In God Calls Samuel, I preach on communion and communication. We long for communion with God; we find it when we attune to his word in Christ—listening and responding. Matt 4v4: “‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
Currently reading: Over Ruled: The Human Toll of Too Much Law by Neil Gorsuch and Janie Nitze 📚
“for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come” (1 Timothy 4:8)
🚲 If you loved riding a bike as a kid but now find it intimidating, you need to meet Grant Petersen.
Feeling trapped by your circumstances? Depressed, anxious, not eating…that’s how the book of 1 Samuel begins. Listen to Hannah’s story and the hope it reveals in my recent sermon, Hannah’s Rising. I pray and read the scripture first. Sermon starts @ 7:27.
In Revelation 5:8, John reports seeing four creatures and twenty-four elders, holding golden bowls of incense and kitharas. A kithara (κιθάρα), sometimes spelled cithara, is often translated “harp” in English. Here is someone playing a modern day replica.
I’m super proud of Della. She recently entered a portrait of our dog Buttercup into a painting competition and it turned out amazing. Vote for it if you want. Della’s Instagram post has a video clip of the painting you can see.
Max Richter summarizes the state of classical music and why he took a different path.
When I went to university, in Edinburgh, I was like, “Let’s just forget about that for a minute and concentrate on Boulez.” Classical music is a very historical artform, in the sense that all classical music is built on what’s come before: At the beginning of the 20th century, tonality explodes, you get into serialism, and then you get into more and more deterministic music. So Boulez serializes everything: rhythm, duration, dynamics, all structural elements—everything is an expression of a formula. It was considered a historical imperative to do the next step in that, if you were a serious composer. If you were an idiot, then you could write tonal music [laughs] but no one would play it. Which is one of the reasons I started making records. No one’s going to play this, so I better just try and record it myself.
[Tehillim] is peak Reich, where everything comes together. It’s a setting of the Psalms for his ensemble and vocals, and it’s just the most fantastically put-together, virtuosic, beautiful, expressive sonic object. His music, and the music of Arvo Pärt, were triggers for me to move away from the modernist compositional language—the super-complex idea of every piece as a technical manifesto—and towards having a conversation, speaking intelligibly, and connecting.
Read the full article: “Max Richter on the Music That Made Him” (HT: Marginal Revolution)
Have you listened to the Humble Skeptic podcast yet? In the first episode, Shane explores faith and doubt through an investigation of his dad’s account about being in Billy Joel’s “Piano Man” bar.
🎵 Listening to Copper State, an Arizona-inspired, jazz-country album from Arthur Vint & Associates released today. It’s great. (HT: Tucson Sentinel)
NASA Guide to Air-filtering Houseplants infographic by lovethegarden.
