May 12thFive Minutes on Friday #71
LAUGHTER, THE BEST MEDICINE
In honour of our mothers I offer some wisdom from one of my favourite humorists, Erma Bombeck.
Someone asked me the other day if I had my life to live over would I change anything.
My answer was no, but then I thought about it and changed my mind.
If I had my life to live over again I would have waxed less and listened more.
Instead of wishing away nine months of pregnancy and complaining about the shadow over my feet, I'd have cherished every minute of it and realized that the wonderment growing inside me was to be my only chance in life to assist God in a miracle.
I would have invited friends over to dinner even if the carpet was stained and the sofa faded.
I would have taken the time to listen to my grandfather ramble about his youth.
I would have eaten less cottage cheese and more ice cream.
I would have gone to bed when I was sick, instead of pretending the Earth would go into a holding pattern if I weren't there for a day.
I would never have bought ANYTHING just because it was practical/wouldn't show soil/ guaranteed to last a lifetime.
When my child kissed me impetuously, I would never have said, "Later. Now, go get washed up for dinner."
There would have been more I love yous ... more I'm sorrys ... more I'm listenings ... but mostly, given another shot at life, I would seize every minute of it ... look at it and really see it ... try it on ... live it ... exhaust it ... and never give that minute back until there was nothing left of it.”
CHURCH LIFE
The longer you’ve lived and worked and cried in the company of church folk, the more you realize God must have a sense of humour – after all, God has chosen us: some to teach, some to preach, some to make music, all of us to minister to each other. But sometimes the noise gets in the way of hearing others or speaking a healing word. We are a foolish people, serving a God who loves ordinary, foolish people, and yet we can still say in the midst of life and death that God is in the midst of us! This is our Easter faith. [source unknown]
MUSIC SUNDAY
This Sunday we will sing some of our favorite songs of faith.
Jeremy Begbie teaches at Duke Divinity School in the area of music, the arts and theology. Here are some of his thoughts on music.
- We need to challenge each other on Christian terms, to say, “Christianly, what can we learn about the gospel or the Christian worldview from this music?” That’s the key question to ask, I think. Not instantly, “Do I like it or not like it?” -- because until we ask the first question, actually, you’re just not going to like it, but then we might be missing out on something fantastic.
- Q: How do you learn to listen with the question, “How can I learn about the Holy Spirit through this music?” How would you train someone to hear the answer to that question?
- Say with a composer like Bach, I would say, “Let’s listen to his music, and I’ll tell you a little bit about how it’s constructed, and then let’s listen again.”
Very often, depending on the music, you’ll say, “This is beautifully ordered music. It doesn’t sound chaotic, but it also sounds like he’s having a lot of fun. It sounds open, abundant, unpredictable. Hmm.”
Then I would try to ease from that into the Christian worldview, which sees the world as ordered and yet the Holy Spirit as the one who brings abundance, surprise, novelty, unpredictability, in the midst of and out of the order that’s in the world.
Read the full interview here: https://faithandleadership.com/jeremy-begbie-what-can-we-learn-about-the-gospel-music
https://youtu.be/1-OiHpNK6XA - When in our music God is glorified