being ryan byrd

in retrospect: 2010's most read/talked about blog posts

2011-01-11T08:07:00.000-06:00

2010 has been quite the year. life. death. and everything in between (we'll get to all the in between stuff shortly).

i was planning on writing some kind of 2010-in-review post, but, i'll just keep it real: i'm a little apathetic…and a whole lot busy right now. so instead, i thought i'd let my blog do the talking. i've taken a look back over 2010's blog post and with the help of some quick analytics and "real life" response, i've culled the top 10 most read and/or talked about posts of 2010.

as noted, this list combines two types of "data". first, i'm using raw numbers via my stats for unique visitors (probably the most noteworthy statistic). secondly (and maybe more importantly), i'm "crutching" some numbers with "real life" response such as personal conversations, twitter chatter and "lasting power" of the particular post. there are a few of these that have fewer numbers, but certainly many more subsequent and significant conversations.

so, here's the list, in descending order. (each entry has a linked title to the post, date and a salient excerpt)

10. anne rice's guide to quitting christianity and keeping jesus (july 30)

what i find most fascinating about her statements is that, at nearly 70 years old, rice is voicing the prevailing sentiment of emerging generations—20-somethings down. more than ever, people are intrigued, engaged with, interested in jesus.

but not the system.

not the american version of christianity.

not the institution. not the rules. not the cultural shackles that come with it.

you see, jesus is beautiful. but the system can be ugly.

jesus is freeing. the system can be confining.

jesus is authentic. the system can be plastic.

jesus is dangerous. the system can be neuteringly safe.

9. why we should stop letting black people live in the quapaw quarter (august 16)

ban black people from living in the quapaw quarter.

seriously, it's best to just keep them out. now, i get it that, legally, you can't stop black people from moving in, but ultimately, it's less of a rights issue than it is sensitivity to the family (who still lives in this neighborhood) of the man and the neighbors who have lived in fear of a repeat incident since that day.

my question for any black people who would want to move in is why they can't just live in areas where more black people already live. i mean, if you just go a couple blocks south and cross roosevelt, there are black people everywhere. they'll be welcome with open arms. violence happens all the time there. why do they have to bring it back to our neighborhood? why do they have to stir up all those raw emotions of the current residents from just a handful of years ago? why do they have to flaunt their "rights' while stomping on their emotions and fear of the good citizens of the quapaw quarter?

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i strongly urge that you read these related links:link 1 link 2 link 3

8. the good, the bad & the space between: in memory of rob toon (february 13)

rob was my best friend. and he was a good friend. ironically, there was a time that i only saw rob as a bad guy. as someone who i didn't want in my life. what i found, though, was that during that time, i was the bad guy. rob never changed. i did. i discovered that, in fact, sometimes rob was the bad guy. but mostly, he was the good guy and a guy who lived in that space between. and i grew to love that rob. that guy whose life was good, bad and in that in-between space at any given time. and i learned that that was a beautiful, beautiful thing.

on saturday, february 13, 2010, rob's life ended. he breathed his last breath and moved to another space. i don't know what that next space looks like, but i'm certain that there's a new community there who is enjoying the beauty of not just rob's good and bad, but that beautiful space between.

i deeply, deeply love you rob and will intensely miss you. thank you for the time you gave me.

7. VOTE NOW! who has the best pizza in little rock? (2 posts: november 8 & 12)

according to the usda, there are 4 major food groups: grains, fruits/vegetables, dairy and meats/beans. while i certainly don't want to question their authority, it's clear—in my life—that they left out a 5th group: pizza.

indeed, pizza could be its own food group. i could eat it at virtually every meal (ok, even for me, breakfast is a stretch…). eating pizza is simply a duty of any god-fearing, america-loving person, right? at the core essence of living and being is consuming pizza. it's truly the modern day manna of our society.

6. derek webb democracy vol. 1 series (notably, november 30 & june 29)

i have to be honest, when i first saw that it was yet another cover of hallelujah, i rolled my eyes. how many more covers of this song can we take!? :) but when i hit play, everything changed. it may be to quick to say, but this is probably my favorite song of the entire project. everything about it is right…because it's absolutely nothing that you would expect. instead of the more introspective versions we're used to hearing from jeff buckley and others, this is a rollicking, 60s throwback vibe. one of the first comparison that popped into my mind was the byrds and bands of that ilk. it's something you would hear on an austin powers soundtrack…and i mean that in the absolute best way possible. ;) it's fun, it's completely unexpected and because of that, it's brilliant.

5. feeling sheepish: concealed carry in church and the culture of fear (3 posts: july 12-14)

If you're like most Americans, there's probably been a time in your life when you've been sitting in church, listening to a particularly ennui-inducing homily or enduring another warbly version of "Holy Holy Holy" and thought, "Man! I could really reach for some steel right now, squeeze off a few rounds, and let these fools know what the score is!" Well, in Louisiana, Governor Bobby Jindal has recently signed into law a measure that would allow you to at least feel comforted by the presence of your gun in the house of the Lord.

4. help us throw a christmas party under the broadway bridge (december 22)

as we get closer and closer to christmas, stress levels grow closer and closer to a breaking point. between numerous family gatherings, wrapping presents, cooking dinner and making sure that every single i has been dotted and t crossed, this time of the year, for many, is a chaotic race to the christmas finish line.

so i'd like to offer you one more thing thing to do.

but a good one more thing.

in fact, a great and important one more thing.

3. the tweet heard 'round the world: a few words about segregation and educational options (august 23)

by far, this has been my most memorable post of 2010. i still believe strongly in what i wrote & it proved to be the most misunderstood post/tweet of the year. i literally (and sadly) lost at least 3 friends over this & that alone attests to its significance (for better or for worse).

my point was simply to say that, yes, making the decision to place your child in private school is a decision to self-segregate. the numbers are clear.

what needs to be stated over and over is that regardless of intentions, segregation occurs. yes, you might have chosen a private school because of some special program or because you just really like the school or because you have money to burn, but it still creates the same outcome: racial segregation. one of the many jobs of a sociologist is to observe social patterns and accordingly report. the fundamental task isn't to draw subjective opinions or form scathing commentary. it's simply to observe and report.

many people got bent out of shape about the tweet, but it simply stated a very easily observable reality: racial demographics at private schools are incredibly skewed, relative to our city's racial makeup. simply put: putting your white child in private school puts them in a self-chosen highly segregated educational environment.

2. listen to the new track, 'exorcist' from kevin max (october 29)

you'll want to go read the comments on this one. pure brilliance…

today, via a newly launched (and admittedly atrocious, flash-based) website, kevin max released a new special track for halloween, titled exorcist. long-time fans of max know that halloween—for him—is the near equivalent of yom kippur for jews. ok, that may be a little strong…but only a little. :)

1. offering some feedback: first impressions of derek webb's ambitious worship project (november 4)

what happens when derek webb retweets you? over 1,000 unique visitors in a day, that's what. (i average around (200/day to give some context.)

all in all, derek webb's feedback is a beautiful and worshipful art piece (and i didn't even touch on the visual pieces). it's exciting and refreshing to see an artist step outside his comfort zone and still create something that is wholly unique and superbly executed. it's ambitious and adventurous and, quite frankly, the church is missing this. i don't know much a project like this will be used in the context of corporate worship, but the church could stand to venture out and engage people in this kind of experience.

other notable posts (scan the archives in the sidebar to find these posts):

what your pastor will (likely) never say publicly or to you privately (february 3)
faith without politics is dead (march 30)
letting go: jennifer knapp confirms she's gay to christianity today (april 14)
rampant religion roundup: lifeway christian stores, jennifer knapp and johnny piper (april 23)
in memoriam: the way of jesus remembered (may 31)
of max and men: teaching a boy to be a man (june 12)
so i'm the dude who crashed little rock family's mommy blogger story (june 29)
weekend worship: reflections on the west memphis 3 rally (august 31)
best of 2010: albums (december 17)

two in review: november/december 2010

2010-12-28T08:01:00.000-06:00

earlier in the year, i began a new blog series, of sorts, in which i compiled a mix of the best music i had discovered in the preceding two months. the series and mixes are called, two in review. here's what i wrote in the original blog post:

i consume a lot of music. it's probably some kind of music ADD thing. i should probably seek out some kind of music junkies anonymous meeting or engage in some kind of full-out intervention. ultimately, i just love music and thus, consume quite a bit on any given week or month.

as the long-time (or even short-time, i guess) blog readers know, i write about and review music semi-regularly. for awhile, i was attempting to write a series simply called, music you should know, which featured some of the new music i was discovering. as with most of my well-intentioned series, it didn't last. but, consistently, i really would like to share about the new music i'm discovering. often, it just gets lost in the shuffle of more pressing blog posts and generally speaking, if it goes past a few weeks of its release date, i tend to just move on. regretfully, many great albums that are worth sharing about go unmentioned on the blog.

i'm going to attempt to remedy that problem. starting today, i'm going to focus on an overview of a couple month's worth of new music, rather than reviewing individual albums (i will likely still do that a little, if time allows or i fell particularly compelled). every two months, i plan to publish a downloadable mix called two in review. it will feature 20ish standout tracks from the standout albums i've bought over the previous 2 months. so, for this inaugural edition, it will feature music that was either released or i obtained in the months of may and june. the subsequent release will be for july/august and so on.

[longest. blockquote. ever.] :)

feel free to go back and check out past editions:

1. may/june 2010
2. july/august 2010
3. september/october 2010

another couple months have passed by, so it's time to once again bring you two in review. enjoy.

here's the lineup for the november/december 2010 edition:

1. lippy kids / elbow [from the forthcoming build a rocket boys!]
2. bodies / cee lo green [from the ladykiller]
3. shanghai cigarettes / caitlin rose [from own side now]
4. down by the water (ft. gillian welch) / the decemberists [from the forthcoming the king is dead]
5. lost in the world (ft. bon iver) / kanye west [from my beautiful dark twisted fantasy]
6. everybody talks about friends / don chaffer [from an unfinished tale, vol. 1]
7. behind the mask / michael jackson [from michael]
8. rolling in the deep / adele [from the forthcoming 21]
9. painkillers / lauren pritchard [from wasted in jackson]
10. freak usa / smashing pumpkins [from teargarden by kaleidyscope vol. 2: the solstice bare]
11. city of refuge / abigail washburn [from city of refuge]
12. company / drew grow [from the comfort feel ep]
13. hallelujah / derek webb [from democracy vol. 1]
14. four dreams / jesca hoop [from hunting my dress]
15. the cliff / emily jane white [from ode to sentience]
16. wanderingfoot / the fling [from when the madhouses appear]
17. this is the remix / girl talk [from all day]
18. hard times / joe purdy [from 4th of july]
19. wild'n cuz i'm young / kid cudi [from man on the moon II: the legend of mr. rager]
20. block after block / matt & kim [from sidewalks]

// download the .zip //

listen to new elbow track, 'lippy kids', from their forthcoming, 'build a rocket boys!'

2010-12-26T13:45:00.000-06:00

i love elbow.

and i'm not talking about the body part.

i am, of course, talking about the british rock band that, for a little over a decade, have been putting out albums that get better and better with each release. their last two albums, leaders of the free world and the seldom seen kid, are, hands down, two of my favorite albums over the last 10 years.

several days ago, they announced that their highly anticipated follow-up to 2008's the seldom seen kid will be titled build a rocket boys! and will be released on march 7th (in the uk, with a US date to follow). today, the band released a special boxing day gift by showcasing the first single (and album's opening track), lippy kids.

great bands never quit innovating and tweaking their sound and evolve with each album. this has been no more so true than with elbow. with this album, i think we'll see, not so much a major evolution, but the next logical progression of their sound. in interviews, they've indicated that as the band has grown and begun to play large venues (arenas), they've adapted their sound to more appropriately fill those spaces. i'm assuming it will be a larger sound that is a bit more grandiose and dynamic (which should be a very good thing).

the first track, lippy kids just hints at that. in reality, it could have fit in well with the seldom seen kid, offering what a typical elbow opening track offers: a sonic getting-your-toes-wet in terms of setting the stage for something much bigger in the subsequent tracks. what does show a bit of an evolution, though, is some of the building moments in the chorus that showcases lead singer guy garvey's incredible voice.

after hearing this track, i'm even more excited to hear the entire album, which is slated to have the following track list:

1. Lippy Kids
2. The Birds
3. With Love
4. Neat Little Rows
5. Jesus Is A Rochdale Girl
6. The Night Will Always Win
7. High Ideals
8. The River
9. Open Arms
10. The Birds (Reprise)
11. Dear Friends

if you visit their newly launched "teaser" page for the album, you can pre-order the album as well as watch a video (which is beautifully shot) of the new track being performed. you can also watch it here, in addition to just hearing the mp3.

enjoy.

elbow / lippy kids:

help us throw a christmas party under the broadway bridge

2010-12-22T14:30:00.002-06:00

as we get closer and closer to christmas, stress levels grow closer and closer to a breaking point. between numerous family gatherings, wrapping presents, cooking dinner and making sure that every single i has been dotted and t crossed, this time of the year, for many, is a chaotic race to the christmas finish line.

so i'd like to offer you one more thing thing to do.

but a good one more thing.

in fact, a great and important one more thing.

the reality is that christmas isn't a time of joy and cheer and family togetherness for a lot of people. for a large community here in little rock, christmas is celebrated by waking up on the streets. it's easy to devolve into clichés and hyperbolic language, but the reality is that we have the opportunity this christmas to truly help our homeless neighbors.

our church serves dinner to 50 or so (or more) people assembled under the broadway bridge once a month. this month, we're excited that it just happens to fall on christmas eve. because of that, instead of just slopping a little bit of mashed potatoes and green beans on plates and calling it a night, we're throwing a full out christmas party. many of our people have put a lot of work into and we'd love to extend a last-minute opportunity for you to contribute.

we, of course, are serving dinner (which is a mexican theme, just to switch things up), but in addition, we'll be setting up a tree, lights and decorations. to make the night complete, we're gonna be giving out gift bags with some functional items for surviving the streets of little rock.

my wife has taken the lead in organizing and overseeing the party and she gave me an updated list of items we've collected. here's what we have (as of wednesday afternoon):

men's socks: 97
women's socks: 16
hats: 18
mugs: 20
men's gloves: 48
women's gloves: 4
chap stick: 44
sets of 2 hot hands: 174
scarves: 18
sleeping bags: 8
blankets: 14
hoodies: 3
fleece: 1
coats: 5

at this point, our biggest needs are as follows (in priority order):

sleeping bags
coats
blankets
hats

so, if you have any of these things or you wouldn't mind making a quick run to walmart to obtain them, we'd be incredibly grateful.

in addition to these things, we could really use some more food. it looks like we're covered on the main dishes, but to make the party more festive, we could use more cookies and brownies or little treats like that. by all means, if you'd like to make a larger dish, don't hesitate to let us know.

if you have any of these things, you can let us know by doing one of the following things:

1. email my wife, christen, at christen [at] christenbyrd [dot] com
2. email me at ryan [at] eikonthechurch [dot] com
3. DM/contact me via twitter @RyanByrd or christen @ChristenByrd
4. write your message in sidewalk chalk somewhere around the downtown/quapaw quarter area (though this isn't probably an efficient method…)

also, just as much as your stuff, we'd love your presence! if you'd like to come join us, we'll be setting up just before 6 p.m. (on christmas eve) and begin just after 6 p.m. there's not a lot of sorta standardized tasks, but our goal isn't to have a disconnected experience, but rather just mingle, eat with and have conversations with those who attend. more than anything, we want to build relationships with people and allow them to have a humanizing time.

finally, if you'd like to wrap/assemble the gift bags, some of us at eikon will be meeting at our building tomorrow (12/23) at 1 p.m. to do this. (christen has informed me that she's flexible on the time and that it can be moved if needed.) we don't need a tremendous amount of people, but if you'd like to pitch in, it would be greatly appreciated.

we're looking forward to our little party under the bridge and we'd love for you to have the opportunity to do just one more thing—one more really great thing.

best of 2010: albums

2010-12-17T08:02:00.001-06:00

earlier this week, i began my look back at 2010 with my list of best tv shows and continued the last couple days with my lists of new music discoveries, cover songs and songs. today concludes this week's series, in which i've posted a list that presents my 25 favorite of the given category. here's the lineup for the week (each day i'll come back and update this list with links):

monday: tv shows
tuesday: new music discoveries
wednesday: cover songs
thursday: songs
friday: albums

to me, this is the granddaddy of all year-end lists. i'm still an albums kind of guy, as opposed to a single here and there. i like to sit down and listen to a collection of songs that were intended to go together. i think i've been able to narrow in on some of the truly great collections of music from 2010. from "emo rap" to throwback pop to a dark, twisted super-ego, there's a little bit of everything (even, somewhat surprisingly, something that verges on country…). so, be sure to go check these albums out and see if my you agree with my conclusions.

with further ado, this is my list of top 25 albums of 2010

25. kevin max: cotes d'armor

24. kid cudi: man on the moon II: the legend of mr. rager

23. caedmon's call: raising the dead

22. sufjan stevens: the age of adz

21. matt & kim: sidewalks

20. big boi: sir lucious left foot: the legend of chico dusty

19. john mark mcmillan: the medicine

18. broken bells: broken bells

17. courtyard hounds: courtyard hounds

16. she & him: volume 2

15. mumford & sons: sigh no more

14. girl talk: all day

13. derek webb: democracy volume 1

12. derek webb: feedback

11. mark ronson & the business intl: record collection

10. jenny & johnny: i'm having fun now. bob boilen summed this album up perfectly in his advanced listening: it's better than jonathan rice's solo material, but not as good as jenny lewis' solo work. that doesn't tell you that jenny & johnny's debut isn't good, but more about how great lewis' solo work is. this is a great 60s california rock album that sounds like something that should be released in 2010.

09. arcade fire: the suburbs. if you would have asked me even a month after this album came out if it would have been in my top 10 albums of 2010, i would have laughed long and loud. why? because i literally refused to listen to it. there was way too much fanboy hype swirling around this album and i was ready for it to go away before it even came. but then i listened to it and, like a sinner who meets a savior, i was dramatically converted.

08. michael jackson: michael. this album is cloaked in controversy and the reviews have been mixed. i went into it with low expectations, assuming it would be a hodge podge of poorly mixed/produced tracks that michael jackson never wanted to be released. instead, i was genuinely shocked at how great it was. in my opinion, it's his best material since 1992's dangerous. there are even some flashes of bad, which is a michael jackson we haven't seen in a very long time.

07. lissie: catching a tiger. i heart lissie. and i heart her debut album. it's difficult to fully capture the essence of her album. it's a little bit folk. it's a little bit indie. it's a little bit pop and probably a few other things thrown in. all in all, it's just one great song after another that all just work so well in telling us her story. we'll see if she's able to keep telling her wonderful story.

06. ray lamontagne & the pariah dogs: god willin' & the creek don't rise. me and ray go way back. since his amazing and stunning debut, trouble, he's not been able to live up to the first album's high standards, despite making several other incredible albums. but just when i had a little flicker of doubt in my mind, ray came back with his band in tow to create one of the most beautiful albums of the year.

05. punch brothers: antifogmatic. as a longtime nickel creek fan (as well as chris thile's solo work), i hate to admit that i was colossally disappointed by the debut punch brothers release, punch due to its nearly total lack of thile's beautiful vocals. with antifogmatic, that completely changed. while still displaying the band's masterful instrumentation, thile's voice is once again showcased and that's a very, very good thign.

04. jakob dylan: women & country. i expected to like this album. but certainly not love it. but i've been wrong before. this album feels like a movie. like a good western—the new western, not the old clichés. dylan will forever live under the shadow of his father, but with this album, he's peeked his head out and shown us that, when partnered with master producer t-bone burnett, can create incredible music that stands on its own.

03. cee lo green: the ladykiller. after the enormous success of gnarls barkley, where did cee lo have to go? surely his return to solo artist would yield less successful results. and surely we should have known better. cee lo has crafted the most perfect neo-soul/funk/strangebrew album in quite some time. he's taken bits of pieces of what made gnarls barkley great and infused some old school soul in just the right amounts. in the end, he created one of the best and likely most enduring albums of 2010.

02. kanye west: my beautiful dark twisted fantasy. in a recent review, this album was described the best i've heard: it's like an event. that's exactly what it's like. it's larger than life. it's exciting. it's over-the-top in the best possible sense. it's kanye the self-aggrandizer and kanye the self critic. with a host of rap and r&b all-stars in tow, kanye has crafted one of the best rap albums of, at least, the last decade.

01. the black keys: brothers. let me tell you 2 words that do absolutely nothing for me: blues rock. and that's why people should quit using it to describe the black keys. if you would have told me that a "blues rock" album would top my year-end albums list, i would have told you that you simply have no knowledge of my musical tastes. but the black keys have far transcended that label and have created an album that i absolutely cannot get tired of. the production is masterful and dan auerbach's vocals are executed in all the right ways. i really can't say enough about this album. seriously, go get it and you'll thank me.

so there you have it. there's the list. what do you think? i've certainly missed some good albums. what are they? i've also, no doubt, ranked some too high or too low. what are they? help me to flesh out and "correct" my list.

much like my other lists, i thought i'd give a little gift. here's a mix that features a song from each album. enjoy.

// click to download the .zip //

best of 2010: songs

2010-12-16T08:06:00.001-06:00

a few days ago, i began my look back at 2010 with my list of best tv shows and continued the last couple days with my lists of new music discoveries & cover songs. each day this week, i'll post a list that presents my 25 favorite of the given category. here's the lineup for the week (each day i'll come back and update this list with links):

monday: tv shows
tuesday: new music discoveries
wednesday: cover songs
thursday (today): songs
friday: albums

quite frankly, creating these lists is definitional comparing apples to oranges. none is more like that than best songs of the year. i mean, ultimately, how do you really compare a kanye west song to an adele song or a she & him song? so, more than the other lists, this one is likely much more open to debate and general disagreement. ultimately, i tried to strike a balance between which songs have an enduring greatness and which made an big impact on me upon first listen. there are certainly songs that blew me away upon first listen, but i now find myself skipping over them (due to over-exposure or being surpassed by other great songs). so, for now, this is the list i settled on.

25. ray lamontagne & the pariah dogs: for the summer (god willin' & the creek don't rise)

24. kanye west (ft. pusha t): runaway (my beautiful dark twisted fantasy)

23. the black keys: tighten up (brothers)

22. john mark mcmillan: carbon ribs (the medicine)

21. sleigh bells: rill rill (treats)

20. janelle monae (ft. big boi): tightrope (the archandroid)

19. horse feathers: thistled spring (thistled spring)

18. the black keys: everlasting light (brothers)

17. jenny & johnny: my pet snake (i'm having fun now)

16. adele: rolling in the deep (21)

15. courtyard hounds (ft. jakob dylan): see you in the spring (courtyard hounds)

14. mark ronson & the business intl: the bike song (record collection)

13. big boi: shutterbugg (sir lucious left foot: the legend of chico dusty)

12. she & him: don't look back (volume 2)

11. kanye west (ft. dwele): power (my beautiful dark twisted fantasy)

10. arcade fire: we used to wait (the suburbs). it's difficult to talk about this song apart from the incredible and innovative online video experience that accompanied it. before the website's release, the song was strong, but when the visuals were added, it took it to a new experiential level.

09. ray lamontagne & the pariah dogs: god willin' & the creek don't rise (god willin' & the creek don't rise). ray lamontagne can just flat out create beautiful music. his latest album, god willin' & the creek don't rise was full of beautiful music, but none more than its title track. if you're feeling stressed out, just put this song on and you'll be feeling refreshed by the end of the song.

08. punch brothers: missy (antifogmatic). this is an interesting choice for me because for the first few weeks of owning this album, it was literally one of the couple tracks i skipped over. i did the dreaded judge a track by the first 10 seconds and didn't get hooked. but then i listened. and i fell in love. it's yet another beautifully crafted track by chris thile.

07. kevin max: walking through walls [just to get to you] (cotes d'armor). when kevin max puts his mind to it, there's no denying that he can write amazing pop songs. whereas this album, cotes d'armor was largely disappointing, this track stood out and can stand up against any song he's written in his entire catalogue.

06. jakob dylan: everybody's hurting (women & country). mix together some timely and poignant lyrics with a catchy western-sounding jangle (along with dylan's voice) and you've got a great track. of all the great songs on this album (which you'll see tomorrow in my best albums list), this is the track i still come back to most often.

05. kanye west (ft. bon iver, rick ross, jay-z & nicki minaj): monster (my beautiful dark twisted fantasy). when kanye released this as one of his GOOD friday tracks, everything changed in terms of our expectations for his yet-to-be-released album. this is like the modern rap version of michael jackson's thriller, which features one of the craziest verses of the year by nicki minaj.

04. matt & kim: cameras (sidewalks). of all the tracks on this list, this one has the biggest dose of pop energy and fresh vitality. matt & kim are based in brooklyn and this track just feels like you should be listening to it in your earbuds while walking through the streets of new york in spring. great energy. great track.

03. arcade fire: rococo (the suburbs). this track has some kind of strange, almost dark, draw to me. compared to some of the other tracks on the suburbs, it sorta flew under the radar, but i find it to be the most mysterious and lyrically compelling. this imagery of these strange city kids speaking strange language hits home with me and puts you directly into the narrative being told on the suburbs.

02. the black keys: howlin' for you (brothers). i have to admit that as much as i love this track, it almost gets bumped up a spot or 2 because of all people, my kids love this track. :) howlin' represents everything great about the black keys' album: it's swampy, lyrically intriguing and just a little bit sexy.

01. cee lo green: f*** you (the ladykiller). the first time i heard this track, it was like nothing i'd ever heard before. even with its old school soul influence, it's the most fresh and unique track of the year. sure, the "hook", for many people, is the overt use of the f-bomb, but as you can tell from my inclusion of the radio version on my mix, it still stands up with its removal. it's clever, it's smart, it's just good and in my humble opinion, it's head and shoulders above any song of 2010.

so there you have it. there's the list. what do you think? i've certainly missed some good songs. what are they? i've also, no doubt, ranked some things too high or too low. what are they? help me to flesh out and "correct" my list.

much like my other lists, i thought i'd give a little gift. here's a mix that features all the aforementioned tracks. enjoy.

// click to download the .zip //

see you in tomorrow with my next list: top 25 albums of 2010.

best of 2010: cover songs

2010-12-15T08:03:00.001-06:00

a couple days ago, i began my look back at 2010 with my list of best tv shows and continued yesterday with my new music discoveries. each day this week, i'll post a list that presents my 25 favorite of the given category. here's the lineup for the week (each day i'll come back and update this list with links):

monday: tv shows
tuesday: new music discoveries
wednesday (today): cover songs
thursday: songs
friday: albums

with such a high saturation of artists vying for our musical interest, they have to do something to spark interest and catch listeners' ears. what better way to do that than by crafting a perfectly executed cover? yes, a cover can certainly come off as just another bar band playing freebird, but if done right, it can launch an artist into prominence. this list documents the latter. while there are certainly are some well established artists, there's also a great mix of up-and-comers who are just getting started.

with all that said, here's the list.

25. beck (ft. jamie lidell): books of moses (skip spence)

24. amanda palmer: fake plastic trees (radiohead)

23. the black keys: never gonna give you up (jerry butler)

22. she & him: fools rush in (rick nelson)

21. punch brothers: reptilia (the strokes)

20. brandi carlile: all you need is love (the beatles)

19. lissie: nothing else matters (metallica)

18. robert plant: angel dance (los lobos)

17. carolina chocolate drops: hit 'em up style (blu cantrell)

16. the bird and the bee: maneater (hall & oates)

15. the tallest man on earth: graceland (paul simon)

14. regina spektor: no surprises (radiohead)

13. punch brothers: packt like sardines in a crushd tin can (radiohead)

12. dirty projectors: i dreamed i saw st. augustine (bob dylan)

11. jimmy fallon (as neil young) and bruce springsteen: whip my hair (willow smith)

10. hugo: 99 problems (jay-z). who's hugo? i have no idea. and that's the beauty of a cover. never would i have heard of hugo, but he made a great, paradoxical version of a classic jay-z song. and you want to know the power of a cover? take a look at the browser title on the homepage of his website. yeah.

09. lissie: pursuit of happiness (kid cudi). ah, lissie. she's obviously on this list several times and she's a perfect example of how a good cover (or 3) can launch you and place you in the "conversation" of current and relevant music. much like hugo's 99 problems, the juxtaposition of her style and the kid cudi is a perfect fit.

08. derek webb: where the streets have no name (u2). you gotta have some balls to cover a song this big and this well known. how do you improve on greatness. well, in fairness, you probably don't, but you can certainly create your own version of greatness. derek webb did exactly that with this cover.

07. beck (ft. st. vincent): never tear us apart (inxs). i have little doubt that whatever beck works on will be great. but when you throw in st. vincent and a really great song, beck creates music gold. as a part of his ongoing record club series, this song stood out among the other great covers.

06. the bird and the bee: rich girl (hall & oates). it's hard to go wrong with an ironic hall & oates cover, right? the bird and the bee create quirky indie pop and it made for a perfect partner to hall & oates' brand of 80s pop.

05. andre 3000: all together now (the beatles). as much as i love big boi, andre 3000 has always been the driving force, in my opinion, of everything that makes outkast unique and innovative. so, leave it to him to take a beatles tune and craft a quirky, light-hearted cover.

04. amy winehouse: it's my party (lesley gore). i miss you amy winehouse. seriously. and while we're still awaiting your next brilliant album, we'll settle for this cover of a song that seems written specifically for your voice and for mark ronson's always-genius production. (but seriously, make that next album already.)

03. cee lo green: no one's gonna love you (band of horses). i have a hard time imagining cee lo making music that isn't beautiful and strange and wonderful and great all at the same time. it really doesn't even matter if he wrote it or if some indie band wrote it. it's gonna be gold when he gets ahold of it.

02. lissie: bad romance (lady gaga). i can't stand lady gaga. i truly don't get what people see in her. so that underscores how great this cover by lissie is. she's made me love a song that i can't stand when coming from the original artist. that's how you make a cover.

01. derek webb: hallelujah (leonard cohen). i literally rolled my eyes when i saw he was covering this song, yes, it's a great song, but how many more people can cover it? and then i listened to it. never have i heard a version like his with a crunchy, lo-fi 60s psychadelic vibe. yes, all those words apply. and yes, it all works to make a great cover song.

so there you have it. there's the list. what do you think? i've certainly missed some good songs. what are they? i've also, no doubt, ranked some things too high or too low. what are they? help me to flesh out and "correct" my list.

and since it's christmas time, i thought i'd give a little gift. here's a mix that features all the aforementioned tracks. enjoy.

// click to download the .zip //

see you in tomorrow with my next list: top 25 songs of 2010.

best of 2010: new music discoveries

2010-12-14T08:02:00.001-06:00

yesterday, i began my look back at 2010. for the last several years, i've spent about a week looking back on the various media that were my favorites of that particular year, and 2010 will be no different for me.

so, each day this week, i'll post a list that presents my 25 favorite of the given category. here's the lineup for the week (each day i'll come back and update this list with links):

monday: tv shows
tuesday (today): new music discoveries
wednesday: cover songs
thursday: songs
friday: albums

as i've stated before, i consume a lot of music. i find a lot of really great music as well as my fair share of not so great music. most of it falls somewhere in between those 2 extremes. there's so many new artists i discover that don't necessarily fit into my best albums list, but i'd like to share about (and actually, a few of these artists do appear on my best albums list). this list—which i've never done before—does just that. there's a lot of great artists that, prior to 2010, i had never even heard about that found their way into regular rotation in itunes. so, i hope you can discover some new music too.

alright, with all that said, here's the list.

[note: these artists aren't all new to music in 2010, but they are artists that are new to me in 2010.]

25. paper tongues: paper tongues

24. villagers: becoming a jackal

23. sally seltmann: heart that's pounding

22. sarah blasko: as day follows night

21. james vincent mcmorrow: early in the morning

20. ellery: this isn't over yet

19. frightened rabbit: the winter of mixed drinks

18. horse feathers: thistled spring

17. april smith: songs for a sinking ship

16. the mynabirds: what we lose in the fire we gain in the flood

15. tired pony: the place we ran from

14. beta radio: seven sisters

13. bad books: bad books

12. karen elson: the ghost who walks

11. carolina chocolate drops: genuine nego jig

10. drew grow & the pastors' wives: drew grow & the pastors' wives. any band that comes from portland is bound to be good, right? well, this group of folk/gospel/indie/etc musicians are a little bit edward sharpe & the magnetic zeroes and a little bit m. ward. in the end, it all works.

09. buke & gass: riposte. buke = baritone ukulele. gass = guitar bass hybrid. buke & gass = strangely beautiful experimental music. this two piece uses homemade instruments (they make custom instruments for the blue man group on the side) to create surprisingly full sounded acoustic music.

08. fistful of mercy: as i call you down. i saw these guys at the west memphis 3 rally, voices for justice, without having ever heard of them. and they blew my mind. a supergroup comprised of dhanni harrison, joseph arthur and ben harper, they created an amazing energy and sound on stage. while the album didn't live up the live performance, it was still an unexpected and welcome surprise in 2010.

07. kid cudi: man on the moon II: the legend of mr. rager. kid cudi was pretty huge before 2010, but i never paid him any attention or even listened to any of his music. i have to admit, though, that this year, kanye's constant hyping of him made me give him a listen. and i certainly wasn't disappointed. the lyrical depth and introspection is what makes cudi worth listening to.

06. joe purdy: 4th of july. this one came out of nowhere. i randomly saw him mentioned in a blog post i was reading and it sounded like something worth at least checking out on myspace. what i found was an understated, yet beautiful folk singer-songwriter from, of all places, arkansas. he's been a nice addition to my itunes repertoire.

05. john mark mcmiilan: the medicine. for quite a long time, i heard him hyped by, mainly, a handful of hipster christian types. that, quite frankly, made me not want to give this guy a listen. but alas, i did and i found something very beautifully unique. it's a little bit worship, it's a little bit folk, it's a little bit something else. all in all, it's a little bit great.

04. sharon jones & the dap kings: i learned the hard way. another unexpected find for 2010, sharon jones & the dap kings represent the heigh of a revivalist movement of funk/soul of the late 60s. i knew the dap kings previously from their work with mark ronson & amy winehouse, but i was pleased to discover their primary work with the incredible voice of sharon jones.

03. sleigh bells: treats. ok, here's the plan: put this in your car stereo, turn the speakers up and be prepared to shake and express concern for the well-being of your speakers. this album creates such a sonic experience that i haven't experienced with any other band. to me, the biggest appeal of sleigh bells is the striking contrast between blown out drums & fuzzed guitars with alexis krauss' pop-like voice.

02. matt & kim: sidewalks. i'm much more of a full album kind of guy than i am a singles kind of guy. but every now and then, 1 single song makes me fall in love with a band. cameras did just that. i couldn't quit playing this track and it led to me loving not just sidewalks but their whole back catalogue that i had missed.

01. lissie: catching a tiger. from the very first few notes i heard her sing, i knew i would love lissie. and when her debut album, catching a tiger, came out, i certainly wasn't disappointed. she's already drawn comparisons to chrissie hynde and neko case, but i don't think they're adequate. it's not that she's better than these artists, but it's that she's carved out her own little place that's unique and necessary. what made her even more compelling is her incredible covers of lady gaga, kid cudi and metallica that created the much-needed chatter a new artist needs (i'll get to those covers tomorrow…).

so there you have it. there's the list. what do you think? i've certainly missed some good new artists. what are they? i've also, no doubt, ranked some things too high or too low. what are they? help me to flesh out and "correct" my list.

and since it's christmas time, i thought i'd give a little gift. here's a mix that features a track from each artist in my list. enjoy.

// click to download the .zip //

see you in tomorrow with my next list: top 25 cover songs of 2010.

best of 2010: tv shows

2010-12-13T08:01:00.002-06:00

this post begins my look back at 2010. for the last several years, i've spent about a week looking back on the various media that were my favorites of that particular year, and 2010 will be no different for me.

so, each day this week, i'll post a list that presents my 25 favorite of the given category. here's the lineup for the week (each day i'll come back and update this list with links):

monday (today): tv shows
tuesday: new music discoveries
wednesday: cover songs
thursday: songs
friday: albums

typically, i primarily focus on movies and music. this year, i, interestingly, found myself shifting from movie-watching to tv-watching. even more interestingly, i've found that i watched less than tv than ever. ok, so how is that? well, my overall quantity has been greatly decreased, but the quality has increased substantially. there's so much genuinely good tv now and i think i've tapped into quite a bit of it. instead of mindless hours flipping stations, i usually wind down the night with one really great show. so, my list this year is for the top 25 tv shows of 2010.

(you'll notice that i'm completely removing the annual staple of the best movies list. with 3 children, our trips to the theater are extremely rare and the ability to carve out a couple hours for a movie is nearly impossible. thus, more short-form tv-watching and the removal of that list.)

alright, with all that said, here's the list.

25. arrested development.[ok, just give me this one, will you? yes, it aired from 2003 to 2006. yes, that's a relatively long time ago. but i just discovered this show a few months ago and i was addicted to it. if this show actually came out this year, it would be as high as maybe #4 or 5. so, i'm giving myself this one. :) ]

24. meet the press.

23. parks & recreation.

22. desperate housewives.

21. the apprentice.

20. hung.

19. united states of tara.

18. rob dyrdek's fantasy factory.

17. treme.

16. american idol.

15. pardon the interruption.

14. top chef.

13. the office.

12. community.

11. real time with bill maher.

10. eastbound & down. this is one of those shows (much like #19's hung) that i want so badly to talk about with friends and coworkers the next morning, but i almost can't admit i watch it. this show is so over-the-top, crude and foul…but so hilarious (and maybe even genius).

09. work of art: the next great artist. this show got panned by some people because, as they perceived, it cheapened art into a formulaic reality show and showcased stereotypes. maybe small pieces of that could be true, but ultimately, it was still real artists creating real work and it made for compelling television.

08. project runway. much like the previous entry, the artist in me loves this show. certainly, each season's cast adds to its compelling nature, but just the process of creating and showcasing one's art is intriguing and has continued to make for a good show 8 seasons in.

07. the big c. this is a good example of a show that i was still undecided on how i felt about even 3/4 into the season. but…i hung on and in the end, i found myself looking forward to it each week. in the end, the thing that got me the most was, after having lost rob from cancer, i was compelled by cathy's (the main character, played by laura linney) emotional ups and downs with cancer.

06. survivor. 21 seasons in, i'm still loving survivor. the show's core elements—outwit, outplay, outlast—still create compelling social dynamics, which is something i particularly love in television (and beyond). the amazing thing is that season 20, heroes vs. villians (from earlier this year), was my favorite of all-time and that says a lot this many years in.

05. dexter. this, even more than #7's the big c, is a prime example of a show that i still, 5 seasons in, can't determine how i really feel about it. i think i love it, but i can't really decide. in spite of the internal conflict, it obviously still finds a place at #5 because of its bizarre premise and stellar acting.

04. the walking dead. 6 episodes is all it took for this mini-series to make its way to #4. what makes it even more impressive is that i don't like zombie movies/tv at all. zero. i find it all corny and overdone. but then there's this show. it was beautifully shot and acted and it injected a dose of gritty reality into an otherwise pseudo-reality of the zombie genre.

03. boardwalk empire. ok, i'll be the first to say that when i heard steve buscemi was cast as the lead in an hbo dramatic series, i had my doubts. keep in mind, we're talking about the same steve buscemi who played this guy. but wow, congrats to steve buscemi on an excellently played lead, bringing back to hbo the crime series it had been missing since the sorpranos departure. it's literally like watching a well made movie each week and for that, it was one of the best tv shows of 2010.

02. big love. ah, big love. the show has everything: religion, family dynamics, current news headlines and more. the show is perfectly cast and perfectly written to strike a balance of this other-worldly feeling while still feeling completely genuine and straight from real life. i'll be the first to admit that this past season waned a little, with a stretch of a story line, but it was still the same incredible actors and characters that have made it great for almost 5 years now.

01. breaking bad. what have i not already said about breaking bad that i can add here? this is the only show that has literally kept me up to 3 in the morning just because that was the first chance i had to watch the newest episode. it's so expertly executed that it genuinely redefines what tv should be like. this past season was just as intense and compelling as ever and i'm (impatiently) counting down the premiere of the next season (which doesn't start until july 2011…are you kidding me?).

because i want you to experience a little piece of this show (if you haven't otherwise), check out this clip that i included in a post that wrapped up the finale of season 3.

so there you have it. there's the list. what do you think? i've certainly missed some good shows. what are they? i've also, no doubt, ranked some things too high or too low. what are they? help me to flesh out and "correct" my list.

see you in tomorrow with my next list: top 25 new music discoveries of 2010.

ivy retardation: why our educational ladder leads to a dead end

2010-12-10T07:57:00.000-06:00

rarely am i so compelled by an article that i have to stop and immediately blog. last night, a tweet from a former coworker made me do just that (which, of course, you're reading now). here was his tweet:

"[N]ot to be rich is one of the greatest opportunities with which young Americans have been blessed." From @TheAmScho: http://bit.ly/IQwrZless than a minute ago via webSam Eifling
SamEifling

[**let me pause and say that my views certainly do not reflect or represent sam eifling. whereas his tweet was the launching point for my thoughts and this blog post, they may or may not connect with his intentions for tweeting it.**]

it was just a handful of months ago that i tweeted what i subsequently dubbed, "the tweet heard 'round the world". indeed, the reverberations were powerful (both in responses of affirmation and lashing out by people toward me personally), but i still stand by my assertions. since that post, i've read a number of things that, at times have challenged my position, but many more things that have offered more fuel. nothing more than the aforementioned article.

you can, of course, read the article in its entirety. i certainly encourage it. it first appeared in the american scholar in the summer of 2008 and while its dated by a couple years, the value of its content is most definitely not.

the author, william deresiewicz, who is a former professor at yale and columbia, lays forth 5 disadvantages of an elite education. while he focuses on, most specifically, ivy league education, he also takes into account the entire collective of systems that have put educational/elitist blinders on our society. he writes,

[It's] not just the Ivy League and its peer institutions, but also the mechanisms that get you there in the first place: the private and affluent public “feeder” schools, the ever-growing parastructure of tutors and test-prep courses and enrichment programs, the whole admissions frenzy and everything that leads up to and away from it. The message, as always, is the medium. Before, after, and around the elite college classroom, a constellation of values is ceaselessly inculcated. As globalization sharpens economic insecurity, we are increasingly committing ourselves—as students, as parents, as a society—to a vast apparatus of educational advantage. With so many resources devoted to the business of elite academics and so many people scrambling for the limited space at the top of the ladder, it is worth asking what exactly it is you get in the end—what it is we all get, because the elite students of today, as their institutions never tire of reminding them, are the leaders of tomorrow.

to broaden it one step further, i think deresiewicz would affirm that the inherent assumption here in middle class white little rock society (and certainly beyond, but here particularly) that you are doing your child a great disservice by —gasp— sticking them in public school is a fallacy, to say the least.

rather than getting on my own soapbox (which i can do easily), i thought i would present some of the salient points of his assertion. his disadvantages are as follows.

1. The first disadvantage of an elite education…is that it makes you incapable of talking to people who aren’t like you.

2. The second disadvantage…is that an elite education inculcates a false sense of self-worth.

3. An elite education not only ushers you into the upper classes; it trains you for the life you will lead once you get there.

4. If one of the disadvantages of an elite education is the temptation it offers to mediocrity, another is the temptation it offers to security.

5. The final and most damning disadvantage of an elite education [is] that it is profoundly anti-intellectual.

while you can read the article to flesh some of these out (which is a necessity to fully understand his nuances), there are a couple particularly noteworthy points worth highlighting here (one of which speaks directly to my "tweet heard 'round the world").

in explaining his first disadvantage (being "incapable of talking to people who aren't like you"), he says the following about diversity (which is the primary tie-in to my "controversial" tweet):

Elite schools pride themselves on their diversity, but that diversity is almost entirely a matter of ethnicity and race. With respect to class, these schools are largely—indeed increasingly—homogeneous. Visit any elite campus in our great nation and you can thrill to the heartwarming spectacle of the children of white businesspeople and professionals studying and playing alongside the children of black, Asian, and Latino businesspeople and professionals. At the same time, because these schools tend to cultivate liberal attitudes, they leave their students in the paradoxical position of wanting to advocate on behalf of the working class while being unable to hold a simple conversation with anyone in it.

probably the point he brings out that i'm most passionate about is in relation to his 4th disadvantage (the "temptation [elite education] offers to security"). he writes,

When parents explain why they work so hard to give their children the best possible education, they invariably say it is because of the opportunities it opens up. But what of the opportunities it shuts down? An elite education gives you the chance to be rich—which is, after all, what we’re talking about—but it takes away the chance not to be. Yet the opportunity not to be rich is one of the greatest opportunities with which young Americans have been blessed. We live in a society that is itself so wealthy that it can afford to provide a decent living to whole classes of people who in other countries exist (or in earlier times existed) on the brink of poverty or, at least, of indignity. You can live comfortably in the United States as a schoolteacher, or a community organizer, or a civil rights lawyer, or an artist—that is, by any reasonable definition of comfort. You have to live in an ordinary house instead of an apartment in Manhattan or a mansion in L.A.; you have to drive a Honda instead of a BMW or a Hummer; you have to vacation in Florida instead of Barbados or Paris, but what are such losses when set against the opportunity to do work you believe in, work you’re suited for, work you love, every day of your life?

Yet it is precisely that opportunity that an elite education takes away. How can I be a schoolteacher—wouldn’t that be a waste of my expensive education? Wouldn’t I be squandering the opportunities my parents worked so hard to provide? What will my friends think? How will I face my classmates at our 20th reunion, when they’re all rich lawyers or important people in New York? And the question that lies behind all these: Isn’t it beneath me? So a whole universe of possibility closes, and you miss your true calling.

from start to finish, the article is incredibly insightful and worth a place in the larger educational conversation in a city like little rock where there is so much class and race polarity in terms of educational standards. some will immediately dismiss his points. some will, unfortunately, launch critiques (and twitter unfollows…) at me personally. some will dig their heels in with their conflicting values. my hope, though, is that his thoughts (not mind) broaden the conversation about our societal values regarding education. i certainly think they're not only unhelpful, but, quite frankly, hurtful to many young people and our society in general.

so, go read the article. give it some open-minded and critical thought. have a conversation. what do you think?

righteous anger and walking a mile in the shoes of the other

2010-12-07T08:03:00.000-06:00

i'm thankful to be a part of a faith community that is actually a community. no doubt, we're far from reaching the zenith of what that means (to say the least), but i think we're getting a few things right. we do life together. we share meals. we meet the needs of people who cannot themselves. we engage in open and honest dialogue. we challenge each other to be more like jesus.

of all those things, i think the last one—challenge each other to be more like jesus—is the linchpin of all the other things i listed. without a constant urging and encouraging to explore what it really means to be jesus, we wouldn't be able or compelled to do the other things.

a couple nights ago at our weekly gathering, i certainly felt both challenged and encouraged to engage others more like jesus.

if i haven't described it here before, our weekly sunday night gatherings at eikon consist of a shared meal (prepared by different people each week) and a teaching/conversation time. while i really love to teach and preach, one of our values is that i'm not the only voice that is heard during those times. so, over the course of the last few months, i've literally only spoken about 3 times. each week, a different person from our community (or beyond) leads the teaching time. in that time, we've been working our way through some of the most fundamental values of jesus (like nonviolence, sacrificial living and gender equality…to name just a few)

a few months ago, we asked various people to teach and "assigned" topics (to people who we thought would have a particularly helpful point-of-view about the topic). we gave relatively specific topics, but instructed the teachers that they can nuance the conversation in whatever way they felt compelled. this past sunday, kim roth led the teaching time, dealing with the topic of "righteous anger".

it was, unexpectedly, one of my favorite nights we've had in awhile. i feel very passionately—or more to the point, righteously angry—about a number of issues (many of which i've expressed with some frequency on this blog). i tend to have very strong viewpoints and generally don't hesitate to share those views (if you haven't noticed…). in my passionate viewpoints, i can often unintentionally (or sometimes, if i'm honest, intentionally) villainize the "other side" (although i don't think "other side" is a helpful term…but that's for another post…).

last night, kim led us in a couple great exercises and subsequent discussion. we began, in groups, by making a list of things that we think are justified points of anger (i.e. what do we feel justified in being angry about). our group listed things such as war, poverty, rampant capitalism, inequality, co-opting of religion by politics and violence (to name just a very few). she then instructed us to make a corresponding list that took into consideration what the "other side" saw as their justification for being opposed to our strong feelings. in other words, we were to pause and see the flip side of our most strong-minded beliefs.

the exercise was invaluable, as it forced me to stop and proverbially walk a mile in another person's shoes. at times it was tough. for example, it's truly difficult for me to see any justification whatsoever of poverty. i've heard more than one person ~~misuse~~ abuse matthew 26:11, but it's just a flat out bad argument/interpretation that grasps at straws. on the other hand, as we worked through the list, i generally found it much easier than expected. even on topics that i feel most strongly about and most tend to villainize the other side about—like war/violence/killing, for example—i found it relatively easy to put myself in their shoes. why? because i know real life human beings who have those points-of-view.

i realized that when i attached a face to an issue, it was no longer an objective, distant issue, but a humanized reality/relationship. just the other day i, in a roundabout way, blogged about this (see my discussion about people i know who object to gay marriage) and, not surprisingly, had several responses, mainly on twitter and facebook, of objection and misconstruing my point (including some textbook adventures in missing the point).

the reality is that i know many people who simply have very legitimate reasons for their passionate beliefs that run 100% contrary to my equally passionate beliefs. let me unequivocally state that, yes, in fact, sometimes people are just wrong, but sometimes they simply see it another way and have very valid reasons. [further, i would ask, what if they are wrong? how does it/should it change our response/relationship to them and our command to love them?]

let's take the death penalty, which is one of my most righteously angering issues of all. i think, as a follower of jesus, there is absolutely no justification for it. i intensely struggle to see the "other side's" point-of-view, but as i've come to learn, many good people who claim to follow jesus see it as a modern day eye-for-an-eye type of situation (among other things). i truly don't understand that viewpoint, but i can see the path of their logic and viewpoint.

as another example, i can get downright indignant about legalism, and more than many other things, i know quite a few people who are extremely legalistic. do i think they're engaging in—as referenced earlier—adventures in missing the point? absolutely. do i think they've chosen the path of the pharisees instead of the path of jesus? absolutely. but are they bad people? absolutely not. are they opposed to grace? absolutely not. do they believe they're being the most like jesus that they can? absolutely. do they think that living by the letter of the law is living by the spirit of the law? absolutely. i certainly don't see the scriptures in those ways, but i see where they're coming from. i know them and can attach a face and heart to the issue.

throughout the exercise, as we went through our list, i literally kept imagining people in my life who feel oppositely of me—some of which i have literally had to remove from my life because of how unhealthy our relationship had become. it made the exercise much easier and actually put me at ease, instead of getting worked up as i thought through viewpoints that are oppositional to my deepest passions.

so, my takeaway (and point in rambling on here) is to encourage you to pause and consider the "other side". why do they push back on you? what are their motivating factors for their beliefs? what has led them to arrive at their viewpoints? how can you see past "right" and "wrong" and see their heart? how can you build a dialogue of mutual understanding?

all these questions aren't grounded in some kind of utopian thinking, but, as people who follow in the way of jesus, it should lead to at least an attempt to build community and mutual understanding. in the end, we don't have to agree, but we are called to love and create generative friendships and behave in ways that honor and look like jesus.

so, may you go in anger…but mostly peace and friendship and understanding. :)

download my latest mix: 'christmas music for people who don't like christmas music'

2010-12-03T13:45:00.003-06:00

~~bah humbug!~~ er, i mean, merry christmas. that's what i meant to say.

the reality is that i love christmas. i just don't love all the insane consumerism and shift of focus from, you know, that dude named jesus.

if you catch me griping, though, it will probably be about one main thing: christmas music. not only is it generally bad, but it begins well before thanksgiving. there's a small part of me that likes the idea of christmas music, but there's so much of it that's just bad.

so, what's a blogger to do? how about create my own christmas-music-that-doesn't-suck mix?

in my quest to put together a mix of christmas music, my criteria was simple: what can i actually bear listening to? so on this mix, there's a little bit of everything, from "traditional" music to indie kind of stuff to satan singing about christmas. you know, all the standards.

i'm open to the possibility that my mix sucks just as much as the other stuff, but i thought i'd at least give it a shot and let my own ears have a break from a month (or more) of bad music.

here's the lineup:

1. o come o come emmanuel / sufjan stevens
2. god is with us / sojourn
3. happy xmas (war is over) / the polyphonic spree
4. christmas lights / coldplay
5. amen, amen / sojourn
6. perfect gift / natalie hemby
7. christmas in hollis / run dmc
8. carol of the bells / the bird and the bee
9. winter winds / mumford & sons
10. it's true / sara groves
11. that was the worst christmas ever / sufjan stevens
12. sing mary sing / jennifer knapp
13. why can't it be christmastime all year? / rosie thomas
14. i will be hating you for christmas / everclear
15. i heard the bells on christmas day / pedro the lion
16. christmas cake / rilo kiley
17. silent night / zach gill
18. ave maria / chris cornell
19. come thou fount of every blessing / sufjan stevens
20. all i want for christmas is you / mariah carey
21. please come home for christmas / jon bon jovi
22. christmas (please baby come home) / u2
23. get down for the holidays / jenny o.
24. baby it's cold outside / leon redbone & zooey deschanel
25. christmas time in hell / satan, the dark prince

// download the .zip //

a litany to honor women from 'common prayer: a liturgy for ordinary radicals'

2010-12-02T08:02:00.000-06:00

last night, i participated (along with a few friends) in what was dubbed a "common prayer party". in essence, it was a book release party (which corresponded with hundreds across the country) for a new book of common prayer compiled by shane claiborne, jonathan wilson-hartgrove and enuma okoro, called common prayer: a liturgy for ordinary radicals. the night, organized by my friend kim, was a reading of a handful of the prayers as well as an opportunity to participate in prayer stations engaging us in the season of advent.

it was a good opportunity to begin this season with a time of quiet and reflection and communal prayer. throughout the night, we had an opportunity to check out the book. it's a great collection (that i highly recommend for churches) and one particular prayer caught my attention as i skimmed through it.

in the back of the book is a collection of prayers for special occasions (as opposed to daily prayers which comprise the majority of the book). the prayers ranged from celebration of adoption to death of a person in the community to a blessing for your home. the one that stood out to me, though, was a litany to honor women.

i feel particularly strongly about the role of women in the church. in short, i don't see men and women any differently. women have the same value and function as men—just as the bible prescribes. certainly, i think men and women tend to bring different dynamics to a faith community, but one is no greater or lesser than the other. [if you'd like to read a great series on women in the church, my friend sarah wrote a blog series about it.]

being that women often tend to be pushed aside in the church, i was glad to come across this litany that uplifts and celebrates women. i thought i would share it here.

a litany to honor women

we walk in the company of the women who have gone before, mothers of the faith both named and unnamed,
testifying with ferocity and faith to the spirit of wisdom and healing.
they are the judges, the prophets, the martyrs, the warriors, poets, lovers and saints who are near to us in the shadow of awareness, in the crevices of memory, in the landscape of our dreams.

we walk in the company of deborah,
who judged the israelites with authority and strength.

we walk in the company of esther,
who used here position as queen to ensure the welfare of her people.

we walk in the company of your whose names have been lost and silenced,
who kept and cradled the wisdom of the ages.

we walk in the company of the woman with the flow of blood,
who audaciously sought her healing and release.

we walk in the company of mary magdalene,
who wept at the empty tomb until the risen christ appeared.

we walk in the company of phoebe,
who led an early church in the empire of rome.

we walk in the company of perpetua of carthage,
who witness in the third century led to her martyrdom.

we walk in the company of st. christian the astonishing,
who resisted death with persistence and wonder.

we walk in the company of julian of norwich,
who wed imagination and theology, proclaiming "all shall be well".

we walk in the company of sojourner truth,
who stood against oppression, righteously declaring in 1852, "ain't i a woman!"

we walk in the company of the argentine mothers of the plaza de mayo,
who turned their grief to strength, standing together to remember "the disappeared" children of war with a holy indignation.

we walk in the company of alice walker,
who named the lavender hue of womanly strength.

we walk in the company of you mothers of the faith,
who teach us to resist evil with boldness, to lead with wisdom, and to heal.

amen.

democracy wins: derek webb covers leonard cohen's 'hallelujah'

2010-11-30T13:23:00.003-06:00

since this past january, i've been blogging about derek webb's latest innovative project called democracy vol. 1. earlier this year, fans could cast votes for up to 12 songs that they wanted webb to cover. then, the 12 songs receiving the most votes would be covered by webb for the album. the album has been in the process of being recorded over the span of 2010, with 1 track being recorded and released each month. over the past 10 months, webb released the first ten tracks. here's the current track listing:

1. the beatles: while my guitar gently weeps
2. coldplay: fix you
3. bob dylan: the times they are a-changin'
4. gnarls barkley: who's gonna save my soul
5. sufjan stevens: chicago
6. u2: where the streets have no name
7. huey lewis and the news: power of love
8. the beatles: eleanor rigby
9. simon and garfunkel: the sound of silence
10. radiohead: karma police

instead of releasing the the full list of tracks, webb is revealing each track month-by-month. and today, we found out the eleventh one.

november's track is leonard cohen's hallelujah.

i have to be honest, when i first saw that it was yet another cover of hallelujah, i rolled my eyes. how many more covers of this song can we take!? :) but when i hit play, everything changed. it may be to quick to say, but this is probably my favorite song of the entire project. everything about it is right…because it's absolutely nothing that you would expect. instead of the more introspective versions we're used to hearing from jeff buckley and others, this is a rollicking, 60s throwback vibe. one of the first comparison that popped into my mind was the byrds and bands of that ilk. it's something you would hear on an austin powers soundtrack…and i mean that in the absolute best way possible. ;) it's fun, it's completely unexpected and because of that, it's brilliant.

it's a particularly great addition to an already great compilation of covers. but, don't take my word for it. check it out for yourself. here's the track.

derek webb / hallelujah:

bad apple: in response to the banned "anti-gay" app

2010-11-30T08:01:00.000-06:00

this is the kind of post that won't win me any friends. so, i ask that you keep an open mind and see this in a possible new light.

indeed, in many ways, this is a lose-lose situation. my progressive friends will criticize my defense of a group/cause that they view as hateful. my conservative friends will want me to take a firm stance on the issue of homosexuality. (and that's not even to mention my fellow apple fanboys after i criticize apple…) ;)

and yes, this post does offer a criticism of apple, which—not surprising to anyone who knows me—is my been my favorite company for well over 10 years. i've been accused of being an apple lemming, but the reality is that they won me over a very long time ago for their extraordinary and inspiring products. where i lose my lemming status, though, is in the fact that i don't think they're perfect and feel compelled to offer criticism when appropriate.

in this case, i feel it's appropriate.

over the last week, there's been quite a stir within the progressive blogosphere—originating, i believe, on the huffington post—about an app by the controversial manhattan declaration. if you don't know anything about the manhattan declaration, you can get an overview here. in essence, it's a manifesto issued by a prominent group of christian clergy/leaders that affirms their support of "the sanctity of life, traditional marriage, and religious liberty". in other words, it's just another conservative political push cloaked in religious language (read this if you think that's not a problem). in fairness, this is probably a tiny baby step left of the religious right due to its ecumenical nature, but with signatures from the likes of james dobson, chuck colson, tony perkins, al mohler and chuck swindoll, it still rests firmly on the far right side of the religio-political spectrum (and i have to hesitantly admit that timothy tennent, the new president of asbury—where i attended seminary—signed the declaration). just a casual perusal of their blog gives you an idea of their true colors.

bottom line, i'm not a fan of the declaration and given the opportunity (which we are), i wouldn't sign it or endorse it in any way. it's not so much that i disagree with every single bit of it (i do quite a bit of it), but that i think it's a relatively useless document that has very little to do with the things that i think jesus really cares about.

with that said…

the controversy concerns a manhattan declaration iphone app that was submitted, approved and added to the app store last month. the app included the full text, an opportunity to add your signature and some survey questions about gay marriage, abortion and other topics addressed in the declaration. once the huffington post got ahold of the story, other websites responded, including an online petition to apple to remove the app and "stop the hate".

today, apple removed the app.

i have a couple beefs. while many of you, my progressive friends, will disagree with this, i'm deeply bothered by the rhetoric—such as "anti-gay" and "hate"—about/towards people who share the beliefs of the MD authors. that type of language shows—in the absolute most definitional sense of the word—ignorance about those who hold those beliefs. what i mean is that i grew up surrounded by people who hold those beliefs and many of them simply have not arrived at them out of hate or ill will. many are very loving, caring people. certainly, some may have arrived at those views out of a limited understanding of scripture or their own ignorance, but many have not and many have not factored in hate. likewise, many people i know do hate gay people and do have ill will, but i also know that many do not, but rather have honest beliefs that come from thoughtful study of scripture. "hate" simply doesn't describe many of the people i know who aren't in favor of gay marriage.

when people who feel compelled by love and acceptance and equality hurl slurs at those with differing beliefs, you undermine your own message.

the second beef i have is, as previously stated, with apple. now, i've been the first person in the past to stand up for apple when it comes to them having the ability to be able to control the content within their own products. if they don't want to include flash, that their own business prerogative. if they have rigorous standards for which apps do and do not get into their app store, that's their business. but i think this case takes it to another level that i'm uncomfortable with.

now, let me clearly state that i'm not one to argue the slippery slope. trust me. in fact, i actually argue that the slippery slope argument is almost always a fallacy (but that's a whole other conversation). but… i simply thinks this sets a terrible precedent. in this case, it's the corporate equivalent of my first beef. it's basically using your bully pulpit of business/commerce to engage in the unhelpful rhetoric i described above. we live in such a terribly polarized religio-political culture and these types of things only exacerbate the problem. again, it's apple's party and they can invite (or uninvite) whomever they like, but i just think it sets an unfortunate precedent for big business (or anyone, for that matter) to push out anyone who doesn't subscribe to every jot and tittle of their beliefs.

again, i'm not a fan of the manhattan declaration at all. i think it's unhelpful and is largely an adventure in missing the point. but i believe it should still be in the app store. i believe that there shouldn't be so much of a strident backlash. more than anything, though, i believe there's a better way to talk about our differences than throwing around words like "anti-gay" and "hate".

so, what do you think?

from the babybyrds blog: it's beginning to look a lot like christmas…so be jesus.

2010-11-23T09:31:00.004-06:00

my wife seems to think that she has very little to say that is significant. that, of course, is far from the truth. whereas i spew forth my thoughts far too often on my blog, she blogs infrequently. so when she does, you know she probably has something important to say. today, over on the babybyrds blog, she shared some thoughts about what our family is doing for christmas and i thought it was worth sharing here. you can find her post here or read it below.

over the past several years, my feelings on christmas have begun to change. i love christmas. i mean, i really love christmas. it's the happiest time of the year. my birthday is on christmas eve, which is when ryan proposed to me many years ago...i love christmas. i could listen to christmas music all year round...but then it would just get old, so i don't.

i'm not going to rant and complain about how early people and businesses are putting up their christmas decorations...although it is a bit early. but i secretly enjoy it, so i can't complain about it.

i would like to share my thoughts on how we're doing christmas this year. over the past few years we've really limited the amount of gifts we've given our girls. i believe last year they each got 2 presents from us. and ryan and i haven't gotten each other anything in years. now, this all was not by choice...it's because we couldn't afford it. we usually take the money we get for christmas and buy something we can all use or need. however, i'm glad this tradition kind of accidentally happened.

every year i'm amazed at the obsession with shopping. the ridiculous spending and just the greed. i was shopping for olive's birthday present last weekend, and could barely get through the aisles...and it's not even thanksgiving. i just don't understand the "christmas shopping" phenomenon. it's insane. what about christmas says that we must buy everyone we know 15 presents? i don't know.

since lucy was born, we've always wanted to show our kids how we should help others in need. and not just at christmas time. and we haven't always been able to or taken the opportunities. however, last year we helped feed the homeless at an emergency shelter...and my eyes were opened. this year, we've been given an opportunity, as a church, to feed the homeless group that gather under the broadway bridge in downtown little rock. we will be feeding them the 4th friday of every month. this friday will be our first time, the day after thanksgiving. and next month will be on christmas eve. which is my birthday, and i'm more excited about spending my birthday with a bunch of homeless people than i have been in years!

today i was telling lucy what we were doing, and that she can come and help us. i told her that these people didn't have a home or food or anything really. and she immediately replied "can we give them our home?" and then she proceeded to work it out in her head that if we just had a bigger house, with a really long hallway, they could all stay with us :) she got to hang out at the shelter last year with us and i know she's picturing all the cots lined up in our "really long hallway." and i wish we could. i wish we could do SO much more than we are doing. i also think it's important for my kids to be a part of it first hand...how else will they learn. and the joy lucy and her friend, cash, brought to some of the people last year...priceless.

after some conversations at church, i realized that we have to make an effort to ignore the poverty and hurt that is right in front of our eyes. we were discussing the other night that unless you allow yourself to be face to face with these issues everyday...you'll never do anything about it. there are people hurting, no matter how they got where they are. no matter whose fault it was...they are hurting. no matter how uncomfortable it is for you...it's real. i know we can't save the world. but we can do what we can do.

this year, as a family, we have decided to put our efforts towards helping those that have nothing. i'm even pursing another outlet for our family to help out in other ways. all that said, i am NOT perfect, and am guilty of over-spending and buying things i don't need all the time. but i want my kids to know that christmas is not about presents. it's about jesus. and jesus helped, and fed, and clothed, and healed people. and i want them to be jesus to people who have nothing else. it's the least we can do.

if you'd like to join us, check out our blog at eikonchurch.com and feel free to come join us and help serve this friday!

a 2-year old olive

2010-11-21T13:30:00.000-06:00

today, our little olive turned 2 years old. instinctually, as a parent, you tend to say, "wow, i can't believe she's already 2", but we were talking a couple days ago and for us, we can't believe she's only 2. we really can't remember a time when olive wasn't here and that's probably the ultimate statement of how much of an impact she's had on our lives.

as cliché as it sounds, it really does seem like just yesterday that we were taking off for the hospital at 1:30 in the morning and seeing olive for the first time just a little after 5 a.m. (you can read the overview of those events here). time does fly when you have a sweet little girl that turns 2 without you realizing that even a day or a week has passed.

but without dwelling on too many of the overused descriptors, i thought i would offer a few thoughts on our little olive. the picture above really is the quintessential picture of olive. she's hilarious and literally no one makes me laugh more regularly than olive. as her vocabulary grows, she's begun saying such hilarious things.

one of the funny (yet equally frightening) things she's started doing lately is repeating everything lucy says. now, as parenthetically stated, it's definitely scary to think she's a mirror of lucy, but it also attests to the fact of how much she loves her big sister.

more than anything, though, olive is just beautiful. i know every parent thinks this, but there's just some spark in olive's little eyes that makes you melt when she looks at you. whether she's laughing or crying, olive is a beautiful reminder that she's a reflection of all of god's beauty and created perfection.

so, little olive, on your 2nd birthday, i love you. you have made my life more full and complete. you're a reflection of your beautiful big sister and stunning mother and you help me to see what max can be. you remind me to laugh when i don't feel like laughing and to cry tears of joy in those moments when nothing around me seems joyous. you melt my heart and repair it all at once.

i love you olive. happy birthday.

democracy wins: derek webb covers radiohead's 'karma police'

2010-11-19T11:34:00.002-06:00

since this past january, i've been blogging about derek webb's latest innovative project called democracy vol. 1. earlier this year, fans could cast votes for up to 12 songs that they wanted webb to cover. then, the 12 songs receiving the most votes would be covered by webb for the album. the album has been in the process of being recorded over the span of 2010, with 1 track being recorded and released each month. over the past 9 months, webb released the first nine tracks. here's the current track listing:

1. the beatles: while my guitar gently weeps
2. coldplay: fix you
3. bob dylan: the times they are a-changin'
4. gnarls barkley: who's gonna save my soul
5. sufjan stevens: chicago
6. u2: where the streets have no name
7. huey lewis and the news: power of love
8. the beatles: eleanor rigby
9. simon and garfunkel: the sound of silence

instead of releasing the the full list of tracks, webb is revealing each track month-by-month. and ~~today~~ a couple weeks ago (yeah yeah, i'm a little behind…), we found out the tenth one.

october's track is was radiohead's karma police.

interestingly, upon my very first listen, i was a bit unsure of how i felt about the track. i'm not a huge radiohead fan, but you quickly see how good they are when someone else tries to re-interpret their song. BUT, as i began to revisit the track multiple times, it began to make more and more sense to me and i found myself really liking it. webb's take on it is really interesting because i could see it—if it was a bit more fully realized—fitting in on stockholm syndrome. it's a little more bouncy than that album's tracks, but in terms of its sonic nature and lyrical content, i could see it as a good b-side to something like jena & jimmy or even becoming a slave (maybe??).

all in all, it's a great addition to an already great compilation of covers. but, don't take my word for it. check it out for yourself. here's the track.

derek webb / karma police:

i hate mustard [and other reasons why us americans have a hard time being like jesus]

2010-11-16T08:02:00.000-06:00

i really do hate mustard. i hate the flavor and just as much (or even more), i hate the smell. admittedly, i don't like many condiments. i can eat ketchup in relatively limited quantities and i like barbecue sauce (in relatively limited quantities) and, well, a couple other condiments in—you guessed it—relatively limited quantities. but most condiments, i just don't like (in limited or unlimited quantities…).

and mustard ranks very near the top.

but i'll get back to that shortly.

as i've mentioned very recently, i'm currently a part of a book group at our church in which we're reading shane claiborne'sjesus for president. it's been great to re-read it (i read it a couple years ago and blogged briefly about it here) and now revisit it in the context of community. i was reading last night and this one particular passage stood out to me regarding jesus, christians, the church and the issue of power and influence.

here in america, we like being king of the hill. we love to be on top, the ones with the power. not only politically and economically do we love having the upper-hand, but those who call themselves christians have often basked in the majority of citizens who share that moniker. we are truly one of the most christianized nations in the world. but what people are often surprised to find out is that it isn't the united states of ~~jesus~~ america—the land of religious freedom and separation of church and state—where christianity is flourishing. rather, it's oppressed peoples in nations where christianity isn't the king of hill like many african countries (ethiopia and the congo are predicted to more than triple their christian population by 2050) and china. christianity is growing rapidly in underground churches and in places where the people are powerless.

which brings me back to mustard, naturally.

see, i hate mustard and whereas most people do not, they might hate mustard seeds if they knew anything about them. i certainly knew virtually nothing about them, but many farmers know about them far too well. such was the case during jesus' time, which made it all the more powerful when he used them as an analogy for the church and god's kingdom. claiborne writes a bit about this and i thought it was worth sharing here. it's somewhat lengthy, but well worth the read and your consideration.

Yeast and mustard, both of which were known for their infectious spreading qualities, seem to be unlikely metaphors for God's kingdom.

Jews were not big fans of yeast, which is why Jesus used it to describe the infectious arrogance of the Pharisees that everyone was to beware of. So, the, for the folks not digging the year imagery, he said that God's kingdom is like mustard. Probably they didn't like that any better.

We've all heard plenty of cute sermons about the mustard seed parable, how God takes little seeds and makes big trees out of them, but there's much more going on here.

Matthew strategically place the mustard parable in the middle of the story about the weeds and wheat. He told his listeners that that the kingdom of God is like mustard, which grows like a wild bush. Farmers say it's like kudzu, and a cit preacher once compared it to the wild weeks that grow out of abandoned houses and crack the sidewalks. The mustard seed's growth would have been familiar to first-century Jews, since many of theme were framers and peasant well acquainted with its way of taking over gardens. It might even have been growing in the wild around them where Jesus spoke.

Jews valued order and had very strict rules about how to keep a tidy garden, and one of the secrets was to keep out mustard. It was notorious for invading well-trimmed veggies an other plants and quickly taking over the entire garden. (Kind of like how yeast works its way through dough…hmm.) Jewish law even forbade planting mustard in the garden (m. Kil. 3:2; t. Kil. 2:8). When those first-century peasants heard Jesus' images, they probably giggled, or maybe they told him to hush before he got himself killed for using this infamous plant to describe God's kingdom subtly taking over the world.

Plenty of people had lofty expectations of the kingdom coming in spectacular triumph and were familiar with the prophets' well-known "cedars of Lebanon" imagery, which described the kingdom as a giant redwood—the greatest of all trees. The cedars of Lebanon as a metaphor for the kingdom would have brought some enthusiastic amens from the crowd, gotten some people dancing. But Jesus ridiculed this triumphal expectation. After all, even mature mustard plants stand only a few feet high—modest little bushes.

What Jesus had in mind was not a frontal attack on the empires of this world. His revolution is a subtle contagion—one little life, one little hospitality house at a time. Isn't it interesting that Saul of Tarsus went door-to-door (Acts 8:3) trying to tear up the contagion, like it was a weed? But the harder people tried to eradicate it, the fast it spread. When mustard is crushed, its potency is released. AS we say, "in the blood of the martyrs lies the seed of the church." Paul caught—the mustard weed grabbed him. Another convert we love is Minucius Felix, who, as a persecutor of the early Christians, had this to say about the followers of the Way: "They form a profane conspiracy" infecting the Roman Empire, "and just like a rank growth of weeds…it should at all costs be exterminated, root and branch."

Mustard also has always been know for it fiery potency. IN the days before the Roman Empire, ti was a sign of power. Darius, King of the Persians, invaded Europe and was met by Alexander the Great. Darius sent Alexander a bag of sesame seeds as a taunt, indicated by the seeds the vast multitude of soldiers he had. Alexander send back a bag of mustard seed with the message, "You may be many, but we are powerful. We can handle you." And they did.

So there goes Jesus spinning power on its head again. His power was not in crushing but in being cursed, triumphing over the empire's sword with his cross. Mustard must be crushed, ground, broken for its power to be released. John's gospel describes Jesus' death and resurrection as a seed that is broken: "Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seed" (John 12:24). This is the crazy mystery that we celebrate, a christ whose body is torn apart and whose blood is spilled like the grains and grapes of the Eucharist that gives us life. Mustard was also known for healing and rubbed on the chest to help with breathing, sort of like Vicks vapor rub. Mustard, a wild contagion of a weed, a healing balm, a sign of upside-down power—official sponsor of the Jesus revolution.

THE RESULTS ARE IN!: the best pizza in little rock

2010-11-12T07:58:00.000-06:00

earlier this week, i posted a poll that allowed you, the readers, to determine one of life's most pressing questions: who has the best pizza in little rock?

i asked. you (well, 59 of you…which is better than i expected) responded.

before i get to the results, allow me to make a couple statements. first, since i know you're all just dying to know, my favorite pizza in little rock is iriana's (followed by probably damgoode & vino's). it just so happens that it's across the street from my office, so i can only surmise that i'm fulfilling god's will by loving it. right? while iriana's didn't finish first, it had a respectable showing.

second, during the voting, as i talked to people about how they voted, i was struck by the way in which people would talk about their vote. despite the fact that i was asking only about the quality/taste of the pizza, people consistently made comments like, _________________ is just a cool place to hang out or __________________ is lame. certainly, we have a very vibrant culture of eating out and one of the things that is most prominent in the experience of eating out is a restaurant's decor, location and culture. bottom line, you give me a dilapidated warehouse with amazing food and match it against a really amazing atmosphere with good-but-not-amazing food, the vast majority of people are going to be drawn to the amazing atmosphere. in the food industry, for the average guest, experience wins almost every time.

what i'm trying to get at is that i'd love to see this poll conducted in a neutral environment. more to the point, i'd like to get a group of people who've had none of these pizzas (and been to none of these restaurants) and conduct a blind taste test. i'm not saying i'm certain that the results would be dramatically different, but, well, i'm relatively confident the results might look somewhat different. (with all that said, i don't necessarily "disagree" with the vote, but it's simply to say there are limitations to the results…much like any casual surveying.)

with all that said, the numbers are the numbers. you can view a ridiculous pie chart below (sorry people, i couldn't resist…), but here are the raw numbers.

1. damgoode pies: 40.2% (24 votes)
2. iriana's pizza: 25.5% (15 votes)
3. shotgun dan's pizza: 13.7% (8 votes)
4. zaza fine salad & wood-oven pizza co: 8.6% (5 votes)
5. us pizza co: 6.9% (4 votes)
6. american pie pizza: 1.7% (1 vote)
7. gusano's pizzeria: 1.7% (1 vote)
8. vino's brewpub: 1.7% (1 vote)

a veterans day prayer of peace by shane claiborne

2010-11-11T09:28:00.003-06:00

i find veteran's day to be a tricky day of observance and remembrance (those who know me well and have read this blog for any amount of time won't be surprised by that statement). on one hand, i genuinely cannot fathom the depth of commitment and self-sacrifice by our country's veterans (i certainly haven't been willing to it). they have truly put themselves in harm's way (ultimately leading to death for countless numbers) for the sake of millions of people they have never and will never meet. i have a rich history of military service throughout my family, with many uncles and grandfathers and everyone in between serving in wars such as korea and vietnam to the latest mission in iraq/afghanistan. so certainly, on the one hand, i'm genuinely thankful.

on the other hand, though, as a follower of jesus, i can't run from the fact that our country has a shameful tradition of war and brutality throughout the world (not to mention on our own soil). it's shocking that so many people fiercely argue that we are a "christian nation" when our country has engaged and is currently engaging in killing through military power. these things are simply incompatible with following in the radically peaceful way of jesus.

i realize that any time someone starts a conversation about these things, they are instantly called unpatriotic or unamerican or simply ungrateful, provoking peoples' most deeply held allegiances to both god and country.

but i'd rather reframe the conversation. i think there's a better way to honor our veterans.

instead of celebrating our bloody history and instead of, as a follower of jesus, pointing the finger at those who have engaged in war, i'd like to offer a prayer of peace. this prayer certainly offers repentance for our past sins as a nation, but, more than anything, looks toward a time in which we no longer have to celebrate our veterans for the bloodshed in which they've participated, but the peacemaking they've engaged in throughout the world. this is a future that we can and should all rally around.

i'm currently a part of a book group at our church in which we're reading shane claiborne's jesus for president. just a few weeks in, the group has spawned some great conversation and i think we've all grown through the challenging text. in one of the appendices, claiborne offers a "litany of resistance". in essence, it's a prayer of response designed to be read and prayed together in a communal setting. (if you'd like to see it actually happening in real life, here's a video of claiborne leading it at the catalyst conference a couple years ago.)

my subtext to this prayer is that it is much more of an honor to veterans than a simple remembrance of war and the use of power.

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Jesus For President Litany of Resistance
Created with the help of our friends Jim Loney (CPT Reservist) and Brian Walsh (activist theologian)

One: Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world
All: Have mercy on us
One: Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world
All: Free us from the bondage of sin and death
One: Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world
All: Hear our prayer. Grant us peace.

One: For the victims of war
All: Have mercy
One: Women, men and children
All: Have mercy
One: The maimed and the crippled
All: Have mercy
One: The abandoned and the homeless
All: Have mercy
One: the imprisoned and the tortured
All: Have mercy
One: The widowed and the orphaned
All: Have mercy
One: The bleeding and the dying
All: Have mercy
One: The weary and the desperate
All: Have mercy
One: The lost and the forsaken
All: Have mercy

One: O God -- Have mercy on us sinners
All: Forgive us for we know not what we do
One: For our scorched and blackened earth
All: Forgive us
One: For the scandal of billions wasted in war
All: Forgive us
One: For our arms makers and arms dealers
All: Forgive us
One: For our Caesars and Herods
All: Forgive us
One: For the violence that is rooted in our hearts
All: Forgive us

One: For the times we turn others into enemies
All: Forgive us
One: Deliver us, O God
All: Guide our feet into the way of peace
One: Hear our prayer.
All: Grant us peace.

One: From the arrogance of power
All: Deliver us
One: From the myth of redemptive violence
All: Deliver us
One: From the tyranny of greed
All: Deliver us
One: From the ugliness of racism
All: Deliver us
One: From the cancer of hatred
All: Deliver us
One: From the seduction of wealth
All: Deliver us
One: From the addiction of control
All: Deliver us
One: From the idolatry of nationalism
All: Deliver us
One: From the paralysis of cynicism
All: Deliver us
One: From the violence of apathy
All: Deliver us
One: From the ghettos of poverty
All: Deliver us
One: From the ghettos of wealth
All: Deliver us
One: From a lack of imagination
All: Deliver us
One: Deliver us, O God
All: Guide our feet into the way of peace
One: We will not conform to the patterns of this world
All: Let us be transformed by the renewing of our minds
One: With the help of God’s grace
All: Let us resist evil wherever we find it

One: With the waging of war
All: We will not comply
One: With the legalization of murder
All: We will not comply
One: With the slaughter of innocents
All: We will not comply
One: With laws that betray human life
All: We will not comply
One: With the destruction of community
All: We will not comply
One: With the pointing finger and malicious talk
All: We will not comply
One: With the idea that happiness must be purchased
All: We will not comply
One: With the ravaging of the earth
All: We will not comply
One: With principalities and powers that oppress
All: We will not comply
One: With the destruction of peoples
All: We will not comply
One: With the raping of women
All: We will not comply
One: With governments that kill
All: We will not comply
One: With the theology of empire
All: We will not comply
One: With the business of militarism
All: We will not comply
One: With the hoarding of riches
All: We will not comply
One: With the dissemination of fear
All: We will not comply

One: Today we pledge our ultimate allegiance… to the Kingdom of God
All: We pledge allegiance
One: To a peace that is not like Rome’s
All: We pledge allegiance
One: To the Gospel of enemy love
All: We pledge allegiance
One: To the Kingdom of the poor and broken
All: We pledge allegiance
One: To a King that loves his enemies so much he died for them

All: We pledge allegiance
One: To the least of these, with whom Christ dwells
All: We pledge allegiance
One: To the transnational Church that transcends the artificial borders of nations
All: We pledge allegiance
One: To the refugee of Nazareth
All: We pledge allegiance
One: To the homeless rabbi who had no place to lay his head
All: We pledge allegiance
One: To the cross rather than the sword
All: We pledge allegiance
One: To the banner of love above any flag
All: We pledge allegiance
One: To the one who rules with a towel rather than an iron fist
All: We pledge allegiance
One: To the one who rides a donkey rather than a war-horse
All: We pledge allegiance
One: To the revolution that sets both oppressed and oppressors free
All: We pledge allegiance
One: To the Way that leads to life
All: We pledge allegiance
One: To the Slaughtered Lamb
All: We pledge allegiance
One: And together we proclaim his praises, from the margins of the empire to the centers of wealth and power
All: Long Live the Slaughtered Lamb
One: Long Live the Slaughtered Lamb
All: Long Live the Slaughtered Lamb

VOTE NOW! who has the best pizza in little rock?

2010-11-08T08:07:00.007-06:00

// THE VOTING HAS ENDED (AS OF 4 P.M. ON 11/10/2010). RESULTS WILL BE POSTED SHORTLY. //

according to the usda, there are 4 major food groups: grains, fruits/vegetables, dairy and meats/beans. while i certainly don't want to question their authority, it's clear—in my life—that they left out a 5th group: pizza.

indeed, pizza could be its own food group. i could eat it at virtually every meal (ok, even for me, breakfast is a stretch…). eating pizza is simply a duty of any god-fearing, america-loving person, right? at the core essence of living and being is consuming pizza. it's truly the modern day manna of our society.

ok, so maybe that's all a little hyperbolic, but needless to say, pizza is a staple of the american diet.

it just so happens that little rockians (rockers??) are in luck when it comes to pizza, because, as one local restauranteur has said, little rock is a "pizza town". relative to its size, there are quite a few locally-owned pizza places—most of which are great. i've had quite a few friendly debates about which one is best. people are surprisingly passionate about their love (or hate) for various local pizza places.

so, it's time to poll the masses and help to settle the debate. i want to find out what you think is the best pizza in little rock. i've got my feelings (and i'll offer them later), but i thought we'd find some sort of consensus—some sort of data—that can be used as debate fodder in our friendly, yet heated pizza debates.

on the following form, please choose your favorite pizza in little rock. if yours is not listed, please choose "other" and type in your favorite pizza. (please note that you can only vote once…so make it worth it!)

the polls will be open until wednesday (11.10.2010) at 4 p.m., so vote now!

happy voting!

[IMPORTANT NOTE :: i'm not interested in anything other than pizza. no salads, no calzones, no pretty pictures on the walls, no desserts, etc. here's a couple of examples: the salad at zaza has no bearing on this poll. the calzones at vino's have no bearing on this poll. both are really, really good, but have no place in a poll about pizza. ok, as you were…]

------------------------------// ~~CLICK HERE TO VOTE!~~ //------------------------------

offering some feedback: first impressions of derek webb's ambitious worship project

2010-11-04T07:58:00.001-05:00

just over a year ago, twitter followers of derek webb curiously pondered whether or not he was joking when he tweeted the following:

ok, i know i've joked about it before but it crystalized today and i've decided. seriously. i'm making a worship record this year.less than a minute ago via Twitter for iPhonederek webb
derekwebb

wait. are we getting punk'd? webb has been a long-time critic of the type of industry machine that churns out vacuous, pop-driven worship albums and now he was going to create one? surely he was messing with us.

but a couple days ago, we received tangible proof that he was, in fact, not messing with us when he released his latest project, feedback, an instrumental electronic worship album based on the lord's prayer (yes, you read that correctly…).

and that's a very good thing.

before i jump into some thoughts, here's some context. on his newly launched website, he offers this artist's statement:

Worship is a complicated idea. Arguably, it’s what we all do, 24 hours a day (regardless of what we’re worshipping). And I’m aware of a lot of “worship product” in the marketplace I sometimes occupy. So I was cautious when I first started receiving the coordinates that would lead me to make ‘Feedback’. It was immediately conceptual and ambitious, so much so that I genuinely wasn’t sure I could do it. But this seemed to be the perfect posture in which to create something worthy of being called a “worshipful” piece of art. So I studied, meditated, struggled and prayed my way through this creative process, and it’s easily the most challenging thing I’ve done in my career. But I believe it’s been worth it, even just for the ways it’s stretched both my creative process and my faith as a follower of the Way.

additionally, just before the album released, artist matthew smith tweeted "seven things you didn't know" about webb's new project. i'm not sure if i ultimately agree with every one, but they definitely offer some context and insight. here's his 7 things:

1. SANDRA MCCRACKEN IS A STRONG PRESENCE. Her sense of melody is all over this record. And the musical partnership works seamlessly.
2. INSTRUMENTAL DOESN’T MEAN NO SINGING. Vocals are used as an instrument, with a good deal of singing, but without words.
3. CLASSICALLY COMPOSED DOESN’T MEAN CLASSICAL. Modern instrumentation, classically structured. Can't be confused with Mozart.
4. WORSHIP RECORD? IT’S A SOUNDTRACK. A soundtrack to prayer. If you're down w/ http://read.ly/1Thess5.17.NLT, it’s a soundtrack to life.
5. IT'S NOT A THROWAWAY SIDE PROJECT. Don’t skip it because it’s not a standard pop release. Derek's not a standard pop artist.
6. IT’S A SIGN OF THINGS TO COME. He's using programming to create expansive sonic landscapes without budget constraints. Brilliant.
7. IT WILL OFFEND YOU. It’s art that invites you to engage, not just consume. These days, that's more scandalous than swear words.

so that offers a little context. let me hop into my reactions to the music, specifically (for the time being, at least, until i have a chance to further engage the visual art pieces). it's hard to sufficiently capture the essence of the project in rather lifeless words here on my blog, but i'll attempt to offer a bit of the spirit of each track, grouped into 3 movements.

MOVEMENT I
our father in heaven
this track begins with a slow build, almost cinematic in nature, like something moving toward a horizon—or something far away moving toward us as a listener. it's almost an awakening, like god—engaged in this lord's prayer—is joining us. with its epic piano and strings, it's an invitation for the listener to participate in the worship.

hallowed is your name
like its name, this track is the most hallowed—the most sacred—track on the album. in many ways, it's the most "traditional" worship sound webb offers, with an ethereal piano and synth line that runs throughout. it's probably also one of the most abstract pieces, which sort of speaks to a certain mystery.

your kingdom come
have i mentioned that derek webb is a huge fan of arcade fire? whether i have or not, you could gather it from this track. this is webb's wake up from 2004's funeral (think of the last 2 minutes of the track or, more accurately, the re-recorded version for where the wild things are). this is the moment where the album really comes alive, with a joyous sense of whimsy and energy. when coldplay is at its best, they beautifully build and layer songs until a big crescendo and that's exactly what webb does with your kingdom come about halfway through the song. if any song truly personifies its title, this is it. take a listen to your kingdom come:

your will be done on earth as in heaven
like the previous track, there are hints of arcade fire, but in a very, very different way. it begins dark and chaotic, once again with a cinematic feel (almost like something that would work in the opening credits of a coen brothers film). it actually sounds like something that could have found life on last year's stockholm syndrome, with its merge of synth overlays and pop sensibilities. much like your kingdom come's auditory personification, this track also offers a pretty stark embodiment of this merging of heaven and earth. as the track progresses, there's an interplay between dark and light, contrasting aggressive, dissonant guitars with glitchy, tech sounds. in the end, (much like the ending of the 2nd movement), we hear what sounds like webb leaving the studio, getting in his car and driving away. it hints at the need to step away or process what you've heard in the first movement.

MOVEMENT II
give us this day our daily bread
to begin the 2nd movement, webb offers a bit of a palate cleanser. it's the most mellow vibe of any track, with a sort of john mayer-esque electric guitar to it (look, i know that to some that's a horrific thing, but the guy can play a guitar and write a catchy song). after a sort of angelic choir sound, the track builds to a brief crescendo, tapping back into small hints of the arcade fire sound found in the last few tracks.

forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors
this is one of the most whimsical tracks, sounding almost circus-like. we hear what sounds like female (sandra mccracken?) vocals early and later switches to what is clearly derek webb. throughout the track, the two vocal tones go back-and-forth, creating a bit of a nod to the opposing factions in the track's title. ultimately, beyond the final track, amen, this is the most prominent use of vocals.

lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil
much like your will be done…, this track is one of the darker songs on the album. with a heavy piano, it's actually reminiscent to webb's september democracy vol. 1 track, simon and garfunkel's sound of silence. in my review of that song, i compared it to the eery piano part in nine inch nails' closer. whereas this isn't exactly that type of vibe, it's a marriage between that and the smashing pumpkins' opening track from mellon collie & the infinite sadness (titled the same). in the end, in contrast to the closing song of the first movement, we once again here the sound of someone driving a car, but it sounds as if the driver is returning to the studio after having driven, rather than leaving.

MOVEMENT III
for thine is a) the kingdom b) the power c) the glory forever and ever
in kicking off the 3rd and final movement, webb once again picks up the vibe after a rather dark close to the 2nd movement. this track is probably the most "traditional" techno type of sound. it instantly reminded of sufjan stevens' latest album, the age of adz, in the sense that it takes traditional instrumentation and then layers it over with synths and glitches and bloops. the track, much like the title, seems to have 3 distinct parts: kingdom, power & glory. the kingdom section is synthy and exuberant (much like the track your kingdom come). power is much more strong and march-like with more aggressive sounds. finally, glory is transcendent, with sort of angelic vocals introduced again (harkening back to give us this day…). the end of the track leads us directly into the final moment of the worship experience.

amen
this is easily my favorite track on the album, not just because it's a truly vocal track, but because it's the one track that truly lifts you into a different place—into some kind of transcendent other-world. webb begins with a singular amen and then is joined by a chorus of crowd-sourced amens (he tweeted a time and location and people showed up to sing along). it's really an incredibly beautiful track and was exactly the closing note a project like this needed. take a listen to amen:

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there will be blood?: a beautiful story of the cross

2010-11-03T08:01:00.001-05:00

one of the conversations that i just can't get into all that much is the atonement theory debate. while i find it very narrow and unhelpful that penal substitution is the only way to view jesus' sacrifice on the cross, i just don't have a tremendous amount of interest in debating it until i'm blue in the face.

with that said, i've been considering the nature of "salvation" and the nature of jesus' death on the cross lately after a couple prompts. first, we—in an "open mic" night at eikon church—discussed our interpretations of the nature of salvation. what is salvation? is it a moment or a process? do we ever fully attain salvation? or is it there inherently? in addition to that, tony jones blogged several days ago about whether or not a blood sacrifice was required by god for our sins. in other words, is the penal substitutionary theory the only acceptable atonement theory? these things simply sparked some thought, regardless of whether or not i feel passionate about some kind of consuming debate (like many have had over the last few years).

in jones' blog post, he linked to an emergent village post from a couple years ago in which they announced a contest for alternate atonement theories. i remembered the contest, but didn't remember reading the winning submission by professor/author steve sherwood. it's a truly beautiful (but simple, accessible) piece worth sharing here.

let me just say that i'm posting this here without direct permission, but my hope is that mr. sherwood would appreciate his beautiful view of jesus' sacrifice being shared, even 2 years after being written for a silly little internet contest. :)

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This is written as a talk/sermon. I work in Young Life and have given versions of this as talks spread over a couple of days at YL camps (and as you might guess from YL’s recent controversy, had both very positive and not so positive responses). I’ve tried to meld a couple talks into one here in a way that isn’t too stilted. I’m attempting to present the atonement in a way that affirms the reality and severity of sin, the need for substitution or ‘sin/shame bearing’ by an innocent party and the achievement of not a ‘legal fiction’ but an actual change in relationship while doing so outside of the metaphoric world of penal substitution. Essentially, non-penal substitutionary atonement.
—Steve Sherwood

Three Stories of Grace
At the very heart of the Christian faith is the death of Jesus on the cross. The vast majority of Christians would affirm, in some way, that ‘Jesus saves us from our sins.’ That said, what in the world really happened there? What did it mean? How did Jesus dying on the cross ‘save’ us? From what? From God’s anger?

Christians have wrestled with these questions and more for 2000 years. Predominantly, especially over the last 400 years or so, we have done this in the world of ‘concepts’ and ‘propositions’. I’d like to propose a different way of looking at it. Not a way that will answer every question or cross every ‘t’ and dot every ‘I’, but a way that I think is true to the heart of the story of scripture, true to God and in a way that makes sense to how we actually experience ourselves in the world.

I believe God, in both the Old Testament and the New, gives us two very interesting clues, or frameworks through which to understand the cross. In both cases, the clues come in the same way, the telling of stories.

In the Old Testament book of Hosea, God directs Hosea to enter into a marriage, a living story of sorts, to illustrate the way God feels about Israel (and by extension, all of us). In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus is asked why he spends so much time with ‘sinners’, he answers by telling three stories, the key of which is the third, a story about a father who had two sons. In both cases, I believe, God is saying, “Do you want to know who I am, what I’m about? Let me tell you a story.” These stories tell us worlds about whom God is, what is wrong with us and what Jesus’ life and death were about.

Unrequited Love
God tells Hosea to marry Gomer because what happens in his relationship with his wife will mirror God’s relationship to Israel. We don’t know how quickly, but things go horribly wrong. Gomer cheats on Hosea. Not once, but repeatedly and brazenly. Amazingly, Hosea’s love is undaunted by the humiliation and rejection he receives from Gomer.

At various points he showers her with gifts to win her love again. She takes them and gives them to her lovers. He devises romantic schemes; to ‘take her into the wilderness and speak tenderly to her’ (a romantic picnic with personally written love poems) to woo her back. To no avail.

Hosea can’t stop loving Gomer. She rejects him at every turn. This isn’t just a story about two people. Remember, the whole point here is God saying, “This is me. This is how I love you, Israel!” Where any spouse would reject the one who had caused so much pain, Hosea loves on. Of course he does, his love mirrors God’s.

A Ridiculous Dad
Ancient Jewish culture had a very strict sense of honor. To be the male head of a family was to be the center of a world built around the giving and maintaining of your honor. If a Jewish father was shamed by a child, maintaining honor took precedence over familial love. True disgrace brought literal exclusion from the family. A father would hold a funeral for the offending child. All mention of him would be forbidden. “How is your son?” “What son, I have no son. My son is dead.” That is the way of honor.

How shocking then when Jesus tells a story about a very different Dad. A Dad whose youngest son has come to him demanding that the father liquidate his assets so the son not have to wait until the father’s death to get his share of the family inheritance. Basically, “Dad, I wish you were dead. All you are to me is an obstacle to wealth.”

The father does it. And, what’s even more amazing, he doesn’t have the expected funeral for his insolent son.

Let’s be really clear here, before going on. This story is NOT about the son. It comes as the last of a group of three stories (the lumping of three ideas together being profoundly significant in Jewish culture) all of which are on the same theme. Something precious has been lost and the one who has lost it will not rest until it is found. A shepherd with a lost sheep, a woman with a lost coin, a father with a lost son. This is not a story about the son, but about the father.

The Road to the Cross
We were created for relationship. With God, with one another. And for awhile, we experienced that. In Genesis, for awhile, God walked in the Garden with Adam. Adam and Ever were naked, but not ashamed (free from the need to hide, free from self-consciousness).

Quickly things go wrong. Whatever one things of the historicity of the snake and the apple, the ‘truth’ of the story is irrefutable. Humanity begins to focus upon itself. To value ‘self’ above all else, to ‘want what I want’, to turn from the open arms of God. Like Gomer turns from Hosea, like the son takes the money and runs from his father, humanity walks away from God.

BUT, like Hosea, God won’t rest with that. He pursues. He woos. First with one man, Abraham and then with his family. Later, rescuing the Israelites from slavery in Egypt only to be rejected by them. As the Israelites head out into 40 years of suffering in the wilderness because of their rebellion, God does an amazing thing, something never before experienced by humanity. God says, “Build me a tent, because I’m coming with you.”

The story of God is now set in motion. Act I: we are loved by God and created to relate to God. Act II: we walk away from Love. Act III: God ‘hears the cry of my people crying out in their suffering and have set about to rescue them’ and says, in the face of humanities suffering, ‘I will dwell with you. I will enter in.’

Over a 1000 years later Jesus is born. Jesus is ‘Emmanuel, God with us.’ This isn’t a new idea in the mind of God. This is who God is. This is the God who suffers with Israel in the wilderness. This is the God who tells Hosea to keep loving. This is a God who is like a father who does not disown the son who has brought him shame.

From Very Bad to Much Worse
Things unravel for Gomer. One can rely on looks and sensuality for only so long. Eventually she becomes a prostitute. Even that dries up. In ancient Israel, if one becomes so destitute that one’s debts can’t be paid, you could sell yourself as a slave. That is what it comes to for Gomer.

Things aren’t any better for the son. He lives the highlife for awhile, but the money runs out and things get desperate. In the end, he takes a job working for a pig farmer, standing up to his knees in pig manure envying the slop they have to eat. He thinks to himself, “Even slaves in my father’s house had it better than this.”

Humanity is lost. Like Gomer and like the son we have wandered far from home and can’t find our way back. Our efforts to be god of our own lives end up as bankrupt and desperate as Gomer’s indebtedness and the son’s filth wallowing hunger.

What would YOU do?
Hosea shows up for the sale. Why not, right? After who knows how many humiliations and wounds it’s time for a little payback. Why not go watch the final degradation of the one who’s hurt him so much. This ought to be good.

The son hits on a plan. “I can’t go home again. That’s gone. Dad has had a funeral for me. I no longer have a father. BUT, maybe I can be HIS slave instead of this filthy pig farmer’s. That would be better than this.” And so he sets off with a plan. He knows what he’ll have to do. His father probably won’t consent to see him. He’ll make him wait outside the door. Eventually, maybe he’ll be allowed in. Of course, he’ll have to crawl into his father’s presence, face scraping the floor to confess his sin and pitch his plan. Hopefully, if he grovels enough, and because he remembers what a good master his father is, his father will relent and allow him to become a slave.

This is how God is with us, right? All those Old Testament sacrifices. “I’m pissed off, but if you burn enough animals, maybe you can buy me off.” It’s a pretty natural way to view what happens in the Old Testament. Especially, if we think, “how would I respond if I were God, Hosea, the father?” The vital thing to realize is that God is NOT like us, however. God has already placed Israel in a unique relationship, the sacrifices help maintain the gift already given.

Things take a stunning turn
Hosea not only shows up at the auction, he makes a bid. He must REALLY want revenge, right? Not enough just to watch Gomer’s humiliation, he’s going to buy her back and keep the payback coming! BUT...he doesn’t. As Gomer walks down from the block, Hosea says something unbelievable to her. “I have bought you, not that you should call me master, but that you would call me Husband.” After everything, Hosea’s still bent on reconciliation! Still bent upon a return to a relationship of love!

The father sees the son, the son he should have ‘buried’ long ago and does NOT retreat to his seat of honor, giving the servant’s instructions on how the humiliation will play out. HE humiliates HIMSELF. He sets off on a series of actions that pile humiliation and shame upon any Jewish male who would do them. He runs in public. He embraces his swine crap caked son. He kisses him, showing emotion in public! He removes his cloak and ring (signs of prestige, position and honor) and places them on his son! The son launches into his speech, but the father shuts him up. “You were dead and now you are alive. You were lost and now you are found!” Again, a father not bent on payback and retribution but upon reconciliation and relationship. None of his actions make sense in the world of honor, they only make sense in the world of reconciliation and love.

God goes to the cross. Jesus, who is still just as much Emmanuel~God with us on the day of his death as he was on the day of his birth, goes to the cross. Gomer’s indebtedness had to be paid off. The son’s shame had to be removed. The sin of humanity has to be dealt with. But, just as Hosea’s goal is not retribution but restoration and just as the father shames himself to be relationally restored with his son, Jesus does not go to the cross to pay off God’s wrath. He goes to the cross to complete the restoration to relationship that God the Father has yearned for from the start.

Reconciliation comes at a great cost to Hosea and to the father. Both set aside honor and ‘their rights’ to bring reconciliation to the one they love. They, the innocent party, ‘bear the penalty’, the shame brought on by another, in order to restore the one that was lost. Likewise, Jesus, the visible expression of God’s heart toward humanity, endures the cross. Not to ‘satisfy the wrath of God’ but to satisfy God’s love.

Hosea to Gomer, father to son, God to humanity: “Welcome home! I’ve missed you so!”

listen to the new track, 'exorcist' from kevin max

2010-10-29T12:02:00.005-05:00

today, via a newly launched (and admittedly atrocious, flash-based) website, kevin max released a new special track for halloween, titled exorcist. long-time fans of max know that halloween—for him—is the near equivalent of yom kippur for jews. ok, that may be a little strong…but only a little. :)

the track is good. not great, but good. it's very cinematic and no doubt, it charismatically nods to halloween (a.k.a. it's a little over-the-top). in describing the track's meaning, via his tumblr, max writes,

The song was written as a love song, ‘The Exorcist’ being the person trying to get the negativity in their partner to rise to the surface, and eventually throw it out entirely. It can also be taken literally, in the spiritual sense, an ‘Exorcist’ can be anyone who seeks to help a person with some form of possession be it demonic or otherwise. The Roman Catholic church has sanctioned ‘Exorcism’s’ through time, but the original ‘Exorcist’ was Christ himself-throwing out demons in the name of the Father. I like to look at this song as more of a poem, and when i wrote it, it wasn’t to be taken in literal application, but more of a romantic dalliance between two tortured souls.

so there you go. very kevin max-ish.

without further ado, here's kevin max's exorcist:

in response to hate: a few thoughts on clint mccance

2010-10-28T07:55:00.000-05:00

wow.

that's literally all i could say when i read the now-infamous facebook updates/comments by midland school board member clint mccance. not rage. not anger. not disbelief. not shock. not surprise. just, wow. but i'll get to why i responded that way shortly.

just in case you've been segregated from any shred of media in the last 24 hours, here's what mr. mccance shared on his (now-deleted) facebook page:

Seriously they want me to wear purple because five queers killed themselves. The only way im wearin it for them is if they all commit suicide. I cant believe the people of this world have gotten this stupid. We are honoring the fact that they sinned and killed thereselves because of their sin. REALLY PEOPLE.

it, of course, didn't stop there. in the comments, mccance continued:

No because being a fag doesn't give you the right to ruin the rest of our lives. If you get easily offended by being called a fag then dont tell anyone you are a fag. Keep that shit to yourself. I dont care how people decide to live their lives. They dont bother me if they keep it to thereselves. It pisses me off though that we make a special purple fag day for them. I like that fags cant procreate. I also enjoy the fact that they often give each other aids and die. If you arent against it, you might as well be for it.

I would disown my kids they were gay. They will not be welcome at my home or in my vicinity. I will absolutely run them off. Of course my kids will know better. My kids will have solid christian beliefs. See it infects everyone.

wow.

in the mainstream media, the blogosphere and social networks, the reaction has ranged from empathy (thankfully that is in the vast minority) to anger to shock. my response was none of those. i certainly wasn't empathetic and i'm not one to express much anger. more than anything, i certainly wasn't shocked.

lately i've thought a lot about cynicism and its crippling effects. it's simply a ball and chain that disallows for meaningful engagement with the world around us. i'm letting go of some bits and pieces of cynicism that i have and it's with this reality that i put forth the premise of this post: i am absolutely unsurprised or shocked by mccance's outburst of hate toward gay people. (what i'm getting at is that the following statements come after much thought and not from a place of cynicism regarding the attitudes of people concerning homosexuality.)

it's not so much that i was disaffected by mccance's statements, because in fact, i was deeply saddened by his statements. it's just that i've spent the better part of my 30 years on earth hearing and experiencing the very attitudes that mccance stated so brashly.

several years ago, i read a great research piece about the current status of racial attitudes in the US. the basic thesis was that asking, "are you racist? yes or no?" is no longer an appropriate question. for most people, the answer is an unhesitant "no", because in 2010, it's simply not socially acceptable to openly be racist. the writer certainly contends that racism is alive and well, but that most people simply won't be vocal about their feelings.

and then there's clint mccance. he opened his mouth publicly. opened it wide. and loudly. and in fairness to him, he has plenty of company. of course, the vast majority of his company knows better than to yell it out in a public—albeit a "private" facebook page—forum. when asked—if surveyed with the question of whether they're homophobic—they naturally would answer "no".

but the heart and one's actions (and when-no-one's-listening conversations) speak much more loudly.

so, surprise? disbelief? shock? absolutely not. see, i grew up in a culture of people (in more rural, small-town settings, to be more specific) who absolutely believe every last jot and tittle of the venom mccance spewed on facebook. of course, they love jesus. and they love their country. and their family. and their church. and their freedom. but not gays. not sinners. not those who destroy marriage. not those who are unnatural.

hate runs deep throughout our state—the state that i genuinely love. i find that lifelong little rockers and people from other (relatively) progressive parts of the state suffer from a sorta "reverse sheltering". sure, there is plenty hate here, but we can forget that in the parts of the state where "the natural state" really gets its name, things are different. it's a whole different set of social norms and social mores.

let me pause and say that this isn't about assumptions or "big city" snobbery, but rather, my honest observations. i've spent far more years in small town arkansas than i have big city arkansas (not that little rock is too big city, quite frankly). i have many, many lifelong friends from places that i'm describing who carry a lot of hate toward various minority groups, so i'm speaking from a place of honesty and, quite frankly, sadness.

so, i don't think this is cynicism or mere finger-pointing, but more of a response to what i openly experienced for a large portion of my life as a child (and beyond). people carry a great deal of hate and fear and disregard toward the gay community. it's sad and it's dangerous and it's unfortunately pervasive.

so what's the point here? am i just proclaiming vacuous doom and gloom and engaging in vitriolic finger-pointing? absolutely not.

i'm asking for action. i'm asking for people who walk in the way of jesus (specifically) to disengage from our (yes, i'm a part of this too) apathy and indifference.

i'm not asking for sign-wielding protests or threats of violence against mr. mccance or even joining one of those ridiculous "fire clint mccance" facebooks groups. i'm not asking for anything much beyond the ordinary.

i'm asking for those who are trying to figure out what it means to be jesus to the world around us to begin caring about the gay community.

maybe that simply means befriending a gay person and hearing about what it's like to live with the hate.

maybe that means examining more closely what the bible actually says about homosexuality (realizing that people will come away with many different conclusions).

maybe that means after you've examined scriptural proclamations about homosexuality, you decide that love is the primary posture and mode of engagement for christians.

maybe that simply means rethinking the type of joking or language you engage in (sorta like when i decided to quit using the word "gay" to refer to things i didn't like).

maybe that means being a voice for those too afraid to raise their own voice.

maybe that means praying for teenagers struggling with their sexual identity.

maybe that means praying for those—like clint mccance—who drag around the terrible burden of hate.

i'm not sure what the limits—if any—are to the possibilities here. i'm simply saying that the church—the community of people supposedly engaging in the way of jesus—must do something.

i'll end with the powerful words of our brother martin luther king, jr., who offered a prophetic reminder of the call of christians, saying:

in the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.

let us not be silent, both in word and in action.

beating up jesus: garry wills gets it right, driscoll...not so much

2010-10-27T07:47:00.000-05:00

let's just hop right into the good stuff, shall we?

Some emergent types [want] to recast Jesus as a limp-wrist hippie in a dress with a lot of product in his hair, who drank decaf and made pithy zen statements about life while shopping for the perfect pair of shoes. In Revelation, Jesus is a prize fighter with a tattoo down his leg, a sword in his hand and the commitment to make someone bleed. That is a guy I can worship. I cannot worship the hippie, diaper, halo christ because I cannot worship a guy i can beat up.

as yes, our friend pastor mark. this isn't the first time i've used his now-famous quote here on the blog and it probably won't be the last. things never die on the internet and this little gem from a relevant magazine article has floated around now for several years. mark driscoll, of course, has famously gone on record many times stating that women are an inferior class within the church and that manly, blood-thirsty, testosterone-driven, UFC-loving (this is a genuinely stupefying youtube clip…) men are the missing link to true biblical christianity. thus, the above statement.

ok, remember this. we'll get back to it very shortly.

we've just started a new small group at eikon church in which we're reading through shane claiborne's jesus for president. (if you'd like more info about this group, it's just getting started tonight—wednesday, october 27 at 6 p.m.—so you can get in on the front end.) i read this book a couple years ago and blogged very briefly about it, so it's good to be reading it 2 years later and still finding new insights—this time in the context of community (whereas i read it before in isolation).

one of the things we've decided to do is to divvy up the footnotes throughout the book and each week, someone will "report" on the fuller context of the footnote. this week, i took on garry wills'what jesus meant (footnoted in claiborne's discussion of the purity codes, which is something in which wills offers some great insights in his book). i've read one other book by wills, but knew very little about this particular book. i've found it to be a refreshing surprise.

i was struck, particularly, by a passage in which he writes about the manner in which jesus called his disciples. almost tangentially (but yet brilliantly non-tangential), he offers some commentary on the physical appearance of jesus. wills writes,

We do not know what Jesus looked like. Presumably, since he was a Jewish man, he looked like a Jewish man. But that does not get us far, since there is no one type (or stereotype) of a Jewish man. Some imagine that only a perfect human physique could be worthy of housing the incarnate Word of God. But that, too, is not very helpful, since ideals of human perfection vary. Was he a perfect athlete, muscular and graceful, or a more sensitive and poetic man? Some think he had to have every masculine quality carried to its height of perfection. Others feel that he could only express the fullness of humanity by combining the strong point of both genders.

My own guess is that any attempt to Christianize the Apollo Belvedere and call him Jesus takes us down the wrong path. The holy person is often slight and frail, with spiritual powers fretting their physical envelope. That was the case with many saints, whether Saint Francis or the Baal Shem Tov or the Quaker Anthony Benezet. People instinctively feel the companionship of such men with the afflicted. The energy radiating from them has partly consumed them. They burn with banked fires and they are in the fires…

Hurt people are not drawn to the aggressively healthy, to the televangelist's plummy voice, the fire-hose gush of bonhomie. People are instinctively drawn to Jesus, certain that he understands suffering, their particular suffering, that he sees it in their eyes even before they speak. God's chosen are the suffering ones, whose inner luminescence is emphasized by the fragility of its container. The idea that Jesus was a great athlete or captain of industry or persuasive salesman does not square with the fact that he was too weak to carry his own cross, though that was a normal part of the penalty of crucifixion (Lk 23.26). Pilate was surprised that he died so soon, before either of the two men executed with him (Mk 15.44)…

I think the least convincing image of Jesus is a macho one, a tough guy, impassive like John Wayne. Wayne did not cry, as Jesus does on two occasions in the gospels (Lk 20.41, Jn 11.35). Even when he towers in wrath, as in the cleansing of the Temple, this is the breathtaking explosion of the man not easily aroused, the searing sincerity that does not depend on muscles to impress. Nothing stuns others more than the sudden eruption of a normally quiet man.

um, pastor mark? what say ye?

well, i think i know what he'd say, but at this point, i'm much more interested in hearing garry wills go on and on because i think he's spot-on correct.

i've spent quite a bit of time lately (over the last few months) really thinking through the implications of an ordinary, broken, servant jesus, rather than the driscoll-esque jesus that is dominant in american evangelical christianity. what does it mean that jesus—in terms of being a peace-making, non-militant messiah—would have been a colossal disappointment?

contrary to mark driscoll's desire to get suplexed by jesus, the jesus i find in scripture—that garry wills describes above—is one that i can beat up. more to the point, it's a jesus who would allow me to beat him up.

a jesus that i, quite frankly, have already brutally killed on a cross.

much like wills, ultimately, i don't really know what jesus looked like. quite frankly, i'm not terribly interested nor do i have a burning desire to know.

what i do know is that jesus calls us to nonsensical, self-sacrificial nonviolence and peace-making. we walk in the way of a god who offered no rebuttal to his wrongful conviction and violent death. who told the oppressed to turn the other cheek. who asked only the ones with no sin to violently kill a woman caught in sin. who commanded us to love our enemies.

not a prize fighter. not an amped-up, blood-thirsty animal in a cage. not someone interested in making others bleed.

but someone who i can beat up.

someone who would allow me to beat him up.

we follow in the way of a broken, bleeding, actively peaceful servant. and that is a beautiful thing.

two in review: september/october 2010

2010-10-26T08:04:00.000-05:00

a fews months ago, i began a new blog series, of sorts, in which i compiled a mix of the best music i had discovered in the preceding two months. the series and mixes are called, two in review. here's what i wrote in the original blog post:

i consume a lot of music. it's probably some kind of music ADD thing. i should probably seek out some kind of music junkies anonymous meeting or engage in some kind of full-out intervention. ultimately, i just love music and thus, consume quite a bit on any given week or month.

as the long-time (or even short-time, i guess) blog readers know, i write about and review music semi-regularly. for awhile, i was attempting to write a series simply called, music you should know, which featured some of the new music i was discovering. as with most of my well-intentioned series, it didn't last. but, consistently, i really would like to share about the new music i'm discovering. often, it just gets lost in the shuffle of more pressing blog posts and generally speaking, if it goes past a few weeks of its release date, i tend to just move on. regretfully, many great albums that are worth sharing about go unmentioned on the blog.

i'm going to attempt to remedy that problem. starting today, i'm going to focus on an overview of a couple month's worth of new music, rather than reviewing individual albums (i will likely still do that a little, if time allows or i fell particularly compelled). every two months, i plan to publish a downloadable mix called two in review. it will feature 20ish standout tracks from the standout albums i've bought over the previous 2 months. so, for this inaugural edition, it will feature music that was either released or i obtained in the months of may and june. the subsequent release will be for july/august and so on.

[longest. blockquote. ever.] :)

you can find the 1st edition here and the 2nd edition here. and now, another couple months have passed by, so it's time to once again bring you two in review. enjoy.

here's the lineup for the september/october 2010 edition:

1. Chop & Change / The Black Keys [from iTunes Session]
2. The Bike Song (ft. Kyle Falconer, Spank Rock) / Mark Ronson & the Business Intl [from Record Collection]
3. Old-Fashioned / Cee-Lo Green [from the forthcoming The Lady Killer]
4. You Wouldn't Have to Ask / Bad Books [from Bad Books]
5. Get Some / Lykke Li [from Get Some Single]
6. Father's Son / Fistful of Mercy [from As I Lay You Down]
7. Futile Devices / Sufjan Stevens [from The Age of Adz]
8. Monster (ft. Jay-Z, Rick Ross, Bon Iver & Nicki Minaj) / Kanye West [from the forthcoming My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy]
9. Only Hope / Switchfoot [from Foundling]
10. Eyes Wide Open (ft. Derek Webb, Mac Powell & Steven Delopoulous) / Jars of Clay [from The Shelter]
11. Heart is Hard to Find / Jimmy Eat World [from Invented]
12. Go Away My Lover / Elizabeth & the Catapult [from The Other Side of Zero]
13. Darden Road / Beta Radio [from Seven Sisters]
14. Jack Kerouac / Brooke Fraser [from Flags]
15. Mary / Kings of Leon [from Come Around Sundown]
16. Dead American Writers / Tired Pony [from The Place We Ran From]
17. Angel Dance / Robert Plant & Band of Joy [from Band of Joy]
18. Cameras / Matt & Kim [from the forthcoming Sidewalks]
19. Eleanor Rigby / Derek Webb [from Democracy, Vol. 1]
20. Our Generation / John Legend & the Roots [from Wake Up!]

// download the .zip //

the art of transformation: books or music?

2010-10-15T07:58:00.000-05:00

the book or the movie?

it's the classic question that supposedly separates the intellectuals from the, well, non-intellectuals. i have absolutely no shame in saying that i'm a "movies" guy. almost aways. of course, i just don't read any fiction or could-be-a-movie books. most of the reading i do is of the theological variety and there's not too many movies being produced about atonement theories or eschatological perspectives. :)

but a couple days ago, in the context of a brief twitter conversation, a new question arose: books or music. after recommending awhile back that a twitter friend go check out elbow—one of my favorite bands—he told me that he had yet to check them out. i jokingly told him to stop what he's doing and go listen. his response, humorously, was that he couldn't because he was in the middle of reading a brian mclaren book (to which he knew i was partial). my response was the following:

@charlespeters you'll be more transformed by elbow than mclaren. :) less than a minute ago via Twitter for iPhoneryanByrd
ryanbyrd

what was an off-the-cuff joke had become something that struck a cord in me and got me thinking. maybe there's truth in that tweet. maybe lyrics and chords and melodies had more transformative power than sentences and paragraphs and prose and narrative. maybe, in fact, the music of [insert band of choice] is truly more transformative than [insert book/author of choice]. could it be?

this is a good opportunity to pause and say that i'm very specifically dealing with theology books, as opposed to the more freeform prose of popular fiction. i'm expanding the realm of music, though, to more than just music about "christian" music. whereas the industry's treatment of "christian" music is pretty vacuous and compartmentalized, there's plenty of truly great books dealing with theology. another way to put it is that there's some semblance of "cred" with (some) christian literature, whereas christian music is looked at as a sort of "ghetto". (this could be a whole other blog post…) ok, back to the matter at hand…

i think i have some ability to provide some level of objectivity to this question. i have a foot in two worlds. first, i come from the theology world where books and words and semantic thought is king. while in seminary, at any given time, i'd be juggling 6 or 7 books. you know, like the no-pictures-and-small-type kind of books. :) on the other hand, i also come from the arts world where emotive construct and right brain function is of the highest value. in the case of this question, i'm placing music in the broader category of the arts (or artistic expression…as opposed to theological, non-fiction literature).

as i've reflected, i can point to a handful of books that have been deeply shaping to my faith. books like the aforementioned brian mclaren's a new kind of christian, kenda creasy dean's the god-bearing life, don miller's blue like jazz, os guinness' the call, rebecca groothuis' good news for women and shane claiborne's jesus for president have all been literally life-changing reads. the person of faith that i am now is directly traceable to these books (and many others). in varying degrees, the books that i've engaged over the last 10 years or so have been deeply transformative.

at the same time, there's been some albums that have been equally (or more?) transformative. i cannot understate the power of derek webb's mockingbird at that time in my life. while in seminary, this album came out and did just as much to shape my faith in a lasting way than any book i read. kevin max's stereotype be, nickel creek's why should the fire die, david crowder band's a collision, dc talk's jesus freak, derek webb's stockholm syndrome, don chaffer's what you don't know, jenny lewis' rabbit fur coat, sufjan stevens' illinois and, as odd as it sounds and in its own strange way, snoop dogg's doggystyle (this could also be it's own post…) are all albums that have been intensely transformative.

of course, the nature of transformation with the two different forms of expression is very different. while i don't want to relegate the transformative power of books to strictly intellectual change, it certainly does begin there. undoubtedly, of course, when a new theological insight clicks mentally, the logical progression is a change of heart, leading to a new perspective of god and the world and people around you. it's more of a progressive transformation.

with music, there's a visceral, sonic connection that's made that allows one to see the world in very different ways. whereas we all have varying degrees of emotive response to music, there has been extensive research about brainwave changes when listening to music (or engaging other art forms). that's simply to say that something literally changes in us through music—not just lyrically, but simply sonically. granted, lyrics—like derek webb's mockingbird—are a key component to what i'm talking about, but much like elbow's seldom seen kid, there's simply something about the sound that creates an internal metamorphosis.

ultimately, i'm not arguing either way. quite frankly, neither am i attempting to create a false dichotomy. clearly, both things create change and transformation. i'm simply presenting that both are agents of personal (and communal) transformation worth considering.

so what do you think? where have you found the most personal transformation?

perfect weather to fly: my little rock aerial photos

2010-10-14T08:02:00.000-05:00

ok, before you go any further, stop reading and go immediately purchase elbow'sthe seldom seen kid. here, i'll give you the itunes link. ok, got it? now skip to track 6, weather to fly. ah yes, good, right? ok, now proceed with the remainder of this blog post.

indeed, yesterday, there was perfect weather to fly and i had the opportunity to test the skies over little rock. i'm currently art directing a special project at work (i'm not sure how much i'm at privilege to talk about it yet, so i'll just stick with "special project"). it should be a really cool book when we get done and yesterday, we shot the cover. so, i went up in a helicopter with the pilot and the photographer and had a chance to see little rock in a whole new light.

while i was up there, naturally, i decided to snap a few of my own photos. with my trusty iphone in tow (because, you know, i do that kind of thing…), i got some decent pictures that i thought i'd share with you. by no means are these mind-blowing or something you've never seen before, but they turned out pretty cool and offer a view of little rock that few people get. so, enjoy.

the "love the sinner, hate the sin" myth: tony campolo talks twitter (sorta)

2010-10-12T07:58:00.000-05:00

this won't be a shocking revelation to long-time blog readers and those who know me beyond the blog, but sociologist tony campolo has probably been the most influential theologian in my life over the past 10 years. i'm consistently inspired, challenged and provoked by his wise words. he's had decades of teaching and preaching and garnered a vast collection of notable quotes and cultural/theological insights.

a couple days ago while listening to an interview [audio excerpt below] with shane claiborne (who was a student of campolo's and still meets with him weekly for spiritual guidance), i was reminded of one of campolo's teachings that has been particularly salient with me for several years. while talking about the church's relationship to the LGBT community, claiborne cites campolo in talking about the christian cliché of "love the sinner, hate the sin." he says, quite frankly, that that is not something jesus ever said. rather, jesus said, "love the sinner, hate your own sin."

this has huge implications and i've tried to regularly repeat it as a bit of a mantra. it's so, so easy to jump to judgments and only see the speck in others' eye, while denying the obtrusive plank in our own. before we worry about others' sin, we need to hate our own sin.

strangely, these thoughts came to mind after an odd series of exchanges on twitter this past week.twitter is a wonderful platform for social interaction and connections, but 140 characters often creates unintentionally terse and curt conversations. behind the veil of the internet, people often feel more emboldened than if they were face-to-face with the other participant. further—and likely the most prominent thing at play in my case—as with any form of written communication, all tone is lost. a smiley or attempt to write some sense of emotion is helpful, but often still gets lost.

such was the case this past week in an interaction i had with a twitter friend (who i've met in real life, as well). what was intended as a sarcastic and humorous "poke" (having met this person in real life and seen this person speak in similar ways with some regularity), was taken, i have surmised, as brusque and abrasive (though these are strictly assumptions). it led to an immediate unfollow and subsequent heaping on by others on twitter. i was called both a "fool" and an "asshat" (yes, i know, it's ridiculous to even repeat here, but it's true) and had (in a previous exchange) my opinion called "bullshit."

[sigh.]

my first reaction, of course, was to lash out. it's completely unhelpful to list the perceived wrongs that would merit my lashing out, but needless to say, i was ready to fire back. and in my own little headspace, i did. i thought terrible things and convinced myself that i was in the right and the others were dead wrong.

i spent several days in that space. and then shane claiborne and tony campolo had to go and mess it up. :)

yes, in this scenario, there were certainly proverbial "specks in their eyes", but pointing those out and lashing out only masked the fact that i've got my own huge and hurtful planks in my own eye.

i can be unintentionally abrasive. and curt. and flippant. and overly sarcastic. and quick to respond without thinking through the implications. and unnecessarily provocative.

in all honesty, none of these things come from a negative place and are usually in the spirit of candid and open conversation, but they simply don't always come out that way. or, they often do come out that way, but i need to learn that some people just aren't going to be able to process it or respond appropriately.

so, i've paused. and i've attempted to be self-evaluative and more self-aware. and hopefully, more like jesus.

yes, there is a world full of eyes with specks of sawdust, but i've yet to find a time when i couldn't stand to trim a bit of the plank in my eye away.

so, thank you, dr. campolo, for your wise (and unintended) twitter counsel.

shane claiborne / from the drew marshall show:

7 paradoxical assumptions for teaching and public speaking

2010-10-06T07:58:00.001-05:00

one of the values i'm most excited about at eikon church is that a variety of people—not just me—lead the teaching time each week. whereas i speak semi-regularly, most weeks feature a different person from our community (and sometimes beyond), who is responsible for preparing for and leading the hour-long teaching/discussion time. we have a very casual space, where people gather round in chairs and on the floor, so our teaching time is much less preaching than it is, well, teaching and communal conversation.

one of the challenges of this model of co-leading is that most people, quite frankly, aren't public speakers. most people don't regularly—if ever—get up in front of people and speak. whereas we most certainly don't expect the most articulate, rob bell-like speaking skills, we do hope to equip people to lead a time that people benefit from and are able to thoughtfully engage.

over the last several weeks, the people leading the teaching have been at least minimally used to public speaking, but we're entering a stretch with a handful of people who just don't do this ever or, at best, very sporadically. i decided to throw together a really quick set of tips and suggestions to send out. by no means whatsoever do i consider myself any kind of expert on public speaking, but with about 10 years of regular (even weekly) experience, i've picked up a few things that have been helpful. i thought i'd share those things with the upcoming speakers and i thought it would be worth sharing here as well.

one of the most transformative books i've read concerning, specifically, teaching is parker palmer's the courage to teach. it's a book i recommend to anyone who in any way leads people (even beyond traditional "teaching"). in his seminal book, he assembled a list of 6 paradoxes/tensions that need to be built into teaching spaces. they are as follows:

1. The space should be bounded and open.

2. The space should be hospitable and “charged”.

3. The space should invite the voice of the individual and the voice of the group.

4. The space should honour the “little” stories of those involved and the “big” stories of the disciplines and tradition.

5. The space should support solitude and surround it with the resources of community.

6. The space should welcome both silence and speech.

[if you'd like to read more detailed descriptions (and get more information about palmer and his writings), click here.]

these have been constant reminders to me as i've created long-term plans for teaching times/spaces, as well as on a weekly basis as i prepare talks/sermons/teaching times. using paradoxes/tensions is a great way to illustrate the steady balance needed to create an engaging space. so, i thought i would use the same type of format for my suggestions for our teachers. here goes.

NOTE: some of the these descriptions are worded in a way that is pretty specific to our context. but, all these things have universal applications for various contexts and formats.

1. assume you speak with some authority.
assume you could be wrong or incomplete.

don't forget that you've been asked to lead for a reason. you have a point-of-view that is valid, unique and necessary. speak with boldness and authority. speak like you know what you're talking about and that you know why you're talking. people will trust a teacher who speaks with conviction and confidence. at the same time, though, people cannot and will not learn from someone who speaks with a unyielding certainty. whereas you shouldn't shrink away from some sense of authority on the subject, you should work to create a space in which humility is a shared virtue. your point-of-view might just be wrong or even incomplete. be prepared for people to ask questions that suggest another angle or offer a completeness to your perspective.

2. assume there will be unexpected and difficult-to-answer questions.
assume people will remain silent in spite of questions.

speaking of questions, a good teacher engages a teaching time that doesn't simply answer questions, but leaves people with more questions. that isn't to say that you withhold information or tease your listeners, but that you rupture their curiosity in a way that disallows them to simply cease to engage the subject. because of this, people will ask questions. tough questions. questions for which you don't have the answers. anticipate what they may be. when appropriate, prepare a method of response. for others, prepare to state your sincere ignorance. at the same time, some people will be either fearful of asking questions or uncertain how to articulate them. anticipate those as well. find ways to make people feel comfortable voicing their questions. create a space where people feel at ease to explore the subject in community.

3. assume people want to hear your point-of-view.
assume the point-of-view of others' is as valid as yours.

related to the need to speak with authority, you should assume that people actually want to hear your point-of-view. you've been asked because someone believes that you can and will be engaging and helpful to the ongoing conversation. further, remember that people have chosen to show up to and engage in a gathering in which a person gets up each week and teaches. peoples' fundamental assumption is that you are going to bring something of worth as the person who is leading the conversation. conversely, though, people want to be a part of the conversation as well. they have a point-of-view that, whereas they may not be the primary idea-sharer, they have experiences and points-of-view that will supplement the teaching. allow them to speak. they will complete your ideas and only help to further the job you're doing.

4. assume people know nothing about the subject.
assume people know everything about the subject.

this is one of the trickiest sets of assumptions. on one hand, over-assuming a students' knowledge level will kill the learning process immediately. it only makes sense that without the fundamental building blocks, a more intricate structure can't be erected. so, assume that you're entering a space in which people have never considered your point-of-view. in the midst of that assumption though, let's not forget that "lowest common denominator" teaching that insults the listener's intelligence is an equally large stumbling block. the key is to build in a mechanism for evaluating the group—a certain testing of the waters, if you will. if, early on, you sense that it is, in fact, the group's first time to engage these ideas, operate with your first assumption. if the group seems to grasp the subject, you should be prepared to elevate the level of comprehension and conversation. assume both and be prepared for both.

5. assume that this will be the last time others will engage the subject.
assume that many will want to continue the conversation.

quite frankly, the hour that you are speaking will be the only hour that week—or month or year or ever—that many people will ever pause to consider your subject. that realization elicits quite a bit of responsibility and power on your part. seize that moment in ways that maximize the information presented and level of possible engagement. on the other hand, don't try to do too much. again, your goal isn't only to answer questions, but to leave people with more questions—or at least the possibility of more questions. if you give every single answer with every single piece of data and every single angle of viewing the subject, you've eliminated the ability for people to be able to truly engage the subject beyond that space. many people—likely most people—will continue the conversation you've begun if you allow for it. pique curiosity. engage questions. challenge people.

6. assume that the subject is the most sacred entity in the room.
assume that the people are the most sacred entity in the room.

honor the subject. lift it up. treat it like a delicate piece of treasure. prepare accordingly. research it. pray about it. step away from it and revisit it later. and then do it again. and again. and when the time comes to present it, create a space in which the subject can be collectively honored. teach with enthusiasm and passion. infect others with your zeal. convince us that the subject is truly important and worth our time. but never, ever cease to value the subject more than the people who are honoring said subject. why uplift the subject if not for the uplifting of the hearers? don't talk over or at people because of your quest to share information or convince us how important the subject is. honor the subject by honoring the student.

7. assume people will accept your point-of-view.
assume people will be skeptical or reject your point-of-view.

your fundamental assumption should be that people are there because of their willingness to learn and be taught. people are eager to learn and are eager to lend you their ear. they assume you speak with authority and your enthusiasm for the subject will lead them to believe your point-of-view can be trusted. at the same time, though, you simply aren't going to convince everyone. nor should you try. convincing people cheapens the subject. people will trust authenticity and passion and knowledge. despite these things, though, never forget that some people will simply disagree with your point-of-view. and that's ok. some will voice their disagreement. some will not. some will show it with their facial expressions and body language, while others will exhibit an unflinching poker face. be gracious and humble to everyone who was willing to engage your point-of-view, even when they fall on a different side of the conversation in the end.

so there you go. there's my list. some of these things are harder than others, but i think all help to produce an environment of healthy and engaging teaching and leading. when these are held in careful balance, you will succeed, the subject will be honored and, most importantly, people will be engaged and transformed.

democracy wins: derek webb covers simon and garfunkel's 'sound of silence''

2010-09-30T13:02:00.002-05:00

since this past january, i've been blogging about derek webb's latest innovative project called democracy vol. 1. earlier this year, fans could cast votes for up to 12 songs that they wanted webb to cover. then, the 12 songs receiving the most votes would be covered by webb for the album. the album has been in the process of being recorded over the span of 2010, with 1 track being recorded and released each month. over the past 8 months, webb released the first eight tracks. here's the current track listing:

1. the beatles: while my guitar gently weeps
2. coldplay: fix you
3. bob dylan: the times they are a-changin'
4. gnarls barkley: who's gonna save my soul
5. sufjan stevens: chicago
6. u2: where the streets have no name
7. huey lewis and the news: power of love
8. the beatles: eleanor rigby

instead of releasing the the full list of tracks, webb is revealing each track month-by-month. and today, we found out the ninth one.

september's track is simon and garfunkel's the sound of silence, featuring sandra mccracken.

upon first listen, the track is great and unexpected. i thought he might play it more straight forward, doing something soft and understated. instead, we got something that, well, makes sense for derek webb's recent musical offerings. it's almost cryptic sounding. i know this is possibly a surprising comparison, but i instantly heard nine inch nails' closer. i know, weird, but take a listen. it's mostly the sorta creepy piano part that runs through the whole thing, which is reminiscent of the closing piano part on closer. also, he's included an old vinyl sound to it, so it sort of harkens back to both the sound and video for closer.

but, don't take my word for it. check it out for yourself. here's the track.

derek webb ft. sandra mccracken / the sound of silence:

of wax and worship: reflections on last night's west memphis 3 vigil

2010-09-30T08:02:00.000-05:00

about a month ago, i blogged about the voices for justice rally for the west memphis 3, including performances by eddie vedder, johnny depp, natalie maines and patti smith. truly, it was epic. far more than being epic due to the amazing performances, it was epic due to the way in which i experienced the god of justice.

here's what i wrote then:

you see, when we engage in the songs and dialogue and heart-spaces of the things that are nearest to god, we worship.

and god is justice.

justice for the oppressed israelites who wandered through the wilderness. for the blind man who laid by the pool for almost 40 years. for the naked woman who was drug out in public alone to be stoned for adultery. for our jewish brothers and sisters who were carted away to be engulfed in flames by an evil tyrant. for our brother martin whose dream is still ringing true despite the bullets that rang out in the memphis sky so many years ago.

and for 3 innocent men who spend their lives in cages made for someone other than them.

you see, justice is at the heart of god. and so are our brothers damien, jason and jessie.

and so on saturday night, we listened and we sang and we joined together in stirring the rolling rivers of justice.

worship happened.

and it, once again, happened last night.

our brothers and sisters down the street at quapaw quarter united methodist church apparently believe jesus when he talked about that whole sheep/goats thing. they, in fact, are sheep, as they've taken a lead role among the churches here in little rock to lend their time and—like last night—their building to support the ongoing fight for the freedom of damien echols, jason baldwin and jessie misskelley.

last night's vigil was scheduled to coincide with today's oral arguments on behalf of damien in front of the arkansas supreme court (if you're reading this before 9 a.m. on september 29, 2010, you can watch those very arguments by clicking here). the night included some music (including the percussive stylings of one john w. hardin), readings from the 3's journals/letters and a 17-minute candlelit time of silence/reflection.

the pinnacle of the night was the 17-minute candlelit time of silence and reflection. each minute, of course, represented a year that the 3 have been innocently locked away.

as the time of reflection began, candles were lit and each person assumed their own posture of silence. i'm sure for many it included prayer while it included reflections on the case for others and times of meditation for others. i'm sure there were tears and i'm sure there were deep moments of personal heartbreak and sadness.

for me, i engaged in prayer, reflection on the 3 and even times of just stillness and deep quiet. there was even such a sense of calm and quiet that i was actually able to almost hear the sound of my breath as i breathed in and out.

and then the hot candle wax dripped through onto my finger.

internally, i screamed. externally, i tried to play it cool.

you know those classic candlelight vigil type of white candles with the round paper holders? yes, those. about halfway into the 17 minutes, as the wax began to build around the rim of the paper and candle, a drip of wax managed to escape through a gap and onto my fingers.

drip.

drip.

drip.

drip.

over and over and over. every 3 or 4 seconds. like chinese water torture. drip. drip. drip. burning each time, actually getting worse rather than getting used to the heat.

my time was wrecked. my prayers. my reflections. my careful listening to my breathing was over. all i could do was switch hands back and forth quickly as i rubbed away the burning wax.

and then, in some kind of divine moment of clarity, i was suddenly reminded of a couple things. first, this slow, dripping burn seemed incredibly appropriate. i mean, here we are reflecting on the robbed innocence of 3 men who have now spent half their lives behind bars and i can't concentrate because of a little hot wax? it seemed absurd, even in spite of its constancy.

secondly, i was reminded of tony jones' soul shaper in which i learned quite a few years ago about the "jesus prayer". my orthodox and (many) catholic friends are very familiar with this, but most evangelical protestant are likely completely unaware. in essence, it's a short, formulaic, repetitive prayer, stating, lord jesus christ, son of god, have mercy on me, a sinner.. tony describes how he (and many others) use a prayer rope to count the number of times they've said the prayer (ultimately, it's more pragmatic than anything). at each knot, one repeats the jesus prayer and after each 25 knots is a bead where one might pause to recite the lord's prayer.

so in the remaing 5ish minutes, i decided to engage a modified version of the jesus prayer/prayer rope. each time the hot wax would drip, i would offer another person/idea/dream up for prayer.

drip.

for damien.

drip.

for jason.

drip.

for jessie.

drip.

for justice.

drip.

for these 3 men.

drip.

and for their families who have suffered.

drip.

for the 3 murdered little boys.

drip.

for their families who have lost their most precious gifts.

drip.

for all prisoners.

drip.

for those who are innocently convicted.

drip.

and for those who are rightly convicted.

drip.

may we discontinue to neglect the imprisoned.

drip.

may we see jesus in them.

drip.

may we pull the plank out of our own eye.

drip.

instead of pointing out the speck in others'.

drip.

for those who propagate the use of the death penalty.

drip.

may they instead choose life.

drip.

may they instead choose friendship.

drip.

may they instead choose jesus.

drip.

for those who fight for justice.

drip.

for those who have gone before in the fight.

drip.

for brother martin, for brother mandela, for brother gandhi, for our mother, teresa.

drip.

for our brothers and sisters in arkansas and around the world who fight for the freedom of 3 boys from small-town arkansas.

drip.

and so the prayer could continue. on and on until justice actually occurs. we've waited 17 years and it hasn't happened yet.

now is the time.

i'll conclude the same way i did in my post a month ago that i referenced above. i wrote the following:

worship happened saturday night and in fact, included a sermon. whereas it was brief, it was one of the best sermons i've heard in quite some time, and it never even specifically uttered the name of god. eddie vedder delivered the sermon on behalf of brother damien. a february letter from damien read,

One thing I'd dearly love to have is an hourglass. Or a whole collection of them- some that measure minutes, some that measure hours, some that measure the whole day. And grandfather clocks! And pocket watches.

The thing I like most about time is that it's not real. It's all in the head. Sure, it's a useful trick to use if you want to meet someone at a specific place in the universe and have tea or coffee- but that's all it is- a trick. There is no such thing as the past. It exists only in the memory. There is no such thing as the future. It exists only in our imagination. If our watches were truly accurate, the only thing they would ever say is "Now".

jesus said the kingdom of god is here. not in the past. not in the future. but now.

the time for justice is now. not in the past. not in the future. but now.

now is the time to free damien echols, jason baldwin and jessie misskelley. now.

amen.

the bloke who tried to help: david dark offers a few thoughts on jesus

2010-09-28T07:57:00.001-05:00

today, via @EmergentVillage, i came across a video (from 2008…so this isn't exactly breaking news…) of author david dark laying out a really beautiful christology. it was one of those things where i couldn't quit thinking about its implications long after i watched it, so naturally, it was worth sharing here.

i actually don't know a lot about dark except he's married to indie singer/songwriter sarah masen and that he authored the highly-recommended the sacredness of questioning everything. beyond those things, i see him referenced by many theologians/thinkers that i respect quite a bit, so that's typically a good sign. :)

in the video, he begins by relaying the story of going to see stand-up comedian eddie izzard, who was performing in his hometown of nashville. izzard says that he doesn't believe that jesus is actually god, but rather, a "bloke who tried to help." in thinking about this statement, dark offers a really worthwhile and beautiful christology.

here's the video:

i was struck by many things, but the thing that stood out most is the idea of a faith that singularly affirms jesus' death, rather than his fruitful life and ministry. i can't tell you how many times i've heard pastors and leaders and just regular old armchair theologians state something closely akin to the following:

Never preach a message that would still be true if Jesus hadn't died on the cross-- that's just giving advice.less than a minute ago via Power TwitterEd Stetzer
edstetzer

the point here isn't to call out ed stetzer (despite his proclivity to regularly say things that i consider very reductionist and narrow) or a particular person or a particular brand of theology. rather, he offers a statement that i've heard many, many times. and i just don't believe it's helpful, to say the least.

now please, don't get me wrong. i 100% affirm that things drastically change if not for the death and subsequent resurrection of jesus. drastically. i mean, that completely upends the entire foundation of the faith. so, please hear me out here. i'm simply saying that it does a grave injustice and undermines the life and ministry of jesus to make a statement like that.

jesus' radical love for the least of these would still be powerfully salient without his death. different, yes, but still powerfully beautiful. jesus' shocking mercy for the broken still carries a tremendous amount of world-changing possibility without his death. different, yes, but still incredible. jesus' choice of peaceful surrender rather than violent upheaval is a much-needed value even without the reality of his death. different, yes, but still undeniably crucial to a better world.

it's striking to me that when jesus is asked what it takes to enter the kingdom of god, he doesn't mention "personal salvation" or anything about the cross or some other reference to his death. rather, jesus re-affirms one of the most intrinsic teachings of his life: finances. what does it take? it takes selling all your possessions and giving the proceeds to the poor. whereas these things are absolutely related to his eventual death and resurrection, those things aren't the fundamental thing jesus points to. it's the simple (yet not so simple), every day things—the life of jesus things—that he points to.

and so it is with dark's christology. he hits the nail on the head by affirming a christology that doesn't just cheapen jesus by making him a "ticket or a barcode" to heaven and saying that we're "washed in the blood". rather, a high christology says that when we actually follow jesus and engage others like jesus and live out the way of jesus, we honor christ. by actually helping to be a part of the kingdom "here on earth, as it is in heaven", we make jesus more than just a stand-in for our personal sins or a puppet for a cruel finality.

jesus' death is inseparably crucial to following in the way of jesus, but we most lift up jesus as lord when we actually honor his life. that is the kind of jesus i want to serve and follow.

photoblogging: a vacation retrospective

2010-09-24T08:01:00.000-05:00

a long, long time ago in a faraway land, a diminutive pack of 2 intrepid adults and 3 wide-eyed children set off for a journey toward our destinies. [cue the epic danny elfman music]

ok, so it was a trip to florida…last week.

alright, maybe it wasn't exactly the march to mount doom in the lord of the rings, but trust me, hauling 3 children 3-years old and below on an 11 hour car ride to florida is a decent little adventure. in the end, we traveled just over 1,800 miles (little rock to panama city beach | pcb -> new orleans | new orleans -> shreveport | shreveport -> the rock), with the trip on the way down beginning at 8:45 p.m. and concluding at 8:45 a.m. it also included a last-minute audible that landed us in new orleans for an overnight stay. that's plenty of epic-ness for our little crew.

from start to finish, we genuinely had a blast. the beach was amazing, the weather was nearly perfect and lucy, olive and max were (generally) well-behaved and soaked up the whole trip. i'm deeply thankful that we had a great first family vacation. admittedly, i was a little apprehensive about hauling 3 children that young on a trip like that, but ultimately, it was much more than i could have hoped for.

one of the things i made a decision about early on was that i was going to take plenty of pictures. yes, memories are great, but there's something about having those physical, touchable memories that is necessary on a trip like this.

this may sound nerdy or goofy, but i mean this completely honestly: this is a trip made for an iphone 4. no doubt, we brought our big daddy slr, but i literally shot over 500 pictures on my iphone. it's handy, unobtrusive and outputs relatively high resolution, printable photos. also, as you'll see below, you basically get the effects of several different cameras via various apps. yes, hipstamatic has become a bit of a joke and can be grossly overused, but when it's used in the right circumstances, there are fewer more beautiful and useful apps.

as long-time readers (and, um, readers of the last 6 paragraphs) know, i get a little, um, wordy, so i'm going to try something new. less words. more photos. how about that? i'm going to try to let the photos do most of the speaking. i might add a little commentary where it could be useful, but i hope to let the photos tell the story.

for most of the photos, if you'd like to see them larger, just click on the photo and a larger version will open in a new window.

lucy, the amazing one-legged wonder… (so you can sleep at night, i included the picture on the right that shows that lucy, in fact, still has 2 basically functional legs.)

the national weather service in panama city beach issued a severe nerd alert… lucy's going to have to learn that she has a lifetime ahead of being drug into her daddy's nerdery.

christen votes creepy for this one…i vote beautiful… maybe both?

the last night we were on the beach, olive wasn't feeling well and decided to lay down. after short break from the action, she had to get back up and play…only, for some reason, she wasn't in the mood to get fully dressed. there was certainly a full moon on the beach that evening…

lest we forget that we didn't spend this wonderful time alone, here's a couple pictures of all the kids (sans max) sitting on the beach on our final evening eating their watermelon suckers from the sugar shak in rosemary beach. we had a great time spending the week with one of our best friends stephanie, her 3 children and her mother-in-law, sheila.

we couldn't bear the thought of ending our week in paradise with an 11-hour drive back to little rock, so we made a last-second audible and decided to drive down the coast to new orleans. christen and i visited there in february and loved every second of it. we were excited to bring the kids there for an overnight stay and a trip to the aquarium.

for lucy and olive, the stay in the hotel room was one of the highlights of the entire trip. they've never been in one before and you would have thought that it was chuck e. cheese by the way they ran and jumped on the beds (sorry marriott…) and laughed. their favorite thing to do in the room was stand in the big window and watch cars drive by.

as proud as i am of my little photos that could, the image of the week goes to christen (who would have imagined the actual photographer getting the best picture??). max and i were hanging out on the beach one afternoon and she captured this. i've got a feeling we'll be seeing this on our wall pretty soon.

so there you have it. that was our little trip. it was an amazing time, honestly even better than i expected. it was so good to step away from normal life and spending time with my entire family was priceless.

alright, when's the next vacation??

i'm 30! what now?

2010-09-22T08:03:00.000-05:00

if you squint your eyes really hard and look waaaay back there, you'll see a tiny, fading blur. see it? yeah, that was my 20s.

gone.

just like that.

now, looming over me like a grey little cloud full of rain is my 30s. [cue the ominous music] that's right ladies and gentlemen, today, i turn 30 years old.

sign me up for adulthood. say farewell to my decade of blissful youth and virility (tmi??).

ok, time for some perspective. surely as i look both backwards and forwards, there's plenty of redeeming qualities to this milestone. right?

first of all, in all seriousness, i genuinely do not view turning 30 as some kind of end-of-the-world march to the grave. honestly, if anything, i sort of looked forward to this. i've been 20-something for 10 years. it was time for something new. :) also, i've just never been a big birthday person, anyway. it's not that i'm not into birthdays, but i just think way too big of a deal is made about them. today will be a fairly regular routine for me…and that's pretty much what i expect and want.

certainly though, i recognize that 30 is a fairly big milestone. in many ways, sociologically, 30 is one of the biggest birthdays people have. even more so than the infamous 40th birthday, 30 marks a big shift in terms of cultural/societal perception and social expectations. but i digress…

more than anything, i've been somewhat reflective of my 20s. what, precisely, have i done with my life? am i pleased? would i change things? everything?

bottom line: i expect that my 30s will hold far less significant life-altering events than did my 20s. i don't mean that in a negative/pessimistic way, but more of a stamp of approval for my 20s. i expect nothing less than great and wonderful things over the next decade, but i can move ahead with fond memories of the last decade.

i got hitched: what is bigger than getting married? when i was 22 years old, the absolute last thing i was looking for was a wife. but that's exactly what happened. it's proven to be the most significant, beautiful, maturing, necessary event of my 30-year old life. without christen, my life would be pretty grey.

i created little byrds: and, of course, children. 3 kids under the age of 4?! are you kidding me? didn't think this would happen before i turned 30. maybe we cranked out 1 or 2, but 3 beautiful, perfect children? speaking of virility…

i became a theology nerd: in addition to graduating from college (which pretty much anyone with a pea-sized brain can do these days, if i'm being honest), i managed to find my way to seminary halfway across america (ok, so it was just kentucky…but that's pretty much like a whole other alternate universe…). those 3 years were truly the most transformative, deeply affective times of my life. i went in, for all practical purposes, a relatively close-minded fundamentalist and came out someone who tried to deeply pursue the way of jesus, able to engage the world with an open mind and the ability to parse out differing viewpoints.

i think eikon: on my 20th birthday, if you would have told me i would have started a church by the time i turned 30, i would have literally openly laughed in your face. honestly, i would have actually been somewhat put off with you. i had zero interest in pursuing full-time pastoral ministry. and here i am, with an incredible community of faith growing here in little rock. i'm genuinely humbled and thankful that i get to have a part in this thing. it's been incredibly difficult at times, but always well worth it.

no doubt, there are many of big events that occurred throughout my 20s that are worth spending time reflecting on, but these have been the ones that have most put my life on its current course.

so what happens now? what will i reflect on in 10 years when i'm celebrating my 40th birthday? well, i can't be for sure, but i'm gonna guess it will have significantly less references to skinny jeans and toms shoes (ok, ok, those 2 things had nothing to do with my 20s, but i thought i'd go ahead and insert some clichés for good measure…). let me give it a stab.

big byrds: when i turn 40, lucy—my oldest child—will become —gasp— a teenager. [cue ominous music again] as bizarre that is to think, i actually look forward to spending the next decade seeing my beautiful children become even more beautiful and intelligent and conversational and explorative and curious and loving and little people learning what it looks like to live in the way of jesus. all of this is exciting to me. and who knows, maybe max won't be the littlest byrd… (how does this virility thing keep popping up…oh crap, bad joke…)

eikon evolution: i genuinely have no hard-and-fast predictions for the future of eikon. now, i certainly have a relatively fleshed out vision for eikon, but one of my key values for leadership is to allow things to develop organically. no doubt, i will lead and guide in ways that point toward the vision, but i also hope to spend the next decade allowing the church to grow in ways that are healthy and most connective with the broader community of little rock (and maybe even beyond). i see nothing but super positive things for eikon. in 10 years, i think i'll look back at this time and marvel at how far we've come.

another decade of jesus: over the last several years, i feel like i've slowly moved toward a fringe of christianity that has demanded that i truly figure out what it means to live out the way of jesus. not some cultural model of jesus. not the american jesus. not the bible belt jesus or the plastic jesus of my childhood. the real jesus. the jesus who sacrificed everything for love. the jesus who stood opposed to a government who engaged in war and oppression and disregard for the least of these. the jesus who would have been confused by a society driven by 401k's and ladder-climbing and unchecked capitalism. i'm not saying i'm preparing my weapons stockpile and backwoods compound, but i'm simply saying that i plan to continue living another decade in a life committed to figuring out what it actually means to follow jesus. that affects my wife, my children, my church, my friends, my everything. it should be a fun ride. :)

i have extremely high hopes for my 30s. i see nothing but positivity. no doubt, the bad will be mixed in, just like my 20s, but i anticipate a lot of great things.

so as i glance back over my shoulder at that tiny, fading blur that is my 20s, i fondly wave goodbye and turn to move ahead into a new era of life.

hello 30s. pleased to meet you.

beach blogging: in memory of the mitch

2010-09-16T07:57:00.000-05:00

as you may know, i'm currently sitting in a beach house just 50 yards north of the beautiful white sands of panama city beach, florida. yes, it's beautiful. yes, it's amazing. yes, it's all that stuff and more.

we headed out late sunday night and just before we hit the road, i tweeted the following:

aaaaand…we're off to florida. we're dedicating this trip to rob. why? bc despite our utter brokeness, we're forging ahead to the beach. :)less than a minute ago via Twitter for iPhoneryanByrd
ryanbyrd

most of you know rob, either in real life or from my many blog posts/tweets/stories i've shared about him. fittingly, the above tweet was posted just hours before the 7-month anniversary of his death. even more fittingly—as the tweet suggests—we spent the 7-month anniversary at the beach.

one of rob's favorite places in the world was the beach. and yes, despite the fact that he might have 74¢ in the bank, when rob had the opportunity to visit the beach, he did it.

one such time was just over 3 years ago when christen and i went with rob and stephanie to seaside, florida. we had an incredible time and while we were there, rob and i thought we'd take the opportunity to shoot a little video down on the beach. what came out of that impromptu, non-scripted effort was one of the most hilarious things i've ever been involved with (ok, so i just held the camera…).

the mitch was born and it only seems fitting that i once again share it with you all.

by the way, you can find this and another video we shot over on rob's memorial facebook page. go join the group, read about how much people love rob and leave a comment!

life's a beach: a new mix to help you escape

2010-09-15T08:06:00.001-05:00

you know what's not happening? work, that's what.

and that is an amazingly beautiful thing.yes friends, for the first time in over 3 years, we're on vacation. several days ago, we headed southward to the white sands of panama city beach, florida. it's been an amazing couple of days already and we expect the week to get even better.

i'll have much more to say about our trip (along with some pretty amazing photos) in the next several days (or next week), but i thought i'd offer a little mix for those who aren't able to join us.

to me, the beach and music go hand-in-hand. ok, so most of my life goes hand-in-hand with music, but the beach just begs for a good soundtrack. so i decided to assemble one for our trip.

yes, i could have just hit play on the beach boys greatest hits or played some cheeseball jimmy buffett ('cheeseball' is my nice way of describing his music…) or, god forbid, some kenny chesney, but i thought i'd try to put something together that everyone might not expect. yes, there are some "standards" on here, but i've tried to switch things up.

hopefully you'll find something you like. more than anything, though, maybe you'll find something to help you escape to the beach, wherever you're listening.

here's the tracklist:

1. the beach boys: wouldn't it be nice
2. gomez: hamoa beach
3. lauryn hill: just like water
4. modest mouse: float on
5. david gray: from here you can almost see the sea
6. the avett brothers: if it's the beaches
7. the black keys: oceans & streams
8. phantogram: you are the ocean
9. toad the wet sprocket: walk on the ocean
10. future of forestry: set your sails
11. boyz ii men: water runs dry
12. cory chisel & the wandering sons: longer time at sea
13. eisley: sea king
14. billy ocean: caribbean queen
15. feist: sea lion woman
16. dr. dog: the beach
17. lisa hannigan: ocean and a rock
18. otis redding: sittin' on the dock of the bay

// download the .zip //

creepy jacky, trust issues and horse bbq: a few words from the babybyrds blog

2010-09-13T08:03:00.002-05:00

it sounds incredibly cliché to say "i have an amazing wife" or "i married up" or "i'm so blessed to have my wife". yes, all that is played out and cliché.

but i'll just risk the cliché because, in fact, my wife is amazing. straight up, she's an incredible person who i'm consistently thankful to be married to. she makes my life immensely more worth living.

i get on to her every so often for selling herself short on things like her intelligence, talents and, most often, her ability to write. she thinks she sucks, but she's actually able to be very articulate when she tries.

the other day, she tried and it worked. on her blog, babybyrds, she wrote a quick piece about learning to trust, offering a brief glimpse of the ups and downs of our 7 years of marriage. it was so good, i had to share it here. i hope you connect.

-----------------------------------------------------

if there's one thing i've learned over the past 7 years of our marriage...it's to trust.

trust myself,
trust ryan,
trust god,
trust my motherly instincts,
trust my kids (when one says the other one is puking in the middle of the night...don't go back to sleep and let her lay in it for an hour),
and so on.

i know i blogged about some of this on the eikon blog a while back, but i have more to say :)

for most people, the first year of marriage is the hardest. our first year was our easiest (i didn't say best). we both had jobs, both had cars, rent was $425(!!!), no kids, and so on. little did we realize how much would change in 7 years. as ryan put it...after 7 years, 6 cars, 5 moves in 4 different cities, and 3 kids...we are 2 different people.

i realized how simply trusting has taught me so much. for instance, when we moved to nicholasville, kentucky (btw, i hated it)...we had no jobs, knew NO ONE, had no money, etc. we couldn't even turn our heat on throughout most of the winter, and it is cold up there. since i traveled with the crappy job i eventually found, and it was just ryan there most of the time, he decided he could go without heat. which meant staying in bed as long as possible in the morning and then running to the hot shower, then wearing LOTS of clothing around the house at all times, and hanging out in the library a lot. looking back...it's hilarious to us. at the time...not so much. we also ate lots of hot dogs and ramen noodles. we were broke. i would have panic attacks about how we were going to make it.

we moved to paducah...not much changed. except i had a job i actually enjoyed, well, mainly just the people i worked with. ryan was still in seminary, driving 4.5 hours to school, sitting through classes all day, then driving 4.5 hours home...one day a week. that was ridiculous looking back. we were down to one car, i hitched a ride with my interesting friend barry (who brought horse bbq to work one day and didn't tell anyone it was horse until after everyone ate it...i'm still laughing, b/c i knew and threw mine away!)

we had a great church family and friends in paducah. i loved it there. i miss it sometimes. we had the weirdest neighbors in the world...and we loved it! i miss creepy Jackie who used to stand at our glass front door and stare at us watching tv till we realized he was standing there...staring at us. and betty, who couldn't remember our names after we lived there for over a year, and she covered the trunk of her car in contact paper. she loved us, and she loved lucy, and she cried when we left. i cried when we left. because it was lucy's first home. i had a front porch swing that i loved. we experienced losing a baby there. i was pregnant there. ryan and i grew so much closer when we lived there. so many good and heartbreaking memories. looking back, i was just beginning to learn how to trust.

*that would be the day we brought lucy home (i know, i look hot).
*and betty holding lucy.
*and me and lucy the day we packed up and left...that's why my eyes are all red and i look crazy (no explanation for lucy's giant head other than her father).

however, i think ALL of those experiences, and more i can't even remember, have prepared me for my life right now. this whole "starting a church" thing has done a number on us. while it is an exciting adventure, it is also scary. it has definitely brought out the best and worst in us. there's been times when we wanted to quit, and times when we think it couldn't get any better. it is way more work than we ever thought it would be. i miss my husband a lot. while he does a wonderful job of balancing a full-time job, a church, a wife and 3 kids...i'm still jealous of the time we used to have together.

and obviously, the biggest part of my life...my 3 kids. definitely something we wanted, just not all so close. it has definitely been the hardest thing i've ever done. i can honestly say that being at home, alone, with all 3 after max was born...i didn't think i was going to make it. i really struggled for about 2 months, pretty sure it was a little post-partum depression. i cried at least once, maybe twice a day. (i think most moms do more than they would admit.) i realized why people are driven to hurt their children. thanks to ryan and our mothers, i made it through that time. and about a month ago, i finally felt like i was coming out of this cloud i'd been in. i realized how much i loved my kids. enough said. everyday is still a struggle, and i feel like a crappy mom a lot of the time...as most mothers do. but things are definitely better.

everyday brings new challenges for us. literally...church issues, financial problems, bad days with the kids, new business ventures. but everyday, with every issue, i choose to trust...i mean, what else can i do. but i usually choose to laugh. because i remember the old me who would freak out and have a panic attack because we couldn't pay the bill on time. and thanks to my lovely husband who has always said "well, there's nothing we can do about it right now, so go to sleep," i've learned that i can only do what i can do. and it may get worse before it gets better...but that's life.

enough sappiness now. i have an amazing husband, and beautiful kids. and i've learned how to cope with life...for now.

so, in the words of the fabulous Tim Gunn..."carry on."

democracy wins: derek webb covers the beatles' 'eleanor rigby''

2010-09-09T15:25:00.001-05:00

since this past january, i've been blogging about derek webb's latest innovative project called democracy vol. 1. earlier this year, fans could cast votes for up to 12 songs that they wanted webb to cover. then, the 12 songs receiving the most votes would be covered by webb for the album. the album has been in the process of being recorded over the span of 2010, with 1 track being recorded and released each month. over the past 7 months, webb released the first seven tracks. here's the current track listing:

1. the beatles: while my guitar gently weeps
2. coldplay: fix you
3. bob dylan: the times they are a-changin'
4. gnarls barkley: who's gonna save my soul
5. sufjan stevens: chicago
6. u2: where the streets have no name
7. huey lewis and the news: power of love

instead of releasing the the full list of tracks, webb is revealing each track month-by-month. and today, we found out the eighth one.

august's (yes, it's late) track is another beatles' song: eleanor rigby.

this has been one of the more straight forward covers he's done—not to imply that that's a bad thing. it's just a good, solid cover. i'm actually not surprised it's relatively basic because the reason the track's release got pushed back was that he was working on his upcoming album, feedback (which appears to be amazing/epic).

so, another beatles' song. not a bad thing, i'd say.

but, don't take my word for it. check it out for yourself. here's the track.

derek webb / eleanor rigby:

the gospel according to kanye west

2010-09-07T08:02:00.002-05:00

few people would ever confuse kanye west for jesus christ.

except, well, kanye west.

famously, mr. west has one of the most unrestrained egos that we've seen in some time. yes, john lennon said the beatles were bigger than jesus christ, but kanye actually became jesus christ (seriously, click the link).

for the all the uproar the cover of rolling stone generated, nothing could compare, of course, to the outrage following the now-infamous imma-let-you-finish taylor swift moment at the 2009 mtv video music awards. the proverbial shit, indeed, hit the fan.

kanye could have never predicted the enormous outcry from fans and non-fans of taylor swift alike. the downward pr spiral was one of the most epic descents i've seen in quite some time. fewer have been so intense and so sudden.

what made the fall so incredible is, much like the old saying, the bigger they are, the harder, in fact, they fall. kanye was on top. in my estimation (and i don't say this flippantly), kanye is the greatest rapper right now. period. better than jay-z. better than snoop. better than outkast. better than anyone. he's the only rapper that i actually pause what i'm doing to hear new tracks when released. every album has been brilliant and innovative and worth the hype.

but back to that whole ego thing.

i love the music of kanye. i can't stand the person of kanye.

in the midst of these conflicting realities, kanye has become an epic twitterer. as we all know now, kanye's ego and over-the-top music-video-of-a-life has taken twitter by storm over the last 6 weeks. and whereas he's kept us entertained and appalled and speechless and dumbstruck during this span, this past weekend, he flooded twitter like we've never seen before.

over the course of 70+ tweets within a span of a couple hours, kanye publicly addressed the taylor swift situation, almost a year after the offense took place. yes, he took small moments to give some context to his reasoning and point-of-view. yes, he made a point to point out that the media did its due diligence to demonize him. and yes, he offered moments of self-promotion. but, then this happened:

I'm sorry Taylor.less than a minute ago via webKanye West
kanyewest

the tweet heard 'round the world? maybe. maybe not. but it was certainly retweeted by hundreds of people. why? because kanye west, of all people, doesn't do that. he doesn't apologize. he doesn't regretfully reflect on his actions. he doesn't let the demonizing words of other get at him. that isn't kanye west.

he's the guy who poses as jesus christ. he's the guy who shouts his greatness in every song. he's the guy who regularly reminds us that he's kanye west.

but here he is apologizing to a teenaged pop singer. to someone whose 15 minutes of fame has relatively no significance as compared to the legacy that kanye west has been building. to someone whose video wasn't as good as beyonce's.

but before he could even get to the apology, there was this piercing admission:

If you google Asshole my face may very well pop up 2 pages into the search.less than a minute ago via webKanye West
kanyewest

wow.

in the 2-hour soul-bearing session, there were moments of crazy. there were seemingly typical kanye west moments. and yes, it was over-the-top and bombastic at times.

but mostly it was humble and sincere and penitent and removed from the veil of smoke-screened pr. it was a beautiful and crazy and shocking and wonderful stream of consciousness that took a lot of guts and a lot of balls. exactly 1,006,519 followers read every last keystroke of a superstar on top become the humbled and broken repenter. if for possibly only that moment, the prince became the pauper.

is it hyperbolic to call it the gospel? maybe. is it over-the-top to compare him to jesus. 100%. absolutely.

but was it a magical moment in which unfiltered social media became the platform on which an out-of-touch superhero became the grounded human? indeed. was it good news? of course.

so that, in fact, was the gospel, according to brother kanye.

7 ideas to help apple's ping (possibly) survive

2010-09-03T14:28:00.006-05:00

let's just go ahead and state the obvious (as a matter of full disclosure): i. love. apple.

plain and simple, i'm a huge fan of the little tech company in cupertino. i'm firmly planted on the apple bandwagon and i don't plan on getting off any time soon. i don't like the moniker "fanboy", because it assumes an ignorant/blind following. rather, my allegiance to apple is based on over 10 years of superior products. i trust apple. they simply make amazing, beautiful products, so i'm able to trust that when they release new products, they'll be in accordance with their long track record of almost exclusive hits.

but i'm also honest about their misses. yes, the cube just didn't work. the messagepad never really made sense. the flower power imac was atrocious. a handful of software releases have just not been useful. yes, apple's had some misses and near-misses.

so where does apple's new social music network, ping, fall into the equation? well, it's probably way too son to truly know. less than 48 hours into the launch of the service, many have written it off and they certainly have ample ammunition to support their argument. but i'm far from prepared to say it's doomed.

apple simply needs to make some big changes and i think it could take off the way they've imagined. i've created a list of 7 ideas that could greatly improve ping and make it a viable social network.

1. RECOMMEND/LIKE ALBUMS FROM YOUR OWN LIBRARY

one of the first things you have to realize about ping is that it's all about getting you to buy music from the itunes store exclusively. apple, it seems, has little interest in the music you already own—whether it was purchased from itunes in the past, purchased from somewhere else (amazon, bandcamp, etc.) or "illegally" downloaded. this is a big mistake. in fact, i think it's the most glaring mistake as of now.

i have a 80+ gb music library full of music that i'd love to recommend to people in my network. of course, apple would likely tell you that you can absolutely recommend (like) that music in the itunes store. the problem is that nothing is inherently driving me to that itunes store page beyond going there to purchase it. in other words, i would love to recommend jenny lewis' acid tongue, which i already own. there's no motivating (and inherent) reason for me to navigate to that album in the store. social networks should seamlessly intermesh with my natural habits and the nature of liking/recommending songs/albums simply doesn't.

2. NOTIFICATION SYSTEM

i've engaged a couple conversations on ping. well, actually, it's hard to call it a "conversation" because it basically involved the 2 of us manually checking in on ping every hour or so. why? because there's no notification system to let you know when someone has engaged with your activities. i had no idea when my friend commented on my song recommendation except for when i manually went to it and (manually) refreshed the page. no growl. no emails. no nothing.

if it's truly going to be social, there has to be some method of notifying people when someone has engaged some type of social activity. for example, with tweetie for mac, i have both growl notifications for replies & DMs, as well as a menu icon that lights up when i have unread items in my stream. there's simply nothing for ping.

3. STANDALONE DESKTOP APP BEYOND ITUNES

yes, i know this seemingly defeats the whole software concept behind ping. yes, it's supposed to integrate into/with itunes. but it's just not a natural fit. i listen to music literally all day long in itunes. that's what i want to use it for. yes, i use the itunes store (within itunes), but that's once in a blue moon and it naturally fits into itunes. a social network simply doesn't fit.

twitter realizes that you're not going to go to twitter.com every single time you want to post a tweet. hence, standalone twitter applications. these aren't just third party any more, either. twitter itself has made this realization and have responded appropriately. whereas apple absolutely is not going to go for third party applications, they could create their own streamlined desktop app that somehow works along with itunes. i don't have all the answers as to how it would all work, but it's not a groundbreaking, revolutionary concept. it could be done and done well.

4. FULL-FEATURED IPHONE APP

why, of course, would we stop with a standalone desktop application? much more crucial to prolonged success is a full-featured standalone iphone app. of all people, apple—the primary instigator of mobile supremacy/importance—should understand this. yes, with iOS 4.1, ping will be integrated into the iphone's itunes store, but who wants to launch a commerce app simply to access a social network!? not i.

what was one of the primary reasons/ways for twitter's mainstream explosion? mobile apps. the same goes for ping. this makes complete sense for another reason: one of the primary features of an iphone if, of course, an ipod. the core building block of the iphone is a music application. it's made to be a music-centric device. and who knows, maybe the ping iphone app could also somehow integrate with pandora or shazam or various other radio apps. it just makes sense.

5. SUBSTANTIAL FACEBOOK/TWITTER INTEGRATION

at this point, i just don't have a lot of motivation to reorient my online social "life" to include ping. i've got twitter. i'm ~~stuck with~~ ~~laboring through~~ plugged into facebook. quite frankly, that's about where me and most people are maxed out at. i wish i could update from twitter or at least even see/comment on/like ping updates from facebook. it just makes sense. at first, at least ping was capable of utilizing facebook connect, but facebook—less than 48 hours in—has already killed that integration. i just need a way to create some kind of seamless integration with my other well-established social networks.

6. FULLER FEATURES

i won't say too much about this because it's painfully obvious. just go to ping. what do you see? not much, right? apple is famous for its beautifully stripped-down and user-friendly UI, but there's a difference between clean and deficient. beyond the social network integration i've already detailed, it just needs more stuff to do. i could create a list, but i'm sure you could fill in these blanks. there just needs to be more compelling reasons to spend time in the app.

7. SMARTER ALGORITHMS

this partially goes back to my first idea of having integration with your own library, as opposed to just things purchased from itunes. much like genius/genius mixes, ping should be able to scan my entire library (with my permission) and detect what kind of music i like. from there, it could update my "music i like", top albums and recommended people/artists (among other things).

there should also be some kind of local networks where i can see every user from little rock or arkansas or the united states, etc. within that, you could also narrow down users by artists or genres or top downloads or whatever. there just needs to be a "smarter" backend that helps you better connect with the service and other users.

--------------------------------------------

so there you have it. there's honestly more things that i could easily recommend, but these are the things that have most glaring to me so far.

bottom line, it's literally less than 48 hours old, so i don't want to write it off yet or assume that apple has rolled out everything they have in mind. for example, one of the things that will help resolve many of these problems will be just a bigger community of users. right now, i'm only following 15 people…because that's literally the only 15 people i know that are using it right now (and that 15 includes 4 or 5 artists…a.k.a. people i don't even know).

what would you add? if you've started using ping, what would you recommend to improve the experience?

15 albums i'll always love (and a heartfelt facebook diatribe)

2010-09-02T13:30:00.005-05:00

dante alighieri stopped too soon. you see, in his classic, the inferno, he depicts 9 circles of hell. but alas, there is actually a 10th circle. what resides in this deepest circle of endless torture?

facebook memes and games.

yes friends, those who engage in mafia wars or farmville (or any other game) or those who tell you to repost this message if you really love jesus dwell in the darkest pit of virtual hell. basically, anything that requires a regular & concerted effort to suck one's time (and others' time) while partaking in the black hole known as facebook are a special breed.

but.

lest we forget that hell is full of well-intentioned people with well-intentioned ideas who merely went astray, there are times worth pausing to take note of some bright moments in facebook memes. yes, the sun breaks through the cracks in hell every now and then.

so it was a few days ago when my friend and coworker jennifer posted a note in which i was tagged. the note, titled 15 albums i'll always love, was a fun little exercise in remembering music and taking a look back at one's musical journey. the description read as the following:

The rules: Don't take too long to think about it. Fifteen albums (cd's, albums, tapes, etc. but in other words, not singles) you've heard that will always stick with you. List the first fifteen you can recall or that come to mind in no more than fifteen minutes. Tag fifteen friends (or more if you want to) including me, because I'm interested in seeing what albums my friends choose. (To do this, go to your Notes tab on your profile page, paste these rules rules into a new note, choose your fifteen picks, and tag people in the note, which you do below the body of the note.)

why the heck not??

i thought i would run with the idea and expand here on my blog. (is there an extra special 11th circle of hell for people who spam their own blogs with facebook memes??) :)

the following is my list of the 15 albums that "will always stick with you". interestingly, several of these aren't actually even my favorite album by that artist. rather, these are albums of significance, marking a time or event or person in my life that is forever noteworthy. each album tells a story, sometimes in strange and random ways. so, here's my list:

by the way, these are in complete random order. they don't represent a hierarchy whatsoever.

1. michael jackson: bad
2. ray lamontagne: trouble
3. derek webb: mockingbird
4. oasis: (what's the story) morning glory
5. don chaffer: what you don't know
6. kevin max: stereotype be
7. nickel creek: why should the fire die?
8. dc talk: jesus freak
9. jenny lewis: rabbit fur coat
10. snoop dogg: doggystyle
11. everclear: so much for the afterglow
12. brandi carlile: the story
13. mute math: mute math
14. sheryl crow: sheryl crow
15. michael jackson: dangerous

ok, now's the part where i completely break the rules. when i post music on my blog, the primary goal is to help people discover new music and to love music. so, i decided to put together an "honorable mention" list. there were so many albums that are incredibly significant to me, but maybe just missed the top 15. so, here's that list as well:

1. fiona apple: tidal
2. smashing pumpkins: mellon collie & the infinite sadness
3. dc talk: supernatural
4. outkast: atliens
5. sublime: sublime
6. 2pac: all eyez on me
7. alanis morissette: jagged little pill
8. derek webb: stockholm syndrome
9. elbow: leaders of the free world
10. rilo kiley: under the blacklight
11. justin timberlake: futuresex/lovesounds
12. kevin max: the imposter
13. coldplay: a rush of blood to the head
14. damien rice: o
15. david crowder band: a collision

many of you know this music. many of you don't. so, i thought i'd throw together a couple mixes for your listening and discovering pleasure. enjoy!

// download 15 enduring albums //

// download 15 (more) enduring albums //

weekend worship: reflections on the west memphis 3 rally

2010-08-31T07:51:00.000-05:00

sunday night, we had one of my favorite worship gatherings to date at eikon church. there was a good energy, the music was unquestionably the best it's ever been and i think we really tapped into the heart of what it means to be a community of people connected by jesus. it was truly a beautiful night of worship.

and then there was that other worship gathering.

no, not the one i attended on sunday morning. and no, not some other church event i participated in some other time during the weekend.

i'm talking about the one saturday. at robinson center music hall.

yeah, that one.

you know, the one where eddie vedder served as the worship leader. the one where reverend thompson murray opened with a prayer of invocation. the one where natalie maines executed the liturgy and where patti smith offered a stirring benediction.

yeah, that one. the "voices of justice" event to rally support for the west memphis 3.

worship happened.

now, before that small, vocal contingency gets up in arms about my usage of worship, lets unpack the term a little and examine the nature and purpose of the event.

worship simply means "to ascribe worth to something". we can, of course, worship anything. in fact, most—if not all—of us worship many things beyond our religious perceptions of a deity on a daily basis.

in this case, we'll keep things simple and just stick to god.

so what does it mean to 'ascribe worth" to god? what does it mean to worship god?

maybe it means singing. maybe it means praying. maybe it means reading scripture. it does, in fact, mean a lot of things.

but maybe it also means tapping into, celebrating, venerating, honoring and acting upon the things that are closest to the heart of god. the things that are god.

like grace. and love. and mercy. and compassion. and sacrifice. and humility. and letting go of self. and equality.

and, yes, justice.

and that was the theme for the night. the night even began with rev. thompson murray, pastor of quapaw united methodist church, laying out the intent of the evening: to create a spiritual space in which god's command to let justice roll on like a river is honored and celebrated and lived out in this corporate space.

you see, when we engage in the songs and dialogue and heart-spaces of the things that are nearest to god, we worship.

and god is justice.

justice for the oppressed israelites who wandered through the wilderness. for the blind man who laid by the pool for almost 40 years. for the naked woman who was drug out in public alone to be stoned for adultery. for our jewish brothers and sisters who were carted away to be engulfed in flames by an evil tyrant. for our brother martin whose dream is still ringing true despite the bullets that rang out in the memphis sky so many years ago.

and for 3 innocent men who spend their lives in cages made for someone other than them.

you see, justice is at the heart of god. and so are our brothers damien, jason and jessie.

and so on saturday night, we listened and we sang and we joined together in stirring the rolling rivers of justice.

worship happened.

not celebrity worship. not merely the worship of a principle or worship of a moment, but the ascription of worth to the god of justice.

one of the central notions of worship—particularly in the west—is the sermon. we've all sat through our fair share of them. some have been good, some have been bad.

worship happened saturday night and in fact, included a sermon. whereas it was brief, it was one of the best sermons i've heard in quite some time, and it never even specifically uttered the name of god. eddie vedder delivered the sermon on behalf of brother damien. a february letter from damien read,

One thing I'd dearly love to have is an hourglass. Or a whole collection of them- some that measure minutes, some that measure hours, some that measure the whole day. And grandfather clocks! And pocket watches.

The thing I like most about time is that it's not real. It's all in the head. Sure, it's a useful trick to use if you want to meet someone at a specific place in the universe and have tea or coffee- but that's all it is- a trick. There is no such thing as the past. It exists only in the memory. There is no such thing as the future. It exists only in our imagination. If our watches were truly accurate, the only thing they would ever say is "Now".

jesus said the kingdom of god is here. not in the past. not in the future. but now.

the time for justice is now. not in the past. not in the future. but now.

now is the time to free damien echols, jason baldwin and jessie misskelley. now.

amen.

------------------------------------------------------------------

it's hard to really get a vibe for the night without being there. it was truly magical and beautiful.

i did, though, manage to shoot some video (on my iphone). it's pretty inadequate to truly capture the essence, but you can at least see some of the epic performances.

natalie maines: death's got a warrant & if i had my way

natalie maines: i smell a rat

eddie vedder & natalie maines: golden state

eddie vedder & johnny depp: society

two in review: july/august 2010

2010-08-27T07:56:00.000-05:00

a couple months ago, i began a new blog series, of sorts, in which i compiled a mix of the best music i had discovered in the preceding two months. the series and mixes are called, two in review. here's what i wrote in the original blog post:

i consume a lot of music. it's probably some kind of music ADD thing. i should probably seek out some kind of music junkies anonymous meeting or engage in some kind of full-out intervention. ultimately, i just love music and thus, consume quite a bit on any given week or month.

as the long-time (or even short-time, i guess) blog readers know, i write about and review music semi-regularly. for awhile, i was attempting to write a series simply called, music you should know, which featured some of the new music i was discovering. as with most of my well-intentioned series, it didn't last. but, consistently, i really would like to share about the new music i'm discovering. often, it just gets lost in the shuffle of more pressing blog posts and generally speaking, if it goes past a few weeks of its release date, i tend to just move on. regretfully, many great albums that are worth sharing about go unmentioned on the blog.

i'm going to attempt to remedy that problem. starting today, i'm going to focus on an overview of a couple month's worth of new music, rather than reviewing individual albums (i will likely still do that a little, if time allows or i fell particularly compelled). every two months, i plan to publish a downloadable mix called two in review. it will feature 20ish standout tracks from the standout albums i've bought over the previous 2 months. so, for this inaugural edition, it will feature music that was either released or i obtained in the months of may and june. the subsequent release will be for july/august and so on.

[longest. blockquote. ever.] :)

so, another couple months have passed by and it's time to once again bring you two in review. enjoy.

here's the lineup for the july/august 2010 edition:

1. Repo Man / Ray LaMontagne & the Pariah Dogs [from God Willin' & the Creek Don't Rise]
2. Rococo / Arcade Fire [from The Suburbs]
3. Carbon Ribs / John Mark McMillan [from The Medicine]
4. No Turning Back / Sarah Blasko [from As Day Follows Night]
5. Walking Through Walls (Just to Get to You) / Kevin Max [from Cotes d'Armor]
6. Colors / April Smith & the Great Picture Show [from Songs for a Sinking Ship]
7. Follow Us (ft. Vonnegut) / Big Boi [from Sir Lucious Leftfoot: The Son of Chico Dusty]
8. See Me Now (ft. Beyonce & Charlie Wilson) / Kanye West [from the forthcoming Untitled]
9. A Million Years / David Gray [from Foundling]
10. Lose It (In the End) (ft. Ghostface Killah) / Mark Ronson [from the forthcoming Record Collection]
11. Where the Streets Have No Name / Derek Webb [from Democracy, Vol. 1]
12. Heirloom / Sufjan Stevens [from All Delighted People]
13. My Pet Snake / Jenny & Johnny [from I'm Having Fun Now]
14. Welcome to the Good Times / The Black Crowes [from Croweology]
15. F**k You / Cee-Lo [from the forthcoming The Lady Killer]
16. Heavy in Your Arms / Florence + The Machine [from Twilight: Eclipse Soundtrack]
17. Nothing Else Matters / Lissie [from Live Sessions]
18. Sign Your Name (ft. Justin Timberlake) / Sheryl Crow [from 100 Miles to Memphis]
19. God's Hometown / Caedmon's Call [from the forthcoming Raising Up the Dead]
20. Mtvt. II Sketch / Lost in the Trees [from Alone in an Empty House]

// download the .zip //

meet kevin, the other max in my life -OR- a brief ryan byrd music history

2010-08-24T18:02:00.000-05:00

it's safe to say that we've established on this blog that i love music. and not just one single kind of music, but a variety of ~~weirdness~~ stuff. just last night, some friends were scrolling through my itunes library and commenting with surprise at the random collection of nearly 1,300 albums. i've got a little bit of everything.

it wasn't, though, always this way.

i grew up with a relatively narrow scope of music awareness. throughout the 80s, for the most part, music fell into 2 categories: hymns at church and southern gospel on the AM radio. yes friends, this was my childhood. not by choice, of course. the church hymns speak for themselves, but the southern gospel was my dad's music of choice and when we were in the car, that was the singular music option. in all fairness, we could occasionally beg and plead for something more relevant. what was more relevant? oldies. yep, every once in a blue moon, we could convince him to flip over to cool 95 and we'd rock out to the musical stylings of his childhood.

fast forward to 1995.

it isn't that my dad changed his musical tastes, but i had fully come into my own with music by that time. MTV had come to our local cable provider years earlier and through peer musical influence, my horizons were greatly broadened. but still, the only expression of faith in music i'd ever experienced was, indeed, church hymns and southern gospel.

and then i heard dc talk's jesus freak.

it sounds a little silly now to many, but in the mid-90s, dc talk couldn't have been any more relevant and significant to people my age (early/mid-teens). my mind was blown when i finally heard music that married faith and good music. for years, dc talk was—without comparison—at the top of my musical favorites.

fast forward to 2001.

dc talk decides to take an "intermission", of sorts, and the three members launch their solo careers. while i tracked with the rap-pop of tobymac for awhile and the on-again-off-again music of michael tait, i was drawn most to enigmatic kevin max's music. in the fall of 2001, he released his solo debut, stereotype be, which still ranks as one of my all-time top 2 or 3 albums. at the place i was at in my life, the album hit me as deeply transcendent and intensely personal.

to this day, i've watched as his career has ebbed and flowed from major label success to fully independent releases of somewhat obscure EPs.

today, his 7th solo project (in 9 years) was released. cotes d'armor is an extreme departure from his previous work. in essence, it's an electronica project with a mix of old music remixed and a few new tracks. trust me, i'm about as big of a fan as they get for kevin max, but i have to sheepishly admit, i'm a little disappointed. derek webb showed last year that a non-electronic artist can use electronic instrumentation to create incredible music, but i just don't think the execution was what it needed to be with max's new music. don't get me wrong, i still like the new album, but it just doesn't fit into the trajectory that i would have hoped for.

nevertheless, the album does contain some gems. specifically, i think the track, walking through walls (just to get to you), is one of the best pop/rock songs i've heard in quite some time. you can check it out here:

instead of leaving people hanging with a single track or only pointing to the new release, i thought i'd assemble a little "best of" mix in which i've picked a sampling of kevin max tracks that might help acclimate someone new to his music. some of you might like it, some of you might not. this, i hope, is a chance to find out either way.

here's the list:

1. confessional booth
2. existence
3. walking through walls (just to get to you)
4. seek
5. the cross (ft. dc talk) (prince cover)
6. help me rhonda (beach boys cover)
7. the imposter's song
8. 21st century darlings
9. angel with no wings
10. the royal path of life
11. run on for a long time (ft. chris sligh) (johnny cash cover)
12. i don't belong
13. stay
14. something about that name (with sonicflood)
15. dead end moon
16. baby, i'm your man
17. on yer bike!
18. they won't go when i go (stevie wonder cover)
19. irish hymn
20. the imposter
21. shaping space
22. unholy triad
23. out of the wild
24. the secret circle
25. when he returns (bob dylan cover)

// download the .zip //

the tweet heard 'round the world: a few words about segregation and educational options

2010-08-23T09:04:00.000-05:00

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled;
Here once the embattled farmers stood,
And fired the shot heard 'round the world.

so begin's ralph waldo's emerson 1837 masterpiece, concord hymn. the line that closes the stanza, of course, has become a cultural idiom. the shot heard 'round the world is in reference to the american revolutionary war, specifically the battles of lexington and concord. indeed, those shots reverberated around the globe and set our nation on a new course.

and then—on august 21, 2010—there was this:

worth not just a read, but extended reflection for LR people / RT @GOOD: Are students pre-segregated before high school? http://su.pr/9msbx1less than a minute ago via Tweetie for MacryanByrd
ryanbyrd

which was immediately followed by this:

in addition to what the @GOOD article says, it's also worth reflecting on "self-segregation" (parents who put their kids in private school).less than a minute ago via Tweetie for MacryanByrd
ryanbyrd

ah yes, the tweet heard 'round the world.

in the aftermath of, specifically, the 2nd tweet, my quick count of responses from fellow twitterers was 65. yes, 65 responses to my tweet. gee. sometimes heated, sometimes congenial, sometimes in the spirit of inquiry. always pointed, always passionate. one little tweet caused all this.

140 characters can, indeed, set off quite the series of passionate response. so, i thought it was necessary for me to expand my thoughts a little, offering equal parts clarification and apology (in the explanatory/defense sense of the word…not the "i'm so sorry" sense of the word).

before i go any further, though, let me just put out a few bits of helpful preface.

1. i'm a product of public schools. with the exception of a couple (random) years in quitman, i attended conway public schools (ida burns elementary, conway jr. high & conway high school) for the entirety of my childhood/adolescent education. so, i acknowledge what is seemingly a bias, but i'll get to why i think i'm able to step beyond my singular experience.

2. my conway public schools education was particularly valuable directly in terms of racial diversity. while conway certainly doesn't represent the kind of diversity found in little rock, i am thankful to have a relatively diverse experience in relation to national/state racial breakdowns. for example, in my particular classes in elementary school (which was the "poor kids/black kids" elementary school, at that time), for at least a couple years, i was either the minority or nearly 50/50 black/white composition (now the numbers are more like 32% black [39% minority], which is still far above the national/state percentages). (conway high school is comprised of 31% minority students, which, while lower, is still more than 10 points higher than the overall state percentages.) my first crush, for example, was on a little black girl in my 1st grade class. with just a bit of racial balance, the difference between black and white kids was literally only skin deep to a 7-year old.

3. i mentioned what could be interpreted on the surface level as a public schools bias, but there are well-thought-out and studied reasons for these feelings, beyond my direct experience (though i'm not one to devalue personal experience, by any means). i almost cringe pulling this card (because i cringe when i see people do this on the social web [blogs, twitter, facebook, etc.]), but i think it's fair and helps to provide a little context in this situation. my thoughts on the racial/sociological impetus/impact of public/private/home schooling isn't based on mere bias or speculation or conjecture or some kind of agenda. rather, the dynamics at play here are literally what i spent 3 years getting a master's degree in. i have a master's of arts in youth ministry. now, sadly, most people hear that and think that means i spent 3 years learning to light farts and plan lock-ins. because of those assumptions, the youth ministry program at asbury seminary is one of the most notoriously rigorous and multi-disciplined learning tracks in the seminary. i often tell people the more appropriate term for my degree is master's of arts in emerging social anthropology. the ym program at asbury is designed to focus primarily on the social//cognitive/moral/spiritual/psychological development of emerging generations (from birth to adolescence to emerging adulthood, obviously dwelling most in the 2 latter fields of study). it is comprised of equal parts anthropology, sociology, psychology and general social dynamics theory. i genuinely loved it and has prepared me well for life far beyond youth ministry (which i spent nearly 10 years doing before now). again, i don't like to pull the i-have-a-masters-degree-in-this card, but i think it will offer an opportunity to speak from the point-of-view of someone who has literally poured hundreds of hours into this very type of conversation/social analysis.

ok, i don't like lengthy prefaces in my posts, but i thought those might help set the stage for everything else. so, take a deep breath and let's get into the meat.

first of all, i don't back off my statement whatsoever. not because i'm stubborn, but because it simply makes a fact statement, rather than some sort of indictment.

again, let me reiterate that my tweet/statement was/is not an indictment, but rather, a fact statement, rooted in sociological research and theory. at its most basic level, it carries no value judgment.

the fact is that "self-segregation" is a term that has been used by a handful of sociologists to refer to issues related to white flight and increasingly homogenous social patterns. in essence, the idea is that we live in a culture where blatant racism is egregiously taboo (as compared to just 50 years ago), so more nuanced forms of racism like white flight and "racial avoidance" is increasingly prevalent. so, for many people—**BUT NOT ALL**—in the name of "better education" (though the numbers would disagree) and "increased opportunities", large segments of white people are flocking to private schools.

some of the push back to the tweet heard 'round the world was that private schools are, in fact, diverse and that i simply have a false or incomplete view of the diversity in little rock's private schools. well, simple common knowledge told me, at the time, that my "assumptions" were correct. now, though, i've actually looked at the numbers and they have almost completely confirmed my suspicions. here's the numbers:

[by the way, i'm intentionally focusing on black and white percentages. some people talk about "racial diversity" by including asians or other ethnic groups. yes, they certainly represent diversity, but let's be totally honest: nobody's fleeing little rock because of all the dirty, awful asians. right? right.]

little rock: 42% black (52% total minority)

public schools: %, +/- city overall % (% total minority, +/- black %)

central: 55%, +13% (61% total minority, +6%) (data)
hall: 80%, +38% (93% total minority, +13%) (data)
ja fair: 88%, +46% (94% total minority, +6%) (data)
mcclellan: 89%, +47% (97% total minority, +8%) (data)
parkview: 51%, +9% (61% total minority, +10%) (data)
mills: 64%, +22% (69% total minority, +5%) (data)

average: 71%, +29%

private schools (%, +/- city overall %)

pulaski academy: 4%, -38% (11% total minority, +7%) (data)
catholic: 3%, -39% (10% total minority, +7%) (data)
arkansas baptist: 3%, -39% (8% total minority, +5%) (data)
little rock christian: 1%, -41% (3% total minority, +2%) (data)
mt. st. mary: 4%, -38% (13% total minority, +9%) (data)
(and much to my surprise…) episcopal collegiate: 17%, -25% (18% total minority, +1%) (data)

average: 5% (3% w/out episcopal), -37%

where i am getting this data?? it all came from the u.s. department of education institute of education science's national center for education statistics (a.k.a. the official database of u.s. school documentation). you can find it all by clicking the link associated with each school's data.

indeed, the numbers—with indisputable clarity—confirm my statement. again, one could imply any kind of value judgment or indictment they'd like, but my point was simply to say that, yes, making the decision to place your child in private school is a decision to self-segregate. the numbers are clear.

what needs to be stated over and over is that regardless of intentions, segregation occurs. yes, you might have chosen a private school because of some special program or because you just really like the school or because you have money to burn, but it still creates the same outcome: racial segregation. one of the many jobs of a sociologist is to observe social patterns and accordingly report. the fundamental task isn't to draw subjective opinions or form scathing commentary. it's simply to observe and report.

many people got bent out of shape about the tweet, but it simply stated a very easily observable reality: racial demographics at private schools are incredibly skewed, relative to our city's racial makeup. simply put: putting your white child in private school puts them in a self-chosen highly segregated educational environment.

so, i certainly have very strong feelings in terms of negative social implications from this data, but it simply wasn't my point in the tweet heard 'round the world.

ultimately, as stated in the tweet, my goal was to get people to pause and think about something that we simply don't think about too often. the choices we make for our children are deeply personal and intimate (i've got 3 of my own, so i know). nobody wants to screw up their children and it's so easy to do just that. :) so, it's simply worth pausing to consider what it does to your child to place them in a pseudo-environment of racial sameness. i'm not assuming what your family's educational priorities ought to be, but at minimum, i hope this whole conversation has given people an opportunity (including myself) to have a serious time of reflection on the long-term effects of our children's social/racial/cultural educational environment.

maybe we get it right. maybe we get it wrong. but at least we've engaged in serious and substantive reflection.

beautiful noise: 6 songs to help you de-stress

2010-08-20T07:54:00.000-05:00

i don't get stressed out.

yes, i know, it sounds hyperbolic or based in some kind of strange denial, but i just don't get stressed out. well, stressed out in the common sense of the phrase, that is.

i'm certainly aware that experiencing some type of response to stress factors is very normal and biologically healthy. i've, though, simply never experienced characteristic traits of what most would call being "stressed out". i don't lose sleep. i don't lash out. i don't get headaches. i don't get cranky. i don't have stomach problems. i just don't experience any sort of biologically/emotionally negative effects.

but.

as stated, i certainly experience times of biological stress. fortunately (for lack of a better word), though, i experience things more like apathy or lethargy, rather than the "bad" responses.

i've been in a brief season of stress here lately, with things piled up around me, disallowing for much time to take a breath.

so what do i do when i experiences these seasons? i turn to music.

more specifically, i tend to be particularly tuned into—for lack of a better word—beautiful music. not flowery. not sappy. not just love songs. but music that is simply beautiful. music that feels good in your ears.

in the last couple weeks, i've found myself hitting 'repeat' on quite a few songs that are just beautiful. they're a variety of genres and styles, but each of them, in their own way, has some beautiful quality that has kept me coming back over and over.

i'm fully aware that in my times of stress, i'm surrounded by plenty of company. we live in a culture of get-more-done and stress is, sadly, one of the unifying characteristics of millions of people every day.

so, i hope it's helpful to share my de-stressers.

take a listen. relax. de-stress. enjoy the beauty.

[note: these aren't all "happy" songs, as much as they're songs that create a mellow mood. some are pretty sad, quite frankly. proceed with caution. :)]

punch brothers: missy

ray lamontagne: god willin' & the creek don't rise

don chaffer: long on diagnosis, short on cure

david gray: kathleen

brandi carlile: that year

lost in the trees: movement II: sketch

why we should stop letting black people live in the quapaw quarter

2010-08-16T07:56:00.001-05:00

our family moved, in early 2009, into the quapaw quarter (in little rock). we really enjoy being so close to downtown and our neighborhood is relatively quiet and friendly. there's a diversity of people here that you simply don't get in other parts of town.

but i'll get to that whole diversity thing briefly.

several months after moving in, we attended a 4th of july breakfast at the empress (our immediate neighbor) and had an opportunity to meet the large majority of our neighbors. i had a lengthy conversation with a man who, along with his wife of 30-something years, has lived in the quarter for well over 20 years. he offered a bit of history of the neighborhood and one particular story stood out among the others. he said that a little over 20 years ago, a gang of about 6 or 7 black guys jumped a white man (who lived in our neighborhood) while he was walking his dog. apparently the guy was pretty messed up and after a few days of intensive care, he died from internal bleeding. whereas several of the black guys were subsequently arrested, the two main leaders of the group got away and were never arrested.

he said, for obvious reasons, many people in the neighborhood were shaken up pretty badly and even after having some candlelight vigils and racial reconciliation-type conversations with some of the predominantly black churches in the area, tensions ran high.

he and i talked about some of the backlash and anger that, to this day, still exists in this neighborhood and we came up with only one logical conclusion.

ban black people from living in the quapaw quarter.

seriously, it's best to just keep them out. now, i get it that, legally, you can't stop black people from moving in, but ultimately, it's less of a rights issue than it is sensitivity to the family (who still lives in this neighborhood) of the man and the neighbors who have lived in fear of a repeat incident since that day.

my question for any black people who would want to move in is why they can't just live in areas where more black people already live. i mean, if you just go a couple blocks south and cross roosevelt, there are black people everywhere. they'll be welcome with open arms. violence happens all the time there. why do they have to bring it back to our neighborhood? why do they have to stir up all those raw emotions of the current residents from just a handful of years ago? why do they have to flaunt their "rights' while stomping on their emotions and fear of the good citizens of the quapaw quarter?

now, the one slight problem is that there are already some black people living in our neighborhood. while there are more white people, there are still a decent percentage of black families. no, i don't think we should run them out. rather, we should make sure they don't try to have any more children or build on to their existing home. what they have now is plenty. no need to be going and getting building permits for additional square footage. that would clearly be shoving it in the face of the white people affected by the black-on-white violence of 20 years ago. just appreciate what you have, black people. you live in a predominantly white neighborhood, that was, to take it a step further, founded by white people with white values and principles.

so, you might think it sounds harsh, but i think the only fair and sensitive decision to draw from this is that black people should not be allowed to live in the quapaw quarter.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

i strongly urge that you read these related links:
link 1
link 2
link 3

some exciting new eikon church updates

2010-08-13T14:04:00.005-05:00

it's been awhile since i've offered a substantial (or any, really) update about what's going on with eikon church. well, big things are happening, so i thought i'd pause the ryan-blog-rants-and-ramblings train and get us all on the same page.

i blogged about this last week on the eikon blog, but if you're just too lazy to click the link, here's the highlights from that blog post. :)

NEW MEETING SPACE

we're moving! we've been deeply thankful for r street community church's willingness to let us crash at their place for the past 6 months, but it's time to move on.

the space—at 101 n. woodrow st. (near the corner of kavanaugh & markham)—will allow for a hybrid house/”traditional” church setting and atmosphere. on one hand, because of the fact that it’s a converted house, it has retained an intimate vibe that corresponds with the surrounding neighborhoods (stifft's station, capitol view, hillcrest). on the other hand, because it’s been converted into a meeting space, it will allow for larger groups and teaching/conversation times.

additionally, it will provide upstairs round-the-clock office space, allowing for meetings, quiet space and storage). we're also excited that the building comes equipped with a full kitchen, which will lend itself to other announcements (keep reading!).

here's some pictures of the building:

CHILDREN

as we’ve searched for meeting spaces over the last year, one of our primary concerns was a space for children. quite frankly, some places met every single criterion we had, but was shot down due to lack of a children’s space. despite the small size of this space, we’re still excited to offer a dedicated space with structured learning and activity time for children 5 years and younger.

SHARED MEALS

there’s something transcendent, something sacred about a shared meal. now, we’ll make that a core feature of our weekly gatherings. every single week, we’ll begin our time together at 6 p.m. with a meal that’s prepared by us. whether it’s a single family, multiple families or potluck-style, each week will feature a family-style dinner.

we're particularly interested in sustainability, recycling and waste reduction, so we're committed to using real plates/utensils/glasses/etc and encouraging people to use locals meats/produce/etc when preparing the meals. we also think this will be a great way to involve people outside of our community. do you have a friend who loves to cook? or a friend who loves to eat? get them involved. sitting down to eat is a universally unifying experience and we hope to incorporate that into our gatherings.

TEACHING

quite frankly, it’s good to hear more than just me rambling on for an hour each week. :) we want and need to hear from multiple voices with varying viewpoints and leadership styles. from “traditional” teaching to conversational times to interactive learning sessions, we hope to incorporate a wide array of gatherings that will connect with a wide array of people.

we'll be asking a number of people to lead the teaching times. whether you think you're a "teacher" or a "pastor" or even a leader, we'd love for varying voices to lead our discussion time together. in addition to standard teaching/discussion times, we also plan to have "open mic" nights that are open forum conversations as well as "traditional" worship nights.

GATHERINGS

we want to allow plenty of time for dinner which will include conversational time and getting-to-know-you time with others. we encourage families to eat together. whereas children are welcome to stay, we strongly encourage parents to take their children to the upstairs children's room at 6:45. for the next hour-ish, we’ll engage in a teaching/conversation time.

we'll continue to gather at 6 p.m. each sunday night (for those bringing food, please arrive in time so that people can begin eating at 6 p.m. sharp). we want to allow plenty of time for dinner which will include conversational time and getting-to-know-you time with others. we encourage families to eat together. whereas children are welcome to stay, we strongly encourage parents to take their children to the upstairs children's room no later than 6:45. for the next hour-ish, we’ll engage in a teaching/conversation time.

UPCOMING SCHEDULE

we'll officially make the permanent move to our new space on sunday, september 12. in the meantime, here's the schedule of what/where we're doing:

august 15: preview gathering* :: new building (101 n. woodrow st.)
august 22: regular gathering :: r street building
august 29: worship night :: r street building
september 5: off for labor day (possible casual gathering somewhere)
september 12: kickoff event :: new building (101 n. woodrow st.)

so, there you have it. i'm really excited about the new direction and i think it will be an opportunity to spark growth and help us to engage much more in the way of jesus. it's a great time to come if you've been wanting to check it out but just haven't done it yet.

*you'll notice on the upcoming schedule that we're having a preview gathering this sunday night (august 15) at our new building.

if you have any questions, feel free to leave comments or email me at ryan [at] beingryanbyrd [dot] com.

in the meantime, spread the word: tweet it, update it, text it, email it, blog it. maybe even tell a real life human being! :)

listen to lissie cover metallica's 'nothing else matters' and download 'live sessions'

2010-08-06T13:23:00.001-05:00

as i've said before, i devour a lot of music. because of that, it's rare for a new artist to really sneak up and surprise me with how great it is. over the last couple months, an artist has done just that: lissie.

several weeks ago, i took a look at my favorite albums of 2010 so far and her debut release, catching a tiger, managed to steal the #4 spot. that's no small feat when she's keeping company with the likes of the punch brothers, jakob dylan and the black keys, to name a few. we'll see how her album shakes out on my year-end review.

beyond her recordings, she's become known as a great performer. after hitting the festival circuit this summer, she's created quite a bit of buzz for very good reason. i came across some live recordings she's done that are amazing. whereas she's done live versions of some of the tracks from the album (which are great), the highlights are a couple covers. in addition to the surprisingly good cover of bad romance by lady gaga (or lady gag gag…), she's done an amazing cover of metallica's nothing else matters from 1991's self-titled masterpiece. trust me on this. it's amazing.

you can do a couple things. you can check out a video of her performing nothing else matters and i'm also including a zipped file of a collection i've created of these "live sessions" (which are all high-quality recordings…as opposed to crappy concert recordings). here's the video:

and here's the zipped file for download: click here.

listen to new ray lamontagne tracks: 'for the summer' and 'the devil's in the jukebox'

2010-08-03T18:47:00.000-05:00

it was beautiful news a couple months ago when it was announced that ray lamontagne will be releasing the follow-up to 2008's gossip in the grain on august 17. the album, god willin' & the creek don't rise, will be released under the moniker, ray lamontagne & the pariah dogs. shortly after the announcement of the new album, ray did us all a beautiful favor with the youtube-embedded release of a new track, beg steal or borrow.

now, two more tracks have surfaced.

the two new tracks, for the summer and the devil's in the jukebox, were released today. summer was released for free on amazon, while devil's was premiered on stereogum.

i've done the dirty work and brought them both to you here.

more than even with beg, steal or borrow, these tracks make me excited for the album due out in a couple weeks. in contrast to gossip in the grain, these tracks reveal a more jovial, throwback feel. sounds like ray and the band had fun recording the album sans long-time producer ethan johns. as good of a producer than johns is (having worked with ryan adams, rufus wainwright & kings of leon, to name a few), there's a lot of compromise that an artist has to make when letting go of the production. in a recent interview, speaking about his departure from johns, ray said,

just to put it very simply, there’s lots of concessions you have to make, the more cooks you have in the kitchen. at a certain point, i just feel like, i guess, it’s just time for change.

so, less compromise. sounds good to me. do your thing, ray.

without further ado, here's for the summer & the devil's in the jukebox.

anne rice's guide to quitting christianity and keeping jesus

2010-07-30T13:31:00.000-05:00

i've never read an anne rice book.

i've never seen an anne rice-adapted movie.

i've never been interested in vampires or books about vampires.

despite these things, though, i've been a distant and intrigued observer—over the last 10 years—as anne rice has come back to faith. growing up in the catholic church, at the age of 18, she left her faith in exchange for nearly 4 decades of ardent unbelief. after garnering legions of followers and authoring blockbuster books, she once again chose faith and for the past decade, she's been publishing books about the her faith and the life of christ.

but anne rice has never reached "christian celebrity" status like other celebrity purveyors of faith such as mel gibson, stephen baldwin or—god help us—chuck norris. despite her marked switch to literary works about the life of christ, she never seemed to fully embrace the prevailing values of white, evangelical culture, which is the key to unlocking full-on christian celebrity status.

well, the possibility of that status is official DOA.

anne rice is quitting christianity.

in a series of facebook updates on her fan page beginning tuesday and continuing through yesterday, rice has stated that she is quitting christianity.

not jesus. just christianity. the system. the religion.

it began with an open-ended question, referencing gandhi's famous quote: i like your christ, i do not like your christians. your christians are so unlike your christ. she posed the following questions:

when does a word (christian) become unusable? when does it become so burdened with history and horror that it cannot be evoked without destructive controversy?

her question turned into a surprising, bold statement on wednesday.

for those who care, and i understand if you don't: today i quit being a christian. i'm out. i remain committed to christ as always but not to being "christian" or to being part of christianity. it's simply impossible for me to "belong" to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. for ten years, i've tried. i've failed. i'm an outsider. my conscience will allow nothing else.

but she didn't stop there. this update revealed the heart of her decision.

as i said below, i quit being a christian. i'm out. in the name of christ, i refuse to be anti-gay. i refuse to be anti-feminist. i refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. i refuse to be anti-democrat. i refuse to be anti-secular humanism. i refuse to be anti-science. i refuse to be anti-life. in the name of christ, i quit christianity and being christian. amen.

amen, indeed.

what i find most fascinating about her statements is that, at nearly 70 years old, rice is voicing the prevailing sentiment of emerging generations—20-somethings down. more than ever, people are intrigued, engaged with, interested in jesus.

but not the system.

not the american version of christianity.

not the institution. not the rules. not the cultural shackles that come with it.

you see, jesus is beautiful. but the system can be ugly.

jesus is freeing. the system can be confining.

jesus is authentic. the system can be plastic.

jesus is dangerous. the system can be neuteringly safe.

quite frankly, anne rice is one of a relatively small handful of people to take a leap of faith to come into a system in which she was previously an outsider, experience it and have the courage to evaluate it for what it is.

but yet continue to brazenly cling to the core tenet: jesus.

it's often hard to be shackled with the label christian.

not the label of jesus-like, but christian.

i'm personally not necessarily compelled to ditch the word christian, but it's certainly been tempting. the baggage is heavy.

the last thing people who genuinely follow jesus need is extra baggage when we have a cross to carry.

i could dig into each point that anne rice made that has driven her away from christianity (anti-gay, anti-democrat, anti-feminist, etc.), but that's not necessarily the point here. the point is that she's boldly stated what many of us "christians" have felt somewhere deep within us: we love jesus, but not the abused system. not the pale reflection of a beautiful christ.

i'll part with rice's final update regarding the whole matter. beautifully (you'd think she's an author or something…), she sums up her (and others') deep-seated drive to follow jesus.

my faith in christ is central to my life. my conversion from a pessimistic atheist lost in a world i didn't understand, to an optimistic believer in a universe created and sustained by a loving god is crucial to me. but following christ does not mean following his followers. christ is infinitely more important than christianity and always will be, no matter what christianity is, has been, or might become.

amen, indeed.