joshuakeel.com

Patrol Magazine has just released their list of the top 50 faith-inspired albums of 2008. It’s definitely worth checking out, especially their reasoning behind releasing the list. May I particularly recommend checking out Brooke Waggoner, #1 on the list?

I’m 10 days away from graduating from college. It’s an interesting feeling. It’s great to be this close to the end, but I’m way stressed out because of all the work I have to do in those next 10 days. Then, I’m sure there will be a huge sigh of relief on the 18th when I’m completely finished. I don’t have a job yet, but I’m working on finding one.

In addition to being excited about graduating, I’m also excited about the progress I’ve made vocally. I can’t wait to get home and record some new stuff. I’ve been working on some new songs.

My, I’ve neglected my blog lately. I’ve been extremely busy with school and other things, namely practicing my voice lessons and trying to find time to hang out with friends. I’ve been writing songs a bit, and I hope to record some new stuff in a week or so when Thanksgiving Break rolls around. I’m really looking forward to it.

Because of my busyness, I haven’t been reading much lately. I have a copy of The Interior Castle by St. Teresa of Avila, and Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places by Eugene Peterson, but I really don’t have time to look into them more. There’s also the backlog of Phantastes, Atlas Shrugged, and Watership Down. Sigh. Hopefully when I get out of school I’ll be able to read more. I’m sure I’ll have more discretionary time, if not necessarily “free” time.

I don’t currently know what I’m doing about a job for when I graduate (Dec. 18, folks!), but I’m working on it. I brushed up my resume, and I’m ready to send out some applications.

Maybe in a few days I’ll be posting some new songs on here. That would certainly be cool.

Thanks to a friend I didn’t know I had (hey Nick!), I got a free copy of Andy Crouch’s new book, Culture Making. I finished it a couple of nights ago.

Mr. Crouch makes a case for a much broader view of culture than we typically assume. We might think of culture as “high” art, dress style, food etc. Crouch widens things considerably, suggesting that one of the primary purposes God created us to fulfill is culture making, defined as “making something” of the world around us. Basically, everything we’ve done with what God gave us in the garden is culture, including ideas (expressed as writing, music, painting, etc.), technology and social norms. When God gives Adam and Eve the garden of Eden and has them cultivate it and enjoy it and name the animals, he’s setting them up as culture makers, to do creative work with what he has given them.

Anyway, Crouch expounds greatly on this concept, and deals with culture and God’s working in the Bible. He’s basically trying to convince us that we need to be actively and creatively involved in culture making; and he’s giving us the tools we need to actually do that.

I think it’s going to take me a while to figure out exactly how Crouch’s book will affect my life. I’m pretty sure that it means some major shifts in my thinking, but it’s a bit abstract, so it can be hard to determine what kind of concrete response I will eventually have to the ideas he presents. Overall, I think Culture Making is a great book, and I recommend it to everyone.

I think one of the most interesting outcomes of the book for me so far has been a shift in my thinking about vocation. Understanding that we humans have a responsibility to cultivate and create culture, many callings that get questioned by those who think “full-time Christian service” is every Christian’s best “career” choice are given a rare legitimacy. It’s hard to tell what computer programming does for the glory of God or the ultimate good of other people. But when we view computer programming (or business management or plumbing or electrical work) as the creative cultivation of and addition to culture, we might better see why it is a pursuit worthy of a Christian.

I highly recommend picking up a copy of Culture Making. It’s definitely well worth your time.

So I’ve been at school for about 3 weeks now. Classes are OK. It’s been fun to get back into things at Sovereign Grace (my church here in town). I’ve been reading some. This weekend I want to get a book called Culture Making. I think it’s gonna be awesome.

I’m writing songs for a new album. I’m hoping to record some roughs in a month or two. I’m really excited about this new material I’m writing. I’m also going to start taking voice lessons next Tuesday, which is pretty awesome.

Cool stuff. God makes life interesting.

I’m moving on from a lot of things right now. I just released my first musical project, and I think I’m ready to forget it now. I’m about to leave college life (in 3 months) and go out into the “real world” (as if I’ve been somewhere else for the last 4 years). I’m going to be leaving home and probably leaving this area of the country. I’m back in school after a summer of living by myself and interacting with my new church family. Lots of things are changing.

I think I’m starting to understand fear more than I have in a long time. I’ve been feeling afraid of the unknown a lot. Deathly afraid of failing. Afraid of losing everything in a moment (or moments) of stupidity.

But more than ever, the truths of the gospel are real to me. My complete inability to do any good. My past status as an enemy of God. His transforming grace working in my life to bring about change. His goodness to take everything that happens to me and bend it by his will to work for my good. His unfailing love and forgiveness, in spite of my sometimes habitual and intentional disobedience. His plan for me. His leading of me into pleasant places, where he is my satisfaction and my joy.

This is the gospel. This is where I live. I’m moving on, despising my fear and embracing the truth.

Hey everyone,

I’m very happy to announce that my EP is finally all finished and today is the official release day! This project, Ebbing Tide, has been in the works for quite a few months. I’m glad to finally be able to share it with you. I hope you enjoy it.

Download Ebbing Tide

If you’d like to e-mail me about the EP (or anything else), you can reach me at josh at joshuakeel dot com.

Today my good friend Seth dropped by my room and left me a little book called The Gospel Primer. I am very excited about reading it, because God is teaching me more what he wants to do for me and in me through the Gospel each day. I’m realizing that in large part my struggles with sin, and with depression, fear, sadness, loneliness, etc., are due in large part to a misunderstanding of the essential truths of the Gospel. I thought I understood, but God is teaching me that I didn’t. I might have understood intellectually, but not in the depths of my heart and mind.

A lot of my life I’ve tried to force myself to be like Christ by sheer will power, changing my thoughts and actions in the belief that this is what God wanted me to do, while keeping my heart sometimes at a great distance from him. That’s not to say that the Truth has not borne real fruit in my life, but many times I found myself frustrated at my continued failure in an area where I was trying to follow God in my willpower and not by mere submission to the controlling influence of the Holy Spirit.

I’m not meaning to say that changing your behavior to become more like Christ is easy or takes no focus of the will. I am saying that I am completely powerless to focus my will in that way without complete reliance on the Spirit of God. Change comes not when I force my body to do what I think God wants me to do, but when I completely hand my body over to God and allow his power to flow through me and change me into the true man he created me to be.

The Gospel Primer so far has been very encouraging in these truths. I thought I’d share this sample of the kind of things Milton Vincent says in the book:

“As long as I am stricken with the guilt of my sins, I will be captive to them, and will often find myself re-committing the very sins about which I feel most guilty. The Devil is well aware of this fact; he knows that if he can keep me tormented by sin’s guilt, he can dominate me with sin’s power.

The gospel, however, slays sin at this root point and thereby nullifies sin’s power over me. The forgiveness of God, make known to me through the gospel, liberates me from sin’s power because it liberates me first from its guilt; and preaching such forgiveness to myself is a practical way of putting the gospel into operation as a nullifier of sin’s power in my life.”

That’s the kind of truth I need to hear.

Madeleine L’Engle has been opening my eyes lately to a lot of truth. I’ve been reading A Cirlce of Quiet, which is a journal of hers from her country house, Crosswicks. It’s very inspiring to me as a follower of Christ and an artist. She thinks about the world in a very deep, wholesome way, and her fever of wonder and joy and faith is easy to catch if you’re not careful. She just makes me feel deeply, truly, sincerely, wholly alive.

I also can’t wait to delve more deeply into George MacDonald’s Phantastes. It’s next after L’Engle, which I’ll hopefully (although I really don’t want it to end) finish tonight.

Also, classes started today in my last semester of college. God has been gracious to me over the last few years, and he’s taught me a lot this summer. It’s exciting and frustrating to be started this final semester. Exciting because I’m almost finished! Frustrating because I wish I wasn’t here. But this is the path God has laid out for me, and by his grace I will choose to rejoice in him.

One more thing. My EP is going to be released very soon. The music is all finished, I’m just working out finishing touches on some other things. I’ll be sure to let you all know when I get more information about the final release date.

is what I’ve been doing. I finished reading Walking on Water today. If you haven’t read it yet, please do yourself a big favor and get your hands on a copy tomorrow. Now, to start Phantastes. Also (in my spare time!) I’m trying to finish Augustine’s Confessions, which I got as a free audiobook (I love ‘em!) from Christian Audio.

I’m stilling writing and recording pretty heavily. I’m hoping to be done with that stuff soon, so I can release an EP in three weeks or so.

On another note, this summer has been awesome. I’ve learned so much about life, music, programming, myself and God. I only have four more days of work left, then it’s home for two weeks: one for music, the other for chill with family. I can’t wait!