Posted in reseña, tagged Bob Seger, music, reseña on November 4, 2007| Leave a Comment »
Don’t judge a book by its cover, nuestros abuelos taught us in a spasm of earthy wisdom.
If you did, you might think Bob Seger was about to declare himself washed up and done for in the blues-rock entree to this 2006 album. Where the younger Seger could claim that things were gettin’ better and better’, the grizzled graybeard of Face the Promise finds things decidedly on the down swing, and toys with the idea that he might just ‘wreck this heart’. (more…)
Posted in denkschrift, missio dei, tagged biblical reflection, Daniel, reseña on November 4, 2007| Leave a Comment »
Some human endeavors run stubbornly against statistical probability. Fishing, for example, or standing in to the batter’s box. Or training a Labrador puppy.
Reflecting this Autumn morning on the education of the biblical Daniel, I wince more strongly than ever at the short-horizoned pragmatism that pervades our view of preparation for Christian leadership today. A thoughtless consensus seems to make hay with the expense in terms of time and money of preparing such leaders through formal means. We think we ought to be batting about .950—though no one ever says that—and so we grow resentful and dismissive at, say, a solid .310. (more…)
Posted in textures, tagged biblical reflection, Daniel, textures on November 4, 2007| Leave a Comment »
Before the book of Daniel even gets to the Babylonian king’s weird dream and self-destructive behavior with his would-be advisors, a remarkable scenario is unfolded before the reader: the faithful Jew in the court of the foreign king. (more…)
Posted in reseña, tagged Bob Seger, music, reseña, Silver Bullet Band on November 3, 2007| Leave a Comment »
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If you had to choose a single voice to represent blue-collar American rock & roll, you might well settle on Bob Seger’s as that iconic sound. Against the Wind could be Exhibit A as you face down the Springsteens and the Pettys and the Mellencamps to make your case. (more…)
Posted in reseña, tagged Juan Luís Guerra, Latin music, music, reseña on November 3, 2007| Leave a Comment »
Somewhere along the musical pathway that leads up to a splendid, blue-skied Autumn day in America’s midwest, I may have stumbled upon an album that contained more pure joy than Juan Luís Guerra’s Ni es lo mismo ni es igual.
But I can’t for the life of me think what that might have been. (more…)
Posted in reseña, tagged Christian music, music, reseña, worship music, Yad Hashmona Singers, Zipporah Bennett on November 3, 2007| 16 Comments »
My friend Tim Laniak, who knows the sound and smell of battle, sends me Messianic music to accompany me in mine. Zipporah Bennett’s Kuma Adonai (‘Arise, O Lord’) helps Hebrew language students at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary’s Charlotte, North Carolina, campus refine their aural comprehension.
Here in Indianapolis, on a clear Autumn day, it opens an angle of sight by which a man can just about glimpse heaven. (more…)
Posted in textures, tagged biblical reflection, Jeremiah, textures on November 2, 2007| 2 Comments »
When the Bible traffics in unconditional promises and everlasting guarantees, the modern reader easily loses the thread. This is in part because our view of history is less dramatic than that assumed by large portions of the biblical narrative.
We read such promise as verbal guarantee of an uninterrupted status quo. On the contrary, the narrative itself posits a dilemma that YHWH cannot or will not leave unresolved. Its point of reference is not the each-minute-of-all-minutes status of a promise, but rather the final outcome of history or of some large segment of history. YHWH is presumed to rule sovereignly over the story and to promise that a certain outcome will stand. It is understood that interruption and hiatus will from time to time be the experience of the people, a matter that creates both tension and expectation. (more…)
Posted in textures, tagged biblical reflection, Jeremiah, textures on November 1, 2007| Leave a Comment »
With an unusual dramatic touch, Jeremiah faces off against a YHWH-prophet whose message of good news and spectacular deliverance from the Babylonian besieger must have sounded with a welcome ring in encircled Jerusalem. Hananiah’s symbolic and verbal artistry can be understood in a manner that aligns them with the more lyric moments of the book of Isaiah or even the consoling passages within the book of Jeremiah itself. (more…)
Canter Bridge 