All in the same night.

These are just a few pictures that I took a little while back. We had some amazing sunsets, one crazy thunder storm and I am pretty sure all the pictures above I took on the same day. The weather can be a blessing and a curse when it comes to living in Iowa. And yes I actually did take that picture of the lighting. I was quite proud of myself.

Choir Pictures

Every day in choir we take the first few minutes to do warm ups and occasionally lemon and tiger faces are incorporated to stretch and warm up the face. No joke, it helps, but then when we took pictures of the choir we add a few extra poses.

By the way, you can click on the pictures to make them bigger, which I highly suggest to fully appreciate the photos.

Carmina Burana

Last night was the performance for Carmina Barina. I think most of you would recognize the piece. We were inivted as a choir to sing with 5 other choirs and the Sioux City Symphony Orchestra to perform. The practices were time consuming and tiring to say the least, but last nights performance was worth it. The soloists blewe my mind, and the Orphium Theater that we sang in was magnificent. The picture above is of our practice on Friday. If you are wondering...I am in the top right side wearing a blue shirt, about 3 guys over at the top. Below is a link to a recording of Carmina Burana for your listening pleasure...I personally like one the one second from the bottom the best.

http://www.playlist.com/searchbeta/tracks#Carmina%20Burana

Music is Healing

It was not even a good idea at the time.

"I believe we need to give young people the freedom to fail. We need to give them space to explore - to try different things - and totally bomb. Maybe we need to start celebrating certain failures... giving them credit for having the guts to go for it instead of just playing it safe. Look, I realize there are limits. We need to have dreams for our kids and our students. But we also need to encourage them to do what they want to do... free from the burden of our expectations.
So here's to getting knocked on our cans... getting back up, shaking off the dust - and getting back in the game."

These are some interesting thoughts from one of my theology professors.

O May I Join the Choir Invisible by George Eliot

O may I join the choir invisible
Of those immortal dead who live again
In minds made better by their presence: live
In pulses stirred to generosity,
In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn
For miserable aims that end with self,
In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars,
And with their mild persistence urge man's search
To vaster issues.

So to live is heaven:
To make undying music in the world,
Breathing as beauteous order that controls
With growing sway that growing life of man.
So we inherit that sweet purity
For which we struggled, failed, and agonized
Rebellious flesh that would not be subdued,
A vicious parent shaming still its child
Poor anxious penitence, is quick dissolved;
Its discords, quenched by meeting harmonies,
Die in the large and charitable air.
And all our rarer, better, truer self,
that sobbed religiously in yearning song,
That watched to ease the burthen of the world,
Laborously tracing what must be,
And what may yet be better--saw within
A worthier image for the sanctuary,
And shaped it forth before the multitude
Divinely human, raising worship so
To higher reverance more mixed with love--
That better self shall live till human Time
Shall fold its eyelids, and the human sky
Be gathered like a scroll within the tomb
Unread for ever.

This is life to come,
Which martyred men have made more glorious
For us who stive to follow. may I reach
That purest heacen, to be other souls
The cup of strength in some great agony,
Enkindle generous ardor, feed pure love,
Beget the smiles that have no cruelty--
Be the sweet presence of a good diffused,
And in diffusion ever more intense.
So shall I join the choir invisible
Whose music is the gladness of the world.

Yeah I heard about it.

A couple nights ago I was reading some homework on a computer in the basement lab. A girl came in and started with a friend about someone she knew from high school that had just committed suicide earlier that day.

When I was younger I remember talking with a neighbor kid about the house down the street where a young guy had shot himself. "The picture of the EMTs rolling out his body on a stretcher is still so vivid."

I knew someone in high school that often spoke of his frustrations...parents, school, bitters words, words armed with pain and hurt, spoken to him from friends, family strangers. He mentioned thoughts of suicide. I could not stop thinking about his circumstance for months. Could I have spoken those words? Was it my actions that cut him so deeply? What if it was I that was the last drop in the cup to make it overflow? The breaking point.

There are others as well I have heard of...that we know of...similar feelings, similart circumstances, lack of hope or hope lost, those who we unknowingly have those same thoughts.

Sobering.

Psalms
39:7 "But now, Lord, what do I look for? My hope is in you.
43:5 Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.
71:5 For you have been my hope, O Sovereign LORD, my confidence since my youth.
116: Sustain me according to your promise, and I will live; do not let my hopes be dashed.
24:14 Know also that wisdom is sweet to your soul; if you find it, there is a future hope for you, and your hope will not be cut off.

Romans
5:2 through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.
5:5 And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.
8:24 For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has?

I CORINTHIANS
13:13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. I find it interesting that the greatest of these is love, significant. Should we not believe that if we express love and share love with eachother that it will foster faith and hope as well? And then this question is answered in Colossians.

COLOSSIANS
1:5 the faith and love that spring from the hope that is stored up for you in heaven and that you have already heard about in the word of truth, the gospel
23: if you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant.

EPHESIANS
1:18 I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints.

HEBREWS
3:6 But Christ is faithful as a son over God's house. And we are his house, if we hold on to our courage and the hope of which we boast.
6:11 We want each of you to show this same diligence to the very end, in order to make your hope sure.

I PETER
1:3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
13: Therefore, prepare your minds for action; be self-controlled; set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed.
21: Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God.


3:15 But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord.Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect.

Suicide Causes(www.suicide.org)
by Kevin Caruso

Over 90 percent of people who die by suicide have a mental illness at the time of their death.
And the most common mental illness is depression.
Untreated depression is the number one cause for suicide

Depression and hopelessness. What influence do we have on these things. I have often considered how terrifying it would be to not believe in anything. No God, nothing after death, no purpose. How could I live with out purpose?

How can my faith not convict me? How could I let myself be silent? If I believe this to be true, we must speak the truth!

Isaiah 43

Let all the nations gather together, let the peoples assemble! Who among them could have revealed this, or foretold to us the earlier things? Let them produce witnesses to prove themselves right, that one may hear and say, "It is true!"
You are my witnesses, says the LORD, my servants whom I have chosen To know and believe in me and understand that it is I. Before me no god was formed, and after me there shall be none.
It is I, I the LORD; there is no savior but me.
It is I who foretold, I who saved; I made it known, not any strange god among you; You are my witnesses, says the LORD. I am God,
yes, from eternity I am He; There is none who can deliver from my hand: who can countermand what I do?

In one of my courses we recently discussed the word Martyr...it literally means witness. I beg of you. Be a witness. Give your account of the work of Christ. Your witness is the truth that plants hope in a person's life. Do not allow assumptions of what people want to hear hinder you from speaking the truth that people need to hear. "You will be my witnesses to the ends of the earth." Acts1:8 So how did you hear about it? Let your convitions be evident.