Lest You Think I'm All Country

- Thanks to Jonathan Hansen for recommending this wonderful piece. Chopin's Piano Concerto in E Minor No. 1.

Les Miserables and Justice

Then his heart burst, and he began to cry. It was the first time that he had wept in nineteen years.

When Jean Valjean left the Bishop's house, he was, as we have seen, quite thrown out of everything that had been his thought hitherto. He could not yield to the evidence of what was going on within him. He hardened himself against the angelic action and the gentle words of the old man. "You have promised me to become an honest man. I buy your soul. I take it away from the spirit of perversity; I give it to the good God."

This recurred to his mind unceasingly. To this celestial kindness he opposed pride, which is the fortress of evil within us. He was indistinctly conscious that the pardon of this priest was the greatest assault and the most formidable attack which had moved him yet; that his obduracy was finally settled if he resisted this clemency; that if he yielded, he should be obliged to renounce that hatred with which the actions of other men had filled his soul through so many years, and which pleased him; that this time it was necessary to conquer or to be conquered; and that a struggle, a colossal and final struggle, had been begun between his viciousness and the goodness of that man.

- Victor Hugo in Les Miserables

Watching the Discovery Channel one evening, I found out something I never would have thought about. The orbit and rotation of the Earth create hot and cold currents that interact and create streams in the seas. Baitfish and plankton follow these streams as the seasons change. This is why whales migrate.

It helps to peer beyond the skin-deep observations we make and rash value judgments that arise from them. Often things are not as they seem on the surface.

That is why the value of justice is vastly overrated. The greatest assault on pride, hatred, and hardness of heart is the unconditional pardon and kindness of one who is other. Our mind tells us that tit-for-tat, exhortation, carrot-and-stick straight-line power and manipulation are the answers to change. It turns out that this is not the case. Thank God for penetrating thinkers like Hugo who re-orient our often skin-deep observations.- DOB

Awful Article

Easy ways to be an optimist
By Lise Funderburg

(OPRAH.com) -- Recent research suggests an optimistic state comes from a series of active inner processes, psychological somersaults. That's good news because it means that optimism -- like other skills such as putting on eyeliner or hitting a tennis ball -- is something we can improve with practice...

2. Short-circuit pessimism

There's another reason for putting on a happy face: It influences your brain in a positive way. In one study, subjects who were asked to hold a pen in their mouth (causing them to inadvertently make the facial muscle movements characteristic of a smile) rated cartoons to be funnier than did other subjects, even though they were unaware that it was the smile that was boosting their reaction.

There's an interesting biological reason for this effect: When you feel down, your brain tells your face you're sad, and your facial muscles respond by putting on a depressed expression -- and convey back to the brain that, yes, you're feeling blue. Consciously changing the facial muscles so they don't correspond to what you're feeling is a way of sending a different message: "Hey, it's not so bad down here after all." The brain will respond by beginning to change your mood accordingly. Oprah.com: Six steps to a regret-free life

Read the whole article here (if you don't think that's enough).

It is amazing to me that grown-up people can write such blather. Thanks to Todd Brewer for bringing this to our attention. - DOB

Chris Knight and Romans 7

There ought to a bridge somewhere they could dedicate to me
I'd probably come to the ceremony with a can of gasoline
Walk on over to the other side Where I'd light a match
Sit and stare through the smoke and flames and wonder how I'm gonna get back

Why do I do the things I do?
Was I born this way or am I self made fool?
I shoot the lights and I curse the dark
I need your love but I break your heart
And I know the words that’ll bring you back
But I don’t say nothing as I watch you pack
I had to work to become the jerk I've come to be
It ain’t easy being me

There oughta be a side show act
For freaks like me
I could be the star of the show with my name on the marquee
In a room with a big red button that says ‘danger do not touch’
Twice a day I'd mash it down and you can watch me self-destruct
- Chris Knight It Ain't Easy Being Me

Romans 7:15-24 I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. So then it is no longer I that do it, but sin which dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin which dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin which dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?

Josey Wales

This from one of my favorite movies - The Outlaw Josey Wales. - DOB

Sons Need Fathers

This article is from the Wall Street Journal.

When fatherless young people are encouraged to write about their lives, they tell heartbreaking stories about feeling like "throwaway people." In the privacy of the written page, their hard, emotional shells crack open to reveal the uncertainty that comes from not knowing if their father has any interest in them. The stories are like letters to unknown dads – some filled with imaginary scenes about what it might be like to have a dad who comes home and puts his arm around you or plays with you.

They feel like they've been thrown away, Mr. Myers says, because "they don't have a father to push them, discipline them, and they give up trying to succeed . . . they don't see themselves as wanted." A regular theme of their stories is that they feel safer in a foster care home or juvenile detention center than on the outside, because they have no father to hold together the family. There is no one at home.

This article reminds me of Rod Rosenbladt's presentation on fathers and sons at the Advent a few years ago. This issue presents itself a lot these days, probably because I have become attuned to it thanks to Professor Rosenbladt. As you celebrate Father's Day Sunday, remember the fatherless. - DOB

The Prodigal Son

The great Hank Williams. - DOB

Where the Soul of Man Never Dies

Merle Haggard

"Freedom is what prohibition ain't."

- Merle Haggard

I guess you don't have to go to school for eight years to learn that. Haggard is a very intelligent man and an incredible musician. A lot of folks discount country music (and it is called for in the contemporary Nashville scene... yuck) but when you start talking about the insights of a Merle Haggard, a Hank Williams, or a George Jones, you are talking about powerful insight into life. Self-deception, addiction, frustrated love, liberating love, self-deification, the cathartic... they are all there. - DOB

Mark Mattes is Awesome

"Moderns are significantly more conflicted with respect to law and its final evaluation, since they find themselves with with no summum bonum as the ultimate evaluator. They are thus positioned between an antinomianism which results from the belief that there is no objective final purpose to life, and a nomianism in which one is condemned to fulfill one's potential as the only way to extract meaning from life. This insight implies that the preaching of the gospel is no less "relevent" for moderns than pre-moderns."

- Mark Mattes from The Role of Justification in Contemporary Theology pg. 156

What more is there to say? - DOB

Obama, Church and State

This is from a nice article by the Wall Street Journal's William McGurn called "Obama, Religion and the Public Square".

Here is how he [Obama] put it: "Secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering into the public square. Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, William Jennings Bryan, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King – indeed, the majority of great reformers in American history – were not only motivated by faith but repeatedly used religious language to argue for their cause. To say that men and women should not inject their 'personal morality' into public policy debates is a practical absurdity. Our law is by definition a codification of morality, much of it grounded in the Judeo-Christian tradition."

Read it all here.

Good for Senator Obama! - DOB

Amazing Grace

Mama Tried by Merle Haggard

Great song with great lyrics but the best part of the video is the mullet the guitar player is sporting.

I'm going to try and drop a meaningful country song on you every now and then for a while. - DOB

Fix The Country!

NBC's Williams Tells Grads U.S. Broken, 'Need You to Fix the Country'

By Brent Baker

Delivering the commencement address Sunday at Ohio State University in Columbus, where we was awarded an honorary Doctor of Journalism degree, NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams implied America is broken as he told the graduates: “We need you to fix the country.” That clip, squeezed in between Al Gore at Carnegie Mellon and Martin Sheen at Notre Dame, aired as part of an annual compilation of commencement advice run at the end of Monday's NBC Nightly News. NBC also aired this from Williams: “We need you all now to step up. And every adult in this place has every faith that you're up to the job.”

Read the whole article here (if you really have a mind to).

This is the best way to make sure that none of those graduates fix the country. - DOB

Salman Rushdie Quote

"There was a number of ways in which such an event could cripple a writer," Mr. Rushdie says of the death sentence that lasted until 1998, when the Iranian government withdrew support for it. "One way was that it would frighten you into innocuousness – that you would suddenly try and avoid writing anything that could in any way upset anyone. Which would essentially mean you couldn't write anything. Or, it could provoke you into vindictive writing. Kind-of revenge fiction. And I thought both of those things would destroy me, because they would turn me into a creature of the attack."

- Salman Rushdie from a very fine Wall Street Journal interview that can be read here.

This is just another instance of how a religion of control and judgment squelches love and creativity. Notice how he perceptively describes the result as either "innocuousness" or "vindictive writing". Both leave creativity and love in a shambles. Despair or anger. The Christian community should take note. - DOB

Men With Broken Hearts

This song was written and sung by Hank Williams (Sr., I probably need not add) under the pseudonym "Luke the Drifter". It is powerful and a little depressing so some of you might not want to listen to it. Basically, the song is about people who have been crushed under the weight of the world and the law. Luke the Drifter is crying out on behalf of grace over law for sufferers.

I could only find this song performed by Hank, Sr., Hank, Jr., and Hank III. I'm not a big fan of the latter two but I love Hank, Sr. I believe he was a certifiable genius and (as Hermann Hesse described Dostoevsky) a sick prophet. As you can see below, the song also touched Elvis. - DOB

Victor Hugo

"He did not attempt to give his robe to the folds of Elijah's mantle; he cast no ray of the future on the dark scroll of events; he did not seek to condense the glimmer of things into flame; he was nothing of the prophet and nothing of the magician. His humble soul loved, and that was enough."

- Victor Hugo in Les Miserables describing Monseigneur Bienvenu

The art in this book is something to behold. It is absolutely one of the most beautifully written and profound works of art I have ever come across. Hugo was a Romantic and they get a bad rap from folks in my circles but this is just what I need right now. "What enlightened this man was the heart. His wisdom was formed from the light emanating from there." This is like water to a parched soul. - DOB

Sacrificial Love

This has always been one of my favorite songs. - DOB

Self-Medication

Kelsey Grammer has heart attack in Hawaii
By Steve Gorman

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Kelsey Grammer, best known from his long-running sitcom "Frasier," suffered a mild heart attack during the weekend in Hawaii, three weeks after his latest show was canceled, his publicist said on Monday.

So much for self-medication. How ironic. - DOB