"We are travellers…not yet in our native land" – St. Augustine
At University I became a huge fan of the Italian opera singer Andrea Bocelli after first hearing his album Songo. This blind musician has thrilled audiences around the world for years now. In the video below Andrea tells us a little story…
(Thanks to Erika for this one)
Today I’d like to talk about one of the songs from a recent album of my favourite contemporary Christian band, Casting Crowns. The song is entitled “Wedding Day” and describes the wedding feast of Heaven when Christ’s Bride, the Church, is finally presented to the Him:
Towards the end of the song there’s a lyric which speaks of the scarred hands of Christ wiping away every tear:
When the hand that bears the only scars and heaven touch her face
And the last tears she’ll ever cried are finally wiped away
And the clouds roll back as He takes her hand and walks her through the gates
Forever we will reign
At the beginning of Advent I did a short post with a video of my favourite Advent hymn, “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” (The Piano Guys were even good enough to release their rendition of that hymn today on YouTube).
Today I wanted to share one of my favourite non-religious Advent-ish songs. The song is by Karmin, the group which rose to fame on YouTube after releasing their own version of Chris Brown’s Look At Me Now. Here’s their newly-released song, “Sleigh Ride”:
I’ll admit I still find it very strange listening to songs which talk about snow while living in Southern California…
So what’s your favourite non-religious Advent/Christmas song?
It’s now December and time to start thinking about New Year Resolutions for 2013. Here’s a little bit of inspiration for you to try something new next year:
What new thing are you going to try in 2013? What new things do you think I should do?
Although you wouldn’t guess it from looking around, it’s not yet Christmas.
In fact, although we’ve been bombarded with Christmas stuff since the day after Thanksgiving, the Christmas season doesn’t begin for quite some time. However, since today we enter Advent, it’s now time to bring out the Advent (not Christmas!) music! Here’s my favourite Advent hymn, “O Come, O Come Emmanuel”:
So, what’s your favourite Advent song?
The other day I was thinking about things which make me happy. It’s actually quite a difficult exercise – if you don’t believe me, give it a go. What are the things which make you really, truly happy? Where are the places you can always find joy?
After sitting down and writing the list I’ve concluded that I’m actually quite easy to please. Although in many ways I’m extremely demanding of myself and others, it doesn’t actually take a whole lot to make me happy:
In my last post I moved on to talking about some of the newer British comedy shows I love. However, soon after posting, I realized that I had missed a few more of the classic shows which are dear to my heart. So, today I’m going to remedy this by talking a little bit more about some older shows, before returning to contemporary British comedy next time…
Before there was The Daily Show, there was Drop The Dead Donkey, a sit-com set in the fictitious GlobeLink News newsroom. What was wonderful about this show was that, since it was recorded close to transmission, it commented upon contemporary issues in society and politics.
It had some really great characters such as the two news anchors, Henry Davenport and Sally Smedley, who shared a passionate mutual disdain for one another. However, my favourite character was without a doubt the field reporter, the sometimes overzealous Damien Day…
Many know Michael Crawford from the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical “The Phantom of the Opera”. However, not so many people know him from the show Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em where he played the hapless and accident-prone Frank Spencer. Here some great physical comedy:
Then there was Waiting For God, a comedy set in the rather surprising location of a retirement home. The two main characters are simply terrific – Diana is cynical and mean, while Tom is jovial and a little loopy. They strike up an unlikely friendship while “waiting for God”…
Finally, no discussion of my childhood comedy shows could possibly be complete without mentioning Only Fools and Horses, a show which has won a huge number of comedy awards over the years. I think it was very much inspired by another classic comedy, Steptoe and Son. Anyway, the show followed the shenanigans of Del and Rodney Trotter. These brothers make up Trotter’s Independent Traders (TIT), a company which buys and sells all kinds of merchandise, some of which include smoke-damaged fire alarms and raincoats marked “Dry clean only”.
In the clip below the brothers try their hand at chandelier repair…
Next time we’ll be back at looking at newer British comedy…