May 2021 Quote of the Day Log

I went through a multi-year period a few years back where I recorded a quote that I heard or read for every day of the year. I have decided to resurrect this starting today. I will update this note as the month goes along with additional quotes as appropriate.

MAY 31:

MARY: ....."California Citrus" sounds like orange...?
RICHIE: You'd think that, but it doesn't have any orange in it.
—Talking about a flavor of kombucha I got to try.

MAY 30:

This evening, regretfully, our Secretary Mr. Seth Mahiga made the decision to resign from his position as Secretary of our society.

Seth's reason for resigning is that he has found Jesus Christ and is no longer interested in promoting atheism in Kenya.

—Tweeted out as an announcement by the Atheists in Kenya Society (@AtheistsInKenya)

MAY 29:

The three Nordic countries have all done much better than the United States in preventing excess deaths, and there’s one especially troubling difference: the rate of excess mortality among younger people. That rate soared last year among Americans in lockdown, but not among the Swedes, Norwegians, and Finns, who kept going to school, working, and socializing without masks during the pandemic. In fact, among people aged 15 to 64 in each of the Nordic countries, there have been fewer deaths than normal since the pandemic began.

—From this article.

MAY 28:

@TitaniaMcGrath on Twitter: Since it is impossible for black people to be racist, any white person who is not being racist is committing behavioural blackface.
Therefore, all non-racist white people are racist.

 —This is probably my favorite satire account on Twitter.

MAY 27:

"Do not pet the floofy cows."

—Seen in a tweet with a photo containing a sign with a picture of a bison and the above instruction. 

MAY 26:

@Stopnconsider on TWITTER: The world is working overtime to train up children in the way it wants them to go..are you doing the same, Christian parent?

MAY 25:

@HansFiene on TWITTER: Spent about 3 minutes listening to a self-help chat group on Clubhouse and good gimlet gravy, do people need Jesus.

MAY 24:

@Stopnconsider on TWITTER: Grass-fed beef is plant based.

MAY 23:

From the beginning of the pandemic, the hospitals that Marik and Varon led had COVID-19 beat. They achieved remarkably high survival rates at their hospitals at a time when 40 to 80 percent of patients in the U.S. and Europe were dying from the disease. Their success was achieved with the group’s now-famous MATH+ protocol for hospitalized COVID-19 patients.

The cocktail of safe, cheap, FDA-approved generic drugs—the steroid Methylprednisolone, Ascorbic Acid (Vitamin C), Thiamine (Vitamin B1), and the blood thinner Heparin—was the first comprehensive treatment using aggressive corticosteroid and anti-coagulant treatments to stop COVID-19 deaths. Both were novel approaches strongly recommended against by all national and international health care agencies throughout the world, but later studies made both therapies the global standard of hospital care. In addition, Kory, Marik, et. al published the first comprehensive COVID-19 prevention and early treatment protocol (which they would eventually call I-MASK). It is centered around the drug Ivermectin, which President Trump used at Walter Reed hospital, unreported by the press, though it may well have saved the president’s life while he was instead touting new big pharma drugs.

 —From this article. There is a lot more in the article about Ivermectin and how established medicine ignores positive outcomes from "unproven" sources. This is why I get annoyed when people take government agency health advice and recommended treatment protocols as the only viable science. In some cases, government agencies are aware of the valid science behind alternatives, and knowingly decide to suppress it anyway. Some "alternative" therapies are extremely effective for certain populations that react very badly to recommended treatments, but politics decides to sacrifice these people to bad outcomes for the sake of power and money.

MAY 22:

Here the Christian is a larva dei, a mask of God, by which God gives daily bread to the inhabitants of the world. In this sense the Christian is a "little Christ" to his neighbor. Again in [The Freedom of the Christian] Luther writes: "Just as our neighbor is in need and lacks that in which we abound, so we were in need before God and lacked his mercy. Hence, as our heavenly Father has in Christ freely come to our aid, we also ought freely to help our neighbor through our body and its works, and each one become as it were a Christ to the other that we may be Christ to one another." Just as Christ sacrificed Himself for us on the cross, we give ourselves sacrificially to the neighbor in love.

 —From Praying Luther's Small Catechism by John T. Pless

MAY 21:

NEWS ANCHOR: "The Red Cross said anyone who has received their COVID-19 vaccine cannot donate convalescent plasma to help other COVID-19 patients in hospitals. That plasma is made up of antibodies from people who have recovered from the virus, but the vaccine wiped out those antibodies, making the convalescent plasma ineffective in treating other COVID-19 patients."

—From a video seen in this tweet.

MAY 20:

@ThyGeekdomCome on TWITTER:
My wife discovered a salsa today labeled “extra medium.” If that ain’t a description of my personality, I don’t know what is.

MAY 19:

ME: I like how when they said, "Do something funny," your first thought was: "Murder."

 —Said to a middle schooler. They were doing a group choir photo, and she pretended to choke her friend for the picture.

MAY 18:

TWEET:

me: I need tires
michelin: here you go
me: now if only someone could rate my restaurant
michelin: you're not gonna believe this

 MAY 17:

The final petition of the Lord's Prayer ["but deliver us from evil"] is uttered against the eschatological horizon: "and finally, when our last hour comes, give us a blessed end, and graciously take us from this valley of sorrow to Himself in heaven" [quoted from a prayer expanding upon the Lord's Prayer petition]. Werner Elert wisely noted: "Some live in the light of the Last Day, others in its shadow." Christians live in its light and so pray with confident hope for the final deliverance through the darkness of death into the radiance of heaven's unfailing light.

—From Praying Luther's Small Catechism by John T. Pless

MAY 16:

TWITCH CHATTER: Is this a blind playthrough?
CARLSAGAN42: This is a thab playthrough.

—Thabeast721 started a blind playthrough of the game Celeste last night. He beat the main game (getting about half of the secrets) in a little over 4 hours. This was, apparently, wildly impressive for many watchers who thought he was not playing blind based on how good he was doing.

MAY 15:

"Morawska had spent more than two decades advising a different branch of the WHO on the impacts of air pollution. When it came to flecks of soot and ash belched out by smokestacks and tailpipes, the organization readily accepted the physics she was describing—that particles of many sizes can hang aloft, travel far, and be inhaled. Now, though, the WHO’s advisers seemed to be saying those same laws didn’t apply to virus-laced respiratory particles. To them, the word airborne only applied to particles smaller than 5 microns. Trapped in their group-specific jargon, the two camps on Zoom literally couldn’t understand one another.

"When the call ended, Marr sat back heavily, feeling an old frustration coiling tighter in her body. She itched to go for a run, to pound it out footfall by footfall into the pavement. “It felt like they had already made up their minds and they were just entertaining us,” she recalls. Marr was no stranger to being ignored by members of the medical establishment. Often seen as an epistemic trespasser, she was used to persevering through skepticism and outright rejection. This time, however, so much more than her ego was at stake. The beginning of a global pandemic was a terrible time to get into a fight over words. But she had an inkling that the verbal sparring was a symptom of a bigger problem—that outdated science was underpinning public health policy. She had to get through to them. But first, she had to crack the mystery of why their communication was failing so badly."

—From this article that provides a glimpse of how doctors and scientists sometimes ignore observable phenomena and data in favor of preconceived ideas. This can be very dangerous to people who don't react to treatments like the majority, and is harder to fix over time as the "prevailing wisdom" becomes ingrained. 

MAY 14:

"Just as pathogens have different ways of infecting and affecting us, the vaccines that scientists develop employ different immunological strategies. Most of the vaccines we get in childhood prevent pathogens from replicating inside us and thereby also prevent us from transmitting the infections to others. But scientists have so far been unable to make these kinds of sterilizing vaccines for complicated pathogens like HIV, anthrax and malaria. To conquer these diseases, some researchers have been developing immunizations that prevent disease without actually preventing infections — what are called “leaky” vaccines. And these new vaccines may incite a different, and potentially scarier, kind of microbial evolution.

"Virulence, as a trait, is directly related to replication: The more pathogens that a person’s body houses, the sicker that person generally becomes. A high replication rate has evolutionary advantages — more microbes in the body lead to more microbes in snot or blood or stool, which gives the microbes more chances to infect others — but it also has costs, as it can kill hosts before they have the chance to pass on their infection. The problem with leaky vaccines, Read says, is that they enable pathogens to replicate unchecked while also protecting hosts from illness and death, thereby removing the costs associated with increased virulence. Over time, then, in a world of leaky vaccinations, a pathogen might evolve to become deadlier to unvaccinated hosts because it can reap the benefits of virulence without the costs — much as Marek’s disease has slowly become more lethal to unvaccinated chickens. This virulence can also cause the vaccine to start failing by causing illness in vaccinated hosts."

—From this 2018 article. From what I've heard about the new Covid vaccines, it sounds like they are not fully "sterilizing," and consequently have at least an element of "leaky" vaccines. Combine this with vaccine scientists who have voiced concerns about the vaccines causing faster and worse mutations and a greater problem than if we didn't use them, and you see my concern. Yet, the prevailing narrative is that the vaccines will stop mutations, and it is the unvaccinated that are a "threat." I don't think this view is grounded in scientific thinking.

MAY 13:

"Special no thanks to:
Whales,
The vermin of the ocean"

—In the credits of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater. Seen while watching Thabeast721 play it as part of his challenge to beat every game on the N64.

MAY 12:

"Oh, grant, dear Lord, this grace to me,
Recalling your ascension,
That I may serve you faithfully,
Adorning your redemption;
And then, when all my days will cease,
Let me depart in joy and peace
In answer to my pleading."                       
                                            LSB 492:3

—This was one of the hymns for the chapel service I played for this morning.

MAY 11:

"This camera angle doesn't allow us to see if Dr. Fauci's pants are on fire, or if his fingers are crossed, but do note his sense of urgency in replacing his mask at the end, presumably to conceal his suddenly expanding nose."

—Quoted from this tweet. This tweet thread provides additional documentation that Rand Paul was correct and Dr. Fauci was lying.

MAY 10:

YOUTUBE COMMENT: The civilized way of taking Ma’moul out of the mold 😂 we don’t usually use plastic wrap we smash it till the neighbors know that we are making Ma’moul 😂

—Comment on this emmymade video

MAY 9:

TEXT-TO-SPEECH: If you competed against a shark in a triathlon, the shark would win the swimming and you would win the running, so would it come down to the cycling?

THABEAST721: Thanks [screen-name] for the [whatever Twitch donation]. I think you're right. That makes sense.

MAY 8:

"Timmy, if you show up in my run one more time..............no more.......things...that Timmy.....likes. I don't know. Bad Timmy!"

—From the intro of this YouTube video by Thabeast721.

 MAY 7:

"I eat more cereal at night than in the morning and that’s just who I am now."
—Seen on Twitter

MAY 6:

[In The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe,] Deep Magic lays out a standard of expected moral and civil behavior, and the Witch's comments on it clarify the consequences of failure to live up to that standard. But the moral law itself is not the property of one religion. Only when Aslan volunteers to take Edmund's place does Christian significance emerge. Again the story treats the matter in terms of magic. Transcending Deep Magic is "Deeper Magic from before the Dawn of Time," a magic inherent not in created things but in their creator, the greater magic of God's grace, love, and forgiveness.

That Deep magic appears in the story before Deeper Magic is important. Lewis had said in his radio talks that for the latter to make sense they must be considered in that order: "It is after you have realised that there is a real Moral Law, and a Power behind the law, and that you have broken that law and put yourself wrong with that Power — it is after all this, and not a moment sooner that Christianity begins to talk." So it is too in Narnia. Readers of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe are first made aware of the fundamental moral law — by recognizing Edmund's treachery first to Lucy and then to the others
— in order that Aslan's death may convey it's full meaning.

—From The Way into Narnia: A Reader's Guide by Peter J. Schakel.
As a Lutheran, the above quote makes me think of Law of Gospel. Lutheran theology's hermeneutic of Law and Gospel is something I value greatly because it is basically an even more focused version of what is discussed above.

MAY 5:

MARY: What are the people who patrol the forest called......?
ME: Park ranger.
MARY: Yes! You look like a ranger on their day off.
ME: I could hear your brain trying to think of "ranger" like: "Mountie.....no......mountie.........no......."
MARY: *Laughs in agreement*

—Mary was watching a DVD of "When Calls the Heart" when this exchange happened.

MAY 4:

Third Commandment

Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.

What does this mean?

We should fear and love God so that we do not despise preaching and His Word, but hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it.

By Your Word and Spirit, draw us away from our restless labor that we might find rest in You alone, merciful God. Grant that, fearing and loving You above all things, we may never despise the preaching of Your Word of Life, but hold it sacred an gladly hear and learn it; through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

[. . .]

The Third Commandment builds a protective fence, as it were, around time so that there is a space to hear God's Word. Human busyness—even devotion to the necessary tasks of life—is not allowed to interfere with the one thing that is needful, the hearing of the words of Jesus, which are spirit and life.

This commandment is fulfilled when the triune God is doing His life-giving work through His Word.

[. . .]

When this commandment is fulfilled, hearts are set free and lips are open to call upon God in prayer, praise, and thanksgiving. But for this to take place, God's Word must first be heard, for faith comes only by hearing this saving message (Romans 10:17).

—From "Praying Luther's Small Catechism" by John T. Pless

MAY 3:

Prayer learns how to listen to the Word of the Lord and out of that listening to speak to Him. In so doing, prayer is the Christian's engagement in battle against Satan. There is no neutrality here; either one is aligned with the triune God or with the devil.

Positively, to pray the catechism is to learn how to speak to God the Father in the name of the Son through the Holy Spirit who calls us to faith in the Gospel. It is based on God's command and promise. Negatively, the same prayer is directed against the devil as he would pull us away from the Father through distrust of the Son, causing us to doubt the promises of the Gospel. For Luther, prayer involves spiritual warfare, and the catechism is weaponry for this battle, both defensively and offensively.

The power of the catechism is the power of the Word of God which, it carries.

—From the opening chapter of "Praying Luther's Small Catechism" by John T. Pless

MAY 2:

LITURGIST: Oh, now you set up out here.

—The sound tech at church for the parking lot service had set up inside due to weather to protect equipment (cold and threat of rain) the last time I played for the service. The pastor and liturgist still had to be outside for that service, and they were unhappy about freezing that day. We could set up outside today since it was a very nice day, so the same pastor and liturgist gave the sound tech a hard time.

 MAY 1:

MARY [to me]: The door might close on you.
*Door immediately attacks me*
ME: It did.

Summer Series: Influences #1—"What Shall I Render to the Lord"

I've decided I'm going to do a series of posts over the summer about specific influences I recognize as having a large impact in shaping my outlook, behavior, or taste. Some will be musical examples, some will be book passages, some might be events. Some I will have realized their impact at the time, and others I will have only recognized the impact looking back.

I'm starting with "What Shall I Render to the Lord" by Richard Hillert. It is the Offertory from Divine Service Setting 1 in Lutheran Service Book. I wish I could find a good video that has good singing in it, but the organ-only video below is the best I can do. The text is below and is drawn from Psalm 116:

What shall I render to the Lord for all His benefits to me?

I will offer the sacrifice of thanksgiving and will call on the name of the Lord.

I will take the cup of salvation and will call on the name of the Lord.

I will pay my vows to the Lord now in the presence of all His people,in the courts of the Lord's house, in the midst of you, O Jerusalem.

I grew up singing this in church roughly every other week. I always liked it, but I don't think I appreciated it as much as I should have until the churches I attend/work for stopped using it for various reasons. I've probably only sang it in services ten times or so in the last decade, and I miss singing it.

One great thing about the liturgy is that you memorize the texts since you sing them so regularly. I still have the text of this canticle memorized even though I rarely sing it anymore. I consider this a great thing because this text helped me properly value three ideas linked to three phrases in the canticle:

     

     1.  "I will offer the sacrifice of thanksgiving..."

         Many people talk about what we must give to God for Him to be pleased with us. They say belief and faith is all well and good, but it is nothing without some sort of additional work, or effort, or sacrifice. Contrast that with how Psalm 116 and, consequently, the canticle deal with the idea of a sacrifice in response to the benefits God gives to us. The sacrifice offered is thanksgiving. We have nothing to give to God. God is the one doing the giving. We receive and give thanks, recognizing that all good gifts come from God, and nothing we have is our own.

            

      2. "...and will call on the name of the Lord."

          This phrase being repeated twice in a short canticle really drives home the point that all times are the right time to call on the name of the Lord. God has created us, saved us, sustains us, protects us, does all things for us, and gives all things to us. There is never a bad time to call on the name of the One who holds the entire universe in His hands.

     
     3.  "I will pay my vows to the Lord now in the presence of all His people, in the courts of the Lord's house, in the midst of you, O Jerusalem."

          The ending of the canticle helped teach me to value attending church. Some people think they can do it on their own apart from attending church, but it is a huge gift to have the support and accountability of gathering corporately. It holds us accountable to ourselves in helping us realize when we are breaking the 1st commandment and valuing other things above God in our lives and in how we are using the gifts God has given us. It provides encouragement and witness to others within the Lord's house, while also giving us accountability with them to be faithful together. And it provides witness to the greater community around the church of our recognition that we are not our own—that we and our time, talents, and treasures belong to God. This means our priorities and behaviors might seem very strange to those outside the church, but having them notice and witness this "strangeness" is a great thing and an opportunity to provide further witness.

Another reason I'm starting with this canticle in this series is I've told multiple people that I blame this canticle and the liturgy setting it is from for why I'm a professional musician. I've also come to the realization that it had a huge impact on my musical taste and musicianship. First, It is very crafted music, and it has some difficulty to it. It is very difficult to hear once and have completely in your head. It is music that must be lived with. The melody requires vocal flexibility to sing, and the long phrases require good breath support and control to make it through.  I had to train myself to become a good musician to sing it properly, and I was singing this canticle long before I had any formal musical training.

Second, it blends new and old wonderfully. It has qualities of chant and modal writing indicative of centuries ago, but it also shows elements of a more modern harmonic approach indicative to 20th century classical music. It creates a sort of timeless sound. Much of my favorite music has this same sort of timeless quality and blend of old and new.

Lastly, it is thoughtful music. It helped teach me that music doesn't have to be flashy to be powerful—it doesn't have to be fast, it doesn't have to be loud, it doesn't have to be triumphant. Sometimes the most powerful music is the music that gives a sense of quiet resolve. There is power in music when there is recognition that some will miss the point or not understand, but it holds true to its underlying priorities of service to a text and the truth it conveys anyway. Thoughtful music is in it for the long game. Flash comes and goes, but the truth thoughtful music centers itself around will not.

Throwback Thursday: The stupidest thing I've ever done.

Today is exactly two years since I did the stupidest thing I've ever done. What is that you ask? Oh, you know, just driving back from Indy in horrific conditions after driving down to Indy during a snow emergency in -22 degree F weather with steady winds of 20+ miles per hour the previous day.

It was an adventure all right.

2015 Year in Review

This was a weird year for me and my 2015 did its best to defy summation. That said, let's just jump right in.

The little that never runs out

I'm a bit behind in writing this, but the Old Testament reading in the lectionary last week was the story of Elijah and The Widow of Zarephath in 1 Kings 17: 8-16 [ESV]:

Then the word of the Lord came to him, “Arise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and dwell there. Behold, I have commanded a widow there to feed you.” So he arose and went to Zarephath. And when he came to the gate of the city, behold, a widow was there gathering sticks. And he called to her and said, “Bring me a little water in a vessel, that I may drink.” And as she was going to bring it, he called to her and said, “Bring me a morsel of bread in your hand.” And she said, “As the Lord your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug. And now I am gathering a couple of sticks that I may go in and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it and die.” And Elijah said to her, “Do not fear; go and do as you have said. But first make me a little cake of it and bring it to me, and afterward make something for yourself and your son. For thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘The jar of flour shall not be spent, and the jug of oil shall not be empty, until the day that the Lord sends rain upon the earth.’” And she went and did as Elijah said. And she and he and her household ate for many days. The jar of flour was not spent, neither did the jug of oil become empty, according to the word of the Lord that he spoke by Elijah.

God told Elijah that he had commanded a widow there to feed him, but the widow didn't seem to know this when Elijah asked for food. She only had a little flour and a little oil, and was prepared to make one last meal of bread, eat it, and die! It appears like she had so little she had despaired of earthly provision. But God was there nonetheless.

She heard the promises of Elijah about what the Lord would do for her, and the little she had became the little that did not run out.

The world tends to measure provision in money, food, or possessions, or even good health, happiness, or lack of suffering. But plenty of God's children find themselves without some or all of these things. Yet, God surely provides for His children, even if the world is blind in seeing His provision.

God provides and sustains faith--sometimes maybe only the size of a mustard seed. But even just a little faith provided and sustained by God becomes the little that never runs out, even when all of the things the world looks to are gone. Even in death.

The closing stanza of the hymn "Jesus Lives! The Victory's Won" comes to mind:

Jesus lives! And now is death

       But the gate of life immortal;

This shall calm my trembling breath

       When I pass its gloomy portal.

Faith shall cry, as fails each sense:

Jesus is my confidence!

--Lutheran Service Book #490

I wonder if the widow was planning to eat and die out of despair, or if she planned to meet death in the knowledge faith brings that death couldn't hurt her. Maybe she was secure in accepting what God provided to sustain her, even when this means all earthly things have been taken away and meeting death in faith.

God's provision surely does sometimes include earthly wealth, health, happiness, and comfort. I'm thankful that I have been blessed with always having ample provision of my earthly needs. It is not hard to accept these gifts of provision from God. But we can learn with the widow to accept the provision God gives even when it means using up the very last of our earthly store and being unafraid of death. For with the confidence of faith provided and sustained by God, we can walk through death as the gate of life immortal.

Yes, we surely can be content in all circumstances and rejoice in the Lord always. For God provides us with and sustains us in faith, which, no matter how small a gift the world sees this faith as, is the little that never runs out.

In Love Christ Shed His Tears

Yesterday was a good day. Yesterday, I got to see a hymn I had written in print for the first time in the Winter 2014 issue of Lutheran Forum. (The hymn text is included as the end of this post if you have limited time and need/want to skip my ramblings on my hymnwriting journey to this point)

Let them eat Cheesecake [Factory]

This post isn't really about tennis necessarily, but this has been a good week to be a tennis fan. The WTA Finals--an invitation tournament featuring the top 8 players from the year--is this week, and many of the matches have been fantastic!

Anyway, this post is about Agnieszka Radwańska, who lost today in the semifinals. She usually wears a visor while she plays, and her visor says The Cheesecake Factory on the side. That's right, a Polish professional tennis player is sponsored by an American chain restaurant that had never sponsored an athlete and is known for, along with cheesecake, massive portions and calorie counts.

It is an unlikely pairing. Another illustration of its unlikeliness: I saw Polish tennis fans react to the announcement by expressing surprise that The Cheesecake Factory was a real chain and not something invented for The Big Bang Theory.

How did this pairing happen? Radwańska likes cheesecake, is a frequent eater at The Cheesecake Factory during tournaments in the United States, had already recommended it to other tennis players, and had freely promoted The Cheesecake Factory on social media for a long period of time. Even though some criticize her for eating there, she made her own decision that she liked the restaurant. And the sponsorship deal dictates very little she has to do in addition to what she was already doing: she has to put the name on her visor and do a small number of promotional events during the year.

So many athletes and celebrities make decisions on sponsorships based  only on money, even if they really don't care about the product they are endorsing. But I appreciate sponsorship deals like this where there is a real endorsement. Radwańska doesn't make the most money from endorsements, but she can say she was respected enough by the Cheesecake Factory that they decided to give her their first endorsement deal and pay her to do what she was already doing....which is eat cheesecake. That's a good deal.

214 Days

Way back on Ash Wednesday, I wrote 42 words of a new hymn text idea I had. These 42 words formed one complete stanza and half of another stanza. Then a combination of lack of insight and busyness kept me from writing more.

Until yesterday.

Ten $5 gift cards

I was very hungry and tired. It was last Saturday night, and I had just arrived home from the one-day Confessing Christ in a Contrary Culture Conference at Our Shepherd Lutheran Church in Avon, Indiana. The provided lunch was wonderful...if you could eat dairy. They had lasagna and a huge dessert table, but my only lunch option was to throw together a tiny salad, a few apple slices, and three pieces of bread. At least I could eat something.

Consequently, I wasn't surprised to be very hungry when my carpool arrived home late because we were stuck on the highway for an hour due to a motorcycle accident. I wasn't feeling the best and worried about potentially getting sick (which turned out to be an extremely legitimate worry as I've been sick from Sunday through now). There weren't really leftovers, and I didn't feel like waiting for something to cook, so I drove over to McDonald's to save time and get a quick meal.

This is where it became hilarious.

Holding on

Progress.

Growth.

How much has been cast aside in pursuit of the bigger and better? And what truths have fallen victim to these stampeding giants?

What if our perspective on progress and growth became distorted somewhere along the way?

Surprised by Contentment

I spend a lot of time alone practicing, and much of that time is spent being dissatisfied. Serious musicians have honed their ability to spot weaknesses and flaws in order to fix them. Dissatisfaction comes easily and naturally. What is hard to find is contentment.

I received the gift of a fleeting moment of contentment during my practice today. It wasn't the result of playing perfectly, I still have work to do tomorrow, but it was there nonetheless. It actually surprised me when it came.

Laughing at yourself

I've been on a George MacDonald fairy tale reading kick this year. Recently, this meant reading his fairy tale The Light Princess. [Note: This is your chance to stop and read the fairy tale before I discuss an unexpected element of the story.]

Borrowing, Stealing, and "Same-Saying"

"Amateurs borrow. Professionals steal."

The above quote was a comment by the wonderful conductor of my college choir after I was remarking on Facebook about always feeling like I'm inadvertently stealing the writing in my musical compositions. After completing a composition project, I always feel like the piece sounds familiar. It makes sense that I would feel this way since I "hear" what I want the piece to be in my head before and while writing it, but I always wonder if I have, in fact, heard it outside of my head before. I'm not necessarily a fan of the above quote itself*, but I think it is making an interesting point about depth of understanding and ownership.

Amateurs only borrow because they never have ownership of the material they borrow. They do not have mastery of the material. The material borrowed remains associated with the original source. Professionals steal because they can claim a certain ownership of the material. They have mastery over the material.

When thinking about this, it brought to mind the confessing or "same-saying" aspect of the Christian faith. The Church uses creeds and prayers as confessions of faith that may have been written many, many centuries ago, but we "same-say" them. We are making them our own. We are claiming ownership of them as our own personal creeds and prayers. They did not originate with us and they will endure after we are gone, yet they are ours. We do not borrow them only to let go of them and give them back later, but we receive them as a gift that multiplies through giving since in giving them we also keep them.

To bring this back to my original discussion of musical composition, I do not wish to steal or borrow the work of someone else (unless I'm "borrowing" in the sense of arranging). Yet, even though I say this, I have and will intentionally "same-say" using compositional vocabulary borrowed from other composers as an homage. I use their language as my own to preserve their voice from the past, add my voice to it in the present, and share this voice into the future for others to continue to "same-say" along with.

*I would prefer a variant something like "Amateurs borrow. Professionals own." or "Amateurs copy. Professionals pay homage." or "Amateurs borrow. Professionals 'same-say.'" but they aren't as striking.

Home away from home

Last week, my adventuring took me away from Fort Waynederland to Iowa for a family reunion. The entire week was great, but Sunday gave me an opportunity to both be a congregation member without having to play organ and visit a new church.

I attended Bethany Lutheran Church (LCMS) in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, with extended family. I'd never been to the church before and didn't know anyone except my relatives, but I had a unity with everyone anyway. They had the same liturgy and they said the same prayers and creed in the same cadence as here. The voice and heartbeat of the services was the same.  In the past, I've had the same experience at my grandparent's church: Immanuel Lutheran Church (LCMS) in Fairmont, Minnesota. Of course, there were small differences depending on the church, but the substance was the same. Even though I was physically away from Indiana, I was home.

I was with people who pray along with the psalmist at the start of a few of our liturgies:

"O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise." (Ps. 51: 15)

I was with people who pray along with the psalmist in a Responsory used in a few of our liturgies:

"Lord, I love the habitation of your house and the place where your glory dwells." (Ps. 26:8)

I was in the house of God where He gathers us to come and hear His Word and receive His Sacraments, and opens our lips to declare his praise. I was gathered with others who share a common identity as the baptized children of God. I was home.

Constraints, the World Cup, and lack of thought

The World Cup is being contested and I am an American that likes soccer. I'm perfectly fine with people having different tastes in favorite sports. I mean, my favorite sports of tennis and soccer aren't exactly in line with the tastes of most of my fellow Americans. However, I do get annoyed when people deride sports such as soccer without thinking through their arguments.

I've been seeing this criticism leveled against soccer during this World Cup: "It isn't natural to not use your hands."

This kind of argument shows a lack of understanding of constraints and how constraints are necessary to have a unique sport with consistent rules. If different sports didn't have their own unique constraints to create rules of play, we would basically have a form of Calvinball where everyone does whatever they think is "natural" and it is different every time.

It doesn't matter if a sport has a constraint that works against a perceived "natural" instinct because the challenge created by the constraint is uniform and foundational to the uniqueness to the sport. The challenge is part of the appeal of the sport because it requires a unique skill set. Soccer has no hands allowed for field players and offside, basketball has dribbling and goaltending rules. baseball has tag ups, Football has forward passing constraints, etc... We could make a long list of constraints that create the distinctive rules of each of the sports out there. Without the constraints, we have no sport.

A criticism like "It isn't natural to not use your hands," doesn't mean much unless you are going to define what exactly is natural and disqualify all sports that don't meet this criteria. If you do this, you might find that no sport is completely "natural." All sports use "natural" motions, but different sports place different "unnatural" constraints upon how those natural motions can be used including completely excluding certain natural motions. For example, biting is a "natural" motion to the human body, but it is excluded as a way to weaken opponents in sports.

I find the lack of thought behind arguments like "It isn't natural..." troubling because they are really criticizing the concept of constraints and rules. They are saying we can't constrain behavior or define proper conduct. They are denying the governance of laws, rules, and regulations. They are rejecting the foundational nature of institutions. Even if they don't realize it, they are promoting a society described by the phrase "everyone did as he saw fit."** If this sounds good to you, I hope you are never unwillingly on the receiving end of someone doing as they see fit. You might find you have rejected the only recourse you have to protect yourself or anyone else from the whims of the individually-defined "natural."

**Judges 21:25b

Singing our glorious confidence.

This last week was a great week. I attended the Level II organist workshop put on by Concordia Theological Seminary. I made new friends from around the country, was encouraged as I continue my efforts to become a better organist, enjoyed five days full of wonderful classes on service playing and theology, and attended at least two chapel services a day every day.

We sang so many hymns and Psalms together in class and chapel, but one stanza we sang in particular stands out as a highlight moment of the week. This is the sixth and final stanza of the hymn "Lord Jesus Christ, with Us Abide" by Philipp Melanchthon [Lutheran Service Book 585]:

Stay with us, Lord, and keep us true;
Preserve our faith our whole life through--
Your Word alone our heart's defense,
The Church's glorious confidence.

I may write in more detail about topics from this week in the future, but this stanza sums up nicely the focus of the workshop: The Word of God. We certainly discussed music since it was an organist workshop, but the focus was on the ministerial function of music as servant to the Word of God. All of the music we looked at and sang is in service of teaching the content of the Word of God, writing it on our hearts and minds, and putting it ever on our lips. For the Word of God gives and preserves faith our whole lives through, defends our hearts, and truly is our glorious confidence unto life everlasting. And it is the song of the Church that she sings with one voice unified in proclamation.

Learning what to ignore

I learned today that one of my pastors has started a blog. His post for today, On Ignorance and Imagination, is great and got me thinking. You should follow the link and read it. However, instead of discussing ignorance or imagination, I want to discuss the power of ignoring.

Since I'm a working pianist/organist, I have to learn new music every week. Sometimes it is just a hymn or two, and sometimes it is a sizable stack of music. I also help my piano students in the process of learning their music every single week. Today, I was teaching a student working on a Bach fugue that sometimes the best route to learning something thoroughly is to purposefully ignore parts of it at first.

How often do people put off starting something because they are intimidated by the size of the project? How often do people get in their own way with worry over messing up one of a myriad concerns they are mulling over?

I'm constantly reminding myself and my students that it is better to find ways to practice that allow you to fully process and properly execute what you are trying to do. Sometimes you have to practice one hand at a time. Sometimes you have to figure out and focus on only the framework while ignoring the other notes. Sometimes you have to not even push keys down, but simply walk your arms through the choreography of how they'll move to get your hands and fingers in the correct places at the correct times. Sometimes you simply play the piece through in your mind to become comfortable with how it flows and fits together. Sometimes you have to practice only the rhythm. The trick is to identify how to break the project up into many steps small enough that you can be successful at each step until you run out of steps.

I'm reminded of a phrase from one of my favorite literature quotes from The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky:

To achieve perfection, one must first begin by not understanding many things! And if we understand too quickly, we may not understand well.

It is better to admit that you do not understand something and break it down to learn step-by-step, than to exhaust great effort yet never understanding well. It is better to know what to ignore for a time than to never see it as its own component to be pondered individually.

I have seen it again and again that what is first thought of as next to impossible can be achieved if you know how to ignore properly--if you know how to ignore in a way that keeps you working and stepping forward. If you ignore the finish line, but keep moving forward, you will eventually be surprised to see when looking back to review your progress that you have crossed the finish line you thought was out of reach.

If you can ignore that you can't do the impossible.....you may just end up doing it.

[Last chance to go back up and follow the link to my pastor's blog post if you haven't already]

Give us ears to hear the joy

Let's play a game. I'm going to make a list, and you can try and guess what everything in the list has in common. Ready? Go!

Southern Harmony
Twila Paris (born 1958)
Sarum Plainsong (9th century)
Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)
Ambrose of Milan (340-397)
Stephen P. Starke (born 1955)
Kevin J. Hildebrand (born 1973)
Orlando Gibbons (1583-1625)
Anna Sophia von Hessen-Darmstadt (1638-83)
Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)
Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225-74)
Jaroslav J. Vajda (1919-2008)
Aurelius Prudentius Clemens (348-c. 413)
J. S. Bach (1685-1750)
Zhao Zichen (1888-1979)
Henry Purcell (1659-95)
The countries of Jamaica, Ethiopia, Kenya, China, Germany, France, USA, Poland, Brazil, Wales, England, Spain, Sweden, Finland, Russia and others.

I could go on for a long, long time, but that will serve as enough. Do you know what they all have in common? All of the above contributed either text or music for the hymnal Lutheran Service Book.

From time to time, I'll come across criticisms of traditional, liturgical church music and worship as joyless, stifling, or not appreciating creativity. This is a lie. Look at the above list again. Look at the range represented by that list. We have classical musicians alongside musicians who've been played on American Contemporary Christian radio. We have contributions from people 41 years old who are very active in continuing to write new music to people who lived over 1600 years ago. We have household names alongside obscure names. We have well over a dozen countries from five continents represented.

The music of these hymns also has as much breadth and variety. We have dances, marches, lullabies, folk songs, spirituals, classical themes, chants, and anthems. We have the usage of simple rhythms and complicated hemiola. We have simple pentatonic melodies and complicated classical melodies. We have simple three-chord harmonic progressions and complicated secondary progressions and transient modulations. All of these elements then carefully chosen and matched with the texts.

Do you want to annoy me? Tell me again that my hymnal containing the greatest source of musical joy in this musician's life is joyless, outdated, stifling, and doesn't appreciate creativity, and that I should discard it for the music representing the creativity of the culture of now. Tell me I should neglect in joining my voice to the fellowship of centuries of Christian prayers and songs and focus only on joining the voice of today.

What message does it send to cast aside and denigrate the contributions of centuries of the Church's creative efforts because it doesn't suit you? What if the mindset behind casting aside our hymnals has had the unintended consequence of teaching the upcoming generations that any part of Church that doesn't suit them can be cast aside. Even if that means casting aside God's Word and Church altogether.

Sing along with me

I received a great compliment today. I helped with music for the first time at the Saturday night service at Holy Cross last weekend. I played keyboard for all the songs, and sang lead on 2 1/2 of them. I've led many the service over the years, but I surprised a lot of people since I'd never done so on Saturday at Holy Cross before. I've received many compliments from people saying I have a great voice, but the compliment I received today was different and more appreciated. The compliment I received today, after she said she enjoyed my music on Saturday, was "it was easy for me to follow along and sing with you."

I can only remember completely losing my singing voice once in my life. It was March 17, 2013. I remember the exact day because it was the day after moving, and I was supposed to sing tenor in the Schola Cantorum for their Lenten Vespers service. Instead, I was sick, and while I could speak with great effort, I couldn't sing a note no matter how hard I tried. I still attended the service, but instead of singing with the choir, I sat in the congregation unable to even sing along with any of the liturgy or hymns. Lenten and Holy Week hymns are my favorite hymns, Kramer Chapel is a fantastic place to sing in, and I knew and loved all of the choral and congregational music, but I couldn't sing. I sat there with my hymnal open, and read the text as everyone sang for me--not sang around me--sang for me.

There weren't 1,000 people there, but like the hymns "Oh, That I had a Thousand Voices" or "Oh, for a Thousand Tongues to Sing" wish, the rest of congregation were my "Thousand Voices/Tongues" that day singing for me the words I desperately wished to proclaim and silently joined in confessing. Nonetheless, as a musician, not being able to sing was a bit like being temporarily crippled. I really wanted to sing along. That service was still a blessing I am thankful for, but I am also thankful for the blessing that I have only been completely unable to sing that one time.

If I were the best singer in the world, but sang in a way that was hard to sing along with, it might discourage you to sing and would be like stealing your voice. I am never shy in singing in church, but this is not to steal your voice and replace it with my own, rather to give my voice as support to those who, for whatever reason, have trouble singing or can't sing. I am aware that I have been gifted with more musical talent than some, but I would much rather sing with you than sing in a way that makes you stifle your own voice. That is why I found being told I was easy to sing along with such a high compliment.

As stanza 7 of Lutheran Service Book 528, "Oh, for a Thousand Tongues to Sing" says:

To God all glory, praise, and love
     Be now and ever giv'n
By saints below and saints above,
     The Church in earth and heav'n.

May we always join our individual voices into the corporate voice of the Church to sing the prayers and songs of the Church of all times and of all places.

Make your mom proud and do a good job.

I tend to listen to talk radio in the car. I know, I know...I'm a musician so you'd expect me to listen to music. Well, I need to get away from music now and then, so I listen to talk radio in the car. Something I was listening to today served as a memory trigger for a random exchange I had a few years ago. It wasn't at all a bad conversation, but I wish the circumstance prompting it never existed. Let me explain.

It occurred during the year I was volunteering as music teacher at Imagine Schools on Broadway, so I was extremely busy and ended up grabbing quick meals out on my busiest days. There were a few days a week where I would eat a late supper at the McDonald's on Stellhorn. This was also the period I was going without internet at home, so I also sometimes went at the end of the day simply to use internet since all other convenient options for public Wi-Fi were already closed. The employees got used to seeing me on a regular basis, and I got a good idea about their work habits.

During this period, most of the employees at this McDonald's were not exactly hardworking. There were times I would be there after 10pm, be the only one in the store, and have to wait a significant amount of time for the person who was supposed to be working cashier to come take my order, and then wait much longer than it should have taken for my food to be ready. It was quite ridiculous, but I practiced my patience, didn't complain, and always simply thanked them when I received my order. However, I quietly noticed at least two employees who actually did their job.

One day, I was using a coupon at Arby's to get a quick meal when a teenage girl who was one of the hardworking McDonald's employees walks in with her family.

"Cheating on McDonald's?" she joked as she recognized me.

I don't remember all of the specifics of the short conversation, but we explained to her mom that I was a regular customer during her shifts at McDonald's. I knew she was annoyed at her coworkers from watching them work, so I took this opportunity to tell the girl that I noticed and appreciated how she went about her work, that she stood out from her coworkers as a result, and thanked her for her efforts.

I remember the proud mom moment that occurred after I did this. I'm pretty sure the mom wasn't expecting someone who was essentially a stranger to compliment her daughter on her work at McDonald's while out getting a meal at Arby's. It was an interesting spontaneous experience to be a part of.

If all of the employees had been doing their jobs like I wish they would have, I'm not sure the above exchange would have happened. I don't know if I would still have made a point to thank her then and there and make sure she knew her work was appreciated. That could be a whole different discussion on thankfulness. Regardless, I do know that I still remember this random interaction a few years later. I remember the girl who did a good job even when alone in doing so, and the mom proud of her daughter as a result.