G R A N D

I hereby recant the statements made in my “‘Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder’…”post from a month or two ago (http://mmmaaaaa.tumblr.com/post/17216994733) because they were dumb statements that weren’t actually grounded in the Word, which is the worst mistake to make in a public domain like this one. I’m dumb. Urgh.

My basic message was that nature is inherently beautiful because it’s the only aspect of the world that holds true to the way God made it at the beginning of time, yadah yadah yadah. But that’s wrong.

All of creation was affected by the Fall at the time of Adam. Paul confirms this in Romans.

18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time aare not worthy to be compared with the bglory that is to be revealed to us.

19 For the aanxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for bthe revealing of the csons of God.

20 For the creation awas subjected to bfutility, not willingly, but cbecause of Him who subjected it, 1in hope

21 that athe creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

22 For we know that the whole creation agroans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.

Man, and I even used that as a point I made in my Existence of God speech in speech class last semester. What a bust.

Don’t misrepresent the Lord with your goofy quasi-proverbial, pseudo-philosophical views on things, brothers. It’s a bad, prideful mistake to make.

Lesson learned.

jayarrarr:

I cannot speak in language
       of my feels or falls
                for reals, but only this —

I give myself
        to (only) you,
I’m (only) yours,
              you are my guide.

Please hold my hand
Take me there,
              take me where
You can take
         and partake
                        of me. 

I will follow.

To be sure, ’tis the mightiest of mighty fine days when it is one on which Güngör plays a show at a local venue and you are there as a guest.

Heck, you could be there as a non-guest (a pseudo-guest, perhaps)—as a ticketmaster, a security guard, a merch vendor, a table monitor, a bartender, a janitor, a reluctant accompaniment, or a fly on the wall—and be sure that you have come upon the mightiest of mighty fine days allowed this universe. You could even simply be within vicinity as a wanderer, a bloke, bearded, with a pipe and monocle on an evening stroll along the street, stranger to the entire Güngör art enterprise, and still be quite positive that as your decidedly lax gait carries you past the club to your right whose strobes are strobing and parking lot is chock-full, you have espied the structure in which probably one of the most incredible days of someone’s life if not yours as well is fleshing itself out in a melody right then and there. You can be so, so very sure.

—-

Last Friday, I went to see Güngör play at the Observatory in Santa Ana, and it was the downright most worshipful night of my life. I did a lot of thinking between that evening and today, a lot of reevaluating, and I came to the conclusion that worship is what I say it is now and is not what I said it was before. What I said it was before was what I thought it was before, but now I know it is what I think and say and know it is now. In other words, I’ve been enlightened.

Allow me some sky to divulge.

As defined by 1993 thru 2006-me, worship is simply the singing session during Sunday morning service. -reevaluation- As defined by 2007-me, worship is the singing session during Sunday morning service where people raise their hands and Mama makes me close my eyes. -reevaluation- As defined by 2008-me, worship is the singing session during Sunday morning service and on Friday nights at youth group where someone plays the guitar and people sing songs about God and raise their hands and Mama makes me close my eyes.

-reevaluation- As defined by 2011-me, worship is (I had surely nailed it then) a series of extoling words directed to God strung together by nice voices and steel strings that ring out E, A, D, G, and B, usually happening during Sunday morning service and on Friday nights at youth group where people raise their hands and Mama still makes me close my eyes.

If I learned anything in that time of constant revision, ’twas naught but a bit of new vocabulary.

It’s so sad that nearly two decades are what it took for me to finally grasp that musical worship is not just sounds, but a lifestyle, but praise the Lord for granting me that wisdom later rather than never. I would hope that he gives that bit of gee-whiz to anyone who doesn’t already know, lest they continue to “worship” without complete understanding and therefore, dare I say, without whole heart.

Worship sans music or any other specific vehicle is, put simply, an expression by all means plausible—Catch that? Not “any means accessible,” or even “any means necessary,” but all ever, as accessibility and necessity by our silly little human standards are minute—of our gratitude to God for who he is, what he does, and how he loves. If there exist parameters, they are humility, reverence, and service [Luke 4:8], which come with the person’s heart for worship in the first place. (I’m learning that it’s sacrifice, too, but that thought we can save for another time.) Worship is an action that manifests an emotion. It is a form of loving, I’d say, and as such it begs our utmost [1 John 4:19]. Love generally calls for 110 percent, after all, doesn’t it? What is love without effort?

Now, art, as Mr. Webster calls it, is the quality, production, expression, or realm, according to aesthetic principles, of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance. I’m struck by his clarity and yet absolute vagueness in definition, because it offers so much give to the doer of the action (that is, the artist). So much freedom.

It goes to say, then, that when you sow and cultivate worship with art, the ability to freely and extraordinarily love is your crop. Perhaps not sole ability, but something comprised of it. Right?

Now push a little further: narrow it down to a particular type of art, like, say, music. It goes to say that when you sow and cultivate worship with music, the ability to freely and extraordinarily love through sound is your crop.

By algebraic principles, that is a valid statement. Give me that, at least, if no poetic license (’cause if I do say so myself, and I do, that was pretty brilliantly put).

“Love through sound”. This is my new definition of musical worship, and this is why I bring up Güngör.

I read a blog post recently written by the Güngör himself in which he comments on the arguably bland, banal nature of most “Christian music” these days (http://awakengeneration.wordpress.com/2011/11/16/michael-gungor-on-the-problem-with-the-christian-music-industry/). He points out that it seems the understood first premise of said music is simple, sensical chord progression and more emphasis on the lyrics. The meat is in the words, essentially. More, he calls out that the entire industry is sadly but truly based in marketing rather than pure Biblical principle in that “Christian music” is called that not because “Christian” is a type of sound, which would be a practical reason for calling it such (i.e. we can listen to hip-hop music, rock music, alternative and jazz music) but because irrespective of the actual genre of a given song, the music is categorized by its use of “Jesus language.” The industry, as he puts it, encourages musicians to

…use whatever tools and mediums you have at your fingertips to do so. If you want to reach emo kids, then sing emo music but with Jesus language. The problem with this is that emo music is not simply reducible to certain sounding tones and chords. There are emotions and attitudes of different genres of music that are the soul of the music. You can’t remove the anger from screamo and have it still be screamo. It’s the soul of that music, whether that soul is good or evil is not the point, simply that it is the soul. So when you remove the soul from music and transplant the body parts (chord changes, instrumentation, dress, lights, and everything but the soul…) and parade it around with some more “positive” lyrics posing as Christian music, then what you have is a musical zombie.

And I must say that after some deliberation, I do actually agree. A lot. I think this is why I’ve never had an ear for The Fish or Air 1 or KWave, because all the music sounds the same. It’s almost always too… cool-sappy. Does that make sense? Like, there’s a lot of lovely, God-reverent emotion written into the lyrics, but the sound behind them is meant to echo mainstream tunes because those are apparently the only kinds the listeners will buy into. So, really, on the part of the musician or industry advocate, instead of making the “Christian music” pure, unadulterated worship for God, he caters to his money-paying audience with just an apostrophe in the chorus to the God who thought up music in the first place. Maybe a prayer or Hallelujah between verses to make sure it’s “Christian” enough.

There’s something seriously wrong with that.

Come on, guys! Every single note on the scale for octaves and octaves on can be used to glorify the Lord, and if it can, then it must! We will never praise Him enough or love Him enough or sacrifice enough to cover the tracks of our sinful nature. There is no enough (This is why we’re so smothered in grace!). So in handling such a gift and re-gift exchange as worship, we must give it our utter, absolute, nonpareil best. Our best. Just to scratch the surface.

I have had many favorite musicians in my genuinely-worshiping lifetime, including such talents as Phil Wickham, John Mark MacMillan, and yes, Güngör.

Their sounds transcend those of mainstream, because they are worshipful sounds. Every noise and silence is a tribute to the Lord, every twitter and pause a “Thank You, God, I love You, You’re wonderful.” Last Friday I was at my purest in worshiping because the music itself was pure and holy. They opened with “Let There Be,” which is a musical manifestation of the event recorded in Genesis 1:3. They sang the first verses in a dimly lit clubhouse, hues of blue and purple and red only whispering against the walls, repeating the line “Let there be…” with relatively soft-playing instruments and only a few empty sounds, and then, they paused for something like 15 seconds… much longer than the pause on the record… in silence… and in pitch blackness… until all at once! the drums and piano and guitar and violin and bass and vocals and everything else shattered into the chorus where they sang “Let there be light” and God creates light and the brightest white stroboscopes flashed and flashed and spun and burned against the walls and ceilings and faces and noises and I was charged into a stupor at the might of the Lord. It was an incredible opening song because it was an incredible creation, the creation of the world, at the hand of one incredible Creator.

Maybe this is the part where you object because I’m letting my personal taste in music define worship for me, but know that I believe this is how to appreciate art. Visual art speaks volumes in its intricacies as well as simplicities without a single word, so auditory art should work the same way, regardless of how the hearers may take it and in addition to the art of the verse, not as a background. Because not all Christian music industry contributors are poor-intentioned— that isn’t how I mean. I mean that the music should not comprise of “Christian” lyrics and “secular” sounds just to set Christian listeners apart from nonbelieving ones while still holding intact their coolness factor, their identity factor. It isn’t an identity thing, it’s worship.

I believe every artist should put forth whatever symphony he uses to sing to our King and put it forth to the utter best of his ability, not for reputation or for what money he garners, but for the sake of praising the one Lord and Savior of this universe, Jesus Christ. The focus must remain whom we claim it is, lest we take all this action in vain.

“Praise the Lord!
Praise God in his sanctuary;
    praise him in his mighty heavens!
² Praise him for his mighty deeds;
    praise him according to his excellent greatness!

³ Praise him with trumpet sound;
    praise him with lute and harp!
⁴ Praise him with tambourine and dance;
    praise him with strings and pipe!
⁵ Praise him with sounding cymbals;
    praise him with loud clashing cymbals!
⁶ Let everything that has breath praise the Lord!
Praise the Lord!” —Psalm 150:1-6

Just praise God.