Posted in my hometown, paterfamilias, reseña, tagged gadgets, reseña on October 6, 2007| Leave a Comment »
My job makes sure that I spend lots and lots of time in my car. I need three things in order to make that a good thing: great music, good directions, and reliable hands-off phone service.
My 2004 Passat W8 has excellent sound but lacks built-in satellite radio. I’ve installed a Sirius receiver, a Magellan GPS, and a Parrot Bluetooth phone service. That adds up to some serious clutter and a spiderweb of cables. (more…)
Posted in reseña, tagged Billie Holliday, Ella Fitzgerald, jazz, music, reseña, Sunday Times Music Collection on October 5, 2007| Leave a Comment »
In the mid-1990s, the Times of London flogged a very cool disk-per-week club that was everything eclectic can mean. One of those CDs, betitled with formidable understatement simply Two Jazz Ladies, featured Ella and Billie, two African-American stage presences who set the bar on what it meant for a lady to sing the blues. (more…)
Posted in reseña, tagged Brian and Kim tabor, Christian music, Kim Tabor, music on October 5, 2007| Leave a Comment »
The Christian music scene is full of solid people and fine artists who live in the shadow of, say, the Sandy Pattis and Chris Tomlins of the genre. Kim Tabor and husband Brian are examples.
Kim’s voice is supple and strong. Her performance is heartfelt. Yet she remains a relative unknown at the national level. Go figure. (more…)
Posted in my hometown, reseña, tagged classical music, Ensemble Music Society, Frank and Katrina Basile Theater, Indiana History Center, music, reseña, Takacs Quartet on October 5, 2007| Leave a Comment »
My wife recently introduced me to yet another hidden treasure of our Circle City, the Ensemble Music Society (www.ensemblemusic.org). Established in 1944 (!), this all-volunteer assemblage of chamber music enthusiasts manages to bring world-class talent to Indianapolis year-on-year, providing an intimate complement to our very fine ISO. (more…)
Posted in denkschrift, tagged biblical reflection, Philippians, textures on October 5, 2007| Leave a Comment »
When the apostle Paul turns to address his much-loved friends in Philippi, the warmth of his rhetoric flows like the melting waters of Springtime. Gone is the parental indignation of Galatians, the costly renegotiation of wounded relationships that is never far away in his correspondence with the Corinthians.
In his letter to the Philippian Christians, Paul writes like a man who has come home. The sweet absence of drama flavors the exchange. (more…)
Posted in textures on October 5, 2007| Leave a Comment »
Isaiah’s recurring concern with trust shows itself in the metaphor of leaning. Like the stitching on an old pair of Doc Martens, this language weaves its visible path through the multiple layers of this complex book. The image captures the need of an inferior to depend for sustenance and protection upon the powers of a superior. Isaiah is persistent in his warnings that no geopolitical presence has the credentialed trustworthiness that imperiled Judah seeks. Only YHWH is worthy of this nation’s leaning, her trust, her inclination. (more…)
Posted in textures, tagged biblical reflection, Ephesians, textures on October 4, 2007| 1 Comment »
Paul might be accused of possessing a rather egregious blind spot when it comes to matters of what we blithely label ‘social justice’. In this final chapter of his letter to the Ephesians, he counsels submission and a posture that is easily misconstrued as passivity in the face of the regnant social stratifications of Greco-Roman society.
‘Stay where you are’ is—prima facie—about as radical a statement as his social conscious is able to produce. (more…)
Posted in textures, tagged biblical reflection, Ephesians, textures on October 3, 2007| Leave a Comment »
Paul, who with a purist’s zeal plundered the lives and networks of the earliest Christians, remains in his apostolic career deeply aware of how his actions had stripped him of all credentials based in status or achievement. Something akin to guilt with its barb removed presses him to describe himself with self-deprecating clauses like ‘the greatest of sinners’ or—as here in Ephesians 3—’the very least of all the saints’. (more…)
Posted in textures, tagged biblical reflection, Ephesians, textures on October 3, 2007| Leave a Comment »
Pauline phrases reverberate in literal translation through hearts and minds that have been attuned to the apostle’s vocabulary and cadence. Take, for example, the alliterative spotlight that Paul casts upon divine life with a clause that anchors human destiny to the motor that is divine love: ‘out of the great love with which he loved us’. (more…)
Posted in two hippos make an island, tagged Africa, travel on September 29, 2007| Leave a Comment »
Chance are when you think ‘tent’ you aren’t thinking of the tents at this fantastic camp in South Africa’s Krüger National Park. Run by CCAfrica (‘Conservation Corporation Africa’), Ngala is typical of the firm’s high-end safari facilities. (more…)
Canter Bridge 