Music for Focus

I have a couple playlists published on Spotify that I've been curating (and constantly updating) with "Work Sounds" music that I enjoy listening to when I need to focus.

I have eclectic taste, so these lists are a mix of music genres including ambient, world (Celtic, Middle Eastern, etc.), electronica, chant, baroque, 20th century minimalism and more. I recently updated the playlists with artist recommendations made by fellow Lifehackers.

FOCUS MIX RADIO

This is my master list of music for focus. I call it "Radio" because the playlist is huge and will continue to grow indefinitely (at over a day's worth of music right now). Whenever I find (or someone recommends) a new artist that fits this playlist, I add some of the artists music to this playlist. Because of the size of this playlist, it's not one you want to make available offline (for paid users), but it's great if you're online. Also, I think it is nice resource to discover artists who make music that is good for listening when you need to focus.

FOCUS MIX SOUNDTRACK

This is basically an abridged version of the Focus Mix Radio better suited for offline availability. Right now it consists of a few tracks from each of the artists on the Focus Mix Radio. It's currently about 5 hours worth of music, but I'm in the process of paring it down to about half that length.

If you have any recommendations of artists you like to listen to, let me know and I'll check it out!

A rabbi on being angry with God

150 years before the holocaust, Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev taught that God can be found even in anger.

On Yom Kippur, a tailor sought forgiveness from the great rabbi for having talked disrespectfully to God. The tailor told him:

“I declared to God: you wish for me to repent of my sins, but I have committed only minor offenses. But you O LORD have committed grievous sins: You have taken babies from their mothers and mothers from their babies. Let’s call it even: if you will forgive me, I will forgive you."

Said the Rabbi, “Why did you let God off so easily? With that argument, you could have forced him to redeem all of Israel.”

(Adapted from documentary on Hasidism in America, and The Genesis of Justice by Alan M. Dershowitz)

Celtic Poets

Here is a little excerpt from Celtic Myths and Legends (p. 119)that I thought was interesting about the history of Celtic poets.

To be the subject of a curse from a poet is a terrible thing. In ancient times, the poet had high status at the king's court and could argue with the High King himself. Everyone sought the poet's praise and dreaded his satire. In the Annals of Ulster it is recorded that, in the year ad 1024, the chief poet of Ireland, Cuan Ua Lothchain, was unlawfully killed in Theba. As he lay dying, he uttered the poet's curse, the firt filed they called it, and the bodies of his murderers were said to have rotted within the hours. To challenge a poet or displease him or her - for there were banfili, women poets, equal with men in Ireland in those days - would be like playing dice with fate.

The poet's curse was not something to be chanced lightly. The Annals of Connacht record that, in the year ad 1414, John Stanley, the English viceroy, sent to rule in Ireland, died from a poet's curse.

When Tomas O Criomththain (1856-1937) wrote his best-selling autobiography An tOilednach (The Islandman) he wrote that he would abandon his day's work to go to listen to the island poet, for fear of being satirised and cursed by him.

The fear of the poet's curse caused High Kings and kings to promise the poet anything that was demanded of them to avoid the curse.

God’s Graces and Parking Places

Although I would consider myself a “spiritual person,” I am admittedly one of those who have an allergic reaction when people try to “spiritualize” everything – particularly every good thing – by attributing it to God’s good grace.

You know, stuff like:

“God helped my team to win the game.”

“By God’s grace, my candidate or party won the election.”

“God just gave me the greatest parking place.”

…and so on.

I just find it a little difficult to comprehend why God would take special time aside to open up that parking place when there are millions of people dying every day from starvation, disease, natural disasters, etc.

And I know I’m not the only person who thinks this way. One of my Facebook friends recently updated his status with:

“…thinks we should stop confusing good luck with God's grace. God isn't the reason you found that awesome parking space.”

Normally, I guess I’d rank among the 15 other people who “Liked” his status. I certainly know where he’s coming from, and I think that he is touching on valid point. However, I’ve been pondering this subject for a couple weeks now, and my view on this was challenged – yes, in the parking lot!

I was going to a coffee shop the other day, and was a little concerned about whether or not I’d get a parking spot since it was a busy time of day, and it doesn’t have the greatest parking space available. I’m new to this particular coffee shop, and wasn’t sure where to park if there were no spaces. Sure enough, when I pulled into the parking lot, all the spots were taken.

Fortunately, someone was pulling out of a spot just as I was pulling in. I pulled into my spot, and despite myself, I was washed over in a sense of thankfulness. I wasn’t sure what to do with that. While I seriously doubt that God took special energy to provide me this parking place, I couldn’t help but to want to thank God for it nevertheless. So I did.

My friend’s Facebook status prompted me to think about this some more. Something about it didn’t seem to be right about the statement, and it kind of bothered me that so many people seemed to be jumping on board, making smug comments criticizing people who “confuse good luck with God’s grace” in this way. And yet, to an extent, I agree with them.

How do I make sense of that? How can God be responsible for things like this (and thus worthy of receiving my thanks), yet without taking special effort aside to make this particular good thing happen?

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Grace: Common vs. Special

I think that this might be best explained through the helpful distinction theologians (especially in the Reformed tradition) have made between “common” and “special” grace.

“Common grace” can be explained as the grace of God that extends to everyone, indiscriminately. In the Sermon on the Mount, for example, Jesus exhorts his followers to be like God who “causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous” (Matt 5:25). You might say that common grace is that grace of God that was imbued and inherent within the framework of Creation itself.

In contrast, “special grace” is a way of describing those particular times when God seems to do something “special," when God graces his Creation in a way that goes above and beyond the norm (i.e. “common grace”). The best example of this in Christian theology is the special gift of God given to us in the person of Jesus Christ.

I think this distinction between “special” and “common” grace is an extremely helpful way to resolve many tensions that we face when trying to explain how God interacts with Creation.

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So if I were to refine the theological precision of my friend’s Facebook status, it might read something like:

“…thinks we should stop confusing good luck with God's special grace; God didn’t interrupt the natural order of things just so that you could find that awesome parking space.”

I think that’s probably what he was trying to say anyway. I appreciate that he is prodding his friends to reconsider the way they understand God’s interactions in their daily lives.

And yet, there is something in me that thinks it would be wrong to tell everyone that they are ignorant for thanking God for that awesome parking place (or whatever). Seems that there at least some sense in which, as the song from Godspell (and James 1:17) teaches us:

“All good gifts around us
Are sent from Heaven above;”

I’d say, yes.

“So thank the Lord, thank the Lord, for all his love…”

Photo by Russell Heiman, used under Creative Commons license.

Game On

So here I go again. Trying to start blogging again...

I don't know how many times I've tried, posted a few things, and then nada.

FAIL.

There's many reasons why I fail. Hmmm... maybe that's something to write about?

Yes.

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I was at a writer's retreat earlier this month. It was an amazing experience, but the entire time I kind of felt like I didn't belong or something. At first, I thought that the feeling was that of being a poser. But then I decided that wasn't it. I do write. I love to write – even when it kills me. And every now and then I actually write something worth reading. So maybe I can consider myself something of a writer.

I decided this feeling of inadequacy was coming from somewhere else. Even if I call myself a writer, the fact remains: writing is a tremendous struggle for me. I love it, and I hate it. Sometimes through writing, I find myself. But sometimes I lose myself. And I seldom know which will happen when I start pounding those keys.

I've heard many writers talk about how slow the writing process is for them. I doubt they really know what "slow" is.

At the retreat, I participated in an incredible non-fiction writing workshop with a group of incredible writers. We were supposed to come having read a sample of everyone's work. Part of the time, we discussed each other's work. Every now and then we would do writing exercises:

"For the next seven minutes, write something that evokes these words: peace, envy, falling in love, etc."

While everyone else was busily writing witty, profound, and wonderful things in their notebooks, I just sat there for about five minutes with a look of blank horror on my face. Seven minutes!? Yeah... sure. Okay... Hmm... words... words... evoke those words... umm.... "Peace." Yeah. That one. hmm....

Before we were told to stop, I had written all of,

"And in that moment, it was as though the cracks of --"

FAIL.

I finally decided that this feeling of inadequacy was probably best described as that which must be felt by a guy in a wheelchair just learning to play basketball with a bunch of others on a court in which he is the only person who hasn't played varsity. I'm not saying that to sound funny, or to be self-deprecatory. And I'm certainly not saying that to suggest that people in wheelchairs can't play basketball; I have seen many that do, and are so good at it that the sight is something truly sublime. But I don't think anyone in a wheelchair would deny that they face obstacles that others don't. In fact, those obstacles are part of what makes what they do so beautiful.

So I guess that's what I'm saying: I think that I face some obstacles as a writer that most people don't.

---

My senior year in college, I was diagnosed with several lovely "disorders," after which I began working with the Office of Learning Accommodations both in my undergraduate and graduate education. I was afforded "accommodations" under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). So I guess you could say that in a sense, I am a disabled writer. At least I am according to the psychologist.

But that's the weird thing about my "disorders": they aren't anything as tangible as something like the visually or physically impaired. Which just leaves me wondering, "Am I really 'disabled' in this sense? Or am I just stupid? Or lazy? Or both?" I often took advantage of those learning accommodations I was afforded in school. And yet, it was probably just as often that I didn't. Because I felt like I didn't deserve them. I felt like I was cheating or something.

Who knows? Maybe one day something will finally click. Maybe one day, some piece of the puzzle will fall into place, and I will finally be "normal."

I hope so.

*adds missing puzzle piece to Amazon wish list*

Until then... here I go again, limping my way into the blogosphere and onto the court.

Hmm….

Game on.

On "Changing the World"

In our artist small-group Monday night, we were discussing Andy Crouch's book Culture Making: Rediscovering Our Creative Calling. Afterwards, as I was working on an essay for a class on cross-cultural missions, I tried to summarize a little bit of how I perceive culture, in the process of cultural transformation.

We, myself included, speak a lot about "changing the world" and/or "transforming culture." However, it is perhaps more precise to speak of this cultural engagement as the participation of the Church in the evolution of its broader culture.

Cultures are always evolving. It is a mistake to think of culture as something that is static, and in need of being transformed from one static shape to another static shape. Rather, any given culture is in a continual process of evolution.

As such, it is not so much a matter of “culture being in need of transformation” as much as it is a matter of in which direction an already-transforming culture is going to evolve.

There is a sense in which everyone -- whether Christian or not -- is "on mission" to their own culture.  This is essentially the human vocation: to cultivate and create culture, influencing it in the direction they see most fitting.

The Christian church is only one of many collective voices who seek to exert influence in this way. Thus for the Church to be "on mission” to its culture is essentially to say that it is participating in that culture's evolution. Likewise, for a Christian to be "on mission" to her culture is essentially to say that she is carrying out her calling, her vocation as a human being.

Also, the reality needs to set in that it is not only we who are influencing culture; we are ourselves being influenced and transformed by our culture in ways we may not even be aware. And while this may be inevitable, it is not necessarily deplorable. In fact, I would suggest that along with seeking to influence our culture for Christ, we should also be seeking to find the fingerprints of Christ that already exist within our culture, and open ourselves to being shaped by that influence instead of another.

 

Technorati Tags: Culture making,Andy Crouch,transforming culture,changing the world,missions

"In the Waiting": a sermon on Ps 13 (audio)

This is an audio version of a sermon I did on Psalm 13, "In the Waiting," which will be published in the next issue of the Truett Journal of Church and Mission. 

 

(Photography: "A Magazine in the Waiting Room," by Keith Maniac)