Lent [Day 4]: All or Nothing

Originally written Spring 2008

Recently, I've rediscovered some older songs and albums to which I never paid too much attention before - Jars of Clay The Eleventh Hour, and Paul Simon's Boy in the Bubble and Wartime Prayers.  Wartime Prayers has a catchy chorus: 

Because you cannot walk with the holy / if you're just a halfway decent man /But I don't pretend that I'm a mastermind / with a genius marketing plan / I'm trying to tap into some wisdom / even a little drop will do / I want to rid my heart of envy / and clean my soul of rage before I'm through

And it's really just the first lines that I latched onto.  God calls us to be all-in or else it's meaningless.  There's the oft-cited Luke 10:27, Matthew 22:37, and Mark 12:30.  All.  All.  All.  Not halfway.  And beyond loving God completely, I struggle to give completely in serving Him.  I feel like I spent about a year living half in the past, half in the future, and not at all in the present.  I've come out of that, somewhat, and while one could easily construe that as wasting that year, I needed that year.  It's still being put into context, but I can sense the reason for it.  These are truly days of miracle and wonder.

Hymn

If to distant lands I scatter
If I sail to farthest seas
Would you find and firm and gather

'til I only dwell in Thee?

If I flee from greenest pastures
Would you leave to look for me?
Forfeit glory to come after
'Til I only dwell in Thee

(Brooke Fraser)

Teachers and Teaching

I've been involved, or privy to, at least four separate conversations today about learning and teaching and just what it is we've each learned from one another. And another conversation about how shamefully neglectful I've been of my blog. So, here you go, dear reader. Some (largely unedited) thoughts.

As a teacher, I like to think I teach my students plenty. Well, some days more than others, of course... But I also know I don't teach my subject matter in a vacuum - and I've been aware of that for a while. No, I mostly teach what it looks like to be a grown-up. What it looks like to know God and follow Him. How it's okay to be a nerd. That one's worth is not determined by a figure on a paycheck. Et cetera.

But the influence totally goes both ways. My students affect me - profoundly. Sometimes it's been delightfully unexpected; sometimes I ask God for it. I doubt they could know just how much I learn through them. Not necessarily from them - they usually don't explicitly teach me things. But, rather, I am taught things through them. As much as I believe myself to be a conduit (rather than a source) for understanding, I suppose they are the same, though completely unaware. I learn so much of God's love, patience, and mercy through my interactions with them. The nature of grace, existing only in its extension. The deeper meanings of service. Of selflessness. Of sovereignty. The commonality of the human experience and the singularity of it all.

I'm just really grateful for this venue for an education that surpasses my wildest imaginings. I can only marvel at it, for I cannot wrap any part of me around it.

More tangibly, however, their influence is most easily seen in the music on my ipod. Lately, a peculiar mix of indie-hipster and glowsticky house.

August Prayer

All I Have

Lyrics by Mat Kearney

Well here we go at it three years later

Would you help me to dream it all up again?

Tired of the same song everyone's singing

I'd rather be lost with you instead

Don't you come around here

Come around here any more

Dragging my fears

Dragging my fears out the door

All I have all I have all I have, well, you know it's yours

Every breath every step every moment I'm looking for

All I have all I have all I have is yours

And you watch my heart break a little bit more

My heart break a little bit more

My heart break a little bit more

Is it cold yet in New York City?

Round here the trees been blowing up red

And everyone's talking about change on the airwaves

But I still got you on my breath

Lord, I'm still trying at this my hardest

Would you pick us all up from a fall?

Rip a little corner off the darkness

Just a crack of light in the middle of it all

Bad on Bagpipes

A year or so ago, some friends were over for dinner, and - inexplicably - we started this list. I just rediscovered it in with some other papers, and, well, here you go:

Songs that would NOT sound good on bagpipes

Jingle Bells

Jesus Freak - dctalk

All Out of Love - Air Supply

It's My Life - Bon Jovi

I've decided to start using the phrase "That's as bad as Jingle Bells on the bagpipes". I'm hoping it'll catch on.

Category 2

Several of my current favorite songs all have the word "hurricane" in the lyrics. I like to think it's not because of my meteorological background (after all, it's my husband with the tropical experience), and that it's all a mere coincidence, but, really, who am I kidding...

How He Loves, Jeremy Riddle

Listen

Winter Snow, Audrey Assad

Watch

Crashing Down, Mat Kearney

Listen

and just for good measure, even though it's not currently in my On-The-Go:

Hurricane Eye, Paul Simon

Listen

I also think Jars of Clay's latest album The Long Fall Back To Earth is brilliant and that you should listen to it. Repeatedly. And also mewithoutYou's latest, particularly The Fox, The Crow, and The Cookie.

Holy Week

It's been an interesting and busy week, but, outside of my Monday-night small group's discussion of Passover, I haven't paid much attention to the upcoming Easter celebration, much beyond buying Peeps1 for my chemistry classes' gas-laws demonstrations.   I have foregone many of the typical Eastertime traditions - nothing given up for Lent, the extent of my fasting was for a blood test one afternoon, reading things other than scripture.

In what can only be characterized as a half-assed attempt at remembrance, I started collecting some songs in a Holy Week playlist, of sorts.  I've been listening to it in the car most of the week.  A mix of praise, darkness, reinvented hymns, redemption, and, ultimately, love.

Jesus Paid It All, Mosaic Worship

...o praise the one who paid my debt and raised this life up from the dead...

The Eleventh Hour, Jars of Clay

...I'll find you when I think I'm out of time...

The Wonderful Cross, Chris Tomlin (and maybe Matt Redman?)

...bids me come and die and find that I may truly live...

What Wondrous Love, Jars of Clay

...while millions join the theme...

Beautiful, Scandalous Night, Smalltown Poets

...at the wonderful, tragic, mysterious tree/ on that beautiful scandalous night you and me/ were atoned by His blood and forever washed white...

 

O Come and Mourn With Me Awhile, Jars of Clay

...and victory remains with love...

Martyrs and Thieves, Jennifer Knapp

...where there is peace and love in the light...

Everything, Lifehouse

not particularly Eastery, but it's just one of my favorites

Love Song, Third Day

This song provokes a physical response in me like none other. 

...and I know that you don't understand the fullness of my love/how I died upon the cross for your sins/and I know that you don't realize how much that I give you/ and I promise you I would do it all again...

Marvelous Light, Charlie Hall

Another one I included just because I like it.

...see the light that I have found...

Bread and Wine, Campus House

I don't even know what the real name of this song is or how to attribute it - it's ripped from a 11-year-old CD from a campus ministry - but it's lovely.  I can't quite make out all the lyrics, but here are some of them:

Eat my bread 

Drink my wine

Bitterness yields to the sweet

[? ?]

I watch you lie upon your bed 

of reminiscent regret

and I would simply like to say 

that I will not let go

Drink my wine

Eat my bread

Raise your glass of tears and laugh instead

It's funny you should pray, I must say

I was just thinking about you

thinking about the day 

when you said you will not let go

One death [debt?]

One breath [bread?]

One blood

One Father's little baby boy

One truth

One man

And [?] passion

One night

Flesh is bread

Blood is wine

Give and take if you are 

so inclined

Lose yourself in me 

and I will be the whole of you

Take your brother's hand and say 

that you will not let go

1 Side note on Easter candy: When I was growing up, my grandmother (who lived with us), always bought me a hollow chocolate bunny.  They're always dreadfully cheap and waxy chocolate, but I always looked forward to receiving that bunny!  I'd eat the ears first, and leave the sugar eyes for last.  It's been a dozen years since she passed away, and even more since she last bought me a hollow bunny, but every year since, I have bought myself one.  This year, though, I went upmarket with Lindt.  Only because Target didn't have much of the bunny species for which I was looking by the end of the week - only solid chocolate, or else abominations like Butterfinger-Bunnies.

Fa ra ra ra ra

Been listening to my winter playlists, but I need some new songs.  Here are the favorites so far this year:

It's Christmas Time, The Lovemongers

Veni Veni Emannuel, The Gregg Smith Singers

Go Tell it on the Mountain, NeedtoBreathe

O Come O Come Emmanuel, Chasing Furies

Same Old Lang Syne, Dan Fogelberg

Song for a Winter's Night, Sarah McLachlan

Last Christmas, Savage Garden

The Last Noel, The Lovemongers

2000 Decembers Ago, Joy Williams

It Came Upon a Midnight Clear, Caedmon's Call

The Light of the Stable, Selah

Noel Nouvelet, Apollo's Fire

Bring a Torch, Jeanette, Isabella, Yolanda Kondonassis

I have very distinct tastes in Christmas music.  I tend towards minor keys and solemn chords, more light-in-the-darkness stillness-of-winter than sparkly-glee-club-mistletoe.

I've been meaning to write for years (okay, so I've only had my blog for 1.5.  1.5 is plural...) on just why I love Christmas.  It's not about the presents, I swear.  But I've been swamped.  But I'll get around to it this weekend, perhaps.

Played in our annual Christmas service last weekend.  I have lost whatever musicality I ever possessed.  I play with unexpressive, plodding notes.  Granted, it was easy stuff - quarter notes, simple key signatures.  But 18 years of dust on my technique is hard to shake off in one afternoon.  It's a lovely service, of course, and the theatre was stunning in all its holiday finery, but the real reason I volunteer for this is the same as why I volunteer for the drama productions.  It's fascinating to watch others who are good at what they do.  We get to work with the choir director and theatre director in their element.  To watch them put together a performance from a ragtag group of students.  To see them in the course of their job, which is similar to mine in that it falls under the name "teacher" but yet is so very different in nature to mine.  To see that their travails with students are the same as mine, just a different flavor.  And all the unintended hilarity.  The line of the day doesn't translate to print very well, but another notebook-worthy line was, "Somebody has unplugged my piano to plug in the baby Jesus.  My piano is more important to this production than baby Jesus!"  Which is about as funny as the Pirate in the Pit or the Phantom of the Opera in high heels from productions past.

Shifting Sand

I had been playing Christian-music Russian Roulette (very similar to Bible-Verse Russian Roulette, just on the iPod) for the past couple days - resisting the temptation to skip tracks and listening to whatever song pops up on the random play.  At any rate, on my way home tonight, I decided to listen to a specific song, this song, a song I've always liked the sound of but never really listened to the lyrics.  But it was worth about 30 minutes of constant-repeat play in the car tonight, in some bout of song-autism to which I am prone.

Shifting Sand, Caedmon's Call

Sometimes I believe all the lies 
So I can do the things I should despise 
And every day I am swayed 
By whatever is on my mind 

I hear it all depends on my faith 
So I'm feeling precarious 
The only problem I have with these mysteries 
Is they're so mysterious 

And like a consumer I've been thinking 
If I could just get a bit more 
More than my 15 minutes of faith, 
Then I'd be secure 

My faith is like shifting sand 
Changed by every wave 
My faith is like shifting sand 
So I stand on grace 

I've begged you for some proof 
For my Thomas eyes to see 
A slithering staff, a leprous hand 
And lions resting lazily 

A glimpse of your back-side glory 
And this soaked altar going ablaze 
But you know I've seen so much 
I explained it away 

My faith is like shifting sand 
Changed by every wave 
My faith is like shifting sand 
So I stand on grace 

Waters rose as my doubts reigned 
My sand-castle faith, it slipped away 
Found myself standing on your grace 
It'd been there all the time 

My faith is like shifting sand 
Changed by every wave 
My faith is like shifting sand 
So I stand on grace 

I have more to write about what I think about this, but it's going to take more work for it to make any sense outside of my own brain, so I will append more here later.  It would be a verbal Jackson Pollock painting if I tried to articulate anything tonight, and I don't really want to foist that on you, gentle reader.  I don't know why I was so taken by these lyrics this evening.  They don't capture my current emotions.  Not at all, really.  Not even lately.  But here they are.  

Mothers and Sons

I don't really have anything profound to say about these works that have caught my eye lately, other than to note that they've caught my eye.  

For all my romantic notions about everything else that urges me to rush in to it like the proverbial fool, the harsh light of reality glints off of parenting.  And these two items have stuck with me for a few weeks now.  I don't know why, haven't really examined it.  Well, that's not true.  I just haven't processed these completely, is all.

Iron & Wine, Upward Over the Mountain

Read

Billy Collins, The Lanyard

Listen

Listening

My playlist for cleaning the kitchen and pantry, repotting my kitchen basil, and baking a tres leches cake.  

How Will He Find Me, The Weepies

Cacophony, Tilly & The Wall

Shimmer, Fuel

Our God Reigns, Brandon Heath

Where I Began, Caedmon's Call

Hope to Carry On, Caedmon's Call

The Man Who Sold the World (MTV Unplugged), Nirvana

All I Want Is You, U2

Englishman in New York, Sting

All This Time, Sting

Sister, The Nixons

A Girl Like You, Edwyn Collins

The Love That You Had, Tracy Chapman

Innocent Bones, Iron & Wine

Old Friends (Concert in Central Park), Simon & Garfunkel

Under the Milky Way, The Church

Not An Addict, K's Choice

Wolves at Night, Manchester Orchestra

Grounds for Divorce, Wolf Parade

Old Friends/Bookends

Paul Simon

Old friends

Old friends

Sat on their park bench

Like bookends

A newspaper blown through the grass

Falls on the round toes

Of the high shoes

Of the old friends

Old friends

Winter companions

The old men

Lost in their overcoats

Waiting for the sun

The sounds of the city

Sifting through trees

Settles like dust

On the shoulders

Of the old friends

Can you imagine us years from today

Sharing a park bench quietly?

How terribly strange to be seventy

Old friends

Memory brushes the same years

Silently sharing the same fears...

Time it was, and what a time it was, it was

A time of innocence, a time of confidences

Long ago, it must be, I have a photograph

Preserve your memories; they're all that's left you

Hippo Birdie to Meeee!

It's May! Oh dear. I don't recall much of the last half of April. It is that time of the year that sort of accelerates away from me. And then it's August and we're back to school again, it seems. Time to make the long, overly ambitious to-do list for the summer, too.

Before all that, and since it's my birthday at the end of the month, I present my wishlist:

Hand-written letters, poetry, art, etc etc, from friends!


1G SD memory cards. I can't believe these are only $5 now! I think I spent $80 three years ago on one? At this price, I can use a few and not waste time pruning.

Nikon Flash. I can't decide between the SD-400 and the SD-600. I probably want the 600, but the compact size of the 400 is appealing...

Nikon Remote Shutter Button.


Pen Station. Dark Cherry with Raven Black ink. Or maybe Natural Cherry.

Fountain Pen Ink. Standard (not large) cartridges in Raven Black, Amethyst, Cardinal Red.


Blank books. I'm making two significant trips this summer - Europe Tour-o-Matic and Australia/New Zealand - and I want a couple travel journals for recording adventures. (hence all the photographic equipment)


Airplane Scarf. Since I can't find the US Airways flight attendant uniform scarf online anywhere, this would do.

Music: Albums from Brandon Heath, Smalltown Poets, The Sundays, Poi Dog Pondering (but not Volo Volo or Pomegranate).

Japanese Potatoes and Performances

I don't have time for cohesive writings on transcendentalists, but I have a few things in the works. Not on transcendentalists.

So, when I have more time, remind me to write about personality "types".

Meanwhile, tonight, I had dinner at a teppanyaki steakhouse, which was fantastic and helped quell my growing Japanese-food craving. The chef stir-fried up some cubed potatoes with my beef. I love meat-and-potatoes, but I never would have thought to add potato to Japanese food. Turns out it's really tasty.

Remind me, when I have more time, to devote a post to a directory of Central Florida restaurants I have enjoyed.

Watching the chef's performance tonight, I was reminded of a long-simmering realization: my desire for the arts is going unsatisfied - mostly a result of finances and time. When I was an undergrad, I joined a campus organization that provided ushers for shows and lectures that came to campus. As a reward for 15 minutes of "work" showing people to their seats, we ushers got to stay and watch the show. It was perfect - not only did ushering foster a talent of gracious and hospitable interaction with the public, it cultivated a taste for the performing arts. I got to see dozens of fantastic shows each year (many for which I probably wouldn't have considered buying a ticket, but was glad to have seen), for nothing! As a graduate student, I was asked to join the advisory board for the Friends of Convocations, which afforded me interaction with artists at exclusive events, too. Then we left college and spent eight years wandering an artistic desert. Fast-forward to last weekend. A colleague offered me tickets to Spamalot at the downtown performing arts center, and I realized that it was only the second time I'd ever been down there in four years. Now, I realize that I don't have a lot of free time, nor do I have a lot of disposable income (it turns out that theatre tickets in the real world are spendy!), but this is just pitiful. I really think I'm missing something in my life, and it just might be chamber music, symphonies, and touring musicals.

I don't know how to fix this. I guess I need a wealthy benefactor. Any takers?

Thunderstorms

We had quite the stormy night tonight, and I'm reminded of a piece by Garrison Keillor (from salon.com, June 2001) that I've held onto for years:

Some big thunderstorms rolled across St. Paul last week, with lots of nearby lightning strikes to shake the windows and a downpour of rain, and Mr. Blue got to stand on the front porch with Baby Blue and enjoy the rock 'n' roll. It's a modest life here in River City, no struggle for fame and power, just the occasional spell of weather, and a good June thunderstorm is a great boon in every way. It rinses the air and greens up the lawn and garden and gives us a demonstration of power far beyond human control. And the thunderclaps make a little girl laugh out loud. And afterward everything is somehow changed, the ions rearrange. You go for a walk after a good rollicking thunderstorm and feel your own life slightly altered. We live in a mixed bag of a neighborhood, the sort of neighborhood you find a lot of in St. Paul, which doesn't have lawn police, and as you stroll around, you pass old manses lovingly restored and Home & Garden yards and you also pass old manses with trees growing out of the eaves and ancient rags for curtains and yards that look as if the owners are seriously on heroin. But after a deluge, we're all refreshed, obsessive and neglectful alike, and a sort of democracy of meteorology prevails. And as I write this, the sky is darkening and the light turning purplish and there is a great stillness in the yard. Two hundred miles east of here, a westbound plane from Boston is slowing down as the FAA computers tracking the storm rearrange the landing slots at Minneapolis-St. Paul and the sleeping forms in Row 23 stir slightly at the change of engine pitch and the pilot comes on the P.A. and warns of possible turbulence and the lady in 2A asks for another bloody mary and west of here the farmers whose fields are already soggy go to the refrigerator and get out a beer and here in our house a little girl looks out the window at the dark sky and turns to me and says, "Boom!"

After further deliberation, I've decided to append a couple albums to my last list of albums with no bad tracks. Which edges it to a Great Eight list instead of a Top Five, but let's be honest - I've always played fast and loose with the constrictions of five.

1. U2 - Achtung Baby
2. Dave Matthews Band - Crash
3. 10,000 Maniacs - MTV Unplugged
4. Paul Simon - Rhythm of the Saints
5. Simon & Garfunkel - Concert in Central Park
6. Soundtrack - The Last of the Mohicans
7. Leeland - The Sound of Melodies

Default Bloggage

I have a dozen or so blog posts started, but I'm not sufficiently inspired to flesh any of them out today, and it's been a while since I posted anything.

So, I default to top-five lists:

Canceled TV Shows
(in honor of current television blight)
1. The Wonder Years
2. Mad About You
3. Dharma & Greg
4. The Muppet Show
5. Quantum Leap [tie]
5. Grapevine [tie]


Albums Without Anything Less Than a Mediocre Track
1. U2 - Achtung Baby
2. Dave Matthews Band - Crash
3. 10,000 Maniacs - MTV Unplugged
4. Paul Simon - Rhythm of the Saints
5. Simon & Garfunkel - Concert in Central Park


OPI Nail Polish
1. I'm Not Really a Waitress
2. Kinky in Helsinki
3. Friar Friar Pants on Fire
4. La Paz-itively Hot
5. God Save the Queen's Nails


Flowering Plants
1. Plumeria
2. Jacaranda
3. Agapanthus
4. Bougainvillea
2. Old English Roses (but peonies, too, because they look somewhat similar) [tie]
5. Wisteria [tie]
(just noticed they're almost all purple)

...trim the occupant with floof...

Five Popular (Possibly Irreverent) Christmassy Tunes
Christmas Wrapping, The Waitresses
Trim up the Tree, from How the Grinch Stole Christmas (the original - not that Jim Carrey crap)
Last Christmas, Wham!
Twelve Days of Christmas, The Muppets
Fairytale of New York, The Pogues

...and the whole world send back the song...

Five Christmas Songs Toward Which I Was Ambivalent Until I Heard These Versions
God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, Jars of Clay
It Came Upon A Midnight Clear, Caedmon's Call
Do You Hear What I Hear?, Third Day
In the Bleak Midwinter, Paul Colman Trio
Silent Night, Sarah McLachlan

...oh the love must have been overwhelming...

Five Contemporary Christmas Songs
2000 Decembers Ago, Joy Williams1
Christmas Song, Dave Matthews
Mary Did You Know?, Gaither Vocal Band
Light of the Stable, Selah
Welcome to Our World, Chris Rice


1 This is such a fantastic song, I can't even begin to describe it.

...fall on your knees...

I love Christmas. Absolutely love it. No, I love the entire month of December and the run-up to Christmas. I will blog later (during/after finals, likely) about specifics, but it's such a holiday of possibility, of hope, of beauty, and of love. What's not to like? Well, this.

But beyond that, I very much enjoy Christmas music. So, since I just participated in our school's Christmas musical production this past weekend, I've been listening to Christmas music since mid-November, and also since I'm so far behind in grading I must be ahead, I present a few days of Christmas lists - but not the kind you check twice.


Five Favorite Classic Christmas Carols: 2007
The first two never change. The remaining three selections vary from year to year.
O Come O Come Emmanuel1
O Holy Night
Noel Nouvelet (Sing We Noel)2
The First Noel
[tie] Bring a Torch, Jeannette, Isabella
[tie] Carol of the Bells



1 I highly recommend listening to the version by Chasing Furies.
2 I highly recommend listening to the version by Apollo's Fire.