The way up is down. We must humble ourselves before we are in a position to be lifted up by God and experience joy in the free, overflowing life to be found in Jesus.

Would you pray this prayer in preparation for the journey?

The Lenten season begins. It is a time to be with you, Lord, in a special way, a time to pray, to fast, and thus to follow you on your way to Jerusalem, to Golgotha, and to the final victory over death.

I am still so divided. I truly want to follow you, but I also want to follow my own desires and lend an ear to the voices that speak about prestige, success, pleasure, power, and influence. Help me to become deaf to these voices and more attentive to your voice, which calls me to choose the narrow road to life.

I know that Lent is going to be a very hard time for me. The choice for your way has to be made every moment of my life. I have to choose thoughts that are your thoughts, words that are your words, and actions that are your actions. There are not times or places without choices. And I know how deeply I resist choosing you.

Please, Lord, be with me at every moment and in every place. Give me the strength and the courage to live this season faithfully, so that, when Easter comes, I will be able to taste with joy the new life that you have prepared for me. Amen.
(prayer from Henri Nouwen, Show Me The Way)

This week I spent some time in Bloomington, Indiana (home of IU), and stopped by one of my favorite music stores, Roadworthy Guitar & Amp.  One of the things I love about Roadworthy is that they always have interesting stuff in the store—usually they have some guitar, amp, or effect I’ve never heard of, some of it vintage.  Last time I was in the store, I saw a pedalboard full of custom effects by Stigtronics.  I didn’t have much time, so I asked about them, but didn’t play them.  This time, I already had my amp head (Stulce SA-10H) and cabinet in my trunk, so I got to try out the pedals with my setup.  All I can say is… wow.

The story goes (all secondhand information, BTW) that the owner of Stigtronics was an electronics repair guy who began modifying effects pedals (Tube Screamer conversions, etc.), got hooked, and started making his own effects.  They had a whole pedalboard full of his effects at Roadworthy, so I got to mess around with a bunch of stuff.  The Electron Drive sounded fantastic with my amp.  From what I’ve heard, it’s kind of like a modded Fulltone OCD design.  I found it to be a very musical distortion, full of beautiful overtones and depth.  Definitely worth checking out.  I wish there were more info out there about these pedals so I could link to some audio clips, but I guess you’ll have to wait until I get my hands on one…

We showed this as part of our Advent Conspiracy sermon series, which challenges what Christmas has become in USAmerican culture.  Thanks to Tanya for acting, Jackie for script-writing, and Kenneth for manning the microphone boom!

Advent Conspiracy is a movement promoting a different kind of Christmas, one in which we give presence, not presents.  You can find out more about Advent Conspiracy at their website, http://www.adventconspiracy.org.

This video became intensely personal for me at about two minutes, when Bell talks about inviting people into a life we are not living.  Every worship leader (really, anyone in “church work”, whether volunteer or paid) has felt this way during those weeks when everything is going wrong, every moment has been spoken for, and there is no end in sight.  We push through, only to arrive at our worship gathering anxious, exhausted, and uncentered.

The problem is that for many of us, these moments have become a way of life.  I know I’ve been there.

Most of us have heard talks or read articles about how to lead worship honestly from a place of surrendered brokenness, and we have heard something similar to the following: Moments of feeling completely overwhelmed are inevitable.  Fighting for joy and surrender in those times is critical, and crawling toward God in the midst of those things becomes itself an act of worship that will blossom into joy.  That’s all great stuff, and it’s true.  Those moments can center us and result in worship.

But the hard, unlovely fact of the matter is that for the most part, my times of exhaustion have not been God-ordained valleys I’ve had to struggle through; they have been self-inflicted deserts I’ve entered through overcommitment and spiritual malnourishment. Bell’s assessment is moving for me precisely because it has described me at different points in my life.  I’ve had to find ways of overcoming my own tendencies toward desert living.

One of the practices I have found is the “divine hours” or “daily offices,” which are essentially fixed-hour prayer and meditation.  I’ve only been struggling at it for a few months now, but already it has been one of the most difficult—and rewarding—disciplines I have practiced.  I suspect that this is because it provides opportunity for both spiritual centering and healthy daily rhythms if practiced consistently.  Also, the sort of prayers (often Psalms) used in these books are so different from my habitual prayers that they cause me to look at God, myself, and life in a different way.

If you’re interested, check out The Divine Hours trilogy by Phyllis Tickle and/or Celtic Daily Prayer by the Northumbria Community.  The first I picked up at my brother/friend Aaron’s house (I’d call him my brofriend, but that just sounds shady), and the other I stumbled across on Amazon.  I’ve found that the mixed use of both has been most beneficial for me.

I found the Marshall switchable jackplate at Antique Electronic Supply.  It allows the use of both speakers at 4 ohms or 16 ohms, or either speaker at 8 ohms.  With two heads or a stereo head, the cab could be run in stereo for more spacious chorus and delay effects.  So far I’ve used it with the Stulce SA-10H shown in the picture below, as well as my friend Pete’s Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier head, and it sounds great with both.

The speaker grills are basic 12” metal waffle grills.  When I painted them, I achieved a texture similar to the amp head’s texture by spraying them with Valspar Stone paint and then spraying the red over that. If I wanted it to be durable, I could buy Valspar’s fixative spray and cover the stone paint with that before spraying it red.  But I think they’ll actually look better when they get a little scratched up, so I’m leaving them alone.

I installed two different speakers: One is a Tone Tubby Hempcone H1E Alnico, and the other is an H1E Ceramic.  I ordered them from South Valley Vintage Amps.  As I researched speakers, I found a really helpful GearNet review of a ton of speaker combinations—-definitely worth checking out.

One of these days I’ll post some audio clips.  For now, pictures:

By the way, these pictures were taken in the elevator behind our stage, which has become our makeshift amp isolation booth.  We put the amp heads in the stage hallway so we can run cables to them, and we mic the cabs in the elevator or the back room.  Of course, it would look cooler if they were all on stage, but at the volume we run our services (roughly 90dB), there’s no way to get a tube amp to sound good and also make a sound guy happy.  :)

After staining, I applied three coats of semi-gloss polyurethane to the box, sanding lightly between each coat with fine sandpaper (220 or 320 grit).  I’m really happy with the color and sheen.  I debated between semi-gloss and glossy;  while I liked the glossy look, I was afraid there would be too much reflection off the cab from stage lighting.  After three coats of semi-gloss, I’m glad I went with that finish.

In this picture, the box has been stained and polyurethaned, but the speaker baffle has not.

Rear braces with a hole cut for the jackplate…

I added casters to the bottom of the cab.  It will be much easier to move that way.  If they rattle when I play, though, I’m taking them off.  Basically, they’re on probation.  We’ll see if they get chucked or not.