More about music

I love music.

Not all music, mind you. And certainly not everything that gets called music.

But, matters of definition and taste aside, I love the very thing we call music. That it even exists amazes me. What it can do to us, and in us, amazes me.

Right now I'm listening to the soundtrack from The Mission, by Ennio Morricone. As I started writing, the music was so beautiful, I was floating somewhere in some beautiful area of my mind, and that's why I decided I had to write.

Within moments, the music became tense, dissonant, "scary." And I noticed my shoulders tensing, my brow furrowing, and suddenly I didn't know what I wanted to say.

In some ways, music is much more powerful than prescribable mood-altering drugs. But without the side effects, thank goodness.

One of my concerns about our culture is that music has become so much a background element. We get used to hearing it in stores, in cars, on TV, etc., and we tend to hear but not listen. So we are both affected by it without realizing it--and missing its fullest impact because we are not really hearing it.

So, I encourage everyone reading this to take some time out in the next day or two and really listen to some music that does you good. Stop everything else and just listen to it. Soak it in.

And if you're in town for November 10, I encourage you to come to our concert! You can enjoy beautiful sounds, profound words, in the acoustic wonderfulness of the Germantown Performing Arts Center. With no distractions. I promise it will be worth your time and whatever you pay for a ticket.

Whether you can come to that or not, though, do take some time to let music do what it was meant to do--to really connect with you and bless you.

I would love to hear what you listen to. Well, maybe not actually hear it, but read what you write about what you listen to. Kind of a show and tell in the comments.

Mendelssohn, Music, and Metaphor

Once upon a time I was a college music major. Even in high school, I used my lunch break and free period (when I was supposed to be editing the yearbook) to walk over to the college music building and practice piano. And I was always in the chorus, ten years straight. At one point during college, I would practice piano three hours a day whenever I could.

When I took those vocational aptitude tests they gave us repeatedly in high school, "conductor" was always near the top of the list.

Music was once very much the focus of my life, and even after I switched majors (first to elementary education and finally to English), I imagined always living a life immersed in music.

Then my life went in a rather different direction, taking me to faraway countries and times when I didn't even have access to a piano. Times when I had no one to sing with.

So, when I came back to the States, there were times when I would attend a symphony concert and find myself in tears because I felt that I had lost that part of my life and didn't know if I would ever get it back.

Years later, I am again singing with a chorus. I teach piano a little bit. And as of this past weekend, I am even taking piano lessons again.

Still, it's not as if I can really devote myself to the music the way I did before. (In fact, I still don't know how I'm going to get piano practice time in, and I haven't learned my parts for the upcoming choral concert.)

Over the past decade, while I've worked on a counseling degree, completed that degree, and worked toward a license, from time to time I've had serious moments of wondering if it wouldn't be better to toss all that and get back into music. It never was my dream to become a counselor. For a while I tried being a full time piano and Italian teacher, in fact.

But I came back to the counseling eventually, and that's where most of my time and most of my heart are given.

Well, last night, we went to hear Gil Shaham and his wife, Adele Anthony, internationally renowned violinists, perform with the Iris Chamber Orchestra in Germantown. The music was phenomenal. The performers were outstanding--and very sweet, as he kissed her after each piece! Conductor Michael Stern, son of violinist Isaac Stern, outdid himself. Perhaps I'll write more about the concert later.

One thing that "hit" me last night, though, was that I did not cry. I did not feel that I was missing out on something. I did not have that old familiar thought, "Could I have been up there if only I had . . .?"

Instead, the only really personal reflection that came to me was the memory of one of my clients three days earlier, as he noted that we were two days away from our two-year anniversary as counselor and client. He has had a particularly difficult life, and some really amazing and lovely changes have occurred in the two years we have worked together.

I tend to view my work as a counselor somewhat like being a midwife. The client is doing the really hard work; I'm just helping. More often I simply see myself as a vessel: God does the work, and He just uses me from time to time as needed.

But this man made a point of saying he saw me as having "orchestrated" things in such a way that he could make the changes he has made. He used the word repeatedly and even said he was pleased to have come up with that particular word, because he felt it was the best descriptor for how he saw my work with him.

Of course I don't orchestrate in the sense of writing a score, or even spelling out for clients what to do. But there is a sense in which counseling is like orchestrating. You have to be able to hear the music of a person's life, when often they cannot hear it. You help them practice and learn their part. You show them how their part fits with the parts others play. You help them hear the music of life as it can be played, and you teach them to listen more carefully. You help create harmony where there was only dissonance before. Or perhaps only silence.

So, last night as I closed my eyes the better to hear the Adagio movement of Mendelssohn's C minor symphony, and floated in that lovely, lilting music, I didn't feel left out. I didn't feel regret.

I realized that I am very much immersed in music, the music of people's lives. And that it is music worth listening to.

Raindrops on Roses

Well, whiskers on kittens are not really among my favorite things, but the girls in the pictures are certainly among my favorite girls. (I don't have a current photo, but thought this old one was especially cute, so there it is.)

Tonight we had two of them over. Even if you don't know who they are, you can tell by looking which two are sisters, so that's who came over, along with their parents and little brother.

It's late, so I won't write much, but I will say that this evening was the most fun I've had in too long! Those who know who Claire, Caroline, and Seth are will know why they have such a special place in my heart.

Tonight we laughed and laughed as little Seth talked and talked, inviting us to his house numerous times and mentioning all the different things he has in his room and asking, "Do you want to see it?" We even got invited to spend the night by this hospitable little boy (who thought it was a great idea to let us sleep in his big boy bed, so he could go sleep with Mommy!)

We played piano and sang, "A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes," "I Believe," "Bibbity Bobbity Boo," and Claire even remembered a piece she learned over three years ago when she was taking piano lessons from me.

Caroline kept busy with stickers and crayons, and it was clear that she is a wonderful big sister to Seth (perhaps even convincing him that pink and purple are the proper favorite colors???)

We did lots of remembering...remembering piano lessons, remembering magnets on the dishwasher, remembering our special candle ceremony of special women, remembering Laura, remembering visits with Emily (in the photo), remembering, remembering.

The photo was made over three years ago. A lot has happened in those three years. Children have grown, hearts have healed, God has blessed.

God has blessed, indeed.

Ruah

The air has changed.

Yesterday I went for a walk with my dad, a good 40-minute walk up and down hills, and hardly broke a sweat.

Today we turned off the air conditioner and opened all the windows.

The wind is blowing. The air is fresh.

I feel like I'm coming alive again, after a long, hot summer that had just about worn me out. "Dem bones gonna rise again."

Who knows? With this new energy, maybe I'll start writing more often and even finish the Croatian Chronicles.

That remains to be seen. The important thing is that the wind is blowing, the air is moving, and my spirit is rejoicing in the promise of autumn. Living in the South, fall is my favorite season. And the past two days have been like a sneak preview. Summer will not last forever. We can breathe again, and sit on our porches again, walk our dogs again, and enjoy being outside again.

The air has changed.

It reminds me tonight of a passage from my favorite, G. M. Hopkins, after he describes how man with his industrialism is messing up the earth. (And though I'm not yet convinced of the scientific basis for the global warming theory, I know our asphalt and cutting down of trees makes summer much worse....)

And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs--
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

Rain

It's raining. It's actually raining. After a couple of hours of hearing thunder and not daring to hope, I now hear rain falling steadily on the roof over my office.

I think of my ferns and hurry to put them out on the walk where they can soak up as much as comes down.

I think of the piano piece I used to play in junior high called "It's Raining," and I sit at the piano and realize I can only remember the first few measures. But I don't care. It's raining.

I see our doggies hunkering down because of the thunder, keeping their ears down and eyes alert. I'm sorry for their anxiety, but it's okay. It's raining.

I know I won't need to get up and water plants tomorrow morning, and I'm thankful. It's raining.

I think of the weeks and weeks of dryness, the heat, the dust that has invaded our house (via the dogs from the backyard), and I feel relief for just this night. I know it won't last, but that's okay. For now, it's raining.

I think of God. I think of Paul writing "my God will supply all your needs in Christ Jesus." It's raining.

I think of my friend last year saying "God may not often show up early, but He's always there on time." It's raining.

I think of the hardest, darkest, driest times of my life when I wondered how much further I could go on with a dry heart and dust in the teeth of my soul. And I remember how, just when I knew I couldn't go on any further or I'd wither away, God showed up. In the body of a person, or in a song, or in a scripture, or in some other way that He used to resuscitate, refresh, renew me.

And, like a tree, I find my roots have grown, deepened, after those times. Reminds me of Gerard Manley Hopkins' words. Mine, O thou lord of life, send my roots rain. Even deep roots would eventually fail to sustain us without His life-giving rain.

It's raining. It's raining.

Thanks be to God. It's raining.

Retreat!

Tomorrow I am going with some friends to Eureka Springs, and I am living in eager anticipation.

The occasion is a centering prayer retreat led by Thomas Keating, author of the book Open Mind, Open Heart, and something of a crusader for the practice of centering prayer, a prayer discipline that has been a real blessing in my life over the past eight months.

I'm hoping to visit the lake pictured above, maybe do some drawing, do a little window shopping in the Victorian downtown area, but mostly just....retreat. Be quiet and pray. Get more centered.

Be. With God.

Oh, and hoping against hope to hear John Michael Talbot sing more than he did at the retreat I attended last year, when his doctor had ordered him not to sing too much!

If you want to see where I'll be staying, check out www.christviewmin.org

If you want to learn more about the retreat hosts, check out www.littleportion.org

For JMT's music, check out www.johnmichaeltalbot.com

And if you want to know more about centering prayer, check out www.centeringprayer.com

And if you can teach me how to make those addresses turn into links, give me a call!

Croatian Chronicles: A Word from St. Francis

Ever since living in Italy and seeing Zeffirelli's film Brother Sun, Sister Moon, I have grown in admiration of Francis of Assisi. Not that the movie itself is wonderful, but it was my first look into anything more about Francis than the prayer that gets attributed to him. ("Lord, Make Me an Instrument of Thy Peace," not actually proven to have any connection to Francis, probably written long after he died.)

If you want to learn more about his life (from a more historical than legendary source), I recommend Reluctant Saint, by Donald Spoto. Just don't read it unless you're willing to examine your own life and see room for growth!

Have I mentioned that Zadar has more churches than I've ever seen in as many square feet of land? It was amazing. Churches everywhere. We didn't even have time to learn the names of each of them.

But we did visit the Church of St. Francis. And there were two things I couldn't help but notice. First, there was actually a prayer group going on while we were there. You don't encounter that terribly often in Europe anymore, but Zadar seems to be different from much of Europe when it comes to churches.

The second thing was this little carving over the entrance to the church. The church itself, inside, was rather somber and serious. And then you have this jolly little figure out front. It kind of cracks me up.

As long as the heat wave in Memphis continues, I don't think I'll be blogging more than once a week. I have to spend my morning time watering plants, and that not only cuts down what I can get done in the morning (that I have to make up in the evening), it also zaps my energy. My body was not made for hot weather!

But being out with the flowers and foliage gives me lots to think about, fodder for another blog entry, perhaps. And that connection to nature also connects me to Francis, even though I'm far from Assisi these days.

If you're not familiar with it, below is a prayer we do know Francis authored, the Canticle of the Creatures. It would be a good one to memorize and think on while I'm out there watering, doing my little part to take care of God's amazing creation:

Most High, all-powerful, good Lord,
all praise is yours, all glory, all honor,
and all blessing.

To you, alone, Most High, do they belong.
No mortal lips are worthy to pronounce your name.

All praise be yours, my Lord,
through all you have made,
and first my lord Brother Sun, who brings the day;
and through whom you give us light.
How beautiful is he, how radiant in all his splendor;
Of you, Most High, he bears the likeness.

All Praise be yours, my Lord, through Sister Moon
and the stars; in the heavens you have made them,
bright, and precious, and fair.

All praise be yours, my Lord,
through Brothers wind and air, and fair and stormy,
all the weather's moods,
by which you cherish all that you have made.

All praise be yours, my Lord, through Sister Water,
so useful, humble, precious and pure.

All praise be yours, my Lord, through Brother Fire,
through whom you brighten up the night.
How beautiful is he, how cheerful!
Full of power and strength.

All praise be yours, my Lord, through our Sister
Mother Earth, who sustains us and governs us,
and produces various fruits with colored flowers
and herbs.

All praise be yours, my Lord,
through those who grant pardon for love of you;
through those who endure sickness and trial.
Happy are those who endure in peace,
By You, Most High, they will be crowned.

All praise be yours, my Lord, through Sister Death,
From whose embrace no mortal can escape.
Woe to those who die in mortal sin!
Happy those she finds doing your will!
The second death can do them no harm.
Praise and bless my Lord, and give him thanks
And serve him with great humility.

Writer's block unblocked (let's hope)

(See if you can figure out what this photo has to do with what I wrote. I had two things in mind when I chose it.)

Okay, it's been how long since I said I would be back here to continue? Yikes, has it been three weeks? Too long.

And I've realized one reason why. It's because every now and then I think of something that I really would like to write about, but then I think, "Oh, I can't do that until I finish the 'Croatian Chronicles....' "

Kind of feels like a writing assignment. The result is, it kind of squelches my desire to write, and I don't do anything.

Not that I don't want to share our Croatia trip with you! Not at all! It's just that there are tons of pictures and things to say, and I get overwhelmed by the thought of having to finish it all before I can write anything else. The Myers-Briggs folks would probably say it has to do with my being a "perceiver" rather than a "judger." In other words, I don't always like to finish what I've started before I start something else....

So, I think I've hit upon a solution. I will continue the Croatian reporting, but I will also intersperse it with other things as they hit me. You can find the Croatian stuff because I'll always label it "Croatian Chronicles."

So, do come back for photos and comments from our trip, and feel free to read or skip the other stuff, as you wish.

As for today, the thing I want to write about is something I heard today on Mars Hill Audio. This author/political philosopher was pointing out that the people who most say they believe Darwin's ideas prove that his ideas were wrong, and the people who most say they don't believe them actually show evidence for them.

What??

He was saying, look at Western Europe and even some of affluent America. These are the people who most often say they buy Darwin's ideas. They are the richest, most comfortable, most powerful people on the planet. Maybe the healthiest, physically speaking. They represent the strongest segment of the human species, which should, in order to survive, do things to reproduce and better itself.

And they are for the most part dying off, because they are choosing to have so few children or none at all. (We won't go into whether or not they neglect their living offspring, but they are the most vocal proponents of abortion, it seems.) Low birthrate has developed into a crisis in Europe, if you're not aware.

And the people who for the most part disagree with Darwin's ideas, conservative Christians, tend to have the most children and to put a lot of energy into nurturing them and preparing them for life....the kind of thing that naturally contributes to the survival of the species. Which is what Darwin says is the natural course of things.

I'm not a scientist or any kind of professional who can go into much analysis of this, but I found it fascinating.

And if you're not familiar with Mars Hill Audio, you really ought to check them out. Listening to Ken Myers' interviews will enrich your faith, your worldview, and it wouldn't surprise me if listening to Mars Hill while driving helps create new brain cells.

www.marshillaudio.org

Croatian Chronicles: Blue, blue, my world is blue

Yesterday and today we have had beautiful morning weather here in Memphis. The air is cool, the humidity seems to be down, breezes are blowing. My Gregorian windchime has been singing all morning.

Yesterday I walked with a friend in the Botanic Garden. We went to see the water lilies and wound up seeing three hawks flying above, soaring against the blue sky, calling out their otherwordly cries, and one even flying very low so that we felt he might be trying to telling us something. My friend had to leave, but for nearly two hours I stayed and enjoyed their company.

This morning I went out to the hammock in our backyard. The green leaves of the pecan tree above were amazing against the blue of the sky, with the sun piercing their leaves, making the green almost magical.

All this blue sky and fresh air seems a good transition back into the Zadar photos, so here are some shots of the sea and sky, in varying shades of blue.

The north end of the old city...where the ships come in.

"Yours trulies."

Along the western side, as the famous sunset was beginning further north, out of sight.

Intermission: Back again

If you look carefully, you can see me walking on the street in this photo, taken in Zadar.

And I've decided to resume the "blog walk."

Thanks to all for the feedback. It really does make a difference. Once July 4 is over, I'll be back to finish up the tour.

Oh, and I'll send a prize to the first person who correctly identifies which figure in the photo is me. If I have your address, that is. If I don't have your address, I'll come up with some kind of virtual prize....