When I was in high school my friends and I debated the issue of music frequently. Now, you’re probably saying “There’s an issue of music?!?!?”. In a word, no, there really isn’t. But we didn’t know that then.
     You see I grew up in an independent, fundamental, Baptist church. Making issues out of non-issues was an art form to us – everything from women wearing pants (not that they promoted pants-less women, but that women should only wear skirts and dresses), to Bible versions. The big one for us though was whether Christian Contemporary Music, or Christian Rock as we called it, was God honoring. This was probably the most heated topic for me and my friends, being that we were extremely drawn to musical expression.
     I have no desire to address these issues in a blog – I walked away from these idiotic ideals years ago and have no intention of ever returning. For those of you that are still distracted by them, let me share with you what I have learned in the last ten years: Pants on women are fine though I really like skirts, no version is inspired by God, and Christian Rock might have a better chance of honoring God if it didn’t suck so much.

     Some good did come out of our pubescent debates. I remember beginning to form my own philosophy of art and its role in the Christian’s life. But I also remember a line that the anti-CCM folks used to use on me that I actually agree with. They would say that Christian Rock is nothing more than “Jesus is my boyfriend” music. Basically meaning that if you just took out Jesus’ name and replaced it with the word “baby”, you’d pretty much just have another run-of-the-mill pop song. I saw some validity to this thinking because it did annoy me that some songs seem to take the transcendent concepts of grace, love and forgiveness and bring them down to the level of a simple, junior-high infatuation. Again, I have no desire to blog about these types of songs because I think that I have also walked away from that kind of meaninglessness years ago.

    But that line of reasoning has helped me realize that there is a category of music out there that counters the “Jesus is my boyfriend” crap. It’s when a song about earthly truths suddenly transcends its intent to heavenly meaning. It’s when the songwriter hits a note inside of you that is so deep, that it is not only a good relationship song, it becomes a worship song of sorts.

     The best example I can think of this is “With or Without You”, by U2. Yes, yes – U2 has been my favorite band since I was 15 so I am a little biased, but this song strikes a chord in a lot of us that is not just earthly in meaning. Now I’ll be the first to admit that I really have no idea what intent Bono had when writing it. He seems to be very spiritual and a fellow believer in Jesus, but there is nothing that says to me that this song is about God anymore than it is about a girl. Yet there is something about the words, his emotion, the musical build that just resonates within me something meaningful. At the song’s climax, when the only vocal is one of no words at all, just Oh-Oh-Oh-Oh, one can sense a yearning and a hurt that just relates to me on a very spiritual level. Perhaps it has less to do with the spiritual intent of the author, but more the interconnectedness of our earthly relationships with our spiritual nature – that we were truly designed to love God with all of our heart as well as our neighbor as ourselves.  That “neighborly” love then makes the best pictures that we have of Jesus – through the expressions of each other.
     I realize that this observation of mine is subjective, but I wonder if any of you have also observed this about your favorite songs, movies, books, or works of art.
This thought process and subsequent blog was inspired by the song “Transatlanticism”, by Death Cab for Cutie. Some other songs that hit me this way are “Reservations” by Wilco, and “Let Go” by Frou Frou (although very aptly covered by Boys like Girls).

 

By the way – sorry for the lame youtube videos, but I wanted to give you all a chance to hear the above songs without seeing some amateur video of a 14 year old boy interpretive dancing to these beautiful songs!  The words can speak for themselves.

I’d like you to take a look at the two pictures below.

Trans Siberian Orchestra

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Behold the Lamb of God

 

 

Which one of these concerts would you say represented a better Christmas experience?  Bear in mind that both pictures were just taken with the crappy camera on my phone, but I think that in contrast to each other they offer a fairly good representation of what each night’s performance held in store for its attendees.

Last week I had the opportunity to see the Trans Siberian Orchestra live in Philly.  It was probably the most elaborate light show that I have ever seen!  My iphone picture surely doesn’t do it justice.  Between the lasers, pyrotechnics, and movable stages, every audience member was blown away.  The musicians must have been some of the finest in the world as they precisely played every second of that 2 hour show.

I must admit though that my heart sank a bit, when they began to tell their Christmas story.  The narrator, in a James Earl Jones-esque voice, told the tale of a man on Christmas eve that had stumbled into a bar to drown his loneliness away.  Sometime during the course of the night an angel swept him away to show him that Christmas was celebrated all over the world – by the rich and comfortable to the poor and hungry. At the end of the angelic tour, the man was somehow resolved to leave the bar and continue this celebration of the “spirit” of Christmas. I kept hearing myself ask the question, is that all?

Last night a friend and I drove 3 1/2 hours to a high school in New Milford, Connecticut to see Andrew Peterson’s “Behold the Lamb of God” concert.  The lighting technician at this show was certainly competant enough to get the spotlights on the featured musician in time for their solos, but there were no lasers, pyrotechnics or movable stages.  Although I would argure that some of the finest musicians in the world were represented at this concert as well, they were, at times reserved and certainly did not act as though they knew they were the best.

I must admit that my heart wept often through the duration of this concert.  For while there was no manly-voiced narration, these songs too told a story.  A story of a people that had been enslaved for as long as they could remember.  This people yearned to be delivered from the depth of their very soul. This story told of a God whose heart had been broken from love of these people and how He planned to bring them as close to Himself as possible.  The songs painted a picture of how this God used people, people that put their trust in Him without  being able to see the whole picture, to bring about this plan.  And the plan that God contrived was to become one of us.  To feel our hurt.  To share our joy. And ultimately to die our death.

This Christmas, I want to celebrate it with a capital “C”.  Let’s go beyond the trite sayings of “Jesus is the Reason for the Season” and spend some time with the “brave little boy who was God but He made Himself nothing.  And He gave up His pride and He came here to die like a man.”

I’ve had a lot of drama with my website(s) over the years.  I used to have danharney.com, but I forgot to renew the domain name – now some dude has a picture of a boat on it and hasn’t done anything with it in years.

Then, when I finished Breathing October, I spent a bunch of money on danharneymusic.com.  The guys that designed it did a great job on it, but it was very difficult for me to update any information on it without a degree in website design-er-ship (I’m not really sure what the correct degree would be called, but you get the point).  Plus, I never really liked the danharneymusic thing.  It just seemed too long.

So, I finally decided to partner up with a company called hostbaby.com and do my website through them.  It’s very easy for me to manage and update, plus I have the very convenient, danharney.net domain name. For independent artists that are just looking for a place to spread the word about their music, this company rocks!! 

I’ve just been able to get up some old bios and stuff for now, but my concert listings are up to date and ready to go.  Please visit and let me know what you think and if you have any ideas for the site!  Here’s the official address:

www.danharney.net

And to the dude that is holding danharney.com at ransom…your boat is STUPID!!!!  Take that!

Here is the Pecan/Pumpkin layer cake that my wife made for Thanksgiving yesterday! And if that wasn’t enough, I came home tonight to a kickin’ lasagna!! And if THAT wasn’t enough, she went shopping tonight… and DIDN’T MAKE ME GO!!! (note the escalation of exclamation points!!!!)

Lord, thank you!!!!!

 

Pumpkinny Goodness

Tom Winkels is a great friend and my government teacher from high school (as well as wrestling coach).  He brought up some great points in response to my blog about Obama that I wanted to share as well as respond to. Here are his original thoughts.

 

Dan,
Thanks for sharing. We have had past conversations about these topics and new discussions are always helpful. One question I have is the following, Does the word of God have different directions for governments, churches, and individuals concerning responsibilities. Have a great day

Two things I would like you to address. Obama does not believe in banning Partial Birth abortion — torture of innocent babies and he does not support protecting the life of a baby who survives abortion. These to me are pretty basic positions on helping “the least among us” but yet he is against “torture” against terrorists?? If he does not protect the life of the youngest lives will he protect the life of the “oldest” among us or will economics make the difference.

 

 

#1.  Does the Word of God have different directions for governments, churches and individuals concerning responsibilities?

 

While I admit that I have not studied this out extensively, I really don’t think so.  In Romans 13, Paul teaches that the believer is to submit himself to his government, for it is God that is ultimately in control (pardon the paraphrase).  As far as government is concerned Christ taught us about the Kingdom of God, and while we are far from seeing that being represented in our earthly governments, that should be what its citizens need to be concerned about.  What are Kingdom values? One of the things that attracted me to Obama was the role of Christ’s Sermon on the Mount in his life.  He has mentioned on numerous occasion that Christ’s teachings has helped shape his heart for people.  I hope it’s genuine. I would love to see what those influences could do to affect our foreign, healthcare, and human life policies.

 

#2.  Obama has not voted to ban partial birth abortion.

 

I spoke to the heart of this issue in my original article explaining my support of Obama.  I do not agree with his pro-choice stance, because I believe that human life is no man’s (or woman’s) choice.  I wish that he was committed to furthering legislative initiatives against abortion – at any term.  However, we cannot expect that changing a law will change a heart.  At the end of the day, I would rather have the demand for abortions be reduced.  I believe by ignoring the correlation between poverty and abortion we do a greater disservice to the unborn than by not concentrating our efforts on overturning Roe vs. Wade.  Incidentally, there are some great initiatives in the work (by democrats even!!) to see the amount of abortions being reduced.

 

Partial birth abortion is an atrocity, but so is any abortion, casualty of war or torture victim.  I say that, not to lessen our disgust with partial birth abortion – but to heighten our disgust of any life-taking injustice.  One mistake in theology that a lot of Christians make is to buy into this concept of “innocent” life. Paul states very clearly in Romans that there are none righteous – none!  We are all born into sin and fall short of God’s glory.  He is ultimately the One that determines who is redeemable – not us.  We must protect all human life.

 

Obama stated in Christianity Today that he has not voted against partial birth abortions because there was never an exception for the mother.  While I don’t agree with his stance, I can certainly acknowledge such a scenario to be tragic.  Something that we as the church need to acknowledge is that there are followers of Christ that do not come to the same conclusions that we might.  When Obama was asked by Rick Warren, when life started, Obama answered honestly by saying that he didn’t know. My answer to that would be that I believe that scripture alludes to life beginning at conception, so that’s why I believe any choice regarding human life is God and God’s alone. Obama does not believe the same thing.  I pray that the Holy Spirit changes his views – as much as I pray that God changes my views if they are not correct. But we need to understand why people believe the way they do – not just condemn their conclusions.  In Obama’s mind (in my opinion), he is not opposing these abortions because he lacks a value for life – he is trying to protect the mother’s.  Again – I do not agree with this reasoning. But overall, I think Obama’s ethic of human life was the most consistent of the potential candidates to be our next president.

 

 

I hope that I adequately expressed my opinion in response to Tom’s comments.  It is this level of discussion that will be most important for the church.  Will we ever completely see eye to eye on everything? Probably not – but the great mystery of the gospel is that we are unified in our diversity. God, in only ways that a true God could, actually draws us closer to Him and each other amidst out uniqueness.  I’m not ashamed to say that I’m excited about the possibilities of what God is doing in our world right now!

 

Funny thing is, weeks after all of the election hype is over our job remains the same – love God with all our hearts and our neighbors as ourselves. I pray that my life, church and government reflects that goal. 

This is a video that my friends Dave and Amy made of their son that I just had to share with the world.  It’s so freaking funny!!!

Dave and Amy adopted their son this past year and it’s been awesome to see them grow as a family.  Dave reminded me recently that this Sunday, the 16th, is Adoption Sunday at Franconia Mennonite Church.  Another good friend, J.R. Briggs will be preaching and sharing the story of how he and his wife came to adopt their son.  If you’re free, I encourage you to come out.  God has used both family’s stories to challenge me about God’s adoptive love for his children and appreciate more the commitment that my grandparents made to raise me.

I was raised to hold my spiritual values as top priority for my political affiliations.  Nothing about that has changed, but for the past few years God has been challenging me on exactly what this means.  As with most issues that God lays on my heart, I couldn’t quite put my concerns into words. So I began to research the issues and force my mind to open beyond the stereotypes I had been taught about Republicans, Democrats, liberals and conservatives. Most importantly I re-studied the teachings of Jesus Christ in regards to His Kingdom and what He expects from His followers.

            All that to say, on November 4th I cast my vote and took a small part in electing Barrack Obama to be our next president.  I realize that those closest to me will openly disapprove of my decision and that is fine.  My goal in sharing my decision is not to challenge anyone’s convictions, rebel against Christianity, or cause any division. My only goal is to share my heart and offer an explanation.

            First off, let’s address the elephant in the room – abortion.  I am and will always be pro-life.  I believe that life begins at conception and should be protected. I am most thankful that I, being born out of an illegitimate relationship, was not aborted.

I voted for Obama, because out of the candidates that were positioned to be our next president, he had the most consistent ethic of life.  That is not to say that I agree with his pro-choice stance, for I do not believe that any woman, anywhere ever has the right to choose the death of their child – for whatever reason or at any term.  But neither candidate was aspiring (or capable, in my opinion) to overturn Roe vs. Wade, so I had to vote my conscience for which candidate I believed could contribute to reducing the greatest number of abortions.  Ultimately I concluded that the outlawing of abortion in America, while deeply desired, is merely attacking the symptom of the problem.  I believe very strongly that by addressing poverty and education we have a better chance of reducing the amount of mothers making the decision to end the life of their child as a solution to their own sin. We know as believers that no person can truly change unless God changes their heart.  Christ teaches us that His love is shown through our love and compassion to the world.

The reason that I did not vote for John McCain was that while he states he is pro-life, he does not have a consistent ethic of life.  I do not believe that one can be a proponent of war, capital punishment and torture and truly be pro-life.  If we are selective in the lives we protect, we are not acting justly in my opinion.

My strong belief in a consistent ethic of life also leads me to support Obama for a quick and responsible withdraw from the war in Iraq.  We must begin seeking better ways than war to resolve the world’s inevitable conflicts.  For myself, I cannot resolve the teachings of Christ with anything less than non-violence responses to any and all conflict.  Is such a thing possible in a fallen world?  Maybe not – but I know that it will never be possible if we continue returning evil for evil and disregarding Christ’s teaching of what His Kingdom and its citizens should look like.

Whether or not it is true, the world largely considers us to be a Christian nation.  I believe that we have misrepresented what Christianity looks like to the rest of the world by our country’s lack of concern with the extreme state of poverty that is occurring globally, as well as in our own back yard.  With over 2,000 verses in scripture that deal directly with poverty, we as believers cannot ignore that God desires His followers to be concerned with the less fortunate. In addition to protecting all life, we will be held accountable for how we treat the “least of these”.  That certainly includes the unborn as well as the poor, those without healthcare, and at times our enemy.  Some may argue that that responsibility is not the governments’, but as a Christian I have a strong desire to see my values represented by the officials I support.  America – even amidst financial crisis, is the most powerful country in the world.  And if we’ve learned nothing else from Spiderman we know that with great power comes great responsibility.  Or better stated, for to much is given, much is required.

Some may call Obama’s economic policy socialistic.  I don’t disagree.  Sometimes I look at the teachings of Christ on materialism and our possessions and have to think that a little “spreading the wealth” would be good for all of us. I wonder if we wouldn’t call Him a socialist if He were here today.  It is simply a sin to me that in a country this rich, we have those that are without healthcare.  My grandfather served in 2 branches of the armed forces, and worked hard every day of his life.  Now, in his retirement, he is still never certain that his diabetes medication will be covered or that the hospital bills incurred from my late grandmother’s multiple strokes will ever be paid off.  I realize that a universal health care system will bring on a whole new set of problems, but they are problems we can work through as a nation.  It’s the least we can do to ensure that we are honoring those that deserve our respect and gratitude, as well as hopefully inspiring those that may not. 

            There are many issues that we could discus and debate and perhaps never see eye to eye on.  These are the ones that are nearest to my heart and I suspect are nearest to the hearts of those reading this – even if we differ on our earthly solutions to these issues. 

I will again say that my decision to share my thoughts are not born out of a desire to be controversial, but simply to be known – at least by the people that I love.  I believe strongly that while we disagree, God’s wish is for his church to be united.  That can only happen by acknowledging our differences and accepting each other out of love.  I hope that each of you can appreciate how difficult it is to be open about this subject – especially knowing that many of the ones closest to me are so adamantly opposed to the conclusions that I have drawn. I am open to discussing these differences as long as they are communicated out of love and respect. I realize that we can all be very passionate about our convictions, but I will commit to doing my best to never confuse that passion with a self-righteous arrogance.  Please do not approach me condescendingly, because I will not respond to that.  Well okay, I probably will, but I’ll get all whiny and high-pitched and that’s not a good time for anyone!

For those of you that know me, I apologize for listing “contortionist” among my identifiers – the visual could not have been pretty!

I’m starting this blog because a friend of mine started one and it looked like fun.  Really – that’s it.  I have nothing original or new to say.  Just another online venue for me to talk about myself and crap that I like.  I did have a website in attempts to promote my music, but all I really wanted to do on it (besides sell CDs) was write.  So I said to myself “Well, I can do that for free on wordpress.com!!!”

Though I want this introduction to be brief, I do want to say that I am a Christian and hope that everything in this blog is glorifying to God and beneficial to our communal closeness to Him.  I’m sure readers will not always agree with me, but the goal here is not to be right, but loved.  I can’t wait to engage is some good, God-honoring discussion, but that will all be done under the pretense of Christian love.

Any questions?