I thought is would be good to profile some of my friends in the tradition of Dr. James. The picture above is the man, myth, and legend that is Danny O. Danny and I met probably a year and a half ago at our church King of Grace in Methuen. He is a Chelsae boy deep down but has ventured around the country: Florida, southern California, and Hawaii. We started to become close last summer as he and fam gave me the invite for dinner at their house, and we’ve been off to the races ever since. Danny has interim pastoral experience but is not in formal ministry currently. You can read his personal profile on his entry “DAO at Core”. DAO and myself are part of our church’s three stooges, with Moe being the third stooge. Danny’s blog “Project 66″ has nothing really to do with the number 666, but is actually his effort to propagate and spread biblical fidelity to the 66 books of the Holy Scripture. I have nothing but fondness for Danny and fam as they have showed me hospitality and love week after week by letting me stay with them on Saturday nights while my car has been out of commission. Danny shares the same belief and love in historical-redemptive reformed theology, as that builds the rubric of an integrational worldview. He loves to listen, to laugh, to console, to instruct, to smoke stoagies, to drink quality brew, to open his home, to open Scripture, to commune with his wife, to play with and raise his girls, and he chiefly loves Jesus Christ. The dude can’t stand cheese, tomatoes, light beer, bad theology, or to beat around the bush. You’ll see the latter two expressed in his blog. Love you Danny, I’m glad your are.

One thing that everybody who knows me must check out is http://www.davidherring.blogspot.com. I never thought I would find another David Herring who is both a christian and reformed, but Danny O found him on a profile search and he thought I had two blogs, but I do not. Ladies and gentlemen, I have a clone.

That’s what watching “The Notebook” was like. I was kickin it with Danny O and fam on Sunday night when they pulled out that little tearjerker. I think the last time I cried at a movie was at Forest Gump back in 1994, so I guess I was long overdue. I’ve fought tears in Monsters Inc, The Sixth Sense, Return of the King and many more, but they really had nothing on The Notebook. I suppose this kind of a story means infinitely more to me now that I have the love of my life. But this movie has no mercy for both the weak and strong-hearted. Just when you think you are good, another notch! I thought our emotional experience was enhanced by the fact the I was letting off atomic bombs throughout the whole movie. Something seriously crawled up my butt and died. The foulness that was extracting itself from my ass was causing the paint on the walls to chip. Danny and fam could not believe it. So we were simultaneously laughing and crying. That night left me wiped; but it was not over. I hopped on the phone with my love, and we talked till 3:00 in the morning. We probably had the sweetest hours of our precious relationship. God’s fruit has been blossoming in our lives. The end result of our chat was the decision to move our wedding date to May 21st instead of July 30th. We feel very comfortable with this and cannot wait, although we are starting to feel the pressure. We were just talking about the song we want to dance to at the reception by Etta James, “At Last”:

At last
my love has come along
my lonely days over
and life is like a song

At last
the skies above are blue
well my heart was wrapped up in clover
the night I looked at you

I found a dream
that I could speak to
a dream that I could call my own
I found a thrill
to press my cheek to
a thrill that I have never known

well

You smile
you smile
oh and then the spell was cast
and here we are in heaven
for you are mine at last

I found a dream
that I could speak to
a dream that I
could call my own
I found a thrill
to press my cheek to
a thrill that I have never known

well

You smile
you smile
oh and then the spell was cast
and here we are in heaven
for you are mine at last

ooo yea
you are mine
you are mine
at last
at last
at last
at last

I love you sweety.

It may sound crazy, but that is the trajectory that we are on this bioethic age. Just added a link to the Center of Bioethics and Culture Network. I’ve been thinking about this for the past two weeks since a prayer partner of mine told me about some of the issues we will be facing. He (Tod) just finished his MA in Bioethics from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (teds.edu), which is the only christian program in the country (if not the world). He’s been telling me some of the things on the horizon and it makes me wonder. More on this later.

OK, so I see that Danny O’s got a link to the White Horse Inn’s chat about worship. Obviously, I’m interested because there is a Bono clip in the session. I go the extra mile and buy the interview that they quoted from audible.com for 8.95. I listened to all 80 minutes of it almost immediately. All I can say is that he has got to be the coolest guy on the planet right now. He did make some comments that I didn’t know what to make of, though. He made an off-handed comment about the reality of karma which made all sorts of bells and whistles go off in my mind. But, he also said that grace bypasses karma from time to time for him. He said, “If graces doesn’t come, I’m fucked.” That couldn’t be more true. I guess it just seems like his message to people is not about Jesus. It seems like he loves Jesus, but it really doesn’t matter to him if anybody else does. I’m all about wanting to bring relief to the poor, medicine to those with AIDS and so forth. But people can do that and still go to hell. To promote moralism can help to a degree, but it doesn’t save anyone from destruction. If Isaiah 61:1ff. served as a paradigm for Jesus’ ministry (see Luke 4:16ff.), then it was not supposed to end in the physical but in the spiritual. Jesus was pissed off with the crowds time and again because they never got this (Mark 9:14). However, the content of his lyrics does give me hope that he may be yet evangelical.

Now for my interpretation of “Wanderer”. First of all, it was sung by Johnny Cash, who has been known to be spiritual, particularly in the past few years. I think the song is about wandering from Christ. Trying to find him in the emptiness of the world, but finding only emptiness. It really seems to be an indictment on the world (finally) as the world tries to mimic heaven without God, or maybe just a self indictment for seeking out the pleasures of sin. It is songs like this that make me have hope for Bono. “How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb” also seems very spiritual. Check the lyrical survey:

“Vertigo”: “a girl with crimson nails has Jesus round her neck,” “your love is teaching me how to kneel”

“Miracle Drug”: “I was a stranger you took me in” (straight from Matthew 25 even in Bono’s admission in the NY Times interview, it was one of many verses of Scripture he shared the George W. regarding money for AIDS)

“Love and Peace or Else”: “as you enter this life I pray you depart with a wrinkled face and a brand new heart,” “I’m not easy on my knees, here’s my heart and you can break it,” “…all your Daughters of Zion, all your Abraham’s sons”

“All Because of You”: “I was born a child of grace,” “an intellectual tortoise racing with your bullet train,” “I’m not broke but you can see the cracks, You can make me perfect again,” “all because of you I am”

“Yahweh”: give me a break, it’s a worship song

Other interesting tid-bits I’v gathered about Bono: he got nominated for two nobel-peace prizes in consecutive years, he was a fan of Philip Yancey when his book, “What’s So Amazing About Grace?”, hit the market (aparently Bono contacted Yancey to talk about the book and it is one of his favorites)