Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: art, God, love, music, philosophy, theology, worship
So I have been out of the loop for a few weeks…
Since we last spoke.
I had to buy a new trooper because old trooper died, and i don’t really like new trooper very much but don’t say anything to her because the last thing I need is more trooper drama.
Sarah had an accident and she broke her cute little nose, and put a nice hole in her lip. She is healing nicely.
I had a St. Augustine paper on grace, free will, and evil due in my historical theology class that took up way too much of my time.
That little accident that i had, turned into a misdemeanor that I had to go to court and plead guilty to for a 25 dollar fine and a whopping 220 dollar court fee. in all. I spent 120 on original ticket, 118 to reinstate my license, 16 for the new license, 25 for a fine, 220 court fee and 10 for parking downtown. amazing!!!! 509 bucks to drive again!
I went to Georgia/South Carolina with my good buddy Rhett Canipe.
This trip was fantastic. I am very excited to inform everyone that I will be playing more and more and more with Rhett. We are releasing an ep very soon and it has been a long while in the making. I came in at a great time and was able to work on the project and play drums for it as well as be around to help in other areas like some vocals going on next week. It is being produced by the very talented Seth Jones and we are very excited to share it with you. I will keep you all informed as to when the record will be available and make sure you can all get it.
This leads me tell you that even when all has seemed like shambles and that all has seemed very crazy and when I ask God why He is allowing all of this to happen, I am at peace. God is in control and I am not. There is nothing I could say or do that could make him love me less and Sarah and I are so happy. We are blessed and no matter what happens we know that God will take care of us. He always has and He always will.
Thanks for reading. Thanks for Caring. Much Love
rh
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: car crash, dog, faith, music, philosophy, rain, rugby, seattle, stitches, umbrella
September is almost over and I could not be happier. This month has been the worst month that I can remember for some time. Lot’s of little things that add up to make life seem unbearable. It started with getting poked in the eye and losing a contact lens during a rugby practice. I continued to train and after running for 45 minutes with one eye closed, my body decided to check out. I passed out and thus begins the drama. I call Sarah and I have her come and pick me up from practice and we laugh about it. Two days later i get a phone call from Sarah and she says, “I need you to come get me, I cut my arm with a box cutter and I think I need stitches.” In the midst of all of this keep in mind that I am in Seminary taking classes and the stress of learning Greek and keeping caught up with my other classes has made me a bit more susceptible to freaking out and losing my mind over the smallest things. We also are sharing a vehicle because my beloved Trooper is sick at the moment. She is elderly and has 242,000 miles so she is a bit frail and its time to get a hip replacement.
Apparently bad things come in threes because this morning as I was taking our dog Gus to the groomer he decided to start chewing on the floor mat. He gets excited in the car and usually chills out after a few minutes. I brought some toys for him to play with like always and he decided it was best for him to go after something different. I was sitting in traffic and we were barely moving and I looked down to yell at Gus and looked up in time to see a Nissan Z in front of me NOT MOVING! My foot hit the brakes, I swerved out of the way and clipped the back end of the ladies car going about 15 to 20 mph. my airbag didn’t even deploy. It was just a little tip tap tapperoo. Nothing too bad. No damage, no crumpling, no broken headlights, nothing. I breath a sigh of relief. Gus is in trouble. I turn off the car and open the door. I hear WAILING! WAAAAAAIIIIIILLLLLING! The lady is freaking out! she proceeds to hold her neck and walks around and frantically calls her husband unable to reach him. She is loosing her mind. I am giving myself brownie points for staying as calm as I did. We wait for about 40 minutes for the cops to show up and we exchange info. I am thinking no big deal, not much damage so all is well. then she says she need to go to the hospital. The paramedics show up and strap her to a board and take her away. I am realizing that because I hit her car, my insurance just paid for her trip to the hospital in ambulance and all of the scans and tests and for her car to be towed wherever it needs to go. The paramedic says after he puts her in the ambulance, ” You need to go too? You look awful, I think she’s gonna be paralyzed,” with the most sarcastic smug smirk on his face. They all were very amused at this lady. I am screwed, and this lady is going to sue me. To make it worse, the police officer informs me that my license is suspended. Can you say misdemeanor. The paperwork from a ticket from a registration issue over a year ago got lost between county and state agencies and while I had proof and showed the officer the fines had been paid and the suspension was withdrawn the computer says I am going to jail. The cop says, unlucky, and says that it’s not a big deal and I need to go waste a whole day and sit in the state office and wait in line all day to resolve the issue, and says that by law he is supposed to take me in or tow my car to impound, but he felt bad that the lady was putting on an oscar performance and says, “I will give you a 10 minute head start, If I find you again, I will have to take you in, GO.”
I like rain. I think it is wonderful, but when it rains for 3 weeks straight, it makes a whole city go a little crazy. I see why Seattle needs coffee and music to cope with the gray and wet. The rain was not really the problem, but what it does it make you feel a little darker, and a little slower and it makes me feel like the sky is weeping over the madness of the earth trying to clean it. The economy is bad and people are trying to make a buck anyway they can.
My point is the world is messed up, people mess up, people get taken advantage of, and life happens. If I forget to bring my umbrella I will be soaked in misery. If i remember to walk with Him always and rejoice in all things good and bad, though it may pour around me and my feet are soaked, I will remain dry. I guess I forgot my umbrella this month. Hopefully October will be better. It will always rain on you, how prepared you are is up to you.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: art, C.S. Lewis, church, discipline, music, philosophy, theology, worship
I have a hard time dealing with staying motivated and staying on task when it comes to anything really. Occasionally I will come across something or someone that fires me up, makes me feel guilty and or motivates me to continue on the pursuit of discipline. It has been a really busy week since I last wrote anything. I passed out at rugby practice last week, Sarah had to go get stitches in her arm from an accident at work, I had class to study for and I lost some motivation. However, in the midst of the craziness of things, our church home-group decided to do a study of a C.S. lewis essay entitled the Weight of Glory. I love Clive. We are friends. I call him by his first name because I have read so many of his books, thoughts, essays and such that I feel like I know him, and when I read him, I feel like he is speaking to me. I attribute some of this to listening to archived lectures he gave on BBC radio back in the 40’s that later turned into the book Mere Christianity. I bring this up for 2 reasons which I will try my best to explain.
If you have never read the Weight of Glory, I would recommend it. It is short, but heavy. There is a section where he talks about a school boy learning greek and the discipline involved in learning greek so that he can enjoy the works of Homer and Plato in their original beauty. What is interesting is that somewhere along the lines the discipline of study becomes the joy of understanding. The nature of things become better as we learn them and they become better as we take joy in them. The discipline is often the hardest thing that we all struggle with. We want to get to the end without the work. We want to write the song and play it to the crowd, but we don’t want to do the work to have the crowd and we get side tracked, often with things that are good, but sometimes the good things hold us back from the better things.
The second part of this is that I stated that i feel like I know Clive. I hear him speak to me when I read. I felt extremely convicted by the fact that I can hear Clive better than I can hear God himself. Mr. Lewis is good. He is very good indeed, but does my own lack of discipline restrict me from hearing God himself? Do i give the study of God for my own formation enough effort. I must conclude for now that I do not, and that I must get better so that when that day comes from discipline to joy, i will be ready.
I will probably write more on this wonderful essay of Clive’s soon, because I have only mentioned one very small part of the true weight of glory. until then….
Cheers.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: church, music, philosophy, theology, worship
I have been asking that question for quite a few years now. Why does it matter? Why does anything matter? The subject I am asking about is the purpose of what I am trying to do. Being a Christian and a songwriter is a task that becomes very difficult. As a Christian my sole purpose must be to make God known through the words I write for his glory. As a songwriter I want to remain artistic and viable and use words that relate to those inside and outside the church using language that doesn’t water down the truth but does not over-emphasize my personal experience of the Gospel. I have to be very careful how I interpret the truth and how I say it to those around me. So lets be honest, I still want to write good songs and I’m sorry but most Christian music I have heard is far from good. so….why does it matter?
It matters because I have to give my best. I was given a gift to write and play music, but also a gift for understanding the systematic theology and history behind how that truth has been given to us. That means that I must write to maintain the truth and if i have to step on toes for the sake of sacrificing some fans or commercial success then so be it. A better question should be, Why is Christian music so bad? and then why does it matter?
I believe that Christian music is bad because churches are watering down the truth of the gospel. It’s a two fold theory. these kids grow up with a very loose foundation of theology and leadership that would rather they stay at church and have fun at camp than grow in discipleship. I feel this way because I was a child of this and also having toured across America and played hundred’s of churches and church events. I actually had a youth pastor in Wichita, Kansas say to us one time before we were to lead his group in worship and I quote. “I don’t care what you play, just make it loud and fast.” Now I must say that there are churches out there doing an amazing job with their kids and on through youth ministry to develop a young Christian who owns their faith. That’s the difference, owning a faith versus going to your parents church and just having fun at camp. The second fold of why Christian music is bad is because these kids grow up and start a band and they have been told that everything they do has to be for God’s glory, so they write songs about a God that they truly may not know. They develop a fan base among other kids who are also like them being uneducated, unchallenged by a fallen world and misled by the leadership of their churches and then they sign record deals and their publishers tell them to write songs about Jesus and heaven and grace and these kids who are now in there 20’s are still trying to figure that out. So they follow the sunday school theology of write about Jesus and add the post modern view of Me and Jesus and then their song goes to the top of a small bubble of Christian listeners on a local Christian station and the parents who drive the cars listen to the radio and hear these songs and approve the music for their kids to listen to. I once was told by a person at our record label to write songs that make soccer moms cry. If she cries, she buys and approves your music to her 14 year old daughter.
So then. Why does it matter?
It matters because as a church our goal, as told to us by Jesus, is to go and make disciples. Discipleship and evangelism can’t exist without each other. We have to teach the truth and the distinction of the personal relationship that occurs between us and God when we accept that he sent Jesus to the earth to cover the cost of our sin. It’s more than fire insurance and it is more than works. Don’t even get me started on mission trips to beaches. It is a lifestyle. It is servanthood, selflessness, truth, love, joy, discipline, works, basically an outward expression of the change that occurs inward at the moment of conversion. I know that I am using Christian language, but most that will read this are said Christians and my point is challenging you as Christians to do all that you do with the intent of discipleship and evangelism of the truth. So my job as a Christian and as a songwriter is to integrate the truth and help seeking Christians find true theologically sound songs that strengthen their faith as they own it and to change the paradigm of the church from a place of post-modern comfort to a place where truth is being shared from pulpits to youth rooms to the places where the church goers, work, learn, and live. It is not your pastor’s job to make Christians or motivate you. It is your job to listen and be disciplined to and by the words of God and go out and speak the truth. We are a lazy church and I cannot bear that shame any longer. That is why it matters.
So.
I have been using a few different places for my thoughts and hopefully my schizophrenic self will finally be content at wordpress. I will be writing here from now on so if you have links to my previous places of brain matter and spew they will no longer be updated. welcome. So now to business.
This is the third blog I have tried to start. There s something about discipline that I must mention right off of the bat. I am very undisciplined. I Have been a “writer” for quite a while now and i never write! I have been a song writer none the less, but a writer indeed. I mention this because from the moment I turned in my first essay in 3rd grade which was a short story about stealing candy, I have wanted to write. What to write about? Now that is a story of many different colors. I have been fighting with my demons for a long time and so sometimes I want to write witty stories of my childhood, and there are many. I have shared these on previous blogs, but for some reason I feel that this is only one of many areas that are comfortable for me to write about. The problem is captivating you people long enough to keep you interested in anything I have to say. So bear with my torn soul. I am an artist and an academic. and this is where we must begin our new chapter together.
History.
I have been a musician since I was 10. I started playing the saxophone and soon after moved to drums. I was in my first band at the age of 12. We were called Evar Orbis and the Galactic Ska Whalers. Don’t laugh. Ska was cool in the 90’s just trust me. I then moved on to Faster than Caffeine, then Shoe Shine Johnny. You are asking why this matters. Just stay with me. Shoe Shine was like a girlfriend. We were together for 3 glorious years as young teenagers filled with Christian angst, if there is such a thing, and then you realize you are too young to commit and you break up. We wanted to be as cool as Slick Shoes and MXPX but we were 16 and well, being as cool as Mike Herrera was an unattainable status. So as High School ended so did the band and then college happened. I continued the trend of bands through college with For the Heroes, then Last Chance Dakota, and then to THE BAND Jackson Waters. THE BAND became a career after college, but I must stop the portion here. I will use this background as the basis and starting point to our relationship as writer and reader.
Somewhere in the midst of musical madness, I became suddenly aware that I liked school, no, I loved it. I loved the history, philosophy and theology behind what I believed, or didn’t believe. I took a ride on the academic roller coaster and loved and decided I wanted to keep riding. I am now on the teeter totter of a Master’s Degree in Theology and maintaining my street cred as a viable artist. The point. I want to be both. So with your help and criticism, mostly criticism I’m sure, we can make that happen. This is the the third time. I am gonna make it charm.
