Sunday, April 21, 2013

Norris Backyard Harlem Shake

I have no explanation for this......

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

What is Real Beauty?

As a father of daughters, I find this short video to be uniquely moving and mysterious.  Our culture has done a lot of damage to young women via advertising false images of beauty. 

"Do you think you are more beautiful than you say?"  What a profound question.  Upon reflection, I think God is asking this of all of us.  Constantly.

To my girls, you are truly beautiful; deep in your souls.

Thursday, April 04, 2013

Grace Before Sleep

I have recently stumbled upon a choral piece that is full of simple beauty, images of friendship, and thankfulness.  Sara Teasdale, the author, won the 1918 Pulitzer Prize for poetry.  Sadly, 15 years later, at the age of 49 her life ended by suicide.

Often our lives are like this, a mixture of great beauty and inexplicable pain.  The inverted message of Easter tells us that after great suffering there can come to us an unexplainable miracle.  This is the hopeful story I choose to believe.



Grace Before Sleep

How can our minds and bodies be
Grateful enough that we have spent
Here in this generous room, we three,
This evening of content?
Each one of us has walked through storm
And fled the wolves along the road;
But here the hearth is wide and warm,
And for this shelter and this light
Accept, O Lord, our thanks to-night.

Sara Teasdale
(1884-1933)

Composition by Susan Labarr

Here is a wonderful version from South Africa:



Friday, March 29, 2013

Pange Lingua Gloriosi, Proelium (Crux fidelis)



 









Faithful Cross
above all other,
one and only noble Tree!
None in foliage, none in blossom,
none in fruit thy peers may be;
sweetest wood and sweetest iron!
Sweetest Weight is hung on thee!


Lofty tree, bend down thy branches,
to embrace thy sacred load;
oh, relax the native tension
of that all too rigid wood;
gently, gently bear the members
of thy dying King and God. 


Tree, which solely wast found worthy
the world's Victim to sustain.
harbor from the raging tempest!
ark, that saved the world again!
Tree, with sacred blood anointed
of the Lamb for sinners slain.  


Blessing, honor, everlasting,
to the immortal Deity;
to the Father, Son, and Spirit,
equal praises ever be;
glory through the earth and heaven
to Trinity in Unity. Amen.
 

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Sarah Jarosz & Alison Krauss - Run Away

This young lady has just become my new folk / bluegrass favorite.  Here she is performing with two of my all time favorites; Alison Krauss and Jerry Douglas.

 

Sunday, February 03, 2013

The Best Super Bowl Commercial Ever

There was one super bowl commercial this year that caught me off guard; one that I found entirely moving and worthy of this great country we call home.

In the midst of all the ads written and produced for the lowest common denominator in American "culture", there was one that rose far above the crowd.  Among a sea of ads that cost $3.7 million dollars a minute for beer, and fast cars, and snack chips, and greasy web hosting sites, and body spray, and fast food, there was one commercial that really stood out all alone, all by itself.

It was a commercial that really mattered, and that celebrated the simple, hardworking folk in the middle part of our country that the rest of us coastal elites spend our lives flying over at 40,000 feet and 350 miles an hour.  I would argue that the values of these folks may be what makes our country endure.

This was the audio of a poem written and recited by famous radio broadcaster Paul Harvey at the 1978 Future Farmers of America, set to scenes of the American farmland and the farmers who work it.

This commercial made my day.  We should celebrate common ordinary dignified folks such as these:

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