The Love of Christian Music

Today I was driving home from dropping Katie off at work. Tim was in the back of the van; the radio was playing, and on the radio was the song "How Many Kings," by Downhere. What a beautiful song, it brings me to really think how wonderful He is even just comparing Him at a mere human level--and yet, God is so far from any mere human comparison that the song, though it brought me even then to feel worshipful as I hadn't for days--falls so short of really developing who He is and how great He is, because it only contrasts God with men. What else can you effectively contrast God with, after all? I'm not criticising it, I love the song.



At the time that it came on the radio, I was thinking about Christian songs and how they fall into some main categories--because I have been thinking to select a bunch of really great hymns for a hymn-sing (if that's how you do it? I've never been to one). Some Christian songs are worshipful because they describe how God has done so much for us--which is valid; some are worshipful because they describe who God is--which I surmise is a little less self-centered; some describe our responses to God--which I suppose is least of these three categories.
The hymns are great in that they really do a masterful job at focusing on God and less on the believer; besides, they are put together with talent, thought, insight--the words to hymns are often packed with the deep, spectacular reality of God, with thoughts that don't seem jumbled together quickly, but which seem to have the marks of long meditation. It seems that there's a higher quality in the most recent Christian composition of songs than has happened in all the 18 years I've been a believer. I love it! I love the old, I love the new, and I'm not so crazy about most stuff from the 80s and 90s.
Maybe we shouldn't only have a hymn-sing, but a just plain worship-sing too, old songs and new! Hmmm. Pondering it is half the fun! Anticipating it is another half! And then participating in it--Fun and a half!

The Joy of Jamming to the Tijuana Brass

Somehow my oldies favorites have been on my mind lately. I haven't been much into listening to secular music for a long time, but there are some classics that I really enjoy. When Katie was young, we used to watch a couple of boys from time to time who were her age. It wasn't that they were so compatible with her as friends, but we moms always got along and helped each other out. (In fact, Katie went to their house at 3 a.m. the night that I went into labor with Tim.)
Katie would get after them as a mother-the-second to get them to wash their grubby hands--and I have to agree they were indeed grubby at any given time--and about other issues often relating to cleanliness. So the tension would build, and the attitudes would be morose or cranky, and I had an ace up my sleeve. The boys loved Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass, and I would put that on the record player (yes, we still had one). Pretty soon the boys would be dancing around the room and the mood would again be light and sweet as whipped cream.
Today I am making jam with a day pretty much to myself, and I thought I'd look up Tijuana Brass on YouTube. There are indeed some wonderful videos--I'd never seen them, only heard them on records--and so today I am full of happy discoveries that I want to share. If only they would play sequentially without my going back to the computer, so I could make my jam to the beat without stop! Whatever, it's fun.
I have to share them with you, though. You are my mystery friends, and it's just too good to hold back. (Yesterday I was looking up Bob Hope and Bing Crosby and various other oldie favorites that I adore...sometime I'll share those with you as well.) At least I've found out how you put YouTube on in the midst of a regular blog post. I like it much better than how I was doing it before. You copy the address under where it says "Embed"...and paste it on your blog (if it doesn't paste well, go to a word-processing program, paste, copy, and then go to the blog and paste again)...and voila! It's there!

Here's their Whipped Cream video. I guess Charlie Chaplain composed Whipped Cream, and he's very much portrayed in this, as you will see:


Here's a video of "The Lonely Bull." They're playing in a bull-fighting stadium, and it must be filmed by helicopter for the first portion. Great video.


Here's "Spanish Flea." How can you not be in a good mood listening to these songs?


And, "Casino Royale." I didn't even know it was a movie. (Not only a movie, a James Bond movie at that. Ha!)


And how could I leave out Tijuana Taxi? You'll love this video. At least, I think you'll love it.

Christian Music

I sometimes think I would have been a musician if I had been trained as a kid to play and understand music, because I love it...as it is, though, for me it is purely a spectator sport, where I love it, enjoy it, know a very little about it, have no time to pursue it, and couldn't create it to save my life. Does everyone always have a song going through their head at any given time? I know I do...ask me any time what's playing and I could tell you. Before I was a Christian, it was rock music, not hard rock, just the popular stuff on the radio...had a few records, a few tapes, and memorized them within hours of getting them home. When I was part of Bible Study Fellowship, they encouraged participants to purge stuff from their lives that wasn't honoring to Jesus. I took that, perhaps, a little to the extreme, such that I got rid of my secular music that wasn't really so bad but it wasn't great in retrospect either, and replaced it all with Christian music. At the time I remember thinking that there would never be many Christian songs to replace all the secular songs I knew...and yet, between the old hymns that will never fade away because of their beauty and the stories behind how they came to be written, the songs on Christian radio at the time, and my daughter's Christian songs for children (from which as a new Christian I remember learning some of my very basic theology--very basic, I had a long way to go!), really there was an abundance of Christian music, some songs better than others of course, and I never felt that it had turned out to be such a sacrifice to make the switch.
Is it my imagination, or are the lyrics to so many Christian songs much better than most of what was popular 18 years back when I first discovered Christian music? Seems like back then, in 1989 or so, many of the songs were the repetitive and shallow choruses that became the mainstay worship music of seeker-friendly churches. Now, though, there are so many songs on the radio that I just love, with thought-provoking, worship-inducing lyrics--I'm always thinking, "I want to write that one down, and learn all the words, and keep it on a list in my cupboard!" And that never seems to happen, because my hands are busy and...well, it just never happens. The alternative to this would be to upload them onto my mp3 player (after all, that's the main use most people find for those players, isn't it?), but I haven't figured that device out yet (and I mainly intended it for listening to sermons and stuff while I do things around the house--when I upload them, the sermons end up on the "music" portion of the player somehow, but that works okay because I can still listen to them. But that's another story.) So anyway, I'm still low-tech about songs.
I love to hear songs where the singer has a deep, rough voice and he's singing how much he loves Jesus. It just seems like the unexpected combination, I don't know why. The one I'm thinking of at the moment is Cry Out to Jesus, by Mac Powell of Third Day. I want to crank it up high in my car and go around with my windows down and let everyone hear it--over and over again until everyone hears it, everywhere I go, because it seems like it would be a great evangelistic tool if people would just listen to it. (I don't do this though. I think doing that might make more enemies than friends for Christ...especially if I sing along...) So instead, I sing along, with my car windows at least most of the way up, wishing in a wierd way that I could sing like him, and yet I have to be glad I can't! (It reminds me of a story...when I was little, my dad said that eating spinach would put hair on my chest, and I ate it with increased gusto, not realizing that might just be a negative...what is it about being macho that appeals to me? Ha!)
I knew there were other songs of that same description, the rough voice, with love for Jesus--and couldn't think of them because Cry Out is still running strong in my head (sort of like smelling three perfumes and then suddenly you can't smell anything)--so I went to the Third Day weblog and realized one of them is Your Love Oh Lord...(okay, I love music, but I don't know anything about it, and don't have time to really keep track and learn more about the really good songs, so I never really get a handle on who plays what! How contradictory is that?) I thought maybe liking at least two of Third Day's songs so well qualifies me as some sort of fan, so to speak. I went to their various websites for a few minutes, looking for a lyrics post sponsored by them rather than at some imposter website, and I had to be amazed at how obsessed some fans are who follow everything about Third Day. Wow, how do they have time for that? Maybe I don't qualify as a fan after all--it depends on how you define "fan." Anyway, I am thankful for all this music, the lyrics, the passion with which they're sung. And if you hear someone in the car behind you "singing" along, and find out it's me, forgive me, will you? I can't seem to help it.

The Real Christmas Carols

I love Christmas carols. So far I've only found one of our Christmas cds--Steven Curtis Chapman; and though I like it, I've played it now until I really want to play others before I go back to it; I think that's part of why I have a hard time really feeling like it's Christmas yet this year. One of my main memories of Christmas growing up in a non-Christian household was lying on my back next to the stereo and playing Christmas records--sometimes over and over again in rapid succession, to the chagrin of my mother--and I knew the songs by heart. From these songs, the Christmas story was the story I was most familiar with in the Bible before I ever read it.
Of course there were assumptions in some of the songs, like that there were three kings, when actually there were three gifts and who knows how many kings (or Magi). There were no donkeys mentioned in the Bible story (and being a mother I can say I can't imagine riding one for miles just before delivery; I'd rather waddle). I've heard it likely wasn't really winter, because the shepherds were out with their sheep on the hills, which happened only in the warmer months. But overall, the songs paint a very sweet and quiet picture of that time (leaving out, of course, Herod and his bloodthirst), for the most part fairly accurate.
I remember also being a bit mystified, intrigued, by the last stanzas of two songs--O Little Town of Bethlehem and Away in a Manger. These shared the gospel as well as anything I ever heard in my childhood: "O Holy Child of Mary, descend to us we pray; cast out our sins and enter in, be born in us today; We hear the Christmas angels the great glad tidings tell; O come to us, abide with us, our Lord Immanuel." And then, somewhat less clearly, "Be near me, Lord Jesus, I ask Thee to stay close by me forever and love me I pray; bless all the dear children in Thy tender care, and take us to heaven to live with Thee there."
In those days the Christian Christmas songs were pretty much the norm; these days, I can go shopping, hear Christmas songs everywhere and never hear any of the Christmas story. I remember a little friend of Katie's hearing our songs on the player, and saying, "Why don't you have any of the real Christmas songs?" What she wanted were the secular ones like Jingle Bells and Frosty the Snowman.
So I love the real real Christmas songs; I want to play them constantly during this season. If I could only find my cds! I don't know where they got off to, but I'm going to continue the search. I'm thankful to the writers of those great songs. Who knows but it might have predisposed me to be receptive to the gospel when the time came.

Sing Him a Song of Gladness

"Bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves, We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves!"--Knowles Shaw
Last night I pulled out a hymn book because I wanted to look up some Thanksgiving hymns. Those old Thanksgiving and harvest hymns bring back to mind some of the paintings you see once in a while of beautiful farm scenes, and people "bringing in the sheaves." I love it! And I hate it--not the songs, not the memories and images, but my ignorance. I can't read music. But I read the words, and the tunes come back to me, some of them, haltingly because they are too little a part of these days and I haven't learned them well. Still, considering how short a history I have in the faith (well, I'm getting old and it's getting longer), I know a lot of songs that sing His praises. Hallelujah!
I was looking in the hymnbook from the start this morning. Of all the first songs, I knew the majority of them. Sometimes humming too many tunes is like smelling too many perfumes--your senses get muddled and you can't remember how this latest one starts. A little persistence and it comes back. They bring rich memories with them. Though the first church we attended didn't teach much in the way of Bible, the one thing these songs bring back is how many hymns they sang--all in a little white church with a steeple in Mukilteo. That building has been converted to a house now; the church itself has moved to a new building that doesn't have that beautiful traditional feel. So it is truly a memory, one of those that is no longer a reality. It was my first exposure to hymns in any expansive way. Still, even an unbeliever gets some exposure...
As I looked through this book, I noticed one song that I had on a Cat Stevens record growing up: Morning Has Broken. I don't think he sang it from any faith but just because he liked it. There were some from old movies, one with Judy Garland in it--Meet Me In St. Louis--the song was God, Who Made the Earth and Heaven; the other was Bing Crosby singing, Faith of our Fathers. Then Wonderful Words of Life reminded me of my time in Bible Study Fellowship, where we heard hymns I have never heard sung elsewhere. These songs work similarly to one of those electronic probes that a doctor might use on a brain to elicit a nerve response--they bring up thoughts and scenes long forgotten! And even though Christian history in my life is only 18 years, I have already have a long heritage, millenia old, from "my" people, "my" family who God has given me, including the likes of brother Martin Luther and sister Fanny Crosby who wrote their passion for God down to be shared in song with future generations.
How wonderful it is to be now on the side of faith, to have rich treasure troves of song books that show the history of others who have been impassioned to write about their love for God and His for them--how wonderful that they've been written down, even the tunes that I can't read, so they are never lost. We have much to sing about! In contrast to the unbeliever--what might they sing of any eternal love, hope, gladness, about how they were made, or any of it? The only atheist hymnbooks would be songs about sin, and though they sing heartily, nay, lustily, the beauty of it is just not the same. I've always intended to put a huge long list of Christian songs inside a cupboard door or on our fridge so I could just glance at it and suddenly have a song that's been silent too long going through my head.
And so we should sing--continually, gladly, thankfully, with all our hearts. I hope that this Thanksgiving you might make it part of your celebration of God and all His goodness, to sing Him a song of gladness.

Here we go again....seven the second.

Okay. I guess the 7 things are supposed to be embarrassing or odd, per Katie. (Sigh.) So here we go:

1. Once we went to walk at the Everett Marina. It's a nice place for a walk, and we often went either midday or quite late at night. Either time, there were usually very few other people. That appeared to be true this particular time. Katie and I had to go to the ladies' room, and as we do often-times at home, we started singing some silly song (not taking ourselves seriously in the slightest). The longer we washed our hands the sillier and louder our voices got. When we finally walked out, there was a man just outside the door who we hadn't seen when we went in. He had an amused look on his face and complimented us on our fine singing.

2. When Gary and I were engaged to be married, a friend came over to my mom's house and gave me a wedding gift. My mom started talking about how the one thing I didn't need was an electric can opener, how they were a waste of counter space and how all a person needs to do is use a little elbow grease. She went on quite a while on that topic. You got it. I opened the gift and of course, it was one thing I didn't have. An electric can opener.

3. In our previous church, it was Pastor Appreciation Month (October). S&W had been playing their advertisements where a person would win a prize or earn a bonus, to find that the prize or bonus was a can of S&W peaches or other fruit. They were always incredibly pleased. So for Pastor Appreciation Month I packed up a couple of cans of S&W Peaches in gift wrap and gave them to someone to give anonymously to the pastors during church. They did so, and when the pastors opened them with great anticipation, a look of great bewilderment spread across their faces. When the congregation and the choir saw it, everyone broke out in laughter--except the pastors. Turned out they hadn't seen the ads.

4. When I was a patient in the hospital, I had dozed off, and Gary and Katie were in the room. I suddenly woke up to the sound of my own snoring, but I didn't open my eyes. The nurse said as she walked in, "Does she always snore like that?" I said, "Sometimes," and opened my eyes to see the nurse give a startled jump.

5. When we were in Everett, a little girl about 12 years old lived across the street, and she'd acquired a bit of a love-interest of sorts. To get away with his phone calls, she tried having him call her while she was at our house. When she got her first such call and then got called home for dinner shortly afterward, the phone rang again and I answered it. I thought I'd scare the kid off, so I snapped a cranky "Hello!" when I answered it. Only thing was, it wasn't the kid. It was the sweetest, meekest elder of the church we were attending at the time (same church as in #2). Boy, I had a hard time explaining my way out of that one. I'm still not sure I convinced him.

6. When I was about 3 or 4, there was a teenage boy across the street. I don't remember having a crush on him, but I liked him and considered him my friend. I think he taught me this little ditty, or else I made it up. It was a little song that went, "I am the queen of super duper Dean." I used to sing it all the time, and barely remember that it had that significance. But in recent years I mentioned it separately to my mom and my brother. They both got looks on their faces like a long-lost puzzle piece had been put into place, one they didn't even know was missing. I don't think either of them had really listened to the song and realized it had to do with the boy across the street, but they'd remembered it; both recognized my little song immediately. By the way, I don't still go around singing it. Not even on my silly song days (See number 1).

7. Okay, I even thought of the seventh thing. You know how I said we sing silly things at home sometimes? (See number 1.) Well, one day we were having our share of singing silly things. It was hot weather, and so I opened the windows, not remembering that maybe we should keep our silly singing down to a minimum. I also had one or two incidents where I had to get on Tim's case about something or another. Well, the next time we went out, we realized our pastor's son had quietly left an item that his mother had borrowed from Katie on the chair outside our door. We hadn't heard the doorbell ring. We had to wonder. Did he hear our singing? Did he hear my grousing at Tim? Or was it just because he didn't want to be seen handing Katie a razor? I hope the world will never know.

Does that help? Now you know...the rest of the story. And the same thing goes--having read this, you are IT! Again.

Mixing up Pronouns betrays a Heart of Sin

Have you ever been singing a Christian song, not paying as much attention as you should...well, I know you should ideally always be paying full attention when you're singing a Christian song...(still, I almost constantly have a Christian song going through my head quite spontaneously--any time you ask me what my song for the moment is, I am probably capable to sing or hum it to you--beware though, I just might dare!).

Anyway, often these songs have seemingly interchangeable lines and pronouns--especially to the absent-minded, when the words to the song aren't the focus as much as the tune and rhythm. It is an illustration of sorts, a testimony to my readiness to supplant God's place, if that were possible, in so many ways.

Take these lines in "Who Am I" by Casting Crowns:

Not because of who I am
But because of what You've done
Not because of what I've done
But because of who You are

I can ever-so-adeptly in my seeming absent-mindedness make it say the opposite. (The strange thing is, now when I try to report it, I have a hard time remembering my mangled version!) I think my way goes something like this:

Not because of who You are,
But because of what I've done,
Not because of what You've done,
But because of who I am (well, by now it usually gets my attention because especially with the amplified volume of that line, it really sounds ridiculous!)

Am I the only one who does this? I hate to think what it says about me...except to remind me that I am simply a sinner, ready when not on the alert to default to a sinner's behavior...and I am saved by grace. Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!
(I'm aware that the following verse is of a rather different context; still I think it fits and that the application would be appropriate.)
Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. But resist him, firm in your faith...I Peter 5:8-9a