Trust! (and that is said with no hint of irony or sarcasm. I love doing middle school work.)
Real conversation had with a grade 7 student on Saturday moments after performing while selling merchendise..
7g: Are you that Gene guy from the stage?
me: No. I am his more hansom stunt double. Gene is back stage eating.
7g: Will you tell him he did a really good job.
Consider him told.
Kemi, Dan, and I were standing out side a store last night on Granville St. in Vancouver.
This is the conversation we had with a random guy (RG).
RG: Would you like to see me climb a pole or tree?
Me: I think we are okay. Thanks for the offer.
RG: Actually, I am trying to get some change for food.
Kemi: You are looking for change? Let me see what I have?
[We give him about $5 Canadian and $2 American]
RG: Thanks!
Kemi: Now don't go climbing anything.
RG: I don't know if I can promise that. (Smiled and walked off)
By far the best blog post on this insanity:
[via Jen is Famous]
I have add some really great music to my MP3 player in the last few weeks. Here is the official play-list for the weekend.
Galvanize - The Chemical Brothers - Yes, this is the song from the Budwwiser Select commercials. No, that does not take away from the fact it is a great song.
Remind Me (radio edit) - Röyksopp - I never would have found this song without the Gieco commercial (so selling out isn't all bad)
Growing Upside Down - The Ditty Bops - Song inspired by the fact that one of Bops has artifical grass and plastic flowers on the ceiling of her bathroom, forcing her to look at the world in a new way
Angel with and Attitude - The Ditty Bops - Also, on their new album, but if you can find a live version, even better.
He Brings Out the Whiskey in Me - Amy Millan - Canadian rock goddess gets back to her country roots.
Giv'r - Peaches - Song about the Canadian slang "giv'r" (an encouragement to give your all. "Stop being so lame, Giv'r!"). It is listed in the iTunes store as "Get It" (and to confuse the matter more, there is a song called Giv'r in the store).
I'm Shipping up to Boston - Dropkick Murphys - You have to love a song about losing your pegleg.
Smooth Criminal - Alien Ant Farm - Sure this cover is 5 years old, but it is great!
Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down) - Nancy Sinatra - This will haunt you.
Life in towns that have military bases are different than regular small towns.
Local news effects them in a different way.
They are also joined more intimately to other locals in a unique way.
Petawawa, ON is one of those towns. It has the second largest military base in Canada. (Yes, Canada has an Army, Navy, and Air Force.)
Right now the news from half way around the world is local news.
Many of the young men and women who call it home are in Afghanistan, with there families left behind. Hoping and praying.
Every Friday, everyone in town wears some red, in solidarity and memory.
In a very small way last night we touched this.
After our show a young woman walked up to, asked for an autograph.
She said, "Thanks for making me laugh. It has been a long time. Please pray for my husband. He won't be home until May."
Today's list includes Greg, all those in Petawawa, and a those left behind in the loss of a friend.
Petawawa. That is just a fun name to say.
We are once again the great white north. Few odds and ends for the trip.
HOST
We are being hosted by a very sweet priest. Has taken his young people to youth conferences in the states 17 years (not sent them, but went with them). Is constantly using resources from all over the world to better serve is parish. Heart of gold.
LANGUAGE
The school we were at this morning has a “pastoral animator”, what we would call a campus minister in the states. Not sure if I like their title more our less than ours, but it is amazing how much we can frame or reframe a job or task just by the words we use to describe it.
CHILDREN
This afternoon was spent with the K-7 at Our Lady of Sorrows. Elementary would not be my first choice of venue. There is no way it could fulfill me for my living. But, from time to time it can be a lot of fun.
Children laugh different than adolescents and adults. It is not as much a “Ha Ha Ha” laugh, but instead it is just crashing waves of energy.
I also rediscovered (for I knew this before) it is very easy to get into a face making contest with a kindergartener with out saying a word. You just make the first face at them, and it is game on.
Value is a completely subjective. The value of something comes from the usefulness or story we place on something. This has nothing to do with how others will value it.
For example, to you (more than likely) this video has no value.
It is just the promo of some organization that plays horns, marches around, and appears to have been doing it for a long time.
For three or four seconds, there is a clear shot of my mom (and her smile), as a teenage.
To me, it's gold.
There was once a wise woman traveling in the mountains who found a precious stone in a stream. The next day she met another traveler who was hungry, and she opened her bag to share her food. The hungry traveler saw the precious stone and asked if she might give it to him. She did so without hesitation. The traveler left, rejoicing in his good fortune. He knew the stone was worth enough to give him security for a lifetime. But only a few days later he came back to return the stone to the woman who had given it to him.
"I've been thinking," he said, "I know how valuable the stone is, but I'm giving it back in the hope that you can give me something even more precious. I want you to give me what you have within you that enabled you to give me the stone."
-Author Unknown
[via EFT Blog]
Neuroscientists say that brain scans show that when people are speaking in tongues, language centers and the part of the brain through which people control what they do are relatively quiet—supporting the description of the experience people say they are having.
[via rebecca's pocket | speak yourself]
"I'm thirty years old, but I read at the thirty-four-year-old level."
-Dana Carvey
Oh, those wacky Jesuits.
[ via IdolChatter | Live on one yourself]
I went to see the documentary American Hardcore (a fine enough film) about the harDCore punk scene in the US from 1979-84. (Ironically enough the term "hardcore" was coined by Vancouver based DOA). This was very different scene from the mid 70's in England. It used much of the same musical vocabulary, some of the same visual look, and disenchantment (with Reagan, not the Queen), but there was as much different as there was the same.
Obviously, this is not a movie about me or my people. I am about 5 years to young and grew up in Wyoming. I was exposed to more of this music than your average Wyomingite, and some of the music I liked (and still listen to from time to time), but it was not me.
One character the movie introduced me to was HR. HR was (is?) the lead singer of the band Bad Brains, which is a band I know, but only from their music.
The band was a bit of anomaly for the scene. First, they were black. The movie has photos and home movie footage from all the major hardcore scenes in the US. The only blacks you see are the guys in Bad Brains. Second, they were very talented musicians. Not all the hardcore bands were untalented musically. Most knew more than just three cords. Bad Brains were something special.
Inside of this anomaly of a band was HR, an anomaly himself. The music of this time wasn't just loud and fast. Much of it was written with purpose, mostly political. There were a number of bright, thoughtful folks, but HR was something special.
It is obvious in just the few clips of him in the movie that he has a great deal going on in his head. The thing I found most amazing was that while serving as a mentor to many young bands in DC he had them read the Napoleon Hill classic Think and Grow Rich. This is a book I dig out about once a year to read.
The goal of having these 15 year old punks read such a tome? To get them to understand that they are in control of their own lives. With a positive mental attitude they could create what they wanted.
Not something you would expect to find in the middle of very loud, short, violent music.
HR.
Interesting man.
Musically talented.
Very bright.
Could be doing anything.
For 5 years played some of the best hardcore punk in the country.
Someone I would have liked to have bumped into.
I guess that is one the reasons I strive to have such a mixed group of people in my life.
I want to be challenged and made uncomfortable by different points of views.
I come away changed or with a reaffirmed sense of self.
A pray of thanksgiving for HR, all those who walk their own path, and the many chances I get to learn from them.
Mike St. Pierre, campus ministry and trainer extraordinaire has created a new enewsletter. Sing up today at he web site.
[http://mikestpierre.com | if you have time to share a thought today]
"Don't pray when it rains if you don't pray when the sun shines."
- Leroy "Satchel" Paige:
From time to time I feel like "Christian" is a dirty word.
Especially, within 24 hours of casting ballots.
Then there is perspective like this (from Cameron Conant):
It's not the cross we look at as we sing (in my church it is, refreshingly), it's the frosted-haired worship leader or the Shania Twain-looking woman with a guitar.
So too in mega-churches. Whether it's Rob Bell, someone I have great respect for and enjoy hearing preach, or Rick Warren, a good man who is doing great things in Africa, we get excited by articulate, interesting people...sometimes too excited.
The Church is a community of people---messed up, broken people---who come to get healed and then help heal the world, not gather for a rock show.
How many people would continue to attend Rob Bell's church if there were no Rob Bell? How many people would continue to attend Rick Warren's church if there were no Rick Warren?
How many people will continue to attend New Life Church in Colorado Springs if their pastor had a gay affair and did crystal meth and then lied about it all?
That's the situation in Colorado Springs, where Ted Haggard, senior pastor of the 10,000-plus member New Life Church, is being accused of those very things. Ted Haggard, president of the National Association of Evangelicals. The Ted Haggard I just mentioned in two separate blog posts the other day related to a different topic entirely. That Ted Haggard.
The reason I attend a liturgical church is because my priest, Jerry Smith, is not a rock star. He is a wonderful man who is intelligent and faithful, but he's not the main event. He's not St. Bartholomew's.
The main event at St. Bartholomew's is the liturgy. Jerry Smith or no Jerry Smith, we will hear Scripture, say the creed, kneel and pray. We will go forward with our heads bowed, hands extended, and receive communion. We will stand and sing and stare at the naked cross, the music coming from the choir loft behind us.
One of my favorite songs is by Sting and is called "If I Ever Lose My Faith in You." What I love about the song is how ambiguous "you" is, and undoubtedly, that's intentional. Sting keeps singing, "If I ever lose my faith in you, there'd be nothing left for me to do." And it seems that all of us have something we could insert for the word "you"...a spouse, a sibling, a mentor, a parent, a pastor, a political leader...the list goes on.
For some people, their faith will be in shambles should these allegations against Haggard prove true. "If I ever lose my faith in (Ted Haggard), there'd be nothing left for me to do." But I would ask those people, "Really? Your faith was in Ted Haggard? A sinful, broken person who, like all of us, tried to convince the world he was a whole person?"
[via Cameron Conant | Monday's list]
A collection of witty and eccentric lonely hearts ads from the London Review of Books have been brought together for a new book.
David Rose, the review's advertising director who launched the personal ads in 1998, is behind They Call Me Naughty Lola.
Here are a few:
'List your ten favourite albums... I just want to know if there's anything worth keeping when we finally break up. Practical, forward thinking man, 35.'
'Employed in publishing? Me too. Stay the hell away. Man on the inside seeks woman on the outside who likes milling around hospitals guessing the illnesses of out-patients. 30-35. Leeds.'
'Bald, short, fat and ugly male, 53, seeks short-sighted woman with tremendous sexual appetite.'
'Romance is dead. So is my mother. Man, 42, inherited wealth.'
10 point if you can decode the title of this blog, a real personal ad I posted 5 years ago.
[full article | via linkblog | join me!]
I have no idea how this is a game show or what the rules are. It is just amazing.
[via random good stuff]
"He will never ask what you have done to you worthy of the gift of God. Ask it not of yourself. Instead, accept His answer, for He knows that you are worthy of everything God wills for you."
From A Course in Miracles
It is impossible to receive anything we don't feel we deserve. Even if we take it grudgingly, we don't appreciate it or use it to its fullest, because we feel guilt for having it. We think, "This is not for me." Be it a small gift from a friend or God's unconditional love.
If we don't feel we deserve it, there is no way that it can get in.
There is a very fine line between feeling worthy and expecting.
We must feel worthy.
We must know we are worthy.
Because we are worthy.
[join me for these people]
"Nothing is more debilitating than to care about something you can't do anything about."
-Ester Hicks
If I Did It? How about "If I HAD Done It"?
Verb tense, folks, verb tense!