If the Waves Don't Care...

I'm carrying 10 tiki torches, a cooler full of ice cream sandwiches and wearing a lei and grass skirt. It was needless to say that the residents of Best Western on South Padre Island were wondering what the heck was going on. You see only a few things are guaranteed at summer camp.   (1) You will get NO sleep. (2) Someone will get hurt or do something stupid for which you're responsible. (3) God will move.

The one different dynamic that i noticed this time was that there was an outside factor. Because as much as we would have loved to.... we couldn't rent out the whole island. So i watched families and drunk old men stare at us and wonder what was going one. Anytime i walked through the halls or across the beach with a sound system or instrument i was stopped at least ten times. 

"What's going on here!?"

"OOOooo are you guys going to be playing live music!?"

"What time does it start!?"

Sorry, i'm just here with a church camp, no live music tonight...... 

It all gave me a sudden initial exciting thought. People really long for community.  At least that was my initial thought. The more i moved along throughout the week and gave the same disappointing answer to people i began to wonder if it was community or entertainment that they all longed for. 

I'm not sure i want to entertain...

Standing on the shore with my feet in the water and feeling, for the first time at the sight of the Ocean, so incredibly small in comparison with God made me think. About what I'm doing with my time here. About learning how to "work the stage". About how much time i wasted straightening my bow tie and throwing my hat away at just the right time... Did these waves i was watching now notice? Did they give a crap what my last name was? nope. they went on forming new shorelines regardless of my new pants or catchy hooks. 

Don't get me wrong i love performing and it's been my sanity for the past year, but i wonder if the importance i've assigned it wasn't incredibly over estimated. I still have things i'd love to say and melodies i hear that could help carry the message, but i think now that the people who are on stage with me or the size of that stage are just details. the color of the lights, the mix, my clothes... all just details. Because i'm realizing that i love, but can live without, being an entertainer. 

I watched kids,  that i've grown to love very much and pray for every night, encounter the creator... and no one was thinking about my name. The waves joined in praise later that night along with us and no one was thinking about my bands new shirts. There was nothing to "set the ambiance" but God's work.

I guess i'm just feeling more and more that if even the waves that could snuff me without a thought are rolling in an effort to cry out God's name... i could bear to dedicate my life to the same. 

For Whom We Prophesy...

"Those who deal with the law did not know me;

the leaders rebelled against me.

The prophets prophesied by Baal,

following worthless idols."

-Jeremiah 2:8

I've read about prophets in the bible for since i was a kid. They come in kick down the doors declaring the word of God. They call down fire and eliminate the enemy. Strong, filled with authority and purpose. I guess my view of a prophet has always been like this.... until i read this passage. I still believe that prophets are alive and among us today. In our class rooms, our households, our work places and in our streets. Whether we know it or not... whether they know it or not. But as i read Jeremiah 2 it dawned on me that we're all prophets... but not all of the Living God.

For whom do you prophesy?

Reading that "The prophets prophesied by Baal" caught me off guard. Jeremiah wasn't the only voice booming with prophetic power in his time. There were others prophesying the schemes of other gods. Declaring their wills. There were voices that the people had to discern and decipher. The righteous will of God sometimes clashing with the voices of the lesser. Never any less sovereign or powerful, but still competing the for the ear of the people. I never stopped to think that being a prophet didn't necessarily mean speaking for God.

For whom do you prophesy?

In our words lies the power of life and death. Every compliment, every sarcastic joke, every hateful jab, every line of praise. Even the righteous can speak the words of the fallen and cause destruction and death by them if they aren't guarding their hearts.

May we be aware of the power in our tongues. May we use our words to speak on behalf of life. We can build up or tear down, all depending on who's behalf we're prophesying.

To Save the Living: Where Our Hearts Go in the Silence

So i was watching one of my favorite new TV shows and one scene in particular seemed to grab my attention. 

Plague threatened the city where the show takes place. A mother and son were quarantined in the hospital, the first two to show signs of the sickness. When the mother died and a nearby young lady asked the doctors why no one had told her dying child that his mother was gone, the doctor replied "We're just trying to save the living at this point."

Trying to save the living...

I felt sick to my stomach when i heard it. See i've been pouring my passions and efforts into finding a way to enhance meaning in our corporate worship. (ref. my entry: The Apex) Everything from what songs we sing, to where our hearts go during the silence. I wanted so badly for our community to experience the glory of God in a way that would overflow in our lives... but i've been ignoring those on the outside of our world here on monday nights. 

Sam Shoemaker in his poem "I Stand by the Door" says it like this:

I stand by the door.

I neither go to far in, nor stay to far out.
The door is the most important door in the world -
It is the door through which men walk when they find God.
There is no use my going way inside and staying there,
When so many are still outside and they, as much as I,
Crave to know where the door is.
And all that so many ever find
Is only the wall where the door ought to be.
They creep along the wall like blind men,
With outstretched, groping hands,
Feeling for a door, knowing there must be a door,
Yet they never find it.
So I stand by the door.

The most tremendous thing in the world
Is for men to find that door - the door to God.
The most important thing that any man can do
Is to take hold of one of those blind, groping hands
And put it on the latch - the latch that only clicks
And opens to the man's own touch.

Men die outside the door, as starving beggars die
On cold nights in cruel cities in the dead of winter.
Die for want of what is within their grasp.

There was nothing lacking integrity or Godly passion in our desire to worship, but i notice that where our hearts go in the silence is a selfish place sometimes.

"God meet US here"

"Father show US Your glory"

Instead of:

"Father reveal Yourself to the lost"

"God change the heart of this city to burn for You."

So let our voices lift up in praise and cry out for a touch of life in the clamor and crescendo of corporate worship, but let our hearts cry out for those who know nothing of the joy we've found and still reach out, feeling blindly along the wall searching for the door. May we stand by the door. Never going too far in so as not to forget those people "...who have not, yet even found the door, Or the people who want to run away again from God, You can go in too deeply, and stay in too long, And forget the people outside the door.Near enough to God to hear Him, and know He is there, But not so far from people as not to hear them, And remember they are there, too."

May we save the living but NEVER forget the dying. May we guard our hearts and the places they go in the silence.

TVA: A Concept Album in 3 Parts...

We're working on a concept album in three parts. Based on a concept that we feel everybody of any faith has struggled with at one point if not constantly. 

 

"The logician spends his entire life trying to fit heaven into his head, while the poet is just trying to get his head into heaven." -G.K.Chesterton

 

A good book comes in three phases. First comes the Abstract. Academic literature uses the abstract to succinctly communicate complex research. For us this phase was more than anything an effort to force ourselves to really hone in on the thesis of our work. What's the theme and how many parts are necessary in our work to communicate it? Ours came in four: Thesis, conflict, climax & resolution. It can stand alone but more than anything we hope ours enhances your listening experience by highlighting all the main points.

 

Next comes the actual work. Ours will follow the mind and heart along it's journey from unbelief to faith and struggle that so many of us experience between the mind and the heart. We try and explain to ourselves and others things of spiritual nature with terms that have rigid structure and logic. It won't work. We need "poetic grunts, metaphors and puns", we need an artistic, abstract approach, but ever since the enlightenment something about our nature won't allow that. We need a bottom line. We need to find "X". This struggle provides more than enough material for writing and covers everything from a believers first skeptic glance, to the deepest moments in encounters with a living God.

 

Last comes the Appendix. A supplemental addition to a given main work. It may correct errors, explain inconsistencies or otherwise detail or update the information found in the main work, especially if any such problems were detected too late to correct the main work. Ours will add a new perspective. Often after the work is done new perspectives come about due to a new stance. We hope to remix and re-write some songs accordingly.

 

We're Working on a concept album in three parts:

 

1. Abstract

2. TVA: A work by The Vinyl Affair

3. Appendix: The Remix

 

The truth is this album sounds smarter than we are. We're 5 very normal very flawed guys, and this album will hopefully reflect struggles and successes that are familiar with most people.

 

We hope you enjoy our music, test it, hold on to what is good and  stick with us as we keep
making new music.

 

TVA loves you, 

-DG

A Name for Your god...

I don't know if you have a name for your god or if you beleive in one for that matter, but this is a song from me to mine. I read stories of how a very real, very living God interacted with His people. People with names that most people of any faith have heard before. Calling to Abraham, wrestling with Jacob, and face to face with Moses. These were intimate and life changing encounters. Abraham was called out from the most unlikely of situtations and places to be made the father of nations, Jacob fought for his blessings and never walked the same, and Moses shone with the glory he'd seen. The incredible thing about these stories though is that the same God still operates the same way with His people, and we should see that in them. I'm not sure if you have a name for your god but this is a song from me to mine.


Breath
"I woke to something beating in my chest,
It wasn't mine to give but You took it
Under the weight of Your light I lost my head,
Out of the sleeve of the night where you found me


You took my breath

Face to face but afraid to be eye to eye
Behind the veil that You hung to protect them
Pillars of salt cry a warning to my left and right
You hold me down and with a kiss break the stilness

And You took my breath"


The same God still operates with His people in the same way and our lives should show that.

Chasing Cars...

There's a fine line between discernment and a hunch - between a good feeling and the right one. 

I watched the dog that i swerved to miss tonight chase my car for a solid three blocks. (i might not have swerved if it were a cat) 

*bright lights+ fast sounds = fun! i want it i want it i want it!* 

I wonder how many times a situation i was chasing just barely missed me, and i've stood knocked senseless before when it didn't wondering what just hit me. The point is, in retrospect i can see that i never sought out the highest council that i knew i had at my disposal. I never used the discernment that i knew i had. 

 *bright lights+ fast sounds = fun! i want it i want it i want it!* 

Never thinking about what i would do when i actually caught up to it and realized that the situation was not at all what i thought it to be when it was fast passing. But this time...? This time i'm realizing that God never meant for me to stand on the side watching everything i wanted racing by and hoping that i could reach out fast enough and hold on tight. Those, before, were for someone else. On their way to their recipient, and discernment over instinct could've told me that. 

This time i move slower. This time i'm looking for more. This time i carry it gently, because our hearts break so easily these days. This time i see a signature i recognize marking situations that do more than just feel good. 

And all this shot through my mind in three fast passing blocks while watching a dog chase a car.