Random Acts of Verbiage

Recently, Cori asked about books that have influenced our journey of the Christian faith. I thought that was a great question and a difficult one to answer. I thought I would reproduce my response here:

This is a daunting task: how to narrow influential books down to a short list? These are a few that I have found profound and insightful. There are plenty more where this came from, but these jumped out at me.

1. A Long Obedience in the Same Direction by Eugene Peterson – I think this is a MUST read for every Christian. Peterson uses the Psalms of Ascents as a framework for talking about the Christian Life. Peterson is the one who wrote the Bible paraphrase “The Message” and is considered a spiritual theologian.
2. How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth by Gordon Fee – a wonderful discussion about the reality of Bible reading and how it should be approached. In my opinion, this is another MUST read for every Christian. Gordon Fee was part of both the NIV and TNIV translation committee, is the general editor for a pretty major commentary series, and has done a lot for textual criticism and exegeses.
3. Silence by Shusaku Endo – A difficult book about apostasy. Helped me continue thinking and realizing that there truly are difficult questions that we could wrestle with, black and white isn’t always the order of the day. Shusaku Endo I know the least about, but his novel was quite thought provoking.
4. The Art of Biblical Narrative by Robert Alter – somewhat heavy, but provides wonderful context for the OT: how it all fits together. Robert Alter is a Hebrew scholar and has done a lot with the OT.
5. Pretty much anything and everything by NT Wright, especially The Challenge of Jesus: Rediscovering Who Jesus Was and Is. Pure brilliance. Wright is the Bishop of Durham and is an extremely prolific New Testament theologian (often with a focus on Pauline theology).
6. Return of the Prodigal Son by Henri Nouwen – A beautiful look at the Christian spiritual life through the lens of Rembrandt’s painting of the same name (my favorite painting!). Nouwen was a Catholic priest who wrote numerous books on spirituality.
7. Beyond the Cosmos by Hugh Ross – one of my first explicitly Christian/Scientist perspective and the marriage of those worlds. Hugh Ross run as organization called Reasons to Believe that aims to “bridge the gap between science and faith.”

Wow, hard to narrow it to seven! Did I really leave out Lewis??

What about you? What writers have influenced your walk? Most of mine our non-fiction writers. That isn’t to say fiction can’t influence, it just wasn’t for me—although there is still Lewis. I still don’t know how I left out works like Screwtape Letters and The Great Divorce…

Back last May when Chris Walla of Death Cab for Cutie said that The Lonely Forest was “totally doing it for me right now”, I knew that good things would be on the horizon for The Lonely Forest. A few months ago I was talking to John at a show and he mentioned that there were some big things happening and that it looked like they were going to be picked up by a label. How exciting that would be! Well, earlier this week, The Stranger reported that Walla’s new label, Trans, an imprint of Atlantic Records, has signed The Lonely Forest as their first band. Awesome indeed! From the article:

Walla initially approached the band members about producing them, but soon decided to create the Trans imprint with Atlantic to release their records as well.

“I’ve been lucky enough to make records with tons of phenomenal bands, and I’ve considered [starting a label] a number of different times,” he says. “I don’t know—is it oversimplified to say it’s them and it just makes sense? This wouldn’t be happening if it weren’t for the Lonely Forest. They’re a phenomenal band. I’ve been following my nose for so many years, doing the things that felt like the right thing to do. And this time the answer was yes.”

I am definitely looking forward to this union of talents! Great job guys and great pick up by Walla!

The Lonely Forest is currently on a good sized tour (check out their MySpace page for show info) and will be doing an all-ages show at Neumos on Tuesday, March 2nd (they will be going on around 10:30), $15. Hope to see you there!

And a little extra: check out a great version of Woe is Me from Catapult Records and KEXP.

The Season of Lent is upon us. Here we wait for Christ’s death on the Cross and His ensuing resurrection. As we walk through these next 40 days, reading through the words of the Prophet Isaiah might be enlightening.

I am not catholic so do not always follow the practice of giving something up for Lent, this year I will be doing something a little different. Lent is a time where prepare our hearts for Holy Week, often by abstaining from something that could be replaced by contemplation of Christ and His Gospel. I have decided that I will be fasting (everything except for water) on Mondays as a way to focus on my spiritual life. This ascetic undertaking should be a reminder to me of what Christ gave up for us.

Related Posts:
Lent Begins - Isaiah 55:1-7
Ash on the forehead, beads around the neck - a look at the cultural dichotomy that seems to happen at Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday (and throughout Lent… and the rest of the year I suppose…).

Sent to:
NBC: nbcolympicsfeedback@nbcuni.com
IOC Press Office: pressoffice@olympic.org
Olympic Broadcasting Services Vancouver: info@obsv.ca
NBC’s vice president of sports communications: Christopher.Mccloskey@nbcuni.com
Chairman of NBC Universal Sports & Olympics: dick.ebersol@nbcuni.com

I live in Seattle; a little over two hours away from Vancouver, BC. I live in the United States; high definition cable with incredible variety in programming is accessible around the clock. I live in a world where global communication has never been easier and faster. And yet I cannot watch the Winter Olympics live. I have to wait until prime time to catch all the major events. Sure, I could watch curling and ice hockey on USA or MSNBC (both of which I do enjoy), but most events don’t come on until after 8pm. This, to me, is absurd. This clearly shows that NBC doesn’t have any regard for their viewers; you care about advertising spots that you can charge a premium for during prime time. But even that is inconsistent because you are willing to let the Olympics play from midnight to 5am; who is watching then? Wouldn’t more people watch during the day, white the events are actually happening?

What makes this even worse, is that during the selected events you choose to show during prime time, a very large portion of that precious time is filled with commercials or with commentators talking about the sports. If you are going to pack a day’s worth of events into the three or four hours of prime time, I, and I am sure many other countless viewers, would rather be watching the events themselves! (Sports anchors should be briefly talking about sporting events, not being the events; I am not watching to see them!)

Your coverage is completely intolerable and you should be embarrassed for having the worst production in the world (countless other countries not only have live programming of the events, but also live streaming on the web!). You should be ashamed and change they way things are doing. Caring for the viewers of your programs might actually be a worthy policy.

Please reconsider the choices you have made for your Winter (and Summer!) Olympics TV coverage.

Δόξα ἐν ὑψίστοις Θεῷ
-Matt Jones, Seattle, WA
_____________________________
Matthew James Jones
matt@mattjonesblog.com
mattjonesblog.com

UPDATE: Here is a great article from CIO: NBC Olympic Coverage: is the Internet the Enemy?

I know I can’t really say “Happy New Year!” anymore (but I do still have some Christmas decorations up… hummm…), but this is the first post of the new decade. Welcome to the 10’s! I will miss the aughts… mainly because it was fun to say “aught”. Although now we can look back and say things like, “hey remember that snow storm of aught eight? That was a good one!” or “Why haven’t I had a date since aught four?” So that should be fun. I hope everyone enjoys the new year and decade!

Oh, and you should check out some of my photo’s from this year’s adventure to the Caboose at Snoqualmie Pass!

Don’t worry, I won’t talk much. Christmas is upon us once again and I can take a step back and relax. The year has been a good one. There have been a few key things that I have been dwelling on lately that I think fit well with an end of the year post as well as a reflective post on the meaning of Christmas: 1) The sufficiency of Christ and 2) the absolute necessity of Christ.

Christ is truly sufficient. This is a point that definitely rubs people the wrong way. For me to say that Jesus is the only thing I need is for me to say that others are wrong. That is unfortunately true. But Jesus is the great agitator. And if people are really honest with themselves, they would have to come to the realization that whatever their belief is, they would ultimately say others are wrong and their belief is right. Not everyone can be right. Just because I think I am right and someone else is wrong, doesn’t mean I think anything less of them, they should think I am wrong too. But when it all comes down to it, after all I have studied about Christianity, about other religions, about science (all of which have great aspects to them in their own right), it always comes back to Christ; Jesus is sufficient.

Christ was absolutely necessary. The Jews knew a messiah was necessary, the Old Testament spoke of one who would come to rule the world. They misunderstood what that would look like; a small baby does not seem like a conqueror. Whether Calvinist or not, we should all be able to see that we are ALL broken in some way. That we are lacking. We are not able to do this on our own. Being “good enough” doesn’t really cut it. Now, the old school (well OT) way of doing things would have been to sacrifice a lamb as a replacement for my wrong doings. But that just wasn’t enough because people are so much more important than animals. Our treason against God cannot be made up for through animal sacrifice nor can it be paid for by me doing good things. No one is good or pure enough. Well until Jesus came along. The Gospel truly is the best story ever written, mainly because it is non fiction narrative that was told so well, I don’t have to actually come up with the words (which is fortunate for you all!).

And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true. And he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment.” (Revelation 21:5-6)

His Mercy and Grace has saved us all. And thank God for that, because we cannot do it on our own!

As Relient K said it:

And I, I celebrate the day
That You were born to die
So I could one day pray for You to save my life

Enter into Christmas with this: Christ has already come and died for you and me you cannot do anything to get Him to love you more than He already does right now.

Here are a few of my other selected Christmas posts: I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day, Get the X out of X-mas - Dickens speaks Truth and Christmas a pagan holiday? Also, if Christmas is putting you in the charitable mood, please consider donating to either Blood: Water Mission or Potters for Peace and get clean water to those who need it in Africa.

God bless and Merry Christmas!

As a PS: I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day has easily become not only my favorite Christmas song, but Hymn because it resonates so well with my own soul:

And in despair I bowed my head
“There is no peace on earth,” I said,
“For hate is strong and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.”
Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail
With peace on earth, good will to men.”