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Just an important announcement I felt I should make.  To anyone who is thinking to themselves “I love music.  I want my child to develop musical abilities.  I want my kids to grow up being able to express themselves making creatively audible noises.  I remember playing the recorder when I was young, and I want my little girl/boy, even at age 3, to begin enjoying such an experience.”

If you’ve had any of these thoughts, you may have looked at the Little First Act Discovery – My First Recorder.  Click the link.  See how cute the kid looks?  See how happy he is to be able to create music?  See the list of amazingly simple tunes your child will be able to perform before family and friends, proving once and for all that your kid is the cutest thing since sliced bread (the cute kind).

It’s a lie.

That kid was totally faking it.  He wasn’t happy.  Or at least, his parents weren’t.

Granted, the recorder definitely makes noise.  But even from a trained recorder playing professional (I played 2 years all-pro in my elementary days.), the notes available don’t allow for much of any actual music to be played.  I did learn that by covering the bottom hole, you can play notes a little more agreeable to the human ear, but still off by quite a bit from anything you could piece together into a song.

Giving this recorder to your child will do nothing but encourage bad pitch recognition, make your ear drums want to pack their bags, and teach your future musician that Mary Had a Little Lamb is best played with sharps and flats that aren’t anywhere near the Barney song they’ve heard before.

And you will want to break it.  But your kid may give you the fake “this musical instrument fulfills something within me” smile similar to the child in the link above.  Don’t buy it.  I have yet to gather the emotional strength it takes to shatter the thing….but when I do….I will rest easier. 

That is why I’m warning you, before you make the purchase.  Or open the present from a loving relative.  Quick…exchange it for something else before it’s too late!!!

ps.  Today, Ruby Anne turns ONE YEAR OLD!!!  We now officially have a 3 year old, a 2 year old, and a 1 year old.  Whew. 🙂

I’m beginning to read “After You Believe” by NT Write, which is a follow-up to his book “Surprised by Hope“.  I’m familiar with much of what he’ll be discussing, simply having listened to a great deal of his talks in the past year on themes such as “character”, and “virtue”, but I’m looking forward to hearing what he has to say when given more time and space to develop those areas, and take them a bit further.

For now, I thought I’d toss out a quote for anyone who might be wondering “Why would I want to read that book?”:

Maybe your heart echos the questions fo this man who’d recently become a Christian, and was looking for more than simply an eternal guarantee of destination…

“God loves me; yes.

He’s transformed my life so that I find I want to pray, to worship, to read the Bible, to abandon the old self-destructive ways I used to behave.  That’s great.

Clearly (the people at church kept saying this, too) God wants me to tell other people about this good nwes, so that they can find it for themselves.  Fine.  It feels a bit strange, and I’m not sure I’m very good at it, but I’m doing the best I can.

And obviously all this comes with the great promise that one day I’ll be with God forever.  I know I’ll die one day, but Jesus has guaranteed thatt everybody who trusts him will live with him in heaven.  That’s great too. 

But what am I here for now?  What happens after you believe? “

The book that follows is quite good…I promise.  Check it out. 🙂

On a day of remembering those who have served others sacrificially, we take pause to also recognize what freedom is, and what it compels.  How freedom transforms the minuscule patterns of life, as well as the over-arching “way” that things occur.  Both action and nature become something entirely different.

When the Israelites were freed from their Egyptian captivity.  The could walk away, following a new leader.  There was hope, and something they’d believed in a long time was being fulfilled.  Yet they soon found themselves falling right back into many of the patterns of a life in slavery.  In need of the predictable routine, even when that routine was killing them individually, and as a people. 

When they were freed from their period of exile to Babylon, some great things began to happen as they were allowed to rebuild the temple (even though that itself took some prophetic encouragement).  But as we see in the world Christ was born into, they’d once again allowed other influences into how they functioned as the chosen people of God.

In both major cases, we see an entire people experiencing bondage and control for a long period of time, the celebration of their freedom, and finally the plateau and fall of their excitement about freedom to the point where they find new realms of bondage and captivity to place themselves in.

Here we are.  Both as free citizens of the United States of America, and as free citizens of the Kingdom of God.

When we declared our freedom as the original 13 colonies, we were shedding the rule of an outside influence.  We were making a very important statement about the inherent rights of all human beings, and our lives immediately began to celebrate and live by those rights existence.

And so here we are, slaves to culture.  A-mused by entertainment.  Planning for our own current and future financial health at the expense of those under our feet.  Disregarding the rights of “all humanity” and recognizing the rights of “humanity that meets our expectations”.

When Jesus was crucified and resurrected, He inaugurated a new way of life.  A New way of existing.  Freedom from the previous existence.  The Spirit of Truth came, and revealed the powers, systems, and brokenness of this world as empty.  Established a Kingdom where Heaven and Earth were being joined together, and invited us to continue His work and experience His Life.

And so here we are, bearing burdens of temptation.  Broken relationships, bad habits, and living according to the value systems of the world.  Hype, sales pitches, flashy images, and “being trendy” fill finance & strategy meetings of churches with so much financial stability they’re in the news regularly for how many incredible things they do….which usually means more about an exchange of goods and services, and less about what the Holy Spirit is accomplishing.  church growth trumps Church health.

We find ourselves in need of experiencing freedom again.  An experience made New.  A refreshed existence of celebrating freedom as if tasting it for the first time.  In a way that transforms not only action, but our very nature.  We search for the face of our captors, and recognize them as if gazing into a mirror.  We repent.

Lord, make us free once more.  Free us wholly, and forever.