Regarding Hope…click to have a listen and even purchase this selection of original songs that I’ve found inspiring and enjoyable…   a few different genres of music with really strong lyrics.  I think it would be a beautiful thing if we embrace a bit of this creative and innovative music in church… if church music was inspiring other musicians!

 

This EP from Re:Hope is risky in the sense of there being quite a crazy mix of music where modal meets disco meets Rock within one song… but these tracks are all orchestrated around this theme of worshipping our maker, seeing something bigger than us and being creative because our maker is creative…

What I mean is; being human with your eyes open to God through Jesus is to be creative, worshipful, Spiritual, and wholeheartedly obedient (see previous thoughts..) and so, I hope these songs inspire me and more than me to be resolved in living For God… ‘For Your Name’ and with the heart to show my love for Him in creative, beautiful and artistic ways along the road!

check out this :: Quite the beautiful shot, capturing a musical wonder in the middle of the crowd singing his own song (prettsure that was the moment). Foy Vance played his first headlining gig in Edinburgh the other day and I was there. A lot of my fine friends (from the other city) were there too showing their good taste, since his vocals are hard to find words for… you think he has one of those lovely generic tones with a bit of husky jazz in there, until he soars beyond your expectations and any regular vocal range!

I love the way he commanded the stage- looping, harmonising, hunched over a mic or two, still joking about and yet finding the multi-tasking not too much to permit him time enough to capture the attention of a roomful of appreciative young-ish Scots and Northern Irish.
Here is a guy who sings from the heart, speaks boldly with humour, but with real humanity. I’m a ‘fan’ of his lyrics, and his comment on an Indiscriminate Act of Kindness actually brought tears to my eyes the other night (tears which were thankfully masked by the darkness and atmosphere of that little cave we all stood in.

So I ask two questions prompted by the Foy Vance experience:

- when did you last really listen to the lyrics of the good music you surround yourself with?

-what story do you have to tell about an Indiscriminate Act of Kindness?

one other thought… what a cool t-shirt!

(nb i probably won’t use many capital letters, it’s sheer laziness)

so the title is pretty verbose, but i haven’t written in a while so i’m warming up to using words and making sense! i’ve had some beautiful experiences this week, moving flat being the least enjoyable of these because it’s such hard work but you have to just keep going…. happily though, i also enjoyed some good chats and a moment of epiphany when i wandered around the art school’s degree show yesterday. art will do that to someone as impressionable as me. now at the end of all the hard work i have the joy of rest. think about effort and rest as i try to paint a massive collage of thoughts on what we do v’s who we are v’s eternity…

most of this week’s beautiful thoughts are owed specifically to some talks i’ve heard lately. i was away at a conference where we heard about love, gifts, self denying actions and serving others… (all from 1 corinthians 12-14) my favourite line from these chapters of a long letter, may be expressed as, ‘you could be a martyr, but without love, it’s meaningless’. it’s meaningless, because the action of obedience or kindness is not fully established unless it is routed in love and compelled by it. just a gorgeous aside… the bible says God is love, and that love is the only eternal thing that will always grow- our hopes and fears and faith and hate will end or be fulfilled, but love keeps going- it never ends.

with all this in mind, our pastor this week asked the question: why is obedience important (in the Christian life) when Jesus takes away all sin?

-first if you don’t know about grace, i’m about to rather ineloquently scratch the surface of it: it’s how we short-hand the phrase ‘undeserved mercy’. when Jesus came to live the perfect life, he also died to give it up so that his perfection is transfered to us; we can be forgiven by God the Father and seen as though we’d lived like Jesus-in perfection. this kind of life with God, being able to love and drawn near to him, is unearned, but gifted to those who trust in Jesus. so i cling to grace, that no matter who i am or what i do (and this is for you too) Jesus takes away my punishment for my wrongs… and those of the world

now, the thing is, God’s grace is immediate and beautifully generous. some might say then that you can just do whatever, and God will cover the bill… but that is not only disobedient to his word-the bible, it’s more importantly, unloving. are we going to allow our lives to remain unloving to the creator of it who loves us so much he sent Jesus?

obedience is unmeasurably important in the Christian life.. our obedience to God and to his ways in this life is not the payment for salvation, but the proof of it.

living a life of obedience, goodness, faith is important because we will do that if we love God. we will love people and treat them with more preferentially than ourselves if we love God

if life is eternal- and it is good with God, then one way of staying in it is to live for the one you love… that’s obedience, but it’s a little more like relationship than we think

when i write without using many capitals, just because i’m lazy, i think it reveals that i don’t love you, the readers, enough seeing as i’m dumbing down your grammar etc.. to be obendient in grammar on a blog is neither here nor there, but to think about you reading this and suffering for my laziness may persuade me to hit the shift button more.. simply out of love (and obedience to the grammar monster) thankfully, my Heavenly Father isn’t a taskmaster and will allow grace as i try to get it right…

did we conclude yet? obedience is good, right, elementary (though a lifetime’s work) because love is in all, love is what’s there when obedience becomes a part of the relationship…it’s

better than obedience

If anyone obeys [God's] word, God’s love is truly made complete in him

so this is until we give.up.time

When I was singing with all my might, lifting up my head and probably closing my eyes longer than a blink, it felt as the the salient issues and voices and demands on my life were eclipsed for a while.
Most of the time was spent enjoying two songs with a big connection to each other (that they are features exuding excellence in Sister Act II!

If ever I don’t know what to say, to pray, to think, you’ll find me humming a made up tune or harmonizing along with something going on around me. If there’s one thing that gives you a voice for things you cannot or don’t know how to say, it’s in the singing. skills, heart, soul, joy.. just trying to bring it all together!!

I’ve copied out the lyrics here that I consider so beautiful and a further thought on my previous post about eyes… seeing, watching, waiting, beholding…joyfully (links show two girls singing with only a voice to fill the silence…) can you not rush them, if you stick around to read though? It’s just that, they’re worth more than a minute… ‘why?’- they talk about life, they tell you a little about how to deal with it, and they are a little deeper than the blatant, un-artistic songs that are easy to pump out for a deadline, but which have little meaning past the funky chorus- so  join the ‘chorus’ that the morning stars began- something along the lines of ‘ i see the liiighhht’…- it’s beautiful

Joyful, joyful, Lord,we adore Thee,
God of glory, Lord of love;
Hearts unfold like flowers before Thee, opening to the sun above.

Melt the clouds of sin and sadness; drive the dark of doubt away;
Giver of immortal gladness, fill us with the light of day!

All Thy works with joy surround Thee, earth and heaven reflect Thy rays,
Stars and angels sing around Thee, center of unbroken praise.
Field and forest, vale and mountain, flowery meadow, flashing sea,
Singing bird and flowing fountain call us to rejoice in Thee.

Thou art giving and forgiving, ever blessing, ever blessed,
Wellspring of the joy of living, ocean depth of happy rest!
Thou our Father, Christ our Brother, all who live in love are Thine;
Teach us how to love each other, lift us to the joy divine.

Mortals, join the happy chorus, which the morning stars began;
(come and the chorus, the mighty, mighty shorus which the morning stars began
the Father of love is reigning o’er us,)
brother love binds man to man.
Ever singing, march we onward, victors in the midst of strife,
Joyful music leads us Sunward in the triumph song of life.

————————–

Why should I feel discouraged
Why should the shadows come
Why should my heart fell lonely
And long for heaven and home

When Jesus is my portion
A constant friend is he
His eye is on the sparrow
And I know he watches over me

I sing because I’m happy
I sing because I’m free
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know he watches…me

“see what’s next, maybe avert your gaze, be wishin’ away today for tomorrow’s sake
behind the veil, look and see”

looking at your hand to open,
to take mine and unlock: release.
but, watching, waiting, unseeing,
all eyes are towards the door.
will you walk in or leave?

Approaching days will
let me, us, shape them if you please
so are you
an open door or stuck and glass and still?

It’d be easier if I mentioned something
if I could see just to hold it, I would.
but it’s forever shifting like shadows
and invisible breath.

So I breathe in hope like it is the wind

and expect the clouds to burn away

either to nothing,

or something bright and light

that’s what summer burn could do here and

There my eyes won’t hit the wall
but, my gaze; your face

i spent today being happy. something about that is surprising- that’s not right though is it?! it’s kind of nice to be, as CS Lewis put it, ’surprised by joy’. loads of things contributed to it, such as an amazing pastry delight breakfast from Marks and Spensers (yess!!) before a long, sunny walk to a meeting and then an afternoon writing music.

The best part of the day, not belittling how much I love and cherish friend-time, or work or music, was the church prayer meeting tonight. It was so cool to pray alongside others, but go on our separate walks with God around and about the church. i love God. i love the way writing a song this afternoon made me ‘feel the love’ for God more because i playing the artist and connecting with music and words, at least in my own head, and was glad to create like God created me.. you know, artist-makes-artist.

i spent time wandering around, praying on the newly made stage at the top of the sanctuary. The massive cross and stained glass windows with musical cherubim off to the side were so inspiring! also, not so much loneliness but rather, communal silence and space and intentional apart-ness is not done enough. when was the last time you sat in silence or prayer or relative peace with a friend for a while!?

so, you can read the rough lyrics- i’m not too precious about letting you see a work in progress- and let me know what you think. i’m kind of interested that i know what it all means, but that at least one other interpretation so far has turned out to be as different to mine as it is beautiful!

Truly/ Black and White/ ??

”there is a certain colour called freedom
that glows when i look at your words of art
written out so i can read them

feelings in my heart collide with
revelation in my mind that grows in
the shade of efflorescent sorts of light…
::
think aloud of what things oppress
our minds, they’re often overdressed sometimes
with memories, grief, guilt ‘n’ stress, or even always trying to please

but something’s coming, its already here
it means that we’ll lay down the branches
get struggle to quit and start employing quantities of hope…
::
so full of colour life is golden with worth,
like being born again in a new earth
a real life fairytale that unfurls your hope

i guess we all just want to know the Truth
beyond our way of life is an open mind:
belief in your head but also delight in your spirit
——-
it’s never been just black and white
knowledge is fine
but there’s a step further to see
it’s never been just black and white
liberty is as free
as the colour (that) faith is making me

——-
believe your prayers deeply
forgive for life so that you will receive the same
believe deeply
forgive for life so that you will receive the same
believe
forgive unto life
::
truly he says to me
truly he says to ya’
——–
(there is a certain colour called freedom
that glows when i look at your words of art
written out so we will read them)”

-KMac

i’ve been thinking for a while about getting away… taking a rest. i hear that a change is as good as a rest, and the weather really did make a change today- it was warm and sunny, plus there was a breeze and blossom to float on it. i enjoyed today. i felt like i was actually out of the norm, not thinking or work and pressure, not trying to fit everything in to one short afternoon- not worrying about tomorrow either. that is a beautiful thing.

i read these quotes from Relevantmagazine.com’s email, the first is by this guy derek webb who i really like the sound of:

”The “wilderness” could mean a lot of different things. I’ve gone through seasons where retreating into the wilderness meant selling my television and shutting off my cell phone. You can create a wilderness for yourself to retreat to in various ways other than physically going out into the desert. In today’s world of connectivity, you turn off your cell phone, you shut off your TV, turn off your computer and suddenly you feel like you’re out in the desert a little bit—and that can be a tremendously healthy thing to do. We should probably all do that more often than just the Sabbath day.

Though the TV is out of my house, it is not out of my soul yet.”

i just enjoy the beauty of the ideas and how they are rooted in what Jesus did, rising early before others to be still with the knowledge that God made a new day and filled it with mercy and his compassion (see previous post). i love the thought that busyness can somehow be bypassed for a while. i’m not for the monastic lifestyle, but i’m for a retreat once in a while, and i especially like the idea of getting away in order to recharge so i’m better in the busy spells

– — –

i also watched a tv show this week, it was a drama… at the end, Jane Austen dies, still with so much to offer, yet sad and quite lonely. her sister was her closest companion and says of her;

‘’she was the sun of my life. the guilder of every pleasure, the soother of every sorrow. i had not a thought concealed from her and it’s as if i’ve lost a part of myself”

although it’s good to get away, i also only want to have a lifestyle fit to stop and take note of what’s going on around me. to notice the pleasures, the gifts, the joys, and the startling things. i want to listen to people, and have the constant appreciation of a day that is always new. it’s not groundhog day, it’s new and unique. as song i heard this week says ‘you’re going to miss this’ speaking of the good and bad moments of life that pass by. it’s true. take note, don’t take it lightly, watch and see and learn and love… i often think we age really fast, like time rolls away from me like a ball of wool, and i’m left holding the tip of the end. but, we’re made to worship God, not let days slip through our fingers. that’s really the contrast i’m thinking through:

don’t dissolve into busyness
don’t forget to appreciate the minute you’re in

conversely

have time to recharge and rest
take each day as it comes (oooh, cliche….!)

gather freckles, memories, laughter lines and melody, but never dust

i feel like the lifestyle we afford
is for the privileged few in the world
who are then stolen from as days go by

.. time, you know how i harp on about it..
always slipping away like a last breath, is one
of those things that means we can only be
one place at a time. we’re not ‘only’ finite, we are fully
finite in our abilities to accomplish

i wish folk wouldn’t pressure me to be more than one
finite girl
and that i wouldn’t demand others to be more than they
are

maybe you have to be more than ‘two’ according to others
but you’re only one, and that’s the unique way God made us all

beautiful to have a boundary here and there…

I have two beds
And two bedrooms
Two different houses
Two fathers
And two mothers.

I have two eyes

And two hands
Two feet
And two arms
But I cannot be
In two different places
At the same time.

by Laura Castillo…… i borrowed this poem from another blog- scott

i would love to know what folk think on this subject.. it occurred to me to put this up after it’s been on my other blog for a year or somewhere abouts there…it occurred just as i listen to a song with the lyric:
”heaven in this one line: don’t please yourself”
i love it.

so here, i’ve quoted a question of mine from a while back. i think the answer is in the fact that i have yet come to a conclusion on the subject…

we were thinking about aphorisms today.. and how beautiful they are just as “moments in time”. i think i like a quirky little inspiration more than a whole, long story…seems there’s less to read and the same amount to think about. Kafka wrote some, and i think this one’s worth sharing…

‘wrap your overcoat, o lofty dream, around the child’

you don’t know what it’s talking about do you..? but it says so much if ou sit and think about it. what is a lofty dream anyway?

my lofty dream would be to love people, but to do it well… and i wonder if it’s possible to love someone really quickly and fully or if it’s a journey…cos, if ‘love is patient’* then does it need time, take patience, to be tested? if ‘love never fails’* then does it require a few times of being challenged with the opportunity to fail but instead pass?.. if ‘love is kind’*, should it be old enough to have seen where to show kindness, and spent long enough in the suffering to show compassion (referencing last week’s post below)…?

*all references are exemplifications of what love is from 1 corinthians 13… the Bible

Yesterday, rather annoyingly i was rushing to a meeting, already late, and far from close to the venue, only to be stopped by a guy on the street asking to fill me in on his charity and ask me to give money. Charity. what does that word even mean anyway? i think it means more than a spur of the moment guilt trip to make an uncostly direct debit to an unknown place with a tinge of doubt that it actually goes to those that need it most (that’s what that encounter would have meant for me had i followed through with this guy) so, i was stunned that this friendly guy had left no room in his message for me to speak. if he had been an evangelist, i would’ve had the same gut feeling of, ‘oi, i’m right here, stop preaching and have a little care!’ i felt like i was an agenda and that his passion for the people he wanted me to help support was not passed on to me successfully. why? not entirely because i’m selfish or anything, it’s just i didn’t want to give him money when i’m so late for a meeting and i feel forced, and i don’t know what i’m giving too… but he insisted it was right and good and human to do feel obliged to give. you see, it’s not that i don’t care about the vision he cast, i do, it is the situation of me wanting to focus my care- no longer putting it off, but be wise, efficient, costly and deliberate in ‘charity’. i have no bad feelings towards this guy, really i don’t, but i have a bad feeling about this guilt complex that makes us try to be good folks, rather than love and godliness that bears the fruit of goodness in charity…sourced in, perhaps, compassion.

congruantly, and rather fluidly, later that day i was part of a group of students given the challenge to sit and think and pray and wonder about where my passion for the poor, the needy, the weak, those not as free as i lies…then to be bold and eager to act with that passion. i know passion is there, in all of us, it’s just that we’re lazy and kind of individualistic, and probably scared to commit to giving over and above of ourselves. C.S Lewis says that it’s not that our passions are too strong (for romancing or celebrities or something) but that they are too weak (for God, for people, for the good things in life). In the bible there are many wonderful passages that speak of how and why we should care for those we see struggling and are able to help. i am specifically enamoured with the passage in Galations that says ‘i ask only that you remember the poor’. do you do that? what do you do when you walk past a cup on the pavement with only three coins in it and a cold, dirty hand gripped round the polystyrene rim?

i always feel burdened, and maybe somewhat guilty for having more than enough to be able to help, and to remain comfortable, even lavishly so by comparison, yet just walking on by because it’s uncomfortable for everyone concerned if i reach into my purse only to retrieve a penny and gum, or to wade through reems of paper in my extravagant wallet to shake out the money i can’t be bothered to have -weighing me down-.
i believe what will stir up my heart to move through to my hands and help, is not guilt. i don’t want it to be guilt because that would soon subside, dissipate or get washed over by some other ’cause’ in a fleeting saviour-complex way. i want to be moved by love and by compassion. Jesus is recorded as being moved by compassion. i was helpfully informed by a friend who i consider to be wonderfully compassionate, that the word itself is something of a lesson:
compassion

compassion in its etymology means to ’suffer’ (passion)’ + together and with’ (com) … to get along side and to feel what someone else does, to be driven by compassion. to clothe the naked and feed the starving is to get down in the dirt and sit beside them, being aware, sharing in and being devastated by the reality that they are in this situation… but knowing you are able to help.

if you could give everything away and store up riches in heaven, you’d be rich and blessed (check this)
so the next step for me is to be eager. i’m not sure if i need to have a special desire to help in any area because right now my heart is soft to the touch for the weak… i just need stirring into action to not just feel but to be real and to remember there’s always the fear of acting without thinking or of doing out of obligation… well, i reservedly say ‘i don’t believe in obligation’ (to quote Lex Luthor from Smallville) I long to live in compassion.

what’s your passion in life? so passion means to suffer… what makes you hurt and sit long enough to notice the longing in the seat of your being? i don’t know, there are quite romantic notions, but what is on my mind right now is reaching out to some and all with the love that i was shown

check out this video to see something, i guess relatively small, relatively far away… but an act of compassion over a few continents. there will be grander, richer ones you know of, but this one is something that you can be a part of… walking in someone else’s shoes this is something.

i’d love to not think myself too proud to help those poorer than i, but also not too afraid to say that i’m better off than some who actually need help. it’s not politically incorrect to call someone poor. I mean, it’s not specific to people far away or even foreign to you. For me it’s here…I heard that Glasgow, Scotland has the highest concentration of poverty in a ”1st world” city-quoted from U.N. It’s real, it’s dirty and it’s right around your ankles, right under your noes.

if we’re, by God’s grace, able to help someone out in some way out of our resources, there’s need for a tension that’s taught and acute between mirth and mourning in being willing and needed to do so. as we see God’s compassion on paper in scripture, hopefully we’ll be glad to react to that in the daily, off paper, and to do so with feeling. i’ve tried before out of guilt, and being en vogue even, and maybe you have too, but there’s a Chinese saying I heard- ‘when children fall down, they grow up’… don’t stay down… grow out of that. pray for compassion to be real and lasting and beautiful and then move on out once again, but this time with feeling…like Roy?? Roy Orbison who is responsible for my favorite song of the week: this. don’t you think there’s feeling in it? he’s not cryin’ over the poor specifically, just someone,  but if he was, you’d know it was from the very tips of his toes and the earth of his soul.