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Until it Sleeps

so i have been anxiously waiting for Metallica's new album: Death Magnetic (the title being a commentary of how people are attracted to death music), which came out today: September 12 worldwide .... except for India. after that realization, i thought i'd get it from iTunes, but they say i can't purchase anything outside of the US.

i'm stuck... i can't get it.

but while i have Metallica on my mind, i thought i'd write about how i relate to one of their songs from a less remembered album, Load,  that signaled their apparent fall: Until it Sleeps.

i think when you listen to artists, especially those of the heavy variety, when they write songs from the heart, of pain, agony, death, fear, etc., you see a picture of someone crying out for salvation. that's one thing i appreciate about Metallica's lyricist... while some songs are uncomfortable (like "God that failed"), you get a glimpse of the heart of a guy that many relate to... and sometimes even myself.  the only thing is in his songs, he just never finds Christ as the source of his deliverance.

Until it Sleeps is one such song.  this demon, pain, this "thing" grips him, stains him, the hate chains him, and he's begging to be torn open so this thing can be rid of....  "hold me, until it sleeps"...

"You feed it once and now it stays...." 

It grips you solely.
It stains you solely.
It hates you solely.
It holds you solely.
.. until it sleeps.

it's sin.  you feed it once and now it stays.  when i find myself in the often cliched "backslide", this is what causes it.  i fed it, and it stayed.  this can sum up my last month or so... when a my mind gets trapped in its sinful self, forgetting that these things have been put to death in Christ. it gripped me, stained me, hated me, held me.  in every aspect of my life it tried to destroy... and it's my fault.  i fed it.

"Wash me 'til clean."

there's only on person who washes until you're clean.... and thankfully i am clean, eschatologically speaking... but in the now, i go back to the gracious God who shows me mercy through Christ on the cross.  i don't need it to sleep, i need it put to death... and it has.

i just keep forgetting.... and i feed it yet again.    and it stays.

 

Sunday school Nazi

So I’m going to write a real entry as opposed to a fake one.  After witnessing something the last couple of Sundays, I had to share this story…

First off, let me say that I do not question this woman’s faith, her sincerity, and her love for the Lord.  In fact, it’s quite intense as she breaks down when sharing her faith.  It’s just that she has a rather strange and probably ineffective way of showing it when teaching songs.

So at my parish during Sunday school assembly, this lady teaches a song to the kids.  As most churches are here in Kerala, the girls are on one side, and the boys on the other.  But with the unusual configuration of this sanctuary, the boys are also behind the girls, while being on the other side.  So this lady has to walk up and down the aisle when teaching songs, and when disciplining the boys, she’s behind the girls.

Another tidbit of how they do this.  They don’t print out song sheets when teaching a new song.  What she does is tell them to take out their notebook and write down the lines as she reads them off.

All of this is in the sanctuary.  I’m sitting in the choir section, which is facing the side where the girls are.  The boys sit on the first set of pews that face the front and to my right.  So from my vantage point, I can see almost everyone except for the boys in the very back, and the little little ones in the very front. 

Knowing all that, let me just share a few incidents with you….

• When speaking out words to this song, “Make me a blessing”, some of the boys who are of the talkative mischievous variety, were just talking and joking around.  So the lady comes up to them and yells at them for not writing down the words, and says “This is Sunday school! We come here to learn songs! So write!”
• She sings this song starting off relatively high, but then when it gets to the chorus, it gets unbearably high.  Even the girls couldn’t reach that high.  So I was watching some of the 9th graders controlling their laughter because of how high this song goes and even the lady’s voice is cracking… yet she never adjusts to sing lower… she just pushes along.  The girls then just decided not to sing when it came to those high parts of the chorus.  When the lady saw that some weren’t singing, she yells at them asking why aren’t they singing… “Take deep breaths and sing!”
• The boys were being mischievous again while singing a song.  She yelled at them, “This is Sunday school.  This is not fun!” (i.e. Sunday school isn’t fun)
• While teaching “Blessed be the name”, some of the girls just weren’t singing all that loudly.  So she yells at them, “When you have good things happen to you, you must sing to the Lord and praise him!”  Now if that were said in the context of a worship leader leading worship, okay… it sounds okay – slightly wrong because even when bad things happen you should do that – but it sounds okay.  But she was yelling it.  She was commanding it. She was ordering it.

These last two incidents happened yesterday and made me think of the name “Sunday school Nazi.”  Who knows… maybe this helps the kids.  I don’t know.  Judging by the expression of some of the kids, I’d say they find it just as amusing as I do.

Even though I don't like her anymore...

It's Natalie's birthday.

Do I still use this? I guess I just did.

I didn't forget

...that I have a xanga. I just had no inspiration to write. But now that finals have started, I feel like writing something.

that's all.