An Octave Below

I've decided my musical tastes have changed quite a bit recently. I'm not exactly sure how it happened, maybe I just got bored with the metal and indie rock, or maybe now that I'm in college my demographic has changed what I listen to. Whatever the case now I frequently blare such artists as Talib Kweli, Jay-Z, and Kanye West from my speakers.

Yes indeed, Carl Laamanen, who once asserted rap was the lowest form of music(for the record it's actually grunge) now is a fan. I probably can't explain to you objectively why I become a fan, but nonetheless I have. Maybe some of it has to do with Draya, who enjoys hip-hop to a certain degree. But I really don't think it has anything to do with that, because I tend to listen to the more socially conscious rappers than the popular songs on the radio. Maybe I just wanted to branch out in music, and know a little bit about all of it. Maybe I discovered certain hip-hop that isn't all about sex, drugs, and violence. Maybe the beats stick in my head.

Whatever the case, I feel like presenting a small case for why certain hip-hop almost needs to be listened to, and while other artists should never be payed attention to ever again. I listen to some "Christian" hip-hop, and some of it is quite decent, but most of it can't compare to the production work done in the mainstream, and the talent of the MC's rapping is usually much less in the Christian realm.

Two of today's most popular hip-hop songs are "Crank Dat (Soulja Boy)" and "Low". Now before I go on a rant as to why these two songs in particular emphasize everything wrong with modern day hip-hop I will admit I know very little about the overall history of rap and it's many sub-genres. I do however know that the hip-hop played on the radio, with a few exceptions, is processed and simply made for the masses pushing messages that appeal to the sensual and matching that with plodding dance beats to get people moving.

Take for instance "Crank Dat (Soulja Boy)", which gained its popularity due to the dance that goes along with the song. Souja Boy is possibly the worst rapper I have ever heard. I have friends that can freestyle better than Soulja Boy. Now this might be almost forgivable if the music to the song was solid, but the production is weak and lacks any kind of emotion or creativity. Please don't get me started on these "amazing" lyrics...

"Soulja boy off in this ho, watch me crank it, watch me , watch me crank dat soulja boy, and superman that ho."

Never mind the obviously offensiveness and degradation to women in this song, that is only the beginning. Now I will admit many songs in the hip-hop world are very often filled with profanity and sexual references and as a general rule I avoid the more sexual songs, and listen to the edited versions of the others, yet still this line of lyrics is absolutely abhorrent. It doesn't even rhyme.

Now compare that to some lines from "Going Hard" by Talib Kweli, who unlike Soulja Boy actually can be comprehended while rapping and actually has something important to say.

"You busy screaming gangsta, gangsta all that talk is trite. You already lost the fight if you don't know the cost of life, these kids is forced to fight a war they can't outrun, ain't got no shoes but got a gun."

Kweli is actually a very spiritual MC, however he seems to normally presuppose a more every-road-leads-to-God mentality, but regardless of this at least he is trying to give a little hope than simply most hip-hop filled with depression and hatred. He is also known as a more political rapper, and yes many middle-class white people will not agree with his views, but I think it's important for us to at least understand the culture in which he speaks.

Another important aspect in hip-hop is storytelling. Now these stories are normally a bit more pg-13 rated then your average country song story, and they may not have as happy of an ending, but I think some portray an accurate picture of what goes on in the inner city. While song rappers revel in this and use it to get rich, others are actually trying to educate people and help those in the inner city. Those might be few and far between and, in fact, the reason they may be rapping about these things is that they were never educated themselves.

Now "Low" by Flo-Rida, has a much better musical backing than "Crank Dat (Soulja Boy)", however its lyrics are just as inane, and also show why mainstream rap music is considered by many a factor contributing to the further failing of our society. It's simplistic, silly, and quite honestly about nothing except a girl in a club.

"Apple bottom jeans, the boots with the fur, everyone in the club was looking at her."

That is the simple hook of the chorus, however the verses, surprisingly profanity free, are very sexual in nature playing to the sensual and actually promoting prostitution. Now that's a great song...note the sarcasm please.

As I've already stated it is almost hypocritical to point out the flaws in these songs when some of the songs I listen to have similar natures. However, like I said I stay away from those in general and at least know what they are about. Most people just know the hook of "Low" and don't know what kind of song it actually is, much like 50 Cent's "Candyshop" a few years ago.

Now let's revisit my friend Talib Kweli, who's music I've been on a kick lately. He has his share of semi-sexual songs but he also has one song that blows anything misogynistic out of the water. In his song "Won't You Stay" he details a relationship that he has been pursuing for years because he loves the women. He doesn't want to use her or abuse her, but he loves her.

"I got faith in us, it's only you who really know me, I be surrounded by people, and still feel lonely."

So there it is, some of the reasons I now like rap. Maybe it's because I want something new and exciting. Maybe I found artistry in something that I thought there was none in before. I'm not sure, but expect another one of these little musical exposes on Monday during public speaking class.

"I want to see retired teenagers"

"We stopped turning out new adult models in the 1960's."

These are the words of Charles Wiley, veteran journalist and reporter, who was a guest speaker in our journalism class. That is part of his rather lengthy response to the question I asked about why journalism has taken a shift from being more objective and newsworthy in the 40's to today's media.

His response sparked a great deal of thought in me. To put it simply Mr. Wiley said that before the 60's, there was no such thing as teenagers, and in those days the children were striving to be adults. They didn't want to be teenagers, they wanted to grow up and gain enough wisdom to be considered adults. This changed in the 60's and the teenage culture was created. As a former, well I hope former, member of the teenage culture I completely agree with him. I was just a teenager a short year ago, and even though in many respects I still am, I already don't understand the culture like I used to.

But his point brings up an interesting line of thought. What if I become a career teenager? Someone who never breaks free from those teenage pastimes and mentalities. Now thankfully I think I'm on the path toward adulthood, and that's where I want to be, but I'm still a teenager in a lot of regards.

At college there are still a lot of career teenagers. I'm all about having fun, but some stuff is just so childish, and its labeled fun and if you don't like it you are a fun killer or something of the ilk. It's all fun and games until you pull something like that in the business world, then you are fired. It's great to have an opinion, until you deeply offend someone because of how you present it.

It's true though, that sometimes I need to loosen up, but I really don't want to be that person that turns 25, and everyone still considers a kid. I don't know where that line is, but I think it's at a place where immaturity no longer outweighs responsibility. And I doubt I'm there yet, but I hope I will be there soon.

Another reason this mentality is perpetuated, is because when someone who is trying to be responsible and act like adult they are often ridiculed by their peers for not having enough fun. Well, maybe that can be true, but who's to say that why we are having our "fun" that person isn't learning valuable life lessons.

Anyway, those are a few thoughts. Take advantage of being a teenager, but don't stay stuck in that culture, because those who remain teenagers are not the ones who impact the world in great ways. It's ok to have that remnant of childish behavior, because without it everyone would be boring, but don't let it overtake your responsibility. We are tomorrow's leaders, and I don't want teenagers and teenage drama to be what this world is always talking about. So with all respect "grow up".

"EASY" too "EASY"

I like things to be easy.

I’ve come to the conclusion this is a bad thing. I think everyone likes things to be easy to a certain degree, but the some of the best things in life aren’t easy. Did Martin Luther King Jr. give up because his road was hard and filled with danger? Did Jesus give up his mission to save those who were lost because it involved a cross?

No.

Do I give up and take the easy way out?

Often I do, and I’m supposed to be following Jesus.

“Take up your cross daily, and follow me.” Jesus said that, didn’t he? He also said something that sounds so paradoxical to that no wonder some people called him crazy.

“My yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” Does that mean that the hard road, filled with burdens, tough forgiveness, and the cross is easy?

Maybe it does. Maybe us in America, especially me, want life to be easy and are so consumed with our technology and easy consumerism that we forego any difficulties. Maybe the very difficulties God is trying to use to purify us.

I’m so consumed with easy. Maybe that’s why being in a long distance relationship is hard. Because I want to be like all the couples at college, together and easy. But if I really love her then hard is merely a word in the way of everything I really want. Hard is not “hard” but a challenge to rise to, an obstacle in the way of something truly beautiful.

I’ve never thought of it in that way before. That could be why I fail. Fail to step up to the plate. Fail to be a man so often, and let other people do things that I could do. Maybe I can’t do them by myself.

“You are my strength when I am weak,” so goes the lyric in the popular song.

I’m always weak. Therefore God should always be my strength. With God I can do anything, including actually being a person that can hurdle the obstacles I face. God can make me into the man I need to be, because I can’t do any of it myself.

But letting God do this involves me throwing my entire being onto Him, and letting him work in my life. It includes giving him all my dreams and hopes, and inevitably being thrown into situations where I am uncomfortable. Am I ready for that? Can I afford to not be ready for that?

Life is not about what I can do for myself, but what I can do for God. What I can do for God is let him use me, and if I do that everything else works out. I say that a lot. I say a lot of things a lot. Do I follow them? I wish I could say I do. I wish and pray that I would stop being proud of my awareness of issues and actually do something about them.

And I can. But not by myself. Especially not when “easy” is what I live my life for. If I want the easy that people think about I should give up on all my aspirations for life and love.

Maybe God’s road is easy because of its hardships, not despite of them. Those hardships form character that forms a foundation of a life for a person who is truly alive. A person that is so confident in the grace and forgiveness of God that their problems seem like shadows compared to the glorious light of his face. A person who finds their strength in the glory of God and his sustaining power. A person that loves because they can’t do anything else because they are so wrapped up in the love of Christ. A person that is secure in Christ and is humble and confident that their opinions and talents have nothing to do with themselves.

That is the person I want to be, and I’m a long way off. In the words of U2, “I still haven’t found what I’m looking for,” but I know where it is.

So reject the false promises of easy. The prosperity gospel and “best life now’s”. They aren’t true, and are antithetical to the Gospel itself. The road of Christ is filled with suffering and passion, but also miracles and salvation. Redemption is often found in the darkest places of humanity, in particular inside each and every one’s heart. A light is shining that promises an easy yoke, but a hard road, and a narrow one. It’s hard to balance and we all fall, but God can pick us back up. I’m still learning this and I hope that you can learn it too.

Pledge, Pledge, Pledge Your Boat Gently Down The Stream...

Omicron Xi.

Yes indeed I have joined a fraternity. It was probably the last thing on my mind when I entered Grove City last September, yet over a period of time the idea began to grow on me and here I am pledging with the Okies.

I decided to attempt to join the Okies after hanging out with them for a while last semester and then at the beginning of this one. So early Saturday morning I was woken up by the entire fraternity in my room, basically saying they wanted me to join.

So I accepted the bid and here I am pledging. I can’t tell you much if anything about what is happening this week, but so far it’s been fun, a bit odd, and I’ve got to know the guys pledging much better in a few short days. I’m looking forward to the rest of pledging with excitement and a little nervousness. But God is at the center of this endeavor, and I’m going to have to rely on Him and my future brothers for the strength necessary.

This is not a lengthy blog, but it serves as an informative one. As for the name “Okies”, it is derived from the fraternity letters. Omicron=O and “kies” is the plural of Xi. So Draya that’s why it’s the Okies.

Falling and Picking Up

Well last night was the last night I’ll be spending in the Grove for the next five weeks or so. As the various members of our hall filed out, the hall became less lively and soon the man wall was taken down, further solidifying the finality of this moment: the semester is over. I have survived with pretty good grades, made some sweet friends, and come to a point where I am beginning to understand where I need to be in relationship with God.

The truth be told, the past 2 months have been, as far as my personal character and relationship with God go, two of the worst months of my life. I became a very selfish person in the span of this time, and did more damage to people than help. But that’s all behind me now. I’ve made my mistakes, and it’s time to accept responsibility, accept forgiveness, and forgive myself.

Why do we fall sir? So we can learn to pick ourselves up.

Learn to pick myself up. That is something I often relegate to other people to do for me, instead of learning how to do it myself. I don’t like it when I fail, so I normally let myself sit on the ground in self-pity or analyzing the crap out of what caused me to fail trying to make myself perfect.

But that will never happen.

I can’t be perfect.

I will never be the person I am meant to be until I accept this fact, and embrace it. I have to embrace the flaws I have, and know that God loves me in spite of them. In fact, the only way I know how to love God is because I fail so often.

If I was perfect I wouldn’t need God. But I need Him so desperately.

So I’ll keep praying and keep striving to be the best person I can be, but at the same time I’ll learn to live with my flaws, and hopefully begin to understand that they help make me who I am. And this truth is actually quite beautiful, for God works in us despite our flaws. And sometimes He even uses our flaws to help others. What could be more beautiful than that?

Girls, Groves, and God

In recent dorm/college life news the ceiling in our hallway has now become home to various pictures of attractive movie stars and actresses. This may sound weird, but firstly we are guys, secondly none of the pictures are crude on any way, and thirdly there is a story behind this. One side of our hallway is deemed the "man wall" and has pictures exuding manliness such as Slash from Guitar Hero 3, Jason Bourne, a Subway pastrami sandwich, some random spanish dude we found in the lounge, etc. The other side is home to the "woMan wall" or "the you are dead to me wall". This wall includes pictures of kittens looking horrified spewing comments of "dumbledore is gay?" and the like. The wall is also home to a picture of the recent incarnation of the Rocky franchise...because come on...five is way too many. So this only leaves the ceiling to put other things on. In fact, up until two days ago the ceiling was untouched, however someone put a picture of Megan Fox(Transformers girl) on the "woMan wall" and this being a clear discretion of the rules, she was moved to the ceiling.

Then in the span of about two hours, Natalie Portman(circa Attack of the Clones), Hadyen Panettiere(of Heroes fame), Kiera Knightly(unfortunately a picture from King Arthur), I think Kate Beckinsale, and of course the aforementioned Megan Fox were now over our heads as we walked. I was looking for a picture of Reese Witherspoon from Walk The Line, because she looks better as a brunette(as anyone does), to put up there and couldn't find anything except a picture all too small.

Now I'm sure there are a few of you reading this, thinking that this is a little creepy and wondering why me, who has a girlfriend, was actually thinking about participating in this. However, I think a little differently, and I think Draya actually helped me think about it in this way. If one is not lusting after a girl and is simply admiring her beauty, something that can be hard to do depending on the nature of who the girl is and other factors, then it is almost akin to admiring a sunset. God created people to be beautiful, and if you can find that beauty in people and praise God for it then there is nothing wrong with it. Being attracted to people is a natural thing, just as long as this attraction doesn't morph into something potentially deadly to either a relationship with God or a significant other it is a normal part of life.

I still think one girl is prettier than all the rest. Now on to the serious part of this blog.

When I was riding back to Massachusetts, I started to listen to the trusty Relevant podcast to ward away my boredom and offer some laughs, music, and spiritual reflection. During one of the podcasts(I must have listened to three or so), Sara Groves preformed a couple songs from her new album "Tell Me What You Know." One of these songs was entitled "I Saw What I Saw", and I can say that is one of the most breathtaking songs I've heard in a while. Just Sara Groves and a piano breathlessly dropping notes into the air...but it was so much more than that. I listened to it over again, and let her voice softly resound through my ears.

So when I got back to school I opened up good old Ruckus and downloaded the album. And while the rest of the album is definitely worth a look for fans of female vocalists and intelligent lyrics, "I Saw What I Saw" still stood out. But it wasn't until a read a recent interview with Sara conducted by Christianity Today that I fully comprehended the song...well as much as one can comprehend a piece of music like that. She talks about the whole album as a culmination of really an idea started in her mind a few years ago when she began to get involved with International Justice Mission, a charity that rescues girls being abused in the sex trade, and many other things. The album to Sara is a call to get up and do something about things happening in the world, and it is seen very much so in the lyrics.

Your pain has changed me
Your dream inspires
Your face a memory
Your hope a fire
Your courage asks me what I'm afraid of
And what I know of love

That is the chorus to "I Saw What I Saw." This is what Sara said about the song, in particular the second verse.

"That one gets me every time. I have a hard time even talking about it, and I had to go gather myself many times when I was trying to do the vocals.

I heard the story of Nagaraj, a man who with his wife was enslaved in Southeast Asia. He was working sixteen hours a day, seven days a week. They had three young sons, and as they began to get older, they were being groomed to be slaves themselves. They were beaten. They had to work in the hot sun. They were not allowed to go to school.

Nagaraj watched the abuse of his family every single day, and he started to say, "This just can't be their future. I can't live with that." And so God made a way for him—through a miraculous set of circumstances—to connect with IJM. IJM conducted an investigation and ended up freeing all eighty people that were in that compound.

They applied for a grant, and now Nagaraj and these other eighty people own a brick co-op. Now the imprint on the brick is Nagaraj's initials, where it used to be the slave owner's initials. And he holds up this brick and he says, "This is my sons' legacy—it's freedom."

In that second verse of "I Saw What I Saw," I am singing about Nagaraj's young son. I was thinking about this little boy, and asking always the question in my heart: What was heavier that whole time—the weight of those bricks as he was being groomed to carry more and more weight? Or the weight of glory on that little boy's life as an image bearer of God, not a mere mortal? When you start seeing human beings like that, it changes the whole scenery."-Sara Groves, http://www.christianitytoday.com/music/interviews/2007/saragroves-1107.html

I encourage you to read the whole interview, to understand things going on in the world a little better, and like I try and fail so often I ask you to attempt to do something about it. It's not easy, and I spend a lot of time talking and not enough doing, but without knowledge people will never really know why they should act. So check Sara Groves out...her music may not be for everyone, but the message she is spreading is for everyone. Watch for God moving in places you might not expect it, but don't look at our ceiling. It's missing the really important women...people like Sara Groves.

Aquinas and Happiness

Well I'm back. Back in the Grove, sitting on the second floor of the SAC marking papers with a blue highlighter trying to encourage myself to actually do some schoolwork, when all I really want to do is something other than schoolwork.

I'm working on a paper for Civilization, one of those great Humanities classes that GCC makes everyone take in order for them to have a well-rounded education. In talking to others and hearing about their papers it sounds like mine may be one of the harder ones that is required to be written. I have to take a reading from some great philosopher/theologian of old and analyze it searching for his answers to two of James Sire's seven questions that every worldview must answer.

At least by now its going better than it was the other day riding back from good old Massachusetts. I was sitting in the backseat of Uriah's car trying in vain to understand what I was reading. I had determined that perhaps I would do Aristotle's musing on the human soul as my reading to analyze, but wait, all Aristotle answered was one of the worldview questions. Sigh...well maybe Thomas Aquinas then. Nope, not him either. It was at that point I gave up for the day.

Of course as I sit here now I am actually highlighting Aquinas' work as when I read it later with a clearer mind I discovered he does, in fact, answer two of the worldview questions!! HOORAY!! Can you feel the sarcasm seeping through?

However, more importantly this reading points to the fact that the ultimate happiness of man consists in the contemplation and understanding of God. And you know what I don't believe that as much as I should. I mean I do believe it, but I put it on the backburner so often, especially over break trying to see all my friends, which is by no means a bad thing, and can be very spiritually uplifting. But what about all these times at college where I'll play Guitar Hero for another hour instead of seeking God and His truth, the only thing that can really bring happiness. I need to stop settling for anything other than the ultimate happiness of knowing God...because I certainly do more times than not.