Tunesday: “Phantom of the Opera”

Happy ‪#Tunesday, and a pre-emptive Happy Halloween!

This past summer, I had the chance to watch The Phantom of the Opera, performed and recorded at Royal Albert Hall…on Netflix, because I definitely don’t have money for a live broadway show.  

The Phantom of the Opera is a great musical.  The experience was simultaneously enchanting and haunting. Perfect for halloween.  I now love it as much as I love Les Miserables, but I love them for different reasons because they are just so different.  While Les Mis is all about social unrest and hope and love, Phantom is just plain creepy.  Okay, okay, Phantom does tackle themes of acceptance, of beauty, and it has rich motifs of masks and music.  It’s like a darker, twisted version of Disney’s Hunchback of Notre Dame (Favorite Disney movie, by the way.)

Now on to the music!  The title song “The Phantom of the Opera,” deftly combines so many disparate musical styles for a deliberately chilling effect.  Vocally, it’s well done, with strong singing, rich vocal timbre, and harmonies between the soprano Christine and the tenor Phantom.  Typical  Broadway musical.  But the accompaniment makes all the difference, as it combines the classic sounds of the symphony with a unique rock flair.  It’s epic, it’s suspenseful, and when the blaring organ combines with the screaming electric guitar, and the high pitched soprano vocal line it just sends shivers down my spine.  All fitting for the general creepiness of the whole musical…a phantom helping a young woman learn how to sing.  Andrew Llloyd Webber is a genius of muscial theatre, and it shows.

So, happy Halloween for Saturday. Enjoy the music of the night!

The Psalms of the Modern Age

I’m certain that by the end of this post, I will be burned at the stake as a heretic. But here I am, simply exploring an idea, so humor me as a lunatic, not a theologian.
The Psalms are great.  They’re a fantastic prayer book.  I can’t even begin to tell of the things I’ve learned about prayer from the Psalms.  That’s a story for another day.  Not to say that scripture is incomplete, or imperfect, but I think something has indeed been lost in the centuries between us and King David and the other psalmists, lost in translation: Music. Poetry. The grand artistry of it all.  There’s a degree to which the Psalms will be less potent outside of their original Hebrew.  As English readers in the 21st century, we cannot understand the literary devices, the wordplay, the rhyme of Biblical Hebrew.  We know Psalm 119 is an acrostic poem, but somehow it doesn’t strike us as much as if it was in English.  And even if we did know Hebrew, we’ve lost the musicality of the Psalms.  We, for the most part have no idea how these psalms sounded.  The psalms were meant to be sung, preferrably with shofar and lyre.

There’s something about music.  It is a gift God has given to us.  It is the vehicle through which prayer flows most smoothly, stripping away all the “um”s and the “just”s and the “Lord”s that I repeat while I think about what to say next.  Songs of worship are words of truth, accompanied by the emotion they stir in us.  The repetition of choruses and refrains allow us to meditate on these truths about God.  When we worship with music, praise for God flows naturally, as it should.  

In the New Testament, Paul tells the Ephesians to 

Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs.  Sing and always make music in your heart to The Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. (Ephesians 4:19-20)

We’re told to always be singing and making music out of thanksgiving to God, not only with psalms but also with hymns and spiritual songs.  Similarly, in the book of Psalms, we are called to “sing unto the Lord a new song”  (Psalm 33:3)  At this point in time, the psalms are not “new songs,” nor can we sing them.
It’s modern songs, hymns and worship anthems, that fill this need for worship through music.  Granted, it’s not the only form of worship we are called to, as God does call us to “offer our bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing” to Him (Romans 12:1).  Our worship is our whole lives, but music is a key part of that.  Why else do Sunday church services spend a good chunk of time and resources in “worship”?

I propose that we evaluate songs of worship with criteria similar to those applied by the Councils of the early church to determine the canon of scripture.  Does it agree with the character of God, as seen throughout scripture?  (Bonus points for using phrases from scripture in the lyrics.)  Since Jesus gave all believers the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, all believers have the Holy Spirit, and as a result, these new songs of worship can be considered “God-breathed,” or divinely inspired.  No wonder Christian radio stations are always getting calls reporting instances of God speaking to people at just the right moment through these songs.

Therefore, let us come and worship The Lord in Spirit and in truth, responding to the truth about Him we find in His Word with the new song that he puts in our mouth, hymns of praise to our God (Psalm 40:3).  The Psalms show us the heart of worship, and we are free to fill in the words and the music.

So let us praise the Lord!  Praise him in sanctuary; praise him in his mighty heavens, praise him for his acts of power, praise him for his surpassing greatness.  We’ll praise him with the guitar and the bass, praise Him with the synth, praise him with tambourine or cajon or egg shaker, praise him with cello and violin, flute and saxophone, praise him with the kick of the bass drum and the clash of cymbals.  With new worship anthems, or with classic hymns, let everthing that has breath praise the Lord.

  

1 Samuel and Star Wars

Prepare your mind to be blown apart like the Death Star.

My devotions of late have found me in 1 Samuel.  By chapter 16, God has rejected Saul, the tall, good-looking first king of Israel, and Samuel is mourning over the king that he had personally invested in.  God then sends Samuel to go annoint a new king, and he finds the young boy, David, tending his father’s sheep.  Samuel anoints him to be the next king.  Over the coming chapters, Saul tries to kill David before he can take the throne as Israel’s rightful king.  But David eventually does become king, as God intended, and brings unity to the nation of Israel.

Now in a galaxy far, far away.  A young boy named Anakin is found on the desert planet of Tatooine,  and Obi-Wan and his master Qui-Gon believe he is the one to bring balance to the Force.  So it turns out, that after a few bad choices, Anakin gives in to the Dark Side, and becomes Darth Vader, and really causes disturbances in the Force (see: Alderaan).  Obi-Wan then goes back to Tatooine and finds young Luke Skywalker, tending his uncle’s moisture farm and droids.  Obi-Wan (along with Master Yoda) teaches him the ways of the Force, and it is Luke that overthrows the Galactic Empire, restoring balance to the Force.

Does this sound at all similar!?  A failed chosen one, a better successor, a figure that has selected and trained them both.  Obi-Wan is Samuel!  Saul is Darth Vader!  Luke is David!  Okay, okay, this falls apart with the whole “Luke, I am your father” and everything else in the two stories, but this was a fun rabbit trail.  (Now if we extend this…Yoda is…the prophet Nathan?  “Sinned against The Lord, you have!”)

On that note, hype for the the new Star Wars movie, coming out December 18!   I’m excited to see how it turns out.  Here’s the trailer, for your viewing pleasure!

Tunesday: “How Deep” – Kings Kaleidoscope

It’s once again ‪#Tunesday!

Last Friday, I almost lost it with excitement, because my campus fellowship’s worship team played Kings Kaleidoscope’s “Fix My Eyes” (sans synthesizer and cello; we’re not that awesome) and I knew it practically by heart.  No one else did, but that’s okay.

Thinking back to last year, I recall that it was about this time of year that i discovered the pure aural ecstasy of Kings Kaleidoscope and was deeply entranced.  What do I love about Kings Kaleidoscope?

Complexity.  It’s no boring guitar-bass-drums song that you encounter so often in the realm of contemporary Christian music.  Instead, there are cellos and violins beside trombones and synthesizers.  It sounds like a musical zoo, but it all comes together in a vibrant harmony, that still comes alive even on the hundredth listen.  It’s a forest of musicality that can be explored over and over, whilst still finding new surprises.

Not only that, but their lyrics are so thoughtful.  When Kings K isn’t doing a creative rendition of a classic hymn, they’re doing an original whose lyrics are so scripturally inspired without being cliche.  Another favorite by Kings K is “139,” which is thoroughly based on Psalm 139, as they sing, “You are the God who knows and loves me.”  So beautiful.

My sole complaint about Kings K is the vocals, in fact what turned me off during the first few encounters.  The vocals have a certain unlikeable timbre, akin to those of The City Harmonic, a band a like quite a bit less.  But they’re more than tolerable, and when they’re singing thoughtful lyrics set against a captivating soundscape.

One of my favorite songs by Kings Kaleidoscope is “How Deep,”  a fantastic rendition of “How Deep the Father’s Love,” which is already one of my favorite modern hymns.  Although it starts slow, it builds to an enegetic symphony.  Kings K strikes a perfect balance, adding energy to this song, while keeping the same reverence and power.  It’s worship with the mind and soul, the mind being stimulated by the richness of the music, while the soul sings along with in response with the Father’s great love for us.

Drinking out of the Toilet

There seems to be an universal urge hardwired into cats and dogs—an urge to drink out of the toilet, despite the abundance of nice, clean water in their bowls.  It leaves us pet owners bewildered and baffled, and also a little disgusted.  (“You, Legolas, are never getting to lick my face again!”)  Perhaps they don’t know any better; perhaps they don’t know what we do in those white porcelain bowls.  So we scold them and chase them away from the bathroom, and then the desire grows still stronger.  Point being, close the lid always.  It’s the only thing that will stop our crazy cats and dogs.

The hilariously  universal saga of all cat and dog owners.  End of story.   Or is it?

There’s this really weird parallel between our pets running to drink water out of the toilet, and our rush towards sin.  In Jeremiah 29:13, God says the following:

“My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.” (NIV)

We, like our silly pets, have forsaken a good source of water, and chosen instead to drink really gross water.  Every time we seek life, seek pleasure from sin, we choose to drink from the toilet bowl, or in Old Testament language, a cistern.  And it’s ultimately unsatisfying.  God, on the other hand has been continually offering us fresh, clean “living water” that will actually fill our thirst and give us life, and not just provide fleeting pleasure, but lasting fulfillment.  It’s what we were intended to drink.

But at the end of the day, no matter how many times they’ve tried to drink out of the toilet, we still love our pets.  In the same way, no matter how many times we run to sin, choosing the toilet bowl over the water dish, the cistern over the spring of water, God still loves us.  End of story. 

Legolas, the culprit of this morning. (Not actually my cat, but my housemate’s.)

Tunesday: “Every Giant Will Fall” – Rend Collective

Happy ‪#Tunesday, folks!

Today’s tune is from Rend Collective, the band that introduced me to the world of Christian hipster music.  I’d describe their sound as folk, complete with banjos and all the fun alternative percussion, and it’s typically full of a joyful energy.  Their last album name says it best; they’re masters of “The Art of Celebration.”

I found out about a month ago that Rend Collective released a brand new album in August called As Family We Go, featuring the singles “Every Giant Will Fall,” “You Will Never Run,” and “One and Only.”  It’s a solid album that sticks to the Rend Collective mold, worshipful, yet energetic.  The music video for ‪“You Will Never Run” is particularly amusing, with its high “worship-to-panda ratio.”

As good as the album is as a whole, “Every Giant Will Fall” is my personal favorite.  It’s a song of victory, that declares that “nothing is impossible” for God.  And yet it speaks of that victory in the future tense,  that the giants will fall, that  mountains will move.  In the meantime, while the promise is in sight, we live by faith in a world where there’s “still pain within the plan.”  All the same, our jubilant battle cry of can rise “over fear, over lies,” and we can live in the reality of freedom of His love, because “every chain of the past [He] has broken in two!”
I can’t help but sing along to this song of victory in the name of Jesus.  Hope you enjoy it as much as I do!

TotD: The Evidence of God

Although we cannot see Him with our eyes, the evidence for God is all around us, from the air we breathe to the world we see.  But God’s handiwork in the physical world can all can be explained away within the framework of secular science, in ways that do not necessitate the Creator.

But there remains one form of proof that is undeniable.

The greatest evidence for God is His work in the lives of people, experienced as joy that defies explanation, peace that surpasses understanding.  This proof is written on our hearts, and nothing can discredit it.

You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. (2 Corinthians 3:3, NIV)

Tunesday: Switchfoot- A True Portrait of the Human Soul

It’s been a while, but happy ‪#Tunesday, once again!

I am slowly exiting a phase in which I have been listening to exclusively Switchfoot.  I’m surprised that it took me this many years to get into Switchfoot.  I grew up listening to K-LOVE and Air 1, so I knew of Switchfoot’s major singles, like “Gone,” “Dare You To Move,” “Stars,” and whatever else got radio play.  But until now I had mostly ignored them on account of their alternative sound and their borderline stance on being a “Christian band.”

But after growing bored over the years by the banality of contemporary Christian music, I rediscovered Switchfoot.  While they have a lower Jesus-per-minute than your average (boring) Christian band, their unique place on the border of the Christian and secular spheres gives them a unique place to artistically speak truth in songs that our souls instinctively sing along to.

For me, Switchfoot’s sound is alternative with an unmistakable California beach vibe.  Perhaps I’m creating this image from their Fading West album cover, and their Bro-Am concert and surfing youth development program.  [I definitely regret missing that concert about year ago, when I was still unappreciative of Switchfoot.]  I always envision myself listening to Switchfoot on the beach, watching at the sun as it fades into the west, and contemplating the state of my soul.

That, I think, is the beauty of Switchfoot.  Without mentioning Jesus, their songs somehow resonate with the true condition of my soul, and instill a longing for something more, something deeper.  In songs like “Restless,” and “Lonely Nation,” this restlessness is put to music, as frontman Jon Foreman sings “I am restless, restless, looking for you,” or “I want more than my lonely nation.”  In other songs, like “This is Your Life” or “Love Alone is Worth the Fight,” Switchfoot asks our restless souls the deeper questions,  “This is your life, is it who you want to be?” and “Is it fear you’re afraid of?”  Switchfoot also moves beyond, in rousing calls to action, such as their classic “Dare You to Move.”  All in all, Switchfoot’s songs collectively act as a mirror to honestly reflect our inner brokenness, asking us the important questions, and stirring us to action.
And every once in a while, Switchfoot breaks into worship of the One who our souls so deeply yearn for, in songs like “Always” and “Your Love is a Song.”
And they do it so poetically.  My favorite line from “Saltwater Heart” is when Foreman sings that he’s “been thinking non-stop/’bout the fact that my body’s made most out of raindrops.”

I think the song that most embodies this all is “Back to the Beginning,” where Jon Foreman sings, “my heart is yours…and what a broken place its in.”  Its a confession of the reality of modern life/brokenness of life here on earth, and a yearning to be taken “back to the beginning again,” when God makes all things new.  Enjoy!

God of My Pocketbook

I’m back, finally, after an unplanned hiatus due to by laptop being out of commission for a week and just being insanely busy.

Over the past week or so of doing ministry, and even as I look back on the summer, I realize that God’s been slowly and gently loosening my grip on “my” money and the grip my money has on my heart.

I’ve always thought of myself as pretty generous with my money.  I thought I had surrendered my earthly riches to His lordship.  I was willing to tithe, willing to give above and beyond, willing to give it all if He asked me to…all contingent upon it being my money.  But since everything I own is still technically my parents’ I didn’t feel able to give.  And yet at the same time, I could justify spending money on myself, for things I needed—or thought I needed—whether an external charger, or new tires for my bike, etc.  At the beginning of summer, when a friend asked me for help with funding, I began wrestling with this dichotomy.

This summer, I was meandering through Proverbs, and one of the gems I found was this verse:

Whoever is generous to the poor lends to the Lord, and he will repay him for his deed.  (Proverbs 19:17, NIV)

For me, this was a bit of a paradigm shift in thinking about my giving, not as giving to this person, or this cause, but lending to the Lord.  Even when I did give, I would always be a residual feeling of anxiety over whether the money would be going to good use, whether my contribution would actually do any good. This was especially if the recipient could be categorized into “the poor,” and thus in my cynical mind, prone to spending my few dollars on booze or drugs.  But this verse reminded me that when I give, I am ultimately giving to God, the best possible investment, because He will repay.   And I can trust Him to use it well.

And yet, my heart was still so much more chained to my wallet than I realized.  When I wasn’t giving my money, it wasn’t that I was spending it wildly, but it was that I was obsessed with to save it.  It was evident in how vexed I would get about realizing I that I over paid for something.  Or the time I would dedicate towards tabulating my receipts for the week, and gloating over how little I had spent that quarter.  Or judging people for wasting money on frivolities like Starbucks [ironically, where I am sitting as I write this].  There were even moments that I wondered whether I was worth the money I was spending on food for myself.  In some ways, I thought that I could please God by spending as little as possible, and eventually using that money for good and godly causes.  Classic poverty theology.

As I wrestled with all this, I decided one summer night to power through all 128 pages of Randy Alcorn’s The Treasure Principle, a little book that I was given by our campus director a few months earlier.  It went a long way in convicting me of how tightly I was holding on to the money God had entrusted me with. And it reminded me that what I treasure, what I care about, should be the things that matter in eternity—God, His Word, and the souls of people.  The analogy that cemented this concept was that if I was just visiting a country that was bond to collapse one day, it would make no sense store up my wealth in that country’s currency.  Instead I should be storing up wealth in something that would be stable and lasting, like gold.  In the same way, if Heaven is my true home, I want to spend earthly money in such a way that I store up my wealth in Heaven.  Since I have an unspecified amount of time here on earth, I need enough to do all the things required of me as an ambassador for Christ, but with the greater realization that by wallet is worthless in the long term.

Having learned how to loosen my grip on my wallet and leave it in His hands over the summer, the week of fall ministry launch was when I had to actually do it.  After we had shared the gospel with new students at the table, the next step was to follow up with them, grabbing lunch or coffee or dessert with them.  And I was blown away by how expensive it got.  Every time I had to dish out over ten bucks for a meal in the freshmen dining commons, a meal that used to cost me about three, it left me gasping as if a dull dining commons knife had been sunk into my heart.  Over the course of the week, as God provided me with more and more meetups, I eventually surrendered and withdrew $60 from my bank account and resolved to fix my eyes not on the cash that was leaking out of my pockets, but on the eternal, the immeasurable worth of these souls to God.  It was so freeing, to see how little these little green pieces of paper mattered in eternity, compared to what I was spending them on.

Where am I now?  In the gap between now and eternity, asking God for “just enough,” and making this my prayer:

[G]ive me neither poverty nor riches;
    feed me with the food that is needful for me,
lest I be full and deny you
    and say, “Who is the Lord?”
or lest I be poor and steal
    and profane the name of my God.
(Proverbs 30:8b-9, ESV)