light bulbs

so recently I got a new marimba. it used to belong to THEE Gordon Stout (always a legend, former teacher or not). It's a Malletech roadster- the dream marimba I never thought I would ever be able to get. Hey, some people dream about cars, I dream about marimbas. I'm not kidding. When I see an exceptionally large house I think about how many marimbas you can fit in it...

ANYWAY I was driving the other night and thinking about marimbas and how one might explain the awesomeness of Malletech to the average lay person. Malletech is the cadillac of all marimbas. it's clearly the best. Leigh Stevens' attention to detail is unparalleled by ANYONE, let alone other marimba designers/manufacturers. The precise language I used in my head rang a bell and caused something to click the way it hadn't in the past.

I was thinking "it's the only way" as far as the best quality in marimbas goes. Gee, what else is the only way? Jesus maybe? ahhhh I see. the only way to achieve your perfect sound, and the only way to eternal life...I get it. It's not a matter of intolerance or superiority, it's just a matter of knowing what the right choice is and hoping you can help others to see that.

I pray this perspective helps you when sharing "the way" with others.

In the hands of God

Hello world. I'm sorry I haven't written lately. I hope this post will be worth the wait :-)

My song for the day is "Feelin Good" I reccommend both the popular Nina Simone
and Michael Buble http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Edwsf-8F3sI versions

I was recently reminded of this song by a movie I watched for a foreign film class called "The Golden Door". It was very good, and about Immigration.

Anyway, I'm "Feelin Good" because I'm feeling Christ's Peace in a very active way in my life right now. Graduation is imminent and I am neither wishing my time at IC away nor dreading it's end, but I am complacent with the pace time is taking. I am also very much at peace with whatever will happen post graduation, regardless of how little I know about it. JK reminded us graduating seniors that while it seems to us that we're about to step off a cliff into the vast unknown of the "real world" he assures us it's more like a curb. Much safer as long as you look both ways. My dear friend Mike loves to remind me that the easiest way to make God laugh is to make plans for your life. I'm not saying I don't have general directions I'd like to head in, but I Prayerfully consider options that are placed in my path and at peace regardless of whether or not things go my way.

I have already had a prospective job turn me down, and while it was sad because it seemed like a place I would have been able to serve God through music, I know it means He's got a better plan. Now I am facing another prospective job for which I have an audition in the morning. It's a good location and a wonderful fit with my beliefs and utilization of my musical gifts. It's only part time, but because the location is so close to home and I have so many connections here already I feel confident I will be able to piece together a living. While I don't want to get my hopes up too high it's clear God has led me here, for this audition if for nothing else. I have met some wonderful people in the congregation already and am madly in love with the Organ. I feel so blessed to even be able to audition on it. After my 5 hour practice session this morning I named it George. Also when I took a lunch break I decided to sit down and read one of the books they had on a library cart in the narthex. God had a message for me and I read it on the first page of Max Lucado's book about Grace. It was so important I took a picture. I'll include it in this post. ANYWAY...

Here's the difference between making the college decision and stepping off my curb into the real world. I was terrified of choosing the wrong college for the longest time. It just seemed impossible to find all the colleges I could possibly be a good fit at. Eventually I just gave up and said "ok, wherever God takes me is where I go" which is how I got to Ithaca (Ok, Gordon Stout was also a big part of that, but hey, God took me to him...) and now I have the wonderful assurance that God has taught me how to make decisions and consider everything with prayer.

Proverbs 2 says: ¹ My child,^a]">[a] listen to what I say,
and treasure my commands.
² Tune your ears to wisdom,
and concentrate on understanding.
³ Cry out for insight,
and ask for understanding.
⁴ Search for them as you would for silver;
seek them like hidden treasures.
⁵ Then you will understand what it means to fear the Lord,
and you will gain knowledge of God.
⁶ For the Lord grants wisdom!
From his mouth come knowledge and understanding.
⁷ He grants a treasure of common sense to the honest.
He is a shield to those who walk with integrity.
⁸ He guards the paths of the just
and protects those who are faithful to him.

⁹ Then you will understand what is right, just, and fair,
and you will find the right way to go.
¹⁰ For wisdom will enter your heart,
and knowledge will fill you with joy.
¹¹ Wise choices will watch over you.
Understanding will keep you safe.

Proverbs 3 says: ⁵ Trust in the Lord with all your heart;
do not depend on your own understanding.
⁶ Seek his will in all you do,
and he will show you which path to take.

I think that says it all. If we seek God's wisdom and understanding he will grant us that sense which we need to make a decision that follows His will. All the while of course asking God to light your path.

Please keep my future and the future of all graduating seniors in your prayers that we may seek God's will in our next step off the curb.

Living as a Child of God

there's a lot I'd like to share and I'm going to try to make this as coherent as possible.

I suppose it starts with "actions speak louder than words" and trying to live a Godly life. There was a speaker at Creation '08 who told us a story about his yearbook, and he was flipping through it and read all sorts of comments from friends like "man you were always so funny" and "you're a great dude" or whatever, but it was never "you're such a child of God!" and he really lamented that. Similarly tonight at Evensong Jay spoke and brought up the situation "how do you react when someone asks if you're Christian?" there's a few options, something awkward like "ehh well...kinda...not really" something bold and honest like "yeah man, Jesus is my homeboy" or my new favorite "what do you think?" I think for some people that's a really tough situation, especially in college (or at least liberal colleges like Ithaca). In these environments there is a lot of anti-religion going on and more likely than not you're going to have close non-christian friends, and depending on how open you are with them, they might not know about your faith. If those kids are the type that like to make fun of religion and judge people it might be tough being bold about it. But I think really the best way to go about it is to live your life as a child of God so they know the answer before they ask the question. If they love you for who you are and already know the answer then there shouldn't be any reason to be afraid of "coming out" about your faith.

the next step is sharing your faith with them. how difficult is that? if you love them for who they are and want to preserve the friendship, why would you try to change them and their beliefs? on the other hand, if you love them, you want to share God's love with them. you want them to know about Him and be able to experience His joy and peace as well. but it's definitely a tough thing. please pray for everyone in situations like that, that all Christians have the courage to be open about their faith and share it with their friends that don't know God. cause in the end, we are called to be witnesses, and what better place to start than with people we care about?

so how do we live a Godly life? well the two things I've been focusing on lately are loving and serving. we are called to love others and to put ourselves last. Loving others, however old of a concept, has managed to shed light on particular areas of interest lately. the issue of homosexuality in religion has been a pretty hot topic recently, particularly for the Lutheran church. I've had a rather diverse history with my opinion on the topic, which I don't really want to get into, but my conclusion is this: love. we are not called to judge others. sure, homosexuality by the Bible's definition is a sin, but so is a ton of stuff that straight people do. who are we to say that sin is worse than anything we do. and we do sin. "forgive us our sins, known and unknown." we are NOT perfect. so who are we to point our fingers and say "oh, we can see that's CLEARLY a sin so you're not good enough to worship with us (etc.)"? that is not what we are called to do. it's God's decision who's sin is worse. we are not called to decide that, we are called to love. love your neighbors. love your enemies. love EVERYONE. and we're all sinners.

as for serving, it's been a quite lovely experience to focus on it and be consciously aware of it. there will come plenty of times in life where you are presented with an opportunity to serve. some days you'll say "you know, I've done all this other stuff, I'm gonna let someone else take this one..." but that's not how it works. I'm not saying overwork yourself and don't delegate or whatnot, but if you see an opportunity to serve- take it. it feels wonderful to lighten someone else's burden and it feels like your child of God light is shining.

I suppose I won't elaborate more other than to say there are a lot of awful things going on in this world and I wish I could say loving and serving is enough to fix them, but I don't know if I can truly believe that. Prayer is a good place to start, for through God all things are possible. the other good news is that there are steps being made in the proper direction. two organizations fighting awfulness I'd like to bring up are:

To Write Love on Her Arms- a suicide prevention movement. www.twloha.com

Invisible Children- it's about children soldiers who are abducted in Africa. the numbers are astronomical and the history of it is heartwrenching and terrifying. they need a lot of prayer. www.invisiblechildren.com

~God's Love and Peace be with you always~

points of focus

I recently started reading "the purpose driven life" which is set up in devotional format and I certainly recommend it. I particularly love my copy that I picked up at the library booksale which has notes in the margins and scraps of paper stuck in from the previous owner. It's fun to see how closely they relate to me in their reactions to what the author has written.  there are a few points of contemplation that I'd like to share here and hopefully invoke discussion on.

There are a lot of things that people focus on that I've never really found myself prone to spend countless hours contemplating. considering the topics of this book I'm wondering if perhaps I should spend more time meditating on the subjects. for one, the question of meaning of life has never really peaked my curiosity.  It just seems blatantly obvious to me that we were put here by God to serve and love Him. He gave us certain gifts and we are to use them to His glory. the rest is inconsequential. however, its thorough discussion in Christian novels are making me wonder if (like the first time I read "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" and assumed the identity of the Half-Blood prince was obvious but then it turned out to be a different character than I expected) my hasty conclusion is not all there is to the matter.

also, I don't spend a lot of time contemplating what comes after this life. I know that if I love God and live for Him there will be a place for me in His house once my time here is up. A lot of places say that this life is "preparation" for the next. what on earth does "preparation" mean? is it like High School where you're learning how to learn so that when you get to the stuff you need to learn for your particular field you know how to? I thought the only thing necessary to be ready for the next life is loving God.

Evangelism is another thing. I read a book by Pat Boone called "A New Song" (I don't recommend it to anyone who is bothered by sub-par writing style or grammar). It's basically a spiritual autobiography for him and his family. They were a family that was very outspoken about their faith and very willing to talk to people with different beliefs and "talk them into God" so to speak. I'm definitely a person who would like to respect other people's beliefs. I mean, I have a hard enough time walking up to other christians and saying "hey can we talk about God?" so clearly I don't have the gumption to talk to people with other views. I will certainly ask them about their views and hear what they believe, as well as share what I believe and answer any questions that they have to the best of my ability, but I'm just not in the business of imposing my views on others. I have in several instances heard what they believe and sometimes I can tell that God is the only gap in their logic and begin praying for them that their hearts might be open to Him. To make up for my lack of outgoingness on the subject matter I also frequently pass on books I feel would be helpful to them and their faith as well as particular songs or bands that speak more articulately than I can. I think I've decided the evangelical path for me is to live my life all for God and hope that serves as a catalyst for people to ask about Him.  Pat's daughters all had a certain glow about them that other people very much noticed when they decided their lives entirely to Jesus, and that is what got them asking about God and their faith and led to many people coming to Christ in the Boone home. 

My strongest tool is prayer. so I will be praying for the strength and guidance to live in a way that touches everyone I meet with God's light and love and gets them thinking about Him, as well as praying for those who don't know Him, that the eyes of their hearts might open and see Him

I thank God for timing. A few years ago I read a book that was just so perfectly timed in my life and today I picked up the next book by the same author and it is the best imaginable timing. He has so much planned and in control that we could never know about. I suspect that one of my lessons for this summer is how to lead a less busy lifestyle to highlights the habits that need to be cleaned up and learn how to truly know that God is in control.

I also think this summer is the answer to my prayers at the end of the semester which was my daily morning wishes of only wanting to practice and learn about God.

and on that note, I think I'll practice organ tonight :-)

Psalm 4- a bedtime prayer

I feel like this is the Psalm for when the troubles of the world are weighing on you as you are preparing yourself for rest.  This is the perfect Psalm for letting go of all your frustration and remembering God will take care of it. not to mention, it ends with: 

"In peace I will lie down and sleep for you alone, O Lord, will keep me safe"

why let any worldly thing bother us? God's got it under control, and he can do far more heavy lifting than any of us. Jesus came for and left with our burdens. 

~I pray we give all our burdens to you~

Psalm 3- God in Harry Potter terms

God is my Patronus. (yes. that wizard rock tour has influenced my mind to be on Harry Potter more than it should be)

ANYWAY

God is my Patronus. oh jeeze, i should probably explain for those who haven't experienced HP or forgot what a Patronus is. right, ok, so there's these things that suck the happiness and soul out of you and the Patronus is what you cast to make them go away. it's like a shield or a force field around you that you have to think of something happy to create. Good Patronus' take the shape of an animal that most closely resembles you, or if you have been changed by grief or something else strong it might change form. ANYWAY hopefully the rest of my explanation of my statement will clarify it further. so.

God is my Patronus.  It is from Him that my joy comes and He is my force field that keep the sadness at bay. By eminating Him I am protecting my soul from all the evil influences that seek to taint or control it. 

When Harry learns this spell he is told to "think of something happy" what could be happier than a Heavenly Father who loves you more than anything and holds you in the palm of His hand?

"I'm trading my sorrows for the joy of the Lord"

~I pray when the unpleasantness of the world press upon us we may remember the Joy we have in God and let that joy shine through us like a forcefield against them~

Psalm 2- Freedom

God created us in a particular way with certain abilities and passions. We are free when we live our lives using the abilities and passions he gave us, not by following what the world tells us we should be doing.  We need to listen to God's voice and live by His will. If we fall slave to other voices we are not FREE

What does it mean to be free? 

to me, when this Psalm talks about being Free I imagine the feeling of freedom. The liberating feeling of overwhelming joy. I most closely associate that feeling with 2 memories in my life- 1 was riding a 4 wheeler in a field in Potter County, not having to stay on a road or avoid the bumps, just going as fast as I felt like and feeling the air rushing past me. and 2-the feeling of doing what I love and knowing that's what I'm meant to be doing. this happens frequently but most strongly at State band my Senior year with Peter Boonshaft. the music that ensemble made was unbelievable and we all felt it. to this day I can't listen to the recording of that concert without being moved to tears. 

I know that the feeling of freedom that came with those experiences is the same feeling I get when I sing to God. When I'm making music for Him or listening to music being made for Him I feel that same liberation. That same overwhelming joy. That's how I know that's God's will for me. He blessed me with the gift of music and when I use it for his Glory I get that freedom.

does that make sense? when you read Free does it mean something else to you?

~I pray we are all free in living for God, the way He created us to be~