Japan

This is a video that was produced by the team that I will be working with next year in Nagoya. They have been bringing supplies up to the northern part of Japan since the earthquake/ tsunami several weeks ago. Please don't forget to pray for Japan. I know it is hard to remember to pray for people who are ten thousand miles from here, but please keep Japan on your thoughts and prayers.

Summer is near... *gulp's with fear*

"If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself." Luke 9:23-24

This is slowly becoming my theme verse... Not because I follow this verse, but because I need to engrain it into my hard heart. As most of you know, I am moving to Japan next year to be a missionary. The more support that comes in, and the closer it get to time for me to graduate and leave, the more I want to throw in the towel. I am terrified of leaving my school and friends. I am terrified of directing choirs. I am terrified of teaching elementary music. In a few short months all of these things that I fear will be my everyday reality. Every bit of my flesh is telling me on a daily basis "Just tell them you can't do it... that you feel God calling you to stay in America and... pick up a third major. Or maybe you can tell them that you have a life threatening disease!!! Just give back all this support and go to graduate school! Live your own life. Get a job. Buy a dog ect."

Its funny how the subconscious will mess with you! Even in all my anxiety and uncertainty I find true comfort in scripture. "Deny himself daily." I naturally seek to save my life. Going to Japan just might break me in two... but I will be better for having been broken.

Its just that... being broken in two... eaten alive... and the like... doesn't settle well in my stomach : ) Good thing there is grace for all my insecurities and lack of faith.

Now that I have talked about myself enough... please remember to pray for the Japanese as they are going through a world of heartache. Many people are experiencing pain and grief beyond what any of us could ever imagine. Pray that God could provide comfort and hope during this dark time.

MTW - Disaster Response in Japan from Go Global on Vimeo.

A New Musical

Last night I went to see the Broadway show “Spring Awakening” in Huntsville. I really had no expectation going into it. I had listened to some of the music previously, and I knew it was a little edgy… not a show that you want to watch with your grandma.

I still don’t know my thoughts about the show. It was done extremely well. It is understandable why it won something like seven Tony awards. The performers had exceptional voices, and the music was absolutely beautiful. But I am not sure that I agree with the message being conveyed. It is the story of a bunch of hormonal adolescents in the late 1800’s who are fighting the system/ standards set up by society and the church. They desire to explore their freedom and sexuality in the face of oppression from family members and school-teachers. Issues like pre-marital sex, homosexuality, suicide, and abortion are all addressed with sometimes beautiful, but not entirely valid arguments.

I almost think I would need to see it again to be able to decide whether it was truly a good show. Any of you who have seen it, please give me your opinions!

The Storm - Wendell Berry (love this poem!)

"We lay in our bed as in a tomb
awakened by thunder to the dark
in which our house was one with night,
and then light came as if the black
roof of the world had cracked open,
as if the night of all time had broken,
and out our window we glimpsed the world
birthwet and shining, as even
the sun at noon had never made it shine."

UM Chamber Singers

I am so happy to finally have a recording of a choir I am in on youtube!... even if it is just a sound clip with a cheesy slideshow it is ACTUALLY US SINGING!! Enjoy and Happy Thanksgiving!

Art and Music

Thomas Merton, a Trappist monk/writer has some of the best insight I have ever received from any author... or at least the most since CS Lewis. I do not always agree with his opinions, but his words always provide some good healthy food for thought. I read this today and thought it was very interesting. It comes from his book "No Man is an Island."

"Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time. The mind that responds to the intellectual and spiritual values that lie hidden in a poem, a painting, or a piece if music, discovers a spiritual vitality that lifts it above itself, takes it out of itself, and makes it present to itself on a level of being that it did not know it could ever achieve."

As a musician, this thought really helped me to understand what it is that attracts people to high forms of music. Music gets you outside of yourself. In a sense music puts you into a selfless state or maybe makes you less aware of your own consciousness and more aware of another's consciousness. To a being that is mostly selfish, selflessness is a refreshing phenomenon... The beauty of being taken outside of yourself, if even just for a moment creates feelings of the sublime. I haven't had time to really organize my thoughts on this subject but think its us worthy of discussing. Tell me what you think!

A meditation

When I was a child I would pray for the trees, the pond with the fish, the sky, my dad and my mom. I didn’t pray anything specific but I just wanted to talk to God. I wanted God to be good to me and to never let anything bad happen. As I got older I started to realize that God didn’t hold up his side of the bargain. At least this is what I thought. God let bad things happen to me. God actually let bad things happen to everyone that I knew. Time and a larger vocabulary helped me to realize that this bad stuff was a result of sin. The Adam and Eve that I heard about at vacation bible school brought this curse when they ate of the forbidden fruit.

My parents told me as I grew up that I should always treasure my youth because it would be the best time I would ever have in life. I have heard other people say similar things… I never understood why. Why should youth be so great and adulthood be so bad? I think it has to do with the fallen state of mankind. When we are children we don’t understand much at all and can live a life of faith. Faith is what we were meant for. Humans all have faith in something. When we are children we have faith in out parents, our teachers, Santa Clause ect. Children pray for trees and clouds and dolphins. In a child’s mind, God is good and he will let nothing bad happen to us. As the old saying goes, ignorance is bliss. Adults have a lack of joy because they have had time to realize that God didn’t keep his side of the bargain. At least that’s what they think. What they don’t realize is that it was not God but us who didn’t keep the bargain because we ate the fruit.

The simple faith of a heathen child (myself) was enough to let me live in ignorant bliss. False happiness. I was mad when my false happiness was cruelly striped from my heart as I witnessed the sin in the world. I was mad until I realized that it was my own fault. I am a human. Humans ate the forbidden fruit. Every bad thing that I experienced was a result /foreshadowing of the death that the curse would bring. The wages of sin is death after all.

I see hurting people on a daily basis… People who are depressed or worried or overwhelmed…. People who have everything and yet have nothing. Humans all over this globe experience real pain, emotionally and physically. This pain is enough to make me weep as I fall asleep at night.

Friends, God is not evil. God is not out to cause you pain. Know that just because God has allowed bad things to happen to you he has not forsaken you. God is faithful, just and loving beyond what we realize. Don’t be angry when the false joy of your youth has been striped away. Instead seek true joy in Christ! Though we ate of the fruit, God has grace on us through the blood of Christ Jesus. The free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.