We are having a "bring your favourite album to work to play for the team" week. It's been pretty cool really. Today I am playing mine, A Collision by the The David Crowder Band. It's awesome. THe David Crowder band are great, and are deliciously geeky about their music, like this quote on song 7 "A beautiful collision"

'The Bohr model of the atom developed in 1913 was an attempt by Neils Bohr to come to an accommodation with two opposing schools of thought on the nature of particulate matter. The classical school maintained that all sub-atomic activity could be explained and understood in light of the classical laws of physics postulated by individuals such as Sir Isaac Newton (laws of motion) and Galileo. The laws of gravity, electrostatics, magnetism, and electricity were considered good predictors of the activity that occurred in the macrocosmic world that we live and function within. On the other hand, there was a new emerging school of thought that maintained the perception that the world of the atom could only be understood, if at all, by a complete set of new assumptions and postulates that would govern the way matter behaved at the sub-microscopic level. Bohr maintained that both views of the atomic world could be correct. He tried an eclectic approach in his model. The model consisted of a massive very dense nucleus composed of the protons. The electrons (key to our understanding of the chemistry of matter) were assigned definitely predictable 'orbits.' At first, the orbits were concentric circular paths, but, later, the model was modified to consist of elliptically shaped orbits. The electrons circled around the nucleus being held in position by a balance between the centrifugal force propelling them outward and the electrostatic force of attraction between the positive nucleus and the negative electrons. Electrons assigned to orbits further out from the nucleus would possess a larger quantity of energy then those assigned to orbits closer to the nucleus. There were immediate problems with this model. The fact that moving charged particles such as the electrons should radiate energy. If this were so, then the electrons should spiral down into the center of the atom. In other words, we are faced with an absurdity that all atoms should collapse upon themselves. Of course, that was not reality so the model was not predicting realty, as any theory ought to do. The model did accurately predict the parameters of a one-electron system like the hydrogen atom, but with multi-electron atomic systems the predicted parameters were not forthcoming. For these reasons the Bohr model was not the definitive answer as to what an atom looked like. However, it was a step in the right direction. The model is still used as a way of keeping up with the number of electrons in the various shells or orbits. This is important. It has to do with what we are attempting to say here. Then there is also the number 3 and the number 4 that I must mention. I don’t talk about this much because people tend to look at me oddly when it does come up, but I have a long held affinity for both of these signifiers. In fact, as a band, we have used them as a representational model for our efforts. So much so that we have often hidden them throughout our recordings. Seriously. They are found in track numbers, tempos, number of verses, number of choruses, the number of notes in a particular melody, or the intervals between them, even the number of words in this sentence. Everywhere. Now please don’t become nervous. This is not numerology. It is harmless mathematics at work. You see, when these two symbols, 3 and 4, are inserted into a mathematical proposition of addition, the sum of them is 7. This numerical representation has the obvious implications of quantity or amount or measure but it also is a signifier of perfection. It, as a symbol, is symbolic of ‘numerical value’ but also of ‘good.’ It has biblical signification, one of my favorites being 7 days to create the earth, the seventh day for rest. We have culturally set aside the seventh day of the week for our corporate worship. The number 3 holds similar significance, it being symbolic of the divine; the three in one, while 4 has often been figurative of humanity. It is the collision of the two, divinity and depravity, that meet in the number 7. I believe art aspires to this. When it happens it is a moment of the divine stepping into our human experience. It is our ascending. It is his descending. It is a collision of the earthly with the heavenly. It is what often happens in moments of the corporate worship experience that in some mysterious way seems to transcend our common everyday experience. It is the divine and the depraved interacting and it seems our feet lift from the ground for a second. We rise from our condition. When our depravity meets his divinity it is a beautiful collision.' - David Crowder

Anyway, my interesting reflection is that I actually feel vaguely uncomfortable playing this and should have absolutely no reason to do so. I think it's because I feel a little exposed. There is so much cultural hostility to Christianity that I feel vaguely uncomfortable playing a CD of brilliantly clever and crafted music.

My workmates could care less I think. I am putting this on myself. But it is conditioned by a culture that is more or less hostile to what I believe about life, the universe and everything.

I suppose what this exposes for me is that I generally feel somewhat marginalised and at times villified for what I believe. Not by anyone in particular, more by society at large.

And I find this interesting reflection on myself. Is this feeling justified? How much truth is there to my perception of society at large's view of my beliefs? Or am I overly sensitive or, well, paranoid? Having realised this what should I do with it? How do I process it? Should I change my thinking, if so how?

*Shrug*

If nothing else, writing about it has helped me get over myself ^_^

I have work to do

*sidles off...*

This video of theirs is funny and worth a look.