Chomping the head off a squirrel

I pulled in to my garage recently and saw one of our cats lying under the car. He looked perfectly content, even though it’s hot and kind of smelly and the floor is hard concrete. It could even be dangerous if someone came along and started the car up. (My brother had a cat jump up in his engine one time; that was gross.)

I said to myself, “This is crazy. It’s 90 degrees outside and we have this big, air-conditioned house with food and couches and beds that he could lay on, and he chooses to lie under the car. We’ve even provided him with a way to get into the house. All he has to do is go through the cat door, but he’s chooses not to. He’d rather lay in the dirty garage under the car.”

Why does he do that? Because he’s a cat. It’s his nature to lie around in smelly garages and be perfectly content doing so. And instead of eating out of the food we provide him, he’ll go out and chomp the head off a squirrel. Because it’s his nature; he’s a cat.

He doesn’t really care that I’ve provided him everything he needs and have given him an easy way to get to it. He wants to live his way because he’s a cat; it’s his nature.

Even if PETA came along and said, “How can you let that cat lay in the garage and chomp the heads off of squirrels? You’re cruel and unusual. Put that cat on the air-conditioned couch and feed him shrimp scampi.” I couldn’t change anything. Even if they dragged me away in chains (which they might do since they value animals more than people), I couldn’t stop it. All I could do is plead, “I tried to give him everything but he didn’t take it. It’s his nature; he’s a cat.”

It made me think that that’s how we are with God. God has provided us with everything we need and a simple way to get to Him (the cross) and on our own we choose not to, because of our nature: our sin nature. We choose it because it’s the way we’re made. We all have our own unique versions of lying on the garage floor and chomping the heads off of squirrels, but even though the paths we take are different, the nature is still the same. We’re sinners; we don’t seek God. When the door is provided we don’t open it unless the Spirit takes us by the hand (or in some cases the neck) and takes us through it.

It drove home for me the verses in Romans that say, "There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.”

The next time you look at a situation and bemoan, “How could God allow that?” check yourself. It’s very likely you’ll find the person is just following his nature.

Live Your Life with Regrets

I saw a motivational poster recently that said, “Live your life with no regrets.” My first thought was that this was a good message, and I said to myself, “I have no regrets.”

But that feeling didn’t last too long. I thought back on some of the things I’ve done. I’ve treated people who love me poorly; I’ve been mean and unkind to people who didn’t deserve it. I’ve done and thought things that the Lord and I both know are wrong. I have regrets; quite a few.

I don’t want to demean the intentions of those who subscribe to the “No regrets” philosophy. I understand how regret and guilt can be paralyzing and harmful to personal growth. However, I know I never could have ever repented of anything without regretting it first. Regret is the sting of conscience pointing to repentence, and without repentance there is no hope.

I have no regrets about choices I have made; not even taking statistics in college. I take that back—I do regret watching Adam Sandler’s Punch Drunk Love. Life choices are “learning experiences” from which one can learn, and which no one should regret (unless you paid good money to see that movie). My regrets come from my acting on my sin nature, or my inner scumbag, as I call it, and then realizing what I’ve done.

I even regret that I have these regrets, but I don’t know how to change either that, or the regrets themselves. In a weird way I almost appreciate the regrets, because from them I have learned two things:
- I am forgiven and grace abounds
- With the Lord’s help I can change and have
So if I had never sinned I would never have grown.

I am starting to believe that one can live without regrets only if he is perfect or so out of touch with his nature that he is delusional.

So if you have regrets, be grateful. You have a conscience.

10 records that changed my life

I like a LOT of different kinds of music. I think it’s because I’ve been fortunate (and open) enough to find certain records that sent me on new directions that I might not have taken had I not found them. They’ve been musical pivot points that in some ways changed me.

The single Twist and Shout by the Beatles was the first record I ever bought. It was loud and raucous and the screaming vocals were just cool. As far as I was concerned, Rock and Roll was it, and the Beatles defined Rock and Roll. For me and for millions of others, they changed music forever.

The next thing that altered my musical consciousness was Absolutely Free by the Mothers of Invention. Interestingly it came out the same year as Sgt. Pepper, another album that changed the view of rock music for many people. But listen to the two of them side by side and you will see that Absolutely Free is miles ahead musically of Sgt. Pepper, but it’s clearly not accessible to the average listener, so it’s no wonder that it didn’t alter music the way it should have. Sgt. Pepper was incredibly inventive but Absolutely Free smashes genres, combining rock, jazz, classical, and techniques of musical theater and opera to generate a cohesive (albeit weird) vision of life. Incredible and inimitable. Unfortunately Frank Zappa’s limited and negative world view stunted his genius over time. At the end of life his life he seemed more interested in keeping dirty words on the radio than he did in making ground-breaking music.

I was a huge fan of early shock and glam rock artists, such as Alice Cooper, David Bowie and T-Rex and of early hard rock. But after a while a steady diet of that became pretty depressing and I needed to find something else. The first artist I discovered was Bob Dylan; I know I came really late to the Bob Dylan party, (I had heard Jimi Hendrix’s version of All Along the Watchtower before I heard the original) but I bought a copy of his Greatest Hits, Volume II. All those songs in one place, just smacking you in the face with their power. I’ve been collecting Dylan’s music ever since.

Then a friend told me, “I just discovered this guy who sounds like he is playing lead, rhythm and bass all at the same time on one guitar. You have to hear him.” I went out and bought Leo Kottke’s My Feet Are Smiling and was amazed. The guy was right. As Kottke says on the record, he “takes simple melodies and drives them into the ground.” “Easter” is profound and “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring” is beautiful. He sparked my interest in other greats acoustic guitarists, such as Chet Atkins, Merle Travis (who have a great duet album called the Atkins/Travis Traveling Show) and Brownie McGhee, but for me no one can ever replace Leo Kottke.

Listening to Kottke made me consider something that up to that point had been unthinkable; I wondered if might like country music... I put on a country radio station and after a while heard Waylon Jennings sing Amanda (which I later learned was written by the great Bob McDill) and was hooked. I bought “The Ramblin’ Man” album and heard him playing hard core country music with rock sensibilities. Amanda was my introduction to the power of hard core country ballads. Simple chords, simply melodies, powerful stories. That sent me on a new journey that over time has led me to many artists, including Johnny Cash, and to Americana and alt-country music. But it all started with one great song.

I have since realized the question, “Do you like country music?” is a dumb question because it assumes that country music is monolithic. As with rock music, it’s not. There are nuances and subgenres that are rich and full. I couldn’t answer the question, “Do you like rock music?” anymore easily. Yes I do but it doesn’t mean I like ¾ of the bands that are out there, any more than I like the ¾ of the country music that is just plain awful (Kenny Chesney comes to mind). But when you find a good country song, there is nothing better.

I’ve always had a place for musicians with a sense of humor and a gift for story. Warren Zevon’s “Werewolves of London” was on the radio, and I thought it was interesting and I should check it out. I bought Excitable Boy and realized that—as fun as Werewolves is—it is not representative of the genius that is Warren Zevon. I know idolatry is a sin but I’ve come to closer to it with him than with anyone else. If any musician is sorely under-rated by his generation it is Warren Zevon. He wrote like no one else. His understanding of human nature was so on target it was sometimes painful; he understood loss and hurt, and he was wildly funny. Unfortunately he was also an insecure, self-destructive alcoholic who usually destroyed the relationships with the few people who really cared about him. He died on September 7, 2003 of lung cancer. That was a horrible week. Johnny Cash died 5 days later. That was the week the music died.

A lot of Christian music is lame. As Cartman noted on South Park, “All you have to do is take a regular song, and change the word “Baby” to “Jesus” and you’ve got a Christian song.” At the same time, though, I’ve always admired people who smashed the false dichotomies of sacred and secular and have approached their art and faith in a fully integrated manner. I’m pretty sure I feel that way, at least partially, because my first introduction to an artist of faith was Larry Norman, through his raw and gritty album Bootleg. It opened a whole new way of looking at music. It was just Larry singing about his faith, about the times, about his life, and telling funny stories about bad Jesus movies. He said that he never wanted to create a new genre, but he did. He was later rejected by the industry; too secular for Christian music and too Christian for secular music. I guess that means he got it right.

I went a long time before I heard any other artists expressing their faith in an integrated way. Then I head T-Bone Burnett’s rockabilly theology/philosophy on Truth Decay. Just incredible. That is smart music. A few years after that Steve Taylor came out with Meltdown. He took on celebrity Christianity, Bob Jones University, the main-stream press, and abortion in ways that had never been done. Hardhitting, funny, poignant (Baby Doe will have you bawling your eyes out) and it really rocks hard.

In the last few years I was taken down another road when I bought Johnny Cash’s first Rick Rubin-produced record, American Recordings. This time I wasn’t sent down a road that broadened me; I already knew Johnny Cash and country music well. This time it was a road of deepening. It inspired me to read and research Cash’s life. I found him to be another artist who truly integrates his faith and his art. He seemed to be a highly authentic Christian, in the way that many in the Old Testament were authentic and flawed, in their faith. His life has really inspired me in my walk. If he could crawl out of that cave and keep going then so can I.

As I look back on this list, I realize there are many albums I like as much or more than some of these, and today I wouldn’t really consider myself a huge fan of either Waylon or Zappa. But all of these records were pointers along the way. Musical Andrew’s, telling me “you've got to know what I know.”

I’ve realized a couple of things as I plowed through writing this. One is that I had to work really hard to get the list down to the ones that really mattered. I had 21 albums in my first draft. The second thing I thought about was “Who the hell cares? Man you have no life if this is what matters to you.” Ok, I admit it. I’m a shallow music geek. And now you know it too. The last thing I realized what that most of the music on here is at least 25 years old and the stuff that isn’t is by an artist who was in his 70s when he made the record. That could be because I’m old…I hope something comes along that really blows me away. I like a lot of current music but I haven’t found any new paradigms yet (at least ones that interest me). But I’m really happy I found these.

If you have any music that has changed your life please post a comment!

Stephen King is at it again

After that last exchange about ole SK, I figured I should give him the benefit of the doubt and see if he made any clarifying remarks about his remarks on Capital Hill.  He did and it's all on his web site at  http://www.stephenking.com/news.php

What a profile in courage.  

First he dodged his remarks and began with the tired liberal prerequisite that he respects the troops.  He did it in his inimitable style, saying that he "likes the troops just fine" (huh?) and that he "respects the hell out of their brainpower" (and he demonstrates that how?).  He followed that with, "I know that most of them read, because I send them books when they ask, and a lot do."  Yessiree-some-of-mah-best-friends-r-soljers. 

He then deflected his remarks by changing topics.  He railed about how the government doesn't spend enough on education and complained that when the government does spend money all it cares about is test scores and not actual learning. 

Lastly he prayed that it would all go away.  He wistfully hoped that his little remarks won't detract from the real problem that "too many kids in America read for pleasure on the text-screens of their phones and hardly anywhere else."  

So I guess that's what he meant to say up on Capital Hill?  I can see how things got mixed up.  It's pretty easy to confuse ignorant soldiers with kids sending text messages.  Moreover, it's a very astute summary of the real problem.  Kids don't read for pleasure much anymore.  Yep, that's what's wrong with society. 

A little further down on King's web site you will find how much he values debate, discussion and free speech.  He was thoroughly annoyed by a conservative blogger (Noel Sheppard) who felt that King's comments were inappropriate and wrote, "Nice sentiment when the nation is at war, Stephen."  King urged the readers of his web site to send an email to Sheppard stating, "Hi Noel - Stephen says to shut up and I agree." 

Defensive, deflective, petty and vindictive.  One of the comments on my last post about King said, "the last time I checked, it's a free country and he, like everyone else, is entitled to his opinion."  Apparently King doesn't believe that should apply to Noel Sheppard.

Stephen King has demonstrated that learning to read is no guarantee of intelligence or thoughtfulness.  If you're ignorant and can't read you can grow up to go in the Army.  If you're ignorant and can read, you can grow up to be a successful novelist.

What to do

On the side of my blog, I've listed my favorite books. One of them is "The Stand" by Stephen King. I'm wondering if I should take that off my list. The reason: Stephen King is clearly an elitist. I've lost respect for him.

I heard on the news the other day that last month he was speaking to a group of high school students at the Library of Congress, when he said the following:

I don't want to sound like an ad, a public service ad on TV, but the fact is if you can read, you can walk into a job later on. If you don't, then you've got, the Army, Iraq, I don't know, something like that. It's, it's not as bright. So, that's my little commercial for that.

Yikes. This guy has clearly been living in his Addams family house in Bangor for too long. He needs to take a walk downtown and say that directly to the people who wait on him at Deering's or Hannaford Brothers. He might need Cujo to protect him. But then again, maybe not. I think the good people of Bangor have sense enough to know how to properly treat feeble-minded people.

Jimmy Carter is Right

I have to give to Jay Leno; he strives hard to find the best comedians and put them on his show. Last week he had Jimmy Carter on his show.

According the AP, Carter stated during his Tonight Show appearance that delegates from Florida and Michigan should not be counted at the Democratic National Convention because they "disqualified themselves." As much as I hate to admit it, I agree with him. The Democrats shouldn’t feel compelled to seat them. Florida and Michigan broke the rules set out by the party and the party can do whatever it dang well pleases.

The talk over the last few months about what to do about Florida and Michigan reflects a lack of understanding of what primaries actually are. The media, Mrs. Clinton, and people on the right who are happy to see the process drag on, all promote the misinformation. You hear things like, “the Democrats are disenfranchising voters”; “we live in a country where every vote should count”; and comparisons to the 2000 election abound.

There’s one small problem with that premise. Political party primaries have NOTHING to do with voting in the Constitutional sense! People who vote in primaries are not really voting; they are merely helping to select the nominee of a political party. Political parties are private organizations and they have the right to select their nominees in whatever manner they wish. If they wanted to, they could rip pages from the phone book, tack them to the wall, throw a dart at the pages, and select as their nominee the name of the person on whom the dart lands (I think that’s how that’s how the Green Party does it).

The Constitution says NOTHING about political parties, primaries, conventions, or even about the popular election of the president. All the Constitution says about electing the President is:

[The President] shall…be elected, as follows: Each State shall appoint…a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress. …The Electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by Ballot…and they shall make a List of all the Persons voted for, and of the Number of Votes for each; …and transmit [the list] to…the President of the Senate. The President of the Senate shall…open all the Certificates, and the Votes shall then be counted. The Person having the greatest Number of Votes shall be the President. (There is more text in the actual section than I quoted because it is not pertinent to the point of this article. You can find the full text of the Constitution on-line at http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html)

Didn’t see any mention of primaries, or Democrats or Republicans there did you? Here are some important facts about primaries:

• The first political primary didn’t occur until 1910. It was in held in Oregon.
  
• The New Hampshire primary didn’t begin until 1916.
  
• Some primaries are “non-binding”, AKA “beauty contents”, which means that convention delegate selection has nothing to do with the results of the primary.
  
• And of course, several states select their convention delegates via caucus and not by primary.
  
• Smaller parties generally select their nominees completely outside of the primary process.
  

The situation is exposing two issues that are of greater concern:

As already noted, many people, including media people who should know better, don’t understand the facts well enough to realize they are misinformed. We would do well to reinforce that the parties are private organizations that are free to select whatever method they wish to choose their nominees. They could count Florida and Michigan twice if they wanted to.

The larger and more critical issue is we seem to have forgotten that the two parties are private organizations that have nothing to do with the constitutional process. They have been in power so long and have passed rules and laws that make it appear that our process actually sanctifies the two-party system. They impress us that they are the only ones who can carry out any valid political activity. When people are frustrated by the two parties, there is little they can do; the parties are so entrenched they are indeed part of the system.

I wish I had answer for this one, but someone smarter than I will have to figure that out. Maybe we should ask Jimmy Carter.

Thanks, Larry

The morning of March 14 I checked my RSS feeds from Christianity Today and saw the headline, “Larry Norman, 'Father of Christian Rock,' Dies at 60”.

I was crestfallen.  I read the article and realized I was actually really late in getting the news.  He died on February 24!  I knew he had been sick for some time (in actuality he hasn’t been healthy at all for years), but it still took me by surprise.  I read the summary of his odd life and sat there for a while.  Then I went downstairs and told my wife the news. 

I couldn’t help it; I cried when I told her.  I always feel like a moron when I cry at celebrity deaths.  It’s happened only twice before.  September 2003 was horrible.  Warren Zevon died on the 7^th and Johnny Cash died on the 12^th.  I cried over both of them.  For me that was the week the music died. 

Then I took out my IPod and played Larry Norman music for 3 days straight.  Now I’m down to a few times a week.

I’ve thought a lot about him in the last few weeks.  He always puzzled me.  I would read things he said about his life and think, “he has to be making this up.”  At times he came across as grandiose; sometimes he seemed paranoid.  And a lot of his music was really not that good, especially the later stuff.  Granted, he was not at full capacity when he made it.  I still bought it though, and even in the midst of the mediocrity I would always hear elements of the brilliance.

I’m very relieved people have been honest in writing about him after his death.  One person quoted in the Christianity Today article said, “Norman was unpredictable and often exaggerated stories.”  On his web site, Long time friend Randy Stonehill says, “I knew Larry Norman perhaps better than anyone, yet to this day I'm not sure that I really understood him completely. For as brilliant and insightful as Larry was, I'm not sure that he understood himself completely. This issue became apparent in the way he consistently seemed to "derail" relationships through out his life.”

I never met Larry Norman but he changed my life.  When I became a Christian he was Christian music.  There was nothing else.  And since then he has been the standard by which I assess all other Christian music.  Which is why I don’t like a lot of it.  He taught me what it could be.

Blogs I've been in

I've been quoted in 2 blogs:
Craig Roth of The Burton Group referred to a talk I gave at their conference.
http://ccsblog.burtongroup.com/collaboration_and_content/2007/07/postscript-from.html

Matt Thornhill of the Boomer Project quoted my idea for a bumper sticker...
http://boomerconsumerbook.blogspot.com/2008/04/reader-comments.html

I guess I'm verging on internet celebrity...