the Lord is my God,
and he hears my cries.
he is faithfull and will
rescue me from my
present troubles.
for i am reborn
into glory
and life eternal
with the Lord
my God.
Saturday, 25 June 2011
Thursday, 23 June 2011
Presence
Hmm another post about christianity, this blog wasn't supposed to be about this.
It's always a dangerous thing when an artist starts talking about theology, like we're not trained for this... leave God thoughts for the professionally trained and I'll go back to the watercolours...
Partly this is lots of stuff going around in my head and brought on by my friend JL's fantastic blog. JL is a great guy, actually he's not he's a Great Guy. And he's in the states at the moment.
More specifically he's at the current fashionable church of Bethel CA. doing worship type stuff (I think, he did tell me).
Bethel is a church that is doing great stuff, and my sarcasm about it is more my dislike of christian celebrity than anything else. But thats possibly a different blog.
Bethel more than anything seems to emphasise the 'presence of God' as a strength. This isn't a bad thing, and in my own church this emphisis learned from Bethel has seen some awesome things happen.
The idea follows- God loves you, he really does and wants to spend time with you. He really does love you and has good things for you (insert gifts or something here) and he wants all of you. He moves in the supernatural in your life, and more than that 'is your dad' with all the good stuff of a good daddy. Or the image is you are royalty etc etc etc.
And this is good and thinking about it it IS good.
God does want (demand) our all
Anything that seeks more of the spirit is good.
The idea of a heavenly father being our father is a good one.
But something about it sits uneasily with me somewhere, something that among the good stuff makes me hesitate- and this may just be me.
Like the fella who came to spoke at my church (influenced by bethel) who spoke about a 'fire tunnel' - now if you're going to pray for LOTS of people as a church, and seek to raise expectations of the spirit moving a prayer/fire tunnel is a pretty good way of doing that. But this fella spoke for ten min about a FIRE TUNNEL! (yes he pronounced capitals) and how he had a special annointing for this thing, it was only later someone described what the thing was.
Fire tunnel sans capital letters is pretty good way of praying for folk, but this purveying idea of personal anointing seems strange to me.
Like David was anointed to be king right, but kept quiet and ended up hiding in caves and the like before he saw his anointing. Reading through MArk with Katie at the moment, Jesus, the anointed son of God seems to spend half the book telling people and demons not to tell who he is. Not to boast about the anointing he has.
And this is the thing that makes me feel slightly hesitant. Why is it so personal, why is it so about me?
God does desire a relationship with me yes. But it's not about me is it? As part of my gaining that realtionship there was a sense I gave up myself- there's joy grace and so much freedom there. But in a different way than I hear from north california.
God does have so many gifts for me, more than i can measure. But part of me thinks that they are given for the building up of the body, so not just for me.
God is my dad, my father and that closeness is amazing. But there is also a sense he is the creator of the world and lord of all. I don't disagree with the focus on the fatherhood of God, it's brilliant. But the lion and the lamb lie down together. Lambs are more cuddly, but the Glory of God, lies in the paradox of both together.
The Glory of the most high coming down to be our saviour and our servant, while at the same time being no less God.
I think, and this is my vague theology coming inarticulately to the fore here: That God is God, and God's love brings more Glory on himself.
I'm not sure that God can exist with the aim to love us. That puts us at the focus again. But by his love for us he gains more Glory.
Put it anotherway- God doesn't need our worship one bit. God has no need to love us. But he does, and marvels at his Glory- for his own sake. And it is a Glory that we can't approach on our own.
In the song 'amazing grace' it is Grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fear relieves.They are both there. The lion and the lamb.
I'm not sure this life is all about me. I hope not, it would be a bit boring if it were. And God, my father, dad, loves me so much. How greatfull am I? I am filled by his spirit and see him moving in my generation. But forgive me if I keep going back on my knees, kneeling before the most high God, covered in blood spilt for me, trembling and fearfull, fearless and loved.
The lion and the lamb.
It's always a dangerous thing when an artist starts talking about theology, like we're not trained for this... leave God thoughts for the professionally trained and I'll go back to the watercolours...
Partly this is lots of stuff going around in my head and brought on by my friend JL's fantastic blog. JL is a great guy, actually he's not he's a Great Guy. And he's in the states at the moment.
More specifically he's at the current fashionable church of Bethel CA. doing worship type stuff (I think, he did tell me).
Bethel is a church that is doing great stuff, and my sarcasm about it is more my dislike of christian celebrity than anything else. But thats possibly a different blog.
Bethel more than anything seems to emphasise the 'presence of God' as a strength. This isn't a bad thing, and in my own church this emphisis learned from Bethel has seen some awesome things happen.
The idea follows- God loves you, he really does and wants to spend time with you. He really does love you and has good things for you (insert gifts or something here) and he wants all of you. He moves in the supernatural in your life, and more than that 'is your dad' with all the good stuff of a good daddy. Or the image is you are royalty etc etc etc.
And this is good and thinking about it it IS good.
God does want (demand) our all
Anything that seeks more of the spirit is good.
The idea of a heavenly father being our father is a good one.
But something about it sits uneasily with me somewhere, something that among the good stuff makes me hesitate- and this may just be me.
Like the fella who came to spoke at my church (influenced by bethel) who spoke about a 'fire tunnel' - now if you're going to pray for LOTS of people as a church, and seek to raise expectations of the spirit moving a prayer/fire tunnel is a pretty good way of doing that. But this fella spoke for ten min about a FIRE TUNNEL! (yes he pronounced capitals) and how he had a special annointing for this thing, it was only later someone described what the thing was.
Fire tunnel sans capital letters is pretty good way of praying for folk, but this purveying idea of personal anointing seems strange to me.
Like David was anointed to be king right, but kept quiet and ended up hiding in caves and the like before he saw his anointing. Reading through MArk with Katie at the moment, Jesus, the anointed son of God seems to spend half the book telling people and demons not to tell who he is. Not to boast about the anointing he has.
And this is the thing that makes me feel slightly hesitant. Why is it so personal, why is it so about me?
God does desire a relationship with me yes. But it's not about me is it? As part of my gaining that realtionship there was a sense I gave up myself- there's joy grace and so much freedom there. But in a different way than I hear from north california.
God does have so many gifts for me, more than i can measure. But part of me thinks that they are given for the building up of the body, so not just for me.
God is my dad, my father and that closeness is amazing. But there is also a sense he is the creator of the world and lord of all. I don't disagree with the focus on the fatherhood of God, it's brilliant. But the lion and the lamb lie down together. Lambs are more cuddly, but the Glory of God, lies in the paradox of both together.
The Glory of the most high coming down to be our saviour and our servant, while at the same time being no less God.
I think, and this is my vague theology coming inarticulately to the fore here: That God is God, and God's love brings more Glory on himself.
I'm not sure that God can exist with the aim to love us. That puts us at the focus again. But by his love for us he gains more Glory.
Put it anotherway- God doesn't need our worship one bit. God has no need to love us. But he does, and marvels at his Glory- for his own sake. And it is a Glory that we can't approach on our own.
In the song 'amazing grace' it is Grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fear relieves.They are both there. The lion and the lamb.
I'm not sure this life is all about me. I hope not, it would be a bit boring if it were. And God, my father, dad, loves me so much. How greatfull am I? I am filled by his spirit and see him moving in my generation. But forgive me if I keep going back on my knees, kneeling before the most high God, covered in blood spilt for me, trembling and fearfull, fearless and loved.
The lion and the lamb.
Wednesday, 1 June 2011
Originality
The second blog, it struck me I should possibly write another but had nothing to write about till just now.
I'm a fan of the idea that if you have nothing to say then verbal diarrhea is utterly pointless. I would extend this to art and music too lyrics, how many technically great artist's degree shows have you seen which are let down by the fact that the artist has nothing to say. Or maybe nothing interesting- the same rehashes of ideas and themes played out in the previous 20 years of contemporary art history (up to the point their tutors started tutoring in many cases) without any originality.
It's accepted as acceptable art as it can be understood in the frame work and history of art critique.
There's a lot further I could develop this train of thought, but I want to switch to something else, christian worship songs, or christian music.
I play bass and have played quite a lot in church worship bands, in fact I really honed my skills on the bass on sunday mornings. But so many songs are the same Cmaj, Dmaj and Gmaj chords in slightly different orders - if you are feeling contemporary then you can throw in the daring Emin, but so much of worship music seems based on those chords with the crutch of the capo thrown in to make it sound different.
No not all christian worship songs, and no actually I don't think it's a bad thing totally. But as an Artist there seems to be a weird gap between a supremely creative God and a formulaic style of worship music.
But while I can understand that actually if you are wanting to write songs to be played by christians accross the world simple chords and structure in a 4/4 structure may be easier, it's kinda the lowest common denominator approach- my small group lacks to ability to perform Handel's Messiah but we can do that Matt Redman song; but I don't quite understand the utter adherence to the same lyrical content.
The free church of Scotland don't allow instruments in their worship, the songs sung a cappella are the psalms in meter. No instruments as it would destract and no other words than that of David et al.
I've been to a few free church services and something about the beauty of the music and the sparse protestant logic of their position I like and can understand, and is a thousand times preferable to dreary slow badly played organ music.
But if we don't follow this school of thought and have instruments song writers also seem to keep themselves stuck in the bible and the psalms. This is by no means a bad thing, it keeps everything on the sam page, and maybe in the absence of liturgy helps define things in a safe way.
Songs full of bible verses and trying to communicate something of that are also infinitely more appealing than the current crop of (mostly american) Jesus is my boyfriend type songs,
"I love you yeah,
and your presence I love,
you're with me right here and now,
and I really love it. "
or something like that, which although I don't have a problem with using in worship lack any kind of subject or description. I know who I think the 'you' is in the song, the person next to me may have a different idea and the person who has never been to church before has no clue.
And then you get other types of 'christian' song. One of the best I've heard in the last few years was written as a guy struggled with his response to the death of a friend. (8 years later or so it becomes better known and they make a fancy video)
Now we sung this a few years ago at our student weekend away, it was great- this whole complex of our relationship with God, and someone grasping, to the extent our language can, to describe that. Then we took it back to sunday mornings- and the similarly of "love like a hurricane, I am a tree, bending beneath the weight of his..." was too much for people. It's a similarly- you are not actually singing that you have leaves and branches, but some people couldn't come with it.
Why? I don't know. Thirsty deers are ok but trees not on a sunday morning. Even 'the wind in my sails' is acceptable. I mean visually I look more like a tree than a bit of canvas.
But thats not the point, I guess the songs we sing help form the collective theology we have as a group, our understanding of things and I don't think we should be afraid of new ways of trying to say that using the full breath of language we have, and creatively describing our life, including our religion, is a good things for christians who opperate in the arts.
I'm a fan of the idea that if you have nothing to say then verbal diarrhea is utterly pointless. I would extend this to art and music too lyrics, how many technically great artist's degree shows have you seen which are let down by the fact that the artist has nothing to say. Or maybe nothing interesting- the same rehashes of ideas and themes played out in the previous 20 years of contemporary art history (up to the point their tutors started tutoring in many cases) without any originality.
It's accepted as acceptable art as it can be understood in the frame work and history of art critique.
There's a lot further I could develop this train of thought, but I want to switch to something else, christian worship songs, or christian music.
I play bass and have played quite a lot in church worship bands, in fact I really honed my skills on the bass on sunday mornings. But so many songs are the same Cmaj, Dmaj and Gmaj chords in slightly different orders - if you are feeling contemporary then you can throw in the daring Emin, but so much of worship music seems based on those chords with the crutch of the capo thrown in to make it sound different.
No not all christian worship songs, and no actually I don't think it's a bad thing totally. But as an Artist there seems to be a weird gap between a supremely creative God and a formulaic style of worship music.
But while I can understand that actually if you are wanting to write songs to be played by christians accross the world simple chords and structure in a 4/4 structure may be easier, it's kinda the lowest common denominator approach- my small group lacks to ability to perform Handel's Messiah but we can do that Matt Redman song; but I don't quite understand the utter adherence to the same lyrical content.
The free church of Scotland don't allow instruments in their worship, the songs sung a cappella are the psalms in meter. No instruments as it would destract and no other words than that of David et al.
I've been to a few free church services and something about the beauty of the music and the sparse protestant logic of their position I like and can understand, and is a thousand times preferable to dreary slow badly played organ music.
But if we don't follow this school of thought and have instruments song writers also seem to keep themselves stuck in the bible and the psalms. This is by no means a bad thing, it keeps everything on the sam page, and maybe in the absence of liturgy helps define things in a safe way.
Songs full of bible verses and trying to communicate something of that are also infinitely more appealing than the current crop of (mostly american) Jesus is my boyfriend type songs,
"I love you yeah,
and your presence I love,
you're with me right here and now,
and I really love it. "
or something like that, which although I don't have a problem with using in worship lack any kind of subject or description. I know who I think the 'you' is in the song, the person next to me may have a different idea and the person who has never been to church before has no clue.
And then you get other types of 'christian' song. One of the best I've heard in the last few years was written as a guy struggled with his response to the death of a friend. (8 years later or so it becomes better known and they make a fancy video)
Now we sung this a few years ago at our student weekend away, it was great- this whole complex of our relationship with God, and someone grasping, to the extent our language can, to describe that. Then we took it back to sunday mornings- and the similarly of "love like a hurricane, I am a tree, bending beneath the weight of his..." was too much for people. It's a similarly- you are not actually singing that you have leaves and branches, but some people couldn't come with it.
Why? I don't know. Thirsty deers are ok but trees not on a sunday morning. Even 'the wind in my sails' is acceptable. I mean visually I look more like a tree than a bit of canvas.
But thats not the point, I guess the songs we sing help form the collective theology we have as a group, our understanding of things and I don't think we should be afraid of new ways of trying to say that using the full breath of language we have, and creatively describing our life, including our religion, is a good things for christians who opperate in the arts.
Friday, 20 May 2011
A while back I was sat with Harry and Alan and went on a wee rant about something. It was lucid enough, and I guess held enough interest to lead Alan to ask "Do you Blog? you should".
Blogging is a strange thing, a public soapbox, to be read by who? One person? many? Who is the audience? Why do people (and now me) do it?
I read somewhere a theory that everything we say or communicate is purely to change someone else's opinion of ourselves. I don't think that is the intention here, but if you do read my words and come out with an opinion of the charming, insightful intelligent attractive young man writing, please don't let me correct you!
Alan blogs himself http://www.alanpharrison.com and talks about all sort of theological stuff and sticks his preaches up there too. He describes himself in his latest blog as a Christian Bible Teacher- there's a lot of capital letters there.
My flatmate also has two blogs on the go, in one he talks about his year working for the church, and in another he writes a poem every day of the year, I don't pretend to have read many of the poems but don't tell him I said that.
Also with multiple blogs my friend Luke Daviditus has one on which is like snippits of stuff he's been researching for his day job of being an uber-preacher and the other a well read series of insights and stuff. Luke is a proper writer so his brilliant and well thought out posts make sense and are interesting, a result of his many years of life- the five word summeries of each world cup match were dull and possibly showed more pre-marriage frustration, but his relationship advice posts have helped a generation of young christians. Hopefully when his busy wife has enough time to help him they will write a book on that subject.
And last in the list my girlfriend's monthly updated blog of her time in berlin, she is a great photographer and always has photos with each post. I may try to do that but I am not as talented or inspired as her with the camera so don't hold your breath.
Which I guess leads on to what this blog is about, what purpose it serves, or if I will just forget to post anything and this will just sit in the ether of the net for decades.
Probably it will be something about me, about the things that make me tick, music, art, God and everything in between.
'Between the city and the sea' was a term I used a lot in my artwork a few years back, and I used in the lyrics to a song by my old band. It spoke of the business of the city, the claustrophobic full of people and noise and smells and cruelty and isolation, and the empty beauty of the sea, the aloneness and smallness of humanity when next to the sea. I guess being born and raised in Essex I feel at home in the vast flatness, but I used it as an an escapist term, that neither will satisfy but 'home' is somewhere inbetween.
I guess I've changed a bit from then. The quest for a 'home' that was born from frustration and existed as a static place is in itself unexciting.
If you did find that place you would grow bored and it would seem dull, and if you seek for this imaginary place and don't find it then you yourself will grow dull.
Adventures are far more exciting, one day I'll be called home, but not yet. And untill that time there will be adventures and excitement, still someplace between the city and the sea.
If I remember to keep writing, this might be the journal of the adventures.
Blogging is a strange thing, a public soapbox, to be read by who? One person? many? Who is the audience? Why do people (and now me) do it?
I read somewhere a theory that everything we say or communicate is purely to change someone else's opinion of ourselves. I don't think that is the intention here, but if you do read my words and come out with an opinion of the charming, insightful intelligent attractive young man writing, please don't let me correct you!
Alan blogs himself http://www.alanpharrison.com and talks about all sort of theological stuff and sticks his preaches up there too. He describes himself in his latest blog as a Christian Bible Teacher- there's a lot of capital letters there.
My flatmate also has two blogs on the go, in one he talks about his year working for the church, and in another he writes a poem every day of the year, I don't pretend to have read many of the poems but don't tell him I said that.
Also with multiple blogs my friend Luke Daviditus has one on which is like snippits of stuff he's been researching for his day job of being an uber-preacher and the other a well read series of insights and stuff. Luke is a proper writer so his brilliant and well thought out posts make sense and are interesting, a result of his many years of life- the five word summeries of each world cup match were dull and possibly showed more pre-marriage frustration, but his relationship advice posts have helped a generation of young christians. Hopefully when his busy wife has enough time to help him they will write a book on that subject.
And last in the list my girlfriend's monthly updated blog of her time in berlin, she is a great photographer and always has photos with each post. I may try to do that but I am not as talented or inspired as her with the camera so don't hold your breath.
Which I guess leads on to what this blog is about, what purpose it serves, or if I will just forget to post anything and this will just sit in the ether of the net for decades.
Probably it will be something about me, about the things that make me tick, music, art, God and everything in between.
'Between the city and the sea' was a term I used a lot in my artwork a few years back, and I used in the lyrics to a song by my old band. It spoke of the business of the city, the claustrophobic full of people and noise and smells and cruelty and isolation, and the empty beauty of the sea, the aloneness and smallness of humanity when next to the sea. I guess being born and raised in Essex I feel at home in the vast flatness, but I used it as an an escapist term, that neither will satisfy but 'home' is somewhere inbetween.
I guess I've changed a bit from then. The quest for a 'home' that was born from frustration and existed as a static place is in itself unexciting.
If you did find that place you would grow bored and it would seem dull, and if you seek for this imaginary place and don't find it then you yourself will grow dull.
Adventures are far more exciting, one day I'll be called home, but not yet. And untill that time there will be adventures and excitement, still someplace between the city and the sea.
If I remember to keep writing, this might be the journal of the adventures.
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