Untitled Kester Smith Project

Occasionally I compile soundtracks to films that have yet to exist. This stems mostly from my long existing wish that one could pursue a career as a soundtrack consultant for films and television. Until that happens, here's the latest compilation:

1. Fidelity -Regina Spektor

2. Words We Never Use -Ron Sexsmith

3. Young and Innocent Days -The Kinks

4. Listening To Otis Redding At Home During Christmas -Okkervil River

5. I Keep Having These Dreams -Micah P. Hinson

6. Not A Heel -Phosphorescent

7. Speeding Motorcycle -Yo La Tengo

8. In The Aeroplane Over The Sea -Neutral Milk Hotel

9. Under The Hedge -Ted Leo & the Pharmacists

10. Answering Machine -The Replacements

11. Tell Me It's You -Boys

12. How Can I Love You If You Won't Lie Down -Silver Jews

13. Seven Chinese Bros. -R.E.M.

14. Mushaboom -Feist

15. Red Right Ankle -The Decemberists

16. Into The Mystic -Van Morrison

17. Late For The Sky -Jackson Browne

18. Mona Lisas & Mad Hatters -Elton John

19. That Day Is Done -Elvis Costello

20. Cruel To Be Kind -Nick Lowe

Lenten Reading/Cost of Discipleship

Chapter 5

What do you do to avoid solitude with God? How do you interact with others when you are lonely vs. when you are in solitude with God?

In what area of life do you find it hard to let Christ be the Mediator (though He is indeed)? If we agree that, "Christ stands between us and we can only get into touch with our neighbors through Him," then who is God calling you to intercede for?

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son," yet God commands us, "Love not the world." How do you reconcile those 2 statements?

What happens when we try to have fellowship of the church without making a definite breach with the world?

What are the differences between attending a church and being part of what Bonhoeffer calls, "the community of the cross, the People of the Mediator, the People under the cross?" How do go about becoming a "community of the cross"?

On Christian Community

From Thomas Merton's The Seven Storey Mountain:

I needed this support, this nearness of those who really loved Christ so much that they seemed to see Him. I needed to be with people whose every action told me something of the country that was my home: just as expatriates is every alien land keep together, if only to remind themselves, by their very faces and clothes and gait and accents and expressions, of the land they come from.

Lately I've been thinking about Christian community and how it applies to the idea of being "in the world, but not of the world." That the necessary function of the church is to provide an alternative culture and story. I don't mean the subculture that Christendom too often creates, one that pulls out of society and yet lives by its values (of the world, but not in the world), but one that rebels against the narrative it has been given by the world. When I sing that "this world is not my home" I don't mean it as a rejection of the planet or of the people within it, but of the principalities and powers that preach fear and greed and selfishness and apathy. I mean it as a reminder, to myself as much as those who hear me, that we were not made to embrace the excess and tedium and shallowness that is offered up as success and security and love. Because we live in a world where my dreams and desires trump another's needs, I need a community that lives by the Lordship of Christ, His will, and His Way. A community that reminds me what the Lord requires; "to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God."

Lenten Reading/Cost of Discipleship

Chapter 4

What do we mean when we say something is "our cross to bear"? What does Bonhoeffer mean?

Do you believe that Jesus had a better (more rewarding, more fulfilling) life than any other person? If so, would you want to trade lives with Him?

Do we believe Bonhoeffer when he says that the yoke of self is heavier than the burden of the cross?

How does the desire to avoid suffering keep us from following Jesus? Are your life choices based more on being like Jesus or avoiding suffering?

A New Life

While our church has been reading Bonhoeffer's The Cost of Discipleship, I have also been reading Thomas Merton's autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain. Something he writes about midway through seems to speak to Bonhoeffer and Lent and a lot of what we're learning, as a church, about why "new life" is necessary.

I made the terrible mistake of entering upon the Christian life as if it were merely the natural life invested with a kind of supernatural mode by grace. I thought that all I had to do was to continue living as I had lived before, thinking and acting as I did before, with the one exception of avoiding sin. It never occurred to me that if I continued to live as I had lived before, I would be simply incapable of avoiding sin.

Lenten Reading/Cost of Discipleship

Chapter 3

Why does Bonhoeffer say that the rich young ruler is more honest than we tend to be?

What are ways in which you find yourself talking yourself out of obedience?

How can we apply Jesus' commands to our context without explaining them away?

Do you agree with Bonhoeffer that single-minded obedience can lead to great joy? What do you think/fear would happen to you individually (or Christian community as a whole) if we became more obedient to the commands of Jesus?

Jesus Has Left The Building

Felipe Fernandez-Armesto once described the death of Elvis Presley as a "great career move."

Harsh words, but an acknowledgement that there are few things more difficult to watch than a catastrophic attempt at a comeback.

Which seems like a lesson that the church could stand to learn. Today's culture of Christendom often acts as if a face-lift and a new sound will be its salvation. But the result comes off gaudy and gross.

What the church needs to hear is what Elvis' manager should have told him; the key to a comeback is to silm down and get back to basics. Short of that, the church's "great career move" might just be death.

Especially a church that believes that with death comes resurrection. 

May this Lent be a time for your church and mine to slim down, get back to basics, and do a little dying.

And may the result be revival and resurrection.

Lenten Reading/Cost of Discipleship

Chapter 2

How would you define discipleship? What does Bonhoeffer identify as the key difference between following a religion and being a disciple?

Bonhoeffer describes Jesus calling several people to follow him, some of who obeyed Christ and some who didn't. Which one of these people do you most identify with and why?

What do you make of Bonhoeffer’s statement “only he who believes is obedient and only he who is obedient believes”?

What is Bonhoeffer's advice to those who struggle with belief? What implications does that advice have for you personally? What implications does this have for Immanuel as a church?

I Wasn't Meant To Be A Calvinist

Allow me to recommend a helpful little book called A Brief History of Theology. Won't be life changing for anyone who ever went to seminary, but as good a combination of complete and concise as I have come across. It reminds me that I wasn't meant to be a Calvinist and makes me wonder why I don't choose to be a Methodist.

Lenten Reading/Cost of Discipleship

Chapter 1

How would you define the contrast between “cheap grace” and “costly grace”?

According to Bonhoeffer, what is the price we pay for “cheap grace”?

Reflect on the thinking that says, “because there’s nothing I can do to earn salvation, I will simply do nothing.” How does this sort of thinking lead to “cheap grace”?

How is the joy of discipleship connected to the cost of discipleship?