The photo above is of the 3D glasses from the theater. The manufacturer was careful to mention on the inside of the bows that these are “Not Sung Lasses – No UV / Sun Protection.” That makes me wonder how often they have been mistaken for lasses of any sort, sung or otherwise…

Anyway, back at the apartment after the movie tonight, I demonstrated Twitter.com for my roommate Scott. He was quick to express the opinion that this Twitter thing could be very beneficial for me because it forces communication in 140 characters or less. It’s difficult! Already, I find myself going back and changing longer words to a synonym with fewer characters, removing punctuation, and any other shenanigans I can come up with to cram whatever it was that I wanted to say into that tiny space… ) Yes, this is going to be good for me.

The movie had a lot of great U2 songs in it, and in some ways was surprisingly like what I’d imagine having some really great seats at a U2 concert would be like… except that you find yourself sitting down the whole time and aren’t being jostled by the guy jumping up and down next to you. Oh, and the music was too quite for most of the time.

I couldn’t help but think of worship a couple of times during the movie. For one thing, I experienced something like what happens to me when someone else is leading the singing at church. I often get a significantly greater flow of creative ideas coming to me during these times than at other times in the day or week. The first ten minutes or so of the movie in particular were similar to a worship service in that respect. Along other lines, there was a place in the movie (which would be easy to miss) where some of the people in the front row seemed to be making a bowing motion toward Adam, the bass player. That was more of a reminder of the sort of worship we shouldn’t be doing.

Anyway, though the movie was enjoyable overall, it did seem to be preaching a bit. U2 seemed to be trying to say that all religions are equivalent (“Mohammad is true, Jesus is true”) and that we should therefore all get along. I certainly agree that we all ought to try to get along, but I don’t think this is predicated on all religions being equivalent. The lyrics of Rebecca St. James from the song “You’re the Voice” come to mind. “We’re all someone’s daughter; we’re all someone’s son. How long can we look at each other down the barrel of a gun?” To me, this talks about the importance of living together peacefully and manages to do so without mixing in other messages. We’re all people. We ought to find enough in common in that to treat each other with respect.

Has anybody else seen U2 3D? What did you think of the movie? What about those who haven’t seen the movie; do you have any thoughts on good ways to pursue peace here on earth? To some degree, Christians believe that we will never fully realize peace on earth. However, I don’t think it hurts to try to make the world a better place while we’re here. )

I got my new music software installed on the computer last night and it’s calling my name… I’ve been looking forward to using it all day… even though I should be sleeping soon. Ok, I should be sleeping *now*. It’s the weekend though and I think it’ll be ok. I won’t be long… )

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Music:

Music has always been a consuming love of mine.

Even before I was born, I couldn’t hold still in my mother’s womb when there was good music playing. As a young child, before I could talk, I would sit at the piano making songs, singing quietly and soulfully. At the age of four(?) I wrote my first song when I was visiting my grandma. She has had significant amounts of her own music published, and took the time to write my little song down that day; and we still have it someplace. It only had four lines, but it was a love song to Jesus, and I was so glad to sing to Him.

I had music lessons from a young age, and was blessed to learn from many wonderful people. In junior high, high school, and college, I played piano or keyboard every week at church as part of the worship band for a church in Grand Rapids, MI.

After college, I helped to lead worship at our small church in Holland, MI. When the staff worship director left to follow the call of God elsewhere, I stepped up to lead the team there for a number of months. God called me out of the state to work full time with a Gospel recording artist, and he brought someone else to take the leadership of the worship team there in Holland.

Writing:

I’ve always had a special love for words and good writing. We grew up with lots and lots of books in the house, and we spent time as a family reading together on the nights and weekends. C.S. Lewis has been our favorite, and we’ve read the Chronicles more times than I could count. Other favorite authors include L.M. Montgomery, Mark Twain, and John Eldredge.

During grade school, my siblings and I took part in various poetic recitals through school, and always enjoyed learning and hearing and reciting the beautiful words by Robert Louis Stevenson, Robert Frost and a number of other favorite poets.

In high school, I wrote some verse for a writing assignment, and it was selected to be included in the school publication. I didn’t start writing regularly until college. It was then that I remembered how much fun I’d had with creative writing for assignments high school, and began to write as a way to clarify my thoughts and settle my heart. Also while in college, I was part of the leadership in the college and carreer group at church, and started a writers group there called Freeing Young Inspiration. We met at various homes and enjoyed writing on the spot as well as sharing things we’d been working on recently. After enjoying a number of months together, our group began to be pulled to different places around the states and the world. We still kept in touch and shared writing, but stopped meeting in person.

During the past few years, the more I’ve written, the more I’ve come to love writing, and the more I’ve wanted to grow and learn in the craft. I’ve had the joy of learning from various great published poets, some of the most incredible poetry professors at multiple local colleges and universities, and a number of local writers. I recently got a chance to talk with Frank Peretti after a film event that he was one of the officials for, and he gave me some great advice. He said that people are often advised to “practice, practice, practice.” However, they might be headed in the wrong direction if they don’t also work to learn as much as they can. You want your practice to count for as much as possible. So his advice was “learn, learn, learn; then practice, practice, practice.” I think this is a natural progression for those who are really passionate about something though. You want to learn as much as you can by any and every way possible. You’re naturally practicing constantly because it is your passion; what you love; what you were made to do. It’s what you do.

A few of my favorite things:

As far as music goes, I love lots of different styles. My favorite musician of all time is Rich Mullins, and I also really enjoy Third Day, Vicky Beeching, and Bethany Dillon. Outside of music and writing, I love photography, inline skating, snowboarding, swimming, camping, and other active and outside kinda stuff that doesn’t involve throwing or catching anything. ) I absolutely love everyone in my family. I’m the oldest of five kids and my youngest sister is 21 years younger than me. My brother Jason and sister-in-law Christine live in Chicago and my three sisters, Julie, Jenissa, and JoyAnna live just outside of Grand Rapids, Michigan with my parents.

Now:

During this past couple years, I’ve really noticed an increase in my creative output as well as in my desire to do something significant musically. It seems like that I was wired to love making music and I want to do it with all of the passion I am capable of. My desire is to please God and to bring beauty and joy and truth to the people I connect with.