Brad Crisler

Dawn said that my last post was probably confusing without the context of the original discussion (Brandon's blog)...So my apologies...It was probably confusing WITHIN the context:)

What's your favorite 4th of July memory?



One of my favorite places to visit:)
http://www.propstore.com


Why do people blog? I alluded, jokingly about narcissism vs. some deficiently of community...But seriously???


Kellie Pickler put one of my songs on hold today...I am now Audra's ultimate hero.



PEace-
b
c

So I'm gonna let this response I posted on Brandon's blog be my post for today. (Along with our newest family picture) Speaking of patriotism, SUPERMAN RETURNS TODAY!!!!!!

(Whatever, I've always been a Marvel guy myself:)

Could it be that the reason Christians (especially the 45-older group) have such an emotional response to patriotism and the institution of country is b/c they find in it the sense of solidarity (especially in the face of a unifying threat) and community that they have not/do not find in the Church? Could it be that the reason they haven't found that sense is b/c in the past the Church has made the unifying threat the Baptists? Or insrtruments? And community means eleatism where at least one day a week for an hour we get it right (despite what we look like the rest of the week). Those things aren't anything to grab onto. Our sons and daugthers being beheaded is. I think people look for a sense of belonging, they want something to stand up for...and in the absence of the right things, they will fill in the wrong ones.

In the final analysis, people are responsible for their own understanding of community and what the Church is and what it's role is as it pertains to patriotism...But I do think many of us as modern, western Christians have lost a sense of narative...That we are not mere Americans on a journey through culture as we take with us our Christian faith....But we are the children of the living God-our identity is 100% wrapped up in him. We are his story. He is OUR story. Everything else is just window dressing.
This is a deeply confusing area for many people and has been for many generations.
The 1st real work on conscientious objection? The only minister reconized and respected by Governor Andrew Johnson b/c of his refusal to take either side during the Civil War? That's right....David Lipscomb.

Peace to all who seek it-
bc

(This picture is for Holly...JoeDon's Pensive, just-got-out-of-bed-at-11:30 look) :)

Hellen Keller was cool...actually..hot...real hot...but only when we played..it was cloudy the rest of the time.

For those of you that have had more than one true, spiritual, accountable, authentic deep friendships-what are some common threads that were present in all of those relationships?
It's funny how moving to a new place forces you to think about friends and what makes great freindships.

I continue to have strange dreams: Night before last, D and I were investigating a haunting and were able to find out why the place was haunted and figured out a way to set the ghost free...basically, she and I were Scully and Molder. Last night, I dreamed this girl I write with sometimes was dating a guy in the Mafia (she didn't know) and she bought him a Civil War sword that was broken in 2 places. She met this guy I know who works on guitars to see if he could fix the sword. Then the guy she dates along with the rest of the cast of the Sopranos planned a way they could fake their own deaths and disapear to an island somewhere.....
Green Hills Grill...Crab Cake salad.... hmmm...


Today I didn't like being a songwriter very much....Today I wished I was a farmer.

peace-
bc

This weekend I'm playing at the Helen Keller Festival in Tuscumbia Al.


Should be fun. Come out. Bring the family. Actually, I have no idea if it will be fun or not..I've never been.

Thanks for the sympathy and advice re: my crazy dream. This has been a strange week for some reason. I was in the studio all day Tuesday mixing...and I wrote Weds and today. I think out of the 80-100 songs I write every year, I only like around 6 or so...I mean, don't get me wrong, I like most of them to one degree or another while I'm working on the demo but as far as songs sticking with me through the year and beyond...6 is about it. Is 6 a magic number? Has anyone ever eaten at Caraba's? Good food.


I really wish I could find some lasting motivation to get healthy and consistently exercise. I think part of my counter-culture personality kicks in when I think about it..as long as everybody else is getting healthy and losing weight I subconsciously don't want to. But I don't feel very good. I like feeling lean...I think it has less to do with the way I look and more to do with the fact that if I'm lean, I can jump out of the way of an out of control firetruck or something. Mobility. And my back doesn't hurt as much. I dunno. I don't eat horribly. But I do NOTHING that requires my heartrate to get up there...and I'm getting older...so It's catching up fast.
Any advice?

Have a good weekend...


bc

..A couple of pics...our new piano..or weepano as Carmen says...Me and D singing at the family reunion in 110 Degree heat...

On a much lighter note....I spent two hours this morning with local kids at camp Carnton. It's a weeklong camp for kids that have an interest in the Civil War...And going to camp...
They loved the relics I brought and they waved the sword around (not the CS one mind you)...But their favorite part is when I actually took them out in the yard at Carnton and did some "real" metal detecting...the staff had planted a couple of "relics" for me to find (All of which I had found in the past at Carnton)...I didn't find them. Instead, to the staff's and my own surprise, I found 3 beautiful Cs 3 ring CW bullets (you can see the kids in the front holding them up).....I was hunting under a tree I had avoided in the past b/c of so much modern trash...You can imagine the screams of joy when the bullets rolled out instead of pop-tops...They went running around yelling "we found a bullet, we found a bullet"...Oddly enough, most of these 9 year olds had more specific knowledge about the war and the associated relics than I had until a few years ago....

No dream interpreters out there?? Ok...No food past 8:00PM from now on :0


Happy Hunting-

Bc

I'm writing this at 4:10AM Thursday after waking up from a horrible dream....I have them every so often...Usually, and I mean this sincerely, they are connected to pizza, or late dinner or some other physiological element...This may be no exception (burp)

But it was bad enough to get me up..And downstairs..And to Mike Cope's blog for comfort.

In my dream, I'm trying to get home. Real home..like from Florence, over O'neal bridge to Town Creek....but there are huge military boats filling the water and huge military vehicles rolling over the bridge..it's closed...So I blow up an inflatable toy (which has a strange resemblance to Carmen's pool rings) and start drifting over the river...I am in the air about powerline high and once I get over land, I start realizing that there are powerlines everywhere...So I drift back down to ground...I'll walk for a while. Then I come upon this parking lot...looks like a Dr. Office...In the parking lot someone has found a dead baby...Everybody wants to know what happened to it...Everyone is looking at me coz I'm the only one out of place..I have no car...I'm frazzled...They think I killed this baby....I try to explain that I'm just trying to get home..But I can see it in their eyes...So I run...I run until I get to a post office..I sit down and rest in the lobby...This guy comes in and and sits down...and this is blurry but somehow I end up in another lobby with this guy and he suddenly takes a pencil and starts stabbing this other guy and then runs away..I'm trying to help the stabbed guy when people see me and think that I stabbed the guy...Again..I'm just trying to get home..(I should have never come down from the air...better to dodge powerlines) I run out one door of the post office when I see Gary Nichols (a new country artist..I have 2 songs on his new album) he's running after me..So I run out the other door of the post office...There's Gary Nichols again...Trapped. Where's my inflatable ring??? I'm just trying to get home......


...Then I wake up....And do my routine check to make sure my kids are still in their beds...like I do almost every night in the middle of the night when I wake up. I lay back down but can't get the dream out of my mind...So I start trying to pray..except I'm partially asleep so I can't articulate...In fact, everytime I start to pray it's like I'm seeing myself from outside myself and my voice is so quiet, God can't hear me.

So that's when I get up and put jeans on and come down here.

There are some tough things going on with my brother and my mom and dad back home. Some things that should have been addressed and confronted and dealt with are finally being dealt with. I spent an hour on the phone with my mom before I went to bed.
I'm still trying to sort out my feelings about all that. I guess my subconscious is as well...


...then there's the popcorn before bed.


Life is strange. Dreams are stranger.



Peace to you-
Bc

So these are some of the CW relics I have been diggin over the past couple of months...Nashville is so NOT like North Alabama in that just about wherever you throw a rock, you hit a CW site of some kind...I've found more since I took this picture including an 1828 Merchant token that is apparently the most valuable thing I've ever found...


I mentioned last post about the Network class Marty Dodson and I are teaching at Otter Creek. We are using this class to help people honestly evaluate their Spiritual gifts, personal style and Passions in an effort to create a kind of "Servant profile". I think it really helps Christians to figure out what they are gifted for and where they can best contribute to the body of Christ. Even more, it gives us an opportunity to ask some questions that I think hardly ever get asked...Like.."If you could do anything for God, what would it be?" "What do you want to do at Church?" I think when you give people permission to dream outside the box that we've created for Church and give them permission to say NO to things that drain them of their energy, some powerful things can happen.

This whole model is based on the scriptural premise that each person who becomes a Christian is uniquely and divinely gifted by God for a specific ministry purpose. Further, that person is not fulfilled unless they are actively engaged in that purpose....The Church is not functioning as it should if that person is not engaged in that purpose....

This is some life changing, Church changing stuff and I can't wait to see the fruits of it take hold in the membership as it has with the staff (We spent 9 weeks with the OC staff sharing this same model).....Anyway, we take much of this model from the Bruce Bugbee book "What you do best in the body of Christ"....He's one of the Willow creek church guys....


You guys be looking for the new Trace Adkins album in stores Aug 1st...I have the title cut, "Dangerous Man"....


Peace-

Bc

Don't have a heart attack..I'm back..Stacked and packed....


...Oh, sorry...had a Will Smith moment...

1st update since Jan..Much has happened..Not that anyone ever reads this pitiful excuse for a blog...Anyway, I did something tonight that I've never done. I played Guitar...In church..During worship....It was great...Brandon asked me this week to sit in on Celebration Sunday night and it was cool...

1) 3rd week of teaching Network...Spiritual Gifts assessment class at OC...Empowering stuff..More about that later...

2) I've dug a ton of great CW relics in the last two months..Pics later...

3) New Office

4)A few songs cut..

5)Still the same ole sinner saved by Grace...

6) New favorite books: Nashville: The Occupied City: The 1st 17 months and "Simply Christian" NT Wright.

7) Newest itunes D/L: Michael Mcdonald: What a Fool Believes



Do you ever think blogs/Myspace/etc are our generation's way of returning to dependent community? Or our we just consummate narcissists?



Daniel Amos...yes..Brisbane..Represent...Save the computer room for me...back to AU soon:)


later-
Bc