now

This is my desire, to see the world change.

I'm praying for a miracle. We can do this together, WE can.

Let's truly love, not hate our brothers.

Let's give all we have and realize the emptiness in wealth.

Let's humbly break ourselves from this nonsense.

Let's serve and forgive; and allow Love to live.

Can we admit our dependence and give up our lives?

Grab a hand and make this happen.

Blanket Appalachia

(...or Blanket America, as it's known otherwise.) This was a great weekend. Three of my fellow UNC-Asheville campus crusade people met up with 14 others from Western Carolina Univ to go to Manchester, KY. This is located in Clay County and is known as the "City of Hope." To make a long story short, this city was once nothing but a drug trafficking festival. It was all turned around when a group of local pastors met to pray weekly. Eventually, this led to a "revival," people started getting saved and turning from drugs. Even the local officials (mayor, etc.) were somehow linked to the drug dealing that was going on. Since then new officials have been elected and the city is turned around. It's still a very poor city with very high unemployment.

We got up early on Saturday morning to distribute new coats, blankets, bibles, socks and other necessities for the winter month. The town is stricken with much poverty and so our help gave families a little more comfort for the upcoming season.

Part of our time there, we were to simply talk to people before they collected their goods. I talked with a guy, Dewey. He shared his story with me. He told me how he used to be a drug addict along with other things. He was delivered from the addictions about 7 years ago. Praise God for this man. It was a blessing to hear from him. I lost track of time during our conversation, and was told that it was almost an hour before we parted ways. It was a great weekend. We got to bless people and we were blessed as well. One final thing, I saw my one of my friends lead a guy to Christ. It was an awesome thing. Jesus is good...gloria a Dios!

Life.

As I was talking to a friend, life after graduation was brought up.

As some know, I accepted a scholarship that requires me to dedicate four years to teaching once I graduate. To be honest, I applied for the scholarship only for the money. I was fearful that I wouldn't have been able to pay for school without it, so I told myself that teaching would be a decent road to go down. I regret this decision to some extent because I feel that I would more enjoy a different major or some other field of study. But without taking this scholarship, a lot of things wouldn't have happened like they have. I probably would have never attended UNC-A which would have led to not being involved in Campus Crusade. I've grown a lot, spiritually, because of this organization. I would have never met all these great people and would have never been apart of the music with Cru, like I have. My buddy, Randy, who I met through Cru, has pushed me musically, and I believe that if it were not for him, I would not have pursued music like I have. There's no doubt that I would still have loved music just as much if none of this had happened, but I wouldn't be where I am now. I seriously doubt that I would have never been able to find myself in a studio working on tunes like I have gotten to here lately. I've said all this to say that I'm unsure of how things are going to look after I graduate, but I believe that God has chosen to use my music and that I am going to patiently wait on His guidance. If I have to teach for a while, so be it. I've decided to give up worrying and trust Him. People have been telling me for a long time that "my time will come." I guess it's about time I listen to that. It's hard to be patient sometimes but I'm praying that God will show Randy and I what to do and where to go and what to say, etc. to impact the world with our music (more on that below).

Going back to the conversation with my friend: I was asked 'why' I wanted to pursue music rather than teaching. My answer to this question has always been "because that's what I would rather do" or "I want to change the world with my music." Well, I started by answering with the "change the world" answer and then I got to thinking about how exactly I do want to change the world. I want to impact the world like Jesus would have. Now, I know that I could never ever do as good a job as He could have, but I'm going to let him live through me so that I can do as much humanly possible to better this place that I can. I want to show the world that there's more to live for than the dream that us, Americans, are so ambitious for. And that love shouldn't be so empty and vain like the way our culture models. I believe that selfishness is the main issue here. We shouldn't live to always serve ourselves. If we're striving for this selfish American dream, then we aren't caring about the poverty in the world and the number of people who are dying without knowing about Christ. The same goes with love. We loosely use the word and when it's used, there's no real meaning behind it. Most of the time, "true love" in relationships is paired with sex and the physicality of the relationship and the selfish desires that go along with it. If the world really loved like we were intended to love, then this would be the last thing on our minds. However, media, the internet and all our friends have brainwashed us into believing that love is something less than it is. Love, I believe, is one of the most important things in life. We shouldn't allow love to be diluted to today's standards. Let's make this thing real again. Love everybody sincerely and let's not abuse this word. Love will never fail and if we choose to love for real then what harm can be done.

Love: Romans 12:9-21

Politcal Disagreements?

So, I went to a church that I've never been to this morning. It was a black baptist church. It was a great experience overall. Only the second black church (in America) that I've been to. Being musically minded, I really enjoyed it. From most traditional 'white' churches, music plays a part in the service, but it seems to be lacking some energy that's necessary. Needless to say, it was 'hoppin'.

One side note: the clapping was completely in unison. It was funny to me because I am used to hearing someone who is out of rhythm in the congregation. Not here. Everyone was on beat at all times. I loved it!

On to the stuff about politics. The one thing that stood out the most in the service at this church dealt with politics. The message wasn't even focused on this, but something that was made during prayer left me in amazement. A man was asked to pray and during this prayer he prayed for politicians, locally and federally. He specifically prayed for President Obama. He mentioned in the prayer for God to give all of our government leaders wisdom to make the best decisions for our country and city. Later the preacher referenced that prayer. He also said that we may not agree with all the policies that these people represent, but if we do not pray for God to give them wisdom, then we have no right to complain or badmouth their decisions.

I, personally, admit to complaining about certain things that go on in our government. I also do not pray for God's guidance for our leaders. Commit, with me, to do this daily.

adopted

While thinking about when and what to blog next, something happened the other day that floored me.

So, the whole thing that started this inspiration to blog was at an elementary school where I take care of kids for the YMCA Afterschool program. (I'll keep schools and names nameless) So, there was a kid who was being picked up by his dad, who was obviously from a different ethnic group, was talking to one of his friends when I heard him say, "I'm adopted." It wasn't this sad, depressing comment. Neither was it a proud, exaggerated remark. He spoke with this humble but yet, exciting tone that expressed pride but in a way that was humble. It is so hard for me to communicate what I heard and how I felt when I heard the kid say this. But, that experience led me to deeper thinking.

A couple of days later, I started thinking about how this kid was adopted and given a life that he may not have had otherwise. I started thinking about the adoptive parents and their desire to give this child hope and happiness. I began to imagine myself as a parent with an adopted kid, one day, and how it would bring me joy to give a kid that chance at life. I'm still too young for this but I definitely would consider this in the future.

Finally, this led me to thinking about how my God has adopted me. He is my creator, however He has chosen to give me life and happiness. He has adopted me as His child. I am so grateful for His unconditional Love that will never fail and His mercy that has been shown to me. I will never be able to give back what has been given to me.

If you're reading this, I hope you can see where I'm coming from. I am not the best at putting my thoughts to words, but I hope you understand what I'm trying to say and how that two word phrase has impacted me, recently.

You are the lover of my soul

You will never let me go

You are the same, You never change

and Your mercies are new every morning

(--the chorus to a song I wrote last week.)

guitars.

So, I haven't blogged in a while and I was thinking that I needed to. What do I have to blog about? Well, guitars. Finding that "sound" is such a tedious task for me. I know what I want but it's so hard to get exactly what is in my soul. For the non-guitar players, I have this "hearts-desire", if you will, to find the perfect sound/tone for my electric sound. There are only many obstacles that get in the way of me reaching this goal. Money. Resources. Funds. And Money. Oh, and hesitation and uncertainty. So, I won't be able to just get anything I'm looking for due to the lack of a money tree. If only I just had bundles of cash lying around. However, I do intend on getting a pedal that seems to be pretty sweet! It's called Silver Dragon by Rocktron. It has a 12AX7 tube for that tube sound distortion as well as a solid state distortion. I'm excited about getting it. So far, I've just been using Ibanez's Tube Screamer. It's good, but I need something to assist it, for those songs that just need that little something extra. All I've been playing, that's not acoustic, is worship music. So, the Tube Screamer could get the job done but some songs need a little touch of metal, if you know what I mean. I'm no metal-head by no means, but it can be good for your soul in moderation. Until, I start recording more with the electric side of stuff (not acoustic), I will probably keep my purchases to a minimum.

I visited Musician's Workshop on Merrimon Avenue in Asheville today to talk pedals and such with the workers there. I tried out electro-harmonix's Metal Muff . It had a nice rock sound, but I still think I need a tube. Also, I played a HSS Strat which sounded pretty nice.

On recording, I have been writing alot here lately. Me and a buddy, Randy, have been getting together from time to time and working on some stuff. As of late, I'm stuck in a rut where I have been writing only "love songs" where as before, I wrote nothing but typical Christian radio tunes. It's weird. I don't think it's a bad thing but I guess happiness, love and relationships have been on my mind here lately. I REALLY hope to have some stuff recorded by the end of this school year. I'm so impatient about the future, as far as my music goes. I hope God will use it.

In closing, remember this all your days: Love NEVER fails!

Looking Back on the Summer!

Well, it's been a while since I have blogged. Alot has gone on this summer. I've been to alot of places, seen alot of things, been through alot, WHEW! its been a long, but pretty good one. It's wierd to look back on the summer because I was once on another Continent and now I'm sitting on the couch blogging about it. Needless to say, going to the UK was the most memorable. I can't wait to go back. It was, by far, the greatest experience of my life, as far as a trip goes.

I've been through alot and have attempted to jot down some of my thoughts into musical form. I've found myself writing alot about relationships and love and all. To end up the summer, one of my cousins got married yesterday which was a unique experience for me. Out of my 5 closest first-cousins, my only male cousin was first to be married. It was a lovely wedding and I got to play my guitar as he sang to his bride Brad Paisley's new song, Then. It all got me thinking about marriage and hopefully one day I'll decide to take that step, but for now, I'm going to focus on my education and this music that I want to shape into a career. And when I decide to take that step, maybe she, the woman of my dreams, will wonder into my direction.

But, until that day, hopefully, my music WILL develop into something. I'm going to continue writing and praying that God will take it to that level.

Until next time, remember, a dog is forever in the push-up position.

UK...again.

I'm sitting in London-Gatwick airport with about 2 hours until my flight leaves for the states. It's been great here the last 3 weeks. I can't wait til I can make it back over here someday. I don't want to leave, but I miss home too.

While staying here, I ate many different styles of cuisines from all around the world. I had French, Spanish (from Spain, not like Mexican food at home), Turkish, English style meals, Italian, Indian (lamb tika was AWESOME!), and yes, American! McD's was pretty dog-gone tasty. I also stopped in at Burger King at a train station in Scotland. Funny story about that: One of my friends gets freaked out by pigeons on the streets when they get too close, etc. Well, the Burger King was open to the outdoors since it was inside the train station. So, needless to say there were pigeons that would wander the floor nibbling on dropped fries and so on. Anyways, he was flipped when one came swooping in over our heads. It's not as funny now that I type it here. You had to be there to see his reactions. I'll leave him nameless, since it is sort of embarrassing.

I've met some cool people while I was here. Learned some cool things about this country and its culture and all. One thing that I didn't realize until late was that there were hardly any pick-up trucks, or lorries as they call them here. Some of the most memorable things about this trip were walking the streets of London, seeing these old Cathedrals, eating great food, and going to Hillsong Church in London. Hillsong is an inspiring 'organization' for me. There are so many talented people there. It was such a great experience because of the music and then to top it off, the message was on finding God's purpose for your life, which is something that I desperately needed to hear.

To beat all, I studied at the world reknown, Cambridge University. I wasn't a traditional Cambridge student, although I like to tell people that and that I was accepted! But, anyways, to realize that this was the place where C.S. Lewis wrote and other world famous people were educated is so indescribable. I've enjoyed every moment of this trip. I can't wait until I can come back.

And finally, remember:
If you want to keep the world clean, put your rubbish in a bin! (English for: Don't litter!)

UK

So, Europe has been awesome. I've been in England for two weeks and went to Scotland for the this past weekend. I don't have much time to blog right now but I definitely will when I get back to the States. I ate Turkish food tonight. Interesting, but delicious nonetheless. I also went to Hillsong Church in London this morning. It was MAGNIFICENT. God is good. I love worshipping our God like that. I think I should move to this Continent.

Grace...God's good, good, good grace

So, this afternooon I've been listening to different music, making chord sheets for some and just listening to other stuff. I bought Hillsong's latest record, This Is Our God, which is absolutely incredible. There's hardly a song on the entire album that does not impress me.

On that record is a song called Where We Belong. There's a line in the chorus that says "Your grace beyond reason has paid for our freedom." When I actually comprehended what the words were saying, I was floored. This is so true. Not only did God free us through his grace, but he did it beyond reason, because of his unending love for us. It's amazing, the love God has for us. In my experience, I feel that I've only gotten a taste of his love. I can't wait to experience the full thing that we will see that one, glorious day.

This brings me back to another song entitled, How He Loves, written by John Mark McMillan. There's a line in this song that says, "if grace is an ocean, we're all sinking." This metaphor gives a great depiction of God's grace for us and how great it is. God has shown us enough grace to resemble the oceans in size. And not only is his grace an ocean but we're all sinking in it. We can't even stay afloat in its greatness. It's hard to imagine, but these metaphors are so accurate and true.

One more song that reflects that great grace of our God. Let it Go by Kirk Franklin. This afternoon, I watched a video where he performed this song at some awards show, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJ4uWwZMq5M and then I watched the actual music video, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pngBZQpUPI . It's a story of a kid who grew up with a rough life, emotionally, physically, and spiritually among others. But, the whole testimony of the song shows how God's grace is good enough to free this guy from the addiction, the guilt, the pain, and allows him to live with joy today. Man, it's so good to hear these stories.

Twitter

So, to be a wee bit random, I just put the URL to my blog on my twitter "site" and thought that maybe I should share how I can be found on twitter. Well, since calebblanton was taken, I had to insert a _ between names. So, all that to say this, twitter.com/caleb_blanton.

Speaking of, when I first heard of twitter, I literally 'LOL'ed all over myself. "I saw your tweet" was actually the first that I heard of twitter and I vowed to never "tweet" because of just how it sounded. As you can see, I've been tweetin' for a while.

Anyways, if you're debating on whether you should be a twitterer or not, my advice is to not knock it 'til you try it. I actually enjoy it. It's alot simpler than having to update a facebook status and all.

Until next time, remember that Chuck Norris can lead a horse to water, and make it drink!

Worship

So, tonight I led worship at Liberty for the youth group. I feel so concerned about their spiritual growth and realization of who God really is. Of course, there are a few who sang out loud, but for the most part, everyone just stood there. In high school, and when I was apart of the youth group as a student, I had no idea of the true experience of worshipping God. Maybe this is the case for these students. We sang two brand new (to them) songs, which could have led to the lack of corporate worship. We sang Glory to God Forever by Fee and Savior King by Hillsong along with Rescue as made popular by NewSong.

I feel like I'm called to lead worship for these students and to help show them a better way of experiencing the greatness of God. Glory to God Forever is such a simple song with alot of meaning in it. It's a straight-forward way of expressing Glory to God Forever. As the writer of the song, Steve Fee, puts it, so many other songs talk about bringing glory to God and how the mountains will praise Him, but in this song, we, the children of God, can attempt to give Him the glory that He deserves. In the song Rescue, it repeats, "I need you, Jesus" which is also so meaningful to me. I can never get enough of Him and oh how I need Him more and more each moment I'm alive.

I also feel so let down as if I'm doing a poor job of leading worship. I'm in the middle of a book, Worship Matters, written by Bob Kauflin who focuses on worship leaders and gives numerous wonderful pointers on improving corporate worship time for the worship leader. I try to incorporate many of these ideas that Bob gives to try to make the worship time a better and more God centered/cross centered event so that everyone may see God in a clear way. I don't want these students to see me on stage as a singer but as another worshipper.

Regardless of the reaction I get from the group, I have a blast worshipping my Creator. I hope and pray that those students will see Christ through me and that I set a positive example for them as they journey through life to walk closer to our Lord.

I pray (and hope you will too) for these students that they might see the greatness of God through our worship time. Pray for me as I continue to lead the worship for this group. Glory to God Forever!

Long Week.

This has been a pretty long week. I've had so much free time, but time that I couldn't be doing too much productive. So being an RA at UNCA, I had to stay in the Residence Halls until the last day. I had to make sure all of my residents moved out and left their rooms clean. So, basically, I waited around until they were ready to leave and then I would check their rooms. Luckily, they were all out before the morning of the last day. So I finished packing all my stuff and left ASAP yesterday morning. Ha. But now I'm at home unpacking all the stuff and trying to decide where to put it. It seems like everything I own are those things that I never use but always tell myself, "I will need that next week or next semester" when in reality, I'll never ever actually use whatever it is again.

So far this morning I have been going through clothes that I don't/can't wear any longer (freshmen 15 plus sophomore 30 is catching up with me) and packing up to donate to the Salvation Army or Rutherford County's own "Yokefellow". I'm wondering who actually came up with the name?

Another addition to this week is I've been getting over a migraine. It hit Sunday night. I took some Tylenol and laid in my dark room on my bed with a rag over my face with no one to hear my groans :( . But I eventually fell asleep and woke up around 3am pain-free. I laid there 3 more hours before I could fall back asleep. I woke up with a "headache hangover" where I felt like I just got over the migraine and my head was still a little sore. It's Monday now. Around 2 or 3pm that afternoon, I thought a brick had just collided with my brain. It was an all of a sudden thing. One minute I'm fine, the next, I'm suffering again. I laid down for two more hours. Now I'm home and went to the doctor yesterday to find out about these migraines. The doc just told me that what I had described to him was the classic migraine (thanks, doc). But he prescribed me some migraine "preventer". So, I'm looking forward to hopefully controlling these terrible things. He also set up an appoitment to have a brain scan next Wednesday just to make sure nothing is wrong. It's better to be safe than sorry. Anyways, for those of you who talk to Jesus, remember me next week.

Until next time, ponder this:
What would chairs look like if our kness bent the other way?

First and Foremost!!!

Ok, so first blog. Basically, I just want to get comfortable with things! Let's see how this works