What Would My Life Be Like Without ___ ?

I was texting with a musician friend about using the song, “Gratitiude” by Brandon Lake, in a worship service, thinking about how to compose the arrangement, what instrumentation to use, which friends to invite to participate (there’s not a ready talent pool available at the church every Sunday), going over personal calendars with them, how to share the vocals, beginning to get bogged down in the details. Then the sensible part of my mind said, “Wait! Take a bit of time and dwell on what the song is saying!”. So, I did.

I asked myself that open-ended question, the tile of this post. As I was driving down the road taking in the fragrances of spring, “What would my life be like without seasons?” That is a thing, you know. Two of my daughters (I have three brilliant, beautiful girls) have lived in Hawaii. One of them was often lamenting the fact that there is a barely perceptible change in the weather, foliage and wildlife throughout the year. Autumn where I am is lovely. Spring is overwhelmingly delightful, except for the pollen. That’s just overwhelming.

This is not an extensive, all-encompassing format. So, I’m jumping to a big one. “What would my life be like without my friends?” There are a few people who I know that I can count on. They will be there for me no matter what. They check in on me. I can’t imagine being without them. There’s this deep need for interaction. Interaction is a lame word. There is this deep, deep need for a hand-in-glove connection, a communion. And I’m grateful that I get to experience it.

I am filled with thankfulness. Whatever I feel like I’m missing in life is minuscule in comparison to what I hold in my hand and heart right now.

Know What I Think?

“Here’s what I think.” As I grow up I am beginning to develop the ability to self-critique. Sort of. And I’ve been around long enough to have had many people give their own critiques about me. So, there’s this gradual process of “seeing the light”, acknowledging the truth about who I am, the way I interact with others and how I perceive the world around me. I’ve had rebuke and correction from faithful friends (my wife is one of those faithful friends) and withering assaults from unfriendlies. It’s interesting to notice that both groups can be right though they speak from different motivation.

I am opinionated. That can be a problem. Having an opinion is not a problem. Often my opinions come from an educated point of view. Opinions that I have about music or maybe landscape design are backed up with a good bit of knowledge. The problem is fighting the urge to express those opinions. It’s sort of like the maxim, “don’t give advice unless someone asks for it”. I think that one is in George Washington’s collection of rules for personal living. Not everyone needs to know what I think and most often, if they did know what I thought, it wouldn’t be helpful information. I guess it really boils down to a pride thing.

There’s a compulsion in an insecure heart to try to build value and self-worth by voicing opinions, trying to persuade others to agree. It’s painful to witness. It stings to become aware of it in myself. I’m so thankful for a river of Grace that flows around me.

I will bite my tongue. I will listen attentively to my friends without giving in to this automatic reaction that drives me to say what I know or think. Humility and gentleness are the qualities that will help me control my speech.

Let me give you some advice. Lol. Make an effort to keep opinions to yourself until someone asks. Life will be more joyful. Friends will be more open. That’s my humble opinion.

Abandoned?

I have had this experience three times in my life. I remember them with crushing sadness and pain.

Has there ever been a time when you thought you knew someone well enough to understand that there was a sort of “alignment” between the two of you? Some core values and essential principles about how to live life were shared. Maybe I was just imagining that’s what it was like with my friends. Then came a cataclysmic shock when I realized that, “No, we have not been walking together.” I didn’t know what to say, how to respond. At first I didn’t even know how to express what I was going through. My heart was in turmoil. A fearful revulsion took over after a “mask” was removed. There was a gut reaction to this new revelation. I couldn’t explain it.

Even now I don’t know how to accurately describe what I felt. I didn’t want to reject my friends. I loved them. But when I found out what they really believed and that they were adamant about it, I knew that our close association was over. We described ourselves as part of the kingdom of God. Yet, now the actions of my friends were actively fighting against that kingdom. And they denied it. (You can speculate about the particulars. All I can say is that the problem was not the typical socio-political differences that you hear about all the time now. This was deep.)

I questioned myself for the longest time. “Am I over-reacting? Am I too sensitive?” But after months I realized with an anxious heart, “No, it’s true. We are miles apart.” My heart was torn to pieces.

Is It Ever Original?

“If you didn’t know it was Mahler you would have thought that it was Wagner.” I can imagine someone saying that in the 1880’s.

Original? Are we ever creating anything truly original? We are always building on materials crafted before our music was conceived. We don’t write in a vacuum. If I wrote a piece that was wholly original it would be so different that no one would have a frame of reference from which to understand the music. The only person who would like it is the type of person who has a shallow interest in the avant garde merely because it is avant garde. How deep would that shared meaning reach?

Like I said, we are building on materials crafted before our music was conceived. We dont write in a vacuum.

We dont think about theology or what we do in church and worship services in a vacuum, either. We have to walk back past the beginning, way before the beginning of our "new" idea. Let’s examine ourselves and our assumptions. Be circumspect. That’s an old KJV word. Look around…front to back, top to bottom, inside out.

Does my new, seemingly original idea convey meaning, a shared experience with the listener? Am I drawing an audience in to an enriching experience or am I forcing people to strain to find some connection with a sound or ideas that are being foisted upon them.

Does a new approach to developing “community” actually develop community? Or does it feel successful merely because it’s new, the "latest thing”? Do you ever feel coerced into becoming involved with a “new” program at a church? Maybe it would be helpful to do a deep dive to see if there’s really anything new about it and ask the question “Is the new better or just new?”.

I don’t know why I’m comparing those two things, music and church programs. Maybe it’s because I’m reaching an age that I can now see an earlier style being recycled, just like fashion in clothing. I’ll have to write another piece about the recycling of style or concepts in church music and throw out this idea to you: Much of the music we use in church worship services today is like music used in the 1890’s to 1930’s.

Intrigued? Thank you for reading :)

Training Consistently... nothing new here

I was at the gym today working with my trainer. He was explaining the difference between “pumping up” and actually building muscle tissue.

Muscle that is built up over time with consistent training lasts. Not forever. But even if I don’t workout as much as I should, that progress and that strength don’t just disappear overnight. But if I show up to the gym and work out for an hour, maybe even two hours, and then wait a couple of weeks before I get back at it, there will be very little or even no advancement.

Similarly, as a musician I can work on practicing to perform one piece or maybe to lead one particular song at church, sort of like pumping up or I can have a consistent practice plan with focused “workouts” using excercises and “real” music to build skill.

So, I really have to stay on a steady, regular plan of practice, playing the enjoyably facile pieces AND the challenging ones that stretch my ability. Day in, day out. I hope to see growth that lasts a long, long time.

How do you apply consitency in your chosen discipline?

Can You Hear Me?

I’m trying to turn off the noise, control the use of media, not just social media. Stop listening to podcasts and music every spare minute. Trying to drive my commute in silence a couple of days. Could there be something that I need to hear? Something so quiet yet profound but it’s getting lost in the din of my habit of wrapping my mind up in the chatter of information?

I have this compulsion to take every opportunity to learn, to take in more information so that I might get better at music or business or life. So, that means listening to podcasts and watching videos or reading blogposts (Lol). I have enough devices and sources to be doing that all the time. Can the effort to seek knowledge become mindless? Am I even giving myself time to mentally digest the input? When I was involved in church worship ministry I would listen interminably to music to find great songs or to learn what I was going to be using for a Sunday service. But I wasn’t making much of an effort to be still and listen. I can imagine God asking, “How can you hear me?”. I know, I know. He can make himself be heard. But what about my heart? What about my attitude? Am I waiting? Am I listening? “Today, if you hear his voice…”

Revolt?

Is that what it’s going to take? A revolution, a personal revolt? I’m not talking about fighting against government or society. It’s something that is deeply embedded in our society, though. It’s shaping our society. This revolt is against the mindless acceptance of the aggresive manipulation of social media platforms.

This is not true for everyone but we’re fooling ourselves if we don’t realize that it’s true for the majority of us… Using social media can be addictive. It can destroy our self image. It magnifies loneliness even though we may have hundreds of “friends”. As a musician I find that I contantly fight a battle against wasting time on those platforms when I could be creating and building the business side of my endeavors.

So, I’m going to be working over the next couple of months to steer supporters, followers and listeners over to my website. I’ll still take advantage of the advertising aspect of Facebook and Instagram to get the word out. But I want to do all I can to keep people from spending more time on a social media site than the time it takes to read a note and click on over and out of those places. I don’t want them to be encouraged to linger.

Nostalgia?

I’m at that age. The age where people start to look back and remember how wonderful the “old days” were. The town was better. The food was better. Families were better. Life without smartphones was better. Everything was better. For a long time I had a tendency to agree and to enjoy bashing the present.

But the passage of time causes forgetfulness. Some days were good. Some were bad. For a lot of us many of our days were horrible and few were good. I’m glad that I remember mine as having been mostly good. However, I think that we have this automatic mind-mechanism that dims the negative expereiences. (There’s a name for that in psychology but I want to sound a little more poetic and less techincal.)

Maybe my friends that praise the past and bemoan the present really did have a care-free childhood. Maybe their lives really have been charmed. I doubt it. But some of them are very vocal about the “good ole days”. It could just be talking-point syndrome.

Do not say, “Why were the old days better than these?” For it is not wise to ask such questions.

Ecclesiastes 7:10 NIV

That’s a rather obscure verse in the bible. I have to learn to adjust my mindset so that I’m not longing for the past. Instead of doing that, I should be looking forward, preparing for the future. Do I want to make the future like the past or do I want to see all things made new? Do I want to join in on the new thing that God started and that he’s still rolling out? Where will my focus be?

See, I am doing a new thing!
    Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness
    and streams in the wasteland.

Isaiah 43:19 NIV

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!

Galatians 5:17 NIV