pas,sa.ca.glia: a musical composition in moderately slow triple time.
For years I have emailed authors and musicians that I like. What I have found is that if I'm persistent, I can eventually find the address. I have also found that since the artists make their contact information (somewhat) available, they not only don't mind the contact but many times will write back.
Most of the time when an author or a composer returns my mail, it is a brief one or two sentence response thanking me for my kind words. I've learned that the artist is not interested in starting a dialogue. I've learned to leave it at that one exchange. I have made a recent exception to that in a conversation with an author of a book on human emotions that really rang my chimes. She has been kind enough to reply three times, but has not replied to my last inquiry. Fun while it lasted.
I just received the best reply yet a few days ago. I was introduced to the music of the Grammy Award winning composer Morten Lauridsen about fifteen years ago with his award-winning composition O Magnum Mysterium (o mahnyoom meestehreoom). I was moved so deeply by the music that I became an immediate devoted disciple of his works, especially those for choir and orchestra. Several years ago I was privileged to direct a talented high school band in the instrumental arrangement of this piece. That moment was a highlight of my music career.
Spotify has changed my musical life. I cannot imagine ,my life without the ability to search for and listen to thousands of songs and compositions, and to find that music instantaneously. Spotify rewards my investment of time by not only finding the music I'm looking for, but by introducing me to a wealth of new artists, bands, composers, songs and entire symphonies. A couple of weeks ago while enjoying some Lauridsen I was very familiar with, I scrolled down to see if there was something I had missed. There I saw a song called, "Where Have the Actors Gone." This was a very odd title for a composer who writes much of his music from Latin texts. So I clicked on it to listen...
The music spoke to a place inside of me that understands beauty and meaning on a level much deeper than my consciousness can comprehend it. It is simply a female soloist with a piano accompaniment. No choir. No orchestra. Just a voice and a piano. And it is simply remarkable. It took some doing, but I eventually found Lauridsen's email address. And I wrote him. I told him in a few sentences how much this song meant to me and how much all of his choral music has meant to me over the years.
A couple of days later I received his reply. I opened the mail to find not just a sentence or two of "thanks for writing", but a generous and thought-provoking five paragraph response. In that response he told me the circumstances in his life that inspired the text and the music. I had bragged on the soloist, Sunny Wilkinson, and he told me the random way he met her and how that led to the recording I was listening to. He explained too how he found Shelly Berg, the accompanist. Furthermore he explained some technical aspects of the song, "It is cast musically as a passacaglia over a modulating sequence." And he ended the letter with "Regards, Morten."
So there you have it. I'm now on a first name basis with one of the most highly regarded and decorated composers of our time.
If I ever get around to writing that book and I become rich and famous, write to me and I'll write back. But don't expect me to carry on a conversation.
Wednesday, May 31, 2017
Monday, May 29, 2017
Dancing with the Stars
"Sure on this shining night of star-made shadows round
Kindness must watch for me this side the ground.
The late year lies down the north,
All is health. All is healed.
High summer holds the earth. hearts all whole.
I weep for wonder, wand'ring far alone
Of shadows on the stars." James Agee
When I began to emerge from a hopelessly rigid and cruel fundamentalist religion of my own making, there were several things that were pivot points for me. They were pivots from my delusions of a hopelessly divided world of the sacred and the secular. Before these pivots, I held a very rigid concept of what was God stuff versus everything else. And it was only the God stuff that I thought mattered, And I held such a limited opinion of what God stuff consisted of.
As the 19th Century European-Americans were moving west in growing numbers and as they were progressively displacing the native tribes, they attempted to convert the American Indians from tribal religions to Christianity. Many Indians, including my most favorite American Indian, Black Elk, converted to Christianity. They converted to both Catholic and Protestant religions. But one of the many reasons most American Indians never converted was this "schizophrenic" way of life that they observed in the white man. These intruders apparently believed that part of their lives belonged to God, but most of their lives belonged to themselves. These Christian trespassers, from their point of view, had a special day, for example, to worship God. Six of their days belonged to them and one day belonged to God. Furthermore, to worship their God, on perfectly gorgeous days they left the beauty and solitude of the mountains, meadows and woods, of the broad rivers and quiet streams, they left all of this and went inside dark boxes. They traded the glory of God's creation to inhabit a small house they built from downed trees. It just didn't make good sense to them.
When I transferred to Samford University from the Enterprise State Junior College in the fall of 1973, I was still very much enthralled in my awful, exclusive fundamentalist religion. As a music major with voice as my instrument, the only music I had any feelings for were the sacred songs such as the sacred art songs of Oley Speaks and the spirituals that were assigned to me. I sang other music. I sang the songs and arias of the Germans, Italians and French. And I sang them well. I sang them for my voice teacher. I sang them for our Thursday afternoon "happy hour" in front of the music students and faculty. I got rave reviews. I just didn't have any personal feelings for the secular songs. They didn't mean anything to me.
And then my teacher gave me Samuel Barber's Sure on This Shining Night to sing. From the first note of the accompaniment to the last note I sang, I felt something stirring inside of me. It was like that gentle shock of current when you touch something live. Words and music that said nothing about God or the Bible or church or salvation touched something primal in me. I practiced and sang Sure on This Shining Night over and over again just because I wanted to.
You may not know that James Agee's text that Samuel Barber set for voice and piano came from a longer poem called Permit me Voyage. When I read the entire poem, it's like the well-known words that Barber chose are an island of coherency in an otherwise incoherent ramble. Or maybe it's because when I read the poem, the memories of my discovery of the words Barber carved out as Sure on This Shining Night flood my psyche with wholeness and beauty. But obviously my not appreciating the entire poem is a reflection of my lack of understanding and not of Agee's ability to write.
But Sure on this Shining Night was a turning point for me, to move from a narrow understanding of the power of sacred song, to a wider experience of being touched by poetic and musical beauty. It was an understanding that human kindness did not belong just to the God of religion but to the living God of the universe. I then expanded that awareness to those art songs and arias that had held no meaning, no feeling. And I then expanded that recognition to other areas of my life as well. "High summer holds the earth." What did that mean? It meant that those words and that music suggested that beauty, wonder and mystery existed beyond the realm of things with a religious purpose. It meant that I could open the eyes of my heart to include the world around me. Until that pivot, "I see men as trees walking" could not have been any more appropriate for me.
"The late year lies down the north"? I had no idea. But "All is health. All is healed" I could understand.
Without this experience and the awareness that continued to expand over the years, I don't know how much longer it would have taken my eventual salvation to unfold. By 1987 at the National Gallery of Art, no one had to tell me that the original Picasso, Renoir, Monet and van Gogh I was viewing spoke from same source as Agee's "sure on this shining night of star-made shadows round." They spoke of truths that originate from a well of inspiration that we all share. The ability to draw from this wellspring of inspiration is just as powerful and mystical as the ability to create from it.
Black Elk, who fought against General Custer at the Battle of the Little Bighorn and witnessed the massacre of his tribe at Wounded Knee, apparently left his "religion of the pipe" because he felt he had little choice. His tribe was scattered and his culture was dead. He laid aside the garments of a Lakota Sioux medicine man and practiced the religion of the white man. He spent the last forty years of his life as a catechist priest of the Roman Catholic Church. On his death bed he told those gathered around him, "I never left the religion of the pipe. I always kept it with me."
Maybe Sure on the Shining Night was my peace pipe. I smoked it and made peace with the God of the universe. I made peace with myself. I just know that even now as I listen to Barber's choral arrangement that he wrote thirty years after the publication of his song, it still points me to the stars. It reminds me from whence I came. And I weep for wonder.
Kindness must watch for me this side the ground.
The late year lies down the north,
All is health. All is healed.
High summer holds the earth. hearts all whole.
I weep for wonder, wand'ring far alone
Of shadows on the stars." James Agee
When I began to emerge from a hopelessly rigid and cruel fundamentalist religion of my own making, there were several things that were pivot points for me. They were pivots from my delusions of a hopelessly divided world of the sacred and the secular. Before these pivots, I held a very rigid concept of what was God stuff versus everything else. And it was only the God stuff that I thought mattered, And I held such a limited opinion of what God stuff consisted of.
As the 19th Century European-Americans were moving west in growing numbers and as they were progressively displacing the native tribes, they attempted to convert the American Indians from tribal religions to Christianity. Many Indians, including my most favorite American Indian, Black Elk, converted to Christianity. They converted to both Catholic and Protestant religions. But one of the many reasons most American Indians never converted was this "schizophrenic" way of life that they observed in the white man. These intruders apparently believed that part of their lives belonged to God, but most of their lives belonged to themselves. These Christian trespassers, from their point of view, had a special day, for example, to worship God. Six of their days belonged to them and one day belonged to God. Furthermore, to worship their God, on perfectly gorgeous days they left the beauty and solitude of the mountains, meadows and woods, of the broad rivers and quiet streams, they left all of this and went inside dark boxes. They traded the glory of God's creation to inhabit a small house they built from downed trees. It just didn't make good sense to them.
When I transferred to Samford University from the Enterprise State Junior College in the fall of 1973, I was still very much enthralled in my awful, exclusive fundamentalist religion. As a music major with voice as my instrument, the only music I had any feelings for were the sacred songs such as the sacred art songs of Oley Speaks and the spirituals that were assigned to me. I sang other music. I sang the songs and arias of the Germans, Italians and French. And I sang them well. I sang them for my voice teacher. I sang them for our Thursday afternoon "happy hour" in front of the music students and faculty. I got rave reviews. I just didn't have any personal feelings for the secular songs. They didn't mean anything to me.
And then my teacher gave me Samuel Barber's Sure on This Shining Night to sing. From the first note of the accompaniment to the last note I sang, I felt something stirring inside of me. It was like that gentle shock of current when you touch something live. Words and music that said nothing about God or the Bible or church or salvation touched something primal in me. I practiced and sang Sure on This Shining Night over and over again just because I wanted to.
You may not know that James Agee's text that Samuel Barber set for voice and piano came from a longer poem called Permit me Voyage. When I read the entire poem, it's like the well-known words that Barber chose are an island of coherency in an otherwise incoherent ramble. Or maybe it's because when I read the poem, the memories of my discovery of the words Barber carved out as Sure on This Shining Night flood my psyche with wholeness and beauty. But obviously my not appreciating the entire poem is a reflection of my lack of understanding and not of Agee's ability to write.
But Sure on this Shining Night was a turning point for me, to move from a narrow understanding of the power of sacred song, to a wider experience of being touched by poetic and musical beauty. It was an understanding that human kindness did not belong just to the God of religion but to the living God of the universe. I then expanded that awareness to those art songs and arias that had held no meaning, no feeling. And I then expanded that recognition to other areas of my life as well. "High summer holds the earth." What did that mean? It meant that those words and that music suggested that beauty, wonder and mystery existed beyond the realm of things with a religious purpose. It meant that I could open the eyes of my heart to include the world around me. Until that pivot, "I see men as trees walking" could not have been any more appropriate for me.
"The late year lies down the north"? I had no idea. But "All is health. All is healed" I could understand.
Without this experience and the awareness that continued to expand over the years, I don't know how much longer it would have taken my eventual salvation to unfold. By 1987 at the National Gallery of Art, no one had to tell me that the original Picasso, Renoir, Monet and van Gogh I was viewing spoke from same source as Agee's "sure on this shining night of star-made shadows round." They spoke of truths that originate from a well of inspiration that we all share. The ability to draw from this wellspring of inspiration is just as powerful and mystical as the ability to create from it.
Black Elk, who fought against General Custer at the Battle of the Little Bighorn and witnessed the massacre of his tribe at Wounded Knee, apparently left his "religion of the pipe" because he felt he had little choice. His tribe was scattered and his culture was dead. He laid aside the garments of a Lakota Sioux medicine man and practiced the religion of the white man. He spent the last forty years of his life as a catechist priest of the Roman Catholic Church. On his death bed he told those gathered around him, "I never left the religion of the pipe. I always kept it with me."
Maybe Sure on the Shining Night was my peace pipe. I smoked it and made peace with the God of the universe. I made peace with myself. I just know that even now as I listen to Barber's choral arrangement that he wrote thirty years after the publication of his song, it still points me to the stars. It reminds me from whence I came. And I weep for wonder.
Friday, May 26, 2017
God as I Understand Him
If I don't believe in God as presented in the Bible, am I an atheist? That depends.
The Twelve Steps of Alcoholic Anonymous refer to a "Power" and then twice refer to "God as you understand Him." J.B. Phillips, the Anglican scholar, published his famous Your God is Too Small in 1952. I will not summarize his classic book, I will simply borrow his title to say that no matter how big your God may be, He's too small. Taoism, an ancient Chinese "philosophy" says of itself that if you can define it, then it's not the Tao. That's the way I feel about God. If you are so cocksure you know who God is, then that's not my God.
The Cloud of Unknowing, a fourteenth century book of Christian mysticism, says basically the same thing. "The underlying message of the work suggests that the way to know God is to abandon God's particular activities and attributes, and be courageous enough to surrender ones' mind and ego to the realm of 'unknowing' at which point one may begin to glimpse the nature of God." Wikipedia
So am I saying that I don't believe in God? I'm just saying that I don't believe in the God you're so sure about. I don't believe in God as presented in the Old and New Testaments. And you don't either. You pick and choose certain aspects you like about Him from the Bible and then you dismiss the other aspects. Let me suggest several examples. You like the story of Noah and the Ark. The story you know is a very nice story. Before God destroys the whole world, he saved one family and a bunch of animals. You like that. That ark you've seen with the two giraffes sticking their head out the windows is a beautiful picture. After the floods receded, God placed a rainbow in the sky and promised that He would never destroy the world by flood again. You like that. You tell it to your children before they go to bed. Noah and the Ark is no doubt one of the most beloved children's stories of all time. The abridged version is a really nice story. That rainbow part is especially nice. But Donald Miller reminds us in Blue Like Jazz that if you believe the whole story, the unabridged version, God did some pretty horrible things. As the torrential rains fell and the floods gushed through hills and valleys, thousands of babies' heads were dashed against rocks and trees. Millions of miniature poodles, dachshunds, Labrador retrievers and kittens, with nowhere to run, gulped their last breath of air and drowned. In verse 13 of Genesis chapter 9, God places the rainbow in the sky. You like that. In verse 20, Noah gets drunk and is lying naked in his tent. And Noah cursed his son, who was trying to help him, for seeing him that way. Did God pick the right family? Did drowning all those babies and puppies fix anything? Keep reading Genesis and you'll find that post-ark mankind was not much different than pre-ark mankind. Did destroying the whole world accomplish God's purposes?
In 2 Samuel 6 ,David and all of Israel are "celebrating before the Lord with songs and lyres and harps and tambourines and castanets and cymbals" They are rejoicing before the ark of the Lord. The people of God have never been any happier or optimistic. Everything is right with the world. But then the ox stumbled. Uzzah, concerned that the ark was going to fall, put his hand out to steady the ark and God struck him dead. "And he died there before the ark of the Lord." In Bible world, that's okay because God had told them not to touch the ark of the covenant. God was simply meting out the punishment He had threatened. But put it in the context of our world. Somebody kills another man because he did something he told him not to do. In our world we call it murder; the perpetrator goes to prison for the rest of his days.
You like the God of Psalm 23, "The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want... Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. for you are with me." But do you like the God of the previous Psalm, Psalm 22, "My God, my God why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from my cries of anguish? My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer. by night but I find no rest."
But you say,"This is the God of 'the Old Book', I believe in the God of the New. When Jesus came He showed us what God was really like. God is now the loving Father of Jesus. The book of Acts is the record of the first Christians just after Jesus had ascended to the Father. Chapter 5 records the account of Ananias and Sapphira. The story is a favorite among preachers and full-time evangelists right before they take up the offering. Both of these early believers lied to Peter about the amount of their offering. They both said that they had given all of the proceeds of their land when they had kept some of it for themselves. Granted, lying about anything is not a good thing, especially lying to a saint-to-be like Peter. But what happens next to me is an indication that God hadn't changed all that much. He executed both of them right on the spot. "Great fear seized the whole church and all who heard about these events." No joke!
So, am I an atheist? No, I am far from an atheist. Just because I have serious problems with the God of the Bible doesn't mean I don't believe in God. Far from it. I believe in the God of Moses who asked God ,"Who shall I tell Pharaoh sent me?" And He said, "Tell him 'I am' sent you." I believe in the God of Jesus who said, "I am the bread. I am the resurrection and the life. I am the Good Shepherd. I am the door. I am the light of the world. I am the true vine. I am the way, the truth and the life."
"But David, you can't have it both ways. Either you believe in the God as presented in the Bible or you don't believe in God." Think of it like this. If a young girl grows up with a very physically abusive father who hit her and beat her when he got angry, years later in her counselor's office does she talk about the horrible abuse or when her father took her to Baskin Robbins to apologize? I'm just saying that in Bible world we forgive Him of His trespasses against us, but in this world we lock people up for doing much less.
"So David, what are you saying? What do you want me to take from this?" I'm not asking you to not read the Bible. I'm not asking you to not believe in God. I'm inviting you discover a kinder, gentler God, And a much bigger God than one contained in a book, even The Good Book. John records in John 21 that the whole world couldn't contain all the good works of Jesus. Your God is Too Small. When asked, God told Moses, "My name is 'I Am.' 'I exist'. Leave it at that."
I'm listening to O Magnum Mysterium, published in Rome in 1569, This ancient Latin text has been set to music by composers through the ages. This arrangement by Morten Lauridsen was published in 1994, This music and ancient text draw me in and turn my soul outward. "O great mystery and wonderful sacrament that animals should see the new-born Lord." The God of animals who worship His baby boy in a manger in Bethlehem. The Unknowing. The Mystery. Now that's a God I can believe in. That's God as I understand Him. Tell that to your children.
The Twelve Steps of Alcoholic Anonymous refer to a "Power" and then twice refer to "God as you understand Him." J.B. Phillips, the Anglican scholar, published his famous Your God is Too Small in 1952. I will not summarize his classic book, I will simply borrow his title to say that no matter how big your God may be, He's too small. Taoism, an ancient Chinese "philosophy" says of itself that if you can define it, then it's not the Tao. That's the way I feel about God. If you are so cocksure you know who God is, then that's not my God.
The Cloud of Unknowing, a fourteenth century book of Christian mysticism, says basically the same thing. "The underlying message of the work suggests that the way to know God is to abandon God's particular activities and attributes, and be courageous enough to surrender ones' mind and ego to the realm of 'unknowing' at which point one may begin to glimpse the nature of God." Wikipedia
So am I saying that I don't believe in God? I'm just saying that I don't believe in the God you're so sure about. I don't believe in God as presented in the Old and New Testaments. And you don't either. You pick and choose certain aspects you like about Him from the Bible and then you dismiss the other aspects. Let me suggest several examples. You like the story of Noah and the Ark. The story you know is a very nice story. Before God destroys the whole world, he saved one family and a bunch of animals. You like that. That ark you've seen with the two giraffes sticking their head out the windows is a beautiful picture. After the floods receded, God placed a rainbow in the sky and promised that He would never destroy the world by flood again. You like that. You tell it to your children before they go to bed. Noah and the Ark is no doubt one of the most beloved children's stories of all time. The abridged version is a really nice story. That rainbow part is especially nice. But Donald Miller reminds us in Blue Like Jazz that if you believe the whole story, the unabridged version, God did some pretty horrible things. As the torrential rains fell and the floods gushed through hills and valleys, thousands of babies' heads were dashed against rocks and trees. Millions of miniature poodles, dachshunds, Labrador retrievers and kittens, with nowhere to run, gulped their last breath of air and drowned. In verse 13 of Genesis chapter 9, God places the rainbow in the sky. You like that. In verse 20, Noah gets drunk and is lying naked in his tent. And Noah cursed his son, who was trying to help him, for seeing him that way. Did God pick the right family? Did drowning all those babies and puppies fix anything? Keep reading Genesis and you'll find that post-ark mankind was not much different than pre-ark mankind. Did destroying the whole world accomplish God's purposes?
In 2 Samuel 6 ,David and all of Israel are "celebrating before the Lord with songs and lyres and harps and tambourines and castanets and cymbals" They are rejoicing before the ark of the Lord. The people of God have never been any happier or optimistic. Everything is right with the world. But then the ox stumbled. Uzzah, concerned that the ark was going to fall, put his hand out to steady the ark and God struck him dead. "And he died there before the ark of the Lord." In Bible world, that's okay because God had told them not to touch the ark of the covenant. God was simply meting out the punishment He had threatened. But put it in the context of our world. Somebody kills another man because he did something he told him not to do. In our world we call it murder; the perpetrator goes to prison for the rest of his days.
You like the God of Psalm 23, "The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want... Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. for you are with me." But do you like the God of the previous Psalm, Psalm 22, "My God, my God why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from my cries of anguish? My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer. by night but I find no rest."
But you say,"This is the God of 'the Old Book', I believe in the God of the New. When Jesus came He showed us what God was really like. God is now the loving Father of Jesus. The book of Acts is the record of the first Christians just after Jesus had ascended to the Father. Chapter 5 records the account of Ananias and Sapphira. The story is a favorite among preachers and full-time evangelists right before they take up the offering. Both of these early believers lied to Peter about the amount of their offering. They both said that they had given all of the proceeds of their land when they had kept some of it for themselves. Granted, lying about anything is not a good thing, especially lying to a saint-to-be like Peter. But what happens next to me is an indication that God hadn't changed all that much. He executed both of them right on the spot. "Great fear seized the whole church and all who heard about these events." No joke!
So, am I an atheist? No, I am far from an atheist. Just because I have serious problems with the God of the Bible doesn't mean I don't believe in God. Far from it. I believe in the God of Moses who asked God ,"Who shall I tell Pharaoh sent me?" And He said, "Tell him 'I am' sent you." I believe in the God of Jesus who said, "I am the bread. I am the resurrection and the life. I am the Good Shepherd. I am the door. I am the light of the world. I am the true vine. I am the way, the truth and the life."
"But David, you can't have it both ways. Either you believe in the God as presented in the Bible or you don't believe in God." Think of it like this. If a young girl grows up with a very physically abusive father who hit her and beat her when he got angry, years later in her counselor's office does she talk about the horrible abuse or when her father took her to Baskin Robbins to apologize? I'm just saying that in Bible world we forgive Him of His trespasses against us, but in this world we lock people up for doing much less.
"So David, what are you saying? What do you want me to take from this?" I'm not asking you to not read the Bible. I'm not asking you to not believe in God. I'm inviting you discover a kinder, gentler God, And a much bigger God than one contained in a book, even The Good Book. John records in John 21 that the whole world couldn't contain all the good works of Jesus. Your God is Too Small. When asked, God told Moses, "My name is 'I Am.' 'I exist'. Leave it at that."
I'm listening to O Magnum Mysterium, published in Rome in 1569, This ancient Latin text has been set to music by composers through the ages. This arrangement by Morten Lauridsen was published in 1994, This music and ancient text draw me in and turn my soul outward. "O great mystery and wonderful sacrament that animals should see the new-born Lord." The God of animals who worship His baby boy in a manger in Bethlehem. The Unknowing. The Mystery. Now that's a God I can believe in. That's God as I understand Him. Tell that to your children.
Tuesday, May 23, 2017
What to Do In Case of a Mistake
I don't like making mistakes. Because I'm generally careful and conscientious, I don't make that many mistakes at work(that I know of) or anywhere else. So when I do make a mistake, I mean a serious goof up, it hits me hard. There's a part of me that wants to believe that I am incapable of making a mistake. For the record, that's not the best part of me.
I made a work-related mistake last March and didn't even know about it until yesterday. One of about twenty people it affected realized there was a problem and let me know. In checking into what happened I was hoping against hope that somebody else had messed up and not me. By process of elimination, I eliminated everyone in the equation except me. I was the one who had goofed. Instead of beating myself up for hours as I am capable of doing, I limited my self-flagellation to just a few minutes. Dr. Suzanne Gelb in Be Well at Work says of mistakes to "allow yourself to feel awful about it", but only for a few minutes. I then started thinking about how to fix it. Dr. Gelb also advises us to keep it in perspective. So I comforted myself that I'm not an air traffic controller, that no one was going to die from my mistake and I wouldn't be going to jail. But still people were affected with my goof and that doesn't feel good.
In surveying the damage I thought, "There are too many moving parts. This can't be fixed." I thought about it some more and decided, "This can be fixed; I just have to figure out how to do it." Within a few minutes I came up with a plan.
The first step in the plan was to email the ones affected that I had messed up and that I was sorry for any inconvenience I had created. Most of the people I told weren't aware of the problem until I told them. And I told them that I would do everything in my power to make it right. .
Today I spent about two hours working my plan. A few pieces of the puzzle fell into place; most of it is still a work in progress. It's going to take some time and effort.
So why are we so hard on ourselves in the first place? Sam Russell in How to Stop Beating Yourself Up Over Poor Choices and Minor Mistakes says that we have accumulated a lifetime of "suggestions, comments, recommendations and lectures." Then when we mess up we hit this tripwire and it unleashes Pandora's Box. That's why our feelings are often all out of proportion with the offense.
But as I said, I decided this time to go a different route. In spite of the fact that little of the problem has been resolved, I had a really good day today. It was a productive day. My business day ended with a business social function that was very relaxing and enjoyable, "I enjoyed myself", as they say. I didn't give my plight another thought. But now I'm thinking about it and I'm considering what I need to do tomorrow. I can't dedicate the whole day to the project, but I do intend to continue the process.
I don't normally check work email at home, but felt that I needed to in this case. I noticed an email from one of the persons affected. I opened it, held my breath. and read: "I am sure that everyone of us has had this moment to deal with. We are human and not perfect. This is a small problem for you and doesn't bother us. Thanks for letting us know."
It's premature for me to say "All's well that ends well" because it hasn't ended. But I can definitely say "All's well." And for now, that's enough to know.
I made a work-related mistake last March and didn't even know about it until yesterday. One of about twenty people it affected realized there was a problem and let me know. In checking into what happened I was hoping against hope that somebody else had messed up and not me. By process of elimination, I eliminated everyone in the equation except me. I was the one who had goofed. Instead of beating myself up for hours as I am capable of doing, I limited my self-flagellation to just a few minutes. Dr. Suzanne Gelb in Be Well at Work says of mistakes to "allow yourself to feel awful about it", but only for a few minutes. I then started thinking about how to fix it. Dr. Gelb also advises us to keep it in perspective. So I comforted myself that I'm not an air traffic controller, that no one was going to die from my mistake and I wouldn't be going to jail. But still people were affected with my goof and that doesn't feel good.
In surveying the damage I thought, "There are too many moving parts. This can't be fixed." I thought about it some more and decided, "This can be fixed; I just have to figure out how to do it." Within a few minutes I came up with a plan.
The first step in the plan was to email the ones affected that I had messed up and that I was sorry for any inconvenience I had created. Most of the people I told weren't aware of the problem until I told them. And I told them that I would do everything in my power to make it right. .
Today I spent about two hours working my plan. A few pieces of the puzzle fell into place; most of it is still a work in progress. It's going to take some time and effort.
So why are we so hard on ourselves in the first place? Sam Russell in How to Stop Beating Yourself Up Over Poor Choices and Minor Mistakes says that we have accumulated a lifetime of "suggestions, comments, recommendations and lectures." Then when we mess up we hit this tripwire and it unleashes Pandora's Box. That's why our feelings are often all out of proportion with the offense.
But as I said, I decided this time to go a different route. In spite of the fact that little of the problem has been resolved, I had a really good day today. It was a productive day. My business day ended with a business social function that was very relaxing and enjoyable, "I enjoyed myself", as they say. I didn't give my plight another thought. But now I'm thinking about it and I'm considering what I need to do tomorrow. I can't dedicate the whole day to the project, but I do intend to continue the process.
I don't normally check work email at home, but felt that I needed to in this case. I noticed an email from one of the persons affected. I opened it, held my breath. and read: "I am sure that everyone of us has had this moment to deal with. We are human and not perfect. This is a small problem for you and doesn't bother us. Thanks for letting us know."
It's premature for me to say "All's well that ends well" because it hasn't ended. But I can definitely say "All's well." And for now, that's enough to know.
Monday, May 22, 2017
Modulation, Demodulation and Exhultation
Every time I drive by Stateline Electronics in East Ridge, Tennessee, I smile. Back when we had a desktop IBM compatible computer, Stateline is where I took it for service problems. They were always able to diagnose the problem and fix it for a reasonable price. On this particular day when I picked it up, the technician said, "By the way I put several BBSes in your dialing directory." 'You put what in my what?" "Bulletin Board Services. Just find the dialing directory and dial the number. You'll figure it out".
In case you have never heard what a dialup modem sounded like when it connected to another modem, I have provided a link in the comments for you to hear it. When you listen to the video, you are hearing the near simultaneous sounds from both modems as they introduce themselves and try to connect. There was something very soothing about that horrible noise and very satisfying when the modems finally shook hands. My first modem was a 1200 baud modem. Then I graduated to a much faster 2400 baud modem. Finally, I inherited a 9600 baud modem from a friend. Looking back, I'm fairly sure that he "brought" that one home from TVA, but I had no way of knowing that at the time.
A Bulletin Board Service, or BBS, provided the most enjoyable experience of anything I've ever done online. I learned over time that a System Operator, or Sysop, dedicated a partition of his or her computer to the BBS. This person gave their BBS a name having to do with dragons, sorcerers or the like. They wanted to create the illusion of a magical place and at least as far as I was concerned they did just that. Looking back on it, the experience was really not much different than texting. But it felt like so much more. The user logged onto a BBS, left a message and loggged off. S/he logged onto the site later to read the reply and to reply again. By being active on several BBSes, the user was able to carry on a number of conversations.
So that day I brought my computer home and found the dialing directory. As he suggested, he had loaded about fifteen numbers with interesting names into the directory. I chose one particular BBS that was named something like The Dragon's Lair and I dialed the number. Much screeching noises ensued. I was unsuccessful at first. But on the third or fourth attempt after all the screeches there was silence. I had successfully connected to a BBS. An astronaut docking to the space station the first time couldn't have been much happier. The very first thing I read was "Welcome to La La Land." Some months later when I actually met this Sysop at a BBS meeting, he said that he had just gotten home from the dentist and from using nitrous oxide when he posted that. Until I met a real, live Sysop I thought that they, like the Wizard of Oz, were some sort of gods who graciously bestowed their technology on mere mortals like me. I was surprised that they were just ordinary people wearing blue jeans and t-shirts. And they drank beer. The Sysop of The Dragon's Lair and I even played a few rounds of golf.
Although I quickly became active on several BBSes, it was The Dragon's Lair where I spent the most time. BBSers used a handle, like a CB handle, on a BBS and not our names. My handle was Stryker and I decorated it like this >::::::Stryker:::::> Stryker gained quite a reputation as quick-witted and a person not easy to categorize. Like in the "real world", there were liberals, fundamentalist, atheists and agnostics who frequented those sites. Nobody ever figured out who Stryker really was. I really enjoyed being Stryker. He had a way of invading any conversation and interjecting his sometimes bizarre opinions. At The Dragon's Lair I co-wrote an Arthurian legend with several other users who I never met.. I remember a particular passage I wrote on Merlin that the other users were particularly complimentary of. BBSing was great entertainment.
The strangest thing that happened was the time I connected with a BBS and instead of seeing what I was expecting, the C prompt of the Sysop was blinking on my computer. My computer had become his computer. This was DOS days, remember, when the user was a rudimentary programmer. I could have destroyed his computer if I had been so inclined. I was not so inclined. You have a C prompt on your Windows computer, but you have to know where to look. That day I was tempted to at least look around on his computer when my better nature told me to just log off. The Sysop later thanked me profusely for not crashing his computer.
At some point we upgraded our computer from a modem and a phone line to a coaxial cable. It was so much quieter and faster than the modem. And for technical reasons that I don't recall, the BBSes went away as well. At the time I thought, "I can't wait to see what's better." I've never found anything else much better. I enjoy the internet and have no desire for a dialup modem, but driving by Stateline Elecronics this morning I couldn't help but look wistfully over my shoulder and remember the good ole days of a modem and a BBS. BBSing is just one "B" removed from BSing, but it seemed like more. With BSing, there's usually just one person who's enjoying it. With BBSing there was a world of people enjoying it.
Sometimes I think I'll stop in at Stateline Electronics to say "hello." And I'll tell the service man how much enjoyment they brought to me back in the day. But he'll probably say, "A dialing directory? And a BBS?" And I'll say, "It's a modem thing. Just Google it."
In case you have never heard what a dialup modem sounded like when it connected to another modem, I have provided a link in the comments for you to hear it. When you listen to the video, you are hearing the near simultaneous sounds from both modems as they introduce themselves and try to connect. There was something very soothing about that horrible noise and very satisfying when the modems finally shook hands. My first modem was a 1200 baud modem. Then I graduated to a much faster 2400 baud modem. Finally, I inherited a 9600 baud modem from a friend. Looking back, I'm fairly sure that he "brought" that one home from TVA, but I had no way of knowing that at the time.
A Bulletin Board Service, or BBS, provided the most enjoyable experience of anything I've ever done online. I learned over time that a System Operator, or Sysop, dedicated a partition of his or her computer to the BBS. This person gave their BBS a name having to do with dragons, sorcerers or the like. They wanted to create the illusion of a magical place and at least as far as I was concerned they did just that. Looking back on it, the experience was really not much different than texting. But it felt like so much more. The user logged onto a BBS, left a message and loggged off. S/he logged onto the site later to read the reply and to reply again. By being active on several BBSes, the user was able to carry on a number of conversations.
So that day I brought my computer home and found the dialing directory. As he suggested, he had loaded about fifteen numbers with interesting names into the directory. I chose one particular BBS that was named something like The Dragon's Lair and I dialed the number. Much screeching noises ensued. I was unsuccessful at first. But on the third or fourth attempt after all the screeches there was silence. I had successfully connected to a BBS. An astronaut docking to the space station the first time couldn't have been much happier. The very first thing I read was "Welcome to La La Land." Some months later when I actually met this Sysop at a BBS meeting, he said that he had just gotten home from the dentist and from using nitrous oxide when he posted that. Until I met a real, live Sysop I thought that they, like the Wizard of Oz, were some sort of gods who graciously bestowed their technology on mere mortals like me. I was surprised that they were just ordinary people wearing blue jeans and t-shirts. And they drank beer. The Sysop of The Dragon's Lair and I even played a few rounds of golf.
Although I quickly became active on several BBSes, it was The Dragon's Lair where I spent the most time. BBSers used a handle, like a CB handle, on a BBS and not our names. My handle was Stryker and I decorated it like this >::::::Stryker:::::> Stryker gained quite a reputation as quick-witted and a person not easy to categorize. Like in the "real world", there were liberals, fundamentalist, atheists and agnostics who frequented those sites. Nobody ever figured out who Stryker really was. I really enjoyed being Stryker. He had a way of invading any conversation and interjecting his sometimes bizarre opinions. At The Dragon's Lair I co-wrote an Arthurian legend with several other users who I never met.. I remember a particular passage I wrote on Merlin that the other users were particularly complimentary of. BBSing was great entertainment.
The strangest thing that happened was the time I connected with a BBS and instead of seeing what I was expecting, the C prompt of the Sysop was blinking on my computer. My computer had become his computer. This was DOS days, remember, when the user was a rudimentary programmer. I could have destroyed his computer if I had been so inclined. I was not so inclined. You have a C prompt on your Windows computer, but you have to know where to look. That day I was tempted to at least look around on his computer when my better nature told me to just log off. The Sysop later thanked me profusely for not crashing his computer.
At some point we upgraded our computer from a modem and a phone line to a coaxial cable. It was so much quieter and faster than the modem. And for technical reasons that I don't recall, the BBSes went away as well. At the time I thought, "I can't wait to see what's better." I've never found anything else much better. I enjoy the internet and have no desire for a dialup modem, but driving by Stateline Elecronics this morning I couldn't help but look wistfully over my shoulder and remember the good ole days of a modem and a BBS. BBSing is just one "B" removed from BSing, but it seemed like more. With BSing, there's usually just one person who's enjoying it. With BBSing there was a world of people enjoying it.
Sometimes I think I'll stop in at Stateline Electronics to say "hello." And I'll tell the service man how much enjoyment they brought to me back in the day. But he'll probably say, "A dialing directory? And a BBS?" And I'll say, "It's a modem thing. Just Google it."
Sunday, May 21, 2017
The Unanswered Question
My introduction to choral music was at the church of my childhood and youth, the Hillcrest Baptist Church in Enterprise, Alabama. Accompanied by the piano and organ, the choirs and the congregational singing had a powerful effect on me. This music shaped all of the music I would ever sing or direct.
My introduction to outstanding choral music happened in August of 1973. After graduating from the Enterprise State Junior College in Enterprise, Alabama, I continued my music education at Samford University in Birmingham.
I was mildly amused over my three years of touring with that choir at how many well-meaning people said something like, "I'm amazed at how well the choir sings without any music." I always just smiled and agreed with them and understood what they were saying "without any accompaniment". The afternoon of our first day of choir camp at Shocco Springs Baptist Assembly in Talladega, Alabama, the choir gathered for the first rehearsal. I was one of 64 voices in this choir. I'm sure you are familiar with four-part singing-soprano, alto, tenor and bass. You may not be as familiar with a choir of eight voice parts- first and second of each of those parts. This choral unit consisted of eight singers singing each of those eight parts. That year I was a first bass, a baritone. My last two years, I was a second bass, the low part.(sometimes referred to as "Russian basses". I was more of an American; those "Russians" I stood beside rattled my teeth and bones and helped me sing lower than I was normally capable of). But that afternoon I was more an observer than a participant. I really had no way of knowing what was about to happen. Dr. Black handed out a piece, O Day Full of Grace by F. Melius Christiansen. The veterans were very familiar with this music. Someone sounded the pitch pipe, the first and second basses hummed their unison note. He slightly dropped his hand when the magic happened.. The piece begins with the basses on "O day" on an ascending perfect 4th. It sounded like a squadron of B52s idling on the runway. And then the altos joined the chorus and the sopranos and tenors joined in.
I have no words to explain what happened next. I was immediately surrounded by musical sounds that I didn't know existed. Three years later Dr. Paul Hall in a class on children's choirs said, "You can't have a concept of something until you experience it". Until that moment I had had no "concept" of choral music. I had certainly never heard anything like that. Do you ever have something happen and you're not absolutely sure that you are the one it's happening to? Such was the case as the rehearsal of that song continued. All the boundaries between myself and each person on the stage vanished. I was absorbed into the music and into them. The group was no longer male and female, freshmen and seniors, Alabamians and Floridians, gay or straight. They were all just sopranos, altos, tenors and basses. I was caught up "into the seventh heaven". For three years the choir rehearsed five days a week, one hour on three days and 90 minutes on the other two. No matter what else was going on in my somewhat chaotic existence, that ensemble was home. We toured once a year for two weeks and sang at various places at other times. We were even the featured choir at the National Cathedral and the National Prayer Breakfast for President Gerald Ford. My out-of-the-body experience I had on that stage in Talladega continued as I sang in cathedrals all over Europe. Singing those double motets in those split-chancel centuries old cathedrals in Sweden was one of the most sublime and surreal experiences of my life. Any minute I expected to be translated like Enoch who "walked with God and was no more". "Where did David go?", the choir members asked. "I don't know. He was here a second ago."
I enjoy listening to many different types of music from heavy metal to symphonic masterpieces. But the music I listen to most often, especially when I want to be moved and filled, is a cappella choral music. I draw from the well of F. Melius Christiansen, Paul Christiansen, Ola Gjielo, Eric Whitacre, Morten Lauridsen, Samuel Barber, Stephen Paulus, and Charles Ives. I listen to the unison of Gregorian Chant. I listen to the masters of the Renaissance such as Josquin Des Prez, Giovanni Palestrina and others. I'm listening now to a piece by Palestrina we sang in the A Cappella Choir. And as I listen in the absolute privacy created by my Bose noise-cancelling headphones, my awareness not only expands, but I am transported back to Talledega, Alabama where it all began. when for the first time in my life I learned the meaning of "a cappella". Were we singing without music? Not on your life. This music became Jacob's ladder; I ascend to the heavens time and time again.
Two of my favorite pieces we sang in the Samford A Cappella Choir were Prayers of Steel and Psalm 67 by Charles Ives(1874-1954). They both were rather dissonant. Ives, now one of the most famous of American composers, was the organist at the small church of his adolescence. The organ and the piano were slightly out of tune with each other. Later he would compose music to sound a lot like that. He composed Psalm 67 in two simultaneous keys. The men sang in G major while the women in C minor throughout the composition. The consonance in dissonance became a metaphor for my troubled existence. It is still a metaphor for my existence. If I didn't find beauty and meaning in the clashing discordance of living, I would find no beauty and meaning at all.
When I visited Samford's campus for the first time in the spring of 1973, I met Dr. Black the conductor of the A Cappella Choir in the music office. He asked, "Do you sing?" I replied, "Yes, I sing." He took me then and there to his office and had me sing some scales and a hymn, My Jesus I Love Thee. A few weeks later I got a letter in the mail that I had been accepted in the A Cappella Choir. This was even before I received another letter in a few days that said I had been accepted as a student at Samford University. I'm quite sure Dr. Black had something to do with that. Four months later I was sitting with 63 other students on the stage of the chapel at Shocco Springs Baptist Assembly. Isn't it amazing how radically our lives are changed before we even know it. As I listen now to Exsultate Deo, a piece we sang written by Palestrina in the 16th century, my heart is still warmed and changed. The music that was in this man's head and heart in Italy over 500 years ago, warms my heart this morning in Ringgold, Georgia. Selah.
My favorite piece by Charles Ives is not a choral work, it's instrumental. The solo trumpet asks the question and the consonant drone of the orchestra attempts to answer it. The Unanswered Question is one of the most beautiful and haunting works of art I have ever heard. And so it goes, the answers are not nearly as important as the questions. "Live the questions", Frederick Buechner advised. But I leave you with a question and an answer. "Why did the chicken cross the road?" "Because he, like I when I listen to music, had absolutely nothing better to do."
My introduction to outstanding choral music happened in August of 1973. After graduating from the Enterprise State Junior College in Enterprise, Alabama, I continued my music education at Samford University in Birmingham.
I was mildly amused over my three years of touring with that choir at how many well-meaning people said something like, "I'm amazed at how well the choir sings without any music." I always just smiled and agreed with them and understood what they were saying "without any accompaniment". The afternoon of our first day of choir camp at Shocco Springs Baptist Assembly in Talladega, Alabama, the choir gathered for the first rehearsal. I was one of 64 voices in this choir. I'm sure you are familiar with four-part singing-soprano, alto, tenor and bass. You may not be as familiar with a choir of eight voice parts- first and second of each of those parts. This choral unit consisted of eight singers singing each of those eight parts. That year I was a first bass, a baritone. My last two years, I was a second bass, the low part.(sometimes referred to as "Russian basses". I was more of an American; those "Russians" I stood beside rattled my teeth and bones and helped me sing lower than I was normally capable of). But that afternoon I was more an observer than a participant. I really had no way of knowing what was about to happen. Dr. Black handed out a piece, O Day Full of Grace by F. Melius Christiansen. The veterans were very familiar with this music. Someone sounded the pitch pipe, the first and second basses hummed their unison note. He slightly dropped his hand when the magic happened.. The piece begins with the basses on "O day" on an ascending perfect 4th. It sounded like a squadron of B52s idling on the runway. And then the altos joined the chorus and the sopranos and tenors joined in.
I have no words to explain what happened next. I was immediately surrounded by musical sounds that I didn't know existed. Three years later Dr. Paul Hall in a class on children's choirs said, "You can't have a concept of something until you experience it". Until that moment I had had no "concept" of choral music. I had certainly never heard anything like that. Do you ever have something happen and you're not absolutely sure that you are the one it's happening to? Such was the case as the rehearsal of that song continued. All the boundaries between myself and each person on the stage vanished. I was absorbed into the music and into them. The group was no longer male and female, freshmen and seniors, Alabamians and Floridians, gay or straight. They were all just sopranos, altos, tenors and basses. I was caught up "into the seventh heaven". For three years the choir rehearsed five days a week, one hour on three days and 90 minutes on the other two. No matter what else was going on in my somewhat chaotic existence, that ensemble was home. We toured once a year for two weeks and sang at various places at other times. We were even the featured choir at the National Cathedral and the National Prayer Breakfast for President Gerald Ford. My out-of-the-body experience I had on that stage in Talladega continued as I sang in cathedrals all over Europe. Singing those double motets in those split-chancel centuries old cathedrals in Sweden was one of the most sublime and surreal experiences of my life. Any minute I expected to be translated like Enoch who "walked with God and was no more". "Where did David go?", the choir members asked. "I don't know. He was here a second ago."
I enjoy listening to many different types of music from heavy metal to symphonic masterpieces. But the music I listen to most often, especially when I want to be moved and filled, is a cappella choral music. I draw from the well of F. Melius Christiansen, Paul Christiansen, Ola Gjielo, Eric Whitacre, Morten Lauridsen, Samuel Barber, Stephen Paulus, and Charles Ives. I listen to the unison of Gregorian Chant. I listen to the masters of the Renaissance such as Josquin Des Prez, Giovanni Palestrina and others. I'm listening now to a piece by Palestrina we sang in the A Cappella Choir. And as I listen in the absolute privacy created by my Bose noise-cancelling headphones, my awareness not only expands, but I am transported back to Talledega, Alabama where it all began. when for the first time in my life I learned the meaning of "a cappella". Were we singing without music? Not on your life. This music became Jacob's ladder; I ascend to the heavens time and time again.
Two of my favorite pieces we sang in the Samford A Cappella Choir were Prayers of Steel and Psalm 67 by Charles Ives(1874-1954). They both were rather dissonant. Ives, now one of the most famous of American composers, was the organist at the small church of his adolescence. The organ and the piano were slightly out of tune with each other. Later he would compose music to sound a lot like that. He composed Psalm 67 in two simultaneous keys. The men sang in G major while the women in C minor throughout the composition. The consonance in dissonance became a metaphor for my troubled existence. It is still a metaphor for my existence. If I didn't find beauty and meaning in the clashing discordance of living, I would find no beauty and meaning at all.
When I visited Samford's campus for the first time in the spring of 1973, I met Dr. Black the conductor of the A Cappella Choir in the music office. He asked, "Do you sing?" I replied, "Yes, I sing." He took me then and there to his office and had me sing some scales and a hymn, My Jesus I Love Thee. A few weeks later I got a letter in the mail that I had been accepted in the A Cappella Choir. This was even before I received another letter in a few days that said I had been accepted as a student at Samford University. I'm quite sure Dr. Black had something to do with that. Four months later I was sitting with 63 other students on the stage of the chapel at Shocco Springs Baptist Assembly. Isn't it amazing how radically our lives are changed before we even know it. As I listen now to Exsultate Deo, a piece we sang written by Palestrina in the 16th century, my heart is still warmed and changed. The music that was in this man's head and heart in Italy over 500 years ago, warms my heart this morning in Ringgold, Georgia. Selah.
My favorite piece by Charles Ives is not a choral work, it's instrumental. The solo trumpet asks the question and the consonant drone of the orchestra attempts to answer it. The Unanswered Question is one of the most beautiful and haunting works of art I have ever heard. And so it goes, the answers are not nearly as important as the questions. "Live the questions", Frederick Buechner advised. But I leave you with a question and an answer. "Why did the chicken cross the road?" "Because he, like I when I listen to music, had absolutely nothing better to do."
Saturday, May 20, 2017
NICU Update-- Pink and Breathing
"Imagine me and you, I do.
I think about you day and night,
It's only right.
To think about the girl you love
And hold her tight
So happy together." Happy Together, The Turtles, 1967
There is a story you've probably heard about a man and a young boy who were walking together on a beach. The ebbing tide had left hundreds of starfish helplessly stranded on the sand. As they walked along, the boy would reach down from time to time and toss one into the water. After he had done this several times, the man said to him, "That doesn't make any difference you know." And the little boy reached down, picked up a starfish and threw it into the water, looked up and said, "It did for that one."
A couple of months ago, after celebrating my first anniversary as a cuddler, I almost quit. The NICU was breaking my heart.
During my orientation with the director of the NICU, I told her that I write a blog. I told her that I write about the things that matter the most to me and the things I feel most deeply. So I asked her if I could write about my experience in her unit. She said, "Yes, I would even encourage you to do that. Just don't mention any names and don't relate many specifics." The fact that I feel so deeply about those babies is why I don't write about what happens in that unit very often. That restriction of "don't relate any specifics" leaves me speechless.
Every baby I have rocked, fed and diapered over these past fourteen months has a story. Each baby is unique and his or her story is unique. Some of those stories make me smile. Other stories make me very sad. And many of them make me angry. There are so many warm and wonderful stories from the NICU, but those aren't the ones that stayed with me.
So I was going to quit. I was tired of leaving the NICU feeling angry and somewhat depressed. And I was growing cynical that my meager efforts could make any difference in their challenged lives. Many times when I'm upset, I see the counselor who I have been seeing for twenty five years. He always has a way of helping me see things in a different light. No matter how distressed I am when I walk in, I have always left his office feeling better than when I got there. I was headed his direction to talk about this urge to quit when the answer came to me as plain as day, "You are not there to fix anything; you are there to hold those babies and to love them. That's all you are supposed to do and all you can do.The circumstances that bring them to the unit and their circumstances when they leave are not in your control and are none of your concern."
Since that personal epiphany I have had a completely different attitude and disposition. Although the realities can be heavy, I choose to not become heavy. My only reality weighs from three to eight pounds. If she's crying, she needs to be comforted. If she's hungry she needs to be fed. If she's wet, she needs to be changed. This morning I asked my baby's nurse what I needed to know before I fed him and she said, "Just make sure he's pink and breathing."
Now I'm asking you to read between the lines. There is no need for you to figure out which NICU I serve. There is no need for you to know any of the stories that I know. There is a hospital near you where they bring tiny babies into the world. Each of those babies have a story. Not all of these stories are warm and fuzzy. Not all of these babies will go home with mommy and daddy. You are very familiar with how many babies don't have a father. You would be surprised to learn how many don't have a mother. Call the hospital's volunteer services and ask them what you can do to help. There's something else you can do. Get involved in foster care. Call your local Department of Family and Children Services. If you're not sure where that is then call your state's Division of Family and Children Services. These agencies are desperate for caring people such as yourself. The babies and children are desperate for caring people such as yourself. Other than the standard criminal background check, the only other requirements are to be willing to share your help and your love, and to be pink and breathing.
The nurse told me this morning that my little man needed to take a bottle and a half of formula. He wolfed down the first one, but into the second one he just stopped eating. No amount of coaxing on my part would make him drink another drop. And yes, I tried to burp him. I looked at the bottle to see if it was half gone. "Close enough." I put the bottle down, picked him up, put him on my shoulder, gently patted his back and within minutes he was sound asleep. Pink and breathing.
I didn't help every needy baby in the world this morning. I didn't even help every baby in the NICU. But I helped that one. And if he only knew how much he helped me.
I think about you day and night,
It's only right.
To think about the girl you love
And hold her tight
So happy together." Happy Together, The Turtles, 1967
There is a story you've probably heard about a man and a young boy who were walking together on a beach. The ebbing tide had left hundreds of starfish helplessly stranded on the sand. As they walked along, the boy would reach down from time to time and toss one into the water. After he had done this several times, the man said to him, "That doesn't make any difference you know." And the little boy reached down, picked up a starfish and threw it into the water, looked up and said, "It did for that one."
A couple of months ago, after celebrating my first anniversary as a cuddler, I almost quit. The NICU was breaking my heart.
During my orientation with the director of the NICU, I told her that I write a blog. I told her that I write about the things that matter the most to me and the things I feel most deeply. So I asked her if I could write about my experience in her unit. She said, "Yes, I would even encourage you to do that. Just don't mention any names and don't relate many specifics." The fact that I feel so deeply about those babies is why I don't write about what happens in that unit very often. That restriction of "don't relate any specifics" leaves me speechless.
Every baby I have rocked, fed and diapered over these past fourteen months has a story. Each baby is unique and his or her story is unique. Some of those stories make me smile. Other stories make me very sad. And many of them make me angry. There are so many warm and wonderful stories from the NICU, but those aren't the ones that stayed with me.
So I was going to quit. I was tired of leaving the NICU feeling angry and somewhat depressed. And I was growing cynical that my meager efforts could make any difference in their challenged lives. Many times when I'm upset, I see the counselor who I have been seeing for twenty five years. He always has a way of helping me see things in a different light. No matter how distressed I am when I walk in, I have always left his office feeling better than when I got there. I was headed his direction to talk about this urge to quit when the answer came to me as plain as day, "You are not there to fix anything; you are there to hold those babies and to love them. That's all you are supposed to do and all you can do.The circumstances that bring them to the unit and their circumstances when they leave are not in your control and are none of your concern."
Since that personal epiphany I have had a completely different attitude and disposition. Although the realities can be heavy, I choose to not become heavy. My only reality weighs from three to eight pounds. If she's crying, she needs to be comforted. If she's hungry she needs to be fed. If she's wet, she needs to be changed. This morning I asked my baby's nurse what I needed to know before I fed him and she said, "Just make sure he's pink and breathing."
Now I'm asking you to read between the lines. There is no need for you to figure out which NICU I serve. There is no need for you to know any of the stories that I know. There is a hospital near you where they bring tiny babies into the world. Each of those babies have a story. Not all of these stories are warm and fuzzy. Not all of these babies will go home with mommy and daddy. You are very familiar with how many babies don't have a father. You would be surprised to learn how many don't have a mother. Call the hospital's volunteer services and ask them what you can do to help. There's something else you can do. Get involved in foster care. Call your local Department of Family and Children Services. If you're not sure where that is then call your state's Division of Family and Children Services. These agencies are desperate for caring people such as yourself. The babies and children are desperate for caring people such as yourself. Other than the standard criminal background check, the only other requirements are to be willing to share your help and your love, and to be pink and breathing.
The nurse told me this morning that my little man needed to take a bottle and a half of formula. He wolfed down the first one, but into the second one he just stopped eating. No amount of coaxing on my part would make him drink another drop. And yes, I tried to burp him. I looked at the bottle to see if it was half gone. "Close enough." I put the bottle down, picked him up, put him on my shoulder, gently patted his back and within minutes he was sound asleep. Pink and breathing.
I didn't help every needy baby in the world this morning. I didn't even help every baby in the NICU. But I helped that one. And if he only knew how much he helped me.
Thursday, May 18, 2017
Fifty Shades of Green
Among the strange and wonderful things about my personality and behavior is an issue I have dealt with for years. I see small print much faster than large print. I notice small objects before I notice large objects. Behind all that is the general issue that I tend to see only what I'm looking for. And sometimes I don't see much else. Several years ago I traveled to meet a youth group from our church that had already traveled to North Carolina. One of the leaders said, "What did you think of all those red flowers?" "What red flowers?" "The red flowers that were everywhere." "I didn't see any read flowers." (Look of disbelief on her face).On my way home I saw red flowers everywhere. They were in the median. On the side of the road. They were ubiquitous! They had been there the whole time but I didn't see them because I wasn't looking for them.
Another example illustrates the point. When learning a new computer program at a former job, I could not find how to launch the program. I was determined though to figure it out without asking the office manager for help. I knew she wouldn't mind helping me, I just didn't want to ask. I read the entire page several times looking for a link to begin the training module. Finally, I gave up and asked her for help. She looked at the screen and showed me a block about an inch square that read, "Start here." There are many other current examples, but I think you get the idea. I can poke gentle fun at myself for this malady, but it does get to be a problem from time to time.
Have you ever read something that didn't seem all that important at the time? And then when you thought about it some more you realized just how important it was. A few days ago I read, "Don't just see what you're looking for; see everything." Once it soaked in that it could be useful, I started doing just that. I started noticing everything. Then something happened to help me take the exercise more seriously. I was told that some vision issues related to cataract surgery last year would require a procedure in both eyes with a laser. The doctor said that it was a very routine procedure and had little risk to my eyesight. That conversation was a couple of weeks ago and the procedure was today. For two weeks I decided to see things with the possibility that those two weeks would be the last two weeks I could see. I wouldn't call the experience "extraordinary" because I knew that the possibility of losing my vision was mostly hypothetical, but I did notice a lot more than usual. I tried to take in everything. I made mental photographs that I could recall if I lost my sight.One thing I noticed is something my son called my attention to years ago. After seven months in Santiago, Chile we were sitting on our back deck and he said, "Dad, have you ever noticed how GREEN it is here!?" And I said that I really hadn't. So for the past two weeks I've noticed, again, how green it is. And I've noticed all various shades of green in the leaves and the grass. I've noticed a lot of things that I normally don't pay any attention to. And I've enjoyed it.
Without any conscious thought on my part, my psyche expanded my resolve from just "see everything" to "hear everything" and "feel everything." I'm not quite ready to start a new religion, but this directive had made a difference for me. I am typically easily annoyed by sounds that I don't want to hear. Radios playing music I don't want to hear. Televisions in waiting rooms on channels I don't want to see and hear. In those small rooms, I can usually get away from "see", but I can't escape "hear." The latest assault to my senses is the television at the gas pump. I just want to pump gas and contemplate the meaning of life not see and hear the latest deal on their Slurpees or who got booted from Dancing With the Stars.
But this is changing. Last weekend I was in a showroom with a television playing on one end and the showroom radio piped through the building. This normally would have caused me grief, but I just decided to hear it all as sound and I was able to do that. And later I was in a restaurant restroom where the music was blaring. I just let it blare. It had nothing to do with me. "Hear everything."
The "feel everything" I'm working on, too. I've remembered what Conrad's counselor said to him in Ordinary People, "Not all feelings feel good." "Just feel the way you feel" I've been told. All feelings are valid. They aren't all comfortable, but they are all valid. "Feel everything."
The procedure in my left eye went as planned and I expect the procedure in my right eye to go just as well. I have not lost my sight. But all the same I have a new resolve to pay attention to what's around me. To see everything instead of just what I'm looking for. Today I noticed that the yellow flowers that bloomed by the welcome center were no longer there. I noticed there was no caboose on the train that I waited for at the crossing. The last freight car appeared and then the train was gone. I noticed a lot of things.
If I published Fifty Shades of Green: How to Deal With Nausea, do you think I'd sell as many copies as that grey version? I'm sure you have no idea.
Another example illustrates the point. When learning a new computer program at a former job, I could not find how to launch the program. I was determined though to figure it out without asking the office manager for help. I knew she wouldn't mind helping me, I just didn't want to ask. I read the entire page several times looking for a link to begin the training module. Finally, I gave up and asked her for help. She looked at the screen and showed me a block about an inch square that read, "Start here." There are many other current examples, but I think you get the idea. I can poke gentle fun at myself for this malady, but it does get to be a problem from time to time.
Have you ever read something that didn't seem all that important at the time? And then when you thought about it some more you realized just how important it was. A few days ago I read, "Don't just see what you're looking for; see everything." Once it soaked in that it could be useful, I started doing just that. I started noticing everything. Then something happened to help me take the exercise more seriously. I was told that some vision issues related to cataract surgery last year would require a procedure in both eyes with a laser. The doctor said that it was a very routine procedure and had little risk to my eyesight. That conversation was a couple of weeks ago and the procedure was today. For two weeks I decided to see things with the possibility that those two weeks would be the last two weeks I could see. I wouldn't call the experience "extraordinary" because I knew that the possibility of losing my vision was mostly hypothetical, but I did notice a lot more than usual. I tried to take in everything. I made mental photographs that I could recall if I lost my sight.One thing I noticed is something my son called my attention to years ago. After seven months in Santiago, Chile we were sitting on our back deck and he said, "Dad, have you ever noticed how GREEN it is here!?" And I said that I really hadn't. So for the past two weeks I've noticed, again, how green it is. And I've noticed all various shades of green in the leaves and the grass. I've noticed a lot of things that I normally don't pay any attention to. And I've enjoyed it.
Without any conscious thought on my part, my psyche expanded my resolve from just "see everything" to "hear everything" and "feel everything." I'm not quite ready to start a new religion, but this directive had made a difference for me. I am typically easily annoyed by sounds that I don't want to hear. Radios playing music I don't want to hear. Televisions in waiting rooms on channels I don't want to see and hear. In those small rooms, I can usually get away from "see", but I can't escape "hear." The latest assault to my senses is the television at the gas pump. I just want to pump gas and contemplate the meaning of life not see and hear the latest deal on their Slurpees or who got booted from Dancing With the Stars.
But this is changing. Last weekend I was in a showroom with a television playing on one end and the showroom radio piped through the building. This normally would have caused me grief, but I just decided to hear it all as sound and I was able to do that. And later I was in a restaurant restroom where the music was blaring. I just let it blare. It had nothing to do with me. "Hear everything."
The "feel everything" I'm working on, too. I've remembered what Conrad's counselor said to him in Ordinary People, "Not all feelings feel good." "Just feel the way you feel" I've been told. All feelings are valid. They aren't all comfortable, but they are all valid. "Feel everything."
The procedure in my left eye went as planned and I expect the procedure in my right eye to go just as well. I have not lost my sight. But all the same I have a new resolve to pay attention to what's around me. To see everything instead of just what I'm looking for. Today I noticed that the yellow flowers that bloomed by the welcome center were no longer there. I noticed there was no caboose on the train that I waited for at the crossing. The last freight car appeared and then the train was gone. I noticed a lot of things.
If I published Fifty Shades of Green: How to Deal With Nausea, do you think I'd sell as many copies as that grey version? I'm sure you have no idea.
Sunday, May 14, 2017
The Sum of Its Parts
The engine and drive train of a typical automobile has about 10,000 moving parts. The entire car has about 30,000 parts. The parts you are usually aware of and concerned about are the starter, the engine(as a whole), the accelerator, the brake, the steering wheel, the turn signal, the windshield wiper, the headlights, the air conditioning (heating and cooling), the stereo and the GPS. The tires are where the rubber meets the road (so to speak) and are extremely important, but you are normally not aware of them unless one of them goes flat.In that case it suddenly becomes the only part that matters. If something else goes wrong, you immediately become aware of other parts of the car.
The number of parts in the human body depends on what you're counting. There are eight major organs that keep us alive--the brain, the lungs, the liver, the bladder, the kidneys, the heart, the stomach, and the intestines. But it is estimated that the human brain contains about 100 billion neurons. Of course a number like that means that nobody knows how many neurons are in the brain. There are seven major parts to the human kidney. The nephron is the basic structural and functional unit of the kidney. It is estimated that there are about a million nephrons in each kidney. There are seven major parts to the human heart. It is estimated there are about 15-70 trillion cells in the human circulatory system. Again this spread means that nobody knows how many cells are in the body. Now here's a number you can wrap your head around. There are 206 bones in an adult's body. That's something that can be counted on a skeleton.
All of this to say, the parts of a car depends on what you mean by "a part of a car." The parts of the human body range from eight parts to tens of trillions depending on what you're counting.
Music has been called the most complex symbol system in the world. Considering that symbol systems include systems such as mathematics, language and science, that's quite a statement. I was thinking about all of this this morning while listening to Durufle's Requiem. If I had never been in a choir performing this requiem, then I wouldn't have been thinking about it at all. I performed Durufle's Requiem about fifteen years ago at the First Baptist Church of Chattanooga, Tennessee. The choir, under the direction of David Long, consisted of about thirty singers. The choir was accompanied by a small orchestra and the church pipe organ. Short of a college professor or conductor of a major orchestra, David is the most gifted conductor I have ever sung with. The entire experience was quite marvelous.
If you attended a performance of Maurice Durufle's Requiem, I would think that you would only hear incredibly beautiful music and would be totally unaware of its intricate complexities. This is not to insult your musical intelligence. I've earned a couple of music degrees and if I had been sitting there with you without ever seeing the score, I wouldn't have been aware of it either.
The entire work is based on Gregorian chant. This chant is extremely simple. It consists of only a melodic line which moves mostly in steps and small jumps. The melody never moves very far from its center. Yet Durufle takes this monophony of one moving part and creates a polyphony of hundreds of moving parts. Again, listening to it you will probably hear the whole of one sound of the combined choir and orchestra. If you've read from the score you will be aware of so much more.
The Introit alone is beautifully complex beyond belief. From the key signature changes quite often, but the time signature changes at times from measure to measure. The time signature in most works of musical art changes at most from page to page. In Requiem, what you hear as unity is broken into hundreds of individual pieces. The measure you're singing may be in 4/4 (common time), but the next six measures could be 5/8, 7/8, 3/4,4/4, 2/4, and 3/4 respectively, The end result is a type of mystical illusion as the music seems to float off the page. As a performer, I almost floated off the stage.
As I listen to the Introit of Requiem now I realize that I am able to forget all that and hear it as I would have without that perspective. This morning it is simply some of the most beautiful music I've ever heard.
So later today when you sit in the driver's seat and start your car, try not to consider that any one of 30,000 things could break. And as you hear the motor spring to life, don't consider that each ear has about ten major parts, but that the brain that decodes the vibrations your ear receives contains hundreds of billions of moving parts. But when you turn on your radio, do consider that the classic rock you're listening to is made up of no more than four or five chords.
What does all this mean? When Don McClean was asked the meaning of all the rap-like facts he spews in American Pie, he said, "It means that I will never have to work another day in my life."
The number of parts in the human body depends on what you're counting. There are eight major organs that keep us alive--the brain, the lungs, the liver, the bladder, the kidneys, the heart, the stomach, and the intestines. But it is estimated that the human brain contains about 100 billion neurons. Of course a number like that means that nobody knows how many neurons are in the brain. There are seven major parts to the human kidney. The nephron is the basic structural and functional unit of the kidney. It is estimated that there are about a million nephrons in each kidney. There are seven major parts to the human heart. It is estimated there are about 15-70 trillion cells in the human circulatory system. Again this spread means that nobody knows how many cells are in the body. Now here's a number you can wrap your head around. There are 206 bones in an adult's body. That's something that can be counted on a skeleton.
All of this to say, the parts of a car depends on what you mean by "a part of a car." The parts of the human body range from eight parts to tens of trillions depending on what you're counting.
Music has been called the most complex symbol system in the world. Considering that symbol systems include systems such as mathematics, language and science, that's quite a statement. I was thinking about all of this this morning while listening to Durufle's Requiem. If I had never been in a choir performing this requiem, then I wouldn't have been thinking about it at all. I performed Durufle's Requiem about fifteen years ago at the First Baptist Church of Chattanooga, Tennessee. The choir, under the direction of David Long, consisted of about thirty singers. The choir was accompanied by a small orchestra and the church pipe organ. Short of a college professor or conductor of a major orchestra, David is the most gifted conductor I have ever sung with. The entire experience was quite marvelous.
If you attended a performance of Maurice Durufle's Requiem, I would think that you would only hear incredibly beautiful music and would be totally unaware of its intricate complexities. This is not to insult your musical intelligence. I've earned a couple of music degrees and if I had been sitting there with you without ever seeing the score, I wouldn't have been aware of it either.
The entire work is based on Gregorian chant. This chant is extremely simple. It consists of only a melodic line which moves mostly in steps and small jumps. The melody never moves very far from its center. Yet Durufle takes this monophony of one moving part and creates a polyphony of hundreds of moving parts. Again, listening to it you will probably hear the whole of one sound of the combined choir and orchestra. If you've read from the score you will be aware of so much more.
The Introit alone is beautifully complex beyond belief. From the key signature changes quite often, but the time signature changes at times from measure to measure. The time signature in most works of musical art changes at most from page to page. In Requiem, what you hear as unity is broken into hundreds of individual pieces. The measure you're singing may be in 4/4 (common time), but the next six measures could be 5/8, 7/8, 3/4,4/4, 2/4, and 3/4 respectively, The end result is a type of mystical illusion as the music seems to float off the page. As a performer, I almost floated off the stage.
As I listen to the Introit of Requiem now I realize that I am able to forget all that and hear it as I would have without that perspective. This morning it is simply some of the most beautiful music I've ever heard.
So later today when you sit in the driver's seat and start your car, try not to consider that any one of 30,000 things could break. And as you hear the motor spring to life, don't consider that each ear has about ten major parts, but that the brain that decodes the vibrations your ear receives contains hundreds of billions of moving parts. But when you turn on your radio, do consider that the classic rock you're listening to is made up of no more than four or five chords.
What does all this mean? When Don McClean was asked the meaning of all the rap-like facts he spews in American Pie, he said, "It means that I will never have to work another day in my life."
Friday, May 12, 2017
Imagine That
"Some of my characters don't leave me, and I write to find out how their lives have been going since I last saw them." Judith Guest, author of Ordinary People
A good novel is a miracle of sorts. Although the characters are figments of the writer's imagination, to the reader they become very real. When you're reading a novel I'm sure that you, like I, have had the experience that the characters in the book, at least temporarily, become more real than the people around you. I could write a long list of authors whose characters have affected me that way. The author who floats up into my consciousness is Barbara Kingsolver. My introduction to her books was her The Bean Trees trilogy. I've read the entire trilogy more than once and hope to read it again. But if I had to name one novel, just one, whose characters became as real as the living, breathing people around me, it would be Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible. For me it is without a doubt the most beautiful, powerful, touching and riveting work of fiction that I have ever read. For that matter, I could exclude the words "of fiction" and the sentence would still be true. Her characters mattered to me. Was the book better than Pat Conroy's The Prince of Tides? Well, if you put it like that, how can I choose? Do I really have to choose? My wife says of The Prince of Tides, "There ought to be an 800 number to call when you finish reading this book. You'll need to talk to somebody."
Now read again the quote by Judith Guest. Isn't it fascinating beyond belief that these characters that these writers create become real people to them. Although these characters do not breath oxygen and nitrogen like we do, the writers perform a sort of literary CPR to breathe them to life. If we are to take Guest's word for it, she is as excited to spend time with these people as we are. And the miracle of reading a good book is that these people become real to you perhaps years after they were made real by her. So where had they been all that time? Hiding in that book?
Pat Conroy, one of the best American writers of all time, was not only the author of brilliant fiction, but he published many non-fiction books as well. The Water is Wide, My Losing Season, My Reading Life are among his best. My Reading Life, as you may imagine, is about the books that affected him the most. The thing that fascinated me the most about that book is how in the world did he have time to write all the words he wrote if he read all the words he read. He must have been doing one or the other all day every day of the week, and on weekends and holidays, too. Didn't he have to eat and sleep?
I'm a writer of non-fiction. I have tried my hand at fiction and it just doesn't work for me. I have little trouble relating a personal experience--a memory, a thought, a feeling, a relationship, or some musical piece that matters to me. But when I try to bring to life a fictional story, it is always dead on arrival. On the other hand, like a novelist, my writing does take on a life of its own. Where my stories end is seldom what I had in mind when I started writing. Everything you read of mine started with just a thought, an idea, a feeling or something I read and it went from there. All of this came from that one sentence of Judith Guest.
You know that I am fascinated with the human brain. Have you ever thought about how your brain holds the story and characters of a novel in place as you read? Page by page, chapter by chapter the story cascades and compounds like the movements of a grand symphony. And yet, the page you're reading is only so many words. It's not a book. It's just words. Furthermore, you can put the book down, pick it up in a week and your brain reassembles all the characters and their relationships on the fly.
Writer's are fairly insecure people. Writers enjoy feedback on their work. They like to know that somebody read their words and that their words made a difference. Because of that, many writer's provide a way to find them. During my coffee time this morning, I opened Judith Guest's website and quickly found her contact information. I told her my entire life story in about thirty words and told her the significant impact Ordinary People had on me in 1980. Judith is eighty one years old and is still writing. Today she wrote to me: "Dear David, what a wonderful message to wake up to! Thanks for your kind words about my work. I am finishing a draft of a novel as we speak and it makes it so much easier to tease out these last problems with these good thoughts in my head. I'm glad you hung on. I'm grateful for your support. Best, Judith Guest."
"Tease out these last problems." I need to write about that.
one
A good novel is a miracle of sorts. Although the characters are figments of the writer's imagination, to the reader they become very real. When you're reading a novel I'm sure that you, like I, have had the experience that the characters in the book, at least temporarily, become more real than the people around you. I could write a long list of authors whose characters have affected me that way. The author who floats up into my consciousness is Barbara Kingsolver. My introduction to her books was her The Bean Trees trilogy. I've read the entire trilogy more than once and hope to read it again. But if I had to name one novel, just one, whose characters became as real as the living, breathing people around me, it would be Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible. For me it is without a doubt the most beautiful, powerful, touching and riveting work of fiction that I have ever read. For that matter, I could exclude the words "of fiction" and the sentence would still be true. Her characters mattered to me. Was the book better than Pat Conroy's The Prince of Tides? Well, if you put it like that, how can I choose? Do I really have to choose? My wife says of The Prince of Tides, "There ought to be an 800 number to call when you finish reading this book. You'll need to talk to somebody."
Now read again the quote by Judith Guest. Isn't it fascinating beyond belief that these characters that these writers create become real people to them. Although these characters do not breath oxygen and nitrogen like we do, the writers perform a sort of literary CPR to breathe them to life. If we are to take Guest's word for it, she is as excited to spend time with these people as we are. And the miracle of reading a good book is that these people become real to you perhaps years after they were made real by her. So where had they been all that time? Hiding in that book?
Pat Conroy, one of the best American writers of all time, was not only the author of brilliant fiction, but he published many non-fiction books as well. The Water is Wide, My Losing Season, My Reading Life are among his best. My Reading Life, as you may imagine, is about the books that affected him the most. The thing that fascinated me the most about that book is how in the world did he have time to write all the words he wrote if he read all the words he read. He must have been doing one or the other all day every day of the week, and on weekends and holidays, too. Didn't he have to eat and sleep?
I'm a writer of non-fiction. I have tried my hand at fiction and it just doesn't work for me. I have little trouble relating a personal experience--a memory, a thought, a feeling, a relationship, or some musical piece that matters to me. But when I try to bring to life a fictional story, it is always dead on arrival. On the other hand, like a novelist, my writing does take on a life of its own. Where my stories end is seldom what I had in mind when I started writing. Everything you read of mine started with just a thought, an idea, a feeling or something I read and it went from there. All of this came from that one sentence of Judith Guest.
You know that I am fascinated with the human brain. Have you ever thought about how your brain holds the story and characters of a novel in place as you read? Page by page, chapter by chapter the story cascades and compounds like the movements of a grand symphony. And yet, the page you're reading is only so many words. It's not a book. It's just words. Furthermore, you can put the book down, pick it up in a week and your brain reassembles all the characters and their relationships on the fly.
Writer's are fairly insecure people. Writers enjoy feedback on their work. They like to know that somebody read their words and that their words made a difference. Because of that, many writer's provide a way to find them. During my coffee time this morning, I opened Judith Guest's website and quickly found her contact information. I told her my entire life story in about thirty words and told her the significant impact Ordinary People had on me in 1980. Judith is eighty one years old and is still writing. Today she wrote to me: "Dear David, what a wonderful message to wake up to! Thanks for your kind words about my work. I am finishing a draft of a novel as we speak and it makes it so much easier to tease out these last problems with these good thoughts in my head. I'm glad you hung on. I'm grateful for your support. Best, Judith Guest."
"Tease out these last problems." I need to write about that.
one
Monday, May 8, 2017
What does it mean?
meaning--"the end, purpose or significance of something"
The side effect of major depression that, in my opinion, is the most damaging and the most deadly is that everything is devoid of meaning. There is no joy, meaning or satisfaction in anything. The most horrible aspect of it is that the one suffering does not believe that this emotional state will ever change. Hopeless is no longer an expression. It's a literal state of mind. This person's neurotransmitters that should be firing to celebrate normal positive emotions just are not available in their brain. Everyone is capable of having a "bad day" and sometimes even a "bad week." But for someone who is depressed, this empty and hopeless state of being goes on for weeks and sometimes months. It is estimated that for those in a prolonged depressive state, 80% contemplate suicide, 50% attempt suicide and 20% kill themselves.
Another cruel irony is the elevated incidence of suicide within a few days of a person taking psychotropic drugs. One of the leading theories is that the person who was suffering wanted to die but didn't have the energy to kill themselves until the medication began to take effect.
It follows then that the opposite of a life devoid of meaning is a life full of meaning. All of it. Everything full of meaning. I've lived both ways and I can tell you that meaning in everything is much better than meaning in nothing.
And, yes, I assign meaning when there maybe is none. Or is there? Since the fall of 1978 when I heard the music for the first time, Leonard Bernstein's Mass has been my most beloved symphonic/choral work in all of music, And that's a lot of music. Commissioned by Jacqueline Kennedy the first performance on September 8,1971 was part of the opening of the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. Leonard Bernstein, a Jew, composed this work to honor his friend John F, Kennedy, a Roman Catholic. Another thing about me, I've had more than my share of "life-changing experiences". But think of it like this, if you drive through Atlanta or Dallas aren't you going to have a lot of "lane-changing experiences"? Why can't life be like that? But hearing Mass that afternoon was an actual life-changing experience. I can honestly say that my life has never been the same. And it has changed every time of the dozens of times I've listened to it. And the hundreds of times I've listened to the final twenty minute soliloquy by the Celebrant as he utterly self-destructs. And then is re-born. Then comes the incredibly beautiful music that takes me to the final spoken words, "The mass is ended. Go in peace." Can you "go in peace" too often?
In 2004 I was the choral director of the Lakeview-Ft. Oglethorpe High School in Ft. Oglethorpe, Georgia. I was musically prepared for the position but otherwise unprepared. And profoundly unhappy. I took a group of students to Shorter College in Rome, Georgia for a workshop. There I was introduced in a dramatic way to the choral music of Stephen Paulus. I have listened to his music ever since. This past weekend while looking for something else, Spotify directed me to his oratorio, To Be Certain of the Dawn. This music that I have listened to several times has risen quickly to become my second most beloved musical work after Bernstein's Mass. The libretto by Michael Dennis Brown and music by Paulus was commissioned by the Minneapolis Basilica of St. Mary as a gift to Temple Israel Synagogue. It is intended as a gift from the Christian community to the Jewish community. More specifically, it deals with Christian repentance for the church's role in the Holocaust. The words and music of Hymn to the Eternal Flame touch me in places I had forgotten I had places.
So did you follow this? My first most favorite music was composed by a Jewish composer to honor his Christian friend. Now my second most favorite music was composed by a Christian as a gift to the Jewish community. Is this supposed to mean something? Are these musical works somehow connected? Well, they are in me.
In 1987, while I was the Minister of Music at the Signal Mt. Baptist Church, Signal Mt. Tennessee, my best friend developed a relationship with the rabbi of the B'nai Zion Synogogue in Chattanooga, Tennessee. This friendship resulted in a relationship of our church with their synagogue. We enjoyed a traditional Seder meal in their homes and they enjoyed a meal and worship with us. The rabbi taught me Hine mah tov ("How good it is for the brethren to dwell together in unity") and I sang that psalm a cappella for the two combined congregations in their synagogue. In my opinion it was one of the my best solo performances in my church music career. My good friend was pleased, anyway.
The Minister of Music of a Southern Baptist Church sang a Jewish psalm in Hebrew in a Jewish synagogue. "How good it is."
So what does this mean? It at least means that for the past two hours I have been listening to some incredibly beautiful choral music by Stephen Paulus. And it means that you get to read some more about what makes me tick. And I'm sure you've been looking forward to that all day.
The side effect of major depression that, in my opinion, is the most damaging and the most deadly is that everything is devoid of meaning. There is no joy, meaning or satisfaction in anything. The most horrible aspect of it is that the one suffering does not believe that this emotional state will ever change. Hopeless is no longer an expression. It's a literal state of mind. This person's neurotransmitters that should be firing to celebrate normal positive emotions just are not available in their brain. Everyone is capable of having a "bad day" and sometimes even a "bad week." But for someone who is depressed, this empty and hopeless state of being goes on for weeks and sometimes months. It is estimated that for those in a prolonged depressive state, 80% contemplate suicide, 50% attempt suicide and 20% kill themselves.
Another cruel irony is the elevated incidence of suicide within a few days of a person taking psychotropic drugs. One of the leading theories is that the person who was suffering wanted to die but didn't have the energy to kill themselves until the medication began to take effect.
It follows then that the opposite of a life devoid of meaning is a life full of meaning. All of it. Everything full of meaning. I've lived both ways and I can tell you that meaning in everything is much better than meaning in nothing.
And, yes, I assign meaning when there maybe is none. Or is there? Since the fall of 1978 when I heard the music for the first time, Leonard Bernstein's Mass has been my most beloved symphonic/choral work in all of music, And that's a lot of music. Commissioned by Jacqueline Kennedy the first performance on September 8,1971 was part of the opening of the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. Leonard Bernstein, a Jew, composed this work to honor his friend John F, Kennedy, a Roman Catholic. Another thing about me, I've had more than my share of "life-changing experiences". But think of it like this, if you drive through Atlanta or Dallas aren't you going to have a lot of "lane-changing experiences"? Why can't life be like that? But hearing Mass that afternoon was an actual life-changing experience. I can honestly say that my life has never been the same. And it has changed every time of the dozens of times I've listened to it. And the hundreds of times I've listened to the final twenty minute soliloquy by the Celebrant as he utterly self-destructs. And then is re-born. Then comes the incredibly beautiful music that takes me to the final spoken words, "The mass is ended. Go in peace." Can you "go in peace" too often?
In 2004 I was the choral director of the Lakeview-Ft. Oglethorpe High School in Ft. Oglethorpe, Georgia. I was musically prepared for the position but otherwise unprepared. And profoundly unhappy. I took a group of students to Shorter College in Rome, Georgia for a workshop. There I was introduced in a dramatic way to the choral music of Stephen Paulus. I have listened to his music ever since. This past weekend while looking for something else, Spotify directed me to his oratorio, To Be Certain of the Dawn. This music that I have listened to several times has risen quickly to become my second most beloved musical work after Bernstein's Mass. The libretto by Michael Dennis Brown and music by Paulus was commissioned by the Minneapolis Basilica of St. Mary as a gift to Temple Israel Synagogue. It is intended as a gift from the Christian community to the Jewish community. More specifically, it deals with Christian repentance for the church's role in the Holocaust. The words and music of Hymn to the Eternal Flame touch me in places I had forgotten I had places.
So did you follow this? My first most favorite music was composed by a Jewish composer to honor his Christian friend. Now my second most favorite music was composed by a Christian as a gift to the Jewish community. Is this supposed to mean something? Are these musical works somehow connected? Well, they are in me.
In 1987, while I was the Minister of Music at the Signal Mt. Baptist Church, Signal Mt. Tennessee, my best friend developed a relationship with the rabbi of the B'nai Zion Synogogue in Chattanooga, Tennessee. This friendship resulted in a relationship of our church with their synagogue. We enjoyed a traditional Seder meal in their homes and they enjoyed a meal and worship with us. The rabbi taught me Hine mah tov ("How good it is for the brethren to dwell together in unity") and I sang that psalm a cappella for the two combined congregations in their synagogue. In my opinion it was one of the my best solo performances in my church music career. My good friend was pleased, anyway.
The Minister of Music of a Southern Baptist Church sang a Jewish psalm in Hebrew in a Jewish synagogue. "How good it is."
So what does this mean? It at least means that for the past two hours I have been listening to some incredibly beautiful choral music by Stephen Paulus. And it means that you get to read some more about what makes me tick. And I'm sure you've been looking forward to that all day.
Sunday, May 7, 2017
Foster Care --"Is this where I'm going to sleep tonight?"
In honor of National Foster Care Month and for the thousands of children who need a home please feel free to share.
"Foster care is a system in which a minor has been placed into a ward, a group home or private home of a state-certified caregiver referred to as a 'foster parent'. The placement of the child is normally arranged through the government or a social services agency."
We didn't mean to fall madly in love with this little boy. We got involved to help one family. And we are still mostly involved with that one family. But a little over a year ago my wife asked her friend, this wonderful foster dad, " We would like to help. What can we do to help?'
At that point we learned of becoming a "respite care provider." As much as foster parents love their biological children and the foster children in their care, they get tired. They need a break from time to time so we officially signed up to provide that break. The first weekend we "kept" their youngest foster child, just a few weeks old at the time, we were both a little nervous. Although we had raised a little boy of our own and "kept" his little girl when she was just a few weeks old and a multitude of times over the years, although we were not newbies to babies, we had never taken care of a "ward of the state of Georgia.". There was a heightened sense of responsibility. The "what ifs" in our minds ran rampant. And we only meant to "keep him" and love him as a favor to help our friends and send him back home.
He had other ideas. As they brought him in the door, he looked around and said to himself, " I could like it here. I need somewhere else to go from time to time. I am going to slay these people with my charm, my cuteness, my affection and my love." Well, he was successful to say the least.
That little foster baby is nearly fifteen months old. And we "keep him" as often as we can. We aren't sure what he gets from us, but he finds a hundred ways a minute to delight us.
Rather than reporting a lot of grim statistics, I am just going to say that the need for foster parents is great. The backlog of babies and children needing placement is enormous. Because of some sort of abuse or neglect, thousands upon thousands of children are removed from their homes and placed into the "foster system" each year. Through no fault of their own many of them, at least temporarily, have nowhere to go. A permanent home would be very nice, but they just need somewhere to stay.
Besides taking care of the children who are placed with them by social services, foster parents provide respite care for each other. It's not enough that they have their own biological children and multiple foster children, their home for the weekend may include three or four other children who they take in to feed, love and protect. On one such weekend , our foster family accepted a delightful little boy into their care from another foster family. They had already stopped once since the exchange. Now they stopped by our house before they went home. This delightful little five year old foster boy, looked up at my wife and asked, "Is this where I'm going to sleep tonight?"
Kingdoms rise and fall over the issue of abortion, but you would be surprised by how many people through their actions and their neglect give up their babies and children. Yes, I am coming to understand that these adults need help too. But they are twenty something, or thirty something, or forty something and have resources. Help is available and they can get help. These children they, at least temporarily give up, have nothing. A few days ago in the NICU where we volunteer, as I picked up a beautiful one week old baby girl I noticed there was no name above her crib. I asked the nurse, "What's her name?" And she said, "She doesn't have one."
Thank God for foster parents and foster homes. The social workers many times stay at work late into the night just to find somewhere for their children to sleep that night. A child needs somewhere to sleep. They need someone to love them and to care for them until they can maybe go back home. If going back home is not possible, they need somewhere to belong. They need a home. I can't speak for all foster parents, but I can speak for these two. They do not love their biological children one way and their foster children another. They make no distinction. They love them all the same. If their house caught on fire, they would walk through fire to get all of them.
When my son was little, until he was seven or so, on weekends we would often have a "camp in". He and I would build a fort out of chairs and blankets in the den and camp there for the night. We didn't have a campfire or s'mores, but our flashlight and Calvin and Hobbes books provided a lot of fun. This past weekend when we "kept" our little guy, I decided it was high time for a camp in. I don't know if he enjoyed it as much as I did, but he slept pretty well with me on blankets on the floor.
We're doing something, but we want to do more. We aren't sure what "more" needs to look like since we have our own family scattered across the country and we have our own life, but it needs to look like more than it is. There are babies and children who not only need a home, but they need somewhere to sleep tonight. Camping in may not be what they have in mind, but it sure beats camping out without a tent.
If you want to help but aren't sure what you can do, contact your local Family and Children Services Agency and ask, "How can I help?" But don't ask if you're not willing to do something. They've been needing to hear from you for a very long time. And what about protecting your heart? If you want to protect your heart, you may as well leave it at the door.
"Foster care is a system in which a minor has been placed into a ward, a group home or private home of a state-certified caregiver referred to as a 'foster parent'. The placement of the child is normally arranged through the government or a social services agency."
We didn't mean to fall madly in love with this little boy. We got involved to help one family. And we are still mostly involved with that one family. But a little over a year ago my wife asked her friend, this wonderful foster dad, " We would like to help. What can we do to help?'
At that point we learned of becoming a "respite care provider." As much as foster parents love their biological children and the foster children in their care, they get tired. They need a break from time to time so we officially signed up to provide that break. The first weekend we "kept" their youngest foster child, just a few weeks old at the time, we were both a little nervous. Although we had raised a little boy of our own and "kept" his little girl when she was just a few weeks old and a multitude of times over the years, although we were not newbies to babies, we had never taken care of a "ward of the state of Georgia.". There was a heightened sense of responsibility. The "what ifs" in our minds ran rampant. And we only meant to "keep him" and love him as a favor to help our friends and send him back home.
He had other ideas. As they brought him in the door, he looked around and said to himself, " I could like it here. I need somewhere else to go from time to time. I am going to slay these people with my charm, my cuteness, my affection and my love." Well, he was successful to say the least.
That little foster baby is nearly fifteen months old. And we "keep him" as often as we can. We aren't sure what he gets from us, but he finds a hundred ways a minute to delight us.
Rather than reporting a lot of grim statistics, I am just going to say that the need for foster parents is great. The backlog of babies and children needing placement is enormous. Because of some sort of abuse or neglect, thousands upon thousands of children are removed from their homes and placed into the "foster system" each year. Through no fault of their own many of them, at least temporarily, have nowhere to go. A permanent home would be very nice, but they just need somewhere to stay.
Besides taking care of the children who are placed with them by social services, foster parents provide respite care for each other. It's not enough that they have their own biological children and multiple foster children, their home for the weekend may include three or four other children who they take in to feed, love and protect. On one such weekend , our foster family accepted a delightful little boy into their care from another foster family. They had already stopped once since the exchange. Now they stopped by our house before they went home. This delightful little five year old foster boy, looked up at my wife and asked, "Is this where I'm going to sleep tonight?"
Kingdoms rise and fall over the issue of abortion, but you would be surprised by how many people through their actions and their neglect give up their babies and children. Yes, I am coming to understand that these adults need help too. But they are twenty something, or thirty something, or forty something and have resources. Help is available and they can get help. These children they, at least temporarily give up, have nothing. A few days ago in the NICU where we volunteer, as I picked up a beautiful one week old baby girl I noticed there was no name above her crib. I asked the nurse, "What's her name?" And she said, "She doesn't have one."
Thank God for foster parents and foster homes. The social workers many times stay at work late into the night just to find somewhere for their children to sleep that night. A child needs somewhere to sleep. They need someone to love them and to care for them until they can maybe go back home. If going back home is not possible, they need somewhere to belong. They need a home. I can't speak for all foster parents, but I can speak for these two. They do not love their biological children one way and their foster children another. They make no distinction. They love them all the same. If their house caught on fire, they would walk through fire to get all of them.
When my son was little, until he was seven or so, on weekends we would often have a "camp in". He and I would build a fort out of chairs and blankets in the den and camp there for the night. We didn't have a campfire or s'mores, but our flashlight and Calvin and Hobbes books provided a lot of fun. This past weekend when we "kept" our little guy, I decided it was high time for a camp in. I don't know if he enjoyed it as much as I did, but he slept pretty well with me on blankets on the floor.
We're doing something, but we want to do more. We aren't sure what "more" needs to look like since we have our own family scattered across the country and we have our own life, but it needs to look like more than it is. There are babies and children who not only need a home, but they need somewhere to sleep tonight. Camping in may not be what they have in mind, but it sure beats camping out without a tent.
If you want to help but aren't sure what you can do, contact your local Family and Children Services Agency and ask, "How can I help?" But don't ask if you're not willing to do something. They've been needing to hear from you for a very long time. And what about protecting your heart? If you want to protect your heart, you may as well leave it at the door.
Saturday, May 6, 2017
Requiem to a Baptist
A local Southern Baptist Church voted two weeks ago to close its doors and it has affected me more deeply than I first realized.
I grew up in a Southern Baptist family and a Southern Baptist Church. You would have to be a Baptist or in a denomination like it to understand that to be Southern Baptist isn't just your religious affiliation, it's your entire identity. In Alabama people joke that you are born either an Auburn fan or an Alabama fan and that you will remain that way for life. But it's really not a joke if you grew up there. But the SBC in Alabama is even a stronger bond than the SEC.
My immediate family was Southern Baptist and so was my extended family. All of my aunts, uncles and cousins were members of either the Hillcrest Baptist Church, my church, or the First Baptist Church of Enterprise, Alabama. Most of our friends were members of Hillcrest and nearly all of our friends were Southern Baptists. I was taught, not in any formal way, that if God wanted to do something in the world He would first ask a Southern Baptist. If none were available then he could use a Methodist. In a pinch a Presbyterian or Lutheran. But seldom an Episcopalian (they "drink") and never a Roman Catholic (they worship Mary).The SBC, the Southern Baptist Convention, was formed in 1845. The convention has a long history of swinging left and right on Biblical and social issues. The convention took a hard right turn in the 1980s and has been a "conservative" institution ever since. Some would call it a "fundamentalist" institution.
But being a Baptist hasn't always been like that. The SBC supported world-renowned institutions of higher learning including my alma maters of Samford University and the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. I can't begin to recall and recount what I saw, heard, studied, practiced and learned in my three years at Samford and my two years at "Southern." I studied under some of the best minds and musicians on the planet. It put the "liberal" in "liberal education." The music school of "Southern" was not only one of the best music schools in the SBC, but was regarded as one of the best music schools in the country. It was not a Julliard or Eastman, but it was outstanding. After the performance of Messiah with the Louisville Symphony Orchestra in December of 1978, for example, the critics raved. Some said it was the best Messiah chorus they had ever heard. I should know. I was standing there. To earn a master or doctorate of music at "Southern" was quite an accomplishment.
And besides these institutions the SBC supported two assemblies, the Glorieta Baptist Assembly and Ridgecrest Baptist Assembly. The lives of children, youth and adults were touched and changed during week long camps at both of these locations. The classes, the dramatic performances and services of worship were incredible. And these people were Southern Baptists!
I'm saying that back then to be a Southern Baptist was a very good thing. It's good to remember.
There had always been the "conservative-fundamentalist" element in the SBC, but in the late 1970s through the 1980s there was a prolonged and intentional "takeover" of the SBC by the fundamentalists. The convention that I knew and loved was ripped to shreds. The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary has now become a Calvinist Bible college. It is a shell of the school where I attended and earned my degree. Several years ago the school completely did away with its school of music. I now never put in print that I graduated there. I refer to "graduate school" instead of seminary for fear that people will think that my school was that school.
When I graduated from "Southern" in 1979 I became the Minister of Music and Youth at the First Baptist Church of Rossville, Georgia. It was a thriving congregation with a thriving music program. That program included a graded choir program of prechoolers, two elementary school choirs, a fabulous traveling youth choir of nearly 30 voices, a handbell choir and a college ensemble. When I left there four years later that program was still in full swing.
Over the ensuing years I enjoyed another Baptist affiliation, but have claimed the United Methodist Church as my church home for many years. Although my entire identity is not "United Methodist" and I'm not as active as I used to be, this affiliation is an important part of my life.
Two weeks ago after a steady decline of membership and resources the congregation of the First Baptist Church of Rossville, Georgia had little choice but to close the church. I was sad for those people it affected, but thought that it had little to do with me at this point in my life. Apparently, my emotional system thought otherwise.
Yesterday I was listening to deep and poignant music by Stephen Paulus. I was introduced to his music in 2004 when I took a group of chorus students from the Lakeview-Ft.Oglethorpe High School in Ft. Oglethorpe, Georgia to a workshop at Shorter College in Rome. Although it is not pertinent to this story, Shorter is affiliated with the Georgia Baptist Convention. What is pertinent is that the music of Stephen Paulus has become an important part of my music listening and personal devotional life. Shorter College introduced me to his Pilgrims' Hymn and Spotify introduced me this weekend to his To Be Certain of the Dawn. Paulus composed this work to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the last Jews freed from the death camps in Germany. No music since Leonard Bernstein's Mass or Durufle's Requiem has affected me so deeply. But as I listened this weekend I thought, "What are you feeling? What are you grieving? You're acting like somebody died."
Well, something did die. Something that was very important to me died. Something that I invested much of my life in died. A part of my childhood died. What did it mean? Did any of it really matter? What difference did it make?"
"Hymn to the Eternal Flame" from To Be Certain of the Dawn by Stephen Paulus
"'Ev'ry face is in you, ev'ry voice, ev'ry sorrow in you, ev'ry pity, ev'ry love, ev'ry memory, woven into fire. Ev're breath is in you, ev'ry cry, ev'ry longing in you, ev'ry singing, ev'ry hope, ev'ry healing, woven into fire. Ev'ry heart is in you, ev'ry tongue, ev'ry trembling in you, ev'ry blessing, ev'ry soul, ev'ry shining, woven into fire."
I have a friend who is an important leader with the CBF, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, a moderate Baptist organization that grew out of the "takeover." I asked, "John, isn't it about time for the CBF to call itself something besides Baptist?" He smiled and said, "Not yet."
I grew up in a Southern Baptist family and a Southern Baptist Church. You would have to be a Baptist or in a denomination like it to understand that to be Southern Baptist isn't just your religious affiliation, it's your entire identity. In Alabama people joke that you are born either an Auburn fan or an Alabama fan and that you will remain that way for life. But it's really not a joke if you grew up there. But the SBC in Alabama is even a stronger bond than the SEC.
My immediate family was Southern Baptist and so was my extended family. All of my aunts, uncles and cousins were members of either the Hillcrest Baptist Church, my church, or the First Baptist Church of Enterprise, Alabama. Most of our friends were members of Hillcrest and nearly all of our friends were Southern Baptists. I was taught, not in any formal way, that if God wanted to do something in the world He would first ask a Southern Baptist. If none were available then he could use a Methodist. In a pinch a Presbyterian or Lutheran. But seldom an Episcopalian (they "drink") and never a Roman Catholic (they worship Mary).The SBC, the Southern Baptist Convention, was formed in 1845. The convention has a long history of swinging left and right on Biblical and social issues. The convention took a hard right turn in the 1980s and has been a "conservative" institution ever since. Some would call it a "fundamentalist" institution.
But being a Baptist hasn't always been like that. The SBC supported world-renowned institutions of higher learning including my alma maters of Samford University and the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. I can't begin to recall and recount what I saw, heard, studied, practiced and learned in my three years at Samford and my two years at "Southern." I studied under some of the best minds and musicians on the planet. It put the "liberal" in "liberal education." The music school of "Southern" was not only one of the best music schools in the SBC, but was regarded as one of the best music schools in the country. It was not a Julliard or Eastman, but it was outstanding. After the performance of Messiah with the Louisville Symphony Orchestra in December of 1978, for example, the critics raved. Some said it was the best Messiah chorus they had ever heard. I should know. I was standing there. To earn a master or doctorate of music at "Southern" was quite an accomplishment.
And besides these institutions the SBC supported two assemblies, the Glorieta Baptist Assembly and Ridgecrest Baptist Assembly. The lives of children, youth and adults were touched and changed during week long camps at both of these locations. The classes, the dramatic performances and services of worship were incredible. And these people were Southern Baptists!
I'm saying that back then to be a Southern Baptist was a very good thing. It's good to remember.
There had always been the "conservative-fundamentalist" element in the SBC, but in the late 1970s through the 1980s there was a prolonged and intentional "takeover" of the SBC by the fundamentalists. The convention that I knew and loved was ripped to shreds. The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary has now become a Calvinist Bible college. It is a shell of the school where I attended and earned my degree. Several years ago the school completely did away with its school of music. I now never put in print that I graduated there. I refer to "graduate school" instead of seminary for fear that people will think that my school was that school.
When I graduated from "Southern" in 1979 I became the Minister of Music and Youth at the First Baptist Church of Rossville, Georgia. It was a thriving congregation with a thriving music program. That program included a graded choir program of prechoolers, two elementary school choirs, a fabulous traveling youth choir of nearly 30 voices, a handbell choir and a college ensemble. When I left there four years later that program was still in full swing.
Over the ensuing years I enjoyed another Baptist affiliation, but have claimed the United Methodist Church as my church home for many years. Although my entire identity is not "United Methodist" and I'm not as active as I used to be, this affiliation is an important part of my life.
Two weeks ago after a steady decline of membership and resources the congregation of the First Baptist Church of Rossville, Georgia had little choice but to close the church. I was sad for those people it affected, but thought that it had little to do with me at this point in my life. Apparently, my emotional system thought otherwise.
Yesterday I was listening to deep and poignant music by Stephen Paulus. I was introduced to his music in 2004 when I took a group of chorus students from the Lakeview-Ft.Oglethorpe High School in Ft. Oglethorpe, Georgia to a workshop at Shorter College in Rome. Although it is not pertinent to this story, Shorter is affiliated with the Georgia Baptist Convention. What is pertinent is that the music of Stephen Paulus has become an important part of my music listening and personal devotional life. Shorter College introduced me to his Pilgrims' Hymn and Spotify introduced me this weekend to his To Be Certain of the Dawn. Paulus composed this work to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the last Jews freed from the death camps in Germany. No music since Leonard Bernstein's Mass or Durufle's Requiem has affected me so deeply. But as I listened this weekend I thought, "What are you feeling? What are you grieving? You're acting like somebody died."
Well, something did die. Something that was very important to me died. Something that I invested much of my life in died. A part of my childhood died. What did it mean? Did any of it really matter? What difference did it make?"
"Hymn to the Eternal Flame" from To Be Certain of the Dawn by Stephen Paulus
"'Ev'ry face is in you, ev'ry voice, ev'ry sorrow in you, ev'ry pity, ev'ry love, ev'ry memory, woven into fire. Ev're breath is in you, ev'ry cry, ev'ry longing in you, ev'ry singing, ev'ry hope, ev'ry healing, woven into fire. Ev'ry heart is in you, ev'ry tongue, ev'ry trembling in you, ev'ry blessing, ev'ry soul, ev'ry shining, woven into fire."
I have a friend who is an important leader with the CBF, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, a moderate Baptist organization that grew out of the "takeover." I asked, "John, isn't it about time for the CBF to call itself something besides Baptist?" He smiled and said, "Not yet."
Friday, May 5, 2017
The Eagle Has Landed
"Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth more than they?" Matthew 6:26, New American Standard Version
In April of 1973 a few weeks before my graduation from the Enterprise State Junior College, I found myself at the Shocco Springs Baptist Assembly in Talledega, Alabama. I was there for orientation to be a summer missionary to Eatontown, New Jersey. The two-day conference was filled with meetings and activities. The conference was good and I was enjoying the company of other students, but I needed some solitude. I found some woods nearby and ventured out on a hike with no particular destination in mind. My hike eventually took me to a hillside that overlooked a beautiful valley. I sat down in the grass and just took in the view. One of my favorite verses in the Bible is from the Book of Johah, "And God prepared a worm." Just the thought that the God of all the universe found a use for one worm on planet earthy fills me with joy. That afternoon in Talledega, Alabama, God prepared a bird.
I saw the majestic bird of prey in the distance making lazy circles above me and was fascinated with its ease of flight. Never once needing to flap its wings, it soared on the thermals, and ascended and descended at will. I assumed that it was a hawk since they were plentiful in Alabama. To my utter delight as its circles brought it closer and closer, I realized that the bird was much too big to be a hawk, it was a golden eagle. It was the first time that I had ever seen an eagle in the wild.
As I continued to observe the eagle's flight and to think about what she was observing below her, I started thinking about what it might be like to be her instead of me. I thought, "All she has to do is eat, sleep, mate, build nests, feed her young, call, And fly. That's it." And I thought, "In a way, she has a better life than I do."
If I was not enjoying the experience enough already, the eagle settled in her nest just a few feet from where I sat. She just sat there with her back to me turning her head back and forth, with her feathers brushing her back. And I just watched until I felt that it was time for me to get back to the retreat center. When I got back a well-meaning participant, my roommate for the conference, said, "David, I don't know where you were, but you missed an important meeting about the summer." I just said, "Thanks, I had somewhere else I had to be."
That evening during a worship time in the chapel, I was looking out the window at the big oak trees. I was thinking about the eagle and I was thinking about me. As I considered those trees, I thought, "David, those trees have been there every time you've been here since you were a kid and you've never noticed them. Look how strong and permanent they are. They've been watching you all this time.." When I turned my attention back to the speaker he began saying, "Look out the window at these mighty oak trees. They've been here for a very long time. Let them serve as a reminder to you of God's presence here and of your security in him as you go back to school to finish your semester"
All of a sudden I didn't want to be an eagle, I wanted to be me. I was glad for the memories of being at Shocco Springs as a Royal 'Ambassador as a boy. I was glad that I could remember being there as a teenager with my youth group from my church. I might not could fly, but I could remember. I might not have a nest, but I have a home--a father, a mother, a brother, a sister. And a dog. I have a dog. And I was happy that I was going to be a summer missionary and then a student at Samford University. I can see a future ahead of me and I like what I see.
Jesus said, "Look at the birds of the air." And maybe like I did that afternoon in Talledega, Alabama He wanted us to be taken by their beauty and experience a tinge of envy. But then he asked us, "Are you not worth more than they?" And the obvious answer seems to be, "Yes, yes we are worth more than they." When God was looking down on that eagle that afternoon, just below His beautiful bird, He saw a young man sitting on a hillside, another of His creations. And God thought, "He can't fly, but he can walk, He can't spread his feathers and catch the wind, but he can sing. And his singing will take him places that eagle will never see. I'll see to that."
I don't sing much anymore, but I can remember where that singing took me. One place it took me was sitting with a group of college friends in June of 1975 on a hillside near Stockholm, Sweden looking at distant mountains over a meadow and a valley below us. And on that hillside I was remembering a hillside in Alabama. And I was remembering an eagle. I was thinking, "The eagle's still flying and those mighty oaks still abide, but you are worth more than they." And I smiled.
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