I can’t really say that heavy metal is my favorite genre of music, although I did enjoy a brief Metallica kick in high school and I do rely on DragonForce to keep me awake during late night painting sessions. That said, I want to describe a recent, and unexpectedly AWESOME heavy metal experience.

 The other night my musician friend Mitch, from Philadelphia, drove down to Charlottesville for a last minute gig at a local bar/music venue. Mitch plays bass in the heavy metal trio Haley, named after the lead singer/growler. Their album cover shows the leather-clad, eye-linered, tattooed band members posed together wearing purposefully blank expressions. The track list on the back reads as follows: 1)Burning Witches 2)Blacked Out 3)Hallowed 4)Devour 5)Stop This Ride 6)Pain is Love 7)Leeches 8)Apathy 9)Broken Guitars 10)Drown Me. My favorite is the CD design, which boasts an x-ray hand giving the middle finger.Read more

I was in a city I'd never visited before on a Sunday, and looking for a place to worship. I found one, too - but not by Googling "churches + seattle". Instead I worshipped at the aquarium on Pier 59.Read more

Hat tip: Andy Crouch, but the link is dead so I can't link to his website.

I love these clips  because there is soul-stirring joy in seeing someone improbable, someone looked down upon, bring beauty of such astonishing character that we are hushed and then pulled into wild cheering.

The scene was Britain's Got Talent this past week.Read more

In my foolishness, I wander away from Beauty's precincts too often, but then I come running home when I'm glutted on emptiness and starved for Beauty's sustenance.

In those times Beauty often breaks upon me like a wave I didn't see rising. Sometimes I don't even know how empty and lost I am until Beauty engulfs.

These two songs fetched me today, reminding me of how great the Lord is, and how wonderful, even in ruin, are His images. Read more

         What began as a scene perfectly ripe for adventure would become totally transformed by a single moment.  Loosely fastened inside the auspices of a safari vehicle exiting the Serengeti National Park, I had just witnessed the annual migration of wildlife indigenous to the African plains.  The measure of my enthusiasm with respect to the number of new species I had seen over the last hours could only be matched by the amount of dust being churned from the parched road underneath.  Now, with a full day of animal exploration past and the fading sights of a boundless landscape, a race against time was about to unfold. 

        The impending nightfall meant that securing habitable shelter was of utmost importance.  With vague directions in hand and an indispensable guide in toe, my travel companions and I set out for what we hoped to call home, at least for a night.  After a short jaunt, our driver’s pace slowed.  I looked up to what should have been the departure point leading to our quaint bungalow and my jaw dropped in disbelief.  If the road behind could be categorized as ill-marked, the one that lay before us was altogether non-existent.  Any sign of an etched-out path had been washed away by the first downpour of the encroaching rainy season.  Continuing onward entailed a dubious outcome in light of the rugged terrain laced with luring mud traps.  But following some group deliberation and consideration of our waning options, the truck plunged ahead.

        Instead of the sinking dread which perhaps should have been mine in the face of such a predicament, I felt a surge of excitement.  As the engine revved and we slowly made gains, it became apparent that the skill of our driver along with the four-wheel drive suspension was a capable match for our terrain challenges.  Rounding the last bend and arriving at our destination, the traveling entourage jumped from the car feeling rather victorious.  I expected something of a cheering, high-five response to ensue from our successful journey, but what happened instead caught me totally by surprise. 

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Imagine an extremely gifted, Grammy-winning, world-class musician deciding to try a stint as a street musician. The musician exchanges a tuxedo for a T-shirt and jeans, a concert hall for a subway station. Would anyone recognize his talent? Would anyone stop to listen? Would anyone pay him? These questions were recently posed to Leonard Slatkin, music director or the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, DC. Slatkin asserted that while the majority of passersby likely would not recognize the true talent, surely many would notice and a crowd would form around him.

Turns out the scenario posed to Slatkin was not hypothetical. During the height of rush hour traffic a few months ago, world-renowned violinist Joshua Bell did just that in an experiment designed by the Washington Post. Three days earlier, he had performed before a sold-out audience at Boston’s Symphony Hall. Now he was begging for money as he played his violin worth millions at DC’s L’Enfant Plaza metro station, a destination for many federal employees headed to their offices. Contrary to Slatkin’s hopeful predictions, Bell received hardly any notice. Some commuters were completely oblivious to his presence and some complained that his music was too loud. While he normally can gross about $1000 a minute while playing, this day he made $32.17 in 45 minutes. Usually people would have to pay $100 to see him, but now hundreds passed up the opportunity to hear him at no cost.Read more

I thought it was just a flaw of mine that I easily get ecstatic about things. The light of the sky on the water; trains with 5 engines, people, marching bands… When I was young, my staid mother indicated that when I was excited like that I was out of control; I grew up tacitly supplying the premise that being out of control is a bad thing.

Take crossing the Ohio River, for instance. They may find me, someday,  like one of those flying witch decorations at Halloween, plastered on the girders of the bridge I cross to and from work: I’m always cranking my neck to gawk at how the water looks under the sky. One evening at dusk I was crossing just east of my favorite railroad bridge—a massive iron structure gracefully lifting its iron lace in twin peaks skyward. The vibrant pink and blue of the cloud-tempered west, behind that black bridge, found an equally radiant pastel twin mirrored on very still water underneath. But emerging from under the bridge and almost below me was an immense barge of coal, maneuvered by a “push” (a better term than “tug,” I feel, since they’re not tugging, after all). The barge’s humorlessly squared prow was steadily thrusting its matte-blackness into the glowing watery mirror. And the wake emerging from the sides of the prow spread wings of trembling black stripes in the pink and blue stillness! Such a sight!

“Observing” is hardly apt as a description of what I am doing at such a moment; “eating” is more like it. Or “taking a bath.” I am immersed in color, and dancing in it as one would stamp in puddles or shower in a tropical waterfall. Read more

A friend introduced me to Andrew Peterson's music a few years ago. Since then, I have hit "repeat" on my MP3 player again and again as I've been blessed by Andrew's thoughtful lyrics and gentle prose. I took my whole office to hear his BEHOLD THE LAMB Christmas concert. Just as the concert was beginning, I had the panic moment: This is our office outing for the holiday, and I've made the boss' decision that everyone will attend this musical. What if they don't like it?

Not to worry. Andrew and his crew (including favorites Sandra McCracken, Jill Phillips and Derek Webb) accompanied our hearts to the heart of God. I wept more than once as Andrew sang about our King. My colleagues fell in love with Andrew's gift, too. In fact, one of our "less emotional" men told me he teared up a few times himself. It's not too late to add Andrew's BEHOLD THE LAMB CD to your Christmas music tradition (I am receiving no royalties for this plug!). Here is the link to Andrew's site: www.andrew-peterson.com

To get a taste of his beautiful work, here is a bit from Andrew's latest journal entry: The ache is there again. Deep in the pit of my stomach, like a magic door standing in a field—a door that you can walk around, only when you open it you see not the field on other side of the door but a starry depth, dizzying and windless. It feels like that door was opened in my soul, a link to eternity that I’m not yet ready to enter, though I was made for nothing else. I feel that tiny opening and it is fear and joy and pain and peace all in the same moment, like my emotion has no adequate language to express exactly what it is, so it pokes at the sore spot and informs me that something’s there, and whatever it is it isn’t good. But it isn’t bad either. It’s different and dangerous.Read more

Last February, I curled up beneath a blanket on a windy beach in Puerto Penasco, Mexico to watch a sunrise. From my lounge chair, I watched and documented the occasion, with a few lines of poetry: Another dawn rises in her shimmering gown. Languidly, she tosses her head of golden curls and laughs, letting her robe---luminous and silken---slide from porcelain shoulders, uncloaking blinding beauty on another oblivious day.

Don’t get me wrong, usually I’m oblivious too. Like most of humanity—I’m usually asleep. If not I’m rolling over, bleary-eyed and blundering, hitting the snooze button; another remarkable beauty going remarkably unseen.

Millions and millions of unseen and unsung sunrises have passed. Does it ever bother you just a little? It seems a little wasteful to have such a bountiful beauty, such a lavish display for such a sleeping, snoring nuisance of an audience. Read more

The  scientist who led the team that cracked the human genome is to publish a book explaining why he now believes in the existence of God and is convinced that miracles are real.

Francis Collins, the director of the US National Human Genome Research Institute, claims there is a rational basis for a creator and that scientific discoveries bring man “closer to God”. Read more