out in our cars, study nature, skim through facebook posts, and watch reality t.v.; it's just edited and mixed to a different beat.

God's truth is true whether we hear it from the book of Hebrews, Alanis Morissette, a 19th century poet, or a rap version of the Aussie National Anthem. I've been lucky enough to find it in all of those, and God is creative enough to keep spinning His original material into fresh genres until we see Him and His truth in every direction.

This blog, inspired in part by the vision gained collaborating with the New Connections Band and in part by the like-hearted postings over at A Rock and Roll Devotional, aims to share a glimpse of God in places we may not be used to finding Him.  Here I'll share videos, music, poetry, prose, photos, a comic strip ... there is no boundary but that in some way a kernel of spiritual insight might be found.

So where to start with a new blog and a new year?  Those who have worked with me musically know I have to kick things off with a little Aerosmith.

If you might be offended by partial nudity or cross-dressing, or might miss the content of the lyrics because of the distraction of imagery, use this first video:

For those with a bit more edge in their soul, or for whom imagery might give more depth to the content of the lyrics, use this second video:

To me ... I must emphasize this point - all art is open to interpretation by the viewer, which is why it's such a perfect medium through which God can speak to an individual.  The artist's intention may not be where the value of a particular work lies for me personally - the value is where my heart and soul are touched and moved, and oftentimes that place is far from the starting point of the artists themselves ... To me, this song beautifully tells the tale of humanity.  A broken world, priorities far from God's, something feeling not quite right but at the same time so easy to find ourselves tangled up in it.  A struggle without, but also within, as we can't help but fall.  Every lyric of this song, and I encourage you to read them all, speaks a Biblical truth.

"there's something wrong with the world today"  ...the creation was subjected to futility ...creation itself [is in] bondage to corruption ...the whole creation has been groaning together ...  Romans 8 

"something's wrong with our eyes"   All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes ... there is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.  -Proverbs 16

"I can't help myself at all"   I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. ... I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.  -Romans 7

"if you can judge a wise man by the color of his skin ..."   There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female [interesting connection to the end of the second video], for you are all one in Christ Jesus.  -Galatians 3

My personal favorite is the refrain about Chicken Little, which I think can be taken into our hearts in a number of ways, so I'll let that one simmer on its own.

So what do we do with all this?  We take it in, we turn on the radio, and we listen for something between the lines that speaks to our spirit.  Happy New Year, here's to God's voice in the form of Steven Tyler!

Where do you find God mixed into the world around you?  Send me your thoughts, songs, etc. and I'll work them into a post.