Feb
6
Bruce Cockburn-revisited
Filed Under Christmas, Music, Poetry | 4 Comments
Now that ‘The Sweet Dropper’ has more readers than I can count on one hand, it’s time to give props to Canadian singer-songwriter Bruce Cockburn [pronounced co-burn with a long "o"], whose music has been a big part of my life since I first heard If I Had a Rocket Launcher in Paul Case’s car in the parking lot of Christ United Methodist Church in Jackson, MS in 1984. Miss Judy and I saw Bruce in concert at Holy Communion Episcopal Church in Memphis back in June–best concert I’ve attended since…well, since Paul Case and I saw Bruce at the Moonshadow in Atlanta in 1986!
Cockburn, whose guitar skills make amateurs like myself contemplate smashing their fingers with a hammer, is held in highest regard in his “home and native land” for his career of more than 40 years. He has released 29 albums, is a member of the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, and is truly ‘a musician’s musician.’
Cockburn gained initial recognition in 1969 as a last-minute replacement for Neil Young as headliner at the Mariposa Folk Festival. His first solo album was recorded the following year. For the next decade, Cockburn developed a sound that combined folk, rock and jazz, and also distinguished himself with lyrics expressing a new-found Christian faith and a gentle introspection. This phase of his career peaked with 1979’s Dancing In the Dragon’s Jaws, which featured his first U.S. Top 40 hit, “Wondering Where the Lions Are.”
On 1980’s Humans–which I and many other fans consider one of his best–Cockburn emerges as a keen observer of the global scene and an eloquent commentator on his own private struggles. Humans resonates with world-beat influences and darker, more politically aware lyrics. Throughout the ’80s his music took on a more electric sound and gave eloquent voice to angry left-wing politics.
From the mid-’90s to the present Cockburn’s music has gathered up the earlier phases of
his career and mellowed them into a spiritually sensitive, politically astute, and refreshingly honest body of work–now more jazz and acoustic than the electric “protest” music of the ’80s. His lyrics are more thought-provoking than ever, and his musicianship still amazes.
If you want to sample Cockburn’s music, let me offer a few recommendations:
- Joy Will Find a Way [1975] and In the Falling Dark [1976-many of the tracks chronicle his emerging Christian faith]
- Dancing in the Dragon’s Jaws [1979-the peak of Cockburn's folk/acoustic period],
- Humans [1980-brilliant transition album from contemplative Cockburn to angry Cockburn],
- Stealing Fire [1984-peak of Cockburn's politically-charged electric sound]
- Christmas [1993-if I can keep only one CD of Christmas music, I'd keep this one!],
- The Charity of the Night [1997] and Breakfast in New Orleans, Dinner in Timbuktu [1999-both of which exhibit his full artistic and emotional range],
- Speechless [2005 compilation of his best instrumental pieces--a must for guitar enthusiasts],
- Life Short Call Now [2006-his most recent release].
All of these are available from Amazon and most from iTunes.
Dec
26
Martin Luther and Christmas
Filed Under Christian History, Christmas, Music, Worship | Leave a Comment
Dr. Philip Ryken, senior minister of Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, has written about Martin Luther’s contribution to Christmas hymnody on Reformation21.
To God who sent his only Son
Be glory, laud, and honor done.
Let all the choir of heaven rejoice,
The new ring in with heart and voice.
Dec
21
Better for nothing than for a nuisance
Filed Under C.S. Lewis, Christmas, Culture, Family, Reading | Leave a Comment
Here’s a Sweet Dropper Christmas tradition [which, being interpreted, means, 'I posted this last Christmas and can't come up with anything better.']
It’s Friday. There must be another Christmas party to attend–I hosted one last night. There must be another little gift to buy. Who’s going to be so favoured as to receive one of my signature fruitcakes? C.S. Lewis wrote a short essay for the December 1957 edition of the publication, Twentieth Century. Under the heading, ‘What Christmas Means to Me,’ Lewis launches a scathing attack on the ‘commercial racket’ that overwhelms the season–NOT because it isn’t ‘religious,’ but because it drains our energies and undermines the merry-making, and hospitality that ought to characterize the season:
The interchange of presents was a very small ingredient in the older English festivity. Mr. Pickwick took a cod with him to Dingley Dell; the reformed Scrooge ordered a turkey for his clerk; lovers sent love gifts; toys and fruit were given to children. But the idea that not only all friends but even all acquaintances should give one another presents, or at least send one another cards, is quite modern and has been forced upon us by the shopkeepers. Neither of these circumstances is in itself a reason for condemning it. I condemn it on the following grounds.
1. It gives on the whole much more pain than pleasure. You have only to stay over Christmas with a family who seriously try to ‘keep’ it [in the commerical sense] in order to see that the thing is a nightmare. Long before December 25th everyone is worn out—physically worn out by weeks of daily struggle in overcrowded shops, mentally worn out by the effort to remember all the right recipients and to think out suitable gifts for them. They are in no trim for merry-making; much less (if they should want to) to take part in a religious act. They look far more as if there had been a long illness in the house.
2. Most of it is involuntary. The modern rule is that anyone can force you to give him a present by sending you a quite unprovoked present of his own. It is almost a blackmail. Who has not heard the wail of despair, and indeed of resentment, when, at the last moment, just as everyone hoped that the nuisance was over for one more year, the unwanted gift from Mrs. Busy (whom we hardly remember) flops unwelcomed through the letter-box, and back to the dreadful shops one of us has to go?
3. Things are given as presents which no mortal ever bought for himself—gaudy and useless gadgets, ‘novelties’ because no one was ever fool enough to make their like before. Have we really no better use for materials and for human skill and time than to spend them on all this rubbish?
4. The nuisance. For after all, during the racket we still have all our ordinary and necessary shopping to do, and the racket trebles the labour of it. We are told that the whole dreary business must go on because it is good for trade. It is in fact merely one annual symptom of that lunatic condition of our country, and indeed of the world, in which everyone lives by persuading everyone else to buy things. I don’t know the way out. But can it really be my duty to buy and receive masses of junk every winter just to help the shopkeepers? If the worst comes to the worst I’d sooner give them money for nothing and write it off as a charity. For nothing? Why, better for nothing than for a nuisance.
From C.S. Lewis, “What Christmas Means to Me,” in God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), 304-305.
Dec
18
Santa-less Christmas?
Filed Under Christmas | Leave a Comment
Thabiti Anyabwile posted a great piece on why Christmas is better without Santa Claus. He debunks the three most common reasons that Christians put forward for incorporating Santa Claus into their family traditions.
- Santa is good for kids’ imaginations.
- Santa is fun.
- There is nothing wrong with celebrating Santa because it is a part of our tradition.
Thabiti’s approach is both gracious and cutting. He recognizes that there are many godly families on both sides of the issue. I find myself in agreement with his reasoning. The Holland family decided early on to make Christmas as full of Christ as possible. We simply don’t have time to waste with Santa when we could be focusing more on the glorious person and work of Jesus Christ. Anyabwile echoes this sentiment in his closing paragraph.
I’m not arguing a dogmatic causality here. I’m simply asking the question, “Why include Santa Claus at all?” Is the imagined upside of following the culture here worth what we think it’s worth? And are our justifications helping us to point our children to Christ or masking the reality that we may be pointing our children away from Him? Personally, I doubt Santa Claus is worth it, and pointing our kids away from Jesus at Christmas may be the worst form of child neglect I can imagine.
Make sure you read the whole article and have a Christ filled Christmas.
Dec
11
Purple Hat
Filed Under Christmas | Leave a Comment
Paul Helm has written another great Christmas piece. If you missed last year’s, you can find it here.
Dec
7
Christmas and the Antichrist(s)
Filed Under Christmas | Leave a Comment
“For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. Such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist.” - 2 John 7
Who is the antichrist? Is the antichrist one person or multiple people? John seems to think both. He speaks of both an anitchrist and antichrists in 1 John 2:18. He speaks of a “spirit of antichrist” in 1 John 4:3. A full treatment of the topic of “antichrist” would require a thorough examination of personified evil in Scripture, the devil, the man of lawlessness in 2 Thessalonians, as well as the verses mentioned above. That is not the focus of this post.
There are two things I want to point out from John’s theology of antichrist as it pertains to the Christmas season. First, John believes that there are and have been many antichrists. Does he mean then that all these men have been the earthly personification of absolute evil? No, that is not his definition of what is an antichrist. Rather, and secondly, John defines an antichrist as someone who “does not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh.”
Therefore to be anti-incarnation is to be anti-Christ. To be pro-incarnation is to be pro-Christ or put another way it is to be a Christ-ian. Whether or not you think you should celebrate the incarnation at the end of the month of December is irrelevant to the fact that you must celebrate the incarnation. The incarnation must be an important doctrine to you. The church must proclaim loudly that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, became a man by taking to himself a true body and a reasonable soul. He was, is, and continues to be both God and man, in two distinct natures, and one person.
This is the truth of the gospel, the truth of Christmas, and the litmus test for spiritual warfare against antichrists. So this Christmas, remember that you are doing spiritual warfare as you worship our Incarnate Savior. Do not be ashamed of the wonderful mystery of the incarnation. Be bold to proclaim what theological label John puts on someone who denies the incarnation: antichrist. At the root of being a Christian at Christmas is not what kind of ornaments are on your tree, what kind of cantata your church choir sings, what sermons series your pastor presents, or what type of gifts you give. Rather, being a Christian at Christmas is confessing that Jesus Christ, the second person in the Trinity, came “in the flesh” in order to “save his people from their sins.”
Joy to the world, the Lord is come; let earth receive her King!