February 29, 2004
Bailey had her three month birthday last Monday! This is a photo of her taking a nap in her swing that day, and in celebration of the big day, I have a new photo gallery with 18 photos from the last few weeks. Enjoy!
February 27, 2004
Last week I was reading the blog Wheat and Chaff I came across an interesting post about "The Emergent Church" which included a brief, but pretty shocking statement about U2:
"a spiritual experience to U2 is to church what pornography is to a marriage."Naturally, I had to respond to such an outrageous statement! I asked blog author Matt Powell about his take on U2 in the comments section, and he responded with this post in which he cites several of their lyrics as evidence that U2 are not Christian.
Matt cited four songs: Peace on Earth, If God Will Send His Angels, Wake Up Dead Man, and The First Time. In an update to his post, Matt acknowledges that some people interpret the songs as ones of spiritual struggle rather than outright denials of the Christian faith. I would definitely agree with that assessment, for the first three songs in particular.
This introduction to the book of Psalms, written by Bono a couple years back, gives a tremendous insight into his lyrics in general, and especially to these more challenging ones Matt referenced. Here is a good excerpt:
"Abandonment, displacement, is the stuff of my favourite psalms. The Psalter may be a font of gospel music, but for me it's in his despair that the psalmist really reveals the nature of his special relationship with God. Honesty, even to the point of anger. 'How long, Lord? Wilt thou hide thyself forever?? (Psalm 89) or 'Answer me when I call' (Psalm 5)."
Abandonment and displacement are also found throughout the body of U2's work. On The Joshua Tree we find my all-time favorite U2 song, one that I think defines Bono's journey -- I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For. Bono has described it as a "restless gospel" tune and a "song about a journey not finished yet." It has a clear gospel confession, and at its heart, it's about the race Paul says we are running and have to run to completion. Yes, I'm a Christian, but I know there's more than what I've got right now. There's more than what we now see through a glass darkly -- and one glorious day, we'll see it clearly. Then we will all find what we've been looking for.
I'll admit that I was uncomfortable hearing Peace on Earth for the first time -- for the first several times, honestly. I wondered, "can you talk to God like that?" Having a bit of "positive confession" Pentecostalism in my church background made it seem even stranger. But David did talk to God like that. There are countless Psalms in which David cries out in anguish to God. Once I looked at the song from this perspective, I embraced it and have even found a comfort in it. It's the same sort of comfort I find when singing "it's the stuff, it's the stuff of country songs, but I guess, it's something to go on..." from If God Will Send His Angels -- the comfort of knowing I'm not the only one who's asked "Where are you?" when times get tough.
Wake Up Dead Man is strongly worded, even containing the band's only use of the "f-word" in any song lyric. I've said that it's one of only two songs I've ever heard to use that word and say Jesus in the same lyric without being blasphemous. Matt gave a snippet of the lyrics but left out this portion which contains a good bit of truth:
Your father, he made the world in sevenHe's crying out to Jesus Christ, who the Bible describes as our advocate with the Father, to put in a word for him. Can a man without faith make such a cry?
He's in charge of Heaven
Will you put a word in for me
The First Time is perhaps along the same lines as these first three songs, but I have heard an even more interesting interpretation. In this interpretation, the three characters (the lover, the brother, and the father) represent the three parts of the Trinity, and the storyline of "leaving by the back door" is that of the prodigal son. An interesting way to look at it, at least, and given the many other songs that make positive references towards faith and Christian ideals, it makes more sense than interpreting the song to be a rejection of Christ.
Ultimately, when you consider the whole body of work that U2 has produced, with its countless Biblical references and allusions to faith, as well as Bono's many public statements about his beliefs, it becomes clear that their work is born of a Christian faith. Though he would be the first to say he's not the best advertisement for God -- and you might agree, based on your interpretation of his songs or your views on his lifestyle -- Bono has long professed to be a Christian. I take him at his word, and I find a great deal of worth in his lyrics.
I have surrendered to the awesome power of "I Believe in a Thing Called Love" by The Darkness. The video is the funniest thing since, well, "Hey Ya," which is pretty recent, but you get the point. The song is ridiculously catchy and I can't help but sing along. Genia, a closet fan of Poison and GNR, still hasn't admitted her love for the song, but she will.
Tim at Instant Sunshine has a great post about one of U2's best and most underrated singles, "Discotheque." BOOM-CHA! Tim and I are apparently quite alike in our fandom of U2, but does he recognize Bono as the Pope?
I haven't yet seen The Passion of the Christ. so I can't comment directly on the film. There are some excellent reviews out there, including one by Ebert which is surprising in its understanding of the Gospel. One thing I would say, though, that nothing in recent memory has prompted this much discussion of Jesus in the society at large. People aren't just discussing this movie, they are discussing Jesus. I've been watching the news a lot lately, and I've seen countless people proclaiming the gospel on national television because of this film. It may be a pragmatic point of view, but I can't help but think this is a good thing.
February 20, 2004
One night after her bath we let Bailey hold her hair brush, and she knew exactly where to put it!
I have about 10-15 good new pictures, so hopefully in the next week or so I'll find time to post a new gallery.
February 14, 2004
From Bill Carter: A Wanderer Rushed In
We take the media for granted sometimes. We think it is the only way to interact with the world. When a war goes on, for example, we expect the BBC, CNN and Time Magazine will all send reporters to get the story from the front. We tend to forget that what they give us is mediated: they decide what pictures to show, what questions to ask, what portions of answers to report to us.All this is necessary if you want to understand why what happened for thirteen nights in 1993 was unprecedented. Each night, one or two or three citizens in besieged Sarajevo spoke to an audience of 50,000, 60,000, or 100,000 people. They spoke for a few minutes about whatever they wanted to talk about. What they said was live and unedited. They did not speak to a reporter who then explained to a news anchor what it all meant -- they spoke to a rock crowd. The audiences were there for U2's Zooropa tour.
The Sarajevo linkups were just as this author described -- unprecedented -- and there hasn't been anything like them since. I heard a bootleg of the concert they later performed in Sarajevo, where they interviewed a man from the city who simply wanted to tell his loved ones that he was still alive. Still alive! Life and death and love and war in the middle of a rock concert. It was truly shocking, and heart-wrenching.
The article talks mostly about Bill Carter, who originally came up with and suggested the concept to the band. It's a great read. He has a documentary entitled Miss Sarajevo, now out on DVD, which includes the first of the Sarajevo linkups as well as an emotional interview with Bono from that same time period. The filming of the documentary also helped inspired the song "Miss Sarajevo" which, although recorded under the Passengers pseudonym, is one of U2's most moving songs. The video is absolutely stunning as well, and it's on the Best of 1990-2000 DVD.
A corresponding article centers around a woman named Alma, who was one of the characters in Carter's documentary. She said this of Bill Carter and U2:
He used to go everywhere with his small camera, shooting me, my friends, everything he thought to be interesting. For us, it was great fun. Then, he left and came back with Miss Sarajevo. He brought me the videotape, but some time passed by before I first saw it, of course, because of electricity. He told me all about the movie, about U2 involvement, MTV thing -- you cannot imagine how excited I was! At the time, I used to like rap music, and group East 17, but when Bill gave me ZOOROPA CD, I was honored to be one of the very rare persons in the city that have that CD, even though I couldn't listen to it. I remember people whom I had never seen come to my door to ask if they could borrow the CD. Everyone liked U2 in the city, not only because of their music, but because they cared...This chapter in U2's history is another in a long list of things that confirm my belief that U2 is one of the all-time great bands. If these lesser-known stories make their way into the public consciousness and into U2's legacy, history will think of them as fondly as I do.
February 13, 2004
Blogger, CEO of the ever-impressive web company silverorange, mountain adventurer, and all-around cool guy Dan James declared himself President of the Internet in July 2003. Recently, his position has been challenged by several other bloggers. Dan diplomatically suggested letting the position go up for a vote, with whoever can win Google's #1 ranking being the true leader of the free net. So I'm voting by -- how else? -- linking to Dan's site!
In the interest of full disclosure, Dan James chose me as minister of homeland security in his cabinet.
Now all I need is an mp3 of Dan saying "I'm Dan James, and I approve this message."
February 12, 2004
In chapter two of Desiring God, John Piper discusses one of the central doctrines of the faith -- conversion. He powerfully and successfully argues the necessity of being converted to Christ, and he presents a compelling case that to be truly converted is to become a Christian Hedonist. For Piper, the command of conversion is not simply "believe in the Lord Jesus" but rather "delight yourself in the Lord." The question is not "do you believe in Jesus?" but rather "do you treasure Jesus Christ more above everything else?"
There were a couple things that really stood out in my mind from this chapter.
One, I found it interesting that he spent so much time on the subject of conversion in a book clearly directed towards a Christian audience. He anticipated this, and offers this explanation:
We are surrounded by unconverted people who think they do believe in Jesus.
His second explanation, which I was pleasantly surprised to see, is that there are many direct commands Jesus (and other NT writers) gave to the question "what must I do to be converted?" besides "just believe." It is his belief that if a person is truly converted, they will have within them a "new taste" for the glory of God which will make them able to keep these commands.
The root of conversion is the birth of a new taste, a new longing, a new passion for the pleasure of God's presence.I found his idea of the "new taste" to be a great description of how a converted person is changed. He didn't take this angle on it, but I think most of us could say that even though we can't live up to God's standards, when we became Christians we began to want to live up to those standards. I want to be a godly man, husband, and father. I want to treat people well, and be righteous. To think of it another way, my will and my character are pointed in a different direction.
Also intriguing was Piper's discussion of the motivation for conversion. He discounts the professed conversion that comes as a result of the fear of hell, or from a begrudging sense of duty. He says:
Could there be any holy motivation to believe in Christ where there is no taste for the beauty of Christ?The answer is obvious, but who else is asking the question? Are we not surrounded by churches and pastors who are more than happy to "scare the hell out of people" to lead them to Christ?
He stated early in the chapter that his goals were to show the necessity of conversion, and to argue that conversion creates a Christian Hedonist (whether or not they use the label). I think he accomplishes these goals, and along the way, encourages the already converted to truly treasure Christ. There is a lot of meat in this chapter, including an excellent six-point discussion of our need for salvation and what God has done to meet that need. Overall, another excellent chapter laying the foundation for his ideal of Christian Hedonism.
February 9, 2004
So I'm sitting here at the computer, cranking out a bit of work and a few emails, with the TV on Nickelodeon in the background. I'm not really paying much attention to the tele until I hear what sounds like a bunch of kids singing Beyonce's super catchy song "Crazy in Love." Sure enough, there is a compilation CD being hawked called "Kid Bop" or something stupid like that, featuring, you guessed it, a bunch of kids singing the latest pop hits. "Crazy in Love," "Hey Ya," and "Here Without You" are just a few of the songs on the CD. I cannot imagine ever letting Bailey listen to such hideosity. If she's going to hear someone sing "Shake it like a polaroid picture" it's going to be me, or Ice Cold Andre 3000. And yes, I do sing "Hey Ya" to Bailey. I might even do it while helping her stand up and shake her poopymaker. It's quite adorable actually.
(Disclaimer: I have not slept since 5:30 yesterday afternoon.)
February 3, 2004
Bailey is now 10 1/2 weeks old! It's amazing how quickly the time has gone by. She seems like a happier baby now. I don't think it's that her mood changed so much as she just now has the ability to express emotions other than crying. She smiles at us a lot, and of course our hearts just melt! Here she's getting dried off after a bath. She must not realize she's wearing an Alabama Crimson Tide towel or she'd be crying, right?
February 2, 2004
I awoke from a nap this evening and stumbled out into the living room to find my beatuiful bride intently watching The WB's The Surreal Life. I have to admit, I had found myself wanting to watch this inevitable train wreck, but I was still surprised to see Genia tuning in... to a marathon of the show, no less!
It was every bit as ridiculous as I expected. I mean, can you really top throwing Vanilla Ice, Ron Jeremy, and Tammy Faye into a house together? Amidst all the chaos, what surprised me was the fair portrayal of Tammy Faye as a woman of faith. In the one episode I caught, we saw her making an unpopular Biblical stand against seeing a psychic, being genuinely concerned for and loving towards a worried roommate, and boldly but non-judgementally testifying about her faith. Ron Jeremy, questioning her about her stand on the psychic, asked "Can anyone really follow everything the Bible says?" Tammy Faye simply said "I try. I mess up all the time, but I do try." The show does, of course, try to get some dramatic milage out of her being different from her roommates and out of her larger-than-life personality type, but I was surprised and encouraged to see her being represented fairly.