This morning we have learned that our friend Derek Loux has passed from this life to a better one. His life has not ended, it is lived now in the presence of God who is Eternal Love. Death has carried him to the One he longed for. He sees reality as it is. He dwells in the presence of our life giving Creator, The Greatest Intercessor – Incarnate Word, and in the shadow of the Comforter. He was ready, we must wait.
About two years ago, during one of the worship briefings Derek was sharing with us that he really does not want to be remembered as a “worship leader”, but as a father to the orphans. During these last two years especially he put all of his love, time, energy and care to fulfill this primary calling in his life.
We are left with a huge gap, unanswered questions, shattered expectations. His passion and love speeded up the fulfillment of his destiny. The Almighty has decided, it is time. From a human perspective, it looks like he has just started…and he has not finished….and we want to scream out loud: What was the point?
From the heavenly perspective, he was done here. Trusting this is hard. And there are no words to express the anguish. This is earth, not heaven. We will suffer, we will die, we will live again.
For the next decades we will remember him. His awesome wife Renee and their ten kids (eight of them adopted) will have many Christmases and Easters without their daddy. And as he talked about widows and orphans, he changed his life so many times in order to help them…now we have a chance to practice how we listened to him reading and singing and crying over Isaiah 58.
Father, You give and You take away, blessed be Your name.
He has the best worship team now and the greatest multitudes of those who loved to the end. What do you see, Derek?
One day a lady from London walking to her work realized that not one, but two buses had a banner saying: “When the son of man comes, will he find faith on the earth?” (Luke 18:8) She found out that this place has put the ads on the buses. She calculated that
“if only 4,680 atheists would contribute £5, it’s possible that we can fund a much-needed atheist London bus ad with the slogan: “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and get on with your life.”
Bristish Humanst Association took the idea to their “happy now” hearts, has raised more money then predicted and is advertising, starting today, reassuring humanistic point of view on the buses across UK. Remember the song: da, da, da, da…..don’t worry, be happy…
My picture got selected for inclusion in the newly released fifth edition of Schmap Washington DC Guide, under The Mall section:
Schmap has more than 90 million guides including city guides, local search, rotating maps; people have more then 6 million Schmap widgets on their websites; you can publish the maps to your websites, use it for e-mailing, twittering, Skype messaging, text meassaging…put it on your mobile, iPhone and you will never be lost and bored…
I’ve written before about the story of a 10 year old (she was believed then to be 8 year old) Somali girl, Noyoud, who demanded divorce, after being raped and beaten by her 3 times older husband.
We (IHOP-KC) are entering into a 40 day fast period, which is exciting and scary. My spirit jumps up, my flesh screams loud. My refrigerator is full, I still have to cook for the kids, which is the hardest part of it all. The smell of food is always alluring… Anyone volunteering to cook for my kids, while I fast, meditate, pray and “go up”?
I am planning to be in the prayer room 2-4 h a day (possible only, because homeschool is done and my American husband has a different schedule as of tomorrow), get rid of few bad habits, fall in love with the Lover of my soul (see Song od Songs), continue decluttering of my house, host few people over in my house, write some extremely spiritual pieces about prayer, fasting and inner life with God and some phenomenal poems, plan the next homeschooling year… and to survive 6 weeks with the kids in a hot and humid summer time.
As with some serious spiritual challenges like prolonged fasting, I had a dream, in which the “spirit of death” was trying to kill me. Nice wake up.
Then… I had a dream about IHOP’s prayer room. The chairs in the back section were changed to dark red cinema/airplane looking seats, where you can slightly unfold them, and sit in more comfortable position. The lights were dim, and it was unusually quiet there (as for the prayer room). Is that an invitation for me to rest in His presence?
Below is a transcript of this video, from Middle East Media Research Institute, and this statement leaves me speechless. And this is all allowed because Muhammed practiced it. Read it for yourself, and then read more here to learn what kind of sexual activities are allowed with girls younger then 10, according to Muhammed example.
June 19, 2008
Clip No. 1798
Dr. Ahmad Al-Mub’i, a Saudi Marriage Officiant: It Is Allowed to Marry a Girl at the Age of One, If Sex Is Postponed. The Prophet Muhammad, Whose Model We Follow, Married ‘Aisha When She Was Six and Had Sex with Her When She Was Nine
Following are excerpts from an interview with Dr. Ahmad Al-Mu’bi, a Saudi marriage officiant, which aired on LBC TV on June 19, 2008:
Dr. Ahmad Al-Mu’bi: Marriage is actually two things: First we are talking about the marriage contract itself. This is one thing, while consummating the marriage – having sex with the wife for the first time – is another thing. There is no minimal age for entering marriage. You can have a marriage contract even with a one-year-old girl, not to mention a girl of nine, seven, or eight. This is merely a contract [indicating] consent. The guardian in such a case must be the father, because the father’s opinion is obligatory. Thus, the girl becomes a wife… But is the girl ready for sex or not? What is the appropriate age for having sex for the first time? This varies according to environment and traditions. In Yemen, girls are married off at nine, ten, eleven, eight, or thirteen, while in other countries, they are married off at 16. Some countries have legislated laws forbidding having sex before the girl is eighteen.
[…]
The Prophet Muhammad is the model we follow. He took ‘Aisha to be his wife when she was six, but he had sex with her only when she was nine.
Interviewer: When she was six…
Dr. Ahmad Al-Mu’bi: He married her at the age of six, and he consummated the marriage, by having sex with her for the first time, when she was nine. We consider the Prophet Muhammad to be our model.
Interviewer: My question to you is whether the marriage of a 12-year-old boy with an 11-year-old girl is a logical marriage, which is permitted by Islamic law.
Dr. Ahmad Al-Mu’bi: If the guardian is the father… There are two different types of guardianship. If the guardian is the father, and he marries his daughter off to a man of appropriate standing, the marriage is obviously valid.
[…]
People find themselves in all kinds of circumstances. Take, for example, a man who has two, three, or four daughters. He does not have any wives, but he needs to go on a trip. Isn’t it better to marry his daughter to a man, who will protect and sustain her, and when she reaches the proper age, he will have sex with her? Who says all men are ferocious wolves?
Would you like to write a song that would be sang for few centuries and still be fascinating, never boring, heart opening for generations to come? Would you like to give up the copy rights for it? No fame for your name…
That happens right now in Europe. People, particularly young, are buying Winehouse, Radiohead, U2 and lately “Chant-Music for Paradise”. The last one debuted in UK as 9th in the song charts, totally unexpected, and now bunches of sociologists, psychologists and other “-gists” are trying to figure out what’s going on.
Are we overwhelmed with the speed of life, and need some calming, simplified singing to stop our havoc? Are we bored with the noisy postmodern version of music and looking for refreshing sounds for our iPods? Are we trying frantically to invent something new, but we can’t be creative and quick enough, evolving from one sound to the next, so we reach for the ancient old?
800 years old house of prayer
This story starts with one of the monks who sent the link to their music to the Universal Music. Universal was searching for something new, and they were picked.
13 Cistercian monks were picked to record the album. The chants were written few hundred years ago by anonymous monks. The ones on the album include Veni Creator Spiritus ( I sang it sooo many times before, it’s beautiful) and few funeral chants, as two of their brothers recently died and they did not feel like singing “upbeat chants”. They recorded the album in a church, praying/singing the chants. That’s what they do for living in the Stift Heiligenkreuz Abbey in Austria, founded in 1133, as a house of prayer to thank and praise God and to intercede for the sake of the whole world. It was open continually, till today. They pray 5 times a day together, chanting prayers, and working.
The phenomenal singers are asked to tour around, but they refuse, because they are called to Ora et Labora, following the order of St. Benedict.
800 years old songs
What are the characteristics of this form of sung prayer, which is “daily bread” in convents and monasteries?
Father Wallner: Gregorian chant is very ancient. It was born in the first millennium, appearing already in the 4th century, and in many aspects is addressed to the Most High.
First of all the texts are, for the most part, verses from the Bible: hence it is the word of God, which from the mouths of men returns to God in the form of singing.
In the second place, the composers of the melodies were pious anonymous men consecrated to God, mostly monks, who created the music not out of a desire for fame, but men who desired, once the work was complete, to return to total anonymity. Hence, men who in their longing for holiness created something holy.
In the third place, chant is very fascinating, inasmuch as it is situated outside our normal experience of music. There are no tones of C major or D minor, there are no tempi, there is no established rhythm; it is a song for only one voice. Hence, it is a different sound from all other sounds that we today call music. And at the same time, it is at the root of all that which subsequently developed as music.
Fourth point: chant is above all a sung prayer. We sing it always before the altar; therefore, it is not for the people, but for God. That is why we can never go on tour with our chant, because it is always a question of prayer. The recordings for the CD “Chant — Music for Paradise” were also taken from prayer. (from Catholic Online)
Gregorian chant is a form of sung prayer which has been tried and tested through the centuries. It has pre-Christian roots in the ancient Jewish Temple Liturgy. The early Christians adopted many of the ancient chants and developed them further. The Roman Church had the core of what we now know as Gregorian chant by the 7th and 8th centuries. The name “Gregorian chant” comes from Pope St. Gregory the Great (died 604) who founded a “schola cantorum,” a chant school, which collected all the existing chants.
These texts are generally taken from the Bible, the word of God. Thus the monks sing back to God the words which He has Himself given us…joining Heaven and earth. Most of the texts are taken from the Old Testament Psalms. The music is always at the service of the text—unfolding its meaning, and disposing the soul to enter into its spirit ( from their web site).
iwka.onething 
