One of my very good friends, Dave Everly wrote this song.  Hope you like it.

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This is my new favorite song.  And I have Sarah to thank for it.  Matisyahu is a poet in the deepest sense of the word.  I love the rhythm he brings to the imaginative idea of reconciliation, lifting up humanity and dignity and dreaming about a world without war.

My favorite line is: Sometimes in my tears I drown, but I never let it get me down. So when negativity surrounds I know some day it’ll all turn around.

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This was creative.

PS: If you saw this earlier, I changed the title because I had a brain fart.  I completely blanked and credited it to Dr. Dre.  Silly me.

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I didn’t really like this song when I first heard it.  And then I saw the movie.  For some reason its just this infectious little tune that has grown on me.

It’s good to remember love.

Is it just me or does this video from Lady GaGa seem like it was produced by Trent Reznor.

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I want your ugly
I want your disease
I want your everything
As long as it’s free
I want your love
(Love-love-love I want your love)

I want your drama
The touch of your hand
I want your leather-studded kiss in the sand
I want your love
Love-love-love
I want your love
(Love-love-love I want your love)

In many ways it reveals the interesting tension of the post modern age.  As we emerge from the modern story, which anchored itself rigidly in a Christendom story, one of fixed points and fine lines drawn, it means entering a liminal stage where there is little story.  The emerging church is leading the way in the space.  But the liminal space also means we have no present story to define us.  We have to emerge from the old to discover the new. And in the process, we’re struggling to make sense of ourselves in a world that has no connection to any story, to an identity or dignity.

And in the process we instinctively recognize our need for love, which unfortunately plays out at the lowest common denominator.  We prostitute ourselves with cheap sex meant to fill the void (no pun intended). We’d rather be dominated than avoided.  Lady Gaga seems to be expressing that artistically right now.  She is white hot because I think she expresses what everyone is feeling in that space, even if they don’t like it. Where Trent was the fringe, Lady Gaga is now mainstream.  I don’t think these expressions are new.  It’s just the barriers to expressing them have now come down in the Internet age.  The web is essentially forcing us to confront our own realities that were once conveniently hidden.

I do understand the fear, the conflict and the tension embedded in this period of time.  I liken this period to the downward spiral of drug abuse.  Sometimes the only way up is to find the bottom.  Sometimes the only way to discover the love of God is to reject it entirely.  Sometimes the only way to find the kingdom of God is first to create our own hell.

But isn’t that also the human story.  Isn’t that what the cross essentially is, a complete rejection of the God image amongst us.  Humanity is literally trying to kill God.  And it is in this space that God says, “Give me all of your hate, your anger, your abuse, your wounds, your junk, and your judgments.  Give it all to me.”  Because the reality is that God was the only one who could really handle it.  And in the end, when all was said and done, when humanity had done its worst, God said…

“See. I still love you.”