I Samuel 15:22

"Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the Lord?
To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams."    -  NIV


"Do you think all God wants are sacrifices - empty rituals just for show? He wants you to listen to him! Plain listening is the thing, not staging a lavish religious production. "   - The Message


"Which would God rather have you do- consistently attend praise and worship services or do what he says?  
Obedience is better than singing loudly, how you live is more important than how good your band sounds."
      - JRV










Romans 12:1 "Therefore, I urge you, dear brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God -  this is your spiritual act of worship."

Confession

Last night, I played in the house band for the Dordt Talent Extravaganza, which involves playing filler music to keep the audience entertained while the acts are being set up.  Aside from messing up in almost every song, mostly because of changing order and parts on the fly, it went pretty well, aside from me changing channel settings mid-Back in Black and dropping out early twice in other songs.  So does that sound like it went well? I' not sure.

We played Play that Funky Music during an extended break while judges deliberated, which included a bass solo and drum solo, both of which were pretty sweet.  After the talent show was over, at least 5 to 20 people said they were waiting excitedly for a guitar solo and asked why I didn't have one.   At this point, I confessed to them what I will confess now.

I am not that good at guitar.

I know there will be objections by people who have been misled, but its the truth.  Maybe my big head is making this up, or maybe it's because Miguel likes to compliment me to a ridiculous extent, but I feel as though there's a certain amount of hype about my guitar skills, and I think it's unfounded.  Back in high school, sure, maybe I was ahead of the curve a little bit;  being in a rock band and jazz band certainly helped that.  But now, I rarely play guitar on my own simply because of a lack of any amount of time to do so.  And without practice, I haven't gotten any better; if anything, I've slid backwards a little. Almost every week, the only guitar playing time I get in is guitar lessons and praise team.  Which also probably gives the illusion of lots of talent.   But in reality, I don't think I'm as good as people expect.

Don't get me wrong, I'm great at keeping rhythm.  I could play rhythm guitar all day.  But there's a lot more to guitar than that.  Yeah, I would say I'm a good guitar player.  I really, really, really don't want to sound full of myself or cocky, but I also don't want to discount the talent that I've been given by God.  I think He's used it for good things, hopefully He will this summer too.  I'm just a little wary of getting more recognition than is due.

I'm not sure how this admission is coming off.  Maybe it sounds like I'm trying to drum up sympathy so people will tell me how awesome I am at guitar so I feel better.  Maybe it sounds like I'm having a pity party on myself for secretly not living up to expectations people have.  Maybe it sounds like I'm trying to give the illusion of humility.  If any of these come across, I really don't mean this that way.  I don't want you to think that I have this grandiose vision of the world viewing me as the next Slash or Eric Clapton, because I don't.  I just think sometimes I get more credit than I deserve.  I don't want this post to be anything more than me stepping down from a pedestal that I feel I've been put on occasionally.  And occasionally keep myself on for too long.  Encouragement is great, just as long as it stays that, and that alone.

Today, I'm Thankful for....

Perseverance.  Its that spirit of trying and trying, even when things get hard and quitting seems the only option.  Perseverance is that drive inside us that makes us keep on keepin' on in the face of insurmountable odds.  But it doesn't even have to be an enormous task.  Perseverance finds its way into every facet of life, big or small, both in persevering all the way through to the end of a marathon or persevering all the way through to the last bite of the Common's shrimp pasta.  Without perseverance, this nation would not have been founded.  Without perseverance, the ENIAC would still be considered a supercomputer.  Without perseverance, no one would get to the end of my blog posts.  Because of the perseverance of individuals and humanity united, our world has taken the milkshake of progress and sucked it down till it passed out from brainfreeze.  Perseverance isn't the light at the end of the tunnel, it's the coke-bottle-thickness glasses that help us see that light.  Perseverance fights the good fight, regardless of who's winning.

For instance, the sharpie that snuck into a pocket of the jeans that I just washed.  It was tossed and tumbled on regular spin cycle, but did it give up and leak black ink onto the entire load of wash?  No it did not!  The little guy fought through it and hung on till the end.  He didn't let the fact that he was only a fine-tip sharpie, not a thick-tipped marker of more usefulness, stop him.  He held himself together till he finally was pulled from the pit and relieved of the dizzying terror.  Only when his life was gone, his strength sapped, sitting in my hand away from my easily-stainable clothing which was amazingly spared from his wrath, did he give in, bleeding black ink all over my damp fingers.  I owe the existence and cleanliness of each and every piece of clothing in that washing machine to him, the little Sharpie, who managed to keep from staining all my clothes and ruining my day.  And for that, I pay homage to him.

Start the Machine

I haven't posted in five days.  But now I have.  This should tide me over for a couple more days until I come up with something interesting to write about.  But now you're all saying, "But Jon why don't you just wait to write until you have something worthwhile instead of wasting our time?"  I'm not sure.  But I felt the need to update.

Manchester Orchestra.  May 10.  Simple Math.

this blog is now worth your time.  You're welcome.

Funny how it seems we never get anything done
until those final seconds when we're staring down the gun

the end

Now that I've stopped crying

well....that was a heart-wrenching little post.  Let me sum up that post in emotionless prose.  Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a very good movie.  The end.

Blessed are the Forgetful

Ever since I first watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, I said it was one of my favorite movies, even though I'd only seen it once.  I was never quite sure, though, if it was legal to call a movie one of your favorites if you'd only seen it once.  Today, I finally saw it again after at least a two year break.  And it lived up to its billing after one view.  I still love this movie.  The idea is original, it features Jim Carrey, and it possesses that perfect dosage of reality with a fantastical side.  The scene where Joel and Clementine are in the beach house while the tide and sand comes in as the house crumbles blew my mind the first time I saw it because it was so...I don't know how to describe it; the only way to understand it is to watch the movie.  Not just the scene, the whole movie.

The movie plays through Joel's memories of Clementine in reverse, with life afterwards as bookends to the winding road through regrets and reminisces.  The movie rummages through Joel's brain and tosses what it finds into your hands for you to cling to as Joel lets go.  I get sucked into Joel's perspective because I can't help but see myself in him, more than I'm comfortable with. What exactly I see, I'm not sure, but he often reminds me of me. Meanwhile, he's so helpless, so cautionary, such a victim in his mind.  His frailty feels familiar.  His struggle is so aching.  Its as if Jeff Buckley's "Hallelujah" alone could have been the soundtrack.

Taglines describe it as romantic, comical, and poignant.  Poignant, yes.  The other two? Depends how you define them.

Tragic.

Tragic is the way I feel when I watch this movie.  Because I think this movie is a tragedy.  Not a weeping demolition of the human spirit  tragedy, but something else.  Reaching out for something as it's slipping away.   Desperation and fear and insecurity and helplessness quietly sneaking in and stowing away in your basement. Cutting down a thick oak tree to plant a seed in its place.   Watching a heart being broken in reverse, from its final intertwined string being pulled out to the first unwinding of its delicate lacing.  So poetic, so sad.

So hopeful.  Joel and Clementine duke it out in reality and his memories, but at the end they try to hold on as long as they can.  After the truth comes out, the new seed seems to be smothered.  But after everything, they still hold on to the vacant space where their love used to be.

Animation Inspiration

As I wait for my friends to respond to my textes, I will update ya'll about my evening.  I studied for Western Civ, which, as you might expect, lived up to all the expectations of something so awesome.  Then I joined several fellows in a band called Amos Slade to play some songs.  The bassist and I are on the same worship team, and he asked if I could play some lead parts for them.  They're pretty new, so they had a couple songs they had worked out, so I hopped in and played a little and listened a lot as they fleshed out their stuff.  The songwriting and song constructioning, in my opinion, is really good, and all three guys are very musically inclined, which makes the songs pretty tight, both music-wise and coolness-wise.  It was fun to jam with them as they begin to spread their wings and fly.  Oh wait, you don't understand that.  Inside joke already.  Awesome.  Now Trevor is getting very nervous.

Seriously, you should check them out.  Very good.  Click on tracks for music.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Amos-Slade/148977365158269

An Infuriated Discourse of my Post-Rearrangement Abhorring of our Dormitory

OH MY WORD I HATE OUR NEW ROOM SET UP SO MUCH I AM SO ANGRY AND UPSET MY ROOMMATE THINKS ITS GOOD BUT I HATE IT SO MUCH I AM LITERALLY SO UPSET THAT I HAVE LITERALLY FORGOTTEN HOW TO PUNCTUATE AND I TURNED ON CAPS LOCK FOR EFFECT SO THAT EVERYONE KNOWS HOW ANGRY I AM BECAUSE OF MY ROOMMATE I CAN'T WAIT TILL HE READS THIS SO HE KNOWS HOW MUCH I TOTALLY don't really care, as long as I have my desk space and get to see his lovely face while I'm doing homework.

Seven 8 Nine

I had 49 page views yesterday.  I'm a little bit freaked out about that.  I'm not really sure how I got that many on one day, since I don't usually get that many in a week.  Maybe it's because blogging is the new cool thing to do.  At least, in a little bit of my friends circle.  It's spreading like wildfire.  I'd like to think I started the trend.  But that still doesn't answer how I got that many views.  I'm not trying to brag, I'm just puzzled.


I'm also confused as to why I have views from Russia, China, Slovenia, Singapore, and other countries which I have no contact with.  Search Engines?




Or spies?