What kind of cheesecake are you, Dear Reader?

Here I Am:

You Are a Key Lime Cheesecake

Unconventional and quirky, you live to shock people. You see the world in very weird ways. Sometimes you even surprise yourself!

What Kind of Cheesecake Are You?

Quotes From The Conference

Two friends and I recently attended the Festival of Faith and Music at Calvin College in Michigan. Below are some pertinant quotes from many of the speakers, if you're interested.

Emmylou Harris:

"Style" is a product of your limitations. You make a song your own by working with what you've been given.
It's better to record a really good song written by someone else than a mediocre song you've written yourself.

Lauren Winner:

"The arts" as a two-word phrase is as intimidating as anything besides "I do."

When do people who don't go to church sing?

Each of us is called to portray the image of God, and God is a creator.

Advertising is our "big art," which is "art for the sake of selling something." This has infected the Church.

Is the goal of art to be pretty, or to tell the truth?

David Dark:

There is madness at work when we think what God is giving us is merely spiritual, separate from the everyday.

"Apocalypse" describes that which is "redemptively unsettling."

"Secular" might work as a marketing tool, but it suggests terrain not belonging to, or not interesting to God.

If it's truthful, it's gospel. There is no truth out there that is the devil's. All goodness, truth and beauty is the Lord's.

Sufjan Stevens:

A Christian does not fix himself; he is fixed -- it's a passive form because it has little to do with our exertions but with the relievement of our exertions by God.

"Relevance" is guided by the desperate goals of Ego. It's an embarrassing goal. "Relevant" art is bad art. Christians -- contemplate irrelevance. Just carry the cross -- the real work we do is death, so we can be born into the Kingdom.

Steven Stockman:

We can't just be light. We must be salt -- we must be "on the meat."

Grace defies logic and reason and upends kharma (the rule that what you do will come back to you). We'd be in big trouble if kharma was our judge. Grace interupts kharma and smashes the pavement of the status quo.

Grace isn't the entrance to the Kingdom; it is the Kingdom.

Quotes from others referenced at the conference:

Peter Case: "A songwriter is a magpie -- a collector. You grab little things to make a nest. You collect good lines and string them together.

Harold Bloom: "Marx was wrong. Religion is not the opiate of the masses. It's the poetry of the masses -- the good and the bad.

Allan Ginsberg: "A prophet is someone who tells the truth all the time."

Flannery O' Connor: "Christianity is not a warm, fuzzy blanket. It's a cross."

Madeline L'Engle: "If it's true, it's Christian."

Another Web Milestone

Not "Webb," as in Christa Webb, but "Web" as in "World Wide Web."

Yesterday my website of original hymns and worship songs (soundclick.com/bobbygilles) passed the 10,000 page view threshhold, and as of Sunday morning it stands at 10,029 views since I started the site at the end of last September. The site has over 20 songs written by me, and occasionally with great collaborators who also lend their vocal and instrumental skills to various demos. You can hear performances by Brooks Ritter, Rebecca Dennison, Chad Lewis, Rebecca Bales, Nathan Stites, Dan Cassin, Lorie King, as well as me. I'm the worst singer/musician on my own website, which is kind of funny, but that's cool because I just like writing songs.

Although it's harder to keep track of total song stream and download accumulations (meaning the main page doesn't automatically update those figures, so I have to go into my "stats," look up the figures for each month, and add them), I'd estimate, based on monthly averages, that I've have around 9,000 song streams and close to 1,000 downloads in these last 6 1/2 months.

This usually keeps me in the first page or two of the Yahoo and Google search engines for "Modern hymn writer," which makes it easier for searchers to find my music. I'm very happy my songs are getting "out there," so thanks to everyone who listens in from time to time.

I also have a myspace.com/bobbygilles page that features some relationship-based (i.e., songs I've written about girls at various times) in the player, but that's not a main focus for me (Girls are a lot meaner to me than God is. Just kidding. Well, not really, but you know what I mean ...) and hardly anyone goes there so I'll probably hit 10,000 on myspace in, say, 2019.

I hope everyone had a great Easter and remembered that the resurrection is the assurance that our preaching is not in vain, that Jesus was not just a sacrificial hero dying for a good cause, but that He was the Lord of all, the perfect, holy God, able to take our sins upon Himself and offer Himself up as the spotless sacrifice needed to atone for us.

Happy Easter Weekend!

I hope everyone has a great Easter and remembers that without the resurrection, "Our preaching would be in vain ... we would die in sin."

Here's a new hymn text. Haven't looked at it with an eye for revision/editing yet. What do you think?

FORGIVE US LORD, FOR PASSING BY
86.86.888.6 meter

Forgive us Lord, for passing by
When children cry for bread
Forbid it Lord, that justice lie
in tatters, cold and dead
Outside these walls run desperate streets
where greed is law and life is cheap
We bar the doors, refuse to see,
or hear the words You said:

refrain
Let justice roll like a river. Like a river, let it roll.
Let justice roll like a river; let it roll.

Convict us Lord, we dance and laugh
ignoring those who weep
Correct us Lord, our golden calf
has lulled our hearts to sleep
The gap between the rich and poor
grows ever wider, shore to shore
There's racial hate, religious war
and wolves among the sheep

Indwell us Lord, and purify
our hands to work for You
Enlist us Lord, to serve nearby
and ‘cross the waters, too
Your image-bearers on the earth
will never know how much they’re worth
unless we love and help them first
and show the way to You.

My fellow Americans ...

I ask for your vote.

No, I'm not running for office.

Last year (actually it might have been the end of 2005) I wrote a hymn that, lyrically, was one of my favorites: He Grew The Tree. I was never satisfied with my music for it though. So recently I had an idea for how to redo the music to make it serve the lyrics better and be easier for a congregation to sing.

However, it then seemed to me that the demo would sound better with a female voice. So I brought in Lorie, because she can make anything sound good, and we made a demo that I think is one of the best that I've been a part of. Anyway, it's on the main page of my my music site, but I also posted it on sharesong.org. You can hear it on either site, and if you like it, please vote for it on sharesong for their "song of the month" poll so Lorie and I will get discovered and she will win American Idol and I will get to write the cheesy song that all the Idol winners are forced to sing on the finale and record for their first CD.

Well, actually that won't happen regardless but the more votes a song gets, the more other people say, "Hey, this song by that guy I've never heard of seems to be getting a lot of votes. Maybe I should listen to it." CLICK HERE for the sharesong "new music" page, and scroll down to see "You Grew The Tree" by Bobby Gilles.