Tag Archives: Chester Bennington

Community, Conversations, Emotions, Family, Fathers, Film, Friday Faves, Friends, God, Grace, Grief and Loss, Guitar, Inspired, Kindness, Leadership, Legacy, Life Skills, Loneliness, Love, Love Your Neighbor, Marriage, Memories, Men, Music, Parenting, Redeeming & Restoring, Relationships, Resilience, Social Media, Spiritual Warfare, Team, Trauma, Word of God, Words

5 Friday Faves – Women of Influence, Incredibles 2 on Classical Guitar, Suicide Prevention, Fathers, and Hard Redeemed

6 Comments

Friday Faves! Here are mine for the week:

1) Women of Influence – I have been extraordinarily blessed all my life with the presence of women of influence. Many I have known personally. The list would be long if I wrote out the names of all those who come to mind right now. You know who you are to me. Women who, in their own ordinary lives, shake foundations and raise up all around them to a higher plane of life. Today, I want to name three women who are very very different from each other. I do not know them personally, nor do I agree with everything they say… but they have caused me to think.

  • Karen Swallow Prior is an English professor, a writer, and a Christian activist. I feel like I know her through her Facebook and Twitter pages. She is as real to me as a friend would be. As brilliant and articulate as she is, I am sure we could have a conversation on difficult issues without losing each other in the process. Recently, she was hit by a city bus while walking and miraculously lived to write about it. In her forced convalescence at home over the next months, I’m thinking we will learn much from her alone time…with God and through her reflections.

“The Sage Ones” – 10 Faith Writers Over 50 – Jody Lee Collins

Photo Credit: Twitter, Anna Deavere Smith

#NotesFromTheField

These are very public figures. They use their renown to influence in the positive. We all know other women of influence – working in refugee camps, in the classroom, in research labs, in neighborhoods, and those aging ever so gracefully before us – who make a difference in quieter yet profound ways.

2) Incredibles 2 on Classical Guitar – When the film The Incredibles came out in 2004, our kids were all in high school. The film follows the adventures of a superhero family trying to have a normal life while subduing bad guys. 14 years later and its much-welcome sequel opens this weekend. Note I didn’t say much-anticipated, because the first film appeared to be a stand-alone after all these years.Photo Credit: Gizmodo

In celebration of Incredibles 2, Nathan Mills of Beyond the Guitar, has arranged Michael Giacchino‘s film theme. You can enjoy this jazzy spy melody here.Photo Credit: YouTube, Beyond the Guitar

[Have you considered being a patron of Nathan’s part of his support community? Creating music takes concentrated time and to do it for a living takes a team of folks who love what he’s doing and want to help keep it happening. Here‘s where you can find out more.]

Spotify – Guitar Covers Vol. 2 – Beyond the Guitar

3) Suicide Prevention – To go to such a dark place mentally that suicide seems the only way out must be a terrifying, deeply lonely experience. There was a time in my own life that the pressures of life mixed with emotions I couldn’t seem to control pulled me in that direction. Fortunately, nothing happened, and with God’s help and that of my family and friends (without them even knowing what was going on), the darkness broke.

We are living in an age of loneliness where social media and superficial gatherings give the facade of community, but not its reality. Truly watching out for each other and touching base, especially, with those who live more solitary lives is life-saving.

Talk Saves Lives. We can’t just assume we know what helps prevent suicide. Let’s get educated and lean in to those most vulnerable.

Resources abound. Each of us can do something to turn the tide.

Photo Credit: Twitter, American Foundation for Suicide Prevention

Life and Chester Bennington – the One Tribute You Don’t Want to Miss – Hanif Abdurraqib – Deb Mills Writer

4) Fathers – This Sunday is Father’s Day in the US. We all have had a dad in some capacity or another. The impact of their lives continues with us through ours…either steering us along the same course or moving us to take a very different one. I’ve written a bunch about fathers and fathering.

Fathering – Celebrating Men Who Did It Well; Forgiving Men Who Didn’t

The father I never knew…I have only two memories of my own of the man who gave me half of my DNA…

Then there’s this man who became my dad…until the end of his life.

Worship Wednesday – Remembering Dad at His Passing – Grateful to God

When Dave and I married, he gave me another dad. Lovely and kind.

Marriage was a late gift with no surety I’d get to be a mom. This dear man helped make it so. In his own quiet way, he is a good and rock-solid father…and now, grandfather.

I could go on…brothers who are good fathers…nephews…men in our lives who are loving fathers to other people’s kids…and our own son (and son-in-law) who are also great dads. They are easy to celebrate.

Happy Father’s Day!

Friday Faves – Father’s Day – Deb Mills Writer

Friday Faves – Dads Who Get It – Deb Mills Writer

Fathers Who Give Hope – John Piper

10 Unforgettable Lessons on Fatherhood – Ray Ortlund

5) Hard Redeemed – Anybody in our lives knows I’ve had a couple of hard weeks…those come and go, like for all of us. The ability to weather relational and situational heaviness is galvanized by those who come alongside. Including and especially God Himself who has been there for any and all who walk with Him…through the ages.

“As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive.” – Joseph  – Genesis 50:20

We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. – Romans 8:28

For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing will have the power to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord! – Romans 8:38-39
The hard of these several days is still with me but so are those who walk alongside. Friends, family, community…God himself.

What an amazing blessing are folks who reach out – like a friend, across the ocean, whom I haven’t seen since 2002. Or the friend who gave me this upbeat life-affirming little song Dream Small.

Worship Wednesday – Dream Small – Josh Wilson

God, help me to be that kind of friend…redeeming the hard in lives of those You place in front of me.

__________________________________________________________

Have a great weekend! Peopled with those you love and those who could use your love.

Bonuses:

Better Late Is Still Late: Advocating for Victims of Sexual Abuse

The Dinner Party Flex: Cooking in the Age of Social Media

10 Common Characteristics of the Top Ten Leaders I’ve Ever Worked With – Chuck Lawless

Addictions, Drugs, God, Grief and Loss, Love Your Neighbor, Trauma

Life and Chester Bennington – the One Tribute You Don’t Want to Miss – Hanif Abdurraqib

1 Comment

Photo Credit: Suran2007, Flickr

There are some people I’ve only known in death. Chester Bennington is one of these…these beautiful silenced lives. Yet, for a season of time, the silence is broken by those who knew them alive and tell us about them.

When the news of Chester Bennington’s death spread on social media, my thoughts registered: oh no! Another musician lost to the world because of drugs and alcohol. Suicide again takes out a brilliant life and career. A real person. A friend. A husband. A father.

When one of my children posted that Chris Bennington with his band Linkin Park was the soundtrack of his high school years, I was astonished. The things we don’t know about our children. The great and intimate influences…the influencers in our children’s lives.

Chester Bennington was a huge influencer in the life of poet Hanif Abdurraqib. His tribute to Bennington is the one you don’t want to miss.Photo Credit: Hanif Abdurraqib, Wikimedia Commons

Below are just 4 quotes I’ve included from Abdurraqib’s piece, and the Suicide Lifeline at the end of his post. If you loved Bennington’s work, you want to read the whole article.

“Chester Bennington had a voice that sounded like a knife crying out with the delight and agony of being sharpened. It is that the first words on Hybrid Theory are “Why does it feel like night today?” in the song “Papercut,” and then the chorus says, “It’s like a whirlwind inside of my head,” and it was a whirlwind inside of my own. It is that my pals maybe made it through a year or two that they might not have otherwise because Linkin Park, and specifically Bennington, kicked in the door to our respective darknesses not to spark a light, but to sit with us for a while.” – Hanif Abdurraqib

“Even if you are able to make a map out of your grief and trauma with the chart of a generous mapmaker, it doesn’t mean the mapmaker has figured their own way out of whatever maze their trauma has trapped them in. There is a difference between the work of not wanting others to die and the work that comes with keeping yourself alive.” – Hanif Abdurraqib

“Chester Bennington was a survivor, of many things: sexual abuse as a child, violent bullying as a skinny high school student — things that he said pushed him to years of drug and alcohol addiction. And I believe survival of this — no matter how long — is a type of heroism.” – Hanif Abdurraqib

“Chester, this is hard. This is work, Chester. And I’m up to it today. I might not be up to it always, but I’m up to it today. I’m up to it now because you were up to it for so long and I hope there was some mercy in knowing what you did. Chester, there are people still living because you lived.” – Hanif Abdurraqib

If you or someone you know is going through a rough time, feeling depressed, or thinking about self-harm, you can call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 or visit its website here.

With all of you who knew Chester Bennington and loved his work, I extend my sympathy. Just now knowing something of him, I can see what a painful loss his untimely death brings to you. Somehow, especially after reading Abdurraqib’s tribute, my sense is, as he infers, that many who knew Bennington best, have, mixed in with the loss, the gratefulness of having had him in their lives…this long.

[Suicide is a deeply bitter pill to swallow for those left behind. Depression and the darkness that can grow with it drive some of us toward the only perceived way out. My prayer and hope is that all of us can take hold of God in those heavy times, and live…and that we who love the tormented one, driven to take themselves out, can come near. This is not a simple thing when depression turns deadly on us…but this is the hope I know. He is the Hope I know.]

Why Chester Bennington’s Suicide Hurts So Much – Hanif Abdurraqib

YouTube – 10 Unforgettable Chester Bennington Moments

YouTube Video – Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib – “A Genealogy”