Going For A Second Look

I am a sound tech at our church on a rotating schedule. I was at the console for all three services last Sunday for the first time this year and had the opportunity to see our new contemporary service for the first time. What I saw greatly impressed me and I am looking forward to seeing it again this Sunday. The music was pretty much the same as the previous contemporary service but we have added a paid worship leader to the mix who has performing and recording experience. The service has taken on a whole new dimension.

Our previous contemporary service had the live band and 4 or 5 singers. It was well done but after several years of performing with the same group had taken on a level of sameness. The new service has many of the same players, still in their same spots but the addition of a different leader has provided that shock of spontaneity that pushes a good program into a improved dimension.

Only time will tell but in December we had about 65 people at the contemporary service and last Sunday there were about 130. Something has changed and the congregation is enjoying the way God's message is being provided. It is not all about the music but it provides the flavor for the rest of the service. It is time to put on the shoes and get the car going. Don't want to be late.

Icool

Cobb

How Come Jesus Gets Industrial Disease? II

To know why Jesus gets industrial disease, I would have to know exactly what industrial disease is. The first definition I found is: occupational disease. That was extremely helpful. I love the crisp and concise construction of that definition. So, I looked up occupational disease. It had a veritable bevy of information. Occupational disease is any chronic ailment that occurs as a result of work or occupational activity. They are not work related hazards like a roofer falling from a ladder. They are diseases or ailments that are caused by working in an industrial environment. Asbestosis, black lung disease, radiation poisoning and carpal tunnel are a few of the more common ones.

The middle verse of Dire Straits Industrial Disease describes a visit to a doctor’s office. It goes like this:

Doctor Parkinson declared, "I'm not surprised to see you here
You've got smokers cough from smoking, brewer's droop from drinking beer
I don't know how you came to get the Bette Davis knees
But worst of all young man you've got industrial disease"
He wrote me a prescription, he said, "You are depressed
But I'm glad you came to see me to get this off your chest
Come back and see me later - Next patient please
Send in another victim of industrial disease"

The verse says some very pointed things about the plight of man, how doctors are perceived and even how the doctor’s practice has turned into an industrial environment. The comments about smoking and drinking are prefaced with I’m not surprised to see you here. That we are all ignorant louts that drink and smoke as our only form of entertainment adds to the fact that we are depressed about our plight. So instead of getting to the root of the issue, we dispense a pill and send the patient on their way. Once the patient is safely taken care of, we have the next one sent in. Since the doctor has already made a diagnosis without even seeing the patient, it takes on an assembly line feel.

So how come Jesus gets industrial disease? Well, industrial disease is caused from the environment we work in and many of the ailments are fatal. The Jesus in the song is on a hunger strike to save the world. It is the non-violent protest that we associate with the Son of God and of course made famous by Gandhi. This Jesus grabs our attention in that he is willing to die performing his job. So you get Jesus suffering from a disease inherent to his vocation. That is if you consider dying a profession. We do not know the motives of the “hunger strike Jesus” so this may not be a true case of industrial disease. We do know that our Savior died for our sins and that he knew what was going to happen. I think that eliminates any opportunity to classify Christ’s death as an occupational disease. Unless you want to classify love a disease.

Icool

Cobb

How Come Jesus Gets Industrial Disease?

I took a serious look at how I feel about our military involvement in other parts of the world. A comment made by a friend concerning American soldiers being maimed and killed for absolutely no reason caused me to at least take a mental pause to see if I can fit it into my framework for daily living. Any death is something to be grieved over. I can think of a few exceptions such as the execution of someone for murder or for molesting children. There are some things that deserve the forfeit of your right to breathe. Just ask Saddam Hussein about murder and maiming. Oh yea, he’s been deprived of his right to breathe.

Our troops invaded a country that was harboring terrorists, paying families to make suicide bombers of their children, continually threatened nuclear and biological weapon attacks, and had a long history of violence both inside and outside its borders. Did we find “weapons of mass destruction”? No. Did we prevent someone with a track record of violence from developing them for use on others? Yes. A segment of the US population wants American soldiers out of Iraq. I am okay with that. We have done our job. Of course that runs contrary to past practice for the American government. WWII ended in 1945 and we still have military bases in Germany and Japan. The Korean War ended in 1983 when Hawkeye and BJ left… I mean 1953 and we still have troops along the South Korean border. I say bring them all home. It would be one hell of a cost savings.

The talk of war brought to mind a song by Dire Straits from their Love Over Gold album (yes they were albums back in 1982.) The song is Industrial Disease which is an upbeat tongue and cheek song about the fall of British industrial power, the rise of media influence on how people think, and the use of political finger pointing to assign blame. The last verse has the lyrics of a protest singer included in the lyrics of the song. He is concerned about how the war is affecting people. It must be when Margaret Thatcher sent the British fleet to retake the Falkland Islands. That was a useless war of imperialism but what do I know. They whole verse says:

I go down to Speakers Corner I’m thunderstruck
They got free speech, tourists, police in trucks
Two men say they’re Jesus one of them must be wrong
There’s a protest singer singing a protest song - he says
They wanna have a war to keep us on our knees
They wanna have a war to keep their factories
They wanna have a war to stop us buying Japanese
They wanna have a war to stop industrial disease
They’re pointing out the enemy to keep you deaf and blind
They wanna sap your energy incarcerate your mind
They give you rule Brittania, gassy beer, page three
Two weeks in Espana and Sunday striptease
Meanwhile the first Jesus says Id cure it soon
Abolish Monday mornings and Friday afternoons
The other ones on a hunger strike he’s dying by degrees
How come Jesus gets industrial disease


Of course the lines that really sparked my interest are the ones about Jesus. The first is two men say they’re Jesus, one of them must be wrong and the other is the last four lines. We have two men claiming to be Jesus and their methods of fixing the world’s problems take two completely different paths. One will perform miracles and get rid of those bothersome days of the week while the other one is slowly starving himself to death. At least the last one is willing to die for something. Alas, we never learn his motivations other than his bout of industrial disease.

ToBeContinued

Icool

Cobb

Let's Scare America To Death

There was a movie made in the early 70' called Let's Scare Jessica To Death. The premise of the movie (as recently refreshed by the Internet) is about a woman who had been recently release from a mental institution goes through a series of bizarre experiences at a haunted farm house. She fears that she may be once again losing her mind and we find that someone is trying to kill her to get her money. The reason this even came to mind is I read about the re-emergence of an almost forgotten energy source; nuclear power.

An article about the number of nuclear plants being proposed and built has brought out the tired old singers from the 70's and 80's who thought that their campaign had killed this viable technology. Well times change and at $100 per barrel, splitting atoms has once again become cost effective as an energy source. Now we are being exposed to the same old arguments about how we will all die in a fiery cloud of nuclear ash. Yawn. Ho hum. We have nuclear plants in this country that have been operating for more than 30 years and other than Three Mile Island (made famous by Saturday Night Live). Thankfully Jimmy Carter saved the day. Oh that was Dan Aykroyd.

We have improved on the technology from 30 years ago when the last power plant was built. Does the improved technology prevent a possible meltdown? If you factor in the ability of man to mess anything up, the answer is no. Can we put as many fail safes in as possible? Yes. But with the cost of energy doing nothing but going up, it will be the pocketbooks that vote on the upcoming renewal of nuclear power. That is unless the scare America to death crowd once again get the ear of the legislative branch of government and they start "the let's do the opposite of what our constituents want" thinking. That should be what scares America to death.

Icool

Cobb

We Need A Goal

If you look at periods where America has pulled together and worked in a more unified fashion (at least given that appearance), we had a common goal or were sharing in each others misery. Look at either of the World Wars or the Great Depression to see that when there is something to be focused on, we are able to pull the oars as a team. Even after WWII, we had a common enemy that had to be dealt with in the Soviet Union. We could focus our attention into not awakening the communist threat until Reagan drove a steak into the heart of the husk that Russia had become. America must have a focus to stop the disjointed behavior we are currently experiencing.

Sure we have the war on terror but like Vietnam, the media has turned the nation against the war instead of creating an environment for unification. The acts of Muslim extremists on 9/11 brought the nation together. For a few months, Americans acted like we were a nation with a mission and we felt proud to be Americans. But the media began picking holes in the direction and once again we are traveling the road to nowhere. Even though the President has never swayed from the course set forth after the nation was attacked, we are all dancing to different drummers.

I am not advocating pulling a Wag The Dog type scenario where we are focused by the administration on some made up short term emergency. The President, for all of the hype that goes into electing one, is little more than the front man for the government. They are the face we show to the world as the best we have to offer. They are also the mouth piece for the nation. Their vision and ability to project that vision into a pathway for us to follow is what creates unity. Of course you have to either silence the media (against the constitution) or get their buy in or you are fighting an up hill battle. Presidents like JFK and Reagan were able to create vision in those that elected them. Let us hope we are blessed with a President with even half of that capability.

Icool

Cobb