Musings and Excogitations

Fundamentalism

2011-06-18T15:41:00.000-07:00

I’ve never really understood the term “fundamentalist.” Often it’s used in the context of an insult or attack, as in, “Those crazy fundamentalist wackos are tearing our church apart.” Although I believe in the existence of crazy wackos, I always assumed that the term “fundamentalist” came from the root word “fundamental,” namely “foundation,” which is what an organization is based on, founded on. So that technically means that any given organization was started by its fundamentalist(s). How could the organizer/developer of an organization or institution, or those who uphold the original fundamental beliefs of an organization, tear it apart? Either you agree to and uphold the foundational principles of an organization, or you don’t, and you go find another organization that you do agree with. It’s like walking into a Boy Scouts meeting, sitting down, and saying, “Hi, my name is Bob, and I’m an alcoholic.” You might get befuddled looks until someone kindly points out that the meeting you’re looking for is actually two doors down the hall on the left.

Will anyone hate you if you show up at a Boy Scouts meeting thinking it’s AA? Probably not (unless you’re really creepy). Likewise, will anyone hate you or chase you out with guns drawn if you walk into Best Buy and ask for a pint of strawberries? Probably not likely, either—although if they do, that is indeed reprehensible, no question. No, most likely the employees’ responses would be, “Sorry sir, we don’t sell strawberries in Best Buy, but would you be interested in our latest mp3 player? It has 120 GB! (Or, perhaps you meant you’re looking for a Blackberry? We have the newest version, better features!)” They’d love to have you in their store anyway, especially if you’re likely to walk out with a new laptop, which is worth much more than a pint of strawberries. Likewise, you are not expected to have the entire catalog of Best Buy merchandise memorized before you’re allowed to set foot in the store. However, if you stay and cause a scene in the store or go and write editorials about judgmental, hypocritical, backbiting, fundamentalist employees who refuse to sell a good man his strawberries, then perhaps the store employees might do well to wonder if this man ought to have gone to the grocery store instead.

Now I’m sure there have been plenty of cases where someone unused to American culture might walk into Best Buy thinking it’s a grocery store and innocently ask for strawberries. They don’t intend to cause a stir, they’re just desperately searching for strawberries and have gone into every Victoria’s Secret, Home Depot, and Petsmart on the strip asking for them. And there have been an equal amount of cases where many of the employees of the above stores have ridiculed them, laughed in their faces, made a public spectacle, called the cops, and so on, and the poor strawberry-seeker has had to leave, dejected, ridiculed, strawberry-less, and feeling too ashamed and angry to ever enter any store, even the grocery store just next door. We have no question what ought to happen to those rude employees when the Store Manager or even CEO comes to take account of his employees and their lost sales.

What I’m getting at is this: Rarely (except in cases such as military draft or therapeutic intervention) is anyone forced to join an organization or institution. In almost all cases, people support and join an organization—whether it be the Boy Scouts, Alcoholics Anonymous, the Freemasons, the Democratic Party, or any given religious group—when and if they are made aware of, agree with, and support the organization’s fundamental principles. If they do not, they usually find another organization—perhaps the Girl Scouts, the Republican Party, or a drug cartel—that they do agree with. (There are, of course, various levels of involvement in an organization: AA leaders versus members who squeak by and may relapse soon afterward, church pastors and leaders versus “pew-warmers,” for example.) We also even take the example of a place of employment: if someone is offered a job and Hewlett-Packard and also at Dell and chooses to accept work at one of those institutions, he has agreed contractually to follow its rules and organizational standards, or else lose his job. If he chooses to violate company standards and is consequently fired, does he have a right to be angry at that corporation or its administration for being “judgmental,” “unloving,” or “unforgiving?” An organization (and a church also falls into this category) “sells” a certain “product,” namely, its fundamental principles. If it’s not what you’re looking for, why stay? There are many choices. So, by definition, I would venture to propose, that every member of any organization is a fundamentalist.

But there is one more factor in play in this question. That is, going back to the illustrations above, the question of perception of how the seeker is being treated. In the first example, the strawberry-seeker is standing in Best Buy, feeling unfairly treated because he’s not given his strawberries. Why does he feel this? Were the store employees truly causing him emotional pain, or is that what he perceived? I had a friend who summed it up well when he said something to the effect of, “Sometimes when I feel like a preacher is yelling at me, I realize later that he was not really yelling loudly audibly, but that I was hearing it so loudly in my own ears.” Whether or not that’s true for me is a decision only I can make, often over the course of many painful, heartbroken years of humility.

Testimony

2010-07-05T08:42:00.001-07:00

Lately I've been thinking about people's testimonies. We heard another moving one at church this weekend, from a young man who had been caught in the world of drugs and alcohol and hit rock bottom depression, then finally decided to give God a try, wherein God answered his prayers and rescued him, so he became a Christian. I've been inspired by my fiancee's testimony which was similar; it's hard to believe that he lived that kind of lifestyle in the past, considering what a Christ-like gentleman he is now. I believe with all of my heart that God can transform lives, as in 2 Corinthians 5:17--"Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature; old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new."

The problem is that we hear these testimonies a lot, and sometimes it actually makes it difficult for those of us who don't have these stories ourselves. The world makes it seem like we need to have this amazing conversion story from jail or skid row in order to witness to others about what Christ has done for us. Obviously the last thing we ought to do is live the wild life in order to repent and have a testimony to tell, but without that, sometimes it's almost discouraging to think that we don't really have a good story.

My personal testimony is that I've had ups and downs in my spiritual life, and to be honest, they haven't always coincided with my feelings of happiness or depression. There were times when I wandered from daily devotion and didn't think so much about God, and some of those times were lonely and others were quite happy. There have also been times where I've reached out to God and kept close to Him, and some of those times were filled with happiness and others were moments of deep depression. I can't honestly say that I was miserable without God, then at a certain point I repented and gave my life to Him, "and now I am happy all the day," to quote the song (frankly, that's why I don't really like that part of the song that much anyway).

I had been thinking about this a lot lately when I happened to turn to Hebrews 11 this morning. It's such a famous chapter that sometimes it's easy to gloss over if you pretty much have it memorized already. But what struck me was that the champions of faith mentioned in this chapter, such as Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, and Moses, never really had a fantastic "conversion" testimony. They were simply--faithful.

The verse that struck me the most was Hebrews 11:5 (emphasis mine).

By faith Enoch was taken away so that he did not see death, and was not found because God had taken him; for before he was taken he had this testimony: that he pleased God.

Wow, Enoch had the best testimony ever: he didn't even have to die, he was that close to God! God just took him to Heaven! And what was his testimony? One simple thing: that he pleased God.

So, for those of us who don't have a great story--or those who do, it doesn't really matter in the end--it's not so important what your story is, your testimony is simply this: Can it be said that you pleased God?

By the way, the next verse defines what it means to please God:

But without faith it is impossible to please Him; for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.

So, the way we please God is to have faith in Him. And according to this verse, the way to have faith in Him is to: 1. believe that He is (exists), and 2. believe that He rewards those who diligently seek Him.

Apparently those two elements are the most powerful testimony in the world.

Thought for the day: on arbitrary laws

2009-05-07T07:20:00.001-07:00

Just a little thought I came up with while studying to teach this week's Sabbath school lesson on sin.

Often, people look at the test of the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden as an example of the arbitrary laws of God. Laws, they say, ought to be for our protection, and make sense with the laws of nature, and so on, whereas, just simply eating a fruit (not even one that was particularly poisonous) is completely random. Why should they have been forbidden to eat the fruit of one particular random tree? Therefore, God is arbitrary and harsh, and only wants to display tyrannical qualities, etc.

This leads to the question: Is it fair for a parent to test their child's obedience? We can safely assume that most parents would agree that complete obedience to their word is best for their child, so that they will know that if they yell, "Get out of the street!" their child will immediately respond and obey, not a second too late. Therefore, parents spend most of their children's young lives training them to be obedient to them. But a random test, as random as the seemingly useless tree-test, just to see if they will obey?

Perhaps one answer lies in the context of Adam and Eve's test, compared to the surroundings of every child since. Quite simply, Adam and Eve did not have traffic, and there were no cars to get out of the way of. They had no hot stoves, no swimming pools to drown in, no poison on their shelves, or sharp glass objects to break. In fact, they had no other dangers that God had to train them to stay away from, because it was a perfect sinless paradise. However, parents today have all of those dangers and many more at every corner to use as practical training in obedience. There's no need to think up any arbitrary test of faith or obedience when our children are constantly exposed to dangers all around, whereas God had to think up something to see if His new people would take Him at His word.

Now, after 6,000 years of evil in the world, we know something very clearly that Adam and Eve did not know at the time: if we run too fast in the yard, we could trip on a rock and scrape our knees up real good. But there might just be other dangers beyond our comprehension, dangers only God really knows about, dangers beyond our street and our medicine cabinets and our hot stoves. Those are the dangers we just have to trust God to know about--and again, just take Him at His word.

Musings on faith and prepositions

2009-04-29T20:34:00.001-07:00

I realized that one of the reasons why I haven't been blogging lately is because it's so much easier to come up with a one-sentence status update on Facebook than an entire essay for a blog. Right now I'm going through a brief "fast" from Facebook because I have other things I need to get done, namely practicing violin (what a thought! A professional violinist needing to practice violin?). Also, I heard a great sermon this past weekend based on Hebrews 12:1, and realized that I needed to go on a diet. So, now I have more time to...blog. (So much for practicing. Well, I got 2 hours in this morning!)

However...what will the philosopher write about today? I've had a lot of things on my mind recently, some from personal experiences, and some ideas from sermons I've heard. (In case you're wondering about all the links, yes, I'm promoting Audioverse. No, they don't pay-per-click.) We've been studying the first half of Romans at prayer meeting lately (there I go again), and I've been blessed by the light that Dr. McNulty has shed on justification by faith. The study on Romans 4 especially struck me. The summary is that Abraham was justified before God through his belief (Rom. 4:3)--which was evidenced in his works (James 2:21-24). What was that faith? He believed that what God had promised, He could fulfill. In Abraham's case, God had promised him that a child would be born to him, even in his very old age, and that child would become a great nation. Twice Abraham was tested in that, first, just being able to have the child at all at his and Sarah's age, and secondly, after this miraculous child was actually born and raised, God told him to sacrifice him. But Abraham trusted God at His word--that whatever He said would happen, would happen.

So that's the first important lesson of justification by faith: our actions testify to whether we believe God's word is good or not. The second involves where that faith comes from. Dr. McNulty brought out an interesting point regarding Galations 2:20 and Revelation 14:12. The King James Version is the only version that has this in common with those texts: the little phrase "faith of Jesus." Most of the other versions say "faith in Jesus" or something to that effect--remaining faithful to Jesus, etc. In the original language, there is no preposition at all, so I'm not sure what the translations are based on. But it's an interesting thought that a world of difference exists in those prepositions. Having "faith in Jesus" is certainly important, and I believe our faith in Jesus is what I've described above. But having "faith of Jesus"--what does that mean? It means that we take hold of the faith that Jesus had when He was on earth--and certainly, there was never a person who has ever lived who had as much faith as He! His connection with His Father was unbreakable, unimaginably deep. If we have the faith "of" Jesus, we can share in that connection through Christ Himself, whose life on earth made it possible that we can be saved through His merits and His faith, instead of relying solely on whatever faith that our own feeble minds can come up with.

"I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me."

How I Went To Sleep Last Night

2009-04-20T07:12:00.000-07:00

Memory verse #1:

2 Cor. 10:4-5 "The weapons we fight with are not weapons of this world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to make it obedient to Christ."

Weapons. Demolishing strongholds. Captivity.

Fighting words.

Who can fight that?

Memory verse #2:

Exodus 14:14 "The Lord shall fight for you, you need only to be still."

Good night.

2008 Year in Review

2008-12-31T10:38:00.001-08:00

Nothing happened this year, either.

Chicken Soup for the Soul

2008-12-11T07:14:00.001-08:00

I haven't written a blog post for a while; writer's block, I suppose. I've been focusing my energy on organizing the music for the Generation of Youth for Christ conference, coming up just next week. I still feel somewhat overwhelmed with what needs to be done to get everything ready, but at the same time I'm not exactly sure what that is at this point; put out fires wherever they occur, I suppose, and see what happens when I get there.

I really ought to get out of bed and get to work, but I felt compelled to finally write another blog post, lest my readers (whoever they are!) get discouraged that this blog hasn't been updated for so long that they quit checking it. Today's topic: emotions.

The title of this blog evokes feelings of comfort food and nice puppy stories, but that's not what I have in mind. I was thinking today about the soul's emotions and how we care for them, compared to our physical weaknesses and how we care for them. I think that emotions are like a cold or a flu. It's inevitable that at times we may feel under the weather. If you're a fairly healthy person and do all the right things, it may be less often than otherwise. We are taught to eat healthy foods and avoid sugar and take our vitamins, dress warmly, get lots of exercise and rest, wash our hands regularly, and avoid getting close to people who are sick to avoid catching something. If we do these things, our chances for getting a cold may decrease, and we may be able to heal quicker and not lose as much productivity. However, I don't believe there's ever been a person on earth who has been so healthy and done all the right things so that they didn't ever have a day where they just felt icky and feverish and had a cough or sore throat and wanted to stay in bed. It's just the way things go.

Likewise, our emotions can be controlled--and not controlled--in the same way. If we eat healthy foods and avoid sugar and take our vitamins, dress warmly, and get lots of exercise and rest, it helps to strengthen our minds as well as our bodies so that we can have clear minds to make good decisions and deal with things. Very importantly, we also ought to keep our hearts clean as well as our hands, and avoid contact with influences that will contaminate us. However, as colds, emotions and temptations do come into our minds without our consent; it's just part of life.

I was listening to a sermon from Audioverse yesterday, and it mentioned that it's not our emotions that define us, it's what we choose to do with them. Too many times, people think that just because they feel something, that means they have to act on it, which is often times not the right decision. (I'm talking about the kind of emotions that could lead us to make the wrong decision, such as anger, unsanctified attraction, jealousy, despair, etc.) In this case, it helps to think of these emotions as a cold--do the best you can to get over it, but understand that you just have to let it go. And just like the times when you are lying in bed with at fever of 100 degrees and feel like you can't remember what it was like to be well and will never be healthy again, you just have to realize that with time, you'll be all back to normal again.

Studying

2008-10-15T08:41:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I'm struck with how similar the method of studying the Bible is to studying music.

Take, for example, the Bach unaccompanied sonatas and partitas: if you're unfamiliar with them, they're nothing but a collection of enormous, overwhelming works for plain old solo violin, and they tend to sound similar. Even simple sounding. If you're a violinist and you're trying to play them, some movements are not technically terribly difficult to play (well, excluding all the fugues and the Chaccone, of course), but it doesn't take long to realize that if you actually want to play them in tune, they aren't as easy as they look. What I've found about the Bach unaccompanied works is that the more you dig into them, the more you realize is actually in there and how very challenging they are. Soon you find that it's a lifetime work.

The Bible is the same way. You can look at it on a shallow level and think you've pretty much got the hang of it. But the deeper you study it, the deeper you realize it is.

This led me to think about the technique of studying the Bible, something I've been wondering about and working on for a long time. It occurred to me that, since I teach the violin all day every day, perhaps there's something I can learn from learning an instrument like the violin.

The first thing I teach beginning violinists is technique. I don't hand them a violin and say, "Here's a concerto, figure it out and go play it." The first two or three months are spent practicing holding the violin and bow over and over and playing games to develop coordination, ear training, and general comfort with the instrument before the bow is even placed on the string to make a sound. The next step is "patterning," where the child's teacher and parent actually move the bow on the string for him, so the student can gradually develop the feeling of what it's like to move the bow, and what it should sound like. Eventually, after weeks of daily practice (often with tears), the student gets a turn once in a while to copy Mom's pattern. Then, after more time of developing the technique, the student is able to play one simple rhythm pattern--but play it much more beautifully than a student who has never been through this process could play the Mendelssohn concerto.

With the Suzuki method, while all of this technique is being developed physically, the student is constantly listening to the CD of the music he or she will be playing to internalize it in the same way language is listened to and internalized for every child. By the time the student is ready to play, he or she will know the music so well that it's a natural progression to just play the tune that's already in his or her head.

When the student gets advanced enough to play a longer piece, great care needs to be taken to encourage him to avoid playing through the entire piece once at top speed, then saying, "There, I did it, now I can stop practicing." We can all guess how much the student would improve from that type of practice! Yet it's so unnatural for a student to go slower, take a 4-6 note "nugget" to practice, and play it over and over and over to really understand it and make it so easy that it's impossible to play incorrectly. Parents and teachers are absolutely necessary for directing a young student to do this. When each difficulty is mastered, then the student can successfully play through the entire piece as beautifully as the recording she has been listening to.

Sometimes in my Bible study I find myself doing the same thing as my Book 1 students studying the Bach minuets (yes, the same composer who wrote the enormous unaccompanied works). I read through, halfway thinking about what I'll eat for breakfast and what today's jogging route will be, and say "I've read it, I'm done." It would be so much better if I used the following method while studying:

1. Listen, or read, over and over. Really know how it goes.

2. Find a smaller passage to dig into--not the whole book at once.

3. Ask: What is the challenge in this passage? What questions can be answered?

4. What small "nugget" of information can I find to answer the question?

5. Am I willing to study that nugget and do whatever it takes to internalize it--to make it so easy that it's impossible to think incorrectly? How can I apply it to my life?

6. Now, going back over the larger passage and connecting it with other passages, how can I fit it into the bigger picture to make the whole thing hang together in a coherent way?

For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat. For every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe. But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. (Heb. 5:12-14). Well, we're getting there.

Philosopher off duty

2008-09-24T09:11:00.000-07:00

Why bother, when you can just hear this?

Wages

2008-09-11T22:40:00.000-07:00

For the wages of sin is death... Rom. 6:23

Could we compare that statement to this: the wages of unplugging a lamp is darkness?

Walking on eggshells

2008-08-29T06:52:00.000-07:00

I've been on leave from the philosophizing business for a while, much to the disappointment of my dad. Well, it's a hard job to be a full-time philosopher. It's a risky business, and the inspiration has to hit you just right. I'm glad I don't make my money doing this. Actually, I can't imagine making money being a philosopher. Who would pay someone to think for them? I suppose inspiring someone to think for themselves might be worthy of payment. Of course, the kind of philosophizing done nowadays seems to lean toward the "it's all OK, there are no absolutes, right and wrong has been out of style for a while now, so do and think whatever you want, just as long as you don't actually make it look like you're stating a concrete truth" mode. Because, America, it's time for a change!

So, I'll give a report about my vacation. A few weeks ago, when my mom was here visiting, we took a day trip to Anacapa Island, one of the Channel Islands off the coast of Southern California. The Channel Islands are known as "the Galapagos of North America" for the diversity of flora and fauna which has adapted to the islands and is not known to any other place, such as Torrey pines, tree sunflowers with a trunk, tiny foxes, etc. It was overcast the day we visited, thankfully, because there are no trees at all, only scrub. There are no beaches on Anacapa Island, it is one huge rock, looming out of the ocean. We had to climb the equivalent of several flights of stairs to get from our boat to the top of the island, because every edge of the island is massive cliffs plunging into the sea. The entire island is about one mile long, so you can walk back and forth on the whole thing within a few hours. And you'd see the same thing everywhere: scrub, these funny short tree sunflowers (which had dead blossoms at that time), and, oh, birds. Birds. Seagulls everywhere. And seagull poop.

Another indigenous bird on the Channel Islands is the brown pelican. Our tour guide was careful to inform us that the other half of the island, about a quarter mile away and separated by a small isthmus, was off limits to all humans because it was a brown pelican rookery. We were told that the brown pelican population had been diminishing because of the pollution of DDT in past decades. Apparently the presence of DDT in the ocean's food chain affects the brown pelicans by causing the eggshells to become soft. These type of birds have the habit of standing on their eggs to incubate them, instead of sitting on them, so with the soft eggshells, the parents actually break their own eggs. Out of 500 or so eggs laid in this rookery one year, only one survived, we were told.

Of course, this had caused widespread panic among environmentalists and brown pelican fans. DDT was outlawed, and vast amounts of money was spent to try to clean it up and establish safe havens for the poor creatures. My immediate thought was, why doesn't someone just try to teach the pelicans not to stand on their eggs? Which led me to wonder about something: We are told that life has changed and adapted over 5 billion years or whatnot, from the level of protozoa through frog and monkey and finally human. These changes have been a result of adaptation to surroundings, even to the point where not only will a given animal physically and genetically adapt to a challenge it faces, say, color to match its surrounding, but it actually has the capacity to change into another species. My question is: If a frog can, over time, transform itself into a bird to solve the problem of, say, wanting to catch flies which are higher than it can reach, why are humans so disturbed about the pelican and its eggshells? You would think, logically, that the evolutionists would be the first to say, "Who cares about DDT? Just give it time, and the pelicans will evolve to figure out not to stand on their eggshells. Then, eventually, they will turn into beavers." Creationists ought to be the ones to worry that what we're doing might mess up God's creations the way they were originally designed.

Quote of the day

2008-08-22T07:58:00.000-07:00

"If I had a message, I would write it down and e-mail it to everybody. I would save a lot of paint that way." --Performance artist Laurie Anderson, when asked what the message is in her work

See ya!

2008-08-06T22:28:00.000-07:00

I'll be back August 19. Until then, this is where I'll be:

(the ocean below being Cape Cod)

Safari vs. Firefox

2008-06-18T21:12:00.000-07:00

A lot of hype has surrounded the release of Firefox 3, I'm still not sure why. I downloaded it anyway. I used to love Firefox when my only alternative was Internet Explorer, but now that I have Safari on my Mac, I'm not sure. Is this my imagination, or has anyone else noticed a distinct difference in photo colors? I can't think of any other reason besides the browser. (Safari is on the left, Firefox on the right)

The Value of a Human Life

2008-05-29T11:43:00.000-07:00

Prayer meeting last night was led by my friend Angie's grandfather, who gave an inspiring and beautiful message about the value of a human life in God's eyes. It was a message we all ought to know, however, we often need reminders, especially when going through times of difficulty when we feel worthless.

His message focused on the contrast of how humans often view our own worth, and the worth of other humans, compared to God's value placed on us. He reminded us of the many hundreds of thousands who were ruthlessly slaughtered in the last century as a result of the extremely low value placed on human life by vicious dictators. We must compare that to the infinite value God sees us as being worth, so much that He was willing to pay the infinite price of His death and being changed forever, for the benefit of every single human who ever lived, regardless of race, nationality, or intelligence.

"Look at how humans value each other. See the incredibly low value we have placed on humanity, and on individuals. What value do humans say that life is worth? But look to Jesus--look at the infinite price He paid for each of us! What did Jesus say that a human life is worth?"

A voice from one of our resident quick-wits arose from the back of the room in response:

"Many sparrows!"

Weekend

2008-05-26T22:45:00.000-07:00

Today was Memorial Day, and I went to a memorial service, as I mentioned in my last blog, for my friend Ardyce. I managed to get through most of it without too many tears, mostly just a few at the very end, the postlude, which was an LLBN videotape of part of a church service from a few years back when Ardyce played Schubert's "Prayer" (arranged from the Octet) and "The Holy City" during communion. I think I remember that day, because I remember one time she was playing and I think that was the dress she was wearing. She played very well, and looked beautiful and so full of life, as she did all the way up through the week she went to the hospital. The rest of the service was lovely--Joan Coggin did the life sketch, which was characteristically amusing but very reverent. Ardyce's grand-niece and I played a duet; I felt very honored that her brother asked me to play with her. (And it went well, much better than I played at Advent Hope the week before--thankfully! I was getting worried about myself!) The rest of the music was provided by the LLUC choir and orchestra. The orchestra was huge. Often we have trouble filling up the string sections, but there was a huge turnout today, even with the holiday. One of the violinists suggested we leave Ardyce's most recent regular chair empty in her memory (second chair second violins), which was a beautiful little tribute to her, but very sad. It was very, very strange to look over there to an empty chair and not see her--I still kind of keep expecting her to show up at the next rehearsal.

Other than that, I attended two graduation parties and a going-away party this weekend. Fortunately, the honorees of both of the grad parties are staying in town. In fact, one of them, with his new bride-to-be, will be my neighbors! Tim and Sunny are moving in right behind me! Tim and I have been joking about listening to each other practice through the windows. He and Sunny will yell at me that my C#'s are out of tune, and I'll yell at them for not practicing enough.

So that is life...graduations, moving away, memorial services...right now I'm feeling regret that I never got a picture of myself with Ardyce that I know of. I love photography, and I tend to get caught up in composition and lighting and scenery that I often forget to take pictures of people, and I absolutely hate pictures of myself, so I'm not one to go around asking everyone to take a picture of me with such-and-such. But maybe I should, because life is short. I'm also feeling regret that I never was able to thank Ardyce enough for her kindness to me since I've lived here, and I never got near returning even a portion of that kindness. Somehow time passes, and suddenly it's been months and months and we still haven't gotten around to having that big Sabbath lunch party, or going to check out that beach or trail with friends, or go camping, or throw a great party in someone's honor (also kudos to Melody for being such a great party host and fruit-design cake decorator!).

Just some of my random stream-of-consciousness thoughts for tonight. Only two more weeks of school, then I get Mondays and Fridays off all summer!

Tribute to Ardyce

2008-05-23T18:58:00.000-07:00

Memorial Day will really be a memorial day for many of us here in Loma Linda, including myself. On Memorial Day we will celebrate the life of my dear friend Ardyce,* who sadly passed away last Friday after a short, unexpected illness. She had just turned 80.

A short blog doesn't do justice to Ardyce's life of sharing and kindness that she showed to me and to all of her many (thousands of!) friends and family members. Ardyce was a violinist, teacher, former mayor of Loma Linda, general mover and shaker in the community, chair of the Loma Linda University Church vespers committee, loving wife, and adopted mother of not only a few "official" children but numerous "unofficial" ones. Since I would have no idea where to start with all of that, I'll just briefly share some of the many things she's done for me in the last 7 or so years that I've known her.

First of all, she was the person who got me here to Loma Linda. In 2001, when I was living with my parents in Dayton after finishing grad school, I was teaching violin lessons and playing in the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra, but also wondering what was next--I knew that I didn't want to live in Dayton all of my life. Plus, my 2-year contract with the DPO was going to expire. I was contemplating the orchestral studies program at the Manhattan School of Music, which didn't turn out. At that time my family reconnected with Ardyce, whom my dad had been close friends with many, many years ago, through one of her family members who was living in Dayton at the time and went to church at Kettering with us. I met her when she came to visit, had some nice conversation, and later she gave my name to my now-coworkers as a prospective violin teacher here at the Academy. When they called, I decided that Southern California seemed like a great place to try out--nice work environment, mecca of Adventism, chance to meet lots of like-minded SDA young people, nice warm weather, and palm trees.

After I moved here, I stayed with Ardyce for a few days as she helped me find an apartment. Then she proceeded to introduce me to just about everyone I know--she knew a lot of people--including contacts for freelancing and a friend of hers who introduced me to Advent HOPE Sabbath School. So, through that, I could almost say that everyone I know here and everything I do here was thanks to her!

Besides that, her continuing friendship has sustained me during the last 6 years I've lived here. She invited me to be a member of the LLUC vespers committee, has taken me to concerts, and was always willing to have me over for chamber music night or Saturday night popcorn and Mexican Train dominoes, even after her husband passed away.

Although I'm sad to see her go, I know she had a long, full, and purposeful life, and I'm glad that her final illness was a quick one. Apparently she was mostly asleep for the last few weeks since she went to the hospital, and finally just never woke up. I praise God that we do have hope for the resurrection, that people can fall asleep peacefully because they know that the next thing they'll see is the face of their Creator and Redeemer.

*Because of excessive googling activity in the WWW, I have stopped publishing my friends' last names. But many of you know who I'm talking about anyway.

Hooded Orioles

2008-05-23T09:09:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I had the pleasure of a visit from a couple of beautiful hooded orioles. At first I was wondering why an oversized goldfinch was drinking sugar water from the hummingbird feeder. It wasn't until the male, who is more orange and has a distinctive black mask and beard, arrived that I was able to identify them (the female, I believe it was--unless it was a juvenile--is lighter yellow all over except black patterns on the wings, very much like the smaller goldfinches).

Here's the guy (this is not my picture, though)

I hope they continue to come throughout the winter, they're so beautiful!

And in other weird genetic news...

2008-05-21T09:55:00.000-07:00

So much for the famous controversial statement "the amalgamation of man and beast."

sadness is...

2008-05-16T10:55:00.000-07:00

...taking the get-well card off the kitchen table where it's been sitting in a bag for a couple of weeks, waiting to go to its recipient, and filing it away in a drawer because you never got a chance to give it to her.

Motivation

2008-05-14T10:35:00.000-07:00

I haven't been writing many blog posts lately, probably simply due to writer's block. However, to keep Rachel happy, I'll try to be more consistent.

Lately I've been thinking about motivation. Not just motivation to write in my blog (although that's part of it), but mostly in connection with music and practicing. Our string program has its biannual recital time coming up this weekend--starting with a 7-hour marathon of solo recitals on Sunday (yes, everyone has to play a solo), and the group class concert Monday evening--so I've been trying to prepare my students. They are all playing pieces that they've worked on previously, so they are fortunately not rushing to learn them at the last minute (well, most of them). Some of them, though, still haven't practiced much the last few weeks coming up to the recital, so this just makes me think about day-to-day motivators to practice.

What motivates a child to practice an instrument? Their parents? Hopefully, at least in the beginning. I love working with parents who are creative and work with their children to help make practicing fun instead of just telling them to "do it" while they're at work. Eventually, though, teenage years set in, and they need a new form of motivation. Prizes and rewards? They really don't have anything to do with the end result--making music. My wish is for my students to be motivated by the music itself: to listen to Wieniawski's second violin concerto or an album of a famous young violinist's showpieces and say, "I want to play that someday, so I'd better go practice." Is this too idealistic? I felt that way when I was growing up, so it must be possible, but it seems to be rare. (Perhaps partly because not too many of my students actually listen to Wieniawski. Those who do seem to do better.)

Another form of motivation comes from peers. I guess this is one of the strongest motivators of teenagers. When I was growing up I had a good friend, Charles, who was so excited about violin that he shared that excitement with the rest of us, and was constantly introducing me to new pieces ("Here, you have to listen to this!"). (Charles, by the way, is now the concertmaster of the Portland [Maine] Symphony.) This kind of thing doesn't work as well coming from adults, even parents and cool violin teachers like me. We don't seem to have any kids like that in our program right now. Most of them will do their bare minimum of practice because they have to, or else.

Well, these are just a few of my thoughts and dreams for my students. Any great suggestions are appreciated. And, come to think of it, I haven't gotten my violin out of its case yet today, either...time to get to work.

In the news

2008-04-23T11:23:00.000-07:00

If you've read much of my blog, you may have noticed that unlike most blogs, I don't write much about current events or politics. This is mostly because I have very little interest in them. It's so hard to get the straight facts about what politicians are really doing or what they really believe, partly because the media is rather (rather?) selective in what is published, and partly because politicians are named so because they are political--meaning, they say pretty much what people want them to say, regardless of what they may really believe (if they've given it much thought anyway). Also, I'm not interested in my blog becoming a sound-off for the usual political discussions (hence the comment approval setting).

However, as I was researching the Sermon on the Mount for Sabbath school study this week, I did a little googling to get some viewpoints, and found this extremely informative article here. I guess I haven't studied enough to really get the fine theological ramifications of Jesus' famous teaching. Better get to work.

Speaking of news, my dad sent me a link to this article. Either it's a sick joke or the world really is getting grosser and grosser every day. Eww.

Flickr

2008-04-20T21:56:00.000-07:00

I've been working on my Flickr photostream. Flickr is a site where you can download your pictures. That's about it. However, there are some really great photographers on there; not just everyone's vacation photos and snapshots of their friends (although there's plenty of that, too). I just dream that someday I'll be that good. I've gotten into photography a little more since I inherited my dad's Canon Rebel when he upgraded to the newer version. (People always ask me if I've also inherited his artistic talent. No, not for painting. Photography is as close as you're going to get.) I'm always seeking to improve my skills, so it's a constant work in progress. But if you'd like to see some of my pictures, click here. (Leave me nice friendly comments.)

Jim Brown's Violin Shop and Pet Store

2008-03-13T21:25:00.001-07:00

Today I took my bow to be rehaired at my favorite violin shop, Jim Brown in Claremont. It's not my favorite because they have the biggest or best selection (pretty decent for student instruments, but I wouldn't be able to find much for myself there), but because it is closer than LA, I enjoy window-shopping at the boutiques in the Claremont Village when I'm there anyway, there is a nice bakery/deli across the street for lunch, and most of all, because I enjoy chatting with Jim and his wife--they are the sweetest people. They have two grey-and-white cats that prowl around the shop, and lately they have acquired a cocker spaniel named Pepper as well. So here you are, in this violin shop, discussing rehairs and the latest technology in strings, with one cat on your lap, another one rubbing on your ankles, and a dog sprawled out upside down for you to pet.

I thought I'd try out a couple of bows and half size violins for a student while I was there, and just as I started playing, I heard the oddest sound. I have never heard a violin sound this terrible--like two different pitches, one terribly shrieky and out of tune. It stopped as soon as I stopped playing. Very quickly I realized that Pepper was singing along. Yes, the dog has the habit of howling (shrieking is a better word) along with the sound of violins. As a matter of fact, the second time I started playing, Pepper came right over to me, sat on my foot and leaned against my leg, raised his head high like a wolf, and sang blissfully away. We had a lovely duet going until Jim's wife finally took Pepper for a walk (he would go to the door and ring the bell that was hanging on the doorknob when he wanted out). I wished I had a video camera with me; that would have made the perfect YouTube moment.

Hard things

2008-03-07T21:58:00.000-08:00

I don't know why I'm suddenly inspired to write about hard things.

Maybe I'm trying to keep up with my weighty blog title (not that it's visible anymore because of the poppies; maybe I should put that on my list--how to make the title visible over the poppies?) Anyway, I don't feel like writing an essay, and I'll spare my readers from a poem ("Like a mushroom/floating over lime cataracts/on the brink of cowcatchers laden with pomegranates...")--I think I'll just write a list.

Hard things (in no particular order)

1. Remembering a 3-digit number more than 10 minutes. (Those who say music helps math skills are crazy.)

2. Keeping cat hair off black pants.

3. Dealing with students' parents who yell when you can't give them the exact lesson time they want.

4. Keeping sugar from crystalizing when making caramel.

5. Realizing that he just plain doesn't care about you anymore.

6. Fingered octaves. (If you are not a violinist and don't know what this means, consider yourself lucky.)

7. Praying about certain things when you just don't want to.

8. Trying to keep from praying about certain things when you really, really want to.

9. Paganini caprices and Bach unaccompanied sonatas and partitas.

10. Living in this dark, lonely world when you would much rather be with Christ.

What are the hard things in your life?

The Right Arm of the Gospel

2008-03-05T09:23:00.000-08:00

Found in an SDA church bulletin (I am not making this up):

Yoga, anyone?

Progress

2008-02-11T11:19:00.000-08:00

Work is progressing fairly smoothly on programming for Restoration. Besides a few details to clean up, pretty much all of the music and other parts of the service are set. Among the musical treats you can look forward to will be a string quartet and a vocal ensemble from LLU, an orchestra for Sabbath, and a couple of small instrumental ensembles from Loma Linda Academy (ok, including yours truly; couldn't resist). The theme song will be "Come Holy Spirit" (#269), a nice two-liner to the tune of "Jesus The Very Thought of Thee." I chose it partly because of the words in the first verse:

Kindle a flame of sacred love

In these cold hearts of ours.

Thought it went pretty well with the theme, "Ignite."

One thing I was worried about was obtaining the powerpoint slides for the words of the hymns. Writing slides for 4 or 5 songs for each of the 14 services seemed like a huge task, so I asked around to see if anyone had them already, and racked my brain trying to come up with some good options. Then my boss Adrian, displaying the excellent resourcefulness and leadership that makes him such a great director, suggested, "Why don't you search for them online?" I honestly had not thought of that. So I googled "sda hymns powerpoint" and came up with this. I will try to restrain myself from extolling the virtues of this resource until it's actually been tested in the meetings, but it sure looks like a good deal. It took one click and a minute or two to download the words from entire SDA hymnal on presentation-ready powerpoint, easy to use, for free. Somebody ought to give that guy a donation.

So, I'm hoping the Restoration meetings will go well and will be a blessing to the university and the community. I listened to a tiny bit of one of Matt Parra's sermons and although I didn't get too far into it before I had to do something else, I will say that I do like his voice a lot. I have a suspicion we'll get a good turnout of young people this year. We'll have to take note of the gender demographic.

Grading time

2008-02-08T09:03:00.000-08:00

This week I've been writing grades for my students. Yes, you might think, why is a private violin teacher making grades for her students? It's not a school class, just an extracurricular activity, and any grades I make for them don't count for a thing, neither on their report cards nor transcripts nor anything. I've certainly never received grades from any of my violin teachers, nor have I really even heard of anyone else doing that exactly, although many music teachers use various incentives to motivate their students to practice.

I grade my students solely on how much time they spend practicing per week. Here's my reasoning behind it. I have quite a few students who are getting into middle school age, and they comprehend grades. (I don't grade my 5-year-olds, although I might give a sticker for practicing every day.) I think many of them could invest more in their work on the violin. Giving them a "report card" at the end of the quarter makes them feel like it's a class that they have to take seriously, just like math or reading. I like for my students to know what kind of standards I hold for practice. I don't make it very hard on them--I realize that violin lessons are more optional than math or reading, and that there are times when they have a lot of homework that has to get priority. I grade them according to how many minutes they practiced per week, so if they skip a day or two they can make up for it on another day. I calculate grades for the quarter by averaging out all the weeks in the quarter, so if they have a busy week they can make up for it in another week. I also let them include lesson time, group class (45 minutes every week), and whatever else they might do with their violins (play for church, impromptu recital for Grandma, etc.) as practice time. What this works out to is about 180 minutes a week for Book 1 level (about 30 minutes a day for 6 days), 225 minutes for Book 2, 300 minutes for Book 3, etc., to get an A+. I also grade myself at the Book 6+ level, just to be fair.

Here are some observations I've made from the experiment so far:

1. Most of my students get A's. Many of them get A+'s. They enjoy seeing A+ on their report cards, and so do their parents.

2. Those who are progressing more quickly through the repertoire are the ones getting good grades. Those getting C's are not learning as many pieces as quickly. Hmm.

3. I can usually predict who will get what grade.

4. I can usually detect a pretty good correlation between how much practice time they report to me for the week and how prepared they are for that lesson. Also, hmm.

5. Hopefully, some of these students and parents will understand better why I say the things I do in the lesson, and also why they are not progressing very quickly through the repertoire, when they see their grades at the end of the quarter. It helps keep them from being discouraged, thinking that they are not talented, but rather realize that it's mostly a matter of time invested.

6. I feel as though I am less arbitrary when I understand what is going on with my students' practice at home. If I see that a student is struggling with practice, I can talk with them about how to manage their time wisely, how to organize practice, and so on. It also helps me decide if I should assign each student more or less work.

7. Considering the average grades my students have received, I feel as though my grading scale is fair (maybe even on the soft side). Parents seem to like it, and nobody has complained about it yet.

8. Grading myself definitely helps motivate me to practice! I feel like I'm accountable to my students, as well as they are to me. I've gotten more done the last few months than I have for years!

Lynn Harrell lecture

2008-02-03T21:07:00.000-08:00

Today my friend and coworker Theresa took me to a free lecture by the world-renowned cellist Lynn Harrell at the AFM building in Hollywood. It was a fun experience in many ways. First of all, Theresa and I commented that many of our friends from other states get excited when we tell them that we live in Southern California, and immediately say something like, "So you can go visit HOLLYWOOD!" Well, I can tell you that Hollywood itself is nothing glamorous. It's mostly graffiti-painted pawn shops with bars on all the windows and riff-raff hanging around outside, and places like that. Theresa and I wanted to take a picture of ourselves in front of Pete's Lube & Tune to say, "Look, we went out on the town, to Hollywood!"

The musicians' union building is no better. It's an excellent example of dilapidated midcentury boring architecture. The lecture was held in a large room, not even a recital hall. Theresa and I arrived early because we didn't know what the parking situation would be like (it turned out that the area was un-glamorously deserted on a Sunday afternoon, so we were able to park right in front of the building), so we got a seat on one of the front rows. Harrell strolled in about 20 minutes before the program was about to start, in khakis and a pullover sweater, and proceeded to warm up right there on the stage while the audience came in. He spent the next two hours lecturing about how bow hold and left hand positions affect tone quality, and showed close-up pictures of many different hand positions on slides to go with it. Some interesting points he brought up were that you can actually play louder and stronger with the bow without making a crunching sound if you add more vibrato, and that left fingertip placement (whether on the bony tip or the fleshy side of the finger) influences sound a great deal. He also equated string instrument sound with vocal styles; for example, when he's playing French music he plays with narrower, faster vibrato to imitate the slightly "nasal" tone that the French language has. I was expecting him to play more, but it was mostly just a lecture. It was very interesting to us, though, and even though it was mostly cello-oriented there were some interesting points I'm excited to try out on the violin.

After the program Theresa took me to her favorite vegetarian Vietnamese restaurant in Rosemead or San Gabriel or something, where the wait staff didn't speak English. As usual, she ordered far too much food for us. We had very yummy noodle soup and curry soup and spring rolls; and also as usual, she jumped to pay the check and threw in some special Chinese New Year rice wraps for me to take home. I'm so blessed to have such a generous friend like Theresa.

Observation

2008-01-28T23:00:00.000-08:00

Today's observation: cats.

Why is it that it only took one time for my cat to associate the sound of pulling dental floss out of the container with a chance to play with string, yet after many, many repeated events he still does not associate climbing the screen door with the unpleasant effect of being squirted with the water bottle?

A daunting task

2008-01-24T11:49:00.000-08:00

The race has officially begun. Now that the venue and dates are settled, I have 24 days to find people who will do special music, lead song service, play piano, lead prayer and read scripture, and otherwise help with assorted stagehand tasks for three entire weeks of Restoration meetings. Pray for me. No, don't just pray. Sign up.

Blue cards

2008-01-14T14:00:00.001-08:00

Over Christmas vacation, I had the opportunity to play a solo at the church where I grew up. Things always seem to change when you've been gone for a while (like the old saying, "you can't go home again")--most of my old academy buddies have long since moved away, the church has mostly new pastoral staff, and, as many larger SDA churches, the spiritual focus seems to have shifted too, away from the old-fashioned Biblical focus towards following the current worldly marketing trends.

No matter how the trends in society change over time however, there will always be plenty of people in each church who have retained the spirit of simple, Christlike thoughtfulness. I received an envelope full of encouragement in the mail this week in the form of the good ol' "blue cards" I grew up with--made available in all of the pews and sent out by the church to other members and friends for encouragement. These are the kind of notes I always used to get whenever I played in church, starting from when I was about 13 years old. I collected a very large pile over the years; I think I still have most of them. They are among the inspirations that made me continue as a violinist. I thought that if the church members were blessed by my music, maybe there was a ministry for me in it. I was so excited to see that some of the very same people who sent me cards in the past were still sending them (I received about 8 of them this week).

New Year's Resolution Blog

2008-01-09T08:52:00.000-08:00

Happy new year to all! I have returned to sunny (not really) southern California after a lovely vacation to visit my parents in Ohio. It was such a wonderful break, to be able to relax and enjoy time with my family. (To my dad, who checks my blog regularly: hi dad! Thanks for the nice Christmas!) Highlights of my vacation included going to a very nice restaurant overlooking the Cincinnati skyline for my mother's birthday; visiting some old friends and their new babies as well as seeing my old colleagues in the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra at the New Year's Eve concert; not being able to find a single parking space at the mall the day after Christmas and giving up and going to Jungle Jim's instead (as close to an amusement park as a grocery store can be--actually well worth the trip if you are ever in the Dayton/Cincinnati area); getting a chance to play at my home church again after many years, and generally curling up by the fireplace with a soft blanket, a good book, and a Somali cat (couldn't resist adding the link). And of course, a delightful Christmas, as always. When I returned, the weather tradition has continued: This is the sixth year I have gone back to Ohio for Christmas, and even before I moved here I have taken several trips with my family to visit southern California in late December-early January, and every single time the airplane lands in CA at this time of year, the weather is always the exact same in southern California as it was when I left it in Ohio. About 50 degrees and raining.

So, back to normal life, work (programming Restoration--please volunteer to do something!!!), a new year in Southern California, and the topic of my post. After a prayerful mental review of last year and previous years, here are the resolutions I wish to make for the new year:

1. Not to think about (dwell on) any tough times in the past few years.

2. Not to feel sorry for myself for any difficulties that may be going on in my life currently.

3. Not to worry about the future, but leave it in God's hands.

4. Oh yeah, and exercise more.

I hope that my friends with hold me accountable for my New Year's resolutions!

2007: My Year In Review

2007-12-31T14:45:00.000-08:00

Nothing happened this year.

Age

2007-12-16T22:56:00.000-08:00

A few months ago I wrote about my crush on a celebrity--a baby polar bear named Knut. Knut is now one year old.

Ah, how time wears on us all.

Speaking of crushes, as of this weekend I have a new boy friend! Details to come....

Gods incarnate

2007-11-07T11:22:00.001-08:00

File this under "what if your god answers your prayers."

This morning, a 2-year-old girl had an extensive operation performed to remove the additional 4 limbs she was born with, due to an extremely rare condition known as isciopagus, basically a conjoined-twin type condition where one twin was never fully formed and remained attached to the sibling upside-down from the pelvis, leaving her, in this case, with an unusually symmetrical-looking set of 8 limbs.

This happened, in all places--in India.

For centuries, Hindus have worshiped various gods and goddesses of various things, and the characteristic trait of many of them, as commonly seen in beautiful Hindu art, is their multiple arms. As would be expected, most of the villagers from the girl's region worshiped her as a goddess incarnate.

The girl, named Lakshmi after the Hindu goddess of wealth, who is represented as having four arms, was not expected to live into adolescence. She had been plagued with various internal ailments from birth. The surgery took 27 hours and was done by a team of surgeons taking 8-hour shifts to not only remove the extra limbs but reconstruct her body, including transferring a kidney from her dead twin's body into hers, and completely reshaping her pelvis. The cost was $200,000, thankfully paid for by the hospital's foundation, since Lakshmi's parents are poor villagers from rural India and could not afford medical care.

As well as the obvious difficulties her parents faced in their daughter's many health issues (she had not seen a doctor until this) and simply caring for her, the family had to keep her away from people who wanted to buy her for a circus.

Satan is in the business of twisting all things beautifully designed by God and trying to make us not only believe that they are desirable but to make us worship them. But when the reality is revealed, these "gods" are shown to be as unhealthy, undesirable, dangerous, and--dare we say it--freakish as the one who mutilated them.

Take a look at your gods. If you were to really analyze their nature, what would they be? When the God of Abraham, the Creator of all things beautiful and perfect, was incarnated, what was His character?

Fortunately the girl Lakshmi is doing well after the surgery. I hope that she will be able to live a normal life from now on, learning to walk, play, grow up, and love.

And I hope that the testimony of a girl who was once a "goddess" will live to tell us what these unnatural gods are like when the cloak of mysticism is taken away.

The Refiner's Fire

2007-11-04T18:56:00.000-08:00

I've had the privilege of leading the Sabbath school lesson discussion group twice so far this quarter--I say privilege because whenever I teach, I learn so much. (If there's a topic you'd like to study in further detail, I'd strongly recommend you teach it, or at least work up a study as if you were going to teach it.) This quarter's topic is "The Refiner's Fire." Surely, the question of "if God is so good, why do humans have to suffer so much?" is the classic first objection to Christianity. The studies have been presenting this question in the context of the great controversy between Good and Evil, God and Satan--that God is like a Refiner, who subjects his work to extreme heat and fire in order to purge it from impurities. A beautiful illustration, and certainly one that clearly shows not only how bad sin is and how much is necessary to make us holy and fit for Heaven, but also the great lengths to which God will go to make His people holy and fit for Heaven.

The good news for us is "God [is] faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear [it]." (1 Cor. 10:13) What a privilege to know that we have help from God Himself!

But there are still a lot of unanswered questions on our end. Certainly God's character and His ways are enough to study for the rest of our lives. We can't possibly think that we have all the answers to the questions, and as we attempt to answer some, more questions arise. This is part of the test, I think. Here's a good example, a story (which in all likelihood may have been true at some point):

A certain Brother X went to prayer meeting. During prayer and testimony time, Brother X stood up to share.

"Praise God! He has truly answered my prayer! Here is my testimony of praise. For three months now I have been searching for a good job which pays well with good benefits. I interviewed at Helen's Department Store downtown for the position of manager. The outlook looked almost impossible, as they had told me that the position had been filled for a long time now, but they said they'd see what they could do. I prayed and prayed, but I hadn't heard from them for weeks, until this past Monday, when they called and said that I got the job! Praise God!"

When all the Amens and Hallelujas died down, Brother Y stood up to speak.

"I have a prayer request for myself and my family. As you know, our little Tommy was diagnosed with diabetes last month--I thank all of you for your constant prayers and support during this difficult time. Fortunately, I have had a good job with excellent medical benefits which were able to cover all of our entire family's medical costs, including Tommy's supplies and medication. I was the manager of Helen's Department Store downtown for 15 years, but you see, on Monday I lost my job...."

Important announcement

2007-10-31T11:04:00.000-07:00

I have not seen any moths or flies in my kitchen for several weeks now. Praise God!

(For those of you who may have been afraid to come to my place for potluck this Sabbath for fear of insects, do not be afraid.)

Introducing VideoVerse

2007-10-25T09:46:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite websites, AudioVerse, now has a sister site of videotaped sermons, appropriately called VideoVerse. Check it out--more and more videos will be added from various sources, I'm sure (such as Southwest Youth Conference, Restoration, etc.)

O Let Me Walk With Thee

2007-10-07T09:55:00.000-07:00

O let me walk with Thee, my God,
As Enoch walked in days of old;
Place Thou my trembling hand in Thine,
And sweet communion with me hold;
E'en though the path I may not see,
Yet, Jesus, let me walk with Thee.

I cannot, dare not, walk alone;
The tempest rages in the sky,
A thousand snares beset my feet,
A thousand foes are lurking nigh.
Still Thou the raging of the sea,
O Master! let me walk with Thee.

If I may rest my hand in Thine,
I'll count the joys of earth but loss,
And firmly, bravely journey on;
I'll bear the banner of the cross
Till Zion's glorious gates I see;
Yet, Savior, let me walk with Thee.

L.D. Avery Stuttle

"Sealed canisters"

2007-10-03T21:07:00.000-07:00

Update on the current moth situation in the kitchen: After I took every item out of my cupboard, inspected, cleaned, and put it away (the un-infested ones, that is), I am still battling large numbers of moths every day. I thought the problem had been taken care of because of this--One of the very last things I took out to inspect was a container of whole wheat flour in a "sealed" canister. You may recognize the model of this container. If you do, do not assume that it is safe from bugs!

Expression

2007-09-28T21:38:00.000-07:00

Just a little experience I had with a student this week...

Johnny's* mother came in early before his lesson alone, frantically gesticulating and pacing, exclaiming that Johnny wanted to quit violin, that he hated it and every practice session was a session of tears and temper tantrums. She herself is a music teacher, so she understood that there's only so much a music teacher can say to parents, especially considering that although I have over 30 students I don't have any children of my own. I asked her, "What do you usually say to parents of your students who are going through the same thing?" She gave the usual reply, that all of us have gone through this, there are phases where children, especially preteens, don't want to do what their parents want them to, etc.; things I would say as well. I did my best to encourage her, but that was all I could tell her, too. I assured her that her son was doing very well, and was just at the point where he needed the encouragement to take it to the next level. I'd hate to see him quit, because he's a very good player and I enjoy teaching him.

After a few minutes Johnny came from class into the studio for his lesson. We did not mention what his mother and I had talked about; I thought I'd save it for the end. Johnny proceeded to play a few scales, review pieces, and a Vivaldi concerto. Everything he played had a feeling of tension and anger in it. It was truly amazing to me how much this little boy could express with his violin. I kept reminding him to slow down his shifts, relax his left hand for vibrato, and loosen his right elbow to smooth the sound. Toward the end of the lesson, I gave Johnny a little talk. I pretty much just told him, "Johnny, no matter what you feel, you have to be obedient to your mother, and practice just the way she asks you to. No temper tantrums are allowed; crying does NOT count as part of your practice time!" Then I told him: "I can tell simply by the way you are playing that you are angry. You have to understand how much your violin expresses the way you feel. It's great to express your feelings through your music, but you must control your anger."

As Johnny was putting his violin in its case at the end of the lesson, he listened intently to me as I told him and his mother, "You always hear about controversies involving musicians' unions and various theater companies and films wanting to save money by using 'canned' music, synthesizers, multi-track recordings and so on, as opposed to hiring live musicians. Sometimes people have even theorized that with so much technology that can produce computer-generated music, real, live musicians will become a thing of the past. But we can see that this is why there are musicians in the world. It's truly amazing how much you can express with your instrument. I get this all the time--parents tell me something about how practice is going at home, and immediately I can see what they mean from the first piece a student plays in the lesson." Believe it or not, this applies to Twinkle as well as Vivaldi concerti.

*not his real name; names changed to comply with HIPAA policy

Praise du jour

2007-09-27T08:38:00.000-07:00

Apart from insect infestations (the conclusion of the story to be revealed shortly--keep checking back), and an occasional computer crash (thanks go out to Ben M., for his kind work on my computer), my life is fairly uneventful, and my praises to God are for personal day-to-day things that may not make sense to other people in a blog. But once in a while I have to share certain experiences that were truly God's workings.

The last week Joelle and I have been frantically stuffing endless boxes and envelopes for GYC promo materials, which needed to go out this week. I think we've spent an average of 4 hours a day since Sunday on this, and along the way, have encountered numerous technical problems--computers, printers, ink, moving boxes between our houses numerous times, etc. (I've been reading a book about early Adventist history, where a quite a few of the Advent camp meetings in 1843-1844 drew 6,000+ people daily to hear William Miller preach about the soon return on Christ--and none of the organizers of these events even had cars, let alone Internet, mail merge programs, or Endicia pre-paid postage systems. But that's another blog.)

Yesterday evening Joelle, Norman and I loaded my Jetta to the brim with yet another shipment of envelopes to go out to all the SDA conferences on earth, I think, and my assignment for the day is to take them to the post office.

This morning at exactly 3 AM my car alarm went off. For a bit of background, there have been quite a few car break-ins in our neighborhood recently (the apartments in the area have carports with no garage doors). Also for clarification, although you hear endless car alarms all night and day from the kind of cars whose alarms go off at the slightest vibration or possibly affront to their feelings, my car alarm has never gone off before. I just knew that this meant someone was trying to break into my car. Granted, 500 brochures advertising "Be" are probably not the mother lode for car thieves, but I couldn't help thinking how disastrous it would be if someone decided to vandalize them for fun, or take them (or my car) away just to check if there was something more valuable in all of those boxes.

All of this was going through my head, in those odd intersomnious 3 AM moments, when everything is scarier than reality. I certainly didn't want to go out and try to chase anyone off all alone in the dark at that time, so there was nothing to do but pray. So I prayed and prayed, "Dear Jesus, this is your work and your ministry; please keep these brochures safe so they can get to the people who need them!" While I was praying, my favorite part of a hymn came to mind, "I Sing The Mighty Power of God:"

There's not a plant or flower below but makes Thy glories known;
And clouds arise, and tempests blow, by order from Thy throne.
Creatures that borrow life from Thee are subject to Thy care;
There's not a place where we can flee but God is present there.

I figured if God could do all of this, He could certainly protect some brochures.

Eventually I fell asleep, and first thing in the morning I went out to see what became of my car. There it was, completely intact, nothing missing and no damage to my car.

A postscript to the story: I was so excited that I called Joelle at 7:45 and told her the story so she could thank God with me, because I didn't think I could thank Him enough. Maybe that's what praise really is.

What's new, second edition

2007-09-19T09:56:00.000-07:00

There are so many exciting things happening in my life right now, I can't help but share some of them with my friends on the blogosphere. Here are a few of the highlights:

1. My landlord kindly left me an extra bag of potting soil the other day. The front of the bag proudly boasts of its contents in large letters as such: "All Natural with Added Organic Ingredients: Worm Castings, Kelp Meal, Bat Guano, and Chicken Manure." I wonder if I'll plan on wearing gloves when I'm gardening from now on.

2. The critical phase of Operation Stupid Little Mothlike Flies in the Kitchen is in full effect. I killed about 10 of them the other night. The turning point occurred, however, when I found larvae in my bag of Cheerios, which I have not had in the cupboard for more than a week. Yesterday I spent a large part of the morning taking everything out of the pantry cupboard, throwing away large amounts of suspect food, inspecting every angle of everything else, and scrubbing. Now I realize that all I have left in the cupboard is a few cans of beans, an extra veal baby food jar for the cat, cereal (well locked up in tupperware), a can of powdered "wassail" which was a gift from a student last Christmas, and an unopened very large bottle of Vietnamese spring roll dipping sauce from when Monica lived here, I think (do you have any recollection of this, Monica?).

3. In other insect news, a black widow spider was found in my teaching studio at the school the other day--on the ceiling, precariously dangling above where my students usually stand. Needless to say, I moved to another room for the day and called maintenance. I know they did come the following morning looking for it, and there is now no spider in the place where it was; however, nobody told me whether or not they actually found it or not. I have an awful lot of bookcases in my studio.

4. I think it rained last night.

More exciting updates to come, I'm sure.

Annual Birthday Blog

2007-09-07T20:38:00.001-07:00

This past week, I celebrated another year of life God has so graciously granted me. It's easy to take time, people, and events for granted, so a birthday is an excellent time to reflect on how God has led each of us in our lives. I was assigned by a friend the task of blogging the answer to the question, "How do I feel God has led me and blessed me in the past year?" Yesterday this same friend helped me define exactly what the answer is.

If I could sum everything up in a small statement, it would be this: Praise God that there are things in our life that we absolutely cannot control on our own. It just makes us realize how much we have to depend on God for constant guidance.

"Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus." Phil. 4:6, 7.

Lessons learned...while teaching

2007-08-27T21:53:00.000-07:00

A few thoughts today from today's violin lessons...

Today I was thinking about how some of my students resist letting their parents help them learn. The "secret trick" we have for teaching young violin students how to make a beautiful tone right from the beginning is: to do it for them. Once they have learned how to hold the violin and bow (a good 2-3 months right there), the day finally comes when they can put the bow on the string. The next thing that happens is not to let them move the bow on their own. Instead, for a few weeks, the teacher and the parent moves it for them. I teach the parents how to reach over and move the bow on the string while the student is holding the bow and violin in play position, just relaxing, a process called "patterning." In the process, the student learns the physical feeling of how the bow moves on the string properly, and most importantly, learns to relax his elbow while Mom or teacher does the work for him. In essence, by learning submission he learns the right way to make a beautiful, relaxed tone.

This works extremely well--until the child starts refusing to let Mom help him and wants to do it on his own. Scrub, scrub, scratch, scratch. This is where the fights and tears and "I wanna quit" breaks out at home practice time. Yes, it is practically inevitable that this will happen at some point. I try to counsel the parent to take control of the situation, not to let Junior manipulate or control her. Because the alternative is that the child will learn a pattern of disobedience--not to mention a tight bow arm and a horribly scratchy, uncontrollable bow stroke which is extremely difficult to unlearn, except by Mom regaining control and our young violinist learning to submit to authority.

Lesson number 1 is that we are all children, like it or not, and we have an Authority, as well as our earthly authorities. If we submit and let the ultimate Teacher and Parent control our bow arms for us, we will be able to make the most beautiful sound possible. If we think we can do it better on our own if we just work harder, we will make a scratchy, horrible sound. That's hard to unlearn.

Lesson number 2 comes from listening. The way I teach young beginners how to play new songs is by listening to them on the CD over and over again until the tunes are stuck in their memory, like new words for an infant building its vocabulary. This not only frees up the student to concentrate on technique, but also gives him a pattern of tone, phrasing, etc. to imitate. The music will flow out of the student naturally as if a recording were played in his mind, rather than "the C# comes after the E, then two beats on the B," etc. When the student has trouble remembering how to play the notes to a piece, all I ever say is, "Go home and listen some more." If the student has learned the notes wrong, my usual line is, "This week, listen to this piece more often than you play it. If you play it three times a day, listen to it four times; if you play it ten times, listen to it eleven times."

Oddly enough, this answers a philosophical question involving what we should be studying as Christians. Sometimes I've asked the question, "Should I study other religions, what other people believe as well as the Bible, so that I can relate to them and be able to answer their questions with knowledge of where they're coming from, rather than ignorance of everyone else's worldviews except my own?" It's a tough question, because it does make sense; however, the more we study other worldly philosophies without truly grounding our own beliefs the more danger we're in to be influenced by them.

How is this idea related? If my students have not listened to the CD enough to know the correct notes, they will have their own ideas stuck in their heads, and no matter how much they practice, they will be practicing the wrong notes to perfection. Practicing is great, though. Just be sure to study the real thing more than you practice your own wrong notes. Likewise, intellectual study and philosophical thoughts are great. Just be sure to study the real thing more than you study your own ideas, otherwise, you won't have the Pattern in your head, and your own philosophies will take precedence.

This thought occured to me when I was reading from 1 Testimonies, a letter of reproof to a Brother Hull: "You will receive more strength by spending one hour each day in meditation, and in mourning over your failings and heart corruptions and pleading for God's pardoning love and the assurance of sins forgiven, than you would by spending many hours and days in studying the most able authors, and making yourself acquainted with every objection to our faith, and with the most powerful evidences in its favor." (1T 433-434)

What's the bean???

2007-08-21T23:13:00.000-07:00

The other day I had the privilege of accompanying Monica to her ultrasound appointment. It was very interesting; amazing what technology can see nowadays. I was one of the first to see the little face and toes! So...what is the bean? I won't tell, you have to click here. (I will, however, say that the little hands have great potential for a very nice bow hold.)

Photo albums

2007-08-14T22:00:00.000-07:00

By popular demand (Tim), I have published several photo albums.

One of the albums includes pictures from various friends' weddings I've attended recently (this one from Alison and Jay's).

as well as Yosemite.

Tannhauser

2007-08-05T09:10:00.001-07:00

For some reason, I don't know why, I've been wanting to be able to play Wagner's Overture to Tannhauser on my blog, and now I finally figured out how. Click the arrow on the blue bar to the right twice to listen to Tannhauser while reading my blog.

On Bible Promises and Chocolate Fondue to go with them

2007-07-30T11:44:00.001-07:00

Yesterday I enjoyed a lovely day with my best friend Monica in Pasadena. Unfortunately, her husband Andrew left that morning to go to Washington DC until early September for AFIP. I was having kind of a tough day myself, so we indulged in a trip for some girly "retail therapy" (although neither of us bought very much, but it was fun to window-shop). We also splurged on a four-course dinner at a restaurant called The Melting Pot. This restaurant is unique in that every table has its own stovetop burner, on which they put the pot that you can dip things into. The first course was a cheese fondue, with bread chunks and pieces of raw vegetables and apples were dipped in the pot of melted cheese. Then a salad, and the main course, which in our case was the vegetable plate, for which they bring out pieces of all sorts of different raw vegetables. The pot is now filled with boiling vegetable broth to cook all the vegetables and things in. But, of course, the crowning glory was the chocolate fondue, with strawberries (my favorite), banana, pineapple, poundcake, and cheesecake pieces to dip in the chocolate. Not a meal I'd indulge in very often, but after all, I had a duty to console Monica! :)

Speaking of consolation, I get the feeling nowadays that many Christians pretty much use the Bible solely as a source of "nice verses" of consolation, wisdom, etc. For that alone, we might as well consult Confucius or Hallmark. I've been studying the book of Deuteronomy lately, which has some beautiful moments (ch. 7:12-26; ch. 28:1-14), and some not-so-pretty ones (ch. 9; ch. 28:15-68). I'd pretty much sum up the book of Deuteronomy with the words from 11:26-28--

"Behold, I set before you this day a blessing and a curse;
A blessing, if ye obey the commandments of the LORD your God, which I command you this day:
And a curse, if ye will not obey the commandments of the LORD your God, but turn aside out of the way which I command you this day, to go after other gods, which ye have not known."

I believe that everyone who wants to claim the beautiful promises in the Bible should also read and claim the words from the books of the Pentateuch and the Prophets.

With that in mind, here's a tiny list of texts I've been looking at lately that have brought courage and hope. (I'm going to make my blog readers do some homework and look them up for themselves!)

Exodus 33:18-23

Psalm 27:13

Psalm 68:6

Daniel 12:12

John 14:14

Revelation 21:1

Names

2007-07-27T08:05:00.000-07:00

Of all the spectacular, mind-boggling events that took place in the process of Creation and Earth's early days, it's difficult to imagine which ones would have been the most beautiful. Perhaps the process of God speaking the words of Life to bring everything into existence (or, as C.S. Lewis imagines it in The Magician's Nephew, He sang the words, which brings an interesting picture to the imagination), or Adam's first look into God's eyes, or Eve's eyes? Of course. But also, as I imagine it, I think one of the most fun parts would have been when Adam named the animals.

Names have always held such a special meaning that you could almost say that part of a being's personality is in their name. I am thinking of Parsnip the Opossum. Of all the forest creatures which came to the back porch, Sam Campbell-style, of my childhood home in the Ohio woods, the opossum was not necessarily one of the loveliest. It rather looked like an overgrown rat. But when someone in my family (I can't remember who it was) came up with a name for him--Parsnip (think of the shape and color of the tail)--suddenly, he was a cute pet.

From what I gather, names of people in ancient languages, especially Hebrew, held more meaning that names today. People named their children according to the characteristics they wanted them to have, or what was especially important to them, or describing some event or experience surrounding their birth. I can only imagine that Adam used his language to name the animals the same way. But what characteristics would he have chosen for each animal to describe it?

I can only imagine the bonding experience between Adam and God as they discussed what Adam thought of God's creatures. It would have been so much fun for Adam and God to share thoughts on what these creatures seemed like to them. Maybe the first ancient name for "cat" meant "that furry thing that won't stop pouncing my ankles." Or, "dog" meant "whenever I throw something like a stick away, it brings it right back." Maybe "spider" meant "too many legs" or "penguin" meant "oddly-shaped birdlike creature that doesn't fly and wears a tuxedo." "Giraffe" meant "get a load of that neck!" and "pig" meant "really pink with a weird nose." And, of course, "opossum" meant "overgrown rat with a tail like a parsnip." I can see Adam and God just rolling with laughter together at these descriptions.

Bitterness

2007-07-03T14:01:00.000-07:00

I'm writing this blog because I am bored--this is my practice time, and I would really like to practice (most of the time I don't; I'm suffering from severe lack of motivation right now), however, I can't--my A string is breaking. You would think that I would actually follow my own advice I tell all my students: "You must have an extra set of strings, in case one breaks," but I'm not smart enough for that. I ordered one today, and it should arrive later in the week or early next week (holiday Wednesday...sigh), but until then I can either practice only Air on the G String or something comparable, or not practice at all. So I'm writing, to pass time.

Today's subject: plums. I have a nice medium-sized plum tree in my yard, next to the sidewalk. My landlord planted it before I moved in. Last year, it yielded all of 3 lovely plums. Just as I was going to pick them, someone came along and ripped them all off. I was very upset. I had been thinking of putting a sign on my tree this year, "Thou shalt not steal plums" or something to that effect. But this year, the tree yielded such an immense profusion of plums, I took a few just before they were quite ready to ripen inside (they were amazingly sweet and tasty), and planned to harvest the rest in a few days. I was looking forward to the plum harvest so much, because growing up in Ohio, we didn't have lots any fruit trees to harvest. I thought it would be safe because I had so many plums that even if someone came and stole a few, that would be OK, I would share some with my neighbors, and they wouldn't possibly take all the plums.

That was the plan. So a few days ago, I went out to harvest my lovely plums which I had waited so long for, patiently watching as they slowly ripened, to see the sad fact--every last one of the plums was gone! I was shocked that someone would possibly be rude enough (and in Loma Linda, of all places!) to steal every single plum off the tree in my yard, on private property. Needless to say, this tormented me bitterly inside. I went around grumbling about the stolen plums all week. Which made me think--if I am this bitter about some stolen fruit, which wasn't really mine anyway, how would I react if someone did something really bad to me?

Professor Steph

2007-06-21T21:56:00.000-07:00

Writing this title, I'm reminded of our dear family friend Pastor Wil Alexander, who, knowing that I teach violin lessons (to little kids) at the elementary school, always addresses me as "Professor...."

Well, tomorrow morning I'm off to Yosemite, camping with friends. My brand new Canon 28-135 mm F3.5-5.6 IS lens arrived in the mail today, right on time, so pictures should be forthcoming in a following blog (if I remember).

I'm looking forward to a little vacation, since I can't afford to take off work time for an actual vacation this summer, thanks to the US Treasury and the democrats. However, I wish I had a couple of extra days this weekend to work on a project I just found out about. I registered for a conference at La Sierra University next weekend called the Camerata of Adventist Musicians, kind of a very small GYC for musicians. Wolfgang Stefani, a pastor and musician from Australia who has done extensive research into the spiritual nature of musical aesthetics and Adventism, will be the keynote speaker, and Israel Ramos, GYC president, will be giving the devotional meetings. The conference seems to be lacking in a certain amount of planning however, given that an advertisement email was sent out to all the local musicians after the actual deadline (and this was the first I had heard about it), and it was only yesterday that I got the email with the conference schedule and, oh yes, I'm assigned to present a lecture recital on Friday at 1:30...

I have to reiterate that this was the absolute first I had heard about presenting a lecture recital next Friday. So I've been frantically deliberating what I am going to speak about (we are to choose two pieces to present), researching about the music, writing a paper about them, and practicing them because I have to talk and play. I feel like I'm back at school again. Or perhaps I even feel like I'm a real intellectual scholar or something, presenting lecture recitals at conferences. Maybe I'll make the conference circuit, and they'll be asking for me at Yale. Or, maybe if the speakers are recorded, I'll even make it to AudioVerse (just kidding)! All right, enough dreaming and back to work so I can make a little progress on this before I leave tomorrow morning, because next week I only have two days to work on it (and they are full teaching days).

On being a violin teacher, part 1

2007-06-13T15:59:00.000-07:00

I'm titling this blog "Part 1" because I hope to do a better job in the future of collecting these little vignettes from the life of a violin teacher. I'm not nearly as good at remembering all the great stuff as my friend Joanna, the piano teacher, who's always full of great stories. But here's a start.

One of the assignments I give to all my students each week is to write down the title and composer of one piece of classical music they listened to that week. One fifth-grade girl showed me her assignment, a piece she listened to by Tchaikovski--perfectly spelled, but she said she didn't know how to pronounce his name. After instructing her on the pronunciation, I wanted to make a connection to help her remember this composer, since he is a pretty important one to know about. I asked her if she had ever seen The Nutcracker at Christmastime, to which she replied, "I've seen the Barbie version!" Good enough.

Today I was handed this piece of paper from another fifth grader. The student dutifully informed me the composer was Bach. I realize he did write a Coffee Cantata (this is true), but I was not aware that he wrote a piece to go with it for his afternoon snack.

Perhaps the Bach she had in mind was PDQ?

Throwing rocks at goats

2007-06-04T17:19:00.000-07:00

Today I was listening to a brilliant opus by David Asscherick while getting some D vitamins by the pool. The topic was various concrete proofs of the Bible's authenticity, including the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Besides being infinitely powerful, brilliant, and loving beyond any human comprehension, God is also incomprehensively imaginative and downright, well, charming in His ways. Think of all the multiple millions of dollars spent each year sending the most intellectual scientists from the most prestigious institutions who have studied every aspect of archaeology for decades and using the most expensive and advanced technology the 21st century has to offer in hopes of finding shards here and there of material that might just give evidence for this and that in ancient history. Meanwhile, probably the largest and most important historical finding in archaeological history, hundreds of documents, beautifully preserved and sealed from antiquity in tidy time-proof jars, comprising almost the entire Old Testament of His Word is discovered by--a shepherd kid throwing rocks at his goat in a cave.

This is the kind of God I love to worship--who not only answers prayers, points us to Him, and protects the knowledge about Him, but often does it in a completely unexpected and often--may I say it?--amusing way. We don't have to accomplish a lot for God to accomplish His will. And yes, He does have a sense of humor.

Screwtape letters

2007-05-25T09:21:00.000-07:00

Here's a real life example of The Screwtape Letters.

Interesting to see how others think sometimes...

2007-05-20T22:19:00.000-07:00

You Are Scooter

Brainy and knowledgable, you are the perfect sidekick.You're always willing to lend a helping hand.In any big event or party, you're the one who keeps things going."15 seconds to showtime!"

a href="The Muppet Personality Test

What's new, first edition

2007-05-17T14:04:00.000-07:00

Although I am delighted to get back in touch with old friends that I haven't talked with for a while, sometimes I am baffled at the question, "so, what's new in your life?" Often these friends will contact me with news that they are getting married, graduated from law school, pregnant with their third child, took a trip on SpaceShipOne, etc. I feel like I don't have a lot of news to share from my end of things. But of course, that is not true! There is plenty of news to share! Why wait for a Christmas letter? Here's just a modest sampling:

1. I learned that if I plug my vacuum cleaner into the socket in the bathroom, I can reach all of my rugs--including my bedroom, studio room and the kitchen rug--without unplugging and moving.

2. Nowadays, some black birds have taken residence near my bedroom window and start chirping at about 5 AM. Especially in the half-dreamy state of waking, sometimes they seem to sound like staplers.

3. I listened to student recitals for 6 hours last Sunday. Contrary to how that may sound, it was actually fun to hear them play. My student C.S. accomplished playing the Bach minuet without forgetting the repeats. One student in our program even managed to play that spot in Corelli's La Folia with the high C's in tune (mostly)!

4. Nudge does not like the black cat that wanders around my yard. A couple of times he took off in a fierce rage after it from indoors, slamming into the screen door. Most of the time I'd assume Nudge was Danish for his phlegmatic nature, but I've never seen so much passion from that cat before. I don't know if he actually realized that there was a screen door between him and the persona non grata, but I'm sure Nudge will tell you that it was planned that way exactly. He sounds a lot like a dog rather than a cat when he growls. I told him that but he didn't seem to be very offended.

5. I think I can play through this entire Brahms piano quartet without getting too tired, which is great considering the performance is next Wednesday. Including our upcoming rehearsal scheduled for Sunday, God willing, we will have had a total of two rehearsals with all four of the same performers.

6. Speaking of performances, my friend and colleague Theresa is having her final doctoral recital Saturday. She's playing the same Stravinski Divertimento that I played for one of my masters' recitals. Great piece.

7. I decided that burritos made entirely of refried beans and veggie beef are too heavy for lunch, and sap my energy so I have to sit on the sofa and write blogs when I should be practicing.

8. I am 13 minutes older than I was when I started writing this blog entry.

Stay tuned for more exciting adventures from Steph Land to come!!

Google Buster

2007-05-09T08:51:00.000-07:00

I just Googled "How to lead a Bible study" and came up with 7,050 hits. Then I added "Adventist" and got 1 hit. I tried adding "SDA" and got 0 hits. Somebody ought to do something about that.

Mark your calendars!

2007-05-02T21:23:00.000-07:00

May 23--the big performance of the Brahms Piano Quartet in C Minor Op. 60. Does that sound impressive, or what? And by "big performance" I mean "hopefully more than twelve people in the audience." Nothing will be said about the amount of rehearsal time given to this piece, considering that the violist lives in Santa Barbara and the pianist lives in Sacramento. Scheduling is the bane of every musician's existence.... Well, I can only say that I savor any opportunity to play Brahms chamber music. For more information than that...well, you'll just have to come hear it!

Known

2007-04-28T21:31:00.000-07:00

God speaks about Abraham: "For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the LORD, to do justice and judgment; that the LORD may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him." Genesis 18:19, KJV.

In all the other versions, this text starts with something to the effect of "For I have known him, in order that he may command his children..." (NKJV) "I have singled him out so that he will direct his sons..." (NLT) "For I have chosen him, so that he will direct his children..." (NIV) and so on. But I like the way KJV puts it, "I know him, that he will...." To me that sounds like God is saying, "I know this guy, I know that he's trustworthy and will command his children and his household...I know he'll keep My ways. I know him. That's why I'll reveal this thing to him." The other versions have a kind of predestination thing going on. Anybody know which is the most accurate translation?

(By the way, Patriarchs and Prophets p. 140-141 has some good commentary on this.)

I wonder also if this might be a clue to Paul's whole predestination thing. It's not so much that God has chosen us for such and such without our will, but rather that He knows us. He knows if we'll be trustworthy or not.

Of course, the logical question arises: What does God know about me?

Taking things literally

2007-04-26T19:51:00.000-07:00

I made the mistake of listing our final violin group class rehearsal before the performance on the schedule as a "dress rehearsal." About ten students--and parents!-- have asked me within the last week if they are required to wear their concert dress clothes to the rehearsal. No, it is a figure of speech.

Crush

2007-04-17T22:16:00.000-07:00

I have a crush on a new celebrity. Surprise?

A lesson in healthcare professionalism

2007-04-13T17:55:00.000-07:00

Many of my friends who may be reading my blog are healthcare professionals or students. Here is a lesson in professional healthcare you may be interested in.

What the best nurse does:

1. Provide Sam Cambell nature books for the patient when she is in bed for 3 days with the flu. As soon as the patient's flu begins to show signs of bronchitis, make a house call immediately, and watch the silliest Fred Astaire song-and-dance movie you can find with the patient (preferably from 1950 or before). Wash all her dishes when she isn't looking.

2. If the patient develops a fever over 101 degrees, a resting pulse rate of 140 or higher, can only breathe with rapid, shallow, wheezing breaths and develops nausea and dizzyness from sitting up, call a doctor (preferably a radiologist) to listen to the patient's breathing with his stethoscope for diagnosis. Then pack the patient's belongings personally and immediately admit the patient to a hospital for overnight observation.

3. The nurse should choose the hospital carefully. Although there are a great many choices of excellent, world-class healthcare facilities in my area, the best of them all, a little-known secret--where I was admitted--is a small facility, in fact, a one-bed hospital with one doctor (the same radiologist) and nurse (the same nurse) on staff 24/7. This luxurious facility boasts a lovely hospital room (convenienly also serving as a bike storage room) queen-sized pillow-topped mattress bed with four huge pillows, silky sheets, a down comforter, windows opening to a garden, excellent food, and the best patient care around.

4. The next morning before the patient is discharged, sit in bed with her and read books and watch Wallace and Grommit cartoons on the laptop.

Lest anyone think this is an impossibility for a healthcare professional, I will testify that I personally received exactly this treatment from one such healthcare team this week! Thank you so much, Andrew and Monica!

Listening

2007-04-09T09:55:00.000-07:00

Two Christians went for a walk in the mountains on a beautiful Sabbath day. One of the Christians was born and raised in the country, the other was from the city.

"Listen to the beautiful sound of the birds!" the country dweller said to his companion.

"It's a nice sound, but I don't understand what they are saying," replied the city dweller. "It would be much better if they sang with words, in English of course, so we could understand their songs of praise to God. As it is, I don't understand, so where's the spiritual meaning for me?"

"Just because they don't speak English doesn't mean their song is not a joyful hymn of praise to God!" the country man said. "But look here, see these beautiful rocks? Look at the way they sparkle as the water cascades over them, and listen to the delicate melody of the stream! See all the layers of design on each rock?"

"The sound of the water doesn't speak Bible texts, and the rocks say nothing either. See, wouldn't it be an improvement if we took a sandblaster and etched Bible verses on each of the rocks? Then we would get a real spiritual blessing from them! As it is, they're just lumps of hard stuff."

The country dweller scratched his head and looked around. He drew his companion's attention to the majestic trees all around. "Yes," the city man agreed. "Just think of how many Bibles and religious tracts could be made from all of these trees, if we made a plan to cut them all down!"

The country man grew more frustrated as he sat on a rock, listening to the sound of the water. "Let's sing some hymns!" yelled the city man as he whipped out a guitar and started strumming loudly away.

"Can't we just listen to the sound of God's nature for two minutes?" the country man tried to interject.

"Sounds mean nothing without words! Where's the spiritual meaning? I don't understand it. In the city, where I come from, we never lsiten to any music without spiritual meaning!"

"That's because you have so many sounds there masking the natural sounds God has given us that you've eventually forgotten how to listen," his friend replied. "Car horns, TV, rock music in stores, everywhere. Just sit with me for a minute and really listen to the music God has given us, the beauty He has created. The spiritual meaning is intrinsic, and you are free to assign any spiritual meaning to it that is in your heart, whether it's illustrative of a certain battle with sin in your life, the glory of Creation, thankfulness for the gift of life and friendship, or simply expressing something no poet could ever express in words--something we catch glimpses of in earthly beauty at times, something that we can chase all our lives but we will never truly experience fulfillment of until the Earth is made a new Creation."

But his city-dwelling companion, not interested in such sentiments, was already on his fourth verse of "Nearer, My God To Thee," still strumming loudly. Sighing, the country lover led his friend near a cozy little cabin at the edge of the woods. There was a beautiful rose garden filled with every variety of beautiful, sweet-smelling roses surrounding the cabin, well kept by an expert gardener.

"It's nice, but do we know that the gardener is a Christian?"

"Why does it matter? We are not talking about the gardener but the roses themselves! You might as well ask if the birds themselves are Christians!"

"Are they? If not, I don't want to listen to them!" he said as he put on his iPod and started listening to the Heritage Singers.

The country man threw up his hands with resignation and they walked back to his friend's Lexus SUV.

Spring evenings

2007-03-17T18:36:00.000-07:00

Yesterday a couple of friends and I enjoyed our first evening eating out on my patio this year. It's only the middle of March, but the weather has been insanely warm, which leads to very pleasant, balmy evenings. As the sun set, we had supper by candelight under a profusion of highly scented jasmine flowers cascading over my little garden. The plum and apricot trees are beginning to blossom, and my poor pathetic tree in front is starting to sprout leaves, too. This is a beautiful time of year.

In other news, one of my students had a violin recital today (all by himself!) He did a great job and I'm proud, once again, of all my adorable, charming, bright children...all 40 of them.

Karaoke

2007-03-04T17:51:00.000-08:00

It's that time of year again, Restoration. (Restoration is the annual revival series we put on for the students and community, we being mostly LLU students, since I guess it's a LLU student organization, but people like me, a non-student from Advent Hope, get to help out, too.) Usually the series is two and a half weeks long, but this year it will be only five days, starting tomorrow. And as usual, I have my usual duty of arranging musicians for special music. And as usual, I have enforced my "no-karaoke" policy (i.e., no sountracks for vocalists).

Why am I such a stick-in-the-mud about this point? As a "classical" (read: snobby) musician who plays a 218-year-old instrument, do I just need to keep up with the times? There are several reasons why I can't bring myself to allow it. Partly because canned music is against union regulations. Partly because some (not all) soundtracks have drumbeats that nobody likes (and it's harder to censor what you get on a track), partly because I've heard too many badly handled soundtrack cues from the PA system ("Put on the track! What do you mean it doesn't work? No, track 12, not track 11! Not that CD, the other one! The one with the sheep on the front!" etc.). But all of that can be avoided in most cases, and certainly both the musicians and the PA operators I work with are people I know and trust, so that's not the main issue.

When someone asked me about it, all of a sudden it finally came to mind exactly why I have this strict policy. Worship is done by people, living, breathing people, who walk into a church after a week of problems, disappointments, fears, frustrations, and joys, and take all those emotions they've accumulated during the week and give them over to God. When you walk into a house of worship, whether it's a church, a meeting room or a PT lab, you can almost feel the questions, the frustrations, the prayers--not unlike the experience of smelling the fragrant incense which represented the prayers in the ancient tabernacle. And worship is those people, sometimes the ones with the biggest questions, getting up front and praising God. When you put on the disembodied band music, who are they? Would they want to be in this place?

Not that I have anything against recordings, at home or in the car, when you can't hear a live performance. But the reason why people pay money to go to the concert hall to hear a symphony they've heard a million times before on a CD is because of the living quality of the music that's made by living people. And that quality, combined with the spirit of praising God, is what worship is all about.

Happy Valentine's Day

2007-02-14T14:01:00.000-08:00

I had completely forgotten that today was Valentine's Day until I saw Google's logo bedecked with, of all things, a chocolate-dipped strawberry. Thinking that "Chocolate-Dipped Strawberry Day" was definitely a holiday to celebrate, I then noticed that it was a reference to Valentine's Day. So, in celebration of that holiday (although, I believe a much inferior reason to celebrate than my original idea), here is an essay about love that I wrote a while back.

God Loves Us

Today I was reading 1 John 4. Some texts require lots of exegesis to study, such as the beginning point of the 2300 days or the identity of the king of the North in Daniel 11:36-39. But some questions in the Bible are answered pretty simply and directly.

Q: Who loves us? How do we know we are loved?
A: 1 John 4:9–
"In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.

Q:Why should we love God?
A:1 John 4:18–
"We love him, because he first loved us."

It’s a pretty short study. There are probably 50 more points we can get out of the brief passage, each of them as important as eternity and just as comforting, too. But in this frantic, unloving world everyone needs to be presented with at least this information, right here; whether or not they choose to believe and embrace it or to rationalize it away and ignore it is their choice. But the simple statement–"He first loved us," means everything if you choose to believe it. Imagine, just imagine, being loved by the Creator and Sustainer of the universe! Looking outside at the world around us and knowing that it’s a gift to us from God, a token of His love. Everbody wants to be loved. And everybody knows that when a man is in love with a woman he will not give up easily but will do anything he can to try to win her love–cards, flowers, dates, sweet expressions of affection and assurance that he cares about her. Think how much farther God has gone to provide expression of His love for us–all the gifts of the natural world, and much more, the gift of Jesus to provide a way that He can be with us and us with Him, despite the gulf that exists now. That really is love.

Does your god love you?

Barton Road

2007-02-08T08:53:00.000-08:00

I still recall with pride the one--and possibly only--occcasion when I was able to embarrass Monica. It happened on a Sabbath at exactly 12:30 PM, at the intersection of Barton and Anderson, where I kicked a pine cone all the way as we crossed Barton Road, looking like a crazy person as the entire membership of University Church waited at the stoplight.

I was humbled yesterday when I walked back home from my eye appointment near the intersection of Barton and Mountain View. I didn't know that the optometrist was going to dialate my eyes, and I had not taken sunglasses with me because it was not bright enough in the morning to think of it. He gave me a ridiculous piece of flimsy brown plastic to serve as disposable sunglasses, which of course did not stay on my face and looked absolutely silly. When he gave them to me, I thought, "I'm not wearing this walking down Barton Road in the middle of a busy weekday!" But the moment I stepped outside into the California sunshine, the pain of the light started to overshadow even the embarrassment of having to wear the silly contraption. So there I was, walking westbound on Barton, right across from the one and only grocery store in town, along the main thoroughfare of Loma Linda, wearing a floppy piece of brown plastic on my face. Hopefully nobody recognized me, wearing my shades.

Disney Hall

2007-01-31T19:56:00.000-08:00

Lately I have had several chances to hear concerts at Disney Hall in LA. Sometimes I feel like I never get out of Loma Linda, so to be able to go to LA to hear concerts two weeks in a row was really unusual. The first one, two weeks ago, was a recital by Hilary Hahn, one of my favorite violinists (26 years old, how jealous am I). She played sonatas by Janacek, Mozart, Beethoven, and Tartini. I think I was most interested in the Janacek. I was not aquainted with that piece, only his Sinfonietta (orchestra with 12 trumpets, yeah!) and a couple of his string quartets, all of which I like, although they have kind of a sparse, lonely, Eastern European feel to them. The Tartini sonata ("Devil's Trill") was exciting, but had too many devilish trills. I love Hahn's tone--very silvery, shimmery vibrato, although by the same token there were times I wished she would use a bit more variation in tone color, since so many of the works on the program were from different periods. I went with my friend/colleague Jenn, and we sat in the "choir loft" section behind the stage. We agreed that these were pretty good seats, despite the unusual angle--the sound of solo violin and piano was very clear anyway, and we were very close to the stage. I also have to mention the pianist, Valentina Lisitsa, who I didn't know, but I loved her playing and the ensemble was amazing.

The second Disney Hall concert I attended was the very next week was of the music of Steve Reich by the LA Master Chorale. If you are reading this because you know me, you may already know that I am a fan. Apparently I am the only person I know who likes Reich's music. (I went to the concert with my brother Karl, and I don't think he was very impressed.) So I was excited to hear the West Coast premiere of Daniel Variations, a piece for small choir (about 15 singers) and instrumental ensemble (amplified string quartet, 2 clarinets, 4 pianos, 4 mallet instruments and other percussion--fairly typical Reich instrumentation) based on a few texts from the book of Daniel and also quotes from Daniel Pearl. Also on the program was the "You Are" variations, which was written for LAMC and premiered by them last year. I liked both of those pieces, but they sound very much the same. In the past few years, it seems like Reich's music has grown more and more formulaic. His music has always been formulaic, but this particular formula reached its peak a few pieces ago. Reich's greatest masterpiece, in my opinion, is still Music for 18 Musicians, written in 1976.

Brilliant minds

2007-01-25T14:10:00.000-08:00

I just read a fascinating news article which states that a new study shows that keeping your mind active may help ward off Alzheimer's disease. I'm sure nobody had ever thought of that before. (If they had, they might not have gotten Alzheimer's so quick, huh?)

This is why I'm trying to learn the last movement of the Barber concerto. Gotta get a head start. Although by the time I can actually play it, senility may have set in. Who will win--Barber or Alzheimer?

How A Disobedient Cat Can Save You A Useless Hour of Driving

2007-01-17T18:40:00.000-08:00

This comes under the category of "worth blogging about?"

I usually teach at the academy all afternoon, from about 2:30 to 6:30 on Wednesdays. Tonight I had a rehearsal scheduled at 7:30 in Ontario, about 30 minutes away. With traffic, grabbing something from Del Taco, and wanting to arrive early, I wouldn't normally go home before heading off on the I-10 freeway. But today, a very unusual thing happened--Just before I was heading off to teach, I remembered that my cat may still have been outside, and I always want him inside after dark, for fear of coyotes. I called and called and got out his favorite treat, veal baby food, to bribe him in, but he never showed up. Finally it was literally 2 minutes before my first lesson was to start (good thing the school is 2 minutes away), and I really had to leave, so I left him. I was worried about the poor guy all afternoon, so before I left for rehearsal I squeezed in a trip home, just for a second, to check on him. There he was, safe and sound, on my bed; he had been inside the whole time. Since I was there anyway, I happened to check my new messages on my machine, and of all things--the orchestra manager had called at about 4:30 that afternoon and left a message that the rehearsal was cancelled! I would never have checked my messages if it weren't for my cat, and I would have been on my way to Ontario, an hour out of my way, only to find an empty rehearsal room.

Currier and Ives comes to Loma Linda, California

2007-01-16T21:52:00.000-08:00

Global warming?

Jury duty

2007-01-11T07:21:00.000-08:00

This past Tuesday I was called to jury duty. For the benefit of those who have never done this, I'll give a report of what happened.

I was a little concerned about having to do this, mostly because I am self-employed. Although I actually think it would be kind of interesting to participate in the process, I don't have an employer to pay me for jury time, as most employers do (I guess they're required by law). But if I had to be there all day or all week, I would have to call each individual student to cancel or reschedule, and unless I could reschedule (which is a hassle for 40 private students) I'd lose the money, also my poor students have not had lessons for two weeks over vacation anyway, and some of them are having to re-learn their bow holds as it is... It would be fine for a day or two, but not good for two weeks. I sent in the slip to be excused, but it was denied; they no longer excuse people for being self-employed.

I called the court the night before as they said, and yes, I still had to show up at 8:00 the next morning. So, into San Bernardino at 8 AM I went, not having a clue what would happen. I kept my 3:30 class scheduled for later that day, hoping that I would either be excused or I'd be able to call the school to cancel it before then.

I arrived early, in case I didn't know where to park, which of course was the case. I parked in a lot that had absolutely no signs or any indication of who was/wasn't supposed to park there, but it did have quite a few important-looking men in suits and briefcases coming out of their cars. I took my chances. I had to stand in a long line to get into the courthouse--they were just opening at about 7:45, and everyone had to go through airport-style security. I put my purse on the X-ray belt and was about to take off my shoes to go through the gate, but nobody else did. Guess nobody has tried to blow up a courthouse yet using a shoe-bomb.

When you enter the courthouse, the first thing you see is a hot dog stand, which I thought was kind of strange. All sorts of seedy characters were hanging out there, eating pretzles at 7:45 in the morning. Were all these people jurors? Soon I noticed that they started heading upstairs to traffic court. Now I get it. But where do I go? There were no signs for jurors. Finally I followed another juror, who was as lost as I was, but we managed to go down several halls and an elevator to the basement juror assembly room.

I knew that there are 12 jurors on a criminal trial. I assumed that they pick several extras to dismiss if their uncles are the lawers or the defendants or whatnot. I even thought that there may be more than one trial going on that day. But I didn't expect to see about 300 prospective jurors in one huge room! I stood in a long line to get checked in, which grew longer until everyone had arrived, by about 8:45. With all these people, I figured I had a pretty good chance of going home early. As I watched the line grow, I thought, "All these people, in the San Bernardino area alone, and a new batch every day, and I don't know a one of them. There are a lot of people in this world!" I did, however, end up knowing one of them, a trombone player named Brett who is on the church vespers committee with me. He came and sat by me and we chatted to pass the time. He told me that last time he was called he did have to serve on the jury--it took them 2 days to select the jury, and 2 days for the trial. All day long.

After another half hour or so, they posted everyone's names in groups A-E on bulletin boards. I was in group C, along with about 75 others. Brett was in group A. After another half hour, his group was called up to the courtroom. I just waited; they never said anything about my group. (Bring a book.) After another half hour or so, he came back, he was excused--conveniently enough, his wife is due to have a baby in a few weeks, so he could use that. Groups D and E were also excused. Finally, at about 10:45, the judge came into the room for Group C. He said they had settled the case, so we were not needed. Thankfully, I got in line to receive my pink slip which said I was free to go and wouldn't be called for another year. I'll continue this story next year, when I'm sure to be called again.

David Asscherick groupies

2007-01-05T18:29:00.000-08:00

Back to normal life now...I had a lovely visit with my parents at their home near Dayton, Ohio (hi dad) over Christmas. It was wonderful to have some time to relax, talk with them, visit a few old friends, and generally do little else besides curl up by the fireplace. Too bad there was no white Christmas. In fact, it was pretty much in the 50s the whole time...the entire eastern U.S. has been having an extremely mild winter, unfortunately for the ice-fishing competitions in Minnesota, but fortunately for the golfers in Chicago. Must be global warming. (Oh, wait, there's a gazillion feet of snow over the Rockies...)

(See, Dad, I didn't really complain about the gloomy weather!)

After a much-needed rest and visit at home, I went to the General Youth Conference in Baltimore. As always, it was filled with nonstop challenging seminars and messages from the A-list of truly dedicated, Scripture-based teachers and evangelists. Wow. Some of my favorite parts were the seminars I went to by Samuel Pippin (excellent series on the authority of the Bible and how to deal with some of its difficulties which are often attacked), and sermons by Michael Hasel and David Asscherick.

Speaking of David Asscherick, here's a little description of the kind of young people you can find even in America today.

First of all, it must be said that pretty much every teenage girl has had some "idol" at some point. (Before you get offended at the accusation of "idol worship," let's define this as the kind of crush a girl gets on someone that she really admires, at the point in her life when she is working on maturing emotionally.) If you're a female, admit it, you've had one. Most average girls have crushes on either actors or rock stars. (Mine was Joshua Bell, of course.) If you're a male, I can't speak for you; I don't know what was going through your mind when you were 14.

My friend Jenn put together a chamber orchestra for special music Friday night, and there were a couple violinists sitting near me who were high school girls. As we were onstage preparing for the service, one of the organizers came out and told us that we would be staying onstage for the entire sermon. At that, a few of the girls started piping up, "What!! David Asscherick is speaking, right?? You mean, we actually get to sit right here the whole time while DAVID ASSCHERICK IS SPEAKING!!!??" After the service was over, we exited to offstage, and a couple of the girls just surrounded him, chattering to him with that all-familiar kind of nervous girlish talk, which goes something like, "Yeah, I'm a sophomore and I go to an all-girls private school in Chattanooga but next year I think I'm going to Collegedale Academy and our volleyball team always plays them and my sister goes to..." and so on.

The point is: isn't it refreshing that, if girls will be girls anyway, that there really are girls of the caliber that would idolize...a conservative, Bible-preaching Adventist evangelist?

Christmas in Ohio

2006-12-22T08:19:00.000-08:00

I'm here in Bellbrook, Ohio for Christmas with my parents. I'm writing this blog with my dad looking over my shoulder because he wants to see how I do it. I'm trying to convince him to start a blog of his own so I can look at it every day, too.

Book Review

2006-12-13T22:30:00.000-08:00

Tonight, after I returned home from a long day, with a still-sore foot from my fall yesterday that left me hobbling all day, I was frustrated by a minor personal irritation, so instead of ruminating over it I looked for something to just get my mind off of it. I had on my table great works of philosophy and inspiration. But I bypassed them and settled down for the next hour with the great classic The Bobbsey Twins On A Houseboat, by Laura Lee Hope (reprinted 2004, Grosset & Dunlap). (One of my twelve-year-old students had left it on the table after his last lesson.)

Plot synopsis: The Bobbsey siblings, two sets of twins--twelve-year-olds Bert and Nan and six-year-olds Freddie and Flossie--find a houseboat for sale on the lake near their home. They try to convince their father to buy it, which he promptly does in the next chapter. Soon, along with cousins, parents, a politically incorrectly-characterised cook (first edition: 1955) and the dog and cat, they are on their way down the river on a houseboat vacation. Along the way, they put out fires and escape storms and drowning. Snap the dog rescues Snoop the cat when he falls overboard. Tall, red-bearded Capton McGinton scolds Harry mildly for disobeying orders and swimming alone, then promptly gives all the children candy bars. I got as far as Dorothy saving the lifeboat singlehandedly, when I finally gave up on it.

Rating: one to five stars, depending which side of 12 years old you are on.

'Tis the season

2006-12-04T21:22:00.000-08:00

Here's an open invitation, for whomever of my friends might happen to be reading this (including my dad, but it would be a long drive) to come to the Arden Hills SDA Church in Highland this Sabbath (Dec. 9) for church, because my new ensemble, Loma Linda Vivace Violins, will be having their debut church performance. We played our very first performance at Loma Linda Academy for the string department winter concert yesterday, and this Sabbath will be our first time doing a church service. I'm conducting! Never thought I'd be a conductor. Even of 15 elementary and junior high school violinists.

Yesterday morning at 10 AM was our annual winter perfomance with all the group classes, including my Vivace and Book 1 groups. Then I took off for a 12:00 rehearsal and then performance of Messiah in Palm Springs, then back again to play in a string ensemble accompanying the choirs at Cal State San Bernardino. I made it through the day, but I think December for musicians is quite a bit like March for tax accountants.... Next Sunday I have to report to a Presbyterian church to help out with the music...in Palm Desert...at 7:30 AM.

Monotheism

2006-11-28T20:51:00.000-08:00

It has been said by scholars that monotheism "emerged" gradually into more and more well-developed human civilizations, as a reflection and indication of a more highly organized political and social system.

It has also been said by "enlightened" scholars of academia today, in the 21st century, obviously the pinnacle of highly-developed societies, that monotheism is a myth, fit for "unenlightened" fools from the Dark Ages. Now we must believe that our origins are from gobbledygook, more disorder than even polytheistic religions teach.

Huh?

What I Am Thankful For

2006-11-23T07:41:00.000-08:00

Praise ye the LORD. Praise God in his sanctuary: praise him in the firmament of his power.
Praise him for his mighty acts: praise him according to his excellent greatness.
Praise him with the sound of the trumpet: praise him with the psaltery and harp.
Praise him with the timbrel and dance: praise him with stringed instruments and organs.
Praise him upon the loud cymbals: praise him upon the high sounding cymbals.
Let every thing that hath breath praise the LORD. Praise ye the LORD.
Psalm 150

Just thought I'd throw that in because it's Thanksgiving today. So here's a short (perhaps trite, but true) list of what I am thankful for.

1. My parents, for always loving me and helping me with everything. Although they are across the country, I can always count on my mom for her Friday morning call, and my dad for his periodic email commentaries. I'm also thankful that I have somewhat of an extended family, not large, and scattered about, but I think of them often and pray for them.

2. My friends--I still can't believe I have so many wonderful friends, especially because of Advent HOPE. They are not only wonderful people who are loving and loyal, but a good influence as well. I've made a lot of good decisions the past few years because of their influence. Today I'm going to my friends Minnette and Ben's home for supper, along with a large group of our Bible study girls.

3. Especially my best friend Monica, who strangely enough doesn't seem to get tired of going to Target with me and putting up with my craziness and lack of coherent speech.

4. A big fluffy cat who loves to curl up on my lap when I'm reading. What more can you ask for?

5. A nice place to live in a terrific community, a little garden, nice things, plenty of food and clothing, etc. Sounds cheesy but you can't neglect that.

6. Living in a place where you can enjoy the mountains, ocean, desert, big city, gardens, museums, concerts, everything within about an hour's drive.

7. All my cute students who are growing up to be lovely people. They work very hard (most of them) and are developing great skills of concentration and intellect in the process. And most of their families are great to work with, too.

8. The sun. The atmosphere. The balance of oxygen and other elements. The angle and speed of the earth's rotation. The fact that no enormous comet has yet crashed into the Earth. Think about it.

9. Just open an anatomy book or any nature book and try to tell me that all this just happened. Show me someone who actually believes in evolution over millions of years, from single cells into frogs and monkeys, etc., and I'll show you someone who really does believe in myths and fairy tales!

10. Through prayer, I have been able to overcome some bad habits this year. (hope it sticks)

11. Again through prayer, I have been able to overcome some of the difficulties and depressing things I've dealt with for much of this year. (hope it sticks, too)

12. Sea otters, pandas, penguins and African pygmy falcons.

13. Target.

14. Wonderful music, like Mahler symphonies, Brahms chamber music, etc. etc. etc.

15. My violin, to play them on.

16. I'm halfway done learning the Glazunov violin concerto!

17. Down comforters.

18. Blogger with a large storage capacity because this could go on for a while.

19. Friends who love me enough to keep reading this far.

20. And for the most important thing: God, who loved the world so much that He gave us His only Son. I heard the best quote at church last Sabbath: "The love of God is like the Amazon River flowing down to water one daisy." (author unknown) Not only did God give us everything we have on earth, He created the entire universe, and we have no idea what wonders are out there for us to enjoy eventually. Also He gave us His Law, so we have not only a standard but a divine standard to live by, so we can learn to grow up in His character. And if that wasn't enough, He has done and is doing everything possible to avoid destroying us along with our sins, and that is to come personally to live with us, and even be killed by us, so He died instead of us, just simply because He loves us and also, oddly enough, probably even likes us, because He wants to be with us. Compare that with all the other world religions, of various gods killing each other and generating bastard children in soap-opera style, or forcing people to sacrifice to appease the volcano, or tantalizing people with paradise if you do good and eat your vegetables or all kinds of hell if you don't, or of frogs losing their tails and turning into monkeys and eventually your uncle Charlie. I've made my decision.

Steph the Violist!

2006-11-15T12:51:00.000-08:00

I've been undertaking an interesting project lately--I've become a violist! No viola jokes, please! Yes, I'm battling the enormous beast (see picture).Thanks to my co-worker April's husband, I have a viola on loan. It's not too hard to play, although it's a little more tiring because it's huge. I can hardly reach the pegs! The hardest part, though, is reading the music. (In case you're interested, viola music is usually written in alto clef, which basically means that middle C is smack dab in the middle of the staff, rather than just under it as in treble clef or just above it as in bass clef. It's pretty much just used for violas. However, sometimes it changes to treble clef, too.) I'm starting to get the hang of it, though. I've been playing chamber music with my friends Jenn, David, Adrian and Jolene. In fact, we are having our first performance this Saturday night, at the Loma Linda Villa. My debut as a violist!

Capitalism

2006-11-09T19:48:00.000-08:00

A great example of the gullibility of the American Consumer...

The other day I joined the usual crowd of thousands of worshippers in the Shrine to American Capitalism (Target) to buy a comfortable pair of headphones for my iPod for exercising. I found a pair I liked, and there was another pair of the same brand and style in white--it looked at least, for all the world, like the exact same headphones, just a different color. But the price tag for the white pair: $11.98; for the black: $4.99. I searched and searched the box for any hint of difference, but everything was exactly the same, word for word. I even hailed a young shrine priest in the traditional red-and-khaki garb and asked him if he knew of a difference besides the color--and price--and after investigating the boxes thoroughly as well, he reached the only obvious explanation for the discrepancy: the white headphones match the iPods. (iPod headphones are traditionally white. Of course.) Who could be caught listening to their iPod with black headphones?! Horrors!

I am the proud owner of a pair of black headphones. Which match my iPod just fine, thank you. (It's black.)

Panda

2006-11-09T19:41:00.000-08:00

I've been having trouble adding pictures to my blog, but this time it worked...I had to add my favorite panda picture I took at the National Zoo. Pandas, along with racoons, penguins, and Asian small-clawed otters, are some of my favorite animals, and I will gladly make a pilgrimage across the country to see them (although I guess I can just go to San Diego, huh...) This is the superstar celebrity Tai Shan. All of us spectators were in agreement that the tree was a bit too thin for him. We got to watch him climb this tree and settle in for a nap--two hours later when we came by again, he was approximately in the same position.

Maryland and Washington DC

2006-11-01T07:33:00.000-08:00

A couple of weeks ago I took a trip to Maryland and Washington DC to visit several friends, see fall colors (for the first time in 5 years...boy, did I miss them), and attend a National Symphony concert.

The first friends I visited were Kyle and Amy, who used to live in Redlands but moved to Frederick, MD this summer. Amy is a violinist and used to be my RSO (Redlands Symphony Orchestra) buddy. I visited with them and their 3-year-old daughter Madilyn for a few days, and we went to the National Aquarium in Baltimore, the zoo in DC, and Harper's Ferry.
(Yes, there was a glass wall between Madilyn and Amy and the sloth bear.)

On Sabbath I visited another Amy, with her husband Dan. This Amy is Monica's sister-in-law, who also happens to have been one of my closest friends during my freshman year of college at Southern. We went to the Spencerville SDA church, then to potluck (very similar to the potlucks we're used to here at Advent Hope), then for a walk around a small lake to see more fall colors.

Saturday night I took Amy and Kyle to the National Symphony concert at the Kennedy Center. I was very excited to go because they were playing a piece my friend James Lee composed, called Beyond Rivers of Vision. It was an exciting piece, filled with amazing orchestral colors, using every instrument you could imagine. I'd definitely have to listen to it several more times to catch all the intricacies of it, but it was easy to follow how the themes developed, especially in the first movement. The first two movements were powerful and driving, and the last movement ended in a beautiful, flowing gesture that kind of just disappears into eternity.

But the most exciting thing about James' piece to me was the ideas behind it, and how he had the courage to describe them all in the program notes. The piece is about rivers in the Bible (especially the Tigris) and the prophets associated with them (Daniel), also the great river that flows from the Throne of God (he mentions Rev. 22:1-5 in the program notes!). Here's a little quote from the notes: "It is, however, the deep and sincere importance of the vision received that takes precedence over the location of the particular river." He goes on the explain how the visions deal with eschatological subject matters, then says, "we must look beyond the rivers themselves and study the vision." Then he quotes Gen. 2:10-14; 3:7, 24; Daniel 10 (especially vs. 1-6); and Rev. 22:1-5. All of this for an audience of several thousand in a major concert hall in America's capitol city. Go James!! (I'd recommend reading the entire program notes.)

"Too Good To Be True"

2006-10-08T08:12:00.000-07:00

I signed up to teach the Sabbath school lesson study this coming week at Advent Hope. I'm starting my study of it now, and I haven't even read through the whole week's lessons, but as I was thinking about Genesis 1 I came up with some thoughts I'm looking forward to sharing with my class. In fact, I couldn't wait, so I'm writing about it now. (For those of you who may be reading this and are planning on coming to my class next Sabbath, please don't give it away. Just kidding.)

The topic this week is Creation. A literal, 7-day creation. I was pretty excited to teach this lesson. First of all I'll probably qualify that I am a violinist, not a scientist, so I don't want to get deeply into the scientific evidence or lack thereof. That's really not what I'm interested in anyway in this particular lesson. What I'm more interested in is: how our knowledge about the character of God leads us to faith in real, literal creation.

There are a couple of great questions that arise with the study of the first chapter of Genesis. First of all, why do so many people, Christians as well as atheists, disbelieve the literal 7-day creation story? The answer, I guess (but what do I know what they're thinking) is that when you read it, it looks like a myth. It's written too simply. It looks too easy. It looks too good to be true. Compared to what scientists, as well as 6th grade Life Science students, know, God's account is no more believable looking than the story of the god who laid and egg which hatched and became the earth and sky.

We've been continually cautioned since childhood that "if something looks too good to be true, it probably is." The idea of a god or even God looking at some formless void and simply saying "Let there be..." and there is--in one day--is silliness. This is as far as it gets to the atheist. But to the Christian, it could be a struggle, because they believe other things in the Bible, but they can't believe in the Creation Story because it's simple and silly. So, how much of the Bible should they believe? Which parts? How do you know? Come to think of it, read Revelation 22, regarding the end, and if anything else seems too good to be true, that's certainly it!

To answer this, let's look at the answer to a seemingly unrelated question. As a musician, when I tackle a new piece of music to learn or teach my students, do I start with the hard parts in the middle, or do I start at the beginning, or what? What's difficult about this piece, what makes it hang together? If I start at the beginning I often get hung up on the first page, and it takes me a long time to get to the middle or the end of the piece. Sometimes I start at the end and work my way backwards, but it's often hard to get a real picture of the whole piece unless I find the central form.

Students of the Bible should look at this question, too. Here's my suggestion: Start in the middle. Let's say, the Gospels, also the prophets. Work your way out to the beginning and the end, Genesis 1 and Revelation 22. Why? Because it's the middle of the Bible where you really get to know God's character. The character of a God who would be willing to take on human, really human, characteristics and go through really human situations. There are no mythological fantasy ideas about a normal-looking man (we have no particular physical description of him) from a small town who worked in his father's carpenter shop and whose brothers made fun of him. No fantastic descriptions dazzle us when we read about how Mary rode on a donkey and went into labor so quickly that she had to make a makeshift delivery room out of an average barn. Nothing spectacular about a man who had enemies powerful enough to get him executed.

But there is something supernatural about a man who never made mistakes. Who loved the brothers who mocked him. Who was not afraid of what people think if he touched a leper. Who let his enemies kill him, even though he did nothing to deserve it. And who proved that death has no power over God's power.

There's also a lot to learn about a God who could influence a person to leave everything he had and move to a new land (Abraham), follow her mother-in-law out of respect for her family (Ruth), risk her life to beg the king for the deliverance of her people (Esther), preach for years warning the people about something called "rain" that would destroy the entire earth, then get into the boat (Noah), or cut the corner of his enemy's coat off with his sword when he was vulnerable, but not kill him (David).

When you start by studying God's character through the lives of His beloved people and through His own life on earth, then you can work your way out, and suddenly the stories become more believable, because you realize that "with God all things are possible" (Matt. 19:26). And nothing is too good to be true.

Talking Cats

2006-10-05T14:30:00.000-07:00


Talking Cats by Scoob

OK

2006-09-28T06:25:00.000-07:00

I changed the name of my blog, to reflect the novice-philosopher direction it's taking, and also partly as a direct homage to Dr. Koobs' book.

This morning I was contemplating the hymn "At The Cross," also known as "Alas! and did my Savior bleed."

"Alas! and did my Saviour bleed
And did my Sovereign die?
Would He devote that sacred head
For such a worm as I?"

I love Issac Watts' words, but somehow I'm really bothered by the refrain. Doesn't seem to fit.... Turns out the refrain wasn't written by Watts at all, but someone named Ralph E. Hudson. Why did he add that? "And now I am happy all the day." So cute, aww, so happy, let's all plant flowers and have an herbal tea party.

So, the subject of today's musing: If you're a Christian, are you really happy all the day?

Well, if you read the Psalms, you certainly aren't. If you read the Gospel record of Jesus' life, you certainly aren't (was Jesus a Christian?). "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Psalm 22 pretty much covers it all.

Once upon a time, or two or three, some more recently than others, I have been led through a situation which did not turn out OK for me. I was not happy all the day. Some of the day? Sure. Do I believe that difficult situations can turn us closer to God if we chose that route? Yes. Will I be unhappy about it the rest of my life? Of course not. Am I the only Christian who has to go through this kind of thing? Definitely not. But did that situation turn out OK, and am I happy about it? No. Let's just say even the excellent cardiac team at LLUMC could not have done much to repair my heart. (In one case, long long ago, they were more of a hindrance than a help. But that's a different story.)

We are called to give 100% to God, as Elder Skeete said in the evangelistic series. It made me think, what do I still have to give up? We need to have 100% faith, not 95%. The devil sneaks through the last 5% like a cat sneaks through that door you opened just a crack and thought, he can't possibly get through there.

Sometimes I'm pretty good at qualifications for answers to prayer. I can get pretty creative. God cannot go against a person's free choice. He must answer prayers only as according to His divine will and it must fit with the divine law. This logically turned into The Ifs. The Unlesses. The Except-if's. The What-Abouts. They all seemed perfectly valid to me, and I think they still are.

But one day, after I was contemplating giving 100% to God, not 95%, I was impressed by this thought: "Don't think about The Ifs. Am I a God who is too small to deal with them? Do I need your help? If it's My will, it will happen, despite the Ifs, the Unlesses, and the What-Abouts. You have no idea how I can do this, but I can. So why don't you just deal with what you are responsible for, and let Me deal with the rest?"

One night I was lying in bed, not expecting to sleep for a while, while I felt extremely restless and the What-If's crawled into my ear (a la Shel Silverstein), but God intervened again and said again, "Have faith in Me. Can you trust Me, even if it has not turned out OK in the past? Do you believe I have to power to make it all OK in the end?"

I said Yes. I have no idea how a secular scientist or psychologist could explain the immediate calm and restfulness I felt right then. I drifted gently and quickly to sleep.

Here's the conclusion I've come to all along: No, I don't really believe that every Christian is always "happy all the day." But a Christian is someone who, at the end of the day, both he and God know that they can talk.

Continuing with Issac Watts...

"But drops of grief can ne'er repay
This debt of love I owe:
Here, Lord, I give myself to Thee,
'Tis all that I can do."

Maybe that's why Psalm 22 ends, "My praise shall be of Thee in the great congregation."

Other people's blogs

2006-09-27T20:36:00.000-07:00

I've been reading other people's blogs. People I don't know. Just click the "Next Blog" button. I think it's random; different people every time. Maybe it's not such a great idea; you never know what you'll run into (some people are not too clean in their language). But it's interesting to see how people live. There are a lot of pathetic people out there. Most of the blogs I've seen are written by single women like me in their 20s and 30s, but their contents include: 1) problems with men, 2) how many tequila shots they drank last night, 3) despair over men, or 4) how many tequila shots are required to get a guy to sleep with them. Well, I'd have to say it makes all of my problems look fairly tame, almost insignificant. Makes you understand what people share (apparently the despair is not such an uncommon phenomenon), and what they don't need to if they choose not to (the drinking and bed-hopping part. Why bother?)

Meanwhile, I guess I'll just go to bed and read Early Writings. Highly recommended.

I'm still trying to decide whether or not to go to GYC--anybody want to room with me??

Prayer request, part II

2006-09-21T10:25:00.000-07:00

Please pray for my friend Sarah and her family; she lost her mother to pancreatic cancer this morning.

Tree

2006-09-19T11:10:00.000-07:00

Here is the recovery of the mulberry tree in my front yard. The first picture was taken in April, and I bemoaned the loss of my lovely tree for weeks. That is, until I realized what a crazy tree this is. The second picture was taken this week, after I trimmed quite a few branches which were hanging into the sidewalk and down to the ground.

Surprised!

2006-09-08T17:57:00.000-07:00

OK, I can be a bit dense sometimes...

Last Monday was my birthday, which was not a special birthday in terms of years (the big 2-5 or 3-0 or whatever), but it was special in that it fell on Labor Day Monday, a holiday (I sometimes say it's called Labor Day because...my mom was in labor?), which means that for the next several years it will be on a weekday again, not much fun for celebrating. So a few friends and I planned a day off to go explore LA (including two of my co-workers who live there). Since we had a whole fun day planned, the idea of another party never crossed my mind.

So Sunday, the day before, Monica and Shannon and I ran some errands--the usual Costco etc., where they bought the usual groceries, including chips and bags of celery, broccoli, baby carrots, and fruit each as big as my cat (those who have met my cat know how large this is). Monica insisted that she liked to bring vegetables for lunch at work, although I kept saying as we were checking out, "Wow, with all these fruits and veggies and chips and dips it looks like we're having a party!" At that point I guess Monica insisted I had found out what they were planning, but guess what, I had no idea.

Back at Shannon's house, her backyard pool was looking extremely inviting in the 100+ degree heat, but she oddly didn't want us to come over and swim because she had "stuff to do in the afternoon." What a hard-working young lady! So Monica and I, inspired by her industrious spirit, spent the rest of the afternoon taking care of the important business of watching dumb videos in the Internet (www.dumbvideos.com, the cat video on the first page is great!) and driving halfway to Palm Springs because we saw a cloud that looked like it was raining there.

Shannon had said earlier that day that we were invited to her house for supper later, so fortunately I decided to change out of my shorts and tanktop to pants and a shirt. We went to Shannon's house and the food she set out didn't look like normal dinner, more like a party. I still had no idea until a bunch of my friends jumped out from behind the kitchen counter and yelled, "Surprise!" yes, I was surprised. I'm sooooo blessed to have so many wonderful friends around here! I'm so thankful for Advent Hope.

It's amazing how someone can go grocery shopping for their own surprise party and have no idea.

By the way, Monday was lots of fun, too. Maybe I'll post some pictures of both events when I get some good ones (not of me being surprised...)

Letter to the editor

2006-08-30T21:55:00.000-07:00

I did something novel today--I wrote my first letter to the editor! I was reading my latest issue of Smithsonian Magazine, as is my tradition, and I read a very interesting article about native cannibals in New Guinea. The reporter ventured into an extremely remote place to visit a tribe--he was the first light-skinned person they've ever seen there. All others were far too scared to go into that territory. This is one of the only existing cannabalistic tribes left. Read the whole story in the Sept. 2006 issue of Smithsonian.

The part that struck me and inspired me to write the letter was where the people (the Korowai) told of "a powerful spirit, named Ginol, who created the present world after having destroyed the previous four...." (vaguely reminiscent of the Flood) The tradition continues, "white-skinned ghost-demons will one day invade Korowai land. Once the laleo [what they call the white-skinned ones] arrive, Ginol will obliterate this fifth world. The land will split apart, there will be fire and thunder, and mountains will drop from the sky. This world will shatter, and a new one will take its place." Another part of the article quotes a Dutch missionary who declined to penetrate the Korowai land after he heard the story that "'a very powerful mountain god warned the Korowai that their world would be destroyed by an earthquake if outsiders came into their land to change their customs.'"

Here's the letter I emailed to the editor:

It's amazing that the remote Korowai people, who have never had contact with Western people, much less Christian missionaries, could have in their religious tradition a prophecy that a powerful god would cause fire, thunder, and land to split apart and end the earth when outsiders with other traditions come to their land. Have they really never read the apocalyptic vision in Revelation 16:18-20--"and there were noises and thunderings and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake, such a mighty and great earthquake as had not occured since men were on the earth....Then every island fled away, and the mountains were not found"--along with Matthew 24:14--"And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come"?

I'm sure it won't be published. Smithsonian is a scientific institution, very proud of its athiestic positions and evolutionary teachings. But maybe it would be interesting from an anthropological point of view. Probably not, though--Satan works hard to intercept any light of truth from institutions such as that. But God is more powerful. Pray that the Gospel really will be preached to all nations soon.

Quote for the day

2006-08-27T14:58:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to share a beautiful quote today. I hope whoever reads this will find as much comfort in sorrow as I have.

"The Saviour longs to give us a greater blessing than we ask; and He delays the answer to our request that He may show us the evil of our own hearts, and our deep need of His grace. He desires us to renounce the selfishness that leads us to seek Him. Confessing our helplessness and bitter need, we are to trust ourselves wholly to His love." Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages, p. 200

P.S. If you are ever sad about anything, open up pretty much any page EGW has written and you will find God's comfort more beautifully described than you could ever even dream up yourself.

Music

2006-08-22T21:24:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I wonder why I play the violin.

Most people have useful jobs, such as a doctor or a bricklayer or a mailman or salesman or air conditioner repairman.

But what is the point of playing a musical instrument?

If I were a singer, people would remember the words to my songs, and if they were good words, they could remember a good message from them. But my music has no words, therefore no meaning, good or bad.

But there is absolutely no purpose for playing a musical instrument.
Which is exactly why I do it.

Evolutionists can think up purposes for so many things on Earth: photosynthesis, plate tectonics, hydrogen, DNA, and so on. But they often get hung up on music. The human ear is profoundly complex--years of study cannot fully give a comprehension of exactly how sound waves are transformed into signals in the brain which are interpreted as meaningful sounds. Evolutionists can make a case for the sociological advantage of communication in verbal language. But what about musical sounds, which do not have any symbolic meaning and cannot be identified with any other sense?

I can't think, off the top of my head, of anything else on earth that does not have any other meaning through any other sense besides instrumental music. I suppose you could count the kind of gas that you can only smell and not see or feel (although sophisticated devices may be able to measure their weight). But most objects can be perceived through a combination of senses--sight, touch, smell. Spoken words are only perceived through the ear, but they symbolize things that can be perceived some other way: if I say "chair" you would have the sensual experience of an object with legs and a platform to sit on, perhaps with a smooth or soft feel, and the smell of leather or rubber. And concepts such as "kindness" are equated with physical actions and physical objects, such as giving a glass of water to a thirsty enemy.

If you are aquainted with music, you understand what I mean by the emotional, even physical, response to a certain arrangement of harmonies--that the stimulus is communicating something, but not something clearly defined such as a "chair" or "strawberry" or even "kindness" or "hope." The communication draws us to something unknown.

"Physical pleasures are subdivided into two types. First there are those which fill the whole organism with a conscious sense of enjoyment...as when we eat and drink.... However, there are also pleasures which satisfy no organic need, and relieve no previous discomfort. They merely act, in a mysterious but quite unmistakable way, directly on our senses....Such is the pleasure of music." (Thomas More, Utopia)

C.S. Lewis describes this well in Mere Christianity: "Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists....If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probably explanation is that I was made for another world."

In The Great Divorce, Lewis describes an angelic citizen of Heaven talking with a painter visiting there: "'When you painted on earth...it was because you caught glimpses of Heaven in the earthly landscape. The success of your painting was that it enabled others to see the glimpses too...Light itself was your first love; you loved paint only as a means of telling about light.'"

If the visual arts exist to give humans glimpses of light through what can be seen and felt with several senses (and what can at least attempt to be explained through naturalistic theory), how much more can music, otherwise completely useless as it is, give us a glimpse of something even less humanly explainable?

Prayer request

2006-08-09T08:23:00.000-07:00

To all my friends who like to pray for prayer requests, I have a personal request: I just found out that they changed the rehearsal schedule for the Redlands Symphony Orchestra this year to have Friday night rehearsals. The RSO is the only orchestra I play with anymore and one of the last ones to not have any Friday night or Saturday services; I used to play with the San Bernardino Symphony but I let that one go because they have Saturday afternoon rehearsals. Those who know me know how much I love playing in orchestra; music is my career and my passion, and although I get most of my income from teaching, playing in orchestra is one of my favorite things to do. I've played in orchestras every year since fifth grade, and it's been the foundational thing in my musical life. I can't forsee any orchestras not having any Sabbath conflicts. Satan is working overtime on God's people who "keep the commandments of God" (Rev. 14:12), especially the overlooked fourth commandment. I know I'm not alone in these kinds of struggles--my recent study of Daniel 9 taught me that we ought to pray for our people, for all believers, because we are all in this together. May God strengthen us for whatever conflicts we have ahead of us in our communal struggle to live according to God's commandments.

July 31, 2006

2006-07-31T09:17:00.000-07:00

It is RAINING IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA. It's July. Not just a little drizzle that evaporates before it hits the ground, but real rain--all morning. This is weird. Of course, it's also been about 115 degrees the last week or so.

The earth is going crazy. Everybody come to Southwest Youth Conference. www.swyouthconference.org

Strange places for a cat

2006-07-30T12:17:00.000-07:00

You would think that in a small apartment a large cat would have fewer places to get comfortable. Then you remember what a cat is.

A parable

2006-07-22T15:11:00.000-07:00

For the customs of the peoples are futile; for one cuts a tree from the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the ax. They are upright, like a palm tree, and they cannot speak; they must be carried, because they cannot go by themselves. Do not be afraid of them, for they cannot do evil, nor can they do any good. Thus you shall say to them: "The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth shall perish from the earth and from under these heavens."Jeremiah 10:3, 5, 11

We love him, because he first loved us. 1 John 4:19

Once there was a young lady who fell in love with a young man. She fell in love with him because he was the man of her dreams. He was everything she could have wanted. Since she was a little girl and once had been rescued from an uncomfortable situation in a public park by a friendly policeman who happened to be nearby, she had always wanted to marry a policeman. When she became a teenager, she and her girlfriends would talk about their future marriages, and she would envision exactly what she wanted in a man. She had a mental picture of an extremely tall man, with brilliant platinum blonde hair, and light blue eyes. He would be gentle and kind, and loved horseback riding and reading books about ancient history, just like her daddy did. He would sing in the church choir, his favorite food was peanut butter jelly sandwiches, and--even though she didn't admit this to her girlfriends--he would have a really odd, loud laugh like her older brother.

When this young lady went to college, her friends started looking for husbands, but she didn't know if she would ever find a gentleman who was like what she wanted. After all, she was kind of particular...But one day, she went to choir rehearsal, and as the director told a silly joke she was startled to hear a loud and rather annoying laugh coming from the back of the classroom. Her eyes grew big when she turned to find a tall, platinum blonde boy with pale blue eyes. On the way out of class, she made an effort to leave the classroom with him, and out of courtesy introduced herself and asked his name and what he was studying.

"Law enforcement," he said.

Since it was lunchtime, she invited him to join her with her friends at the cafeteria. He ate nothing but two peanut butter jelly sandwiches. As the conversation progressed, it was discovered that his favorite hobbies were horseback riding and reading books about ancient history. She was happy; she had found her man.

Unfortunately, the story doesn't end there. Or rather...it does. The unhappy ending for the young woman is that this gentleman had absolutely no interest in her. In fact, a few months later he was seen holding hands with another girl from Finland.

There was also another young man, 21 years old, who lived in a large metropolitan area. He had just reached the age where he could drink legally, and was definitely taking advantage of that opportunity to barhop with his older friends. He was very attractive and learned that bars were excellent places to find women who were more drunk than he, and were perfectly willing to go home with him. In his large apartment (which his parents paid for), his living room was transformed into a home theater. He went to school every day to become a banker, and was expecting to do extremely well financially. He lived alone, but he was not often lonely, because as soon as he came home from school, he would take a drink, watch TV, and head out with his friends to the bar. It was fun, he was happy; he had found his life.

Does the young man's story end there? Probably not. Because the young woman in love and the young man who loved his life both faced the same problem--That which they loved did not return their love. The people in Jeremiah's time, in ancient days, longed for the idols of the surrounding nations; gods of wood and stone. They found happiness in the symbols they worshipped. But the gods did not love them in return, so all of their happiness was completely useless. Today, people's devotions might be directed to somewhat different types of idols--pleasures, entertainment, ambitions for riches and fame. But no matter how much happiness these things may bring us at the time they are received, they will not love us in return. And if they don't return our love, our devotion is useless.

God alone has given us a promise that cannot be broken. "The LORD hath appeared of old unto me, [saying], Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee." (Jer. 31:3) "For God so loved the world...." (John 3:16) We can be assured that this is one relationship where our love can be returned. That's the only useful kind of devotion in the universe.

Dick Koobs, MD 1928-2006

2006-06-21T07:35:00.000-07:00

On July 12 Loma Linda lost a brilliant scientist and a great friend of the community. Dr. Dick Koobs passed away after battling lymphoma. He will be greatly missed by the faculty at the university where he used to teach and practice pathology, and by the many friends he and his wonderful wife Ardyce have made with their generosity and helpfulness. I feel like one of the many family members the Koobs have adopted, and I'll always be thankful of all the help and friendship they've given me since I've lived here.

News from friends

2006-05-29T23:02:00.000-07:00

The news from friends is that some of them have graduated this past weekend (good for them) and left town (bad for me). I'm thinking specifically of Rachel and Eric Nelson, whom I got to know pretty well since they've been my 2-doors-down neighbors. They're off to Sacramento for residency. Rachel knocked on my door at 5:30 this evening to say goodbye. Fortunately, I am probably going to get a chance to visit them in July while I'm up north for a music institute.

The good news is that my friend James Lee, an excellent composer, is having an orchestral work premiered by the National Symphony in October, conducted by Leonard Slatkin! I'm so excited for him. You can read the blurb here. It's a piece called "Beyond Rivers of Vision," and the premise of the piece could be a great witnessing tool. James is also getting married in August to a nice Brazilian girl I got to meet at GYC last year. I love seeing how God has blessed my friends' lives.