On Mumford

The British band called Mumford & Sons has lately overtaken the space in my brain that furnishes the songs I hum. Stylistically the band is a mix of folk, rock and bluegrass. They write lyrics like philosophers and poets, drawing themes and lines from the likes of Shakespeare and Steinbeck. I aim in this quick review to examine the lyrics of a few songs on their only album, Sign No More, for what seems to me a close alignment with the Christian faith.

The album begins with its four singers slowly and pleadingly lamenting the way life is: full of pain; disappointment; hurt; bruises. Mid-song, they then seem to have found hope. The song changes styles; the banjo slung, the tempo rises, the toes tap, and it feels like they're possessed by the idea that the pain doesn’t win.

“Love, that will not betray you

Dismay or enslave you

It will set you free

Be more like the man, you were made to be.

There is a design,
An alignment to cry,
At my heart you see,
The beauty of love
as it was made to be.”

Man and Love being made, even designed, for a purpose; the notion that this purpose can be re-found; salvation from life’s pain; a future when sighing will cease…all persistent themes of the Bible’s story, all present in the title track, Sigh No More.

The vision for renewal of the "ought" comes back to us in the final track of the album, After the Storm. The Bible’s final track, the last chapters of Revelation, could have the same title. It says:

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.  He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.

Mumford & Sons looks forward similarly, 

 There will come a time, you'll see, with no more tears.
And love will not break your heart, but dismiss your fears.
Get over your hill and see what you find there,
With grace in your heart and flowers in your hair.

Here again we have the Bible’s theme of salvation, and the new order of things, but this time with the addition of grace in the center, a distinctly Christian understanding of salvation. The idea of grace comes back over and again in the album, and each time it sounds Christian.

Mumford & Sons seem to use friendship as their canvas. Roll Away Your Stone sounds like one man inviting another to full life. The singer is the friend who in the end rejects the invitation. But the honesty of the conversation itself is a thing of beauty, highlighting the fact that giving up control of one’s life is not a decision that everyone can take.  More clearly Christian lines come from this song:

Seems that all my bridges have been burned

But you say that’s exactly how this grace thing works

It’s not the long walk home that will change this heart

But the welcome I receive with the restart

The Cave sounds like another conversation in which one man calls another to shake his friend alive. The final stanzas of the back and forth, sung on top of break-neck banjo picking, read:

And I will hold on hope
And I won't let you choke
On the noose around your neck

And I'll find strength in pain
And I will change my ways
I'll know my name as it's called again

These guys may not be believers.  One line asks "How can you say that your truth is better than ours?" Their recurrent use of the "f" word in Little Lion Man is a sign that if they are Christians, they wont be guests on Focus on the Family anytime soon. Whether or not they follow Jesus, though, there is something alive in their hearts and in their music that has been a help in my own Christian walk.

While I sat on my couch writing this review, I heard gunshots out my living room window, part of a recent uprising in traded blows between the rival 26 and Latin King street gangs in our neighborhood. Somehow the bald pain that Mumford & Sons acknowledges and owns, gives backbone to the hope they proclaim. Hope that promises the gunman and victim that there is a purpose for their creation, and that there is a love that can restore them to the men they were made to be. Hope that dares them and me to awaken our souls. Hope that relies on grace and not on a way we might try to save ourselves. Even as I write, it seems like a fool’s hope. But it is this old Christian hope that we hold to nonetheless.

A review of Capitalism: A Love Story

I watched Michael Moore's latest, Capitalism: A Love Story a few weeks ago. If you know Michael Moore at all, you'll probably guess how he handled the matter. He blamed all of our societal problems on Republican presidents, the Right-leaning, fear-mongering media, and Wall Street fat cats. He oversimplifies and over-vilifies; he twists facts, and uses strategic camera angles and loud music to underscore his points.

Knowing all of this before sitting down, I still find his movies entertaining and thought provoking, even if I do disagree with him time and again. Plus, there are a lot of people watching his films, and it's good to see first hand how the far left (often over-vilified themselves) thinks.

Before I get into the film, a few words on capitalism.

I like the system, in theory. On paper, I see how more real wealth is created when people and nations have the ability to specialize their efforts and provide the goods or services that are most advantageous for them to provide. Capitalism has tremendous potential to fight world poverty and inequality. What plays out, though, I think is deeply damaging to the people who benefit from the competition and those who lose. On one side we have people rewarded and encouraged towards greed and selfishness, and on the other we have people either poor or dependent on the rich.

I don't think the problem is the fallen-ness of man, selfish business people or bad politician. I think the problem with our current system is its size. The world economy as we know it is too big for conscience or neighborliness to enter our thinking as we make economic decisions. I could envision capitalism working for many if we knew and cared about the people who we were trading with. But we don't know them, and we can't know them.

In my neighborhood there is a coal-powered electrical plant run by a large corporation, Midwest Generation. The electricity the plant produces does not even power the homes in our neighborhood. It powers homes in Michigan, I've heard. This article explains, "A 2001 study by professors at the Harvard School of Public Health correlated emissions at nine Illinois coal-burning power plants with health data. The study estimated that the plants in Pilsen and Little Village together are responsible for 41 premature deaths, 2,800 asthma attacks and 550 emergency room visits per year." ( The article also explains that due to recent pressure, the plant claims to have recently cleaned up their act). The problem here is that the good people who are running their air conditioners in Michigan have no idea what their actions are doing to my recently born Rozalie's lungs.

And it is a safe bet that every time we buy anything from a large corporation, whatever they're selling, that somewhere along the supply chain, profit, efficiency, leverage, and competition is put above humanity and creation. We can buy almost nothing with a clear conscience. Did capitalism do this? I don't think so. I think it's more capitalism + globalism + isolation of individuals that has exploded the system into something that subtracts thoughts about our fellow man and the earth from the equation. The marketing industry has taken the sum and made us fully trusting buying machines, thoughtless of our consequences.

Capitalism: A Love Story has a simpler bent. Throughout the film, Moore shows eye-popping disparities of income and lifestyle between rich and poor. He makes the case that our society will be judged by future societies because of these disparities. He shows real estate vultures and how they go after properties that they can flip for massive profit, without a thought for the people involved. And a story of a privatized juvenile home that bribed a judge, who would sentence youth to stay there to the home's immense profit. He did a segment on Dead Peasant Policies, which are life insurance plans that many large companies buy and then collect from when their everyday employees die. He actually used the Bible to make the point that care for the poor and care not to become rich are of deep importance. I was pleasantly surprised that he did a nice job with the Bible (not taking verses out of context, not saying more that it does).

He showed this story.



I appreciated his depiction of these and other very real issues. All results, at least in part, to our current system.

The solutions he offered, though, were far too simple. From what I could tell, Moore thinks that if our businesses are run as co-ops and if we elect politicians who will put limits on free trade and distribute the wealth a little more, we can all sit back and watch society mend itself. Moore is sort of a populist, in that he doesn't blame anything on the decisions that common people like you and me make.

It seems to me, though,, that our problems run much deeper than politics and business, and right into our lifestyles, which create our daily economic decisions. We cannot become a responsible society in spite of ourselves. There is no short cut. We must make responsible decisions each day, and in so doing engage in the long and grueling work of mending our world, deeply frayed though it is.

7 posts in 7 days

I've dropped blogging since my Leeli was born and I started a new job (two days later). Leeli's great and the job is squeezing me. My friend told me that if you squeeze a tube of toothpaste, toothpaste comes out, and when a Christian gets squeezed, Christ better come out. I liked that. Christ hasn't come out, though, but that I need Him has.

So I have 4 blog posts that are half done, and a couple more that are floating around in my head. As a way to kick start this SOB, I'm gonna commit to you, my faithful reader(s), to post these posts, however edited and coherent, one-a-day, for the next week. This may mean not going back to delete possibly offensive swear-word abbreviations; it may mean publishing thoughts offensive to everyone I love; it may end up an offense to the written word. But there's no going back, friend(s). This here, is my commitment to you(s).

The Office

I think TV stinks and sucks. It causes parents to neglect their kids. It robs us of creating our own entertainment.The commercials try to sell us things we don't need. They also try to shape our thinking so that we will think we need what they sell. They warp children's minds by lying to them about 1.) what sex should be like, 2.) what will make them valuable, and 3.) what happiness looks like. And then they tell the same lies to adults. People's marriages are messed up because of these TV lies, especially the ones about sex. On top of all the destructive stuff, it is most of the time, just really bad entertainment.

Ok. End of rant. All of that being said, I really like The Office.

The characters in The Office are true. They are oh-so-shallow, and selfish, and the Writers show that as much as they can. Not, I think, as a celebration of shallowness, but as a poking fun. And poking fun at the flimsy fabric of our character and shallowness of our thought as Americans is to be appreciated. As crazy and maddening as they are, the people on the show are very much like real people. It is made clear that Michael Scott mainly, but others, too, are motivated to act like lunatics because of their own insecurities. Here is Michael talking about his desire to be liked (which motivates him to do be the odious man he is):

I like to be liked sound bite The Office (US) sound bites

The show is also well-written. There will be 4 straight episodes of plain old goofy scenarios, when something strikingly poignant will happen. Like when Pam came clean about her feelings she'd been harboring on the beach in front of everyone. I thought the writers showed a good understanding of human nature when they then showed the freedom the coming clean gave her. They do a good job with taking moments everyone knows are coming, like the engagement or the announcement of Pam's pregnancy, and playing them out in a believable, but not-too-cheesy way. I also appreciate how the Writers take characters who at first seem normal, like Jan or Ryan, and show how if you watch for long enough, they turn out to be just as crazy as the rest. And I think the inclusion of the 'Nard Dog took the show to a whole new level.



And here's another good Office memory:



I appreciate that its dirtiness is not glamourized. The show jokes about things that I wouldn't let my kids see for many years to come. But its wanton immorality is not done in a way that makes immoral behavior look attractive. And I think without immoral and thoughtless behavior from everyday people, the show would lose its ring of truth.

So it's a good show. Don't tell me what happens in Season 6, because it's not out on Netlix for another couple months.

A book worth Wrighting about

I just finished and thoroughly enjoyed a book called Simply Christian, by N.T. Wright. I can’t talk about the book without comparing it to Mere Christianity, which is perhaps its wiser grandfather, consisting of the same marrow, but written to a different world. Making this comparison consistently earns me responses of disbelief at my audacity from faithful fans of C.S. Lewis, but the two books are so alike that it is the only place I can think to start. The books have the same purpose, which is to explain the basics of Christianity, common to all of its true manifestations.

They both talk about the inner conscience as a hint to the fact that justice is a real thing in the universe, that there is something that makes us long for it, and that this something is the same God that the Bible talks about. Wright adds that the knowledge of spiritual reality, the enjoyment of beauty, and the longings for community are also signs that point to Christianity being true. They give a lot of time to problems they find in the rival conceptions of God. They both conclude that the God the Bible talks about is the most coherent understanding of the universe available on the market, and beyond that, that He was and is God. They both talk about central Christian acts (baptism, the eucharist, prayer). Yet for those of us who have spent a lot of time with Mere Christianity, Simply Christian is not redundant. It adds a lot to the conversation.

Simply Christian talks more than Mere Christianity about the Jewish understanding of God and how Jesus fits into that understanding. Wright’s background as a New Testament scholar is helpful here. He explains that “heaven” was understood by Jews to mean “the realm/dwelling of God.” Important to this notion is that throughout the Old Testament, heaven and earth come together. So Jews did not understand heaven and earth as always-separate realms, but that God consistently brought His realm to ours. Through God’s election of the Israelites to be the instrument of God’s blessing, through the temple, and through the reading the Torah, God meets with the Jewish people, bringing “heaven” to earth, reminding them who they are and of their purpose.

Wright has helped me wrap my mind around this notion of “heaven” as central to understanding the thinking of the Old Testament people, and how early Christians (who were also Jews) understood Jesus’ coming. Early Christians understood that the God who had seen fit to overlap the two spheres of heaven and earth in a limited way, through his calling the temple and the Torah, had now come with the message that the kingdom of heaven was among them.

As a New Testament scholar, Wright speaks with authority about the Bible, and with how we should understand the words “inspired,” “infallible,” “inerrant,” “literal” and “metaphorical.” If I had read these chapters 10 years ago, it would have saved me a lot of headaches in trying to understand the Good Book. If someone has serious questions about how Christians should approach the Bible, these chapters (13 and 14) would be a good place to go looking for well-thought answers.

In his last chapter, discussing morality and justice, Wright says the following:

“At the heart of the Christian ethic is humility; at the heart of its parodies, pride. Different roads with different destinations, and the destinations color the character of those who travel by them.”

This idea struck me as an affirmation that Wright is not a wishy-washy “we’re all the same, follow your own path, and it’s all good” kind of thinker. And the point he makes has hung onto me more than any other idea the book offered. I will delve more into this idea in the sequel to this post. Stay tuned.

The worst book i'll ever recommend

There are many reasons not like the book, To Train Up a Child, by Michael and Debi Pearl.

Their tone is proud, and they paint the world in too-broad strokes. The authors underline their own most important points. Egregious. And they proof-text like it’s goin’ out of style, which is bad practice (Matthew 4:1-11).

Also, they say some really stupid things. Like this: “Gender role distinction is demeaned in modern education. Don’t let a coven of Sodomites and socialists…reprogram your natural feelings on male and female distinctiveness.” (I wonder if in their co-authorship group think pushed them past the edge of reality).

But this book has made Beth and me better parents. His main points are that to train children we need to be consistent, calm and severe as you would be if you were training an animal. They say, "Parent, you can't blame your children if you have trained them to obey only after several warnings, threats, an ultimatum and finally a gesture of force. It's not their fault, it's yours." I’ve kept reading this book because I haven’t yelled at my kids in the month since I started it. My own kids are happy to have me not yelling at them, and seem to prefer occasional hard spanks to whole days of pleading with them to decide to do what is right.

I’ve never read any books on parenting in the past because of my own sinful pride. I always understood it to be a real organic thing, like child birth (or how I imagine child birth); something that God has sown within us that if we listen attentively enough we will find out how to do as well as the child-rearing experts. But I’m learning that child rearing is more like marriage. It is a learned art for which we need the help of those who know what they’re doing. I’m learning through the experience of listening to the Pearls about my training my kids that we won’t find the answers to our parenting problems by looking at our kids or at ourselves. It seems simple to write, but it really is an important lesson for me.

So I’m open to suggestions on other good books about training children.

a review North! Or be Eaten

North! Or Be Eaten

I love stories. I love stories that have fantastical elements. I do not love fantasies.

On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness, Andrew Peterson’s first novel, was an excellent story. It’s characters were totally believable yet fully fictional. It’s villains were horrible, like the nameless evil named Gnag the e and the horrid Fangs of Dang. Dang. It was laugh-out-loud funny more than 20 times. The insights one knowing APs music would expect were all over. It was a great story that included fantastical elements.

In North! Or Be Eaten, Andrew seemed to tinker with his winning formula some. It became a fantasy with good elements, instead of a novel with good elements, one of which was fantasy. Also, the story felt a bit too action-packed. There was danger at every turn, but I found that the characters were not given enough time to breathe and pick up the pieces between near-death

I mentioned the insights that APs consistently delivers in his music or books. I wanted to share one from North! that hit me hard as a I read.

One of the characters is Artham P. Wingfeather, whose job is that of Throne Warden. His purpose is to protect the true King of Anniera, who at this point in the Wingfeather Series is his little boy nephew. At an earlier point in his life Artham has been tortured and inculcated with lies about himself. The following is written as Artham is being tortured again and ready to give in to his captors, but then has an awakening:

The voices in his head that cried "coward: and "weakling" drew back into the shadows. He knew he was those things but feared them no longer. Then another voice spoke. It called him "throne warden" and "protector" and "uncle," and at last he believed it.

It was resounding insights like these and a relationship I now have with the characters that kept me going, even though the fantasy elements don’t suit my fancy.

I did enjoyed reading North! Or be Eaten, but I hope he goes back to his Dark Sea of Darkness ways for his next addition to the Wingfeather Saga.