Letters from Lilongwe

Music is a median that speaks to my soul.  During high cotton music is my outlet just to rejoice in the joys of the day.  Also in low times I rely on music to get my emotions out.  My mother told me that I was like a trash compresses because I am calm, cool and collected on the outside but all the while I am packing in my emotions.  Until at some point those emotions explode and at this time I need something to let them out. These past few weeks I have allowed my heart to stray from the Lord.  I have enabled the devil to slowly move my sights from my primary relationship with the Lord towards relationships with others, scholastic goals, and other elements of my life.  It took me falling decently hard in the past couple days to be able to recognize this drop.  While I work my way out of this dark place I don't really want to listen to lots of happy, upbeat, perky music.  I have gravitated towards John Mark McMillan and certain darker Gungor son...

A few weeks ago Google implemented more mathematical functions into its search bar.  Now you can type in complicated functions and it will present an interactive graph of the function.  Normally I confine my high level visual representation of mathermatical functions to WolframAlpha .  That is because it can give extensive explanation to derivatives, integrals, and other important basic topics that I can use to check answers quickly. Some people call me a Google Junkie but I am able to see the problems in the service and voice my complaints.  In this topic I still prefer WolframAlpha over the basic Google offering. All is Great in the Lord

I was rummaging through my massive music collection a few days ago and came across the keyword Sarajevo.  It did not really make sense why a Christmas song would have to do anything with Sarajevo.  But after finding this wiki article that included this interview from ChristianityToday.com it makes perfect sense.  I copied the information directly into this post for simplicity. Paul O'Neill explained the story behind  Christmas Eve/Sarajevo 12/24  in an interview published on ChristianityToday.com: [1] ... We heard about this cello player born in Sarajevo many years ago who left when he was fairly young to go on to become a well-respected musician, playing with various symphonies throughout Europe. Many decades later, he returned to Sarajevo as an elderly man—at the height of the  Bosnian War , only to find his city in complete ruins. I think what most broke this man's heart was that the destruction was not done by some outside invader or natur...

If you have seen my blog for the past month you would have noticed the Ads that appeared on the page.  I was testing out Google AdSense as a way to monetize the site.   All of the proceeds were going to go straight to Grace Midtown for the purchase of our new facilities.  This was to make sure that I did not find a source of pride in the money that my blog earns.  Adsense users can earn money by clicks on the ads and also by overall page views or impressions on the users.  I fell into a trap of being able to click on my own ads from my own account.  I also had a few friends go through my pages clicking the ads just for the revenue.  Google caught up with me and called out my unethical abuse of their advertising system.  They sent this email early today notifying me of my AdSense account being disabled. Use the Right and Left arrow keys to see more of my thoughts. So from here on out everyone can read my blog without the presence o...

While doing my chore this afternoon I stumbed upon this extended version of Free from the Zac Brown Band.  Listen and enjoy! So we live out in our old van Travel all across this land Me and you We'll end up hand in hand Somewhere down on the sand Just me and you Just as free Free as we'll ever be Just as free Free as we'll ever be We'll drive until the city lights Dissolve into a country sky Just me and you Lay underneath the harvest moon Do all the things that lovers do Just me and you Just as free Free as we'll ever be Just as free Free as we'll ever be and ever ---- be We were born before the wind Also younger than the sun 'Ere the bonnie boat was won as we sailed into the mystic Hark, now hear the sailors cry Smell the sea and feel the sky Let your soul and spirit fly into the mystic When that foghorn blows I will be coming home Yeah when that foghorn blows I want to hear ...

Life still goes on without my iPhone.  In the last few months I have realized that I spend lots of time on my iPhone in an unproductive manner.  Here are some of my thought on the front end of my experiment,  Without my iPhone? Now that I have been able to have time to reflect on the my time without my phone I am now stepping forward with a possible idea to downgrade to my dumbphone.  During the week I reverted back to using my Moleskine, the small notebook that I used all summer.  Over the summer I would keep important Bosnian phrases, names, events, dates, times, and other information that I would have normally entered into my phone.  I did not bring my iPhone on my summer travels for obvious reasons of safety.  My notebook worked very well this past week to keep track of meetings, thoughts, ideas, and just my overall mood. In the notebook I wrote my issues of not have a phone, the pros and cons of the situation, and circumstances that were sha...

Spring 2011 I was introduced to John Mark McMillan and I was initial very hesitant about the sound.  I could hardly understand the lyrics, it was not like any worship music I had ever heard before.  After going to two of his shows I fell in love with his sound.  His lyrics carry so much power and his musicality carries the truth within his words.  John Mark has come out with a new album just a few weeks ago called Economy.  Here is one of my favorite songs off the album...  http://paulshackelford.blogspot.com/2011/11/sins-are-stones-john-mark-mcmillan.html Also I was able to go to David Crowder Band when they were in Atlanta on their 7 tour.  It is the last tour that Crowder will be touring with this group and John Mark and Chris August are accompanying them for this tour.  Here are some of my thoughts from that night...  http://paulshackelford.blogspot.com/2011/11/atlanta-city-of-christian-concerts.html Soo...