Archive for November, 2009

The Rise of Hate Crimes During Recession

Tuesday, November 24th, 2009

Interesting article today in the USA Today detailing how hate crimes, which are somewhat problematic too define, have risen over the last year, more than likely as a result of the economic recession.

The article spent time talking about how hate crimes against blacks and gays and lesbians have risen, according to FBI reports, 8% and 13% respectively.

But the most interesting part of the article was that hate crimes against Catholics have risen 23%, more than any other group.  The reason given?  The targeted Catholics have conservative viewpoints, they are pro-life and anti gay marriage rights.

All hate crimes are wrong, but it is compelling to me that the sharpest rise of victimization are those with conservative religious moral viewpoints, and that total religious victims (which I’m sure included hate crimes against Muslims, Hindus, evangelical Christians, etc) were second only to those due to race (all racial groups).

Peace.

Posted in misc messages, sounding off | No Comments »

Defining God

Tuesday, November 17th, 2009

I’m borrowing heavily here from a number of different sources, namely Plato’s cave analogy and some comments by Tozer, but I’ve been meditating on this a lot this week.  So I thought I’d share.

Let’s assume a man born blind, who had never seen color.  How would you describe the color red to him?  You would, by limitation of the subject, have to use other senses to attempt it.  You couldn’t give objects that are red, by the same limitation.  You would have to relate it somehow to sound or smell or touch.  To say the least, it would be difficult.

There is the great old parable about the blind men who all come upon an elephant.  One touches the hide, one a leg, another the trunk and another a tail and so on.  Bound by their experience and limited by their perception, they each give a different definition of an elephant, which is not an elephant at all.

But what is needed to truly understand the color red or the elephant, is a completely different sense altogether.  The blind men in these analogies need to SEE.

God is the only uncreated being that exists.  And since our only experience is with other created things, we by nature have a faulty definition of God.  We are material and “fleshly”, while God is Spirit, not immaterial necessarily, but made of a different material altogether.  And the only way to have a true understanding of God is to have relationship and experience with Him by that different material … the Spirit.

This is why many people of all theological and political camps serve a very worldly God.  They can only relate to Him through worldly things and therefore can only define and see Him as such.  This ultimately becomes a “work of their own hands” and idolatry since the God they are worshiping is not really God at all.

Even Jesus came up against this limitation.  How often He said, “the Kingdom of Heaven is like …”  But the Kingdom of Heaven is not a pearl or a field or a servant or whatever.  While some teach that Jesus taught in parables to help people understand, the scripture tells a very different story … He told parables as a type of obstacle to see who truly wanted to know God.  Because while the parables related some truth, they were still by nature worldly and must be gotten past to get to the root of truth, a spiritual truth.

We can read the Bible and go to theological schools or what have you, but all that is learning ABOUT him.  That’s like me reading all I could get my hands on to read about my wife, looking at nice portraits of her that others have done, all the while she sits in the room with me.  I could look her in the eye, touch her face, know her intimately.  And yet someone has made me believe that reading books and looking at pictures is actually having a relationship with a PERSON.

If I could trace the problem with Christianity back to one thing, it is this.  We’ve been convinced, and have passed this on to generations, that knowing about God is the same as KNOWING Him.  It’s not.  And yet we settle for something less, arguments about doctrine and theology, as if taking sides on predestination or the sinners prayer means you actually know God.

So how do you have this experience, this relationship with God?  it is reserved for the select few (it is difficult and therefore a narrow way) that will seek after Him with their whole heart.  It is simple, but some people want to live their own lives way too much to truly seek after Him with their WHOLE HEART.

And through the grace and faith available through Jesus, we are given the indwelling Holy Spirit.  This is completely necessary, because what we’ve been given at that point is a new nature, the scripture calls it the “new creation”, and it is a new creation because we have been given the ability to see on a whole new level.  With the Holy Spirit, we are given the uncreated nature to properly commune with the uncreated God.

Jesus told the woman at the well, “God is spirit and must be worshiped in spirit-truth.”  The Greek word there is actually “spirit-truth”, not spirit and truth, as if you could separate the two.  Seeing the whole elephant makes certain arguments unfruitful.  Experiencing God in Spirit gives the proper perspective.

One of the most mis-quoted scriptures is in 1 Corinthians where Paul says, “eye has not seen, ear has not heard, nor has entered into the mind of man the things that God has prepared for those who love Him.”  And then we stop there, throwing up our hands and quit (usually as a license to live our own lives the way we want).  That isn’t the end of the thought, though.  It is only the setup.  The next thought is “but God has revealed it to us by His Spirit, and the Spirit searches ALL THINGS, even the deep things of God.”

This isn’t to completely throw all theology out the window.  You can call a monkey an elephant, but it isn’t actually an elephant.  God does have aspects of Himself that are true and unchangeable, no matter what our modern sensibilities might think archaic or progressive.

It might surprise you, but God doesn’t really care what we or celebrities or philosophers think of Him.  He is.  Take Him or leave Him (I would strongly suggest the taking part, as difficult as it is … way cooler in the long run), but He’s not changing, nor is he in need of enlightenment or a modern makeover to be relevant.

But we make the mistake of taking those theologies and doctrines, some of them very true and central, and using them as a substitute for actually knowing Him deeply and intimately.  And by such substitutes, we must rely upon modern day priests to mediate for the laity.  Doctrines are passed down but not what truly matters: do you hear God talk to you?  Do you obey when He speaks?  Communing with God gives life to truth, otherwise you’re parroting words.

You have to see God by the Spirit to truly follow Him.  Otherwise you’re just following another man’s walk, if you’re that lucky.  He might be only describing God’s butt, and then writing books and starting a whole denomination based on his experience with God’s butt.

As a leader, I have for some time focused my concern not on doctrine alone (yes, important), but more importantly on whether or not people know God.  Really know Him.  Why?  I completely trust the Spirit to do exactly what is necessary.  I believe that God wants people to follow Him more than I do, and He woos and calls.  I try to be very sensitive to whether people are following the call to Christ Himself or to me or my teaching.  There is a difference.

Unfortunately, many other leaders I talk to see this as leading to chaos.  I think God can be way more in control than we or our organizations can be, and it will look much cooler and be so much more genuine when we let Him be the Shepherd He wants to be.  And I also heartily believe that the world will see an expression of Christ through His people not seen since the first couple centuries.  Maybe even greater than that.

But I’m pretty weird sometimes.

So in conclusion, I encourage you (and myself … this journey isn’t done for any of us!) to get to the place where you hear from God and obey the Spirit when He speaks to you.  Let me warn you though.  This is not for the faint of heart.  You will probably say “woe is me” a few times and feel like you’re dying to what you want a lot of the way.  But you’re being built into a habitation for Him to dwell in and express Himself through, if you’re willing.  You’re basically trading your life for His life.  You can’t have both.  But in the end you don’t get to keep yours anyway, so it’s a pretty good deal.

Peace.

Posted in misc messages | 1 Comment »

Politics and Compassion

Saturday, November 14th, 2009

If anything convinces me that I don’t want to be a liberal or a Democrat, it is the way they treat others who happen to disagree with them.

Ironic to me that those supposedly dominated by compassionate ideals would say such horrendous things about another human being.  And the only true distinction made is political beliefs.  Rapists and adulterers are defended ad nauseum if they happen to support liberal causes, and perfectly fine people, at least as far as we know, are accused of the most horrible motivations.

I’ll give an example.  For some reason, Sarah Palin is the beneficiary of such hate in ways that would appall liberals if the same actions were levied against one of their own.  How would they feel if conservatives made T-shirts calling Pelosi or Hillary Clinton a “c*nt” or hacking in her private email or burning down the church building she attends?  This doesn’t include the constant references to her being “stupid” or an “idiot” or her abilities as a wife or mother, which again, would be a reprehensible attack against feminism if done to a liberal female political leader.

Of course, the way George Bush was attacked for 6 or 8 years was borderline insane.  It is not insane to disagree with his political ideas, even all of them, but insane to interpret everything he does as not only wrong but motivated by some deep evil intent.

As I’ve made my own observations or opinions known, I’ve been accused of just blindly accepting all conservative beliefs, and someone who is supposedly my friend recently implied that any misgivings I might have about universal healthcare is related to a desire to see more poor people die.

Others might be different, but for me, that’s probably not the way I’m going to begin to consider a differing view, and that’s for two reasons.  Number one, it shows a lack of an ability to truly hear what another is saying, which by nature means that no intelligent conversation or exchange will take place.  And two, if you have to insult others to make your point, you don’t actually have one.

All of this has led to my stubborn refusal to question Obama’s deep motivations while disagreeing with his policies and ideas.  Because seeing the ugliness of that level pervasive in the media, I choose not to step down to it.

It is my right, and some might even say duty, to disagree with leadership where conscience dictates, and it is the duty of citizens and educated people to critically analyze the ruling power, but I cannot know the deep motivations of the heart of another man … unless God somehow reveals them to me.

There were things Bush did that I did not think were wise, but for all I know he did them out of a desire to help and do a good thing, as wrong as those things might have been.  I feel the same way about Obama.  He truly believes that doing certain things will help others.

And even my stubborn refusal to question Obama’s deep motivations have gotten dirty looks from my conservative friends at times.  Of course my conservative friends are just as capable of saying the same types of things.  Like “Obama wants to destroy our nation” or other things.  And when I open my big mouth to make sure I don’t take part in questioning aspects of character I can’t know, then an awkward vibe settles on the room.

And where Obama has done things that I think are good or positive, I have and will continue to acknowledge those things, something most liberals were not able to do for 6 years or so for the previous president.  And I will not oppose something just because Obama does it.  That is also a sign of closed-mindedness that is unhealthy in life, not to mention a republic.

To be honest, I kinda feel for Obama at times.  While I disagree with 90% of his policy, the dude can’t swat a fly at a speech or try to encourage students in education without someone making more out of it than it is.  So this is also a suggestion to my more conservative friends to disagree on issues of substance and be willing to listen and weigh things out before reacting.

And to those of my liberal friends who are willing to engage in real life and realize that politics is largely forgettable in the grand eternal scheme of things: thank you for listening to me express my view at times without questioning my character or intelligence.  I hope to continue to make informed decisions of my own and respect the rights of others to do the same.

Peace.

Posted in sounding off | 1 Comment »

Welcome Back from the Jungle

Friday, November 13th, 2009

About a year and a half ago, I got more serious about my songwriting.  I’d been seen by others, and even saw myself, as a fairly gifted and talented songwriter.  So as my desire to be the “artist” or performer has somewhat subsided, I decided to try and concentrate more on seeing if I could just write songs and possibly sell them.

While I realized this was difficult, I can say even now that I had only an inkling of an idea of how difficult it could be.  Not impossible, surely, but one of the more difficult things I could try to accomplish in this life.

And the humbling part has been the realization that while my songwriting has been top notch for local bands and the local scene, I seriously needed to work more on the craft of songwriting, especially as I began to explore a new genre and style for me: contemporary and modern country.

Now, those of you who have known me for a long time, you know that the last thing I would have ever found myself writing or enjoying was country.  But country music has changed over the last ten to fifteen years, and I’ve enjoyed it more and more as it has changed.  It is no longer the country of Randy Travis, Merle Haggard, Dolly Parton, Hank Jr., and George Jones.  A more modern rock and pop sound has dominated modern country in recent years, just with a more country flavor.

While I’ve heard other people grimace at such a change to their traditional country … I’ve begun to really enjoy the music.

So I joined a little organization called TAXI and have been submitting songs to them, getting rejected, and working on aspects of my songwriting.  Every year in November TAXI has what they call the Road Rally in LA.  i didn’t go last year, but I really felt like I needed to go this year, even to the point of leaving my month old daughter and missing a dear friend’s wedding.

I could take a guest, so my good friend Josh went with me.  I also have some family in the LA area, so I got to visit with them while drinking from the music business firehose.

Registration for the Road Rally started on Thursday night, so we found a cheap flight out to Burbank.  We left my house at 4:30 am and got there at around 11am Cali time.  My uncle Dave came to pick us up and then we did a little drive through tour of Hollywood and downtown LA, which was incredible.  We ate lunch at Phillippe’s, a very popular place in downtown LA that serves French dip sandwiches.  They had ten lines going at lunch, each about twenty people deep.  We each had lamb French dip sandwiches.  Very good.

Then Uncle Dave dropped us off at the hotel and we checked in and got in line for registration.  After registration, I talked with my cousin Rick (one of Uncle Dave’s sons) and he took us to a local Mexican restaurant which was also good.  I hadn’t talked to Rick in a while and it was good to catch up with him.

We got back to the hotel exhausted.  Josh went to sleep and I checked out the open mic in the main ballroom for about an hour before coming back up to crash myself.

The Road Rally is basically a conference with all these seminars with things about the music business.  Everything from songwriting to marketing to publishing and recording.  I mainly focused on the songwriting part of it.

Friday morning started with a great intro by Jeffrey Steele, a highly successful songwriter in Nashville.  He has written songs like “What Hurts the Most”, “These Days”, “International Harvester”, and “Brand New Girlfriend.”  All great songs, and he had a lot of great advice and a great story and even had an amazing performance at the end of his session.  He was definitely a highlight.

Some overall thoughts on the weekend.  If you’ve never been around a host of people who make music and wanna be creative, it is a very cool vibe.  The energy was amazing.  Just being around a lot of people who are passionate about the things you’re passionate about was very encouraging.  There was a lot of meeting new people and networking, and even late night jam sessions … that I didn’t participate as much in, but Josh did!

You also have to be very patient to do what I’m trying to do, and be very good not only at writing but REwriting.  One presenter, very successful in the songwriting business, had his first song on an album after rewriting it SEVEN times.  What if he had given up?  Even then, it took years to see the money from that song.

Jeffery Steele talked about when he was hired to write a song for a boy band in the 90′s.  The band was Westlife, and the song he wrote for them was “What Hurts the Most”, which is, in my opinion, an amazing song.  But Westlife passed.  Seven years later, a country/rock band, Rascal Flatts, recorded it and had a huge hit.  SEVEN YEARS later.

Most songwriters don’t “make it” as songwriters because they’re just not patient enough.  They give up.  One songwriter on a panel talked about moving to Nashville in 1980 and not getting his first song on an album until 1995.  That’s fifteen years.

So while I’m hopefully closer than fifteen years away since I’ve been writing songs for a long time already, what if it takes years to be that good, that connected, and get that one opportunity?  Years of rejection is daunting for any artist, but will the ultimate goal be worth it?  To me, yes.  Others will make excuses.

I am a good songwriter.  Maybe a great one.  But I am not yet a consistently astounding songwriter.  That takes more learning and growing as a musician and writer and just writing lots of songs and continually getting better.

Did I learn a lot last weekend?  I did learn some, but most of it was either learning things I already know to a deeper level or just new bits and pieces here and there.  The biggest impact for me was realizing, especially after hearing professional songwriters talk and share, that I am on the right track to being that good.  And if I’m patient, I’ll get there.

Getting to see my family was also very cool.  I had never just gone to visit Uncle Dave and Aunt Sonnie, and getting to see my cousins Rick and Tracy was great.  Tracy is also a musician and songwriter and she’s been getting into trying to write professionally as well.

On Sunday night, while Josh crashed again, I went with my Uncle Dave and Aunt Sonnie to this great pasta place in Santa Monica.  I got the garlic chicken thing, but there was this atomic pasta on the menu that looked interesting.  Aunt Sonnie got it, and when I tried it, I was completely amazed at how good it was.  I should have gone for it!

So in conclusion, I have things to work on with my songwriting, skills to practice, more things to expose myself to.  In the meantime, I need to find a job that can help me support my family, as any aspiring musician or songwriter has done.

For those of you who have been so supportive and encouraging, thank you so much.

Peace.

Posted in personal stuff | 1 Comment »