Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Wrecking Ball

What a great song!
Finally glad that it's gaining some notoriety and momentum as a hit.
Apparently it's become "meme"ish and I've seen a lot of people posting others things where so and so is on top of a wrecking ball, in reference to this song. So far I've seen Ron Jeremy, Goku, and even Miley Cyrus.

I remember the first time I heard the song.
It was fall, in Atlanta. The year was 2000, and I was happy to have a new Every Day Life album in my hand. I skated on worn rollerblades all across the neighborhood listening to this album using my g-shock'd Sony Discman. Out of college, on my own, free, and saving the world! The first time I listened to the album, I wrecked hard enough to give myself a scar I still bear on the inside of my right arm, near the elbow. road rash. I couldn't care less at the time. Girls dig scars, and at the time, I was without a girlfriend, and needed all the help I could get.

Now I'm married, have 3 kids, and this song is finally popular! Thanks EDL!





Too bad this one doesn't include the part where Tedd sings "Wrecking balls of the world, unite and take over".

I don't get the "people on wrecking balls aspect of the meme", and I certainly don't want to ever see Tedd Cookerly on top of a wrecking ball, but the song is awesome. Here is a video of Tedd doing something else awesome, even if by awesome I don't mean "Singing an Everyday Life Song"

Sunday, January 19, 2014

Perspective

I've been stumped by many problems. I'm stumped most often when I attempt a solution to one problem, but have further issues arise because I didn't see that my solution could cause another problem on top of the one I already had! We have a problem with perspective. For some reason we think we can walk around doing things, willy nilly, with no thought as to what will happen next. Chop down some trees? Sure, no problem, there's hundreds of them! And then all at once, when the rains come and there's no trees to slow and adsorb the water, there's a flood, and a mudslide, and a horrible loss of life. Then in our grief, and our ignorance, and our pride, we blame God, calling such catastrophes "Acts of God" as if He's the one that chopped the trees down.

Perspective. We are missing perspective. There's no way for us to know how our actions will affect others just from our limited senses of observation.  Just look at the track record of the meteorologist! The Math behind the weather is well enough understood that we reasonably know beyond the shadow of a doubt that tomorrow will be Monday, and that is all. Fortunately, our scientists who study weather have enough humility to talk about weather in terms of percentages, and they know to be as vague as possible. God is not like that though.

The Bible tells us in Galatians Chapter four that God sent forth his Son in the "fullness of time" to be born of a woman, under the law so that He might redeem us so we could become the children of God. God has perspective. God's perspective allows Him to have a unique sense of timing. It is a modern fallacy to suppose that the miracles and wonderful things the Bible describes and predicts occurred one right after the other. The truth is, these things occurred within a short time frame, to a limited number of people, within the confines of limited space on the planet. These things were not common, or trivial. They had a purpose, and from God's perspective, they were working together to bring the world to a place ready to receive His Son. The world, when it received His Son, did what God knew it would do, reject Him. From God's perspective though, this was still part of the plan, promised from the very beginning, in Genesis Chapter 3. A crippling bruise to the heel of God's promised one brought a blow to the head of the serpent.

We gather today to acknowledge God's righteous timing. We submit ourselves to His perspective, and to acknowledge the covenant God struck with us through the body and Blood of Jesus. Let us take this body, and drink this blood to remember that from God's perfect perspective, we are His Children, and heirs to His kingdom.