Musical Cheating...?

I just finished reading an article in Recording magazine which highlighted the new version of the popular vocal tuner called Auto-Tune (first made famous by Cher's "Believe" pop hit a few years back) and I was stunned at what it can do...it's CHEATING man! This new version can actually manipulate HOW the singer sang a particular part - changing the throat pattern, amount of air, mouth shape, etc. Now, if that wasn't enough, it also allows you to automatically build a choir with various singers and note ranges based on the lead vocal's style, etc. It can also do a famous studio trick of duplicating a performance on another track - as if the singer sang it several times to different tracks and then blends it to the lead track...wow...it's getting too easy people!

SIDE NOTE: I confess that I do use an earlier version of Auto-tune...

Prayer

I just finished reading a book by Richard Foster called Prayer and I'm really wrestling over all the different types of prayers he covers in the book. He covered some things that I really wonder about - things like praying in tongues, becoming unconscious while praying, gifts of laughter while praying and even his call to healing prayer. I was struck by one of the statements he made about how many times people prayed in the Bible with a position of face-down, flat on the ground with hands out stretched. That doesn't seem very comfortable, but, it sure seems humble and unashamed. The book really opened my eyes to how little time I devote to really let God get a hold of me through prayer. I have so much room to grow in this area - God help me!

God said it, I believe it...

I read a devotional book recently that poked a bit of good-natured fun at this popular Christian bumper sticker/t-shirt slogan which says, "God Said It, I Believe It, That Settles It". The devotional pointed out that it should really say, "God Said It, That Settles It" because no matter what my opinion might be, God's Words are always right, true and perfect. Whether or not I believe what God says has absolutely no impact on the reality of it being true. God's truth doesn't change even as culture and opinions constantly change. That foundation is pretty comforting to realize.