Free Music Friday: Down in Mississippi May 30, 2008
Posted by Matt in free music friday.Tags: music, North Mississippi All-Stars, video
add a comment
In the Memphis area and the Mississippi delta below, music has always played a huge part in the lives of those living there. In recent years, a band has arisen from close to where we live in DeSoto County, Mississippi, that combines elements of downhome delta blues and rock music into a really cool Southern jam. The band is called the North Mississippi All-Stars and their latest album, Hernando, is excellent and named for the town just south of us that several of their members call home. Check out this performance from down the road in Clarksdale.
Another Baby Wisdom May 29, 2008
Posted by Matt in Diana, baby, family, pregnancy.Tags: baby, names, pregnancy, ultrasound
2 comments
I guess the reality is starting to hit me – we’re having another baby.
Today we went for the first ultrasound and, though it certainly didn’t look like much of anything to me, the ultrasound tech (is that what they’re called?) easily pointed out the head, the beating heart, and the yolk sac for us to look at. So far everything looks fine and all is good….especially since there is only one!
It sounds like a sure thing that Diana will need to have another C-section, especially since she had trouble birthing a one-month-premature Rachel nearly six years ago. So, that settles the discussion over which of us will get “fixed” this time around, since she will already be opened up anyway, and that, of course, lets me breathe a sigh of relief.
But everything looks great and the due date has been set – January 15 – which, from our history of childbirths past, means it could be anywhere from mid-December to that day.
Now, though, it is time for us to choose a name, the word by which this child will be forever be known. If it is a girl, and since we already have a Rachel and a Rebekah, it would make sense that this one should be Sarah (with which I like the middle name Grace), but it has not been decided on yet. For a boy, I’ve had the name Jackson Dean picked out for years, but it seems as though there are now little Jacksons everywhere you turn, so we may have to rethink that one. Whatever it may be, I’m sure we will come up with the perfect name at some point between now and the new year.
Needless to say, we are a little excited about our little surprise…
Hillary Clinton and the Bible Code May 28, 2008
Posted by Matt in President 2008, politics.Tags: antichrist, Hillary, insanity, Obama, president
18 comments
As the race for the Democratic nomination for president plods on and on and on, with Barack Obama’s spot at the top of the ticket solidifying more and more by the day, people wonder at the reasons for the continuation of Hillary Clinton’s tenacious fight. Last week, her statement that likened this race to the one in which Robert Kennedy was assassinated was regarded by many as deplorable, in that it seemed as though she was insinuating that Obama could likely soon be the target of assassins.
Why would a seasoned politician such as herself make a remark like this? Is she becoming desperate? Is she grasping for any slight hold to stop the downfall of her candidacy?
Or has she been studying the Bible codes?
For those of you unfamiliar with the Bible code concept, the idea is to take the entire Bible, shove all of the words together with no breaks for verses or chapters or books, and perform an equidistant letter analysis. In this way, Bible code enthusiasts say that you can find predictions for past events that have taken place around the world for thousands of years before, as well as future events such as the end of the world.
So, what does this have to do with the current presidential campaign? Well, according to recent findings posted at www.satansrapture.com, the Bible actually foretold of Obama’s assassination thousands of years ago. The actual prediction comes from the book of Genesis and reads like this:
BARAK OBAMA – ASSASSINATION
WILL DIE – GUNMAN – CONSPIRACY
Another reads like this:
BARAK OBAMA – ASSASSINATION
TISHRI – HE WILL DIE
SUBSTITUTE – REPLACEMENT
So, according this particular Bible code, Obama will die in the Hebrew month of Tishri, which is October (according to the crazies at this site).
Obama, then, will win the nomination but be assassinated one month before the election, leaving the spot open for Hillary. So, what do the codes say about Mrs. Clinton?
HILLARY RODHAM – PRESIDENT
WELCOMES – ACCEPTS – HONORS
PRAISES – THE BEAST – 2010
So, perhaps Hillary Clinton is actually colluding with the anti-christ to murder Barack Obama and become president of the US, ushering in the rapture and the tribulation.
Or, then again, maybe some people are just completely nuts…
Sibling Rivalry May 27, 2008
Posted by Matt in family.Tags: confession, jealousy, sibling rivalry
2 comments
It’s time to step back into the cyber-confessional booth and air out my faults and mistakes to the world at large, in hopes that this might provide some respite from the gnawing of my inadequacies.
I was not a good big brother.
Growing up, I always tried to leave my younger brother out of every activity that I was involved in that my friends were also a part of, and I continued the shameful acts, embarrassingly enough, all the way into my late teens. I’m not exactly sure why I always tried to exclude him – whether it was from some inner fear that my friends might like him more than me or if it was because I held him to a much higher standard than I did myself (while my friends and I were certainly not major troublemakers, we still did some pretty stupid things and I guess I always felt the need to protect him). Whatever the reason, I was not a very accommodating sibling.
Things improved greatly by the time we both got to college, but I have always carried around some measure of guilt for how I treated him and for the part that I played in maybe forever injuring our friendship.
Today, I have two young children and I can already see the same tendencies in them. Bekah always wants to be a part of whatever Rachel and her friends are doing and Rachel doesn’t want her anywhere around. Last night, Rachel had a friend from school come over to spend the night and her attitude toward her little sister was just downright ugly.
Perhaps this is my penance for treating my brother the way that I did for so many years, but I hope and pray that we will be able to deal with this effectively now, so that a wall will not be constructed between them at such a young age. How do you deal with sibling rivalry?
Coming to Life May 25, 2008
Posted by Matt in church, garden.Tags: church, community garden, Memphis, plant, seeds
3 comments
Life is a pretty amazing thing.
Even the most jaded of our species must look upon the incredible process of developing life as something incredible. Microscopic elements of biological structure somehow combine together to form an organism, with its own distinct characteristics hard-wired deep within its DNA, written upon its genes by the hand of God almighty.
I write this not only as a father in the early stages of expectation of a third child that currently, according to latest update, is the size of a lentil, but also as a cultivator of the soil, toiling upon the soil and beneath the unrelenting meteorological conditon contstantly threatening. There will be more on the developing child this Thursday following the first ultrasound, but, for now, I want to talk a bit about our church’s community garden project.
A week ago we had a great turnout from church members and, with the cooperation of the weather (75 degrees and clear), we were able to accomplish quite a bit – finishing the rows and hills, as well as planting almost the entire garden. During that session, my tiller broke down, leaving only a section of garden left that still needed to be cultivated and planted. We worked from around 9:00 am that Saturday morning until 4:00 that afternoon and accomplished a good bit more than we had up to that point.
Another member of our congregation graciously loaned us his small tiller (that was around 25 years old and still ran great) to finish the task this past week, so I went back out to the church on Friday evening after work and completed the tilling, working until the sun went down. Because this was a holiday weekend, it was understood that attendance at our Saturday session might be rather sparse, but the four of us that were able to make it worked hard to complete the job. I ended up staying at the garden spot for around 5 hours Saturday.
But, I am male and and given to overestimating my stamina, strength, and ability – especially given that I spend most days sitting sedentarily at a desk facing a computer screen. Following those five grueling hours of toil with the hoe and shovel, skipping lunch and trying to withstand the nearl-90 degree heat, I was ready to drop. With my head swimming with exhaustion and spots randomly appearing before my eyes, I finally called it a day after everyone else had left and carefully journeyed back home, where I ate a bite, showered, and collapsed for a few hours in a weary heap.
So, despite several weather setbacks over the past month, things are moving ahead. Several of the seed we planted a week ago are germinating and have even emerged from the dark, delta soil in which they were placed.
Its like a weight has been lifted – the project of my obsession is finally coming to fruition – and this is just beginning…
Looking For Wisdom – 5/23/08 May 23, 2008
Posted by Matt in Looking for Wisdom.Tags: blog, search
add a comment
One of the really cool things about blogging on WordPress is the ability to see the search terms that lead other people to my blog – some of them tend to be rather strange. Here are just a few of them from the last week:
must read manly books
worst salads in America
fat girls words of wisdom
stoner words of wisdom
dinosaur free music
shirtless guy on beale street (it wasn’t me, I promise!)
Rug pee’ers, Walter
Free Music Friday 5/23/08 May 23, 2008
Posted by Matt in free music friday, music.Tags: Iron Man, music, Suicidal Tendencies, video
add a comment
Last weekend we had the rare opportunity to get away from the kids for a few hours and treat ourselves to a good old fashioned dinner-and-a-movie date. Our cinematic choice was this summer’s first blockbuster film, Iron Man – and I have to say that, even though I tend to be a pretty big film snob – it was very enjoyable. I always tend to notice the music playing during the movies we watch (imagine that!) and, at one point in the film, a certain song played that I instantly recognized as one that I enjoyed in my teen years (though it was older than that) and that I had not heard in probably a decade or more. For better or (most likely) worse, Suicidal Tendencies pretty much invented the rap-rock hybrid genre of music, and they were doing it several years before it became popular in the late 90’s. The song from the movie was probably their biggest one, Institutionalized, and here, for your enjoyment, is the old-school video for the tune.
Coming Around May 22, 2008
Posted by Matt in Jesus.Tags: christian, Jesus, realization, salvation, servant
11 comments
There have been various points in my life when I most likely would have spoken these words and sometimes when I might have even thought I meant them, before climbing back into the gaping wide hole of self, nestling up to a bloated ego, and placing myself once again square in the center of the earth. It took a long time to really figure it out, though I knew it all along:
I want to live for others.
I’m tired of money. I’m tired of possessions (except for my books, you’ll have to pry those from my cold, dead fingers). And I’m tired of the idea that those two things are the measure of success.
I’m tired of the idea that the most important goal in life should be to attain our own personal, eternal salvation. I’m tired of ignoring the injustices around me because they don’t directly affect my everyday life. I’m tired of self-righteousness.
I just want to give a cup of cold water. I want to be a blessing. I want to serve. I want to be like Jesus.
I don’t care if my name is in the Book of Life. I don’t care about heaven. I don’t care about hell. I don’t care about what fate awaits my soul.
I care about the least of these. I care about those who struggle to survive. I care about those we kill for the cause of “freedom.” I even want to care about those people I can’t stand.
I guess you could say that I’m finally coming around…
“Manly” Books May 21, 2008
Posted by Matt in books.Tags: books, Essential Man's Library, men, reading
add a comment
My attention span is too short to keep writing about the Evangelical Manifesto, but I would still welcome your comments on it. For now, though, I’d like to move this blog on to something else…
It is no secret that I love books. I love feel of holding a volume in my hands. I love the smell of the pages and ink. And I love the way that a book can ignite the imagination, transporting you to another place and time and situation in a way that other mediums of entertainment fall short of. The human imagination is a gift that far surpasses any amount of CGI effects. My office at home contains an entire wall devoted to bookshelves that are crammed full of everything from the classics to textbooks to Stephen King, and I love owning every one of them (except for Diana’s copies of the Left Behind books, I can do without them).
So, when my good friend who writes under the pseudonym Smokey left a comment on another blog regarding a recent list of must-read books, I had to post about it. This list comes from the website The Art of Manliness, and it is entitled “100 Must-Read Books: The Essential Man’s Library,” and being a man, and somewhat manly, I was intrigued.
Now I know that the title may put some of you off, but it really is an interesting list and I can proudly say that I’ve read 41 of these titles and actually own a few more of them that I’ve never gotten through (seriously, has anybody ever read all of Joyce’s Ulysses?). I tend to agree with my friend that the list-makers went a little heavy on Theodore Roosevelt, both as author and subject, and I would have liked to see Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises included, but in all it is a pretty good list.
How many have of the books have you read? What else should have been included?
The Evangelical Manifesto – pt.2 May 20, 2008
Posted by Matt in Jesus, The Evangelical Manifesto, god, religion.Tags: beliefs, Christianity, Evangelical Manifesto, god, Jesus
1 comment so far
Yesterday, I introduced this recently composed document for your scrutiny and today I want to begin dissecting it and hopefully gathering your ideas and opinions on its different components.
The paper identifies three major mandates for those in the American Evangelical Movement, beginning with one of definition: We must reaffirm our identity.
The writers define the term thusly: Evangelicals are Christians who define themselves, their faith, and their lives according to the Good News of Jesus of Nazareth. This definition is theological in nature, not political, social, or cultural, regardless of what many pushing certain agendas may imply. Again quoting the article: To be Evangelical, then, and to define our faith and our lives by the Good News of Jesus as taught in Scripture, is to submit our lives entirely to the lordship of Jesus and to the truths and the way of life that He requires of His followers, in order that they might become like Him, live the way He taught, and believe as He believed.
But in a world of competing ideas, including Christian ones that seem to oppose each other, how do we “believe as He believed?”
The writers have set apart seven beliefs that can be seen as foundational to the message of Jesus:
1. We believe that Jesus Christ is fully God become fully human, the unique, sure, and sufficient revelation of the very being, character, and purposes of God, beside whom there is no other god, and beside whom there is no other name by which we must be saved.
2. We believe that the only ground for our acceptance by God is what Jesus did on the cross and what he is now doing through his risen life, whereby he exposed and reversed the course of human sin and violence, bore the penalty for our sins, credited us with his righteousness, redeemed us from the power of evil, reconciled us to God, and empowers us with his life “from above.” We therefore bring nothing to our salvation. Credited with the righteousness of Christ, we receive his redemption solely by grace through faith.
3. We believe that new life, given supernaturally through spiritual regeneration, is a necessity as well as a gift; and that the lifelong conversion that results is the only pathway to a radically changed character and way of life. Thus for us, the only sufficient power for a life of Christian faithfulness and moral integrity in this world is that of Christ’s resurrection and the power of the Holy Spirit.
4. We believe that Jesus’ own teaching and his attitude toward the total truthfulness and supreme authority of the Bible, God’s inspired Word, make the Scriptures our final rule for faith and practice.
5. We believe that being disciples of Jesus means serving him as Lord in every sphere of our lives, secular as well as spiritual, public as well as private, in deeds as well as words, and in every moment of our days on earth, always reaching out as he did to those who are lost as well as to the poor, the sic, the hungry, the oppressed, the socially despised, and being faithful stewards of creation and our fellow-creatures.
6. We believe that the blessed hope of the personal return of Jesus provides both strength and substance to what we are doing, just as what we are doing becomes a sign of the hope of where we are going; both together leading to a consummation of history and the fulfillment of an undying kingdom that comes only by the power of God.
7. We believe all followers of Christ are called to know and love Christ through worship, love Christ’s family through fellowship, grow like Christ through discipleship, serve Christ by ministering to the needs of others in his name, and share Christ with those who do not yet know him, inviting people to the ends of the earth and to the end of time to join us as his disciples and followers of his way.
So, do you think this defines what it means to be Evangelical? Next we will look at the implications, as given by the authors, of these core beliefs. In the meantime, though, what do you think?
