Sea of Voices

I’m sitting in a little not-quite-rectangular room in Craige North listening to forty or so bold auditionees who are hoping to make it into UNC’s Psalm 100… or at least have a callback. I love auditions. Many other a cappella group members find it tedious – I just love hearing all the different people come in – some with a voice, some without, but all of them bold enough to show off what they have, and that deserves respect. It takes about fifteen to twenty hours the whole week. It’s a long time, but so much fun.

Here’s what happens. An auditionee sits nervously out in the hall, watching, waiting. A member of Psalm of the same voice part comes out and prays with them, gets them ready – they come in, we all cheer, because they are beautiful and amazing. We warm them up, they sing some scales, some tonal memory exercises, then we listen to the voice and chorus of their solo song, whatever they’ve picked out. And they sing Amazing Grace or Whitney Houston or Fall Out Boy and we listen enraptured and then the professor doing his six ‘o clock class next door comes over and asks us if we could keep it down because they’re taking a test and sure, we sound good and everything, but we’re making the students twitch while filling in their bubbles (actually happened). Then we ask them a few questions about their life, and send them on their way with applause.

I’m so happy to have you all here. I just wish we could let all the people who didn’t get in know that we’re so proud of you, that we enjoyed you. Thank you for respecting and saluting us with your time and voices.

Bein’ Classy

Full days! I’m balancing academia, InterVarsity management, friendships, relationships, personal time, music, a small group community, and of course my nightly vigilante work on the rooftops of north campus – and so far, I’m loving it. Here’s what we got:

CLASSES:

PHYA231 – Social Dance: This is going to be amazing. It’s pretty slow learning, but good – I’ve always wanted to learn how to dance, and now I get a chance, and with fun people! Kevin, Slater, Joseph, KT Wall, Michael are all in the class. So far we’ve learned Waltz and Cha-Cha, mostly just as starters – I’m waiting for the Tango and Swing – I can’t wait to go swing dancing with Rachel.

ENGL320 – Chaucer: Wittig is a great old guy. Love listening to him speak Chaucer.

ENGL355 – Brit Novel: Another great prof. Some good books.

DRAM191 – Drama Tech: This is going to consume my life. It’s an 8 hour per week class. Death. Really interesting though – I get to use power tools.

DRAM300 – Directing: This one is a little intimidating – some of the people in this class have directed gigs in New York and Carolina, and I feel a little inexperienced. Still, I’m pretty sure, looking at the first couple of classes, that I’m as creative as most of the people there – it should be challenging and fun.

ENGL131 – Intro to Poetry Writing. Fun class w/ Matt Tilley and Catharine Stotts in attendance.

In a C-team meeting right now. Gotta go b/f I get caught!

Seth and Brian Imprison Itinerant Pastor:

The Daily Tar Heel prints a background of the exciting episode!

I helped put a man in jail the other day. I’ll tell you the whole story later, but as for now, the Daily Tar Heel printed a synopsis of the man’s stay in Chapel Hill. Here it is:

Ambitious evangelist banned from UNC

Media Credit: DTH/Ankit Gupta

Evangelist Timothy Sweet preaches the Gospel on campus last week. He has since been banned from UNC grounds as a result of two trespassings.

Two weeks ago, self-proclaimed evangelist Timothy James Sweet was spreading the Gospel in the Pit and the Student Union.

Last week he was in Wilkes County Jail.

Now, having been banned from entering UNC’s campus and rejected by University evangelical groups, he is deciding whether to forgive or just to move on.

“There’s absolutely nothing I’ve done wrong,” he said Wednesday at the Carolina Coffee Shop on Franklin Street. “I hope the truth comes out.”

Sweet, 27, said he came to Chapel Hill to share his faith, leaving a steady job as a newspaper reporter and turning down several offers of church pastorships.

But here he has no income, no job, lives out of his car and his savings have just about run out.

“Christ suffered for our sins,” Sweet said. “I can suffer for those who don’t know him.”

His plan is to build up local support, with churches and religious groups contributing to a salary.

Though Sweet said InterVarsity Christian Fellowship and Campus Crusade for Christ have been open to him, leaders of both groups have been quick to distance themselves.

“We know a little bit about him, but we are not affiliated,” said Chad McGhee, a group leader in Crusade. “We don’t think he’s a real pastor or has any credentials.”

And his legal difficulties began at a Feb. 16 InterVarsity event.

The group was holding a prayer vigil, University Baptist Church campus coordinator Nathan Rogers said, when Sweet reportedly disrupted by beginning to preach.

Several women participating contacted Department of Public Safety officers after becoming uncomfortable, Rogers said. Sweet said he was at the event but was not acting improperly.

Sweet was issued a trespassing warning, then transported to Wilkes County, where he had an outstanding warrant for failure to appear on charges of speeding 95 mph in a 65 mph zone, driving with a suspended license and reckless driving to endanger.

He was released from jail on Feb. 20. Four days later, he was arrested for trespassing in the Rams Head parking deck at UNC.

Campus groups have been asked to notify DPS if they see Sweet on campus so they can arrest him.

But Sweet said that the Wilkes County charges stemmed from speeding tickets for which he was not notified of a court date and that the trouble on campus came because of false allegations of harassment.

“I assume it’s because I’m vocal, and if they don’t want to hear about Christ, it’ll make them mad,” he said. He added that he might file civil lawsuits against several University community members who he said have created a negative image of him.

Sweet received a bachelor’s degree in journalism and religion at Penn State University, then earned a master’s degree in divinity in church leadership at Liberty University. He had expected to preach at a church.

But he said he couldn’t find peace. So he gave away his possessions, prayed and came to UNC.

His future plans include staying in Chapel Hill for about 10 years, graduating law school, becoming a traveling preacher and running for president of the United States.

But if his March 31 appeal of the campus ban is unsuccessful, and his reception at UNC doesn’t improve, he said he’ll move along.

“If slander is spreading, do I really want to stay here?”

SWEET VICTORY

Welcome, Madison Lee Hughes.  Welcome to sweet existence!!  May Yahweh bless you with health and joy, understanding and patient parents, and role models who are intensely in love with Him.  May you come to Him quickly, and fall entirely in love with Christ.  May you see the return of our Bridegroom in your lifetime!

Love,

Uncle Seth

Second Post of the Day

Sometimes… sometimes I admit things about myself when I’m trying to make a point.

Please stop Seth… nobody wants to hear that…

Sword-chucks, Yo.

Coffee is that sweet persistent poison that keeps me awake after all-nighters by releasing really really excited nano-daggers into my bloodstream to poke and prod me to joyous wakefulness except, like Fighter says, that probably wouldn’t work if your blood was made out of daggers. And Fighter knows.

Valentines day!! My first… or at least my first where I didn’t catch my valentine kissing somebody else… oh Mindy, how could you break my 9th grade heart.

24-7 Prayer Week kickoff tonight. I’m really excited.

On that subject, Kristen the Awesome IV Intern and Kevin, not an Intern, but also Awesome, talked to me about doing something with IV lead team next semester. Bible Study leader? Help start a Drama team? I’ve been praying about it, and I’d really love to help out in IV. It’s been a huge help in my life this last semester. We’ll see.

I made the most appreciated breakfast this morning. When people are even more beautiful in the morning when you wake them up… dude.

Finally saw Shawshank Redemption… not the super-amazing movie it was built up to be? Good, but… I dunno, the company was awesome though.

“What did you just call me?”

“F@$&stick!?! Uh… thank you? Did you… did you mean that to be a compliment?”

It’s funny that I can make more sexual jokes with my mom than with most other people. That one was with the Shawshank Redemption crew though, don’t get confused.

Nonsequiturs!

Sister is having a baby today!!  Madison Lee Hughes – I’ll be uncle, twice over!  Pray for Jennifer, she’s ready to get the creature out.  Wish I was there to see my niece.

As Ray reminds me…

“She’s right.  If we’re going to survive, we need to start having babies.”

“Is that an order?”

Much love, yo. Sword-chucks.

You Can’t Get a Man With a Gun

The 24-7 Prayer Week kickoff is going to be the night of Feb 14th. I finally got the worship team together… took too long, but I’ve got a good crew. Rachel White for lead singer, Brian Cooper on guitar, Wyatt Bruton keyboarding, Robert Wiggins djembe-ing, and Annie Hoyle as incredibly excited violinist. It’s odd… I didn’t use to suspect worship was incredibly important. It didn’t play a huge part in my early experience of God or of the church. Friendship Baptist didn’t really worship – we sang songs every service, but there was little musical worship involved – Friendship’s worship is, I suspect, more physical. They don’t worship much at all when they sing, so if they do worship, it’s in their words, their thoughts, their relationships with others. I found it dry – my opinion doesn’t definitively make it so though – God knows much better than I do.

I think musical worship is huge though.  Has been in my life. Privately, worship is intimacy between myself and my Beloved, communally it is the collective new natures of the Bride releasing the joy and gratitude that is only completed when they are together. It’s supernatural and powerful, I love it.

Saw Sweeney Todd this weekend, and then spent hours yesterday YouTubing the theatrical versions. Angelina Lansbury is an amazing Mrs. Lovett, (Len Cariou’s performance doesn’t match her at all, she has to take over), but Patti LuPone and George Hearn are by far the best pair. They pull off a wonderfully fun, prop-less, minimalist performance with huge attitude – I’ve been singing “A Little Priest” for two days. “But fortunately it’s all so clear, that everybody goes down well with beer!!”

The post title is in reference to Irving Berlins’ hilarious musical comedy Annie Get Your Gun. Check it out. Most people don’t know the source of that Michael Jordan/Mia Hamm gatorade commercial with the “Anything you can do I can do better” song. Amazing, amazing.

Duke game tomorrow. NCAA Fencing Duke-UNC Dual meet Friday. Get ready to jump over some bonfires. I’m sure we’ll do it again… on… Friday… uh-huh.

Dropping the F-Baum

I suspect, as does the undead spirit of Frank L. Baum, that this post is, in fact, a sham.