The Word became flesh, and spiritual abstraction was done away with. God appeared with a name and a face. The intentions of God were made clear by sending his son into the world to become the complete sacrifice to purchase us back from death. Nothing abstract here. It’s all so very objective and puposeful.
This is where I want you to be. You ask that I deliver you. Then do not be uneasy about it; do not teach Me, and do not teach yourself; surrender yourself to Me. I am competent to be your Master. I will lead you in a way that is pleasing to Me. You think it wrong if things do not go as you feel they should. But your thinking harms you and hinders Me. Things must go, not according to your understanding, but above your understanding. Submerge yourself in a lack of understanding, and I will give you My understanding. Lack of understanding is real understanding; not knowing where you are going is really knowing where you are going. My understanding makes you without understanding. Thus Abraham went out from his homeland and did not know where he was going (Gen. 12:1). He yielded to My knowledge and abandoned his own knowledge; and by the right way he reached the right goal. Behold, that is the way of the cross. You cannot find it, but I must lead you like a blind man. Therefore not you, not a man, not a creature, but I, through My Spirit and the Word, will teach you the way you must go. You must not follow the work which you choose, not the suffering which you devise, but that which comes to you against your choice, thoughts, and desires. There I call; there you must be a pupil.
#1: Shane and Shane’s Upstairs. Passionate vocal, tight harmony, and splendid acoustic guitar pretty much define their work. What sets them apart is how they sing scripture-particularly the psalms. They speak to the heart with eloquence.
#2: David Baroni Finger Paintings. David’s piano playing is very emotive. The Fingerpaintings series is all instrumental. The music has a winsome and thoughtful quality that makes it a great backdrop for meditating on the word.
#3: Jars of Clay Redemption Songs. Just when you thought these guys have disappeared, they come up with a body of work covering classic hymns of the church. The hymn lyrics are deeply personal and theologically rich: a fitting reason to delve into our hymn heritage.
#4: Phil Keaggy Beyond Nature. Acoustic guitar playing of this calibre reminds me that God is the inventor of music. Whether you want to call it a soundtrack to your soul or not, his music takes me places. The purity of wood and steel is quite moving and inviting to reflection.
#5: Bach, Mass in B minor. This towering classic is one of the great works in baroque classical worship. Part of it’s beauty lies in how it maintains a grand reverence while changing tempo and texture: from sweet solo passages to thundering chorus. It was never used as liturgy in its entirety due to its length.
Sometimes we need to shut out the world and listen to God. Well…a lot of times, actually. When the headphones go on and the bible opens there’s such an awesome opportunity for focus and holy convergence. We become single minded and attentive to the Spirit. Little details become big as they spring into focus…such is the sweetness of fellowship with God. A dear friend of mine used to say, “I’m going on vacation for an hour this afternoon…” Same concept. Time away with God is closer than we think.
In the words of Os Chambers, We have to pitch our tents where we shall always have quiet times with God, however noisy our times with the world may be.
I think I’m finally sick of faking it…or at least sicker than the last time I resolved to give up on self-sufficiency. I used to be pretty up-tight about multiple “new starts”-now I depend on them. The great challenge of life is not to be all I can be. It’s to be all I can’t be by surrendering my right to myself to Jesus and wholely depending on him. The curse of “competence” is that we become satisfied with ourselves…and that doesn’t leave a whole lot of room for God. Witness Jesus’ words: “Why do you call me good? Only God is good!” While the next Christian self-help book hits the stores I think of the old hymn “help of the helpless, Lord, abide with me…”
To consider myself to be a good Christian is to assume that my faith is something I can be good at. It assumes that either God needs my help, or that he never intended to carry me-only to give me a hand once in a while. Perhaps the heart of wisdom is a deeper acceptance that in Jesus all things hold together. If this is weakness, then bring it on. I’m not arguing for an unremarkable life, but that a remarkable life starts when we admit to our brokenness. This is the jumping off place for worship. When we approach God as broken people, the only way out is up. All that’s left is a wholesome dependence on him to put us back together. “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.”
Liturgy is gaining popularity again. It has wide appeal to emergent communities because it seems to make the sacred accessable, and hearkens back to a time where the church seemed to be more…pure…authentic. Whether this is a passing trend remains to be seen. I hope it isn’t! Liturgy has much to offer, and I continue to grow in my appreciation of it.
First, liturgy helps us to keep the facts of faith from becoming muddled. The Apostles and Nicene creeds and hymns like the Nunc Dimmitis and Magnificat witness to a message that doesn’t change with history and trends. Whereas the speed of life seems to narrow our focus to the tyranny of the so-called urgent, what liturgy points to remains unchanged and becomes a vital source for touching the eyes of our hearts and restoring our sight.
Second, liturgy is pedagogy: a repeated reenactment of the redemption story. In this reenactment we are doing more than going through the motions of some kind of divine skit. Redemption happens. Through confession and absolution, scripture readings, the preaching of God’s word, and the celebration of the Lord’s Supper God meets us with his gifts of forgiveness and strength to live our faith. Spiritual amnesia comes easily. The repeated reminder of our need for grace and forgiveness is vital for us to remain what Luther called “pure receivers”. Without this, we so easily drift out of the arena of God’s favor. In a word, liturgy keeps me humble. It doesn’t leave room for the cancer of self-effort.
Well, glory be! I finally found a worthy cross-over guitar. My latest Goodall is palo escrito back and sides with a port orford cedar top. Palo escrito is a Mexican rosewood with a darker tone somewhere between walnut and east indian rosewood. The port orford is stiffer than western red cedar, and a bit brighter. It will take some time to play-in. The guitar plays very accurately up and down the scale. Goodall’s design is able to eliminate the notorious 4th string 2nd fret buzz that haunts so many classical guitars. The neck is fast and comfortable, as well. The sound? Bright & punchy with a bit of warmth…the harmonics are FEARSOME. The port orford is not as pretty as western red cedar–kinda generic looking with some stripes of resin. Otherwise an incredible axe. Can’t wait to record this one.
I spent five days by myself in the Bob Marshall wilderness in NW Montana. Four of those days were spent in complete solitude: I talked to myself, and to God. Out of the silence I heard him talk back. He spoke through Deuteronomy 6-10, during hours of “walking and talking” prayer, and [I think] in the the words I wrote in my journal. [At least as they reflected my thoughts as I put together what I read in scripture]
I readily acknowledge the incredible scenery in this part of the world, but it was the landscape of the heart of God that captured my attention.
God as Father carries with it a lot of baggage for many people I’ve known. There’s an inevitable comparison between the Lord and our imperfect dads. Even the best of parents fail sometimes. I don’t suppose I’m any different on that count. I found myself talking to my father God more than ever as I walked, and experienced a deep renewal in my knowing of God as my father. Luther in his explanation of the Lord’s prayer reveals his intimate relationship with his heavenly Father:
Moreover, we confess that God the Father not only has given us all that we have and see before our eyes, but also daily guards and defends us against every evil and misfortune, warding off all sorts of danger and disaster… He gives us all these things so that we may sense and see in them his fatherly heart and his boundless love toward us.
Nothing has challenged, bugged, thrilled me like the pursuit of recording a guitar. I’ve wasted some time and money along the way, but I’ve learned a lot. I play guitars built by James Goodall and Bill Wise of Charis Guitars. The big question: how do you get magnificent instruments to sound the same on your recordings? I don’t have all the answers, but I have a few ideas. Assuming you’re using protools or steinberg, the answer is not a ton of expensive plug-ins. Start with a good microphone and mic preamp.
I use a Rode K2 variable pattern tube mic. There’s also a lot to be said about matched pairs: like the shure KSM 141. You can place one mic on the bass side of the lower bout and one one the fret board just above the sound hole. Pairs=flexibility. The Rode K2 is a large diaphram capsule that captures more nuance: a must if you want to hear those overtones. If you have a truly quiet room to record in, having a third mic to capture room dynamics gives the recording more “breath” or space. Often, I record with my Rode 18 inches or more from the front of the guitar. A recording engineer friend of mine told me that sound develops as it’s carried away from the instrument on the air. Mic-ing too close gives an “in your face” sound, and is also the major problem when recording directly from your on board pickup. Acoustic guitars use air, and mics allow time for tone to develop and let them to breathe on your recordings.
Preamps are critical. We have to face a disappointing truth: the preamps on your MBox are pretty crappy. A preamp or channel strip like the presonus eureka are built with far more attention paid to details. You can easily pay 3K for a tube preamp, but the eureka is a great project studio channel strip. Bottom line is that you need transparent gain and the highest quality signal going into your DAW to capture the sound of a high end guitar in all its glory. The biggest praise I received about my first cd “Speaks a Better Word” was the wow factor of the pure acoustic guitar sound we were able to capture.
When it comes processing the recorded material, I’m a HUGE fan of Universal Audio powered plug-ins. UA has kind of a cult following. [Waves has just recently offered some outboard gear to take the processing load off your cpu. Protools HD is a 5K investment just to get started.] UA builds DSP cards that plug into the expansion slots in your DAW that take all the processing load. Powered plug-ins simply do more. In my opinion, the difference between a digidesign Fairchild and the UA Fairchild is the difference between a pretty picture on your screen, and a pretty picture that actually does something. A $1200 investment will get you two cards [you need two to handle more than 3-4 plug-ins at a time] and $1300 of vouchers to purchase plug-ins. Dreamverb is the most beautiful reverb I’ve ever heard, and has an enormous pallette of room dynamics. It’s best feature is adjustable bandwidth-gain that adjust the wet/dry dynamic in four places on the signal. The Neve licenced 1081 eq is very musical and transparent. With it you can use the soft curve to cut the notorious 1.2K nasal guitar sound and boost presence at 4K. Because of latency issues it works best on the stereo master bus.
I’ve demoed all of the Waves vintage processors. To my ears they lack the tonal sophistication and power of the UA gear. However, I must admit that the digidesign maxim is a great plug-in for leveling and loudness. I’ve found that the Waves L3 maximizer doesn’t have as much headroom. The maxim is especially nice because it boosts levels without boosting noise.
I hope this stimulates some thoughts, and maybe helps you avoid some costly mistakes.
One of the things we wonder about in worship is whether God will “show up”. We’re so hungry for his presence: so ready for heaven to touch earth, and his gifts to transcend the dullness of of daily life. I’ve heard it hundred of times. “Wow, God really showed up…” So often we speak this with barely concealed relief. What this really means is that we are often uncertain, and anxious when it comes to God’s presence. If you’re like me, you don’t really want to admit to this. It makes me sound down right unspiritual. [And I am!] It begs the question of how we know that God is present. Is it a particular feeling? Is it an experience that we’re trying to recreate each week as we lead God’s people? Our nervousness tells us the truth. It tells us that we know deep down that our experiences are elusive, inconsistent, and just plain hard to reproduce from week to week. Some weeks we feel like instruments of the Holy Spirit: responsive to his touch and filled with his holy breath. Other weeks we feel like instruments recently carried down from the attic: dusty, cracked, in need of tuning. How do we know that God will show up?
Because he promised.
The painting above is from the Eastern Orthodox tradition, and shows what is referred to in liturgical circles as the annunciation. The angel is pointing its finger at Mary and saying, “You’re the one!” The angel is announcing God’s word. In the magnificat, where Mary praises God for this good news, she doesn’t thank the Lord for an experience with an angel-but for the message she received. She was pregnant by the Holy Spirit and the mother of the One who would save his people from their sins. God’s word says, “When two or three are gathered in my name, I am there in the midst of them” [Mt 18.20]. He says that he will ask the Father to send the Helper to be with us forever [Jn 14.16].
There is a reality afoot that transcends our experience. We start with the assumption that God is with us. The assumptions that we must sing louder, play more skillfully, or lift our hands higher brings us dangerously close to the prophets of Baal who danced themselves into a frenzy and cut themselves in order to get their god to show up.
The way of the Spirit is the way of freedom. He invites us into his promised presence and then rest in this precious fulfillment as we lead his people in worship.
My good friend Dave Frincke just released his second CD entitled “Priceless Treasure”. The album features his arrangements of classic hymns that have been treasured by many generations of believers. Dave has skillfully and faithfully lifted up our hymn heritage with his soaring vocals and fine work on piano. I find this new album worshipful, meditative, and spiritually alive. I was honored to work with Dave on this project by playing acoustic guitar on most of the tracks. Be sure to click on the link above and give the cd a listen.
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