Christian Aesthetic Declaration Revisited

Canvas Conference 2016 and the corresponding Creativity & the Christian Course was an extended weekend of teaching on the relationship between creativity and theology, and a chance to interact with Christian creatives who have thought deeply on this subject. I came prepared, having expressed in a previous essay my own understanding of the Bible's view of art and beauty, along with questions I was seeking to explore further. This new essay is a chance to articulate how this conference has clarified my thinking, along with its implications for my life.

Theological Clarifications

First, I've better understood how God is the source of all beauty. Art Azurdia's sermon on the vision of God's glory, portrayed in Revelation 19, rekindled a view of God as the source of all power, lacking in nothing and foolish to reduce in our thinking. In light of this vision, our own elevation of ourselves and our abilities is as pathetic as the attack of idol worshippers in Isaiah 44.  My idolatry is a self exaltation that is abhorrent in light of the excellence of our King.

A rewritten Christian Aesthetic Declaration would also expand on the effect that the fall has had on our nature. Prior to this event, humankind was united to God and thus at whole with itself. When this changed, what was once united is now shattered. The former wholeness of our mind, heart, spirit, and body, each working together to understand and serve God, was ripped apart, causing frustration and pain to this day. We see effects of this dichotomy in our debates between valuing the "head or the heart" in our worship of God. When we neglect the creative spirit, or when we refuse to engage the mind in thinking about God, our understanding of who God is will be damaged as a result. Christ is the New Adam (See 1 Corinthians 15:21-23), the very image of the invisible God (Colossians 1:15). He restores this wholeness that sin tore apart. By being united with Christ, we are being restored back to the whole man that God created us to be. By worshiping God in spirit and in truth, in creativity and in knowledge, in beauty and in thought, we better reflect the God who formed us in our image.

The value I placed on Christ's role in redemption and our creativity has also been expanded. Our Master's use of storytelling and imaginative smilies when teaching, combined with his exquisite intelligence and understanding, give us a clear picture of what this unity looks like in God. Jesus is also the Word of God. No better word has come to us and we should expect nothing more. As Christians, we are priests who point to Him. But like Aaron before the Hebrews, the people demand something else. Our tendency is to give in and offer our own art in replacement, like Aaron and his golden calf (Exodus 32). We must understand that as priests, anything that we divert people to instead of Christ will have no saving power. Our role is to simply exalt Him.

Although my Declaration discussed the infinite beauty of God's Creation, it did not place proper emphasis on the most beautiful of God's acts: His redemption. Aaron Ivey's talk on 'God as the Artist' had me wondering; do I prize God's redemption above all other forms of beauty? We, the redeemed, are in a unique position to honour and celebrate this exquisite beauty. Just as artists have yet to exhaust the complexity and beauty of the human body, so our art should find unending ways to explore  and enjoy this redemption, the greatest art of all. Furthermore, as Christians we have access to the source of all Beauty. Our lives are being transformed as part of the beauty of his redemption. Since our hearts are charged, our lives are a work of art, a beauty that will overflow into everything we do. Some days it can be hard to believe that this beauty is ever visible in our lives, but the best of art takes years to reveal itself and can be the hardest to recognize. Our Gardener's orchard will bear His fruit on His timing, not ours.

Finally, the discussion with Randy Alcorn on the nature of creativity in the New Heavens and the New Earth has me even more excited for our destination. In my Declaration I talked about how in Heaven we will create art for the glory of God without the constraint of sin, but I hadn't imagined what the lack of limitations would mean for our artistic creations. Many masters achieve their greatest masterpiece towards the late middle of their career, before the limitations of the aging body, mind, and eventually death hamper their work. Imagine what they could create as their understanding and craft grows as they go on further and further into eternity! Sin, and the effects of evil and wrong will be conquered, so the pettiness and lack of motives preventing open collaboration will be removed as well. This enjoyment of the new creation and our role in creating it will only increase our worship to its Source and Author.

Randy Alcorn also described how the new Jerusalem is brought "down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband" (Revelation 21:2, ESV). It is a new heaven, but also a redeemed earth. Much like Aslan's Country in C. S. Lewis's The Last Battle contains the good of England that can never be destroyed, it is easy to suppose that the best aspects of our current world will be redeemed and become part of the New Creation. This frees us from having to squeeze out any last drop of enjoyment of this current world before it all gets tossed aside. It also gives us hope that the good of our current creativity will be carried forward into the next. Our efforts at producing quality artwork will have an far reaching impact, going beyond our short lifespan or the life of our planet. (I think Tolkien's autobiographical short story, "Leaf By Niggle", hints at this idea. In the story, the painter's unachieved masterpiece gets little appreciation after its artist died, but in the afterlife, his work, while still being the work of Niggle, is transformed into something with far reaching impact.)

Personal Implications

It was illuminating to hear how the artists at the conference achieved balance in their creative processes. Bret Lott told us how he begins his morning writing session by praying Proverbs 16:3 ("Commit your work to the LORD and your plans will be established") and Psalm 90:17 ("Let the favour of the LORD our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands"). During lunch, I asked Ekemini Uwan how she manages the incessant noise of her significant social media output. She told me that she begins each day with prayer, ignores Twitter on Sunday, and allots only specifics times for responding and posting.

As long as the church has existed, it has encouraged the spiritual disciplines. When I'm at work on something artistic I tend to invest my entire energy in it, barely leaving time to eat. At the root of this is a fear of failure. I don't want to rest from my work until I trust that I have left something of value. The discipline to take of taking regular time away from the craft in order to meet with God and serve other people is a way of trusting God, showing Him that your identity is not wrapped up in the success or completion of your work. And it is this vision of God's beauty that we gain from time in prayer and the Word that should, as Art Azurdia declared, "compel and control our creativity". He is the source of beauty. Let us take time to connect to Him.

This also applies to how we consume media. How do we avoid the subversive messages that creep under our skin through media, culture, and stories? The spiritual disciplines reshape our souls on a daily basis with a power greater than that which is in the world. Mike Cosper told us that "to become a Christian is to adopt a way of life that reorients you to the Kingdom of God." It means resisting passivity and making decisions that will alert us to the spiritual realities in our lives. Then our art creation and consumption can become a sort of spiritual discipline, a way of paying attention to the world and communing with God. The habits of creativity are also important, including community we keep ("have intelligent, good, honest people around you" directed Bret Lott) and how often we spend time away from our screens (Latifah Phillips encouraged us to seek the company of others and spending time with hobbies that involve the physical, such as gardening.)

This leads us into my questions about the role of the local church in a believing artist's life. Although I saw churches in Portland who are very intentional about how they display creativity and disciple the artist, they explained that this focus is an organic response to the makeup of their city and congregation. A locale that does not have such a high percentage of artists will naturally look quite different. But regardless, the focus of the church should be on "creating healthy Christians over healthy artists" ( in the words of Thomas Terry). As another speaker put it, "the church does not exist to serve artists. Rather, artists exist to serve the church."

Think of Jesus Christ, whose beauty and creative power is the root and cause of all our creativity. He came to earth in the humblest of all forms, taking the lowliest of lives and dying in the most humiliating way imaginable (See Mark 10:43-45 and Philippians 2:3-8). If we are to "have this mind among us", let us serve our churches - through art, if need be, but first through whatever need the church has, from the nursery to its janitorial closet.

Reflecting on encouraged me this week, as last Sunday I returned to my church home after being away for three weeks. I had spent most of my time in Portland observing churches with excellent music and who pay careful attention to their aesthetics. I was worried and slightly embarrassed to return to my humble church, with its sloppy approach to design and visuals and a music team in disarray. One of the most talented musicians in our church, who lead my band had just had moved out of town. My current music team was the lowliest and most awkward in the church. I realized that my attitude stepping into this new environment should be to serve with my gifts in wherever way is most needed by that congregation.

The other night, I told my former bandmate this decision over the phone. He agreed, but he also encouraged me to keep practicing so I could eventually serve the church by leading my own band. This leads me to the final lesson I learned about creating art at Canvas: create good art by working hard to develop your craft. Most artists who do this have a motive of self-glorification. As believers, we shun laziness by recognizing that we, of all people, know the Source of Beauty Himself and should reflect this beauty in our art.

My creativity is a gift given to me by my Creator. As a steward of this gift, I am to work at improving it, but I also need to recognize that this gift is not given to me to horde, or as a means to magnify myself. Worshiping myself and my gift will never bring me true lasting joy. Only worshiping the source of joy and gifts will secure that. I am also humbled by recognizing that none of us, not even artists of the highest genius, create out of nothing. We only mimic, copy, and rearrange existing stories, patterns, and designs. It's all been done before, and better, by the Fountainhead of all new things. He invites me to sing along, out of tune and incomplete, but being restored into the perfect image of His Son.

Wesley Randolph Eader: Full Interview

Wesley Randolph Eader's songs have become a fixture of my community's repertoire of hymns. He is a genuine old school songwriter living in our late modern age. To learn more about his faith community, his songwriting habits, and how his life has influenced the texture of his songs, I traveled to Portland to meet with Wesley.

That interview became an essay published by Mockingbird. If you are new to Wesley's music, I suggest starting there. But since my conversation with Wesley was so enjoyable, and since I spent far too many hours transcribing the whole thing, I'm posting the entire interview here. It has been edited for clarification. 

Wesley suggested that we meet at a small brewery mere steps away from his house. Over Ruben sandwiches and red ales, we talked at length about his life and his creative process.

I came back from Portland after hearing you sing Oh Perfect Love Come Near to Me at Door of Hope and I thought man, this song is describing all of things I'm going through. So I looked it up, thinking maybe someone at the church wrote the song, knowing its reputation. And I just listened to the whole record again and again, especially after Tim Mackie recommended it.

Yeah, that song is... I feel like that's the one that most people comment on.

Why is that?

I don't know. I think on that record it is the most personal. I think on that record, a lot of those songs I was trying to not be a part of them. I don't know if I was conscious of it or not. But I mean, a lot of them were modelled off of folk music. I think of folk music as telling a story about something other than yourself Of course, yourself bleeds into them, but...

They are stories.

Yeah, and I think gospel music is that way too. I think there's a lot of gospel music that isn't  super personal, [you know]?

Yeah, more declarative.

Yeah, gospel is supposed to besomething that everybody - at least within the body of believers - can connect with, you know? And I think sometimes a personal song can do that, but you have to be more careful.

The songs are completely personal, but I think that wasn't what I was thinking of when I was writing [Oh Perfect Love]. There's that one and... the two that, on that record, [where] I think I was really trying to write a hymn, [where] that one and 'To Christ the Ransom Sinners Run'.

Yeah, that song sounds like something John Newton would have written.

Yeah, it think [it's because] there is no chorus. The idea of a chorus came later for a lot of hymns. I think that came with gospel revivals in the US more, where it was about getting people to sing at tent revivals and stuff. But I think a lot of the classic hymns didn't have refrains, just a strong verse and melody,

They told a story.

Yeah.

I remember I came home from Portland, and I was hanging out with my family and I said "I don't have any energy to tell about my trip, but you've got to listen to this guy." I played your music and got emotional over it, being really tired. They all said "we've got to introduce these songs to our church!" Then we realized we were already singing Victory in the Lamb. So my band leader and I started to play it more and more.

That's cool! Yeah, Victory in the Lamb is the first one I wrote that sort of started the gospel songs.

Why do you think that one gets so much attention?

I think it has a strong medley that sounds like something that already exists. I mean, that's the hard thing with folk music: melodies. I am not a trained musician, in the sense that my melodies - I don't know how to describe it - they aren't very well thought out. At least, in the process of writing they may change. But it's very much based on the way the words line up.

Okay, so you write the words first, and then the melodies.

Yeah. I think I find the melody within the words. It comes from... I write poetry too and I read a lot of poetry. I think it's that side of it. But in Victory in the Lamb all the verses sort of line up with the beatitudes really, if you look at it. I actually had three more verses to complete them all, but it was too long. So it's kinda, in some ways, a rewording of that kind of stuff.

But a huge impact on writing gospel music was [when] some friends and I started going to Burnside Bridge here in Portland, handing out coffee and hot chocolate to homeless people and singing gospel music down there. Me, and Liz Vice, and my friend Laki, and those kind of people.  We were singing all the same songs and I was like "I think I can write them" and sort of started writing them. It was a good place to test them out. If all of my fiends like it and those people, then... I don't know. It was funny. It was cool too.

So that and The Jesus House.

Yeah, the house I was living at. I think it was all really connected and Door of Hope... I don't know if I want to call it a golden [age], but I bet a lot of people who were going there [at the time]... It felt, felt like a really new, really unique place. And it still is. But I think there are so many people for whom this was their second... for some people it was either their first or their second chance at church. [They previously] hadn't felt like church was for them and what not.

Our church also has that core group of people who became believers around that time or really found their faith and got a footing in their faith. A similar age group, really. And then they go on and have kids and that's the church that comes around that.

Yeah! So that was a big aspect of writing those songs.

So you were born in Mississippi?

I was born in Oregon, actually, but my whole family is from Tennessee. And as a child I would visit there a lot. My parents are very Southern, both Tennessee raised. My dad's a Southern Baptist minister.

Is your song, Country Preacher, about him?

It's sort of basically his story. [How he was] adopted as a child from Germany by his parents in Tennessee, and the story of his becoming a minister. They came out here basically to pastor a church in Kalama, Washington, which is where I mostly grew up. But my Dad was in charge of a tent revival of Southwest Washington and Oregon. He would have a whole huge truck with a tent in the back, and I would go with him. As a kid it was the best thing ever. Going to like this country place, setting up tents. It's not something everyone would experience, especially not [in the] North West. [Which is] kind of interesting . So I think there's a bit of old time religion thing to my upbringing.

That's something you seem to celebrate in your music, in the sense that your music bears that sort of sound. But from what I've picked up, the theology of your songs would probably be different from what you grew up with. Do you look back at those old times and what your Dad did with a certain distance?

I do. I think it [might be] one of those things that I have a love and hate sort of relationship with, [you know]? Because it's so much a part of who I am, but [also] part of my upbringing that I'm not proud of, [which] I want to distance [myself] from.

Like what?

I just think the pressures of morality as a young kid. [The] really impressionistic things that are told to you. I think just the guilt complex that you come out with. I think that's why Victory in the Lamp is such a powerful song, because I think there's a lot of people in the church that deal with that guilt complex. Which is totally an unbiblical thing. We're supposed to live... like we should feel guilty when we are actually legitimately sinning against God and against other people, but we are also... we are covered.

Right. Understanding the freedom that comes from that. Here's the guilt. Place the guilt where it should be, and now be where you are.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Did you come to faith through that environment? Because you moved to Portland, when?

I moved to Portland about 8 years ago. [Portland] is not too far from where I lived. I lived about 30 minutes away, but it's a much different place. I'm from a small town, you know. But I'd say I was culturally a Christian for my whole life. I'd say I had a real awakening and took it a lot more seriously when I was 20 or so.

How old are you now?

I'm 29.

Okay. So that was just before you came to Portland.

Uh, yeah. [So my awakening] was probably in the middle of college or whatever.

So Door of Hope was a pretty big part of these last eight years.

Yeah! I had [previously] been going to the same church my whole life. My dad's a pastor, my parents [were] very much the centre of that congregation for so long. I was helping out teaching kids and youth for some time. And I was like "I need to get to place where I am being fed." I encountered Door of Hope visiting once, and I met somebody there who needed a roommate. I was already thinking of moving to Portland, so it sort of worked out. And I got immersed in a pretty amazing group of people.

And that was that prayer room?

Yeah, that was about a year after I moved. We got a house in southeast Portland together, like five guys. And it just so happened that the next house, which was [by] an identical architect - the architecture had the exact same layout and everything. But this house next door [had] also five guys from Door of Hope. It felt like a summer camp for a whole year.

Was that helpful?

Oh it was good. It was definitely a lifestyle that wasn't sustainable. There was also... Portland was still at this point where [the] "Keep Portland Weird" was so prevalent still. You'd see tall bikes everywhere, hula hoopers in all the parks. Just the hippie vibe was still strong still, which I think has lessened a little bit. You were at the service this morning?

Yeah.

You heard Miranda, the missionary, talk about Door of Hope's reach?

Yeah!

It's crazy! The people she's staying with in Nepal listen to Tim and Josh.

Yeah! And of course The Bible Project is extending this. I first heard of Door of Hope primarily through Josh Garrels and then through him I heard about The Bible Project and then it circled back to Door of Hope.

It's an interesting place.

Has it become a weird place to be as a church, as you are almost becoming a celebrity church in a way?

I think that probably accounts for a good [portion] of our Sunday attendance. Probably like  20-30 percent are visitors these days, Which I think is cool. I think it's cool to have a church to go to when you're visiting a place. It's always good to be reminded that there are people gathering, you know?

Yeah! Even seeing the people streaming forward for communion. And I've seen how God works through the sermons and the music in my own life. I remember when I came to Portland last year I was really struggling with some things and both sermons from the two churches I went to were talking about that same thing! God's working through this, you know? That's really encouraging.

Yeah, yeah.

So what is Door of Hope's role in your life, specifically as an artist? Do they disciple you in your art?

I would say no. I would say maybe indirectly. Just [because of] the fact that I lead there once a month, I've grown a lot as far as playing in bands. I typically play by myself a lot around town. I think the songs I write lend themselves to a more... like the lyrics really standing out. That's the kind of the stuff I try to write. [For] my album release show I'm going to have a full band, so that will be fun. I'm fairly... I keep to myself a lot. I'm a little introverted. I think I would just rather not have to structure [my] music stuff around four or five other people. For me, the art form is more in the writing of songs than [the] playing them. But I'm definitely learning and coming to the reality that touring and stuff is a huge part of making a living as musician.

Do you do music full time?

Not currently. I actually work at Powell's [City of Books]. Yeah, when you asked if I like to read?  I work there part time. So I take home a lot of books. I read a lot.

What are your favourite books?

Oh man.

It's a tough question. C.S. Lewis said that the books you re-read show that you are a good reader. But I haven't re-read a lot of books. I'm just trying to get through the stuff that I want to get through.

I think that's the challenge. You're challenged with all these amazing books, and we have more access then ever before, Like, we see lists of all the books that you must read. And it's like, how many of these books can I get through? But the book I've read the most... A book I've read six times in the last three years...

Okay, so you're a reader. You qualify, according to Lewis.

Well, that's just because this book is so good. It's The Violent Bear It Away by Flannery O'Conner. Such a good novel. It was her last novel. Read Wise Blood or The Violent Bear It Away. They are incredible books. But I've also recently read a George Saunders. He wrote some more short stories, a contemporary writer. Kinda a Kurt Vonnegut mixed with a... sort of a little bit more serious. They are very bizarre stories about people living in a weird United States [in which] corporations have taken over, that kind of a thing.

It's interesting that you mention short stories as a songwriter...

I think that's why I like short stories. I think a lot of songwriters approach writing songs as short stories, just even shorter. And in some ways it's like getting a story across in 4 or 5 verses. John Steinbeck was really angry at Woody Guthrie when he wrote The Ballad of Tom Joe, because he just retold the entire Grapes of Wrath in a four minute song.

I read East of Eden for the first time this year.

Oh man.

Man!

It's a beautiful book, especially if you like nature imagery, or people. I haven't read a Steinbeck book in about three years. I've got to try and pick one up again. He has a little novella called To a God Unknown, it's a really early good one. It has a lot of Christ imagery in it, which is I think why I really like it. It's about a guy who becomes really obsessed with the land.... it's an interesting book. He has an obsession with this oak tree in front of his house. It's like a hundred pages, but it was good.

My favourite book I read last year was Cry the Beloved Country.

I haven't read that. I know about it. Was it Alan Paton?

Exactly. It was the best audio book I've ever listened too. It's a very Christian book too.

Interesting. Have you ever read anything by Graham Green?

My cousin did his Master's degree in Graham Green. I tried getting into it, but I did read Endo's Silence, which is very influenced by Graham Green.

Really? Read The Power and the Glory. I couldn't put it down. I mean, it's a super Christian book too. I mean, the main character is an alcoholic priest, who's sort of on the run doing road masses to small villages, risking his life, but also an alcoholic. It's a really good picture...it raises questions on the complexity of God's grace and who we sort of feel like is fit to receive God's grace.

That's Silence too. Very similar. I highly recommend Makoto Fujimura's recent book on Silence.

They are piping in some good tunes [at this brewery]. Stacey's Mom [is playing right now]!

What are you listening to these days?

Oh man. I haven't sat down with a record in along time, to be honest. Which kinda bums me out. While driving around sometimes I've listened to a lot of the Deeper Well records, to be honest. Cory Dauber's is the last one to be put out and it's really good. He was another guy who lived next door to me, but he's one of my good friends and super talented.

 You've mentioned the music influences on some of your records and I've picked up some of the influences on this new album, like an early Dylan on some of the songs. Some of my musician friends don't actually listen to that much music, which kinda surprises me. Do you listen to music as part of that process?

I do. I collect a lot of old folk and bluegrass, old time country records. So I listen to those. I think I... it takes like a lot of convincing [for me] to get behind a more contemporary artist a lot of times. I don't know why. I'm always skeptical and I don't necessarily like that about myself. Because I think over the last year I've actually... I think I've tried to get rid of those preconceived notions. I listened to The Cactus Blossoms, they put out their first record on Red House Records. But they sound like... they're two brothers that have an amazing country harmony and sound like The Louvin Brothers or The Everly Brothers. Their songwriting also fits into the 1950s stuff, country stuff, like a little poppy. Like, not a lot of depth to the songs, but beautiful music.

I find that contemporary, whether music or books... There's so much richness to the past and what's been done in the past that I've never touched. I'm just getting into Bob Dylan's and he's now one of my favourite artists. There's so much there that I haven't touched.  So that bias you have isn't necessarily a bad thing. At least you're listening to the old stuff. It's usually the other way round!

Yeah. I think I really see more.... I think I like finding artists that feel like they are further away from sort of the music marketing mentality. It feels like older folk [music] was written out of a really genuine place. I think that's something that I find lacking in modern music.

And I mention [the] sort of the personal songs, you know, that come from a place... like almost a first person sort of thing. I see a lot more... think I like the idea of writing songs that are separate from me, you know. I think my next... I have a good batch of tunes that I'm getting ready for another record, that I think take the sort of the storytelling that's in [Highway Winds], to a little bit more... Like almost every song has a character that's it's centred [around]. [Highway Winds is] a good mixture, there are some personal songs, but it's almost half and half.

Whether that character is yourself or Eliza.

Yeah, and Country Preacher. Carry On Down the Road is like almost five little tiny stories. Big Steam Wheel is also a story one.

Where did you get those stories from?

Hey, I don't know. I'd like to think I'm influenced by revisiting sort of my home town, [revisiting] my visits to Tennessee and other places. And I think also just [the] stuff I read. And I think I like thinking about myself as a little bit of a tradition bearer. Folk music is what I listen to. Bluegrass all the time. Blues. So I really write, [or] try to write in that tradition to some level.

You also bring back stuff one hardly hears nowadays. Like the talking blues, right?

The talking blues are fun! I have a number of them. And I have this idea down the road of putting out 10 of them on a record. I almost have enough. I have the ideas, I just need to sit and write them. I think it's a song form that is underrated.

I had never really heard of it until I popped on Dylan's first Bootleg record, The Bootleg Series Vols 1-3.

Yeah, Dylan did a few good ones. World War III Blues was his one that was actually on his second record I think. But then Woodie Guthrie did a bunch of them. I'm sure he wasn't the first one to do it. I don't know who was. But Folkways, the Smithsonian label, put out a whole talking blues anthology.

Are they all very humorous?

Usually. I mean, it's talking. It sort of... the joke starts off on a humorous note. It's like, "I thought this was a song. Why are you talking?" But I think a lot of them, though, are able to talk about more social issues that, because... I think humour has a way of talking about more stuff then serious [music] would.

Well sure, Even in your talking blues song, you pick up some of those things, the tension in yourself. I mean, you're critiquing the consumerism but you are also picking up those themes in yourself and your solution of just shopping online.

Yeah. I'm sort of commenting on the craziness of corporate consuming, but also sort of... I don't know. Yeah, I like to think the character in it is not a perfect person to be critiquing it. At the same time...

That's the fun. You're critiquing Wal-Mart, but then you are ordering things online. A little bit of hypocrisy.

Yeah, yeah!

I listened to Bob Dylan's Talkin' Bear Picnic Massacre Blues and shared it with my family, with whom I never share music with. And lines from the song have become household colloquialisms.So I had to play your talking blues song for my family. And my dad burst out laughing at the Alice's Restaurant line.

I love when people get that reference. Usually old people get a good laugh, cause they know that reference.

What's great is that there is the reference joke and then there is the joke right after ("darn, they got her too"). So no matter if you know the reference or not, it's a funny line on both occasions.

Yeah, yeah.

Do you have a favourite poet?

I think I do. I really like Richard Hugo. He's a poet from Montana. I connect with a lot of his imagery.

When you talk about the hymn writing process, it's fascinating because what struck me the first time is that the words you are using to describe these things - "Adam's shadow it was casted, how it covered all the land" - are just fantastic. You're putting theology into poetry. Is there a process that you use to do that? What goes on your mind when you are taking doctrine and applying imagination to it?

I don't know, man. I'm really conscious of being overly poetic when it comes to theology,  because I don't want to say something that is misleading. I actually had one of the churches singing my one of my songs message me about it and said they had posted something [about my song] on their website, including the lyrics. So I went to their website and I think they transcribed [the song] just based on listening, so they had got some of the words wrong. And in my mind it was changing the meaning to a lot of it, [you know]?  They wanted to share the lyrics with their congregation. But then I saw that a lot of the words were not what I was singing. Little words, like articles, that seemed so insignificant but they actually changed the meaning of it.

I wish I had the email, but it was enough where I was like, "that's saying something that I don't think is biblical." I think just from listening to my recordings some of the words I sing are difficult to hear correctly. [But the church was] super appreciative. I sent an email saying, "hey, I love that you are using my song and singing it it, but I just wanted to say that these words are not correct and here's why." And they were like, "oh yeah."

But when I think when I write gospel songs, which i think are a lot harder to write than any other songs...

...Because they are taking truth and making it poetry?

Yeah, and you just run into so many cliches and so many recycled things that have been done in a lot of modern music. That I think, frankly, just lends itself to being a really lazy writer. Which happens in so [much] contemporary Christian music, is that they just settle for the easy lines, you know?

Yeah. How do you avoid that?

I think I just know about it. (Laughs.) I don't know. I write something and [I realize] that [it's] not good enough. So I don't write it. I wait until I come up with something that, to me, sounds like something that's powerful. I don't know. It's... I feel like... I feel like it's a hard place to get to, in being simple. Because I think you loose a lot when you make something more complicated than it needs to be, especially with gospel music. Yeah. I mean, it's funny because those songs I wrote... I wrote that whole album in a two month period. Like all those songs, plus a few more that I didn't record. And they just sort of came to me because... I think I was at a place spiritually where I was, um, I don't know, very in tune with what God had been doing in my life and [amongst] the people around me. I don't know. I can't really speak too much about turning the theological into [the] poetic. It's something that... I think it comes from [the fact that] I think more like a poet because I read a lot of [poetry]. Like you mentioned the Adam's shadow imagery and I think that's... I don't know. I guess I just think of Adam in the garden, like maybe... I don't know.... like, obviously shadows always existed, but I think it is this interesting idea that this darkness falls as soon as they fell in sin.

So... it sounds like you are immersed in poetry, but you are also immersed in theology and the life of the church. You're not trying to be clever.

Yeah! I think I also just have a sense of, like hymnody and the history of that, because I grew up singing [them].

Right, so that kind of the rhythm is in your head.

Yeah! And I think my reason for not writing gospel music sooner in my life was that we have all these amazing hymns, but the new stuff [that] people are writing is so much lesser, you know?

Definitely! Well, you mentioned that you are singing all these songs and you got to the point where you ran out of songs to sing, so you had to create something new.

Yeah! And that came with going down to the bridge with the homeless people. We need more songs to sing. Yeah, I mean, I'm waiting to get back to the place of writing gospel music like that again. I think it's difficult. Two years ago there was an interview in Rolling Stone with Bob Dylan when his album Tempest came out.

In 2012?

2012. Yeah, it was when my record [Of Old it Was Recorded] came out. Times fly!

Tempest is a great record.

No, it's an amazing record. But in that interview he said... I think the interviewer asked him something like "was Tempest the record you set out to make, that [you] wanted to make?" And he was like "no, I actually wanted to make a religious album." And they asked the question "like songs that are on your album Slow Train?" And he's like, "no, more songs like Just a Closer Walk with Thee." And he's like "Those are way too hard to write. It's way too hard to write 10 songs in that vein." So I'm like, I think there's some truth to that.

It's because... I think if you are a song writer, and you have a high standard of what a song is, I think it's harder to write gospel music. Because I think one of the standards of being a good songwriter is writing something that hasn't been heard before, and with gospel it's like... you know. Familiarity breads contempt.

[And it's the] same thing we deal with in our lives as Christians. We get too familiar and the gospel doesn't ring as true to us anymore. Because we've heard it. And that's when it comes down to discipline and choices and actual level of faith. Not based on a feeling or experience, but based, like, in a deep belief and discipline that "I'm going to, you know, push into this and I'm going to believe that the scriptures are true when I approach them, even though in just the past 20 days I haven't felt anything strong."

I think that's the challenge with writing gospel music. For me, [it's] like there's so much stuff that sounds too familiar. Like, I don't need to say that again. But, that's the Gospel. At the same time, it's something that doesn't return void. The same message can be proclaimed and it can change people, like the same way it changed all of us. But, yeah, so that's why I'm like... I don't know. I've tried to force myself to write gospel songs, like "I'm going to sit down and write one." And, like it doesn't always work out, but I think it... yeah.... I don't know.

And it sounds like, because your standard of doctrine and the church is so high you don't want to feed the church poor quality doctrine, because they are learning through your songs.

Yeah.

It's funny that you talk about familiarity. Because since I grew up Christian, I find it easy to remain unchallenged hen reading the Gospels. But it was your song He Loves Them So that helped. I was listening to that and was struck anew and was reminded of the childhood Jesus that I knew growing up.

Nice. That's interesting. My mentality for that song was [to make] a song for children.

Are there things that as an artist you struggle with specifically, that the church has helped you address? For my, my sense of identity and success gets caught up very quickly in my art.

I think from the very beginning of doing Door of Hope, [our lead pastor] Josh [White] - who is also an amazing songwriter, who I think is a good example in a lot of ways. And I think it was hearing his songs that like... because I wasn't writing gospel music at the time I [had] started coming to Door of Hope. And I think it was Josh at the time that like [encouraged me]. Maybe I can try my hand at this, and I had [previously] sort of thought that [it] was not a possibility.

But he's always - in his sermons I think he's always addresses artists a lot, because he knows they are such a central point of Portland, [as is] sort of the artist's mentality. [He addresses] sort of that idolatry of art that can occur, that there is more to life than trying to make it as an artist or as a musician. I think that's sort of, for me, a message that has kept me in check a lot of times. Like what are [other] priorities here? Why am I creating, why am I writing songs? It's one of those things that can easily become a motive of a gospel singer, you know?

I think it's just a motive of attention, maybe? I think that's something you run into leading worship at church. Trying not to be focused on yourself and your gifts. [In leading worship], you have a place of notoriety in the church. I don't know. It's interesting balancing being a Christian and being an artist. Because I think the church at large, the evangelical church, wants to tell us that our gifts are only valid if they are being a blatant witness to nonbelievers, you know? Which I don't think is true. I think, for me, there's more power in doing your creative work well and not mentioning Jesus at all in it. I think that the world is more looking for good art to come from the church. They are not looking for...

A message.

Yeah, because that's been done. And I as an artist, I put a clear line between... Like, when I write gospel songs I have the mentality of that these songs are more oriented [to] a Christian congregation than they are as being a tool for witness. Like church music. And I think that's why I like to differentiate my gospel music as church music rather than folk music or whatever. Like, obviously there is going to be crossover at some level. I think if you were listening intently to [Highway Winds} you would come to the conclusion that I'm somebody who believes in a higher power, if not more. But I think they are definitely spiritual songs.

It's an interesting thing [and] I think [it] was one of the reasons that it took me a while to release another record. Because all these people know me as...and I say all these people knowing [that my fan base is pretty small], like just my friends and people that have come...

...To have listened to your music.

Yeah, have come to know my gospel songs, but I like I wasn't... I could have put a non-gospel album out before my gospel album, [but] because [the gospel songs] just happened to come to me and and things lined up with Deeper Well. Eric [Earley] was like "I want to record a record for you" and I was like "sweet". So it's sort of an interesting thing. [But] it's something that I... when I started writing songs I didn't want to put like myself in a box as a quote-unquote "Christian Musician" you know? But it's funny that God gave me all of these songs and they are clearly having some sort of an impact on peoples' lives and people [are] finding value from them to be used [and] to be sung in congregational worship, and... I don't know.

I was talking to someone about how I think there is a cultural context to gospel music and folk music, you know? I think if you look at any of the folk traditions in the United States, like there is gospel music somewhere there. Whether it is blue or bluegrass, if it is country of if it is rock and roll. Like, the foundation of a lot of songs in the US are gospel centred. So I don't know.

I love the fact that you're doing both church music and this new music... Do you have a word for this new music? Would you call it secular?

Not secular. I would just say it's folk music. And in an ideal world, where some of these marketing labels wouldn't exists, it would just all be folk music.

Totally. And you go back far enough in music history and you find that being the case. You'll find folk albums that consist entirely of gospel lyrics.

Yeah. But I think we live in a time where language, in a lot of people's minds, requires labels for those things. I'm a little bit strategic in how I label my music, you know? Like "church music". I prefer that label [over] worship music. Because I think worship music isolates the act of worship in the idea of singing, when I think worship is so much more than that. Like certainly [singing is] a big part of it, in why we meet together [as] a church congregation. It's a biblical thing, too. But I think it's difficult when worship is so much based on the music that churches are producing on Sunday mornings. And I just don't think that... like you can flip on your iPad and listen to a worship song. And that is some people's way of worshiping, and I think that's a valid way of doing it. But I think there [are] way more intentional and challenging ways that I think worship plays out in lives. And I think, there [have been] some periods in my life where I've turned to gospel music to feed my soul, you know? But I think to become dependent on [the] experience you get from listening to a song [can, be damaging, I think] on your spiritual life. Because that's not always going to be there. There's more to it. So that's why I feel like church music is [the] phrase that I choose.

It encompasses the life of the church.

Yeah, and I think there [are] songs that I think are meant for the church and I sing some of these songs in bars and stuff when I play out. And I think it's cool. And I think - I hope - my folk songs get me into places that normally wouldn't play that stuff.

The brewery is playing Paul Simon right now. I really enjoyed seeing Paul Simon live this year.

How is his voice holding up?

He had a cold when he performed, but it was just fine. Interviewers kept remarking on how well it's held up over time, compared to, say, Leonard Coen. Coen just talks on his songs now.

Sort of like Dylan too.

Yeah. Although I like Dylan's older voice!

I do too.

But Paul Simon can still do the falsetto.

I like Leonard Coen too. He relies more on his backup singers

And his songwriting skills. And his character: this grizzled, distinguished man.

That's the other interesting thing with songwriting: sometimes your limitations can actually be your benefit. Like, I think of super talented vocalists. Most of the best songwriters are not the super talented vocalists. Because they had to rely on something else. They had to rely on the writing, because they couldn't get by [otherwise]

Versus vocalists who can rely on the showmanship or just the beauty of their voice.

Yeah. And I think [their] songs can get too complicated [in] the melodies, because they range [so far].

Right. And then in a worship context, it gets hard to sing.

I've been asked before, or I've been told that it seems that people sing along really easily with my songs and some people have asked me why that is. I think a lot of it is that the melodies are simple; they don't move around much.

There are examples of songwriters with both amazing vocal ranges and excellent song writing skills, like Bono.

Oh certainly!

Have you ever read Francis Schaeffer's little book Art and the Bible?

I actually have. The little tiny one? It's really cool.

In that book, he talks about the major and minor themes of Christian art. He says that for Christians creating art in the context of a biblical worldview, there should two themes that should come out. There is the minor theme, which is the fallenness of life, the pointlessness that comes from that, and even in the Christian life the defeated nature, the sinfulness. But you also have the major theme, which is that is that there is hope. God is real. Salvation has come and there's a future hope coming. And he says that to remove the minor theme would be false to life and to the gospel. And a lot of Christian art does that. And there are times when it is appropriate to be in the minor theme the whole time. But all in all, we should end up in the major theme, because that's where our hope is. But both have to be present

 I was thinking about how your first record is very major themed. There are minor themes there that come out, but it's overwhelmingly a very hope-filled, comforting album. But in Highway Winds, I get the feel that there is more minor, that even though there are hope filled bits and humour and encouragement, there's a lot of sadness and disappointment and sorrow.

I would think that you have it figured out. I think that it's interesting that Of Old It Was Recorded was such a... like you described it as a joy-filled kind of album.

The joy comes out of it and it's an album that you to give people who are depressed. And I have other friends who have done the same thing. Friends who have lost jobs and who have listened to Oh Perfect Love again and again. And another friend who had to move cities for a job and who told me that listened to I'm Going to Rest in Jesus on repeat during that process.

That's neat. Well, yeah. I mean, I think if you were to hear the majority of the songs I've written, [you'd notice that] they are more filled with sadness than they are with hope and joy.

Why is that?

I don't know. I think I've been often labeled a realist. I've been labeled a sort of pessimist as well. I don't know. I think that it's interesting that God [has] used me to write the songs on that first record, because I'm somebody who's a little bit more in tuned with the sadder side of life.

But it comes out. It's there. It's a realist's album, but a faith real.

Yeah! And I think our job as Christians is not to just say "Jesus loves you and everything is going to be all right, you'll be happy and go to the carnival."

...That we are hosting for VBS. Come on down.

Yeah, yeah! It's much deeper than that. I guess that's the minor key. It's just as much of a gospel act to present a fallen world to people and what that looks like then it is to present heaven or whatever. I think in the gospel there are the two sides of the coin. There's heaven and there's earth.

And there's hell.

Yeah. I guess it would be three sides to the coin. It's not a coin actually. It's some sort of other thing. It's a Trinitarian coin.

I don't know. I mean, I know a lot of reasons why there are sad songs on [the new record]. Things I went though personally while writing some of that stuff. Right when I put out that first record - like literally right after it, I think the release show was postponed because of it - I had two collapsed lungs. One, and then two months later a second time, so it was like two 10 day stints in the hospital. Where I was like "I don't know what's going on with me", and I had to have lung surgery. And I was in the middle of that, and I felt like... the overwhelmingness of life and the struggle and trying to make sense of things. I think [that] comes out on the record, and I really turned to music and songwriting as something to get me through that. And it wasn't gospel songwriting, but trying to tell stories about fictional characters that I had made up or that were probably more a picture of me than I might even know. So I don't know. That played a big aspect on that record.

In the essay you talked about how even the gospel songs were written for personal reflecting and understanding and confirmation of God's grace. So this is the like flip side. You're processing whatever's going on in your life, whether that's spiritual or earthly.

Yeah, yeah. I think songwriting is ultimately a personal act. I wouldn't know how to write a song with somebody else. I guess I've never really tried to much. It [would] be an interesting thing. I can't even write a song if anybody [else] is in the house, if I know anybody is. Like my best, ideal time to write a song is when I know I'm going to be alone for 4 hours in my house.

And you have to have three candles lit.

Haha. Right now if I had candles in my room there's so much paper I'd probably burn everything down.

Songwriting is loud. It's not like writing a short story or something. You got to be able to sing. I don't like people being all up in my process. I like to keep that to myself a lot. Like, I'll talk about it later. I think if I were to actually lay out, you know, [the] minute by minute of my songwriting process, most of it would be embarrassing to me, you know? [It includes] a lot of stuff that seems, to me, really strange.

Like what?

Like singing the most inaudible things. Or singing whatever word, the same word that has come to my mind, which is usually, like, I don't know, like something I wouldn't think would just be on my mind, you know? Like the same couple of words or whatever. Maybe as I'm trying to get a melody or something going. It's sort of like an awkward old car, that won't start almost.

Because a lot of the songs on the new album have this kind of... It's almost like you're looking back on mistakes, regrets, disappointments and you're reckoning with them and you're sad about them, but there's also a hope. You're dealing with them. But it's encouraging to listen to that. Because I'm 23 now and all of a sudden I realize that life is full of regrets. So how do I process that? Hearing some of your songs and how you process that, makes me realize that it's okay to be sad about the waste of time, but it's also... You can't linger over it, but yet you can write a song about it, so it's okay to have to process it.

Yeah. I don't know. I think my songs are not... I think a lot of them are about somebody that's not me, but somebody that's dealing with some things that I've gone through on some level, you know?

So it's less personal?

I think so. In some ways. But it's also me trying to find the universal theme in humanity. I think that's something I've always been good at. Giving people the benefit of the doubt and trying to meet them where they are at. And realizing that the stuff I'm going through other people have gone through, or [that] other people have gone through worse. So I think for me it's like writing a song or like coming up with a story of some kind is about... I think analyzing my own situation in life but also taking into account that there [are] a lot of different people out there you know?

How do you do that? It's easy to recognize yourself or it's easy to look at others. But that's interesting that you are keeping both in mind.

Yeah I don't know. It's something I see after the fact a lot of times. Like, in the process of writing I'm like... I don't know where that came from, you know? I write a lot of my songs based on coming up with the title first. I don't know if that's something a lot of others people do. You'll notice that of the tiles in my record, almost all of the titles are in the songs. Usually [as] the refrain or they're in some part of the song that's significant.

I think that is more of a folk music thing in a lot of ways. I think a lot of modern music is trying to find a title that isn't even related to [the song]. I talk to a lot of people that don't like titling their stuff anything in the song, that [it is] almost like one of those weird 80's action movie cliches where at some point in the movie the hero has to say the tile. Some people view it like that! But to me, once I know that there's a title to the song I know the song is going to be worth something, almost. Like this title sort of wraps up what the song is going to be, in some way.

I was looking at the first song, which is very much dealing with depression or even suicide.

Big Steam Wheel. Yeah.

Then there's a contrast with the next one, Carry On Down the Road. Are they hinged?

That was a little bit deliberate, the way I placed those.

But they both complement each other quite well.

Well, Big Steam Wheel is supposed to be the perspective of a ship captain who's sort of spent his days going up and down the Mississippi and [is sort of not really feeling like there is anywhere] else for him to be, like he has given a shot at not working or working somewhere else. But it's him sort of contemplating that he's worked so many years [and] what has he gotten out of it, what is his life like, you know? And I think that's something that so many... I mean anybody who's spent time working encounters that, you know? Especially if they are working for someone else's gain, for whatever reason. It's a very Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastical - is that a word? My housemate Lacki call is it an Ecclesiastes song.

The Teacher's Song.

I think that it comes down to me as a believer, how I'm not afraid to try to encounter the fallenness of the world. Scripture has things like Ecclesiastes, things like Lamentations, things like Job. Where it's dealing with the real intense things and that's like... If the scriptures are not all just hopeful, happy, Jesus-is-going-to-give-you-a-hug kind of thing and there's that side of it, why are we as artists and creatives... Why are we supposed to only be presenting sentimental and happy things, you know?

It's interesting how listening to this gives me permission to process my own feelings and experiences that align with the songs. Why am I carrying on? Why do I? What's the Devil saying to me to stop me from doing that? Well, all of a sudden now that these feelings have been spoken about in a song, especially coming from someone who has also written such profound hymns, I can see that somebody else is dealing with this. That this is part of life. And that these experiences have influenced your church music. Because I then listen to the hymns and go - oh, okay - these truths are not just philosophy, they are lived out of the "real life music." The two go together.

Yeah! Yeah. Yeah, that's interesting. I appreciate that statement because it took me a while too come to a point to think that the next record I put out was going to be this and not another gospel record, And I think [what you said is] what ultimately made me realize that these songs are just as important as the other songs. I [had] thought that, but...

My experience with believers is, I think, [that] there is a line drawn [between] Christian music and non Christian music. But I felt like if there were people into my music [who] were listening and [who] were maybe songwriters themselves or artists themselves and [if] were to hear my fist record and my second record and were to come to a conclusion like you said... I'm almost like, if I feel like it's okay to write not to just gospel songs but songs that are portraying more of a fallen world, if that inspires other people to do that too, that's awesome. Maybe I should put this stuff out because I think that line needs to be taken away.

That's my opinion and I think people who are writing Christian music need to write it for the church. I don't think they need to be writing it for radio or for whatever. I think church music has historically been funded by the church to be used in the church, you know? And I think that's something cool that Deeper Well is doing in a sense, We're doing it in a modern way.

Amongst a modern system.

I think Deeper Well is able to sort of take down the motivation to make money off of music. Josh Garrels too. It's an interesting thing, that if there's going to be a music that has to be free, I feel that it is gospel music.

Like Humble Beast's philosophy.

Yeah, and I'm obviously for artists making a living. I'm trying to do that myself. But I think, for me I wouldn't have made a gospel record if I was going to sell it. When I found out it was just to be a non-profit thing, it [became] an opportunity for me to be using gifts for the church.

Obviously, I love the idea of Christians creating art. And even understanding why unbelievers can create art of value, being made in the image of God. But when you put out a Gospel record, it's easy to justify it because you are showing Christ. But when you put out a more subtle, less explicit album that shows the gospel in more subtle, worldview rooted ways... Is that kind of music a witness? How do you just trust that to do its thing?

Hmm. Yeah. I don't approach a song as... maybe I should be doing this. I don't approach it as a chance to evangelize. I feel that soon as that enters my mind the song won't be any good.

Yeah, that Schaeffer quote about how "a Christian should use these arts to the glory of God, not just as tracts, mind you, but as things of beauty to the praise of God."

Yeah. I don't know. Let me think about that. I don't know.

Well, here's another question. I know that when a church like Capital Hill introduces a new song, the leadership critiques the song, ensuring that it speaks truth and is suited for the church. And if I were to write a song for my church, I would bring that song to my pastors and ask if it were true.

Yeah, is this teaching true?

Right. The song is going to have a lasting effect on those who sing it. So is this good teaching? Does this line up? Now, when you are writing folk songs, you are still teaching, you are showing forth your doctrine. But, I feel like as a church disciple, being discipled by a church in my art, I don't necessarily bring it to the church. If you were a bricklayer, you wouldn't going to ask the church for advice on the quality of your bricklaying. But once you are teaching...

There's more risk involved [in my music], I guess, of leading people in wrong direction.

Yeah! And songs are more powerful than stories, even. Stories are sneaky, music is sneaky, it gets into your head.

Yeah. I think there are songs [that] I've written that I've choose not to sing because of those reasons. I don't know if this [song] is benefiting anybody. [It's] just dwelling on pure sadness, like, presenting a character that has no redeeming quality. The thing is, I don't write too many of those songs because I believe in redemption. I think redemption always usually comes through, even if it's like a song about... whatever,  somebody who has committed some crime that they shouldn't be redeemed from. I think the gospel offers that redemption.

Yeah, I think, with the gospel music that's presenting itself as gospel music for the church, that's the one that has a standard. You have some standard you have to live up to. And I think there's certainly Christian music that is passing as Christian music that is doing more to lead people astray than [certain] secular music [is]. Whether it's almost a prosperity brand of the gospel or whether it's giving a false representation of...

...of trials?

Yeah, you know? I think half truths are dangerous. And I think there's a lot of Christian music that's doing that. I don't know. Not to mention just what they are doing as far as culturally for the church. Like, as far as digging us [into] a deeper hole, into a lack of inspiration, showing the world that we just aren't creative people. We're supposed to be image bearers. But I don't know.

I really want to talk about your song Eliza (Saint of Flower Mountain).

That's the oldest song that's on there, actually.

Really! I think it's the best song on the record.

Thanks, man. It's also the most spiritual song out of them all.

You think through it and you realize that it is. But it's also one of the more physical songs. It talks about her eyes and her hair. And it's a very sad song.

It is sad. A lot of people tell me they cry on that one. It's good that it comes across on the recording. That was one of the hardest songs to record on the [album]. It's the one I'm the most conscious of. It's a song that had been around for so long and so many people had requested it when I play. And I think there's something special about that song. And that I think it, it presents sort of the cost... the Bonhoeffer book, The Cost of Discipleship.

Where did you get the story from?

It's funny. I think this is good picture of where you can get inspiration from for a song. I was just hunting around on the internet, reading old accounts of missionaries.

You couldn't find enough good stories at Powell's? Had to go on the internet?

Haha. Yeah, I mean...  I can't remember if I came up with the chorus and I thought "this is a good chorus I need something to go with this." I can't remember the order of how things came, but I basically found some missionary... I don't know.... I can't find it again. It's like one of those things when you are 20 links in off of a Google search and you're like "I don't know where I am." And I was reading about an account of a missionary who was killed. I think it was [around the] turn of the century, like 1900s, in a place in China called Flower Mountain. Which is was where the flower mountain [title] came from. And I was like that's an amazing name for a mountain and an interesting place for someone to be martyred, I guess.

It inspires a lot of different thoughts.

Yeah. I sort of just, I don't think.... I had also just sort of had a relationship that ended based on somebody choosing to sort of go elsewhere for mission work, [at] some point in my life and so that...it's an interesting...

It's interesting then that you choose to tell it from her perspective rather than his perspective

Yeah. I don't know. I think... I don't remember the process of writing it. But it was actually, the main thing that started the song was the guitar picking.

The melody of it?

Well, I finger picked a melody and it sort of just fit. I think also the rhyming of the name with the rest of the stuff in the chorus. I guess "Eliza" rhymed well with "eyes." "Eliza had eyes like..." It kinda sounding like it was repeating the same thing. And that sort of set me on a melody that sounded nice. But that kinda goes back to where words have a lot of melody in them. And especially when it comes to rhyming...

It's one of those songs where the words and music pierce the heart together. It reminds me very much of He Loves Me So, with that minor chord that pierces you each time you hear it. But you say that it's the melody of the words that brings that out?

I guess. I think I was just coming to a point where I was getting more confident in my picking on the guitar, so I was writing more songs based on that. I could pick melodies out. So that allowed me to write a little bit more based on melodies [rather] than off lyrics. There's also only two minor songs on that whole record, the first song and that one. I don't tend to write a lot of minor keys songs. I tend to stick to a major key; you know, the three-chord-country type folk songs. Because I think the minor key can be overused, for me. I think it's...I think my songs already tend to be on the sad side of things, [so if i make the music that way] I tend to, it tends to be too much.

I also find it's easy to be lazy with minor songs, because they are so beautiful already.

Yeah, yeah. I don't think there's a single minor song on [Of Old It Was Recorded], expect for To Christ The Ransom Sinners Run. Yeah. I don't write too much in the minor. I tend to... the first instrument I picked up actually was the banjo and I played more kind of claw hammer, which lends itself to more minor stuff. So I really like that stuff.

When was that? When did you start making music?

I started when I was... let's see... I think I was 20. I didn't pick up an instrument to write on until I was 20. I played trumpet in middle school. That was it.

Why did you pick it up the banjo?

I don't know. I think I was bored living in a small town. My younger sister was playing guitar at the time and I was like "if my sister can do it, I can do it." Since she was playing the guitar, I wanted to pick up something different. I took a couple lessons on banjo with the most rednecked guy I think I've ever met. He taught me a couple of lessons in Longview, Washington, and he had chickens running in and out of his house while we were playing. And it smelled terrible and he had a plethora of crude banjo jokes about, like playing banjo while being on the toilet. The  classic like, "this is why the banjo [has a reputation for] being such a rednecked instrument." And he was teaching me stuff I already knew on my own. And I think that made me reconsider the guitar. And I also just realized that the guitar was a way better songwriting instrument. I think the six strings just lends itself to strumming more.

I sing Eliza while at work. It haunts you.

People tell me that one has a tendency of getting stuck in their head. A friend of mine, they just had a kid named Elijah. They tell me that they reworded it to Elijah [and they sing it to him] as a bedtime lullaby.

At this point, the brewery was closing for the night. Wesley invited me over to his home, a couple houses down. We spent another hour with his housemate Laki, discussing Laki's creative projects and the creative community in Portland.

Le Innocents (2016) and an Unusual Community

I miss reviewing films. I miss taking the time to understand what I have just seen by wrestling with it through words. I don't want to simply consume media - I want to engage in it.  

So in 2017, expect to see more film reviews arrive at this space. I've partnered with my friends at Reel World Theology and my first review for them this year is up already on their website. It's for the French-Polish film "Le Innocents." 

The movies follows the strange, true story of a group of nuns in Poland who were raped during and immediately after the Second World War and who are now pregnant. Unlike recent films about monasteries, like the excellent "Ida" and "Of Gods and Men", the main character in this film is not a member of the nunnery, but a young atheist doctor. Her journey into the religious community and how this affect both her and the believers she has to work with has profound implications for how Christians like myself are to interact with those whom we get to know from the outside. 

In my review I tried to pull out some of these themes. Head over to Reel World Theology to read the whole thing. I definitely recommend watching this beautiful film and would love to hear your thoughts on how it might impact our communities.

That Was the Worst Christmas Ever!

Well, not really. But it kinda sucked.

Christmas is one of my favourite times of the year. So for the first time in five years, I used several vacation days to extend my days off.  I was hoping to spend some time with my elderly grandfather, make lots of music with my aunt, see a whole bunch of movies in theatres, and spend time alone reading and writing.

On the 23rd, after a nearly perfect Christmas tree hunt,  I went downtown to meet up with a best friend to watch Jackie at Eau Claire. Thanks to the nasty roads and snowfall, he was unable to show up. So I went into a pub to catch up on emails and ordered a large serving of fish and chips. The meal was too expensive and left a bad taste in the mouth. Frustrated, I went across the street to watch the excellent film Manchester by the Sea. I went to bed around midnight, excited for my vacation to begin.

At 3:10 am I woke up with an even worse taste in my mouth. "Just get rid of it and all will be well" I told myself. That was not so easily done.

It was nine hours later that I dared swallow a sip of water. It took the next twelve hours to get rehydrated, forty hours before I dared eat a full meal, and sixty before the diarrhea stopped. I was throwing up so hard that I burst blood vessels in my left eye, resulting in two days of hazing vision  and looking like I'd survived a bar fight rather than food poisoning. It's now been four days and I'm still exhausted.

I'm surprised how easy I've fallen into despair. To not find enjoyment in the rich gifts around us is expected, for they can quickly grow old. But not finding hope and comfort on the truths and power of prayer and scripture is verging on inexcusable. I have so much to learn!

And then I saw reports of friends' Christmases. A trip to the emergency room on Christmas Day because an infant daughter is chocking. A Christmas Eve in the hospital due to colitis. A wife whose brain tumour has resulted in a hand refuses to recover and is throbbing with pain. Or even worse: a miscarriage.

So I resolve to enjoy these next few days off. It will be easy to look back with regret on time wasted and memories ruined. It will be tempting to find joy solely in the music I'll play, the movies I'll see, the friends I'll meet, the quite time I'll savour. What's the alternative? Perhaps it's knowing that these circumstances exist to humble us, to re-anchor us in something greater than the well-being that we have built up around us, that bursts so easily. When I am made aware of that again, contentment is possible. I can rest in someone outside of myself.

Mike Cosper's Stories We Tell

Here's another entry from my Creativity and the Christian book reports. This volume gave me a lot to think about and is one of the bigger influences on my year. I recommend it. 

Key Contributions

We humans tell stories. It's a trait that distinguishes us from the animals, and is consistent across the divides of race, culture, and history. Stories are ubiquitous and unavoidable. We tell them amongst ourselves, we record them in every medium imaginable, and we long for them during every stage of our lives. We know that stories matter, but the Christian community in particular seems unsure of how to respond to them. Some Christians embrace all stories, immersing themselves with little thought to their influence. Others treat the stories from outside their community as dangerous and to be avoided.

Mike Cosper offers a way of thinking about stories that takes in account both reality of the Gospel and the unique power that stories hold over us.  He believes that "the Big Story of the Bible - creation, fall, redemption, and consumption - is so pervasive, so all-encompassing of our world, that we can’t help but echo it (or movements with it) when we’re telling other stories." But he also believes that stories get under our skin and shape our desires in ways that can't be measured merely by morality. "I believe we’re watching because TV and movies are both echoing and forming our desires, and I want to level into what those desires really are."

In his book, Cosper examines many examples of moving pictures that echo, distort, and provoke the storyline of redemption and the desires of our hearts. Our stories search for the innocence; they examine the fall of man and the frustrations of a broken world; they plunge the depths of human evil; they seek redemption and heroes. Having shown us how our culture's stories echo the truth imperfectly, like broken shards of glass reflecting the reality of the real world, Cosper returns us to the true story that will ultimately satisfy: the Gospel. Only after being saturated in it will the lesser stories around us reveal meaning and truth.

Strengths and Weaknesses

Mike Cosper understands the pervasive power of the Gospel. I grew up with the conviction that the only stories worth listening to were those written by Christians. But if the biblical account of redemption is in fact the very storyline of history, than its truths will be echoed by everyone who is created in the image of God. The result is a freedom to enjoy the stories told by every image bearer, recognizing that the divine image is not limited to our own tribe and creed.

Cosper describes stories and our imagination as forces of great power that do more to orient our desires than we typically assume. The imagination is the "more mysterious and sneaky part of us, ruled by love, desire, and hope." It is this imagination that hooks us into stories and "gets ahold of our hearts and minds and moves us in ways that textbooks... never could." This is why we are addicted to stories. As Christians, this shouldn't come as a surprise, for we are made in the image of a storytelling God.

But it does give us even more reason to be careful about the stories we consume. What are they saying to us? How are they lingering in our subconscious, forming our desires, our hopes, and our loves? "The profound and dangerous power of TV and movies is that they have a way of getting inside of us, shaping the way we see the world by captivating our imaginations."  Cosper does an excellent job dissecting stories, revealing what they assume about us and the human longings that drive them. He also identifies the need to be rooted in the storyline of Scripture. Although his book gave me further permission to enjoy the craft of storytelling, it also cautioned me against its subtle powers. If these stories are so sneaky in shaping our desires, should we not be even more cautious around their influence? How do we avoid having them shape our desires in ways that are wrong? Perhaps the book could have further addressed this question.

Personal Application

Stories We Tell taught me a greater awareness of the immersive nature of stories. It taught me to see them as a volatile force - not necessarily evil or good itself - but that can be used to shape our desires towards God or away from him. The answer is not to avoid stories, but rather to seek a greater immersion in the Gospel story. Regular worship with the local body of Christ reforms our desires. Immersion in God's Word and times spent with Him in prayer reorient our hearts to this true realty, the true story of salvation. And through His Spirit, we are being sanctified by a power that is greater than that of our culture's stories.

Thus baptised in the water of life, we can step into the world of stories with boldness. "Remarkably, in the light of the gospel, these other stories become brighter and more encouraging... When you see the bigger story, these others aren’t diminished, but are held in their proper place. In fact, they become more beautiful and more interesting." We can now see the world with joy and wonder, and understand it better through the gifts of the storytellers. “We can step into the world with a sense of invitation. This is our Father’s world. What do we want to explore today?"

Reading this book, I was struck by the ways I use social media to project an edited version of how I want to be seen by the world. "What we share and don’t share on social media is shaped by how we want the world to see us... Your Facebook timeline is your version of a reality show... On the web.... we glory in ourselves.” Many times I catch myself scrolling through my Facebook timeline, impressed by the quality of my posts, dissecting what they say about me. Becoming aware of this forced me to challenge how social media was affecting my identity. Posting excellent content isn't wrong, but making that my salvation is.

Questions for the Author

“The profound and dangerous power of TV and movies is that they have way of getting inside us, shaping the way we see the world by captivating our imaginations.” What concrete steps can we take to protect ourselves from having our world formed by what we watch?

Mike's observations about how we careful edit our social media presence was incredibly insightful. Does Mike ever recognize himself doing this? How does he respond?

Mike describes himself as a TV addict. Technology and the new ways we release content has developed a culture of binge watching. What questions does Mike ask of himself as he becomes addicted to a show?

How does this apply to music? Music certainly tells stories, but in different, less straight forward manners. Songs also have a way of rattling around our heads in more subtle and persuasive way than other mediums. Since Mike is a musician and worship leader, I'd love to hear his reflections on how the book's principles change when applied to music.

"As believers, we need to pay attention to the kinds of stories we are telling, even among ourselves, about sex, satisfaction, and ultimate joy." We are all storytellers, placing ourselves in the context of a story, building habits and desires rooted in them. In what ways do we tell these stories? How do we become aware of them and, if necessary, change them?

How do you keep yourself rooted in the story of the Gospel while being bombarded by other narratives?

How do we tell better stories? Not everyone is a film maker or a writer of fiction, but we are all creatives, whether we invent stories for our kids or post videos online

Frances Schaeffer's Art and the Bible

 Over the summer, I participated in a course called Creativity and the Christian. It was a challenge and a joy to be forced to write essays again. I'll be posting what I worked on over the next couple weeks, beginning with three book reports. Each of these books is excellent and I recommend reading. Here is my report for Frances Scaheffer's classic volume, Art and the Bible.

Key Contributions

The Christian faith has enjoyed a historically rich relationship with the arts. The writings of Dante, the music of Bach, the paintings of Rembrandt, and the songwriting of Bono are small sampling of this heritage. So why is the Evangelical church marked by both an aesthetic barrenness and an attitude of fear and avoidance towards the arts? Is our church's understanding of the arts actually rooted in a proper understanding of the Bible? Francis Schaeffer's seminal work, Art and the Bible, provided a much needed clarity when it was first published in 1973 and continues to offer a reorienting view of a proper doctrine of creativity. 

The Bible's portrayal of reality is not limited to matters of the soul. The doctrines of the creation, the redemption, and the future resurrection provide a framework that permeates all aspects of reality. Christ is Lord over everything, giving us context and boldness for our own acts of artistic creation. With such an anchoring in the objective, true reality, we have both the strength and the freedom to pursue knowledge and art.

We see the character of God both in his creation of the world and in how he directs us through his word. And both point to a God who is himself creative and who made us to worship him creatively. "God is interested in beauty. God made people to be beautiful. And beauty has a place in the worship of God." Observe the beauty and complexity of His creation. Read the descriptions on the various types of art God commissioned for the tabernacle and the temple. Notice the wide range of writing styles that are included in scriptures. If we are made in the image of God, we too are called to be creative and our art has value in itself. "Why? Because a work of art is a work of creativity, and creativity has value because God is the Creator."

Strengths and Weaknesses

For Schaeffer, art is an expression of  "the nature and character of humanity." We can recognize the excellence of an artist's work without having to agree with his outlook on life. To enjoy an author's skill with words or a director's vision of the world is a way to honour the image of God in those people. But that doesn't necessarily mean we embrace what that artist is saying morally. Every man, artist or not, is bound to the Word of God.

Schaeffer's articulates the minor and major themes in the Christian message and how Christian art should include both. The minor theme includes the reality of the fallenness of man, the resulting sense of meaninglessness and tragedy, and the "defeated and sinful side to the Christian life." The major theme is the joy that opens up when we realize that God is real and knowable, and that there is hope through redemption and the future resurrection. To underemphasize the minor theme is to be false to reality. "But in general...the major theme is to be dominant - though it must exist in relationship to the minor."

He also distinguishes between using art to worship God instead of worshipping the art itself. He observes that the Law "does not forbid the making of representatives art but rather the worship of it." If our art finds its worth as an offering to God rather than to men, then there is meaning and significance to our efforts. But our tendency, as humans and as artists, is to instead worship the work of our hands and elevate it over God. "Fixed down in our hearts is a failure to understand that beauty should be to the praise of God." Hezekiah destroys Moses' bronze serpent "because men had made it an idol. What is wrong with representational art is not its existence but its wrong uses." May our worship be only to the True King, so that our art may serve Him instead of taking His place in our lives. The book was so rich I struggled to pick out weaknesses.

Personal Application

Schaeffer's charge to keep our art contemporary is an important challenge. "If you are a young Christian artist, you should be working in the art forms of the twentieth century, showing the marks of the culture out of which you have come, reflecting your own contemporaries and embodying something of the nature of the world as seen from a Christian perspective." This requires vigilance, being constantly aware of how the content of your messages fits within the style of your art. There is no easy answer. We must ask careful questions of our audience and listen closely to their feedback. Does the medium distract or confuse the content? "The Christian...must wrestle with the whole question, looking to the Holy Spirit for help to know when to invent, when to adopt, when to adapt, and when to not to use a specific style at all. This is something each artist wrestles with for a lifetime, not something he settles once and for all."

Ultimately, Schaeffer's book offers me freedom. "The Christian is the really free man - he is free to have imagination." It is a freedom rooted in a proper doctrine of our God and his world. It is a freedom offered through the redemption of our hearts in Christ and the guidance of His Spirit, replacing the paralyzing effects of idolatry. It is also a freedom coming from the realization that we are given a lifetime to express everything that needs to be said. "No artist can say everything he might want to say... into a single work... If a man is to be an artist, his goal should be in a lifetime to produce a wide and deep body of work."

Over the years, I've struggled with feelings of inadequacy or failure when my creative endeavours don't succeed. Through this book, I've realized how much of this stems from finding my identity in the art, rather than using my art as a means to worship God. My prayer is that my work would be to an audience of One and that my satisfaction would come from this alone.

Questions for the Author

If, through Christ, our "whole capacity as man is refashioned" - our soul and our mind and body - how does this apply to taking care of our bodies; health, fitness, and beauty?

"The arts and the sciences do have a place in the Christian life - they are not peripheral." It's clear from this book that having proper doctrine is central to holding the arts and sciences in place. What focus then should churches place on teaching these other topics?

He talks about the ugliness of many evangelical church buildings and compares it to the construction of the temple, which was full of physical beauty. How do these guidelines from the Old Testament era apply to building churches in the New Testament?

In what ways can our contemporary church's architecture and physical aesthetic provoke praise? How should we balance our emphasis on this with the other purposes of the church? How should we convey the importance of this to leaders in the church who overlook it?

Hezekiah "had the temple cleansed and worship reformed according to the law of God." In what ways does the church's contemporary worship need reforming?

How does he interact with nudity in art? This applies to viewing classical art, like paintings and sculpture, but also modern art, like film and literature. Sexuality and the body are beautiful and matter to God, but we are also accountable to a higher moral standard.

He talks about art that is produced within the Christian framework, even if the artist is him or herself not a believer. Does this happen less and less on our culture? Also, there are some who find truth and beauty and echoes of the Gospel in all art, regardless of who created it. What would Schaeffer say to this? When should we be critical of a work's worldview and when should we enjoy and learn from what it says?

Twenty Four

In the past, birthday mornings have been typically cheerful occasions, but not this twenty-forth morning. I rose early to prepare for work and despaired over my situation. Twenty four years, one less from twenty five, and what have I done with myself? I know men in my position who are working on their second degree, or married, or who are off having adventures around the world. And here I was, no close to my ambitions than I was a year ago, still in my parents home, working a position that betrays my years poured into the company - in short, a mess of a man. In one year I will be 25 years old. If I were to then find myself in the same position, how could I face myself? I shuddered to think of where that despair might lead me.

The morning sun and Paul Simon's Graceland in my headphones cheered me up by the time I arrived at work, where the hugs and well-wishes of my many friends greeted me.  But it was mid-morning text from my pastor, Gavin, who forced a change of perspective and attitude on me. "Grace to you as you celebrate another year of God's mercies to you."

Mercies to you. Now that's a different way of looking at things. With such perspective, my success is not measured by how well I've done with myself, but by how gracious my Creator has been to me. What have I to complain about, really? What do I actually deserve? In such light, these years have been mercies indeed.

He continued. "It's been wonderful to watch how the Lord has grown you in these past few years. Keep on." With this attitude, I'm not looking at what I've done well and what I've achieved, but what the Lord has done in me. This is progress of a different kind, a supernatural work that I can not account for on my own. How could I give up? How could I discard His handiwork in me?

I reflected on the days that made up this last year. There have been few notable events to mark it, and, unlike the year before, less dark clouds of troubled turmoil. I got sick for several months. I wrote some things I was proud of. I was successful in a somewhat unchallenging work environment. I happily spent several months on my own. I planned an exciting trip to Portland and complete a graduate level college course. In short, the had the typical share of pleasures, events, disappointments, heartache, and ups and downs.

That evening, my family and a handful of excellent friends gathered on our beautiful acreage. We ate dozens of chicken kebabs, baskets of fresh pita breads, bowls of fruit and salad, about two chocolate cakes, and Chemex after Chemex of coffee, all prepared by my sisters while I was at work. We laughed, partly because of the sharp wits on display in that room, but mostly in delight over these remarkable people and the joy they brought. My parents told stories of their courtship while training teens on tall ships, stories that looked back and remembered with gratefulness.

We then pulled into the music room and gathered around the grand piano. Violins, clarinets, and guitars were produced, a couple iPads served as our hymnals, and for about an hour we sang some of my favourite songs: "Let Us Love and Sing and Wonder," Let All Mortal Flesh Be Silent," "Erie Canal" (the Bruce Springsteen song, not a hymn), "Jesus I My Cross Have Taken," "Oh Perfect Love Come Near to Me," and "On Jordan's Stormy Banks I Stand".

Farewells were said. Hugs were exchanged. Guests departed to their corners of the city and our family headed into our rooms and to bed. And so I am content. Not because things couldn't be better. Not the because the frustration will end. Not because things have changed. But because I can trust the One who is guiding me, and I can see his hand at work.

"Soul, then know thy full salvation

Rise o’er sin and fear and care

Joy to find in every station,

Something still to do or bear.

Think what Spirit dwells within thee,

Think what Father’s smiles are thine,

Think that Jesus died to win thee,

Child of heaven, canst thou repine."

Mountains Beyond Mountains

I step off the LRT and into Lion's Park station just after 11pm, having finished my last shift of work. It's after I hoist on my backpack and make my way out onto the sidewalk that I notice the rain. All the way to my uncle and aunt's house it pours, increasing in intensity by the minute. It comes at me in sheets, blowing sideways off the pavement in waves of water. Streams pour off the brim of my hat. It soaks through my jacket and my shirt, my boots and my socks. It runs in rivulets down the sidewalk and surges into the drainpipes. I laugh, then let out a whoop of joy over the sheer craziness of the circumstances. What a perfect start to my week long West Coast vacation!

Five minutes later, I kick off my soggy boots in my family's living room. Five more minutes, and the freak storm has ended.

The next day dawns far too early. My clothes are air-dried and my leather satchel is packed with food, books, and headphones. My uncle drops me off at Calgary's Greyhound bus station. The wooden sign in the boarding area announces my bus's destinations:

BANFF

LAKE LOUISE

YOHO NATIONAL PARK

REVELSTOKE

SALMON ARM

KAMLOOPS

LANGLEY

ABBOTSFORD

VANCOUVER.

I have several reasons to make a 15 hour bus journey to the Coast instead of catching a 90 minute flight. Chief among these is cost. The appeal of gaining such a long head start on the 6 books I chose for the trip was also a factor. And I wanted to travel the land. I wanted to feel the breadth of our country. I wanted to read the landscape like a book, crawling up and over the immense backbone of our western continent we call the Rocky Mountains.

I have a friend who recently moved from Edmonton to Calgary. She can't get enough of our mountains. Every other week she arranges a hike for us Calgary natives. Day hikes. Night hikes. It doesn't matter.  She says the sight of the mountains from her window never ceases to thrill her. Hearing her respond to the mountains with such joy has reawakened this jaded local to their beauty. To her, the immense solidity of the massive rocks reminds her that she is both "insignificant and beloved at the same time."

But what if those mountains are clocked in clouds, as they were my entire trip West?

The coach heaves its way up and over the winding highway. The engine roars its disapproval as it forces itself up a punishing curve, then sighs in a sort of passive complaint as it clings to the roadway down another steep section. In the valley below me, I see clouds floating above a rich green forest. These greens and greys are interrupted by intense white cataracts of falling water. The peaks are slow to reveal themselves. It is easy to lure yourself into believing that they didn't even exist, and that this world of trees and rock and clouds is all there is.

But then the bus turns another corner, or the wind shifts, revealing an opening through clouds, and the towering walls of rock reassert themselves. "I'm here" they seemed to say. "Though you do not see me, though you doubt your map and your knowledge of the land, I am still here. Powerful and strong. Sure and lasting"

Life occasionally gives us clear vistas, moments were the world and the road ahead are visible with clarity and joy. But those are the exception. The rest of the time, we are rumbling our way through valleys and hills of repetitive mists. I start to wonder if what I see out my window is, in fact, the truth. My head knows what it is supposed to believe, but everything else is yelling the opposite. I get depressed and I want to give up. Or, worse, I get complacent and don't care. 

And then the wind shifts and I see some hazy glimpse of Reality. A service at church clarifies and encourages. A conversation with a friend reveals I'm not alone and that I am making a small difference for someone else. A song, or a book, or time spent in prayer awakens what was previously lost or forgotten. These moments don't linger, but if I peer closely, I see them with enough regularity to keep me hopeful and content. I need such moments. I seek these moments out.

Reflections on Psalm 27

"If our greatest treasure – communion with the living God – is safe, of what can we be afraid? Yet we are afraid of so many things. So our fears can serve an important purpose – they show us where we have really located our heart's treasure."

~Tim Keller.

The LORD is my light and my salvation;

whom shall I fear?

The LORD is the stronghold of my life;

of whom shall I be afraid?

These opening lines are verses of great comfort. I settle into them as one settles into a secure safety, for I fear many things and my life contains few strongholds. Everywhere I look, I see failure; my work, my education, my independence, my finances, and my relationships all point their fingers and accuse me. In these opening phrases, the author of the psalm, David, is pushed beyond his fears, anchored in something greater and higher than himself. David’s next lines introduce a military language and confidence.

When evildoers assail me

to eat up my flesh,

my adversaries and foes,

it is they who stumble and fall.

Though an army encamp against me,

my heart shall not fear;

though war arise against me,

yet I will be confident.

Despite my disappointments and despite the odds against me, I don’t need to worry. I can have confidence. But my temptation here is to simply assume that, with God on my side, the success I seek is attainable. The psalmist is clearly seeking something too. His desire and his heart are set.

One thing have I asked of the LORD,

that will I seek after:

What do I seek after? What is the one thing I ask of the Lord more than any other? If you ask me right now, and I were being completely honest, I would instinctively answer, “success in a growing relationship” or “success in my career ambitions.” But David’s one request is far more specific:

that I may dwell in the house of the LORD

all the days of my life,

to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD

and to inquire in his temple.

How much simpler, how much higher than desire for mere achievement! The military context he gave us earlier seems to just be the means of securing a greater purpose: to dwell in the house of the Lord, to gaze upon his beauty, and to inquire of him. My petty desires for achievement or companionship fall away when I compare them to this higher purpose. “David finds God beautiful, not just useful for attaining goods” says Tim Keller. “To send God’s beauty in the heart is to have such pleasure in him that your rest content.”

With this desire now laid bear, our understanding of the psalm has been focused and refined. When the beauty of the Lord is in David’s vision, of course God will

hide me in his shelter

in the day of trouble;

he will conceal me under the cover of his tent;

he will lift me high upon my rock.

If his face as our focus, what are days of trouble? We shall be hid in his shelter, with his strength as our song, and his beauty our joy.

And now my head shall be lifted up

above my enemies all around me,

and I will offer in his tent

sacrifices with shouts of joy;

I will sing and make melody to the LORD.

With the Lord’s beauty in our gaze, our heads are lifted up despite the calamities surrounding us. With his salvation as our dwelling place, the shifting tides of circumstances matter far less.

It’s deceptively simple. Have your heart filled with the beauty of the Lord, and all will be well. But is this house-of-the-Lord-dwelling goal easy to maintain? The next stanza tells us that it is far from a easy task.

Hear, O LORD, when I cry aloud;

be gracious to me and answer me!

You have said, “Seek my face.”

My heart says to you

“Your face, LORD, do I seek.”

Hide not your face from me

Turn not your servant away in anger,

O you you have been my help.

Cast me not off; forsake me not,

O God of my salvation!

For my father and my mother have forsaken me,

but the LORD will take me in.

If I were to summarize this psalm in one verse, it would be verse 8: You have said, “Seek my face.” My heart says to you “Your face, LORD, do I seek.” Such seeking requires great struggle. Notice how David is crying for a gracious answer. The beauty of the Lord seems hidden, turned away in anger. He longs not to be cast off or forsaken in the same way he has been by the people in whom he most relies. Yet in the end there is a simple trust exhibited: but the Lord will take me in.

Teach me your way, O LORD,

and lead me on a level path

because of my enemies.

Give me up not to the will of my advisories

for fans witness have risen against me,

and they breathe out violence.

If the path is such a struggle, as we saw in the last stanza, who will guide us? Here we see that we need to be taught to seek the Lord’s face, that this is an art requiring a faithful teacher. It is a path and he must be led down it. The perils surrounding it are very real and, as he acknowledges them, David places himself in the care of his teacher.

I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the LORD

in the land of the living!

Wait for the Lord;

be strong, let your heart take courage;

wait for the LORD!

In the end of this explosive, emotional psalm, we are left with a sense of great expectancy and simple faith. Evident is David’s belief that his desire to gaze on the goodness of the Lord will find its fulfilment. David’s role, ultimately, is one of active passivity. He counsels his heart to wait, to take courage, and then he repeats it: wait for the Lord! Rely on him, son, and not on yourself. Wait for him, and he will redeem you.

Humility and the Craft of Hip-Hop: A Visit to Humble Beast

Trinity Church of Portland is located on the tree filled campus of Western Seminary and I arrive for a service half an hour late. I quietly ease myself into a back row, the sermon already underway.  Since their teaching pastor, Art Azurdia, is away on sabbatical, one of the elders, a professor of counselling at the seminary, is taking his place. As he preaches from 2 Kings 6 and necessity of having our eyes opened to the greater reality of God’s work amongst us, I glance around the chapel noting the ordinariness of the congregation. The church isn’t large, but it is filled with all ages and all are listening attentively. (I later learned that whenever the congregation outgrows the building, they plant a daughter church.) After the sermon, Bryan “Braille” Winchester leads us through a communion liturgy with the eloquence and passion I’ve come to expect from the emcee, extolling the excellencies of the Gospel we are celebrating. An amateur church band ends the service with unabashed enthusiasm. 

I leave the building an hour after the service, deeply encouraged by both its teaching and the long conversation I had with a member of the congregation, Josh Hill. Josh had shared with me the story of how he became the Director of Operations at Humble Beast, the ministry that brought me to Trinity Church and the city of Portland.

Bryan “Braille” Winchester leads the congregation of Trinity Church through a communion liturgy.

Humble Beast, a hip-hop label dedicated to producing excellent content it gives away for free, calls Trinity its “home church” and submits to the church’s statement of faith. The label consists of four artists, with diverse styles and lyrical approaches, all united under a lush, acoustic driven production. Their talent is legendary in the hip-hop community. Propaganda is a modern day prophet, preaching into his culture while restoring hope in his community of Los Angeles. Jackie Hill Perry’s intricate wordplay produces a cracked mosaic drawing us to seek our joy in the Lord. JGivens’s depth of lyrics and intricate soundscapes tell a multi-layered story as complex and varied as life itself. I turn to Beautiful Eulogy when my soul is dry and my heart is broken, and they restore me in the hope of the Gospel, my cheeks often getting wet in the process. To say that their music has impacted my life is an understatement. I was eager to see what happens behind the scenes and to learn more about their unique relationship to their local church.

I arrive at the white bungalow in the suburbs of greater Portland that housed the studio at the time of my visit (they have since relocated). Josh welcomes me in. The team has just finished their morning devotional meeting and are beginning the day’s work, quickly dispersing from the main room to enter various meetings and recording sessions. In the kitchen, whose shelves are packed with enough equipment to stand in for a coffee shop’s merchandising wall, are gathered two of the label’s three producers, Daniel Steele and Courtland Urbano. In dress and mannerisms they couldn’t be more different; Courtland has a sculpted moustache and quiet smile, and Daniel wears an XL t-shirt and a backwards snapback cap. I learn that Daniel provided the majority of production on Jackie Hill Perry’s remarkably acoustic driven album, so I ask him about its unusual sound. 

Daniel Steele prepares some beats for an upcoming project. Sitting next to him (not pictured) is James "JPoetic" Calkins, a Humble Beast intern.

“I would describe our sound at Humble Beast as boutique” Daniel explains, carefully choosing his words. “Do you see Courtland making coffee?” I watch Courtland carefully pours hot water from the gooseneck spout of a copper kettle, engrossed yet clearly enjoying his task. Daniel continues: “That’s how we craft our music.”

The analogy is apt. Throughout our conversation I hear sounds from the recording studio, located deeper inside the building. 10 seconds of a track are played and then paused, played and paused, again and again. I wander into the studio, where Braille and Jeremiah “JGivens” Givens are fine-tuning a song for JGiven’s upcoming album. The two are utterly immersed in the music. Braille, helming the computer, repeats yet again the 10 seconds of track, closing his eyes and swaying to the beat - “oh here we, here we go, Geronimo, look out below” - before pausing and adjusting the deep base line. JGivens, sitting next to him, nods wordlessly. Again the line is played and this time the snare is tweaked. Then three separate lines of background vocals are fine tuned, followed by the effects. All morning the artists work, and I’ve only heard the first third of the song. Boutique indeed; this is hip-hop craftsmanship. 

Hip-hop craftsmanship: I lost track of time while observing Braille and JGivens work on one of the standout tracks of JGiven's album Fly Exam.

That afternoon, an adjacent office is cramped with Jeremiah, Courtland, Anthony Benedetto (who’s responsible for the visual style of the label), and Thomas “Odd Thomas” Terry, the owner and proprietor. The four are planning a music video they are producing for JGiven’s song “10 2 Get In”. The office is packed with computers and cameras. Artwork, logos, bookshelves, and timeline filled whiteboards cover the walls. There is a serious tone to the discussion. The message they are communicating and the preciousness of their resources demand their best abilities. I notice the weight of this responsibility particularly in Thomas.

Thomas is also an elder at Trinity and he has a meeting with the other three elders later that afternoon. The whole team is getting hungry and Thomas suggests a Lebanese restaurant near the church. We all pile into several vehicles and our commute gives us some time to talk. I ask him about the ego struggle that so regularly accompanies the creation of art. “You always have to fight your pride, the way people perceive you, and your affirmation” he tells me. “The pride— and sometimes slipping into finding your self-worth, dignity, and value in your artistry—is something I think every artist has to wrestle with. I don’t know many people who have conquered that.”

I’m relieved that I am not alone in this battle. He continues; “It’s a constant day by day thing. Where am I at? How is this impacting me? For the artist who's figured that out, I would like to talk with that person. But I think that there is a responsibility to constantly approach God with your art and with your talents and say, “God, search me and expose the areas of my life where new areas of pride because of artistry has popped up, or I’ve believed things that are untrue, or I've believed things that are exaggerated about myself.” I don’t think it’s special. I think everyone has to wrestle with those things, but art just tends to put it on display more.”

I wonder how being connected to the local church affects this struggle. “I think one of the things the church does is it should—if it’s a healthy church—give you a good balance, reminding you that you are just one of many people within the church, that you are only one part of the body. They shouldn’t elevate you because you’re an artist over and against the person who is not artistically bent, but who is serving the body in an equally important role.”

Thomas and Jeremiah excitedly bounce ideas for their upcoming music video, the innovative.

We arrive at the restaurant along with the rest of the team. Thomas will have to eat quickly in order to make the meeting. While we wait for the food to arrive, I ask about Humble Beast’s relationship with Trinity Church. “When we come to Trinity we don’t necessarily come with our hip hop burden and say “do something with our hip-hop.” We basically just serve in our church.” This includes ordinary tasks like stacking chairs and brewing coffee, as well as more specific roles, such as serving in the liturgy and being an elder.  “They encourage us to keep on, they encourage through prayer, and support our efforts. But we haven’t come into the church saying “Here’s what we do; support what we do.” We are members of the church that have a particular vocation that has a ministry bent. We are artists who've found that in order for us to be effective we need to submit to a local church.”

Thomas leaves for his meeting and I end up next to JGivens in the back seat of a car returning to the studio. Jeremiah is staying in Portland for several weeks recording his upcoming album Fly Exam, but he was born and raised and continues to live in Las Vegas. I ask him about his church and he tells me about its location in ‘Naked City’, a mile and a half radius that five years ago was considered one of the city’s most troubled neighbourhoods. It was then that a family moved into the area and planted a church. Through a balanced blend of ministries—including open air preaching, food distribution, and weekly discipleship—the church has grown to 150 people. Some of its main contributors were initially those most violently opposed to its work. Jeremiah told me about the church’s active role in the community, their careful balance of word and deed ministries, and how folks who were just kids when the church started have now grown up and are almost raised by church families. “We’ve taken them on their first drive to the ocean or even their first time outside of Naked City.” 

JGivens on God's sovereignty in his life: "it's just dope!" This moment of joy stayed with me and defined my trip to Portland.

It was out of this church that Jeremiah’s rap ministry was born, beginning with live outreach performance on the streets and in local churches. As a kid, a career in hip-hop was far from his mind. “Growing up, all I wanted to do was design rollercoasters as a Disney Imagineer.” After he completed his engineering degree and interned for Disney, he realized that it wasn’t what he wanted to do every day. Nor was successfully selling $17,000 contracts for a communications start-up he worked for. “I went home and I was like “I’m out.” I’m going to rap these songs for my church.””

“So I sold my car, sold everything, lived at home and just had a phone bill, doing shows and selling CDs.” But Jeremiah applies his engineering degree and the problem solving skills it taught him everyday. He is also incredibly creative. “Art is a lot bigger than music. It’s everything—it’s the way you arrange your clothes.” He discussed the aesthetics of his upcoming album and the music videos he and his collaborators at Humble Beast were creating to supplement the narrative of the album. The album’s story is all about pride and the subsequent fall. It mirrors Jeremiah’s own journey through drug addiction and the resulting humility that came from being anchored in the local church. All of the aesthetics, from the album cover to his Instagram feed, support this story.

“Remember, I wanted to work for Disney,” he tells me as he shoots hoops in the small basketball court outside the studio. “So my whole way of producing something is a Walt Disney mindset, it’s the entire experience.” I remark on how interesting it is that these lifelong desires, while not fulfilled directly, are still being used by God in the end. “Right?” Jeremiah exclaimed. “He redeems it! God has been like “I’m going to let you do what you wanted to do you, just didn’t know you wanted to do it like this.” It’s just dope!” We laugh together, truly enjoying the way God turns our selfish dreams and aspirations into something that magnifies him in ways much better than we could have imagined. 

As I sit outside the studio in the summer heat, I reflect back on what I’ve witnessed that day. These are men who are honing their skills with excellence. They are deeply grounded in their church communities, discipling while being discipled. Their unique circumstances led them to this place, despite disappointments, disillusionment, and even failure. But God had worked through it all, impacting many though the overflow of their lives: their music. Even me, in my world of Calgary.

I return home having seen a little clearer how God has been using my messy circumstances, my gifts, and my failings. I’ll pray all the more for faithfulness and humility, and I’ll stay even more rooted, thankful, and committed to the oversight of my church community. 

My conversation with Odd Thomas was so helpful and encouraging that I couldn't fit it all in this essay. I've instead published a transcript of the entire chat here.  

Twenty-Three Years Old

Originally written September 3rd, 2015

"But I trust in you, O Lord;

I say, “You are my God.” 

My times are in your hand"

~Psalm 31:14-15a, 

It was a year of struggles and disappointments, cutting deeper and longer than any I've felt before.

It was a year of yearning and waiting, being taught to trust the hand of the One Who works all things.

It was a year of growth and endeavours, quiet and unlooked for, sweet in their steadiness.

It was a year of goodness in the Gospel, of tasting that which is yet unseen.

And so I'm being conformed to the image of His Son, for in Him is the consolation of every heartache and the aim of every endeavour. He winds them all that they may spin to showcase Him. And in Him I am satisfied.

Twenty-Three Years Old.

Seamus Heaney - "Making Strange"

I stood between them,
the one with his traveled intelligence
and tawny containment,
his speech like the twang of a bowstring,

and another, unshorn and bewildered
in the tubs of his wellingtons,
smiling at me for help,
faced with this stranger I’d brought him.

Then a cunning middle voice
came out of the field across the road
saying, ‘Be adept and be dialect,
tell of this wind coming past the zinc hut,

call me sweetbriar after the rain
or snowberries cooled in the fog.
But love the cut of this travelled one
and call me also the cornfield of Boaz.

Go beyond what’s reliable
in all that keeps pleading and pleading,
these eyes and puddles and stones,
and recollect how bold you were

when I visited you first
with departures you cannot go back on.’
A chaffinch flicked from an ash and next thing
I found myself driving the stranger

through my own country, adept
at dialect, reciting my pride
in all that I knew, that began to make strange
at the same recitation.

–Seamus Heaney 'Making Strange'

"Call me also the cornfields of Boaz"

This poem struck me with force the first time I read it. It captured my imagination as I reread it again and again and shared it with my often bewildered but sometimes appreciative friends. Those friends who were bewildered asked for an explanation, so let me try my hand at explaining it. 

The narrator stands between two men, one traveled, intelligent, and blunt in his strength, the other plain, bewildered, and pleading for assistance. The narrator has a responsiblity (it is implied that he brought the first stranger upon the second) and is at a loss for what to do. 

Direction arrives from a third voice, distant and distinct. This Someone confronts: "Be adept and dialect! Tell of something great coming, a wind that will sweep this ragged land. Love these people of flesh. For I was there when Boaz showed mercy to another stranger, in another field, many centuries ago. Go beyond what you see in the obvious - sticks and hair, boots and bones. And remember: I visited you too when you were also a stranger. I took you away and now you cannot return."

A bird on a branch brings the narrator back to present. When we leave him, he is driving the stranger through his own land, introducing the stranger to a landscape familiar and now freshly foreign.

In this poem, I see the call for us to love the bewildered strangers in our midst with a gospel love. We too may be at a loss for how to respond to them, and we too need to hear the voice of the One who called and redeemed us, recalling how His guidance then is the same guidance now. Moving forward, adepting our dialect, He will move through our actions too. 

22

It's my 22nd birthday today, but by now,  the years tick by with less formality. I've traded that  for a heightened sense of time passing quickly. I’m 22 and unequivocally an adult. This life is now the real thing and its urgency is constantly present.

I look back on last year; 365 days of Paul Simon’s sole diamonds and lists of simple beauties, losses, and delights. Winter winds have littered disappointment and like Llewyn Davis, my scarf has been blown by achin’ pain. But my boots were warm and the frustrations and setbacks were matched by moments I've collected and gathered. I’ve been treading water in the shadowlands, but I've seeing the golden light of evening cross my front porch. 

There are many faces throughout this year, a crowd of precious people. They were there to wish me well when I passed by and, if I paused, they shared with me snippets of their world. Then there is my family who have seen the worst but still support and carry me on in love. Mentors have pressed me forward, reminding my of my Father’s love and realigning me when I stray. Dear friends - all the more valuable for the scarcity - in confiding me with their broken failures, give me permission to impart my fears to them. And there are faces whom I’ve grown up with that have become more unexpectedly longed for each time they return into my sphere.

Through it all I’m confronted; brought face to face with my own failings. I realize the depth of selfishness that permeates my soul and how I'm constantly seeking my own pleasure. Everything I long and grasp for is to please myself alone. I doge this honest truth for so much of my waking hours, but then the hard rock of its bold truth tears a hole in the floorboards of my once-so-solid ship. The harsh cold waters of reality then come rushing in and I’m sinking sailor, a quickly drowning man.

But there is life in these dead bones and its vivacity is surly not native to me. Repentance requires repetition - not because its propitiator is finite and its salvation redundant but because I’m in such constant need of repair. Christ, through great consequence to himself, has forgiven me yet I need his Gospel more then ever. Dear Lord, apply it to my soul!

Launching my bark into this year's waters, may You, oh Lord,  be the Harbour to which I flee, the Captain at my helm, and the Spirit in my sails. I’ve been greatly troubled in spirit, but have found my Anchor who sustains. His constance is my only solace, his comfort my lasting cheer. 

New York Morning

A friend recently introduced me to the English band Elbow, who took the name after hearing a character on a BBC show describe it as the loveliest word in the English language. Imagine if Coldplay didn’t care about radio play, spent their evenings with Irish whiskey and watching black and white films, and dealt with breakups by drinking that whiskey alone in basements and writing poetry. Elbow’s music is dark, profane, poetic, and full of humanity. 

One song off their recent album, The Takeoff and Landing of Everything has me particularly thrilled. Not only is it some of the finest songwriting you will hear this year but it also perfectly illustrates the role of the city in the Christian worldview. Click play on the video and I’ll walk you through what I mean.

The song opens with quiet chords, sneaking in like the first light of morning. The lead singer, Guy Garvey, begins by describing the power of ideas and “how there is a big one round the corner.” Right on cue the drums enter like a beam of sunrise. The city of New York is waking up. It’s towers are described in a rapidly rising crescendo, “each pillar post, and painted line, every batter ladder building in this town” singing “a life of proud endeavour and the best that man can be.” Garvey has just described the ambition that is the heart of New York and every urban Rome.

And his crescendo is not over. He continues, without pausing, describing the “million voices” of people that are “planning, drilling, welding, carrying their fingers to the nub.” “Why?” he asks as the musical line meets its ernest and earned peak. “Because they can, they did and do…” Such is the reason for our endeavouring, our modern babel of enterprise, our kingdom building.

But the line doesn’t end here, for if there was just ambition, we humans would be smothered under our own terror. The city holds something greater than achievement and the climax of this line ends by describing it. “Why? Because they can, they did and do so you and I could live together.” The heart and purpose of the city are right here, in home, in family, in love.

The lyrics in the song break as the bass and the piano wind themselves into a melody represent ing the towers “reaching down into the ground” and “stretching up into the sky.” The song than twists the three ideas it has introduced together as the voices and melodies overlap. “Everybody owns the great ideas”, “the desire of the patchwork symphony”, and the striving that is “for love, having come for me”.

The song opened with the morning light and pinnacled in afternoon ambition. It than winds to a restful end, revealing its foundation. “The way [the day] ends depends on if your home. For every soul a pillow and a window please.” In just over five minutes it has perfectly captures what we love and hate about the city but also why we must cherish our urban centres. Here is humanity. Here is the potential for home. And here is grace, family, and people, where the gospel takes root and proves its worth.

I can think of several examples. My first solo trip to London, were the city large, foreign, and exhausting. Yet I stayed with a group of Christian urban monks and because of their fellowship never felt alone. Or just last night, visiting a young couple who recently moved downtown. A car accident on Sunday left them shaken and debilitated so I went to keep them company and was joined by the her younger siblings. These kids live on an acreage and were visibly awed by the dark hot streets towering with cranes, the apartment, ancient and decrepit, and the stories of crime and homelessness surrounding the building. And yet in that home was warmth and sacrifice, family and protection. The heartbeat of life itself. 

Reflections on Babette's Feast (1987)

These reflections were written in June 2014. The images are from the film and are not my own.

Growing up in a Christian community, the majority of the stories that were told to me dealt with the results of the church and the world crossing. The contrast was always impressive. Sometimes the good character would become corrupted, often the worldly character would convert, but occasionally the worldly character would leave the church unchanged and the good character would remain in the church, having learned the importance of staying pious.

Babette's Feast is a fable-like story that explores this topic with greater nuance then those childhood morality tales. But it also addresses a second more subtle contrast of the church and decadence. What happens when worldly luxury meets humble faithfulness? What is the roll of such artistic extravagance in the church?

This film touches on these issues and more. It gets many things right, is lit with an ordinary beauty, and explores important themes with such balance that there is room for many essays. "There is a steady gathering of emotion, a sense of a larger truth being touched."

It's central message is that summed up in a quote from the film. "Grace, my friends, demands nothing from us but that we shall await it with confidence and acknowledge it in gratitude. Grace, brothers, makes no conditions and singles out none of us in particular; grace takes us all to its bosom and proclaims general amnesty."

But what that quote misses and what is only lightly touched upon in the film is the cost that such grace requires. A cost that Babette herself freely gave and cost that was given for the grace that we so freely enjoy. That cost begs us to consider when and how such decadence, in life and in the church, should be enjoyed.

Books of Influence in 2013

This post was originally published in January 2014. Images are from the books and are not my own.

It’s that time of year, where bloggers everywhere turn to their logbooks of entertainment from the previous year and offer up their favoirtes. As one who loves lists, I too offer my selections. Today we will discuss books, with films to follow. 

First, a word on “the best of 2013”. I think I read three or four books this year that were actually published in 2013, so if I stuck to that categorization, this would be a short and easy list. But of the 38 books I read this year, I’m bound to be influenced by much more then just the passing fancies of our age. It’s perhaps slightly unfair, since I could just read a stack of classics and accurately call them the “best” books I read that year. But nevertheless, in chronological order, I offer the books that most shaped me this past year, followed by list of honourable mentions.

A hefty 500 page anthology, The Christian Imagination: The Practice of Faith in Literature and Imagination features contributions, both short and long, from 50 authors, living and dead, assembled by the venerable authorty of the topic, Leland Ryken. It set a trajectory and was a travelguide for what would become a year of art exploration. The book explores, from many angles, the “realationship between imagination, belief, and words” and taught me to demand a quality in writing that reflects the author’s Creator, to confront the “aesthetic poverty of evangelicalism”, and to recognize the worldview of an author while learning from the way that author represents it.

A Good Man is Hard To Find and The Children of Men were read shortly after or at the same time as the previous volume. They both illustrated the principles Ryken’s book set out. Here are two Christian women who write well and by their writing challenge both believers and the world at large. Flannery O’Conner’s work particularly stands out for its dark short stories depiciting ordinary characters in a weary world, in which you can almost feel the eternal weight of their desicions. Much has been said about how Ms. O’Conner used violence to shock her characters and her sleepy audience into the realization of eternal truths. I find her short stores a cousin of sorts to the music of Sufjan Stevens.

The moment I heard about Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God’s Work I knew it was for me. It was so helpful I plan on rereading it every year that I find myself in the workforce. Unlike so many other evangelical perspectives on the working world, this is a wholestic, hopeful, biblical, and practical look at the culture of the workforce and how it interesects with the Christian’s calling. I want to buy a box of copies and hand them to friends and colleagues.

Seldom have I enjoyed a book more than Planet Narnia. Like a real life literary detective novel, this book adds so much to the beloved series I grew up with and to the study of Lewis. Not only is it an example of how a Christian should bring both literary and theological depth to his writing, but it also opened my eyes to the the world of Lewis scholarship  something I am now itching to one day contribute to.

I slowly worked my way through The Four Holy Gospels, savouring the way the depth of its images paired to the eternal depth of its words. My Name is Asher Lev painted with words the way the author sees the world along with his internal struggle. Death By Living was enjoyable and moving, well written and entertaining. The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert was an encouraging reminder to never give up on the unlikely people God throws in your path. Finally, Winter’s Tale, although convoluted at times and prehaps too long, was a book full of wisdom and beauty and is the work of fiction which I have underlined the most.

Stay tuned! Next I’ll be posting my favourite films from 2013.

Fretting and Resting in 2014

This post was originally written in January 2014.

My friend posted a video on his blog detailing his plans for 2014. Not New Year’s resolutions, (which he labelled as) “bullshit”, but a list of goals he would like to accomplish. They includes things like finishing his book of modern day fairy tales, increasing his average YouTube vieo view count to 300, and shooting a short film. All of them significant yet all of them achievable. And were he to achieve half of these goals, his year will be more influential then my past three.

The end of a year is a time to take stock of the last one and make plans for the next. My goals are less ambitious then Kyle’s. Over the weekend I made a list of books I would like to read in 2014. And looking back over 2013, certain value statements can be made about how I used my time. For example, I read 39 books (three more then what I read last year, 63 less then 2011), watched 72 movies (31 more movies then books), and posted 188 photos to Instagram (leaving 177 days when I posted nothing).

When I stare at these numbers my year looks pretty useless. To hide my guilt  I try to congratulate myself on the difficult course I completed with success, the advancements I achieved in my career, and the new friendships I have formed. But there were friendships left stagment too, time that could have been better spent completing more courses, and money better saved.

Such is time. Regret and loss. Achievement and possibility. I suppose trite lists like the books I have read say little and the lists that I used to keep -highlighting memories savoured and graces given - speak more accurately to time's passing.

Today one of our pastors preached on Matthew 11:25-30. He paused on the opening phrase “At that time, Jesus…” At that time.

The incarnation that we celebrate at Christmas was a space and time event. Again and again in the gospels we are reminded of the particularity of the events they record, events in space and time that reverberate to this day.

So in that context it is interesting to note the last couple verses of that passage. “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

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Our pastor emphasized that this rest is not exactly a rest from our work in this world and our labours against sin, but a rest from our own efforts to achieve salvation.

This salvation is salvation from sin and judgment, but it also includes salvation from our self-worth being bound up in how we spend our time. How fitting it is that we celebrate the space-time event of the the Incarnation (Christmas), which brought about our rest, just before the dawn of a new year.

The rest that has been achieved for us does not mean we rest from our efforts to set goals, to read well, and achieve in 2014 things that give God glory. Yet it does mean that we do all this knowing that our efforts in our space and time are ordained by the same One Who established our salvation in past time and space. And it means that looking back over 2013 we can have peace that what happened happened well. As our pastor said, “Look back on 2013 with rest. Look ahead with rest. Strive to enter this rest and rest in His, our King’s, great work.”