Hello Seattle, I am an Albatross.

The iTunes free single of the week is a hit-and-miss affair.  The good ones have been great and the bad ones have been deleted from my library halfway through play one.  There’s a band called “Owl City” that a number of my friends have talked about for a while.  I never listened to their music, and never formed an opinion on the band until last week.

My little sister, Hannah Grace, is more of a music junkie than I ever was at 15.  Her favorite bands include Copeland, Eisley, Jason Morant, and Coldplay.  I love all these bands.  At her age I still thought P.O.D. was a good band and U2 was boring.  Hannah tells me the other day, “JD, you need to listen to Owl City.”  I had downloaded “Fireflies” as the free download of the week but had irresponsibly not listened to it yet.  I gave it a whirl once and was not excited, it was cheesy and poppy.  I like cheesy poppy though, so on a second listen I was really enjoying the music.  It made me happy.  I listen to less happy music than sad music.  I need more happy music.

On that thought I bought the rest of the album on iTunes by faith.  All week in my car and in my house, I’ve had it cranked.  This guy, named Adam Young, does all the singing, beat making, and produced the album beside Matt Thessien from Relient K.    It sound really good.  That’s what always gets me about the record.  How is it so full and balanced?  The sound is entirely electric, probably just a collection of clever Logic files.  But combined with great vocals and catchy love song lyrics, occasionally singing God’s praise, the music has got me.  It’s bothersome.  I should not like such cheesy pop music.  I do though.  Postal Service vs. Mae.  I love it.  Listen to “Cave In” or “Umbrella Beach” off the newest album from the band, “Ocean Eyes”.  It’s great.  Thanks that’s all.

Sloppy. Wet. Kiss.

I have an ongoing, continuing, internal upheaval at the sound of the song “How He Loves” by John Mark McMillian.  It’s a spectacular, honest song about God’s love for us.  My favorite worship song ever, and maybe even favorite song ever.  I should just make it a category of posts in my blog, I’ve written so much about it.  If you haven’t listened to it, You Tube Kim Walker and Jesus Culture doing “How He Loves”.  It’s just one of many renditions of the song.

There’s a problem I have though with the hundreds of versions I’ve heard of this song.  So many people feel the need to edit out or change the lyric “Heaven meets Earth like a sloppy wet kiss”.  As if those lyrics were meant to be sexual or perverse in some way?

• David Crowder Band just released a verison of the song and made a big deal out of it, releasing a single. I expected Crowder to do something different and creative but instead it was basically the Jesus Cultue version in a studio without Kim Walker.  Plus they cleverly swapped “sloppy wet kiss” for “unforeseen kiss”.  Unforeseen kiss, besides not being the written lyrics to the song, is something that makes no sense.  There was nothing unforeseen about Jesus’ sacrifice for us, his redeeming us, or his coming return to save us.  It was prophesied 2000 years in advance and when he came there was no mystery as to who he was.  Not unforeseen.  The lyrics, while being “church safed” have lost thier power.  Jesus didn’t “church safe” anything he said.
• My church back home does the song now and then, and they change “sloppy wet kiss” into “the holiest kiss”.  Which is a little better, at least making sense.  Still I think it’s weak and denies the song it’s brilliant imagery that has caused so many to turn.  God’s love for us is clearly that graphic.  You aren’t Weird Al Yankovich, don’t change lyrics to a song you didn’t write.
• I’ve even heard of a couple churches banning the song from their worship services for the sake of not offending anyone.  This is better, in a way, than butchering the lyrics, but is still a sad way to miss out on the power of this song.  It’s the raw honesty in the message of “How He Loves” that has caused the song, through God, to touch so many.  Lord knows I needed to hear every lyric of the song two years ago when it changed the way I thought.  I STILL get goosebumps every time I hear it anywhere.  There are churches who, for fear, will deny their congregations that in a cooperate setting for the sake of not being visual and graphic in a song.  Evey member of that church, bar the young ones, has experienced a sloppy wet kiss from someone they love, like spouses and fiances.  They can tell you it’s a beautiful, heart-melting thing.  How much more is the love of God a sloppy wet kiss to our lonely souls than the kiss of another person to our lips!

So that was my rant.  Sorry to the people and churches I directly called out if you come across this blog somehow.  I don’t think you’re a holier church for “playing it safe”.  Steer clear of Song of Soloman in your services and check out Hillsongs 4 Kidz if you need some new worship material for your tender-eared congregations.

Back to where we started, more than who we were.

“Come, and let us return to the Lord

For He has torn, but He will heal us;

He has stricken us, but He will bind us up.

After two days He will revive us;

On the third day He will raise us up,

That we may live in his sight.

Let us know,

Let us pursue the knowledge of the Lord.

His going forth is established as the morning;

He will come to us like the rain,

Like the latter and former rain to the Earth.”

Hosea 6:1

 

Today is like this…

• Copeland on vinyl
• Rainy, green Fort Collins
• Hope in Jesus only
• Excitement for Eikon tomorrow (ask me about it?)

Too Bright to See Too Loud to Hear.

Tonight I did homework for a number of long hours.  While it was Wednesday I listened through the new Kings Of Leon album, “Only By The Night”.  Into Thursday I listened through the new Underoath, “Lost In the Sound of Separation”.  It was a satisfactory listening experience. On my big green couch.

 

The truth is I’m in the mood for anything musically after a certain time of night.  Everything starts to have more depth and meaning, everything becomes more elegant.  In the morning if I’m still really into what I was listening to the night before, it’s something I need to remember liking so much.  This applies.

 

I like both of the above albums quite a bit.   I don’t have anything musiciany or critical to say about either album right now, other than way to go Kings for kicking teeth in and way to go Underoath for being sharply creative and singing about Jesus from your scene little guts.  I enjoy your records, I like your sound.  Both of you bands.  Lets all be friends.

Act like big city kids when the sun goes down.

Vinyls don’t make it into bins at Goodwill unless they are awful.

I don’t make it to Goodwill unless I’m really bored.

 I don’t get really bored unless I’m denying I have a lot of things to do, tricking myself into feeling like I have nothing to do, so I do nothing when I have lots to do.

It’s actually a great feeling.

She was a quintessential college student straight from Alley Cat, wheeling her fix-gear into the store.  I flipped through a few worthless plastic records as she walked through isles of clothing people didn’t want but felt guilty throwing away.  Blonde hair cut short, glassy blue eyes and a plaid jumper over jeans, she glanced directly up at me.  I stopped flipping records over and briefly locked eyes with her, smoothly turning back to my time wasting task of making completely sure I didn’t want to purchase Lawrence Welk “Christmas Memories” for 99 cents.

People are of a different value than anything.  She’s a person, a compete, living work of God.  Completely self sustained, mechanically speaking, without any internal need for electricity or petroleum products.  A machine that feels, looks, and listens all on its own with a soul God died for once.

Next thing I know she was flipping through vinyls with me, laughing as Neil Diamond came and went back into the rejection pile on the ground next to us.  

We made small talk.  I asked her not to buy all the good ones.  Some boy with a pink and green shirt came up behind her and they left in high spirits.  I smiled and put the records back into the bin.

 

I love people, and that’s all.

The lines for me have fallen in pleasant places.

I’m at a retreat in Estes Park leading worship for 60 screaming fifth and sixth graders.  We sing “What a mighty God we Serve” and “There is no one like you” at the top of our lungs.  It’s fantastic.  Drop your pride and come to Scene56.  See what you must become like to enter the kingdom of Heaven.

 

I broke a string about an hour ago as I sat on the stage and sang “There has never been anyone like you, there is no one like you there has never been anyone like you, There Is NO ONE LIKE OUR GOD…..yea.”   In the happy silence after the song, some little girl kindly says to me out loud, “Your guitar is broken…” .  So I smile and rend the string from its peg, making her laugh.  I then sat outside under the falling snow while the children’s pastor talked about other world religions of no value, and changed my broken G-string (oh ha funny).  

 

Its a funny thing, kids.  I was so sure that this weekend I agreed to leading would test my limits and make a better servant out of me.  I have no patience for chaos you see (some drummer I am), and game after disorderly all-inclusive designed-for-eleven-year-olds relay game should put me at my whit’s end.

 

But as I replaced a Phosphor-Bronze .026 guitar string with the closet diameter backup (a tragic .017), I was overcome with a feeling very opposite of being at your whit’s end.  It felt a lot like hearing and smelling rain in the morning from your warm bed with hours to sleep before you have to go anywhere, if that means anything.  See I am allowed the privilege of leading worship in His house, and it’s good to me.  I don’t have anything profound to say on the matter.  Just I’m very happy doing it.

 

I couldn’t care less if  was fifty twelve year olds or fifty thousand twenty-somethings.  Where I am is where I am and we sing the same things at the same time.  If God hears from heaven and he smiles and he likes it, I’m who I want to be.  

I’ll say it again.  I’m already who I want to be in Christ Jesus.  

 

There is no one like our Godddddddd, yeah.

My Exit, Unfair.

I’ve been enjoying the blog “Stuff Christians Like” quite a bit lately.  Its a cleverly satirical, unchurchy analysis of Christians and how we live.  It’s moving and hilarious.  This most recent post, however, wasn’t as funny as it was convicting to me.  

 

You see, “Stuff Christians Like”  has become a lot more popular than the writer ever expected, with thousands and thousands of people reading it everyday.  The author, a man named Jon, is always trying to deny that God is doing something through his blog, much like I deny that God is actually doing something through me, my music, my day job, or my relationships.  Anyway, he quoted a section of  The War Of Art by Steven Pressfield, talking about the struggle that artists of various types have with making their work their life and fully using their gifts.  This was convicting to me:

 

The Artist’s Life
Are you a born writer? Were you put on earth to be a painter, a scientist, an apostle of peace? In the end the question can only be answered by action.

Do it or don’t do it.

It may help to think of it this way. If you were meant to cure cancer or write a symphony or crack cold fusion and you don’t do it, you not only hurt yourself, even destroy yourself. You hurt your children. You hurt me. You hurt the planet.

You shame the angels who watch over you and you spite the Almighty, who created you and only you with your unique gifts, for the sole purpose of nudging the human race one millimeter farther along its path back to God.

(This part spoke to me the most…)

Creative work is not a selfish act or a bid for attention on the part of the actor. It’s a gift to the world and every being in it. Don’t cheat us of your contribution.

Give us what you’ve got.

 

 

I Love it.  Tell me what you think.

She’s gonna teach me how to swim.

I was inspired by Sean’s latest blog, utilizing a neat list format.  I haven’t written in a while, so hopefully this will help me formulate my thoughts?

 

Halfway through SB ‘09 in La Jolla, CA.

• Yogurtland/Yogi Topi/Golden Spoon = Fantastic  Frozen yogurt parlors are the next big thing.  Move over Cold Stone.
• Renting Bianchi hybrid bikes and riding all over town was a hoot today.
• I saw two Bugatti Veyron’s and #3 of 20 Lamborghini Reventons in the world.  Good car day with Marcus Lutz and Bucky Johns.
• Being sunburned isn’t fun.  Being overwhelmingly sandy isn’t fun.  Being sore and tired isn’t fun.  Being all of them at the same time after a whole day on the beach is fantastic.
• I really like As Tall As Lions.  That band is great.
• Also really enjoying Thievery Corporation. Good electronica.
• The most notable band lately, however is Faultline.  Holy cow this band is so good. “Where is my Boy?” featuring Chris Martin is the saddest most sensational song I’ve heard in some time.
• Nightclubs are a great place to have a church.  Great sound systems, Lots of good lighting and projectors, creative seating arrangements, etc…  Rock Harbor church at the Shark Club was a great experience.  Plus they have real sharks in giant tanks.  Cool.
• California is a great place to visit, but I couldn’t ever really live here.
• I miss Fort Collins.
• I miss Phil. (Awwww)
• I love my fantastic friends here in Cali.  Go spring break.

Can You Make Any Sense Of This?

I am such a huge time waster.  It’s really bad.  I live in a house without cable television, and without video games from the last decade, but I cannot get a thing done.

 

It’s a AWFUL feeling and I hate it.  Is it ADD? Is it just apathy and laziness?  I don’t know.  I don’t want to put out the effort to be more productive.  I could try but I would hate it.  

 

God, I am worthless without your direction.  See I have no passion for school because I am only occupying a seat there, not learning from it.  As of now I exist at CSU to lead a worship team that leads kids from my age group in the worship of our Savior King, Jesus.  That’s fantastic and I love it, but that’s not the original goal at all.  Eventually I will get some kind of degree from the University, but as of now I am worthless here!  God give me a vision?  You led me here, you gave me a job here, a house here, a band here, and a hundred friends here.  I love it here.  But the original reason for my being here was to get an education and eventually a degree.  What happened to that?  Why don’t I even care about that anymore?  This is really hard for me.

 

Without vision I perish, but have it as you will.

 

K thanks.

There is no music in outer space.

Music is made of moving air particles.  I blogged about that a little while ago I think?  Like maybe two posts back.

 

In space there are no air particles to move, so there is no sound and no music.  Just a thought.  This does not affect me, I probably won’t grow up to be an astronaut anyway.  That’s all.