Deep Friday

It's been a good week. I feel like a lot has been happening and things have been coming at me from all angles but I've been able to handle things alright.

Went to the Wisconsin Basketball game last night with Andy "Old Man" Dobbins. If you saw it, you'll know how heartbreaking it was. Wisconsin was up by 12 at the half, then Minnesota went on a tear in the second half and just started to crush. In the last few seconds of the game, MN was down by 3 and they hit a 3-pointer with seconds to go and put it into overtime. Then it was all over after that. They pressed us hard and we could barely put the ball into play, they were on us like flies on rice (is that the right saying??). We lost by 4, but it was a really fun and intense game to watch. It was my first Big 10 vs. Big 10 basketball game since college. Cool!

After the game, we went over to the Vintage, which is one of my favorite bars, and we met Andy "No Fear" Camann for a drink or two. We got on this great discussion about music and the future of it. I posed the question: "Will there ever be a band as big as The Beatles again in the history of modern music?" We tried to figure out what it was about the Beatles that made them so popular. It was decided that their good looks, new ground-breaking musical style, the fact that they wrote all their own songs and all these combined was something the world has never seen. Every band since then has been, more or less, "more of the same" I think the only way that a band could ever be as big as the Beatles is if there are new instruments and a new style of music that would be invented. But still, with the way music is distributed now days, I doubt it would have the "Explosion Effect" the Beatles had. So, to answer that question: "No."

Another topic that I brought up was if music will eventually become a dying art form. I say this because if we look back over the centuries we see the rise and fall of various art forms. Back in the Renaissance period, paintings were all the rage. We had Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Picasso, etc. They were crazy popular. Today, yes there is still art, but it does not generate nearly as much excitement it did back then. Name one artist in the past 10 years that has rivaled the classic artists. How about theater in England in Shakespearean times? People were going nuts for that stuff! Today, not so much. Or how about ballet or opera? All of these arts have seen their peak and are on the decline; so I have to assume that modern music will also follow this pattern. We have seen the peak of modern music with the Beatles. We can already see this trend today with slowing album sales and radio stations closing their doors. In 100 years, music will be what classic art is today. People will be listening to the old stuff, and not much attention will be given to the new stuff. Ready!...discuss.

A few weeks ago, Blackhawk started doing their new sermon series on prayer. This is excellent as this is an area which I need much work on. The most recent sermon was on praying big prayers. Most time, when people pray, including myself, we tend to pray the small prayers like: Lord, I pray for safe travel. Lord, I pray that work goes well tomorrow. Lord, thank you for this food. Lord, I pray that I can quickly recall the knowledge to perform well on this test. Etc. And these are all fine a good prayers! Nothing is wrong with these and we should be praying for any and all things. But God is so much bigger and more powerful than we can imagine. If we look at some of the prayers in the bible, those are come BIG prayers. Elijah prayed for rain, and it rained, he prayed for no rain and it stopped. People prayed to bring a loved one back to life, and it happened. If Elijah’s prayers had the power to change meteorological realities, religious structures, and the economics of a whole society, can we do that? I think today's Christian does not utilize or comprehend the true power of prayer and what effect it can have on people and history...if done for the right reasons.

Pastor had a great example where he said something like "A big prayer for someone might be like 'I pray that I win the lottery', well, if you think about it, that's not quite big enough. All you're asking God to do is put 5 balls in a certain order so you win." That's nothing for God. Plus, you're probably not praying that kind of prayer for the right reason. We all say the nice sounding prayers, but we gotta start to pray what is truly on our hearts and minds. A big prayer might be to ask God to turn a friend or family, who's heart(s) is so hardened that you never would think in a million years they would become a Christ follower, to come to know the Lord.

And I think through recent prayer I've realized how selfish I truly am. Like last week, for example, when Amber's Grandma died. The first thing I thought of was not her and her family, I was thinking how this will affect my week, all the driving I'm going to be doing, and, oh my gosh, will I miss the basketball game on Thursday? All my thoughts went towards me. Obviously, a major character flaw. And other things like getting what I want, when I want. I've realized I'm pretty impatient when things don't go my way and how greedy I can be when I have the money to get whatever I want.

On a completely unrelated note, with all this talk of music and songwriting that I've been engaged in lately, I think one of the big fears I have about getting the ability to properly record my music is that I will have such incredible high expectations of myself and will let myself down if I can't deliver. The longer I wait, the longer I can put off dealing with that. Man, I just need to get over myself.

One of the great lyrical tid-bits that I found lately is from a song by matt pond pa called "New Hampshire" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znhicjyJXW8 it's the bridge and it's pure gold. Maybe it's not really the lyrics, but his delivery. It sounds like he (or the song's character) really misses his home and family. You can feel the ache.

"I’m going home back to New Hampshire
I’m so determined, I'm so determined
to lay in lakes and see my sisters
I will hit my brother
and hold my mother"