I frequent a Christian music discussion board, and the question "Does the world need more Christian artists, or more artists who are Christian?" came up. I responded with my belief that the world can always use more Christians, and more quality art. Here's a post I made about why, as believers, we shouldn't settle for mediocrity in what we do:

PaulDA wrote:
>>Blindman wrote: What the world doesn't need, and this is a sentiment already shared by several in this thread, is more mediocrity.
> I hear this quite a bit on here. But i don't think the average record buyer is looking for 'great art'.
> ----------------------------------------------------------
> And just who is going to decide what is mediocre and what isn't?
> Talk about being judgemental!(not you 'Blindman', but in general).


There's one extremely qualified person to make the call on the mediocrity of someone's work, and it sure isn't the average record buyer. It is the artist himself. Let me give two examples:

A few years ago after Steven Curtis Chapman released his Signs of Life album, I read an interview with him where he talked about the making of the album. The album was released in late '95 or early '96 (I think), some time after dc Talk's "Jesus Freak" and Jars of Clay's self-titled debut albums had been released. To paraphrase, SCC said that when he listened to the high level of musicianship and songwriting in both Jesus Freak and Jars of Clay, it made him realize that in the past few years of his career, he had grown somewhat stale musically - he had relied on his tremendous talent to put out some quality albums, but he realized that they weren't the best that he could do because he had neglected to practice and improve on his skills with the guitar. So, for Signs of Life, he got together with a few well-known studio guitarists and honed his skills, striving for excellence in an area where he had judged himself to not have given his best. This, I believe, is an example of not settling for mediocrity in oneself.

In a later post, PaulDA wrote:

Quote:
> God doesn't care how we sound when we sing to Him. He doesn't think like that.
> 1 Cor 3:19, For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God's sight.
> God only cares if you praise Him and do things for Him, that is what counts, not 'how great you sound' by human standards.

It is true that how we "sound" to someone else doesn't matter to God. The question is how we praise. Worship is an attitude of the heart. If we look at the parable of the talents where the servants take their master's money, put it to work, then present it back to him, it is quite apparent that what God is looking for is not "Is this quality in the eyes of men?" but "Is this the best you can do?"

My second example:
I am a worship leader at my church. From an earthly standpoint, I do plenty of what PaulDA refers to in Psalm 47:6 - "Sing praises to God". I know that God accepts me for who I am and accepts whatever I can offer. Why then, do I still practice guitar, schedule band practices? Why do I look for new worship songs that express new ways of praising God? Theoretically, my team and I could just show up on Sunday morning, plug in our guitars, and play whatever, and this would fulfill the "Sing praises to God" command. However, this would not be our best.

God didn't withhold His best from us - He put his best work into the creation of this world which he then gave over to mankind, and He gives His best work ever - Christ dying on the cross - to mankind. How can we do anything but strive to give our best in return and not settle for mediocrity?

I'll repeat the question that I had at the end of my first post: What kind of art has He called you to create? I work in the software industry. Because I've been redeemed by the work of God in my life, I want to give my best in my programs and scripts. As a youth group counselor, I want to hone my teaching to be the best that it can be. As a musician, I want to give the best of my musical talent and skill. As a friend, a brother, I want to make my relationships the best and closest that they can be. My point in saying that the world doesn't need more mediocrity from Christians is to say that Christians should have the most reason not to settle for mediocrity in ourselves. I think that if we strive for this, there will be more quality art in the world - and the world can look at that and see the One we're creating it for.

Hope

Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things. And no good thing ever dies. - Andy Dufresne, Shawshank Redemption

Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. - Romans 8:23-25

We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. - Hebrews 6:19

Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. - Hebrews 10:23

Steven Curtis Chapman
With Hope - Speechless (1999)

This is not at all how we thought it was supposed to be
We had so many plans for you, we had so many dreams
And now you've gone away and left us with the memories of your smile
And nothing we can say and nothing we can do
Can take away the pain
The pain of losing you... but chorus

Chorus
We can cry with hope
We can say goodbye with hope
'Cause we know our goodbye is not the end, oh no
And we can grieve with hope
'Cause we believe with hope
There's a place by God's grace
There's a place where we'll see your face again
We'll see your face again

And never have I known anything so hard to understand
And never have I questioned more the wisdom of God's plan
But through the cloud of tears, I see the Father's smile and say "Well done"
And I imagine you where you wanted most to be
Seeing all your dreams come true
'Cause now you're home and now you're free... and chorus

We have this hope as an anchor
'Cause we believe that everything God promised us is true so chorus

We wait with hope
And we ache with hope
We hold on with hope
We let go with hope


Skillet
You Are My Hope - Alien Youth (2001)

Times are hard, times have changed, don't you say
But I keep holding on to You
It's hard to keep the faith alive day to day
Leaning on the strength I've found in You
You're the hope of all the Earth

Chorus
You are my hope
You are my strength
You're everything, everything I need
You are my hope
You are my life
You are my hope
You are my hope

Far beyond what I can see or comprehend
Etching Your eternity in me
Nations stream and angels sing, "Jesus Reigns"
And every knee bows down
You're the hope of all the earth chorus

Carry on and I sing of how
You love and I love You now
All the times that I start to sink
You come and You rescue me chorus

Vacation recap (cont)

Now that at least a few people got all good and riled up over my "company of two charming young ladies" comment, I guess I'll surprise nobody by saying that the two girls were my cousins, ages 11 and 9, daughters of my dad's younger bro.

I hadn't seen Melissa, the older one, since she was a baby, and I don't remember ever meeting Melody (the younger). It was quite an interesting experience to spend the afternoon with them, especially since I had no prior notice from my parents that my relatives were coming over. Here I was thinking that I'd spend the 3rd-to-last day of my vacation quietly, doing some reading and maybe practicing some guitar, then these two elementary and middle-school balls of energy come flying into my room and promptly begin jumping on my bed, throwing my mini-basketball at my mini-hoop (and bouncing off other things in the room, like my stereo and picture frames), and talking my ear off.

The funny thing about young girls who like to talk a lot is that in their many stories, they assume that the listener (me) knows who all of their friends are and tell their stories in great detail, including who-said-what-but-didn't-really-mean-it-because-she-did-something-to-someone-else... I literally got tired trying to keep up with the rapid topic shifts (ranging from cool roller-coasters to the first week of school to basketball... surprisingly, Melissa knows quite a bit about hoops because her dad - my uncle - is a Lakers fan), while playing mini-basketball with them and trying to avoid getting hit by their play-fighting... because of our age difference I think they probably see me more as an uncle rather than as a cousin, since I'm like an adult to them (whoah... I'm an adult to some people)... I couldn't help but notice a small smirk on the faces of my uncle and aunt as they left their kids in my company for the afternoon while they went to play mahjong with my grandparents. Haha... my uncle's always struck me as a pretty mellow guy, so it's somewhat amusing to think of him being daddy to these girls. It was a fun and active afternoon... my friends sometimes joke with me that they can see me being the head of a family with all daughters... well, if that unlikely scenario comes to pass, I'll have to start training now to build up my energy level to keep up.

2nd blog topic: back to work

Surprisingly, by Memorial Day I found myself sorta looking forward to getting back to the office. While I greatly enjoyed the time off of spending time with friends, recreating, sleeping in, and eating good food, by the end of vacation I was ready to do some work - problem-solving, utilizing creativity in design, and so on so forth. It was a hecka busy week last week trying to get caught up again, but it felt good being productive.

3rd blog topic: Youth Retreat

Spent this past weekend in Costanoa, a coastside resort along Highway 1 between Pescadero and Santa Cruz, with the youth group at my church for the pre-school year retreat. We stayed in canvas cabins - sorta like permanent tents with cheap mattresses and a light bulb.

Random thoughts from the weekend:
- Highway 1 is a real gorgeous drive in the daytime. You have the ocean with its various hues of blue on one side, and rolling hills on the other. Too bad I needed my wagon's space or I'd definitely have borrowed Dad's Infiniti G35 for the occasion.

- One of my favorite things about retreat places is that they tend to have much clearer skies than the Bay Area proper, and thus you can see stars. Here, I was able to see more stars in the sky since the last time I was in Yosemite. Plenty of shooting stars too. There's nothing like stargazing to remind you how small and insignificant you really are in the grand scheme of things, when you consider just how far away those stars are, how big they are, how bright they are - and you can't help but marvel at the handiwork of a Creator who put those stars in their place. And even more special, even though us humans are tiny ants in comparison to the cosmos, God still cares for every single one of us. Blows my mind every day.

- Focus of the weekend for the youth group was understanding the meaning of true fellowship. As Dave Fong, my former staffworker from AACF in Berkeley used to say, "It drives me nuts when Christians get together to hang out, watch TV, or eat, and call it fellowship." The nature of Christian fellowship is that it is purposeful - one of the unique characteristics and privileges of being a believer is the opportunity to be sharpened, be encouraged, be rebuked, be taught, be prayed for, and so on with other believers, as well as sharpening, encouraging, rebuking, teaching, praying for others. There's absolutely nothing wrong with getting together to hang out and have fun, but true fellowship amongst believers points to God - because in the end it's about Him and not about us. One encouraging thing I saw from the weekend was that I think some of the youth were starting to understand that true fellowship is not a "boring necessity" but it is something that leads to spiritual growth and is fun to boot.

- Had a sweet time of worship and prayer on Saturday night. We prayed for school, the church, the nation, the world, and the youth group, that God would move in each of these areas of our lives... then had a spontaneous time of worship where I basically just sat there with a guitar and a songlist, and let the Holy Spirit choose which songs he wanted us to sing. While it was cool to see young people singing loudly and on their knees, it was even more encouraging to wake up the next morning and see several of them spending time quietly in God's presence - because that's really what it's all about - not the mountaintop emotional high, but loving God and being obedient to Him on daily basis. I hope and pray that they really learn that lesson well. It's a lesson I wish I had learned when I was in high school.

Not gonna get a chance to finish up my vacation wrap-up before heading off to a youth group retreat this weekend but...

How 'bout American basketball?!

My Vacation

What'd I do? Here's a recap:

- Started vacation two Fridays ago with the "Graduation Night" put on each year by the youth group at my church for graduating seniors and their parents. Back in my day, we did stuff like wear mu-mus, technology has advanced since then... this year, there was a rap song, a skit, a PG-13 slideshow for when the parents were still around, and a scraping-an-R-rating 30-minute movie clipped together from old home videos after the parents left. I'll spare you, dear reader, the details because I fear that you'd go mad just reading about them... just kidding. It was actually very funny and very well made... the home video camera must be a godsend for youngsters who want to have the chance to bust a gut laughing later in life. There was also some heartfelt sharing between parents and their kids, and then a marathon sharing session from counselors to seniors, then seniors to everyone, then everyone to individual seniors that lasted until 4 in the morning. It was encouraging to see the deep friendships that have developed over the past few years amongst these young men and women... now it'll be cool to see how they continue to grow in college.

- Sunday, headed off to Tahoe with my college buddies Danny and Cal... it actually took a fair amount of time to attach the bike rack to my trusty Volvo wagon, and on the way up to Richmond to pick the guys up I'd be looking in my rear-view mirror once every 5 seconds to make sure that the bikes were still there and hadn't fallen off, wreaking havoc all over the freeway. We stayed in a sweet suite (that's just fun to say!) just across the Nevada-California border in South Lake Tahoe... perhaps one of the most unsubtle sights you can see is driving down Lake Tahoe Blvd, hitting the border and being instantly greeted by 5 casinos. It almost feels like the casinos are like ravenous scavengers, ready to prey upon unsuspecting Californians who wander just a little too far over the border and get sucked in by these monuments to excess... I must, however, compliment the buffet at Caesar's of Tahoe, where we ate on our last night in the area - the quality was higher than I expected: prime rib was fresh out of the rotisserie oven, bbq spareribs were lathered in bbq sauce and slow-cooked so they remained tender (not unlike Everett and Jones!), and... that's all I can remember, really. Oh yeah, the crab legs were cut halfway open so you had easy access to the meat instead of having to crack the shell open. Impressive. Afterwards, Danny and Cal hit up the roulette tables for a bit, but the little marble ball didn't bounce their way this night. One thing that is kind of cool about the roulette tables is that when you watch the spinner, there must be an extremely low coefficient of friction between the marble and the strip where the dealer starts the ball spinning... it looks like they apply a minimal force to it and it still takes off at a very high speed. It'd be interesting to someday see what they make that marble-spinning strip out of... there're probably other uses for it, right?

Anyway, that was our last night there, so I'm getting ahead of myself... starting from the beginning, Sunday after arriving and unpacking, we hit up Chevy's for dinner, then went to Safeway to buy groceries for the duration of our stay (since our suite had a kitchen and a fridge, and it'd help to save money). It was kind of amusing having to consciously restrain our collegiate budget-conscious side - aka "Hey, this milk is buy one gallon get one free with my Safeway Club Card!" - and to remember that we were only there for a few days. Side note: mashed-up avocado makes for good sandwich spread.

Monday morning I played my first 18 holes of golf. Needless to say, I wasn't very good, but I had a good time - I can see how the game can become addicting for people, because it is extremely challenging, and unlike most other sports, competition is between you and the course, rather than you against another opponent. As D and C were saying, from a psychological point of view, one possible reason why sports and combat movies appeal to many men is because in any competition, you are looking to exert your will over another person or thing, either directly or indirectly. Boxing appeals to some because of its visceral nature - there is no go-between, like a ball, that acts as the "instrument of the exertion of will" - there is just one person against another person. In the case of golf, it is you exerting your will over the course. Sometimes, though, the course exerts its will over you. This latter statement happened to be the case for me. Ah well, I had fun. I'll probably play again with my family.

Tuesday we had planned to go kayaking, but unhappily, the winds were a bit too high and the lake a bit too unfriendly for enjoyable boating, so the kayak stores didn't rent out any kayaks. I was kind of looking forward to it, but I guess it's a good idea in these situations to bow to the opinion of the experts. Instead, we unpacked the bikes and biked around South Lake Tahoe, crossing the border a few times, finally ending up at a small beach where we parked, admired the scenery of the lake and the surrounding mountains, played some catch, debated whether certain activities could be considered "sports", and ran/timed 40-yard wind sprints.

We also spent a fair amount of time in the afternoons and evenings at the suite, watching and commenting on sports, hanging out on the balcony trading stories of our lives, some guitar, reading, journaling, and also some games. I played Scrabble for the first time in years - which was just a little intimidating because I was playing with a MENSA genius and a MENSA gifted person - and learned how to play dominoes. Well, sorta... I still don't know how to keep score.

Overall, a very relaxing, recreational time to chill in Tahoe... one thing that I like about places like Yosemite over Tahoe is that there are more sights to see, but I think we did most of what we wanted to do there... plus it was a good time to catch up with D & C (I'm starting to like that abbreviation) and see how God's working in their lives and at their workplaces (both are full-time youth workers with Christian organizations/shelters).

I'll write up another blog to detail the rest of my week, including Saturday afternoon which I spent in the company of two charming young ladies.

(Now if that doesn't get me some return readership, I don't know what will...)