BlakeAtwood.com

“But because we are human, every move of God is eventually turned away from truth and into formula, and God has to go about breaking our misconceptions and coming at it from a different angle.”

- Stepping Off the Bandwagon

I googled my friend Daniel Whittington from California and found an article he wrote about Christian music, the CCM industry, praise and worship, and why he’s in a secular band and will never go back. Worth the read, if not just for the quote above.

I call him phenomenal.

Last weekend I attended a concert hosted by the fine folks at Hope Chapel in Austin, TX. The concert featured Don Chaffer, former lead singer of Waterdeep. I never thought I’d get to see him perform again unless I somehow managed to wind up in Kansas City, KS on the same rare night that he’d be performing.

You see, Waterdeep is my favorite band, ever. At least they were. Not that they still aren’t my favorite band, it’s just that the band no longer exists. Don’s gone on to producing, to spending time with his family and his new son, so it’s all understandable, but still gets me a little depressed that the group as I knew them is no longer.

As for the show, it was phenomenal. Don talked a lot between the songs, and he was hilarious. He also gave a talk during the morning of his Saturday concert, which was insightful, if not somewhat stream-of-conciousness. Then again, I greatly appreciated that aspect. He’s one of the most honest people I’ve never really met. How often can you say that an artist is honest? Either his stage persona is fake and he’s a real person off-stage, or vice-versa, or neither. Hardly ever do you find someone that’s both.

He used a repeater (or a looper, depending on what you like to call the guitar pedal that will loop a few bars played into it) and people were just amazed. I’m a drummer, and I’ve played in lots of worship bands and a few jam bands, so I’ve seen and heard this effect used before, but I’ve never seen it used so masterfully to create such wonderful, multi-layered textures of sound, just from one man and his guitar.

Bono might have been talking about Don on this night when he said, “All I have is three chords and the truth.” I wanted to cry during some of his songs, but felt too inhibited. It was the first time in a very long time that I could feel the music. I play music every Sunday, and every Wednesday, and it’s mostly the same songs, rehashed, semi-rehearsed, and played half-assedly. It wears on me, so when opportunities like Don’s concert come, I salivate over the sonic possibilities of what I’ll get to hear. I was not disappointed, at all. At least not that night.

I contacted the church to get a recording of the talk he gave on Saturday morning, his concert on that night, and his two talks that I did not get to attend on Sunday morning. The nice lady sent them to me as quick as possible. I opened the package like a Ralphie on A Christmas Story, only to discover that I wasn’t allowed a copy of the concert, the one thing I wanted most, my Red Rider BB Gun, so to speak. Apparently, someone’s afraid I might shoot my eye out.

So I didn’t get my copy of the concert, and I was sad, and I still am, a bit, but I’m getting over it. Maybe I was just supposed to enjoy it for one night, to relish that experience, but not quench it with repeated listenings. The things we remember often become better with time as it is. Why would I want to ruin that with actually hearing the concert?

Bollocks. I still want the concert.

[a few weeks later, I actually got that tape. it's amazing.]

for saying the things he says:

“There is so much pretense in Christian Music, of people trying to convince people that they are Jesus, because of how well that markets. I am not Jesus. I am not my savior. I am not sinless. I am not perfect. If anything, my heart is a mockery of those things. And I would much rather model brokenness. I think that’s more consistent with the Christian worldview, rather than modeling perfection.

The Christian life is about one of two things: it’s either about being perfect and keeping the law, or it’s about realizing your need for one who can keep the law in your place. And a lot of us genuinely believe that Christianity is the first one. We pay lip service to Jesus being sufficient for our sins, and liberating us from the law, when really we still believe that God loves us more when we keep the law. And that’s a lie.”

And this:

“If art is judged on form and content, the cross is the ultimate artistic example. Jesus was the form of humanity and the content of God. We as artists have to learn how to marry human brokenness and divine mercy together in art. That’s our job.”

The Gospel According to…

From The Gospel According to Peanuts:

“How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?” (Ps. 137:4 RSV) is a question the Church, always finding itself in but not of the world, urgently needs to reconsider today. For it not only needs to reconsider how it can best make meaningful contact with the particular men of our particular time, with all of their own idiosyncrasies; but the Church also needs to re-examine its strategy of communication to men of all times—since the objection all men have to the Church’s message is fundamentally the same: it is that universal hardness of heart lying far more deeply and steadfastly within them than any objection men can usually hold consciously.”

(from the christianitytoday.com article):

Whew. More than one reader, expecting a book about, well, “Peanuts,” surely stopped right there. Even those who waded through the imposing syntax would arrive at the disconcerting substance: for Short, the gospel begins with original sin. Art, including “Peanuts,” is thus an end run around sin—”disguising the truth in order to get it through the enemy’s defenses.” Short proceeded to offer a kind of illustrated neo-orthodoxy, correlating Kirkegaard and Lucy, Barth and Snoopy. If he treated the drawings more as sermon illustrations than as art worth interpreting in its own right, the fact that Schulz was a Sunday school teacher seemed to justify a few critical liberties.

I’m leafing through my archived documents, half-finished prose and poetry that, for the most part, never saw the light of day (only the light of my own computer screen). Part of me has given up on writing simply because I’m no longer an English major, but the other part of me hangs on for dear life, because I sincerely enjoy writing. I just need to learn how to make it profitable.

So here’s something old I wrote that was fairly recently composed (6 months ago or more), and something I also like:

It was a fleeting moment, a passing image, a bit of pop culture that broke through to show God’s love. It was America’s Funniest People, a rerun no less. We see a small boy singing in a chorus. It looks like a school performance. The boy sits, but jostles his chair and starts snapping his fingers. Above the din of the room and the fading applause, you can hear the boy loudly ask for his dad. “Dad! Dad! (snap snap) Dad! Dad!” In other words, possibly in the only words that children know, “Look at me! Give me all of your attention, completely undivided. Listen to me!”

When the boy has received his father’s attention, the child asks the question all of our religious charades ask in their unique ways – “How am I doin?” You don’t hear a reply from the father, but you can see the reaction of the child. Elation. Jumping out of his seat for joy. The child’s father told him what he only hoped to hear.

The father probably only gave his child a thumbs up. He might have even mouthed the word “Great.” But to the child that was all that was necessary. A simple assertion of doing good. A “yes” of approval to calm the seas of his doubt. “Am I ok by you Dad? I don’t care what these kids beside me think, I just want to know what you think of me. Am I making you proud?”