Does this mean I've sold out?

Okay, for those non-music junkies out there, sorry, this is going to have some terminology that may not be understood to the general public, though I will try, because I can't rightly call myself a music junkie either. Now, today, I'm probably going to offend a number of Indie music fans, and for that, I apologize, but, hey, you're Indie fans, you're used to it. Have I sold out? Well, that's an interesting question. I can humorously answer "no" because frankly, I haven't sold anything. However, recently, I've been considering a couple of things, and they're all somewhat interestingly tie together. In his book How Now Shall We Live, Charles Colson writes that art ought to be a reflection of the beauty of creation. God was very intentional when he created sound, and that's why we have these nice mathematical ratios (which I won't talk about because I don't really get it entirely) for consonance (sounds that sound good together). Now, if that is the case, then there are a limited number of sounds that sound good together (chords) and therefore, a limited number of chord progressions that will work. Given 400 or so years of written musical history, I'm sure that it's understandable why we recycle some musical ideas. So, this idea of a sellout, well, what is it? This can be broken down into a number of questions, the first, who did we sell out to? The common answer may be, mainstream audiences, money, I suppose. The second question then is, who did we sell out from? The arguable answer is the abstract concept of "musical integrity". Which, I honestly find kind of funny. However, the general principle I think behind it is the motivation, do I write songs in a certain way because people will listen to it and therefore I will make lots of money because it'll sell? Yet, I would posit, despite perhaps insincere motivations, these "sellouts" (and "musicians") alike have stumbled upon something that we've lost over the years.

 Now Colson goes into this little tirade in his book about how pop culture has produced and influenced these things that may not be bad, but aren't necessarily good for us either. He pretty much equates it all with being "cultural junk food". I personally have a hard time swallowing that. While I would agree that classical composers were tremendously gifted in their grasp of music in general, I would also posit that a lot of them composed because they needed to make money (I believe Mozart at least early on was money motivated, at least his father was). While the medium of rock-and-roll may have been have been produced and refined in the morally questionable, drug-induced '80s, I don't necessarily think that other music doesn't have its follies as well. Certainly, classical music generally tends to be more complex, thereby requiring us to think harder to appreciate it, and I do agree there is some merit to working to understand what you are listening to, but inherently, I hold more that content is kind of the deal-breaker. As much as the argument of "God gave us brains for a reason" is used, likewise the argument "God gave us hearts for a reason" is equally valid. Okay, so this is a big tangent, but I felt I needed to clear that up.

Recently, I revisited a couple of old musical comedy bits, the first by Rob Paravonian who remarks how the Pachabel Canon in D chord progression (FYI: D A Bm F#m G D G A) is found in every song (and the piece itself makes for a crappy cello part), the second is by a group called Axis of Awesome (who, because they are Australian, can be humorously introduced as Destiny's Child, if they were white... and men) talking about how all pop hits have the same 4 chord progression (FYI: I-V-vi-IV, which incidentally, essentially can function as the first four chords of Pachabel's Canon). As a brief warning to those who actually finish reading before they click on a link, there may be a little bit of crass language in this, in case you have sensitive ears, but overall it's pretty clean. While we find it funny at these people ridiculing all these songs, it inherently remains true that anyone that has listened to the radio in the past decade or two will probably have heard a lot of these songs on the radio somewhere at some point in time. Of the most popular songs, for example, U2's hit With or Without You (which is mentioned in both comedy pieces) literally uses the Axis of Awesome's 4-chord pop song formula the ENTIRE song. Another of U2's popular songs, Where the Streets Have No Name, additionally pretty much use the same 4 chords (perhaps not in that exact order) and throw in a flat-VII chord at the end before resolving each chorus, but the basic structure is the same. Yet we still listen to these songs. Sure we can agree that nobody likes Justin Bieber's music, or that U2 is awesome, but they're still flooding the charts. Why?

Frankly, I think it's because that is the fundamental nature of music. From the Beatles to Green Day, they've stumbled across something that inherently "works". As much as the musician in me chafes at boiling it down to something this simple, it really is the foundation of music. Sure there will be good music not based on this, but generally speaking, I find most music is. When I've tried to compose songs, I've always tried to do something "original" but in the end always end up coming back to the four basic chords of music (I-V-vi-IV, not necessarily in that order), frankly, because they sound good. God made those four chords sound good together in a progression, now how do we use that to glorify Him?

A study in vocation

What does the word "vocation" mean to most people? I can do the first natural thing which is to look at a dictionary, which tells me:

noun
1. a particular occupation, business, or profession; calling.
2. a strong impulse or inclination to follow a particular activity or career.
3. a divine call to God's service or to the Christian life.
4. a function or station in life to which one is called by God 

 Okay, fair enough. I would posit that generally, we trend towards the first definition of vocation, and that's it. Now, there's nothing wrong with that, and I won't go into the etymology of vocation extensively except to point out that its root is in the Latin vocatio, which means "to call". So generally speaking, the word vocation probably most accurately has the meaning of "a calling". I was attending a men's Bible study group when these questions in regards to vocation were brought up and frankly, while I feel they have been overlooked, when you stop and think about it, they're really quite natural and frankly, something that we don't consider enough. When we consider our "calling" the two questions that immediately should be considered are these: called by whom? and for what? Generally speaking, we only really consider what we're called to do, but seldom who called us and why.

Watch what you sing...

As a worship leader, I'm often contemplating over what songs to choose often because I am often mulling over the lyrics of each song. It's a long, but relatively straightforward, process that I won't labor you with. That being said, it's given me a perspective in regards to how we treat music in our everyday lives. Frankly, in this generation, with our iPods and Pandora and even just our car radio, it's pretty rare to go a couple of steps without hearing some kind of music. Sometimes we're inclined to sing along, sometimes we hum, sometimes we memorize all the lyrics (maybe because we like karaoke), but that being said, do we really pay attention to what we're singing? Some might say that music is an "expression of the soul" and therefore the lyrics don't really matter, it's all about the melody or sound that is conveyed. Now, I grant that a catchy tune makes the song that much better (or in some cases worse), but does that really justify ignoring the lyrics? If music truly is "an expression of the soul" as some are wont to put it, don't the lyrics matter that much more?

The gives and takes of growing up

We live in a generation and society that more and more asks the question “What’s in it for me?” Is it a bad question to ask? It’s pretty hard for me to say, but nonetheless, it’s a question that we instinctively ask when faced with a new opportunity or situation. The question belies the attitude that anything worth doing is worth doing because of the result that comes out of it. To any degree, I believe that this generally holds true. While the Bible does tell us that it is more “blessed give than it is to receive” you are still storing up an eternal reward in heaven, a reward which, I believe far outweighs anything you could reap in this lifetime. Yet, this is not really what I want to discuss either. I wrote an earlier piece on this advent of “adultescents” which I believe is a growing problem in this day and age, and I’d now like to further continue to explore this issue. Am I an expert? Well, not really, but this is just my personal observation and speculations, but I’d say that I have some experience with this issue. Why? Probably because I’m likely and “adultescent” as well, though I’d say if I were I’m in denial (though if I’m really honest, I’d have to say that I really am something of an “adultescent”).

A Call to Love

In John 21 there's an exchange between Jesus and Peter involving the word "love". It's a pretty common word in the Bible, particularly in the New Testament. In Matthew 22:37-40 Jesus summarily condenses the entire Jewish law into these to basic premises; love God, love people. In John 13:34 Jesus commands his disciples to love each other as they have been loved by Christ. Needless to say, it's a pretty important concept in the scheme of Christianity. Now, we can go on discussing the different kinds of love, as C.S. Lewis does so well in his book The Four Loves. I'm not a Greek expert, so I'll basically just give a summary here and recommend that if you have time, pick up Lewis's work and give a good go through. From the Greek, we know that there are four words to express what we currently translate as the word "love"; storge, phileo, eros, and agape. I'm sure that many of you have heard this before in a sermon somewhere, but to give a brief recounting, storge is affection through familiarity, phileo is love between family and friends, eros is the emotional state of being "in love", and agape can also be translated as charity, it is an unconditional love. Now, knowing the basic differences between each of these aspects, Christ commands us to "agape" others, as agape is the only love of the four that can be commanded, as it is the only love that is demonstrated through physical action, the only love without the prerequisite of "liking" the subject of love prior to that action. It's a little difficult to put into words, however, I believe this distinctive difference is something that is important. I can't "phileo" or "eros" someone I don't like, because those two aspects of love are based on my emotional attachment to the person whom I am loving, however, with agape, I can still love said person, as charity is not based entirely in emotional connection. Granted, liking the person makes it easier to love that person, but only in a situation where our love is not tied to our emotions can the concept of "loving our enemies" be a command that we can expect to fulfill. As far as I've seen, I've definitely not suddenly started liking everyone I met since becoming a Christian.

So where am I going with all this? Well, I believe that there's an inherent change that needs to take place in how I perceive things that happen around me. Naturally, we've all heard that we need to see others "through the eyes of Christ", that we need to have compassion for the lost around us, yet my pondering has led me to ask what that really looks like. It's pretty hard for me to say where I'm going because naturally, I'm not entirely sure myself, but I believe that this is something that needs to be pondered.

Entymological Rant: "Studying" Context

I suppose the topic of this specific post is geared more towards Christians than not, though if perhaps it can be applied more broadly to other aspects of life as well. What I would like to specifically discuss today is the word "study", specifically when used in the context of the phrase "Bible study". To put it in the most simple and straightforward means possible, I wish to explore the question: What is a Bible study? I find there to be various approaches to this, but let us take this piece by piece. Why go through this? Well, for myself, it is an exercise to consider a number of things, among them are these two key points: first, why do I attend a Bible study? Secondly, what do I think a good Bible study looks like? Another way of considering that would be: what sort of Bible study would impact me the most?

Naturally, the most logically definition, would be the one in which our personal context is most familiar. Bible study is that function that I go to outside of church. It could take a variety of shapes and forms. For some it could be a small group of people sharing and exegeting some piece of Scripture. For others it may be that same small group reading a good Christian book. And yet for others it could be going to hear someone else exegeting some piece of Scripture. Yet what I would like to consider when we look at the form of what Bible study is, I would like to consider the phrase "Bible study" in and of itself.

Adultescents: The Growing Epidemic

Adultescent? What the heck? Frankly, I'd only heard of the word last week at a conference in Portland, but apparently it's been around since 2004, well, at least the word has. I'm sure there were other less friendly labels used for such people before then. Yet, why was this word created? Well, NY Times gives an interesting look at it. Surely, statistically we see that there's some kind of phenomenon happening here, for better of or worse, something's happening. For those of you that didn't click on the link and are still wondering what an adultescent is, simply put, it's a kid in an adult body, or one other way of thinking of it is someone who just doesn't grow up. As you might have gathered from my title, there are a growing number of these types of people, and frankly, I find it to be a problem.

We're All Insane

Some of you who actually read what I write are probably thinking, really? Another one? And I suppose yes, this is another one. I know that I have other blogs, and maybe I should use those as a venue, but I like to keep my streams of idea separate. However, I really don't want to have readers have to jump back and forth between my random fancies and more philosophical fancies, having to jump between the silly and the more serious matters. I think it's easier this way. Anyways, with that out of the way, let's jump into this.

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. 

Albert Einstein said that, and it makes sense. I mean, Einstein was a smart man. Doesn't mean he was right about everything he said, but I think this thing has some merit. Sure, Einstein wasn't a philosopher, sure he wasn't a theologian, he was a physicist, but I think there is a certain insight to be had when you are so brilliant and good at what you do. My point here isn't to laud or refute the wisdom of Einstein, but simply to use it as an example, as a launching pad for this blog. This will be a bit reflective and introspective and a bit observational. This world is crazy, and frankly, based on Einstein's definition, so are we all.