Fifteen Life Changing Albums

So, it's been a while, but I'm posting this here because I don't want to post it anywhere else.  Deal.

Fifteen Albums That Changed My Life:

15.  Rockapella Live- Rockapella
This album made me truly appreciate the beauty of voices harmonizing with one another.  I really began to understand the importance of balance and not trying to over power the melody when I harmonize.

14.  A Mix CD of The Monkees- The Monkees
Okay, so I don't know if this counts, but I downloaded a bunch of songs off of Napster back in the day when it was free... (is it still even around?) and I made a Mix CD with an old school CD burner.  I wore that CD out.  It not only introduced me to oldies music, but it also helped me to recognize that it was okay if music was silly.  That sometimes the fun part of the lyrics (which could only be understood by the writer) was to find out how they came about and what inside jokes they had..

13.  Hope- Hillsong
This album was the first real worship album that I really loved.  It spoke to me and made me feel excited about worship music, and opened me up to really worshipping God through music.

12.  Silers Bald- Silers Bald
This was the album that really got me into loving the sound of folk and acoustic guitar.  I was more of a pop-music, synthetic beats type, and it really helped me to learn how to quiet my soul and be at peace.

11.  The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill- Lauryn Hill
I loved and still love this album to this very day.  Seeing her honesty and whole-heartednesss through out this album has always stunned me.  You can see her pain, her joy, and all the colors in between.  It's extraordinary and beautiful. 

10.  In Between Dreams- Jack Johnson
This album defined my summer in 2005, and I was literally in between dreams, or at least in between the discovery of the dreams of my heart.  This album really brought a lot of peace and happiness to me while I was at Look Up Lodge.

09.  Our Newest Album Ever- Five Iron Frenzy
Like I said, I listened to a lot of Christian music before I was officially a Christian, and it was this album that I really learned how to rock out and jump around and be crazy and mosh pit all around, and let loose in terms of physical movement.

08.  Swing Kids (Soundtrack)- James Horner and Various Artists
This was the album that made me want to dance!  I wanted so badly to learn how to swing dance and on one of my lists of things I wanted to do before I died (I was 13 when I wrote it), one of them was to become a swing dancer.

07.  DC Talk- Free At Last
I listened to Christian music my whole life without really knowing God, but it was one of the albums that really defined my adolesence.  It really made me discover the brilliance of rhyming and rhythm.

06.  Films For Radio- Over the Rhine
I learned about OtR from Nomi and Ashley at different times in my life.  Their music has really opened a deeper part of me, and it's been their music that has helped bring me away from having a distorted "no fun allowed" image of God.  It's also taken me from a view point of legalism and the expectations of law and punishment to a place of grace and mercy and Christ's love for us.

05.  Glenn Miller: His Greatest Hits- Glenn Miller and the Glenn Miller Orchestra
This really cultivated an appreciation for swing music which opened a door to a world of music for me: from jazz to music way beyond the scope that I had previously listened to. 

04.  Take Me To Your Leader- The Newsboys
This album really brought forth wonderful and clever lyrics- most of them penned by Steve Taylor- that made me really have to think about what they meant.  It was this album that really made me ponder and appreciate well written and clever lyrics.  Ever since then, I've never really been satisfied with dumb lyrics. 

03.  Into the Woods (Original Broadway Recording)- Stephen Sondheim
This album made me truly fall in love with musical theater.  It was when I introduced myself to this musical that I wanted to be in musical theater in some way, shape, or form.

02.  Newsies (Soundtrack)-  Alan Menken and Howard Ashman
Even before Into the Woods, there was Newsies.  It's my favorite movie, and the songs will remain in my heart forever.  I believe it is this very movie/soundtrack that put a drive in me to fight for justice, equality, and even when I fall and mess up, to get back up and finish what I started.  I wore this CD out so bad that I had to get a new one.

01.  What A Heart Is Beating For- Chris Rice
This was the album that really introduced me to Chris Rice's music beyond the superficial level of simply hearing.  After listening to this album, I discovered a different kind of love for God, and love for mankind.  I feel as though, I've learned a lot about myself and a lot about love, and how I'd like to live my life.

I can now successfully bear lonliness.  It's not sad, nor do I need to be pitied.  I am lonely, but this solitude is strengthening.  I am not so lonely as you may think.  I am alone, yes.  I am apart from the rest, yes.  But lonely?  No, being alone is not as lonely as it might have seemed.

There's the Trinity in the mix.  And there's Sophie.  And there are friends in Georgia, and the Carolinas, and other little pockets around the country, and around the world, even, and yes, while I don't have any bosom buddies or besties here in NYC, I at least have some friendships and acquaintances.

Stupid, silly girl,
Foolish in the art of love
You scared him away
Showing far too much emotion

Or is he the fool,
Letting a grand prize slip away,
Unable to tell the difference
Between diamonds and coal

You are not too much.
You are not below or beneath.
You are as you are meant to be,
And you are loved very well.

It may seem difficult to bear,
But love is not the way
You perceive it to be.
It goes beyond your understanding.

It is something that you will learn
And one day, you will know it.
But that day has not come yet.
Be patient as you wait for it.

It will come.

Pursuit of Purity

Purity, am I going to pursue you?  Yes, I am.  LORD, I need the eyes to see and the ears to hear.  I am surrounded by selfishness.  Inside of me, I am selfish.  I want to burn out all of my pride and selfishness, all of my self righteousness to be burned out, and I want to be found holy and pure in the cleansing fires.

Holiness, be my house
Faith, be my foundation
Purity, be my pillars
Repentance is my roof
Build them around me, Lord
Let these be my fortress and protection

Hate

I want you all to dissappear and stop it. 

Quit telling me what to do because you're not even in this scene and you're not the teacher and you're immature and you're stupid and I will not use commas because it is an entire sentence that should have no spaces.

Quit being a lazy idiot.  Please, just for a second humor me, and let's rehearse this thing until we are happy with it.  Will you please analyze the text?  Will you please use your brain?  It's there for a reason your lack of energy?  If we were on stage in front of everyone, would you be this disconnected?  If you rehearse it half assed, you're going to perform it half assed.  Please work.  I don't know who's paying your tuition, but you're here to work.

Quit making out on the subway-- for everyone's sake.  There are hotels for that kind of behavior.  I don't want to hear your lips smacking and your tongue going down someone's throat, and I don't need to see it either.  JUST STOP.  It's disgusting.

You are nasty.  Take a shower please.

Do you really think that you're going to get a date by whooping and hollering at me?  Because you're not.  You're an ugly scrub.  Get away from me now please.