Good Stuff from Paul Buckley on Psalms

Words, Words, Words: Sing psalms

Addendum to Summer Schedule...

On Thursday, June 21/07 I will be performing in Birmingham, Alabama, thanks to Jeremy & Brandy Sexton, who are organizing it.

Summer Concert Schedule

Hi, folks!

This is what appears so far on my summer schedule for music making;

April 20-21 - B.C. Christian Homeschool Convention in Kelowna, B.C. I have a vendor table there and will be singing songs for passers-by.

May 3 - Judah leaves with the boys choir to London, ON. and is back on the 8th. I was hoping to be at the INCH convention in Lansing, Michigan this weekend, but things did not work out. Maybe next year.

May 9-21 our family goes on tour! These are the confirmed dates and places;

Fri, May 11 - Abbotsford Immanuel Free Reformed Church
Sat, May 12 - Langley Canadian Reformed Church
Mon, May 14 - Chilliwack Free Reformed Church
Wed, May 16 - Wenatchee at The River Academy
Thur, May 17 - Wenatchee Trinity Reformed Church
Sat, May 19 - Spokane concert at Christ Church

Jun 1-2 B.C. Homeschool Convention in Surrey, once again with a vendor table.

June 9 I have a nephew getting married in Dawson Creek.

June 14-23 St. Louis trip, with the following dates secured;

Fri, June 15 - Cornerstone Presbyterian Church, concert at Covenant Seminary
Sat, June 16 - Carbondale, IL , singing after a church block party
Sun, June 17 - worship at Providence Reformed Presbyterian Church in St. Louis
Mon.-Wed. June 18-20 - CHEF Convention in St. Louis, where I again have a vendor table and a guitar, and am hoping to meet piles of homeschool folks.
Fri, June 22 - Providence Reformed Presbyterian Church in St. Louis.

That's it for music just now. I have another nephew getting married on July 14 in Progress. It seems to be the season... :-)

If any of you have any bright ideas on how I could add to this list, please contact me!

I saw part of my lawn

the other day. For the first time since Oct.27/06. Just a corner of it though, the rest is still well buried.

Beats and Worship

I was involved in a conversation recently about music in worship, and whether or not certain beats were inherently sinful. I said no, and here is why;

I think we need to be careful not to place the sin in the "thing". Sin is something that *people* do. Rhythms and melodies and harmonies can be used in ways that do not glorify God, but they also can and should be used in ways that DO glorify Him. I don't think there is any such thing as a "sinful" beat, just sinful "beaters". But there are certainly "beats" that don't belong in the worship of God, since they are made for other purposes. Some music works really well when you are alone with your spouse with the lights down low, but it wouldn't be appropriate in a congregation.

How do you DO that?

There are a number of things that the Scriptures enjoin us to do, or recommend to us, and we don't have a handle on how to do them without sinning. I'm thinking of things like dancing (David in 2 Sam. 6:5), or drinking alcohol (Ps.104:15, Jn. 2:1-11), or shouting loudly (Ps.42:4), or how to throw a feast (Deut. 16:13), or making loud, fast, exuberant music (Ps.98). All of these things, I think we can all attest, can be used for sinful purposes. So how is a person supposed to learn how to do them in ways that glorify God? I would suggest that these are some of the reasons that God gives us elders. Elders in the church need to teach the congregation how to do these things. Which means that they need to learn how to do them themselves first.

I'll just take one of these as an example. I think that the cure for alcoholism, not to put too fine of a point on it, is that a man needs to drink with his pastor or elder every time he drinks, and to drink in the Church, at the Lord's Table. The wrong kind of company (either unbelievers looking for a buzz, or by himself) always leads him astray with drink. What he needs is godly company who will inspire him to enjoy, rather than abuse, God's good gifts. Someone that he can be accountable to in a godly way. Someone who loves him enough that they would be disappointed if he started slobbering in front of them, enough to make him wish to avoid such behavior.

But the same thing happens with worship as well. If the elders train a church how to sing exuberantly in worship in God-glorifying ways, the kids are less likely to show up at the rave. Learning how to sing whole Psalms at a good clip with lots of expression is like eating steak... who wants a hot dog afterward?

Short Summer...

It lasted long enough for the sun to melt the snowpack to about half it's winter-long depth, the remainder has become a thick, tough, crusty field which will take the sun that much more effort to disintegrate.

I woke this morning to a skiff of new snow, a northwest wind, and a -20 thermometer reading. Oh, April! Where are you?

Dreaming of April
Waiting for her to arrive
In all her finery...

The five day forecast called for sub-zero temperatures till Friday, by which time it is usually out of its reckoning anyway.

I've lived up here all my life, you would think that this wouldn't bother me by now. Maybe I'm just getting old and cranky.

What a winter!

If I could stand on the surface of the snow beside the garage, the edge of the roof would be a little lower than chest height. It is March 14, and there is more snow in the forecast.

Recording is done...

The edit festival has begun...

Recording...

The recording process has been moving along well. We had a real drummer come in on the first day to lay down the drum tracks, which saved us a lot of time and thought process. Chad Melchert was his name, and he is really good at what he does. In the last couple of days we have laid down bass tracks and acoustic guitar tracks, and some of the lead vocals. More of those should happen tomorrow.

Recording for "Fun And Prophets"

I have the studio booked for the next two weeks. I'll be laying the foundations the first week; drums, bass, acoustic guitars, lead vocals. The second week my wife and kids come to put their parts on here. We should have all the tracking done and most of the editing by the end of the 2nd week.

Do pray for us, that we will be able to make a good and useful and enjoyable album, and that we ourselves would be good, useful, and enjoyable.

Favorite Hymns Of Praise

Favorite Hymns Of Praise, from Tabernacle Publishing Company, Wheaton, IL., copyright 1967. It does not appear to have been a denominational hymnbook, but I grew up using it in the Evangelical Free Church.

Some of it was very good. I learned a large number of good hymns from that book which have stuck to me to this day. But most of it... is best described as man-centered, world-denying, disorderly; gospel song in all it's ugly detail. And it, too, has stuck to me to this day.

"In my heart there rings a melody
There rings a melody
With heaven's harmony
In my heart there rings a melody
there rings a melody of love." p.26

"Heavenly sunlight, heavenly sunlight
Flooding my soul with glory divine
Hallelujah, I am rejoicing
Singing His praises, Jesus is mine." p.27

"Sunlight, sunlight in my soul today
Sunlight, sunlight all along the way
Since the Savior found me, took away my sin,
I have had the sunlight of His love within." p.30

"O, there's sunshine, blessed sunshine,
While the peaceful, happy moments roll;
When Jesus shows His smiling face,
There is sunshine in my soul." p.31

These were from what must have been the "Sunshine Section" of the hymnbook...

Jesus is the sweetest name I know,
And He's just the same as His lovely name,
And that's the reason why I love Him so;
Oh, Jesus is the sweetest name I know." p.36

"Con - - - -stantly a-bid - - - - ing,
(Constantly abiding, constantly abiding,)
Je - - - sus is mine - - - ,
(Jesus is mine, yes, Jesus is mine;)
Con - - - - stantly a-bid - - - - - ing,
(Constantly abiding, constantly abiding,)
Rap - - - -ture di- vine - - - - ;
(Rapture divine, Oh, rapture divine)" p.42

"Pass me not, O gentle Savior,
Hear my humble cry;
While on others Thou art calling,
Do not pass me by." p.51

"If you are tired of the load of your sin,
Let Jesus come into your heart;
If you desire a new life to begin,
Let Jesus come into your heart.
Just now, your doubtings give o'er;
Just now, reject Him no more;
Just now, throw open the door;
Let Jesus come into your heart." p.55

And then there is...

O Jesus Thou Art Standing

O Jesus Thou art standing
Outside the fast-closed door,
In lowly patience waiting
To pass the threshold o'er:
Shame on us Christian brothers,
His Name and sign (baptism?) who bear,
O shame, thrice shame upon us,
To keep Him standing there!

O Jesus, Thou art knocking;
And lo! that hand is scarred,
And thorns Thy brow encircle,
And tears Thy face have marred;
O love that passeth knowledge,
So patiently to wait!
O sin that hath no equal,
So fast to bar the gate!

O Jesus Thou art pleading
In accents meek and low,
"I died for you, My children,
And will ye treat Me so?"
O Lord, with shame and sorrow
We open now the door;
Dear Savior, enter, enter,
And leave us nevermore! p.56


Help! Help! I'm being buried under responsibility! And as someone said, there is so much sweetness in here that a diabetic would have to leave...

It goes on and on like this, 519 pages long.

HMMMNNN....

When I was a kid, I was fed garbage. Reams and reams of it. Page after page after page...

I just found a copy of the hymnbook I grew up with...

Global Warming...

I'm all for it!

It has been, by and large, a miserable winter here in Alberta. Last week it rained quite hard, even though it was -10 C. The ice on the van in the morning was at least 1/4 inch thick all over. I started the van with the remote starter and let it run for about half an hour, then went out to see if I could scrape the ice from the windshield yet. A large bubble had formed along the top of the window where it had warmed up, but it had not warmed enough to melt all the way thru the ice. I took my scraper and poked a hole in the ice at the bottom of the windshield, and water came spurting out. It was quite a fountain!

I saw a man on the CBC a few weeks ago, distressing over a large chunk of ice that had broken away from the north coast of Ellsmere Island, which is so far north my map of Canada doesn't even show it. He was quite insistent that the government needed to spend some money and make some laws NOW or it will be too late... Methinks he worships a false god. If God does great things in His world, like breaking ice and watching ninnies scream, we should be saying "Go, God!", not begging the idol in Ottawa to please put a stop to this.

Lately I have been...

I said when I created this blog that it would be useful, because I do have thoughts occasionally, and I should put them down somewhere. This past month must have been pretty blissful... no thoughts at all to speak of.

Well, not quite true. I have been watching the various discussions about the so called "Federal Vision" controversy, and have come to the conclusion that Rich Bledsoe was right; the more serious the sin a man is involved in, the less likely it is that he will be able to see it. There are a number of accusers of the brethren busy as bees in places like the Warfield list, and they seem quite oblivious to the fact that they look just like the devil in their pathological hatred of the godly. And these men are all ministers, tithing from their spice rack and neglecting the weightier matters of the law...

I have been re-reading "Against Christianity", by Peter Leithart. Good stuff!

Old folks home

I no longer have a young family. I added them all up yesterday and they were 71 years old. My kids are older than I am, and older than my wife is, but they are not as old as we are.

And people used to comment on what a large family I had... I would tell them I had a small family, only two of us over five feet tall. But no longer. Now I have a large and growing family. Timbrel and Zion are dead even in height, and Judah is a bit ahead of both.

I hereby predict;

Jewel will be the tallest girl in my house, except for perhaps her mother.

I have said this for years, and it will still be years before I can be proven wrong, so I feel safe continuing to say it.

There's a Blizzard in my Gizzard...

Two days ago nothing could be seen of Grande Prairie. There was so much blowing snow in the air we couldn't see across the street. Yesterday we dug out the van... the winds had blown all the snow from the west end of my driveway into the east end where the big van is parked, and the drifts were pretty spectacular. They were about half as high as the van, and carved sharply down and under the van when they were about a foot from each wall.

The temperature dropped to the -30C range after the storm, just in time to shovel out the driveway. But where to put it all? It was already up to the top of the fence on the neighbor's side. So I started the van, dug the drift away from it on one side, and with a good deal of forceful driving managed to move it out to the bare patch which the Lord had swept. Then I got an old bi-fold door out of the garage and laid it out on the deep snow on my back lawn, and we used it for a ramp when we sledded all the snow off the driveway. Now my back yard is up to my neck in snow in some places, only up to my waist in others.

The car in the front yard was drifted right over the hood, the minivan was swept clean on all sides. The driven pile of snow beyond the end of the driveway had to be negotiated with speed several times before we felt that we could safely back into the driveway.

And I still feel that blizzard in my gizzard...

Descriptive powers

It began to drizzle rain and he turned on the windshield wipers; they made a great clatter like two idiots clapping in church. Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor

He had worked on the box a long time and when he finished it, he had scratched on the lid, MASON TARWATER, WITH GOD, and had climbed into it where it stood on the back porch, and had lain there for some time, nothing showing but his stomach which rose over the top like over-leavened bread. The Violent Bear It Away by Flannery O'Connor

This lady's descriptive powers have me rolling on the floor every couple of pages. What a writer!

They're at it again...

We have the studio booked for recording the next kids album from Feb.26-Mar.10. It will be called "Fun And Prophets", and will be a look at the prophets in the Bible.

Imagine, if you will, looking out your picture window into the city square. You see there a man with long hair rustled by the wind; he seems to be listening to something. As you look on, he takes a long, sharp sword from the scabbard at his side and begins to cut off his hair. All of it. And he is very careful to catch all this hair and gather up what has fallen to the ground. When he is finished, he pulls a measuring scale from his cloak and carefully measures his hair, dividing it into three equal groups.

He takes one of the neatly gathered piles of hair and begins throwing it up into the wind, where it is blown every which way. Next, he takes a second pile of hair, holding it up in the air with one hand and drawing his sword with the other, then proceeding through the town, waves his sword at the hair like he intends to cut it to pieces...

And you think YOU have strange neighbors... meet Ezekiel.

Fun And Prophets deals in brief with Abraham, Moses, Baalam, Nathan, Micaiah, Elijah, Elisha, Jonah, and many more.

"Everything Is All Right"

I spoke with my mother yesterday at our Christmas gathering, and our conversation drifted to Dad, and how he would have enjoyed the evening. She told me an interesting thing about the day dad died in the accident in 2002. She had been driving home from town, and felt a sudden exhiliration, and a sense that things were really good now, and that everything would be all right. When she arrived at home ten minutes later, she found dad under the Bobcat, having died a few minutes before.

She did not remember that feeling until she heard my sister-in-law Cathie's story about the morning my brother Grant died of cancer. Cathie had been out in the yard doing some work when she also felt a great sense of exhiliration, that Grant was going to be OK, that he was going to be healed, that everything was going to be all right. Grant was in a room on the sunny side of the house, and had asked that morning if someone could move the ladder that was blocking the window so that he could see the trees outside. Now, Grant had not been able to see across the room without his glasses for as long as I knew him, but he seemed to have his sight that day, and Cathie felt really comforted. When she went back into the house she found that he had died a short while before, and she connected it to the time she felt the uplifting moment.

This set Mom to thinking, and she remembered something very similar.

The sense that "everything is all right" is certainly true in both cases; both Dad and Grant were irrevocably healed at that moment.

Is this a common thing?