Tuning Slide 5.17- Giving Thanks- A Story to Tell

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

Music can heal the wounds which medicine cannot touch.
Debasish Mridha

The past two weeks have been difficult, which is why there wasn’t a Tuning Slide post last week. One of my older and deeper friends had a major health event two weeks ago tomorrow. We waited and prayed. A lot! My wife and I spent his last day at the hospital with his wife and daughter. We said goodbye about an hour after the life-support was disconnected. Five minutes after we walked out the door, he passed. Over these weeks, music was the grounding force of my life. This week, then, I have a couple of stories to tell. Since last week was Thanksgiving, the stories connect with the holiday and the gratitude I have felt in the midst of the difficulties.

The overall story goes back many years- thirty-five, to be exact. This friend was a highly talented musician. He was more than just excellent at guitar, banjo, and mandolin. He had played in many groups over the years. He was also our neighbor, he had children the same age group as our daughter, and was a member of our church. We did a lot together- if it wasn’t about church, faith, and family, it usually involved music. He was often encouraging me to work on my musical skills at the trumpet- and the guitar.

One day we were sitting having a conversation over lunch or some meal or other. We began talking about music in the church- and church musicians, many of whom were our friends in our church as well as in the larger community. We were commenting about something or other of those things that often bug pastors, even pastors like myself who were also musicians. For some now long-forgotten reason, I made some comment about myself not being one of those church musicians who would give pastors headaches. He got this “oh, really?” look on his face, paused and said:

“If you practiced more, you might.”

He looked satisfied with that- and dropped the subject.

I didn’t forget, however. I especially remembered it a number of times in the past 8-10 years when I did start practicing more- a lot more! I remembered it as my skills did improve. He was one of those smacks up the side of the head that made me wonder what it was I could really do with music if I put my mind to it.

As part of that ongoing subtle prodding, he suggested I go with him up north one year to a bluegrass jam camp he had discovered. While I have tried to learn to play guitar a number of times over the past 50+ years, I never progressed. I wanted to be as good at the guitar as I was at the trumpet, but without the years of practice. He told me there would be a number of others at the camp with the same skill level as I had- and that it would be fun. Since I have always enjoyed bluegrass music- the jazz of country music- I finally agreed. It was everything he said- and more. He and I then organized a couple bluegrass jam camps of our own at our church’s camp in Wisconsin and had the chance to meet, work with, and become friends with Monroe Crossing, one of Minnesota’s top bluegrass groups. I even went to several monthly jam sessions in the Twin Cities before moving.

After the move, my bluegrass chops began to fall away when my trumpet chops and engagement in a number of groups grew. I continued to love bluegrass and listened to it. I attempted to work on trumpet or brass quintet arrangements of some bluegrass classics. They haven’t fallen into place, but my friend did encourage me at it.

Back in September our community band was putting the music together for our fall concert. I was overjoyed to see an arrangement of a bluegrass classic, Arkansas Traveler, in the list. I took the first part with the short 16-bar solo in the middle of it. I knew it would be fun and would fit right in with all my many musical interests.That piece became the closing number of the concert.

The concert was last Saturday, only three hours after my friend died.

I had told his family about it and we were all humbled by the timing. Over the past couple of years I have lost most of my fear and anxiety of solos. As we came to my three measures of rest right before the solo, I said a brief “Thank you. This is for you, my friend” and just played.

But the story isn’t quite over. The next night my wife and I were at another concert in the Twin Cities with the incredible guitar duo of Rodrigo y Gabriela. They both talked during the concert about how powerful and important music is. It is, they both said, “a force for healing.” My friend knew that in his life. One of the groups that he played with for a number of years was a faith-based group. He often talked about how the music they played in concert or for church was more than performing. It was spirit. It was faith being lived and shared. He often talked about how when they sand and the audience or congregation sang with them, it was a “boomerang” effect. The music and faith, and healing, that they sent out was echoed back to them.

As I put all this together, and our big band played a gig this past Monday, I realized that is what has been happening in my life over these 55 years since I started playing the trumpet. It is what I discovered playing in many groups over the years. It is what I am continuing to discover, even when I sit and play long tones or woodshed a difficult part of a piece. It is what happens when our big band plays for a senior citizens group- and they smile, tap their feet, and even sometimes yell “wahoo!” when we’re done.

Music. What a joy, what a gift both to give and receive. I am thankful to overflowing with it. Never lose it. Keep playing, keep practicing, keep performing. You and the people around you will discover healing and hope.

My friend’s memorial will be next Saturday. It will be a celebration of his life- and it will be filled with music!

4.24- Tuning Slide: The Never-Ending Gift

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

Music is an outburst of the soul.
Frederick Delius

It is a week of gifts. No matter how we celebrate Christmas (or don’t) the season reminds us in both crass commercialism and in profoundly soulful ways that it is a blessing to give as well as receive. As a musician I have found that music is a two-way street. I most certainly enjoy playing music for an audience or a dance. It is my gift to them and watching people enjoy music is incredibly satisfying. But just putting it that way also indicates that when playing for others I get something back as well.

But just playing and listening to music, exploring it, figuring it out, letting it flow around and within me is in and of itself a gift to me. Perhaps more than that- a way of having my life enriched so that I can share it. If music were only about what it did for me, I would not have as rich an experience of music. The wonders of music are never ending. On any given week I come across numerous articles, studies, and personal reflections talking about how music can make a difference in life and in the world.

So for this Christmas Eve Day edition of the Tuning Slide I did some digging into the wonders of music from a number of different and quite diverse sources. What is it that music can do. Here from the magazine/website Business Insider are nine ways that music makes our lives better:

Music Can Help You Relax
Angry Music Improves Your Performance
Music Reduces Pain
Music Can Give You A Better Workout
Music Can Help You Find Love
Music Can Save A Life
Music Can Improve Your Work — Sometimes
Use Music To Make You Smarter
Music Can Make You A Better Person

Most importantly: Music makes us feel good, and in the end, that's worth a lot. (Link)

Lifehack.org came up with "7 Proven Ways Music Makes Your Life Better":

1. Listening To Music Reduces Stress
2. Listening To Music Improves Endurance
3. It Can Make You Healthier
4. Singing With A Group Of People Makes You Happier
5. Learning To Play An Instrument As A Kid Makes You More Successful Later
6. It Makes You Smarter
7. It Improves Your Memory
(Link)

I can attest to these powers of music. Take the time to check these two articles out and I will expect that you will agree.

If music be the food of love, play on.
William Shakespeare

In November the Space Weather news and web site informed us that the universe- or at least our near neighborhood produced music:

On Nov. 18th, however, something quite different happened. Solar wind hit Earth and produced ... a pure, almost-musical sine wave!… Rob Stammes recorded the event from the Polarlightcenter, a magnetic observatory in the Lofoten Islands of Norway. "A very stable ~15 second magnetic oscillation commenced and persisted for several hours," he says. "The magnetic field was swinging back and forth by 0.06 degrees, peak to peak, with the regularity of a metronome. … This was a very rare episode indeed." (Link)

The music of the spheres is not just a metaphor!

As one who works in addiction treatment I found this next piece more than a little interesting. It is from Recovery Unplugged, an addiction treatment program that bases its work on music. They are applying some of what the earlier links mentioned. On their website that talk about:

Why music works:
✓ Music is a core utility in the brain. Our brain responds to and process music in the womb. Music leads to language and all forms of communication.
✓ Our bodies and it’s rhythm. Every notice you’re walking to the beat of the music that you’re listening to?
✓ Music taps into our emotions. Have you ever listened to music and just felt happy? Or felt sad? See what I mean?
✓ Music enhances learning. Do you remember how you learned your ABCs? Through a song!
✓ Music taps into our memories. Have you ever been driving, heard a song on the radio, then immediately been taken to a certain place, a specific time in your life, or a particular person?
✓ Music is a social experience. Music experiences are shared with a group, whether playing in band or going to a concert. (Link)

To which I can only add, “Amen!”

At the Website BetterHumans.coach.me, Niklas Göke reviews some of the changes in the way people listen to music and the repercussions. He suggests several ways to become more intentional in his article "How to Make Music a Useful Part of Your Life Again". He suggests:

✓ Conscious Listening- This is awareness building. Take the time to just listen to music. Sometimes I find that difficult. I am using music to do so many things, just listening doesn’t always just happen.
✓ Web App: Listen on Repeat- This is a technique to put a You Tube video on repeat so you can perhaps dig more deeply into it. I know there are other ways to do this, but this will remind me that I should look into those, too. (Link)

And finally, take the time to go to The Ascent and read this article that sums up a lot of what this post is all about. Why Is Music So Powerful?

In the end, music is a gift that is multi-dimensional, both practical and just plain fun. Without it I life would have so little going for it. It is how we and the universe can communicate and stay tuned in to each other.

Have a great holiday week no matter how you celebrate the season!

Music in the soul can be heard by the universe.
Lao Tzu

Sixth Week of Lent: The Star Thrower

Once in a lifetime, perhaps, one escapes the actual confines of the flesh.Once in a lifetime, if one is lucky, one so merges with sunlight and air and running water that whole eons,the eons that mountains and deserts know, might pass in a single afternoon without discomfort.

-Loren Eiseley

Stories are the lifeblood of the spirit. I have a handful of such stories that have formed, informed, and built my life over the past 45 years. The wondrous preacher Fred Craddock, the amazing Tony Campolo, pastoral care guru Howard Clinebell all contributed. Only Loren Eiseley contributed a unique and enduring story in the midst of some of the most scientifically enriching writings of his day.

Loren Eiseley was called a spiritual wanderer and naturalist in the title of a 1986 essay by Joan Rosen in the Language Arts Journal of Michigan. Rosen wrote:

Nature is Loren Eiseley's teacher. In the creatures of the natural world, in the stars, in the flora and fauna, he witnesses the miracles and wonders of the ages…. [When Eiseley] describes Thoreau as "a spiritual wanderer through the deserts of the modern world” in "Thoreau's Vision of the Natural World" in the essay collection The Star Thrower he is describing himself.

Trained as an anthropologist he had a poet’s feel for words and an amazing eye for the unique and wondrous things of the world. Some quotes from Eiseley that shape his ideas and his incredible spirituality:

If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water

he wrote about the very beginnings of life on our planet, coming out of the primal seas. But there was a growing of life that at some point produced the human race and then:

For the first time in four billion years a living creature had contemplated himself and heard with a sudden, unaccountable loneliness, the whisper of the wind in the night reeds.

That loneliness, sadly, can turn to hubris. The result as we are seeing can be dangerous. Eiseley, who died over 40 years ago saw it coming:

When man becomes greater than nature, nature, which gave us birth, will respond.

Humanity is on an incredible pilgrimage within nature, as Thoreau and Leopold, Dillard and Olson have seen. It is not easy and never ends. Eiseley was one of the tour guides for me.

The journey is difficult, immense. We will travel as far as we can, but we cannot in one lifetime see all that we would like to see or to learn all that we hunger to know.

Of all the descendants of Thoreau, Loren Eiseley stands alone in my estimation. Some of his anthropology and science have been changed in these 40 years. We have broader and deeper understandings of the world and how we have come to be where we are. But his foundation is as unshaken as it was when I first read him well over 45 years ago. He calls us to pay attention equally to both the little and big things. He calls us to be aware- mindful in our 21st Century language- of what we do and how we live. He calls us to see within us the spirit of one greater than ourselves.

His greatest story, told and retold countless times over these years, often without attribution, has become almost a trite motivational trope. I found a number of “quotes” that were supposedly from Eiseley, but are paraphrases, retellings of retellings of the original. It is powerful, mind-boggling, and more than just a nice motivational story. It is the story of our calling as humans with nature and each other. Here is a very short version of "The Star Thrower." What a perfect way to prepare for Easter in a week and a half:

In a pool of sand and silt a starfish had thrust its arms up stiffly and was holding its body away from the stifling mud.

"It's still alive," I ventured.

"Yes," he said, and with a quick yet gentle movement he picked up the star and spun it over my head and far out into the sea. It sunk in a burst of spume, and the waters roared once more.

..."There are not many who come this far," I said, groping in a sudden embarrassment for words. "Do you collect?"

"Only like this," he said softly, gesturing amidst the wreckage of the shore. "And only for the living." He stooped again, oblivious of my curiosity, and skipped another star neatly across the water. "The stars," he said, "throw well. One can help them."

I had seen the star thrower cross that rift and he had reasserted the human right to define his own frontier. He had moved to the utmost edge of natural being. I had been unbelieving, hardened by the indifference of maturity. I arose with a solitary mission, to find the star thrower beneath his rainbow. I found him on a projecting point of land in the sweet rain-swept morning. Silently, I sought and picked up a still-living star, spinning it far out into the wave. I spoke once briefly. “I understand,” I said, “call me another thrower.” Only then I allowed myself to think. He is not alone any longer. After us there will be others. We were part of the rainbow – like the drawing of a circle in men’s minds, the circle of perfection.

I picked and flung another star. I could feel the movement in my body. It was like a sowing – the sowing of life on an infinitely gigantic scale. I looked back over my shoulder, and small and dark against the receding rainbow, the star thrower stooped and flung one more. I never looked back again. The task we assumed was too immense for gazing. I flung and flung again while all about us roared the insatiable waters of death, the burning sun, for it was men as well as starfish that we sought to save, a thrower who loved not man, but life. -Link

The Loren Eiseley Society.

Second Sunday of Lent: What Drumbeat? What Path?

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.
-Henry David Thoreau


Okay, I better address something this week. Why in the world am I using someone like Thoreau for leading me deeper into the world of Lent? Thoreau was not supportive of Christianity. In fact his “diary” entry for Sunday in A Week on the Concord and Merrimack is more about western religions' faults and hypocrisies. On top of that he is often seen as self-centered, narcissistic, pompous, and hypocritical. An article in New Yorker magazine in 2015 by award-winning author Kathryn Schulz severely criticizes Thoreau.

The real Thoreau was, in the fullest sense of the word, self-obsessed: narcissistic, fanatical about self-control, adamant that he required nothing beyond himself to understand and thrive in the world. From that inward fixation flowed a social and political vision that is deeply unsettling. -Link

She goes on to analyze and question how in the world such a person could be so honored and even deified by so many?

I am not here to defend Thoreau. To some extent I agree with Schulz’s general review of him. He was a very strange man in so many ways. In spite of the popularity- and importance- of his ideal of civil disobedience, or his ideal of Walden pond, his arguments as presented do not always hold water, especially in the 21st Century. He was an excellent naturalist and the founding father of so much of what has since been written, but again it may not be all it seems. In many ways he was writing a metaphor, not a strict natural history. But again, we are dealing with the pre-Civil War 19th Century! The world of New England in 1845, which Thoreau presented as the seeming pinnacle of civilization, looks nothing like our world. It is, for me, the principles and directions of his thought that impress me.

As we remember that we are not dealing with a contemporary of ours, so too we should understand that he was not a “wise elder.” Thoreau never made it to being an elder; he died at age 45 of tuberculosis. He was 28 when he moved to Walden, 30 when he left, and 31 when he delivered the lecture that would become Civil Disobedience. In other words he was still a young rebel. He never left that behind.

Which is why I am so impressed by him and why the quote at the top of this post is his legacy for me. He was always marching to a different drummer. I believe that we as Christians should never forget that thought. We should find ways to move our own lives with an attitude of following our own music- or more fittingly for this series- the music of the soul and spirit as we Jesus-followers experience and discover it through Jesus Christ; him crucified and resurrected. Jesus told us that we should learn the ways of the world because he was sending us out

like sheep into the midst of wolves; so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. (NRSV)

Part of that, Thoreau would remind us, is to listen for the beat of that different drummer! That is what Lent reminds us. Here is the call of this season for us-

dig deeply, look inside to find the drumbeat of our lives. 

More to the point may be that we are hearing the heartbeat of God when we do so. That heartbeat can be restless. That can make it a heartbeat that animates us, gives us direction and meaning and life. It keeps us moving.

A friend on Facebook posted a challenge to his fellow Baby Boomers last week. He asked what happened to the idealism and hope, the fresh ideas and directions, the radical and revolutionary understandings that propelled so many of us in the 60s and early 70s? Instead we have become “elders” (read: old), often more interested in the status quo than the possibilities of growth and peace, grace and spirit. “Have we lost our soul?” was my personal response. Have we become afraid of our own shadows, or even ashamed of some of the naive and innocent ideals of our youth? As a result have we turned away from asking the hard questions for fear of offending ourselves or others? Have we turned off the drumbeat and simply given up on making the world a better place?

But the word naive comes from deeper roots than that.

1650s, "natural, simple, artless," from French naïve, fem. of naïf, from Old French naif "naive, natural, genuine; just born; foolish, innocent; unspoiled, unworked" (13c.), from Latin nativus "not artificial," also "native, rustic," literally "born, innate, natural" -Link

Maybe we weren’t as “foolish” as some think we were. Maybe we were listening to what is more innate, a more natural way of living. Thoreau’s time at Walden Pond was a similar move. No, he did not leave the world behind and live like a hermit. Far from it. Instead he used that time to dig into his own soul and the spirit of the world around him, to hear the different drummer’s beat for him.

That’s what I am doing this Lent. I am using my faith and my experiences to bring that beat into clearer focus. I am using the wrestling with Thoreau to help me fine-tune my ear for the music and the ways to bring what I still believe as important from my “naive” years into this time and place.

• Where am I turning to hear the beat of God’s drummer?
• How can I pay closer attention to what the Spirit is calling me to do?
• What is the path in front of me that I may need to follow?
• What of my past is valuable to translate into this new century and the next decade of my life?
• How can I leave a trail that others may follow and find their own place in the work of God?

Do not go where the path may lead,

go instead where there is no path

and leave a trail.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

First Sunday of Lent: Breaking Through the Ice

Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.

-Henry David Thoreau

Lent. How many of these have I been through now? I became a Christian at age fifteen so that means my first Lent was spring of 1964. Of course as a Baptist we didn’t talk much about the church year like that, but I must have known something. That was a much different religious environment than we have today.

As I grew into a broader and more “liturgical” model of the faith I learned that Lent was about sacrifice and even suffering. After all, that is what Jesus did. That comes from an attitude that we have to tame the things of the body so the things of the spirit can grow. This is an outgrowth of what amounts to a more Greek than Hebrew understanding that says:

Heaven=good
Earth=bad

Spiritual=good
Material=bad

Thoreau would probably not agree with that, at least in the ways we often mean it. I picked the quote at the top of the post for this First Sunday of Lent to bring into light the idea that heaven is more than a place we go after this life and the earth is as much a part of our heaven as heaven itself, whatever that may be. This quote comes from Chapter 16 of Walden, titled “The Pond in Winter.” The chapter begins:

I awoke to an answered question, to Nature and daylight. The snow lying deep on the earth dotted with young pines, and the very slope of the hill on which my house is placed, seemed to say, Forward! Nature puts no question and answers none which we mortals ask. She has long ago taken her resolution. "O Prince, our eyes contemplate with admiration and transmit to the soul the wonderful and varied spectacle of this universe. The night veils without doubt a part of this glorious creation; but day comes to reveal to us this great work, which extends from earth even into the plains of the ether. [Emphasis added.]

Nature itself is the answered question; the glorious creation, “this great work” extends to the limits of the universe. Even in the midst of the coldest time of the year, Thoreau decided that much was going on that is the Creation itself. He continues:

Then to my morning work. First I take an axe and pail and go in search of water, if that be not a dream. … Every winter the liquid and trembling surface of the pond, which was so sensitive to every breath, and reflected every light and shadow, becomes solid to the depth of a foot or a foot and a half… it closes its eyelids and becomes dormant for three months or more.

The pond is not just some geographic occurrence. Thoreau senses that there is life there. Even at great depths. Many thought it bottomless but he will show more than that. Later in this chapter he will tell of his method of measuring its depth through an understanding of other measurements.  He will look at the water of Walden Pond as being part of all the waters of all the earth. He will understand that in some way more mysterious than magical, all creation is connected. The pond is now like a field.

Standing on the snow-covered plain, as if in a pasture amid the hills, I cut my way first through a foot of snow, and then a foot of ice, and open a window under my feet, where, kneeling to drink, I look down into the quiet parlor of the fishes, pervaded by a softened light as through a window of ground glass, with its bright sanded floor the same as in summer; there a perennial waveless serenity reigns as in the amber twilight sky, corresponding to the cool and even temperament of the inhabitants. Heaven is under our feet is well as over our heads.

Thoreau, in chapter 16, has rediscovered the spiritual under the material. He may have been fooled for awhile by the coldness and seeming lifelessness of winter. In this morning’s awakening he has the answer. Has he cut through his winter state, as the Cliff Notes suggest? Is he now about to open up to find new insight and new spiritual direction? It would seem that way. He has, in the metaphor of looking into the window under his feet, discovered himself and his own soul, alive and well. Heaven is not just some far off place, it is accessible here.

It does take work to get there, though. He had to cut through the soft snow covering and then the thicker, solid layer. Then he can drink from the source. It does not come either naturally or even easily. Our lives, our souls, are like the water beneath Walden Pond. Covered with soft and hard layers. These are the layers we have allowed to accumulate over our spirits. These are what we have felt the need to build in order to protect something we are afraid is too fragile- or perhaps too dangerous- for us to easily touch it. Perhaps there is more to this than that as well. Or perhaps we make too much of it.

Why is is that it takes us so long to become spiritual. I don’t mean religious. We easily and willingly follow rituals, especially ones of our own making. Even those who abhor ritual will do the same things over and over in a kind of religious fervor. Those rituals can and do keep us grounded; but they can also keep us frozen in place. It is when we dig through and discover the window into who we are and what Creation is that we can move beyond ritual into the spiritual.

Don’t get me wrong. I love liturgy and ritual. That is why, even all these years after having left the ministry of preaching I am compelled every Advent and Lent to write about them, to seek new answers and new questions to explore. In that I am part of a long history, my own of 54 years as a Jesus follower and the journey of other followers of Jesus for nearly two millennia.

It has a different meaning today. It was at one point all about some sacrifice on my part. It  meant giving up something, some symbolic action that showed I was serious about being a Christian. We didn’t put it that way, of course, but that was part of what we were doing. Now I write. I pray and ponder some very simple and even simplistic prayers. In the complexity of all that is happening in the world, I need to come back down to earth. I need to look around and find God in the details of every day living and my soul under the mid-winter layer of snow and ice. That snow and ice is not always of my own making. The world pushes and prods, undermines and challenges what I understand as the things that we as Christians are to stand up for. It can get mighty cold and frightening.

These are difficult times we live in. But then again, what times aren’t difficult if one is serious about finding the ways of God as one understands God? What times are not difficult when we are constantly searching for ways to be faithful to the Creator and the Creation? What times are not difficult when we are being pulled away from the task of being more fully in touch with eternity? Which is why we need a Lenten Journey every year.

Adopt the pace of nature:

her secret is patience.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

3.32- The Tuning Slide

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

The heavens, whose aspect makes our minds as still
As they themselves appear to be,
Innumerable voices fill
With everlasting harmony;
The towering headlands, crowned with mist,
Their feet among the billows, know
That Ocean is a mighty harmonist;
Thy pinions, universal Air,
Ever waving to and fro,
Are delegates of harmony, and bear
Strains that support the Seasons in their round…
-William Wordsworth, On the Power of Sound

One of the joys of our winter stay on the Gulf Coast in Alabama is the ability to practice on the balcony overlooking the beach and water. I put my silent mute in and do my daily routine whenever it is warm and sunny enough, which is at least 75% of my time there. One day recently I finished my 30-40 minutes of playing and then sat and meditated for another 15-20 minutes. The result was the following reflection on both the practice and how music itself pulls us in and we become part of something greater than any one of us could ever be.

The surf is the constant background. It is a rhythm without a pattern, or better yet, a rhythm and pattern combining into breath. Its constancy is a heartbeat, a watery drum keeping all in motion. There are days it is as soft as a baby’s sleeping breath. This is, after all the Gulf of Mexico, not the expansive ocean. Even at fifty yards it can easily be overpowered by my muted horn.

But it is never lost. It is a pianissimo of my inner heartbeat, a drum cadence. It allows, even invites, movement. My long tones follow in order. They fall in sync with the surf. Then I play scales and it becomes a counterpoint. Play the chromatics too fast and I can lose the rhythm, the pattern under it all.

Slow down, the surf calls.
Follow me, the rhythm beckons.

In my time frame the surf is infinite, perpetual. Any time of day or night I can walk out on the balcony and it will be there. When it isn’t, life itself will have come to an end. This surf, formed by the world-wide waters, has been the breeding source of life itself. It shapes and reshapes the shorelines, constantly changing and challenging what even human grandiosity thinks is permanent. It will destroy and remold what we- and it- have built.

Then come the louder days. Gale force winds whip the tops off large swells. Though it is still the Gulf, its power is beyond what we can know. Most such days I am forced back inside, unable to compete in sound or comfort to the surf. In between the extremes, though, after a storm has moved through, shifted the winds, and roiled the surf, I can take the routine back to the balcony. Now the sound and pattern of my playing shifts. I get a little more aggressive, a little more stubborn in my insistence that I be heard, even by me.

I never win, humbling for a trumpet player to admit. Perhaps if I removed the mute my sound would carry a little further but I don’t want to disturb neighbors- or the surf itself. I must be in tune and time with the surf. Chromatics, Clarke #1, have to fall into the proper places, not just the silence but the ebb and flow of sound. The exercise on thirds must find the note solid in the right place of the surf’s rhythm. Amazing how many things it takes to make music. But with time and experience they do fall into an intuitive second nature. Harmony.

At times I realize I am also hearing and seeing other parts merging in this chamber composition. The birds in the tree below, the silent hopping of the sparrows on the edge of the balcony, the gulls laughing, pelicans soaring and diving. Whom am I to intrude, to insist on the importance of my part over theirs? That’s the harmony. I am not here to force my will on that of the world. I must not or the music will be more than dissonant, it will be destructive.

In between exercises and runs I pause. One is to rest as much as one plays, is the old adage. Here, on the balcony, that is a pleasure. As I stop the surf remains. It brings a moment of refreshment before I pick up the horn again. The others instruments continue their own song, unaware that I am listening. The call and chatter of the gulls, Laughing Gulls, in fact, challenging my hubris that I of all creatures can think I can accompany the greater symphony. Or they just do what they are supposed to do simply because their melody is needed to fill out the sound.

I take an extra 15 minutes at the end of the routine to just improvise over different chords, working on my favorite tunes I want to play at jams- Amazing Grace, This Land is Your Land, and Horace Silver’s The Preacher. They are now my contributions to uniqueness, more than just routine, foundation, they are different every time, influenced I am sure by the mood of the Gulf and the melody playing around me.

I am both humbled (kept in my proper place)
And empowered (given the direction to do what I can do)
By these practice times on the balcony.

• Humbled at how little power I truly have;
• Humbled that I am allowed to accompany such beauty;
• Humbled that the surf and sand, birds and beach could care less!

Yet,

• Empowered because I, too, am part of this symphony simply by being here in this moment;
• Empowered to play and seek ongoing harmony with nature’s music;
• Empowered by the inner and outer beats of the Eternal Heart.

Music is a gift of God!

Spirituality as Resistance: Love

It has always been one of the core beliefs of my faith that resistance to the world’s ways is at the heart of the Judeo-Christian ethic. It may also be at the heart of other faiths, but this is the one I know best and am steeped in. Between now and Epiphany Sunday on January 7 I will take one of the traditional themes of the season and relate it to our present day resistance to some difficult and troubling things happening around us. I don't believe we are to withdraw from the world, but rather engage with the world (in, not of the world) with the Word in mind.

2nd Sunday of Advent, 

December 10, 2017:

Love as Resistance

Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love,
and then, for a second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.
― Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

I found all kinds of ways of putting “love” into this post as a form of resistance. Where do we get the idea that love is a spiritual discipline?

• Love the Lord with all that you are
• Love your neighbor as yourself.
• Love is how we turn what we say into what we do.
• To live in love is to live in God.
• Love is the embodiment of our beliefs. The only place where the beliefs can be seen.
• We learn love from God!

Love as a discipline of spiritual resistance is important because it crosses barriers and boundaries and allows for no exceptions. Love is acceptance and it’s what I meant when talking last week about our interconnectedness.

On top of all that we don’t often think of the spiritual discipline of “love” as countercultural, resistance to the ways the world deals with love and life. Stop and think about it and we realize that it is the natural extension of the basic so-called Golden Rule:

Do unto others as you would have them do to (or for) you!

Meditate on that; place it as the Golden Rule, i.e. the best rule for living. (Go ahead. Take some time to do that if you want before you read on. I have already done so.)

What did you get? What comes to mind?

First it was the awareness of how seldom I think of that let alone try to actually live it. From there it moved to asking myself another question. “What would such love look like?” Without missing much of a beat it came to a halt at Jesus’ words:

I say to you, Love your enemies, bless those cursing you, do good to those hating you, and pray for those accusing you falsely, and persecuting you… (Matthew 5:44, Young’s Literal Translation.)

Now Jesus is REALLY meddling with the ways of the world. Jesus is actually suggesting that we do the exact opposite of the ways of the world. Love my enemies? You’ve got to be kidding! That would be unheard of, even suicidal.

That isn’t just countercultural, it is downright revolutionary. If we all started practicing that this would be a far different world.

And that is exactly the point! What else would be the purpose of such spiritual resistance but to make the world a far better place? What else would be the result of living a spiritually resistant lifestyle than the overturning of the logical way of living and relating to others?

Now, with all that in mind, let me ask you another question to continue to build this discipline of love.

Do you remember being loved in such a way that it changed your life?

Two things come to mind. The first, that set the foundation for me was a remarkable quote from theologian Paul Tillich:

“You are accepted. You are accepted, accepted by that which is greater than you, and the name of which you do not know. Do not ask for the name now; perhaps you will find it later. Do not try to do anything now; perhaps later you will do much. Do not seek for anything; do not perform anything; do not intend anything. Simply accept the fact that you are accepted!” If that happens to us, we experience grace.

That quote has come to me a number of times over the past 45 years- always at a time and place of needing to be loved- and what is love except an awareness of being accepted as I am. Me. Just as I am!

The second thing that came to mind happened many years ago but only sunk in recently. A few years ago I was working on following my Dad’s Army unit through the last year of World War II. I called one of my Dad’s cousins to ask some questions. (I should note that my Dad died in 1964 when I was 16, 2 1/2 years after my mother had died. What I knew of both of them was therefore limited.) In the midst of our conversation she mentioned how her mother and others around our small rural town had worried about my brother and myself losing our parents at such young ages. It was an opening of light as I realized that in those years- and many since- I was loved and cared for simply because I needed it. They were worried and wanted to support us.

I have been loved - and it was a great feeling.

How could I not want to share that? How could I not be willing to live that love through my own life? I have spent my adult life in service to others in ministry, in mission, in addiction counseling, in trying to be a good husband, father, and friend. I am who I am because over these 69 years I have been loved unconditionally by many people.

The revelation that “love” has been at work in my life in countless and often unknown ways was one more reason to live in love.

To repeat, that is all quite revolutionary. Not that family or friends loved me, but the feeling of being loved is so powerful even when you don’t know it’s happening, it can change your world.

However to name someone as “enemy” and therefore not worthy of my love is dangerous. My heroes like Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. Have pointed that out. They attempted to live in ways that loved instead of hated. Not long after I typed these words, my friends at Mindful Christianity Today on Facebook posted a meme. Here it is:

We are in a time of great divisiveness and even angry hatred. It may be couched in either nice language or spoken with all its vitriol spewing forth. Such anger and hatred leads to violence. Such violence will always be deadly- emotionally, spiritually, or physically. As part of the counter-culture of spirituality we must remember what it means to be loved and how it works miracles in each of us. Then, in radical acceptance and revolutionary hope, we live that love, no matter what.

It may be resisted or mocked; it may be seen as weakness or illogical. It will empower us to be who we are called to be.

And I saw the river over which every soul must pass to reach the kingdom of God and the name of that river was suffering - and I saw the boat which carries souls across the river and the name of that boat was love.

— St. John of the Cross

Spirituality as Resistance: Hope

Advent begins today. It is the time of preparation for the coming of the Savior on Christmas. It is a time of challenge and spiritual growth. In spite of the seemingly bright and cheerful side of the holiday that Hallmark cards often present, the next six weeks are a time of wrestling with important truths about humanity, about God, and about what God has done and is doing for our release from captivity to sin.

Over the past year many of us have been facing a crisis of faith and spirit with many difficult and uncomfortable things happening around us. Last year I wrote a series on the Dark Night of the Soul in the political era we are living in. I followed it up with a series on Dietrich Bonhoeffer in a time even darker than ours. We have made it through another year and the word that has come to describe what many of us are doing is “Resistance.”

It has always been one of the core beliefs of my faith that resistance to the world’s ways is at the heart of the Judeo-Christian ethic. It may also be at the heart of other faiths, but this is the one I know best and am steeped in. Between now and Epiphany Sunday on January 7 I will take one of the traditional themes of the season and relate it to our present day resistance to some difficult and troubling things happening around us. I don't believe we are to withdraw from the world, but rather engage with the world (in, not of the world) with the Word in mind.

1st Sunday of Advent, 

December 3, 2017

Hope as Resistance

All resistance movements have been based in a sense of hope. In recent history we have had the Resistance in France in WW II. Back in the 60s, those who opposed the Vietnam war saw themselves as a resistance movement. Non-violent resistance- has had a long history, with people like Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. being the most famous. In the past year a number of different groups like Indivisible have formed as grass-roots actions to overcome the extreme right-wing. Without the hope that they could be successful against evil and wrong, they would not have done what they did.

Let me start by looking at spirituality and how it is Resistance. I am not looking to get into arguments about the existence or nonexistence of “God.” I believe spirituality in general is far broader than that. Each “religious faith” adapts “spirituality” to be part of its own history and understanding of the world. In general, let me define spirituality this way:

We are connected!

• First, we are connected to something greater than ourselves.
• Therefore we can’t do it alone (and don’t need to) and
• Therefore that is a challenge to narrow vision and easy acceptance of many self-centered beliefs and
• Therefore “Me First” is not an option.

• Second, we are connected to others interdependently.
• Therefore we have a responsibility to others as we would want them to have responsibility for us and
• Therefore we are to do unto others as we would want them to do unto us without exception and
• Therefore we are to be kind to the “stranger” and “foreigner” in our midst.

Spirituality appears to be an evolved human response as a means of survival. Alone, the individual could not survive. It is in the evolution from nomad to tribe to village and city to nation-states to an interconnected world. This is the basis of Spiritual Resistance. It is standing for the many ways we can experience, live, and share the basic message of our continually evolving interrelationships. This is even more important today when all it could take is two individuals who can push each other- and all of humanity- into a world-ending war.

The survival of humanity depends on our getting along and finding ways to interrelate and accept others. Because we have had such experiences in our lives, because we can discover that in our daily lives, and because it is possible to live that way in new ways, we can have hope. Our hope is believing that we can do something to enhance the options for our survival.

That is heavy! That seems like an impossible task. But when we fell that, we go back to the definitions and calling to spirituality. We are not alone! We are connected and can work at increasing that interconnectedness! It is not- and cannot be- about me alone!

• The spirituality of hope is to challenge the false hopes we can all fall prey to. 
• It is resistance to the false hopes presented as variations of “Me First!” 
• It is resistance to the call to be selfish and ignore those who have less than we do. 
  
• It is resistance to myths propagated by many and varied sources in our society and other societies that seek to control rather than heal. 
• It is resistance to anything that denigrates and kills others in body, mind, or soul. It is resistance to racism, sexism, homophobia, religious bigotry, poverty. 
• It is resistance to straw men raised by “leaders” who want to consolidate power over others.

• Hope tells us that life is worth living. 
• Hope tells us that if we are willing to work together we can get things done. 
• Hope tells us that the power of “we” is always greater than the powers of “me alone.” 
• Hope tells us that there are other like-minded people who see the world as we do. 
• Hope says that each person is a person of value and worth and forgiveness and care is at the heart of what we are to do. 

 We will look at other ways this happens as we journey through Advent. In the Christian tradition Advent is a time of preparation for the coming of the Savior. It is when we take time in meditation and prayer to hear the words and follow the life of the one we Christians call The Word Become Flesh. We believe that when we watch Jesus and hear his words we are hearing the way of hope for all humanity. That is not meant to mean the exclusive, we Christians are the only ones who have the answer. It is rather from my faith and cultural perspective in a religion that has just as often ignored or turned those words upside down for their own benefit. Jesus has been called the beginning and the end. The Alpha and the Omega. Omega, the symbol of resistance can be seen as the symbol for what Jesus calls humans to do- resist the life-denying calls of the world. There are life-affirming actions and ways of the world. Jesus calls me to uphold them and keep them active.

My description of spirituality above is open to many ways of following a power greater than ourselves. Admittedly my definition is one that is based on my understandings. It comes out of my experiences of nearly 7 decades of living. I can see no other way for me that encompasses the hope, love, joy, and peace of life. I hope others can see these in their own spiritual evolution. Hope as resistance is the first step in a journey into deeper hope. It helps us to cope with what the world often throws at us and others. Resistance is an immunity against fear and hate, death and selfishness.

Focus on hope this week.

Hope can be more than wishful thinking. It is a sense of expectation that something possible is coming. We must be ready to see it when it comes. We need to be focused, not distracted, but turn toward hope and not despair.

Listen to the still small voice of hope when things seem to be falling apart.

Join with others in hope!

Overwhelmed and Procrastinating

• I am about 60% through writing a new Christmas story.
• I am about 30% through writing the first post on the Spirituality as Resistance series for Advent to Epiphany.
• I have nothing written on next week's Tuning Slide.
• I am sitting here at my computer in my coffee shop "office" scrolling Facebook and checking my calendar for the fifth time.
• In other words- I am stuck.

At the same time:

• The tax cut [sic] bill, a potential major step toward ending support programs like Social Security and Medicare, is aiming toward passage.
• Trump re-tweets a British extremist right-wing anti-Muslim video.
• Garrison Keillor is fired.
• Roy Moore is leading the polls again.

I stare at the computer screen and see the story I'm working on and wonder how I can even continue. Is there reason for "joy to the world" at Christmas 2017? Evangelical "Christians" support hateful groups and people, ignoring the very "morality" they have said they stand for. How can I proclaim the birth of a Savior they would ostracize in a way that challenges their status quo?

So I start writing here. I get the feelings down in pixels. And I sit and stare some more.

I guess I am in the perfect place to be thinking about Advent. I was not originally planning on writing this preview of the series. But what better way to get started. This is the world before Advent. This is the world into which he was born. It is clear that I am not ready for Christmas. I am still too broken, weighed down by the sad and bad and hateful news to hear any good news. I need these next four weeks to be ready.

If I stay stuck in my procrastination, nothing will change in me. I may not be able to change the way the world is going, but I do know that God can change the way I see the world and my place in it. Is this how people of faith felt before the first Advent? Has the world really changed all that much in these 2000+ years? Have we?

Hope. Love. Joy. Peace.

They are coming.

May I be ready to hear them.

The Tuning Slide 3.22- Gratitude and Music

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude.
- Fredrich Nietzsche

It is Thanksgiving tomorrow. It is the day we single out to be grateful. In reality gratitude and thanksgiving are actually essential elements of happy and many creative lives. It can provide a sense of hope and strength in even the most difficult of times and places. It is good to take a moment this week to remember to be grateful.

Almost four years ago The Huffington Post had an article titled Music and Gratitude: The Gifts That Keep On Giving by Frank Fitzpatrick. (https://www.huffingtonpost.com/frank-fitzpatrick/music-and-gratitude-the-g_b_4401547.html) The writer had attended a rare concert by composer Johnny Mandel ("The Shadow of Your Smile", the "Theme from M*A*S*H") which was on Mandel’s 88th birthday. Fitzpatrick wrote:

I felt deep gratitude for that opportunity to be there with Johnny, my good friends and the beautiful music. I enjoyed a sonic journey back through my life — reflecting on loved ones and fond memories. It was Johnny himself, however, who brought the power of gratitude into the spotlight. With an innocent pride and profound sense of humility, he turned and thanked us for sharing with him the greatest birthday gift he could ask for — a chance to make music and to relish with us in the experience as his compositions were performed by these astounding musicians. You could see the youthful sparkle of joy in his eyes.

Truly one of the great joys of music is to be in the presence of such mastery as Johnny Mandel or Doc Severinsen or whoever your musical hero might be. Those of us who had the chance this past April to meet Doc in Eau Claire, WI, are still living in the glow of that time. I wish I could have played in the band behind him, but just to be there as the music flowed in gratitude from him was a life -filling moment. Earlier in the day we heard Doc interviewed by Bob Baca and it was amazing to see and feel a sense of humility and gratitude. It was real.

That evening, after the show in the green room I had the opportunity to be with a number of the students as they waited for Doc. When he was ready he didn’t disappoint any of us! He was as truly present with each of them (and me) as he was on the stage with the music. Again, here was a musical icon, superhero, superstar, and many other things. Yet he paid attention to us. I heard from others similar stories of their interactions with Doc. He showed amazing gratitude for what he has been able to do in his now 90+ years.

Fitzpatrick expressed in his article what I had felt from Doc:

This sense of deep gratitude, and the humility that makes it possible, is one of the most inspiring qualities that I have found in other visionaries and masters of their craft whom I have had the privilege to meet in my life….

It brings me back to my opening paragraph above about the essential foundation of gratitude. It can lead us to be more present (mindful) in daily experiences. It can fill us with those moments of awe when we play an amazing piece or participate in an equally amazing concert. It can lead us to know life in new ways. Again, from Fitzpatrick’s article:

I found myself reflecting on the deeper meaning and quality of life. I thought about the values and tools that have allowed me to be more present, to feel more deeply and to continue to reconnect to the joy in life. I remembered what my mother taught me about the power of humility and what one of my teachers meant when he said gratitude was the shortest road to joy. While music has been one of the greatest connectors for me, I have come to realize how much more empowering that emotional channel can be when I surrender to it, trust in it, and honor life with humility and gratitude. Music can, in and of itself, be a great expression of gratitude.

I believe that true musical mastery, like gratitude itself, requires a kind of humility — a recognition that something far greater than us is at play, and an appreciation for the gifts and love we have received.

No matter where I find myself in my life, I can always return to the music and the gratitude and follow that path to joy.

I don’t believe I can add much more to that, other than to take the time tomorrow to reflect on what I have been blessed and present to experience since last Thanksgiving. The joy of gratitude is real as I have had the opportunities (many of them!) to be part of things that are greater than I am. In them I find joy- and home and meaning.

What does this have to do with this month’s theme of practice? Actually everything. If we do not approach our practice, our musical learning, and our musicianship as a gift to be grateful for, we will not put the energy or care into it. I really want to say, we won’t put the love into it. If I don’t love my music and my practice of it, if I am not grateful for the growth that practice can bring, I will lose interest and not go where the music can take me. I will be mediocre, or mechanical, or emotionless in my music without love and gratitude for music.

What a gift to celebrate each day. Take time to practice and play your music with gratitude this week. It will be amazing, I am sure.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Finally, a shout-out to all of you who have mentored me, played in groups with me, given me inspiration and direction since last Thanksgiving. What a gift you have all been to me. I can’t name you all for fear of forgetting someone. Fellow students, instructors, colleagues on the stage, gurus, and superstars- thank you!

Link to Huffington Post article.

Unveiled in Eden

It started with this quote from online friend, Bob Holmes:

Do you worship God under
the veil of your soul,
or do you worship unveiled,
spirit to Spirit,
center to center?

I was hit up the side of the spiritual head by it. What a wondrous insight. What a scary challenge.

I thought of Adam and Eve cowering in fear as they knew they were unveiled in Eden.

I thought of those moments of my own fear when I stood in the presence of my Lord and God and realized how poor and powerless I am by myself. Unveiled in my own garden of good and evil.

I could only describe it as being spirit naked.
I can no longer hide behind
my soul or
my humanness or
my sinfulness or
my imperfection.

All those melt away in the cleansing light of
God's Spirit meeting my spirit.

I am
Meeting God,
no longer veiled by my soul, but
spirit to Spirit.

Naked
Open and free

Running on empty, seeking, yet
nowhere to run
averting my eyes,
peeking
like a child on Christmas.

Open and vulnerable
in need of
Grace.

The Tuning Slide: 3.5- Spirituality and the Musician

Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life.
-Ludwig van Beethoven

The past two weeks I have been looking at music and the spiritual. I defined spiritual as:

a. Awareness of power and existence greater than one's self.
b. There is meaning, purpose, and direction in this greater scheme of things.
c. Positive, healthy connections with other people as part of a greater community.

This week I want to look at the spiritual and us as musicians. The first quote below that I talk about is, like the quotes the past two weeks, from this website ( http://www.thescavenger.net/health-personal-development/self-growth/226-spiritual-significance-of-music-92345.html )

What we believe, perceive, and respect in life will shine forth in our music and spirituality. For some, spirituality is a scary word reflecting religious thinking masquerading as truth. It does not have to be some esoteric message about magic and mysticism. … Spirituality reflects our faith and values. It represents our response to reality. It is the rippling undercurrent beneath our actions, firmly built on the foundational cornerstone of belief…

There’s a lot in that one paragraph. First it says that who we are will be reflected in our music. That includes our beliefs and perceptions of the world around us as well as what we value. Sometimes those things shine through in spite of us. The whole history of musicians and substance abuse, suicide, and personal difficulties did not completely silence the messages that some of these have had to share with us. In fact for many of them their music was a way of trying to figure it all out, their search for meaning and hope and life itself cries out from their music. At times that becomes very dark and dismal, and at times filled with a bright light of hope, even if they themselves never found it.

Which brings me to the questions that many of us need to wrestle with in our music…

What feeds your spirit? What is it that gives meaning and hope to our lives? Where is our personal search taking us? How does my music reflect the beliefs and reality I live with each day?

Most of us don’t deal with these consciously when we go into our practice rooms or even performances. But the more in touch we are with those questions, the more likely our music will be impacted and transformed. Most musicians know of those times and places where all these come together and we are moved in different ways in the midst of a performance. One of my friends described that in one of his group’s performances with the word- “boomerang.” They were performing at a conference and the audience started to sing along with them turning the moment into one of high emotion and spiritual uplift. Everyone, including the musicians, were surrounded by something greater than themselves. No one left that performance unmoved! It happened because the musicians were very much in touch with their own spiritual lives and it was included in their music.

How then do we feed our spirit.

There are many ways, perhaps starting with your own spiritual history or tradition. In the book Spirits Rejoice!: Jazz and American Religion, Jason Bivins discusses the spirituality of a number of Jazz musicians over the decades. He almost always begins with their upbringing and its possible influence on who they became and the expressions of their music. Most did not stay in those initial traditions alone, but the influence is real and powerful no matter how far the style may have strayed. It is also why Gospel music is part of the deep heritage of Jazz itself. But it is found in all types of music. So be attentive to what moves you musically and what that says about your own spiritual roots.

But then you must maintain your own mindful awareness of yourself. Mindfulness is the non-judgmental attentiveness to your feelings and the events around you. Mindful meditations a way that many people begin to discover some of these depths. Later this year I am also going to talk a little about things like Yoga, Tai Chi, and Qigong as spiritual disciplines for musicians. They can bring together body, mind, and soul in an expression of your own creativity and energy.

Which brings me to a quote that I think applies to our lives as musicians and our spirituality:

Play the music, not the instrument.
-Author Unknown

To get in touch with the spiritual in our own music we have to become comfortable with our instrument. We can easily get sidetracked by the technical aspects of playing our instrument. We can get bogged down by trying to remember the fingerings for the key we are playing in. We can lose sight of the music when we are just playing the notes on the page. The spiritual depth of our playing, our even just the plain musicality of it, gets interrupted by the logical side and we lose the intuitive.

One of my MAJOR pet peeves is when I get a piece of music and find that a previous musician as gone through and written the fingerings for all the notes in a particular section. My mind cannot process the written numbers and the note at the same time. I lose the intuitive knowledge that a G# on the staff is 2nd and 3rd. Numbers don’t represent anything and I wonder what that 2 and 3 mean. Sure, it’s a quirk of mine, but I have spent a long time becoming as comfortable with my instrument as I can be at this moment. Don’t confuse me with data that is unneeded.

Right now I am doing something I have never consciously done in my 55+ years of playing. I am working on changing my embouchure. (No need for details at this point.) That means I must for the moment be playing the instrument first. I am trying to relearn how to play with a good sound. I am developing new muscle memory in my lips and breathing patterns. I am working toward the natural feel the change in embouchure will have when it is settled in. Until then, I am not finding the spiritual as easily as I did before. One of these days I will be back to the music.

To live is to be musical, starting with the blood dancing in your veins.
Everything living has a rhythm.
Do you feel your music?
-Michael Jackson

As I am writing this, I am listening to some music. I am typing and the music is flowing. It is an instrumental Jazz duet and it is working in both the conscious and sub-conscious. Every now and then I am aware that my body is moving side to side in time with the music. Then my feet start tapping. I am in a public place so I am not about to get up and start dancing. But the rhythm is dancing in me. Do I feel that when I play? That is my goal.

That is spiritual. Let it flow.

One of the best examples of spirituality in music is the incredible Jazz saxophonist John Coltrane. He is famous for his spiritual wanderings, wrestlings, and depth. Last week, on the anniversary of his death, National Public Radio posted on Facebook an older piece they did on him in 2012. McCoy Tyner, a member of his band, remembered Coltrane saying:

"I respond to what's around me."

Tyner adds,

"That's the way it should be, you know?”

Coltrane on NPR.
(http://www.npr.org/2000/10/23/148148986/a-love-supreme?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=nprmusic&utm_term=music&utm_content=20170717)

Here’s a video of Coltrane’s “Dear Lord.” With the title in mind, hear spirit blowing through the horn!



And if you haven’t ever done it, go find “A Love Supreme.” Take the time to let it fill you.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A special note:

This year's Shell Lake Arts Center Trumpet Workshop begins Sunday, July 30. I have the boxes of my book ready to go. They will again be free to the students! In order to help me defray the cost I have a Go Fund Me page where those who would like to can make a donation. Thanks!

Here is the link:

Go Fund Me for Tuning Slide books for students

The Tuning Slide: 3.4- Depths of Spirituality

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

Music, once admitted to the soul,
becomes a sort of spirit, and never dies.
― Edward Bulwer-Lytton

Last week I started a series of three posts on music and spirituality. I don’t want to get too out in left-field, New Age-y or whatever. That easily happens since spirituality is such a slippery subject, like trying to catch the wind. To attempt to keep my post from the dangers of such a discussion, I found a few quotes on a website (http://www.thescavenger.net/health-personal-development/self-growth/226-spiritual-significance-of-music-92345.html ) that I will use to keep me a little focused. The original quotes are bold; my thoughts on it are in normal type.

Many who study and discuss spirituality believe that we are innately spiritual; it is part of the human make-up and serves the evolutionary purpose of helping us form communities of meaning and support, helping ourselves and others when in times of need, and focusing on the broader picture of our world so that we can work together for mutual benefit. At the same time music and song are found in one form or another in most if not all cultures. Music becomes a way, perhaps, to form the bonds of community and support. It can express who we are by telling our stories in ways easier to remember. It may even serve to help form the neural networks in people of the same culture or offer a way for newcomers to join the culture.

Yes, that’s a heavy paragraph. Let me lighten it. Music can emerge from:

… personal education, environment, and experience. It can be inspiring, practical, and form the foundations for enjoying everyday life. When we listen to the secret language of the song, we only begin to understand that music is from a spiritual source.

The “secret language of song.” A few weeks ago I shared a post on my Facebook page about hymns we should stop singing in churches. The reasons were varied but they were usually because the song was simplistic, contained poor theology, or was just too sickly sweet. It sure hit a nerve. Some people thought I was a heretic (exaggeration, I hope!) or was treading on things that were given directly from the very hand of God. For many, the hymns mentioned contained a “secret language” that made sense to them. The post seemed to be attacking that. Yes, the music may be saccharine, the theology poor, the words silly- but for many of us these songs have come from a spiritual source. They don’t make sense- they make soul.

Spirituality is like a seed planted in the soul; when cherished by the heart, nourished by the mind, and savored by the spirit, it can and will give good fruit in due season. Spirituality is central to our life journey.…Spirituality is pivotal to how we interact with the world around us when pursued with authenticity, integrity, and sincerity.

I can’t but think of John Coltrane when I read that quote. His whole life was a quest to find the seed, nourish it, savor it, and discover its fruit. Following his recovery from addiction he jumped headlong into one of the great spiritual journeys found in music. His music expressed what he found in his soul. Many listeners, which is what this post is about, were at first surprised, turned away, finding the music too far from what they were used to. Others heard a connection that literally struck a familiar internal chord. Their lives began to resonated in tune with it.

I found that in a number of places for myself. One is the immortal Jazz standard, Summertime. It doesn’t matter if it’s Janis Joplin’s soulful wailing (which I was fortunate to have heard in person), Coltrane’s spiritual flights, or Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald sweaty southern interpretation (among many)- the song contains the authenticity, integrity, and sincerity of the soul. Blues can often do that- and can bring people of different backgrounds and history together. It is expressing variations on each of our life journeys.

[Spirituality] can be born out of a desire to connect with a deeper meaning and purpose in life. Musician and listener share a spiritual connection in the space between silence and sound.

Why do some key signatures sound happy and others, sad ? Why do we want to get up and dance to some and so in the corner and cry with others? Why do some songs connect us with each others pain, take us to heights of joy, or silence us in awe? It happens when the musician touches us with her sound. It happens when we are open to new things, or in need of an uplift. It happens when we move into sync with what it around us and some level of sound vibration. The spaces of silence lead us to moments of introspection that we may not even know we are having. In those connections we may even find that there is more to our own lives- and the world- than meets the eye.

Sound is spiritual. Every action and word has a sound that resonates and vibrates through life that is positive, negative, or neutral.

But be cautious, is also an important reminder. Did the Rolling Stones singing “Sympathy for the Devil” at Altamonte in 1969 have some spiritual impact that ended in violence and chaos, a beating death, and three accidental deaths? Probably not, but the spiritual tone of anything can be changed by music- for better or worse. Some have condemned heavy metal and death metal, rap, or even good old rock and roll for many bad things.

Deep down in the depths of the human soul we are all searching for significance reflecting a desire to discover something greater than ourselves. Every person has asked the timeless question of the meaning, purpose, and significance of life. Music is used as an expression of the deep desire to discover more.

At some level it does feel like I (and others) have been putting a great deal of baggage on music, making it of great significance. After all, it’s only music, only entertainment.

But it isn’t that. It is far more than something to pass the time. We all saw the outpouring on the death of the rock superstar Prince last year. That was not because he entertained a lot of people- it was because he touched people at important times in their lives. He moved them, inspired them, got them through tough times and helped them celebrate happy times. We resonate with the music that moves us- and music that moves us means we are in tune, in sync with it.

Sometimes it’s the rhythm or the groove; sometimes it’s the chord progressions; sometimes it’s the melody and words moving together. The great music comes from somewhere both deep within us and from the transcendent beyond us. Together they bind us to others and help us find ourselves.

How do we musicians develop our own “spirituality” or soul in order to make music? Next week I will look at it from the point of the musicians.

I have to end this week’s post with a wonderful quote credited to Christian Reformer Martin Luther. Never known as one who minced words, his earthiness was often evident in his statements about others who didn’t agree with him. To Luther, music was divine; but don’t disagree with him. I don’t!

A person who...does not regard music as a marvelous creation of God, must be a clodhopper indeed and does not deserve to be called a human being; he should be permitted to hear nothing but the braying of asses and the grunting of hogs.
[Foreword to Georg Rhau's Collection Symphoniae iucundae, 1538]”
― Martin Luther

The Tuning Slide: 3.3- Spirituality of Music

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

Music is the language of the spirit.
It opens the secret of life
bringing peace,
abolishing strife.
- Kahlil Gibran

We are in the last few weeks before this year’s Shell Lake Arts Center Trumpet Workshop. In late August I will start blogging about the themes and ideas that grow out of that, applying them to my practice and growth as a musician along with their applications to daily life. But before that, as we continue in the early part of this third year of The Tuning Slide, I want to take several weeks on some other topics that may also show up during the year ahead.

This week is the first of three posts taking a look at music from an angle that I have found more than important to me personally: Music as spiritual expression. There are as many different ways that this happens as there are listeners. Each of us also responds differently to a particular music or piece of music in different ways at different times. Our spiritual readiness and openness shifts as we grow and have other experiences.

The posts this week and next will look at the general topic of music and spirituality. The third post in three weeks will take a look at music as spiritual from the perspective of the musician. This whole idea of music and the spiritual may be one of the most basic links between life and music. What we experience in music may very well have an impact on how we live every day life in a deeper and more profound way than almost anything else we can talk about.

Since describing “spiritual” can be a whole lot like nailing Jello to a tree, I will start with a quick definition of what I mean when I talk about it. It has three parts:

a. Awareness of power and existence greater than one's self.
b. There is meaning, purpose, and direction in this greater scheme of things.
c. Positive, healthy connections with other people as part of a greater community.

We each may have different ways we describe these three parts of spirituality, but I would guess that most can agree with them, even if some may hesitate to use the word “spiritual.” I don’t want to get into a discussion of religious vs. spiritual or any of the other side issues that could bog us down.

I know many who use the word spiritual to describe the way some musicians play. Perhaps more than any other single individual, spiritual is often attached to John Coltrane. Or there may that moment in a song or solo that makes one get goosebumps or a chill up one’s spine. We then say that this is a spiritual moment. Whatever that may mean. But the three things I mentioned above can often be used to describe our experiences. Somehow we know that a piece of music makes us aware there is something greater than us, that there seems to be some sort of meaning or purpose there, and that we can connect with that as well as others.

It may be intuitive and beyond immediate description, but that is a spiritual experience.

As I was doing some research I came across a website (http://www.thescavenger.net/health-personal-development/self-growth/226-spiritual-significance-of-music-92345.html ) that had a good outline post on the topic. The quotes below are all mefrom that site. As I often do, I give you the quotes in bold and then I will riff on them as a way of thinking about music and the spiritual.

Music resonates within the human spirit. At the heart of humanity is a song of the soul. The spiritual significance of music can transcend communities, cultures, and creeds.

Quantum (and other branches of) physics have taught us that at the very center of all that is, our world vibrates. Some have found an early vibration of the original microwave background sound. Others have looked at the way the atoms and molecules vibrate in each of us. It isn’t too far-fetched to think that each of us has our own “vibration” that is unique since no one else has the exactly similar mix of atoms and elements. That may be a semi-scientific (or, to some, pseudo-scientific) answer to why music, sound vibrations in harmony, can be spiritual. It does seem to be at the heart of who we are.

Some of that may simply be repetition and communal connections (more on that below.) It may be the way a certain song, type of music, or musical progression brings back experiences that have moved us or touched us at some deep level. A particular lyrical passage may bring emotions to the front. Put those lyrics in a piece of music and it vibrates in harmony with us. Does it cause something in us to move in tandem with the music?

Music continues to inspire spiritual expression as sound reflects and affects faith and values. Beliefs and perceptions will transcend the very nature of music and lyrics.

Music, in some form, familiar or unusual can be found in most, if not all religious and spiritual movements. It may be as simple as the ringing of a gong to initiate or end a period of meditation or as complex as a Bach cantata. Or, on the other extreme, it may be the reaction against music in some historic traditions. But even in those there is an awareness that music can have an impact on the spiritual for better or worse.

In my particular religious tradition we have a history of brass choirs. A few weeks ago our concert band played a number that included one section that was directed for the brass to play together as a choir. I found myself responding to that passage from a deep, and even spiritual, place. That transcended the particular piece and took me to a good and peaceful place.

Amazing Grace, as an example, transcends even religion. Many non-believers respond in some deep way to its particular strains, even without the words. The number of instrumental variations of that hymn, its use in many settings- secular and spiritual- show that there is something deeply embedded in the Western traditions. Here’s a link to John Raymond and Real Feels doing a remarkable arrangement of Amazing Grace. Spiritual? At least in my book.

Which leads to the next point…

Our spirituality is an essential part of who we are, and it forms the framework of our world. Community, culture, and creed all offer insights into the connection between music and spirituality.

What is is that is deep within us? Why does music do this? Why do so many of us as musicians report feelings and emotional interactions with our music? Without getting out into some weird left-field ideas, I don’t think it is too far out to think that it is the vibrations of music in harmony that does it. We have common history and it can make a huge difference in what we respond to. Which brings us to one of the elements of that definition I started with:

Music cultivates community, as sound creates communication and unity…. Sound creates a spiritual connection between music-maker and music-lover.

I would add, a connection between music-lovers as well. That is community. They feed each other and give a common gathering place in the music itself. In my highly visual imagination I see the strands of music flowing from the musicians to the audience, around them, bringing them into the power of what the music is about. Not all of that could be called spiritual, of course. Certain music can send people into places that are not healthy. More on that next week as we go deeper to get in touch with spiritual.

With that introduction, let me ask you a few questions:

• How would you define the spiritual in music?
• When has it happened to you?
• How do you know it was spiritual?

Add your thoughts in the comments on this post. I really want to hear from you and bring this virtual community into the dialogue.

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A special note:

The copies of the 2nd Edition of The Tuning Slide book for the students at this year's Shell Lake Arts Center Trumpet Workshop have been ordered. They will again be free to the students! In order to help me defray the cost I have a Go Fund Me page where those who would like to can make a donation. Here is the link:

Go Fund Me for Tuning Slide books for students