Okay, I hate to post another item about the GMA Awards, but I just found this online. It’s a performance I’ve tried to describe to a few people by the David Crowder Band of the song “Everything Glorious.” Don’t know if it will have the impact that it had live, but I thought what they did here was a pretty artful addition to a great song.
Popularity: unranked [?]
Found out about this over at ChurchRelevance.com. A guy has decided to create shirts to sell on behalf of World Vision’s relief efforts for victims of the earthquake in Sichuan Province in China. The goal is simple: 50,000 shirts and $1,000,000.
There are 5 million people who are homeless because of this earthquake. Thousands of others lost their lives. Pitch in to make a difference. If you don’t need a t-shirt, you can just donate here.
Popularity: 35% [?]
Katie couldn’t walk. She couldn’t talk. She couldn’t eat or drink without a tube that plugged into her stomach or nose. She wasn’t even able to communicate a complete thought the way that you and I can. She lived in a wheelchair and was 100% dependent on her parents her whole life.
Then on December 28th she stopped living. Or perhaps she started.
I don’t want to imply that I knew Katie very well. I just met her once and only know her mother, Dawn, slightly better. But a good friend and colleague wrote this kind account of Katie’s memorial service and I found it pretty moving so I wanted to share it here.
Lessons from Katie
It was a cold and wintery Colorado afternoon, although the sun did hang in the partly cloudy sky. Traffic on the interstate buzzed by, oblivious to the proceeding inside the church. The only odd thing someone might have noticed was the crowded parking lot – not typical for a Monday.There were more people present for this memorial service than usually occupy the sanctuary. The number of folks gathered spoke something to me of how her life had touched so many in just a few short years.
We came together to…what? Pay tribute to a life well lived? Celebrate the “home going” of a saint? Honor the family? Share their grief? It wasn’t apparent, even as we entered the great room. There was a somber tone, a conspicuous quiet, a lack of the usual laughter and conversation that takes place before a service.
The video screen at the front showed pictures of the girl, at various stages of life. Shots of her at the hospital, obviously physically afflicted in some way. There she is with her doting mother. Now she is a toddler being hugged by a relative. And the wheelchair…an ever-present part of her life. She spent all her years confined to a bed or in that wheelchair.
Katie suffered a particularly cruel sort of physical condition. Severely affected, she was very small and most fragile. Her head fell to one side, her eyesight unfocused on anything close…she seemed to be gazing off at something, someone in the far distance. She communicated with a simple smile, or by an utterance in an unknown dialect…sometimes grunting or groaning in such a way as to seem in agony. Those close to Katie knew her communications. They could tell in some way what it was she wanted them to know: her joy at someone’s kindness, or her displeasure at the country music being played on the radio. Read the full post here.
Popularity: 23% [?]
Merry Christmas, one and all!
(Please feel free to enjoy and share this at will using the embed code at youtube or this download link of the mp4 video. Sorry about the lousy audio quality!)
Popularity: 28% [?]
“Life is so full of pain,” I said, upon learning of another friend’s hardship, but not really thinking of anything but my own disappointment and trials.
“But it’s also really full of happiness and hope,” she said without blinking in the way that makes people want to be around her all the time.
That’s how I want to see life this Christmas.
Popularity: 26% [?]
I don’t know if you’ve ever been home alone and someone shows up just when you need them, unexpectedly, but that’s what this song is about. In fact, it’s a very spiritual song for me.
As a challenge to myself, I’ll often write with strong allegories to see if I can maintain the “cloak” the whole time. I also think it makes music more interesting when things are left a little up to the listeners’ imagination. After all, Carly Simon still hasn’t revealed who the subject of “You’re So Vain” is…
Popularity: 17% [?]
