Fighting Materialism

Amanda and I are pretty good with our money. In fact, we often take a form of pride in how frugal we are. We sometimes sort of look down our noses at all the SUVs in the church parking lot and chuckle about how our cars are paid for. When our pastor preaches on materialism I think about how I don't struggle with that.

But as I look a little deeper I still see the signs of materialism in my life. I enjoy buying video games that I think will make me happy. I have all kinds of resources that I thought would make me a better guitar player, but I don't put the time into them. I just ordered my textbooks for school and was maybe a little too anxious to get more books in the house.

No, I am not immune to materialism. Nor, obviously, to pride.

From Poser to Player

I spent the last few weeks practicing some Christmas carols for the guitar. I didn't get too fancy, but I did practice playing arpeggiated chords for "What Child is This?" and "Silent Night". I also could strum "The First Noel" and "Angels We Have Heard on High". I played these on Christmas Eve and it went pretty well, though I did stumble a bit with the fingerstyle pieces. I got really ambitious and brought the 6-string over to Bill and Tiffany's house on Christmas Day and we sang carols there too. At the request of the family we also did "O Little Town of Bethlehem".

It was fun actually playing for people. While it wasn't perfect, my playing was good enough to keep everything together and I enjoyed it. I also learned that playing for people gets the heart racing just a little bit. I wasn't exactly nervous, but I realized that I couldn't just stop in the middle and recollect myself if I had to. I had to just keep on going. It's one of those performance things where you realize that you can't take it back as you're doing it. But it was a lot of fun.

I felt good carrying my guitar back in from the car. In the past I would take my guitar somewhere, but I felt like it was kind of a joke. While I don't think that I'm going to have any professional musicians breaking down my door, I do feel like I can play well enough to strum and sing some carols or maybe some hymns around the campfire. It feels like I've accomplished something in the 3 years I've spent fooling around with the thing. And that feels good.

Where is the Passion?

I had a problem coming up with suitable birthday and Christmas gifts this year. It's easy to ask for video games, but I realize that I don't have much time for them and when I do make the time for them I feel like playing them wasted my time. That is of course, unless I have Lily interested in the game in which case we're actually bonding. At any rate, because of my dearth of options I decided that it would be fun to get an electric guitar.

I've played guitar in various forms and ability for almost 3 years now. In fact, this birthday will mark the third anniversary of the receipt of my steel string. I've got to the point when I can strum some chords, change them smoothly, and sing along (though it hasn't helped my singing). I can pluck out a couple of pieces on my classical and continue working on that. Through this all I've kind of kept my eyes on getting an electric, but knew that the cost was prohibitive to the point where it had to be a gift.

Unlike some guitarists, I really am not that into guitars. Maybe it's just been a matter of time, but I'm just now to the point where I can hear a difference between a good guitar and my cheap guitars. I do know that my classical is very cheap because the nut pinches when I tune it. So I've come to the conclusion that if I'm going to get an electric perhaps I should get a better one than my classical.

I have a couple of coworkers who play guitar and to whom I go for advice. One is a guy named Al who owns about 7 guitars and, I'm told, can really shred. I've had some long conversations with him and he has given me some great insights. I now know some things to look for in a guitar so that I can test them more intelligently than just strumming an open G and hearing how it sounds. I've found that he will happily speak at great length about the qualities of a good guitar. I can also see the excitement that he has for someone who is getting deeper into the hobby he loves so much.

It makes me wonder about how much passion we self-proclaimed Christians really have for Jesus. Do we get excited when spiritual topics come up in conversation? Will we drop everything to have a discussion with someone about spiritual things? Do we spend time reading what people have to say about various topics regarding Jesus (i.e. different teachings, apologetic methods, etc)? Just how passionate are we?

I feel like I do pretty well with this, but I would hope that my passion for sharing about my Lord and Savior would surpass anyone's passion for sharing about a musical instrument. I'm all for hobbies and have spent much time talking about sports and other things. But I do hope that Jesus has a primary place in my passion.