Whore

WEDDING DRESS - Derek Webb 

if you could love me as a wife
and for my wedding gift, your life
should that be all i’ll ever need
or is there more i’m looking for
and should i read between the lines
and look for blessings in disguise
to make me handsome, rich, and wise
is that really what you want 

(chorus)
i am a whore i do confess
but i put you on just like a wedding dress
and i run down the aisle
i’m a prodigal with no way home
but i put you on just like a ring of gold
and i run down the aisle to you 

so could you love this bastard child
though i don’t trust you to provide
with one hand in a pot of gold
and with the other in your side
i am so easily satisfied
by the call of lovers so less wild
that i would take a little cash over your very flesh and blood 

(chorus) 

because money cannot buy
a husband’s jealous eye
when you have knowingly deceived his wife

i don't normally post song lyrics on here, i never read them on anyone else's blog, because i figure there's nothing i've never heard before (laugh). but i was recently introduced to Derek Webb and this song. it hit me so hard because it has such deep, forgotten meaning. it is written from the perspective of a shameful bride. at second glance, it bears the awful truth of an unfaithful church. watching her as she repeatedly breaks every vow. Derek calls any follower of Christ to love the church. Jesus himself said "If you love me, you will tend my flock."

it's incredibly easy to point fingers at the church, to say what it should be like, what it needs to do, and to hilight the flaws. when i condemn the church, i condemn Jesus also. God loves the church. i want to love what He loves. i want to see the bride of Christ as He sees her.

Funny How Blessings Come

yes, i'm back. or maybe you have not noticed. i've been away from home for almost two weeks now. bumming around town, crashing at friends' places here and there. my mom got a flat tire in Hamilton, and our van has been in the shop, had some framework done, some alignment, anyway, it's been a mess. but i am home now, and very glad to be. might i recommend the new Mutemath CD. i ordered it online a while back and it was here when i came home. along with the NOOMA soundtrack. also fantastic.

i'm finding that anywhere i go, whatever i do, my circumstances are made painfully aware to me. it's annoying, to say the least. let me elaborate.

funny how blessings come, guised as curses. this is a recurring surreality. i find myself resentful of anything given to me, free of charge or service. i want to earn my happiness. yet God will not grant me that satisfaction to my ego. i'm not sure i want to share every impudent circumstance i find this nested in. i just don't want to accept blessings. and i know it's my pride in the way of that. because some blessings bring me to humility. i think i should pray for more of these. but i find my prayers more dedicated to passing my blessings on to others. i think now God is showing me that's not what He wants for me. rather, He wants me to cherish the gifts He gives.

my friend Matt and i ran into an old friend from highschool the other day. he's having a kid in about 20 days. it was unexpected, but we congratulated him anyway. name will be Christopher. funny how blessings come.

i feel like God is moving me to a new place. in the wake of Easter, i've been spending a lot of time observing the man of Jesus. of course, this is an ongoing thing for me, but lately i've been intrigued by His character. learning how to imitate Him. word has it He was a man of great sorrow. this is because when He came into contact with the poor and sick, He carried their burdens. i wonder about this. to bear the sin of the entire world. how that would affect a man.

it's truly perplexing to think that we as christians are called to carry eachother's burden. not just pray for one another, but intercede for them. lately i'm noticing that negative prayers have more of an effect than positive prayers. praying against crisis. against sickness. against temptation. rather than for happiness. for healing. for freedom. i think it's more of a nip-the-bud technique. it allows God to work freely without the constraint of your will. praying that His will be done, His way. in His timing. i think this is closer to God's heart. i think God wants us to have more of an activist role in His work, and less of a passive tone. and i think God wants us to notice when our prayers are answered. and rejoice with Him.

Music Blog #2 || mewithoutYou

"Catch For Us The Foxes" -mewithoutYou

Jeremy Tremblay wrote Walked Away(mp3). it will bring a tear to your eye. guaranteed. oh, and i will also mention, Jeremy graciously stepped into the recording studio with me for a collaborative demo. or, i should say, i went to his house and recorded that song i wrote and sang at the NCCF winter retreat ("Side A"). but this is top-secret information. don't go spilling all over the web about this production, now.

i've fallen in love with this band mewithoutYou. i'm not sure how to describe them, possibly poetry-core or something. sounds kinda like R.A.T.M. meets CAKE. i dunno. anyway, they have some good songs to download: Bullet to Binary(mp3); Gentlemen(mp3)

my old roomie, Andrew Primmer, is up to his old antics in his hilarious new video, Kung Fu Madness(wmv)... i know, i was going to make a seasonal 'mp3 blog', but i couldn't pass this up. it's really funny. i luv it! i luv it!

anyway, hope you all had an enjoyable V-day. i celebrated with a heart-shaped cookie at work.

My Embrace

i can't stand this. i feel like my life is on repeat. i keep asking the same questions over and over, trying to come to different conclusions... for the sole purpose of changing my mind again, and again. like repainting a canvas with all that old paint underneath. somehow it still shows through. not really sure what i'm trying to describe here, just my display of raw emotion. i am contending with apathy now. i want God to take everything away from me. beauty, pride, joy... take things that are dear to me. so i can relearn what it means to be thankful.

i try to represent Christ. but all that comes across is my self-consciousness. guarding my heart. analyzing myself. second-guessing my actions. analyzing myself again. it gives me a headache. advice says, "just be yourself." it proves rather frustrating when it's your self that you're trying to kill. kill this self-righteousness and pity. take away my better judgment so that i may learn to forgive and forget. kill my senses. let me become numb to the pain of reformation.

reason will only validate a need. my reason is Christ. i need morality. i need unconditional love. i need something to live for. i need acceptance. i need forgiveness. i need progression.

random thought: there are plenty of fish in the sea. but my lure is caught in the weeds of an irrigation pond.

i signed up to be on the worship team at church today. i don't know what this means for me. it's something i used to help my mom with. maybe i want to induce more discipline in my life. more restrictions. more commitments.

this oddity of joy proves rather amusing. need i say, my last sentence is redundant. i get stuck at a traffic light, and burst out laughing. excuse my pizzahut-lingo, but when there's 40 bills up and the make table is a sea of chaos, i am ecstatic. technical mistakes in music stimulate passion.

"when the Spirit meets the flesh, it is a beautiful collision" - David Crowder.

one thing i've been thinking a lot about lately is this metaphysical sensation: conjoining of the senses. for example, tasting red. seeing heat. hearing pain. when we worship, we have this interaction with God's Spirit. and it is coupled with overwhelming passion.

i have this burning desire to be able to read a book while i sing to music. being one-track minded, this is virtually impossible for me. i can't split my attention to share two sources of information exchange. it's like breathing in through your mouth, and out your nose simultaneously. they cancel eachother out, and you stop breathing. your lungs do not function, so the oxygen transfer is pointless.

now that you're experimenting with your nose and mouth, allow me to continue...

why do we worship? to glorify God. to interact with the Spirit. right. i don't want to poison your mind with my next comparison, so this is a forewarning: don't read too much into this.

God gave us marriage, to exemplify how we are to interact with Him. a relationship that is consummated by venerating eachother, showing the highest execution of love known to man. this may seem rather misplaced and awkward, when in conjunction with my last post displaying God as a father-figure. but our understanding of God is that He desires to be the ultimate satisfaction to every need. He is our be-all and end-all. He is our everything.

this upsets a lot of christians, because they don't want Jesus to be their boyfriend. they suggest that this image of God is too intimate, and that God is to be revered above all else. i'm not disqualifying that Christ wants to be revered, but the marriage scenario doesn't undermine this. at least, in a Biblical sense.

"In one blinding moment of salvific truth, Christianity became no longer merely a moral code, an ethic, or a philosophy of life, but a love affair." - Brennan Manning: Above All

i am thoroughly convinced that God desires an intimate relationship with us. and when we limit ourselves to lip-service, a good deed now and then, and a warm pew, we're missing out. surely, all that we can ever achieve is merely inadequate. but God is still exuberantly pleased. much like the delight a father has in a child's finger-painting, God not only knows our limitations, He embraces them.

Music Blog #1 || Ba-rum-pum-pum-pum

i've decided that i need some tradition in my life. so, starting now, every holiday i will post an official "mp3 blog". yes, that's right. free music. for all of you. it's my gift. ha!

anyways, it's christmas. this blog entry will include some emerging bands that i have stumbled upon and encountered. recently i've been on the hunt for new music. how do i go about this? a lot of browsing, and free, legal download sites [MySpace, PureVolume]. mp3 blogs are becoming quite popular as well [http://drop7.com/mp3s/]. i have no current desire to turn my blog into one of these, but i like the idea. and i figured since i make use of other people's mp3 blogs, maybe i could share some of my discoveries as well.

Brennan Strawn is a solo artist from New York. his song Lose It All(mp3) is absolutely beautiful. check out his MySpace profile for more music.

i came across Flyleaf's song Perfect(mp3) through an email newsletter. their influences include Incubus, Rage Against The Machine, Foo Fighters, and Nirvana. check them out on MySpace too.

Mute Math, formerly known as Earthsuit, is apparently busy working on a new album. they pre-released a brand new song on their MySpace. it's called Chaos(mp3) and it's downloadable for a limited time! so get it quickly while it's available.

Rob Bell and his infamous NOOMA series has just released an official soundtrack, which is really worth listening to. an omission to his list of songs is a band called The Album Leaf. i believe they were featured on his LUMP video. anyways, you can hear what they sound like from their song One Day I'll Be On Time(mp3).

from Ontario comes Uneven Ground. i saw them at a show in Simcoe, actually. pretty cool. listen to Angels Wept(mp3). influences include Pantera, Killswitch Engage, Alice in Chains, and Dreamtheatre... to name a few. they're on MySpace as well.

anyways, i've been up all night. i hope you enjoy these tunes!

Judge a Book by its Followers (revised)

the book: The Holy Bible
its followers: Christians
the judges: ....Christians?

i've been thinking about this for a little while now. (pause for more thought) can people base an accurate preconception of a 'religion' based on its followers? should they be able to? pop-culture teaches not to judge a book by its cover. but christians do it all the time. could one, being a non-believer, tell someone what christianity is without ever reading the entire christian bible, but by judging the lives of its followers? could christians? this would require christians to learn the bible, and apply it to their daily life. i mean, this sounds somewhat absurd. to memorize 66 books of prophecy, ethics, miracles, and genealogy and practice it in your daily life.

perhaps some omissions from the bible are permittable, if we are called to "preach the gospel"... like, we could leave out all the boring stuff, cut straight to the 'meat' and hilight key references in the bible. or better yet, cut out the entire old testament. besides, Jesus never came to save the world until the new testament, right? well, there's 4 whole books about Jesus, so he must be important. maybe we could just pick one book and stick with that. let's stick with john because i think i heard he spent the most time with Jesus. but there's 21 chapters in john. still a long read. so let's boil it down to the main message of Jesus... He did say to obey God's commandments. but there's 10 of those, and i only remember a few... so what are the important ones? Jesus said that the greatest commandment was love.

we have boiled it down to one thing. love. is that it? can we settle for that? can we live that? sure! every christian will tell you that! roman catholics and protestants alike! as well as mormons! jews! muslims! hindus! buddhists! sikhs! taoists! wiccans! we can all live together in peace and harmony! isn't that the ultimate goal? is that love? i think it's more of a tolerance. this is NOT the love that Jesus was talking about. this is not being the "salt of the earth". i think we have the wrong idea about love. love is not about making sure everyone gets along nicely with eachother. love hurts. love bleeds. love intrudes. love heals...

the hippie movement was inspired by contemporary christian music artists. they wrote love songs to Jesus. they told the world that Jesus loved them. that He didn't care where they had been. that God would love them no matter what.

people liked this idea about Jesus. they could smoke a joint, fornicate in the woods, run around naked... and it would never matter, Jesus loved them! well, they LOVED this idea. don't get me wrong, i can't argue with them. the initial message is true! Jesus DOES love me. and THANK GOD for grace...

grace? okay. let's back this up. what is grace for? why do we need grace? grace was God's ultimate gift to man. THROUGH Jesus. he gave us forgiveness and a second chance. this is our second chance. a chance to make a difference. to create change. God demonstrated His love for us by intruding into our lives. sending His son to die for us. to heal us. and that hurts. and Jesus bled for us. he died for us. that is love.

so my point is, we are to be like God. is this unfair? if, to enter heaven, divine perfection is expected of us? can we judge a book by its cover? can we judge the Bible by the lives of its followers? do christians follow the Bible? do christians live bible-inspired lives? we need to stop judging eachother. we need to start loving eachother. speak love, not judgement. we need to stop tolerating eachother. we need to start holding eachother accountable for their actions. speak truth, not compromise.

Third-World Food for Thought

i want to remain sensitive to this issue, third world poverty. this is my second attempt at writing this blog entry. i wrote one line for my first attempt, coming off ranting and complaining like my similar styles in previous posts. but when i started researching this issue, i guess similar to the experience you get after actually watching the advertisements of starving children in need of hope and care half way around the world, i didn't want to cut up anybody's efforts to help these children. i mean, i'm not looking for a debate that much.

i was watching a video that i rented about cult explosion. from a christian perspective, this video looks at various cults and religious organizations around the world, tells you what hindu, muslim, jehovah's witness, mormon, christian science, black muhommad, and scientology are all about. they explore all the brainwashing tactics, selling schemes, manipulation, how to reach people involved with that, their conversion experience, what the cults believe, where the holes in their philosophies are, how it relates to what the bible teaches, their views on Jesus, God, satan, christians, etc. India is one of the most suffering countries in the world. The majority of social problems in India have their roots in Hindu religion and Hindu philosophy. this includes their unhealthy lifestyle and deathly fasting. Hindu children are subject to this, producing ill results and disturbing images of living corpses. when this was brought to my attention, my immediate reaction was "no wonder we're still sending money and food over there after all of these years." you'd think that now we'd begin to see a change. have we? if it's a cultural issue and a religious issue, shouldn't we be fighting that? to erase that mentality?

i guess this is a hard opinion to stand by for myself, i do not sponsor a child. i haven't contributed to global humanitarian efforts. although the idea has crossed my mind. especially during those heart-wrenching commericals. but is this guilt that i feel God tugging on my heart strings? or is it manipulation of television? funny how those commercials don't ask for your prayers as much as your money. are prayers not as effective? God's word talks immensely about the power of prayer. i wonder what God's humanitarian commercial would look like? then again, many of these organizations are christian organizations. they're the ones we should be sending money to. because they're building churches. spreading the gospel. sending missionaries to these countries in need.

one thing i've seen more and more of recently and something i most respectively admire are rock bands that are doing something. this includes the ever-famous U2, and their Live 8 worldwide concert and their long list of bands who made thier contribution to that. i look at Coldplay and their efforts. but more importantly i am seeing a number of christian bands stepping up to the plate. taking their fame and putting it to work -- humanitarian work. Audio Adrenaline, Jars of Clay, dc Talk, P.O.D., Brian (Head) Welch, Newsboys, Switchfoot, etc. those are some of the big names. and they're doing something. whether its every time you buy an album, t-shirt, concert ticket, or set up a donation table at your local church, these bands are dedicated to saving this lost and dying world from dirty water, racial discrimination, disease and viruses, and world hunger.

i suppose the smart and best thing to do as a christian, if you do desire to contribute to these organizations, is first to pray about it. see if God wants you to donate to this effort. also make sure it is a christian organization, because you can be sure that they do good business and are preaching the gospel everywhere they sow these seeds. maybe you do want to sponsor a child. there are other things you can do, at the Jars of Clay website they have a special program that you can set up a donation table at your local church or school to raise money. and if you are looking to buy a cd, check out the band's site first. see if any partition goes to a good cause. (for the music downloaders out there, this could mean actually spending a couple bucks instead of robbing those evil conspiring record companies we all love to hate)