If you have to ask what Frank, stop reading right now. Anyone who lived in the 20th century, and raised their kids well in the 21st, should know that could only be the incomparable Sinatra, the Chairman of the Board. The other night my wife told some little intimate cylinder with the name Alexa to play big band Frank Sinatra, and on came the wonderful song Come Fly With Me, and the phrase of the title of this post came instantly to my mind. There is nothing as awesome as Big Band Frank. One song after the other came on, and each so incredibly captured the vibrant vitality of life through The Voice. Even though Frank in the 40s made his name as a crooner, his legacy lives on more as the voice of the Great American Songbook with big bands led by the likes of the great Nelson Riddle. It’s difficult to express in mere words how his voice accompanied by the amazing arrangements of so many songs capture how wonderful and vibrant this life can be. When you’re listening you can almost feel like it is possible that what we’re ultimately looking for can actually be found in this life. As any honest person will tell you, it can’t, not least because the Grim Reaper is always waiting in the wings to spoil the party. (more…)
As is our family Christmas tradition, we watched yet again the wonderful Charlie Brown Christmas special that first aired in 1965, when I was all of five years old. I don’t remember that first one, but I’m sure I’ve watched it almost as many times as years I’ve been on this earth, and it never gets old, like me. What makes it so special, pun intended, is that in simple and profound ways it captures so well the pathos of human existence. Coming from the Greek for suffering or experience, and coined by Aristotle, the Peanuts gang are pure pathos, starting with Charlie Brown himself. His misery is hilarious, but hits home. Who hasn’t wanted to throw their own pity party when nothing seems to go our way, and nobody seems to care, and we know we shouldn’t feel that way amid the bright lights and joy of the season.
This is more of a challenge in this year of our Lord 2020, when hell has seemed to make a more obvious visit to earth than usual. I will spare the gory details, but we all know them, and all wish they were not as they are, but they are. Imagine, though, having to go through such a year without a hope that goes beyond this life. Imaging hurtling toward death as we all are . . . . and this is as good as it gets??? This is it??? We all know it’s not, but often live as if it is. Shame on us. Even back in 1965 when secularism was making its way to the pinnacle of the culture, but not quite there yet, the TV executives were pressuring Charles Schultz to pass on the now lionized Linus speech, What’s it all about. Thankfully, his Christian faith enabled him to him stand firm, and hundreds of millions, probably billions over the years, now know what Christmas is all about.
I’m not sure the title of a book can better capture our age than Philip Reiff’s 1966 classic The Triumph of the Therapeutic, especially in the tumultuous 2020. The book is Reiff’s take on Sigmund Freud, who he thought a genius, and the response of other psychoanalysts to him, like Carl Jung. It’s a dense book, full of academic-speak, but Reiff seems to lament that human well-being had become the sin qua none of American culture, and that was in 1966! And this turn to self, he predicted, would not bode well for our future. The word Therapeutic technically means of or relating to the treating or curing of disease; curative, but in a cultural sense it means that the most important thing in life is the self, and making one feel happier, more self-fulfilled. The triumph of the therapeutic is seen in the religion of most Americans. Sociologist Christian Smith coined the term for this religion, Moralistic Therapeutic Deism (MTD). He describes it in his book Souls in Transition: (more…)
Eddie Van Halen was my sworn enemy when I was a teenager aspiring to be a guitar god. I’m a bit competitive by nature. I’ll never forget a trip I took to the local Guitar Center on Hacienda Boulevard (SoCal) when I was 16 or 17. For some reason driving there I was thinking of Van Halen, and I must haven’t know the band was starting to make it big. I determined then and there that I would beat him and become the greatest guitar player of all time! Delusions of grandeur were one of my favorite pastimes. Needless to say I never made it to guitar god stardom, thankfully. God had different plans, but being a guitarist I couldn’t help being awed by the greatness of Eddie Van Halen. Alas, as you probably know, he recently went the way of all flesh, and reminds us, as if we needed reminding, Momento Mori, we too must die. (more…)
It’s become a cliche that we live in a “post-Christian” culture. This is shown in obvious hostility to Christians and their faith, but more perniciously when Christianity and God are ignored as if they are completely irrelevant to existence. The latter provides the most danger to our faith at the same time it provides the many opportunities to help strengthen it. The recently ended NBC series The Good Place is an example of both. It’s kind of funny, really, that in a show purportedly about the afterlife that God was persona non grata. We watched every episode of all four seasons, and I’m pretty sure the divine being didn’t even make a cameo. We can conclude, then, that God is not relevant to life, death, or even what comes after death. That’s the danger, that people think such a view of reality is reasonable and plausible, and go along their merry way without a thought of the judgment to come. But it’s also a great opportunity because you see how shallow, weak, and hopeless such a view really is. Ultimately, the ending shows us just how clueless the writers are without God’s revelation to them in creation, Scripture, and Christ. (more…)
I rarely get political here because my passion is to defend the veracity of the Christian faith, as I have to my children all their lives, and to rest of my brothers and sisters in Christ. But I feel I must in this case get political because I’m weary of left-wing, progressive, liberal (whatever) Christians thinking they stand in some politically transcendent place where they can condemn their conservative brethren for their moral profligacy of supporting President Trump. I was driven to write by a recent piece at Christianity Today by Scott McKnight, although I’ve encountered many such screeds directed at people like me, and the rest of Evangelical Trump supporters. (more…)
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