Nine Years / Yesterday

Nine years ago my cousin, age nine, drew her final tortured breaths into burning lungs.

 

This year marks the epicentre. She has now been gone as long as she was here.

 

It was about 9.45pm, with the last gasps of a golden sunlight running lazily across the wooden floor when my mother hung up the phone and made the pronouncement of death to me.

 

My cousin left us on the coattails of the sun as it dipped away from us into space. Every year as the days lengthen, so does my dread... more daylight to carry my loved ones away.

It still feels as if I'm sitting there on that chair in my parents' dining room. It's been nine years of sitting on that chair.

I've graduated college. I've gotten married. I've moved multiple times. I've rewritten a literal novel. I'm still sitting in that chair at my parents' house. I'm still seeing the golden sunlight take my cousin away. I can still see her face on the Skype call the last time I saw her at Easter -- you know, the holiday where we celebrate Jesus' resurrection and talk about how He conquered death.

She had two weeks of breaths left in her and none of us knew. My uncle, who had been diagnosed with terminal cancer eight months before and had already outlived his prognosis by Valentine's Day, had another four years of breaths in his lungs. Yet somehow this lively, spirited little girl running around only had two weeks of air left and none of us knew.

Friday Happened - A Rant

Friday happened -- but Sunday's coming.

This was a common sentiment on my Facebook page over Easter weekend this year. Right from the first it seemed odd to me. I'd never heard it before -- and I grew up German Baptist in the Bible belt and am currently attending one of the oldest, most recognisable Bible colleges in the country. Believe me, I know all the cheesy phrases.

But the main thing that bothered me was how much this little statement trivialises the pain and grief of Good Friday. It brushes all of it aside with a wave of the hand and a 'yeah, yeah, that's not important.' But it is important.

Maybe I'm more sensitive to these things because I have gone through hell the past two years and have had all of it waved aside by nearly everyone I know (I do say, 'nearly' -- there are about two or three people who 'get' it or at least valiantly try. I treasure them greatly).

The sermon at the Easter Sunday service I attended focused on Mary Magdalene on the first Easter morning. It was a phenomenal sermon, but one of the things that he emphasised that I really appreciated was just how despondent Mary was that day. Any other time in the Scriptures when an angel appears, the human they visit falls down in fear and trembling and takes them seriously. Not Mary -- the angels of God are telling her that Jesus is alive, and her grief and despair is so thick that the freaking angels of God can't penetrate it. (This wasn't one of his points, but it's something I thought of: most times in Scripture there is only one angel at these kinds of things. But here there was more than one. That's a very unusual occurrence, yet their message still failed to get through to her.)

Furthermore (back to his sermon) -- the thickness and heaviness of her despair (depression) is so great that Jesus Himself shows up and she almost misses him too.

People -- grief can be intolerable. Even in three short days it clouded Mary's vision to the point she could not see that the best thing that could have happened in the wildest childhood story had actually happened in real life.

You cannot brush the grief and despair of Good Friday aside with a mere 'yeah, yeah, it happened.' If you're going to remember and commemorate an event, you have to at least try to feel what our spiritual ancestors felt that day. That's the only way you can do justice to it. Sit with the grief a bit. Feel the heaviness of it. The good news of the resurrection will mean nothing without the emotional backdrop of grief to give it context. No, it's not a pleasant feeling. Suck it up. Get out of your comfort zone for half an hour and realise just how dark the darkest day was. You cannot see the light of Easter morning properly without realising just how bleak things really were. And then you will take the light of Easter morning for granted because you have no emotional reference point for it. Don't just share a Facebook meme and think you've done your duty. Think -- really think -- about this weekend. It's not about duty. It's about love -- actual, real love, with action, not lip service. And pain -- actual, real pain, that changes things permanently. And how they intermingle.

Yes, Sunday's coming... but Friday happened.

Don't trivialise the pain. Don't trivialise the grief. Don't trivialise the weight of the despair. Don't just assume anybody 'gets over it' in five minutes. You don't. And some of us are so blinded by it that we are unable to see Jesus Himself standing in front of us, calling our name. Don't mock us or get upset at us for having a worse life than you -- often through no fault of our own. We ask your patience, your listening ear, your gentle restoration, and your constant prayer, not your rolled eyes, your self-help tips, and your holier-than-thou attitude.


You're too afraid of hurting
Been playing cover-up
Expose yourself to dying
And in this real world
It is your calling...

You've been a wide-eyed innocent
Come to the garden
Come to the hill
Come to the tree
Come to the kill
Won't break your bones but it can break your will...

~ Daniel Amos, 1983 (Angels Tuck You In)

Music Day Part II - Easter Song

A week late for Easter Sunday... but He is still risen, even now.

This is probably one of the most well-known Easter songs -- ever. On Good Friday I featured Silverwind -- this group was their predecessor. The prototype, if you will, the original.

This is the song that launched the career of an orphaned group of siblings with no musical training to speak of but an ear for harmony. This piece remains a classic among Christian music historians. It's delightfully simple in its message and the piano is so light and bouncy that it induces almost immediate dancing of some kind -- whether the subtle, head-nodding type or a more Pentecostal full-body style.

Title: Easter Song
Artist: Second Chapter Of Acts
Album: With Footnotes
Year: 1974
iTunes here; YouTube here.

The angel up on the tombstone said 'He is risen, just as He said
'Quickly now
'Go tell His disciples that Jesus Christ is no longer dead'
Joy to the world -- He is risen
Hallelujah!

The Easter Shoes

This past week, my tap shoes -- which have been steadily falling apart for some time -- finally gave up the ghost. I had hoped I could limp them along until I graduated college and managed to make enough money to replace them. Alas, this was not the case. This, of course, presented a few problems...

Problem 1: This was the only pair of tap shoes I owned/had access to.

Problem 2: I have a few commission projects in the next couple of weeks that I NEED tap shoes for in order to complete.

Problem 3: An entry-level (read: lower-quality) pair of tap shoes can cost $70-$100. A quality pair can run up to $400-$500 Canadian dollars once you factor in shipping from the States (and not all dancewear companies even ship to Canada). (You see why all dancers are broke.)

Problem 4: Kijiji, eBay, and Facebook queries in the area had yielded nothing (nothing I could use, anyway). I hadn't heard promising things about the selection in the (few) local(ish) dancewear shops, although I had planned on checking them out for myself over the weekend.

Problem 5: I have to pay the school $1600 on Tuesday for (required) voice lessons and my (required) theatre internship course this summer. I didn't (still don't) know if I'll even be able to make that payment in full. Plus I have to save every single penny I can for college next year (especially if I'm apparently not going to get a job ever... I've been trying for four months now and still nothing). I certainly didn't have enough leeway in my bank account to buy tap shoes (of any kind).

Conclusion: As cheesy as it sounds -- I really did need a miracle.

If it had to be, I was willing to settle for a (slightly) lower-quality (but less expensive) pair to get me through the rest of my time in academia, although it would mean I would have to replace them sooner (I'm VERY hard on my dance shoes). Ideally I would have liked my next pair of tap shoes to be very high quality (read: more expensive) so that I wouldn't have to replace them again in two years, but the timing, financially, was apparently not going to work out that way.

I had been half-heartedly praying, but I wasn't expecting much. There have been many unanswered prayers over the past two years, and I expected this would just be another one in a long line.

B Plot: So one of my hallmates' sister was coming to visit and my hallmate had asked me a few days ago if she could borrow my spare mattress for her sister to sleep on. I had said she could. Thursday night her sister arrived and said hallmate came to get the mattress. I helped her carry it across the hall to her room and ended up meeting her sister. One of them asked me what I had been up to that day and I told them about my broken tap shoe and how I'd spent all day researching tap shoes, trying to find quality on a college student budget. My hallmate asked how much tap shoes cost and I said entry-level is roughly $100 but a good pair can get up around $400 once you convert it to Canadian dollars and ship it here. We talked a bit more about other stuff and then I went back to my room.

Less than five minutes later, my hallmate came in.

"This isn't from me," she said, "but here." She stuck out her hand. "You can buy your tap shoes."

In her hand was a wad of cash. It felt thick when I took it.

"My sister said she felt she needed to pay for your tap shoes. But she was too shy to give you the money herself. So this is from her."

Four hundred dollars cash. From a stranger.



This morning, I set out on a mission to find decent tap shoes that I could live with for the next few years for $400 or less. There was one dancewear store in the nearest town, the next dancewear places were in the city an hour and a half away. I intended to hit all of them if necessary.

I went to the one in town first and tried on a few pairs, including Bloch's Jason Samuels Smith shoe (A.K.A. J-Sams or JSS). I liked it immediately -- no stupid rubber pad to muffle the sound, good thick sole, comfy fit -- but I was reluctant to pull the trigger on a $200 pair of shoes at the first store I came to. I told the girl helping me that I might return for them, but I wanted to shop around first.

I headed to the city.

The first place I actually found (I made a wrong turn in my attempt to get to a different store -- classic Kate) carried both new and used shoes. I asked to see the used shoes (for budget reasons) and the lady took me to a wall of shoes and let me examine and try on and try out tap shoes for a good half hour. I found two pairs I liked -- one black Capezio oxford-style pair for $65, and one tan Bloch Cuban-heel-style pair (called the Tap-On), listed at $80. At this point I was considering picking one of the used ones to hold me over for the next few weeks and then putting the rest of the money into Miller and Bens (which are some of THE best tap shoes available -- and the price reflects that). The used pair should, I reasoned, at least get me through the time for the M&Bs to ship and then through their break-in period. Then the Miller and Bens would almost certainly carry me for at least a few years.

I called my mother for advice (not that she knows the first thing about tap shoes, but she does know how to stretch a dollar and ask questions that I should think of but never do). I presented her with the aforementioned scenario involving the Miller and Bens, then on the fly I came up with an alternative scenario in which I could buy both used pairs and then go back and get the J-Sams. She advised me to pick just one of the used pairs and go back for the J-Sams. After some discussion and comparison, I decided the Capezios had a few tiny things that I didn't like (the heels felt mushy in a heel stand -- which may have been a size issue more than an issue with the shoe itself -- and I didn't like where the stress point was in a toe stand, as it was the same place my last pair blew out), so I bought the Tap-Ons and headed back to the first place for the J-Sams.

As if the providential money from my hallmate's sister wasn't enough, the lady at the store I got the Tap-Ons from looked at the $80 sticker on the shoes and said, "That's too much for a used pair of shoes." She rang them through at $40.

So basically -- I was gifted $400, and I ended up with two pairs of tap shoes (including one brand-new, fairly high-quality pair) for $250. I now have two very different styles and colours for different kinds of pieces, plus if one craps out, I still have another.

An Easter miracle for a nearly-forgotten artist.

Here they are:

Bloch's Jason Samuels Smith shoes (J-Sams).

Bloch's Tap-On shoes (used -- sorry, pre-owned).

Music Day Part I - Forgiven

It really doesn't feel like Good Friday to me today. Usually on Good Friday there is a turkey dinner and family (whether mine or someone else's generous one). But I spent today researching tap shoes (mine are officially shot) alone in my flat.

It's getting harder to find suitable songs for Easter weekend every year. Songs on the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus were fairly common in the 1970s and 1980s, but since then even the mention of Jesus in Christian music is hard to come by (unless you're a worship band, but even then they mostly talk about how He makes them feel, not anything He's actually done). As a result, I'm featuring the songs that do exist, but there aren't really any new ones coming out. The year will come when I have to either stop the two-for-one Easter weekend special or start re-using songs.

Fortunately for all of us, this is not that year.

Title: Forgiven
Artist: Silverwind
Album: A Song In The Night
Year: 1982
Label: Sparrow Records
iTunes here; YouTube here.

How have I not featured this song before? This album was my jam back in 2003-2006. Yeah, okay, the production is dated, but the vocal blend is lovely and there's a really sweet simplicity in all of Silverwind's songs -- especially the songs on this album. Betsy Hernandez has perhaps the prettiest unrecognised voice in CCM history and was actually my inspiration to even consider learning to sing myself. It just floats. It's like a fairy's voice. Unfortunately this is the one song on the album that doesn't feature her voice prominently, but you still hear her airy soprano in the harmonies in the chorus and in the backing vocals. (Check out the title track from this album and some of the Music Day archives -- here and here -- if you want to hear more of her.)

This song is based on a true story, by the way -- check out Luke 23:32-43.

Music Day Part II - Up From The Dead

This gets harder every year. There are actually so few joyful 'He Arose!'-type songs. I have no problem finding stuff about Good Friday, but there is precious little about Easter Sunday (songwriters: take note).

But one of the few singers whose joy simply radiates through his voice is Dana Key, founding member, guitarist, and songwriter for DeGarmo & Key, one of the biggest Christian rock bands (second to Petra and later Stryper) of the '80s. To me this is the song from my childhood that I never actually knew in my childhood. I've just spent fifteen minutes trying to figure out how or why and I can't. I don't know... it just brings me back to that time. Like the Imperials' Holdin' On and Michael W. Smith's All You're Missin' Is A Heartache.

Title: Up From The Dead
Artist: Dana Key
Album: The Journey
Year: 1990
Label: ForeFront Records
iTunes here; YouTube here.

I would love to hear this done with a piano, a string orchestra and a harmony vocal. At the risk of writing the most clichéd statement ever on this blog: the production in this recording is (wonderfully!) dated, but the message is timeless.

Up from the dead
The world has a Saviour
Up from the dead
With power to give...
Jesus lives!

He is risen indeed!

Music Day, Part I - The Messiah

I've always liked the lyrical progression of this song; how the title line takes on three different tones.

Also, those of you who are sick of mushy-gushy Christian radio and mega-church worship-band crap will appreciate this one. Bloodgood was one of the lesser-known hair metal bands that rode Stryper's coattails but were much, much better at lyric-writing than their bumblebee-coloured counterparts (admit it -- Stryper could play a mean guitar and they had good harmonies, but as for lyrics... I'll just leave this here). They also had a bit of a theatrical bent -- I remember seeing a video on YouTube of the band performing this song on a full-on theatre set and the band members as characters in the story. It wasn't quite on the level of Alice Cooper's stage show, but the approach seemed similar (not that I'm an expert on Alice Cooper either). I'll see if I can find it again...

Anyway, before this post becomes a who's-who of rockers whose names I know but whose styles I'm rusty on, here's the song:

Title: The Messiah
Artist: Bloodgood
Album: Detonation
Year: 1987
iTunes here, YouTube here.

Also, I totally found the dramatised live version! It's even more awesome than I remembered. Watch it here.

The live video in particular brings out a little more of the political, earth-bound side of Jesus' death. See, at that time in history, the Jews/Israelites/Hebrews were under Roman rule and generally were not thrilled with this state of affairs. Centuries before, the Jewish prophets had told of a messiah, a king, that would come and save them. Now that the Jews had been exiled from Israel (the land promised to them by God), they assumed that this messiah would be a political one -- that he would free the Jews from Roman tyranny and establish himself as king above the Roman rulers.

Jesus, meanwhile, was born and at thirty He began teaching about God and the scriptures and performing miracles. This of course didn't sit very well with the religious leaders, as Jesus fast became more popular than they -- that and Jesus had some harsh criticism for said religious leaders, in addition to claiming to be the son of God. To claim to be the son of God was not only preposterous, it was anti-scriptural and punishable by death. The religious leaders quickly realised He was dangerous to them, but because of His fame among the common people, they didn't dare take action.

As far as the common people were concerned, everything was going great until they realised that this Jesus character didn't appear to be storming down the emperor's gates and liberating the Jews anytime soon. The religious leaders seized on this discontent and stirred the people into an angry frenzy. In a matter of days, Jesus went from widespread public acclaim to being arrested and winding up in front of a mob of angry Jews screaming for His crucifixion.

Here is where the video comes in.

The Jewish authorities didn't have the authority to sentence a person to death, so they sent Jesus to Pilate, of the Roman court (this is the character in the red robe - the singer). The Romans didn't really care about the Jews' religious dispute and Pilate sent Him to Herod -- who was in charge of the area where Jesus was from. Herod mocked Him a bit and then sent Him back to Pilate. Pilate agreed to punish Jesus and release Him, but this didn't satisfy the Jews' bloodlust. After multiple tries to dissuade the Jews from their wish to see Jesus dead, Pilate eventually gave up, washed his hands of the matter (literally) and said the people could do what they wanted with Jesus. So they crucified Him.

The thing was, the messiah was never meant to be a political one. The messiah God sent was supposed to atone for the sins of all the people in the world. This atonement required the blood of a perfectly innocent man, and this is who Jesus was. That crucifixion shed innocent blood, and because Jesus willingly allowed them to crucify Him though He certainly possessed the power to flatten every one of the perpetrators, God saw it as an acceptable sacrifice. And as proof that the sacrifice (that is, Jesus' death) was acceptable and complete, Jesus was raised from the dead and lives even now, at the right hand of God. Now -- even today -- all that is required for this atonement to be yours is to believe that Jesus shed His innocent blood to cover your sins, on your behalf. This is all that is required to save you from the wrath of God against the sinful nature that every human (myself included) is born with.

For a fuller version of the story, read here, here, and here.

Music Day, Part II - Today Is The Day

There was a different song by this artist that I wanted to feature today... alas, the iTunes Store fails me yet again.

The '80s are strong with this one, but as we all know, it's not necessarily a bad thing on this blog... The lyrics are timeless and joyful though, and on Easter Sunday, it's the timeless and joyful that we focus on anyway.

Title: Today Is The Day
Artist: David Meece
Album: Count The Cost
Year: 1983
iTunes here; YouTube here.

Today is the day
Today is the day
He is risen
Today is the day
Today is the day
He is living
Go and tell everybody you see
That He is living indeed...


He is risen!
He is risen indeed!

Music Day, Part I - Beautiful Scandalous Night

I love The Choir's lyrics. The music is sometimes (often) too slow for me, but the poetic lyrics usually win me over in the end. Here the band explores the paradox of Jesus' death bringing us life.

Title: Beautiful Scandalous Night

Artist: The Choir

Album: Flap Your Wings

Year: 2001

iTunes here; YouTube here.

Buy directly from The Choir here.

It was a horrible night for those who loved Jesus -- He was arrested without a real warrant, pushed through trial under dishonest judges with their own agendas, beaten, mocked, and eventually sentenced to death, which was carried out the next morning. And it was scandalous -- not only was the entire thing a sham trial by a coalition of corrupt religious and political leaders, Jesus, up until a week prior, had been something of a celebrity throughout the region. For Him to have been sentenced to death literally overnight would certainly have been tabloid material.

But for those who have loved Him since that time, it was beautiful. For a more in-depth explanation of the reasoning behind it, read this. But in a nutshell, it was because of Jesus' death that humans even have the opportunity to be reconciled with God. Whether we take it or not is another matter, but at least now we have that opportunity.

Kneel down by the shore
Be thirsty no more
Go under and be purified...

Music Day, Part II - The Traveler/Joy

It must be Easter -- I'm listening to Don Francisco. I don't know why... Don Francisco at Easter just feels 'right.' This is the influence of my father on my life. (Don Francisco is also one of the very few artists who appears to remember that Jesus was actually raised from the freaking dead. I have no trouble finding songs for Good Friday -- everyone has a song about the crucifixion. But precious few songs exist that attempt to capture the joy of the knowledge of the resurrection.)

Just imagine this song playing on vinyl, as it was originally heard. As is Don's method (especially on these earlier albums) he starts with a story (from the Bible: Luke chapter 24) put into song form, but then he segues the narrative song into an exuberant praise song. The second part of the song, the celebration, is the continuation of the story Don retells in the first part, but it's also very clearly coming from Don himself. You get the sense that he physically can't express more joy than he already is, but more joy most definitely exists, boiling fiercely just beneath the surface -- just listen to him cry out We have been redeemed!

Title: The Traveler/Joy
Artist: Don Francisco
Album: The Traveler
Year: 1981
Label: NewPax
iTunes here; YouTube here.
CD available at the artist's website here.

He is risen!

Music Day, Part I - The Twist

It's Good Friday.

I'm featuring two versions of today's song. Both are worth the money.

First is the original, the rock version. The song grabs and doesn't let go for nearly five minutes. It's relentless. The electric guitar swirls around, pushing and pulling, desperate, flailing... Hang on -- believe...

Title: The Twist

Artist: Swirling Eddies

Album: Zoom Daddy

Year: 1994

Label: Alarma Records

iTunes here; YouTube here.

And here is the heart-stopping live version. It's a completely stripped-down acoustic version. Normally I hate it when people do acoustic versions of their rock songs (I think this is the only one I don't hate), but the guys of DA are of such a high artistic caliber that they can pull it off. I love the slow build in this. You don't notice it unless you're specifically listening for it (and even then it sneaks up on you), but suddenly when the second chorus hits, you're knocked backwards -- when did the full instrumentation come in? The bare acoustic guitar at the beginning lays a velvet nest for Terry to thread a light, soft, barely-there vocal through that auditorium.

The other day I listened to this song literally six times in a row and every time I got chills at the three-minute mark. Every time. Even though I knew it was coming.

Title: The Twist

Artist: Daniel Amos

Album: Live In Phoenix

Year: 2011

Label: Independent release

Bandcamp here; YouTube here.

Lyrics (they're the same for both recordings).

Don't take this too lightly. I'm not going to get too evangelistic, but I will say this: you are either with Christ or you are not. There is no middle ground. There is no lukewarm. You don't have to be with Him, but then you must be fully aware of the fact that you're not. You cannot take both sides. You cannot walk the fence. I think the lyrics largely speak for themselves, so read them and ponder them. No matter which conclusion you come to regarding them, ponder them.

But know this: this was no phantom guest.

Music Day (Part Two)

This past Tuesday, my friend from dance team texted me and asked if I would be willing to be a co-choreograph/perform a trio to this song.

Honestly, I wasn't expecting anything earth-shattering. The friend who texted me has a music collection so diverse and eclectic I've given up trying to define it, but the other person in the trio seems to be very much into the current-CCM... stuff. I can't really blame her -- after all, that's all there is unless you're willing to invest some serious time into tracking down some of the older Christian stuff, and before that you have to know it even exists... somewhere.

So I looked the song up on YouTube, bracing myself for a CCM-radio-friendly, mushy-gushy, sappy thing laden with Christian-bookstore clichés. (Seriously, with a title like Arise My Love, what else could it possibly be except a bland song of plastic-happy fake 'encouragement' to all the depressed/suicidal teenage girls out there?)

I did not get a mushy-gushy, sappy thing laden with Christian bookstore clichés.

What I got was this:
Title: Arise My Love
Artist: Newsong
Album: Say Yes
Year: 1987
Label: Word Records
iTunes here; YouTube here (apologies for the crappy sound quality... it sounds way better from iTunes, but you'll get the general idea).

What really sold me on this song was the fact that it includes actual theological concepts. Nothing heavy, mind you, but enough to prove that these guys know what they're talking about -- they're not just cashing in on the 'clean music' cow. They know what actually happened on that cross. They don't take you through it step-by-step in the song (for that, look up Lecrae's fantastic song Truth), but they probably could explain it if you asked them.

It's still not completely earth-shattering -- it's definitely radio-friendly, meaning it's not real musically creative -- but it's pretty, with a nice musical progression, and the sheer passion in the vocal makes up for the potential blandness of the soundtrack. Timeless? Not likely. But a great soundtrack for Easter weekend.

Music Day (Part One)

I had a different song planned for today, but at the Good Friday church service this morning, they showed this video.

It completely wrecked me.

Seriously, go watch it. You will almost certainly end up in tears, but please, go watch it. It will stretch your brain like it has never been stretched before. Go ahead. This post will still be here when you're done.

Watched it? Good.

I don't know how much you know about what happened that day, so I'll try to explain it a little. Then the video might make more sense -- in its crazy seemingly-backwards way.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. In six literal days. (I know most people refuse to believe that, but then again, you could believe all you want that grass is orange and that wouldn't make it true. I'm not going to get into the debate here because it'll detract from the point I'm making.)

This God is a powerful God -- think about it. He spoke and the entire freaking universe showed up. We can't even find the end of this universe, and God holds it all in the palm of His hand (you know what that means? We can't even measure the span of God's palm, never mind God Himself. That's how big He is). This God is a holy God -- perfect in every way, even ways our brains can't even think about. This God is unchangeable -- He has been and always will be the same. And this God is a just God -- crimes against His holy law (based, by the way, on His own perfection) are punished justly.

And the just punishment is death.

God made us so we could bask in Him. But rather than basking in Him, we spat in His face. We continue to deliberately and repeatedly break His law (as laid out in Exodus chapter 20 -- commonly referred to as the Ten Commandments). So we are now under the death sentence. This death is worse than anything else imaginable -- complete and eternal separation from God (and that is what actual Hell is). We will have no access to Him. The momentary pain of physical death is nothing compared to being completely cut off from the source of beauty and meaning and purpose and everything wonderful (namely, God).

But... God is also a God of love and grace. He forgives.

But how can a unchanging and flawlessly just God just up and forgive somebody? The crime has been committed and the guilty party must pay. If God were to just turn a blind eye to it, He would no longer be just and He would no longer be unchangeable. God would then be weak and worthless.

He is forgiving. That cannot change. He is just. That cannot change.

Now what?

Somebody had to pay. So God fathered a baby (Jesus) who had a human mother (Mary). Because the holy unchanging God was Jesus' father (rather than a human father who automatically carries the sin nature), Jesus was completely untainted by sin. And Jesus was going to pay the price for the crimes of we the humans so God could then legally be able to forgive us while still serving perfect justice -- after all, the price would then be paid.

And the price was separation from God. So God, the Father, and Jesus, the Son, would have to be separated. Understand that they had been together for eternity past, up until that point. Father and Son had never, ever been separated.

But when Jesus was in His early thirties, around the year 30 A.D. they were separated for the first time. Whenever we humans have trouble here on Earth, we can always call out to God. We know He hears us. But on the day when Jesus' entire weight hung on a cross, supported only by three measly nails, after He had spent all night being shuffled back and forth as a political pawn in a sham trial and beaten and mocked multiple times, after all His friends on earth had abandoned Him, He could not call out to God. God would not listen to Him. In fact, God was pouring out all His just wrath that was meant for all humankind on Jesus. Not only was God watching Jesus die, He was actively crushing Jesus to death Himself. (Are you seeing the parallel to the video now?)

God knew even then that the overwhelming majority of the people on that proverbial train wouldn't care. They would remain angry, bitter, and selfish. They would remain addicts and thieves and liars and cheats. They would continue to spit in His face and actively try to destroy the knowledge of His very existence. How easy it would have been to not pull the lever, to save his son and let the passengers on the train die.

But then, of course, He would no longer have been unchanging and perfect.


I've been exposed to this knowledge for my entire life. But watching that video today, feeling, however vaguely, the emotions of the father, suddenly this whole thing perplexes me. Why? Why would God do something so seemingly crazy?

Don't get me wrong, I'm thankful God did it. I'm thankful that I have the option of new life, life with Him rather than forever separated from Him. But... why? What would drive Him to save the addict on the train, who thinks of nothing but where she's getting the next hit? What would drive Him to give a second chance at life to the people who wouldn't care -- if they even knew at all -- that He had had to kill His own Son to do it?

All I could see as I watched that video was me -- the addict on the train. Because I am an addict. I'm addicted to having people think nicely of me. I'm addicted to getting things my way -- oh, I'll be 'polite' about it, but woe betide you if you 'ruin' my plans. I'm addicted to my downtime. I'm addicted to my pride, my reputation. I'm addicted to the need to have everything perfect, whether or not I'm actually responsible for the project. I'm addicted to the need to be right, to win an argument. I'm addicted to the need to be everybody's darling. And you already know of my music addiction. And there are so many others. I will do almost anything to get -- or keep -- all of this. If I'm brutally honest, God is just barely in the top ten on my priority list, below all this other stuff. And still He crushed His Son so that I may live.

I still can't wrap my head around why He would do something like this. I don't know if I will ever be able to.

I don't have any children, but if that had been me in that father's place, I would most definitely have let the addict (and all the other comfortably seated people) die if it meant I would get one more chance to hug my child.


Well... like I said at the beginning of this post, I had a different song planned, but ever since watching that video, this song has been running through my head. This is the state I'm in right now.

Title: Broken
Artist: Altar Boys
Album: Against The Grain
Year: 1987
Label: Frontline Records
iTunes here; YouTube here.

I've done what's evil in Your sight
And my heart is crumbling.

Music Day - Easter Sunday Edition

He is risen!


Title: He Came, He Saw, He Conquered
Artist: Petra
Album: This Means War!
Year: 1987
Label: Star Song Records
iTunes here; YouTube here.

Come and see the things the Lord can do...

Music Day

Good Friday again.

And what better way to enjoy it than with a little Petra?

Title: It Is Finished
Artist: Petra
Album: Beat The System
Year: 1985
Label: Star Song Records
iTunes here; YouTube here.

He paid the ransom due
And tore the Temple veil in two
And opened up the way for me and you...
It is finished.

Music Day, Part Two

It isn't rock. But it's intense. It's dramatic. And it's extrapolated from something that really happened (that is to say, based on a true story).

Title: He's Alive

Artist: Don Francisco

Album: Forgiven (and compilations, lots of compilations -- this was a huge song in the Christian music world)

Year: 1977

It's on iTunes here and YouTube here.

To get the full account of what happened, find a Bible (personally I recommend a New King James Version -- it's pretty easy to follow), find a quiet place, and carefully read the following:
Genesis, chapters one through three.
Matthew, chapter one, verses 18-25.
Luke, chapter one, verses 26-38.
Mark, chapter one, verses nine through eleven.
Matthew again, chapters twenty-six through twenty-eight.
Luke, chapters twenty-two through twenty-four.
And John, chapters seventeen through twenty-one.
For clarity, I recommend that you read at least all of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, but the references listed above will give you the basic idea of what happened.

Music Day, Part One

Today being Good Friday -- the day set aside to really remember Jesus' crucifixion -- I thought this song might be appropriate. It's almost too common, almost to the point of cliche in fact; but for once there's a good reason for its popularity.

Title: Via Dolorosa
Artist: Sandi Patti
Album: Songs From The Heart
Year: 1990
Here it is on iTunes.
There's a live version on YouTube here.

Tune in this Sunday for another excellent (and cheerier) song.