Archive for the 'faith and theology' CategoryPage 2 of 47

Our Father, Vindicate (update)

Published
by
michael lee
on 9 August 2008
in Music, art and culture, audio, faith and theology and writing workshop
. 9 Comments

Well, I’ve been busy stacking impossible notes next to each other, in my ongoing quest to write my way out of ever being asked to compose something ever again.

This is identical to the previous demo, up to the 2:00 mark. After that, a whole new section completed today, a Kyrie plopped right in the middle of the “forgive us our debts” phrase. Like last time, this isn’t yet finished (or properly edited), but unlike last time, I’m uploading a PDF of the score, in its present state. Geek on, young music geeks!

Our Father, Vindicate (Score)

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Our Father, Vindicate (Unfinished)

Published
by
michael lee
on 5 August 2008
in Music, audio, faith and theology and writing workshop
. 16 Comments

The results of today’s little discovery! I’ve spent most of the summer writing a new composition for men’s acapella ensemble. It’s part of a campus wide series of scholarly presentations on the transmission of The Lord’s Prayer into English. Some people are presenting papers, the art department is presenting two shows (one juried, one curated), and the school of music commissioned new works by a handful of composers, to be performed during the school year.

This is about 50% of the piece I’ve been writing. The focus of both the text and the music is on The Lord’s Prayer as an apocalyptic prayer, a call for the immanent arrival of the Kingdom of God. I wanted to capture an epic film kind of sound with the piece, to match that idea.

My throat feels like it’s going to fall off. I’ve got some kind of swollen gland or something back there, and I can barely swallow. Spending 6 hours tracking extreme-range vocal parts probably wasn’t the best way to soothe that …

Enjoy! I’ll post more as I get a chance to complete it.

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Pray For Paul, Teri, and Carrie

Published
by
Chad
on 5 August 2008
in current events, faith and theology and prayer
. 2 Comments

I can’t believe I forgot to mention this here, but if you think about my mom, dad, and sister in the next two weeks, you’ll be sending your thoughts, here, outside of Kampala, Uganda.  They’re participating in a two and a half week missions trip, partnering with a ministry called Embrace Uganda.  You can see them in the picture that I linked to, all huddled on the left hand side.   They departed last Saturday morning, and they return two weeks from today.  

Now, I know that for those of you unwashed heathens, the word “Missions,” or “Missionaries,” perhaps conjures perhaps images of that awful movie, “At Play in The Fields of The Lord,” which you know was fiction because Daryl Hannah was married to John Lithgow.  That movie also treated us to our very first Kathy Bates nude scene.  Hooray!

Missions also conjures images of forced conversion, tract-wielding hippies, and bike-riding Mormons.  It’s an unfortunate stereotype, unfortunate because like all stereotypes it’s somewhat earned.  

Let me offer you a different image.  Doctors Without Borders.  For these two weeks, my dad, Dr. Suburban Family Man, will be treating HIV patients in a small village in Uganda.  He will be The Man, supervising any and all medicine practiced in that village.  

Mission work in the 21st century is more about serving, and giving.  For weeks, my parent’s bedroom has become a clearing house of goods collected for this village.  They packed, and paid for, 12 suitcases full of shoes, medical supplies, and clothes.  My mom texted me and told me that the workers in the clinic openly wept as they went through and selected new shoes for themselves and their families.  

The cool thing about going on a service trip like this, and although I’ve never been to Africa, I’ve done a little of this type of thing here in California and Mexico, is that you are forced to surrender your agenda.  Even on a vacation, you’re in charge of your fun, and (at least for me) there’s always this lingering feeling of, “Are we having enough fun?!!?”  With a trip like this, that pressure is off.  There is no agenda, save whatever God places in front of you in the moment.  It’s a very liberating experience, surrendering your agenda.  

Now, for those of you who know my family in person, the idea of these three camped out in a Ugandan village is pretty awesome and hilarious.  Erica and I are seriously hoping that they get converted, rather then the other way around.  

Pray that they will be able to bless those with whom they come in contact.  

Pray that the goods and money that people in our community donated will make a lasting impact on those receiving the gifts.  

Pray that my family will get their heads spun around and put on again, unable to see life the same way ever again.  

Pray, above all things, that God will be honored, and Jesus’ kingdom of justice and mercy will be advanced in small but significant ways.

The Secret of Contentment

Published
by
michael lee
on 3 August 2008
in church and faith and theology
. 5 Comments

I’m a little hesitant to post this … I’m really not content (har har) with how the message ended up, but in the interest of completion, here’s the recording of the message on contentment:

direct link: The Secret of Contentment

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Solomon vs. Paul: gratitude, simplicity, the present, and meaning

Published
by
michael lee
on 31 July 2008
in faith and theology and writing workshop
. 9 Comments

Posts in the Sermon Prep: Contentment series

  1. This Week’s Sermon Will Be on Contentment
  2. Contentment and Gratitude
  3. Paul’s Writings on Contentment
  4. Solomon vs. Paul: gratitude, simplicity, the present, and meaning

On the drive up to Santa Cruz this week, I read through all of Ecclesiastes in one sitting. The irony of the moment wasn’t lost on me, that I had wanted to read through the wonderful, and short, book on the futility of life’s frantic pace, and I couldn’t piece together 30 minutes to read quietly until I was locked in a metal box flying down the freeway for 6 hours.

A lot of my prep time for this sermon has been spent with Paul. It wasn’t until I read through Ecclesiastes that I started to see some contrast between how Solomon answers the questions of contentment, and how Paul answers the same question. Solomon’s famous refrain, “Meaningless, meaningless, everything is meaningless” is the slide into despair at the end of every passage. He samples every good thing in life, and finds that it turns to ash in his mouth. He has only 3 remedies for the state of discontentment: gratitude toward God (Ecc 3:11-13), enjoying simplicity (Ecc. 5:10-18), and being present-minded in your pleasures (Ecc 3:1-11). For Solomon, the best life possible is one in which a person finds satisfaction in their work, rather than in the benefit or consequence earned by that work, in which they are mindful of the good things of their present existence rather than anxious about their future needs, a life spent enjoying good food and good company, and in which God is acknowledged as the source of good things. Gratitude, simplicity, and present-mindedness.

Paul is not content (ha-ha!) with simply leaving it there. Paul also adheres to gratitude as an essential component of contentment, but I think he subsumes Solomon’s idea of preset-mindedness into a more fully-developed idea of “meaning”, the life consumed first by humility, and then by energetic pursuit of the Kingdom of God. Paul’s perspective seems to find contentment in the present by viewing it through a wide-angled lens, and seeing God’s overall plan. The present then finds meaning as a part of that larger work. When Paul says that he has learned the secret of being content in both poverty and abundance, he means (as Paul always means, one note samba that he is) that he has learned the secret of being dead to self and alive to Christ, the secret of belonging to the cross, of joining Christ in his kenosis and finding his purpose in the pursuit of the Kingdom of God. For Paul, even the good things of life (the things Solomon recommends) lie so far below humility and discipleship in the scale of meaning, that they become trivial, and to become content or discontent because of them is absurd.

My frustration with these two answers is this: Solomon’s answer seems accessible to everyone. You can substitute “gratitude to God” with “acknowledging the Universal Spirit”, or with a zen-like resignation to fate, and achieve substantially the same sort of contentment. His is not a “Christian” answer to contentment; it’s not even a particularly Jewish answer. It’s just … a good answer. Workable. Functional. Practical and beneficial.

Paul’s answer seems much less tangible. It’s more heady, seems more “right” (although that might only be the case because of 30 years of Evangelical backdrop to read it against), and a higher sort of answer. But it also seems less … learn-able. Less functional. How do you actually do kenosis? How do you gain perspective on this moment as a step of progression in the building of the kingdom when your kid is screaming his head off and the damn AC doesn’t work?

Solomon seems to give an answer that provides a workable pathway to some, limited, measure of contentment, along with a healthy dose of resignation to fate (or God’s unfathomable and unalterable will). Paul, on the other hand, seems to give a less workable pathway to all-consuming satisfaction in the service of great purpose.

By the way, I’m willing to go 9 rounds with anyone who says that “to live is Christ and to die is gain” is a simple pathway to contentment. It’s the most twisted, confusing, and unsustainable mindset ever. Yes, it’s also beautiful, and true, and empowering, but not simple. Never simple.

Previous in series: Paul’s Writings on Contentment