Thought Diet

I should really make it a habit to spill my thoughts in here once in a while. I guess I haven't been doing too much thinking lately. Ironically enough, I actually feel really healthy on this new thought diet. Life was just so good moving into this apartment and i wanted to leave a number of demons behind. Some of the demons' names are lust and selfishness. It's been pretty nice without them around. I feel victorious in God for what he's been doing in my life and I can't really complain about any recent events. I've just been living one day at a time with a head on my shoulders, some friends at my side, and a God living inside of me.

I think the latest sin I've been asking for strength to conquer is vanity. I don't put on make-up and stuff...but I buy clothes pretty often. It's actually weird because there was a period when I didn't care to go to the mall that much. There was a whole year that I never went to the mall and never got new clothes. I wasn't like dirty but I was a little more conservative with my spending and I took pride in keeping God's money out of the hands of consumerist ploys. I don't know what it is, but I'm a real sucker for a cool looking t-shirt. I've been trying a whole lot of new techniques in graphic design and visiting a number of new galleries and sometimes when I enter a clothing store I see some really creative things and my first impulse is to buy it because it was so well done. I guess it's not entirely about "Oh, wait until they see me in this! They're gonna be so jealous." I don't have friends like that. And if I did, I'd probably be on the lookout for new friends. It sounds harmless that I, as an artist, appreciate creative fabric works and wouldn't mind owning them. Heck, it's better than shelling out ridiculous amounts on framed crap from current art headliner so-and-so. However, I can get a terrible case of impulse-buying and it gets ugly. I can recall some really ugly times. I look back on it and just see how not glorifying to God it looks. I don't want that. God's been helping me in that department though.

Proverbs 18:21 says that "Death and life are in the power of the tongue." The project title my next season of songs are going under is called "Words". I think we as a body of musicians after God's heart have forgotten that the foundation of the song is the words. Music is a gift to man from God. The roots of music come from groups of men shouting out praises to God in chorus. We took that music and formed a science around it to play with it and make new things. We invented instruments to hit the notes these passionate men belted out and gave voices to those who didn't have them. We built the instrumental and it was beautiful. Symphonies were written in the name of God and there's no doubt that a violin can cry to the heavens just as audibly as a man's voice box. However, turning this facet into a science was a double-edged sword because somewhere in the judgment of a good song, the verbal glory given to God has went from being the center of attention to being "Wow this band is really sick! That chord progression is awesome and they are playing some styles I've never heard before! Oh, and the lyrics are Christian." We rate the song as "really good" before we've even heard what this artist is saying about our God. We play and get caught up the music. The line gets very thin. I'm not judging anyone, but I know how hard it is. I get confused sometimes myself. I want to think about the words. I want to read them, write them, hear them, think about them...I don't want to care about anything else.