Hillekes singing Wondrous King, All-Glorious

Hearing this tonight reminded me of the power of music in this setting. I would hope that more and more of us would think of this as a great way to encourage and minister to those who are ill and bed-ridden. This is exactly how I’d want to be encouraged. I’d want to hear the Psalms and the great hymns of the Christian Church to remind me in my time of struggle.

When you don’t know how to comfort someone with words, why not just sing to them. Then you don’t have to worry about saying the wrong thing. Just remind them in song of what the Lord’s promised to us and to them.

This singing was a blessing to us and it gave us something to put our energies toward. It also was a picture of our unity in wanting to see our brother be encouraged as he laid in that hospital bed. We weren’t each just offering our own solitary words of encouragement, but rather as an extension of the church we were unified in our encouragement and glorifying it in a way that our words just couldn’t do alone.

Well, this post has been four months in the making for several reasons: 1.) I just haven’t made it a priority to post and 2.) I wanted to let some time pass and write about it after the newness and excitement had worn down.

Sarah and I began taking the Bradley Method of Natural Childbirth classes at Sarah’s request. At first, I was skeptical and not really enthusiastic about going to the classes because I thought, “Well, we’ve already had 2 kids. Why start something new on #3?” I’m so thankful that we ended up going.

We took our class from a local certified Bradley Method instructor in Monroe, Louisiana with two other couples who were both having their first child. The classes were a great time of encouragement and group awareness of things that we could do to prepare ourselves for the birth. The classes provided a venue to purposefully set aside a time each week to talk about the expectations of the birth and the things that we needed to decide. It brought Sarah and I together and allowed us to really feel like a team.

The class was a great encourager to me as a third time father-to-be. On the previous two births I felt that I was at the mercy of the nurses and doctors to tell me what was happening at the births of our sons. I didn’t know what stage we were at or what to expect. I often thought when things happened during the lengthy delivery, “Is this good, bad, or expected?”. The Bradley Method trained and educated both of us to know when and how things would happen, so that I could be more than a confused bystander during the birth, but an educated coach and advocate for my wife.

The actual birthing method put forth by Dr. Robert Bradley in the 1960′s was to view the birthing process in a natural way that focused on healthy moms and babies coming into the world in due timing without the use of medicines and imposed timing.

This is exactly what happened for us. We were able to have a healthy baby boy despite going in to the hospital with our son in a breach position. Our wonderful OB was able to turn the baby by procedure of “external cephalic version.” That’s just a fancy way of saying she  moved the baby with her hands  similar to kneading bread.

Elias Warren Richey was born almost 24 hours later without the use of any pain medication or epidural. It was due to the preparation and the thinking behind the Bradley Method. I’m so glad we took the class and I highly recommend the class to first, second, third, or 5th time moms AND dads.

This is the stuff of movies. Two brothers who differ on the question of God. I recently watched the Grand Valley State University Debate between these two men. They discussed the Iraq War, the existence of God, and other controversial topics. Contrary to what you might think, Christopher Hitchens is pro-Iraq war and his Christian brother thinks the war unjustified and wrong.

Also, Peter Hitchens’ new book, The Rage Against God: How Atheism Led Me to Faith looks to be very interesting. See the clip promoting the book:

Peter Hitchens Author Interview–The Rage Against God from Gorilla Poet Productions on Vimeo.

Here is a YouTube video clip from the debate between the two brothers back in 2008 at Grand Valley State University:

It brings a smile to my face to think that Peter Hitchens answers and opposes his own brother. Just thought I’d share these links with you in case you hadn’t seen or heard of them.

Introduction: Celebrating Easter

So how can we learn to live as wide-awake people, as Easter people? Here I have some bracing suggestions to make. I have come to believe that many churches simply throw Easter away year by year; and I want to plead that we rethink how we do it so as to help each other, as a church and as individuals, to live what we profess. I am speaking here particularly from, and to, the church I know best. Those who celebrate in other ways will, I think, be able to make appropriate adjustments and take whatever they need to apply to their own situations.

For a start, consider Easter Day itself. It’s a great step forward that many churches now hold Easter vigils, as the Orthodox church has always done, but in many cases they are still too tame by half. Easter is about the wild delight of God’s creative power—not very Anglican, perhaps, but at least we ought to shout Alleluias instead of murmuring them; we should light every candle in the building instead of some; we should give every man, woman, child, cat, dog, and mouse in the place a candle to hold; we should have a real bonfire; and we should splash water about as we renew our baptismal vows. Every step back from that is a step toward and ethereal or esoteric Easter experience, and the thing about Easter is that it is neither ethereal nor esoteric. It’s about the real Jesus coming out of the real tomb and getting God’s real new creation under way.

But my biggest problem starts on Easter Monday. I regard it as absurd and unjustifiable that we should spend forty days keeping Lent, pondering what it means, preaching about self-denial, being at least a little gloomy, and then bringing it all to a peak with Holy Week, which in turn climaxes in Maundy Thursday and Good Friday . . . and then, after a rather odd Holy Saturday, we have a single day of celebration.

All right, the Sundays after Easter still lie within the Easter season. We still have Easter readings and hymns during them. But Easter week itself ought not to be the time when all the clergy sigh with relief and go on holiday. It ought to be an eight-day festival, with champagne served after morning prayer or even before., with lots of alleluias and extra hymns and spectacular anthems. Is it any wonder people find it hard to believe in the resurrection of Jesus if we don’t throw our hats in the air? Is it any wonder we find it hard to live the resurrection if we don’t do it exuberantly in our liturgies? Is it any wonder the world doesn’t take much notice if Easter is celebrated as simply the one-day happy ending tacked on to forty days of fasting and gloom? It’s long overdue that we took a hard look at how we keep Easter in church, at home, in our personal lives, right through the system. And if it means rethinking some cherished habits, well, maybe it’s time to wake up. That always comes as a surprise.

And while we’re about it, we might write some more good Easter hymns and take care to choose the many good ones already written that celebrate what Easer really is rather than treating it as simply our ticket to a blissful life hereafter. Interestingly, most of the good Easter hymns turn out to be from the early church and most of the bad ones form the nineteenth century. But we should be taking steps to celebrate Easter in creative new ways: in art, literature, children’s games, poetry, music, dance, festivals, bells, special concerts, anything that comes to mind. This is our greatest festival. Take Christmas away, and in biblical terms you lose two chapters at the front of Matthew and Luke, nothing else. Take Easter away, and you don’t have a New Testament; you don’t have a Christianity; as Paul says, you are still in your sins. We shouldn’t allow the secular world, with its schedules and habits and parareligious events, its cute Easter bunnies, to blow us off course. This is our greatest day. We should put the flags out.

In particular, if Lent is a time to give things up, Easter ought to be a time to take things up. Champagne for breakfast again—well, of course. Christian holiness was never meant to be merely negative. Of course you have to weed the garden from time to time; sometimes the ground ivy may need serious digging before you can get it out. That’s Lent for you. But you don’t want simply to turn the garden back into a neat bed of blank earth. Easter is the time to sow new seeds and to plant out a few cuttings. If Calvary means putting to death things in your life that need killing off if you are to flourish as a Christian and as a truly human being, then Easter should mean planting, watering, and training up things in your life (personal and corporate) that ought to be blossoming , filling the garden with color and perfume, and in due course bearing fruit. The forty days of the Easter season, until the ascension, ought to be a time to balance out Lent by taking something up , some new task or venture, something wholesome and fruitful and outgoing and self-giving. You may be able to do it only for six weeks, just as you may be able to go without beer or tobacco only for the six weeks of Lent. But if you really make a start on it, it might give you a sniff of new possibilities, new hopes, new ventures you never dreamed of. It might bring something of Easter into your innermost life. It might help you wake up in a whole new way. And that’s what Easter is all about.

Excerpt from Surprised by Hope by N.T. Wright from pages 255-257

Karin has one of the most moving voices that I’ve heard in my 25 years upon this earth. She throws so much into her music. I don’t know if that is the total of my attraction to this group or if it is a combination of things. I can tell you that I like the mix of folk, jazz, & light rock. Linford Detweiler is quite the pianist and composer/arranger. There is enough piano and at all the right times.

The first song I heard by Over the Rhine (hereafter OTR) was their cover of Gillian Welch’s “Orphan Girl.” I played it for Sarah because she likes that song and the Gillian Welch version that is so popular. We both remarked that this live version was very moving. It was more upbeat and full than the isolating renditions by Welch and others. It was neat to see it in a more upbeat style and then be sung by such a soulful voice.

I write this post to commend them to you if you haven’t heard them. I really enjoy their original stuff as well as their covers of ballads. I’m a sucker for “live” and acoustic sets, so I went for their “Live from Nowhere” series of albums. But you might want to start with studio albums. I just like the Live feel and impromptu sound. Go, and listen and tell me what you think of that voice and song variety!