good times in nash-vegas

i know it's been a week since i've been back... but i didn't want to let all of the two people who read this hanging on my last blog. nashville was awesome and it was worth the chunk of change i put down just to talk with a few people who are key in the music industry... well at least the areas where i'd like to help.

i want to say thanks to erik and emily for housing me on such short notice. em - it's ok to be young and to go to bed so early.... it doesn't mean you are getting old early.... no not at all. and erik - your my boy blue! what a cool friend to find so far away. i appreciated the day so much.

one thought i would like to share....
two things that tie together...

1. my friend shawn mcdonald is a musician who writes songs that would generally be put under the "christian" category, mostly because the contents of his songs are about God. but that's what means the most to shawn. a one time drug dealer and user, God came to shawn in a powerful way and changed his life. so as an artist draws from their heart and soul to create, why wouldn't he want to write songs about the greatest thing that has occured in his life? it's honest, real, and genuine....

2. in nashville, i went with erik to a christian booksellers of america convention at the grand ole opry hotel. if you don't know what this is, it's basically everything you would find at a christian bookstore, manufactured goods that have a spiritual or godly character to them. so we don't just have regular breath mints, but "testi-mints". comic books consisting of angel happenings, pictures of jesus helping surgeons in the OR... gross stuff like that. i say gross because it is... it is so irreverent towards God. here's why. because faith in jesus costs a lot to people all around the world. not so much here cause it's socially acceptable, which i believe is the reason such a sick market can spring up. i've been lucky enough to meet people in my life who have gone through such sufferings. i met a man in yugoslavia who was tortured for seven years (things like fingernails ripped out and hot tar poured on him) only because he claimed to be a christian in a communist country. so they took him away and tortured him. i met another man in estonia who was taken by the kgb and told his wife and daughter would be killed if he didn't stop pastoring. he went back and told his wife this.... and they both decided that they needed to keep going even if it meant losing their lives. so take these stories of huge personal sacrifice for the choice to claim belief in jesus, and then juxtapose it against an industry that makes money off "godly" goods... can you see how it's gross?

how do these two points tie together? as i've had time to meditate on what i saw and felt, i had a bit of an enlightenment. i've never been a big fan of "christian" music, mostly because it doesn't wrestle enough with life and usually the music is very sterile. also, you use to only find it in bookstores that permeate this sick religious culture. but what i saw this last week is that the heart of the songwriter, the one who is truly creating from the heart, is a genuine and wonderful thing. and if the person happens to want to sing about God, that is authentic and powerful. unfortunately the industry to get this music produced and distrubuted is in the same industry that makes religious crap goods, so people can miss the authenticness of this music. but no matter how lame the packaging, the honesty of the writer remains great and authentic.

so all this to say i have a new appreciation for those who create music about God. it's also hilarious to me that if you write positive songs about God that it's religious music, but if you write negative songs about God (example: tori amos, alice in chains, smashing pumpkins), that it is mainstream or without a category. everybody writes what they believe. if you don't believe in God, that is still a belief structure. if you do, it's another belief structure. but i know we need to categorize things like that.... i just met a lot of people who can't see that we all choose to believe in something. even bob dylan said we all gotta serve something. so really we all are a people of faith. the question should change from "what do you believe in" to "is what you believe in worth believing in?"...