Why Do I Write?

Why do I write?
Why do I write on a blog?
Well,
Because when I think I'm about to go crazy I think about giving advice to someone else who thinks perhaps they're about to go crazy. That helps me to not go crazy.
Make sense?
Awesome.

A Little Research and a Whole Lot of Indignation

Well I did a little research today. I was planning on using it in a paper and then it turned out to not work so well in the context. But along the way I picked up some facts as well as some pretty strong feelings of frustration too.
According to World Vision, over 13,000 children under five from complications of malnutrition every day. Malnutrition of pregnant mothers leads to underweight babies, giving them a "not-good" start at an already hard life. The prime age for crop harvesters in Africa happens to be young adults. The young adults are horrifically affected by the AIDS crisis and (people who are smarter than me and can figure things like this out) are afraid that within a few years too few people in this age demographic will even be around to harvest the food. Malnutrition may increase even more if this is true and will result in more starving kids who will probably not develop fully because of their lack of food. You can guess the result of that...
In short: The cycle is vicious.
If you're like me you wonder where to start to help.
In my small amount of experience I can say that organizations like World Vision know what they're doing more than we do and it's a good idea to turn to them. As far as I've been able to tell, you can trust them to use your money wisely and preach truth.
Another thing I would say is that you can spread the word. No one wants to bring up this subject during a perfectly happy and fast moving conversation. It's such a difficult subject, sometimes it's intimidating to initiate. Let me encourage you to go for it and speak out to educate your fellow Americans. You've been educated so educate your world.
Lastly, allow me to remind you that no one can pray quite like you can. So pray. Whoever you are, if you are a saint of God, His powerful Spirit is real in your life and souls will be saved if you pray. Fellow believers in the rich graces of God's all-knowing will, PRAY. Pray for salvation more than nutrition. Pray for rich fields, full of ripe souls waiting to be scooped by the crop harvesters who wield the Word.

According to World Vision, the recent disasters in Haiti and Chile have led to American teenagers being more likely to give their money to aid efforts. I think this is awesome and very promising. Teenagers are the biggest consumer group in the American society. They know how to swipe their plastic and lay down their cash like none-other. Let's pray this continues and they see more worth in giving to third world countries than to Hollister.

Spread the word, Soldier.

My bed is situated right next to the window. Ever night when my eyelids become heavier than the glare of my lamp, I crawl into my soft bed sheets and lay my head upon my flattened down pillow. Yet I cannot go to sleep unless I put on my glasses which lay on my windowsill and stare at what is above me. For above me is a sight so beautiful it takes my breath away. There are stars! So many stars that each have an individual glow, almost like snow showers in space. The black sky is not alone, for it has the company of many friends. When I first stare at the sky, I do not have my glasses on and I can barely see the individual stars. I only see white blurs which seem awkward and random. Yet once I put my glasses on, they all appear so distinct and close to me. I feel as if I were floating in the sky, closer and closer to Him who made the stars. Perhaps that is why I am drawn every night to the black sky containing glory unfathomable. However, if it was just the stars, I would be happy, yes, for a moment, but I would not be breathless. For the stars remind me of the wonder and mystery of Jesus Christ--that He who is so vast and omnificent can come so close, making his presence so intimate and beautiful.

Time of my Life

Six A.M. and my alarm goes off. Naturally, I reach over to snooze it for 5, 10, or 15 minutes. “Ah”, more sleep would certainly satisfy me, but if I don’t get up I won’t have time to shower before school, or eat breakfast and I have to print off my due assignments too...I must get up if I want time to breathe at all today. When I step outside to munch on my breakfast I reflect on the fence around my home. As I stand on my front porch and remain still I see no fences, no barriers cross my eyes. The obstructions are all hidden behind the woods I’ve yet to go through. For a moment my path is free and clear and the possibilities are endless. Reaching down, I strap on my converse, bright red, with worn out laces that are no longer white. I step down onto the grass. It is soft at first. I think of the irony that I am walking on “blades”. But they don’t hurt me; I am so much bigger than them. They are small obstructions that I step right over with little thought. I explore and walk and think, but I have to watch the clock. At a certain time I have to go somewhere. When I get inside I see an old friend on the wall. I like to call him Mr. Clock. He sounds nice doesn’t he? He sure looks nice, all shiny and black and in the shape of a fancy treble clef sign. As I enter my room he tells me that I have fifteen minutes to get ready. A friendly reminder for the most part but in reality Mr. Clock here runs my life. He is like an invisible emperor ruling me according to his fleeting and fickle whims. When I need one moment to be calm he seems to steal all of them away. When I want to move past something, or can’t wait to get to a special event, Mr. Clock slows down and drags his hands much too slow. Never does he move how I want him to move. I get angry with him at times and want to stick him in the closet. “I’ll show him,” I think, “he won’t even know what happened when I stick him in the dark.” Then I look at my watch or even my cell phone and there go the seconds, tick-tocking away. So I pull out Mr. Clock and put him back on his peg on the wall. We can find a way to exist together in the same room somehow, because no matter what I do, I can’t live outside of time. Even if Mr. Clock breaks I can’t not be affected by time and when I stop to think I realize that he is commanded by it as well. Poor little guy, he lives only to turn as time commands. As for my life, time restrictions cover every inch of it. When I stepped into the world of college I was sure I could handle the time crunches. Then I realized that time moves at its own will and the hours fly by when your to-do list just keeps growing. I expected to fly through courses but there seem to be pre-requisites for pre-requisites and they all require time. “I must pay my dues for a season” I think. In reality I never know when one season ends and another begins. The irony of it all is that I can’t wait for what is coming, but I’m living in one moment, and I always will be. What I wished for will soon be past as I’m caught up on time’s highway. Life wouldn’t exist without the boundaries of time. Even eternity is defined by time. I learn every day that you can’t go forward and you can’t go back. Each day, hour, minute, second is a fence around you. I can’t return to the days I sat near my grandma, weeks before she died, my time with her came and now it’s gone. I can’t slow the hand’s movements when my mom and I dissolve into laughter over our secret jokes, I can only hope a moment like that comes again. When my dad hugs me for minutes at a time all I can do is try to memorize it so I can make it last even longer. I can’t propel myself forward to the day I’ll have a family of my own, nor can I decide when my own personal clock will run out and the hands of time will keep moving on without me. Mr. Clock, that black shape always on my wall, is at once the greatest and most awful fence in my life. As the seconds tick by he keeps me from the past and always in the present. He keeps the past behind my back and the future dangling in front of me, both of them out of my power. He won’t let me take more than one moment at a time. The more I grow the more I realize that this is not simply meant to torture me, it is also a saving grace.

The Gospel in my Soul

The gospel is real and true to me today, more so than other days when everything seems to be gray.
As I sat at the keys today the only songs my fingers were inspired by were the songs with a spirit large enough to lift my own.
I don't know when music got down into my soul, I only know since Jesus got there the music will forever be alive.

So I had my first encounter with a non-purist today...

Several years ago, as I was tackling my first song composed by the great patriarch of music, J.S. Bach, I received a small lecture from my teacher. Don't cringe, it wasn't a lecture of the bad kind.
She informed me of the different opinions concerning what to do with Bach's music. Dynamics or no dynamics? That is the question.
Johann Sebastian Bach composed his hundreds upon hundreds of works of music during the 1700s. Composing primarily for voices, strings and a little instrument called the harpsichord.
What is so important about the harpsichord you ask? Well, it is an ancestor of the piano-forte.

Which I happen to be thankful for here in the 21st century because I make my living with it.

Any-who...Bach's instrument was unique from the piano-forte in that it had no pedals, meaning it could not sustain sound, nor did it have the ability to produce dynamics-no louds or softs. Harpsichords were prized, as were the composers that wrote on them and the music, just like everything else in society at this time, was very ornate and busy. The style is called Baroque.

I personally find no need for dynamics as I am playing Bach, keeping track of four melodies going on at once is really quite enough for me. ("Please don't give me more to worry about, please...")
However, I must admit part of this inborn preference of mine is due to that lecture that fell on my ears during the time I was soaking up absolutely everything I could about this art form called music. My teacher said that some people think that if these great composers had had access to pedals and dynamics at the time they were composing, they would have used them and therefore we are now justified to put dynamics into Baroque music as we see fit.
I thought it sounded fishy from the beginning but that's slightly beside the point.
Anyway, as she was explaining it all she mentioned off-hand that she was a "purist". This label for herself instantly and inadvertantely labeled for me all people of the opposite opinion as "non-purist". To my mind this carries a negative connotation, what about to yours?

Well I got to a new teacher and I played her my Bach song.
She thought it was good. (Score...)
She thought my fingering was clean. (Awesome...)
She said my notes were pretty accurate. (Oh yeah...)
Her only suggestion was that I add in a little dynamics.

"Whoa...she's a non-purist..." A music teacher that's not a purist!...
I felt like a life-long Baptist the first time he or she meets a Christian with tatoos or piercings...
"That's really possible?"