Vinyl records are made by cutting grooves or ruts into the vinyl. The record (at this point called a lacquer) is placed on the cutting machine where electronic signals from the master recording travel to a cutting head, which holds a stylus or needle. The needle etches a groove into the record that spirals to the center of the circular disc. The imprinted lacquer is then sent to a production company, where it is coated in metal, such as silver or nickel, to create a metal master.
Our lives also operate in grooves. We operate a certain way, day after day after day. Sometimes our grooves — our habits, our ways of being — create beautiful music. Sometimes our grooves are more like ruts — they create sounds that are less inviting, even harsh.
Lent is a season in which we are invited to break out of the ruts we may have fallen into, by changing up our habits, and acknowledging that our lives, by God’s grace, do not have to fall into ruts that are etched in metal or stone.
We can be changed.
Invitation:
Grab a record, feel its edges, its grooves, its texture. Imagine the music it creates. Consider your own present practices:
— what are the grooves that create music? How can you nourish them?
— what are the ruts that you would like to get out of? Consider ways you can change your present practices. What are new grooves you could create? What space might open up if you change a current habit?
Records
Prayer:
God thank you for this life you given me.
I cherish the music you have allowed me to hear, as well as to create.
Forgive me for the ruts that increase the chaotic noise of the world.
Free me to live into grooves of grace that create beautiful music.
Music that sings of you.
In Christ, Amen.
I see the innocence of a suburban lawn mower, and the progress from pushing to riding, and I see the oil gushing from a hole in a pipe in the Gulf of Mexico, and I see that oil in the sta-cold Big Gulp the suburbanite is drinking as he mows and I see him drinking the oil, or is it Coke or is it corn syrup or is it oil does it matter....
Guest post by Father Kirk Berlenbach. A few months ago I got the bright idea to do an event on the whole “beer-faith connection” as part of this year’s Philly Beer Week. (more on this in next week’s post). Anyway, when I was thinking through other clergy who could work with me on this event, Bryan was on the short list. I contacted him and he was very excited at the possibility. But I thought it was important to meet the man I was going to work with. Moreover, I wanted to see an example of one of his “Pub Theology” sessions up close and personal.
So last week I took the train down to DC. Bryan met me at the station and we headed off to the pub where that night’s conversation would take place...
A few characteristics of Progressive Christianity:
* A spiritual vitality and expressiveness, including participatory, arts-infused, and lively worship as well as a variety of spiritual rituals and practices such as meditation.
* Intellectual integrity including a willingness to question.
* An affirmation of human diversity.
* An affirmation of the Christian faith with a simultaneous sincere respect for other faiths.
* Strong ecological concerns and commitments.
What do you think? What would you add? Subtract? Do you track with this? With something else?
Leave a comment here or on Facebook!
Work and joy? Unfortunately, that is a rare combination today.
When you ask someone what gives them joy, or about what’s great in their lives – too often work is not a part of it. We sort of ‘put up with work’ so that we can then do the other things we really care about. By and large work is not what gives us pleasure.
In today’s economic reality, we have separated work and joy.
In a recent conversation about the Bible, I referred to it as “a collection of texts known as the Bible.” Someone responded:
“In the collection known as the Bible?? I'm sorry, my friend, but you have gone off the deep end...”
This response was a bit of a surprise. The fact that the Bible is comprised of various books by various authors is common knowledge to anyone who has taken a single religion class in high school or college, or to anyone who has actually opened a Bible. As a young child, I was required to memorize “the books of the Bible.”
