YouTube and Jars of Clay

I decided to set up a YouTube account last week. I've got a bunch of videos uploaded to my website but they're WMA files and people with Macs can't open them. YouTube converts them to a format viewable to all. Click to go to my videos.

We went to see Jars of Clay last Saturday night at Maranatha Hall at Northwestern College in St Paul. It was a very good concert and our seats were in the 2nd row, right next to a huge stack of speakers. Fortunately for us, we brought along earplugs. I'd listened to their new CD several times before the show so I'd be familiar with the songs but one in particular which hadn't really caught my attention was Light Gives Heat. Tammy had been asking me what I thought of the song but I couldn't remember it. I thought that Oh My God was the best song on the CD but now I think I'm giving the nod to Light Gives Heat. It's a very moving song. They closed out the show with it. Here's a link to the video I took. Please excuse the over-saturation on the audio due to the speaker right next to us.

Light Gives Heat

Catch the rain empty hands
Save the children from their lands
Wash the darkness from their skin
Heroes from the west
We don't know you, we know best
But this is not a test

You treat me like I'm blind
Setting fires around houses on the hill
But light gives heat
You segregate my mind
Burning crosses from your fears, oh
The light gives heat

It's not the way to light their way
Boys in holes in empty fields
Oh, how good it feels
Lower-class, and understate
Empty promise, empty plate

You treat me like I'm blind
Setting fires around houses on the hill
Light gives heat
You segregate my mind
Burning crosses from your fears, your fears
But light gives heat, gives heat

You treat me like I'm blind
Setting fires around houses on the hill
Light gives heat
You segregate my mind
Burning crosses from your fears
But light gives heat

Will you teach us how to love?
To see the things you see
Walk the road you walked
Feel the pain that you feel
At your feet, I kneel,
I want to see you shine
See your light not mine'
Cause light gives heat
Your light gives heat ...

The song talks about how we in our own way try and help the struggling people in east Africa who desperately need our help. What they don't need though is for us to look down on them and treat them as though they're something less than ourselves. They're stuck in a life none of us can likely imagine and they're trying to make the best of it...but they do need help. So would we if we were in their place.

I had a fun ride on my bike today. The last 8 miles I really hammered. There's something about being out there with my heart pounding through my chest and my quads burning from lactic acid which is very addicting. The weather has been cooling down but I keep telling myself that in January I'll feel like I'm in bicycle heaven with temps in the 40s and dry roads...keeping it in perspective.


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