This semester is ending soon. Thankfully I leave it with both excitement and a hint of sadness. I actually don't really want to leave my school routine. I feel that this semester I have learned so much and grown in so many ways because of my professors, the courses I took, and the school I'm at. However I am more than excited to see what next semester has in store, as well as to have some more time on my hands to work on my guitar playing over christmas, with no assignments to interrupt it.
The paradox that I've come up against this semester is that I've come out of many of my classes feeling both far more knowledgeable and far more inexperienced. However I'm not discouraged, I realize this is normal for someone studying a discipline as vast and broad as music. I am only sad that I have but one lifetime to learn what I can within it. For now I'm content to scratch the surface, and I look forward to digging deeper.
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Saturday, December 4, 2010
Two nights of great music
So yesterday was the Ambrose "Around the World" Christmas Concert. It was a lot of fun, and I absolutely loved seeing our music program perform in various ways to celebrate Christmas. I want to go on record and say that I am so thankful for our professors and teachers who pour time and energy into us as we learn and move forward. I had a good conversation with the conductor of the orchestra, Dan Bartholomew-Poyser about conducting, and even though I don't know much about it and I have only been doing it for the last 3 months in my basic conducting class he was so encouraging and told me if it was something I enjoyed that I should continue to pursue it. It was great to have someone who has a masters in something just encourage me (who has barely started) that I could do it and should do it if thats how I felt led.
It was also so awesome to have my family there, even though my parents just arrived back from Indonesia the day before, they made the drive down and expressed how much they enjoyed it =]
The day before the concert, on Thursday night, I went to see The Devil Wears Prada, For Today, and Fallcityfall perform at Macewan Ballroom.
All the bands performed so well, and everyone was so tight. And even though this was my fourth time seeing The Devil Wears Prada (who are one of my favorite bands) something stuck out to me that I've never really noticed before.
As an avid fan I know most of the lyrics to their songs, but that night one song in particular really hit me hard. It's no secret they are a Christian band, and while they are not on a Christian label and they play with predominately secular bands, all their lyrics tie into their faith, and they always talk about their love for Jesus, but also their love for their fans and the people in their lives. They did do an in-between songs talk about the reason they write music and tour, and while it was really cool to see them proclaim their faith on stage the moment in their set which really showed me their passion for incarnational living was at the end of their song "Hey John What's Your Name Again?".
While the title might sound ridiculous (and actually all their song titles are a joke) this song holds a lot more meaning than I first realized.
The song tells a story of someone who is living for status and appearance, mutilating their life into a meaningless chase after approval and material gain. In the last half of the song though, the band shows their response to someone going down this path, and I think it is a very Christ-like one.
I'm going to hope for you
I'm going to pray for you
Amongst the reckless and the black
My time is yours my friend
We all find ourselves so horribly weak
Here's an offering.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxFiu5Yy2Os
here's a link to the video of the song, listen at about 1:50 for the part I am talking about.
When I saw them play this live, I really felt the Holy Spirit moving through their offering. I know the kind of brokenness and reckless meaninglessness that pervades the music scene they operate in, and while there are actually a large percentage of Christian metal bands, there is still a very clear opposite side of the spectrum which is just as close to them.
When they played that last breakdown, I saw the work they have given their lives (or at least part of their lives) to. As Mike Hranica was screaming that last offering I could feel the power of love that loves despite the sin that is so obvious.
How often do I, or we as Christians, decide not to love someone because they are sinning or blatantly turning away from God? And I say this knowing we need to be careful and we need to not water down the gospel and we need to make sure we aren't becoming "of" the world. But I still think it's very possible to be in the world, and not just in the world for the sake of handing someone a pamphlet or asking them if they want to come to church and enter OUR world. I mean going into their world and loving them there because God has given us the kind of love that can do that. That is what Jesus did. It was so cool to see this band proclaiming this message over a crowd of people that are in desperate need of this kind of love.
It was also so awesome to have my family there, even though my parents just arrived back from Indonesia the day before, they made the drive down and expressed how much they enjoyed it =]
The day before the concert, on Thursday night, I went to see The Devil Wears Prada, For Today, and Fallcityfall perform at Macewan Ballroom.
All the bands performed so well, and everyone was so tight. And even though this was my fourth time seeing The Devil Wears Prada (who are one of my favorite bands) something stuck out to me that I've never really noticed before.
As an avid fan I know most of the lyrics to their songs, but that night one song in particular really hit me hard. It's no secret they are a Christian band, and while they are not on a Christian label and they play with predominately secular bands, all their lyrics tie into their faith, and they always talk about their love for Jesus, but also their love for their fans and the people in their lives. They did do an in-between songs talk about the reason they write music and tour, and while it was really cool to see them proclaim their faith on stage the moment in their set which really showed me their passion for incarnational living was at the end of their song "Hey John What's Your Name Again?".
While the title might sound ridiculous (and actually all their song titles are a joke) this song holds a lot more meaning than I first realized.
The song tells a story of someone who is living for status and appearance, mutilating their life into a meaningless chase after approval and material gain. In the last half of the song though, the band shows their response to someone going down this path, and I think it is a very Christ-like one.
I'm going to hope for you
I'm going to pray for you
Amongst the reckless and the black
My time is yours my friend
We all find ourselves so horribly weak
Here's an offering.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxFiu5Yy2Os
here's a link to the video of the song, listen at about 1:50 for the part I am talking about.
When I saw them play this live, I really felt the Holy Spirit moving through their offering. I know the kind of brokenness and reckless meaninglessness that pervades the music scene they operate in, and while there are actually a large percentage of Christian metal bands, there is still a very clear opposite side of the spectrum which is just as close to them.
When they played that last breakdown, I saw the work they have given their lives (or at least part of their lives) to. As Mike Hranica was screaming that last offering I could feel the power of love that loves despite the sin that is so obvious.
How often do I, or we as Christians, decide not to love someone because they are sinning or blatantly turning away from God? And I say this knowing we need to be careful and we need to not water down the gospel and we need to make sure we aren't becoming "of" the world. But I still think it's very possible to be in the world, and not just in the world for the sake of handing someone a pamphlet or asking them if they want to come to church and enter OUR world. I mean going into their world and loving them there because God has given us the kind of love that can do that. That is what Jesus did. It was so cool to see this band proclaiming this message over a crowd of people that are in desperate need of this kind of love.
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