busy producer

So, last week, I finally finished Alina Clark's CD that I started way back in September. YAY! I'm pretty proud of the production and she's been selling CDs last weekend, so everybody's pretty happy.

Sunday night, I was out at the studio till about 4am recording organ, piano, melodica, accordian, and even bgvs(on one song) on Justin Brasher's CD. He's leaving this Thursday to go to a wedding where he's already pre-sold 25 CDs, so we've got to get the master in the mail overnight to my contact to get his CDs back here. Chris is going to be up most of the night mastering and we're going to do any final tweaks tomorrow before 5:30pm. (final pickup for FEDEX at Justin's work). whew!

Oh yea, and after staying up till 4am this morning, I got up at 8:30 to go move a piano!

Now, if I could just figure out how to make all this start paying me some REAL money.

THEOOZE - Counter Consumer Culture

If you haven't yet, click the title of this blog and read the article.

I don't usually read this web-site and when I do, it usually annoys me. However, I thought this was well written and makes a good point. I've often thought about this very thing when we were doing a bunch of camps and hearing all the same things over and over being said to youth groups at church camp. In some very real ways, this has to do with why I'm glad we're not doing camps anymore.

That's about all I have to say about it right now.

I think I made a mistake...

So, I had that wisdom tooth pulled on Monday. Took it easy that day, Tuesday, things were better. Started eating more regular. Today, haven't thought about it much, hadn't taken any painkillers until later in the day when I thought about it.

Tonight, though, I might messed up. I was out at the studio working on a CD that we're about to finish and I got out my melodica (small instrument with piano keys that you blow into that sound somewhat like an accordian and a harmonica) and was working out a part. I forgot that I'm not supposed to be sucking on straws or blowing on anything. After a little while, I started not feeling so hot and I hadn't taken anything since about the middle of the day.

So let that be lesson: Don't going blowing on melodica's right after you've had a tooth pulled.

The Last Word and the Word after That

I read this new Brian McLaren book last week. It's short and easy to get through quickly. It was interesting and I learned a couple of things that I didn't know before. I borrowed it, but I plan to go over it a little more deeply when I get my own copy.

As much as I try to resist putting myself in a box or labeling myself as emergent or post-modern or even conservative or liberal or democrat or republican or anything like that, I'm pretty much a McLarenite. He makes sense to me and has given me new and much needed perspectives on faith and Christianity in numerous ways.

This book is the 3rd in a trilogy of books. If you're a believer, you should start with the first, A New Kind of Christian, and then read the rest of them. If you're curious but not necassarily buying into Christianity, you should start with the second, The Story We Find Ourselves In. If you're happy with your faith and your Christianity, you might not want to bother.

Much of what I've read by him has been huge in encouraging me to keep holding onto the idea that Christianity can be a worthwhile pursuit for one's life. I'm now reading another book a friend loaned me that I can't figure out what to make of it yet. I'll keep you posted.

commenting

I'm going to try this again. If you want to comment, use the blogger commenting (see the little pencil?) instead of the haloscan commenting (comments (#) Trackback (#)).

Thanks.

wisdom tooth

One night, a couple of months ago, I was eating shelled sunflower seeds and my lower-right wisdom tooth broke.

My wisdom teeth all came in when I was like 21 or something like that and this isn't the first one to break. I had the other one pulled while I was getting a bunch of other stuff done, and it was one of the easier issues to deal with.

So, this new broken tooth was bothering me a little and then it broke some more (I could tell because it wasn't as sharp and jaggedy as it was). Then it started to hurt and I thought I better get it taken care of.

I had it pulled this morning. My face, lips, gums are still numb/itchy. I'm not supposed to suck or spit and that's the worst because I've got all kinds of saliva a grossness in my mouth that I don't want to swallow. (I've been spitting carefully.)

When he pulled my other one, he didn't put in any stitches. This time, he did and I think he stabbed my tongue and lips with the needle a few times. That's going to be irritating.

My friend, Jess, had all of her wisdom teeth taken on Friday and I've been wondering how she's been doing.

I'm getting hungry which is also bad news...

IF YOU WANT TO COMMENT:

Never mind. I realized that Haloscan gives me a lot more control over the commenting. For obvious reasons to anybody who reads this with any regularity, it seems that control may be really important.

So, Haloscan comments it is. Continue your comments with abandon.

This is important

Here's one for you:

How many times have you sat in church and heard the preacher say that the ancient old Testament cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by God because of their sexual immorality? How many times have you heard a preacher on the radio or on TV say something like, "If we don't stop the homosexuals and their agenda in this country and God doesn't destroy the US, God owes Sodom and Gomorrah and apology!!!"? It's obvious, right? I mean Sodom must have been the most evil because it's where we get the common term for male, homosexual intercourse, right? (hint: add a "y" at the end)

See if this blows your mind like it did mine. The prophet, Ezekial, is saying these are God's actual words:

Ezekial 16:49 " 'Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. 50 They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen. (The text is the New International Version. The emphasis is mine.)

Hmm...where does God say Sodom's sins were the "sicko pervert homosexuals"? the "fags"? the "cross-dressers"? That's odd. This passage doesn't mention ANY of those things.

Arrogant? Overfed? Unconcerned? They didn't help the poor and needy...? Whose sins do those sound like...? Here's some more to think about:


-The wealthiest 5th of the world’s people consume 86 percent of all goods and services, while the poorest 5th consume 1 percent.

-The U.S. spends 10 billion annually on foreign aid. Americans spend 33 billion annually on diet and weight loss products.

-The average church in America spends around 95% of their budget on internal administration, staff, and building expenses.

-In N.W. Arkansas, just among 4 prominent churches, over $50 million dollars will be spent to construct new church buildings. (one of these churches' pastor is so concerned about the "homosexual agenda" that he wrote a book about it in the last year...)

-If everybody in America who calls themselves Christians actually gave a tithe (10%) of their income, the American church would have $143 Billion more money every year than it does.

-U.N. estimates that $60-$70 billion would provide access to basic services like education and health care to all the poor of the earth. ($143-$60= we'd have a lot left over and we would have done something actually good in the world instead of just adding more church buildings and parking lots...)

-Hunger could be eliminated worldwide by 2015 if every American would give .14 cents a day - $51 .00 per year.

This is what church should be about. This is what Christianity should be about. Why are homophobic, hate-filled, idiot biggots being the loudest representative of what the church is "about"?

If you haven't clicked the banner at the start of this blog, you need to. It doesn't cost you anything. Sign the declaration.

(a friend compiled these statistics and I copied them. So, I don't have documentation as to the accuracy of all this, but it's coming from a trusted source. And I could get the documentation if anybody wants to get cagey.)

the missing weiner dog

I forgot about the 3rd. I have a family of friends that had two wiener dogs, but they decided they needed to find homes for them. They'd already given away their female, and were needing to find a home for their male.

Another friend recently told me that he and his fiance were thinking of getting another dog to hang out with their weiner/beagle mix. So, Sunday afternoon, I took them over to meet my other friends' weiner dog. He's a good looking dog, and i think he made a good impression, although he's got a common weiner dog problem, in that he can't keep control of his pee when he's excited. The friends with the weiner/beagle are going over sometime this week to introduce the dogs and see if they want to be family. We'll see.

Anyway, that's the story of the 3rd weiner.

101 weiner dogs

Actually, just 2. sort of 3.

This weekend we had B'Ellana (sp?), our friend, Felshy's dog that we're kind of being foster parents for. She's 11 years old, been on the farm most of her life and is very sweet and very VERY mellow. We've been enjoying having her around.

Friday, my friend, Mike, called and asked if we could keep their weiner dog, zero, over night. Zero is a 10 month old, 7 lb., long-haired, ball of raging spazz. It was pretty funny watching ritalin child Zero trying to get old maid, B'Ellana to pay attention to him.

Both good dogs; both made us a little sad that Petey's not around. He was "The Legend" after all.

In other news...

I had the opportunity to spend some time in the presence of SW this weekend! (and i don't mean "Star Wars")

I've tried and tried to get him to admit his identity to me, but, alas: he failed. Even when he knows that I know who he is, he can't work up the guts to come clean. His countenance toward me this weekend, while justified because I'd made it clear to him that I'm through with his game and wouldn't put up with it online or in person, spoke plainly in confirmation of his identity.

In some ways, I'm sad for him. Honestly, it would be difficult for me to accept him as a friend at this point. Not because of the things he's said, but because of his refusal to speak to me in person, as a friend should.

Seriously, I think it would be exceedingly difficult to build any meaningful relationships with anybody if one were prone to handling communication and relationships in this way. I hope he's able to build some nurturing, authentic relationships with somebody. He should just realize that it's probably not going to be with me.

peace to you, SW.

interesting conversations

Not long ago, I had an exceedingly interesting conversation with a long time acquaintance about being a songwriter/artist and the tension between faithfully expressing one's art while living out one's faith, while trying to balance marketing and commerce. (we'll call this artist, "V".)

Our conversation took a turn down a rabbit hole of assessing and discussing mutual concerns and critiques (and criticisms) of the protestant church of today. I found myself on the receiving end of a passionate diatribe of the dismal state of the church. Now, for the most part, I agree with V. However, I’m usually the one getting all worked up over this sort of thing and spewing all over somebody else. This time, I found myself trying to assure her that things were bad, but not hopeless. I found myself defending the pockets of promise that I’ve seen and hope for that keep me holding on to the idea of church. Weird…

I’m so critical and cynical. I hate to align myself with virtually any ideology or philosophy because I know that any ideology or philosophy will always be incomplete or in some cases, even wrong.

There is a movement in Christendom termed “Emergent”. The funny thing is that most of the major proponents of the ideas represented don’t like accepting the branding either. But, for lack of better terminology, we’ll use it.

I’ve found about 3 primary responses to all this “emergent” talk in many believers that I know:

1) The response of people a little bit older than me, or people of maybe a little bit more conventional faith than me, regard emergent talk as something they’ve already considered and dealt with and found a way to live with. It’s just “the same old thing” put into a newer language that is somehow sparking the passion and imagination of some “younger” believers.

2) Another common response repeated by some older believers, but even more often people that seem to be a few years younger than me, is a response that all this emergent stuff is just the new church fad. It’s just dressing everything up new and different and trying to make church “cool” and “relevant” to the current generation just like all the “adult contemporary” services in the ‘80s & ‘90s were trying to do.

3) The final response that I’ve actually seen much less than I expected to see is one of distrust and fear of all this emergent stuff. Some of the emergent stuff, when taken superficially flies in the face of what many (myself included) have always been taught and have always believed. In many ways and many times, some of the emergent stuff could be perceived as watering down and softening the truth of the gospel.

As I (poorly) tried to articulate these responses, they seem less different from each other, but practically the same, with just minor shifts in motivation. Mostly, all 3 seem to exhibit either some ignorance or else flippant disregard for the ideology.

The first response seems very benign. It’s not denying anything, is pretty positive, and seems to allow the emergent seeker to continue his own path without hindrance. My issue with this is that this emergent talk fires me up and stirs passion in me for things to be much much different than the way they are. If you’ve already considered all this and wrestled it to the ground, either you and I are understanding the whole thing a lot differently, or you’d be fired up and passionate about wanting things different, too. And if you did understand it the way I seem to, you would be helping me try to make it different instead of patting me on the head and saying, “That’s nice. Someday you’ll come to the place of serenity and wisdom, like me.”

The 2nd response, which I teeter on the brink, seems very critical and very cynical and not really helpful. However, I know that I don’t want or need things to just look different on the outside. The things I’ve read seem to point to a subtle, but profound shift in perspective that, when grasped, seems to protect the implementation of these ideas from just being faddish. I hold on to the belief that there must be SOMEBODY out there who thinks in similar ways that I do. And where else would I find them without realizing that there will be “posers” in the emergent movement just like anywhere else?

As I said, I’ve seen much less of the 3rd response than I expected, but I think that sometimes the first 2 responses are used to mask the fear underneath. I have one friend who, to my knowledge, has yet to read any of the books I’ve suggested, but who has sent me a number of links and articles actively renouncing the very authors I’m promoting. I don’t hold this against him, and I’ll still love him even if he never reads any of these books. In fact, the articles he’s sent me just seem to illustrate an ignorance on the part of the critics.

Ugh. Sometimes this blog shows me just how much my writing has atrophied. Good thing I’m not really interested in trying to go back to school. Or seminary.