Musings of a Snickerdoodle

 My brother and I are still playing around with that AI music generating software, Udio. It can generate excellent tunes and really puts emotion into the voices. It truly is amazing what God has allowed humans to do. I figured I'd put out a few more songs we were able to 'direct' (and in Tim's case, write).  First, one of my absolute favorites, my brother Tim did this one, and unlike myself, he writes the lyrics completely himself. This one actually made me cry... O Heavenly Father, Make Us Like Thee! You can view the lyrics and download the MP3 or Wave file here:  https://www.udio.com/songs/rcJrrJTqABKtrnga2JSeF7 And next is one that I 'directed'. I am HORRIBLE with poetry, rhyming n' making lines have rhythm.  So I utilize Chat GPT for the lyrics, though I don't just generate them and take them as is, I make it generate a lot of prompts and several versions of the lyrics. Then I go back through and revise each verse, switching out words, chunks of the ...

  Shepherds For Sale, as one would expect, is not an uplifting read, but it's very insightful.  Each chapter gives details about how so many church leaders are turning away from the Bible as their sole authority of faith and practice and instead turning to the 'moral' 'causes of the world.   I really liked how Basham did this, giving facts in  journalistic way and yet giving Biblically based commentary/critiques throughout.  I wasn't sure how to write this review (or 'tome' as it turned out to be!) as this book is a little more unique from any book I've read before, as it has a lot of 'data' as it were, a lot of documenting of the downfall of church leaders. So I'll write it a bit different and go chapter by chapter: CLIMATE CHANGE: Pastors have accepted the idea of climate change as one of the things they are obligated to warn their people about. Some of them are doing it under the guise of it's being "Creation Care" or somethi...

For the past day or two my family and I have been playing with this new AI audio generator software called Udio (www.Udio.com).  At first I heard a sample of an instrumental piece someone had generated and it sounded very nice, so I decided to sign up and just see what it could do. It also lets you put in your own lyrics to generate music with. What I didn't really see coming was how well it could do voices...they sound real, and I don't mean AI real, I mean REAL.  They sound like actually people singing with their own individual voices (you can even hear them taking breaths). I have found it has been getting harder to find nice music, not just generally okay music, but music that you REALLY like. Most especially, Christian music.  Well Udio allows you to create it.  And you don't even have to be musically inclined, you just prompt it.   You type in prompts like "classical", "cinematic", "female voice" etc.. and add any lyrics you want and then...

"Self is a fleshly weapon. It's useless in spiritual battles." I really liked this study that Rick Lambert (author of Polycarp: A Destroyer of Our gods ) is doing on 'self control', that the term is actually translated incorrectly in our Bibles and that there is a better term that captures the meaning of the original greek word better.  He is working on a book that will deal with this concept (among other things). In this talk, he is doing a test run to try to get his explanation of the concept perfected.

  The Journey of the Purple Heart by Robert Baumer is an interesting account of his uncle (also his namesake) who fought and died in World War II.  This book follows Bob Baumer, a soldier, from the start of World War 2 all the way to his death just after Normandy. This book has a unique twist in that it is written in the form of a novel. The author does admit that he takes some liberties but all with a good knowledge of what his uncle was actually like (he interviewed family members, friends, fellow soldiers, read his letters...etc.) so it is quite an accurate account. It starts and ends by telling about the author's research into his uncle. With the semi-fictional retelling of his uncle's history in the middle. It  is written from various perspectives, that of Bob's mom, his brother and of course Bob himself. It also gives high level overviews of what was happening at various times. I t 'pulls you in' in many places, making you feel as if you are with them while ...

  I've known something about the "Christocentric" hermeneutic for many years now.  I need to admit up front that I've always disagreed with it in theory, but have never really fully formulated why I disagree with it.  I saw 'Your Old Testament Sermon Needs to Get Saved' by David King and figured that it would be good chance to read the whole argument for Christocentrism in preaching and think it through more thoroughly.   One of the main arguments that King makes for a Christocentric interpretation of everything is the Lordship of Jesus.  "We start with the simple but sweeping confession: Jesus is Lord. Take a second to ponder the weight of that three word sentence.  Could there be a more persuasive argument for preaching Christ from the Old Testament? If Jesus is Lord, then He is Lord over the Old Testament - and Lord over our Old Testament sermons, too." At first, it was hard to figure out how to reply to such an argument. A lot of the arguments ...