Posts Tagged ‘live more musically’

Live More Musically session 5

Why do we worship on Sunday?

The Jewish people have never forgotten on what day is the Sabbath – the seventh day of the week
•    then, we hear of a group of Jews who worship on the first day
o    something so great happened on the first day that they saw time in a new way
o    N.T. Wright – the change from Saturday to Sunday is one of the biggest evidences of the resurrection of Christ
o    The Lord’s Day – the early Christians called it the “eighth day” – what God had done is so huge that the seven days couldn’t contain it

The change to Sunday touches billions of people today – people on Sunday often do something different than they did every other day

Time
Practices remind us of Discipline
Breath in singing reminds us of Sabbath – we have to stop in order to breath
Dissonance reminds us of Suffering

Only when notes are playing in time do they make any sense

daily quiet time? – comes from a Western, modern idea that humans are like machines – but humans are like music
•    we treat people like machines that do the same thing every day over and over again until you die
•    the early church structured their lives around Christmas (Christ’s birth) and Easter (Christ’s resurrection)
o    before Christmas, spent four weeks preparing – Advent
o    after Christmas, celebrate what God  has done
o    for 40 days, Lent – leading up to Easter
o    days after Easter, celebrate Easter

o    we treat in our churches one day – Christmas and one day – Easter
o    Andy’s family during Advent –  fast by eating vegan every meal – remember every meal that there is no meat and no dairy – light Advent candles and read Scripture
•    12 days of Christmas to Epiphany – they feast
•    40 days of Lent, fast from foods
•    Easter, feast

feasting and fasting

Humans aren’t made to be monotonous beings – we need variety

Let’s live meaningfully in time now anticipating eternal time

Psalm 84

session 3 was a Q&A. Q&A’s are difficult to take notes on so…

Live More Musically session 4

read Psalm 22v1-18 alongside playing “Prelude 8 in eb minor” by J.S. Bach

When we set out to live musically, I wonder if we realize it’s going to involve minor keys
•    minor key – works in reverse way of major key
o    major key – resonates, works with the way of the universe
o    but minor keys – the key of dissonance – create in our ears that we can’t consciously hear it – something is not quite settled

Dissonance | Suffering

Andy – went to voice coach and realized that he has a natural limit to his voice (8 notes) and if he goes out of that he will lose his voice
•    so, the thing he loves to do – leading worship – he can’t

Also, liked to write
•    part of editing Regeneration magazine – put in a lot of time, effort, and fundraising, and it eventually went “down the tubes”

Andy fell into the miry clay
•    wife got a job in Swarthmore, but he missed Boston (his home)

What does it all mean? All those years of friendship and ministry? – what did it mean to grieve that?

What in your life is dissonant?

This is part of living musically

fugue – musical composition of “voices”
•    fugue weaves between major and minor – eventually as you develop the minor key it ends of in a major key and vice versa
•    as they work together, you hear a sense of harmony

•    better metaphor for Christian life than you are a sinner (dark, deep, minor), then Jesus (happy), but you’re still a sinner (dark, deep, minor)

Christian life is more like a fugue – multiple voices, keys, tensions playing at the same time – theme takes time to develop

Some things are still unresolved

fugue – Bach deploys dissonance to bring about beauty
•    Fugue 8 in d# minor by J.S. Bach

Psalm 22v1-18 – greatest explanation of human dereliction
•    after v18, the psalmist immediately changes his mood – “you have rescued me”
•    when he is mocked, he remembers when he was delivered, and looks for his second deliverance

What can we learn from people who lived musically?

Practice | Disciplines

•    discipline – an uninteresting thing that you do over and over again until you get good at it

•    the Christian life is basically about the same thing

Breath | Sabbath
•    set aside your work and do not do what you normally do

•    we need to breath in order to talk/sing
o    somehow we think we can do ministry without resting

•    If we want to live more  musically as Christians, we have to learn to stop what we are doing – take a “breath”
o    take a day of rest

Psalm 131

Early church read, “pray without ceasing,” and asked, How do we do that?
•    They said it has to do with breathing
o    when you breath in, prayer; when you breath out, prayer
•    Prayer
“[breathe in] There is Another, [breathe out] who lives in me.
[in] There is Another, [out] who completes me.
[in] There is Another,  [out] whose righteousness is mine.”

In prayer distractions become the material of our prayer