seeking another sky

Prayer for Peace

2012-02-01T00:32:00.000-08:00

I came across a prayer for peace in the Book of Common Prayer, and I love it:

Eternal God,

in whose perfect kingdom no sword is drawn but the sword of righteousness,

no strength known but the strength of love:
So mightily spread abroad your Spirit,
that all peoples may be gathered under the banner of the Prince of Peace,

as children of one Father;

to whom be dominion and glory, now and for ever. Amen.

Later in the prayers there is a prayer for prisoners that I think is beautiful. Here's a short excerpt:

And since what we do for those in prison, O Lord, we do for you,
constrain us to improve their lot.
All this we ask for your mercy's sake. Amen.

Something for me to remember when I find myself on the wrong side of justice.

Some words from John Cage and David Foster Wallace

2012-01-26T23:08:00.000-08:00

These two thoughts aren't really related, but they are both things I've come across in the past couple of days that really struck me, so I thought I'd share.

First, John Cage's thoughts on the "purpose" of music, via Irish composer Jennifer Walshe [seen here]:

“And what is the purpose of writing music? One is, of course, not dealing with purposes but dealing with sounds. Or the answer must take the form of paradox: a purposeful purposelessness or a purposeless play. This play, however, is an affirmation of life -- not an attempt to bring order out of chaos nor to suggest improvements in creation, but simply a way of waking up to the very life we’re living, which is so excellent once one gets one’s mind and one’s desires out of its way and lets it act of its own accord.”

And second, interesting thoughts from one of my favorite authors, David Foster Wallace, that include an interesting comparison between "contemporary classical music" and "serious books" (as opposed to their commercial relatives):

Honesty

2012-01-19T22:45:00.000-08:00

I had a sudden realization today about my creative work:

The more honest I am about the darkness of my world, the more trust I place in God's redemptive work in that world.

Many Christian artists have experienced the stifling pressure that their work must "edify." They usually think of this as meaning that their art should make people feel good or Teach People About The Faith. This has never been my belief, but now I can articulate why, at least vaguely.

I work from a place that assumes God. In dealing honestly with the paradoxes of our world, the darkest places as well as the brightest, I hope to glorify God in the hope and knowledge that He will win.

No matter what.

So for now, instead of writing my dreams, I write my world, naked; and this is an act of faith.

"The Catholic writer, insofar as he has the mind of the Church, will feel life from the standpoint of the central Christian mystery: that it has, for all its horror, been found by God to be worth dying for."
-Flannery O'Connor

(I'd say that applies to all Christians!)

Stand up for Tibet

2011-10-23T19:03:00.000-07:00

Right now I should be writing a paper, but as I worked on it here in the library, I couldn't stop thinking about the young people in Tibet that are lighting themselves on fire as a desperate plea for someone to help.

Today at church Judy Tethong came and spoke about her work in Tibet over the past 40 years. She is the husband of C.T. Tethong, who has worked closely with the Dalai Lama for many years, and the mother of Lhadon Tethong, who is one of the leaders in the movement for Tibetan independence. She told us about what happened there during the Cultural Revolution, and what is still happening, despite efforts by the Chinese government to silence these people.

Some very brief background on the situation: Tibet's identity as a people is too strong. China has been trying to weaken it for the past 60 years. In the process, hundreds of thousands have died, six thousand monasteries were destroyed, and policies were enforced that either prohibited or strongly limited the Tibetan way of life, all under the banner of progress. 50 years ago, the US was working to expose the crimes that China was committing against Tibet. However, now that the threat of communism overtaking the world is no longer imminent, and now that the US has stronger ties and interests in China, Tibet no longer has the same advocate that it once had.

Judy told us about the many people who still die every year in the process of traversing some of the tallest mountains of the world to escape to India, where they are safe. Nepali villagers are paid by the People's Liberation Army to hand over Tibetans, who are then deported back to China and incarcerated. Many Tibetans have simply disappeared. China has taken many steps forward to improve human rights, especially in the larger cities, but the violations against Tibetans that are still occurring are unacceptable.

I feel so powerless; how can I make this better? The only thing I know to do is to sign this petition (Stand up for Tibet), and to ask you to do the same--to show Tibetans that someone is with them, and, hopefully, to attract the attention of governments to what is happening there. Please sign it. Lhadon Tethong and organizations like Students for a Free Tibet have already been saving lives by speaking and pleading with officials. The last thing I would want is any sort of military involvement in Tibet. But I think that if enough governments pledge to stand with Tibet, China will be encouraged to loosen its grip, and maybe, Tibet will be free one day.

Seeking another sky

2011-10-23T00:49:00.000-07:00

Well. I'm starting to get the travel itch again. I haven't done a lot of traveling, but the little I've done makes me want to do more and more. Some of my favorite places I've visited are:

Iceland--beautiful fairy-tale land, complete with elf houses, volcanoes, lava, hot springs, and houses that look like toys. And lots of incredible sculpture. I have to go back.
The Norwegian countryside--I visited some family in the villages around Alesund and found it to be wonderful. Another place I need to revisit sometime.
Rural Montana--"Big Sky Country". I'm not sure exactly what it is that's special about this place, but I love it. I've been around Missoula and to Glacier National Park.
The Swiss Alps--Gimmelwald and Mürren, where you can listen to cowbells echoing off the cliffs while you sit alone on an old bench above the Lauderbrunnen Valley.
Hawaii--I can't believe this. First the Swiss Alps, now Hawaii. I can't think of more cliche places to love. I was skeptical about Hawaii, but then I went, and I love it.
Mt. Rainier--I grew up going to Mt. Rainier, and I still think it's one of the most beautiful places on earth.
Brooklyn--Beautiful graffiti, old bicycles, stunningly diverse. I was only here for a couple days, but I'd like to go back.
Boston--a great Little Italy, old buildings, and lots of music.
Seattle/Tacoma--again, I grew up here, but these are great cities. There's a special place in my heart for Tacoma, the City of Destiny.

Right now I live in Victoria, BC. I love it, but I haven't been off the island in two months (exactly, as of today!), so I'm starting to feel trapped. Thankfully, I have trips planned for Tacoma, southern California, New York and Buffalo (I might even go see Niagara Falls, to add to my collection of touristy places I've visited!) in the next couple months, so that should tide me over for awhile. But here are some places I'm hoping to visit in the more distant future (maybe when some of these student loans are paid off!):

Faroe Islands--secret Scandinavian Islands that are technically part of Denmark
Greenland--you'd think I have Scandinavian blood or something...
Italy--I haven't narrowed down where exactly yet. Maybe Milan, or maybe Sicily.
Istanbul--I've heard great things about this place. And then maybe I could get into some of the more adventurous parts of Turkey from there.
Quebec City--Since I moved to Canada, so many people have told me there is nothing on this continent like Quebec City. And I guess it's a UNESCO world heritage site!
Bryce Canyon, Utah--one of Messiaen's favorite places.
Buenos Aires--This has been on my list for a long time. Lots of friends are connected to this city.
Bogota, Colombia--Another South American city on my list. Known for being a happy place that has seen a lot of changes in the last decade or so, thanks to a great mayor. Other Latin American places I'd like to visit are Costa Rica, Panama, Patagonia, and Ecuador.
Israel--Anywhere in Israel. Or Jordon, or Lebanon. I'd like to see Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Petra, and Beirut.
Greece--Mount Athos would be amazing, but it seems difficult and expensive.

That's what comes to mind right now. In a few months I'll have some more. Last night I dreamed about traveling (to the Faroe Islands!), and it was so exciting. Maybe it will happen in real life sometime. I'm so blessed to have a life that has allowed the travels that I have experienced. :)

So it's true that you're not alone

2011-10-08T13:28:00.000-07:00

The Welcome Wagon has a beautiful song that starts playing in my head from time to time. I thought I'd share some of the lyrics, and hopefully you will buy their CD if you like it. It's called "Up on a Mountain".

"Up on a mountain our Lord is afraid,
Carrying all the mistakes we have made,
And he knew it's a long way down...

"Up in the heavens our Lord prays for you,
He sent his spirit to carry us through,
So it's true that you're not alone,
Do you know he came all the way down?"

Great song. Loneliness strikes suddenly. It can be the worst kind of pain--an agonizing ache. When you feel lonely and no one understands, I hope that you will feel God and know that he understands. As my aunt Debi says, "He gets you." It really is true that you're not alone. Sufjan Stevens writes,

"You gave your body to the lonely,
They took your clothes.
You gave up a wife and a family,
You gave your ghost
To be alone with me.
To be alone with me you went up on a tree."

Please know that you're not alone, even when you feel alone. There is someone who has given everything to be alone with you.

Braden and Madison from Mountain View Church over by Quail Run

2011-09-30T01:33:00.000-07:00

I've lived in suburbs or semi-rural areas my whole life. I was thinking about it the other day, and I realized that names of all sorts have different trends in the suburbs than they do in the cities. It's amazing to think about how different everything can become just by driving about 20 miles. Anyway, since I know the suburbs better, I thought I'd share my discoveries about names in the suburbs and see if you agree! :)

Some of these names are names that I love, and some of them... aren't. :) But it's interesting to think about why these names might be meaningful to these people (us)--how does lifestyle determine names--or broader preferences, even, like the way we decorate our yards and houses, architecture, everything!

Children
If you're from the suburbs and you want your child to have a name that gives him/her a sense of belonging in your community ;), there are a few tricks. Here are some options:

1. End the name with the sound "-aden":

Aiden
Braden
Hayden
Jaden
Kaeden
Raedun

2. For girls--use an alternate spelling of a common name:

Emmalee
Aimee
Jennah
Tracee
Cindee
Kortney (Kourtney)

3. For boys--why not use the name of an Old Testament Prophet?:

Zechariah
Ezekiel
Malachi
Jeremiah
Elisha
Beelzebub (maybe not that one...)

(In more rural areas, you can be even more creative here--try using archaic spellings, like Zecharias, or use even more obscure names of Biblical heroes, like Belteshazzar or Azariah.)

4. Name your child after your housing development! Housing developments have a wealth of creative names, and yours might hold the key the perfect name for your little angel!:

Canyon
Willow
Autumn
Sierra
Forest (Forrest)
Summer
Savannah

5. Miscellaneous. If these ideas just don't feel right, here are some others that are sure to work:

Megan (Meagan, Meeghan)
Bo (Beau)
Hayley (Haylee)
Jared (Jarrod)
Clay
Riley
Bella
Shayla
Chelsea
Cody
Madison
Logan
Zachary

Churches
Churches in the suburbs definitely tend toward a different direction than churches in cities. In cities, churches are often named after saints (St. Luke's, St. Mary's, St. John the Divine, St. Dunstan, etc.). In suburbs, however, there seems to be different trends. Here are some of the most popular examples:

1. Naming the church after the surrounding geography. For example, where I grew up, there were several churches with "Rainier" in the name, because Mt. Rainier was close. Often you could just as easily name a housing development the same thing as the church! More examples:

Willow Creek Church
Lambrick Park Church
Mountain View Baptist
Little Church on the Prairie

2. Put the word "community" in the church name. Often this is combined with the town or area where the church is located:

Saanich Community Church
North Park Community Church
Hope Community Church
Bethany Community Church

3. Give the church a powerful, cutting-edge one-word name (often prefaced by "the") that people really remember. Usually these are accompanied by long explanations in the bulletin about why the church has a seemingly unrelated word as a name:

The Forge
The Place
The Gathering
Mosaic (a favorite in suburbs everywhere!)
The Oasis
The Rock

4. Churches with names that could also be business slogans or catchwords. They usually start with "Re-":

Recreate Church
Reinvent Church
Refresh Church
Restore (-ation) Church
Reignite Church

(These might also be names of "ministries", instead of the actual church name. In this case, it will probably end with "project", e.g., "Reignite Project".)

(Numbers 5 & 6 are not confined to the suburbs; they're just my observations about church names generally.)
5. If the church is more conservative, they might let you know by including one or more of these words:

Bible-Believing
Holiness
Pentecostal
Brethren
Free (yes--Free Lutherans, Free Methodists, and Free Reformed churches are all more conservative than their shackled counterparts)
Apostolic
Prophecy
Gospel

(Often several of the above words will be combined in a random order.)

6. I haven't noticed as many words that tend to identify a church as more liberal. The only one I can think of is "Metropolitan." But you might see the word "Affirming" somewhere in the church's publications, or you might know it's more liberal because they meet at a bar. Let me know if you think of any liberal-church-name-words.

Housing Developments
I originally wasn't going to include this section, but then I came across this amazing website. Rather than listing names like I did for the churches and children, I'll let you find names for yourself with the
Suburban Development Name Generator!

Here it is: Suburban Development Name Generator

Anyway, I hope this was as entertaining for you as it was for me. I was chuckling to myself during a study break in the library jotting down some of these names. :)

Read Umberto Eco's novel, The Name of the Rose, if you haven't already. It really made me think about meaning and what words are. And it's a good mystery story.

Batter my heart, three person'd God

2011-09-12T19:18:00.000-07:00

Batter my heart, three person'd God; for, you
As yet but knocke, breathe, shine, and seeke to mend;
That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow mee,'and bend
Your force, to breake, blowe, burn and make me new.
I, like an usurpt towne, to'another due,
Labour to'admit you, but Oh, to no end,
Reason your viceroy in mee, mee should defend,
But is captiv'd, and proves weake or untrue,
Yet dearely'I love you, and would be lov'd faine,
But am betroth'd unto your enemie,
Divorce mee,'untie, or breake that knot againe,
Take mee to you, imprison mee, for I
Except you'enthrall mee, never shall be free,
Nor ever chast, except you ravish mee.

-John Donne, 1633

What can I say about this? Beautiful.

Truth(s) and my neighbor: Part 2, Discarded ladders

2011-03-31T01:37:00.000-07:00

What is a tree? Suddenly a mental image of a tree popped into your head and you could probably describe to me many of its characteristics. But that is only one example of a tree. Of course, you'd say, there are a lot of different kinds of trees. And then we might have some disagreements about whether or not a lilac qualifies as a tree. But we know for sure that a fence is not a tree, even though it might be made of wood, which comes from a tree.

Words do not describe what something is nearly as well as they describe what something is not. "Tree" describes a nebulous category of images that vary slightly from person to person. We would probably all agree that a redwood is certainly a tree. But when I say tree, the chance that you imagine a redwood is small. And if I say redwood, you would all have a different imaginary redwood; but none of you would have a sea urchin, that's for sure.

So in this sense, language is a negative system; we communicate by agreeing that certain things fall outside of the category of "tree" or "redwood". But if we imagine that "tree" is a familiar village, it is difficult to tell exactly where the village ends and the dangerous forest begins, because at first the trees are kind of sparse. But if we all walk together in the same direction, eventually we will all be able to agree that we are now in the forest.

It is sort of a cumbersome way to communicate, especially when you communicate like I just did in that terrible metaphor that included proverbial trees and forests in a discussion of the proto-tree-imagination. We algebraically substitute meanings based on common knowledge (even though "common" is another undefined category... just like knowledge and meanings and algebraically and substitute).

Let's step a little further back for a second. I started really thinking seriously about language and its usefulness and purpose when I read Of Grammatology, by Jacques Derrida. In this book, his most basic premise is something to this effect: written words are not subordinate to spoken words. But in the process, he opened up my mind to some of the more fundamental questions about language itself.

My nervous system perceives too many visual signals at once. It frantically tries to organize them. Before I realize that I am processing them, I have a visual image in my brain. This image has nothing to do with the signals I have received. It is the natural response of the nervous system to construct for itself this image to which it can later refer, so that it does not have to go through all that work again. It is continually seeking pattern. Then, since I want to share the sensation of this miraculous experience of this image with others, because they are my community and I love them, I agree to refer to this image by the name that the most powerful and influential people in the community have decided to use: "tree".

"Tree", as a word that best describes the exclusivity of a range of possible images, has no relationship to the mental image; the mental image has no relationship to the nervous system's response. They are, as Derrida and many other philosophers have said, only signs. These signs are completely arbitrary, and are decided by current or former powers. We make signs of signs of signs of signs forever. The word "tree", for example, has connotations of life, fertility, resurrection, decay, Christmas, and growth, among many, many others. We combine these signs to form sentences, questions, ideologies, and new branches of ethnomusicology. It is useful, because it maintains the "order"; it supports the cultural monarchy. And we haven't even thought about other languages yet!

Systems of knowing do not tell us as much about truth as they do about the creators and sustainers of those systems. When we say "tree", we are not communicating an original idea. We are simply appropriating a sign that has been used for centuries. ("Cliche" is the most self-referential word ever.) We have no control over this. We cannot communicate our own thoughts, except by reference (and deference) to the thoughts of many other people. This is a problem for a society that is so dependent on the "individual"!

Let me gather up these thoughts for a second; sorry this is so disorganized. Language is a combination of arbitrary signs which, at the most superficial level, communicate only what something is not through the use of exclusive criteria and categories. At a deeper level, these categories themselves are arbitrary signs that reveal our historically most important questions. The combination of all of these signs shows the beautiful trajectory of human history through our communication; language as an art, or art as communication. But still, we do not experience the world in prototypes, but categorically.

My honest response to these thoughts was this: Why should we expect a negative system of completely unrelated signs to be capable of communicating anything beyond itself? In other words, is language really a suitable vehicle for truth?

My conclusion so far is that, no, it is not. Truth doesn't fit in the trunk of language. Instead, truth is the road on which the vehicle of language travels; it is surrounded by endlessly moving and changing landscapes. This road absolutely exists, but our perception of it is continually shifting and changing based on our surroundings.

Language tells us about ourselves and our journeys. It is small and impermanent and fragile, but it is one of the most common ways that we choose to represent our passions and emotions. It is a cornerstone of community. It is about learning, but only to a limited extent. We can only learn through language what language can contain. But mostly, it is a point of reference, a shortcut to identity that we all need sometimes. It enables rational thought, and makes possible complex ways of convincing yourself that you know, that you are right.

In The Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco describes this aspect of rationality and its relationship to truth beautifully:

"The order that our mind imagines is like a net, or like a ladder, built to attain something. But afterward you must throw the ladder away, because you discover that, even if it was useful, it was meaningless."

The process of searching is immensely important. It means that we care. But equally important is the awareness of the hugeness of anything absolute, of God, of truth, and the incredible smallness of ideas or language or knowledge. It's a form of humility, this realization that I am small, but that somehow I am important to God. And that we all are dust together. And that our tears still matter. And that these observations don't even go together but somehow they do and that paradox is ok. Solomon makes sense in Ecclesiastes when he talks about meaninglessness; because after all, what does anything mean besides itself?

John tells us that "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." In other words, God and his image have always (co)existed as one; God is his image and his image is with him. Christ is the prototype of the image of God. And we and the universe are the categorical image-bearers. We are what happened when "God said..." We represent the range of meanings that can be possibly conjured by the phrase "image of God".

Human language helps us to understand what we are through the process of categorically determining what we are not. Let's learn from it. But in knowing people, and touching them and loving them, we hear and feel the language of God. It is not hollow like ours.

Love is important. The image of God/God: love. Much more important than the ladders we've used so far. Love to everyone.

Truth(s) and my neighbor: Part 1, Biblical innerancy

2011-03-22T01:14:00.000-07:00

One thing that's important to me is bridging gaps between groups of people and finding common ground for discussion and growth. I'd like to explore with you the concept of truth, and especially how our understanding of truth affects the way we interact with those who have different beliefs. I think the simplest way to flesh out my thoughts is to write a series of articles, as concisely and clearly as possible.

This first one is probably going to be the most difficult for many to swallow, but I think it's the most necessary. It's the question of Biblical inerrancy. I apologize in advance for any discomfort or offense that this causes. Or, maybe you are like me and consider uncomfortable questions to be good. I don't claim to be "right" about any of this; it's just my perspective, and I welcome yours. I make claims that I probably don't substantiate enough, mostly because it would make this already-too-long article even longer. But I'm going to risk it anyway and just write what I think about this, even though it's too big for me. I'm open to changing my mind, and I'd like to hear what you think.

Anyway, the foundation for this modern doctrine is 2 Timothy 3:16-17:

"All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work." (ESV)

By combining this passage, which says that the Scripture is breathed out (other translations say "inspired") by God, with the idea that God does not lie, it follows that the Scripture is inerrant. Right?

Maybe. I would say that the Scripture is inerrant in the sense that everything that is there is purposeful and useful; nothing is there by mistake, and everything, as 2 Timothy says, is profitable. However, I don't believe that inerrant is synonymous with any of the following words:
    ▪    true
    ▪    universal
    ▪    exclusive
    ▪    objective
    ▪    literal
    ▪    complete
I believe that all of these words represent unfortunate limitations that have been inappropriately placed on Scripture. Perhaps the most obvious of these is the relatively recent claim that the default method of interpreting Scripture should be literal. In the Jewish tradition up to the time of Christ, the assumption that all of the stories of Scripture should be taken literally was not widely held. This should not surprise us, because the modern "conservative" (oxymoron?) view of Scripture is bound by the constraints of an Enlightenment paradigm that was governed by empirical thought. To impose this rational constraint on a text that is completely foreign to Enlightenment ideals is not only inappropriate; it is disrespectful of the text, ignorant of the context, and detrimental to the spiritual force of the inspired Word of God.

The Jews were recording what they saw, of the world and of God, and God reveals himself to us through the questions and wrestlings of the Jewish people. God was guiding that process, as a parent guides a child that is growing up. We might say that he meets us in their explorations, not in their conclusions. And we are called to continue in that journey today.

When we study a text, we can choose to look at it through a microscope, examining every detail, or we can look at it from a distance, from which we can more easily grasp the overall picture of meaning. Both methods are useful. But I believe that far too often, we have tended to look at Scripture through a microscope. Entire movements have taken small sentences that are deeply embedded in context and created universals from them. Huge ideologies are constructed from tiny texts. When we consider that Scripture was originally usually heard rather than read, this element of appropriate distance is an even more powerful guiding principle for interpretation.

To say that all of the Bible is or must be true and historically accurate is also limiting. Jesus spoke to the people in parables, maybe because they were often the most effective and evocative ways of communicating the mystery of the kingdom of God. Would it really be all that far-reaching to say that this might be the case for some of the more imaginative stories of the Old Testament as well? Spiritual truth is no less true than literal, historical truth. The primacy of historical truth is another modernist artifact that needs to be put to rest. (Let's not forget that the first true historian was Herodotus, a Greek historian who lived during the fifth century B.C. Before this, the notion of systematic history was foreign; this means that the writers of the Old Testament were not writing with the goal of accurately preserving history, as a historian would today. Narrative, spiritual, artistic and expressive force took precedence.)

So, why on earth would we ever think up something like the modern concept of Biblical "inerrancy" (which doesn't really refer to inerrancy at all, but rather embraces a group of abstractly related qualities that somehow circumvent our processing-filters)? Well, just like a lot of our blunders, it comes from our struggle for security. During the 19th century (actually it started earlier, but this is when it really took off), skeptics were questioning the Bible. They used historical and scientific dissimilarities with Biblical texts as a vehicle for disparaging the Bible as a whole and its relevance to the newly modern, Enlightened society.

Unfortunately, we overreacted. We had become used to sitting on our religion as though it were a cultural throne from which we ruled the masses. When people began to pull it out from under us, it made us nervous. But then for some reason, we tried to defend ourselves by using the masses' biggest weapon: empirical reasoning. In what I consider a desperate, ironic loss of faith (or loss of power), we traded in the strong "weakness" of Christ, our chariot of fire, our miracles and our mysteries and our paradoxes; because we decided that we would rather have the weaponry of the world. During the 20th century, some of us developed a hermeneutic approach to the Bible that begins with the more or less implicit premise that only empirically observable events or conditions can be true. So, we reasoned, since God wrote the Bible and the Bible is true, everything in the Bible is true and will eventually be "verified" (or "made true"--by our arbitrary superior standards, of course).

But this is a sad and limiting response that is based on fear, and for some reason this response has persisted in its influence, even amid the current collapse of modernism. Even if I am wrong and this was once a necessary defense, this certainly no longer is the case, and yet we still insist on making it. Perhaps out of this defense has emerged a new, more subtle sort of power that we are not willing to relinquish. There's the constant fear of the proverbial "slippery slope"; it's a fear because we feel a certain security--either the guarded, nervous kind or the everything-is-already-perfectly-fine-thank-you-very-much, whistling kind--in where we're at right now. But we've seen that we were not even standing on solid ground to begin with. And anyway, we're not here to just stand still. We're not here to sit on a cultural throne. We're here to journey and seek, in faith, moving, exploring as disciples the dimensions of God and the universe, with all of the seekers of history and today and the future. Our security shouldn't come from our own striving; not from scrambling to the top of a culture so we can watch as it crumbles beneath our feet. It's in something beyond, bigger than all of us holding hands and trying to form a ring that stretches all the way around the world.

And as for inerrancy: it's just a misleading word that has assumed too many extra meanings. Scripture embraces not only the fingernail of truth that unfortunately still serves an antique power-structure of stipulations and conditions, but the full spectrum of truth, a column of light that reaches endlessly into the sky.

Perfect in power

2011-03-19T17:33:00.000-07:00

One time I was driving in Parkland. I hadn't had a very good day, and I don't remember why, but my state of mind was nicely consonant with the darker-than-normal night. I was listening to a mix-tape (now that my car has a CD player), and the hymn, "Holy, Holy, Holy", came on.

I've heard this hymn a lot of times. I like it. But for some reason this time it hit me differently. Maybe because I hadn't heard it much when I was in a bad mood. Anyway, I pulled into the parking lot of that Walgreen's on 121st and Pac Ave, and I just sat there in the pouring rain (for dramatic effect) and listened to it. And then I skipped back to it and listened again. The third verse goes like this:

"Holy, holy, holy! Though the darkness hide Thee,
Though the eye of sinful man Thy glory may not see,
Only Thou art holy; there is none beside Thee,
Perfect in power, in love, and purity."

"Perfect in power." And I am not. For some reason, it was a huge relief to be reminded that "It'll be fine" is really true. And that if you were to peel away a corner of the rainy night you might see a part of God's ear. Or if you were to just look into someone's eyes you might see a part of God's heart. It's a beautiful sort of weakness, a weakness that's ok.

It goes nicely with "Remember that you are dust." What a comforting phrase for Lent.

Young Chamber Players perform eighty-five point five%

2011-03-15T22:13:00.000-07:00

This is an interlude (or maybe gasping for air) in the recent outburst of "religious" writing that I've found myself hopelessly churning out. I want to momentarily reflect on the recent performances of my newest piece, eighty-five point five%, by the Young Chamber Players.

The Young Chamber Players are a group of high school musicians from the greater Tacoma area who audition in the fall, then meet for nine rehearsals and coachings before presenting their chamber music in a series of concerts. I have helped out as a college coach for the last three years, so I've been able to watch as the program evolves, and it seems to get better every year. Apparently, a perennial complaint is that they would like to perform a piece all together. But that's a challenge logistically because who knows what the instrumentation will be year after year?

So, when the director asked if I would be interested in working on a commission for them, I was thrilled and excited and terrified. I agreed to do it, and I think it was one of the most difficult and rewarding experiences in my time as a composer (maybe it's still too early to make this kind of a declaration but I am not so self-conscious about my experience that I'd let that stop me). It was also my first paid commission, and I can't think of a better project to have as my first commission--educational, fun, creative, challenging. It was my second large ensemble piece; this time the instrumentation was 5 violin soloists, violin section, viola section, 3 cello soloists, cello section, bass soloist, (all others are soloists) 3 pianists on a single piano, flute, 3 b-flat clarinets, horn, trombone. In this performance there were 25 performers.

I was responsible for composing, rehearsing, conducting, speaking about and writing about the piece; throughout the process it was more overwhelming to think about the hugeness of the project than to do it. When I was actually working it was always great fun. I got to know many of the students better, and I think the process was a positive experience for everyone.

From the program notes:

"The title of the new work is eighty-five point five%. The title, like the piece, lends itself to a certain optimism even as it self-consciously critiques the ways that we (especially musicians) try to quantify our work, reducing it to something to accomplish. It's an invitation to celebrate and enjoy the whole process of making and experiencing music together, with a smile (and an occasional uncomfortable laugh)!"

I think it came together beautifully. We performed it for two of their three performances, first at First Lutheran Church in Tacoma on March 4, then at St. John's Episcopal Church in Olympia on March 6. The energy with which these students performed was so refreshing. It was raw, unfiltered creativity; perfect for the piece. I loved working with this age group, especially on a project that was so far outside the familiar "really enjoyable relaxing concert" box. The audience, especially in Olympia, was surprisingly receptive; I hoped that they would be, but the eagerness with which they came up to me after the concert to talk was almost disconcerting. I went further than I normally have in breaching the gap between myself and the audience for this piece, and I think this is something that I'll do more in future performances. I guess giving as much as you can to the audience helps.

If you're interested in the arts or want to be interested in the arts because then you will be so cool, check out the Second City Chamber Series and the St. John's Concert Series. They're proving that music is still worth it, even new music, and that there's still a place somewhere inside of people that wants to just sit and listen and be overwhelmed. I'll be watching for names that I recognize from the Young Chamber Players, because the level that many of those students are playing at is really impressive. The combination of talent and energy is dangerously subversive.

To the overworked and lonely

2011-03-12T18:52:00.000-08:00

A few days ago I sat at the end of a row of parishioners in the front of the church as the priest came to each of us, making the sign of the cross on each of our foreheads with ashes, the burnt remains of the palm fronds from last year's Palm Sunday. As he came to each of us he said, "Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return."

It got me thinking about Lent and what it means to me. I only really started observing Lent in the last few years, since it wasn't a major part of the tradition that I was raised in, so Lent is still pretty new to me. But I thought those words from Ash Wednesday were a good place to start.

Sometimes I'm stressed out and worn out and in a hurry and full of myself and too distracted and too entertained and it's really stifling sometimes. There is never enough time and there is always too much to do. If I'm asked what I'm doing, "nothing" would never be an acceptable answer. What a waste of time! And it would really be terrible if I didn't respond to an email within about five hours (or to a text within about five minutes). How exhausting.

So, "Remember that you are dust" is particularly refreshing to me. But maybe I'm the only one who sometimes has this inflated sense of self-importance that manifests as an overactive sense of responsibility. If so, I guess I am writing this for myself!

During Lent, we remember the story of when Jesus went to the wilderness for forty days, without friends and without food. He was alone. Think of all the things he could have done. After all, he was God. He could have changed the world in those forty days. But to him, it was more important to suffer and to struggle, quietly and alone.

If we were allowed to suffer and struggle, how would things be different? If we could stop our doing for a while, what would we do, or what would we experience? If we could get away from the too-much-too-fast world, twitter and cell phones and microwaves where we can mysteriously transform food from frozen to fully cooked in about 3 minutes; if we stopped ignoring what's going on in Japan and around the world, so that we could stand in solidarity with those people and do what we can to help; if we stopped ignoring the pain that we work so hard to cover up with tattoos or busy schedules; if we could hold a friend's hand or give her a hug when she's crying; if she could cry. But maybe it's better to just keep our distractions instead so we can keep chuggin along, smiling brightly!

I've been especially thinking about lonely people; the successful traveling businessman who returns to the hotel each night and looks at the phone and realizes that there's no one to call; the girl who everyone knows, but still has nothing to do on the weekends (but it's ok because she has a lot of homework to do anyway); the grandma whose children have moved far away and whose husband passed away six years ago.

If you are lonely, don't be afraid, Jesus was lonely too. But if you are afraid, it's ok. Jesus was probably afraid too. Remember that you're not really alone, even if you feel like you are, because when Jesus left he left his spirit with you. But it's ok if his spirit feels far away sometimes. Find a friend and ask for a hug.

After Jesus suffered alone for awhile, he did change the world. When you are lonely, you suffer with Christ. And when you're done with that, when you are a friend again, you can change the world with him.

I wonder what it would be like to live without mammoth expectations of myself or my responsibility to the world. Just to live, as dust, floating on a spirit's breath, beyond the bounds of human standards of value or importance. Living, dying.

"Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return."

Epiphany: the celebration of God beyond the ingroup that's named after him

2011-03-03T16:02:00.000-08:00

Has anyone else ever found it ironic that among the earliest to seek Christ found him through the practice of another religion?

"Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, saying, "Where is he who is born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him." --Matthew 2:1-2 ESV

The Greek word translated "wise men" is "Magi", which refers to a class of Zoroastrian astrologer-priests. Many have said that Jesus tended to favor the outcasts and marginalized in Jewish society: tax collectors, prostitutes, the poor, and women. And I completely agree.

But to me there's something special about the story of the Magi. In this story, we're told that the wise men found Jesus not in spite of their despicable practice of abhorrent, demonic astrology, but because of it. One could imagine them saying, "We were overjoyed when we saw his star. Of course we followed it; we'd been waiting. And then we found him."

When we read Matthew, a Gospel that was addressed specifically to Jews, and the other Gospels, we watch as the Jews realize that they do not have exclusive rights to God. First, there is the story of the wise men. Then, Jesus confuses everyone by siding with prostitutes and the unclean and those foreigners who dared to worship on a different mountain. We saw glimpses of this in the prophets, especially Isaiah, and here we find the Jews half rejoicing and half afraid to realize that God is so much bigger than the temple.

Why, then, have we become so quick to condemn those who do not worship on our mountain? Jesus didn't come to start a new religion anyway, so why are we so quick to doubt that God can be made known through the lights of a religion that is not our own? Do we really think that we already have the answers, to the exclusion of all other faiths and Christianities? And so we really think that the answers are all that important?

Or maybe this is another of our perennial examples of being afraid of anything or anyone that is "other".

In the spirit of Christ, let's be a people that walks with all spiritual seekers, whether they are Christian, Muslim, Taoist, Buddhist, fundamentalist, humanist, transsexual, vegetarian, republican, alcoholic, atheist, or communist; and whether they know what they're looking for or not. Let's deconstruct our temples of power and supremacy, and be open to what the Holy Spirit might speak to us through our relationships with those that are different from us. Let's not be so quick to assume that we're always right; after all, who are we kidding, there's so much that we haven't even asked yet! Let's resist the urge to divide all of humanity into two categories: "saved" or "unsaved", or "us" and "them", because this will make us all enemies. Let's remember that Christ is not exclusive to Christians.

In the Kingdom of God there are Magi. Could we venture to say that maybe it's shallow to deny that there are also Hindus, Catholics (I've heard it before...) and Mormons, just because their name tag looks different than ours? Just because they worship on a different mountain?

Jesus was friends with the socioeconomically, morally and ethnically other. The Magi, who were among his first seekers, were ethnically and religiously other. Philip, who first brought the Gospel to the continent of Africa, was ethnically and sexually other (since he was an Ethiopian eunuch). Is it possible that this element of these stories (and the many others in the New Testament) is significant? How can these stories guide a Christian attitude toward those who are different?

Maybe this attitude is one of humility, one of thankfulness for the richness of humanity, and one of earnest and sincere curiosity. As we finish the season of Epiphany, let's celebrate God in all of his beloved creation.

Our Unraveling World

2011-02-28T14:02:00.000-08:00

A couple years ago I wrote about a rumbling. I still think about that a lot; this is from an email that I sent about that:

For the last several centuries we've been convinced that we are moving forward, solving the problems of the world.

We've been so sure of ourselves. We've had so much hope in ourselves and we built monuments, huge, beautiful, sprawling cities, to ourselves and to our achievements. We carved mountains in the shape of heads of our leaders. We never gave up, we smiled confidently.

Now we're realizing that in solving problems we've created more, and we've become astonished at the realization that we have created problems that are beyond our ability to contain.

Suddenly we are not so sure of ourselves. We don't know what to do. Instead of seeing our leaders as visionaries, with fire in their eyes, we look on them with pity for the burden that they bear, and an occasional moment of admiration.

We now wonder what our monuments remember, what our cities have achieved. We are without a direction, without a destiny, lost; and we know it.

And this is the first time, in at least 500 years, that our entire society is beginning to come to this realization: of knowing that we don't know what to do, and that we are helpless.

It's huge, it's our world unraveling.

And we see it everywhere--movies, TV, obnoxious talk radio, the internet, the clothes that people wear, the cars they drive. The too-much-ness of everything. We can't help but have the feeling that all of this is some kind of over-the-top parody of something until we remember that it's real and that we're drowning.

I think it's beautiful. We are starting to realize that we are not enough!

There's a rumbling, and it's getting louder every day.

And it is so beautiful, that sound, those cries and tears and desperate hands and speechless mouths.

It is an honor to be part of a community of wayfarers--struggling, but with a rebellious, defiant sort of joy that somehow can coexist with that compassion and grief that seems unbearable sometimes.

And there's a strange kind of comfort about it--knowing that we don't know and can't know, but searching anyway--maybe this is the most beautiful kind of revelation.

I think for me this rebellion is why I make art! It's not "useful", it will never become a city or find a cure for AIDS. It's just a whim, like when our Father said, "Let there be light." That creative spirit--I think that's in everyone to some extent, the will to create, for no reason, or without knowing why. It's a surrender--we don't know what we're doing or how to save the world, and we can't, but we know that inside us something is burning, that creative fire, our souls waiting to finally whisper, speak, scream!

I'm honored being part of this rumbling.

To think we are here "for such a time as this". I can't think of a more exciting time to be alive. Tough times, amazing times. And definitely time to start taking care of our soul houses.

Thanks to Deb. A long time ago she first told me about this rumbling that's happening, and I've never forgotten about that. She makes the world more beautiful through creating art and through living passionately. A truly inspiring person.

When the Church doesn't hide anymore

2011-02-27T14:47:00.000-08:00

I have really struggled with "church" for the last several years. It's not that I don't believe in God; it's just that I find that I believe pretty differently than most. I'm part of a pretty significant demographic that has no longer wanted to identify as "Christian", because the ones who tend to speak loudest on behalf of Christ have been the ones who have been most unlike Christ.

Anyway, in spite of myself, I've been constantly involved with churches. I've been on staff (as a musician) at a Presbyterian church and now at an Episcopal church, I grew up Evangelical, and I'm now a part of Freedom Hill, a beautiful nondenominational community of faith that's resistant to any sort of category. So I find that even though I have all these doubts about churches, "the Church"--the universal, everywhere Church of love that transcends denominations and religions--is something that I remain passionate about. This post is adapted and taken from a response to my Episcopal priest about the mass exodus of 20-somethings from the American church, and specifically the Episcopal church. Maybe a good way to think about this is what the "rumbling" that we've talked about means in practical terms for the Church. For me, it's yielded many questions but few answers. There's a special feeling right now; a feeling that it's time to take some risks and experiment a bit.

Here it is:

Suddenly we've realized that we're no longer moving forward. We are losing hope in progress. I think that this realization is beautiful, because it has been true all along; we have never been enough, but we just didn't know it before.

This change has brought us to a place that seems like a strange mix of brokenness, cynicism, wonder, detachment, and shock. It is a huge cultural shift.

Our culture has taught us to suppress negative expression and emotion. (We see this in cultural taboos against grief and cursing.) We're conditioned to answer the question, "How are you" with "Good", without even processing the question. We are taught to never show weakness. This lack of authenticity is frustrating and sickening to young people, and I think that the weight of this suppression is becoming too heavy, especially with what is going on in the world right now.

We feel broken again, and we are more and more are willing to try to address that brokenness; this is great news for the Church! For this reason, I think it is absolutely essential that a faith community that seeks to include 20-somethings fosters an environment that does not suppress, but rather encourages, the expression of pain, struggle and difficulty. It must find the balance between this sense of compassion (of "suffering with") and a sense of foolish, defiant joy.

Any attempt to hide anything will discredit the Church in our eyes. Honesty and transparency are necessary.

Creative youth will avoid a church or ministry that seems artificial. I believe that this is the reason that this generation is also leaving evangelical churches. The famous mega-churches, once thought of as magnets for young people, are now full of people who are mostly over 35 (sometimes with kids), though there are still some young people that are more business-minded that seem to be drawn to them. My view from growing up in this setting is that the evangelical church has tried far too hard to become part of the mainstream, and it has tried far too hard to be entertaining; the unnaturalness of this is off-putting.

If we are broken, we don't need entertainment. We need Christ; we need to be saved from a meaningless, loveless life; and if we're broken, we'd rather be broken together.

Of course, this is not to say that it's wrong for a church to look or act a certain way; but I don't think the reason for that should be to demonstrate that we are "with the times"; in fact, I think this demonstration can unintentionally become a display of cultural power, which is not our goal as followers of Christ.

This sort of connects with our discussion of Facebook and Twitter. I don't think they are necessary. They can be helpful in connecting people, but I think they distort our sense of community. More and more people my age are beginning to see "social networking" as a cheap trade for authentic community. Close relationships are characterized by vulnerability, pain shared in secret, sharing joy with a smile, and touch. Facebook and Twitter are about broadcasting superficial details of relationships to everyone you know. It's not genuine, which is why I think some of my generation may be starting to move away from it. In a church setting, I just don't think it's all that essential to use these media, though many churches do use them successfully.

I don't think what the ministry looks like matters nearly as much to young people as most seem to think. In fact, the St. Mark's Cathedral [Episcopal Cathedral in Seattle] Compline service is full of young people, and I think that is because it has developed organically. It doesn't try to be an "experience", though indeed it is--it is a service of authentic worship in the tradition that is natural for the Cathedral. Smaller ministries for young people seem to be successful when there is a high degree of personal interaction and transparency among everyone: leaders and participants. Different styles will appeal to different groups, and many contrasting churches are necessary; but young people have become really adept at recognizing "fakes"--we are trained to do that from at least junior high, and that's part of the reason there is so much bullying in schools!

We tend to be drawn to honest discussion, and interested in what is happening in the world. Social justice is very important to many of us, and many also seem to be drawn to controversial discussions about the world and contemporary moral issues like consumerism, homosexuality, and poverty. We like to eat together. A ministry can take many forms; to me, simpler is better. (Fancy publications and twitter announcements just seem over the top for my taste!)

My generation is seeking a genuine faith: a faith that struggles and does not try to hide it, a faith that questions, and a faith that stands in the middle of the world as it unravels with a stubborn hope in Christ.

I would love anyone's thoughts on this. Young people: does this seem true to you? Older people: is this surprising to you? Why or why not? I know that I can only speak for myself and maybe somewhat for the people that I know, but this is a limited group of mostly creative people. I am really interested in hearing your perspective. Also, this kind of linear writing is really difficult for me. Correct my logic as necessary.

Something's Hid Beyond the Ranges

2009-06-28T01:03:00.001-07:00

This is part of a poem that my grandpa wrote out for me on a piece of paper on my birthday. The full poem is called "The Explorer" by Rudyard Kipling, but this is just a small part of it:

There's no sense in going further! It's the end of cultivation!
So they said and I believed them, tilled the soil and sowed my crop;
Built my barns and strung my fences
In the little border station tucked away beneath the foothills where the trails run out and stop;
Till a voice as bad as conscience made interminable changes by one everlasting whisper,
Night and morning whispered low:
"Something's hid beyond the ranges, lost beyond the ranges!
Lost and waiting for you--go!"
Anybody could have found it,
But his whisper came to me!

I'm thinking of setting this text sometime. I like the wildness of it, and it just makes me think of my family.

Save the Planet

2009-03-23T13:34:00.000-07:00

Sorry it's been so long since I've posted anything. Life is busy. I wanted to share with whoever reads this a speech that was emailed to me by my piano professor. It's a little over the top and corny, but I like what it says:

Welcome address to freshman at Boston Conservatory, given by Karl Paulnack, pianist and director of music division at Boston Conservatory.

"One of my parents' deepest fears, I suspect, is that society would not properly value me as a musician, that I wouldn't be appreciated. I had very good grades in high school, I was good in science and math, and they imagined that as a doctor or a research chemist or an engineer, I might be more appreciated than I would be as a musician. I still remember my mother's remark when I announced my decision to apply to music school. She said, "You're WASTING your SAT scores." On some level, I think, my parents were not sure themselves what the value of music was, what its purpose was. And they LOVED music, they listened to classical music all the time. They just weren't really clear about its function. So let me talk about that a little bit, because we live in a society that puts music in the "arts and entertainment" section of the newspaper, and serious music, the kind your kids are about to engage in, has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with entertainment, in fact it's the opposite of entertainment. Let me talk a little bit about music, and how it works.

The first people to understand how music really works were the ancient Greeks. And this is going to fascinate you; the Greeks said that music and astronomy were two sides of the same coin. Astronomy was seen as the study of relationships between observable, permanent, external objects, and music was seen as the study of relationships between invisible, internal, hidden objects. Music has a way of finding the big, invisible moving pieces inside our hearts and souls and helping us figure out the position of things inside us. Let me give you some examples of how this works.

One of the most profound musical compositions of all time is the Quartet for the End of Time written by French composer Olivier Messiaen in 1940. Messiaen was 31 years old when France entered the war against Nazi Germany. He was captured by the Germans in June of 1940, sent across Germany in a cattle car and imprisoned in a concentration camp.

He was fortunate to find a sympathetic prison guard who gave him paper and a place to compose. There were three other musicians in the camp, a cellist, a violinist, and a clarinetist, and Messiaen wrote his quartet with these specific players in mind. It was performed in January 1941 for four thousand prisoners and guards in the prison camp. Today it is one of the most famous masterworks in the repertoire.

Given what we have since learned about life in the concentration camps, why would anyone in his right mind waste time and energy writing or playing music? There was barely enough energy on a good day to find food and water, to avoid a beating, to stay warm, to escape torture—why would anyone bother with music? And yet from the camps, we have poetry, we have music, we have visual art; it wasn't just this one fanatic Messiaen; many, many people created art. Why? Well, in a place where people are only focused on survival, on the bare necessities, the obvious conclusion is that art must be, somehow, essential for life. The camps were without money, without hope, without commerce, without recreation, without basic respect, but they were not without art. Art is part of survival; art is part of the human spirit, an unquenchable expression of who we are. Art is one of the ways in which we say, "I am alive, and my life has meaning."

In September 2001 I was a resident of Manhattan. That morning I reached a new understanding of my art and its relationship to the world. I sat down at the piano that morning at 10 AM to practice as was my daily routine; I did it by force of habit, without thinking about it. I lifted the cover on the keyboard, and opened my music, and put my hands on the keys and took my hands off the keys. And I sat there and thought, does this even matter? Isn't this completely irrelevant? Playing the piano right now, given what happened in this city yesterday, seems silly, absurd, irreverent, pointless. Why am I here? What place has a musician in this moment in time? Who needs a piano player right now? I was completely lost.

And then I, along with the rest of New York, went through the journey of getting through that week. I did not play the piano that day, and in fact I contemplated briefly whether I would ever want to play the piano again. And then I observed how we got through the day.

At least in my neighborhood, we didn't shoot hoops or play Scrabble. We didn't play cards to pass the time, we didn't watch TV, we didn't shop, we most certainly did not go to the mall. The first organized activity that I saw in New York, that same day, was singing. People sang. People sang around fire houses, people sang "We Shall Overcome". Lots of people sang America the Beautiful. The first organized public event that I remember was the Brahms Requiem, later that week, at Lincoln Center, with the New
York Philharmonic. The first organized public expression of grief, our first communal response to that historic event, was a concert. That was the beginning of a sense that life might go on. The US Military secured the airspace, but recovery was led by the arts, and by music in particular, that very night.

From these two experiences, I have come to understand that music is not part of "arts and entertainment" as the newspaper section would have us believe. It's not a luxury, a lavish thing that we fund from leftovers of our budgets, not a plaything or an amusement or a pass time. Music is a basic need of human survival. Music is one of the ways we make sense of our lives, one of the ways in which we express feelings when we have no words, a way for us to understand things with our hearts when we can't with our minds.

Some of you may know Samuel Barber's heart wrenchingly beautiful piece Adagio for Strings. If you don't know it by that name, then some of you may know it as the background music which accompanied the Oliver Stone movie Platoon, a film about the Vietnam War. If you know that piece of music either way, you know it has the ability to crack your heart open like a walnut; it can make you cry over sadness you didn't know you had. Music can slip beneath our conscious reality to get at what's really going on inside us the way a good therapist does.

I bet that you have never been to a wedding where there was absolutely no music. There might have been only a little music, there might have been some really bad music, but I bet you there was some music. And something very predictable happens at weddings—people get all pent up with all kinds of emotions, and then there's some musical moment where the action of the wedding stops and someone sings or plays the flute or something. And even if the music is lame, even if the quality isn't good, predictably 30 or 40 percent of the people who are going to cry at a wedding cry a couple of moments after the music starts. Why? The Greeks. Music allows us to move around those big invisible pieces of ourselves and rearrange our insides so that we can express what we feel even when we can't talk about it. Can you imagine watching Indiana Jones or Superman or Star Wars with the dialogue but no music? What is it about the music swelling up at just the right moment in ET so that all the softies in the audience start crying at exactly the same moment? I guarantee you if you showed the movie with the music stripped out, it wouldn't happen that way. The Greeks: Music is the understanding of the relationship
between invisible internal objects.

I'll give you one more example, the story of the most important concert of my life. I must tell you I have played a little less than a thousand concerts in my life so far. I have played in places that I thought were important. I like playing in Carnegie Hall; I enjoyed playing in Paris; it made me very happy to please the critics in St. Petersburg. I have played for people I thought were important; music critics of major newspapers, foreign heads of state. The most important concert of my entire life took place in a nursing home in Fargo, ND, about 4 years ago.

I was playing with a very dear friend of mine who is a violinist. We began, as we often do, with Aaron Copland's Sonata, which was written during World War II and dedicated to a young friend of Copland's, a young pilot who was shot down during the war. Now we often talk to our audiences about the pieces we are going to play rather than providing them with written program notes. But in this case, because we began the concert with this piece, we decided to talk about the piece later in the program and to just come out and play the music without explanation.

Midway through the piece, an elderly man seated in a wheelchair near the front of the concert hall began to weep. This man, whom I later met, was clearly a soldier—even in his 70's, it was clear from his buzz-cut hair, square jaw and general demeanor that he had spent a good deal of his life in the military. I thought it a little bit odd that someone would be moved to tears by that particular movement of that particular piece, but it wasn't the first time I've heard crying in a concert and we went on with the concert and finished the piece.

When we came out to play the next piece on the program, we decided to talk about both the first and second pieces, and we described the circumstances in which the Copland was written and mentioned its dedication to a downed pilot. The man in the front of the audience became so disturbed that he had to leave the auditorium. I honestly figured that we would not see him again, but he did come backstage afterwards, tears and all, to explain himself. What he told us was this: "During World War II, I was a pilot, and I was in an aerial combat situation where one of my team's planes was hit. I watched my friend bail out, and watched his parachute open, but the Japanese planes which had engaged us returned and machine gunned across the parachute chords so as to separate the parachute from the pilot, and I watched my friend drop away into the ocean, realizing that he was lost. I have not thought about this for many years, but during that first piece of music you played, this memory returned to me so vividly that it was as though I was reliving it. I didn't understand why this was happening, why now, but then when you came out to explain that this piece of music was written to commemorate a lost pilot, it was a little more than I could handle. How does the music do that? How did it find those feelings and those memories in me?"

Remember the Greeks: music is the study of invisible relationships between internal objects. This concert in Fargo was the most important work I have ever done. For me to play for this old soldier and help him connect, somehow, with Aaron Copland, and to connect their memories of their lost friends, to help him remember and mourn his friend, this is my work. This is why music matters.

What follows is part of the talk I will give to this year's freshman class when I welcome them a few days from now. The responsibility I will charge your sons and daughters with is this:

"If we were a medical school, and you were here as a med student practicing appendectomies, you'd take your work very seriously because you would imagine that some night at two AM someone is going to waltz into your emergency room and you're going to have to save their life. Well, my friends, someday at 8 PM someone is going to walk into your concert hall and bring you a mind that is confused, a heart that is overwhelmed, a soul that is weary. Whether they go out whole again will depend partly on how well you do your craft.

You're not here to become an entertainer, and you don't have to sell yourself. The truth is you don't have anything to sell; being a musician isn't about dispensing a product, like selling used Chevies. I'm not an entertainer; I'm a lot closer to a paramedic, a firefighter, a rescue worker. You're here to become a sort of therapist for the human soul, a spiritual version of a chiropractor, physical therapist, someone who works with our insides to see if they get things to line up, to see if we can come into harmony with ourselves and be healthy and happy and well.

Frankly, ladies and gentlemen, I expect you not only to master music; I expect you to save the planet. If there is a future wave of wellness on this planet, of harmony, of peace, of an end to war, of mutual understanding, of equality, of fairness, I don't expect it will come from a government, a military force or a corporation. I no longer even expect it to come from the religions of the world, which together seem to have brought us as much war as they have peace. If there is a future of peace for humankind, if there is to be an understanding of how these invisible, internal things should fit together, I expect it will come from the artists, because that's what we do. As in the concentration camp and the evening of 9/11, the artists are the ones who might be able to help us with our internal invisible lives."

Likemindedness

2008-10-18T02:27:00.000-07:00

Today I went to Denny's late at night with a friend and ate marvelously unhealthy food while we talked about life for several hours. I am so thankful for people I am able to connect with and people that think like me in various ways. There are a few of those in my life: my parents, my cousin, my grandma, a couple of other family members, and a couple of friends here at school, and I connect with all of these in slightly different ways.

I think our culture lacks meaningful friendship. It's easier to wave superficially at someone occasionally than to take the time to learn who that person is. We are so accustomed to our own environment that we tend to forget that we were created for community.

I would encourage whoever reads this to intentionally spend time with someone late into the night, when you're just tired enough to let your guard down a little. Trust a trustworthy person.

I also remembered tonight among the loud drunken people at Denny's (which was kind of unsurprisingly crowded the whole time I was there), how incredibly beautiful this place is. I wish more people could see that, because it's amazing. What a powerful metaphor for humanity--our desperation, disillusionment, and fear; but still retaining a spark of hope, determination, and perseverance. The work of art above is an untitled work by Robert Rauschenberg, and to me it represents this feeling.

I continue to look for these keys in our symbolic world everywhere I go--these small windows into the very heart of humanity--then to look beyond and to get a glimpse of the tears of the just and merciful lamb, who has already felt the death of the universe and yet still weeps for us.

Seeking Another Sky

2008-09-18T12:43:00.000-07:00

I thought it would be a good idea to write about where the url for this blog comes from. There's a poem by Alfred Noyes called "Memories of the Pacific Coast," and in that poem he writes:

"Home—home! Where is that land?
For, when I dream it found, the old hungering cry
Aches in the soul, drives me from all I planned,
And sets my sail to seek another sky."

I find this stanza to be true on so many levels. It's how life should work, even if I don't feel like being driven from all I planned at the moment. I'm trying to keep infant's eyes, watching in anticipation for something I haven't discovered yet. And one day I'll arrive at home.

"There is a rumbling...Can you feel it?"

2008-08-25T23:43:00.000-07:00

I have been thinking so much this summer about pretty much everything, and I am so blessed to have amazing people in my life who have helped me to come to some conclusions and also to some questions.

One issue in particular that I've been thinking about--and this is a very broad issue--is our culture. And by "our culture", I mean the US culture, and to a lesser extent, Western civilization in general. I was talking to someone close to me a few days ago about a trip that she had taken to a third-world nation and the impact that that trip has had on her life. It's a nation full of marginalization, outcasts, oppressed people, orphans, and people who have lost hope. But still, they are a passionate people, a vibrant canvas that has endured so much, but that has endured nevertheless. I heard about the horrible treatment of orphans there, the incredible corruption in the government, and the despair that is felt through this nation. She said that their faces, the faces of orphaned children and the destitute, haunt her almost every day. And it's a good thing.

It made me think of my two short trips to Tijuana, Mexico. I had no idea that such poverty could exist so close to our "gate to prosperity and happiness." I was deeply affected, even on my first trip as a ten-year-old kid. And not even deeply affected so much by the poverty, but by the spirit of those people. They have nothing. But the children I saw seemed happier than children from our own nation. How? Some even don't even have shelter. And the ones that do have shelter made from whatever garbage they could find: blankets, cardboard, clothing, garage doors, and whatever else. Again, they are a passionate people. It's contagious.

And then I look at us. We are so blessed, and we should be, according to our own doctrine of the American Dream, infinitely happier than these people that really have nothing. But we aren't. In fact, people are afraid to be passionate. Or maybe people cannot find anything to be passionate about. Either way, it's incredibly sad. Maybe more stuff isn't what we need. Our consumerism is slowly eating away at us. The more we have, the more we need, and the less happy we become. We are broken. We do not feel like we need, so we do not yearn, we do not hope--we have nothing to hope for. Where are we? We've finally found our tragic existence! Is this what we have striven for, our American Dream?

The ceiling!
I see it again.

My eyes are now wide open.
I've escaped from a colored painting.
I've safely returned to this gray conveyor belt.

Why does the ceiling interrupt me now?
I was in Thailand,
Planning to hitchhike to Romania.

Last week, I was in Finland.

My yearning does not sleep.
I will continue to wait
For whichever sky might find me.

Until then,
I will strain my neck as I pass the small window,
And draw what I see
With a song.

We need to reawaken our music, our art, our poetry, our prose, our passion, our visions, and stop pushing them away. We need to love people again. Every person. We can no longer deny the value of life. Those who have nothing can see this truth more clearly than we, who have the world.

I heard from this friend of mine something that resonated very strongly with me. We were talking about this, our bleak and unknowingly desperate society, in some ways far more tragic than much poorer ones, when she identified one ray of hope.

"But there is a rumbling, it's coming. Can you feel it?"

Maybe faintly. Something rising up among our generation, a restoration, a revolution maybe. I can only pray for something. First we need to recognize that we need, and search earnestly for our One true fulfillment. Let's sing and dance and mourn and laugh. Let us live again!

I'm sorry for my unorganized rambling, but I hope you see what I'm saying.

A sense of wonder?

2008-08-09T21:08:00.000-07:00

You know those times when you've been somewhere in nature and you've just been amazed? Every now and then I am just inspired by nature and filled with that child-like sense of wonder about the incredible world we live in. Maybe art is our attempt to recreate those moments and grasp for something outside of what we normally experience. I feel like there is sort of a mystical sense that is connected with art. Art is not bound by the laws of nature. The work on the right, Waterfall by M. C. Escher, is an example of this. People are attracted to the "impossibility" in this work of art. The same is true in a different way in some works of music, like the canons from the Musical Offering by J.S. Bach.

But artists don't need illusions to keep that sense of wonder. Artists are free to portray their subjects however they want. Musicians can't portray visual subjects as they are, because musicians don't operate in the visual world. In the same way, if a visual artist wanted to portray a sound, he or she couldn't portray that subject as it is. So I think the artist has both a sense of wonder and a freedom, maybe an excitement or relief, at being able to escape to another place through this strange, beautiful gate that he or she stumbled across.

Then the artist tries to communicate to his audience this sense of wonder that he has found. It's contagious. And if the artist connects with the audience, the audience perceives "beauty".

But that still doesn't really mean anything for the artist because every person will react to a given piece of art differently. What determines how an audience will respond? Why do people "like" the music or art that they like? Is it their upbringing, their culture, their values? This is especially difficult for modern/postmodern artists or musicians. I disliked modern music until about two years ago, and now I almost exclusively write in what would probably be considered a modern/postmodern genre. I think that part of this has to do with the way my knowledge of music has expanded, but I wonder if there is anything else that would influence that? For example, I will listen to a piece by Olivier Messiaen and think that it is one of the most beautiful pieces of music I have ever heard (the most recent one was No. 11 from Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant-Jésus: "Première communion de la Vierge") and whoever is around will laughingly ask me what I'm listening to or make some comment like, "Oh! That sounds like something from Matlock!" And it's strange, because I never expect anyone other than musicians to like modern music, but I don't know why I assume that people won't like it. ??? Oh well. I'm trying to "convert" people to it. And if people don't like it, that's not why I compose anyway. ;)

Sorry for the long rant. :) Let me go back the whole "sense of wonder" thing. Jeff said, "Art is the record of mankind's struggle to comprehend the incomprehensible nature of Ultimate freaking Reality." <--That's really good. I know that for me, in the times that I have felt that Wonder, I have been overwhelmed by the sense of something greater than me, by something greater than anything in the world. One might call this "Ultimate Reality"-that which is more real than anything else. (This would normally lead me to explain some of my quasi-mystical beliefs about the meaning of life, the universe, time, truth, and reality, but this blog is already too long so I'm not going to right now. Feel free to ask me about it though. I might write about it in another entry sometime.)

So, according to Jeff, and to a lot of people I'm sure including myself, through art we try to connect to Ultimate Reality. When we feel that connection, we experience Wonder, a sort of otherworldly feeling that often translates to "beauty". Beauty is our escape. Through this gate we can see color again. Art is our yearning. It's our desire to connect with Reality.

I don't know what to write about now because it seems like there are too many possible directions that this could go, so I think I'll stop here for now. Art has many other roles and functions that I'd really like to talk about too, along with this one. Please add your thoughts to the mix, and thanks so much already for your input!

"Sure on this shining night
I weep for wonder,
Wandering far alone
Of shadows on the stars."

-James Agee, from "Sure on this Shining Night"

What is art?

2008-08-06T01:18:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking a lot lately about art and its importance and role in our society, so I thought I'd start a blog so that I can sort through my thoughts and hopefully get some feedback. I feel like as a musician I should be more confident about what I believe art to be, but I think that a good starting place is being confident that I do not know exactly what art is. So, if anyone reads this, here is a question for you:

What is art?

Here's my very rough and incomplete answer:

I can't say in a sentence what art is, but I can try to describe it. Art is a practice that is unique to humankind. It's found almost everywhere: from the photo on the wall to the guy playing the guitar in the Pike Place Market to the mural by Aaron's Ark in Eatonville to the dance studios in South Hill. What about some other less-mentioned art forms? The pie that just came out of the oven: "This isn't going to be a very pretty pie;" or the children making snakes out of play-doh; snow angels; architecture; that creative writing piece for English 101; tattoos; gardens; graffiti; the baskets that used to hang below the ceiling; web design; kaleidoscopes; or fish bowls? What is not included in the word "art"? It's hard to define exactly where art ends.

I do not believe that we can define art as "expressing oneself." This phrase cheapens the value of art. Art is civilization. It is communal. The purpose of art is not to express oneself; art can never only express the thoughts of one person. It always reflects something outside. When we see or hear a work of art, we perceive a reflection of the world, an understanding (actually, it's always some kind of a misunderstanding) of the universe, and a familiarity and security that comes from realizing that we live in the same world. Art does not allow us to absorb ourselves in ourselves.

If anyone reads this, what are your thoughts so far?