Another post from Augusta

Yesterday was Day 2 of the RTCA committee meeting here in Augusta. (Why am I posting a day behind, you ask? Because there’s free wi-fi in the convention center, but they want $10/day to get it in my room. I don’t need it that bad… so I’m only online during the day.) The meetings were rather uneventful.

Traveled around Augusta last night, and was surprised a bit when I drove past the famed Augusta National golf club. For some reason when I picture golf courses I think of them as big, open, in beautiful surroundings. Augusta National (where they play the Masters every year) is plopped down right in the middle of an older, poor part of town. I suppose maybe years ago when they built it it was on the outskirts, but now it’s just a walled-off enclave in the middle of the ‘hood. Strange.

Last night I found a shopping mall (boring; all shopping malls are about the same. why do I continue to seek them out?), a bookstore (also the same, but good for buying gifts for the girls), and a steakhouse restaurant (mediocre at best - disappointing). But I spent most of my time at the restaurant and then in the hotel after dinner working through N. T. Wright’s Surprised by Hope. There will be several blog posts on it here in the near future, but let me say right now that this is one of those books that has been an “aha” book for me. It simply makes sense and puts the pieces together in a way that no book has done for me since reading Lewis’ Mere Christianity and The Abolition of Man back in college. Oh, and Dad, if you read this: I ordered you a copy this morning, so don’t buy one.

Time for the meeting to start again. Gonna make sure those Synthetic Vision Systems are safe.

No, I don't play golf...

This week has brought me to Augusta, GA for the quarterly SC-213 meeting. The inevitable first question/comment I’ve gotten from friends when I say Augusta is “did you take your golf clubs along?” So as a preemptive strike: no, I don’t play golf. I’ve never hit a ball in my life. Yes, I know they have some fancy course here where they play some tournament every spring. I even know that a guy from Cedar Rapids happened to win that tournament last year. But it doesn’t mean I’m gonna be playing it in my spare time. :-) I will probably drive by it at some point just to have done so.

You don’t want to read the litany of my travel travails; suffice it to say that Monday I was scheduled to get into Augusta (including drive from the Columbia, SC airport and everything) by about 6 pm - I ended up getting in about 10:30 pm. Not so much fun.

Yesterday was the first day of meetings, and it was fairly useful. Last night I was looking for something to do and noticed in the paper that the local ECHL hockey team (the Augusta Lynx) was playing at home. The arena was only six blocks away, so I headed over, bought a ticket, and watched my first hockey game in some time. The game was poorly-attended (maybe 300 present) and the local team gave it a good effort against the first place Texas Wildcatters, but took too many penalties and couldn’t seem to pull the trigger and shoot the puck on the few power plays they had. Final score: Texas 3, Augusta 1. (As a side note: I went to look up the Wildcatters to find out where they are located in Texas; their team website actually didn’t say, any place that I could find. Poor website content. The ECHL site tells me they are in Beaumont, TX.)

So now I’m eating breakfast and getting prepared for another day of meetings reviewing this document my committee is creating. Good times.

Tim Keller's The Reason For God - a review

Tim Keller has been a favorite speaker of mine for some time now. As pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, he reaches thousands each week. He has also become a fixture at pastor’s conferences including John Piper’s conference in Minneapolis (where I saw Keller in person a couple years ago) and Mark Driscoll’s Acts 29 conferences. His dry wit and humor coupled with great insight on ministering to the city make him a must-listen for me.

(As a brief aside, I made this analogy at Piper’s conference a couple years ago: if Piper’s conference were Star Wars, Mark Driscoll would be Han Solo, Piper would be Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Tim Keller is quite easily Yoda. Quite easily.)

When I heard that he had written a new book, I eagerly ordered it (thank you, wtsbooks.com) and put it at the top of my reading stack.

God and Reason have been hot topics lately in the book world; it seems to be the topic du jure for atheists who want to trash Christianity. Keller’s book seems to be something of a response to those books, proposing, as the title suggests, The Reason for God. There has been significant buzz in the Christian blogosphere surrounding the book, and a not-insignificant marketing blitz as well - it’s not often that a new Christian apologetic comes complete with its own website.

Quite frankly, I found The Reason for God to be underwhelming. Keller spends the first half of the book responding to common objections to Christianity (“why is Christianity so exclusive?” “How can God send people to hell?”, etc) and then takes the second half on the positive side of the bargain, explaining why he thinks Christianity is true, and then laying out a bit about Christian beliefs. While the reasoning was solid, it wasn’t anything groundbreaking - it’s the same stuff you’ll find by reading C. S. Lewis’ The Abolition of Man and Mere Christianity and N. T. Wright’s Simply Christian. In fact, Keller quotes extensively from Lewis and philosopher Alvin Plantinga. Too often it seemed to me Keller should just be suggesting that we buy and read Lewis and Plantinga rather than reading his repackaged version.

The first half of the book kept my interest pretty well, but I will admit to a waning interest and a lot of skimming toward the end. This isn’t to say that The Reason for God is a bad book, or not worth reading. Put into the right hands, it could be a good introduction to the rational, logical reasons for Christianity. I don’t think it’d answer all of the serious intellectual doubter’s questions, but it’d be a start; good for your college seeker, too. But for someone who’s already familiar with the arguments, has already read Lewis and the like? Don’t bother. Or buy it for the quick read and then give it away. Here’s hoping for something more fresh and insightful next time from the capable Dr. Keller.

Another Half a Foot

Rest easy, friends, I’m not growing some fractional appendage. But I am pretty much tired of winter. Whatever the steps are in dealing with issues, well, I’ve moved past frustration and anger on to acceptance. It’s just more snow. Half an inch of ice to start it off? Well sure, why not? We can use the variety. I am glad this year, though, for the snowblower.

Two weeks from now I will be jetting off for a week in Augusta, GA. I can hardly wait to feel the warmth. The highs for this upcoming week, per weather.com? 11°F, 14°F, 10°F, and 19°F. Windchills down below zero most of the week. Now, I know that this winter is likely a climatological statistical anomaly that has no bearing on the validity of “global warming”, but the cynical part of me would like to invite Al Gore to move to Iowa for a few winters like this one. Right about now I’d be happy to trade him and move down to Tennessee.

At least when it gets cold in Wisconsin they can call it “The Frozen Tundra”, and it sounds cool. Here in Iowa it’s just more snow and ice and cold. And in Wisconsin they specialize in cheese… which would go pretty well with this whine.

An equation of insanity

So back in my Caedmon’s concert post, Daniel commented that he found the length of that road trip to see a concert “insane”. Being the nerd that I am, I decided an “equation of insanity” would be appropriate. (Geof’s equation of motivation was an additional piece of inspiration.)

So, without further ado, the equation:

I = (d+t)/qL

Where

I = relative insanity of the trip d = distance traveled to the concert t = time that trip took q = quality of the artist you are going to see L = length of the concert.

Of course the tricky thing here is that the q value will vary between persons, so just because you think my trip is insane doesn’t mean that I will agree with you. Also, by including not only the distance of the trip but also its’ duration, trips like Geof’s planned flight to Philly aren’t as insane as if he were to, say, drive to Philly.

There’s also the issue of theoretical insanity versus actual insanity. For instance, my trip to see Andy O’s The Morning release show theoretically should be much more insane because of the distance to Nashville, but in actuality the concert was so awesome that the real insanity level was much lower.

Note to Becky, my Mom, etc: Yes, this really just means that I am a huge nerd. Not exactly a revelation. :-)

I'm it.

Having been tagged by Jeff for the latest interweb meme to filter around to these parts, I suppose I should play along.

The Rules: (1) Link to the person that tagged you. (2) Post the rules on your blog. (3) Share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself. (4) Tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs. (5) Let each random person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their website.

So, the six non-important things/habits/quirks about me:

1) The Soundtrack in my Head Other people talk about having an internal dialog going all the time - I have an internal soundtrack. If I hear some word or phrase or phrasing that trips a memory in my brain, I’m likely to start singing the line from the song. (This drives my wife nuts.)

2) I have a propensity for spoofing song lyrics. Think Weird Al, just less talented, and without the accordion. The fun part is to try to do it on the fly in real time. Sometimes it works. Most of the time I just end up breaking out in hysterical laughter after about five lines.

3) I hate hate HATE asking people for things. Don’t know how this one got started, but I would rather put myself out than ask someone for something, even something that I know they’d gladly be willing to do/give. This maybe doesn’t belong on this list because it verges toward the important - this can be a real flaw at times that I need to work to correct.

4) I see chord structures. I don’t know of a better way to describe it. If I hear a song, I’m working through parsing the chord structure in my head. Usually I assume what key the song is in, and then work it out from there, but if I find out it’s actually in a different key, I can easily make the switch. I feel it in some combination of what the chord feels like when played on the piano and when played on the guitar. I will drive myself nuts sometimes if I don’t get a song figured out right away. I remember sitting in the parking lot at a Subway waiting for Becky to get a sandwich and trying to work out Simon & Garfunkel’s Mrs. Robinson. I was so proud when I finally got it.

5) I go to the same restaurants and order the same things every single time. I hate trying new places. Once I find a place and a dish that I like, I will order the same thing every time. This goes so far as to extend to business trips; last fall I traveled to Oklahoma City for two days and once I found a movie theater and restaurant nearby that I liked, I hit them both two nights in a row…. it’s just easier than having to try something new.

6) I have a huge memory for music and lyrics… but my repertoire is limited. Yeah, if I were on that Don’t Forget The Lyrics show I would fail miserably… unless they limited themselves to CCM from the 1990’s and indie-Christian-folk-rock from the 2000’s. I somehow missed all of the other stuff growing up and have been trying to fill in holes as I go along. You know, in some areas I didn’t miss much at all, but I wish I would’ve found U2 a lot earlier on. :-)

Now, then… who to tag?

Rae Whitlock Daniel D Bridget Roger TK Nate

Fun, fun.

Putting on the miles

The lengths I will go to hear a concert? Well, this weekend the length was 300 miles, each way. Lincoln, Nebraska ends up being, with short stops, about a five-hour drive. Well worth it to see Caedmon’s Call in concert again. First I should extend thanks to my mom for coming down to watch the girls for a couple of days. They had lots and lots of fun with Grandma, and it was sure a blessing for Becky and I to be able to get away.

Three hundred miles to Lincoln on Friday morning was broken up with P. F. Chang’s for lunch in Des Moines. It ended up being a good thing we ate a big lunch, because we never did get supper eaten, unless you count the McDonalds cheeseburgers we picked up from the drive thru around 11 pm while on our way to see Andy Osenga’s post-show set. After checking into our motel (very decent for the price), we headed down to the church where they were playing to hang out, take pictures, and watch the sound check. Everything was running late enough that once sound check was over it was almost time for the doors to open… so we ended up just staying there the whole night. Between Derek Webb, Caedmon’s, and Andy Osenga, the concert went a full three hours. Lots of fun. I’ve written up a full review with pictures over on caedmonscall.net.

After the Caedmon’s show, we trekked over a couple miles to Grace Chapel (a little PCA church in a neat old church building) where Andy Osenga did another half-dozen solo songs. It was fully midnight by the time that was over, and then we were headed back to the other side of Lincoln to our hotel. What a day.

The drive back home was rather uneventful, unless you count seeing multiple cars sliding off the road (not already in the ditch, but actually actively sliding into the ditch) as eventful. Made it home in one piece. Took most of Sunday to catch up on rest. In the end we drove about 750 miles for the weekend. Now, I’ve driven further to see concerts, and have seen better concerts, but overall it was great to hear Caedmon’s again, to be able to take Becky along (her first Caedmon’s show!) and to have a weekend out.

Comparing Services

This past weekend I had the pleasure of leading music both at Imago Christi on Saturday night and at Noelridge on Sunday morning. It was the first time in a month that I’ve been to Noelridge, and with a month of Imago under our belts it was a good chance to draw some comparisons.

Look and Feel At Imago we’re meeting at night in a 100-year-old sanctuary with lots of stained glass and insufficient lighting. At Noelridge we’re meeting on Sunday morning in a smaller 50-year-old sanctuary. Noelridge has a smaller, intimate, friendly feel to it; Imago has a deeper, more awe-inspiring feel. I think I prefer the relative expanse of Imago. We do need to do something about the lighting, though. (Plans are in process.)

Music OK, the music was basically the same. At Imago I led on an electric keyboard with Dave playing guitar behind me. At Noelridge I led from a baby grand with another Dave playing bass and Tapuwa on the congas. I’m much more comfortable sitting down leading at the piano rather than standing up - partly I need a mic stand with a longer boom so I can situate the stand better; partly I’ve just mostly led while sitting down, and it’s a bit of an adjustment to stand up. Both congregations knew the songs pretty well. There was a bunch of sound generated by each congregation with the singing. I am struck, though, by how much more live the sanctuary at Imago is. Hardwood floors and a big high ceiling let the sound rattle around in a way that creates some presence. Noelridge with its low ceilings and carpet is dead by comparison.

Preaching Same pastor, same sermon, pretty much. I don’t have recordings of either of them, and I was semi-distracted during the Imago service during the sermon (trying to decide what song to sing for a closing meditation), so I’m going on middling memories here. The Imago version was more concise and seemed targeted a bit more toward unbelievers in the audience. At Noelridge it went kind of long (which seemed OK, though). Still, quality stuff from John 1 both times.

Attitude This is where there are two very distinct feelings between the two churches. At Imago, since we’re so new, everyone seems focused on finding the visitors/new people, greeting them, pulling them in. At Noelridge we have an established congregation, so it’s much more of a family feel - people have established relationships, and it shows. Noelridge is still very friendly to visitors, but it’s a slightly different feel. What I gather from this is that we at Imago really need to work on developing relationships among the core team and volunteers, getting us feeling more like a warm family and less like a band of volunteers.

Conclusions? There are good things going on both places. We both have work to do. We both have things we can learn. In both, the gospel is proclaimed, and so I rejoice.

Bullet points for a Thursday Morning

  • Playing basketball three times a week is good for your game and your weight, but sure does make you sore.
  • Hard to believe it’s almost February already. Next weekend: trip to Lincoln, NE to see Caedmon’s Call and Andy O.
  • Five-hour road trip to see said musicians: seems relatively short. Oh, and Mom is coming down to watch the girls so Becky and I get a couple days out to ourselves!
  • Doing double-duty this weekend - leading at both Imago and Noelridge.
  • I’ve registered a domain name to hang out a shingle for web design services. Don’t know how much business I’ll manage to drum up, but after doing so many freebie websites for friends over the past several years, it’s fun to think that I could actually get paid for it instead.
  • Tweet140 mocks me even as I’m writing this post.
  • Haven’t traveled for work yet this year but that’s gonna change soon - there’s the threat of a last-minute trip to Seattle in mid-February, and a scheduled trip to Augusta, GA in early March.
  • I think I might actually only finish two books in January, which is a real low for me. It’s not that I haven’t been reading - it’s that I’ve been reading a long, thick book that has to be read slowly.

This excuse for a real post brought to you by the two Advil I took with breakfast this morning.

In belated praise of Once

It took me a while to get around to it, but last night Becky and I finally sat down to watch Once. I had a hard time finding it at the video store - I think they only stock maybe two copies on DVD. But it was worth the search.

Never heard of Once? It’s a rather obscure Irish film made back in 2006 for something less than $10,000. It’s a story about a guy who writes songs, who meets a girl on the street one day. She, too, is a musician, and over the course of a week they write and record several songs and along the way wrestle with ideas of love, commitment, family, and responsibility. It’s a musical of a sort; you get to hear seven or eight full-length songs sung during the movie, but they’re not in The Sound of Music-style musical narration - rather, they’re acoustic folk/rock songs (think Damien Rice for a comparison) that the pair is writing. And while the film started off obscure, don’t expect it to stay that way. It’s garnered quite an obsessive following due not in the least to the fantastic soundtrack. Oh, and that award from the Sundance film festival and that Oscar nomination won’t hurt it, either.

So why does this film work so well?

First, the actors aren’t experienced actors - the male lead (Glen Hansard of the Irish band The Frames) has only been in one picture before this, and this is the female lead (Marketa Irglova)’s first film. But they are musicians, and in my experience films about musicians that actually star musicians seem to do better. The fact that Hansard and Irglova teamed up to write all the original music for the movie amazes me even more.

Second, the story is real. We can all repeat the cliched chick-flick plot basically in our sleep, right? There’s the guy, and the girl, and her friend, and his friend. There’s the initial meeting, the I-think-I-love-you scene, the crisis where everything looks lost, and then the glowing finale. When you watch Once, forget the cliches. The guy writes songs which he sings on the streetcorner. He moved back in with his dad after his mom died and works at the family business fixing vacuum cleaners. She’s a Czech immigrant who cleans houses, and, without revealing too much, has family entanglements as well. They meet. They interact. They wrestle with their feelings. It feels right.

And the music is so good. The headline song (Falling Slowly) is nominated for an Oscar and certainly should be the favorite. The rest of the soundtrack is nearly equal in quality. The songs will stand by themselves even if you haven’t seen the movie… but watch the movie. It got an R-rating because of the Irish predilection of casually using the F-bomb as an adjective and interjection. Even that, though, is pretty much limited to a couple of scenes. The film as a whole, though, is a beautiful, beautiful work of art. You can have your Hollywood blockbusters. I’ll take this little Irish gem any day.