I like to play jokes around the house with Sarah and sing the cheesiest, silliest, and sometimes most obscure songs that I can think of in attempts to make her smile. Recent hits include Blue (as in I have a blue house with a blue window) by Eiffel 65, Kiss From A Rose by Seal, I Believe I Can Fly by R. Kelly (back when he was safe and fun for the whole family haha), etc… Well tonight the song that popped into my head was “A Whole New World” from the Aladdin soundtrack. Unfortunately, I cannot remember the words to most of these songs, so I end up making most of them up, again in attempt to make her laugh. It gets pretty silly around here folks. Stephanie and Caleb, I think you can both appreciate these moments at their finest. I seemed to love to torture you two the most with them. I love to try to get the song stuck in my victim’s mind for long periods of time as well. I figure if this ridiculous song is stuck in my head, then I might as well have company, right? So, tonight in attempt to please my audience I belted out my finest Aladdin rendition serenely whispering, “Don’t you dare close your eyes”. It’s good, cheap fun folks. You should give it a try sometime….or all the time!
I was searching my music collection the actual Aladdin song and came across an old favorite, from which this post owes its title, “World Apart” by Jars of Clay. On a side note, I have a massive music collection, so embarrassingly, it is not uncommon for incredibly bizarre songs to grace my library…which reminds me of that song, “How Bizarre!” By the way, I hate you Kiss FM for that one.
Ahem! Back to the topic at hand, I stumbled across World Apart and it took me back to a great old memory. I remember when I first received this album. My mom bought it for me when I was in 6th or 7th grade along with Dave Matthews Band Under the Table and Dreaming album. It was through one of those mail in offers, where you send in postage and they send you 10 cds for the total shipping costs of $5. It was so cool because my mom somehow knew that I would appreciate both of these albums and I don’t think that she formally knew what I was listening to in those days. As in, I hadn’t sat down and said, “Mom, I really like Dave Matthews Band and Jars of Clay. I would like their album.” She just took it upon herself to order these albums for me. She was spot on, too! As you know, I love DMB and Jars of Clay is still an oldie, but goodie. All this to say, that it brings a smile to my heart to know that my mom thought of me and encouraged me just by buying some great music as a gift for me. That’s so cool. That was so many years ago, but its still a fond memory. It reminds me of so many other times that my parents did something great for me without me asking. The memories are too many to even begin to mention. Don’t you love it when you just come home and have some amazing surprise waiting for you? Sometimes, as in this case, it was something that I loved but didn’t even know I would have liked.
My relationship with the LORD is more and more like this memory these days. He often has little surprises waiting for me…things I didn’t know I would love. Just as a child, I can often be ungrateful and completely miss it. On good days, I have eyes to see it and receive it with abundant gratitude.
Man, life is good. Praise the one risen Son of God! Our names are written on his heart.
Foreign Concepts: A land of uncommon courtesy
There are so many pedestrians and bicyclists here that automobile drivers stop whenever people are trying to cross the street. It has blown me away and almost caused a couple of wrecks for me. On a four lane road with a median, if a pedestrian is on the opposite side of the road, walking across the street, traffic on the other side of the median STOPS in order to allow the person to safely cross the street. In other words, before the person has even reached your side of the road, traffic will stop. Seriously. It’s like a scene from an early 20th century film. I would not be surprised to see an adolescent helping an elderly woman across the street. It has almost caused me to slam into the back of cars in front of me, because back home crossing a neighborhood street is synonymous with attempting to walk across Central Expressway. It’s cross at your own risk and you’re insane if you think a car is stopping for you. I hate that I find myself initially resentful towards the drivers in front of me in their courtesy. Then, I feel convicted because I do not want my bitter spirit to affect others around me. Certainly, as with anything new, there are likes and dislikes. This is a great thing that Vancouver has going for it. Bitterness and negativity is contagious. If you don’t believe me just look at Numbers 11. It sets off a wave of grumbling, complaining and negativity that goes on for at least 10 more chapters that I have read so far and it ends up costing Israel the lives of about 15,000 of their people. I used to think that negativity was infectious and harmful, but now I realized how naïve that was. It is far more detrimental than that and its consequences are death.
