The Power of the Cross

My new favorite song is The Power of the Cross by Keith Getty and Stuart Townend. Incredible lyrics, so powerful...

Oh, to see the dawn

Of the darkest day:

Christ on the road to Calvary.

Tried by sinful men,

Torn and beaten, then

Nailed to a cross of wood

This, the power of the cross:

Christ became sin for us;

Took the blame, bore the wrath-

We stand forgiven at the cross

Oh, to see the pain

Written on Your face,

Bearing the awesome weight of sin.

Every bitter thought,

Every evil deed

Crowning Your bloodstained brow.

Now the daylight flees;

Now the ground beneath

Quakes as its Maker bows His head.

Curtain torn in two,

Dead are raised to life;

"Finished!" the victory cry.

Oh, to see my name

Written in the wounds,

For through Your suffering I am free.

Death is crushed to death;

Life is mine to live,

Won through Your selfless love.

This, the power of the cross:

Son of God- slain for us.

What a love! What a cost!

We stand forgiven at the cross.

HoSWWMP

True story: About an hour ago my wonderful wife and I finished watching the movie version of Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest. She is still speaking with a British accent, calling me darling, and apparently thinks my name is Earnest. (I convinced all this was precipitated by that strawberry Oreo milkshake.) I considered writing a blog about a few of my love's quirks, but she shared some a few days ago.

So instead, I present to you, in honor of this week's warmer weather........

Highlights of Stephen's Warmer Weather Music Playlist (HoSWWMP)*

Jack Johnson has the most songs of all the artists on the playlist (14 of 73 songs), because his music was just made for warmer weather listening.

John Mayer comes in second. While John's songs aren't quite as adept to hot weather as Jack's, they are excellent for the spring warmup.

The HoSWWMP contains a decent number of what I call "Classic Rock" artists, such as Creedence Clearwater Revival, Jon Bon Jovi, Queen, and U2.

I've even included a few country songs, a category dominated by Rascal Flatts.

Of course, there are the quintessential summer-type tunes: Girls Don't Like Boys (Good Charlotte), Summer Girls (LFO), Story of a Girl (Nine Days), a couple of Smash Mouth songs, and Drops of Jupiter (Train).

Everytime We Touch by Casada tops the dance portion of the list. I get the groove each time it starts up. If you haven't seen my video, you've missed out.

And the #1 warmer weather song is... Pinch Me by Barenaked Ladies.

So there you have it folks. I'm interested... how is your playlist different? Do we have any similarities here?

*Please note that Stephen's Warmer Weather Music Playlist includes, but is not identical to, Stephen's Summer Jams or Stephen's Summer Evenings Playlist. He is completely free to blog about those and still avoid redundancy.

I am a dork*

Ten events of my day:

1. Ate breakfast

2. Facebooked a little

3. Worked on my new project*

4. Went to work

5. Played a board game with my wife

6. Colored a map of Europe showing mountain ranges, rivers, and bodies of water*

7. Cooked dinner, and read about early church history while I ate dinner

8. Went for a walk with my wife

9. Continued work on my new project*

10. Wrote this blog post

*My new project is making a timeline of European history with three sections: political history, cultural history, and church history. I am fascinated by the interaction of these things, and want to understand them better. What better way to learn than to research each and make my own giant timeline?! In the last four days I have researched, made notes, and timelined the history of the Roman Empire. Love it!

Pretending

Dear blog,

I wanted to let you in on a little secret. I have a new habit. A new personal trend, if you will.

Each evening while I blog, I open iTunes and play the theme from the old Doogie Howser television show. I pretend I am Doogie sitting down at my computer, typing out incidents from my day and reflecting upon my life. I even pause every few keystrokes to stare ponderously into nowhere. Then I nod my head with a slight laugh and a smirk and continue typing, this time a bit more resolutely.

Blog, I think you ought to know something. Though I enjoy my new habit, and my wife laughed the first five or six times, I may give it up after a few days. I'm too cheap to actually purchase the Doogie Howser theme from iTunes, so I have to pause my pretending every 30 seconds to play the sample clip again. It really derails my train of thought, which means I take much longer to write my post. Which means more Doogie Howser. Which means more pauses.

You see, Blog, it is a vicious cycle.

Christ in the Classics

I had the opportunity to perform in a wonderful concert this evening. Columbus Avenue Baptist Church in Waco presented a program called Christ in the Classics. It featured a full choir and orchestra (with organ!) performing great works in the "classical" repertoire, including:

Various pieces by J.S. Bach

Selections from Handel's Messiah

"Gloria" from Vivaldi's Gloria

Mendelssohn

Gounod

Fauré

Between the musical selections, there was a narration of Jesus' life from the scriptures, along with works of art projected onto the big screens. The art included works by:

Joachim Patenier (The Baptism of Christ)

Giotto di Bodone (Christ Entering Jerusalem)

Peter Paul Reubens (Christ on the Cross)

Rembrandt van Rijn (The Ascension)

Other artists included:

Michelangelo

Flinck

Grünewald

da Vinci

This was seriously one of the best programs in which I've ever participated. It was a fantastic way for a lover of the arts to contemplate the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, and I think the less dorky folks really appreciated it too. Heather enjoyed it a great deal, and was sad she didn't sing in the choir. I wish you all could have been there!

Yay for Us!

Happy belated weekiversary, blog! I know our weekiversary was technically yesterday, and I'm very sorry for the neglect. I know from experience with women that any -iversary is a bad day to be forgetful. (Although my wife, one of the less melodramatic women I know, is not real picky about this stuff. I love her!) But I consider you to be more of a masculine blog, so I'm sure it's alright.

Anyway, I thought we'd take a short stroll through the past. Down memory lane, if you will...

We started this journey with a post called Blogs, blogs about blogs, my new blog, in which I told my tale of starting this journey with a post called Blogs, blogs about blogs, my new blog. (Oh no! Don't touch anything... this sounds like the Butterfly Effect.)

How Soon Hath Time was a sonnet by John Milton that I felt applied to me, having recently turned 24 years old.

After Heather and I had a long day with a potential new church family, I wrote Church as a more serious discussion of the importance of the fellowship of believers.

The next day I reminded us that March is National Reading Month. I shared with my audience my personal recommended reading list. I hope it prompted some consideration of literature.

Forsake Thy American Idols was my rant of the week, touching on the low points of American television, culture, and music.

I hope everyone enjoyed my cheesy jokes in Q and A. Perhaps some were able to use them to spread the cheesy joy to others.

Finally came the troubling story of my nighttime outing to Wal-Mart with the wife in Stories from the Crypt. Spooky, no?

Well there it is. And now a formal request for a bit of feedback from my five followers: Would my audience be so kind as to share a bit of insight about their journey through my mind? (Yikes!) Do you enjoy the attempts at humor? How about discussion of spirituality, music, and literature? Should I add a bit of art chat? Maybe the occasional self-written poem? (I'm working on Ode to Coffee currently.) Too many parentheticals in my writing?

Please, let's keep it constructive. Or humorous, cause that's fun too. Thanks!

Stories from the Crypt

I used to be young. Ah, it seems like only yesterday I was an ignorant adolescent, ready to take on the world like an overzealous president taking on healthcare reform (<--- lame simile and political implication).

True story: This evening, after a delightful episode of The Office, Heather and I decided we needed to visit the mothership of all markets, Wal-Mart. You SBU-ers will recall frequent excursions to the Bolivar store, often late at night when the townies occupied the corner of the parking lot across from Commerce Bank. Well, tonight's 8:30 trip with the wife went a little differently than in olden times...

"Ready to go to Wal-Mart?" I asked.

"Huh?" she replied.

"Wal-Mart. To get the groceries and stuff we need."

"Oh. [Long pause] Now?" You'll understand that "now" was my implication, because some of the needed items were for Heather's hairstyling the next morning. She acquiesced. "Well, alright."

I'll shorten the story by explaining that after watching another 10 minutes of 30 Rock, we schlepped into the bedroom so I could change shirts and she could apply a ponytail device to her hair. Knowing that our 11:00 bedtime was quickly approaching, and feeling a bit apprehensive because we never go outside after dark, we had to pump the jams on the way. That is my old-person way of saying, "We had to turn up Golddigger (the Glee version) real loud to stay awake."

Our list was nine items long. We made it in and out within 15 minutes. Total trip length: 35 minutes. Needless to say, we were exhausted.