Attempting to live and breathe for an audience of one
My love for Lionel Richie’s sappy ’80s songs is immense. So I simply needed to share the current Internet meme that has gone viral with those of you who may not have seen it. (That, and I’m currently hurting for original blog material.)
And if, for whatever reason, you don’t get it, it means you don’t know the song so you don’t get the joke. Listen to it below:
Image from blog.sevnthsin.comFacebook and Twitter are two social media tools that feed into a person’s habit of self-absorption. (Blogs do a great job of that too.) For me, Facebook and Twitter feed into my delusion of self-importance, one I will attempt to curb. Continue reading “My Fight with Facebook and Twitter”
I’m trying to get back into the habit of exercising regularly at the gym. There are a few tunes that are the perfect tempo to get me warmed up, keep me at an energetic level, and help me to cool down. These are my tried and true (so far) that I keep going back to every time I fall away from the gym and come back… again.
*Power songs: Songs that either infuse high energy through a workout or last a long time, ie, “Free Bird” is a 10-minute song.
Feel free to let me know which song might be your fave for a workout session or suggest another one in the comments below!
I am none of those things tonight. I have none of those things tonight. I am empty. I will press forward with life as I struggle to understand how God fits into the every day of life and namely, where He specifically is in mine.
Walking the path of orthodox Christianity is not easy. Yet somehow, every day this is what I inadvertently choose.
I am either a damned fool or bloody brilliant.
All my plans fell through my hands,
They fell through my hands.
All my dreams,
It suddenly seems,
It suddenly seems…
Empty.
I’m facing a ton of decisions right now, and I feel like my head’s about to burst. Instead of rambling, I’ll let Brandon Heath succinctly sing things out. Click on the image below.
I have a confession to make: I didn’t know about The Beatles until I was in 5th grade.
I grew up with Paul McCartney and was obsessed with his (at the time, vinyl) album All the Best, so I was rather familiar with Paul, Linda, and Wings. I’d also grown up listening to Beatles songs on the Lite FM station but I’d never actually paid attention to who they were. But I would know Paul if I heard him.
One day as I’m talking about my obsession with Paul McCartney and his music, a classmate looks at me funny and says sarcastically, “Um, you do know he was part of a huge band called The Beatles, right?”
That revelation changed my life. Continue reading “The Beatles in My Life (I Love Them More)”
One of the fondest memories of my teenage years was attending Lilith Fair.
At Jones Beach, NY about 12 years ago, I attended the festival in celebration of women in music. Lilith Fair couldn’t have been timed any better. At this time in 1998, women like Brandy, Madonna, Sarah McLachlan, Mariah Carey, and Shania Twain dominated the charts. Alternative and folksy female artists like Paula Cole, Shawn Colvin, Jewel, and Alanis Morissette also proved to be a powerhouse during this time paving the way for more current artists like Colbie Caillat, Sara Bareilles, and Michelle Branch. At the fair, I had the privilege of discovering artists like Antigone Rising, Sixpence None The Richer, and Heather Nova.
But perhaps the time of women wearing Birkenstocks and bopping to 4 Non Blondes has come and gone.
Amid a poor economic climate and struggling sales, Lilith Fair was forced to cancel the last leg of its tour and other poorly selling dates. Some media outlets are reporting that the tour is suffering from “embarrassingly low attendance.” Names like Norah Jones, Kelly Clarkson, The Go-Gos, Mary J. Blige, Rihanna, Sheryl Crow proved to be an initial draw but many of those artists were only performing in select regions and have since dropped out due to various reasons (in the case of Jones, Clarkson, The Go-Gos, and Rihanna). While it’s not unusual for acts to drop out of a tour this massive, it’s unfortunate many of them had to be some of the bigger names.
At this time, the pop music charts are dominated mostly by men and of the three women currently there (Katy Perry, Ke$ha, and Lady Gaga), only one was originally booked to perform at Lilith (Ke$ha) — and even she was relegated to being a supporting act instead of a main headliner.
The appeal of Lilith Fair has always been discovering some of the smaller, lesser-known acts while being able to connect with familiar favorites. When familiar favorites aren’t available, the smaller acts suffer as well. So what does Lilith Fair need to revamp in the hopes of continuing this next year?
1. Obtain several current, big names for each city.
Sure, Sarah McLachlan is considered a big name , performs in each city, and is the largest reason people attend the tour, but let’s face it: Ms. McLachlan hasn’t had a Top 10 hit since Lilith Fair ended in the last decade. When people pay money for multiple acts, they want to see several acts they’re interested in. Booking artists like Katy Perry, Carrie Underwood, Lady Gaga, Lady Antebellum, or Miley Cyrus would draw in a mix of old and young, generating significant sales and, in turn, revenue. Upon the initial Lilith Fair lineup announcement, I was disappointed to discover that Sheryl Crow was only performing in Northwest America (Canada and US), Rihanna and Ke$ha were relegated to Salt Lake City, and Mary J. Blige was doing a Midwest circuit. The biggest name for the Philly area (apart from Ms. McLachlan) was Kelly Clarkson. For the NYC area (one of the largest music markets), no one on the lineup has a current Top 10 hit. That needs to be rectified for Lilith Fair to be successful next year.
2. Keep up with the diversity.
I’ll give Lilith Fair credit — it’s done an amazing job of getting acts spanning all races for the 2010 reboot and it needs to do it again. My only complaint from the original Lilith Fair was the lack of diversity in the lineup. Like Jessica Herman said in Slate’s “Why Do We Need Lilith Fair Anymore?”, the festival indeed felt like “a bunch of white chicks strumming their acoustic guitars.” For Lilith 2011, I’d like to see acts that draw a multiracial audience rather than just mostly white women. Lilith needs to continue reflecting the changing landscape among women in North America.
3. Make itself relevant again.
Possibly a restatement of #1 above but Lilith Fair in the 90s had the mission of breaking down barriers for women in music. In Sarah’s absence, women have indeed proven they can do just that. Twelve years later, the mission statement can’t be the same and the big draws of the 90s (eg, Indigo Girls, Suzanne Vega) can’t continue to be relied upon now. What’s Lilith’s goal now? Simply celebrating female talent? Honoring legends and showcasing future acts? Whatever it is, Lilith needs to find its footing and make that clear.
2010 has proven to be a difficult concert sales climate with everyone from the Jonas Brothers to The Eagles cancelling shows. Perhaps Lilith Fair is simply a victim of a struggling music industry. But if it hopes to remain around next year, organizer McLachlan will have some serious tinkering to do.
A ramble/rant/possible form of incoherence.
I am trying to reconcile who I am with who God wants me to be as a married woman living in the Philadelphia area. More than that, I think, I struggle with trying to reconcile who I am with what I think Christianity expects or wants me to be.
I’ve written before about how I see differences between myself and other women. I am currently struggling with my role as a Christian woman within the church. I’m 28, married, and currently childless. I’m a minority at my church. Moreover, I’m suddenly starting to feel like a minority in my phase of life. I am having a difficult time accepting that I’m in the stage of life where many of my friends are married and having children and parenthood is not a place God has called me to yet.
I am also struggling with the idea of a glass ceiling in the church: how much can women serve and is that glass ceiling really ordained by God or by power-hungry, chauvinistic men hanging onto an archaic rule that served its purpose for that time and that culture? (My husband warned me that I sound all Brian McLaren with those thoughts, but I happen to think he’s a little biased considering he’s a guy and all.)
I spent the day crying (partially about what I don’t have but also) about what I like: social media; reformed theology; discussing mental health issues; writing fiction; blogging about topics that don’t include fashion, kids, or TV shows; pop music; and going to concerts. I am grieved by the superficial — apart from my faith, I share very little in common with the women of my church.
I whine about the days when I used to be able to call up a buddy and say, “Hey, want to go to a concert with me?” and she’d say, “Sure! Time and date, please!” and we’d just go. Perhaps it’s because I don’t have children that I still feel that kind of freedom. But even if I did, I’d hope that I’d still be able to go. (I attend concerts once or twice a year.)
I feel the need to live two different lives: a life with Christians where I act all Christian and do whatever Christian people do and a life with non-Christians where we share similar interests but nothing that unites as deeply as spiritual things do. Is it wrong for me to want the two worlds to collide? To want the crazy friend who dyes her hair pink and purple, loves music, literature, and Jesus just as much as I do (if not more), and would go to Hershey with me to see Justin Bieber? To want that friend who can say, “You wanna hang out on Saturday and find a place in Philly where a local band is playing?” or “I’m in a really dark place right now in my life. Could you come over, talk, and pray with me?” Perhaps it’s never too late to develop imaginary friends. Or, slightly less creepy, put an ad up on the Philadelphia craigslist. (Maybe imaginary friends are safer, though. Hmm…)
I have friends all over the United States who I connect with on different levels, but in suburban Philadelphia, an area I’ll likely call home for the rest of my life, I still feel lost. I still see myself as the freak loser even though I’ve never gone to school here and have never had anyone tease me here. I have lots of local friends, but when I’m depressed, upset, and hurting, I don’t have that “one” friend I feel comfortable calling. Mostly because I know they’ve all got their kids and their husbands, and hence their busy lives that have little room or space for me.
I keep wondering how to rectify the situation. How to find my crazy Christian friend who loves Jesus, loves pop music, lives within 20 minutes, and can educate me on the greatness of Proust and Faulkner.
Or maybe I’ll just stick to this solitary life of writing novels and keeping hoping and wishing that I had different so I didn’t feel so immature, so isolated, and so alone.
How is a Christian woman supposed to act? In the novel I’m currently working on, my protagonist gets a brief lesson on being a Titus 2/Proverbs 31 (Biblical) woman. I’m feeling about as flummoxed as my character. The Biblical woman is ever working, ever busy, ever faithful, ever diligent. Striving to be like the woman the Bible outlines is striving for perfection — a goal I’ll surely never attain. Why bother at all?
I struggle with ambition. I am an ambitious woman. I don’t know what I want to do but I want to do something. But all I can do is write. There’s not much of a need for that in my local church.
I could go on and on but the rest of my thoughts are a jumble, I’m feeling tired and depressed again about how I’m doomed to live with a 16-year-old mentality in a 28-year-old body and a New York mentality in suburban Philadelphia, and how I have no kids and probably too much time on my hands. I need to get involved in something in which I can utilize my talents regularly but I’m not sure what.
*Justin Bieber
**John Piper
“To lead a better life, I need my love to be here.”
I have a bunch of things I feel like writing about but they’re not topically related so here’s my mishmashed post.
Music.
I am enjoying listening to Danger Mouse’s new group, The Broken Bells. Hat tip to Derek Webb on that one.
Theology.
Up on The Resurgence blog this week:
Question 74 – Should infants, too, be baptized?
Answer – Yes. Infants as well as adults belong to God’s covenant and congregation. (Gen. 17:7; Matt. 19:14) Through Christ’s blood the redemption from sin and the Holy Spirit, who works faith, are promised to them no less than to adults. (Ps. 22:11; Is. 44:1-3; Acts 2:38, 39; 16:31) Therefore, by baptism, as sign of the covenant, they must be grafted into the Christian church and distinguished from the children of unbelievers. (Acts 10:47; I Cor. 7:14) This was done in the old covenant by circumcision (Gen. 17:9-14), in place of which baptism was instituted in the new covenant. (Col. 2: 11-13)
I seriously struggle with the idea of infant baptism also known as paedobaptism. I am a member of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) and appreciate that I do not need to agree with the concept of paedobaptism to be a member of the covenant community. I’m not even fully convinced that I hold to covenant theology but that’s too broad of a matter to tackle within the subject of paedobaptism.
The best case I’ve seen for infant baptism has been presented by Greg Bahnsen here. But again, it’s not that I’m not open to viewing infant baptism as scriptural or that I am adamantly opposed to it per se but I find that there is a clearer Biblical case for believer’s (or as some have called it, “professor’s”) baptism.
Perhaps, however, if I fully subscribed to covenant theology and saw baptism as a replacement for circumcision, then infant baptism would make logical sense. As a Christian who previously subscribed to dispensational theology, the jump to covenant theology is not easy. (Here’s a chart for a comparison between the two. However, I did stumble upon this, and from a quick glance, it would seem like I agree more with New Covenant Theology.)
Scripture.
Relevant Magazine had an article on the most misused verse in the Bible:
Jeremiah 29:11 that says, “‘For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.”
I thought the article had great insight, especially given that as humans, we have a tendency to look at God as a vending machine: pop our prayer request in the coin slot and wait for our requested result. The author expounds on the context surrounding this oft-quoted verse which shows this verse is not telling readers that God will give us whatever we desire.
Stay-at-home dads.
Matthew Paul Turner at JesusNeedsNewPR tweeted a link to Nicole Wick’s post about Mark Driscoll who bashed stay-at-home dads.
The video is a little old but I was surprised to hear this view from Driscoll given the fact that I usually agree with him. The fact that he was only willing to make “rare exceptions” for men to stay at home to take care of the family was rather appalling to me. In this economic climate and culture, it’s possible for wives to have a better-paying and steadier job than their husbands. In that case, the right way for a husband and father to provide for his family is to let his wife bring in the necessary income for them so that he can be at home rearing the children. (We are assuming in this scenario that the parents have decided they will live off of one income so that one of the parents can be home to raise the children.) An ideal situation would be for a mom to be at home with her children (should she choose to do so) but that is not always the case and I don’t believe that it must always be the case. Driscoll is way off the mark here.
Miscellaneous.
I think there’s more a-brewin’ in my head but the words are all jumbled and I can’t get them out coherently. Some other things going on:
I’ll begin editing on my novel soon so that will be quite a challenge. (See hard copy mess in right photo.)Perhaps you didn’t care to know all that but it made me feel better to type it out.
I’m not writing a book review on Hear No Evil because I wasn’t planning on it. But as I read through Matthew Paul Turner’s book, I wanted to offer a few thoughts. (Thanks to Jezamama for sending the book to me after winning her book giveaway contest!) I found some choice quotes that seemed especially insightful to me:
“The odd thing about Christians pursuing fame is that they do it while pretending not to be interested in fame. Their goal, most say, is not to bring fame and fortune to themselves. Their only interest is to make Jesus known. But in the process of making Jesus better known than he already is, a lot of Christian musicians find fame and fortune for themselves too.”
This thought gets to the heart of two main things about Christians:
Turner does an especially great job at illustrating this through his encounter with Jeff and Jack. (Btw, the section where he describes meeting Poppa Gladstone and going to his concert was HILARIOUS to me.)
Another quote that jumped out at me:
“I liked being Calvinist because it made me feel controversial and edgy to believe something different than what my parents believed. … I think that’s why people like Josiah and me sometimes turned into Calvinists. We could be passive-aggressive toward our parents and our past lives without being considered unchristian. Reformed doctrine offered a different way to think about God. And sometimes different, even when it really isn’t that different, is all we need to make us feel alive, creative, and in control of our own destiny.”
I’m part of a Christian message board in which the Calvinism vs. Arminianism debate is as worn out as a pair of sandals on a Middle Easterner. But a recent debate I engaged in questioned whether young people adopt Calvinism to buck responsibility. Turner sums the adoption of Calvinistic thought among young adults much better than I could have ever thought to put it.
Overall, I found Hear No Evil to be a humorous and an amazingly well-written book.
I didn’t grow up Independent Fundamental Baptist (IFB) but it is amazing how I was able to relate to many of Turner’s anecdotes despite my short stint in that realm in young adulthood. In a way, Hear No Evil is really Chicken Soup for the Recovering Independent Fundamental Baptist’s Music Soul. Turner’s book on his general IFB experience, Churched, is on my must-read list now. You can connect with Turner on his blog at http://jesusneedsnewpr.blogspot.com or through Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/jesusneedsnewpr.
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Apologies for not providing page numbers for the quotes. I’m already shipping the book off to a friend who lost a contest to win the book. This book is too good to keep to myself.
This is cheesy awesomeness. It cheers me up for some crazy reason. Dedicated to my friend Rachael. 🙂 ZAP!
I love OneRepublic. I loved their debut album and I love their new single. I’m excited for their sophomore release on November 17. And I also love their video. Apparently, I’m full of love for OneRepublic. I’m also ridiculously pathetic because I’ve been listening to this song on repeat on Grooveshark all day. I finally caved an hour ago and bought the single off of iTunes.
Vodpod videos no longer available.
I absolutely love Beatles music and I enjoy Beatles Rock Band just as much. (Okay, maybe singing “Helter Skelter” sucks.) Beatles Rock Band sets are divided up into chapters in chronological order. Watching these little intro snippets always fill me with delight and wonder for no particular reason other than the fact that I enjoy seeing the Beatles every chance I get.
Vodpod videos no longer available. Vodpod videos no longer available. Vodpod videos no longer available. Vodpod videos no longer available. Vodpod videos no longer available. Vodpod videos no longer available. Vodpod videos no longer available. Vodpod videos no longer available.I’m a writer. Have been since I was 6 years old. And no, I don’t mean that I’ve been writing since I was 6. I wrote my first book when I was 6, complete with a beginning, a middle, and an end. I sent it off for a publishing contest and it was rejected. But that was only the beginning.
So fast forward 21 years later and I find myself sitting at my computer desk, sifting through looseleaf and printed computer pages trying to find a story idea for NaNoWriMo—an event I spend an entire year anticipating. On one side of looseleaf, I discover a list of names that belong to a high school series story that’s been brewing in my head since sixth grade. On the other side I discover…
… a list of the Top 20 Most Requested Lite Songs for 1996. (I’m assuming I was listening to New York’s 106.7 Lite FM at the time.) So here it is, for your useless amusement and casual curiosity. The bolded ones were indicated as my favorites at the time.
20. Have I Told You Lately?: Rod Stewart
19. The Lady in Red: Chris DeBurgh
18. Grow Old With Me: Mary Chapin Carpenter (originally written by John Lennon)
17. Take Forever Tonight: Crystal Bernard & Peter Cetera
16. One Sweet Day: Mariah Carey & Boyz II Men
15. I Swear: All-4-One
14. Unchained Melody: Righteous Brotheres
13. Beautiful in My Eyes: Joshua Kadison
12. Open Arms: Journey
11. Wind Beneath My Wings: Bette Midler
10. Can’t We Try?: Yvonda Shephard & Dan Hill
9. That’s What Friends Are For: Dionne Warwick & Friends
8. I Could Fall in Love: Selena
7. You’re the Inspiration: Chicago
6. Everything I Do (I Do It For You): Bryan Adams
5. I Will Always Love You: Whitney Houston
4. Endless Love: Lionel Richie & Diana Ross
3. Always and Forever: Heatwave
2. Because You Loved Me: Celine Dion
1. If You Say My Eyes Are Beautiful: Jermaine Jackson & Whitney Houston
Let it be known I can’t stand “Wind Beneath My Wings” at all anymore.
Perhaps someone will stumble upon this post wondering what the popular songs of 1996 were. Well, hope this satiated your dying curiosity. As for the list of names on the other side of that looseleaf, perhaps you’ll find them in a published book one day.
This Journey Is My Own 