Blog.

So The last few weeks have been pretty crazy for Heather and me. We traveled to Texas for a week as many of you know for various reasons and saw most of the major cities while we were there. In addition to visiting my parents and friends in Madisonville / College Station, we buried the ashes of Heather’s grandmother with a small family gathering at Ft. Sam Houston in San Antonio, and finished the week celebrating the marriage of our friends Abby and Justin in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area. Seeing how we flew into Houston and spent one night in Austin, we almost put 1000 miles on my parents Yukon! (Thanks Mom!) It was amazing how many people we were able to visit in that short amount of time, and it truly reminded us of how blessed we have been in our relationships over the years and how wonderful our friends and family are.

This past weekend we spent Saturday afternoon downtown with some friends of ours with the main attraction being the cherry blossoms around the tidal basin. Unfortunately, a storm rolled through the day before and wiped out the bulk of the blooms from the trees, but we still had a wonderful time. As an added bonus, we stopped in at one of the Art museums and enjoyed a bit of history.

Thanks for all your comments about our dog Truman! He really has become an additional member of the family and is a joy to have around. He definitely qualifies as the most spoiled out of all the dogs I’ve ever owned, lol…

Click here for full gallery.

Without further adieu, allow me to introduce Truman, our Cavalier King Charles Spaniel.

Click here for full gallery.

I’m long overdue for several posts, but I’ll get this out there so you guys have something to look at. Last Saturday Heather and I went with a couple of friends and their daughter to the National Zoo. It was a beautiful day and we had a great time. It was also the first time I got to test out our new Sigma 70-200mm lens we bought from a friend. With a couple exceptions, the lens did great, but as my friend that sold me the lens said today, “the biggest problem with my pictures originate from about 12 inches behind the camera”. True to that statement, some of the shots aren’t as good as they could be if I had remembered certain things like bringing the ISO back down from 1600 after I leave the dark indoors, but overall I had a great time attempting to be a photographer.

Click here for full gallery.

I lost my uncle to a car accident today. As hard as that is, I am rejoicing in the fact that he was a believer. He leaves behind a wife and two kids under the age of 10. There really are no words that can be said, only prayers to be offered. My family covets your prayers…

As I grieve, I find comfort in a song by Brad Reynolds called “There is A Friend”. You can listen to it here. Click on “music” at the top of the page and skip to the 5th song.

There is a hope
There is a promise
There is a peace beyond compare
There is a calm amid confusion
There is a friend who’s always there

Prince of Peace, Lamb of God
Take my heart and Draw me Close to where you are
With your spirit fill the corners of my soul
As I offer up my praise unto your throne

If you need hope
If you need comfort
If you want peace beyond compare
Come to the place you’ll find in Jesus
Receive his Grace, and sing this prayer

Prince of Peace, Lamb of God
Take my heart and Draw me Close to where you are
With your spirit fill the corners of my soul
As I offer up my praise unto your throne

For all of you who are dying to learn a little about me, check the “About” page, as I have updated it.

That is all.

Sorry for the lack of updates lately, a friend from Texas came to visit and said she checks this blog daily, so I will try to do better for her and my other faithful reader, whoever that my be. (probably my mom) Anyway, the other night I was bouncing from blog to blog, and myspace page to myspace page and found an artist that I am highly impressed with. Also, I have been blessed to get to know another talented independent artist in my area that I would like to share with you. Both are finalists for a couple Momentum awards, which are kind of like the Dove awards for independent artists.

First, my friend Alyce Metallo is a talented pianist, vocalist and woman of God. Her personality is contagious and she’s married to an Italian guy that runs the mafia. Ok, maybe he doesn’t run the mafia, but he’s really cool.  I should probably put a “shout out” (the terminology these days…  ~sigh~) to their daughter too, who is every bit as awesome as her parents.  We’re supposed to get together for dinner soon and I’m excited to continue to get to know her and her family. Her music is hard to describe as it covers a wide variety of styles, but if I had to put a Genre to it, I would call it hip-latin-hop-pop. Check her out here and here. Buy her music, support her, send her messages telling her how much you like her music…

One of my new favorite independent artists, Brad Reynolds, is based in Nashville and instantly captured my interest with the song titled “Anyway”. Here’s the first verse and chorus to that song, just to give you a taste of his writing: (emphasis mine)

He’s been sleeping on the sidewalk
since the money went away.
Can ya love him anyway, really love him anyway.
He lost his mind but finds the time to bum a dollar everyday,
but my Jesus says to love him anyway.

Cause love is the only evidence against us
that tells the world we’re guilty of a change.
There’s not a one who lives among us
who wasn’t lost somewhere along the way.
Judgment turned to mercy and mercy took our blame,
but it all comes down to loving anyway.

You can check him out here and here. Check out his biography here. Buy his music, support him. We need more artists like this.

Also, if you like them, please vote for Brad and Alyce here through the end of February.

I ran across this post and the follow-up post and was deeply moved by her story. Here is a young woman (mid 20′s, I think, with a young child) that lost her husband in a tragic accident when his boat capsized in frigid waters in Oregon.  Looking back on the day when they were still searching for his body, she wrote these words:

my main prayer was, “Lord, help me to be okay with whatever you are giving me right now. Whether he is alive or with You, You are still good.” People were calling me all day long for updated information, and they would say things like, “Nate’s so strong. Strong men like him don’t just drown. He probably swam to shore and passed out or something…” And they would wait for me to agree with them, like I was going to give them the hope that the worst was not true. But instead, God completely flipped my heart to where I was just telling them, “Whether Nate is alive or dead right now, God is still good. God is still good.”

That, my friends, is what a genuine relationship with Christ looks like.

My wife was nice to me and let me buy a new guitar this Christmas, and I thought I would do a small review here…

After much deliberation and playing of every guitar in the place, the Takamine TAN16C won out and made its way home with me. There were only two other guitars in the place that I liked better, one a Martin 000-18 Golden Era (unbelievable tone) and the other a Taylor 914CE, both incredible guitars, but both almost 3 times the price of the Takamine. My first guitar was a (now 18 years old) Takamine EF341 (the link has the cutaway version) that was bought at a pawn shop, and it has held up wonderfully over the years. In my opinion, Takamine has unbelievable quality for incredible prices.

This guitar has a very open warm sound, much richer and fuller than the EF341, and is able to fill up most small rooms with ease acoustically, which is nice when you’re just jamming with friends, or doing a laid back acoustic worship session in a living room. The playability is definitely top notch and very fast, with low enough action to play easily throughout the entire fretboard, but not too low to produce buzzing. It has a split saddle, which really helps with superb intonation throughout the range of the guitar, and a peg-less bridge, which makes restringing the guitar a little bit easier.

The electronics are definitely unique, as it employs Takamine’s CTP-1 Cool Tube pickup system. There is an actual tube (a 12AU7 dual triode) inline with the EQ that can be fed into the mix with the equalizer, which gives it a very nice warmth and openness to the sound when plugged in. I recorded a quick demo to give you an idea of how much ambiance the tube gives to the sound of the guitar. I recorded two takes of these songs, (one with the tube, one without) then mixed them together so that it switches between the two every few measures in the song. Each time it starts without the tube, then alternates until the end of the song. The second song on the last “dust in the wind…” part of the chorus has both tracks mixed together. Check it out here. Takamine has a few more demonstrations on their site, played by guys much better than me if you want to check that out.

Here are the pics:

My previous post seems to be generating traffic, so I thought I would post the outlines of his talks and a few notes that I have taken when listening to his lessons. All of the following comes straight from part 1 from his series at the Focus on The Family Institute. I will list these in bulleted notes form, please do not take what is listed here out of context, listen to the actual talk and study the Word before you start making conclusions for yourself.

-Strong evidence suggests that Jesus’ disciples were all younger than 15, with John possibly being as young as 7-9.

-The olive tree is the picture of God’s people. It “never dies” in that the Farmer cuts it down to a stump approximately every 400 years, and new shoots grow the next year. In this context, Jesus was a shoot from the ‘stump’ of Jesse. Israel is God’s olive tree, who is cut down several times due to failures, the last time being the Babylon captivity. The Jews grew from Jesse’s stump, and the Gentiles, shoots from wild olive trees that never produced any fruit, were grafted onto the stump of Jesse. Note: Non-Jews can’t exist without their Jewish roots! The Christian world has forgotten this, and obscured their Jewish roots, and in the process, it’s not that western translations are wrong, they have just lost a significant part of what it “says and demands”.

-There are 2 ways of explaining truth: the Eastern way, and the Western way. Western thought is akin to the Greek philosophy, where the mind and logical thought was elevated to high importance. They were abstract thinkers and they valued definition, proposition, and organization. Eastern thought is very different. Seemingly unorganized (try to outline Jesus’ teachings) and very concrete. If you ask a westerner “who or what is God?”, they will mainly reply with abstract words like “almighty, holy, just, love, truth, honesty, and eternity”. On the contrary, an Easterner (Jew) will answer concretely, with ‘picture words’ such as “my shepherd, my rock, my bread, my living water, my father, my brother…” and it’s always my.  The devil knows and can say God is almighty, holy, just, etc, but he can’t say God is his shepherd, rock, bread, etc.  What difference is there in the devil’s knowledge of God and ours?  It’s true that God is love, truth and holy.  It is good information, but we don’t have to believe anything!  It’s all head knowledge!

-The book of Mark contains many Hebrew expressions, and is written with very poor grammar in Greek.  Evidence suggests it was at least passed down orally in Hebrew and later translated to Greek.

-Mark 4:24 “Consider carefully what you hear”.  The Greek = “look at carefully what you hear”.  How do you look at what you hear?  You can if it’s a picture! (you can see a shepherd)

-The Hebrew word for bread is lahem.  The Hebrew word for a place or a house is beth.  Where was Jesus born? Beth-lahem, or Bethlehem.  What is a house of bread? A bakery!  The Bread of Life (Jesus) was born in a bakery!  It’s very probable that the Light of the world was conceived on the Feast of Lights.  The Living Water was laid in a manger, which traditionally for Jews was carved from stone and was for water, not hay.  It’s all about the picture, you can see this stuff!

-Learn to think Hebrew, or in pictures.  Jesus used pictures and stories to teach… The Bible in Jewish context will grab the heart, not only the head.

more to come…

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about purpose, specifically, my purpose. I have wrestled with it, trying to figure out what really matters in life, what I am living for. I’m 26, have a great job, am married to the most wonderful woman anyone could ever ask for, have an incredible family and an awesome set of in-laws, but I keep asking myself: what is it that drives me to get up in the morning? What are my short term goals? What are my long term goals? Does any of it really matter?

I look around me at the culture that I live in here in Northern Virginia and see a variety of people with varying purposes. Unfortunately, there are an overwhelming number of people that are living for “stuff”. That “stuff” takes many different forms: bigger houses, new cars, bigger TV’s, promotions so they can afford all the aforementioned…

There is a second group that stands out, but only a few people fit in this category comparatively to the “stuff” group. These people are those that live to help other people. This can be manifested in several ways: non-profit organizations, charities, volunteer’s at charity events, etc. The people in this group go out of their way to meet the needs of those around them: to feed the homeless, counsel and befriend the battered and abused, or provide families for orphaned or homeless children, etc. This second group of “givers” tend to find fulfillment in alleviating the pain and suffering of others, instead of attempting to find happiness in material possessions. While this group has a much nobler purpose than the first group, there is still a lack of eternal purpose.

The last group consists of Christ followers. These people are really a subset of group two, as they truly love their fellow man and do everything they can to help others, but the driving force behind their actions has eternal purpose. These “followers of The Way” actively seek to lavish love on the world in an effort to ensure everyone they come in contact with has a relationship with Jesus Christ. This last group understands Christ’s mission, and in striving to be like Christ they share the heart-aching desire for everyone around them to know the all-encompassing, unconditional love of almighty God.

I want to be in the third group. In fact, I believe I am in the third group, although I don’t always act like it. I still exhibit characteristics of the “stuff” group. I am at a point in my life where I know the importance of purpose, and I know that my purpose is to love those around me like Jesus loves me, but how does that affect me on a smaller scale? What needs to change in my life to help me look less and less like the “stuff” group, and more like a true Christ follower?

These questions continually haunt me, and I believe the Holy Spirit is knocking on my heart, attempting to get my attention, though I stubbornly don’t listen. Honestly, I’m scared of what God could do through me. My faith is big enough to know what He’s capable of, but not large enough to want to unleash that kind of power in my life. It is an odd kind of fear, because one would think the idea of wielding the power of the Holy Spirit would be very desirable, but that’s how I feel. I want to take that next step, jump off the cliff and dive deep, to let go and wholly trust in God to allow Him to do whatever it is He wants to do with me.

“The righteous will live by faith…” (Rom 1:17) Lord, increase my faith…