Tuning Slide 5.20- Music: A Great Gift

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

Music produces a kind of pleasure which human nature cannot do without.
― Confucius

It is the season when we think about gifts- getting and giving. Music has been a gift for me since I was young. I cannot remember a time in life when music wasn’t there. It’s fun to listen to; it’s fun to make music; it’s fun to share the music with others.

What an all-around gift.

As I was sitting down to write this holiday week’s Tuning Slide I wondered what Google would do with a question about music? So I asked:

What’s so special about music?

Life Hack said:

Enjoying music is unique to humans. Unlike food or sex, music isn't necessary for our survival, but it is extremely rewarding and pleasurable. It taps into the same parts of the brain that pleasure from sex and food does. Music floods the brain with a chemical called dopamine.

Moving down the list of Google-provided questions and links, I came to another answer for the same question from Muzo:

Unlike other pleasures in life, music has no intrinsic value, but with so many different genres it can reach out and move so many different people in all kinds of ways. Many say it causes intense emotion and overwhelming joy within them, influencing mood and actions, thoughts and feelings – which is why the power of music should never be underestimated.

The next question from Google was similar and gave me a little more information:

Why do we like Music?

A post on the BBC said:

Using magnetic resonance imaging [two scientists] showed that people listening to pleasurable music had activated brain regions called the limbic and paralimbic areas, which are connected to euphoric reward responses, like those we experience from sex, good food and addictive drugs. Those rewards come from a gush of a neurotransmitter called dopamine. As DJ Lee Haslam told us, music is the drug.

Next I found the question:

What role does music play in our lives?

The Creative Music Blog gave me this answer:

In the course of history, music is the greatest creation of mankind. Creativity in the pure and undiluted form is the true definition of Music. Music is an important part of our life as it is a way of expressing our feelings as well as emotions.
Some people consider music as a way to escape from the pain of life. It gives you relief and allows you to reduce the stress. Music is a powerful therapy that will make you calm down and in the moment of joy, it will make you cheerful.
Furthermore, it develops the mind and boosts your self confidence. Music plays a more important role in our life than just being a source of entertainment.

And one more came up:

Why do we need music?

Quora answered it for me this way:

Music helps us to find ourselves. It can reach our feelings and even change them. For example, music is able to reduce stress, caused by the outside world made stress, which is felt every day. Music can help to reach the deepest spots in our minds, for example, our memories, emotions.

I know that there are many researchers who dig into these questions. I know there are many writers who try to describe it. Perhaps novelist Kurt Vonnegut was right when he said:

Virtually every writer I know would rather be a musician.

I am fortunate enough to do both, which is why I keep writing this blog and playing my trumpet. I have been intrigued and moved by music and writing since I was very young. They have both given me countless upon countless opportunities to be happy, to be awed, to be frustrated, to be relieved, and finally to be filled with spirit.

So I will end this with a final quote, this time from the ancient Greek Plato:

Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything.
― Plato

It answers all the questions I’ve asked, and any other that we could make up. Do I need music? Yes, I do. And I am honored to have been given the gift to share with you (in words) and others with my trumpet.

And to all of you- may the blessings of a joyous season lead you deeper into your gift of music.

Tuning Slide 4.43- Sing Your Song

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

Life is not logic. Life is not philosophy.
Life is a dance, a song, a celebration. It is more like love and less like logic.
-Osho Rajneesh

Agnes DeMille and Martha Graham were two of the greatest dancers/choreographers ever to hit the stage. At one point in her life, Graham sent the following letter to her close friend, Agnes.

There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening
that is translated through you into action,
and because there is only one of you in all time,
this expression is unique.

If you block it,
it will never exist through any other medium
and be lost.
The world will not have it.
It is not your business to determine how good it is;
nor how valuable it is;
nor how it compares with other expressions.
It is your business to keep it yours, clearly and directly,
to keep the channel open.

You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work.
You have to keep open and aware directly
of the urges that motivate you.

Keep the channel open.
No artist is pleased.
There is no satisfaction whatever at any time.
There is only a queer, divine dissatisfaction;
a blessed unrest that keeps us marching
and makes us more alive than the others.
As quoted in “Dance to the Piper and Promenade Home” (1982) by Agnes de Mille and in
The Life and Work of Martha Graham (1991) by Agnes de Mille

What better way to describe what we have been talking about here for the last month: our voice- the unique part of each of us and our song- the unique gift each of us has to offer the world. So what then are the required actions to make this happen?

✓ Patience
This is not something that happens with a snap of the fingers and Voila! there it is. It takes time to discover, uncover, or recover the important pieces of who we are from beneath the things of everyday life. Don’t expect it to happen immediately. Neither, by the way, expect it to happen only once. The song will be revised, improved upon, translated into other ideas, even transposed into other keys. That, too, requires patience.

✓ First Listening
First listening is my description of moving into a practice of mindfulness and meditation in whatever ways fit you and your style. For some of us, it can be in the form of journaling or quiet times to begin to be aware of ourselves, our emotions, our lives, and our potential. This is the inward focus of discovering more about ourselves. At this point in our journey, we are learning how to be still, be quiet, be patient. Too much noise can clearly keep us from hearing our song.

✓ Willingness
Normally we hear honesty as the first of these three (HOW). In finding our song we have to take the brave step of being willing to learn and change. We are not looking for the things about ourselves that need changing in this. Instead, we are looking at WHO we are. We have to be willing to at least explore that step. We get that from taking the action of learning how to listen.

✓ Honesty
What we begin to hear when we are willing may not be what we expected, or we may be resistant to truly answer some of our inner questions. Honesty is essential. Honesty says “Don’t give the answer you hope is true or the one you think others want from you. Don’t hide from the spotlight of quiet contemplation. Be honest with yourself. Keep track of that in your listening journal.

✓ Openness
After honesty, we need to finally be open to continue. We may find that we don’t like what we have discovered, even with our willingness to take the initial steps. We may decide it isn’t time and we don’t want that to be the answer. It doesn’t mean we aren’t willing, we just aren’t ready- open to the full possibilities. That’s okay. Don’t give up. Go back to the first listening and deepen it.

✓ Further Listening
As we move past the willing, honest, and open steps, now we are ready to ask even more important questions. This is when we get into the areas of our lives that give us direction. We find the things that move our soul, the things that connect us with others, the dreams and visions we can develop for ourselves. By this point we are paying more attention in more ways, that is, mindfulness. Perhaps we have learned to listen to the small voices that seem to show us new ideas. Perhaps we have discovered the ways to move beyond Self 1 listen to Self 2 (back to the Inner Game!) with trust. Life can begin to be exciting and frustrating. Patience is even more important now.

✓ Just Doing It
Nike has had it right for years. Just do it! Pick up the horn and play. Stay with the basics as the foundation- never leave them behind. Develop the ear and the eye so we can improve. Be self-aware, not self-critical as we do it, knowing that improvement is just the result of practice. Then keep doing it. If you don’t, you won’t begin to hear your voice in the song that is within you. Your unique song for the world.

✓ Keep Listening
Always listen. Listen to others; find mentors and listen to them; listen to Self 2 telling you that you can do it.

On the website Co-evolve with Kiran, I found the end- and the beginning of this search for the voice and the song. Who you are and what you have to offer.

There is a song that is wanting to be sung. There is masterpiece that is waiting to be painted. There is a life waiting to be lived. There is this song in each of hearts. A yearning which is never quenched. And in some ways we are all learning to listen to that.

The Rose
It’s the heart afraid of breaking
that never learns to dance
It’s the dream afraid of waking that never takes the chance
It’s the one who won’t be taken
who cannot seem to give
and the soul afraid of dying that never learns to live

Go and share your voice and song. It is what living is all about.

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

4.21: Tuning Slide- Creativity: Beyond Mastery

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

Passion is one great force that unleashes creativity, because if you're passionate about something, then you're more willing to take risks.
— Yo-Yo Ma

We come to the tenth and last of Barry Green’s ten pathways to music mastery from his book, Mastery of Music.

10. Creativity: The Journey Into the Soul

Green starts right out by naming the problem:

Creativity is elusive. It is hard enough to describe, and difficult if not impossible to command. And yet when people tap into it, their thoughts take on a universality that can touch all of our lives.

He goes on to say that creativity fueled by curiosity that leads to answers from within:

[T]his business of looking inside is the key to an exploration of one’s own creativity. When we learn where to listen for the answers, we may hear the answers more often.

The end, he says, is to find a path to travel “deep into the soul.”

It would be nice to think that creativity is simply “do what moves you.” While that is part of it, it is only a very small part. Creativity, as Yo-Yo Ma says, is built on passion that allows one to be willing to take risks. But I for one don’t believe a pathway into the soul is aimless, narcissistic, or chaotic. There is, as we talked about a few weeks ago, a flow to it. There is getting “into a flow” and not just some wandering with no aim or hope of resolution. (Though sometimes in the midst of creative moments it may feel like that.)

Reading through Green’s chapter on creativity I found the following four ideas as essential on which our creativity is to be built in music.

✓ Sound
The perennial starting point of music. Sound is always the most important. But in creativity it is different than pulling out the tuner to be sure the sound is “in tune” whatever that might mean. Sound is the overall picture, the image the music is presenting, the emotions and feelings.

✓ Structure
Then there is the structure. What are your ideas that your creativity is forming? Structure is the dwelling place of the sound. It sets the boundaries, the highs and lows, the extremes and the solid base on which everything is to be built. Structure is not limiting, but gives the creativity the room to grow and move. Only then can creativity reach new ideas and new directions.

✓ Harmony
After structure we get into the next basic of music- harmony. Structure may tell us the key we want to play in, but harmony tells us how the chords and keys and notes relate to each other.

✓ Rhythm
This is where “flow” begins to be felt. How does the creative flow? What is its tempo, its variations in sound, its cycles of chords in a particular order? What does the movement of the idea feel like? I have been playing around with some composing and I found myself starting with a rhythm, a particular movement of different length notes. I didn’t know what structure it would have (eventually it became a variation on 12-bars). I didn’t know when notes would ascend, descend, or strike into dissonance. In this case it was the rhythm I wanted.

Last- but always:

Don’t forget the Soul!

That’s where we move beyond just creating, or just being creative and getting content. It is time to make some decisions. It is time for the depths of our persons and ideas and experience to begin to apply to what we are creating. Recently, the blog/newsletter Brainpickings referred to writer/doctor Oliver Sacks who talked about the early stages of being creative but who then understood that

Often, creators — be they artists or scientists — content themselves with reaching a level of mastery, then remaining at that plateau for the rest of their careers, comfortably creating more of what they already know well how to create. (Brainpickings)

Then they quote Sacks and his reflections:

Why is it that of every hundred gifted young musicians who study at Juilliard or every hundred brilliant young scientists who go to work in major labs under illustrious mentors, only a handful will write memorable musical compositions or make scientific discoveries of major importance? Are the majority, despite their gifts, lacking in some further creative spark? Are they missing characteristics other than creativity that may be essential for creative achievement — such as boldness, confidence, independence of mind?

It takes a special energy, over and above one’s creative potential, a special audacity or subversiveness, to strike out in a new direction once one is settled. It is a gamble as all creative projects must be, for the new direction may not turn out to be productive at all. (Brainpickings)

Sacks is telling us that in the end the growth and movement of creativity goes beyond simple mastery of the instrument, the form, the rhythm, whatever. It can, if we are willing to go there, tap the energy of your own life. He is telling us to keep at it. Let it grow, incubate, rumble, until, when ready, be born.

Barry Green ends the chapter, in essence moving beyond mastery:

When we open ourselves and our souls, by practice and inspiration, but also by listening and letting go, music comes to us not as something we command, but as a gift. It is a gift, too, that we should pass the gift of music along.

Music is your own experience, your own thoughts, your wisdom. If you don’t live it, it won’t come out your horn.
— Charlie Parker

Tuning Slide 4.15- Mastery 5 & 6- Passion and Tolerance

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

Real understanding does not come from what we learn in books; it comes from what we learn from love— love of nature, of music, of man. For only what is learned in that way is truly understood.
— Pablo Casals

I am looking this week at numbers 5 & 6 of the pathways for mastery of music from Barry Green’s book by the same name.

First:

Passion- The Power of Love

Apart from the other ideas, Green talks about three kinds of passion that relates to the theme:

✓ Passion for Life
Green shares the quote from Pablo Casals at the top of this post. It says it all. While it is not directly connected to music, without a passion for life, the learning from love, we don’t truly experience the passions involved in music. How does my passion for life infect and grow my music?

✓ Passion for Music
Am I “in love” with music? One of the reasons that music can often inspire others is that the musician has a passion for it. It can be an expression of our own souls. Passion compels us, moves us, helps us do what we are “passionate” about. In that we grow- and, reflecting Casals, it is how we learn best. With passion like that, music can even define who we are. There are groups of excellent musicians who play mechanically, and there are those who play passionately. When the two come together it is a moment of grace.
That may be the reason why a “live” performance sounds more alive than a recording from a studio session. It may explain why the remarkable Miles Davis album, Kind of Blue, is so alive. It was done in few takes and continues to be an expression of the passion in that studio.

✓ Passion Within the Music
Music itself touches feelings that words alone cannot. Some music is so passionate that a simple phrase or measure from the piece can cause goosebumps. Others can make us get up and move. The music triggers things that go beyond simply emotions to the heart of who we are as humans. I know my soul is grabbed and moved, even when I don’t understand why. When that happens I am participating in the music I am hearing. Green says:

As musicians we get to put our lives down, set our personalities aside, and jump into the middle…, to join with others in recreating [the] great moments in musical history. This is way beyond fun. At its best it is a spiritual experience, an act of human passion and skill that can be as beautiful as a crystal, a rainbow, or a brilliant sunset.

What an honor!

While our passion can and does come from all kinds of experiences and places, it must be alive within our imagination, says Green, when we first look at the piece. This is part of what I said last week about learning the piece before playing it. It should start, he says with imagination, not the technical. What is the best sound of the piece? Then organize it. Make it into art. He quotes a soloist who points out that you can throw a bucket of paint on the floor in a fit of anger. It will express anger, but it won’t be art. Art takes discipline along with the imagination.

In my mind that is why practice involves discovering the passion in my soul that is touched by the passion of the music.

In the end, says Green, passion is love. That, he says, is what

brought most of us into the wonderful world of music in the first place. One of the greatest challenges, whether in life, work, or relationships, is to keep that love alive.

The seventh pathway Green talks about is

Tolerance: The View from the Middle

This is the “quietist” and least self-assertive of the ten pathways. Yet it is a critical component for achieving “interpersonal and musical harmony in any ensemble.” Management needs to have this in any ensemble, and the people who exhibit it become the glue holding the orchestra, band, or ensemble together. The support they give, the work they do both within the music and the group as a whole, is what gets people to work together. You all know the “solid” group member, the musician who, while not flashy or out-front, is the one we all count on to keep the group focused and moving.

Green calls this tolerance. It is an attitude. It is not about convincing or changing others. It is about maintaining our own personal balance even in the midst of uncertainty. Tolerance comes from being comfortable in one’s own skin. It recognizes that none of us is essential to the group as individuals. No one of us can be an ensemble. Music is made in community where hostility and tension must be addressed and defused or the music will not happen. Flexibility and collaboration enter in.

We can all share a part in this. When we develop our own “tolerance” and openness to the group as a whole, we are providing a safe place for taking chances and a space for each to grow. Green says that this even includes support and tolerance even for your competitors. A musical performance is not a competition among the musicians. It is a common experience where we discover what happens when our passion is woven together with the passion of others.

Then we are an ensemble- a working, organic group, not just an assembly of individual musicians. This is more difficult than it sounds, but each musician can help make it happen. It is a quiet, but essential pathway to making better music.

The Tuning Slide - Keeping the Soul in the Music

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

Music in the soul
can be heard by the universe.

― Lao Tzu

We went to another "big name" concert last weekend, the second in a month. This time it was country music star and daughter of Johnny Cash, Rosanne Cash. No, there were no trumpets with her but I spent a lot of time being mindful of her performance and what I can learn from it about performing and playing trumpet.Some were additions to what I saw and experienced with Herb Alpert in the previous concert. Others were new. So here goes...

Overarching the whole experience was the awareness that these people play this music day after day. How in the world can they keep the music alive in countless performances? How can they make it feel as fresh for this night as they did 20 or 30 concerts ago? Hence the title of this post reflects the question of keeping the "soul" in the music for every performance.

Rosanne did it beautifully. The power behind her singing was as soulful as anyone. The words to her songs took the music to new depths - and vice versa. So, in a sense, one way to keep the music alive is the way you plan the show.

Cash is doing something unusual on this tour. She is performing her most recent album, The River and the Thread, in full and as recorded on the CD. She gave the background of the album and thoughts about each song, putting it into context and giving us a glimpse of her writing. It took about an hour or so and was the first half of the concert. I would say it was one of the more remarkable concert experiences I have ever witnessed. She never lost her soul. She connected with the audience and brought us into her world.

How do I do that when in performance? How does my brass quintet, for example, allow the audience to participate as more than a passive listener? Even though they are there for the music, what else can we bring to them. Both Cash and Alpert at the earlier concert do that through their interactions with the audience. Alpert took questions and responded to people's interest; Cash took us behind the music to allow the meaning of the songs touch us differently.

In our quintet or big band, I take the time between songs, if it isn't a dance with the big band, to tell the stories of the songs. I put them into context, their history, explain why we play them or perhaps how they showcase a quintet or big band. Some of that is covering for music changes, but it is also to bring the audience, metaphorically on stage with us. But it is also about my keeping my focus on the music's soul. I am reminding myself of the music's inner life, our inner lives as musicians, and why we are doing what we are doing.

On stage interactions are another set of issues for bands in performance. At the Cash concert I overheard two different responses to what was happening on stage. First was one person commenting that they enjoyed watching the musicians during the songs- what they are doing, different tricks and movements, how they are responding to the music. You will see how the drummer exaggerates certain movements to give a different emphasis, the keyboardist fiddling with the controls getting just the right sound, the guitarists closing their eyes and letting the music flow from their fingers.

For the audience that part of the show is just as real as the person doing the lead. If the band is not engaged, is just going through the motions and playing the notes, the overall experience will be diminished.

That was the second response I heard about the Cash show- the band seemed tired, they weren't as alive as Cash herself. I'm not entirely sure I saw that as much as the person I was talking to did. I wondered if some of the group just knew they weren't the stars so they tried to stay in the background? It didn't seem to me to diminish their performance.

But it does raise issues for any of us as performing musicians.

What do you do in your band when another person or section is soloing? Are you engaged or are you sitting or standing there looking bored? Do you give the impression that when it is not centered on you or your part that it isn't worth paying attention to? That can happen so easily since we are concerned about the next part or the water gurgling in the horn. Be aware, though, of how the audience responds to that as well.

We play music for a reason- it is a soul experience. We do it because we are moved by  it. In the end it will come to some performance. We are charged, at that point as performing musicians to communicate to the audience that soul experience. Whether you are the lead trumpet soaring on a solo or the 4th section musician doing little more than "oom pahs" your part is important- as is your interactions with the music. Your soul is part of the whole. Feel it and live it through the horn and your engagement with the rest of the band.

Again, as it seems to always be, the connection to life is hopefully obvious. How do you relate to the world around you? Do you engage or do you go through life with a sense of disinterest if it isn't centered on you? What do you have to offer in even the smallest ways to the soul of the situation?

Find your soul and then let it be lived.

It Takes You

Anyone who has ever been on a spiritual journey- or sees their life as one- will be able to recount times when wherever we are becomes a place of enlightenment. Of course, any time and any place can be a place of enlightenment, we just have to be open at every given moment to hear or see it happening.

That happened to me again today. We were talking with a person who will be helping a relative out with some chores and the like. The person was giving us a brief Twitter-length account of their life. They referred to their life-journey as a "vision quest"-type of thing. [Yep- I can go with that one!]

They then talked about a simple prayer that they say daily- and as often as possible each day. It was what is referred to as either the Prayer of the Heart or the Jesus Prayer. Here is what you can find in Wikipedia:

The prayer has been widely taught and discussed throughout the history of the Church. It is often repeated continually as a part of personal ascetic practice, its use being an integral part of the eremitic [desert Fathers and Mothers] tradition  of prayer. The prayer is particularly esteemed by the spiritual fathers of this tradition as a method of opening up the heart and bringing about the Prayer of the Heart [which] is considered to be the Unceasing Prayer that the apostle Paul advocates in the New Testament.

I knew this person was a pilgrim. It wasn't what he said as much as how he put it into the context of daily living. Basically, he implied, you just do the prayer. You do it all day. You do it as you get up and as you go to bed. You live the prayer.

But, no that is not quite true, this pilgrim of the soul added. After you start praying it, I was told...

the prayer takes you!

Oh how true. Unceasing prayer does that. The pilgrim I met today is on the right path. For Christians the Jesus Prayer or Prayer of the Heart is a living mantra that allows the work of the soul to be enriched and enlightened. It is the prayer that will move us beyond words to the depths of our hearts.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God,
have mercy on me, a sinner.

As the pilgrim described it to me the words flowed slowly and with clarity. No word was missed, no word was seen as too little or unimportant. The slow, breathing way the words were said was a witness to their depth. This was not rote prayer. This was prayer that asked for nothing but grace.

Living and breathing prayer can make all the difference.

I have heard this many times in the past since first being introduced to this marvelous prayer of simplicity over 30 years ago. But as I listened today to a practical explanation of it's importance, it was as if I was hearing it for the first time again. It was always new and always fresh. I think of this for my own spiritual practice and tradition when I hear the 11th step of Alcoholics Anonymous:

Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood him, praying only for knowledge of his will for us and the power to carry it out.

It's amazing- but you never know when God is about to teach you a new old lesson. Let the prayer live and take you where you need to go.

Being Picky

As I have admitted before, I can be quite picky and "snarky" about things that don't make sense to me, especially when those things are posted in a public place for others to see. Sadly, these things are usually put up to be "cute" or "funny" or "attention getting." Many of these, because of my own predilection toward things religious, are found on church outdoor signs.

It happened again last week. Driving along, minding my own business, a church sign told me that

Food for the soul doesn't use any calories.

First reaction: Silly.
Second reaction: There's something wrong with that.

It was a few days later that I realized what I felt was "wrong" about that. I am assuming that the quote was meant to imply that partaking of "food for the soul" was safe for those watching their weight. There are no calories there. So, come on in and have some "food for the soul." [I noted that they did not use "soul food", so I won't either.]

Well, right there was the misquote of the sign- food doesn't USE calories, it provides them!

What the sign was saying is that "food for the soul" uses no calories- it isn't work and takes no energy to accomplish.

Maybe "food for the soul" provides calories for the soul.
Maybe "food for the soul" gives us spiritual energy.
Maybe "food for the soul" offers nutrition we need to grow in our spirit.

But now I'm being as "cutesy" as the sign was.

But, again, the sign worked. It got my attention.

Why am I so gullible?  :)

Hearing Truth Behind The Words

Sitting in church last week on Easter was, as usual, a good experience. I was visiting at a church of another denomination as part of our brass quintet. That is relevant only to place me in a situation a little different from my usual worship location. I have a hunch that either sets us in some disconnected mode or, as I think happened last week, make us pay attention a little differently from usual.

In any case the sermon was about Easter and the empty tomb, no surprise, of course. The priest used the phrase a number of times and I think I just let the words pass on through. But then my hearing played a trick. I swear I heard:

Then the disciple looked into the empty womb.

That put me on a whole new train of thought.

It was quite an image, and I know that it is one that has been talked about in some of the contemplative traditions for centuries. But that’s not where I went.

I realized that life as we know it begins with an empty womb. We can talk all we want about when life begins, etc. but in our own individual personal experiences it begins when we leave the womb. Birth; to be born is what happens after the womb is empty. Even Nicodemus knew that when he was talking to Jesus:

How can I go back into my mother’s womb to be born again?

Then along comes the answer- the empty womb of the tomb.

Life!

But then I went one other place. Maybe that womb is not empty- the womb of God. I was taken back to a remarkable song done by Ric Hordinski (once of the group Over the Rhine) and an amazingly gifted guitarist. On the album Blink with his group Monk he had both acoustic and electric versions of a song titled “Womb of God.” It is haunting in the best sense of the word; mysterious and mystical as his guitar weaves sounds and emotions around lyrics that can be interpreted in a number of ways. But the weaving of the title phrase with the music is soulful:

We are living in the womb of God.

The verse that most captures my spiritual sense is this one:

Sometimes at night when the black curtain falls
it’s like the stars are the holes in the weave
and we see glimpses of the light behind it all
and it’s then that I start to believe
that it’s love that truly chose this pattern,
love that truly spun this line.

It’s a gentle thread that binds us all together
into a seamless cloth that covers us in time.

That’s when it hits me,
that we’re living in the womb of God.

Here's the electric version of the song from the album, Blink. It's a beauty.

How's This For An Insight?

Okay, I gather it's been around for a while.

While I can't seem to find a clear history of the phrase, I did find some CDs with the song title or a report that jazz musician John Wood was handing out the bumper sticker with the phrase on it and had started the whole process as long ago as 1995.

Somewhere or another in the past few months I saw one of the bumper stickers and it resonated. I just liked it and so I share it. Truth can be found in bumper stickers more than we will admit. While I have nothing against electronic enhancements and digital music, the sterile, never off-beat, always perfect rhythm of a drum machine can be quite soul-less.

Anyhow- there is a Facebook page (Link) with the description:

A movement to bring imagination and soul back into the music process.

There's also an article on LA Weekly from 2004. (Link) I guess I am a little behind the times after all.

Making Music With The Body

Playing handbells is a different way of making music for this old trumpet player. In a way that is different from the trumpet, I need to put my body into the music when playing handbells.

My arm and hand movements make a difference in how the bell sounds. You have to make sure your wrist and arm action is just right or the bell will peal out at a great volume or won't sound at all. The sound changes as you move the bell and there are certain movements that aid in making all kinds of different sounds and effects.

I realized this one evening when we were rehearsing for Christmas last year and have been trying to pay attention to it since. With trumpet, of course, the body is there and active- the way I push the air through the horn, the fingering that builds muscle memory as I work on it. With the bells the whole body seems to be part of the resonance. As I bring the bell up and out for it to sound I am aware of the positioning of my whole body.

There are times when you are playing one bell in one hand and immediately the one in the other. Then the whole body begins to move. The rhythm flows through the muscles and seems to come out through the connection of the bell and the fingers.

I know this sounds like an exaggeration. Maybe for some it is, but it feels that way in me when I play bells. It is quite a feeling to have my body as part of the music. I am even beginning to notice the same thing happens on a different scale with my trumpet. Maybe that interaction between body and sound, soul and music is part of who we are as humans.

It works for me!

Here's a video of our handbells on Christmas Eve.

Dirt Digging

No, not any gossip. It's just what I did on Saturday. I have mentioned here sometime in the past about the psychologist friend of mine who would talk about the healing quality of playing in the dirt. Gardening was a real source of healing in his opinion. I have always agreed.

Living in apartments for the past 6 years has curtailed my ability to go out and play in the soil. But this year we are living in a place that gets good sun so I bought some containers along with a cherry tomato, a beefsteak tomato and a sweet pepper plant. In the evening, after a few hours of rain, I went out dug my hands into the potting mix, ran it through my fingers breaking up the big clods of it, and planted the plants. For good measure I got some flowers and put them in a big pot. These all sit on my back patio now.

I looked down when done and saw the telltale sign of dirt under my fingernails. A sign that my soul was a little better that evening than it had been just a few hours earlier.

There are many ways our nature deficit can impact us. One of them, I believe along with my psychologist friend, is that when we lose our connections with the earth we lose some important part of what makes us human. To become isolated from the created world is to become isolated from much of what God made around us. The earth and all that is in it are as essential to our lives as food and water. When I "play in the dirt" I am in touch with the stuff we are made of, the raw elements of life.

I don't think it is stretching it too much (or being too "punny") to call that a down to earth reality of our selves. Flowing water, the rolling of the oceans, the songs of birds, the smell of lilacs are similar. They renew our senses and our touch with the Creation.

When White Guys Move

One evening in Memphis we went to a venue for a blues and food. One of the bands that evening was a funk band with about six members. One of the horn players was the only white guy in the group. We sat there and got into the groove and watching the band move. The guitar player, the bass player, the two sax players had an easy-going funk. They didn't move much but produced a good sound.

As I watched the other horn player, the white guy I had this awful moment of awareness. I leaned over and whispered to my wife:

See that horn player- the white guy? That's what I look like in our big band, moving like that, isn't it?

She simply raised an eyebrow, smiled, and nodded.

He was into the music, no doubt about it. It moved him. He loved it. He couldn't NOT move to it. The groove- the funk- was real. He's a white dude moved by the music, but the body doesn't move easily. I am sure there are plenty of us white dudes out there who CAN move to the groove and not look like we're trying to move frozen muscles. I am also sure that I don't move anywhere near as easily as this guy did.

But it was a humbling moment as I realized that I don't really have the "body groove" to do it with real soul.

No, that's not true. I do it with what is my real soul. As I move to the beat of a song, as I allow my body to feel the music and turn it from potential into kinetic energy- that's me. That's real!

Will I now stop? Will I now stand, playing my trumpet like I am a statue that produces a sound?

Not on your life. I can't NOT move. That's what the music does with me. 

Thank God for what I do have.

Smooth Soul for a Sunday Evening

Memphis Horns:

Echoing Through the Generations

Walt Whitman:

Re-examine all you have been told;
Dismiss what insults your soul.

Truth is True

A quote from John Muir:

Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul alike.

It took me back 50 years to the scripture lesson on a Sabbath in August 1961. It was from Deuteronomy 8: 2-3:

Remember the long way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, in order to humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commandments. He humbled you by letting you hunger, then by feeding you with manna, with which neither you nor your ancestors were acquainted, in order to make you understand that one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. (NRSV)

I can't say it's been a Watchword, but it never seems to be far away from my awareness. Recently, for example, a term coined by Richard Louv in his 2005 book Last Child in the Woods, "Nature Deficit Disorder" came into awareness. Originally it was about children (No Child Left Inside) but has since been expanded to all where people don't get out and get into the natural world as often as needed in Louv's book The Nature Principle.

Those words that come from the mouth of God? You can- and will- hear them out there in the wilderness, even the tame wilderness near most of our homes. That natural world is speaking loudly and clearly to those who will stop and listen.

Last winter I decided that I could not manage another whole winter without the healing and hope from the natural world.  So I bought snowshoes and used them until we went south for a few weeks where I rode my bike and did lots of walking.  This winter I had surgery and went south for four weeks. No bike riding, but plenty of walking and sitting listening to the endless sound of the surf. I won't go so far as to say that is why I have healed so well so far from the surgery, but I'm not about to deny its strength in moving me back to health.

Not by bread alone? Not on your life. As Muir noted, we need the healing that goes far beyond food; the hope that goes deeper than today's experiences. Sustenance is for body, mind, and soul.

Start The New Year With Soul

One of the emails I subscribe to is from a recovery-based site called In The Rooms. On Sunday last week, Jan 1, as I was recuperating in the hospital and feeling sorry for myself, I got the following. It named what had happened the evening before and I am sure had a lot to do with the improvements in that day. I saw SOUL on New Year's Eve and Day.

Seeing Soul

Today I will see soul in the ordinary. Wishing, waiting and hoping for soul to be hand-delivered to me, tied up in a neat little ribbon, and read to me like a report will not bring me closer to my soul experience. I will discover soul in my day, I will allow it to surface and recognize it when it does. Soul is everywhere waiting for me to see it. I will cultivate this seeing as part of my personal discipline - looking past the surface, staying with what surrounds me until I feel it gently transform, become deeper, luminous, extraordinary. When I learn to really see soul in the ordinary, it will present itself to me. It will show me its true radiance. I will see what I have not seen and be surrounded by soul.

I will learn to see soul.

Penn State Reflections (4): In the Depths of the Soul

The Penn State tragedy that exploded last week really kicked me into a passionate week of writing. This is the fourth post (plus yesterday's reflection on the Gospel) that I have worked on. The words just keep on coming, bubbling out of anger and sadness, fear and grief. I sat glued to the TV news each evening as they reported from State College, a town I knew growing up. They talked about Happy Valley and Beaver Stadium. Places I knew intimately have been brought into the headlines of a whole world.

Then I was reading another article and another location jumped off the computer screen. Victim 1 (as the first reporting victim was referred to in the Grand Jury report) was a student at a "Clinton County" school. It was no longer the 50 mile trip to State College from my home. Now it was across Pine Creek, in my stomping ground. There are only 37,000 people in the whole county and only three public school districts, including my home district shared with neighboring Lycoming County in the east where I grew up.

It was like having a friend identified as the victim. The victims involved were probably not people I knew, but I knew the land and the territory. I have come to know that land and territory, geography, is very much part of who we are. Reading Clinton County in the report was home, personal.

It was no longer about the great university having its name dragged into the dirt, or an iconic figure like Joe Paterno being pulled down. Now it was the every day person, the person on the street. And worse, it was the powerless and lost being pushed even further away by a man who sought to use power and position to do unthinkable things to children.

The Lock Haven Express reported on their own investigations that may even implicate the school district in what looks more and more like a cover-up:

[S]ources said when the family questioned that outcome, they were told by a Keystone administrator that Sandusky was a "great man" and they should go home and think about it before taking further action.
--Link

Don't believe for a second that any of this was about sex. This is NOT A SEX SCANDAL. Rape is not about sex- it is about power. It is a weapon used by conquering armies exerting hegemony and power. It is used by men to subjugate others to their own desires, no, to use others as pawns for their own desires. Rape of a child is the most cowardly act of power. Victim 1 said to his mother that you couldn't "say no to Jerry." It is the most degrading way to put someone else in their place. It is violence against the life and soul of the person being raped. It is the theft of childhood and personhood of the victim.

I find that I am angered at some great depths by this because it has hit so close to home by men and institutions who have attempted to be moral and honest and filled with integrity. These great awful events tear at the fabric of who we are. That is why it has been the top of the news. It is finally and most destructively attempted murder of the life spirit, the soul of hope.

Lenten Sundays: The Second Sunday

A Sunday Morning Train...

...of Thought

It started on the way to church with the words of John Prine on the radio program, American Routes....

A Mocca man in a wigwam sitting on a Reservation.
With a big black hole in the belly of his soul
Waiting on an explanation
While the white man sits on his fat can
And takes pictures of the Navajo
Every time he clicks his Kodak pics
He steals a little bit of soul.
Every time he clicks his Kodak pics
He steals a little bit of soul.
-John Prine (Emphasis added)

There was that word soul. Having got to church earlier than usual since I drove with my wife today I picked up a hymnal and started thumbing through Lenten hymns as a way to get my spiritual side in place for worship. There I opened to the old American folk hymn, Wondrous Love:

What wondrous love is this, O my soul, O my soul!
What wondrous love is this, O my soul!
What wondrous love is this
That caused the Lord of bliss
To bear the dreadful curse for my soul, for my soul,
To bear the dreadful curse for my soul!

When I was sinking down, sinking down, sinking down,
When I was sinking down, sinking down,
When I was sinking down
Beneath God’s righteous frown,
Christ laid aside His crown for my soul for my soul,
Christ laid aside His crown for my soul. (Emphasis added)

The juxtaposition of soul in those two incidents put the train on the track with a book I am currently reading, The Wolf at Twilight: An Indian Elder's Journey through a Land of Ghosts and Shadows by Kent Nerburn. It is a powerful and disturbing book about what the Christian theological worldview, mixed with western/European triumphalism did to many young Native American children.

I was struck as I thought through this mix of feelings how much our actions as Christians have so often been so anti-Christian. To kill people - women, children, old people, innocent bystanders - because they are different, because their God is explained differently, is anti-everything I believe Jesus stood for. Which is why He died, after all. He was different and the establishment of the day couldn't put up with that.

So God showed them. He brought Jesus back from the dead. The resurrection is as much about repudiating the culture of death and religious hatred as it is about defeating death itself.

Which then circled to the scripture that my pastor wife used this morning. The Good Samaritan. There they were again, the priest and Levite, those upstanding religious leaders ignoring the different thinking/different believing Samaritan. Somehow or another they might become infected, unclean. Let him lie there in his suffering. They didn't beat up the traveler, but their silence contributed to his pain. Just like so many others who stood around and did nothing while the others were doing the dirty work.

Under it all, my mind continued to wander, to the Nerburn book. It all came down to narrowing one's vision, trying to be right, having My Way be The Only Way. If it isn't, The Only Way, it might be wrong. The Native Elder, Dan, in Nerburn's book says at one place that each people is given a part of the great picture of The Creator. When we kill these others we are killing part of that picture.

Dan spoke of a great mystery. The Creator. God. If we can understand the mystery- it is no longer a mystery. Yet that is what we have tried to do for thousands of years- give The Explanation of The Mystery so that we can understand. We can conquer the mystery and be sure that we are right. We take control.

Which is right back to the Original Sin in the Garden. Wanting to know as much as God. Wanting to be as powerful as God. We want to know it all.

The train of thought then took a side trip back to one of those skits at camp- Mr. Know-It-All where several people are this one brain and they try to give improvised answers to questions. It is hilarious when done well, since each person can only say one word and then pass it on to the next person. They have to just make it up as they go along.

That's what happens when we people of faith, any people of faith, think we know it All. We can't and won't say, "I don't know. It's a mystery." As we realize how much we don't know, as we get deeper into knowing more and more about what lies beyond us we can do one of two things.

We can seek even greater control. We get more rigid. We grow in fear or anger seeking power and end up killing the others, or at least passing by on the other side of the street when we see them in pain.

Or we can be humble. We can stop and give thanks for what we have been given- and then be aware that we don't and won't ever have the final answers to the mystery.

That Good Samaritan out there on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho didn't care about those things of power. He simply knew that someone was in need. He stopped to help.

Which is what Jesus wanted us to know. If we do that we will help people keep their soul instead of snipping away at it piece by piece.

We might even find ours is growing stronger as well.

Summer Soul

At 12:45 a.m. (CDT) Summer arrived. It is the longest daylight day of the year.

Where is it in my soul?

Here is a quote from Bengali poet and Nobel Prize winner, Tagore posted on Inward/Outward a few weeks ago. Ponder the season of your soul and don't miss each day.

When the lotus opened I didn’t notice and went away empty-handed.

Only now and again do I suddenly sit up from my dreams
To smell a strange fragrance.
It comes on the south wind,
A vague hint that makes me ache with longing,
Like the eager breath of summer waiting to be completed.
I didn’t know what was so near, or that it was mine.
This perfect sweetness blossoming in the depths of my heart.

Source: Unknown