Hi.

Long time no talk.

I've decided I'm done keeping up the MySpace thing. Feels like that stage of my life has just sort of passed.

Of course, I'm not deleting it or anything as dramatic as that...

Only reason I'm writing this is to let you know that I am still posting new bloggage, over at dixonparnell.wordpress.com, but won't be simulcasting any of it over here.

So if you've just stumbled across this, don't fret, there's always news over at the Wordpress spot-at least once every week or so. 8-)

Come see what's up.

Just put a new one up-still a bit hot, so give it a minute to cool alright?

dixonparnell.wordpress.com

New bloggage up over at my new place:

dixonparnell.wordpress.com.

(By the way, if you'd like to subscribe to it, you can do that either at the site or via this handy link.)

Hi there.

I'm ditching the MySpace venue for my random musings and inviting you to drop by dixonparnell.wordpress.com for a more efficient waste of your time.

See you there!

-dixonator

I always knew that the lessons I learned whilst doing the music minor in college would serve me well, but as life often does, a bounty is still bubbling from those mines.

The music minor at Hendrix was honestly one of the proudest things I had accomplished when I walked there in May of 2003. For reasons of academic difficulty, life circumstances, and the simple ways in which God has wired me, the amount of work it took for me to bring that thing in for a landing demanded an extraordinary exertion. I doubt many here are all that privy (much less interested!) in what those days looked like, but formal music studies is a fascinating place where abstract, academic chalkboard stuff mixes it up with learning to actively hear, see, and then reproduce in the language owned by every human on the planet. I love every bit of it still.

I can acknowledge now, so far removed from the fact, that I wasn't all that good at any of those things.

One of the primary reasons I stuck with that incredibly difficult academic pursuit was just because I loved it. With a worn smile, as I sit here my mind is straining to remember when I was last that alive to something.

I had an even deeper reason, though, for that singlemindedness. Simply put, I wanted to bank, for me and me alone, a Herculean task that I could remember for the rest of my life that I didn't quit.

I certainly remember the hopeless nights hunched over the only piano on campus that wasn't locked to me, and I'll never forget the hopelessness of knowing that my listening sections on tests were guaranteed to go over like a lead zeppelin. And it was always painfully obvious to me that I didn't "have it" the way the viola stars of the day or non-trained guitar studs around me so effortlessly evidenced.

But I stuck with it.

If I recall, of the five(?) theory courses I took at Hendrix, I made C's in three(?) of them. Those classes consumed far more of my time and thought than anything else I did during those years. Yet music, which was ultimately NOT my major course of study, still became the most important thing I did at Hendrix.*

It was all incredibly difficult work, exhausting in all kinds of ways.

But I made myself stick with it.

I knew as I was winding up that minor, and even in my afterglow-for-one after I'd finished it, that for the rest of my life I would be able to say, 'Hey, music at Hendrix didn't beat me, and neither can this.' And since then I've said that aloud to myself, I've stood my ground on it, I've revisited those days in journals from the time, I've done all that plenty more than once. In my battle(s) with depression, with various academic things, even some prolonged relationship struggles, in all of those things I've taken the lessons learned about myself alongside those modulations and secondary dominants and wrapped new flesh upon forgotten victories.

Which brings me to today, and my seminary pursuits (specifically, Hebrew).
I was updating my roommate recently on This Week's Reasons Why My Life Sucks, and he said to me regarding finishing my seminary degree, that I was "just hardheaded enough to do it, too."

As I've been thinking about these things on and off in recent weeks, I've become more and more convinced that God requires a lot more hard-headedness than most of us would like to admit. I'm sure not equating those music pursuits, or even my seminary degree, to anything much more noble than some crude concoction of vainglory and theories about what I'd enjoy doing with my life that would benefit God's work the most too. I do think however that you'll find in the Scriptures a lot of people who had to dig in and marshal sheer guttural willpower to get things done, and we are expected to offer ourselves to God in some of the very same ways.

I guess you'd say then that being hardheaded has become my major, or why I am the way I am.

Blame music I guess.

© Dixon J. Parnell, 2007.

*Do dig this little bit of irony: I got a D in Latin III the first time I took it at Hendrix. In the meantime, I went and did the music sequence. Retook Latin III the spring after my last music class and got an A in it. I attribute all that to having stuck with the discipline of studying music. And oh yeah, teaching Latin is how I pay the bills nowadays.

You'd call this day a minor key day.

I've started heading the opposite direction, stresswise, than in previous times. Before this academic year, I could always sort of buckle down, toss everything aside, and just make whatever needed to happen well, happen. Bankrupt everything, cancel whatever long-planned stuff I had intended to do, ditch friends, shaving and healthy habits. I've been doing that for some years now (since Hendrix at least) and well, it's gotten me this far at least.

This year I've felt more like Peter from "Office Space" than ever before, with that sort of lacksadaisical and winsome attitude of just not worrying about non-negotiable deadlines in any way shape or form. Difference between me and Peter is that I haven't entirely given up on my responsibilities, though; I still have some semblance of concern about my grades (with said semblance vanishing at a rate roughly the same that the coast of Antarctica is).

That mustard seed of concern is what kept me at work tonight until 8:15.

Had a paper due last night (which I rocked this morning from 8:00-8:45) and I've another one (for a different class) due tomorrow. Yes, all of them have been on my syllabi since Day One of class this year, and no, they both absolutely have to get done. So I decided this morning to stay at the job, where there are fewer good times to be had than here at the house, until these tasks were completed. Got about half of tomorrow's paper nailed (I confess that I'm rounding there) before I remembered I had yet another drop-dead, must-get-done-tonight task to knock out. I nailed that one quickly (in the sort of just-enough-to-count fashion that I've taken to calling one of my 'artistic flourishes') and then decided to call today's juggling a night. The morning always comes too early, and with it a slate of new and of undead 'must-do' tasks.

As I was leaving work and making my final approach to Chik-Fil-A, I realized I was too tired to really take stock of the day. Sometimes when exhaustion looms I just pray. Didn't have much steam there either, so I just left it at, "Lord, all I have is yours, and I commit myself wholly to you in every single thing I'm doing." I realized long ago that whatever grief I have brought upon myself from being in school for so long, by being so stretched and scattered, and even having the job I have, that is all my own doing. Because of that, I try and ask on a regular basis if I am offering it as service to the Lord or as something for my own name and fame. All I hope to do is offer Him something clean and never that which cost me nothing. My prayer is that that giving always be cheeful, and in a deep place I do enjoy almost every bit of what bookends my sunsets.

Well, I hit Chik-Fil-A and my eyes found the newspaper I was hoping would still be nestled betwixt the napkins. After scoring the newspaper, those same weary eyes lingered a second too long on a restaurant patron of the opposite sex. I immediately remembered the prayer I had just offered the Lord at that stop sign on the north end of campus.

Sometimes the way a prayer plays out is not what you expected at all.

The Lord hasn't given me measurable strength to nail that Hebrew paper yet, and the Holy Spirit has yet to enlighten me as to why I needed to write two pages this morning on whether Hebrews 9:16-17 should read 'will' or 'covenant.' And my Stage Two Latin test hasn't been written yet either, nor have Monday's quizzes been graded.

But I do think He has reminded me that He takes me at my word, and that I should take Him at His.

Lord, all I have is yours, every single breath.

© Dixon J. Parnell, 2007.

Jay-Z? Can't think of any reason why.
Mrs. Smith, at work? Definitely.
John Legend? Gotta lean toward no there.
Dr. Farthing, my mentor at Hendrix? For the most part, sure.
Bill Clinton? About 96% no.
John Mayer? Probably less frequently than I'd like to admit.
Barnabas, in the New Testament? No doubt.
Adam Levine, lead singer of the band "Maroon 5"? No way no how.
Caleb, of Lincoln Hall fame @ DTS? Pretty sure, yeah.
Don Henley? One and one place only.
Dan Rydell, of "Sports Night" fame? In one specific place, I'd say so, yeah.
Martin Luther? Broadly speaking, yes.
Sting? See "Jay Z," above.
My middle schoolers? More than I realize, I think.
Sir Tim Robinson? Almost without fail.

I realized some time ago that I take a lot of my cues about how to do life from "reading" how others deal with similar issues. Of course, they never would realize it, and I never would tell them-but I watch people, study them, draw conclusions and make life decisions based upon how they till mutual ground.

I read a book this summer about four Catholic writers and their understandings of God. I had never really had all that much exposure to modern, day-in and day-out ways of "doing" the spiritual life Catholic style, yet something pretty minor for most Catholics has really grabbed me since then.

Saints.

Hear me say up front that I don't handle saints as do Catholics, not by a long shot. My list of saints well, isn't a list at all. And I certainly don't pray to those I hold as saints. But I think I've got a handle on what means so much to Catholics about those who have gone before them and proven themselves extraordinarily faithful.

Saints are human.

Not what you're used to thinking of when you think "saints," huh?

Me neither, but here's where the money is for all of those who believe. Saints remind us that we are not, in fact, the only ones that find it hard, but that others at one time struggled with ________________ just like we do. And perhaps they failed miserably at it-yet they got up. The reason to get so excited about saints is, simply put, because they remind us that we aren't the only ones struggling to come out on the other side. Because of their recognized piety, we've been made privy to the details of the nastiness of their lives. The piousness outweighs the nasitness every time, yet it is the nastiness that magnifies the piety.

"Okay, now that's all fine and good," I saw you think just now, "but I don't know a single Mother Teresa or Billy Graham. What's it to me?" Good question! Thanks for asking.

For some time now I've been cataloguing the "part-time saints" in my world. Take the people at my church. This morning we had a very wide assortment of people, and, although I know the details of only a few, I was still very proud to be amongst the mix of people with whom I shared those two hours. Divorced people. Widowed people. Happy people. Sad people pretending all is well. First-semester seminary students. Engaged couples. People who truly have it all together, alongside those who are truly without hope and without God in the world. (Know any of those folks at work or at your church? In your household? In your mirror?) Ya know what? All these people are saints to me, by the simple virtue that they keep doing the life of faith, in the times of sunshine and the seasons of outer darkness.

If you'll suffer my honesty here, I'll tell you that these "part time saints'" lives mean more to me sometimes than even Scripture.

Like our Head of School, my ultimate bossman, who has acknowledged before us all that he adheres to our "no alcohol" policy that every one of us is expected to hold to. Glad I'm not the only one. If the bossman considers it important enough to actually live out, then so do I.

Like my buddy Ryan, who's still trying to limp away from the wreckage of depression. I forget sometimes that I'm not the only one with that gait and those burns. Glad I'm not the only one.

Like the dudes at the Bible study I attend on Monday nights, with whom I am almost entirely transparent. Glad I'm not the only one who loses a skirmish once in a while and still doesn't flee fast enough.

Like the older couple at my church, married a few decades now, who spent a lot of that time as missionaries. At least one of their kids is following their example. I'm glad to see that such a life of faithfulness can really happen.

Like my buddy Newberry, who is still serious about memorizing Scripture. Because of him, I'm getting there too.

Like my friend Michael, still the faithful dad, husband and servant to the Lord after all these years living the musician's life. If he has done it, so will I one day.

All those folks' lives, at some point or another, have encouraged me to keep getting up, to keep going and to keep pursuing life and godliness in Christ Jesus. In studying these (and countless others') lives, I've made a lot of decisions about how to spend my own. Sometimes I guess Jesus, as both the beginner and the finisher of our race of faith, becomes a little too distant for me to use in figuring out how to handle things as He would. Even snapshots of how these "part time saints" have worked through life clangs a bell deep within my soul. It's not just me that struggles, and it's not just me that will make it.

© Dixon J. Parnell, 2007.

Hey all:

Here is the iMix of songs from mid-July's request for folks' most beautiful songs. Thanks for everyone's thoughts... It lives on my iPod nowadays.

I think I'll do this again sometime-any ideas?

Here's the playlist, for those who may not have iTunes.

1. Nessun Dorma Luciano Pavarotti The World's Greatest Voices
2. Somewhere Over the Rainbow Israel Kamakawiwo'ole Alone in IZ World
3. Lakme: Flower Duet From Cerise The Very Best of Cinema & TV Classics
4. Returning the Smile You Have Had from the Start Emery The Question
5. Time In A Bottle Studio Group Jim Croce Music, Vol. 2
6. Chasing Cars Snow Patrol Eyes Open (Deluxe Edition)
7. The Color Green Rich Mullins A Liturgy, A Legacy & A Ragamuffin Band
8. Have You Ever? Shawn McDonald Simply Nothing
9. Your Love Is Extravagant Darrell Evans Trading My Sorrows - The Best of Darrell Evans
10. Over the Rainbow Keith Jarrett La Scala (Live)
11. Do Not Delay Radiant The Sound Of Splitting Atoms
12. Dienda Sting ...All This Time (Live)
13. Hallelujah Jeff Buckley Grace
14. Angel Sarah McLachlan Live Acoustic EP 2003

(Look in the comments here for folks' comments as to why they chose these particlar songs.)

I've been broke for a long time. It is a recent development in Dixon history that I can do things like fill up my gas tank all the way or spend more than about $10 on an "impulse buy" at the bookstore and it not bankrupt me.

I was traipsing around an old haunt yesterday and saw a vivid example from my history of what it meant to juggle broke with fully alive.

The old music store I frequented growing up.

During my financially anemic days at Hendrix, I made ends meet by pulling cables and dragging speakers around campus, mixing no name frat funk bands and calibrating speakers in lobby dorms to blast House of Pain with maximum fidelity until 2 am. Before that, I mowed lawns, did fast food and sold drum sticks. As a youngster, my primary motivation during those days was buying CD's. More often than not, when Mom pinched off that $10-20, or when the eagle flew at Auntie Anne's, I'd head straight to my local music bazaar and plunk most of it down, probably pre post-mowing shower.

I was reminded of those days yesterday, at FYE or whatever they call the one and only music store remaining at my hometown mall nowadays.

The place is a sad sight.

I don't know if I have just become cynical (nah, I'd say there's no 'if' there) or old (no 'if' there either-d'oh!), but that joint was no place for me. And it wasn't just because they were playing music in there at levels that would drown out mortar fire in the Green Zone, nor was it because the Entertainment Adventure Faciliatators or whatever they call the folks running the store came up far short the level of cool their counterparts of previous generations one time held for me.

The place was just sort of desperate, and I can show you how by means of me and mowing lawns.

You see, I am passionate about a lot of things, a lot of meaningless things to most people. The music I love falls squarely in that realm. In the course of time during which I have developed my laser-guided, fearsomely precise ear for stuff that sucks, I've built up a lifetime of memories, tied to specific songs, specific lyrics, heck, even specific VERSIONS of specific songs (or specific SOLOS!), that help me to make sense of my world. Some folks find that in books, TV shows, cooking, or even friendships; I find all of that in music. In the silence between Debussy to Jay Z, I organize my life.

That is all very powerful for me, so that is one reason why a part of me applauds the fact that the corporate music industry as a whole is more or less dead. I'm not such a crook that I just laugh and dismiss their travails with a 'sucks for you! I get my stuff free!'. I will certainly cop to being just such an idealist, however, who is glad that what has in so many ways been an IV to my soul has become unshackled in the past few years from a business model that celebrated a thirst for greed and crass manipulation of people whom God Himself chose to entrust with gifts for this otherwise dark world.

It gets hot in southwest Arkansas, and mowing lawns was tough-yet it was the best I could do in order to score say, that new Soundgarden or Delirious. Yet I did it, and more often than not felt like it was money well spent.

So it was just sad yesterday to be in that old store, which was stuffed way past fire code with piffle and crap, and to observe so plainly that They still don't get it. They try and convince people who regularly download for FREE what it is They are selling that they are getting a great! deal! on a Kriss Kross or Hilary Duff's "Greatest Hits" CD when they knock it down from $19.99 to 17.99. They'll argue with a straight face that it is a bargain to buy a used version of a Goo Goo Dollsalbum for $11.99 (for which They no doubt paid Joe Consumer no more than $1.50). My informal guess is that the average price for what they sell in that store is $20 or so, yet They still feign guffaws and howls of panic when a college kid acknowledges that he downloaded a Phish album for free. It is sad, and it pains me to see the heights from which a once revered and mighty industry has fallen. The sword on which it has fallen is one of its own very making, and it was forged with precision on the worn anvil of its own proud greed.

If you're interested, I can show you the spot on my calendar where I've got the dates penciled in for this coming October that Alicia Keys' and Bruce Springsteen's new albums are scheduled to drop. Unless both garner utterly abysmal reviews, my plan is to buy them both. (Oh man, I hope they come out during different pay periods...). I'm pretty sure this will be only the second time this millenium I have bought two CD's in the same year, physically bought them, not just borrowed them, downloaded them or gotten kid sis to send me some of the songs. It'll be an event, I tell ya.

That's saying a lot, coming from a dude who pushed a mower through 105° heat to buy his very first CD. I'll be genuinely surprised if it ever happens again.

© Dixon J. Parnell, 2007.

or, "A change of plans."

Yesterday marked eleven years since I first believed in Christ (aka "got saved," "met God," "came to know the Lord," "had a conversion experience," "found Jesus"; choose one of those or bring your own from home). I'm sort of weird with dates. The random ones seem to burn in my brain forever (18 August 2004, the date I moved to Dallas to start seminary); more important ones, I couldn't pull out of the air if a million bucks were pulling them closer to earth (when do the students come back to school this month? The twentieth? Twenty-first? It is this month, right?).

Well, I had planned all of last week to put something up here about the Lord's faithfulness over those years, my subtle improvement in expecting amazing grace from Him, how there have certainly been some confusing chapters during these eleven years, and how bookends like my remembering 8 August, 1996 serve as simple ways to evaluate God's work in our lives.

Well, the day came and went. I endured my ritual Hebrew vocabulary quiz humiliation yesterday morning, hadn't sleep well the night before, had sort of a stressful email exchange that afternoon which dissipated any remaing wind in my sails, took a fitful nap, put off studying for Friday's Hebrew final, and that was about all I had in me. Just sort of didn't get around to writing, and that was mainly due to my depression creeping on me. (It comes in vaguely predictable spurts, about as predictable as how well I might be able to remember Hebrew vocab.) I'm feeling it lift this morning, and am able to think a little bit more clearly.

So, that brings us back to eleven years' time of being a Christian.

The question that hit me this morning was this: is it still true how good and faithful God has been over these past 4,003 days of my life, even though I was ready to give up on 4,004 by about eight last night? Shouldn't I be every bit as thankful and full of praise for God, regardless of the toughness in my world? Hasn't He proven Himself? None of God's faithfulness changes simply because of our orientation toward the past. Paul sure seemed solid here, as did Jesus as did the Psalms. I'd say it is a measure of how real I hold all the supposed good things God has done in my history when I am honest about how tough it is to sing those praises when the depression has taken me over, or when I am highly stressed, or in fits over some silly girl.

It is easy for us to sing of God's faithfulness when all is well in our worlds, when material things are plentiful, houses truly seem in order and friends are everywhere we step. I guess it is our bent to use those muscles of praise the most when all is well in our world.

But what about when all seems lost? All seems shattered? When reality seems to testify that we are truly without God and without hope in the world? When we feel like the guys stranded in that mine in Utah right now?

I guess that's when we gotta learn to be left-handed*, when we have to learn to stretch and find muscles that perhaps we don't use that often. If those of us who are believers really do buy what we say we believe about God, then we're pretty sold on God's goodness and worthiness of praise. But sometimes that takes work to get from the chalkboard or the Bible and into the kitchen or the bank. Sometimes that requires new muscles.

Sometimes we gotta use our other hand, our "non-dominant" one, to continue fashioning lives of trust in Him. Sometimes we must utterly exhaust our eyes trying to parse how His plan could in fact still be perfect. Sometimes we gotta hop on one hobbled leg just to keep moving, and sometimes we have to allow, "I just can't do it today, but I know He's given me reason in the past and He'll make me able to do it again come some distant tomorrow."

And tomorrow's fine. I marked eleven years of a whole lot of tomorrows yesterday. Limp's still here though, but notice that I still made it to today.


*Or right-handed, if you are a leftie.

© Dixon J. Parnell, 2007.

My roommate gives me all sorts of grief for how I zero in on the same songs and listen to them over and over and over and over again. Well, you can imagine my surprise when I was listening to this song by Kanye West, for, oh, I don't know, the 150th time the other night, and something new about it hit me. I have no idea why, but I still smile every time I think about the song, that lyric, the whole situation.

Anyway, the first verse of it is the only one that I think really applies all that well; the rest of the song, well, I'm not really sure what all is going on in it. He is talking about his early days, before he became a "hip hop legend" and says that for a while there all he had was his girl (with whom he "split the buffet/at KFC") and his anxious dream of becoming a successful rapper. At some point, the chasing of that dream took him on a plane to somewhere else, and at some point he sent tickets for his girl, but "when she came to kick it/things became different." He apparently had been running around on her and we aren't told what happened from there (bad news there is a safe assumption I would think).

The line that snatched my attention the other night right as I was pulling into Bible Study was tucked right after this story, and it was "I'm trying to right my wrongs/but it's funny how them same wrongs helped me write this song."

I wonder if there is any one of us who cannot identify with Kanye there. Take a second to think about how the stupid, the selfish, the sinful, the dumb, the arrogant, the willfully wretched things you've done have helped you move along. (Thought about that lately?) I've been pondering this all week and I'm convinced that every one of us could sing that same lyric. And we SHOULD all sing that same lyric.

Would King David? Check.
Would the apostle Paul? Check and check.
How about Peter, held by most to have been one of the bedrocks in the earliest history of the Church, post-Jesus? Check, check, and, oh yeah, check.
How about Noah? Check.

How about real, i.e., non-Biblical people?

The Rev. Billy Graham? Got that covered.
The Pope (any of 'em)? Got that covered too.
The guy who wrote "Amazing Grace"? Yup.

(And don't forget about Ted Haggard).

I'm concerned about coming off as flippant in how I've put these folks' situations up here; please don't see that. I only put the ones that come to mind first, whose faults happen to have become public. And I sure don't condone the things that Haggard, or Billy Graham, or any of the popes did; don't see that either. Sin is never NOT a grave affront to a holy God-not during, after, or before the fact.

The point is this: I've got 'em, you've got 'em, those folks above had 'em and everybody you know does too. Perhaps what makes me smile about how Kanye handles his "wrongs" is that he seems to have moved on, admitted their being "wrongs," and realized that they've made him a better person. (That's all conjecture, I know, but I trust that you catch how loosely I'm holding Kanye West as an example of faith and piety.)

I've sure got 'em, and you sure do too. The question is, are they helping you compose something, or are you stuck somewhere in the past, pencil behind ear, trying to come up with what's next? I think you (and I) are just like Kanye: "them same wrongs" we see in our pasts, God works with them to craft something new and hopefully more righteous in our lives.

Maybe you should start with your wrongs-you can learn a lot from studying the very things of which you are most ashamed. Seems like Kanye West has and whether he realizes it or not, I'm pretty sure he sampled the idea from the Scriptures.

© Dixon J. Parnell, 2007.

[So this has not much to do with that title-I just think about that every time I look out the windows of an airplane. The clouds not far below always seem so inviting, yet the science-minded amongst us always remind us that there is nothing solid about those clouds. Think about that the next flight you take. I for one am convinced there is something in those clouds besides just a bunch of hot air.]

So this past weekend I attended a wedding in southern California. I'm confessing here and now that 85-90% of my going to this wedding was in the interest of being there for their wedding, with that other part simply being that I wasn't gonna pass up a good reason to head to southern California. (The happy couple are aware of this sentiment on many folks' parts; apparently people from coveted parts of the country get that all the time.)

Well, I flat had an extraordinary time. I've started thinking of it in terms of some of the most memorable and altogether fantastic 36 hrs (as that's how long I was there, open to close) I can remember. But it wasn't the fabled 'SoCal' vibe, or even the weather (although, no doubt about it, that is all every bit as glorious as They say).

Nope. It was just the people.

I had had a very tough week leading up to the wedding. Hebrew had really taken a swing toward unmanageable, my depression had started creeping on me toward the end of that previous week, sheer exhaustion seemed looming, I'd seen the knee doctor at the beginning of the week, and, to top it all off, I got mild food poisoning the Sunday starting that week. To say Dixon doesn't remember the week of 22-27 July, 2007 all that much would be a statement with which, yes, he would agree.

Well, it is only too poetic I guess that by the time I finally touched down at Radha's* parents' house that the food poisoning had mercifully run its course and, short of my being tired, I felt pretty stinking good.

So the wedding, that next morning, was fantastic. (Here is the view from the stands. Outside, mid morning, mid July. Nowhere else but southern California I think.)

I played a part in the Day's events. Helped make Communion happen during the wedding itself and oversaw the music and most of the reception. (Sorry, no pictures of that. Was kinda busy.) That was all pretty exhausting (as I had to think 'on the fly' for pretty much the entire time; haven't used some of those muscles since college or so), but also very very touching to be relied upon, no, trusted, to simply take complete ownership of a pretty serious part of Her Special Day.

When it was all said and done, I took a nap back at Radha's parents' place and then caught up with some friends to have dinner. Here is about half of that crew. Flew out the next morning at six, and got back to Dallas later that afternoon. (Here is me at DFW airport, home, for all intents and purposes.)

Well, this is pretty meandering, so I'll just get to what's in it for you. What has me glowing still from my 36 hrs in L.A. is simply the depth of my friendships with a few specific people. The bride, groom, her family, and a few others involved with that experience. Outside the little laboratory that has been my world the past ______ years, it is so deeply soul enriching to be amongst friends, to share a life event, in a place two time zones away and us all have a good time and a pure time and a non-school related, non-drama laden, non-clock watching experience together. A lot of us crashed at Radha's parents' place, and a couple of us borrowed Radha's mom's car to cavort around L.A. that Saturday night and into Sunday morning. I don't know about you, but I found that pretty special. I think that is a testimony to how wonderful the bride and groom are as people, and I for one am so deeply humbled to be able to call them friends. If you knew them, you would be jealous of me.

I have a few friends in my world from whom thanks really aren't necessary when I do things like go to their weddings, or take their late night phone calls, or dance around their scatteredness; I love those people, and am there because of that, not because of the hope they'll smile widely enough or pinch me off a $20. I'm not like that with everybody, but those with whom I am like that, those relationships I cherish and guard. And that's what took me out to L.A., and that's what I wasn't surprised to find out there.

One of the only things I remember from my required Biblical Counseling 101 in seminary is that people are not built (or able) to cultivate a wide circle of intimates, with whom they are vulnerable and transparent and highly open. Tandem to that, I've been told by another professor in that department that cultivating such relationships is a key to breaking free from a lot of the unhealthy patterns and behavioral issues that ensnare so many people my/our age.

So, all that reduces to this: I'm probably a bit selfish here, but the reason I went to Eric and Radha's wedding was that I decided a while ago that they were people in whom I wanted to invest in an intimate friendship, as two world class people I've grown to love and cherish over these years in seminary. And I have an eager expectation that that relationship will endure over the coming years, as they both finish seminary within the coming year and all of us continue trying to serve the Lord and going our separate ways. I don't really have the time, energy, or know how to cultivate many relationships like I've got with them, or say, the Geidls or Mark and Andrea. I know the ones I've got though, and they are worth every bit of the money, stress and time it took to fly to L.A.

Yeah, I guess it was pretty poetic that my system finally seemed to be cleansed of that food poisoning when I hit the ground at LAX.

And I've been fine ever since.


* Radha=the lovely bride

© Dixon J. Parnell, 2007.

[So I stole this idea entirely from the outstanding blog of a friend from church. I guess it is sort of a Christian idea to give credit where credit is due, so, go check hers out.]

I find studying other folks' perceptions of what beautiful is really, really interesting. So, I'm gonna do a survey-type thing.

In the comments, post info on no more than two of the most beautiful songs you know. I leave "beauty" entirely up to you.

Far be it from me to restrict "beautiful" at all, but I think that beauty is sort of unusual and non-mundane, so, maybe a starting point in what you decide to post is something that is NOT on your "heavy rotation"/"listen to while cooking dinner"/"blast it through the iPod while mowing the lawn" playlist. BUT-if that is the case, and it is something truly gorgeous or even breathtaking, then that's what we wanna hear.

Maybe another thing to think about is whether whatever is beautiful about your tune is something that others will be able to hold in common, to 'catch' without your explaining it right next to them. For instance, I find some John Mayer tunes beautiful, but for reasons that I'd have to explain, or even show you, in order for you to get. They need to be as self-standing as possible.

I've gonna give this some time to germinate, then I'm going to cull all of the songs into an iMix on iTunes so that we can all go and, in one click, either buy the whole playlist or just pick and choose. (Make sure you put enough info down there for me to be able to find your songs on iTunes!)

I for one am excited about having a list of songs that a diverse group of people all hold as individuals to be beautiful songs. It's gonna be colorful.

My two are below; in the meantime, take a look at this fascinating article to get you thinking about beauty and music. Then enlighten us and brighten our days.

My first song is Keith Jarrett's "Over the Rainbow." I know describing something artistic as 'perfect' is silly, but well, if I ever I felt like fighting to justify taking that risk I'd go there with this one. This sets the standard of 'beautiful' for me. How this one stirs so deep inside me goes far beyond just physics and acoustics-perhaps because it is perfect.

My other one is Sting's "Dienda." Every bit of this one is so layered, and lush, and well, just gorgeous, that I don't want to grow hard to how breathtaking it still is for me. For that reason, I don't listen to it all that much these days. Kind of like those expensive plates Mom has but I've never seen her use-I know quality when I see it, and would hate to use something world class for the same thing paper plates can do.

Seriously. We're waiting on you.

© Dixon J. Parnell, 2007.

If I subscribed to the idea of themes for seasons, mine for Summer 2007 would be simplicity. The most visible part of that is my being on a sort of health kick. I had never really cared enough to do conscious stuff that moved me toward health and wellness, but now that it is starting to develop into a habit I kinda like it. I hit the gym four or five days a week, make conscious, healthy choices about what I eat, I drink fruit smoothies with that soy protein stuff that is supposed to make me less hungry (that hasn't yet), along with a few other things.

I'm taking the diet thing outside the kitchen, too. I don't have any sort of TV connection in my apartment and, in fact, my old 1991 TV has laid down on me as well. So I am without TV in every sense of the word. No movies, TV shows on DVD, concert DVD's, none of that. And I have certainly noticed the void in my day that its absence leaves. Not that I was all much a serious TV watcher anyway, short of my couple of "appointment shows," but with the amount of free time this summer has presented (up until last Monday, when Hebrew started in earnest) had I had cable that no doubt would have been my preferred way of wasting time. Without it though, I'm fine.

Since my world has slowed down and I've moved to a quieter place (which is pretty far from all my buddies down in Dallas) I have taken the time to think a lot about my personal life and the habits I've developed. I have a strong belief that God is the author of all the good that we as people become, and that as Christians the inner work God's Spirit is always doing within is something we neglect only to our loss.

Well, I really didn't worry with things like that all that much this past year (or even these past few years, to be honest), but this summer a lot of gears of that sort have started turning in my soul. If you don't mind, I'm going to read to you a quote from the book I'm reading most mornings now. (This is from page 26, for those of you playing along at home.)

"In 'Teaching a Stone to Talk,' a collection of meditations on nature and human meanings, Annie Dillard remarks on how we also underestimate the power of God. Comparing Christians to brainless tourists 'on a packaged tour of the Absolute,' she wonders whether any one of us while at worship has 'the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke.' The churches are as if 'children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning.' And we wear straw hats and velvet hats to church, when 'we should all be wearing crash helmets' and the 'ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares.'"

Once in a while when I'm blitzing through a book, something jumps out and kills my merry page turning rhythm. That quote did it this morning.

Now I don't have a clue how to correct what bothers Annie Dillard so much, but I'm pretty sure I saw the cat she was talking about in my mirror early this morning.

I've been noticing for some time now the disconnect between the depth of the lyrics in the songs sung at church and the level of joy, or gladness, or even simple emotion, that I see in the folks singing them. If the lyrics to the songs we are singing, pasted there on the PowerPoint before us, are TRUE, and we really MEAN them, then what explains the dissonance between what we AFFIRM in singing those songs and how we really, truly ARE in reality? I've got an idea, and judging by the quote above I don't think this is all that specific to just me.

Here are some solutions (feel free to pick and choose):

Quit mindlessly listening to praise and worship music. Quit listening even to say, the Christian music station (even though it and only it plays music that is Positive and Encouraging for the Whole Family™). Think of it as a diet.

Be a little more discerning about some of the Christian books you're reading. (Here's a rough test: if they'll sell it at Wal-Mart, you might be able to do better.) Give your faith a workout and get a biography on Churchill, or Lincoln, or heck, the NFL, and try and spot God's hand in those events (you didn't think He was awake just in the Old Testament or in Acts, did you?)

When you pray, only pray what you really, consciously mean. (You'll no doubt be surprised at how much more time you have, and your family will probably love you for it.) Don't go to church every time the doors are open.

When you put in time with Christian friends, become conscious of cliches and throwaway statements that you don't really mean or didn't really think about before you said. (Don't tell someone you're praying for them if, well, you aren't and won't be.)

Pay attention, conscious, active attention, to what friends and family say in conversation. Do the work of making them know you care.

I went to a funeral today and found it quite profound. I don't make all that many funerals and I don't think I'll start, for a lot of the same reasons that concern me above. The law of diminishing returns is in play everywhere I look these days, and the finality of death, the somberness of someone's record on earth *stopping*, well, I don't want the returns of that reflection to diminish any time soon.

And I'd rather it stay that way, the same way I'd rather my times of listening to worship music, reading non-school God books and praying keep their power. Far too many formerly profound things in my world are now background noise (sort of like the opening act at most concerts). Work on some of that and I'm convinced that, and as my new friend Sam Cooke would say, it's been a long time comin', but a change is gonna come.

I for one am pretty excited. I got a lot of stupid stuff I'm carrying around that it's due time to drop. Knowing you, I suspect you do too.

© Dixon J. Parnell, 2007.

For almost the entire history of Christianity there have been a few experiences that the Church has given its highest stamp of holiness. These things are called sacraments. A partial list includes the taking of the Lord's Supper, baptism, confession, priestly ordination, and marriage. The value of that last one, marriage, is what is on my mind tonight.

I went to the wedding of two great seminary friends this afternoon. I try and make as many weddings to which I'm invited as possible, details permitting. I didn't really go into this one expecting all that much, save for the standard smile with my increasingly scattered group of friends.

Well, for some reason, from almost minute one of the ceremony, this one had the air of worship for me. All the traditional Bible verses were read. Most of the same songs were played on the piano. Most of the same candles, organ adornments and bridesmaids with those indomitable smiles all made their appearances. No dis to the bride and groom, but this one wasn't all that much different than all the others I've attended in the circles in which I run nowadays.

Funny the power tradition and habit can unload on you.

It had already begun to wash over me that I was far, far from the station of maturity and selflessness for which the bride and groom had gathered us there together. By the time the passage from 1 John came out I was feeling far more distant from my good friend Sam (the groom) than I had anticipated. That reading was only the most visible thing that struck me during the service.

I have allowed myself, quite innocently I am sure, to begin thinking that I'm "getting it together," that I'm starting to walk in some sort of godly maturity when it comes to relating to the non-male sex. I mean, I'm 26 years old, a seminary student, a teacher at a Christian school, student of lots of languages and lover of lots of music, reader of lots of books and chiseler of lots of credit cards. With age, you invariably start to sharpen at some things, right? Surely selfishness and immaturity abate proportionally with the distance you put between yourself and high school, right?

I think that's true only in worlds with the convenience of epilogues and narrators, like "The Wonder Years" or "Veronica Mars". Not in my world though.

I don't think I've ever loved a girl like Sam loves Charis (today's new wife), and I don't think I've ever shown a girl I'm worthy of her letting herself feel that way about me. By God's grace, no girl has ever gotten that impression that I was to that point, because she would have been misled. Of all the girls about whom I've supposedly cared most deeply, I've never been close to being able to say with sobriety before God, man, and her that I thought I had a realistic shot of holding up my promise to love her as Christ loved the church.

I don't really get much occasion to study healthy, godly, passionate relationships in my world these days. I do my thing, keep to myself, and try not to bother my roommate all that much. But I have started to venture out, thinking that it is good to put these theories, books and song lyrics into play in the real world with real women. Where I hope to end up with some girl is being able to stand before God, man and fiance and make that somber promise to daily lay down my life, wants and selfishness for her (and thus make her my wife).

What sane person ever is able to say that?

Sam did tonight, and so did Charis.

So did Dr. Baker and his wife, and they're still laying down their lives for one another some 40-50 years after making that promise. And nowadays their commitment bears witness to nerd seminary guys like me, in doing stuff like reading that passage from 1 John today (together) during the wedding.

Don't tell me, or Sam and Charis, or my friends Radha and Eric (who are marrying in late July) that it can't be done. Wonder if that's why Sam and Charis had Dr. and Mrs. Baker in the wedding, as a gentle reminder, or maybe a landmark, that two people committed to taking their vows literally can in fact make it work?

I've enjoyed the John Mayer tune "In Repair" for some time now, and the lyric below seemed more fitting for me than on any other day this afternoon:

"I'm in repair/I'm not together/but I'm getting there"

Gosh man, I sure ain't there, but I really am getting there. Really I am. And it seems that I learned a lot more from Sam and Charis' wedding today than I've learned from silence in prayer before the Lord this entire past week.

If something holy didn't happen there today, I'm not sure what it was then. I don't happen to think that beautiful music and girls in obviously uncomfortable dresses are what can make a person reflect upon their distance from the standard of Christ.

I should definitely go to weddings more often.

© Dixon J. Parnell, 2007.