Music!

My brother, Hunter, recently acquired a sweet guzheng from China. Hopefully one day I’ll be able to post a video of him playing his own compositions. Until then, here’s a nice gig.

Prophet of Peace?

I saw this article while at work and finally get to post regarding it.

 

This is disgusting!  We go from honoring a man who sees poverty (lack of shalom) and takes steps to change it to honoring a man for his work in raising awareness of a highly contested crisis?  The first man has changed the lives of thousands of people in his country and others.  The second has changed what?  I am honored to have set in a lecture with the first man, to have learned from him despite my frustration with some of the long run effects of his “love.”  Thankfully I haven’t had to sit under the second man.  A prophet is without honor in his own town, but many such prophets are justly without honor.

 

Why did the Nobel Peace prize go to someone completely unlike 2006’s  Muhammad Yunus?  How could the standards have changed, lowered so drastically in one year?  Who decided to award the 2007 Nobel Peace prize to Al Gore?!?  I don’t know how to understand this.

 

The Rain is Enough

The rain is enough, I tell myself as I’m tempted to open iTunes.  I’m studying on the front porch while rain dances and crickles all around me.  All of it is delightful…the smell, feel, dark mist, etc.  But the sound, the sound is great!  In fact, the rain is enough.  I don’t not need iTunes to keep me company when I’ve got God’s rain.

 

“Candy is dandy, but liqur is quicker,” says Ogden Nash.  So iTunes is quicker, accessible on demand unlike the rain which only comes at God’s command and whim.  Yet, I much prefer the “candy!”  After all, the rain is enough.