You Found Me

I had heard this song before, but had never really listened to the words. I share them with you now:

I found God on the corner of 1st and Amistad
Where the West was all but won
All alone, smoking his last cigarette
I said, "Where you been?" He said, "Ask anything"

Where were you when everything was falling apart?
All my days were spent by the telephone that never rang
And all I needed was a call that never came
To the corner of 1st and Amistad

Lost and insecure, you found me, you found me
Lying on the floor surrounded, surrounded
Why'd you have to wait? Where were you? Where were you?
Just a little late, you found me, you found me

But in the end everyone ends up alone
Losing her, the only one who's ever known
Who I am, who I'm not and who I wanna be
No way to know how long she will be next to me

Lost and insecure, you found me, you found me
Lying on the floor surrounded, surrounded
Why'd you have to wait? Where were you? Where were you?
Just a little late, you found me, you found me!

The early morning, the city breaks
And I've been calling for years and years and years and years
And you never left me no messages
You never sent me no letters
You got some kind of nerve taking all I want!

Lost and insecure, you found me, you found me
Lying on the floor, where were you? Where were you?

Lost and insecure, you found me, you found me
Lying on the floor surrounded, surrounded
Why'd you have to wait? Where were you? Where were you?
Just a little late, you found me, you found me!

Why'd you have to wait to find me, to find me?

I don't know what to make of it all, but I hear a seeking for God. I had thought it was a throwback to Job with the "Where were you" action, but it's pretty clear that God is being questioned, they want to know why God didn't call before, why He didn't find them sooner. However it's intended, I like the song, especially because of how I see God in it.

I Love To Sing

I was working today and was struck by a thought: I don't sing at work.

It's not that I can't sing at work, but that there are appropriate places to sing and inappropriate places to sing. If I just sang all day at my desk, I'm sure someone next to me would ask me to stop. It's not because they think I sound atrocious (I hope). It's more because it's distracting them from their tasks.

That got me thinking. I heard something not too long ago that really caught my attention: Christianity is a singing religion. I can't remember where I heard this (probably from Bob Kauflin), but the person compared Christianity with some other religions and showed some differences between the motivations to sing. I love singing, especially when the songs have some awesome meaning or truth behind them. I sometimes love the singing more than what I'm singing, and get so caught up in sounding good that I miss the weight of the words.

Last Saturday I went to some friends' house for a birthday party. We hung out for a while, just socializing, but then we all got together in the living room and started singing. It was so good to sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with each other!

The moral of this story:
Sing.

I Love Hymns

We sang a bunch of hymns this weekend at small group and it was wonderful. I had this beauty swimming around in my head for a couple days:

Praise ye the Lord, the Almighty, the King of creation!
O my soul, praise him, for he is thy health and salvation!
All ye who hear, now to his temple draw near,
join me in glad adoration.

Praise ye the Lord, who o’er all things so wondrously reigneth,
shelters thee under his wings, yea, so gently sustaineth!
Hast thou not seen how thy desires e’er have been
granted in what he ordaineth?

Praise ye the Lord, who doth prosper thy work and defend thee!
Surely his goodness and mercy here daily attend thee;
ponder anew what the Almighty will do,
if with his love he befriend thee.

Praise ye the Lord, who with marvelous wisdom hath made thee,
decked thee with health, and with loving hand guided and stayed thee.
How oft in grief hath not he brought thee relief,
spreading his wings to o’er shade thee!

Praise ye the Lord, O let all that is in me adore him!
All that hath life and breath, come now with praises before him!
Let the amen sound from his people again;
gladly for aye we adore him.

Guitar Picks

I greatly appreciate the versatility of the medium guitar pick (the orange ones). However, I have recently come to love the heavy picks even more. The crisp sound is just too good for me to let go. It helps a lot that the one that I am currently using is the best color ever (everyone knows that this is green, I'm only saying it for the sake of young children and the color blind).

Also, my mandolin sounds about 4 times better when I use the heavy instead of the medium. I'm just sayin'.

Update:
After further comparison, I see that heavy picks are not well suited for playing quietly. Maybe I should just say that I love how different picks give a different sound and stop with that.

If God Is Not There

It's stuff like this that help me appreciate other kinds of music.

From Provocations & Pantings