hello all,

i hope this holiday week finds you well. i just uploaded tonight's podcast. if you have time, i hope you can take a listen. it's a relatively short one - just some thoughts about the year ending, a new song by me, and two versions of a beautiful song by nick guerrero. all in all, a nice way to celebrate the evening before new year's eve. :)

peace to everyone. be safe, and have a great new year!

russell

Posted by russell at 04:48 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

it's christmas week, and things are predictably hectic. i hope you're well admist the bustle. if you have time, hopefully you'll get a chance to listen to episode 173! it's not much - just 20 minutes - a few thoughts, a christmas song, and a new demo. a simple little podcast from this evening... from me to you. :)

i'm wishing you a peaceful and warm holiday week!

love,
russell

Posted by russell at 07:04 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

the past few days have found me thinking about giving. maybe cuz it’s almost christmas? i’m not sure. maybe. but the word “giving” itself feels too small somehow. What I mean is bigger – connected to god and love and hope and passion and vision and trying to make sense of the december 2009 world we find ourselves in. how do we make positive progress in the midst of chaos and hurt and emotion? how do we find (much less – maintain?) balance – wanting more and needing more – struggling to stay afloat in the ice water reality of now? i don’t have answers. i just feel questions. hm.

a lot of this comes to mind, especially, in terms of jesus. cuz it seems to me that the most challenging aspect of what he was telling us had something to do with this – that giving is the way out – the way back – the way through. turning the other cheek, 70 times 7, forgiveness compassion, surrender. they all seem to be about giving. i realize that “giving” might sound cliché, especially at this time of year. but i mean this in the way that cuts and costs us and asks us what we’re really doing. what’s the motive? do i care who’s watching? why? why not? the giving of our real hearts. the kind that we never get back. the kind that sees more than the pain. the kind that gives through, and transforms us because of it. i don’t know how this works. i’m not there yet. but i see the truth of it. i feel it. and i believe it too.

i’ve been walking the sidewalks to and from work, through the cold and rain, this week. i’ve been thinking about this as i walk. and - especially in the last few days – the truth of what jesus was talking about has been breaking through, and seeping in – the simplicity of it – the impossibility of it – the beauty of it – the whole severe mess of it. i want to live like that. here. this way. i’m gonna keep trying to make it better.

ok. i’m rambling, so i’ll shush myself. podcast 172 is here. many thanks to kris hauch for sharing his music with us. if you have time, i really hope you can listen. :)

love,
russell

Posted by russell at 07:41 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

it wednesday again... hello! :) thank you for being here. words about tonight's podcast are hard to pin down. hm. mostly, it's a broad feeling - a translation, transition - how words connect and distance and transform - the feedback loop of emotion pivoting on moments, and moments pivoting on emotions, and songs and feelings and ideas mixed in and around the whole process - causing and effecting. something like that. i realize i'm grasping at rational straws here, but i still hope the overtones come through. mostly, episode 171 is just me playing a few new demo songs, and trying to figure out a feeling. hopefully i said things (or pointed toward them???) somewhat coherently. but, even if not - gotta say - it feels good to try. i'm thankful for that. even in the midst of being proven wrong.

so... given that tonight's podcast is mostly about this unsayable sense of things, and not about a linear idea, it feels right not to try to overexplain or philosophize or re-say "what i meant to say," etc., etc., etc. it seems better to let the broken poetry of these new songs say it in their own words. the songs are just glimpses. shadows of the feeling. but they say it better than i can.

wishing you well,
russell

ps - here they are:

i had a dream

i had a dream that it was true
i had a dream that me and you
in every way we ever said,
the veins and ties hanging by a thread
were just resting up from all the strain
we put them through

you took the test, you know the rest
you had to choose which side you thought was best
i was only something old, some old story you told yourself
but i believed it...

chorus:
you know i, you know why
to tell the truth i'd have to fall apart
to tell you i, to tell you why
to say the truth i'd have to fall apart
oh, i'd have to tell the truth

you know how dreams
they take the place, but not the time
put us in a different world that tells the truth,
or at least a kind of mind
that takes us back to where we were,
but never opened our eyes
i held you in my arms...

chorus:
you know i, you know why
to tell the truth i'd have to fall apart
to tell you i, to tell you why
to say the truth i'd have to fall apart
oh, i'd have to tell the truth
oh, i'd have to tell the truth

You know how feelings point the way
symbols of a kind of faith
there's no answer in the way
just a warning sign to say
that what you have is measured by
what you have to give away...

you know i, you know why
love won't let me tell the truth
you know i, you know why
i can't tell the truth.

--

my feelings never matter

i know better than to start to sing this song
i know better than to tell the truth to anyone
like the squad needs more ammunition
like the fire needs more oxygen
like the problem with my heart
has ever been twice the same

chorus:
i know better than to hope that things might change
i know the same's true of staying the same
like i've ever known how to change
like i've ever been able to stay the same

like i need to water the weeds
like i never spread those seeds
like i ever knew which side was yours
like i ever know which part was mine
was there even a difference between the two?
the division seemed more real to me
than it ever did to you...

chorus:
i know better than to hope that things might change
i know the same's true of staying the same
like i've ever known how to change
like i've ever been able to stay the same

Posted by russell at 06:34 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

tonight's podcast is here! episode 170. i'm a little self-conscious about it on multiple levels - 1) i don't think i expressed my point very clearly, and 2) i'm always self-conscious whenever i ramble on about religion/philosophy, etc. hm. in mulling it over, and re-listening, the main point i wish i'd made better is the simple fact that the "both/and" worldview, by definition, allows for the "either/or" within it. and, in this sense, the oversimplification of the dilemma ravi zacharias portrays on his podcast is untrue and unfair.

as i see it, the "both/and" (or "pantheist," as zacharias calls it) perspective embodies an understanding that both "either/or" and "both/and" are appropriate ways of thinking - each in their place and time. science, mathematics, engineering, logic - these are all areas of life and knowledge where the "either/or" mindset is appropriate and unquestionably superior. absolutely. alternatively - feeling, love, opinion, metaphysics, faith, the supernatural - anything that facts can't prove - are the domain of "both/and." the whole truth is both. and - in this sense - the dilemma between either "both/and" or "either/or" is a completely false choice.

the fact that both sides are necessary and real and true (and powerfully relevant) in human life seems reasonable and balanced and true to me. and, honestly, i think it's an equal failing to err in either direction. if we force the "either/or" onto love and faith, we end up with dogmatic fundamentalism that's deaf to the complexity and variety of human experience. if we apply the "both/and" to science and logic, we create a false nonsense-world where nothing can be known or said about anything. both extremes seem equally insane to me. the only way to fully understand and engage with the whole of life, is to try to understand and embrace both perspectives appropriately. this is hard to do, obviously. it takes more than a lifetime, for any of us. but i think our time is much better spent here - exploring where and when to apply each - than tilting at the windmills of our neighbors and perceived-to-be enemies.

so, anyway. yes. that's what i meant to say tonight. it's just my opinion, so a "both/and" situation, clearly. ;) the other side has a point. and, if you're interested in learning more about that, i hope you'll visit the ravi zacharias' podcast "let my people think".

as always, and most of all, many thanks go out to our musical guests tonight - marianne barlow, the mannequins, and slyway.

happy december 2nd,
russell

Posted by russell at 06:07 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)