I See God Anyway

From time to time, I’d like to take a breather from commenting on my chaotic life and tell you about some of my favorite songs. They get to be favorites for lots of different reasons, some for the music, some for the message. Some for both.

This one is that kind of song.

I grew up in Indiana, not exactly the hotbed of Mormonism that Utah is. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. What isn’t born-again protestant Christianity is usually atheist. And since I grew up in a college town, surrounded by college people (My dad’s a physics professor), I got a good dose of both.

I think that’s why Julia Davis Allen’s “I See God Anyway” strikes such a solid chord with me. It really deals with what seems to be the constant clash between intellect and Spirit.

The first verse points out all of the great thinkers of our western intellectual tradition that spoke of a higher power and order, and then talks about how we want to rely on our own strength and wisdom.

But…

“I See God Anyway
I see God anyway
When pure emotion streaks the sky
And the shades of His love bleeds through the clouds
Even through doubt”

The second verse takes another interesting track. It talks about some who claim to be believers meeting and voting to reject the very divinity of Jesus. Even within the ranks there are those that would rather rely on our own minds.

“Did God make man, or did man make god?” is the question so often asked.

Through the clouds of chaos and confusion that man so often kicks up around himself in a strange effort to find clarity, we can still see god. We can just look around us and see His hand in everything.

I see God anyway.

You can download and listen to the song for free at her mp3.com site or go directly to her website at juliadavisallen.com.


MRKH
Mark Hansen
http://markhansenmusic.com

Twelve little notes

I’ve been thinking about things musical lately, and I’ve been feeling a little amazed.

As a part of that amazement, I stopped in a record store in a mall last night. Not a big one, either. I asked the tune dude behind the counter about how many different CD’s he thought they might have in the store. He said, “Well, we’re a small store, so we’d have about 45,000. A bigger one might have 70,000.”

Now, that seemed to be a bit high to me, but let’s take his word for it. Then let’s pretend that, on the average, there’s 12 songs on each CD. That means that in the store (which covers the major labels, with maybe a few bigger indies), there were about 540,000 songs.

Now, I’m not going to debate, in this article, the fact that most of these 540,000 songs sound alike. I’ll take that one up another day.

Then I thought I’d explore the independent music industry. These are often people like myself that are creating music in their homes and sharing it in the world without the approval of SONY or David Geffen. And for that I took a quick look at mp3.com. I found this: “MP3.com, Inc. is home to one of the largest collections of digital music on the Internet. A favorite of music fans and emerging Artists alike, MP3.com features streaming and downloadable music from more than 250,000 Artists and over 1.6 million songs.”

Wow!

1.6 million! That’s a lot of songs!

And that’s what’s currently available! Add to that the masses of songs and music that have been written over the years and vanished into well- or not- deserved obscurity. I’m talking all the way back to the monks where recorded western music started. And I’m not talking about CD’s, there, I’m talking about writing words and notes on paper.

Here’s the amazing part:

All this musical variety and creativity is essentially based on twelve little notes. Twelve little notes that repeat over and over in different orders, in different rhythms, in different tone colors. Some you play alone, others you stack up in chords and clusters.

But no matter how you stack it, there are twelve notes.

Yes, I know that there are those that are writing using quarter-tone scales, and others doing exciting things with musica concrete, but that doesn’t diminish the vastness of what’s being (and has been) done with…

Twelve little notes.

Now, I know you’re sitting there waiting for the point. You’re thinking, “Maybe he’s going to draw some gospel message out of all this, or quote me a scripture”.

Since I hate to disappoint you:

“Now ye may suppose that this is foolishness in me; but behold I say unto you, that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass;” –Alma 37:6


MRKH
Mark Hansen
http://markhansenmusic.com

Humble pie


These last few days have been very difficult for me.

Actually, the whole last year and a half has been difficult for me.

I know why, too. It’s because I’ve been praying for humility. Don’t ever do that.

See, I remembered back to my mission when a talk in a zone conference or something said that the best way to get the gifts of the spirit, like spirituality, humility, charity, healing, etc… was to pray for them. I was feeling in need of a little humility, so I started praying for it.

I’ve been paying for it ever since.

Somehow I’d forgotten some of the analogies that the Lord uses when he talks about humbling people, like mountains crumbling and valleys exalting, and other geological calamities.

Somehow I had imagined that a little blue good fairy with gentle wings and a flowing robe would drift down from heaven while I was sleeping. He’d wave a magic wand over my head, sprinkle a little humble dust, mutter some magic words, like “OK, you’re humble now…” And then he would whisk off to his next gig, like my neighbor’s house (who REALLY needs the humility, believe me!).

Well, I did get a good fairy, but not quite like I expected.

He was big, tall, with muscles out to here, and instead of a magic wand he carried a baseball bat.

“Hey, is you the one what wanted a good humbling?”

Uhh. No, I think you want my neighbor…

“Nope. This here’s the right address. This shouldn’t take long.”

(This is the part where you insert things like “Pow”, “Wham”, “Ooff”, and “Ouch!”)

I wouldn’t have minded so much if his parting words hadn’t been, “That’ll do for starters. See ya next week!”

The Lord said, “And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them.” -Ether 12:27

I haven’t quite come to that last part yet, where the weak things are made strong. But I suppose that eventually I’ll get there, if I keep at it.

And I suppose that if it didn’t hurt, it wouldn’t be humility, now, would it?

But still they call it humble pie, and isn’t pie supposed to be sweet?

*sigh*

MRKH
Mark Hansen
http://markhansenmusic.com