some trees by our apartment

I have not wrote a post since we got back to Seattle, I think mainly that is because I have been working so much. It has been the total opposite experience from Portland. In Portland I had a lot of time to think, and therefore write, and now I am working two jobs, one at Starbucks during the day and the other at Greggs Cycle during the night.

I feel I am trying to take what I learned in Portland and now try to apply it here in Seattle. I feel the main thing I learned is that really my life is not totally my own and that God directs your steps, therefore it is really difficult to make sense of your life always. I also realized that I felt like I was entitled to certain things in life, but really I am not entitled to anything, any good thing that comes my way is truly a blessing and a grace.  When I really break down my life, the fact that my heart is still beating is out of my control. So this makes me think,  how much more the mysteries and passions of my life are out of my control, if I can’t even control my heart beat. Of course I will still follow the desires of my heart and keep hope, but I will not feel so entitled to those things.

Working so much and not having a community still, is really depressing for me.  I am starting to play some music with friends, but we’re all so busy that it is hard to play as much as I’d want.  To all who read this, we are playing this Thrusday May 14th  at the Blaubak Art Gallery in Kirland, at 6PM, come early because we won’t play long.  It seems my heart always comes back to music, and that being playing music is the true passion in life.  I joke around with people at Starbucks, as to why have I chosen something that is so hard to accomplish with my life, wanting to be a musician that raises the call for social justice. Sometiems I wish I was a more mechanical person, technical person, or interested in academia or even just motivated by money, but I am not.  So it is very confusing to me to know what directions to take, God has always led me in the past, but these next steps, I really feel that I do not have a hint as to where they will go.

Hope to see some of you this Thursday.

]]> http://16moons.wordpress.com/2009/05/12/green-lake/feed/ 0 jthorvath DSC04879 http://16moons.wordpress.com/2009/04/14/the-sins-of-the-fathers/ http://16moons.wordpress.com/2009/04/14/the-sins-of-the-fathers/#comments Tue, 14 Apr 2009 21:25:35 +0000 nxandrew http://16moons.wordpress.com/?p=147 ]]> “Who can avoid the sins of the fathers…”

That is the beginning of one of my favorite lyrics from Daniel Amos.  I will get around to the second half of the lyric by the end of this blog.

The sins of the fathers makes me think of the Exodus, Bruce Springsteen and “Magnolia”.  The sins of the fathers are the patterns of pain and suffering that are passed along to us.  Bruce Springsteen says:

“You inherit the sins, you inherit the flames / Adam raised a Cain”.

I have always been afraid of the sins of the fathers.  I have been afraid of divorce, pornography, alcoholism, addiction, failure and isolation that has been passed on to us through our culture and families.  This can lead to what I fear most: fatalism.

“Is a dream a lie if it don’t come true or is it something worse?”

Another Springsteen lyric that cut me down the first time I ever heard it.  These dreams we have…are they in us to lead us or deceive us?

My family, friends and I are in one of those tough spots right now.  We laid it all on the line and moved to Mexico to do this dream that we had.  We would do a church thing based on community, social helps and expression.  We would play music, feed the hungry and bring acceptance to all.  We did it for two years and it was a beautiful thing.  There were some tough spots but there is no question that it was a special time we shared.

Now we find ourselves in the USA during an economic crisis that has everybody freaked out.  And I am reminded…”who can avoid the sins of the fathers?”  In this case I think of the sufferings that every generation seems to go through in every country.  This world is so unstable and it’s heresy to question “why is this happening to us”?  This is the world and how it has always been.  But what can we do to get out of the “sins of the fathers” repetition?

This is where I remember something that people as refer to the “faith chapter” in Hebrews 11.  This is where the Spirit reminds us of true faith that has overcome.  The thing is this faith is pretty scary.  Lots of people mentioned here didn’t necessarily have what we would call “success”.  Especially when we hear this…

“All these people were still living by faith when they died.  They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance.  And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth”.

It’s like the Woody Guthrie lyric, “I ain’t’ got no home in this world anymore”.  I have always felt that.  If anything that has been the most consistent thought and emotion I have had since adolescense.

That Hebrews chapter is not fatalistic.  Being an alien or stranger on earth only means that you have a different perspective about living.  It doesn’t mean that you sit by and watch the world burn.  It means that you understand what is truly meaningful and do that no matter what the cost.  That is why Chesterton says that a martyr loves the world so much that he dies for it while someone who kills himself hates life so much that he destroys all others in his selfishness.

All this to come back to the rest of the lyric that I quoted at the beginning.

“Who can avoid the sins of the fathers?  But you go ahead kid it’s your turn to walk on water”.

That is the reminder and the response to fatalism (or a time of fear like right now).  Yes…we will suffer.  Yes…I will fail.  Yes…you will experience unexpected disappointments.  But…yes you will heal others.  Yes…you will bring others toward glory.  Yes…you will experience beautiful surprises you have not imagined.

I have grown up with the stories of Jesus and his disciples, the Jesus movement, crazy missionary lives and the civil rights movement.  Outside of Jesus these other movements had a mix of success and failure.  But I ask you this:  Was the Jesus Movement worthwhile when you think of the lives of Keith Green, Larry Norman and missionaries sent all over the world?  Did Martin Luther King and others completely change American history for the better because of their actions?

Last of all let’s think of Christ and the disciples that he left after his death.  Did they change the world despite the sufferings and hardships they experienced?  They did.

Here we are in our time of hardship.  I am ready to “walk on water” although the sins of the fathers have hurt me my whole life.  I have wisdom, love, dreams, desires and truth to guide me.  I am going to continue to pursue the dream.

-Andrew T Hackett

___________________________________________________________________

***”The Sins of the Fathers” is a song from the Daniel Amos album “Songs from the Heart”.  It’s a great album if you can find it.  Unfortunately most Daniel Amos music is really hard to find.

Not just that, but even my own Father has lived a reality that most people I know never have lived.  He immigrated to Montreal, Canada from Hungary during the Hungarian revolution to escape communism.  When he arrived his Father soon passed away, and he was left to have to help provide for himself, his mom and his younger sister all at the age of 15.  He went to school full time and worked full time for .50 an hour, while having to learn a new language.  When I think about my dad and then characters in the book, “The Jungle” I can’t help but cringe at my lack of gratefulness for the privileges I have.  I have grown so use to 21 century comforts, the fact that I can even type on this computer is an amazing luxury. The fact that I can even read a book about people far less off than me,  is a true blessing and not a right.  I think  that is the problem with me, and others, I think I have a right to all this stuff that has been given to me, when really I don’t have a right to it, it is a gift.  I think that is how my attitude is going to change, when I realize that everything I have is a gift and not a right, even the fact the my lungs can draw in air is a gift.

I feel like I have opened up a whole can of worms now thinking about this topic, so I will stop right here. But still I encourage you, if you have been feeling down about the economy or the present world situation; just know that 60, 80 years ago people were living and having to survive in far worse circumstances then we could ever dream of, even here in the U.S of A. I know we all know of the third world and are confronted with it every once in awhile, and yes we do need  think about it more and our responsibility to those people, but the thought that in the U.S. not that long ago people were living and working in ways we would think are deplorable now, it should give us much thankfulness for all the privileges we have been given, even if the DOW is down.

An as I have been doing, I will leave you with a song, that goes along with what I have been saying, or at least to me it does:

Man, these commercials with Sarah mclachlan talking about ASPCA, is SO DEPRESSING, GEEZ.

a dam up by lake chelan

Stephanies B-Day, Argentinian Restaurant, Tepic

So we landed in Portland 2 months ago, and nothing really has turned out how we wanted or expected, and at the same time it has been awesome there.  We expected to find jobs and musicians right away to start practicing and playing shows, didn’t happen. We didn’t expect to meet such awesome people there, like at the church we have been going to called, The Bridge that has been so refreshing to me. Also I wasn’t expecting to totally think Portland, as a city, would be so awesome, although my intuition told me I would, and that is one of the main reasons we went there. Now after 3 months of job searching there, and applying now for probably 50 jobs with no responses, I think I am reading the signs, which are to come back to Seattle.  I prayed to God that if I didn’t have a job by April then I would move back to Seattle. So basically what has happened is that are renters moved out of our condo yesterday, we have to pay our taxes, and after the heavy expenses of moving and having to dig into our savings the last couple of months, it seems we are left with no other options except to move back to Seattle, or a work of God happens to make us stay in Portland. The Good things about moving back to Seattle is that, one, we’ll be closer to our friends and family, and it also regenerates our desire to start doing the movement again. I am also hoping that since the economy is better in Seattle and we know more people, that it will help us in finding work. On that note, Stephanie and I are willing to be doing anything to make money right now, we have experience doing a lot of different types of stuff office admin to manual labor. So please if you need work or are aware of job openings let us know, we’re hard workers. So for now, we wait for the miracles we have experienced so many times in the past and look forward to being closer to everyone in Seattle. I leave you with a band that always brings much comfort to me, and Stephanie and I are in Mukilteo right now working on our condo for the next couple of days, call us if you want to see us (503)317-2944

You may have heard an orchestra tuning up before a concert.  It sounds like total chaos–oboes, cello, French horns, dozens of instruments all sounding off, everyone doing his own thing.  Trills, groans, whistles, thumps–an absolute cacophony.  This is how our desires seem most of the time.  But then the first violin plays a long high C, and slowly, all the other instruments join in. They become focused, centered, ready to perform. Such is what happens with the chaos of our desires when we turn our souls to God in worship. All the other desires find their place as we give God his place. That is why the psalmist urges us, “Delight yourself in Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart”  Only as we truly delight in God is it safe to give us our desires, for then they are not likely to become idols.

For me this is something I have to be constantly reminded of all the time, because for as long as I can remember I have been a person of great desire. I have wanted to make something of my life, live by my passions and with purpose and feel committed to a mission.  All of this for me of course gets anchored and translated around my main gifting/talent, which is as a songwriter.  But for me its not just about being a songwriter and the performance, those people are a dime a dozen, and I definitely don’t just want to be a “rock star.”  My true belief and desire is that through music I can  be a part of some sort of change in the world.

I use to want to be a preacher, and as one preacher said, I want to just let the congregation watch me burn before them.  Now I feel that the best way for me to burn, is by singing and playing my heart out before people.  I feel that when I was in Tepic, I was given a taste of what is possible. My belief that a band can actually bring change to the world was proven, but it drove my desire “loco” because I wanted so much more, I still do want mare.  I feel called to the world as a whole,  and now I am left here without a job or a complete band, and the most competive place in the world to make it as a musician, but I still have much more peace and calm than ever. I have been sucked in by the Tide of God’s love and I can’t escape.  After reading that chapter, everything was really put into perspective for me.  When my main desire is to just “BE” with God, my other desires just seem like my cat Lenny meowing at me to let him out the door, cute but a little annoying.  I still desire and believe in the movement and into the sea as much as ever before, but for some reason I have more peace than before as well.

I don’t know why I wanted to share all of this, but maybe some of your comments will help me know why.  I’ll leave you with an old video, I am sure most of you have seen it before, its Into the Sea playing in Tepic, I hope the sound quality doesn’t hurt your ears too bad.

“Love Letter”

“Oh My Lord”

“God is in the House”

So now I have been left in the middle of a suspense, knowing that my faith is worth more than anything else I have, but not sure how I am going to survive through the winter, with out a job.  As of right now I have probably applied for over 30 jobs here in Portland with no responses.  At the same time I have been meeting some amazing people in Portland, and I am seeing so much potential with life here.  I have been drawn closer to God than I have been in years, but I also feel more lost and confused than I have felt in a few years.

After 2 years of being able to live out of pure vision and my hearts desires, I am left here wondering what the future could hold.  I left those things in Mexico believing that they were just the beginning, and that I was being directed here to go onto the next level of what was started in Tepic.  Now  it feels like those dreams and visions were just merry ideas, being crushed under the pressure of the cost of living.  Despite all those feelings of dreams and visions being swept away, I still have moments of feeling the vision totally alive in my heart.  In these moments is when I feel one with myself and God.

I’ll end this post with some lyrics I recently wrote for a new song:

“I can barely see the other side, standing alone in the rivers bend, surrounded by all the dead, singing son go on ahead, but my legs just wont bend underneath the moons light, tonight, tonight I wont even fight. Can I get a witness to take me by the hand, I want to feel the scars in your eyes, will they lead me to where the milk and honey reside, or is it all just a lie to get me to try, tonight, tonight I wont even fight.”

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