ten years ago today…

it was sept. 19th, 2007 that rich mullins went to be with the savior that he so longed to be with. here is what someone wrote about him. it is so good. so true.

1) Rich hated the limelight. His typical concert uniform was jeans (with holes in the knees) and a t-shirt. No shoes. No socks. In fact, he was known for sneaking onto the stage before being introduced, because the glowing introductions always made him uncomfortable. It was not uncommon for the audience to think the guy walking out onto the dark stage and sitting at the piano was some sort of pre-concert piano tuner. Then he’d start playing, and the lights would come on, and everyone would go “Oh, that’s him!” and the concert would start.

2) Rich was a genius musician. I had never heard of the hammered dulcimer until I bought the cassette tape of The World As Best As I Remember It (Vol. 1) when it came out in 1991. There was this brilliant sound on some of the songs — a droning, dancing, rhythmic theme that sounded like a cross between an acoustic guitar and a piano — and it mesmerized me. I figured out that this must be the “hammered dulcimer” mentioned in the liner notes. Within a few years, I had my own hammered dulcimer and had learned to play it. Never anywhere as good as Rich, but still entranced by the beauty of it. Rich introduced a lot of Christians like me to the depth and simplicity of Appalachian music…and the Irish folk music that inspired it.

3) Rich was a 36-year-old college student when his career really began to take off. From 1991 to 1995, one of the bestselling Christian musicians was enrolled at Friends University in Wichita, Kansas, pursuing a B.A. in Music Education. He played French Horn in the band, for Pete’s sake. And he remained there until he graduated and received his teaching degree. Now, imagine Chris Tomlin deciding suddenly to enroll at your local community college so he can study physical therapy — because he truly wanted to help people by becoming a licensed, practicing physical therapist — and then actually graduating with a degree…while still writing and recording music. It was kind of like that.

4) Rich was a “new monastic” before we knew what that meant. Before guys like Shane Claiborne came along, Rich was pursuing an uncloistered, semi-Protestant monastic existence. Upon graduating from college, he moved to a Native American reservation in New Mexico, near the Arizona border, where he taught music to kids in the local school. He made hundreds of thousands of dollars through album sales and royalties, but Rich only ever saw a fraction of that money. Early in his career, he set up a team of advisers to handle his finances. They paid him a yearly salary — as I remember it, it was something in the mid $20,000 range, equivalent to that of a common laborer — and the rest went to various charities. He didn’t know what his music and career were worth, and didn’t want to know.

5) Rich was theologically curious, and religiously ecumenical. True story: I grew up in a pretty tight bubble of very conservative Southern Baptist theology and practice. I owe a lot of who I am to that upbringing, but I also recognize that much of who I am comes from the steps I’ve made outside of that bubble. And I was given the freedom to take those first steps by Rich Mullins. The stuff he wrote and sang about from 1991 to 1995 — the end of my high school years and beginning of my college years — set me on a path toward re-understanding a lot of theology. It wasn’t until he started talking about this book by a guy named Brennan Manning, a Catholic writer none of my friends had ever heard of, that a little book called The Ragamuffin Gospel became the Blue Like Jazz of the mid 90s. I devoured The Ragamuffin Gospel. I started reading all of Manning’s other books. Then I started reading all the authors — Henri Nouwen and Frederick Buechner and Thomas Merton and Flannery O’Connor and G.K. Chesterton and Bonhoeffer and Moltmann — that Manning listed in his footnotes. And when a sheltered Southern Baptist boy starts reading Catholics and Anglicans and other suspicious thinkers, the Gospel gets a whole lot bigger. When Rich Mullins described listening to a cassette of Brennan Manning speaking about grace, he told of having to stop his pickup truck, pull to the side of the road, and weep. That hooked me, and it set my feet on a path I’m still on today. (Always rebellious and controversial, Rich ended up converting to Catholicism before his death, by the way.)

6) Rich was messy. It was generally suppressed (for our safety, I suppose) while he was alive, but after Rich’s death we began to learn that he had a fondness for cigarettes, light beer, and the occasional dirty word. This sort of behavior is, perhaps, more readily accepted among CCM artists in 2007, but back in the mid-90s, we needed to be protected from the less wholesome activities of the guy who wrote “Awesome God.” So no one ever talked about it. But there were always rumors, and Rich Mullins was as human as people get. That’s always good to know.

Rich Mullins asked hard questions and didn’t always offer answers. He rebelled against the establishment. He was a quiet, humble prophet in a culture of screaming TV preachers and Christian musicians wearing glittery jumpsuits. He refused to clean up his act — or his wardrobe — for record labels. He wrote songs about the color green, preferring to record offbeat music with densely metaphorical lyrics played by a Ragamuffin Band of unkempt, scruffy, outcast musicians rather than release a polished, radio-friendly pop song. He made lots of money but never saw it. He loved Saint Francis of Assisi and “Adagio for Strings” by Samuel Barber. He grew up Quaker. He drove an old pickup truck and taught himself to play the cello. He talked of grace as often as possible. We were strangers, but I feel like we were companions during a very formative time in my life. I never met him, but he influenced me more than just about any other non-relative I can think of.
Thank you, Rich. You left us too soon. We’ve missed you. You suck, by the way, for not wearing a seatbelt.
Say “hi” to Francis for us.

what ashley wants to study…

hebrews is tight.
i’ve read it before,
but never really studied it in depth.
this is going to be a fun, but long, series

“He is the radiance of the glory of God
and the exact imprint of his nature,
and he upholds the universe by the word
of his power.”
hebrews 1:3 ESV

why in the world…

last saturday i went and played some golf. it was good. played out at southwyck golf club in pearland. as a gift for playing in this tournament i received a card for a free round at 4 very nice golf courses in the houston area. i was so excited. so i get home and share this with my dad, who is also a golfer, and he was excited for me as well, but then he went on to share this weeks segment of “why in the world!”

next tuesday my dad is going on “business” to mississippi to play golf. not only that, he is playing in a pro-AM. for all you non-golfers that means that he is going to get teamed up with a PGA pro and gonna play a round alongside him. dad leaves on tuesday, plays a practice round on tuesday afternoon and then plays in the pro-AM on wednesday. how sweet is that?!?! when my dad told me this i literally responded, “why in the world are you going to play in a pro-AM?” it was all pretty funny. but hey, when you catch breaks you gotta take’em i guess.

"…but even if he doesn’t…"

there has been a scripture that has been running though my head for a couple weeks now. its only right that this same scripture is our study for sunday school this week. its such a good one. i had to share it with you guys.

after Nebuchadnezzar threatened Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego with death if the didn’t worship his gods, listen to their response.

“Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered King Nebuchadnezzar, ‘Your threat means nothng to us. If you throw us in the fire, the God we serve can rescue us from your roaring furnace and anything else you might cook up, O king. But even if he doesn’t, it wouldn’t make a bit of difference, O king. We still wouldn’t serve your gods or worship the gold statue you set up.’ “

“…even if he doesn’t…”
everytime i read this i wonder how will i react in regards to my faith even if God doesn’t deliver me? how would you react?

how ’bout them apples?!?!

steve jobs has done it again. apple released their new ipods today. the new ipod mini, now with video and the new iphone-esque ipod touch with a 3.5 inch widescreen display as well as wi-fi web browsing. with this wi-fi you now have the capability to download songs from itunes directly from your ipod. needless to say…

how ’bout them apples?!?!

why…

why is it so hard for me to approach the throne of God?

Hebrews 4:16 says, “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace in our time of need.”

i just find it so hard to approach the throne. i understand the fact that i am a sinner, BUT i am redeemed/made clean/sinless by the blood of Christ Jesus, so why is it so hard for me to approach the throne of God.

maybe there are just spells/seasons that believers go through. some days i am doing awesome. jesus and i are tight. there are honestly days where it seems like i am in the presence of God all day long. then there are other days that it seems like there is no chance to be in the presence of God. i guess that is where faith comes in.

i just need to remember that Jesus himself made it possible for me to enter the presence of God by His death on the cross. i need to, at every possible chance, take advantage of His sacrifice and enter the presence of God.

*day two of the H2O project and im doing good.

starting monday…

myself along with about 25 of my youth will make water our only beverage for two weeks in order to bring clean water and the gospel to the people in one of 21 different countries through living water international.

pray for us. its going to be interesting.
pray that we can be diligent.
pray that we can be honest.
pray that we stay focused on the reason that we are doing this.