Tradition

Posted on December 13, 2011 by Jay F Guin
An 'American tradition' is anything that happened to a baby boomer twice.
From XKCD.com.
PS — Does this remind you of anything?

About Jay F Guin

My name is Jay Guin, and I’m a retired elder. I wrote The Holy Spirit and Revolutionary Grace about 18 years ago. I’ve spoken at the Pepperdine, Lipscomb, ACU, Harding, and Tulsa lectureships and at ElderLink. My wife’s name is Denise, and I have four sons, Chris, Jonathan, Tyler, and Philip. I have two grandchildren. And I practice law.
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8 Responses to Tradition

  1. Bob Brandon says:
    December 14, 2011 at 5:51 am

    (Reminds me of a lot of things, but I’ll leave to others to pounce on the segues. It’s a target-rich environment.)

    A local radio station plays commercial holiday songs 24/7; to fill the playlists, we’re getting a lot of Christmas-themed country songs, even those that use the season as part of the song, not essential to the song itself.

    That way you end up listening to Robert Earl Keen, Jr.’s “Christmas From the Family.” Naughty, but really funny. Reminds me of my clients.

    My favorite commercial song not on any station playlist: “Another Christmas Song,” by Stephen Colbert.

    My real personal favorite: “Beautiful Star of Bethlehem,” #1005 in Songs of Faith and Praise, by Adger Pace. The best Christmas songs you can sing any time of the year.

  2. James says:
    December 15, 2011 at 12:10 pm

    Bob, I agree on “Beautiful Star of Bethlehem.” Great song. My personal favorite is O Holy Night, for the lyrics first, for Pavarotti’s version second.

    As to the graph, it reminds me, time to start putting Sunday’s powerpoint list of songs together. 😉

  3. X-Ray says:
    December 15, 2011 at 12:42 pm

    Jay: “Does this remind you of anything?”

    Is it the time period of hymns sung in a typical Church of Christ? 🙂

  4. Dwayne Phillips says:
    December 15, 2011 at 12:49 pm

    Let’s sing a few more rousing marches from the 1800s (and 20th century sound a likes).

  5. Jay Guin says:
    December 15, 2011 at 8:21 pm

    X-Ray,

    Close. Many of our hymns are 19th Century and even older. But it is the age those older than me (57) try to preserve. Somehow, those born pre-1950 or so idealize the Churches of the 1950 — the time they were children or teens — as the time our assemblies were ideal. Hence, nostalgia becomes practice becomes preference becomes doctrine.

  6. Bob Brandon says:
    December 16, 2011 at 12:39 pm

    My dad grew up as an elder’s son in the 1930s and 1040s; not an idealized time to him.

  7. X-Ray says:
    December 16, 2011 at 2:19 pm

    Jay,

    Got it. (I was close…)

    Dudley Rutherford, the President of the North American Christian Convention in 2011, preached in the opening night message that he’s stuck between older members of his church that cling to the older, “ideal” hymns and the younger members who are totally absorbed into contemporary music. And he said he doesn’t like either style! 🙂 But he’s willing to sacrifice style for souls.

  8. Charles McLean says:
    December 16, 2011 at 2:43 pm

    Just a reminder that tradition can be more recent. As a worship leader in the 90’s, I latched on to many worship and praise songs and choruses, and find the later ones much less satisfactory, just as I do most of the vintage that Jay is referring to.

    It didn’t take me long to develop a tradition of my own.

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