Sonnet XVIII

Sonnet XVIII - Thanksgiving: A Sonnet To My King
By Jonathan D. Eller

Dear Lord, there's so much to be thankful for
For everything I have has come from You:
You've given me my life and so much more,
And guard all of my ways my whole life through,
You give me air to breathe and food to eat,
Clothes to wear and shelter safe and dry,
I've friends and family to make life sweet,
And freedoms many - that I can't deny.
But all of these are merely corporal.
The greatest gifts are those I cannot see.
For in the Spirit I have been made full,
And I am sure that Jesus lives through me.
But most of all I'm thankful for the cross -
That Your desire for me was worth Your loss.

November 28, 2008

Happy Thanksgiving 2008

Happy Thanksgiving, friends. I have said it before, and I suppose I will continue to say that Thanksgiving is probably my favorite holiday. I like it because it isn't as commercial as Christmas.

The grocery stores make a pseudo-deal out of it, but when you walk into the stores and see Christmas decorations and displays up, it is kind of hard to hide the truth. So in a way, I guess I like Thanksgiving because it is a little bit of a Charlie Brown holiday: often over-looked, under appreciated, and poorly celebrated but with such potential for greatness.

The Christian faith, in breaking away from our Jewish roots, has abandoned the great festivals instituted by God in the Bible. For them we have made substitutions, but very few with the depth of significance of the biblical festivals. Thanksgiving is one of the ones that seems closest of all. Its stated purpose is to be a day set aside to give thanks to God for the many blessings that He has poured out on us individually and as a nation. And how greatly we have been blessed!

Our land has known peace and security for most of its existence. Only a few wars have been fought on our soil. This is an incredible blessing. Our nation has known great prosperity. It is a beautiful land. It is a land where people have been free to express their opinions - even to express opposition to the government. It is a land where we are free to worship as we choose or not at all. I thank God when I think about the principles upon which this nation was founded.

I too am very blessed. I have wonderful friends. I have a nice home. I have transportation and food. I have clothing. I have a family that cares about me and a wonderful church that does the same. Most of all, though, I guess I am most thankful that God loves me and that He sent His Son to die for my sins so that I could have fellowship with Him.

I pray that each of you is enjoying this holiday. I pray that there is peace and harmony with the people that you are celebrating it with. I pray for your safety and health. And mostly I pray that you keep in mind that today is about more than eating turkey, spending time with friends and family, and watching sports. It is first and foremost a day to give thanks.

If you have something that you are thankful for, I'd love to have you comment about it!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thank You

Hi folks. Thanks to your readership I have finally crossed the threshold of 10,000 page views! I guess for as long as I have been doing this that isn't all that many. There are blogs that attract that many in a week, but I am happy to have reached that mark. Thank you for taking your time - which I have learned is far more precious than gold - and sharing it with me here on my blog, reading the ramblings of my oft-addled mind! God bless you all!

Gratitude

For citizens to rise up in gratitude to God for the blessing of living in a democracy and having the majority elect those who will lead us in the coming years.

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God.
—Colossians 3:16

O majestic God, Your love for all persons and peoples has been shown from the beginning of time. You poured out blessings on Your people Israel, time and again, leading them down paths of repentance and restoration. Thank You, Lord, for Your legacy of deliverance.

Now, God, we express our everlasting gratitude to You as we reflect on the blessings of living in this great nation where we can voice our opinion and vote for the elected officials of our choosing. May the truth of Scripture infuse us with knowledge so we may correct and exhort each other to obedience and service. We sing to You, Lord, as an expression of our joy from our hearts for being uniquely American and uniquely Christian. We worship You, O God, in the name of Your Son Jesus Christ, amen.

This is the latest in the series of prayers led by the Presidential Prayer Team for the new President and for our nation. If you are interested in receiving the email with each day's prayer assignment you can click here and sign up.

Happy Mother's Day!

Thanks, moms for all you do. Thanks doesn't really seem to cover what you really deserve for all of the late nights, dirty diapers, and everything else that comes with motherhood, but that is all the English language will afford. Thanks for taking the toughest job there is and making it look easy. We couldn't do it without you!

God bless you all!

The StillWaters Jazz Band Version Of A USO Tour

This past Saturday the StillWaters Jazz Band had one of its most fun gigs so far. We got to play at the NC Veterans' Home on the campus of the VA Hospital in Salisbury, NC. None of us really knew what to expect as we began unloading our equipment. We set up in the front lobby of the facility and the crowd began to gather.

Right off the bat we could tell that these guys were different than the groups we had played for so far. They were asking questions and talking to us - genuinely interested in what we were doing and who we were. It didn't take long before our nerves had settled down. In the picture above you can see Justin talking with one of the residents. This particular fellow was really up on his jazz. He related one story about how he had the pleasure of seeing Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, and Al Hirt in concert with some other giants of the jazz world back in the late 60s. We were all envious!

Unfortunately, we didn't have any of our friends or family with us so pictures didn't get taken until after the fact, but in many ways these pictures really communicate the sweetness of the time that we had with these aging heroes. These folks were awesome! They interacted with us throughout the entire show, and as you can see, many hung around afterwards to talk.

Sara was a particular favorite of the crowd. I guess it is tough to be the only pretty girl in the band! One fellow in particular was quite vocal in his appreciation! (It isn't the fellow that appears in this picture though!)

We opened the show with Stormy Weather. We thought it fitting considering the weather that day. When we announced the title of the song one of the fellows asked which one of us was going to be singing. We told him that was HIS job! Well, he didn't sing it, but another fellow did, and he did a fine job I might add.

This week we were running a little short. Our bass player, Gillon wasn't able to join us. I think his insane schedule finally caught up with him! We really missed having him with us, because he adds a lot. Hopefully he'll be back in the loop soon!

I was really blessed by most of the conversations that I had with the guys. The gentleman that I was talking to in the picture was wounded twice during World War II. He fought in the Battle of the Bulge. I learned a lot talking with him. I hope that he'll be able to join us the next time that we play there. And we will be playing there again. We all THOROUGHLY enjoyed ourselves. And the residents seemed to have a good time too.

In fact, one of the nurses on duty there came out to make sure that she got our card so that they could invite us back. She told me that if the guys hadn't liked us they wouldn't have wasted any time leaving. That made me feel pretty good. Most of the guys hung around for the duration. But as much as they seemed to enjoy our music they seemed to enjoy our company even more.

Another fellow used to play piano when he was in service. He worked with one of the chaplains and played hymns for the chapel services. He is blind now, but can still play. All of the residents were encouraging him to play some with us. I hope we can talk him into it when we go back.

We even had a lady who got up and danced about halfway through the show. It was a great experience.

We had numerous requests too. Someone requested Amazing Grace and another wanted to hear Taps. OK, that one weirded us out a little bit, but hey, he was the one who asked! We also got requests for Stardust, Misty, and In The Mood. Unfortunately we couldn't just whip those out, but we plan to add them before we go back.

This week in practice we worked on Bye Bye Blackbird, The Preacher, I've Heard That Song Before, Little Brown Jug, and St. Louis Blues. I think that all of these will do well with our friends at the NC Veterans' Home next time. They will probably come in handy this weekend too. We'll be playing at the Salisbury Brian Center on Saturday from 3:00 to 5:00. I expect we'll be playing for a similar crowd. We are also hoping to schedule a couple shows for Trinity Oaks in the coming weeks. I hope that they will be as fun as the guys at the Veterans' Home.

As much fun as we have playing this music by ourselves, it is even more fun to be playing it for someone else. It was a blast giving just a little back to these men and women who gave so much for us. We can never adequately repay them for all of their sacrifice on our behalf, but it sure was fun beginning the payback. Justin said it well when he said, "One day a year isn't enough to tell you guys thanks."

An Excellent Weekend

What's this picture about? Well, it has nothing to do with this post, but I found it online sometime last week and thought I'd share it. The caption that came with it called it "Heaven's Hammer." Seemed like a good name to me. I have always been fascinated by severe weather. Tornadoes are just plain cool-looking, and I love to watch thunderstorms. (I'm sure that the tornadoes aren't nearly as cool when they are barreling down upon you or your property.)

Sorry I have been away for a few days. I took a little trip up to Apex, NC to visit my friend DP and to do some work on the website. While there isn't a whole lot of tangible evidence of work done, I did pick up some good tools to use in my development, and I was able to have some very profitable conversations with DP about the use of PHP.

I am not sure if I mentioned it before, but I have begun to learn PHP, and have not found the tutorials as helpful as the ones for HTML or CSS. I suppose there is only so much that you can convey in a tutorial. The hard thing is understanding how to apply some of the elements of what I am learning. DP gave me a really good flow diagram to help me to get a handle on how the various pieces fit together. He even gave me some rudimentary code to use. In addition to that he helped me to understand better the environment in which everything is going together.

The main forward progress this weekend was that I began to build the data collection forms for the website. It had been a while since I worked with forms, so I had a little bit of catching up to do. It is good practice. That's part of the reason I don't want to use WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editors. It gives me the practice that I need to learn to use HTML more instinctively.

Friday night DP, his wife KP and I had a great time talking about various things that the Lord has been teaching us lately. We reflected on the warning post that I made a couple of days ago and discussed what sort of response we should make to the warning it contained. I have had a couple of interesting discussions surrounding that post. We also watched and talked about a speech given by an expert in the physiology of the human brain who had a stroke. She described her experience from a clinical and experiential perspective. It was an interesting speech.

Saturday for lunch we dined at Char-Grill (spoken of in hushed and reverent tones around NC's Triangle.) We came back home and I worked for the better part of the afternoon. Then we got some snacks ready and watched UCLA and UNC get creamed in their semi-final games in the NCAA men's basketball tournament. It was painful to watch two teams get pummeled so.

I really hate basketball. I don't like games where the rules are not consistently applied. Everyone fouls in basketball, and the referees seem to only call it on a whim. I can't tell you how many times (especially in the Carolina game) I saw someone being brutalized in the paint with no call only to turn around and see someone get a foul for a hand check. My OCD tendencies just cannot tolerate that kind of inconsistency. I feel the same about the holding rule in football. 10 yards is too severe a penalty for holding. It happens on every play from scrimmage, but only gets called in the most flagrant cases or on plays with big gains. 5 yards is plenty for that. But I digress.

This morning I went with KP and the fam (DP had to work) to their church: CrossWay Community Church. It is a great little church. I thoroughly enjoyed the Sunday School (I usually don't get into Sunday School) and really enjoyed the worship. KH led a very talented team of musicians in a worship set that flowed well and seemed to come from a pure and passionate heart in pursuit of Christ. If you are in the Triangle area and looking for a church, this, I believe, would be a great one to visit. I know I plan to go there again next time I'm in the area.

I returned home to my parents' home this evening to celebrate my brother-in-law's 35th birthday. Mom made lasagna, salad, green beans, and bread. It was wonderful. But the piece de resistance was the Italian Cream cake that she made for dessert. (Actually, my nephew made most of the cake.) That's his favorite, and it's definitely in my top 5.

So there you go. My weekend in a nutshell. OK, it is a pretty big nut, but it was a good weekend. Much thanks to DP, KP, CP, and AP for their hospitality. It was very greatly appreciated. Also thanks to the folks at CrossWay for their hospitality today. It was a special treat to get to meet KH, DH, and TC over there today. I hope to see you all again soon!

Happy Resurrection Sunday!

HE IS RISEN!

HE IS RISEN, INDEED!

This is the really good news. Not only did Jesus die, taking our sins upon Himself, but He rose again, conquering death and the grave. Now we share this hope of our own victory over death through His death and resurrection. And we now have the power to conquer sin in this present age.

I Wish I Had Had A Band Director Like That...

Tonight I went to the South Rowan High School band concert. I really didn't go with terribly high expectations - after all it was a high school band concert. I expected a good bit of out of tune playing and a few weak sections, but an overall tolerable evening.

I was blown away.

The first part of the concert consisted of a mixed band of freshmen and upperclassmen. I was absolutely surprised by how well they played. Given another month they would be ready for competition. They played March of the Irish Guard arr. by James Ployhar, Norwegian Folk Song Suite by Frank Erickson, and Dorian Rhapsody by Eliot Del Borgo.

For the next movement of the concert, the freshmen left the stage to a skeleton crew of upperclassmen. This crew tackled some really tough pieces. First on the docket was Habanera by E. Chabrier arr. by Albert Davis. It was a very intricate and tricky piece. They followed that with "Sleepers, Wake" from Cantata 140 by Johann Sebastian Bach, arr. by Philip Sparke. "Ah, Bach..." Need I say more? And they closed this set with the Disney show tune Under the Sea by Alan Menken, arr. by Jerry Nowak. I don't remember ever hearing a band number whose melody was carried for the majority of the song by the baritone horn. I'm not sure the name of the young man who was playing, but he did a fantastic job and had a wonderful tone.

This was all well and good. These bands did a fine job, but the real treat was still to come.

The final set of the evening was performed by the South Rowan Jazz Ensemble. They set the house on fire right out of the gate with William Chase and Richard Marinan's Get It On (arr. by Paul Jennings). They followed that with Sammy Nestico's Orange Sherbet. I just cannot do justice to the job these guys were doing. They totally rocked the house.

That was followed by Jimmy Forrest's Night Train (arr. by John Higgins). The band tore it up. There were extended jazz improv solos!!! My band director never taught ME how to improv! And these kids were GOOD. They were relaxed and having a good time. It was amazing!

The next song in the set was Embraceable You, the George Gershwin tune arr. by Roy Phillippe. That was the only laid back number in the entire set. They were right out of the gate again on the next song - Vehicle (written by James Peterik and arr by Paul Jennings). I'm not sure where I heard that one before, but it had that 70's groove to it.

Then the band turned to swing with the old Glenn Miller standard American Patrol arr. by Paul Lavender. They had a false start with this one, but the band director wisely pulled the plug and started over. Once they got things together they did a fine job with it.

The last song in the set was Sermon by Erik Morales. They hit it out of the park. When the concert was done they received a well-earned standing ovation... and the audience was treated to an encore! They finished up with the Glenn Miller signature In The Mood. It was a great show.

I say all of this to say that this was all brought about by the vision and skill of a 2nd year band director. Never ever ever never have I ever heard of a band program that actually taught the students about music. At least not around here. Justin Dickson has done a STELLAR job with this band.

Many of his students came to him hardly knowing which end of the horn to blow into. Many literally didn't know what a whole note or a quarter rest were. These are the very building blocks of music, and they had managed to get to his band without knowing these things. And he had them playing Bach for crying out loud!

Back in the day I was a pretty good trombone player, but if I had had a band director like Justin Dickson, I might still be playing today. He is teaching these kids how to make music and not just memorize how to play songs. There is a HUGE difference. There is nothing more frustrating than having music inside of you and having an instrument and having absolutely NO IDEA how to get that music out of you through that instrument. Justin has bridged that gap for many of his students.

The sad thing is how long will it last? Every year he has to battle against people who convince his best musicians that they can't afford to "waste" a credit on band. He has to deal with ill-prepared students coming from middle schools in the area. He has to watch as other students are turned off to band because of poor programs in the schools that they have come from. And on top of all of that he has to battle block scheduling which keeps him from being able to have a cohesive band throughout the school year.

Oh my goodness what he could achieve if he had these kids for an entire year. His bands would become LEGENDARY.

Justin, my hat's off to you, buddy. Keep up the excellent work!

Sunday Afternoon Fun

"Hello, Violet! Hey, you look good. That's some dress you got on there."
- George Bailey

I got a nice surprise today. I got to go up to Greensboro and see Lord of the Dance. It was an interesting show: nice costumes, pretty incredible dancing, neat light show, cool set, pretty Irish dancers. Nice.

There were a couple of small bothersome bits. They have this character that plays a tin whistle, but instead of using a recording of a real tin whistle they used a synthesizer that was supposed to sound like a tin whistle. That was a little disappointing. They also had some "taps" pre-recorded into the soundtrack. They could have left them out and I would have liked it just the same - maybe more. Those were really the only problems I had with the show at all. It was a thoroughly fun way to spend a couple hours on a Sunday afternoon.

The show kind of reminded me of another dancing drama called Toymaker's Dream. (I had forgotten but that production changed its name to Toymaker & Son a few years back. I think that it has even changed names again since then to The Masterpiece.) In fact, the storylines were very similar. The original Toymaker's Dream had a character called the Dream Hater and was played best in the original Toymaker's Dream video. The original production had one of the coolest "angel" costumes I have ever seen.

The playbill was a bit of a disappointment. It would have been nice if they had explained the story a little bit better (like, at all) so that you could follow it more easily. There were also no credits for the people that were in the show. It would have been nice to see who they were. I will give it this - I discovered that Celtic Woman will be playing there soon, and so will B.B. King. I wonder how much they pay for blood these days...

So, even though it sounds like I have hardly done anything but complain about the presentation, I really enjoyed it and am very grateful for the opportunity to have seen it today.

UPDATE: Oops! Had to fix the quote. I didn't have it quite right.

Not Your Every Day Occurrence

Today I was at the Wal-Mart off of Dale Earnhardt Boulevard in Kannapolis getting my some new frames for my glasses and helping my niece spend her Tooth Fairy money. As we were headed to the check out area, someone told us that they were evacuating the store.

Now frankly, it would have been easy to not believe the the lady that was telling us to do this. It wasn't even clear that she was a Wal-Mart employee; she was just saying it conversationally. There was no announcement or anything over the PA system in the store.

Well, we went ahead and left our merchandise at the front of the store and got the heck out of Dodge. A lot of people were just milling around the front of the store, and one of the stylists working in the hair salon wasn't even aware that they were evacuating.

When we got outside, one fire truck was arriving, but it really wasn't clear what was going on. We asked one guy in the parking lot if he was coming or going so that we could let him know that it was no use going in the store. He told us that it was a bomb threat and that he had seen the guy that brought it in.

Well, how is that for freaky? My niece was a little scared, but we were able to show her how God had helped us by getting us out of the store safely.

WBTV, out of Charlotte, has a report about the event on their website. It turns out that no bomb was found, but the police have two men in custody for questioning.

Anyway, looking back on the event makes me think that the store wasn't ready for this kind of event. There were a lot of things that just didn't seem to be handled well. Of course, there are a lot of things that I don't know.

I wonder if the store had somehow confined the suspects before they began evacuating the store? It seems to me that if they hadn't, the suspects may have figured out that they had been discovered when the store started emptying of people and potentially detonated up the bomb (which doesn't appear to have existed in the first place) or just melted into the crowd and out of the store in the midst of the evacuation. It would also seem reasonable that Wal-Mart employees would have been moving people away from the building. Sometimes people are kind of dumb.

This event makes me realize just how easy it would be for someone to perpetrate this kind of activity for real. We really take a lot for granted in this country - especially God's protection. I, for one, am glad that I have so little to tell of this story. How differently things could have ended up.

God Is Good

2007 was a pretty rough year. I spent a lot of it like Elijah, waiting for ravens to come with my provision. As I have crossed into 2008, things haven't changed much to speak of, although God is still sending ravens (figuratively, that is.)

One of the keys that I have been working on for the past 12 months or so is that God is faithful and trustworthy. He won't allow us to go under. I have seen His provision for me over the past months time and time again. Why is it, I wonder, that even after His consistent support I can still become fearful about how my needs will be met? Foolish, foolish, foolish heart!

I can honestly say that I am getting better at dealing with the stress of this lesson, but every so often, I have to run back to Him for grace to overcome the nagging fear. Still, I don't guess there is anything wrong with getting grace. He told us to do it:

Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
- Hebrews 4:16

I just think that it is awesome that God has given us a tool to use to help us live holy lives. I call it "grace grenades." Perhaps you are familiar with the armor of God passage that is found in Ephesians 6:10-18? Well, I have found that "grace grenades" complete the ensemble. Sadly, I do not have time to elucidate on this topic tonight. Perhaps I will be able to revisit it in detail soon.

The bottom line is - GOD IS GOOD. He has proven Himself to me many, many times.

Thanks, God!

More Wonderful Welcome Wet Weather

Like my alliteration? Give me a break! It's after 3:30 in the morning!

We've had more wonderful rain. I wish it could have been for longer, but it has once again been a good, soaking rain. The verdict is in - looks like prayer works. No apologies to the Atlanta Freethought Society. God is real. God controls everything. Deal with it.

I know I'm busting AFS's chops a little bit, but I really want them to see how good God is. Life is tough and then you die. It's that way for everyone Christian and pagan alike, but it certainly isn't equal.

I've tried life without God and life with God, and WITH is infinitely better. If I could get over myself and my hangups and fears and unbelief there is this incredible ABUNDANT life that is available to me. I hope that I am able to achieve that place before I die! LONG before I die. But even if I don't, what is waiting for me afterwards as a Christian is ASTOUNDINGLY GOOD.

Not so much for non-Christians. It is sad that some will actively choose to reject God and His great gift to us and choose to suffer God's justifiable wrath. Others will apathetically follow the herd down the path of least resistance right over the cliff. If you're on the "wrath" side of the coin right now, don't be offended. God is extremely patient and is offering the chance for you to be whole and free and joyful. All you have to do is accept the gift. You don't have to clean yourself up first - He takes care of that later, you just come. I cannot understand how someone could turn such a great deal down, but the Bible says that many will. It's tragic really.

If you haven't accepted God's gift of salvation, please do. I assure you that you'll be glad you did.

In the meantime, I'm gonna keep praying for rain!

The Feasting Has Ended... (For A Bit)

Well, Thanksgiving went great again. Lots and lots of really good food. Dinner at my Grandmother's house made Rockwell's "Freedom From Want" look like a light mid-afternoon snack! The table was literally full of food. I didn't even get to taste everything. I was stuffed after one trip to the table. Prior to the meal the kitchen was as busy as a beehive - and just as crowded. There were so many family members there that there was hardly a place to sit - so many, that I was looking for a quiet place away from the madness.

As I have just finished writing this I can't help but think that it would be hard for some people to comprehend this extravagance and abundance. Perhaps my description sounds like arrogant boasting. If your experience this past week wasn't like mine, I am sorry, and I truly wish that it had been that way for you too. These thoughts humble me and cause me to reflect on the blessings that God has lavished on me and make me remember that the reason that God blesses us is that we can be a blessing to the world. I pray that He will help me to do a better job of that this year.

On a somewhat different note, I wasn't in much of a posting mood on Thanksgiving. For some reason words just didn't seem to be flowing very well, so although I did manage to post a Thanksgiving message, it really didn't come very close to what I had hoped to publish for you.

Here are a couple of good Thanksgiving Day Posts that I wish that I had written:

The Real Meaning Of Thanksgiving from over at the Bear Creek Ledger

and

Gratitude over at Conspiracy Of Kindness

I hope that your Thanksgiving was great.

An Amazing Picture

I saw this picture over at Babalu Blog. With the picture was a great post by Val Prieto about his experience in Washington. Val is a great writer and I think that you will enjoy it very much. The title of the post is, Gracias

Thank You, Veterans

Thank you for your sacrifice. You are much appreciated. God bless our veterans and troops. America, bless God, and He'll bless us.