Perspective on a "bad day"

I flew Southwest Airlines a couple weekends ago. We often do because as you may know, they are the best at a lot of things. I'm a fan. However, I am not a fan of the current marketing for their business class.

The image that set me off was on the jetway leading to the plane. It is a picture of a woman's feet in red high heels. It appears she's walking the streets of a city, lets say New York. The heel of one of the shoes is breaking off of the shoe and it looks as if she may trip because of it. Above the image it simply says "Bad Day?".

Another is a living room scene, a bulldog is in the forefront with a cell phone in his mouth, buttons and electronics strewn on the floor around him. "Bad Day?", it asks.

And of course, it then proceeds to convince you that flying Southwest Bussiness Class is just what you need to cheer up your day.

Now... I'm not trying to be all high and mighty, because I certainly have days where the little things add up and make me want to pull my hair out. And yes, in those moments I would tell you about the "bad day" I'd be having.

But seriously? A broken high heel? A chewed up cell phone? I know it's just a marketing campaign, and a good one, if you're trying to encourage a self centered society to keep on feeling sorry for themselves and their shoe misfortunes.

You're probably thinking, "Alli.... if you wanted to rant on marketing campaigns, I can think of some worse ones than this". And it's really not that bad, but something about it hit a chord with me. I just stood there on the jetway thinking, "Bad day! You think that is a bad day?!"

Because I think of some of the Compassion kids whose bad day consists of a parent dying of AIDS, or having little to no food to eat. I think of the families in parkersburg, IA who lost their homes this last Sunday in a tornado. I think of the Chapman's, who just lost their little girl.

Those are bad days.

Just trying to keep perspective in the midst of an often skewed slew of media fireworks.

A "Must Listen" list

Here is a list of other indie artists that have recently released new records that I've been listening to and I think you should too! Here is a brief description of them followed by some of my favorite lyrics.

Jeremy Casella, Recovery
This record is so moving I don't really even know how to describe it. If you asked me which one of these records to buy first, I would say this one.

From the title track, Recovery:
No one told you that faith would come easy
No one promised the way would be clear
Turn the ground in the fields of your story
While you're sowing the seed of your tears
Under skies wide and blue as the ocean
Make your peace with your own history
So much more than the sum of your longings
Are the good and the bad - all this beauty and tragedy

Waterdeep- Heart Attack Time Machine
Don and Lori Chaffer released this delightful collection of songs that I fall in love with more every time I listen. There is something so emotional about the songs that makes me want to weep (in a good way). It's my favorite Waterdeep record, and I think Don's too.

From Good Good End
I'm amazed by life
and it's amazed by me
we're a strange old pair, me and eternity
it don't make good sense, it ain't easy to see
but I'm amazed by life
and it's amazed by me

While you're at the Waterdeep site, you MUST check out the Khrusty Brothers which is some of Don's best work by far.

Andy Gullahorn - Reinventing the Wheel

There are only a handful of writers that have the ability to make you laugh and cry in the same song. Andy is one of them. I absolutly love this record. It's this sort of music I'm consistantly drawn to amidst the changing musical trends. Great acoustic licks, simple production and compelling stories.

Stories are hard to pull lyrics from cause you really need the whole song so I'll just tell you that my favorite sone on the record is "How Precious Life Is". if you have a minute, go watch this commercial he made for the record. :)

Steven Delopoulos- Straightjacket
Steven was the frontman for Burlap to Cashmere. He is now releasing his own material which is brilliantly querky and full of poetic lyrics that give me goosebumps. This is not for the casual listener, but for the music lover who wants something different to sink their teeth into. It's pretty incredible stuff. Even when I have no idea what he's talking about, it moves me.

From the song Wallfly
The ocean, salvation
Reflecting its kindness
By lending us rivers and traffic of stream
And building of mountains
with suit and tie static
and flies of scavengers running the team


Justin McRoberts- Deconstruction
Justin has released his best yet, in my opinion. The first song is amazing, you must check it out.

Chorus of Done Living
you see the question isn't are you gonna suffer anymore
what will it have meant when you are through
the question isn't are you gonna die, you're gonna die
will you be done living when you do?

Check em out!

What are we teaching our children?

You’ll want to read my post on Margaret Mead from last thursday to make the most sense of this one.

“Our task is going to be to re-value human and artist and religious activity so that everyone involved in it will be a valid and worthy member of the community , and we won't feel ourselves impoverished by the fact that we are so rich. which is the position we're in a present."
-Margaret Mead

The obvious meaning of the word impoverished is “reduced to poverty”. But the meaning I think Margaret is talking about is “deprived of strength, vitality, creativeness.” (dictionary.com)

Margaret said those words in 1964. She thought that was the position they were in then and unfortunately, I think it has only gotten worse in these 44 years.

What if our great country full of promise and opportunity and overwhelming wealth, is actually depriving us of some of the very things we thought it would give us?

Did you know that instrument sales are up 200% from two years ago? On one hand, this is fantastic, as I believe music has the power to engage parts of us that nothing else can and everyone can benefit from learning an instrument.

However, I would bet that most of the people buying and learning instruments today are not in it for the expansion of their mind, or to support the arts.

My theory is that our culture worships celebrity and fame. Think of what most teenagers are into these days. Myspace, Facebook, YouTube, American Idol and a hodgepodge of other reality shows. Not only are children growing up in a world where everything is convenient and microwavable, they are watching a world give attention and in some cases, honor, to the people making the loudest waves. We are teaching our children (even if unintentionally) that the most worthy and valuable contribution they can make to society is to achieve stardom. To get the spotlight to point to them, even if just for a minute.

Look, I don’t think there is anything wrong with the 13 year old girl who wants to be the next Carrie Underwood. I would be the first to encourage her to go for it! But when a large percentage of 13 year old girls want to be the next Carrie Underwood, I start to question the message we are giving 13 years old girls. Do they know how special they are without the stage and the lights? And what about the girl who reveals a little too much skin in her myspace profile pic? Or makes a slightly racy youtube video and feels a rush of satisfaction and strength when it gets a 1,000 views. What does that lead to?

I know the desire to be noticed and seen is nothing new. This is written into human nature. But I think we are at a dangerous place today. When I think of what Margaret said almost 45 years ago, I am amazed at her foresight because I think we are in desperate need of some correct re-valuing. I do think we are impoverished by the fact that we are so rich.

Check out the titles of these featured videos on youtube today:

1. How to make your first Vlog. Start today!
2. How to make a YouTube Hit!
3. How to make your Audio better!
4. How to make a web show
5. DJTV production notes
6. Weekend extra: Encoding for YouTube
7. No Lights, No Camera, No Action (how to light your webcam)
8. How to make a viral video while driving
9. Customize your youtube layout
10. How to get more views on youtube videos
11. How to gain subscribers on youtube
12. Response to: How to get featured on youtube

D.A. Carson Quote

“The controlled universe reflected in the
Bible, has God as both its creator and
sustainer/ruler. He creates in an ordered
way, and sustains and rules it in an
ordered way, so that science is possible;
but he is not bound by what he has
created, so he is at perfect liberty to do
things another way, with the result that
miracles are possible.”
--D. A. Carson, The Gagging of God

Margaret Mead

If you haven't checked out itunes U, you're missing out! It is a whole section of itunes full of "free access to educational content from hundreds of top colleges, universities, and educationally focused organizations across the country."

I spent a good part of last weekend driving, and got to take full advantage of this amazing resource. One speech in particular caught my attention and I was totally amazed by the wisdom and insight of anthropologist Margaret Mead. If you have 80 minutes to spare, you must listen to this speech she gave on April 1st, 1964 titled "Looking a Generation Ahead" It is fascinating to hear how she imagined the world would look today. Here is a link to her speech.

If you don't have 80 minutes to spare, then take 5 to read (what I think is) the most interesting part:

Something she talks about is how not too long ago, most of the jobs out there had to do with food or other things required to live. Our occupations were also our means of survival. But now (as she predicted here in 64) so many of the jobs that used to be done by hand are done by machine. She said,

"we are going to have more food, more automobiles, more houses, than we've ever had before as our capacity is incredibly great, but we're not going to need people to make the food or the automobiles, and the only thing we've ever thought up to date as a way of feeding people is to make them work, to produce the food and to produce the other things..... we're going to have to think up some other way that people can validate their contribution to society so that people have a right to all the food and the automobiles and the houses and all the things we're able to produce."

She say's we'll have to,

"rearrange our thinking , and rearrange our economy so that each person can do the things that are needed and in turn draw enough money out of the system to buy the other things that the machines are making, because we're going to be in this odd position where we're buying from machines in a sense, rather than from each other. This is going to one of our great problems. we're going to have to rethink what it means to be a human being in a community and what kinds of contributions they have to make. "

"When you think back over the great civilizations that we go to see when we travel abroad, we judge these great civilizations by the things they built, by their temples and their theaters and their churches. We don't judge them in terms of how many hours a pheasant worked in the fields, if we did we'd judge them very harshly. We judge them as great in terms of the architecture, the cities, the music, the painting that they produced. And our task is going to be to re-value human and artist and religious activity so that everyone involved in it will be a valid and worthy member of the community , and we won't feel ourselves impoverished by the fact that we are so rich. which is the position we're in a present."

(italics mine)
This stirs all kinds of thought in me... I'll post more on it later.

My Keyboard

We are selling my keyboard. For a smaller, more travelable one. (that should be a word if it’s not)

And tonight, when we set it into it’s black cushy case to be sent to a church in New Mexico, I started crying. Yes, crying over a keyboard. Actually, at first I just got sad and decided to say some words before I zipped it up.

“You were a great keyboard to me. I wrote closer to the moon on you... (this is where I started crying). I tried to learn to play on other pianos and keyboards before, but you were the only one that worked for me...”

I asked Kirk to say some words as well and I was reminded of that scene in Garden State when they bury Sam’s hamster. Kirk didn’t really know what to say but I knew that he was sad to see it go as well.

Considering the number of times I played “Great is Thy Faithfulness” on those little keys, it’s only fitting that it would go to a church.

Godspeed, keyboard, godspeed.

Are we here to save ourselves?

Self preservation is a concept I've been thinking about a lot lately... and something I talk about in the new blog I just wrote for Soul-Audio.com

Check it out and comment there if it resonates with you. It's the beginning of a conversation I'd like to continue if it interests any of you.