The long awaited autumn playlist has arrived… Never you fear- Mixes shall be passed like hotcakes during the Christmas season.

The Best of Fall 2008’s Music

1. The Decemberists- Valerie Plame
2. First Aid Kit- Tiger Mountain Peasant Song (Fleet Foxes cover)
3. Blitzen Trapper- Furr
4. Joshua Radin & Patty Griffin- You Got Growing Up to Do
5. Sigur Ros- Gobbledigook
6. Ingrid Michaelson- You and I
7. Delta Spirit- People, Turn Around
8. Rachel Yamagata & Ray LaMontagne- Duet
9. The Welcome Wagon- Sold! To the Nice Rich Man
10. Conor Oberst- Cape Canaveral
11. The Last Shadow Puppets- Standing Next to Me
12. Mirah- The Garden
13. Ray LaMontagne- You Are the Best Thing
14. Meaghan Smith- If You Asked Me
15. Common Market- Winter Takes All
16. Sufjan Stevens- Ring Them Bells (Bob Dylan cover)
17. Coldplay & Jay-Z- Lost+
18. The Avett Brothers- Murder in the City
19. These United States- Honor Amongst Thieves
20. The Apples in Stereo- Stephen Stephen

Notes: (2) First Aid Kit are two teenage Swedish girls with insanely good harmonies; The Fleet Foxes have appeared, in some form, on my last three “best of mixes); (3) Blitzen Trapper opened for Iron & Wine this past Saturday at Workplay; (7) Delta Spirit played at Bottletree a few months back with Dr. Dog, played a year ago with Fleet Foxes, and are coming back to The Magic City in December; (9) The Welcome Wagon is a Presbyterian minister & his wife signed to Sufjan’s record label- many thanks to Caleb Chancey for this recommendation; (11) The Last Shadow Puppets- thanks Ashley Xue Grimm- are a side project from a dude in The Arctic Monkeys & another from The Rascals; they have a mid-1960s feel; (12) Erin, who has moved to crutches!!!, saw a group on So You Think You Can Dance? perform to this song; (13) Ray’s third output is rather disappointing in my book- perhaps success has made him too happy to write those heart-wrenching ballads we’ve grown accustomed to; (15) The lone rap track to make the cut for quite some time; (17) A merger of glorious proportions; (20) The ever-so-peppy Apples in Stereo wrote a song for Stephen Colbert

Parks introduced to me to SeeqPod during the Saturday of his bachelor party. It’s fantastic. While I couldn’t find every track from the playlist above, a great number of them are playable below. Patrick, enjoy this while you’re not doing anything at work… Erin, if you gain enough courage to bring headphones to work, you can enjoy this too!

SeeqPod - Playable Search

Tags: Best of, Music

“For Zion’s Sake, I will not keep silent”

Isaiah’s heart breaks for the people of God. Though God has promised him that his hearers will not understand, he preaches. Though God has assured him that their hearts will remain hardened, he will not keep silent. Zion is the city of God, and Isaiah longs for it with a holy, passionate love- I imagine that he longs for it like the angels are said to “long to look” into the true heart of the gospel. He sees no fruit from his ministry, but in his heart he sees a city whose “righteousness goes forth as brightness.” This city, which has been forsaken, which lies desolate, will “be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord” & all the kings of the earth will see her beauty & righteousness.

Calvin: “He too might have been dismayed by the unbelief of that people, and might have lost courage when he saw that matters were every day growing worse, and when he foresaw that terrible vengeance. But, notwithstanding so great difficulties, he will still persist in his duty, that all may know that neither the massacre of the people nor their unbelief can prevent God from executing his promises at the proper time… no inconvenience or annoyance shall wear out his patience, and no opposition shall retard him from proceeding in the office of teaching which God has enjoined on him concerning the redemption of the Church”

 “But you shall be called My Delight Is in Her, 
and your land Married; 
for the Lord delights in you,
and your land shall be married.
 For as a young man marries a young woman,
so shall your sons marry you,
and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride,
so shall your God rejoice over you”

“The Lord delights in you.” Wow. How liberating is this knowledge! How incomprehensible is its meaning! For what cause does the Lord delight in us? What is there in us that leads Him to promise that “as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you”? There is nothing. And therein lies the beauty… It is by grace, for we could never hope to earn it. The great & sovereign King of the universe, by whom and for whom all things were created, who holds the very stars in their place & governs the movement of every particle in all of Creation, he will “rejoice over us with singing.” God’s giddy with love for us. A groom is ecstatic with the prospect of marrying his love, of truly and finally beginning their journey together, of growing indescribably more intimate… And here is the Lord, who needs nothing, whose people are in rebellion, who sees the final fulfillment of his plan of redemption when he will give us new names, when Jerusalem shall be ultimately restored, when heaven shall join earth, when He will dwell among His people and He will be their God, and His heart leaps. He is in love. He wants nothing more than to be with us, for us to enjoy His presence, to be lost in His gaze, to be held in His arms forever…

This is the day that Isaiah holds in His mind. Christ has gone to heaven to prepare a place for us. He is our perfect groom- the one who will fully satisfy, who loves us with a holy & perfect love, and who is ever faithful to us. For this reason, he never grew silent, never grew weary of reminding the people of the great, lavish, outlandish promises of God. And to think, he had never heard the name of His Messiah, never dwelt upon the wonders of the cross, and still he cries out day & night. How much more should we who have.

Tags: Isaiah

I read this this excerpt this morning while doing Tim Keller’s Galatians Bible study (one of the most life-changing & liberating explorations of Scripture I have ever come across) and the truth of it is piercing my heart of stone. I think that I generally do not feel free from accusation, I readily judge my standing before God upon my present “achievements” or “failures”or how I’m presently feeling… I think that the modernist thought that “it matters not what others think of you- only what you think about yourself” has grown so engrained into my thought-process (though a 2002 NY Times article, among dozens of others, showed that our modern beliefs about self-esteem seem to be enitrely faulty) that I struggle daily to escape it. Oh, may I believe & live in faith like Paul, who wrote in 1 Cor 4, that “it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. In fact, I do not even judge myself.” Keller also has a sermon on this passage called ”Blessed Self-Fogetfulness”, and it is one of the best I’ve ever heard in my life. He argues that our egos should be as our toes: as long as they are working properly, we shouldn’t notice them… Instead, they are empty, painful, busy, & fragile because we try to puff them up instead of fill them up. Someone whose ego is filled by Christ can enjoy another’s success like he enjoys the sunrise… We are free from accusation in Christ, because the verdict has already been handed down… It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. You can find a free twenty-minute clip of the sermon here.

Richard Lovelace, The Dynamics of Spiritual Life ( Downers Grove, Ill.:IVP, 1979)

A conscience which is not fully enlightened both to the seriousness of its condition

before God, and to the grandeur of God’s merciful provision of redemption, will

inevitably fall prey to anxiety, pride, sensuality and all the other expressions of that

unconscious despair which Kierkegaard called “the sickness unto death.” [So] we start

each day with our personal security resting not on…the sacrifice of Christ but on our

present feelings or recent achievements… Since these arguments will not quiet the

human conscience, we are inevitably moved either to discouragement and apathy or to

a self-righteousness which falsifies the record to achieve a sense of peace

Much that we have interpreted as a defect of sanctification in church people is really

an outgrowth of their loss of bearing with respect to justification. Christians who are no

longer sure that God loves and accepts them in Jesus, apart from their present spiritual

achievements, are subconsciously radically insecure persons — much less secure than

non-Christians, because of the constant bulletins they receive from their Christian

environment about the holiness of God and the righteousness they are supposed to

have. Their insecurity shows itself in pride, a fierce, defensive assertion of their own

righteousness and defensive criticism of others. They come naturally to hate other

cultural styles and other races in order to bolster their own security and discharge their

suppressed anger. They cling desperately to legal, pharisaical righteousness, but envy,

jealousy and other branches on the tree of sin grow out of their fundamental insecurity…

It is often said today, in circles which blend popular psychology with Christianity, that

we must love ourselves before we can be set free to love others… But no realistic

human beings find it easy to love or forgive themselves, and hence their self-

acceptance must be grounded in their awareness that God accepts them in Christ…

[There is much evidence in our experience against the idea that we are children of God,

but] the faith that surmounts the evidence and is able to warm itself at the fire of God’s

love, instead of having to steal love and self-acceptance from other sources, is actually

the root of holiness…

My prayer for you & my prayer for myself: “For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places… [and] that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”

Tags: freedom, galatians, tim keller

Coldplay at Phillips Arena 11/11/08 Set List

“Life in Technicolor” as they entered

“Violet Hill” (which Erin helped me learn is in Hong Kong, and which I recently learned

is written in part to mock Bill O’Reilly “A fox became god” & “a carnival of idiots on show”)

“Clocks”

“In My Place”

“Speed of Sound”

“Cemeteries of London”

“Chinese Sleep Chant”

“42”

“Fix You”

“Strawberry Swing”

“God Put a Smile Upon Your Face”

“Green Eyes”

“Viva La Vida”

“Lost!”

“The Scientist”

“Death Will Never Conquer”

“Politik”

“Lovers in Japan/Reign of Love”

“Death and All of His Friends”

ENCORE

“Yellow”

Last night, I had my first Coldplay experience- a Top Ten worthy experience, to be sure. Our (Kendall, Kathryn, Erin & I) seats (slightly bettered by Erin’s current disability) were slightly back-left of the stage, giving me a different perspective than I’d ever had at a concert before.

Some highlights: (1) The band disappearing into the crowd only to emerge in the second level, playing “The Scientist” & a new song called “Death Will Never Conquer” (which you can download free on their website) with an acoustic, a steel acoustic, a mandolin & a harmonica; (2) Chris playing “Green Eyes” solo on the piano after declaring that it [the song] is “not the best Coldplay song ever”; (3) Pre-concert at the Varsity- a two-year-old named Dre came over to us, acted like he was talking on his cell phone and said “my girlfriend can’t stand me,” “You on your way?”, and “Call me back later.” Glorious.

Lowlights: (1) Has Coldplay disowned Parachutes? We heard one song… in an encore. I was waiting ever-so-patiently for “Everything’s Not Lost” or “Sparks”; (2) Chris Martin declared his undying love for REM during a song. I just don’t get it… I see eye-to-eye with him on so many things. The first album that ever “woke him up” to music was Michael Jackson’s Bad. He said the first record he’d put on if he & Gwyneth broke up would be Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks. He has no problem talking about how much Radiohead & Jeff Buckley influenced him. But REM? I’d rather have to cauterize the wound on my face than be forced listen to “Losing My Religion” or “Crush.” Vomit.

I’ll try & put up some pictures my sister or I took soon.

Tags: coldplay

A little something to smile about the day after the Election… Trust me: Even if you’ve watched this interview before, watch it again. It’s got a twist that’s guaranteed to make you smile.

And at least maybe now my write-in candidate, Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico, will get to be a part of Obama’s cabinet.

Last thought: Obama on the BCS: “I’m not sure who came up with the idea for the BCS formula we use today, but to borrow a phrase I’ve used over and over on the campaign trail, it’s time for a change,” says Obama. “I’m tired of all the confusion and controversy that boils over at the end of every college football season, and I think an eight-team playoff would make a lot of sense.”