Thursday, November 30, 2017

Everything You Put In

Yesterday’s blog was about the journey of faith of one of my heroes, TobyMac. I believe that he deserves encouragement for his strong faith and consistent ability to speak the truth of the Gospel in ways that have been heard throughout his 30 plus years in the Christian Music industry. I do not use the word hero lightly. I only have a few heroes and those who read this blog may know who some of my other heroes would be. Yes, sometimes heroes let us down, but TobyMac has kept his faith and a strong Christian ethic that continues to challenge me and many others.

His latest message is that doing things for people that they can’t do for themselves is a higher calling. I wonder how many of us could attest to this truth? Many of us may not have been put in the type of position Toby has recently been in. Caring for every need of a parent as the parent develops dementia and progresses toward death is a difficult thing. I suspect that we too would say, “this is harder than I thought it’d be.” But would we sincerely be able to say that, “empty never felt so full?” and “It’s worth everything you put in.” May each of us be able to say that we have done our best to pour ourselves out for others, just as our Saviour poured himself out for us.

Wednesday, November 29, 2017

TobyMac



TobyMac, one of the founders of the Christian rock band, DC Talk, has written and recorded songs that have changed the course of Christian music (think “Jesus Freak,” “Luv is a Verb,” and “Colored People”). He created his own record label (Gotee Records) and produced the albums of such bands as Reliant K and Out of Eden. He has co-written books with Michael Tait and Kevin Max and he has sold out stadium-sized concerts around the world. In his solo career, he has released seven recordings and won three Grammys, an American Music Award, and approximately twenty Dove Awards.

In a category all of its own is an accomplishment for which TobyMac (Toby McKeehan; born Kevin Michael McKeehan) will never win an award. In 2012 through 2015, Toby took care of his father in the last three years of his father’s life and has spoken of the nature of this process in several interviews.[1] Three years of taking care of his father’s every need while his father regressed in physical abilities and progressed in dementia has changed TobyMac in profound ways. He has spoken of the slow-loss of his father, whom he says, “was really not with us for a long time before he passed away.” He credits his father as one who taught him the importance of living out his faith. He also says that his father was a driven man who taught him to push himself to be the best he could be. He went on to say that the three years of caring for his father changed his life as he realized the deeper love that comes from doing things for people that they can’t do for themselves. He calls this a “higher calling.”

He sings of this higher calling, and of the struggle that comes with it, in a song entitled, “What Love Feels Like.” You can hear it on his album, This Is Not A Test, and watch a live performance of the song, recorded at the 2016 Dove Awards, on YouTube. The song features DC Talk and was a brief reunion for the band.

Toby remarks that the song is very much a DC Talk style of song that he wanted the other two members to help him record. It has become a main feature in TobyMac concerts, usually using video and audio recordings of Michael Tait and Kevin Max. The hardest hitting lines in the song’s lyrics speak of the weariness that comes with caring for others and remind us that such things are always “harder than [we] thought” but “empty’s never felt so - - - full.”

Love Feels Like

I am tired, I am drained
But the fight in me remains
I am weary, I am worn
Like I've never been before

This is harder than I thought
Harder than I thought it'd be
Harder than I thought
Takin' every part of me
Harder than I thought
So much harder than I thought it'd be 

But empty's never felt so
full

This is what love (this is what love)
This is what love
Feels like
This is what love (this is what love)
This is what love
Feels like 

Poured out, used up, still givin'
Stretching me out to the end of my limits
This is what love (this is what love)
This is what real love
Feels like
This is what love feels like poured out
Used up still willin' to fight for it
This is what love feels like
Yeah, this is what it feels like

Like floating confetti
The beautiful gets messy
When the fallout finds the floor
But in the depths of the trenches
Is the richest of riches
Love is calling us to more

This is harder than I thought
Harder than I thought it'd be
Harder than I thought
Takin' every part of me
Harder than I thought
So much harder than I thought it'd be

But empty's never felt so
full

This is what love (this is what love)
This is what love
Feels like
This is what love (this is what love)
This is what love
Feels like
Poured out, used up, still givin'
Stretching me out to the end of my limits
This is what love (this is what love)
This is what real love
Feels like
 This is what love feels like poured out
Used up still willin’ to fight for it
This is what love feels like
Yeah, this is what it feels like

And now these three remain
Faith, hope and love
But the greatest of these is love

It's worth everything you put in
Everything you put in
It's worth everything you put in
Everything you put in
Everything you put in
Everything you put in
It's worth everything you put in

Love 

This is what it feels like
Poured out, used up, still givin'
Stretching me out to the end of my limits
This is what love feels like
This is what love (feels like)
This is what love feels like
This is what love (feels like)
This is what love feels like
This is what love (feels like)
This is what love feels like
This is what love (feels like)
This is what love
This is what love (feels like)
Poured out, used up, still givin'
Poured out, used up, still givin'
Poured out, used up, still givin'
Stretching me out to the end of my limits

Songwriters: Benjamin Glover / David Arthur Garcia / Toby Mckeehan
Love Feels Like lyrics © Capitol Christian Music Group

http://bit.ly/2jxSoVd



[1] “TobyMac's Fulfillment Comes Through Servitude” Ashley Andrews, CBN, http://www1.cbn.com/tobymacs-fulfillment-comes-through-servitude

Friday, November 24, 2017

Autonomous Cars


Self-driving cars, without humans in the driver’s seat, are being tested on the streets of some cities. I used to joke with my nieces that once they were driving I would be turning in my driver’s license. Now, I am not sure whether I should be filled with awe at this amazing autonomous technology or fearing for my life. There are still many questions about how robots will make critical choices (see Robotic Laws). The tech companies readily admit that putting autonomous cars on the streets is a form of beta-testing and that there will be accidents involving cars without human drivers. However, the rationale for putting autonomous vehicles on the streets is that, ultimately, robot cars will lead to fewer accidents and fewer traffic fatalities on our roads. This is the argument in an article in Science News: “When it comes to self-driving cars, what’s safe enough?” by Maria Temming, November 21, 2017.

What kind of backlash against these autonomous cars can we expect when an autonomous car collides with a car piloted by a private citizen or professional driver? Temming gives us a possible scenario and asks, “What happens when a 4-year-old in the back of a car that’s operated by her mother gets killed by an autonomous car?” This is a real possibility. Will the public be quick to blame the robot or the human? How much will driving conditions factor into the investigation? How will Canadian winters affect autonomous cars? The title of the article is indeed the pertinent question, “What’s safe enough?”






Tuesday, November 21, 2017

Salieri and Mozart



In Timothy Keller’s book, Every Good Endeavor, he writes about the story of Antonio Salieri and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart as told in Peter Shaffer’s play, Amadeus. Keller recounts how Antonio Salieri was a court composer to the Hapsburg emperor in Vienna and wrote many successful operas. He had wealth and position but sensed that his music was mediocre. When he met Mozart, his underlying suspicions were confirmed and Salieri realized that compared to the work of Mozart, his own works were very inferior. Salieri aspired to create extraordinary music but knew that he had only been given modest talents. He asked God to give him the ability to write music like Mozart but soon discovered that God would not give him the desired response to that prayer. He became angry at God and jealous of Amadeus Mozart, and worked to destroy this man whom he saw as God’s instrument of beauty.

Unfortunately, this is not an uncommon reaction. I have known men and women who pray to God for something and when they do not receive it are bitter and angry toward God. They covet what someone else has and become enemies of God. They feel that God should have known their great need and should have responded if he was indeed a loving father. They begin to see God as unjust, unkind, and unfair. I have known some who have lost all faith in God because they demanded an answer from God and felt that his non-responsiveness was equivalent to his non-existence.

Such behaviour is actually unfair toward God. If God is someone from whom we can demand an answer, then he would not be a God of faith. I might say, “God, I am really struggling with believing in you, please prove to me that you exist.” If God, out of his love for us, must answer this prayer and show up in some form that proves he exists, then we will forever know that he exists. If I know, without a doubt that there is a God who created me and will be my ultimate judge, then I must live in the manner in which he asks me to live or suffer the consequences. In this scenario, we would be enslaved to this God and unable to live in any fashion other than what he says. Instead, without an unequivocal knowledge that God exists, we must live by faith, trusting that what he has revealed to us is sufficient to allow us to trust that he is there and he is worthy of our trust.

There is one more lesson to be learned from the life of Salieri and Mozart and that is that we can trust God with the person he has made us to be. The gifts people receive from God, musical or otherwise, do not seem to be evenly distributed into all the population of the world. There are many examples of people as young as two years of age who show great musical prowess that is simply built into them at birth. Indeed, such prodigies are often compared to the great Amadeus Mozart. Does this make God unfair or does this make him creative? The world would be a much poorer place if everyone was given the same personality, the same abilities, and the same gifts. The key to success for each of us is largely connected with a healthy self-knowledge of who we are and who we are not. The Peter Shaffer play has highly fictionalized the two characters of Mozart and Salieri and it is likely that the real Salieri was much more comfortable with his musical gifts than his character in the play. He likely had a healthy respect for Mozart. The reality is that each of us must spend a good portion of our lives seeking to find our way in this world and finding the places in which we fit the best. It is no good to try to be something we are not. Instead, we seek to find our place in the grander scheme of things.