attention

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The Music Captured My Attention

Music has a way of capturing your attention and putting you in a mood. I guess that’s why the soundtrack of a movie is so important.

If you’ve ever watched a movie with no soundtrack and just the actors’ lines, you really feel like there is something missing.

The background music draws out the emotion in you that the scene is trying to create, whether it is tension or laughter or joy or sadness.

A scene with a car cruising down a beachside freeway will boost the emotions when the music is something like the first 20 seconds of Steppenwolf’s, “Born To Be Wild”.

You can instantly imagine yourself in the car, taking those curves, looking out at the waves crashing on the beach below you.

Well, the other day my wife, Lily, was watching the opening song for the country music awards.

I wasn’t watching but from the other side of the room I said, “That sounds like … like … like (it took me a while) Hootie.”

Then it came to me. It was a song by Hootie and the Blowfish and the lead singer – who is not Hootie but Darius Rucker – was featured in that all-star cast rendition of “Hold Your Hand”.

It was a fond memory and the song was so good it hooked me in.

I spend the next hour or so on YouTube listening to different renditions of that song and others by Darius Rucker’s band.

I can’t really explain it, but listening to that song highjacked my evening and got me in a mood to listen to more of the same.

That’s what songs do. They capture your emotions and reel you in so that you feel something you weren’t feeling just minutes before.

When you think about it, music has a great power.

When Lily and I went on our honeymoon, we drove to our destination at Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, about a 16 hour drive away.

We had lots of time in the car and there were a few songs that really captured our attention. We can both still remember those songs today.

That was 32 years ago, yet when we hear those songs now we both look at each other, smile and remember that drive.

Music has such a profound impact on emotions that you can find it being used everywhere to put people in the right mood …  whether it is in an elevator, a department store, a commercial, your car, or even at the hockey arena.

A few years ago, I think the rink where I played hockey was experimenting on us. They pumped happy, easy-going music into the dressing rooms and the arena.

I think it was to see if it would calm us down and keep the altercations to a minimum.

I never did find out the results of that study … if it was one.

Music is around us most of our day; we are rarely without music in our lives. We wake to it, fall asleep with it and it is a soundtrack to our day.

Here’s the thing: God created music to move our emotions. And some of the time our emotions should be moved towards God. Don’t neglect ensuring that your emotions are stirred towards the God who loves you, cares for you and has given His precious Son, Jesus to die for you. Whether secular or spiritual, your music on a regular basis should draw you to give God glory and worship Him.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What song stirs up your emotions? Leave your comments below.

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What You Give Your Attention To Will Be Important To You

I believe something will fade in its importance to you when you stop paying attention to it. I stumbled on this principle this week.

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He’s gone, and he’s not coming back. No more Winston the turtle in our house. No more swimming frantically when someone passed by his tank. No more bashing into the tank glass when he would get scared off his rock.

Oh, he’s still living. He has a life expectancy of about 25 – 30 years, so I figure he has over twenty years of life left.

Winston is just no longer in our home. It was a bit of a sad day. Lily and Karlie drained the tank, packed up the filter and all the other paraphernalia, and took him to a new home.

You know, when my kids were young, when I came home they would come running to the door to see me and give me big hugs. Since they’ve grown up, it’s been Winston who has excitedly paddled at the edge of his tank when I came home.

It might have been that he wanted me to feed him instead of just being happy to see me … I can think what I want, can’t I? He can’t speak for himself.

Winston didn’t get all that much attention at our house. Karlie lives in another city, and Mike, though living in town, didn’t have much to do with him.

So it was down to Lily and I to take note of him and I mostly talked to him as I was passing by the living room.

That left Lily to care for him … and she did more than just talk to him. She fed him, cleaned his tank and filter, and took him out to let him walk around.

It’s Lily who had the hardest time saying good bye.

Lil would hold him and stroke the underside of his neck which he seemed to like. I guess there’s no more of that now.

He’s been gone less than a week and I still find myself looking over to that corner when I enter the living room to make sure I don’t scare him off his tanning rock.

Now he’s with a good family, with three kids to watch him, feed him, walk him, and give him more attention than we could.

But they need to be aware that Winston is a passive pet. And by that, I mean you have to go to him; he doesn’t come over to you to get petted or hugged or have his hand held. (I would hold his hand or paw after I fed him).

The poor little guy is gone. … But already our house is feeling like it’s back to normal.

Here’s the thing: You get attached to any pet, but the more interaction you have with that pet, the more important it will be to you, and the harder it is to say good bye. The same is true with attending church. The more interaction you have with Christ and His people, the more important they will be to you, and the harder it is to stay away. It’s easier to stay away from church when you are a passive attender. Make sure then you develop close connections with friends at church.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What is one excuse you’ve used to miss going to church in the last 3 months? I’d really like to hear from you; you can leave your comment below.

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Canadians and Hockey

There is something weird about us Canadians.  The other day I was out for dinner with my family – that would be 3/4 of my family because one quarter left us for Alberta five years ago and has not yet found her way back.

Anyway, we were in this restaurant having one of my favorite meals, hot wings. This particular restaurant had television screens all over and they were tuned to a sports channel.

I like sports so, even though the sound was off and pop music was playing through the speakers, I found myself watching what was on the screen.  About 5 minutes went by before I realized I’d been watching hockey highlights, goal after goal, great saves, and awesome hits.  But these weren’t highlights from last night’s games – they were from last year!  There’s a hockey strike on right now.

Now that’s Canadian.  It’s hockey season, so strike or no strike we’re going to watch hockey in some form or other.  It was funny because I was ogling the dekes these guys made on the goalies, and banging the table when the goalies made their out-of-nowhere glove saves.

I thought to myself, “Why am I interested in these highlights? I’ve seen them all last year.”  And after 5 or 10 minutes of watching in the restaurant, I’d seen them several more times.  But I kept watching, even though there weren’t many “Leaf” highlights.

I wasn’t the only one watching; my son was watching too.  We talked about what we were looking at as if it had some bearing on world peace or maybe war in the middle east.  There is just something about September that forces us to tune in; it flows through the veins of Canadians, like the urge to pack up the lawn mower and tune up the snowblower (man, I wish I had one of them!).

To be honest, I don’t think this NHL hockey strike is such a bad thing.  Right now my Toronto Maple Leafs have a perfect season going.  In fact, they’re in first place in the league.  I realize it’s a tie with every other team in the league, but hey, if the playoffs started right now, the Leafs would have a chance!

In one Toronto store, I saw on their TVs they were showing a hockey playoff game between Montreal and Philly.  I thought to myself, “This is Toronto and they’re showing a Montreal game?”  Then I remembered, if they showed a Leafs’ playoff game it would be in black and white!

Personally, I believe this strike comes at a good time.  The Leafs haven’t made the playoffs since the last strike so this strike should break the jinx … we’ll probably see them in the playoffs again regularly.

Here’s the thing:  We all have things that grab our interest, command our attention, draw our focus away from everything else.  But does that happen with God?  When you read the Bible, do you get lost in what it’s saying to you?  When you are alone with God, do you lose track of time and everything else around you?  I don’t think it will happen all the time, but at certain moments, seasons of our life, our God should grab our interest, grab our attention, draw our focus away from everything else.  If it doesn’t happen, we should look into why, and make some changes.

Until Next Time!

Pastor Paul

Question: When has God so grabbed your attention that everything else faded around you? Leave your comment below.