Stellamara – Kyrie Eleison

Some not-so-contemporary Christian music for your listening pleasure

Now for something completely different

For some reason, after seeing this, I think about Spinal Tap

Epic Win

Epic Interpretation

OK, one more….

Voice “Heidelberg Catechism”

Question 1. What is your only comfort in life and death?

Answer. That I with body and soul, both in life and death, am not my own, but belong unto my faithful Savior Jesus Christ; who, with his precious blood, has fully satisfied for all my sins, and delivered me from all the power of the devil; and so preserves me that without the will of my heavenly Father, not a hair can fall from my head; indeed, that all things must be subservient to my salvation, and therefore, by his Holy Spirit, he also assures me of eternal life, and makes me sincerely willing and ready, henceforth, to live unto him.

Lyrical truth

A break from our regular programing

For your listening enjoyment:

Loved the homage to Spinal Tap towards the end…

OK, one more…

Seriously, the is the last (perhaps he best) one…

How many Kings….

HT: Bill Kinnon

The Lord of all comes as a slave amidst poverty. The hunter has no wish to startle his prey. Choosing for his birthplace an unknown village in a remote province, he is born of a poor maiden and accepts all that poverty implies, for he hopes by stealth to ensnare and save us.

If he had been born to high rank and amidst luxury, unbelievers would have said the world had been transformed by wealth. If he had chosen as his birthplace the great city of Rome, they would have thought the transformation had been brought about by civil power. Suppose he had been the son of an emperor. They would have said: “How useful it is to be powerful!” Imagine him the son of a senator. It would have been: “Look what can be accomplished by legislation!”

But in fact, what did he do? He chose surroundings that were poor and simple, so ordinary as to be almost unnoticed, so that people would know it was the Godhead alone that had changed the world. This was his reason for choosing his mother from among the poor of a very poor country, and for becoming poor himself.

(Theodotus of Ancyra, a martyred saint from the 4th century)

HT: DashHouse

The Incomparable Michael Hedges

For students of the Instrument:

Because it’s there…

All Along the Watchtower

Cello Suite #1 in G Major (Bach)

Michael Hedges and William Ackerman: Hawkcircle

I have had the distinct pleasure of seeing Michael Hedges perform on three occasions in the mid to late 1980′s.  He is missed…

Also, I have been teaching myself to play guitar for the last few months.  Both encouraged and discouraged at the same time….so much wants to reach the fingers, but the fingers do not want to cooperate…patience…..

Kyiv Chamber Choir

One Thousand Years Of Ukrainian Sacred Music by Kyiv Chamber Choir

CCM and not so contemporary CM

I do not recently listened to much contemporary Christian music.  However, on good advice, I recently downloaded ‘Rebel’ by Lacrae from Amazon.  I would describe it as a mix of John Piper and hip hop.  Rich, rich, lyrics…deep, thoughtful, and theologically sound – a call to send beautiful feet to where the Gospel needs to be heard.  Also, from 1979 to 1982 if memory serves, Bob Dylan released three Christian albums. ‘Every Grain of Sand’, released on the 1981 Album, Shot of Love, is arguably one of Dylan’s finest songs.  Got all three on vinyl, but would love to convert them to digital.  Perhaps one of those USB turntables will fall into my lap one day

Here are a couple of Youtube videos from Rebel for you:

Some odd thoughts on music and materialism

In years past, when I was quite young, I briefly entertained thoughts of atheism. I could never embrace full-fledged atheism, and agnosticism was not satisfying on a number of levels, but I guess I lived as if I were a deist. Oddly, one of quite a few factors that restrained me from embracing atheism was my love of music.

It all boils down to the identity that we embrace. If I am, as a materialist would affirm, the end result of, over eons, collisions of blind natural forces, then by what, if anything, am I imbued with value and meaning? By what standard can I call anything beautiful in a universe impersonal and driven by nothing but implacable natural laws? Coltrane should mean nothing more than the noise of a boulder falling into a crevasse. Bach should carry no more weight than the croaking of a frog. How do I reconcile a deep love for music when those that create what I perceive to be beauty are, in the final analysis and after all the superficial romanticism is stripped away, no more than puppets of meats? Materialism, atheism, is so reductionist that the only meaning available is that which aids in the propagation of the species, and even the urge to survival is a less than satisfying absolute.

Beauty becomes utilitarian. Beauty – music – becomes, at best, defense mechanism that perhaps serves to protect us from harsh truths implied by a reality where God is dead and the universe is all that is.

Only One who transcends the created order is able to lend meaning to our creative efforts. It is the fact that we, though desperately fallen and rebellious creatures, were purposefully created in the image of our Creator that lends foundation for our creativity.

It is without a measure of irony that one of my favorite composers/artists, Brian Eno, is an atheist.