mere mortals?

I was reading the other day at my favorite coffee shop (the shop with the biggest pastries!...and some pretty good coffee) and was just smacked upside the face with this passage from C.S. Lewis. As odd as it my be this is my first Lewis, so...sorry if i'm just way behind. Something my pastor said tonight reminded me of this. It comes from the last page of the first chapter of The Weight of Glory:

"There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilisations- these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit- immortal horrors or everlasting splendours. This does not mean we are perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously- no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner - no mere tolerance, or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment. Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to you senses."

And a few quotes from Pastor Krist:

"Love is inconvenient."

"What would happen if the Church started doing something creative with the Golden Rule?"

I used to be better at this neighbor loving stuff. And by neighbor i mean the people around me at any given point. When i was a kid i loved people. In elementary school i used to talk to everyone, "be nice" to everyone. What happened? Well somewhere along the line I started caring what was cool, what I looked like, what other people looked like, what other people could get me...and I lost some of that innocence. I want it back! I want to see people as glorious, precious creations. Lord, help me.

oooh wow, eh, and bleh (this is the throw up sound)

I went to see Andrew Bird and Josh Ritter tonight...

Oh wow! - I've been into Andrew Bird for a quite a while, and I enjoy him immensely, but it's been a while since I've listened to his I knew he was great on the violin (i'm pretty sure it's violin, not fiddle. His lines lean more classical than they do blue grass), and his singing is fantastic, or perhaps, croontastic...But what i'd forgotten about was his whistling!...maybe the sexiest whistle i've ever heard. Whisting, hand claps, violin, all through a loop pedal and then piped through a spinning double gramaphon - amazing...not to mention his great band.

eh - I'd heard Josh Ritter's name around quite a bit, and someone recommended his album "The Animal Years" to me, to I checked it out. It's great, cool neo folk vibe to back some stand-up lyrics. He's got a new one out called "The Historical Conquest of Josh Ritter," which I hadn't heard any of until tonight....I wasn't impressed. He came out with this big goofy grin on his face, all nervous because he's playing his home state. Ok, it was kinda cute...for 2 songs maybe...but he was just giddy and cheesin' all night... The hip textures from the Animal Years turned into some cheesey, straight country and the lyrics? - a little cheese sauce on the side. Occasionally he played one of the older tunes, which kept me around, but really the only thing he had going for him was this kick-ass bass player. He was dressed all classy with matching slacks and vest. To add to his class points he sported some dark horn-rimmed specticals and a big, fat, handlebar mustache, you know, the kind that culrs up on the end....oh yeah and he was a great musician as well.

Bleh (this is the throw up sound)- When I got home i made myslef a little plate of Nachos ( i know, it's late but I didn't have a chance to eat dinner) and sat down to watch some Conan. It was a re-run with an uninteresting guest, so I flipped over the the Craig Fergison show to check it out. Ooo, just in time for the musical guest...no namer? well, i'll give 'em a whirl. NO NO! what is this?
This is what he sang (well something like this, cuz it's late and I was trying to block it out):

Things are gonna get better
Things are gonna get better
This is true
Things are gonna get better
Things are gonna get better
For me and you

Are you serious? This is when I threw up. Really? If that's what it takes to sell records, I think I could write like 4 a year that would sell and still have to make some real music....

The Inagural Post

Well, I finally caved. Peer pressure is forever (check me out! I'm totally linking already!) as my friend David Dark's blog is entitled. So, without further ado, here is my blog post.

I couldn't figure out what kind of blog I should have....I'm not funny enough to have a funny blog, not smart enough to have a blow your mind with my insight kind of blog, not a good enough engineer/producer/guitarist/songwriter to have one of those kind off blogs either. So what you're gonna get is probably a mess of all that: talk of guitar tone, my latest recording venture, my faith journey, the book i'm reading (or that I've read one chapter in and won't read again for another month), the balancing act of life, and what I experienced on my last hand modeling job, probably in this sort of random, tangent filled manor. It's called Marc's Hands (at least for now) because well, I still think it's funny to make jokes about how I've done some hand modeling (which is actually true, not that I got paid for it, but still...) and because, on the real, most of the stuff i'll be bloging about will be the work of my hands (kinda cheesy? yes). If you find anything good here, it's probably something that somebody else already said better.

So after that brilliant introduction you're probably thinking, "wow. really? this guy thinks people are going to read this?" Yep. That's what i'm thiking too...