Category Archives: art // music

What Goes On…

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When I moved to “the big city”, one of the first things that was so shocking to me was how visible and accessible everyone’s home life was. Walking down practically any city street, you are maybe 10 feet away from someone’s living room, and their style — nouveau frat boy to OCD modernist — was on display for everyone to see. For years, frankly, I envied the clean lines and “just so” placement of people’s living rooms, their oh-so-hip furniture and general tidiness.

Over the years, I began to form stories in my mind about what happened inside those nifty spaces. “Surely,” I reasoned, “those folks are the most hip, gentle, intelligent people on the planet; surely the clean lines of their furniture match the nifty efficiency of their lives.” I could see a married couple on the couch, looking up from their copies of The Atlantic and the New York Times to debate the spiritual ramifications of post-modern literary theory while sipping cappuccinos. I saw children getting up after only 3 gentle beeps of a clever alarm clock (probably designed in Sweden), silently but quickly eating their healthy breakfast before jaunting off to a day of classical education.

Now, I like good design. Nothing major (though I do have a subscription to this, lol), just an appreciation for what goes in my living space. After saving for years, my wife and I have finally been able to put “that” kind of furniture in our house; to have “that” kind of kitchen. Though the furniture is still arriving and being unpacked, it is neat and tidy (and some of it, in fact, I believe is designed in Sweden). In fact, our house is pretty darn comfortable to be in, and I think communicates what we like about space, about art, and about life.

But guess what?

+ Parents still oversleep in this house, and have to rush around getting ready for work;
+ Kids need to be practically shoved out of bed in the morning to get ready for school;
+ Dust accumulates everywhere practically every two minutes!
+ Dinners get overcooked;
+ Homework gets struggled through…

Part of me is a little let down: having a comfortable couch doesn’t re-make your life — but part of me also realizes that all of this probably went on behind those peoples’ doors as well.

Currently Reading

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Because I went to the library yesterday, here’s a list of what I’m currently working through:

  • Bowie in Berlin: A New Career in a New Town
  • Artscience: Creativity in the post-Google Generation
  • Love is an Orientation
  • High Tech Heretic: Why Computers Don’t Belong in the Classroom and Other Reflections by a Computer Contrarian
  • Art and Fear
  • Working the Angles: The Shape of Pastoral Integrity
  • But Is It Art?
  • How Art Made the World: A Journey to the Origins of Human Creativity
  • How to the Think About the Great Ideas from the Great Books of Western Civilization

… I’ll let you know how it goes.

Potential is a Lie

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I don’t believe in “potential”:

+ artistic potential

+ athletic potential

+ redemptive potential

Though the word  speaks promise and hope, it can also freeze and feed damaging pride.

Countless children (and adults) are blessed with potential…

… Few realize it.

Because let’s face it: “realizing” potential means:

+ risk

+ hard work

+ discipline

And few of us want to go down that road.

“Potential” keeps things in dreamland, where we are free to conjure images of “What I could’ve been.”

“Potential” keeps us from confronting reality:

…. That maybe we’re lazy and undisciplined.

…. That maybe we’re not the best, and need to learn from someone else.

…. That maybe we are in desparate need of editing and revision

…. That maybe “the artistic life” is NOT a matter of receiving a sprinkling of the magic pixie dust, but is in FACT a matter of waking up at 4:30am to write poetry before the children wake up (see Sylvia Plath)

But this, in fact, is where REALITY lies. This is where the BLESSING resides.

If you live inside of “potential” what begins to happen is that you begin to believe your own hype:

– I’m the best

– I could’ve been “full-time”

– I could’ve written that record

– I am owed respect

While “the artists” are waking up early and submitting themselves to discipline, while they are humbly sitting before their craft and confessing the terrifying unknowing of “how-to-make-it-better”,

….

….

….

…. You can flip that burger for table #2.

Potential is a lie. Realization is the truth. “Done” is the land of destiny.

Poem, 13 Jan

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I greet the morning with a kiss —
Not of Judas,
But eventual faithlessness.

My open face is
A temporary vestige,
Until the shadow flits across
On another darkness.

But for now…

For now…

… Breathe deep.

2009 Song Assassins

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Last year, I started a tradition of listing my annual “Song Assassins.” I through these out on last year’s blog, but I shut that one down, and so I present this year’s selections.

Here’s what this list is not:

  • This list is not the “Best Music of 2009”; there are some 2009 releases here, but there’s some older songs as well
  • This list is not objective; selfishly, these are my highly subjective opinions

Here’s what this list is:

  • These are songs that grabbed my attention, that made me stop what I was doing, and listen, or tap my foot, or marvel at a lyric or a guitar line
  • These are songs that stayed in heavy rotation on my iPod or in my CD player for a few days in a row

With those clarifications, here they are; do yourself a favor and give them a listen.

  • January: “A Break in the Clouds” (The Jayhawks). If you know me at all, you know I’m a huge Jayhawks fan. I think they represent the best in midwestern Americana — great, hymn-inspired harmonies, unpretentious arrangements and musicianship. This is from their release, Smile, which NPR’s Fresh Air once referred to by asking, “What if you made the best record of the year (2000), and no one heard?”
  • February: “Fix It” (Ryan Adams & The Cardinals). Ryan Adams can write a 3 minute song of longing and desire like no one else. When he sings, “I’d fix it if I could”, I believe it. I feel like I’ve spent the last three years of my life trying to write this song; I still haven’t written it.
  • March: “I’m a Man” (Black Strobe). I’m a pretty huge Guy Ritchie fan, and couldn’t wait to see Rocknrolla when it came out on DVD. This song has great imagery behind it in the movie and with the audio here, I just love the attitude–everybody “chunkin” away on that shuffle groove. This is 21st century blues. I think Muddy Waters would be proud.
  • April: “Wake Up” (Arcade Fire). It’s simple: as spring arrives, and it’s possible to drive around with the windows down, who doesn’t want to crank this up and scream “Ohhhhhh Ohhhhhh….” along with this.
  • May: “Palestine, Texas” (T-Bone Burnett). I love almost everything about T-Bone: his producing ethos, his guitar playing, his quirky song-writing. This song is from 2006’s True False Identity, which is an amazing journey of depravity and salvation. What an amazing groove: stand up bass, awesome, “greasy and gritty” guitar sounds… If you like stuff like Buddy and Julie Miller, I think you should give this a listen as well.
  • July: “That’s Not My Name” (The Ting Tings). I was driving through Knoxville, TN late one night, and heard thirty seconds of this song, and I was instantly hooked. The next morning (thanks to Google), I had identified the tune and went in search of it. This song actually swings…hard! — it’s not just mindless pop.
  • October: “Names That Fell” (Zach Williams). I went to a conference for pastors and church leaders in October. Most of the music there was pretty boring and typical — high-powered Coldplay and U2-esque tunes and bands that looked much “too hip” for me — when all of a sudden this guy walks on stage with nothing but an acoustic guitar. Mind you, this wasn’t the typical evangelical acoustic guitar (which is usually either a Taylor cutaway or an $5,000 Breedlove or Nashville-approved custom box); no this was a gritty, songwriter’s guitar: something like this. He also looked like he could’ve walked right off the cover of Big Pink or The Band. Now he had my attention. He sang this song, unaccompanied, and just blew me right away. Such conviction, such simplicity.
  • December: “Staráflur” (Sigur Rós). Years ago, probably in winter 2004, I’d heard enough about “this freaky band who didn’t sing in any known language” that I decided I needed to seek some of their stuff out. I went to the library and found a CD that had song titles I couldn’t read or understand, took it back to the house, and put it in the computer. Sounded nice. Got some tunes onto the iPod — a first gen, mind you!! — and filed it away for “future listening”. One grey day, I’d hopped on the El to go downtown dialed it up. With the grey, snow-blanketed landscape of Chicago forming a backdrop, I had an amazing musical (I daresay, spiritual) experience. This was music at its best: transcendent, emotional, communicative. It took me to the unexplained places in my soul… A few years (and many iPods) later, I’d lost the copies I had, and since their flipping songs aren’t titled in English I couldn’t remember what I’d been listening to that magical winter’s day. This December, I finally found it again. Though “Svefn-G-Englar” was the actual first song I’d heard, this year, this was the song that grabbed me.

So there it is! I hope you enjoy the tunes, and my commentary on them. Sorry there’s no blazing guitar solos, but if you know me at all, you know that those just don’t matter that much. It’s the music that gets ya!

Advent Poem

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Pause and reflect —
One moment only,
In the torrid  burning of our time,
And consider this:

We are not the lists we keep,
– Gifts to buy,
– Things to do,
– Things we’ve won,
– Loves we’ve lost,
–  Even the things we’ve done.

No, none of these will do —
We are babes, merely in waiting
For something to be formed,
For love-to-come
In the Advent of us all.

My Reading Universe, Pt. 1: Eugene Peterson

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The other night at church, someone asked, “Hey Eric, what are you reading?” This is always a very complicated question for me to answer, because I’m using churning through 6 or 7 books at a time, but I thought I’d take a few minutes here and outline the major “pillars” of my reading universe. These are the people that simultaneously, form, shake, and enhance my ministry, my world view, and my creative spirit. There are numerous other authors, of course, but these are my “mainstays”.

So over the next few days/weeks, I’ll outline who these folks are — to me, at least — and why they matter. In short, they are:

  • Eugene Peterson
  • NT Wright
  • Brennan Manning
  • Flannery O’Connor
  • Cormac McCarthy

Let’s start with Eugene Peterson. He’s the guy who wrote The Message. When I began my vocational ministry “career” someone — quite randomly — threw his book called Working the Angles: The Shape of Pastoral Ministry at me, and I through myself into the book with the enthusiasm of someone who’d thought they had the whole world figured out (I was soon to find otherwise). I suppose the next thing I read by him was his translation/paraphrase of the Bible, The Message, then after that I devoured 5 or 6 more of his, including Five Smooth Stones and Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places.

I’ll be honest: sometimes, I have no idea what Peterson is trying to say, and even when I do “get” him, the result can at times be a bit, “meh.” But what sings through, much of the time, is the voice of a poet and pastor, who at times just nails the balance of rigorous intellectual pursuit with the gentle voice of an artist-pastor. Peterson was the guy who showed me that you did not have to be a “Type A”, CEO-type in order to be a leader in the contemporary USAmerican church. He also reminds me that “pastoring” comes from a long tradition, with deep wells. We don’t need to “invent” discipleship for people. In so many ways, the same words and disciplines that worked for people in the 13th century still work today.

Chicago Drifts Slowly Away

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Opened up a Eugene Peterson book tonight, looking for some words to share with my musical worship team, and out popped an Intelligentsia “Buy 9 Drinks, Get the 10th Free” card. It was ironic. I remembered getting that card with a friend of mine almost three years ago when we were at a Willow Creek conference together. At the time, I thought it would just be a matter of time ’til I’d “need” that card again.

Little did I know.

Now, indeed, as the lyrics to the Maida Vale song go, “Chicago drifts slowly away…”

I struggle to embrace my life without sidewalks, without Autumn (I mean, really: you can’t call this Autumn), without the long walks through four neighborhoods, getting the chance to observe lives in microcosm.

I am beginning to doubt my timely return to “home”, and again wonder what to do in exile. Maybe I should take my own advice by way of God and Jeremiah: “Seek the shalom of the city you live in. Settle down; have a family.”

Okay sure, but was Babylon filled with crazy rednecks who were obsessed with college football??!!??

Just kidding. Kind of.

In my darkest moments, I don’t know why I’m here. Nothing “fits” with me here. But this is where I am, and my faith says clearly, “This is not about you. God writes his story everywhere, and your choice is whether or not to be a part of it.”

“Blue”

Girl, I know you’re in need of a hero
But the glory’s never called my name
I huddle at night,
And shy from the light
While Chicago drifts slowly away

And down here on the avenue
Where lovers have waited for years
To come when you call
Put a hand out when you fall
Hiding in phone books that are cloudy with tears

And is your heart blue?
Are you crying?
Girl I’m lonely too
Is your heart blue?

Well you sang your song to the darkness
And the silence just called back your name
Now that lonely song
Holds back the dawn
That can rise up and usher in your day

And girl you know I’m looking for you, girl
Thought I might find you downtown
And your wedding dress
Is stained and torn to shreds
From running ’round with your “other man”

And is your heart blue
Are you lonely
From all the bad times you been through
Is your heart blue

I’ll be your flame
In cold December
You will remain
You will remember our love

Is your heart blue?
Is your heart blue?
Girl I’m lonely too
Is your heart blue…

Billy

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This morning I stumbled across Billy Corgan’s “faith” blog (Twitter is a wonderful thing).

Being an artistic “child” of the 90s, I have a certain soft spot for Corgan and the Smashing Pumpkins. They’re responsible for some amazing musical/emotional moments, some of which will always be hardwired into my soul.

It’s also been refreshing to watch, from a distance, Billy Corgan’s journey through faith and spirituality, which really seemed to break through with his brief project of 2002 – 2003, “Zwan“. Billy is just one of those interesting guys in rock and roll, equal parts pretense and honesty, brashness and vulnerability (not to mention he was a neighborhood “homey” from Wrigleyville). For all his faults, he wasn’t afraid to put his search out there for people to see, and that means a lot to me as a fellow “pilgrim” and musician.

So I was glad to find his blog. I make no claims to know exactly where Billy is, faith-wise. There certainly seems to be an acknowledge of the “One God” (and I assume Billy agrees his name is Yahweh), and occasionally Jesus gets thrown in for some extra good measure, but there’s also a lot of “everything else” in there as well: Native American/First People spirituality, some pan-Eastern approaches. It’s definitely a bit “Everything-but-the-kitchen-sink”.

At one point he says this: “Jesus Christ never said to build a church, so enough said about the God system. The real God machine is you. God made you to know to understand, to feel, to grow, to enjoy, to remember. He did not make you to grovel at the feet of another human… Man is lost.”

I had two immediate reactions. First, from a Christian worldview, Billy, you are so close! Yes, God made us to know and understand and feel and grow and enjoy and remember. A thousand times yes! I believe that God’s message to us (through Christ) is one of deep affirmation and love of who we are at our most basic level. It is an affirmation of our humanity (as part of redeemed creation).

But I have to push back (Billy, are you listening? Ha.) on his second point, specifically that Jesus Christ never said to build a church. Yes, in a sense Christ never said to  build a church, and if you read the gospels from an ahistorical, non-contextualized point of view, you can throw all kinds of things into Jesus’ mouth (a lot Christians are experts at this, by the way). Because, even though Jesus never said to build a church, the assumption throughout the entire bible–and the context that Jesus was speaking in–was that God would always have a people for himself to help bring about the redemption of the creation. Jesus never said to build a “church” (how about the definition of church as “Called-Out-Ones”) because, um, he was speaking to the original “church” (called the nation of Israel!).

Simply put, rejecting “church” is like rejecting Jesus. You can’t divorce one from the other. Now, the expression of “church” is another topic altogether, and much more fluid and creative. But unfortunately, Christianity can never, ever be reduced to a hyper-individualized, atomized faith experience. It’s simply another consumer product of the west, masked in a bunch of new age Eastern pop mysticism. You have to have others. You have to participate in the body. You have to be part of the “Called-Out-Ones.”

Just So Everyone Knows…

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There is a scene from Thornton Wilder’s play, The Angel That Troubled the Water.  A doctor comes to a healing pool every day wanting to be healed of his melancholy and his gloom and his sadness. Finally the angel appears. The doctor goes to step into the water but the angel blocks his path, saying, “No, step back, the healing is not for you.” The doctor pleads, “But I’ve got to get into the water. I can’t live this way.” The angel says, “No, this moment is not for you.” And he says, “But how can I live this way?”

The angel says to him, “Doctor, without your wounds where would your power be? It is your melancholy that makes your low voice tremble into the hearts of men and women. The very angels themselves cannot persuade the wretched and blundering children of this earth as can one human being broken on the wheels of living. In love’s service, only wounded soldiers can serve.”

————–

I don’t know why
The angel follows you from so far behind
You say it’s a surprise
Keeps you guessing all of the time

You made a mistake
I can see it written over you face
Tears sketching out the truth of your pain
But I say, it’s alright

You were so good to me
Even angels long to be
Broken on the wheels of love
Broken on the wheels of love
Broken on the wheels of love

I saw your dress
Saw it hanging on the back of a chair
Oh baby, yeah, I was there
And I guess your virtue ain’t all that it was

You had a good time
Gave your heart to all the valentines
And now I know you might be disinclined to admit
But it felt pretty good

You were so good to me
Even angels long to be
Broken on the wheels of love
Broken on the wheels of love
Broken on the wheels of love

All the stories in the lonely places
All the songs in the silences
We’re all strong in the broken places
Everybody’s broken on the wheels of love

Broken on the wheels of love
Broken on the wheels of love
Broken on the wheels of love