Gift Ten – Teresa

It appears I started a bad precedent by bringing my gift late last time. I therefore I have my gift today, in the hopes you all will follow in suit. My gift this go-round is the album “Skylarking” by XTC.

I realized something about the gifts that I’ve brought to the table. They are all very dated. All of my music comes from a time when I was most impressionable. My collection has an obvious cutoff date from 2001, when I rededicated my life to the Lord. I didn’t stop purchasing music because of some strange conviction that secular music is evil. My priorities changed and so did my influences. There was some music that I burned in effigy (translation: threw away in a garbage can) as some misguided sense of sacrifice to the Lord, but all in all, my music stayed frozen in time. The Collective has forced me to pick the music I loved from its long untouched shelf, blow off the dust and download onto my computer. I am indebted to The Collective for this.

This album was huge for me in my late teens and early twenties. And I struggled with it. The most popular track on the cd is a song called “Dear God”. My atheist friends loved it because they felt it was an anthem for them. But, I don’t find that to be the case. “Dear God” is a song for the angry Catholic who can’t just seem to wrap their head around what kind of God would allow such evil in the world. For someone who would rather try not to believe in this type of God rather than grapple with the hard questions about God we all face. I loved (and still do love) this album for its gut-wrenching honesty, from lost-love, bitter heartache and this song that shows anger at a God they don’t understand. The album is fluid and flows together as a movement. This is one of my favorite cds on the planet. Please enjoy!

That’s Really Super, Super Girl

1000 Umbrellas

Dear God