Heading to Cleveland, TN today with my band. We’ll be playing mainly for students but the show is also open to the public. I’m using a new second guitar player for the first time ever. We’ve never met and never rehearsed. So that should be interesting. (Pray for Josh, my usual second. He is with his father who is having health problems.)
You can go to shaungroves.com any time to see where we’re heading next and how to get tickets.
Hope to see you at Lee. Pics and more when I return.
-SG
Yesterday “What’s Wrong With This World” went for adds at CHR and ROCK radio. Here’s an excerpt from an article I recently wrote on the beatitudes explaining what’s behind the lyrics:
MATTHEW 5:3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
Jesus addressed the spectators scattered on the hillside. “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” he announced. How strange. How seeker insensitive of Him. This is His first opportunity after all to make a good impression on such an enormous number of potential converts, a multitude of spiritual seekers. Why start like this, with poverty? He might as well have said, “You’re a loser. There’s nothing good in you and you have nothing of value to offer me or anyone else. You’re worthless inside.”
And well, that’s what He meant. The first step in being a disciple of Christ, the thing we must know first is not, “God loves you and has a plan for your life.” That’s true: God loves us no matter how messed up we are. But apparently what Jesus wants us to know first is just how messed up we are. Perhaps that’s because love is more precious when we understand how little we deserve it.
I watched Billy Graham on Larry King Live shortly after teen gunmen had slaughtered their classmates in Littleton, Colorado. Larry was racked by the same question that kept so many millions up at night, “Why did this happen?” And as Reverend Graham paused to collect his answer, I raised my hand at home, ready to rant. I just knew it was Marilyn Manson, video game violence, MTV, absent fathers… That was the list evangelical America had raised me to recite at moments like this. The problem, it had been taught to me, was always out there in “the world”, in need of legislation or a good boycott. But Billy Graham, much wiser than I, seemed to hear me and calmly explained what’s really wrong with the world, “Thousands of years ago, a young couple in love lived in a garden called Eden, and God placed a tree in the Garden and told them not to eat from the tree….” As it turns out, this world is not what’s wrong with me. I’m WHAT’S WRONG WITH THIS WORLD.
I’m poor in spirit, nothing good in me when I entered the world, incapable of thinking and acting rightly. My heart’s twisted, torn, tempted. And aren’t we all. For all have sinned and don’t come close to measuring up to God’s perfection. As Calvin wrote, “He only who is reduced to nothing in himself, and relies on the mercy of God, is poor in spirit.” [Commentary on a Harmony of the Evangelists, Matthew, Mark and Luke, I, by John Calvin (1558: translated by William Pringle, 1845: Eerdmans, n.d.) p. 261] So I pray to God with him… “Nothing in my hand I bring/Simply to thy cross I cling/Naked, come to thee for dress/Helpless, look to thee for grace/Foul, I to the fountain fly/Wash me, Saviour, or I die.”
Suppose later today a news item scrolls across the bottom of CNN “Archaeologist disproves the bible.” You search the internet for more and find that in fact scientists and scholars agree that the ancient scrolls found somewhere in the Middle East recently predate the oldest versions of scripture known to exist. The scrolls contain discernible bits of Matthew that read differently from the bible we have always accepted as true. The most troubling difference? A passage in which the Pharisees press Jesus about the after-life. According to Jesus, according to these ancient scrolls, there is no Heaven. None. We die and that’s all.
If these scrolls are proven to be authentic and true, do you still choose to believe everything else about Christianity? Do you still follow Jesus?
I presented this scenario to a small group of youth at my church years ago and a guy I considered one of the leaders, the most mature and knowledgeable of the crowd, answered first: “No. Why would I?”
Is the only reason for following Jesus the assurance that I will follow Him beyond the grave into Paradise? I’d answer NO. But that’s because my motivation for following is deeper than what I get from following. But it wasn’t at one time. It got that way by asking the question of myself one day: “If there was no Heaven I wonder if I would...”
This same kind of question, adapted for the moment’s situation, is helpful in getting at my real motivations. I find myself wondering WHY I do and believe so many things. And this is how I peel back the layers of myself to reveal the heart of my motivations. I remove the benefit to myself from the situation (Y), the obvious prize (X), and ask “Now, without X, would I keep doing Y? Why? What would still motivate me if X went away tomorrow?”
With no need for a paycheck why would I do my job? Without need for sex why would I marry this person? Without a need for applause why would I write this song?
This kind of questioning has so often lead me to the most important answer: Why. So go ahead. Imagine there’s no Heaven.
This is some of what you’ll find at brand new Lowercase People, an on-line magazine focused on music, arts, literature and social justice.
AN EXCERPT FROM THE “REGULARS” SECTION:
“Two hundred years or so before we began to fancy ourselves the occupiers of a No Spin Zone, William Blake talked about “mind-forged manacles,” metal clasps forged by the mind and for the mind. He heard the clank of the manacles whenever human beings opened their mouths; the dirty trick whereby we pull the wool over our own eyes, denying ourselves the ability to think carefully or handing over to a talking head, a career politician, or an ideological authority our capacity to say two and two make four. Or as Simon and Garfunkel tell us, we hear what we want to hear and disregard the rest. News networks understand as much. They have to sell the news, after all. What’s news? Whatever they can sell as news. They can’t change what we’ll buy into. They have to anticipate it. If we want to hear tell of Michael Jackson’s woes more than we want to know about a genocide in Darfur, the Jackson trial will be the news. To survive, the networks have to play to our “felt needs.” In this sense, we are the newsmakers. They’re the sales force.” From “Are You Reality Based?” by david dark
AN EXCERPT FROM THE “JUSTICE” SECTION:
“We walked alongside a man named Cassie—a white man who has thrown himself into the Kayamandi community: a man who has slept in its shacks and whose daughter attends its schools (a decision that caused an outrage among the white community). Cassie calls Victor his boss, and an especially good one at that. Together they work for the good of Kayamandi. Black and white, rich and poor. The best friends have big dreams for the future. “ (From “Out Of Africa” by jon foreman)
AN EXCERPT FROM THE “MUSIC” SECTION:
“I’ve heard of painters who have torched all of their art, set it all on fire to start painting with a clean slate. That’s not really an option for a band.” (Feature by reeve oliver)
I need your help. I’m writing an article, due too soon, for The Worshiper, a new magazine “for the people in the pews”, on the Church’s role in hurricane relief efforts. I’ll talk about the philosophy of mercy showing, why we should be involved as Christians etc and then share a story or two of churches or individuals out there making it happen in real life. I have stories of my own but wanted to give Shloggers a chance to chime in before I start typing.
Tell me your story. What are you or yours doing to aid those affected by Katrina? Post a comment here or e-mail me at shaungrovesfanmail@charter.net. Subject: “Katrina story”.
Heading to Cleveland, TN today with my band. We’ll be playing mainly for students but the show is also open to the public. I’m using a new second guitar player for the first time ever. We’ve never met and never rehearsed. So that should be interesting. (Pray for Josh, my usual second. He is with his father who is having health problems.)
