New Music

Music has always been such a big part of my life. There is not enough words to express all the things I feel when I listen. Over the past few years most of my listening has consisted of U2 and Over The Rhine. Both these bands have expressed in song so much of where I have been in my walk with God. I have found a new one to add to my IPod. I know that music along with so many other things is very personal to the one who is listening. I find this to be true in so many areas of the arts. I might be moved mightily by a book I'm reading, it might not touch anything in you. The same is so true with music. We are all in our own private dance in our journeys with God. They are all very personal. Beyond that we also have the opportunity to share these experiences with others Father joins us to. Whether it is here on the net or more intimately in face to face friendships. I am finally getting to a place in my life where I'm learning to look beyond whether or not the thing someone might be sharing with me resonates with me on a deep level and simply see the beautiful work of this Loving Father in them at the moment.

Here is an interview with two of the band members of The Innocence Mission.
http://www.theinnocencemission.com/paste.htm

Some more thoughts on Grace

Grace shows us how beauty, sadness and brokeness can combine to result in gorgeous brilliance.

U2
Grace

Grace, she takes the blame
She covers the shame
Removes the stain
It could be her name
Grace, it's the name for a girl
It's also a thought that changed the world
And when she walks on the street
You can hear the strings
Grace finds goodness in everything
Grace, she's got the walk
Not on a ramp or on chalk
She's got the time to talk
She travels outside of karma
She travels outside of karma
When she goes to work
You can hear her strings
Grace finds beauty in everything
Grace, she carries a world on her hips
No champagne flute for her lips
No twirls or skips between her fingertips
She carries a pearl in perfect condition
What once was hurt
What once was friction
What left a mark
No longer stings
Because Grace makes beauty
Out of ugly things
Grace makes beauty out of ugly things

GRACE

Is anybody out there listening? Do you know of many people who live unable to get over the grace of God? What I mean by that is, I feel myself living more and more with this overwhelming sense of this transforming power in my life. I feel I have been stuck here for awhile now. AND I NEVER WANT TO LEAVE THIS PLACE. In the middle of my sometimes messy life, there it is. When I look at the natural beauty that surrounds me, there it is. With my wife and three daughters if we are laughing or crying, and yes, even when we are fighting, there it is.Gone are the days of living my life thinking this is mostly about me getting it right instead of it being about Jesus and him having already set it straight. I'm learning to simply live in him as the safest place to be, knowing it is he who has the skills to do in me what I can not do. I find myself just wanting him. It is so laughable to try to boast about the things that are changing in me. He is doing a work in me that I wasn't even aware needed done a few months back.