I've learned how to laugh and I've learned how to pray
In late 1966, a young guitar player who had toured with the Isley Brothers and Little Richard came to England. He was managed by a former member of The Animals, who quickly recruited a bass player and drummer to form a new three-piece band. After going with Pete Townsend to hear them play, Eric Clapton said, “I thought that was it, the game was up for all of us, we may as well pack it in.”
It’s Christmas season and you know that means – another 184 versions of the Christmas songs that you used to love but now cringe when you hear them. In the last few years, “O Holy Night” and “O Come O Come Emmanuel”1 have proven especially popular. I have eleven of the former and a dozen of the latter, including two EPs and one CD I purchased this year that have both on them.
For all the wannabe recording artists out there, and the three current ones that haven’t already put out a Christmas album, here’s a word to the wise — the world doesn’t want another version of “Joy to the World.” Or “Hark the Herald Angels Sing.” Or especially “Silent Night.”
One more thought on our previous subject.
When Abraham is told of Sodom and Gomorrah’s impending destruction, he asks God if He will kill the righteous along with the wicked.
Then Abraham drew near and said, “Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city. Will you then sweep away the place and not spare it for the fifty righteous who are in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing, to put the righteous to death with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked!
I’ve been silent for a while because we were in Cambodia for three weeks and I’ve spent another three trying to dig my way out of 4000+ pictures (cameras can be both a blessing and a curse).
While we were there, we spent a day with the team from our church at Kam-Air, Cambodia’s first and only wakeboard park, founded by one of our kids and run by Alf and my son-in-law, John.
The park has “acquired” its own dog (acquired as in the dog showed up and stayed). He’s a medium-sized dog that has been christened Goliath. He looks vaguely shephard’ish to me, and he loves John.
It’s rarely a good idea to review a movie when you’re emotionally invested in the story; it’s seldom a good idea to even see the movie. LoTR is perhaps the only time that’s turned out well for me, and there are dozens of times it hasn’t.
Like millions (literally) of others, I was turned into an armchair mountaineer by Jon Krakaeur’s Into Thin Air. It was therefore with some trepidation that I entered the theater to watch Everest.
Read my review at Truth On Cinema.
If you’ve been reading here very long, you know our family is heavily involved in Cambodia. I’ve been leading short-term mission trips there for several years, and last year our daughter and her family moved there (read about it here, here and their blog here).
Our church has partnered with IJM there the last few years in the work they’re doing to fight sex trafficking of minors. An enormous amount of work has been done there over the last decade, and I was privileged to write a summary of the progress for our church’s web site.
If you’d like to read about it, click here.