In the most recent Christian headlines it would seem Jenninfer Knapp has come out of the closet. According to Christianity Today, the singer/songwriter has been in a relationship with her partner for “almost eight years” and cites her lifestyle choice as one of the many straws that drove her away from full time songwriting for seven years.  It’s a good article but the following words from Jennifer were the ones I found most profound:

During my college years, I received some admonishment about some relationships I’d had with women. Some people said, “You might want to renegotiate that,” even though those relationships weren’t sexual. Hindsight being 20/20, I guess it makes sense. But if you remove the social problem that homosexuality brings to the church—and the debate as to whether or not it should be called a “struggle,” because there are proponents on both sides—you remove the notion that I am living my life with a great deal of joy. It never occurred to me that I was in something that should be labeled as a “struggle.” The struggle I’ve had has been with the church, acknowledging me as a human being, trying to live the spiritual life that I’ve been called to, in whatever ramshackled, broken, frustrated way that I’ve always approached my faith. I still consider my hope to be a whole human being, to be a person of love and grace. So it’s difficult for me to say that I’ve struggled within myself, because I haven’t. I’ve struggled with other people. I’ve struggled with what that means in my own faith. I have struggled with how that perception of me will affect the way I feel about myself.

Knapp always been one of my (few) favorite “Christian” singer/songwriters and I’m looking forward to her latest.

Of the things in my life that I value the most music, diversity, and creativity rank  pretty high.

Playing for change is a project based on the idea that music can break down the cultural and geographic lines we draw between each other.  That music can bring together people of different “geographic, political, economic, spiritual or ideological backgrounds.” With this thought they constructed a mobile recording studio and traveled around the world recording various artists playing the same song and mixed together their individual parts, the result is amazing.

Mark Johnson had gotten the idea for the project while living in New York:

“I was in a subway in New York on my way to work, and I heard these two monks playing music,” he recalls. “They were painted head to toe, all white, wearing robes. One was playing a nylon guitar, and the other was singing in a language I didn’t understand. There were about 200 people who stopped to watch, didn’t even get on the train. Some had tears in their eyes. And it occurred to me that here is a group of people that would normally run by each other, but instead they’re coming together. And it’s the music that brought them together.”

The finished product is something akin to Paul Simon’s “Graceland” mashed up with that guy that dances around the world.

I can’t decide if I like the sounds of post-Katrina New Orleans to post-apartheid South Africa more…But Grandpa Elliott is my favorite musician here, period.

http://www.vimeo.com/2539741

Buy the CD.

I’m sure this is something my children will dislike me for (this and the fact that Cara and I detest processed foods)

But I can’t fathom letting a child have a cell phone, at least before they get their braces taken off…

I remember when I got my first cellular phone.  I had just turned 17 and got a Nokia that was the size of a soda can.  No bells and whistles, no Internet and really, no one to text. At that point in time no one really had cell phones, most of my friends included and the idea of texting was as foreign as signing up for twitter.  It was only supposed to be for calling home/parents and that rule was observed about 95% of the time, in the beginning.  Did I say that none of my friends had cell phones yet?  This idea number inevitably fell and continued to fall throughout high school until ultimately I ended up having the account in my name, with the checks to AT&T having my name on the signature line.

It seems to be a growing trend and I can’t say I’m against it in theory.  If my child is in a situation where I need to be notified then I absolutely think they need access to a phone or line of communication directly to me but who’s to say when a situation requires my attention; my child, their teacher, their babysitter?

Is may seem harsh but there were times in my own life that I might have wanted to contact my parents but couldn’t and I suppose it had quite an impact on how I matured.  Could a phone just become a crutch?

What prompted me to even think about this was the release of a new application that allows parents to control what their children are surfing on their iPhones or iPods.  Without imagining the costs of giving my child an iPhone, I can barely stomach the fact that they would have the entire web at their fingertips wherever they are… Good and bad

So far this is still an intellectual pursuit in my life, since of course I have no children yet.  So I would love some thoughts from those of you who have children or will soon (Congrats again guys!)

Kids and phones?  In your house?