One for the road...

My favourite hindu song...

After my last post on whether I should go to the Hindu wedding (thank you if you gave advice it is really appreicatied!)  I have realised that one of my fave tracks on my iPod at the mo is Chaiyya Chaiyya which is Hindu!

If you haven't seen the bollywood film Dil Se (like me) you may recognise it as the music that plays over the opening credits of Spike Lee's excellent film "Inside Man."

The words of the chorus in English are:

He who's head is in the shadow of love

Will have heaven beneath his feet

Who's head is in the shadow of love,

walk in the shadow

Walk in heaven, walk in the shadow

So what's playing in your ears at the mo?

doin the iPod/iTunes shuffle...

I've been set the challenge by her lightness -what are the first 10 tunes on random play on me iPod.  So (drum roll) here they are (song/artist)...

1. Rude boy rock - Lionrock
2. Do me a favour - artic monkeys
3. Whatsername - Greenday
4. Those sweet words  -Norah Jones
5. Sheep - Pink Floyd
6. These are the days - Jamie Cullum
7. The one and only - Chesney Hawkes
8. Through the dark - K T Turnstall
9. Typical time - The View
10. Cuntry boys and city girls - The Fratellis

iF you want to play along too - leave a comment :)

[Re]connecting with God rhythms - iPod shuffle style...

Maybe life isn't as random as sometime I think?

Maybe of course it was just coincidence, maybe my mind was looking for it, maybe it was God, maybe it doesn't matter at al...

Listening to my iPod today on the walk into work today  th music seemed to connect with my soul - as the songs played on shuffle they seemed to start from where I was and draw me into God and then out again into living for him.

here is the set, enjoy....

Call to worship [or  beginning to feel a different rhythm]:

Chasing Cars - Snow Patrol

We'll do it all
Everything
On our own

We don't need
Anything
Or anyone

If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me and just forget the world?

I don't quite know
How to say
How I feel

Those three words
Are said too much
They're not enough

If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me and just forget the world?

Forget what we're told
Before we get too old
Show me a garden that's bursting into life

Let's waste time
Chasing cars
Around our heads

I need your grace
To remind me
To find my own

If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me and just forget the world?

Forget what we're told
Before we get too old
Show me a garden that's bursting into life

All that I am
All that I ever was
Is here in your perfect eyes
They're all I can see

I don't know where
Confused about how as well
Just know that these things
Will never change for us at all

If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me and just forget the world?

Re-centering/re-focusing...

You chose the cross (Lost in Wonder) [Listen]
Martyn Layzell

YOU CHOSE THE CROSS with every breath,
The perfect life, the perfect death:
You chose the cross.
A crown of thorns You wore for us,
And crowned us with eternal life:
You chose the cross.
And though Your soul was overwhelmed with pain,
Obedient to death You overcame.

I'm lost in wonder,
I'm lost in love,
I'm lost in praise forevermore.
Because of Jesus' unfailing love
I am forgiven, I am restored.

You loosed the cords of sinfulness
And broke the chains of my disgrace:
You chose the cross.
Up from the grave victorious,
You rose again so glorious:
You chose the cross.
The sorrow that surrounded You was mine,
'Yet not My will but Yours be done!' You cried.

Martyn Layzell
Copyright © 2002 Thankyou Music

Response/re-orientation:

I will follow - U2

I was on the outside, when you said
You said you needed me.
I was looking at myself, I was blind
I could not see.

A boy tries hard to be a man,
His mother takes him by his hand,
If he stops to think he starts to cry.
Oh why?

If you walkaway, walkaway
I walkaway, walkaway - I will follow.

I was on the inside
when they pulled the four walls down.

Into the heart - U2
I was looking through the window.
I was lost, I am found.

Walkaway, walkaway
I walkaway, walkaway - I will follow.
If you walkaway, walkaway,
I walkaway, walkaway - I will follow.

(Your eyes make a circle,
I see you when I go in there.)
Your eyes, your eyes.

If you walkaway, walkaway
I walkaway, walkaway - I will follow

I will follow
I will follow...

Into the heart - U2

Into the heart of a child
I stay awhile
But I can go there.

Into the heart of a child
I can smile
I can't go there.

Into the heart, into the heart of a child
I can't go back
I can't stay awhile.
Into the heart.

Into the heart.

A call to social justice/action [or living out the rythm]

Johnny 99 - Bruce Springstein

[Listen]

Well they closed down the auto plant in Mahwah late that month
Ralph went out lookin' for a job but he couldn't find none
He came home too drunk from mixin'Tanqueray and wine
He got a gun shot a night clerk now they call'm Johnny 99

Down in the part of town where when you hit a red light you don't stop
Johnny's wavin' his gun around and threatenin' to blow his top
When an off duty cop snuck up on him from behind
Out in front of the Club Tip Top they slapped the cuffs on Johnny 99

Well the city supplied a public defender but the judge was Mean John Brown
He came into the courtroom and stared young Johnny down
Well the evidence is clear gonna let the sentence son fit the crime
Prison for 98 and a year and we'll call it even Johnny 99

A fistfight broke out in the courtroom they had to drag Johnny's girl away
His mama stood up and shouted "Judge don't take my boy this way"
Well son you got a statement you'd like to make
Before the bailiff comes to forever take you away

Now judge judge I had debts no honest man could pay
The bank was holdin' my mortgage and they was takin' my house away
Now I ain't sayin' that makes me an innocent man
But it was more 'n all this that put that gun in my hand

Well your honor I do believe I'd be better off dead
And if you can take a man's life for the thoughts that's in his head
Then won't you sit back in that chair and think it over judge one more time
And let 'em shave off my hair and put me on that execution line

Sending out

Time - Pink Floyd

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an off hand way
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way

Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun

And you run and you run to catch up with the sun, but its sinking
And racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in the relative way, but youre older
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death

Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the english way
The time is gone, the song is over, thought Id something more to say

Home, home again
I like to be here when I can
And when I come home cold and tired
Its good to warm my bones beside the fire
Far away across the field
The tolling of the iron bell
Calls the faithful to their knees
To hear the softly spoken magic spells.

NKOC Chapter 3 summary – seeing with post modern eyes but interpreting with a modern mindset?

My friend Tim wrote these words to me in response to my summary post on chapter 2 of Brian McLaren's book: a New Kind of Christian…

“Just finished reading your article - there must be some way of combining all the stuff together and form a single cohesive thread. I still get the feeling we're missing the point though - we talk about being post-modern, but approach it in a modern way. I guess our generation is the last of the moderns; which is why we struggle to get the point, and our parents even more so…but really, its all missing the point. So I continue to feel guilty for not getting it (the point that is)….”

Summary chapter 3

In many ways these thoughts echo those of McLaren in chapter 3 as he reflects on how much the character of Dan has assimilated a modern mindset in which to read the bible.  For instance, Dan highlights the statement that God is control, to him that creates the idea of a divine engineer, in charge of a switch room of machinery, turning things on and off at will.  It is that mindset then that makes it hard to struggle with the Q of evil, why does such a divine engineer leave the evil switch on?  However, Dan thinks what if I go back to think of this through ancient eyes when control would maybe be similar to a farmer growing his crops or a parent raising their children.  Maybe God’s control is that sort of sense – instead of blaming the driver of the vehicle maybe it is more the case of parents raising their child who grows up, rejects their influence and does their own thing – would we still blame these parents if their child commits a crime?

Dan reflects how much of the church we know (both protestant and to a slightly lesser extant catholic) has been shaped by modernity from its institutions to its love of systematic theologies (cathedrals of modernity).  None of them are wrong in and of themselves but maybe post modern forms of Christian and expression will be very different from those of the modern age such that they will look like back sliding or even maybe heresy?

Dan suggests that maybe the modern period could be called post-medieval and that would highlight some of the major differences in thought, form and function of the Christian church that took place.  In other words we should not be surprised of the changes that form over time and it is only from our historical view point we can see how the church made the transition from medieval to modern.

The final thought is whether people’s hunger for mystery and spirituality means that they are looking to Christianity + to fill that gap, in the book the example of seeing someone with a cross and a dream catcher both hung from their car mirror is used. 

Or another illustration taken from my play list selection from this chapter, is the U2 song ‘I still haven’t found what I am looking for.’  When the song first came out at the end of the 80s there was a lot of discussions I took part in about how it showed how U2 were not a Christian band – they haven’t found what they want, what more is there.  Now, however, with post-modern eyes, I think it shows the hunger, that we have not found all that there is, that it is ok to be restless, to see life as a journey rather than arriving at that one destination – now I think it reflects my faith more than ever.

What is reflected in this chapter is the reprogramming (a modern illustration) that is going on with Dan, the deconstruction and reconstruction that is beginning to take place.  The struggle between what he has always believed and what feels like the truth/reality and should he follow that?  What if it leads him away from his faith?  On the other hand what if it leads him not to fall away but to fall into Jesus…

Play list for chapter 3:

Do it again (Nada Surf)
I still haven’t found what I am looking for (U2)
I love (Athlete)

Soundtrack to a New Kind of Christian - Chapter 1

One of the ways that I connect is through music, my taste is eclectic  so here for me are a couple of tracks that resonate with what I read in Chapter 1 of a 'New Kind of Christian.' 

(For me summary/reflection on the chapter, click here)

Wish you were here So, so you think you can tell Heaven from Hell, blue skies from pain. Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail? A smile from a veil? Do you think you can tell? And did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts? Hot ashes for trees? Hot air for a cool breeze? Cold comfort for change? And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? How I wish, how I wish you were here. We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year, Running over the same old ground. What have we found? The same old fears. Wish you were here. Pink Floyd

Finetime So what's it all about, do you really wanna to know Do you wanna to give or do you just wanna to take it all and go Coz you've gotta let it out if you wanna let it in Gotta get a little bit of lovin' in to make it all begin You've gotta find time to pick the right time to make a change Cos its a fine time to pick the right time to make a change So when you gonna learn that it takes all sorts Don't you think life would be a little drab if we had the same thoughts Cos you've taken all the good but you leave me with the bad And if you don't make a change pretty soon there won't be nothin' comin back You've gotta find time to pick the right time to make a change Cos its a fine time to pick the right time to make a change I do believe you read the verse I do believe you wrote the words I just need to let you out to let you in with me I just need to feel your love again and again and again and again and again Cast

Both tunes are well worth a download from iTunes :)

Poetry of God... extract from Bono's Rolling Stone interview...

Some interesting reflections on Bono's journey and his view of God/Christianity from a Rolling Stone interview which you can read here...

On going to church as a teenager...

"...I'd go to church with them too. Though myself and Guggi are laughing at the absurdity of some of this, the rhetoric is getting through to us. We don't realize it, but we're being immersed in the Holy Scriptures. That's what we took away from this: this rich language, these ancient tracts of wisdom...."

on wholeness in music

"...Here's the strange bit: Most of the people that you grew up with in black music had a similar baptism of the spirit, right? The difference is that most of these performers felt they could not express their sexuality before God. They had to turn away. So rock & roll became backsliders' music. They were running away from God. But I never believed that. I never saw it as being a choice, an either/or thing..."

on blues and gospel - God is the pivot

"The music that really turns me on is either running toward God or away from God. Both recognize the pivot, that God is at the center of the jaunt. So the blues, on one hand -- running away; gospel, the Mighty Clouds of Joy -- running towards. And later you came to analyze it and figure it out.

The blues are like the Psalms of David. Here was this character, living in a cave, whose outbursts were as much criticism as praise. There's David singing, "Oh, God -- where are you when I need you?/You call yourself God?" And you go, this is the blues.

Both deal with the relationship with God. That's really it. I've since realized that anger with God is very valid. We wrote a song about that on the Pop album -- people were confused by it -- "Wake Up Dead Man": "Jesus, help me/I'm alone in this world/And a fucked-up world it is, too/Tell me, tell me the story /The one about eternity/And the way it's all gonna be/Wake up, dead man."

On spirit and action...

"So now -- cut to 1980. Irish rock group, who've been through the fire of a certain kind of revival, a Christian-type revival, go to America. Turn on the TV the night you arrive, and there's all these people talking from the Scriptures. But they're quite obviously raving lunatics.

Suddenly you go, what's this? And you change the channel. There's another one. You change the channel, and there's another secondhand-car salesman. You think, oh, my God. But their words sound so similar . . . to the words out of our mouths.

So what happens? You learn to shut up. You say, whoa, what's this going on? You go oddly still and quiet. If you talk like this around here, people will think you're one of those. And you realize that these are the traders -- as in t-r-a-d-e-r-s -- in the temple.

Until you get to the black church, and you see that they have similar ideas. But their religion seems to be involved in social justice; the fight for equality. And a Rolling Stone journalist, Jim Henke, who has believed in you more than anyone up to this point, hands you a book called Let the Trumpet Sound -- which is the biography of Dr. King. And it just changes your life.

Even though I'm a believer, I still find it really hard to be around other believers: They make me nervous, they make me twitch. I sorta watch my back. Except when I'm with the black church. I feel relaxed, feel at home; my kids -- I can take them there; there's singing, there's music..."

On God...

"If I could put it simply, I would say that I believe there's a force of love and logic in the world, a force of love and logic behind the universe. And I believe in the poetic genius of a creator who would choose to express such unfathomable power as a child born in "straw poverty"; i.e., the story of Christ makes sense to me."

Beauty of Jesus - God in the flesh...

As an artist, I see the poetry of it. It's so brilliant. That this scale of creation, and the unfathomable universe, should describe itself in such vulnerability, as a child. That is mind-blowing to me. I guess that would make me a Christian. Although I don't use the label, because it is so very hard to live up to. I feel like I'm the worst example of it, so I just kinda keep my mouth shut.

On prayer...

"I try to take time out of every day, in prayer and meditation. I feel as at home in a Catholic cathedral as in a revival tent. I also have enormous respect for my friends who are atheists, most of whom are, and the courage it takes not to believe."

on the bible...

"It sustains me...As a belief.

These are hard subjects to talk about because you can sound like such a dickhead. I'm the sort of character who's got to have an anchor. I want to be around immovable objects. I want to build my house on a rock, because even if the waters are not high around the house, I'm going to bring back a storm. I have that in me. So it's sort of underpinning for me.

I don't read it as a historical book. I don't read it as, "Well, that's good advice." I let it speak to me in other ways. They call it the rhema. It's a hard word to translate from Greek, but it sort of means it changes in the moment you're in. It seems to do that for me.

It's a plumb line for me. In the Scriptures, it is self-described as a clear pool that you can see yourself in, to see where you're at, if you're still enough. I'm writing a poem at the moment called "The Pilgrim and His Lack of Progress." I'm not sure I'm the best advertisement for this stuff."

On the American evangelical movement...

I'm wary of faith outside of actions. I'm wary of religiosity that ignores the wider world. In 2001, only seven percent of evangelicals polled felt it incumbent upon themselves to respond to the AIDS emergency. This appalled me. I asked for meetings with as many church leaders as would have them with me. I used my background in the Scriptures to speak to them about the so-called leprosy of our age and how I felt Christ would respond to it. And they had better get to it quickly, or they would be very much on the other side of what God was doing in the world.

Amazingly, they did respond. I couldn't believe it. It almost ruined it for me -- 'cause I love giving out about the church and Christianity. But they actually came through: Jesse Helms, you know, publicly repents for the way he thinks about AIDS.

I've started to see this community as a real resource in America. I have described them as "narrow-minded idealists." If you can widen the aperture of that idealism, these people want to change the world. They want their lives to have meaning. And it's one of the things that the Democratic Party has missed out on. You know, so much of the moral high ground in the past was Democratic: FDR, RFK, Cesar Chavez. Now I suppose it's Hillary's passion for cheaper medical care. And Teddy Kennedy, of course.

Homogenius or homogeneous?

My thanks to Jason Clark for this one...  this funny maybe cos it is true... check out the music video to everything sounds like coldplay now

It poses a wider question - when something is successful big time there is a powerful rush to go out and just copy it/replicate it/re-live it which can mean resources and perceptions pushed one way... now copying can be good but questions like what's my context, what's my sound, what's my mission can be overlooked in the rush to go for what seems to work... or what gets popular approval... or what is flavour of the day...

Hmmm tricky really as I have been guilty as anyone of measuring "success" in my life by those sort of standards...  Good news is that having found that the Coldplays out there are XXL and I'm more like an L (ah I can remember when I was just an M) I can start to find the clothes that fit me and focus on me and using the gifts, fulfulling the mission that is my size with slightly fewer diversions off the path to chase the next new thing...

Maybe its a 30 something thang, that I start to feel comfortable in my own shoes...

U2's new video

U2 have never been afraid to go their own way and this cover version with special guests really rocks,  it stands out head and shoulders over most other tracks...

Check it here