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.
An enduring life, a life that could last through and beyond death, would have to be a deeper life than the ordinary. It would have to be some life that men have without knowing it, some current that runs far beneath the surface.
A guest post by theologian and scholar Marcus Borg - a fitting addition to our series on Atonement.
American Christians are deeply divided by the cross of Jesus – namely, by how they see the meanings of his death.
James K. A. Smith wrote a new blog post this morning, and since, per usual, no comments are allowed, I thought I’d respond with a post of my own. He begins with this notion that there is now a “new apologetics” afoot in Christianity to make the faith more palatable in an age of intellectualism and postmodernity.
Guest post by Keith Anderson.
Lately, I've been practicing a lot of what I have been thinking of as theology without a net.
Theology without a net happens in public spaces. It does not involve a presentation, PowerPoint slides, or a written text. It does not rely on the expert knowledge of professional ministry-types.
It does not offer or promise neat answers. It is an ongoing conversation, which is shaped by whoever shows up that day. It is responsive, not leading. It listens more than speaks. And it has to be authentic. It lives at the intersection of faith and life.
This is different from how I was trained to do theology. Theology happened controlled environments: in church or academic buildings, classes, and worship, with subject matter experts (pastors and professors), who were training me to become one too. And, hey, I loved it. I absorbed it. I got good at it.
But the world we live in demands that we do theology in a different way, on-the-fly, in different places, with different people, on someone else's turf: theology without a net.
At that time the kingdom of heaven will be like ten servants who went out to meet their master. Five of them were foolish and five were wise. The foolish ones took no weapons nor did they take any means of defense with them. The wise ones, however, took care to bring swords along with their concealed knives. The master was a long time in coming, and they all became drowsy and fell asleep.
