Music Mondays

 So my cousin posted a link to this song on Facebook. 

It's from my mom's record, from, well, a long time ago. 

It is a rendition of "Amazing Grace" like I'm sure you've never heard before.

It is also not my mom. Apparently, the album also featured her friend Teddy Swinehart. It didn't sound like my mom and after asking her directly she confirmed that this song wasn't her but her friend.

But I should take this opportunity to praise my mom for her musical gifts. She was an accomoplished guitar player and won a talent context that allowed her to make this record. She met my dad in a music ministry group and they later traveled as a duo even while I was a little kid, singing and speaking in churches.

And if nothing else, she gave a platform to a friend that allowed a cover of Amazing Grace to the tune of "The House of the Rising Sun" to be released to the world.

One of THOSE Moments

A long-time friend of mine currently coaches my high school's basketball team. It has probably only been just over a year since he was hired. He's doing a great job. They had a pretty good season, winning their conference and generally showing promise for the future. 

Part of the off season schedule includes running camps for the younger kids in the community. He does a terrific job teaching the basics and making the game fun. Over the weekend, he shared this video of a young camper winning the championship for his team...after not really scoring at all but trying his best throughout the time.

https://twitter.com/CoachMattMoore/status/1400909445106970625

My initial thought was, "How awesome is this? That little guy is never going to forget this moment".

Then my mind drifted to a basketball memory of my own when I was close to that age.

I was around 9 or 10 years old and my church was sponsoring this community sports clinic at our facility. We'd recently built a gymnasium - or "multi-purpose room" as some insisted on calling it - and our church leadership saw the opportunity to have a Saturday where kids from the community would come and get some instruction in various sports. I remember that we had the option to participate in two sports and we'd go to the station and a coach would teach us some basics and have us go through drills. 

This was like a dream come true for me. I loved sports. I played in imaginary games in my room and in my yard in all sorts of games. I had an imaginary alter ego, "Jonathan Jims" who was an all-pro football player for the Chicago Bears and an all-star hooper suiting up for the Boston Celtics. I played alongside my heroes Walter Payton and Larry Bird and led my teams to championships in glorious fashion. 

Now, as I registered for this clinic that Saturday morning, I had a choice to make - how do I pick which two sports to play? I know for sure they had baseball, soccer, and basketball and think they had a couple others too. I landed on soccer and basketball. The time practicing and learning more about soccer was not very notable as I recall.

The session with basketball was everything and then some. Coach Jim Kessler of Grace College was in charge of this part of the clinic and he had a number of his own team there as well as some Warsaw High School basketball players. I even remember 1984 Indiana Mr. Basketball Jeff Grose was a part of this, though I would ask him years later and he had no recollection of it (though that would be understandable). All of these were giant men and I was a bit in awe of being so close to these heroes.

After running through some basic passing and dribbling drills, they divided us up into two teams and had us play for a few minutes. Now, let me set the scene for you as accurately as I can. 

First, this was a half-court game. The other side of the gym was being used for something else. Second, since basketball was so popular, there were a lot of kids at this station. It may have been only like 8 on 8, but it felt like 15 on 15. Looking back, it is amazing I ever even touched the ball. It was chaos to say the least, but at one point down the stretch someone passed me the ball around the right elbow by the free throw line. I saw an opening and dribbled right towards the baseline and loaded up and shot the ball. It was an off-balance jumper from about 10 feet that bounced on the rim a couple times and dropped in. I remember some of the Grace players sitting out of bounds jumping up and cheering - as this was the first and only basket of what surely was a poorly played-hard-to-watch game. 

A few minutes later, as time wound down, our team fouled the other team. The shooter, a kid from our church named Andy Plank, made one of two free throws. Our team would win the game 2-1 and they selected me and Andy as "players of the game". I got first pick of a prize, either a Lancers Shirt or some bball shorts. I picked the shirt which immediately became part of my clothing rotation and would for years to come. For the record, Andy became a much better player than I did - starting a couple years on varsity while I barely made the team. 

But it was that shot falling that inspired me to pursue basketball. I played some Little League and summer soccer, but basketball became my primary love. That shot gave me the confidence to keep at it after getting cut from my 7th grade team. It gave me the confidence to keep working and make varsity as a senior after two years of JV in high school. It was at the foundation of my self-belief that led me to later play at Grace for Coach Kessler. I was a JV practice fodder player at first but worked to become a valuable contributor to a 25-10 team my final year.

I hope this young man has a similar journey. Maybe he'll let the joy of that moment fuel him into a nice playing career like mine did for me. More importantly, I hope that this thrill gives him confidence in life to keep working at whatever challenge he might be facing.

And I'm thankful to God for giving us these kinds of beautifully gracious moments where pure joy and happiness overwhelm us. I love THOSE moments.

Music Mondays: Songs of a Certain Era

Upon hearing this song for the first time, you could have told me that this was going to be the biggest band in the world for the rest of my life and I would have 100% believed you.

And if my long-term memory serves me well, that initial impression was accentuated by the fact that I was hearing it in my friend Joe's house. His was the first house I ever remember having surround sound even with speakers in multiple rooms. 

Imagine being a musically naive middle schooler hearing this blast all around you at "11" as you jumped around and played air guitar and such.

Did every other Spin Doctors song I heard after this sound the same? Kinda. Were they a one-hit wonder band? Sort of.  But they created a perfect 90's pop rock song if there ever was one.

Music Mondays: Songs of a Certain Era

When I conceived of this idea, I came up with a short list of songs I wanted to include. It wasn't until now that I've come to realize that much of my list is from a very narrow timeline. 

I'll be adding a few to expand the actual "era" I'm talking about, but today's selection comes from what now seems like the classic year of 1993.  And I remember when I heard this song, I knew this was something different.

There was a way Counting Crows and Mr. Duritz told a story, played this song. It's like youthful energy mixed with the melancholy of experience. And of course his vocal delivery is unlike anyone else too. 

At the time, it felt like this was one of those songs that was going to last, that I'd be looking back with fondness in twenty years. Sure enough, we are almost at 30 and it still is a pretty fun ride.

Music Mondays: Songs of a Certain Era

Music Mondays are back! 

It has been a bit of a hiatus but I felt like my music ideas had gotten a little stale. And I'll be perfectly honest, I don't listen to a ton of new music which probably seems illogical.

Anyway, a fresh idea has emerged and I'll refer to it as "Songs of a Certain Era". These are hits from my formative teen years when I was discovering the music world beyond Amy Grant, Michael W. Smith, and the Maranatha singers.

I'm creating my list and one will be revealed per week, in general chronological order. These aren't all number ones - sorry no Ace of Base "I saw the sign" or Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit", just songs that woke up my musical taste buds. 

First up - "Runaway Train", Soul Asylum

I always associate this song with 7th grade...and looking it up, the timing is right. Released in the summer of 1993, I remember hearing this in art class. The cool art teachers always did stuff like let us listen to Top 40 radio while we worked. Anyway, I remember listening to it and realizing, this non-Christian song has substantial meaning to it. On its face it is certainly what the biblical scholar in me would call "Lament". But couple that with the fact that the video sought to find missing and exploited kids - my mind was kind of blown away. Especially when I heard my peers sharing how it helped find missing people (they were correct I might add).

It is silly looking back on it now. I just hadn't had the exposure to Dylan and Cash etc. And in a sense, it showed me what music, even pop music could be - socially significant. 

On Sports Fandom

Anyone who knows me, knows I'm big into sports. I've heard a sports topic come up from time to time about fandom. Who you should or shouldn't cheer for? In my particular part of the country, northern Indiana, there are a variety of "local" teams one could root for - and no obvious geographical frontrunner. 

Detroit is 4 hours away, Chicago 2.5 hours, and Indianapolis about 2. Major college teams are IU, Notre Dame, and Purdue - all still requiring hours of travel.

An oft used objection recently came up again and I felt it necessary to respond. The objection, if you cheer for ND football, you are morally obligated to cheer for ND basketball too, not IU basketball as so many do.

Well, I kind of understand that critique, but I think it's invalid. Here's my response:

Q: 

What do the Boston Celtics, Chicago Bears, Detroit Tigers, Notre Dame Football, and IU basketball all have in common?

A: 

They are my favorite sports teams and they all won championships in the mid-to-late 80's (the time frame I began to get into sports)

See, I picked my teams because they were good and fairly local to my northern Indiana residence. (The Celtics counted because they had Larry Legend, a Hoosier born and raised)

But apparently I'm "conflicted" because I cheer for one college football team and another school in basketball?

So let me counter this criticism with a couple of salient points. 

1) I didn't attend any of those institutions or work for any of those organizations. I have no inherent loyalty owed. I cheer for the teams, not the institutions. I don't owe fandom to any other sport beyond my choice.

2) I have stuck with these teams since childhood through thick and thin. And there has been a lot of thin. All of those teams were mediocre at best between '95-'01. And even when '02 saw some playoff runs and a title game appearance, no championships were won.

Isolating ND football and IU basketball only accentuates the lack of great success over the past 30 years. Their last two titles were in '88 and '87 respectively. I'm not conflicted or a cherry-picker or whatever. I am loyal (to a literal fault it would seem).

My story isn't that uncommon here in northern Indiana. Few attended/worked for either IU or ND. Many did grow up with IU BB and ND FB being successful and championship-caliber, while ND BB and IU FB were less than stellar.

So with a lot of "free agent" fans out there, why not choose to follow the better teams in each sport, even if they're from different schools? I know Ohio St. football fans are also OSU basketball fans for the most part, but do they also follow the baseball or volleyball teams?

It's not our state's fault we have two historically great teams from different schools. I'd say it's quite natural for the general population to generally pull for one school during one season and another for a different sport. 

P.S. There's a whole different discussion to be had about the Generation Z group of fans who follow individual players only and care little for the teams at all. But we'll leave that one for another day.

Theology from Parenting

It's been close to a month since my last post. Life has gotten busy and no real strong music has come across my path for #MusicMondays inspiration.

Well, something did dawn on me the other day - kind of a half-baked theological idea - and I thought I might as well process it out via this post. 

See, I've found myself using the phrase "...because I don't want you to get hurt" as I've been redirecting our two toddler-aged boys. "Don't stand on your chair, don't climb up on the table - because I don't want you to get hurt." Our oldest especially is entering the stage where we can explain a little of the reasoning as to why we are saying certain things. Usually we have to keep it basic - both because of his level of understanding and our energy levels. So often I default to "because I don't want you to get hurt" just because it's an easy-enough generality and I know he can get that.

After saying this at some point last week, I realized there could be a spiritual lesson there. If parenting can teach me about how God is our Father (and it can), is this how our Lord sometimes communicates with us. Take away our tiredness, and I think it might. 

God doesn't always explain everything to us. His Word is comprehensive but it isn't always super-detailed. Sometimes he explains why his will needs to be followed. Other times he leaves it at the level of "I don't want you to get hurt". It is easy to question why God sets the standards he does because so often they go against what we naturally want. 

But God sees the bigger picture. He sees how a short-term fix might lead to long-term damage. 

Again, there are plenty of examples in Scripture where he gives rationale for his "rules". Often though it boils down to his fatherly love for us and wanting to prevent us from harm.

Another corollary to this that is not even half-baked (is quarter-baked a thing?) popped into my mind regarding this too. We just celebrated Easter, is there a connection from this idea to Christ's ultimate sacrifice and his resurrection?

In order to shield us from God's just wrath, our brother took our place out of his infinite love, in essence saying "I don't want you to get hurt". 

Still working these things out in my head at this point. If you agree or disagree I'd be happy to hear it in the comments below or via FB/Twitter.

It is not an entirely new idea to me - God wanting to protect us from harm. But it has taken on a new aspect now that I am a dad myself.