Art+Life+Spirit

Rich Mullins

“And if you listen to my songs I hope you hear the water falling
I hope you feel the oceans crashing on the coast of north New England
I wish I could be there just to see them, two summers past I was
And the Holy King of Israel loves me here in America”
– from ‘Here in America’ by Rich Mullins

Rich Mullins was killed in a Jeep accident in 1997. He is most known for writing some of the most well-known worship songs of all time, such as “Step by Step” and “Awesome God”, but he also had the courage to create an album like “a liturgy, a legacy, & a ragamuffin band”, an artistic musical exploration that was inspired by Catholic liturgy, released in a market that catered to Protestant inspired cookie-cutter pop. Rich did his own thing, and followed Jesus with passion and without apologies. He let that passion drive his art. You can hear it and feel it.

Rich Mullins is the type of artist I would have no problem recommending to someone who doesn’t follow Christ, and to be honest, I can’t say that of most Christian artists. His music is good, crafted carefully and lovingly. It is that kind of love that truly reflects the glory of the King and the beauty of creation.

There are a lot of Christian artists these days who are trying to push the envelope. In my opinion, they are trying too hard. It is one thing to be shocking for the sake of shock. It is quite another to speak honestly. Controversy sells albums. Mullins was considered by many to be a controversial figure, but I don’t think he sought controversy for controversy’s sake. I think the truth is dangerous, and Rich was unafraid to speak the truth.

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July 13th, 2009 | Tags: Christianity, controversy, Here in America, hipsters, legacy, liturgy, music, Ragamuffin Band, Rich Mullins, The Color Green | Category: Art, Spirit | Leave a comment

There was no blog post this past week … The fault lies with an interrupted internet connection, and the hours of back-and-forth with technical support to determine what I knew the moment I lost my connection: the modem had gone bad. I realize now that everything goes back to the lowest common denominator, and 98% of technical support is expended dealing with people who are, for some reason, afraid to learn rudimentary computer operation.

“Sir, please look at the wall jack. Is the modem plugged in? There is this thing we call a ‘cable’. You might call it a ‘wire’ or ‘chord’. Please confirm that the end of the cable, wire, or chord is plugged in to the back of the little, shiny grey box. We call that box the ‘modem’ …”

On Independence Day this year, I celebrated the fact that our country has risen from a rag-tag bunch of subservient colonies, settled to provide wealth for European dictators, to the beacon of freedom and democracy for the entire world. We are so independent that we decided to stop learning, and instead have subjugated ourselves to Indian tech-support.

In the spirit of Independence Day, below are some creative interpretations devoted to our favorite patriotic holiday. I hope you had a safe weekend. I hope you found some inspiration as you spent time with family and celebrated our nation’s birth. There’s something about nostalgia and time with loved ones that sparks creativity. I spent time relaxing, watching a creative display of exploding chemical powders, and finding a little inspiration for my screenplay.

‘Tis the season for YouTube videos:

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July 6th, 2009 | Tags: creativity, exploding British, fireworks, freedom, Independence Day, tech support | Category: Art, Life | Comments (5)

So, I have a new blog.

You can go over there right now and look at it. It only has one entry, but it is kind of a big deal for me.

When an artist puts her work out for all to see, the feeling is equal parts bliss and equal parts terror. In the moment, it’s probably less bliss than terror. It’s like asking out “the girl”. I am talking about the girl who you have day-dreamed about for two years, the girl whose class schedule you try to copy, the girl for whom you rearrange your life so you can “run into” her outside of band practice … yes, that girl. For the record, very few guys who obsess over girls such as this ever actually ask them out. It’s that terrifying.

When your film is on the screen for the first time in front of a packed house, the audience becomes a living, breathing organism. You hear every cough, every breath, every snicker, every cry. Just like the boy pouring his heart out for the girl, the artist pouring his heart out for the audience is completely aware of every bat of an eye and every uncomfortable twitch.

The boy hopes the girl will accept his heart. The artist hopes the world will accept her heart. One is a relationship between two people. The other is a relationship between a work of art and an audience.

All that to say, I have decided to make a film. I am on page four of a screenplay. Over some period of time, the screenplay will be completed, money will be raised, the film will be made, completed, and somebody will watch it, and I will go from the nervous wreck exposing his life in a blog to a nervous wreck exposing his heart in a theater. More »

June 22nd, 2009 | Tags: film, Film Fiasco, filmmaking, first screening, heart, relationship, the girl | Category: Art, Life | Comments (1)

I am not even going to look at the date on my last entry. I can see the picture of my puppy, and how tiny he was then, I can look at him now and see how big he is, and I make no argument. Exhibit A. The prosecution rests. Case closed. [Insert more courtroom cliches HERE].

I said something at one point about a new year’s resolution, and the resolution included some notion of “regular” blogging. It is time to admit defeat. I am declaring blog bankruptcy.

I would like to thank my wife for attempting to bail me out on many occasions by encouraging me to write in this thing. Thank you, wife. You made this economic-crisis analogy possible.

The great thing about bankruptcy is it gives you a chance to reorganize. And that’s what I am going to do. I am going to learn my lessons and reorganize. And there’s really not much to be done. The big news is that I am not going to even attempt to blog on a daily, bi-daily, tri-daily, or whatever basis. I am going to blog on a weekly basis. Sometimes the entries will be long. Sometimes they’ll be short. Hopefully they’ll become conversation stimulators, because we all need that. But Monday morning, rain or shine, there’ll be an entry, and that will be it.

And then some day down the road this blog will become something completely different. I won’t even tell you what it is, but it’s a dream I’ve had. Right now, it’s not there. Some day, perhaps it will be. Another reorganization.

Failure is a wonderful thing. I used to hate it so much. I used to hate being a failure. But recently I learned that there is a huge difference between failing and being a failure. Everybody fails, but that doesn’t make you a failure. The decision to identify yourself by your failures is yours alone. You can choose to be a person who fails, as every honest person is, or you can choose to be a failure. It’s up to you.

I should probably give some examples, like Edison and the lightbulb, but I think you get the picture.

In other news, I am starting a new blog. Yeah, I know, if at first I don’t succeed, make my life harder. However, this new blog is a part of a new project I am undertaking. I am starting something new and good for my life, and this new blog (and its related project) is what I need to be doing right now. So I’ll let art+life+spirit continue to grow, albeit slowly, like a garden, and I’ll give this new thing the attention it deserves.

So that’s the long and short and long of it.

See you next Monday.

… news about the new blog is forthcoming …

June 15th, 2009 | Tags: bail-out, bankruptcy, blog, fail, failure, fiasco | Category: Life | Leave a comment

So it has been a long time since I last visited my humble blog. I have an excuse. Here it is:

Harley

Harley is a seven-week-old West Highland White Terrier (”Westie” for short), and as I write this he is beside me trying to muster all the power he can from his stumpy little puppy legs to jump up on to the couch. Because he needs to be near me. Because he is a puppy. Because puppies have to be the center of attention.

So, between early morning walkings, feedings, and just the non-stop demand for attention, I find it quite difficult to blog. It makes me wonder what I’ll be like when we have a human puppy, commonly referred to as a “baby”. I have no idea how a parent would ever get anything done. I mean, he’s just a little dog for goodness sake, and I feel like I have no time.

Not that I don’t enjoy it. I want to make sure that’s clear. I like having this responsibility, because this responsibility is so cute. And it’s nice to have a little creature who actually wants to be around me, as opposed to my cats, whose normal reaction to my appearance would be, if they could talk, “Oh, you’re here? Food bowl’s over there. Thanks.”

All this to say that I will soon find balance, and I will return to my blog with religious fervor.

In the meantime, I will say that I have found a use for newspaper. I bought one yesterday, and I had to ask for help on where to find them at Kroger. It has been that long since I have purchased a newspaper. I hear there is talk of bailing out newspapers, or making them nonprofits. The government supporting news-gathering flies in the face of pretty much everything this country was founded on. The free-press is one of the things our ancestors fought and died for. Of course, in the age of multimedia conglomerates and huge advertising budgets, it makes one wonder if the press has really been free at all for quite some time.

I don’t want to sound like one of those arrogant bloggers who thinks news agencies are obsolete, but I will say the nice thing about a blog is it reminds me of a time when some guy who owned a printing press would print up a bunch of flyers derailing the tyranny of the king because he believed in what he was saying, and not because he was a billion dollar corporation trying to satisfy his sponsors with huge circulations.

I think a lot of newspapers are going to go out of business, but a lot of them will adjust and take their business online, where the consumer wants it.

However, in light of recent discoveries, I will now say that I feel a government bailout of newspapers is appropriate in the interest of puppy house training. Thank you.

March 31st, 2009 | Tags: bailout, blogs, excuse, Harley, house training, newspapers, puppy, West Highland White Terrier, Westie | Category: Life | Comments (2)

… Not to be confused with Evangeline.

In Part I of this little two-parter, I gave a brief, incomplete, and arguably laughable history of Christianity in the western world. To sum it up, Christianity is no longer the default religious category in the western world, and as such, it does not dominate philosophy and scientific theory. As a result of this, and in response to this shift in America, a distinct American Christian Culture has evolved. This culture often describes itself as “Evangelical”.

On this blog, I have often referred to this American Christian Culture as the “Christian Bubble”. It’s a good description, because the response to the rise of humanism has been hostile, which has warranted a defensive posture. Those who live in the Bubble like to boycott things. They listen to “their” music and condemn anything “secular”. They spend time so involved with their churches, and seriously question social activity that does not have an overtly Christian theme. If they join the local bowling league, they feel the need to explain it away as a chance to “minister” to bowlers. There are Christian Business Associations and Christian clubs. They put their kids in Christian schools and daycares. Everyone is clean cut, and they spend a lot of time talking about how “blessed” they are.

The problem with the “bubble” is the fact that it is detached from the rest of the world. With legalistic fervor, the American evangelical spends a lot of time worrying about what is and isn’t Christian, and how to separate themselves further from the world outside the Bubble.

Many Christians who read that last paragraph and say, “but what about sin? Isn’t the process of determining what is and isn’t Christian the process of eliminating sin from our lives?” I would say yes, but the problem is we take it a step further. We aren’t just concerned with eliminating sin from our own lives, but from everyone around us. Our weapons are boycotts, legislation, and angry rhetoric.

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March 21st, 2009 | Tags: Addicted to Mediocrity, CCM, Christian Bubble, Christianity, evangelical, evangelism, Franky Schaeffer, sharing faith, witnessing | Category: Art, Life, Spirit | Comments (2)

Salvation is a cube away!

Get out your Evangecubes. This is part one of a two part series I am going to do on one of the most important — and most controversial — aspects of Christian living.

After the resurrection, after forty days of uncertainty, after revealing himself to the apostles and Doubting Thomas, and right before he ascended to Heaven, the last command Jesus gave his disciples was to go make more disciples.

At first, this process involved pairs of missionaries traveling to various Greco-Roman cities, sharing the gospel in synagogues and on the street, planting small churches, and then moving on. One such church planter, Paul, wrote a ton of letters to his church plants. His letters were so good they ended up making up most of the New Testament in the Bible.

For the most part, the early church existed underground like many other mystery religions during the Roman empire. They would have been more public if it didn’t always result in public execution and lion feeding. But then the Roman Emperor Constantine blamed Jesus for his victory in a battle, and now everyone was Christian … at least if you wanted to eat your lunch in Rome.

Truth be told, that’s how it was for a long time after that in the Western World … arguably right up to the century we just left. As western culture spread, so did Christianity. “Witnessing” and “sharing your faith” consisted of going into a new culture or civilization, building nice shelter and providing food, medicine, and education, and oh, by the way, if you want any of this stuff, you have to be a Christian. Sign up.

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March 18th, 2009 | Tags: Addicted to Mediocrity, christian coalition, Constantine, Contemporary Christian Music, evangecube, evangelical, evangelism, James Dobson Letter from 2012, Jesus Movement, religious right | Category: Life, Spirit | Comments (2)

I feel like writing some very specific things about the Christian faith. I have had these thoughts whirling around my head for a week or so, but when I stare at a blank page on my blog, nothing happens.

It is easy to laugh at the American church. I learned to laugh at the American church years ago, because if it’s not a comedy, it’s a tragedy. Live long enough and you’ll see the scars. I’ve met people who have been chewed up, spit out, and tossed from the church. I have known people who have had horrible injustices and cruelties done to them in the name of Jesus.

You see, Christians are people. They’re human beings with flaws, bad childhood experiences, broken hearts, empty dreams, and this nasty need to take care of themselves above all else. Everybody on the planet has this problem. If you got to know enough of your favorite hero’s friends and family, they may not be your hero anymore. In fact, the Bible says this about our race. We have all fallen short. We all continue to fall short.

This shortcoming was the point of the cross and the resurrection. I doubt you’ll find a Christian who disagrees with this. Jesus came to make things right. He came to undo the mess.

The comedy is the fact that even though Christians know this, we very often fail to live like it. I say comedy because the best episodes of The Office are the ones where the characters make the wrong decision. It’s funny, because we do the same thing every day in our own lives. If we don’t laugh at it, then it is really quite tragic.

It’s tragic when a church splits, or dies, because its members value their opinions over their brothers and sisters. It’s tragic when someone’s sole reason for hating God, or rejecting Him, or denying His existence, is the selfish act of someone blinded by pride, convinced that they have the monopoly on God’s will. We blame the truth for being offensive, when very often we are the offensive party. No, we don’t have to apologize for God, but we should apologize for ourselves.

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March 14th, 2009 | Tags: American Church, Christianity, culture wars, evangelism, salvation, The Office | Category: Life, Spirit | Leave a comment

That was absolutely horrendous

I need to give up American Idol. I am ashamed to watch it. Tonight, during one of his blunt criticisms, Simon said that the show was not about art and artists. It was shocking, but he was simply admitting something we all knew. It’s all about finding a new product to sell. As much as I enjoy watching many of the contestants sing, it makes me sad to think their prize for winning will be their dehumanization. They will become an idol, and though idols are worshiped, ultimately they are objects with a short shelf-life. When the idol goes away, what happens to the human?

I have a good friend — a songwriter — who hates everything American Idol stands for, and he is ashamed of me for watching. I don’t blame him. I am ashamed of me. But it is a guilty pleasure. Unfortunately, it is a guilty pleasure that steals hours of my life.

On that note, I now share my three biggest time wasters, the important things that at their best improve my life, but very often serve little purpose than to distract me from what is really important.

Television
It’s not that there isn’t quality stuff out there. There are amazing shows like Lost and The Office that are worth your evening. But for every quality program, there are ten mediocre reality shows and unintelligent sitcoms. Sure, I can learn a lot from the Discovery Channel. But I can also learn a lot taking a walk around my neighborhood pond. I can learn a lot from attempting a new hobby. I can lay on a blanket in the backyard and come up with new constellations.

I am afraid of the quiet, and I am afraid I might miss something, when I realize that I miss much more when I am stuck to the couch.

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March 10th, 2009 | Tags: American Idol, Facebook, idols, Internet, Lost, Randomness, Simon Cowell, Television, The Office | Category: Art, Life | Comments (1)