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Stuck In My Head

March 25, 2013
Behind the Music

One of my friends here at Riverside shared this thought with me this afternoon via a text message and I thought I’d share it with you (revisions were made for privacy):

“Hey. I have to share this with you. I picked up my son at his grams house today. When I got by him I was quietly singing “Grace Abounds” and he looked at me and smiled.  

 I knew what he was thinking, so I asked him if he has been singing songs in his head today. 

He got all excited and said, “Yes dad, I’ve been singing, “Grace Abounds, “Revelation Song” and also “Because of the Cross” and “Never Let Go”

 It led me to the thought of how “penetrating” it is, what you and the creative arts team’s ministry does. That a 6 year old boy (and I) has these songs going through his head (as well as others I’m sure), therefore having fellowship with God, while going about his innocent day of kindergarten. All the glory to God, but it’s though the team’s passion to produce heartfelt worship. 

Well done good and faithful servants! 

Please continue to lead your team with God’s guidance and thank you for penetrating mine and my son’s heart. 

stuckinmyhead

So to all of you who serve the kingdom on a regular basis through the arts — what you do is a tool that God uses to penetrate the hearts and minds of those who witness your art. To God be all the glory!

DAVE

Live|Dead Worship: Day 19

March 11, 2012
Live|Dead

We’re giving it all away.

Holding onto something that we are passionate about usually doesn’t lead to greatness.

Greatness is achieved as we give it all away.

Let us hold loosely to the little picture in order to keep a grip on the big picture.

God, today I choose to let go of what I want and what I think should take place. Today I realize that You see the big picture, not me. I’m yours..

Life in a Day

January 26, 2012
Relation, Rumination, Salvation

Recently I watched a crowd-sourced documentary film titled “Life in a Day” produced by Scott Free Films and the YouTube video sharing site. This film captured life around the world on a single day – that day being July 24, 2010.

This documentary was the first of its kind because the raw footage was shot by average people across the world and uploaded to the YouTube video sharing site. In all there were over 4,500 hours of footage submitted in 80,000 clips from 192 countries.

Director Kevin Macdonald told The Wall Street Journal that the project was initially conceived as a way to commemorate the fifth birthday of YouTube, and that he wanted to “take the humble YouTube video, … and elevate it into art.”

I would say his mission was a success. The video captures the essence of humanity in a single day. It broadened my perspective – you know, that perspective that we are really bigger and more important than we actually are.

As the film comes to its final “hours” of the day – it appropriately reflects on fears that we as humans collectively share.. The fear of being lonely.. The fear of losing what we hold onto the most.. The fear of sickness and death.. The fear of this short life coming to its closing hour.. The fear that we will not have made a difference in the world, that our existence – as brief as it is – will not be remembered.. The fear that our lives will have been lived in vain.. The fear that there is no God and that when this life is over, nothing will remain..

Director Kevin Macdonald said that the film focused on a single day “because a day is the basic temporal building block of human life—wherever you are.”

We live by the clock and the calendar. It’s a mathematical mechanism – this brief time here on this rock called Earth. With each passing hour and each passing day, our time reserve lessens but our experience and memory tank fills. What does it all count for? What does it all end up as? What will we feel in our closing hours?

I pray that you and I would spend each day, each building block, for a greater purpose.. Not that everyday is special because of something out of the ordinary – but that we would find something special in the everyday ordinary..

If you want to watch it, click here.. http://youtu.be/JaFVr_cJJIY

 

Back Up Your Junk

December 12, 2011
Contemplation

The thought recently occurred to me that I need to backup my computer more often than I have been.. I won’t tell you how long it’s been since my last back-up! So today I unpackaged a new 750GB hard-drive, and reformatted it for my Mac. I partitioned 550GB for Time Machine (my backup) and partitioned the remaining 200GB for heavy-duty media file storage (audio/video/photos/etc). This is nerd stuff.

It has literally taken me ALL DAY to create this first backup of my internal hard-drive, about 400-and-some odd gigs of junk.. But it’s worth its weight in gold!

I remember back in 2002 my internal hard-drive tanked. It was unreadable by the nerdier nerds at the Mac store (not Apple). My most recent backup at that time was just over 6 months old. So I lost 6 months worth of files – and being that I use my computer for about everything these days – I cannot afford that same risk today!

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So what’s the purpose of a backup plan or backup disk (like Time Machine)? Simply put, it’s got your back if and when your system fails.

It’s good to have things in life to backup to. It’s good that my computer has something that literally has it’s back if and when it should fail. It’s good that I have people in my life who have my back if and when I should fail. So on and so forth.

Another day, another metaphor to ponder the everyday happenings in my life and yours. No go and backup..

 

Copyright © 2013 Dave Longstreth. All rights reserved.

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