I think I have to listen to it a few times more before I can really make comment. But they seem to have taken a slightly more acoustic rock feel to this one, while there are the usual slow worship songs that are familiar to those regular listeners. The only concern I have is that their ‘praise’ songs seem to get more and more unsingable - more performance than actual congregational.
But oh well. I thought those exact words when I heard the ‘To the Ends of the Earth’ album too. And now that just seems mild in comparison. Either way, I think it holds the usual treasures, passionate worship that is so synonymous with the Hillsong name. And while this sounds dangerously complacent of myself, I intend it not.
Our eyes are open
Every chain now broken
In this world
We are different
Let Your love become us
As we live to make You famous
In this world
We are different
So call us out
Let the world see
You are God, as we sing
-Point of Difference-
[disclaimer: the above songs are for sampling purposes only. Please buy the album should you like the music]
And all was right in Singapore. Or so the people believed. For on that fateful day darkness consumed the world, a blackness none had seen before. And then, the heavens opened (around 4 o’clock) and the wrath of God came burning down from the heavens and consumed all that lay below.
If there’s one thing that you begin to marvel at after living in this city-(police)-state-country, it’s that space is a luxury. Or rather, you are given the impression that space is a luxury, and ideology lodged into the brains of those who, after a while, cease to know anything else. Far gone are the long extensive drives, mesmerized by the hypnotic passing of the dotted white lines in front of you, the glazed eyes as you watch the blur that are the trees and bushes and other random vegetation passing by. Gone are the long rolling hills and meadows of green and yellow and the fields of lavender and orchards full of apple trees. Gone are the strawberry fields and grass grazing cattle in the plains of the cold winter fields. No more are the traffic staring horses with their long flowing manes and the sheep who seriously, haven’t got a clue. And gone are those bails of hay rolled in the autumn and the yellow fields of buttercups in the spring, the golden fields of wheat and purple lavender (though you’d probably not find one where I live).
Nevertheless. Journeys long and far to the north of this little (temporal?) home of mine do have some sights that can be nice to see. And while pylons are not necessarily a thing of beauty in many eyes, especially those of leukemia sufferers, it is oft not seen in the lands in which I dwell.
I was sure, I was born and raised to be my own man
I was so sure; I was never going to need a helping hand
And she said, trust in your heart and there’s no need to understand
Well just when I thought I had it planned out
Isn’t it strange, how the world goes by so fast. The days are over before you know they had even begun, your life over, before you knew what to become. The setting before the rising of the sun, and the night over, before the clock spun.
And then, just when you think the months are going by way too fast, and April hits you in the face when you thought it was still February, the world stops.
And days go by slowly, all over again. And you wait. And wonder. And you think just how beautiful these contradictions are.
While not prone to putting up ridiculously stupid photos of oneself, I do rather like this one.
A dear friend informed me that unlike many ‘Christians’ in this world who attend church at Christmas and Easter only, I am a rather different breed, going to church every week other than at Easter and Christmas (such has been the trend this past year) and instead going and gallivanting in KL doing strange things. To be honest, I’m not quite sure what’s worse. It’s rather like being somebody’s best friend for the entire year and when their birthday comes up you desert them, not buying them a birthday present, not taking them out for dinner, and even worse maybe saying bad things about them behind their back.
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It’s strange isn’t it, how the behaviour of a friend during a key moment in your life can actually make or break the relationship. No one really remembers the constant positive performance of a friend, or of anything, really, unless it’s something remarkable. But even then, one negative incident and that’s it. Kaput.
Of course, I generalize, but I know that for myself, I remember those one-off incidents. The time someone blew up in my face (not literally, of course, though I would definitely remember that also) or the time they said something they probably regretted later. Nevertheless, do I care? Well, in a moment of rashness, no, not really. It’s that desire to be all powerful, all knowing, and all righteous.
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Not to get all preachy, but it does rather remind me of the parable of the King who let off the bloke who owed him a few kabillion dollars and when the same bloke’s slave owed him two pennies the guy threw the slave into jail. What an ass. How human.
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Are we all like that? Really? In varying extents I’m sure we are. Though if you aren’t and are pure of heart and clean hands then I do apologise. Regardless, it makes me wonder sometimes. The varying extent of our judgement and the magnitude of the Almighty’s. If you screw up with Him. Well. Good luck to us all.
Post Script. No, I haven’t done something really stupid and totally unforgiveable to anyone (well, that’s debatable I suppose) I’m just rambling. Ramble ramble ramble on a beautiful Monday afternoon.
I actually wrote this long piece about Freedom and what it means to me. But somehow it just seemed so irrelevant when I read it and then put it underneath this picture. So I’ll end here, and just say that things, well, they are a little brighter now.
I am unsure as to whether this is ridiculously stupid, or incredibly smart. You’d have be either/or to make statements like this.
The situation: On the tube, two guys talking about the recent controversy regarding Celebrity Big Brother’s Jade Goody & Co.’s supposedly ‘racist’ comments against Shilpa, the Bollywood starlet.
Guy A: So do you think it’s racist?
Guy B: Well, it’s subjective, innit?
Guy A: Well if you look at the definition of racist in the dictionary…
Guy B: The dictionary is a load of crap, man
(this is the point where i turn my head and actually look at who the guy saying this is)
Guy A: Well, it’s a definition innit?
Guy B: Yeh, but by some guys up at Oxford
Guy A: It’s the most accepted viewpoint though
Guy B: Yeh but it’s just the opinion of some academics though…
Unfortunately this is where I alight from the tube. Though I dare say that I would have enjoyed listening to the rest of it. I worry, sometimes, about the intelligence of people in general. But I suppose, in a way, it is all subject to interpretation, innit. The blokes who wrote the dictionary might just be telling their own opinion after all, and really, if you think the word racist means ‘pink elephant jumping over the River Euphrates’ then by all means, it damn well means that.
You and I said
theroo, happyjz
theroo, jb, theroo, bao, jo
theroo, happyjz, theroo, happyjz, theroo, jo
theroo, , , theroo, giraffe
jo
theroo, Ber, Ber