Worship 703

Friday night will be our second WORSHIP night.  The first one, WORSHIP 803*, was back in February.  It started with an idea to intentionally worship God as best we could.  Our single goal was to glorify God because He alone is worthy to be praised.  There was no plan, just enter the sanctuary with shoes off and hearts opened.  We had a small setlist, but we wanted the freedom of going where we felt led, too.

This time around our theme is ENOUGH.  We've got about ten songs prepped for the night, focusing on God's provision and general awesomeness being enough for us.  Honestly, if I have the love of God in my life, what more do I need?  And how wonderful is it that He chooses to bless me with so much more?!  Our goal is the same, to just praise God.  For some, that's in silence, arms down, head low.  Others may lift their hands and sing loudly the songs we've selected.

For me, I'll be leading with guitar and offering my words and talents up to Him.  It's nothing I ever thought that I would be doing, but I'm convinced that God gives people talents and skills for a reason, and I choose to honor Him with my amateur skills.  I long to worship the Creator with everything I've got inside of me.  Like that John Mark McMillan song, "I wanna love You when the blood of my veins don't know how to call out Your name, I want to love You when the birds don't hang around."  I don't want a conditional love, but I want an all-consuming and life-changing love to pour out of me.

And I want that for others, too.  I want all of us Sons & Daughters** to genuinely, honestly, humbly worship the Lord.  I can't wrap my head around the concept of why God desires our worship, but He does, and I'm not going to be one to hold back.  (As if I could.)  One of my all time favorite songs that describes my heart is "Yearn," by Shane & Shane***.  Pretty much every time I listen to that song my heart implodes and my soul says Amen.  Check out the acoustic video below if you're unfamiliar with this song.

Lord I want to yearn for You, I want to burn with passion over You, and only You.  Lord, I want to yearn.

It is my prayer that WORSHIP 703 glorifies God.  I pray that our songs and voices create a pleasing aroma to God, and that we are poured out for Him.  Soli Deo Gloria!

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*The first event was on a Saturday night at 8:03pm, which is why it was named so.  This event is on a Friday night and starting at 7:03pm.

** Up until very recently this phrase has been absent from my vernacular.  I have always used "Brothers & Sisters in Christ" when referring to the Church family, but I'm trying to switch up my thought processes on this one and start thinking of myself (and others) as Sons & Daughters of the King (John 1:12).

*** I could do a big, long post about Shane & Shane.  Awesome voices and unreal guitar playing make beautiful music.  Their newest singe, "Liberty," has this phenomenal Middle Eastern vibe to it that has you tapping your foot and reaching for your guitar.  Check it out!  "Where the Spirit of the Lord is now there is liberty!"

A Daily Dose of Aimlessness; A Taste of Things to Come

First—the taste!  Oh sweet, sweet taste, like a warm and gooey Pop-Tart® on an oatmeal-less morning.  Like Sarah McLachlan fumbling towards ecstasy, only to find that it’s not really Sarah McLachlan or ecstasy, but the Great Somnambulist eating a warm and gooey Pop-Tart®.  Finally the long wait draws near an end.  Soon, oh so soon, does it begin anew, afresh, again.  I’m talking about Lost’s final season, folks, and I think it’s obvious I’m excited.

Here on Rememorandom I’ll likely be postulating my theories on each episode.  For those of you that read my blog and don’t like Lost, you’ll likely not read these posts, and that’s fine by me.  I’d rather you not than have the greatest show on television ruined for you.  For those of you that watch Lost religiously, like I do—where you demand absolute silence, high-definition, crisp audio, a bag of popcorn, a comfy seat, a beautiful spouse, and a wonderful puppy—then I hope you find it in your heart to postulate with me.

That’s the beauty of Lost.  The fandom is huge.  The enthusiasm of the fans is overwhelming.  The creativity of the fans is inspiring and wonderful.  Check out The Lost Underground Art Show if you want to see some awesome fan art, which was commissioned by Lost’s producers.

Hoist up the John B. Sail!  (Is that an acceptable transitional phrase?)  I went to the gas station yesterday and bought a pop.  The lady in front of me bought a lottery ticket.  She won $500.  The cashier gave her 25 $20 bills.  The winner, an elderly lady, didn’t look very excited.  If I’d’ve been her, I probably would’ve been jumping around the gas station like an excited bunny rabbit, glad to be emancipated from the vile clutches of the Evil Cage.  But she didn’t seem like she cared.  I cared.

Hoist up the John B. Sail!  (Uh?)  I got my guitar fixed.  For free.  I took it to a different shop and the guy looked at it, fiddled with it, turned some knobs, plugged it up, and it worked.  He said dust was likely the culprit.  And to think, the local guy wanted to charge me $50 just for looking at it.  Sheesh.

Hoist up the John B. Sail!  (I still don’t know if that’s an ok transy phrase.)  My love affair with parentheses (totally the coolest of all punctuation marks) will never end.  (Why should it?  Supplemental, useless information is always welcome here.)

Hoist up the John B. Sail!  (I don’t care.  It’s a great transition.)  I did something last weekend that I haven’t done since The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, which was 2006.  I reserved a video game.  Final Fantasy XIII.  The game looks beautiful.  And it’s enormous.  And it’s Final Fantasy.  I bought XII but I’ve never had time to sit down and play it.  One day, hopefully.  Anyway, I’m looking forward to playing the game.

Hoist up the John B. Sail!  Jai guru deva om.  Nothing’s gonna change my world.  I finished Firefly last night.  So sad.  I know I’ve already said it, but I can’t see why the show was canned (other than Fox’s horrible choices of airing episodes out of order, among other things).  Each character was memorable and intriguing.  There was humor.  There was camaraderie.  There was a vast universe to explore and a load of story to uncover, but it all vanished.  There’s nothing to do about it now except watch Serenity and hope it wraps up some of the loose ends.

Hoist up the John B. Sail!  I took the test to get on Jeopardy last night.  I made homemade shrimp scampi, which wasn’t the best ever, but definitely not the worst, either.

Hoist up the John B. Sail!  Goodbye JD Salinger.  Thanks for making a great and inspiring novel.  Catcher didn’t have a huge impact on me, like it did so many others, but it did help some world-view thoughts start a-churning in the head.  And reading it as a teenager was perfect.

Hoist up the John B. Sail!

Well I Dreamed I Saw the Knights in Armor

I feel refreshed.  I went to bed before 9 last night and had the lights off before 10.  Stella slept peacefully through the night, not waking me up, and it was wonderful.  Plus, no messes, and that, too, was wonderful.  I’m still a bit sick at my ole tummy, but that’s neither here nor there.

My acoustic-electric guitar is not working when I plug it into the PA system at church.  It’s not working when I plug it into any amplifier system.  So, since the new music minister is wanting to incorporate more instruments with the piano, I decided to take my guitar to the shop and see what’s wrong with it.  The guy said it’d cost me $45/hr for him to look at it, and he wasn’t certain he could fix it.  Wowzas, thought I.  I don’t ever play it plugged-in so I didn’t want to fork out the dough for a possible fix.  Maybe I’ll tinker with it myself and see what I can find.

On a related note, I don’t really know that much about music.  I know how to play several different instruments, but when people start talking about theory and strange chords, I get all confused.  I can’t read sheet music (well, I can, but very, very, very slowly, and I don’t like it) and I play mostly be ear or chords.  At the church I grew up in I’d play and the choir leader would say “In the Key of G” and then those of us that played instruments would play in the key of G.  I can do that.  But when fancy embellishments and stuff get thrown into the mix (I’m talking to you Diminished and Augmented chords), I struggle.

I also have no clue about the amplification of sound and stuff, either.  Since I never plugged up my guitar I never bothered to learn.  Perhaps one day…

I think it’s time for the final part of the mini related poems I posted.  Let’s see.  Part 3 (“see the man”) is here, Part 1 (“jettson mancer”) is here, and Part 2 (“the planning”) is here.  Here’s the conclusion. 

“ghost”, or "isabella's secret, pt. 4"

she lays in bed
she hears him breathe
softly beside her
beneath the cold sheet
she smiles
she frowns
she dreams

harsh vivid colors
of jetson's green eyes
his tree bark brown hair
and his bright, crimson blood
splattered across his split neck

she ignites awake
as fire and gasoline start
willing the images away
with the fear in her heart
she cries
she moans
she pleads

loud desp'rate prayers
of repentance
her sins haunt her
and he does, too,
sleeping in the bed next to her

the end draws near
from the disease eating at her body
the wicked cancer
the horrible guilt
she smiles
she frowns
she breathes her last

Looking back, those poems were dark.  I liked them, though.  My favorite was definitely “see the man.”  I liked the rhythm of that one.  It seemed like Poe.

I’ve finally started contributing to a retirement fund.  I have a 401(k) option at work.  I’ve read through the stuff.  My eyes glaze over.  My mind numbs.  I struggle.  I have no idea what the heck it means.  I remember Macroeconomics in college, which I took as a Grad student, a 200 level class, and found it one of the most difficult classes in my entire college career.  That said, if anybody knows of any good, simple sites where I can learn about 401(k) and stock and savings and stuff, let me know.  I just randomly picked 5 different things, put 20% of my input to each, and said good luck.

Not much substance today.  Still working with headaches.  Australian Open is on.  I may get to play some tennis tomorrow, even, if it’s dry outside.

Allergies, Guitar Strings, and Misc. News

When the seasons change, I typically always receive a present: allergies. Even if I tell Mother Nature that I don't want my gift, the prude gives it to me anyway. Sometimes it's subtle, and sometimes it's like getting punched in the face. Was allergies part of the Curse of Man? I imagine the pollen count in Eden was low. So with dry, but runny eyes, I stare at my monitors (yes, I have dual monitors at work) and contemplate the transition into my next paragraph.

There are some interesting things going on throughout the world. I read about this 7 year old blind British boy that has learned to use echolocation to see, just like a bat. The article is pretty interesting. Another fun fact was that a study suggests that 34% of Americans take a nap daily. I'm not saying that I'd like to be in that 34%, but I'd like to have the freedom to take a nap whenever I wanted to. As a recycler, a final thing I found refreshing was that CNN has an article on recycling tips. Recycling is easy, and I don't understand why more people don't do it.

I went and bought some nice guitar strings yesterday. I had broken my high E string, so I needed new strings. The ones I play with are Elixir's, and I like the way they sound and how they feel to my fingers. Unfortunately, these strings are almost $20. Anyway, I bought my Elixir's after work and went home to restring my guitar. I've played guitar for around 7 or 8 years now, but I still hate restringing my guitar, and I still have trouble doing it.

As luck would have it, I successfully restrung my guitar but for one problem. I broke the exact same string that I initially needed to replace. Needless to say, I was more than slightly agitated. I tried a few things to remedy the situation (using a dulcimer string that's the same gauge, but it didn't work), but nothing worked. Finally, I just used one of my old B strings. It's slightly thicker than the E string gauge, but it works.

Oh, if you're interested, it looks like my Sunday School class is going to get to have a little service this weekend at the homeless shelter. Any prayers (for us and those we're serving) will be greatly appreciated.

In other news, be ready for a review of Markus Zusak's The Book Thief on Thursday or Friday. Writing Wednesday's will continue tomorrow, with the second installment of The American Dreamer.

I think I need a tissue...