Played guitar for a funeral last evening. A beautiful, radiant spirit, this gal was to so many people. Then, our our oldest “adopted” daughter (i.e. she’s not our daughter, but we love her like one) lost her aunt to cancer last night as well. A funeral for an infant in our town occurred yesterday also.

3 deaths in just a few days.

In all these moments, music came forward. In the services, it was part of the fabric of the comforting gathering. In a kitchen, as 7 or so other girl students and friends gathered around our young girl missing her aunt, one of them began to sing the soft strains of Be The Centre in the background as she sliced bread. We tumbled in and out of mourning, laughter, stories and more tears.

Someone was whistling, too.

There’s something about music that gives the gift of hope to those who are suffering. Music is a place, a non-locational place, that people go to in times of grief.

Lyrics and melodies, textures and sounds. They echo what is going on in our souls, and the most hopeful songs resonate with us there, and then lead us into a brighter place in the soul, where shafts of light are cutting into the shadows.

Enya’s May It Be, from the Lord Of The Rings soundtrack captures some of the essence of both mourning and hope.

I’m amazed at how vulnerable I feel as an artist when I create something that others are meant to experience.

I wrote a quick song last night, very roughly/poorly recorded, and swallowed hard as I played it for some friends who came by my office today. They loved the feel of it, but I still felt like a little kid approaching that moment when you look to see if they’re being nice or being honest.

Even at 40, though known primarily as a worship-related writer, my first love of writing thickly poetic songs is still hidden as I avoid exposure to others. Yet, those songs say what I want to say in the world more deeply than any pop-lyric.

The Church must feel like that, too, sometimes. Groans can only express the beauty we often taste in responding to God’s approach - like flowers bursting in myriad colors from a cold stone.

I think that deep down we don’t want to be laughed at, or be seen as attempting to be something we’re not. It’s the PoserFear.

The tenderness in that area of our hearts must be a gift, at the same time it feels as though it’s a curse.

I’m back up and online. The site was down for a day as we switched servers.

Good friend Jeremy Wright keeps me well in these matters.

Lewis had a beautiful view of merriment in the life of the human being, in light of my favored season of Christmas attendant upon us now…

We must embrace merriment. Yes, we must avoid hollow frivolity, but also inordinate gravity.

We must embrace the kind of merriment that can only come among people who have taken serious things seriously.

This weekend a few friends and I are pulling out the hammered dulcimer (Dan), violin (Matt), mandolin (Dave), guitars and a bag of world percussion tricks to make music during the big Ten Thousand Villages sale in St. Stephen.

10K Villages is fair trade at its best, getting good money directly to the global artisans who make the products. Way to go Mennonites.

Also, we get first crack at some of the funkiest percussion pieces you ever did see. Sweet.

HOW CAN WE HELP THE SUFFERING OF OTHERS?

Guiding Idea: You can’t heal everything; and some things are not ready to be healed yet.

We can build bridges of kindness.

We can empathize - imaginatively enter into the perception of another.

Community can heal - practical acts of love are more powerful than we’ll ever know. It can offer support and accountability in practical ways.

To intercede for others in prayer is a way we can alleviate suffering that we ignore to our peril.

The prayer ministry pattern that is from the ancient pattern for baptism is confession, forgiveness and renunciation of evil. We can be a priest to each other, and lead each other, in this way. It’s an excellent way to cleanse the soul, both of yourself and others, along the journey.

These are all ways to care for the suffering of others.

It’s a quiet moment on one more Sunday eve in my brief lifetime, and my heart is hushed before God.

I feel the warmth of His presence near, and to dance with such flame is the danger I find my heart embracing again for the next decade of my life.

I’d rather live on the edge of epiphany, even if it means that death in the chasm is just a tumble away. I’d like my kids to live that way, too.

The next stock of the songs and writings from me will flow from, as Alison Krauss puts it, “the ache in my chest.” They will be the things I have to say.

Of course, I say these things in the quiet moments of an evening.

For the community that is the Church, there are contrasting ways of viewing the past.

The Church, as we rediscovers the past, and ideally re-invest our contemporary worship with its riches, can either look on the past with Dismissal, Nostalgia or Living Memory.

Dismissive Memory looks lightly at the past, but with disregard and disdain, seeing only the riches of the present and the future.

Nostalgic Memory looks heavily at the past with longing, desiring to conform the present and the future to the memory of the past.

Living Memory looks thoughtfully at the past with appreciation, drawing from it to inform and strengthen the present and the future.

We must look at the past with Living Memory, and allow it to shape, form and enhance an ever-changing present and future.

If one definition of culture is indeed defined as “corporate memory,” then we must look at both yesterday and today with a humble, yet critical eye, and bring aid to the corporate memory of tomorrow — by being radically present to the world of today.

THE FELT NEED

Many cups made for children have a small base, and spill easily.

When the classic sippy cup is no longer needed by a growing child, they still are learning their macro-muscle skills, and spills are common throughout childhood.

Any parent knows that spills are incredibly frustrating mid-meal, especially when the liquid is sticky.

THE IDEA: THE NO-TIPPY CUP

The No-Tippy Cup is colorful, made of durable plastic, but has a wide base that fans out at the bottom of the cup, making it harder to tip.

The No-Tippy Cup is a size grippable by little hands, but at the bottom the base is thicker, and fans out like a small plate, so it doesn’t take too much room on a small dinner table.

As the child brings the still lightweight No-Tippy Cup to their lips, there are pictures of smiley faces, cartoon characters both on the edge before their eyes, and on the bottom of the base to flash a happy face at all the fam seated around the table.

Consider designer (i.e. Mickey, Frodo, Nemo) No-Tippy Cups for kids. Heck, try one for clumsy Dad’s.

How to refine how they stack or sit in a cupboard, I’m not sure, though a unique mold design could do the trick.

A NOTE ON DAN’S IDEAS:

Go ahead and use this idea, as I probably will never get the time to implement it. I’d rather you were helped by it as an entrepreneur, rather than me take it to my grave.

If you do use the idea, and do well with it, just “remember my family and I” in any way you deem appropriate — that’s all I ask. These ideas will not be copyrighted by me, and its your job to see if someone has invented this already as you develop a prototype.

saffron (or the spice of the prophet)

saffron burns like a spice not meant for human forebearance
lilting down the pipe of open dreams
dreams meant for listeners and not for speakers

it lofts through the streams of blood like a boat on a swollen river
kept aloft by its nature
nature meant for speakers and not for dreamers

it burdens the stomach like so much powder
an incense for food
food meant for dreamers and not for whistlers

it keeps its fancies within the frame until it can no longer
pent up no more by my design
design meant for whistlers and not for givers

an assignment for givers and not for takers.

d. wilt

“He will not lift up his voice….” (from the pen of the prophet Isaiah)

When the Church can put aside glitz and glamor, and humbly meet the world on the terrain of shared suffering and inexhaustible love, then we will change the world for which we’ve been made.

We need more than just a strong moral code to live with that kind of humble power, but rather the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit to enable the Church to love in this humanity-dignifying and others-elevating manner.

On occasion we pause this blog on emerging worship to bring you a public service announcement.

Apple will replace an iPod whose battery has died for $59.95 + $6.95 shipping.

It will either be a new iPod they send, or a refurbished one (which will be better than what you have at the non-working moment).

The recall on the batteries only yields a $50.00 Apple Store certificate, and I believe that certificate is only good for store purchases (not support). I’m still waiting on mine.

Apple iPod Battery Replacement Program

My wife is over my shoulder, watching me type this post.

I think it’s a good time for me to say, “I married the most stunning woman in all the world.”

(note: alternate opinions from other husbands may apply.)

My students have been reading a chapter I wrote called Contemporary Worship, due out with Broadman Holman publishers in a book called Five Views On Worship this Spring.

In the chapter, they will consider worldview issues, Church and culture integration, the content of contemporary worship music and the worship trends of the emerging Church.

The question for this week is:

“What were the two (2) most impacting thoughts you came across in this chapter? Explain why they impacted you, and their implications for the 21st century Church’s worship (and it’s connection with popular culture)?”

A good friend and I stood out in front of my office for a few minutes this cold, autumnal morning, ruminating on the meaning of joy, passion, suffering and responsibility.

These words came to me, as the idea has again and again:

The ground is as holy under the feet of the plumber, as it is under the feet of the pastor. Live from your core; live from the Center.

When the Church can physically let go of its sacred and secular paradigm, and embrace simply the covenant distinction (those who embrace it and those who do not), we may well take our true place in human culture once again — and become the most generously-spirited people on earth.