Tennis Elbow

I know I've written a lot about music recently but, in all fairness, music is my favorite thing in the world.
Recently, Adam Young of Owl City, released a single from his up and coming album. The song is titled "Tennis Elbow." It is my new all-time favorite song, topping even "Fireflies."
Why?
First some background.
3 years ago, before Owl City propelled him to fame, Adam Young made music in his basement. He used a borrowed condenser microphone, his fathers acoustic guitar, a dell desktop and some mixing software. He created an 11 track record under the name "Sky Sailing." He titled the record "An Airplane Carried Me to Bed."
This record has never been released to the general public. Recently though, Adam Young announced his intentions to release it. Tennis Elbow was a bit of a teaser.
This song reflects Adam Young's love for God. Now the lyrics are in no way "christian." They do not mention God, or Jesus, or any such thing, but listening to them, I can tell that they are God inspired.
This music is a beautiful thing to listen. It reflects the innocence of youth that is still preserved in Adam Young.
Music is the greatest gift God ever gave to man (besides redemption on the cross of course). I am perfectly in awe of God's greatness when I listen to this music.
I highly suggest that you listen to this song, you can download it free at http://www.skysailingmusic.com/

God is great!

The Devil's music? Yeah right

I mentioned in my previous post how some people seem to think that music such as Rock and Metal are satanic. Yeah right.
I would like to point you to a chapter of C.S. Lewis' timeless story "The Magician's Nephew" (Chapter 9: The Founding of Narnia). In this chapter, Aslan appears and creates Narnia out of complete and utter darkness using music. This shows the power of music.
Now, I am not saying that music has the ability to create whatever you want. But I do believe it has tremendous power. In Luke 2, the angel appears to the shepherds and tells them the good news. Suddenly a heavenly host appears. The passage says the following:

 ¹³Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,
 ¹⁴"Glory to God in the highest,
      and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests." 

 Now it does say "saying." But I believe that the heavenly hosts sang when they praised God.

Psalm 150 is a good example. The psalmist devotes half of the psalm to telling us to praise God with music. So music must be incredibly important to God. If that is so, how in the world can any music be satanic? 

I don't particularly like metal. But I definitely don't believe it is satanic in and of itself. Many bands do make music that is lyrics that are definitely not of God. But I do know of metal bands who play christian music. Rock and Metal are music, and as such are not of the devil unless man makes them that way.

Secular Music: God Inspired?

It's been said that Rock and Metal are the Devil's music. I could give a really good reason why it is not but I'll save that for later.
What I'm thinking is whether or not music of all genres can be God inspired. My answer is an emphatic YES.
One of my favorite songs all time is "Fireflies" by Owl City. Owl City's music is, unarguably secular in most cases, including this one. But Adam Young (Owl City's solitary member) is, in fact, a Christian. He lets God in and we see the returns. While a non christian can enjoy the song, I notice as a Christian the the song, especially the chorus, sounds very God inspired. When I listen to the song, I listen not only to the word, but also to the instrumental work. Fireflies is a gem. Not all of songs like this are God Inspired, some are just what I call "Musical Genius."  A good example of this is R.E.M's "Shiny Happy People"

Anyway, I got my life to live.

The African Queen

Hmm, this didn't post when I wanted it too.
I wrote this yesterday:

So yesterday I watched a movie called "The African Queen." Both Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn. It was supposed to be one of the top 5 films of all time. Wow. I watched it, and there was no way it would EVER make MY top 5 list. Or even my top 100. Apparently, America was biased because of the fact that those two iconic stars were the main characters. How funny.
Hollywood nowadays seems about the same all the time. Put popular people in the movie, and it is guaranteed to gross well. Or, if one worked, just make another, it's that simple. Movies used to be good! Rarely anymore.

Following your dreams

You know, education is a funny thing.
I've been hearing about a lot of books that tell you how to break out of the traditional public school system. They seem to say that following your passion is the best way to get a good education.
But imagine the following scenario:
You have a kid, whose going into high school. He reads a book about following passions. He has a passion to fly. Flying costs money, and his family is barely scraping by on the joint income of his mom and dad.
How is he to follow his passion?
In my opinion, it's great to do what these books say. And many people become successful doing this. Bill Gates comes to mind.
Just something to chew on. Maybe we should think about the 90% of the world that can't afford to do the things they want to do. Let's help them out.