Peeing Before the Throne of Grace

Wee toddlers,
standing before the great white throne,
swords drawn,
prepared to fulfill their God-given purpose.

We unskilled swordsmen
dream of an aim, someday true.
But now we are jealous
of the three year old
who leaves only a drip or two
on the snow white seat;
while we stand in puddles
–evidence of a stream of failure.

Right now and Later Reasons

There are right now reasons and later reasons.

Right now reasons are things like, because I'm tired, or hungry, or I have a concert tomorrow. Right now reasons put out fires.

Later reasons are things like, because I want to be a good writer, a great guitarist, or someone who might resemble Jesus someday.

It's hard at first to think about later reasons, because the payoff is severely delayed; but as I go back and explore things I wrote before Myspace was popular, I see the distance I've travelled on the never ending road to excellence. 

One of the hardest parts of my job as a guitar teacher is convincing people that great musicians are who they are today because they are people motivated by later reasons. Whereas the typical problem for my students is that the early stages of practice are simply going to be boring. Someday I'll figure out how to make it more fun than Halo, but for now it's just going to have to take self-discipline and vision.

To quote a teacher that I really never liked that much, "When God makes a squash he takes eight weeks, when he makes an oak tree he takes a hundred years."

My Review of Blue Like Jazz

I made the drive to Indy last week to catch opening night with a friend. Which, as it turns out, was well worth the ticket price, let alone the cost of gas to get there and back. The short of it is, I highly recommend BLJ.... sort of. In other words, that would be two reserved thumbs ecstatically up. What?

The movie was everything I'd hoped for. I was actually a bit nervous when it started because I've spent the last three years hyping myself up over this thing. When the opening credits started rolling a veil came off and I finally realized what I had done. For better or worse, I had very high expectations, and the feeling no movie could meet them. I was dead wrong.

Blue Like Jazz was honest, thoughtful, creatively portrayed, and for any genre of movie (let alone an indie film, or even worse a Christian film) had fantastic acting. To be honest one or two of the scenes were slightly forced, but even those were probably only noticeable because my radar for such things was operating at full power. By movie's end, my friend and I had to just sit there and think for a while. We were talking about it for several hours afterward.

The basic plot revolves around a Baptist kid from Texas who skips town when he finds his mother is having an affair with a youth pastor. The fictional Don Miller ends up on the campus of Reed college in Portland (which is self described as the most godless place in America). Don, on the advice of his first friend at Reed, a lesbian, ditches his faith in favor of a better fitting cynicism about everything religious. At one point he even pulls a prank with one of his classmates, putting a giant condom on a steeple of a local church.

As far as the point of the story? It's hard saying. It said a lot, but not in a heavy handed way. It was a lot more like a poem; you read it thirty times and get different angles with each reading, depending on where you're at that day. If you're expecting a "Christian" movie with a clearly stated moral at the end, this one isn't for you. It seems like Steve Taylor and Donald Miller have more faith in their audiences intelligence than to spoon feed them the message. If you see the movie, a gang of meaning will probably jump you in an alley on your way hope.

I thought the movie was fantastic. Five stars. Two thumbs up. But I'm hesitant about recommending it to everyone.

The movie isn't polite. It's trying to accurately represent life on the most godless college campus in America, and from what I heard even BLJ pulled punches to get underneath an R rating (which it only missed by a half syllable). There is plenty of swearing, flamboyant men in diapers making a marching band, and plenty of innuendo. At one point the youth pastor of the church looks over at his wife who is playing music that morning and says in an obviously naive tone, "alright honey, tickle that organ."

If you're looking for something like Sherwood Baptist church is putting out these days (Fireproof, Courageous, etc.)" then this probably isn't the film for you. But if you're looking for something forcing you to examine your faith, and make you recognize your oddities and laugh at them, all while telling a great story with superb acting, then by all means find the closest theater and make the drive. It was definitely worth the 6 hour round trip.

P.S. The distribution company for Blue Like Jazz (they also recently released Margin Call), at a screening of the film, noted that the audience was young, intelligent, and had thoughtful questions, but they weren't sure there was a broader audience amongst Christian's for such a film. Prove them wrong and make the drive.

WOASP Part IV: Guest Writer Debbie Sommers.

To wrap up this week, I'm asking a good friend to write today's post. Debbie is a fantastic artist in the fields of painting, drawing sculpting, and personalitying. She lives in Philadelphia with her husband Andy. The picture makes here look a little diva, but really she's usually a lot more dramatic than that.

I am an artist but I’m also a Christian. This really shouldn’t be that complicated. God was the first great artist. He created the universe, humans, nature, EVERYTHING, and He did it all with massive attention to detail and profound skill. Think about that long enough and your work as an artist will look utterly pathetic.

So what’s all this fuss about art and “Christian” art? Why are Christians who are also artists in constant battle with themselves and the “church”? When did we get so divided?

Honestly, art is art. There isn’t “Christian” art, secular art, or religiously indifferent art. I’m not going to label my work as “Christian” because I feel it’s a hindrance. God didn’t create secular flowers for the atheists and “Christian” flowers for the religious people to look at. He created flowers for everyone.

As an artist, that’s what I’m here to do. I want to create work that speaks to a large demographic of people from every background, culture, and religion. My goal is to make work that shows skill and speaks about something. I want you to look at my work and not see the answer right at first, but instead search. To appreciate it for its beauty but then stumble headfirst into something deeper.

And to be honest, that’s my goal as a Christian; to let my life be intertwined with people from every background, culture, and religion. I want you to look at my life and see there is something going on. I want you to see something that makes you search, for the truth, for life, for something so deep and beautiful that your soul will sing.

I want you to find Christ.

A Week of Art and Shameless Promotion Part III: What Only Poetry Can Do

Over the next week I will be talking about "Christian" media and art. You will probably notice that each reference to "Christian" will be marked by parenthesis. As an amateur writer and musician who is a follower of Jesus it has been difficult to define what "Christian" art is. Derek Webb said that the term "Christian" used in reference to anything other than a person is a marketing technique. I think I agree.

I'm drastically aware of our culture's short attention span. Yet I ignored it yesterday, especially in a week of such frequent posts. So I'll be working in a box today. Like a Reneissance sonnet I'll only use 14 lines (minus the intro paragraph) to get a point accross.

There are several analogies floating around in my head. C.S. Lewis' stuck a line in Mere Christianity about a boy buying a present for his father using the money he borrowed from his father to buy it. Brennan Manning told me that my love is small, but Jesus is just beneath my paper-thin skin like dynamite. The priest, from Hugo's Les Miserables, spoke to me the words of Jesus, "With this silver, I have bought your soul. I've ransomed you from fear and Hatred, and now I give you back to God." I enjoyed reading these books. But more than that they communicated something to my soul that it desperately needed.

I'm too intellectual. If an idea comes knocking, my brain is the helicopter father who answers the door. "I'm sorry, the heart is not available right now. Why don't we just talk about this on the front porch?" Poetry is smarter than this. It rings the doorbell then immediately sneaks to a back window, getting a few words in with my heart before my head knows what's going on.

A Week of Art and Shameless Promotion Part II: Criticism

I want to be a better writer, musician, friend, husband, and servant of Jesus. If I am at the same point ten years from now in any of those categories I will be disappointed.

We all make decisions about how good we want to be at something. Natural ability is generally a farce. It's true, some people just pick up a guitar and make it sing like a sixty year marriage, but most of my guitar students are a lot more like awkward newlyweds. Up until that first lesson they're excited about the possibilities while simultaneously having no clue what they're doing. About lesson three they realize that mastery of the axe is a 10,000 hour road.

I recently heard a story on NPR about the Mona Lisa. They had found a copy of Leonardo's work. Apparently he made various versions of the painting, but they think that this particular painting was in the studio beside the version that hangs in the Louvre. They know that this painting was probably the twin because when they placed it under some sort of sonographic examination they found that over the years it underwent the same sorts of changes that the original did.

Changes?

It turns out that Leonardo kept making changes to the work, long after the original sitting by the lovely Lisa. It turns out that the world's most recognizable work of art was not made in a day. Nor will you. Long after his moment of inspiration, Leo kept criticizing his own work.

Christians are not all that good at constructive criticism. While we know how to complain about everything, but don't seem to know how to do it in a way that is helpful. I spent three and a half years playing guitar and keys for a band called Escaping Yesterday. After most of our 130 shows I asked people for feedback, "Be brutally honest" I would say. I remember 3 instances when the request was granted. Nate Butler, Luke Mills, and Grant Beachy... thank you for your services.

One of those 130 shows was a side stage at a Music Festival in Ft. Wayne. An hour before our set I was chatting with a friend who owns a recording studio. We were listening (not by choice) to the daughter of a local "Christian" radio station owner who had obviously received a spot on the stage because of her Father. Backed by a rather poor to mediocre band, she did a rendition of Revelation Song that would bring you to tears, which has more to do with the fact that your ear drums had ruptured. In a passionate manner she sang the chorus a consistant 1/4 step flat. At the end of the song, as the small group of listeners actually clapped, my friend leaned over and whispered through the perfunctory noise, ""Christian" music is the only genre that allows you to suck and get away with it." I think he's right.

The rather successful band Green Day, whether you like them or not, was booed off the stage during their first performance. Billie Joe Armstrong (the band's front man) cited this as one of the keys to their success. Had they not been applauded, they would have never realized there was any need for improvement. That applause would have cost the band millions of dollars.

I'm not suggesting that I should have booed the cat in the blender at Icthus. I do think that I'm called to be gracious to people. I think one of my tasks as a follower of Jesus is to give space for people to make mistakes, a whole lot of them. But I'm also called to love people long term, which I think means making suggestions for improvement.

If I want to be a better husband, writer, whatever, I need to know what should be improved. I'll never play like Hendrix if all I get is applause and a pat on the back. I need that, but frankly if it's all I ever hear I stop believing it. If I can't trust you to tell me what's wrong, how am I supposed to believe you when you say something is right?

I want "Christian" art to be good, really good. I want it to say profound things in profound ways, like C.S. Lewis. But Lewis didn't just up and decide to write great stories that everyone would like. He was a literary critic who spent years writing articles about what he thought was well or poorly done art. He was surrounded by some of the greatest literary minds of England, who analyzed every word he wrote, looking for a hole in his logic and style. The man was in a pressure cooker. I'm grateful that men like Lewis were criticized, it made them into the writers that they were.

So back to Blue Like Jazz.

I've spent the last couple of years verbally criticizing "Christian" art, because I care. If I didn't care I would crank Muse or Coldplay and forget that genre ever existed. I think Christians have the best source material for stories, but we're terrible storytellers. I criticize because I think we can do better. I am by no means the only one who has spoken up, and people are starting to listen, changes are coming.

This past year Gungor entered my life; a fusion of Jazz, Rock, Spanish Guitar, Classical Music, and a whole slew of spices. If you haven't heard their album Ghosts Upon the Earth you probably should, the entire album is available on YouTube. They are evidence that there is a demand for something thoughtful.

Another game changer is coming up this Friday. I find myself as adamantly pushing for attention for Blue Like Jazz the Movie as I have criticized the mediocrity of "Christian" art. I fully expect this movie to make mistakes, to do certain things 'wrong' as any work of art does. But this movie represents the fruit of constructive criticism, and it is taking risks to answer that call.

So I'll continue my shameless (and genuine) promotion of BLJ the movie. If you share my desire to see something different out of "Christian" art, you can vote with your wallet this Friday. Go to bluelikejazzthemovie.com, find a theater, and go see it. According to Steve Taylor (the producer), at one of the movie screenings their distribution company was surprised to find thoughtful young viewers of faith with significant questions about content. But they still aren't convinced that there is a significant number of Christ followers to warrant future production of such movies.... I would like to see them proved wrong. This Friday is one way to do that.

A Week of Art and Shameless Promotion Part I

Over the next week I will be talking about "Christian" media and art. You will probably notice that each reference to "Christian" will be marked by parenthesis. As an amateur writer and musician who is a follower of Jesus it has been difficult to define what "Christian" art is. Derek Webb said that the term "Christian" used in reference to anything other than a person is a marketing technique. I think I agree. When I set up a tour to Oregon for my band last summer, I had to navigate this strange world of questions like, "what will you do spiritually for my youth? Are you a Christian band?" These are fair questions, but what percentage of something has to be a direct reference to the Father, Son, or Spirit (or all three) in order to be "Christian"? Are songs on a "Christian" album individually "Christian" songs simply because they are placed nexted to other more obviously "Christian" songs?

Honestly I think this sort of talk is a bit ridiculous. I think we should care about what sort of art and media we ingest, but I'd rather we do away with making artistic genres entirely out of lyrical content. To communicate, however, I'm going to perpetuate the use of such categories but bring them into question with parenthesis. I recognize the genres, but I think they are altogether silly.

Now let's get this awkward ball rolling...

This Friday something very exciting is happening, there is a movie coming out that will either stand as an anomaly in history, or change the face of "Christian" media for years to come. Blue Like Jazz. If you have been hiding under a rock for the past few months you might have missed this. Take heart, it's not too late. This Friday Blue Like Jazz will be opening in select theaters across the country, which is really a rather large miracle.

The movie had some problems getting off the ground. As Donald Miller (the author of Blue Like Jazz the book) and Steve Taylor (the producer of the movie) went around the country giving the sales pitch to investors they ran into a problem that more and more artists are finding themselves in, it was either too Jesus or not Jesus enough. In the end they had a big Christian investor (does not need parenthesis because it refers to an actual person) who backed out because he was afraid to have his name attached to the film (we'll get to why later on). So for a while it seemed that three years of vision and creativity were about to be abandoned, then something fantastic happened.

Two fans of both Taylor and Miller pulled their brains together and started a Kickstarter campaign. Kickstarter is an online financial fundraising site for artistic projects. A goal is set for each project that must be reached if the project would like to receive any money from contributions. The response was overwhelming. In 40 days (allow me to be cliché and draw some sort of biblical number reference) the movie emerged from the wilderness, empowered by $345,000 of entirely fan based funding, making it the largest movie budget of it's kind.... ever. Needless to say, there were a lot of BLJ fans who wanted to see this thing happen. A later Kickstarter campaign raised another $40,000 or so to help pay for distribution costs.

There is some controversy swirling around this movie. For some it's because it was a half syllable away from reaching an R rating. The movie is after all about a Christian (again person) kid going to college at Reed in Portland, Oregon; loosely based on Miller's own experiences. Reed College is self-claimed as the most godless college in North America. The movie is trying to at least reasonably portray what life there is like. Christian's don't typically admit that they like swearing. So this upsets people.

The second item is a more recent fatwa (as Steve Taylor called it) against BLJ by Sherwood Baptist Church. They said that they would not work with anyone who chooses to work with BLJ. Taylor pointed out that the distribution company they work with is the same one that distributed The DaVinci code. Sherwood Baptist also requested that BLJ trailers would not be played beside trailers for the upcoming movie "October Baby." Steve Taylor's responses to these things were both gracious and sarcastic. Just Google, "Steve Taylor response to Sherwood Baptist" and you can find his comments. Basically, some Christians as well as "Christian" movie makers are not to happy about what Miller and Taylor are trying to do.

I think this movie is important, very important and this is why. I think that good art communicates something in a way that makes you tilt your head and say, "huh, that's neat." I think great art makes people react to it strongly in both positive and negative ways. If I read a poem that said that married men should be loving fathers and husbands to a group of elderly people in a nursing home, they would nod and tell me stories. If I played Cat Steven's "Cat's in the Cradle" (Go listen to it) to the same room of old men whose children had grown and left them in a nursing home they would weep. Blue Like Jazz is "Cat's in the Cradle" for $345,000 worth of my generation. I fully expect there will be well aimed arrows of truth, communicated in profound ways, that sink deep into hearts and let them know they aren't alone. I think, if you want to understand something about me (scary thought) you should go see this movie.

I have been ranting about "Christian" art for some time now. I don't regret this, but Donald Miller once said that if you see a problem you shouldn't simply complain, but offer solutions. I think this is week is a small way that I can do that. So this week I'll be attempting to talk about and promote my personal definition of GREAT CHRISTIAN ART! I realize a lot of this is subjective, but I'm not necessarily just going with what I like, I'm going with what tries to communicate depth in profound, not cliché ways.

So here is my sales pitch for today. Go see Blue Like Jazz this Friday. The better it does on opening day, the more theaters will pick it up nationwide. Consider this Friday an opportunity to vote for great "Christian" art.

Why Today Is Just Another Day.

I'm being tongue in cheek, in a sense. But there is something very normal about today, eggs and coffee for breakfast normal.

Shift in thought....

I was seriously going to write about how today just felt normal, important but normal. This is probably due to some lack of preparation on my part. But even in the time it takes me to brew some coffee I'm hit by the profundity of how little I feel about a day of such importance. But in some sense we are very normal people who are fortunate enough to have the affections of someone extraordinary.

Today is a reminder for people like me who continually fail to get it.

Jesus knew he was dying for prostitutes, thieves, bad husbands and abusive fathers. I think he also knew he was dying for the apathetic.

I hope so. My life depends on it.

When It Hits the Fan

I recently published an article for a magazine called the Brotherhood Beacon which is distributed to my denomination's conference. My blog was listed at the end of the article. So for those looking into my world for the first (or rather second) time, welcome. For the rest of you, I figured I should give some context.

While the article is about unity with Christ followers who believe sometimes very different things than we do, there are some items regarding alcohol and universalism that are talked about that will very likely be criticised (for the record I'm not a universalist, the item in the article was about a friend who had reached such conclusions when looking at scripture).

Now on to the post.

I have a feeling that things are going to hit the fan. I feel like I've come out of a closet of sorts (in a literary/public voice sense). I have exposed myself to the world I live in. Now I sit here waiting for the eye of the storm to move on and pound me with it's relentless fury. There really isn't much I can do about that now. Issues have been distributed, people have probably read the article, and I'm sure the scare crow version of me has probably taken a few intellectual baseball bats to the head.

I knew this sort of thing would happen. I seriously considered withdrawing the article before it was published, not because it wasn't true, but because I knew it would have repurcussions for people other than myself. To anyone who takes any sort of flaq for my writing, thank you thank you thank you. I'll by you coffee, or dinner, or as I now feel a little more free expressing since publishing the article, a beer if you'd like.

I don't have a sort of persecution complex, I really don't think I've done anything worthy of being persecuted. I'm just recognizing that my ideas might clash in big ways with the heartfelt convictions of others.

So why would I publish something that I know would make some upset, and make life difficult for others?

For that, you can blame Brennan Manning and book made movie The Help. If you haven't read anything by Manning, stop reading this or anything else. Don't even eat until you've finished Ragamuffin Gospel, Signature of Jesus, and All is Grace. Brennan has been a mentor to me. His honesty has healed me. His passion has inspired me. The alcoholic, divorced, rogue priest, now rendered an invalid because of his less noble addictions has pulled a veil off of my eyes that has allowed me to experience the unending love of God. I read All is Grace while writing the article for the Beacon. I gained a purpose as I realized that it is unlikely that Brennan will write any more books. I felt a sense of responsibility to take up the task to communicate the love that Brennan so honestly communicated to me. I suppose you could call that a 'call', but it feels more to me like being the first person to stumble upon a wreck. No one really asked me to do anything, but I would regret turning a blind eye.

The Help addressed the fears that come with a drive to be brutally honest. In case you haven't heard of or seen it, the basic plot line follows a white girl, daughter of a prominent family in the south, who wants to be a writer. She works with two Black maids who face possible death in order to publish stories about their employers and the conditions they are forced to endure. The movie carries a scent of White Man's Burden, but I found the courage of Abeline, one of the maids, inspiring. At the end of the movie, Abeline is fired, forced to leave behind the daughter of the white woman who she has raised. Her voice has cost her something precious to her, but she is more sure than ever of her purpose and the need to raise that voice as a writer.

I know my writing will sometimes anger people. It (and I don't mean my writing) will hit the fan now and then. People will disagree with, misunderstand, and probably even hate the things I have to say. But I hope what is clearly heard is that I'm not writing to be controversial, or divisive. I'm writing because there were people brave enough to say and write things that got them in trouble, things that set me free. I hope to do the same for others.