Grace She takes the blame She covers the shame Removes the stain It could be her name
Grace It's a name for a girl It's also a thought that changed the world And when she walks on the street You can hear the strings Grace finds goodness in everything
Grace, she's got the walk Not on a ramp or on chalk She's got the time to talk She travels outside of karma She travels outside of karma When she goes to work You can hear her strings Grace finds beauty in everything
Grace, she carries a world on her hips No champagne flute for her lips No twirls or skips between her fingertips She carries a pearl in perfect condition
What once was hurt What once was friction What left a mark No longer stings Because grace makes beauty Out of ugly things
Grace makes beauty out of ugly things
Music: U2 Lyrics: Bono Synthesizers/programming: Brian Eno Additional Guitar: Daniel Lanois Produced by: Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno Engineered by: Richard Rainey and Alex Haas Assisted by: Chris Heaney Mixed by: Brian Eno
This song is so powerful. I needed to hear its message today.
Brennan Manning, in a talk given during a chapel service at Seattle Pacific University in 1997 moved me so deeply that I could not help but sob and let the God of love re-wire my heart just a bit - taking it closer to the true image of God.
I've got a one and a half year old son. He's incredible. Shortly after his birth, I went to the local bookstore and purchased a copy of The Giving Tree, by Shel Silverstein. I had actually never read it before. I was excited to read it both to myself and to my son. So, I wrote a nice little note to Robin in the sleeve about how we'll read this book to our kids for years to come, hugs and kisses, that sort of thing. A few months went by and I forgot about the book. Then one day, it caught my eye, and I thought, "Oh, yeah, I forgot we bought that!" So, I picked it up and in the quiet hours of a particular morning, I read it from start to finish. I hated it.
It made me so upset that I tried to talk Robin into letting me throw it in the trash can. "Why?" She asked, and added, "That's one of my favorite books of all time!"
"Really?" I asked surprisingly. Upon her "yes," I began to really try and find out what she thought was so great about it. The way I saw it was simple. A loving tree, gives herself away to a completely selfish & self-centered boy who never sees the generosity of the tree and takes advantage of it every chance he gets. I thought it was extremely dark and disturbing. A very sad story. I had such a charged reaction to it, but had no idea why. Then one day, I found out.
I wrote an entry called, "God's Love" in October of 2008. This was the day, I ran across Brennan Manning's teaching. So, traveling back in time,now, it's a cold morning in Seattle, and Brennan says...
I had a Jewish friend named Saul growing up in Brooklyn. Everyday, we'd run down to the park with our overalls and buckets, play in the sand and talk about what we were going to do with our lives when we got big.
They grew up and Brennan became a priest, and Saul joined the Army. Many years later, on a serendipitous day in Brooklyn, they ran into one another.
Saul had told me that he had recently converted to Christianity...I asked Saul, "What's your understanding of Jesus?" Saul replied, "Let me think about it and I'll tell you tomorrow." The next day, we met up and what he said to me moved me so deeply that I urged to have it published. A year later he did and it's become the best selling book in the Harper & Row publishing company. This, Saul said, is my understanding of Jesus:"
"When the tree gives himself away to the boy," Saul said, "I'm reminded of when Paul writes in Philippians, that Christ, "Emptied himself...he emptied himself."
When I heard this, I broke down and sobbed so heavily that I had to sit down with my head between my knees. It dawned on me that the reason I hated the book, was that I was the little boy in the story. I wanted him to repair the tree or give back to it, or somehow, at least deserve the tree's generosity! But he was clueless. Like me. It was in that moment, in the "bright darkness of faith" that I realized, God loves me not because of what I do or don't do, say or don't say...in faith and in faithlessness, in prayer and in prayerlessness, in glory and in shame, in victory and rotten sin, in power and in weakness, in clean or dirty garments - he gives himself away so that I might feel loved, accepted, and experience true joy.
My wife and I headed to Frederickburg this past weekend to kick back and relax. Granzy and Grandad offered to baby sit for us so we could go catch a movie. There are only 3 screens at the theater in Fredericksburg, and Watchmen seemed to be the most fun. So, we got our popcorn and soda, tickets, and sat in the empty stadium seats at 3:15pm.
As Zach Snyder's film rendetion of Alan Moore's celebrated comic book came to life, it's hues were dark and fragments of the pain of humanity filled the viewing area. It was a work of art. It was beautifully and skillfully crafted. The film itself was incredible. But the story....ah, the story...
The story, (without giving it away), had NO HERO! There wasn't a single character to cheer for. The line of good and evil was so awfully blurry! You can clearly tell who you're supposed to root for, but even then, you end up not liking anyone. Perhaps that's the response to the line from the trailer, "You've never seen superheros like this," yeah, I hadn't and I don't care to again. This film will not stand the test of time other than being another filming breakthrough by Snyder. The story portraid in the movie, is one in which has no heros. What ever happened to making the hero good and the bad guy evil? Those are the types of stories that will stand the test of time.
Star Wars had heros. It was clear. You never had to think about it, or even judge them. During Watchmen, I found myself torn. Do I root for the rapist hero, the murdering hero, the blow your friend up hero, or the adulterous hero? I can climb into my grays and be okay with it, but I don't want to. Something inside me would much rather see black and white. Good vs. Evil, where the good is actually good, and the evil is actually evil, not blurring them along the same line. That's what makes Star Wars so powerful. You can root for Luke and Leah, and the rest. It's easy and you feel good doing it.
As for Watchmen, I wish the integrety and strength of the skillful and artistic filming had be laid along side of a story of the same qualities.
