The Alternative

It was sometime in 1985 that I heard them for the first time.

At first I thought they were the new Southern rock, Southern music with a new sensibility born in a college town.

Later, I heard that they were called something like College Radio.

Later still, they were simply called Alternative.

They were REM and they sung about a driver 8 and feeling gravity’s pull.

Before them, I suppose, U2, stood in their place.

Now?

I heard that iTunes labels Mumford and Sons as alternative.

We always seem to be looking to label our music and when we can’t, we just call it alternative. This seems to be a microcosm of life.

We label everything from our politics to our entertainment. The right and left pull us. Sci-fi and fantasy and horror try to grab us.

And what we are looking for is an alternative.

We had the alternative come. In a person. Jesus was and is the Alternative.

The Right is strongly pulling on you? Turn to the Alternative of Jesus. Oh? It’s the Left? Turn to the Alternative of Jesus.

Sci-Fi gives you hope? Jesus gives your hope a better Alternative.

Fantasy helps you escape? The escape that the Alternative of Jesus will be greater than anything you can imagine.

Horror scares you and keeps you awake? There is no fear in the Alternative of Jesus.

I think we are always looking for an alternative. The Alternative, though, has already come.

Do you look for alternatives or the Alternative?

How To Face The Daily Grind

I was on my way to work the other day. I had the radio station on that plays music from the 80’s, 90’s and now.  After listening to some songs I didn’t recognize, I heard U2’s It’s A Beautiful Day. I rocked to it for a few minutes just before turning toward my company. I felt great and energized. There’s just one problem.

I don’t always feel that way.

I don’t always think it’s a beautiful day.

Some days, I think it’s a mundane grind.

And I don’t like it.

I think most of us are this way. We get up, do our thing, go home and do it all over again.

Life isn’t always a beautiful day to us. Life isn’t always a vacation. Life isn’t always a mountain top. Let’s not pretend it is.

Rather let’s embrace what God has given us.  A job.  A family.  A house.  A home.

Routines.

But let’s also look for what He is showing us and telling us in those “mundane” things.

I  live in the mountains. I get to have a mountain top experience every day. I drive into the valley to go to work. The bonus? I get to drive back looking at the mountain every day.  Sure, I don’t like leaving the mountaintop.  But I get to drive back to it every night.   I see the good and joyful in that experience.

It’s that way in most things. Like the theme song from the Facts of Life when I was a kid, “You take the good, you take the bad, you take them all and there you have the facts of life, the facts of life.”

How do you face the daily grind?  By looking and seeing God’s goodness and grace in the midst of it.

Do you get fed up with the daily grind?  How do you combat it?