my first U2 show and other musings

The word musings was used intentionally. Plus, this blog has a good bit of pics...it will be a long one, today.

Firstly, (this is the musings part) I am very excited for the new show Modern Family on ABC tonight. I shall be watching it. I think this show has the potential to be a modern day picture of what the Cosby Show and The Simpsons did 15-20 years ago in identifying cultural tension and subtle norms. That being said, many people in my sphere of life, the church, will be uncomfortable. Identification and exposure has never been comfortable, though.


Anyway, on to more important things:
Last night, I got to cash in on the birthday present my wife, Shauna, gave me last July. (For any of you wondering what a great bday present looks like, it is a U2 ticket...but amazon wish lists are good ways to judge as well).

I will document my experience in two forms: first, the tweets that I sent that didn't go through (commentary will be in parenthesis like this); and secondly, the poor quality images from my wife's phone with limited commentary (my camera on my phone is broken). These will be both used at the same time, btw.

I tweeted the whole time, only to learn that my tweets were cut short after like the 4th one.
Here is a run down (in chronological order) of what I tweeted...(thanks copy/paste function on my phone)

• 4:36pm: In line and waiting to get in to U2 (I read horror stories in forums about how you had to get in line at 9am to get anywhere close to the stage. We arrived at 4:36)
• 5:37pm: Literally 50 foot from the stage...Gotta love gen admission at U2 (my fears were not realized..we had a great spot...and we stood our ground for the next 6 hours)
• 8:02pm: Muse is the best opening band I have ever seen (and I mean that..thanks, Stacie for letting me bum all of their music from you; also note, Muse just walked off the stage when I tweeted this)
• 9:07pm: U2 just took the stage (and it was glorious...opener was from their new album; check out that screen to the right! it expanded and contracted and moved up and down and was 360 degrees...it all flowed)
• 10:09pm: Bono just brought a kid on stage and they are running around during city of blinding lights (very cool moment...they were running by us like 20 ft away)
• 10:23pm: Sunday Bloody Sunday (apparently is now about Iran; Middle Eastern Guy with US flag brought on stage to sing with Bono from crowd)
• 10:35pm: First encore begins now (and yes, it was planned...great video that set up One)
• 10:46pm: We are now singing Amazing Grace...80K of us...nice way to end the nite with Streets (we sang with Bono acapella and that segued into Streets...wow)
• 11pm: Wow it goes on...With or Without You
• 11:12pm: What a phenomenal U2 experience...thanks Shauna for the best bday present!
• 1:11am: Nothin like the Double T diner at 1am

So there you have it. The night through tweets that never got to twitter...

Last thing: here is a picture of a really bored/devoted student reading and studying minutes before U2 took the stage. This struck me as odd and strangely heroic. An appreciated weirdness, I suppose.

That's all for now. Great evening and I am convinced Bono led 80K people in a spiritual/worship experience and most of them didn't even know it. In fact, I saw several raising their arms crying as they sang out "Amazing Grace."

Maybe there is hope? Maybe there is connection happening of which we know not. I keep getting the lesson I am not in control anyway.

a view from our table

This past weekend, I was able to spend some great moments with my creative arts directors. We traveled to South Bend, IN (think Notre Dame football) to a church called Granger Community Church, for a conference called Innovate.

The conference was good, entertaining, helpful, and personal. I enjoyed it very much and I believe our little band of directors took away many helpful things.

My favorite times of the weekend were, however, just our hanging out and picking on each other. It honestly felt like college guys eating a lot and staying up late and laughing until we hurt. Man, each one of us needed this weekend. Just to unplug and connect with each other was worth it for me.

We did spend the entire day (like 9am until 10pm) on creative arts development for our church, ALC. If you are a creative arts leader or team member, I really think 2010 is going to have a huge impact on you spiritually, developmentally, and, if you want, the way you lead. Get ready!

reading

I haven't posted in a while. I am posting now out of sheer embarrassment of not keeping my blog up to date. I am also currently watching the Chargers/Ravens game, my fantasy football team, and just finished a nap. Ah, Sunday afternoons.

I am fortunate to work at ALC and teach from time to time. This weekend, I was able to talk about one of my favorite subjects and use one of my favorite authors (I quoted him a lot): Solitude and the strength of transformation it brings. I think my favorite thing about the subject of solitude is what Henri Nouwen (hint, the author I mentioned was one of my favs) says: solitude is the furnace where transformation takes place. So true. Being alone and forcing my thoughts and focus to be on Him and just "BE" takes the false self and exposes it. Upon exposure, the image of the life rooted in Jesus proves to be the real life... and the transformation brings about compassion.

May my life and hands and feet and eyes and ears mature and welcome the transformation. I feel this may take a while...

Book Review: the furious longing of God

I received this book in a network thing I am subscribed to, and, when I first saw the title, I thought it read: the furious longing FOR God. Only when I got into the book did I realize that my misreading of the title was very good. I have been having this personal thing going on where I want to be better in my devotion and pursuit of God. That, in and of itself, is not a bad thing to go through. In fact, in going through this "thing", I have encountered some healing and growth.

Long story short, my perception of pursuing God was exposed (to me) to be this personal quest that I controlled and labored over. Actually, this "thing" I was dealing with (at the time) was much deeper than I originally thought. I do want to have a closer walk with my creator, I do want to be more "spiritual" (whatever that means), I do want...(ad nauseum). The big truth I am learning (with much help from Brennan Manning's book) is that God has a "furious" wanting and longing and love for me. What this means is, that my initial "want" or "thing" or "whatever" started out being more about me than what my response to God's love really should be centered on. What I have been learning is that my response becomes greater and larger as I learn more about the love of the Father. In this way, my quest for this "whatever" was exposed as a mere selfish motivated quest...and I am so grateful. I am currently experiencing some very rich moments with my Creator; some very humbling realizations about my role in His Creation. One day, I may divulge more on these experiences and the healing and emotion I am experiencing (then again probably not, it is mine and I am guarded when it comes to self exposure believe it or not).

So, enough about me, this is supposed to be a review on a book. When I read a book (esp. about a Christian theme or idea), it rarely gets straight to an issue or an idea, but rather spends a large amount of time and effort in an attempt to be literary (counterfeit, usually) or culturally relevant while spiritually deep (my thought drifts toward many of the glamorized "Christian" hip resource networks of late...uh oh, wait...oh well). For me, a book that is simple in concept and development is the best (Henri Nouwen and Eugene Peterson are my favorite authors for this reason). Brennan Manning has written not only a very direct and simple concept book, but in it has demanded a very layered and deep emotional response (my experience). One of the simplest prayers, "Abba, I belong to you" has (over the past couple of days, anyway) driven my prayer life and triggered the beginning of some very deep healing. All in all, his description and framework for God's love is very well scripted and constructed. This book has become very special for me. I will be reading it again soon, and it may (like Henri Nouwen's In the Name of Jesus and The Way of the Heart) become a book I read a few times each year.

I highly reccommend it. And if you don't like it or it is very "ho hum" of a read for you, you haven't allowed the words to penetrate your heart...then again, I am very biased because of my immersion into the book.

We went to Arizona

Last month, but it was a great getaway and relaxing weekend. I have pics on my FB page if you are interested...

These words caused a stir...

So I was reading from a Henri Nouwen book I have read about 30+ (no exaggeration) times and came across a statement that provoked me. Here it is:

"Dealing with burning issues without being rooted in a deep personal relationship with God easily leads to divisiveness because, before we know it, our sense of self is caught up in our opinion about a given subject. But when we are securely rooted in a personal intimacy with the source of life, it will be possible to remain flexible without being relativistic, convinced without being rigid, willing to confront without being offensive, gentle and forgiving without being soft, and true witnesses without being manipulative."

Wow. Read that slowly like 20 times. This has provoked me to respond and look into my life at my reactions, at my actions, and my philosophies in dealing with the creation. I am so challenged, I want to commit about blogging through each one of these statements he makes above and how I respond and theologically frame the response. I don't know if I will do that or not, but I certainly want to take the personal journey.

I believe as followers of Jesus, we should be extremely hopeful and challenged by this small statement. I know I am more hopeful.

Taking risks,
n

BOOK REVIEW: Simply Christian by NT Wright

I have recently finished the book by NT Wright, Simply Christian. I enjoyed this book, but there are a few things in it I found a bit boring. Don't get me wrong, I believe the guy's content is extremely strong: the good bishop knows his stuff (and no, I am NOT interested in debating or talking with anyone regarding his views on justification or theology).

I began this book with hopes of practical application of knowledge, and that is probably where my disconnect came from...he spends quite a bit of the book on historical contexts and explanation. This is needed, especially in an entry level book of practical apologetics. But personally, I found his application f prayer and worship absolutely wonderful. His chapter on prayer is one of the best chapters on the wholeness of prayer theology I have read. Furthermore, I was extremely pleased with how he described and contextualized his words on worship. I would highly recommend any pastor or spiritual practitioner read these two chapters at the very least...wonderful!

He also tells some intriguing stories and has some great analogies for spirituality (a water spring underneath a concrete city for one). Plus, he is very understanding to the U.S. reader in his wording and sentence construction (he is in England, and English writers mainly write, like any other writer, from within their world and thereby causes a bit of a disconnect with other cultures in the reading).

Finally, our church community (ALC) is reading through this book in our current series, Desire. We are taking the topics of beauty, truth, relationships, and justice and wrapping them in the context of God and culture in a way to where we lean into these topics from a spiritual point of view rather than socialize or degrade these deep spiritual leanings with "just" the cultural strain of hope.

As with any book I read and keep, this one has many underlines and highlights and personal remarks. I would encourage anyone who follows (or wants to follow) Jesus to pick this up and give it a read. It isn't very long at 250 some odd pages.