"Is There Any Easter Music?"

That was the question posed to me recently.  Like a lot of churches, we have a 'contemporary' service and a 'traditional' service.  As a planner for the traditional, there is no shortage of congregational music that one might select for an Easter service.  Likewise, if you are looking for a song about the cross, (thinking maybe about Holy Week and not the Resurrection itself) we've got it covered.  My only problem is choosing which songs to do and which ones to leave out.  There's a deep well.

But when asked if I could think of some Easter music that would be stylistically suited for the contemporary service, I had to think about it.  I know quite a bit of 'what's out there' but I really had difficulty coming up with anything that was topical and I thought would 'fit'.  That got me thinking.

Following Up on The Hunger Games

I saw the film and finished the final book over the weekend.  Where to begin?

The book got real philosophical at the end and chalk that up as a win for the author.  One of my issues with the books was the relentless first-person medium.  It couldn't help but make you (eventually) a little tired of the protagonist and find her a bit self-centered and her self-depracations ... hmmm ... disingenuous.  Shorter version:  I sure wish I had some points-of-view described belonging to some of these other very (otherwise) well-developed characters.

Then I'm constantly reminded of the target audience.  Certainly not a ... ahem ... thirty-something male who was taught to examine the viewpoint of every author who ever wrote and insist that there is no such thing as a truly unbiased accounting even in fiction (brought to you by the fine folks at the University of Georgia's History Department at Leconte Hall).  They also taught me better sentence structure than that but I sometimes ignore that one.

The Half-Marathon Play List

No, I don't expect you to care.Yes, I do expect some snide remarks related to my choice of music, my age showing, my lack of exposure to the "right" kind of music, my lack of culture, my affinity for Simon and Garfunkel, Willie Nelson, and Dwight Yoakum, etc.  The fact is, I don't have a lot on my iPhone that might be considered 'running music'. 
Perhaps even someone who suggests this is a lot of music so let me save you the trouble.  It took me 2 hours and 57 minutes.  (The next time will be better I promise)

The song that best matched my pace was "Free Falling" and the one that I might should've left off was "A Most Peculiar Man", which came right around the mid-point and might've slowed me down a little.  It seemed hilarious to me when I put the list together to think about that song coming up in the middle of the race but there's actually very little that occurred during the race that even I could find funny.  Certainly not a slow song about a weird guy who kills himself.  Live and Learn.

Without further adieu, the half-marathon Playlist as chosen by Shuffle...

This Guy Meanders Better Than I

Anyone know of a guy named Harry Reeder?  He is a pastor at Briarwood Presbyterian Church in Birmingham, AL.  I came across an article he wrote entitled, "Cultural Narcissism and a Titanic Lesson".  It takes him a while to get to the point, but coming from me, that is sort of a compliment.

So, the shorter Harry goes like this.  The story of the MOVIE Titanic differs greatly from the story of the actual SHIP Titanic.  The movie, Harry says, was a technological and cinematic success but was, however, a "factual failure".  The movie portrayed the event as an example of "class warfare".  You had Leo, the poor guy, hooking up with Kate, the rich girl.  Or maybe she was just the girl who was dating the rich guy.  Doesn't matter.  Point was, the rich folks were staying up top where they were safely ferried away by the lifeboats and the poor folks down below were left to drown.

Hunger Games

I'm halfway through.  Which is to say I've read the first book and I'm halfway through the second.  It is very difficult to critique because I've read so very little that can be compared to it.  I think if you've enjoyed any of the teeny bopper Twilight books, you would probably really enjoy the Hunger Games series.  I tried to read Twilight but was thoroughly nauseated and bored.  Aside from an interesting premise, (and by interesting, I mean interesting enough to spend 5 minutes thinking about it) the story was painfully slow and intellectually numbing.  Sorry if you liked it.  This is just one man's opinion.  Still, I don't see how anyone who is exposed to good fiction would think that book was well-written.  I'm actually a bit uncomfortable just re-living the week or so I wasted on it.  In the end, I simply wanted to regain my adulthood and return to a more literate world.

Hunger Games has moments that are like that, too.  And it seems, the longer the book goes on, the sillier it gets.  Almost as if the author really wants to indulge in talking about a teenage girls' interests.  And she's really been trying to rein it in and stick to the story.  And as the story moves along, either she just can't help herself or the editors identified the market for the story and she began talking more and more about the all-too-boring details.  What makes this book good is the creativity and the action.  It is certainly NOT an insightful look at relationships - offering us those wonderful moments of being able to relate to remarkable characters.  These characters are remarkable because of what they DO - not because of what they say about us. 

This teenage girl who can survive in the wilderness and shoot squirrells with her bow and arrow - doesn't care about her physical appearance or makeup or her hair or her clothes and yet we're subjected to LOTS of information about all of these things.  I'm offering this disclaimer:  if you read these books and you're thinking, 'how did Tommy take this part seriously?' - well, it was hard.

The Confession by John Grisham

I'm really kind of irritated.  I'm irritated at myself for not being able to put the book down.  I stayed up way too late reading The Confession by John Grisham.  And I am irritated at the author because I didn't even like the book.  I thought it was cliche, cheap, easy shots all the while stinking of political correct garbage and yet it was wrapped up in a compelling narrative that kept me wanting to know what was going to happen.

It's very anti-capital punnishment and while he pushed some buttons in that department and prompted me to examine my own thoughts and feelings about the death penalty, it was so conveniently packaged in favor of the accused that the author turns it into a straw man, easily pushed over.

But the thing that bothered me most was the ever-present race theme in the book.  As in many of his books, he writes in the South and this was set in Texas.  The thing that bothered me is that the white characters in the book are mostly evil or at best, tragically flawed.  And the black characters in the book are all principled innocents.  I may be casting a wide net so I am thinking, a character review is in order...

Humanus Self-centricus

You know that old song, "You Always Hurt the One You Love"? 

You always break the kindest heart,
With a hasty word you can't recall.
So, if I broke your heart last night,
It's because I love you most of all.

OK, that's weird.  And in the world of conflict resolution, I'm quite certain that rationale won't get you very far.  There is some truth to it, of course.  But I feel like taking this apart a bit.  It requires some honest self-analysis OK?  Wait!  Where are you going???  Nothing to be scared of here.  All we're going to do is compare how we treat our friends and family with how we treat people we barely know.  OK, let's get started by breaking this down into the two groups ...