Music Mondays

Reg. E. Cathey died last week. 

He was a distinguished supporting actor in a variety of notable TV shows and movies. 

I always recognized him from a treasured PBS show from my childhood - Square One. 

Square One was a educational show typically broadcast right after school. It was a sort of "Saturday Night Live" sketch show that taught kids stuff. And Cathey was one of it's featured actors. 

My particular favorite was always the episode-concluding "Mathnet" mystery stories - think "Dragnet" where they solve crimes through good ol' fashioned arithmetic. Cathey wasn't part of that part of the show from what I remember, but he was in most everything else.

I think back nostalgically and am amazed how creative that show was. Beyond the "Mathnet" features, all of the skits and songs  they came up with were equally memorable. 

So this week, in honor of Mr. Cathey, I give you one of his "big hits"

The video quality isn't great, but I'd bet my house this song will get stuck in your head.

Music Mondays

Rend Collective's newest album was my latest purchase on iTunes this winter. It's probably my first purchase in a year and a half actually. It's a complicated story, but needless to say, my Windows had a corruption that, of all things, prevented me from signing into the iTunes store and purchasing any new music.

Weird, but I was thankful to get it fixed recently when my laptop required professional attention because the issue began affecting it's WiFi receptivity. 

You could accurately say, I was counting my blessings when it was fixed and I discovered my iTunes was working properly.

That's kind of a lame lead-in, but this week's song is in fact "Counting Every Blessing" by Rend Collective. So far it's my favorite track off their excellent album.

Enjoy:

Tate's First 4 Minutes

I'm not doing my traditional Music Monday feature today. 

Instead, I'm going to share a post I've been writing in my head since the birth of my son. 

It's a bit of a lengthy story, but it's our family's story and I hope it will encourage you and turn your gaze upon our trustworthy Savior.

-------------------------------------------------------

Let me start in 2016. That was a tough year for my wife and me. We had an ectopic pregnancy in the spring and then a 'normal' miscarriage in the fall. We struggled through the pain, tried to look at the positives, and sought to trust the Lord with this process of starting a family. We both did not want to start having kids right away when we got married in 2007 and by the time other life circumstances opened it up, we discovered in a painful way that God wanted us to make this "normal part of life" a matter of faith. 

When we discovered we were pregnant again in the spring of '17, our excitement was tempered by caution. Going through what we did the previous year will do that. We were grateful as each doctor's appointment gave us indications that this baby was healthy and the pregnancy was looking good. 

Nine months seemed to drag along as we went about our lives and prepared here and there for our new arrival. Finally, as we hit December the excitement really began building. We had a due date of January 4 and had conversations with seemingly everyone we knew about the positives and negatives of having a baby around Christmas and/or New Year's. 

Tate was not especially anxious to come early, which was fine (tax benefits notwithstanding). Our primary doctor assessed Stephanie's situation and decided to induce around the due date. So, we were admitted into KCH Tuesday night, January 2nd, so we would be ready to begin the process. 

The steps they take to induce didn't really work on Wednesday and by Thursday - the actual due date - they added Pertussin or something like that, which really kicks in the birth process. Stephanie wanted to do it natural and avoid the epidural, but after long, painful contractions and little progress, we went with the shot.

The epidural sped things up Thursday night and by about 10:30 pm, it was game time. The doctor and nurses were great all week and they were especially comforting and encouraging at this point. We got to the point after midnight where the baby was right there, but pushing was not getting this little guy out. I was feeling a little anxious and frustrated when the baby wasn't coming and I can just imagine how drained my wife must have felt.  

The doctor then went with the little vacuum/suction cup apparatus to pull him out, sensing Stephanie's fatigue. First try didn't work, the cup popped off - ugh. After a few minutes and in line with the next contraction, the doctor was able to pull our little boy out. 

The next moments are both very clear, but also a complete blur. To finally see my son born and them laying him on my wife's stomach was something I'll never forget. He had a little weird color but I'd never seen this before so I had no clue what to expect. His eyes were open and head happened to be turned right towards me. The doctor, who had an hour before confirmed with me that I'd cut the umbilical cord, asked me to do so - "Boy," I thought, "that seems really immediate". Oh well, I'd never been here before. And one snip later, the cord was cut. 

The doctor and nurses had also stated several times during our stay that they promoted "skin-to-skin" care right after birth. It's where they place the baby on mom's chest right away so that mother and child can bond. Tate was laying on her as I cut the cord but pretty quickly after that, they took him off and placed him into what appeared to be a computerized changing station that had been in our room since our arrival. 

"Huh, that was quick. I thought the 'skin-to-skin' thing would be more prolonged." But my mind was overwhelmed by everything I was just taking it all in, not realizing my wife was also wondering the same thing.

As I was taking it all in, I began to sense some tension in the room. The doctor, flanked by two nurses, were speaking in quiet and terse sentences as they powered up the computerized station and cleaned off our son. But they were really doing more than cleaning. The doctor was rubbing his hands over Tate's body. It was then that I realized that Tate had been kind of limp since he came out. That, plus the color I'd noticed earlier began setting off minor alarms in my mind. I tried to ignore them and play cool, realizing my wife couldn't see much from her position and was certainly in a lot of discomfort. 

Moments later, one nurse began putting a CPR-type breathing mask over Tate's mouth and it started to hit me. By now the changing station was powered on and the heart monitor was beeping and showing about the same numbers that the monitors' had while he was still in the birth canal.

Ok, his heart was beating - good sign.
But not breathing - that's a problem.

Now worry was beginning to build. Soon, our medical team decided they needed another hand and the quickest way to do that was to hit the blue button by my wife's bed - a 'code blue' I guess (?). This called all available hospital workers to our room (!). 

We did get that extra hand pretty quickly, but chaos ensued as more and more people poked their heads in our room and offered their services. 

That certainly didn't help soothe the mounting anxiety inside of me. "C'mon little guy, pull through" and "No God, don't let this happen!" are some of the panicked thoughts I still recall as I shot up some prayers the rest of which I'm pretty sure needed the Holy Spirit's interpretation. 

There wasn't a lot of sound coming from our little guy. Just the piano-key-like beeping of the station that was monitoring him.  These minutes felt like hours and every little baby noise made my heart flutter with hope. At one point I buried my face beside my wife's ear and prayed for the both of us on behalf of our son. I could tell her concern level was matching mine. 

Later on, one of those nurses, Cory, who providentially was a neo-natal resuscitation specialist, would tell us the ordeal went about four minutes.  But Cory, Megan, and Dr. Cook did get our little guy breathing again. It was a relief like I'd never known when their tone changed and they shared that he was doing ok and breathing on his own. Sometimes this happens they would explain, when the baby comes out of the womb and is shell-shocked at this new world they are entering and they don't realize they need to actually breathe. 

Relief and joy and gratitude washed over us. They took him to the nursery to monitor him for a little bit and despite all the machine beeps and alarms, our little guy stayed wide-eyed and pretty chill - just taking in everything, and of course breathing on his own. That's where this picture was taken, probably about 3 am.

It's a scary thing to imagine how close we came to being utterly devastated. We know couples who have lost children late in term. We have heard stories of babies who died at birth. I can't offer a perfect theological explanation for those situations, but in our case I can confidently say that God was so gracious to us. He was looking out for us. We had the perfect set of medical professionals for this kind of problem and the Great Physician watching over us.

Someday, we will tell our son about his first four minutes. I hope to do so in such a way and at such an age where he will truly understand God's protective and providential hand on his life. I hope he will recognize how even with his birth, we can see God's grace and love for us tangibly at work. 

Someday we will tell our son about his first four minutes and how they were a reaffirming experience for us of God's infinite goodness and infinite mercy.

All it took was four minutes.

Music Monday - in honor of Tate Wesley Compson

Early in the morning on January 5th, my wife gave birth to a precious 8 lb 5 oz baby boy we named Tate Wesley. 

He's changed our lives for the better. He sleeps, eats, poops and is pretty chill overall until he's hungry. Next week I think I'll share a bit about that January 5th experience. But this week I wanted to share a little of our joy with you. 

In celebration of this cute little guy, I thought I'd post a song from one of the few movies that's ever made me legitimately cry. 

This is John Lennon's "Beautiful Boy":

The movie is "Mr. Holland's Opus" and the song is featured during a key turning point in the movie where this high school music teacher plays it for his deaf son, who he'd struggle to connect with for a long time. 

That scene and the finale get me every time. And the song definitely reflects the pure love a dad feels for his son.

Here's the movie scene for a bonus clip:

I'd better end it here, I think my son's waking up.

Music Monday - Merry Christmas!!!

I had a plan to offer up a video of our Christmas Eve morning service for this week's post.

I set it up to record on Facebook Live and thought it was all working out. But upon closer inspection afterwards, the video got messed up. I suspect that because it was on some sound equipment, it turned into a version of a messed-up-old-school Nintendo game. Oh well. Here are some pics of the action.

But what to do about a post? 

Skip it altogether? Find something else?

I found something else, thanks to my friends Dustin and Jamie White.

I don't think I can post the video, so you'll just have to check out the link. #technical issues

But what a fun little diddy - a little Elvis Costello + Isaac Watts.

Merry Christmas everyone!

"Has the pastor lost his mind?" - a sermon snippet

No Music Monday this week. Though if you want to scratch that itch and more, check out this article on U2. I'm a casual but ardent U2 fan and it was a lot of fun going through their catalog.

I did want to share another fun thing I'm indulging in, narrative sermons for our Christmas series. Thanks to my friend and author Amy Green, I have some really good scripts to 'act out' instead of preach this holiday season. 

I first learned of narrative sermons in seminary, but I had seen a few from my mentor, Pastor Ralph Porter, when he was at my home church during my college and seminary days. 

In our seminary preaching classes, they required us to preach one. The hardest part for me was the 'script'. Writing from the point of view of a character didn't come naturally to me. So last year, when I read through Amy's blog, I knew I had the basic content I needed to actually preach one well. 

So, on top of the excellent material I was beginning with, I added a few rhetorical nuggets, found some pretty good costumes in our church storage, and warned our people ahead of time that these Christmas sermons were about to get weird. 

Don't be fooled by these pictures, there were plenty of people in attendance. Few of our folks want to sit right up front is all. I will probably add some more later. And next week, I might even have some video and you can judge for yourself how good of an actor I am. For now, you can listen to our audio recording, and imagine me prancing around the front wearing some very interesting garb.

Music Mondays

As I was trying to come up with a selection for this week, I couldn't even settle on a topic. 

Should I go with Christmas music? 
I did that last year and my friend Amy is doing a real good job on her blog on that anyway.

Should I go with the current Top 40 hit that has a lot of backstory but also some depth when you consider its message?

Maybe another day.

Well, what about something related to my sermon, which was on prayer?
There's not a whole lot that comes to mind (at least my mind), at least currently.

Sidetrack - I find it very fascinating how some old-school artists often made prayer a topic. 
Petra, Michael W. Smith, Steven Curtis Chapman...probably not a statement against current artists, just interesting.

Anyway, instead of going all-in about those old-school artists of the 70's, 80's, and 90's, I came across the selection below from a classic Christian artist and I knew this was it. 

To my chagrin, Keith Green hasn't been featured on this blog. Green was a force of nature in the early days as Christian music was becoming an industry. You can read his story here, but he was a prophetic voice who was passionate about waking up the church and calling people to Jesus. He was a talented artist with a litany of great songs despite having a short career. 

Technically though, this song was written by his wife. And it is a beautiful song of dedication and prayer:

Keith Green was cut from a different cloth than what you'll find these days. A man who had a different perspective and who passionately was calling us all to something better.