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.
First, and probably most important, GO HEELS!
Second, and likely inconsequential, I did know the origin of the “Anything you can do” song. Hooray for references to moderately obscure dramatic literature. I read a movie review a couple weeks ago about “No Country for Old Men” which also happens to be novel, and a line from “Sailing to Byzantium” by William Butler Yeats. Very excited, was I to put all the pieces together.
Finally, and most crucial, there is a world of difference between the word “worship” and music. Think about this:
What do we call a Sunday morning gathering of believers? Church Service, right? Don’t we also call it a Worship Service? Did you know that in Greek, the same word translated worship in some places is translated service in others? I am talking, the exact same word. Worship and Service are functional synonyms.
Sorry about the game.
i must thank you for inspiring me to finally switch… i’d been thinking about it for awhile.. but just hadn’t. so thank you.