Saturday, October 30, 2010

A Musical Feast for Free

This week has been like a musical feast for me. During the week four great projects have been released and all of them as free downloads! I've been listening to all of these during the week, and some of them I've already listened to at least three times through. That is to say I've really enjoyed these releases, so that's why I want to recommend them to you so that you can go and download and enjoy some great Christ centered music!

Benjah & Dillavou - Psalms & Solos Mixtape
This is a project to promote their coming album Lov'd Ones. I'm glad they are collaborating and coming out with an album and I'm definitely gonna get a copy when it's released. As the cover art might already tell you the music genre is reggae, but it also has some rap flavor to it. Some of the tracks are done over some famous reggae riddims. Click here to download it.

B-Doe - Open Your Ears Mixtape
As I understand this is the first release from B-Doe. But I think it will not be the last release, since he is a very talented lyricist with great content. The music is kind of easy listening home grown rap music, I really enjoy the beats and the lyrical contect. Click here to download it.

Wes Pendleton - The Paste Up EP
This release is shorter than the other as you would expect since it's an EP. The musical style is similar to B-Doe and theC2bproject - easy listening rap, but the tracks are more polished and have more of an professional sound in contrast to the more raw homegrown sound. This release also has some more singing included in the tracks therefore I think that this project might appeal to a wider range of people and not just those who normally like rap music. My favorite tracks are Going Home and Know Him. Click here to download it.

theC2Bproject - The Butterfly Affect Mixtape
This is a project between JustWORD and Bondservant. I was familiar with JustWORD because of his previous release the Transfiguration, which I really enjoyed and listened to a lot. I was not disappointed with this release either, although I have to admit that the cover art made me doubt a little at first. I would describe the musical style as a kind of easy listening, uncut/raw, sample based homegrown rap. Click here to download it.

In addition to those great releases, the musical feast continues with two music videos that were released during the week. The first one is a video promoting Katajainen Kansa and their coming album. Katajainen Kansa is a Finnish reggae band with Christ centered content. I'm very excited about this coming album, since their first album is one of my favourite albums and I have listened to it a lot and still enjoy it. They will also be performing in Tampere this Sunday aka Reformation Sunday, so that will be the icing on the cake for my mysical feast! The second video is from Alan C. Duncan and Tom+Huck, I really like the style of the video and the mysical and lyrical content is also great.



Friday, October 29, 2010

Creation Cinema - Movie Screening, Food and Discussion


This is the poster I made for our first Creation Cinema at our church. Here's more info about the event:

The Mysterious Islands: A Suprising Journey to Darwin's Eden

"This beautiful ninety-minute documentary takes viewers deep beneath the ocean waves among hundreds of white-tip sharks, into volcanic craters with giant lizards, and to the unusual habitat of the blue-footed booby. Featuring a Christian team of scientists and investigators to shoot a documentary on the Galapagos in 2009—Darwin's anniversary year—The Mysterious Islands brings a fresh perspective on the Theory of Evolution and presents sweeping cinematography of one of the most remote, desolate, and fascinating locations in the world."

This event is FREE and everyone is welcome!

In addition to the movie screening there will also be some food to eat, and that too for free of course. Any questions about evolution and creation (or the Bible in general) are also very welcome.

For more info:

The Mysterious Islands Movie
www.themysteriousislandsmovie.com

Internation Baptist Church of Tampere
www.ibctampere.org

Creation Cinema on Facebook.

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Flock of Birds

Last week I visited my hometown Vaasa to see some of my family and friends there. On Wednesday evening while we were driving thru the city center to a bible study at the church, I suddenly saw this huge flock of birds flying around as a formed group and making quick turns back and forth. This was quite an amazing thing to see so I quickly took my camcorder from the backpack and started recording. I didn't get the first and better part of their show on record but I did manage to get this short clip until their ending when they landed back on the branches of the trees. I hope you enjoy watching it and that it might also lead your thoughts to think about the Creator who created everything, including these birds with their amazing ability to fly like this.



And God said, “Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures,
and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens.”

(Genesis 1:20, ESV)

Monday, October 18, 2010

Sun, Waves and Autumn

Here's a short video clip I took last week while I was sitting beside the Pyhäjärvi lake in Tampere. There's nothing too special about the video, it was just a beautiful day to sit beside the lake and enjoy beauty of creation, so I decided to record a part of it.

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Camera, Water and Creativity

This week I got my new video camera, it's the Kodak PlaySport. I've been thinking about getting a video camera for some time now, so when I came across this little camera that had the features I wanted and a price I could afford, I then decided to buy it.

I've been using the camera for a couple of days now, and I have to say I'm very pleased with it. It's very handy and easy to use, I especially like the fact that it can go up to three meters underwater. The video quality is also very good in my opinion, especially for a small and relatively cheap camera like this.



So here's my first edited video that I filmed with the camera. It's a very short video consisting of four different clips that I had originally no intention of combining like this. There's no specific message in the video, It's just a creative blend of the clips to form a unified flow. I hope you enjoy it.

Now about creativity, here's a good quote from Francis Schaeffer: "Being in the image of the Creator, we are called upon to have creativity. We never find an aniamal, non-man, making a work of art. On the other hand, we never find men anywhere in the world or in any culture in the world who do not produce art. Creativity is a part of the distinction between man and non-man. All people are to some degree creative. Creativity is intrinsic to our mannishness." (Francis A. Schaeffer, Art And the Bible, pages 51, 52).

So we are creative creatures that have been created by a creative Creator. Therefore we should be creative and reflect the nature of our Creator who created us in His image.

"So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them." (Genesis 1:27, ESV)

Sunday, October 3, 2010

Airplane View and Grace


Here's some photos that I took from the airplane while flying from Helsinki to Copenhagen. When I travel by airplane and get to watch out from the window and see humans down on earth smaller than a speck of dust, it makes me think about this verse in the Bible:

"When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?" (Psalm 8:3-4, ESV)

That thought produces in me thankfulness and praise to God for his lovingkindness toward me. He created me and gave me life, but I have still rebelled against Him and broken His laws and trusted in my own goodness rather than His righteousness. God would have been just to punish me for my sins, the only thing I really deserve is death and eternal condemnation in hell. But still He sent His Son to live a perfect life and to die on the cross taking my punishment upon Himself. He saved me even though I don't deserve it. He loves me even though I don't deserve it. He cares for me even though I don't deserve it. It's all because of His grace toward me in Christ Jesus my Lord and Savior.

I hope these photos can communicate something of that feeling of how small we are as creatures and how great our Creator is, He who created us and upholds the universe by the word of his power. (Hebrews 1:3, ESV)





A New Start for This Blog

I've now decided to start writing and updating this blog more often. I'll try to update it at least once a week and hopefully even more often. The reason for this came from a conversation that I had today with a good friend of mine when he talked about his plan to start blogging and also explained some of his reasons to do so. We talked about it for a while and he then encouraged me also to start writing on my blog. So here I am writing my first "real" blog post, since before I have just posted photos and links and not really any writing of my own.

The main reason that I'll try to start writing more on this blog is that I want to learn to express myself better through writing. I also think it will help me to grow in other ways, when I write my thoughts down on paper (or I guess "up on the screen" would be a better way to say it nowadays).