2021 in sports review, plus a couple reflections

Following up on a recent post about how as a child, I began gravitating towards sports over music, in part as a way of fitting in and being considered “normal” among the other kids. There were other factors that drew me in, such as growing up when the Chicago Bulls, led by Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen, dominated the NBA for a decade.

I may have also mentioned some time ago on this blog that sports has been a way I’ve been keeping in touch with a couple friends from college. For the last month, conversation on our sports email thread has been dwindling, but there’s no shortage of interesting stories (or at least, stories I find interesting). One current storyline has been the resurgence of the Golden State Warriors. (My one California friend I visited on my “epic” trip 11 years ago that I still keep in touch with and who I converse with via these sports email threads is from the Bay Area and consequently a fan of all San Francisco teams. Needless to say, he’s been excited by the good play of his teams this year.)

One topic of interest: recently, Stephen Curry became the all-time leader in 3-point shots made, passing Ray Allen, who previously had held the record. While I did not watch the game (I almost never watch any of the games, as I don’t have a TV), I got to see video clips of the highlights via ESPN.com and via YouTube. Reggie Miller, the previous record-holder prior to Allen and who now sits third all-time in 3-point shots made, was also on hand at the game, by virtue of his current job as an analyst for TNT when they broadcast basketball games. It was really cool to see both Allen and Miller on hand for the occasion, not only being great sportsmen but also encouraging Curry and celebrating the event with him. They each presented him with their jerseys from when they played (Allen gave Curry his jersey from when he was with the Boston Celtics; Miller gave Curry his jersey from when he was with the Indiana Pacers), and they also presented Curry with a unique jersey. This jersey had his name and the team he plays for (the Warriors), but in place of the jersey number it had the number 2,974, which is the number that broke Allen’s record of 3-point shots made.

I previously mentioned about how my sports fandom has changed. I still root for my teams: right now, the Chicago Bulls are exciting and perhaps the most exciting they’ve been since the late 1990s, and that’s no knock on the Derrick Rose-era Bulls. This group, led by Zach LaVine, DeMar DeRozan, Nikola Vucevic, Lonzo Ball, and Alex Caruso, are incredibly fun to watch. While I personally don’t think they’ll get past Giannis Antetokounmpo’s Milwaukee Bucks in the playoffs, I still enjoy watching them.

One difference though is that I can still enjoy watching them play (when I watch the highlight videos, that is) and be ok understanding that it’s unlikely that they will beat every team in the playoffs. Another difference, remarking on how my sports fandom has changed, is that I have tended to root more and more for athletes that appear to have good character. On the one hand, I do tend to think it’s unfair how much better Curry and the Warriors appear to be compared with the rest of the league (and while he has recently taken first place in the number of career 3-point shots made, he still has at least 5 years left in his career, meaning he is likely to put this record out of reach in ways that Miller and Allen didn’t). On the other hand, Curry and the Warriors generally tend to have good character. Even teammate Draymond Green, historically known for running his mouth sometimes, has shown personal growth. (He still speaks out, but how he has spoken out has changed to reflect maturity.) And so on.

As such, my Bay Area friend has many reasons to be excited. The San Francisco Giants also had a very good season in 2021. They finished with the most wins in baseball but lost to the Los Angeles Dodgers in the first round of the playoffs. However, my friend claims a moral victory from such a loss in that he believes the Giants took the Dodgers down with them, as Los Angeles lost in the subsequent round against the eventual baseball champion Atlanta Braves. Still, a good season for the Giants.

My 2021 season as a fan, Bulls aside, hasn’t been so great. After the Blackhawks’ most recent championship in 2015 I’ve returned to my previous pattern of almost not following them at all. From what I understand, they’ve been horrible, and they continued to be horrible in 2021. The Bears apparently have also had a bad season, after being a playoff team two (?) years ago. I expect that the ownership group will fire the general manager and the coaching staff once the season is over. Historically, the Bears have rarely been well-run, and I think for them to succeed they will need to find another group to build a championship contender.

The White Sox made the playoffs, but, like the Bears, they historically have not been run well, even when they’ve had good teams (something that occurs on a “few and far in between” rate). And then the Cubs – well, I’ve talked about their season here. They are at least honestly trying to reboot, which I respect. Time will tell to see how that goes. I still see hope, though.

My predictions for champions in 2022 are as follows:

• NFL: Tom Brady’s Buccaneers over [OK, I admit I have no idea who is good in the other football conference. It goes to show how much I follow the NFL.]
• NHL: no idea. (see above)
• NBA: Golden State Warriors over Milwaukee Bucks
• MLB: Los Angeles Dodgers over Houston Astros

I’ll admit, considering that I follow the NBA and MLB closely, I expect that as we approach the playoffs for each league, I’ll re-predict the champions (and runners-up), and they will likely be a little different from my current predictions. Predicting and re-predicting is something I enjoy doing, specifically for the sports leagues I actually follow. At this point, I do it purely for the joy of predicting. I always have a reason for predicting, and it isn’t necessarily always because of stats or numbers (in fact, it often isn’t), but rather a read on interpersonal relationships within a particular team. I can tell when a team is on the same page vs. when a team isn’t. I enjoy predicting based on these types of storylines.

Speaking of storylines, there are two more that I wish to offer my two cents on. One is currently unfolding, and the other is more a revisitation of what I had long believed and assumed about retired players who played not only on the teams I rooted for, but also on our rivals. The first storyline is Kyrie Irving. Recently, my respect for the man grew. For many years, my opinion of the man was that he was talented but selfish, a man who would say one thing and then change his mind later, a man who would sign a contract with a team and then say he “needed a break from basketball” and just up and leave his employer without proper notice, let alone adhering to the terms of his contract.

He kinda-sorta did that again this year, in response to New York City’s vaccine mandate, and also in response to the Brooklyn Nets’ subsequent response to suspend him from all activities. In another case, another player, Andrew Wiggins, whose employer (the Warriors) also is in a city that has a similar mandate, caved. Like Irving, Wiggins held beliefs that the vaccine was not the answer. (See my previous post on my thoughts about mandates.) Now, before any of my readers brands me as an “anti,” note carefully that I never said it was wrong for anyone to get the shot. I explicitly said “to each their own” in regards to it. I still stand on that.

Another player, LeBron James, apparently only recently received the COVID vaccination, after holding out himself. As far as I’m concerned, that’s his decision. From what I could tell, both his decision to wait and his decision to receive it was entirely voluntary, without any pushback or pressure. Wiggins, however, caved. The reason he gave was “it was either the vaccine, or no basketball.” The article also said that no one else in his family received the shot. These things tell me that he was heavily pressured, in part because of San Francisco’s mandate, but also that, while he complied, it was not entirely voluntary. (It was voluntary only inasmuch that he had an option to not play basketball if that was the route he wanted to go, but that’s it.)

It is for this reason that my respect for Irving has risen exponentially in this time. He was the one willing to take a firm stand for a change and back it up. He has refused to cave. For someone to risk not playing basketball, to risk his career, his stats, any other professional accolades, let alone to continue being able to earn a living, because he felt strongly enough about the research he has done to take a firm stand, I respect that. He decided he wasn’t going to be pushed around, not by the New York City government, and not by his employer, regarding a conviction that he had.

Of course, it was a gamble. But interestingly, it has paid dividends. The Nets recently caved and invited him back to the team on a part-time basis (allowing him to play with them for road games). This happened because, although apparently everyone else on staff (players, coaches, training staff, front office staff, etc) has been vaccinated against COVID, it still didn’t stop an outbreak among the team. I am also aware that Irving apparently also tested positive for COVID along with the others and had to be quarantined. But the fact remains that Irving refused to let himself get pushed around to do something against his convictions, and he won. I suppose it also helps that he is as talented as he is.

Perhaps this is what buried Wiggins. While Wiggins clearly has been instrumental to the Warriors’ success this year, he’s not a superstar like Curry and therefore doesn’t have the same leverage. Without Curry, the Warriors would likely be terrible; without Wiggins, it’s possible that the Warriors would still be good, albeit perhaps not as good as they have ended up being. On the other hand, Irving is a superstar, and in a sport where the presence or absence of a superstar has a much larger effect on a team’s overall performance (compared to baseball or football, for example), I suspect he was also able to rest on the leverage he had. As such, I respect Irving for recognizing it and using it. And now, once he has cleared the COVID protocols, he will indeed be cleared to play.

I find it sad now that so many people have vilified Irving. Perhaps some of it is deserved. Seemingly he’s broken every unwritten rule of “loyalty” that we have come to expect in sports. And I agree, it did not look good when he pledged his “loyalty” to a previous city (Boston) and previous employer (the Celtics) on the eve of the beginning of his last season on the contract he had at the time, only to reverse it during the season, and ultimately signing his next contract elsewhere. I will also admit that there are times when I don’t fully understand Irving’s thought process on things. But, like the rest of us, he has the freedom to decide what he wants to do with his life.

I am on the fence regarding whether he truly has an obligation to us, the fans, in anything that he does. On the one hand, because he is such a public figure thanks to his talent, anything and everything he does is front-page news, whether on the court or off the court. On the other hand, we are adults ourselves and therefore hold personal responsibility regarding whether we place Irving as a role model (or teach our children to do the same), or not. I’m not going to argue one extreme or the other, because one the one hand, I agree with Irving: he’s not responsible for our idolization of him or other athletes; on the other, because he is such a public figure, everything he does will affect us, whether he likes it or not. That’s simply a natural consequence of fame.

Weighing these two perspectives, I still find myself respecting Irving’s decision regarding the COVID vaccine. It is indeed his personal decision, and it should stay that way. At the same time, because his decision is public, like everything else in his life, it also offers hope for anyone who has felt pressured to get the shot against their convictions. If such a high-profile individual can continue to stand on his convictions and win, then that in itself offers hope for others who don’t (or appear not to) have the same leverage that they too can stand on their convictions and win.

Finally, to end this post, I wish to share a perspective that has been growing over the last few years. I didn’t follow the Bulls’ rivalry with the “Bad Boy” Detroit Pistons, but I’ve read about it and I’ve certainly heard about it. I’m familiar with how the Pistons used physical intimidation to bully the Bulls into submission, a tactic that worked for a few years, anyway. I’m familiar with the Pistons’ reaction when the Bulls finally broke through and swept them out of the playoffs en route to their first championship. I remember later watching the Bulls’ playoff battles with Reggie Miller’s Pacers. In all of that, I recall growing up with the belief that Jordan and Pippen were “good” and that guys like Isiah Thomas and Reggie Miller were “bad.”

However, in following more recent conversations around not only Jordan and Pippen, but also watching clips of retired NBA players talking about their playing days, I’ve come to found that guys like Thomas and Miller appear to be genuinely good human beings. In his playing career, Thomas evidently made many enemies, including with some guys that he had previously been friends with. Since then, he’s made up with some of them and now is considered in a more favorable light in retirement among his peers. Just as importantly, he is seen favorably among younger, more-recent retirees who played after he’d retired. Miller was the guy that I considered a jerk when he played. But, as I commented earlier in his post, he was genuinely happy for Stephen Curry setting the new record for 3-point shots made. Like Thomas, Miller seems to also have respect and admiration among his peers (and among those that came after) in retirement that he may not have had when he played.

Getting to hear Thomas and Miller’s stories, especially from a reflective perspective, helped me start to see them in a new light. I’m still grateful for what Jordan and Pippen did for the city of Chicago in the 1990s. I will be grateful for their hard work and accomplishments for the rest of my life. And yes, Thomas and Miller were rivals to my teams. But I would probably enjoy chatting with them more today over Jordan or Pippen, if I ever were to get the opportunity.

I suspect I will always remain a sports fan, chatting with a few of my friends that I know I can connect with on this topic. I also think that having friends who root for different teams than I do helps me gain perspective about athletes in other cities, past and present, and it strengthens my interest in sports on the whole. At the same time, considering my recently growing interest in music (see previous recent posts), as well as other things on my plate, I expect that my sports fandom will continue to develop into an overall appreciation of the game, both within the game itself as well as its role in our country and our world. I know what it’s like to live as a crazed fan, idolizing my teams of choice as if every success and failure was akin to life and death. Unfortunately, I have found that such idolatry in such fleeting things such as personnel on a team (and their successes) takes its toll. I cannot tell you how many years I experienced depression in August, September, or October (or all of the above) due to a disappointing (or occasionally heartbreaking) Cubs season. The truth is, every team has disappointment and heartbreak at different points. It comes with the territory. The reality is, sports is fun but it’s also really just entertainment. It’s a diversion from our day-to-day lives.

I’m learning how to put sports into a more proper perspective, not only in context with everything around it, but also in context with living a life of faith. The Bible makes it clear that idolatry is wrong. I know I’ve been guilty of it, and I know what idolizing teams and athletes has done to me. I’m learning to appreciate the teams I root for, and the athletes who play on my local teams. I’m also learning to appreciate athletes that play on other teams as well, and to enjoy their success even if it doesn’t benefit my city, or worse, comes at the expense of one of my local teams. It’s hard. But as I’ve said in a previous post, just like any other person, these athletes need Jesus. Unfortunately, fame and riches, and everything that comes with it, are such powerful snares. Of course, I’d love to be rich and set for life, but what I’ve also been learning is that idolizing money and possessions (specifically gobs of it) is vanity. I need to remember that athletes are human, sinners just like me and everyone else around me. In the same way that I need Jesus’ forgiveness and mercy, so do they. And just like me, they’re trying to earn a living, even if the living they are earning is much more immediately rewarding than what I am currently doing.

I suspect I will always remain a sports fan. It’s what I’ve been doing for a long time. But as I grow in my faith, I can learn how to not only put sports in its place but also encourage others to do the same.

2021 in review

A year ago, I decided to write a series of posts about big updates and changes in my life from the previous year. It was due in large part to the number of sweeping changes in my life, but it was also because the busy-ness that resulted from those sweeping changes resulted in my stepping away from both Facebook and the blog, leaving a lot of people in the dark about what was going on. It also didn’t help that it was Year 1 of COVID, which meant I wasn’t seeing or keeping in touch with most people. In December, when I returned to Facebook after my fall semester course was done, I hinted in a status update, cryptically of course, that I had had numerous sweeping changes in my life. Ironically, the two people that actually responded were people I was keeping in touch via video chat anyway. So, I had no news for them that they didn’t already know. But it was an opportunity to chat since over the course of the year our video calls had become less and less frequent. That, and it was the Christmas holiday season.

2021 was also a year of changes, less sweeping as the year before, but certainly still significant. It feels strange to say that, because I know it was and is true, but at the same time the changes don’t feel as significant. To follow up on my previous year’s series: yes, I’m still connecting more with the “new” people that entered my life the last couple years as compared with before; yes, my love and I are still going strong (praise God!); yes, I still go to the same church that I began going to last year; and yes, I’m still Republican. I don’t foresee any of these things changing. Certainly not with how more messed up this world is becoming at an exponential rate.

But 2021 also brought some new things, more subtle, but still just as significant. Just like last year, there isn’t an end to the things that have changed, nor to the things that are currently changing, nor to the things that are going to change but still quite haven’t yet.

I still chuckle at how I framed the corresponding post last year with songs from a secular Christmas ditty. That comes from still being fresh off seven-plus years of doing music as a career, and all that it came with. Moreover, I find myself amazed at how a job I held for five years (with Songs by Heart), where most of this particular kind of music-making came from, and where I got to play all types of music for nursing home residents is now three jobs ago. It certainly puts things into perspective.

I was originally going to do a multi-post series like I did last year. I’ve since had a change of heart. For reasons I won’t go into here, after I wrote out most of the posts for each of the major themes, I didn’t feel right posting them. I think, in part, it’s because not every year is created equal. Not every year has updates or changes that require long storylines for public consumption. And in fact, at least one of the storylines is still being written. It’s never felt right for me to write out a story when it is still incomplete.

Here is the summary of my 2021:

1. I graduated from group therapy.
2. I changed careers (and changed jobs twice).
3. I was in the hospital for something that would’ve become life-threatening if I had continued to ignore it.
4. I moved / I will move. It’s as complicated as it sounds, and it’s one of those aforementioned “incomplete storylines” so I best not say much about it right now.
5. I caught COVID.

I’d like to talk a little bit about that last one, since it wasn’t on the original list of “2021 in review” storylines, and it’s rather recent. Considering that COVID has been named the “new disease of this era of human history,” it’s worth talking about, inasmuch to make a point:

COVID is no joke. It’s very easily transmissible, and it does make you sick. While I’m not an extrovert, I hate being cooped up (but I must do it anyway), and the fact that I had it right during the Christmas season makes it suck even more. But: it’s not a death sentence. And while I thankfully had a mild case of it, I know others who have had more severe cases, and yet they themselves made it out alive and well. Also, from the stories I’ve heard, it is possible to be unvaccinated and still prevail. To each their own on whether or not to receive the COVID vaccine, but something I’ve been against is forcing, coercing, or scaring people into doing something or receiving something against their will, or against their beliefs, or most importantly against their independent research. Unfortunately, 2021 will be remembered by many as the year that this coercion happened for so many people. And for what? A disease that makes you sick (like every other sickness that has ever existed) but doesn’t mean automatic death?

As far as I’m concerned, there is something at play here that is much worse than COVID (having now had it): suppression of not only personal, cherished beliefs but also of independent research and thought. I do have more of an opinion on the matter than what I just expressed, but after what I’ve seen regarding the forms of suppression that I have already seen occurring, I dare not speak more. At this point, selective self-suppression is safer than suppression from outside forces and sources. And I am now done with this topic.

Outside of my plan to move, I don’t know yet what 2022 will have in store. I’m kind of hoping that things will calm down, at least for a little bit. As a Christian who believes in the end times, I do recognize that that may be too much to ask for, especially at this juncture in history. But I still hope for some good things to happen. Hopefully, that won’t be too much to ask.

Ben Folds' mark on my life

You may have noticed that when I talk about composers or musical influences, I’ll list off a few of the top Classical composers, maybe mention a few of the top 20^th century popular music composers… and then I’ll pick a random pop artist’s name out of a hat: Ben Folds. Since I first started listening to his music about 15 or so years ago, I discovered that he’s not as widespread famous as many of the others, and that he’s more of a “niche” pop artist, in that those that know his stuff really know his stuff, and then many others who don’t know his stuff are like: “who??” when asked if they know about Ben Folds.

For more information on who he is, please check out his Wikipedia page. In sum, he began his professional career in the 1990s as a rock pianist and has since transitioned to an “artist-in-residence”-type role in which he works with orchestras and a cappella vocal ensembles.

I first heard of Folds my freshman year in college, when my roommate invited me to a concert he was playing on campus. I’d never heard of the guy before, but when my roommate mentioned that he played piano, I was in. My takeaways from that concert were: 1. He’s awesome! 2. He reminded me of me on the piano. I was never the teenager that went to rock and roll concerts. Once I began attending college, the school did put on a few concerts during orientation week, which I went. However, this was still a new experience for me, and I was soaking up every moment of it.

It wasn’t until a couple years later that my childhood best friend, who had also gotten into Folds’ music, also in college, burned me a mix CD of about 100 of his songs. (There were also some Coldplay songs on it.) I was hooked. Even though I would look back at my junior year and now say that God was playing a role in helping me grow spiritually that year (it was also the year I began reading the Bible for myself), Folds was another part of that growth. I rarely listened to songs prior to that point in my life, in large part due to the hearing loss I have had making it difficult for me to hear and understand song lyrics. So to listen to his songs and follow along in the text, it was like a whole new world opened up for me. Among other things, a number of his songs gave voice to a number of the myriad struggles I had in ways that I previous was unable to voice. If you go back through this blog’s history (specifically, if you scroll down on the right side to the “labels” section and click on “Ben Folds,” it’ll take you back to a few of the posts that I have decided to share), you’ll notice several posts where I copied and pasted lyrics from a few of his songs. Granted, my worldview was quite different then vs now, but, I still see how his songs played a role in my growth at the time.

After I graduated, I underwent a gradual shift in my composing/songwriting. Because of Ben Folds (and somewhat because of Coldplay, the other primary band whose music I listened to), I wanted to write music like him. I wanted to write pop songs, with creative piano parts, interesting song melodies, and of course lyrics about interesting various topics. “Weeping Separation” was my first (and first successful) attempt at writing a pop song. Interestingly, this was Attempt #2 at writing music to those particular lyrics, which were written by a classmate of mine for a poetry project he was doing for his class (he was an English major). Over the next five or so years, I continued honing and developing my craft as a songwriter. Like everyone else, I produced half-completed duds that even now still reside in a sketchbook somewhere. But I also wrote a decent number of songs, many of which took time to refine until I was satisfied with it. Over time, as my repertoire of Classic rock, pop, funk, jazz, and blues expanded, so did my rock/pop-style writing.

Today, I rarely listen to Folds’ music. It’s primarily because of how I’ve grown over the last decade, especially spiritually. While his music was instrumental (hah, pun intended) in my growth as a musician, I began noticing how often his music was either heavy, depressing, or laced with profanity and expletives. Not only that, but as I continued listening to his music, I started finding myself more down and depressed than I was previously, also a surprise given that in college I didn’t have that experience with his music.

Early on in my time with the bands I was playing in, I had landed a solo gig (my first) at one of the cafes that one of my bands frequently performed at. However, for part of the set, I needed a bass guitarist and a drummer. In one of the rehearsals, I asked one of them about one of my songs which at the time had a swear word in it. He recommended that I do the clean version. So, I changed the lyric, and it has stayed that way ever since. I even went back over other songs I had written during the same time period (but didn’t perform at this particular gig) and changed other similar lyrics accordingly. Looking back, I’m glad I removed all the cuss words. I realized that the songs still carried the same power and the same message well enough without them. Also, as I continued writing new pop songs, the messages changed as I healed and grew, to the point that most of the songs ended with a message of hope or encouragement. A few examples:

• “Rocky Road”, which I wrote the winter of 2013 going into 2014, ends with the line “decide to have life beyond your wildest dreams.” That lyric alone is pretty self-explanatory, I think.
• “Ministry, My History,” which I first wrote in 2016 and then gave a musical facelift at the end of 2017 going into 2018, lists a version of the Twelve Steps to Recovery for the bridge (the turning point in the song), and ends on a grounding but encouraging note of self-kindness in the final verse.
• “My Own Man,” which I wrote in 2013 (and was the song in which the aforementioned bandmate advised me to change a lyrics), is a declaration song. The final verse, in fact, is a series of declarations of freedom from lies I had previously been believing.

Since about 2018 or so, I haven’t been writing any new songs. I’m OK with that. Over the last couple years, I’ve primarily been composing piano suites or a cappella choral anthems. When I’m not writing any music, I’ve been going back through the archives and cataloguing everything (see more in this post here). And I’ve been finding, among other things, that songwriting is no longer as rewarding as I once thought. Part of it is that music is again changing, something I’ve been noticing since about 2015. (Spoiler: rock-and-roll is no longer the top current genre of “pop” music; rap, hip-hop, and electronic music have since taken over.)

As for what direction I’m going to go musically, I’m still figuring that out. My approach is to continue writing whatever comes to mind. Also, a part of my approach will include treating composing, at least in part, as part of my devotional time. In 2019, in the middle of the biggest compositional drought of my life, I realized that I truly did miss composing when it was “just God and me,” acknowledging that I had strayed from Him, not just in my music-making, but in all areas of my life.

During that time, though, as I was wrestling and struggling with my musical identity, I had found creative journaling – specifically, journaling that involved either Scripture or words I felt the Holy Spirit was telling me (or both), combined with art (trying to draw/color what I felt like God was showing me) – as part of my act of devotion, since making music was just not happening. I soon discovered that a valuable way to spend time with God (and specifically, with Scripture), also included word-journaling. One of my Bibles has a devotional on each page, often with a Scriptural passage of reference, and then some thoughts and some questions to answer. While this was often time-consuming, I soon found this to be a great way to ground myself with God, since intentionally setting aside this kind of time has been and continues to be a lifelong struggle.

Finally, as God gave me back the gift of composing in late 2019, among the many things I learned about how composing works (and has worked) for me, I found that it can be a method of devotion to Him. He did, after all, give me the gift. And while yes, He can take it away if I’m not pleasing Him or if I’m straying too much from Him, He can also give it back. While pop-songwriting was a good adventure for about a decade, I’ve been finding that, more than any other genre of composition, it can become a great indulgence. Yes, many of Ben Folds’ songs were valuable vehicles for me to give voice to various struggles I had (the song I wrote titled “To Have You Or To Lose You / Goodbye, Lust” was a great example of that), but I now realize that that was only meant to be temporary. I was unsaved during much of that time. I didn’t yet have the hope that I now have, so of course it was natural for me to produce depressing, heavy songs. But once that hope arrived and began settling in my spirit, I needed to change the music I was making, to feed the Holy Spirit in me and cause Him to grow.

[OK – brief disclaimer here – there’s a growing population who believe that God automatically lives in you. That belief is false. The only way God lives in any of us is when we accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, when we receive in our hearts Him and His blood sacrifice on the cross to atone for our sins, and when we say yes to a relationship with Him and to following Him in our lives. Only then does God (the Holy Spirit) live in us, and not before. I feel like every time this comes up, I have to be very clear about what I mean, given the pervasive belief (really, a lie) that somehow God just lives in us without us having to do anything to grow or change, particularly according to the Bible. That’s just incorrect.]

Now, I’ve been returning more to my roots, which partly means writing choral music again, but more to the point it means setting passages from the Bible to music. Not that I can’t ever again write pop-style music or even secular music, but if the idea is that the music I make is supposed to honor God, who gave me the gift of music-making in the first place, then I do believe that part of what will guide the direction I go will be dictated by that principle.

I will still occasionally reference Ben Folds, because, like other composers and songwriters he has influenced aspects of the music-making I do. There are still songs of his that I like, because of either the melody or the harmony or the rhythm, or even how he transitions from one section to the next. One thing I still particularly enjoy about what he has done is how he often has employed what might seem like “unconventional” harmonic progressions (or even “unconventional” melodic motions). I expect that, for the duration of my compositional hobby, some of what he has done musically will continue to influence aspects of what I do. Even if I reject other aspects of his music (like the swearing or the heavy, depressing lyrics) in mine.

Further thoughts on music history and form

After reading through my last post about how one professor got me interested in music history, I started feeling nostalgic.

We had two music history professors in the music department. One was the female professor that I have mentioned quite a bit in my previous post. However, there was a second, a male professor, with whom I took a course. Easily swayed by peer opinion, I took only one course with him. And unlike with the female professor, I was completely lost in his class. To this day, I don’t really remember much from his course, which is unfortunate because the way the basic-level music history courses were divided, he was the one to teach the Baroque era (his time period of responsibility included Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque eras, while the other professor (the good one)’s responsibility included the Classical, Romantic, and 20^th century eras). I say it was unfortunate, because one of the eras I’m currently interested in learning more about is the Baroque era. That was when all the modern instruments and ensembles related to all things Classical were being formed.

There was one golden nugget I received from an older student who’d had both professors regarding each of their approaches. It was simply this: the male professor responsible for teaching the Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque eras focused on the history first, and then put the music in context; the female professor responsible for teaching the Classical, Romantic, and 20^th century eras focused on the music first, and then put the history in context. In retrospect, I think I would have loved to have been able to appreciate each professor for their different approaches to the music.

That’s the problem with having gone to college when I did: I didn’t have the maturity (on any level) to understand the significance of what I was learning. My attitude toward school was to put my head down, do the work the best I can (not that I didn’t suffer from laziness in certain areas), and live with the results. I rarely asked other students – let alone any of my professors – for help.

One of the only reasons I grew as a student in music history at all with the female professor was because she required us to meet with her to talk about our term papers (first for putting together our first drafts, and then again regarding revising our drafts). She made sure each student knew what needed improvement on their work, and she was excellent at 1. communicating what she wanted in each of our papers, and 2. parsing out where the improvement was needed and exactly what. I had no choice but to learn to receive the help from her! And wouldn’t you know, over time, I got better. Papers no longer became a chore of “auugghh! I gotta write 8 to 10 pages!?” and instead became “aha! I now see why the papers need to be 8 to 10 pages! It’s because that’s how much is required to be able to put in everything that she wants in a term paper! Wow, she’s really smart!” I started looking at the paper as, “am I meeting all the criteria for a term paper?” instead of, “how the heck am I gonna fill 8 to 10 pages?” (That was the attitude I had regarding every paper for English and history classes dating back to high school, and perhaps even before.)

As a composer now, something I’ve been gravitating toward writing is sonata form. Prior to her classes, I had no concept of it. I knew what sonatas were because I learned a few of Ludwig van Beethoven’s piano sonatas. I realized from performing them that it changed keys in the middle, and that the opening material returned at some point and didn’t change key the second time. But as far as what the music did and why, I was completely clueless. I remember at my continuance meeting for composition (I think this was junior year), one of my favorite professors (he taught music theory) asked me regarding one of my compositions: “what’s the form?” I replied that I didn’t know. They passed me onto continuance anyway. But that question stuck with me for a long time after. Form really wasn’t something I had really thought about when I wrote music. My idea of form was to write the piece of music in a through-composed manner (meaning every next section was completely new material), and if or when I felt like bringing back some earlier thematic material, I did. But the fact that the professor that asked me that question asked me that question, it made me stop and think.

Interestingly, Beethoven, who is one of my inspirational sources, pushed the envelope in his day. He had studied with Franz Josef Haydn, who was very much a conservative Classical composer. And Beethoven’s early works certainly reflected the conservative style as well, specifically it would always adhere closely to the form. But as they parted ways and Beethoven struck out for himself, he started not only experimenting but also changing the convention. He would modulate to different keys than what Haydn or Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart had done. He would often add codas at the end, which was basically the main (or first) theme of that movement but sped up. One other change that I’ve noticed is the difference between how Mozart and Beethoven ended sections. In a Mozart piano sonata, it was clear when the end of a section was reached, by the sound of a clear rhythmic, melodic, and harmonic cadence. By comparison, Beethoven’s section-ending cadences weren’t as clear. There would still be that familiar harmonic progression, but the music, rhythmically and melodically speaking, wouldn’t stop in the same way. It would instead continue, almost like stream-of-consciousness.

I also mentioned that one of the classes I had taken with the female professor involved a key question that persisted throughout the course: “what does this music connote?” which helped pique my interest in how the music worked. She was also the same professor that often answered that question by saying that the music was about sexual desire. As a bible-believing Christian now, I’m less interested in that, but at the time I certainly was, along with other topics that the professor would name. For this reason, though, I’ve been less inclined to listen to Mozart on the whole. Some of his piano sonatas are still indeed interesting. But much of what he wrote was opera, a genre I’ll honestly admit I have very little interest in. But this same professor’s comment about Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony in C (note that it does not say C major or C minor) was that it reflected Beethoven’s inner struggle with life and death. He struggles with wanting to end his life, but ultimately chooses to continue to live. According to my professor, she says that this is reflected in this particular symphony, in that it begins in C minor, but ends in C major.

I find I can relate to it. While intellectually, I resonate more with Ben Folds’ comment that the idea of major being happy and minor being sad is not necessarily true, I at the same time am finding that I myself cannot end a suite or sonata in minor (only rarely will I end a movement that way). My recent composition of “Piano Sonata in B minor” (yes, “minor” is in the title) has the third movement starting in B minor and ending in (“on”) B major, and the fourth movement, in a sort of chorale style, exclusively written in B major. Two other movements I wrote, for a completely different suite, start in a minor key and end in the parallel major key. So, while I intellectually claim no relation between mode and emotion, I’m also realizing that I cannot end in minor, which would seem to indicate that perhaps I do believe in such a relation. If I had to presuppose what that may be about, I would say my faith not only in Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, but also that this hope of freedom and victory that is found only in Him is available to anyone. And I therefore presuppose that, because of this freedom and victory and hope that I have found, what would it say if I ended a sonata or a suite or a symphony in the minor key? That hope is lost? (Happily, the short answer is “no.”)

In spite of my interest in studying and writing in Classical sonata form, I too find myself wanting to deviate from it. In my two piano sonatas/suites written over the past year, I would consider that only about four out of the eight movements are in proper sonata form. I find I love the modulations of the keys that accompany it, but I also find that I don’t love repeating the material in the exact same way. (“Doesn’t it get boring to listen to the same material all over again in the same way?”)

To wrap up this post, I have a brief story about just that: in my job playing piano in different nursing homes, I once played a Mozart piano sonata (to be precise, it was his Piano Sonata No. 12 in F major, K.332, first movement). Interestingly, I learned it in piano lessons after hearing it in the first week of my very first music history class with the female music history professor and asked my piano lesson instructor if I could learn that piece the same semester. He of course obliged.

I picked it up again as an adult (for this piano-playing job) and tried it on the nursing home audience. Just for context, my listeners came from a time before TVs shortened attention spans, and from a time when people would still wait until the end of a piece to clap. And remember, Mozart typically had clearly defined sections such that you would know when a section was over, simply by the clear cadences he wrote. This particular movement from his Piano Sonata in F major (No. 12, K.332) was no exception. Further, it also had repeats at the end of each clearly defined section (I should also mention that these sections were long.) Anyway, the point is, after I finished the first repeat of the first section of this Mozart piano sonata, everyone applauded. They thought the piece was over. I don’t remember if I was planning to repeat that section like the composer had written, but I decided to abort that plan. I continued to the next section, and believe me, I only played it once. The crowd (the older-generation crowd that certainly knew to wait until a piece was over!) then clapped a second time.

By contrast, I never had that problem with any of the Beethoven pieces I played in nursing homes. Maybe it was because of the continuity and relative ambiguity of ends of sections that helped? I also realized that this same generation grew up on music from the Great American songbook and from American musicals and were in their 30s and 40s when rock-and-roll first began. They may not have had the attention issues that younger generations have, but they’re used to songs which are much shorter than Mozart sonatas!

Perhaps this is the key to keeping music interesting: one the one hand, make sure it sounds good (meaning having the melodies and harmonies follow some kind of pattern established back in the Baroque and Classical eras), but having some form variety may also be the key. I’m still exploring this thought process, both verbally and in composition, but so far it seems that a balance of tonality and variance is what will keep the music interesting, to me at least, and hopefully, to the listener as well.

Embracing the musician within

I think one of the reasons why I’ve delayed so long in integrating my music world with my blogging (or literary writing) world can be found in that, as a child, I just wanted to be just like everyone else. Unfortunately, by the time I was a pre-adolescent and on my way to a lifelong hobby as a composer (could still be a career, but I have other more pressing priorities at this stage of my life), I was asking for books about sports as presents, rather than books on music or other composers. I was a much bigger Michael Jordan fan than I was of Ludwig van Beethoven. (Just in case you thought it was impossible to put those two men in the same sentence, here we are.)

In the days leading up to my eighth-grade graduation, I remember my headmaster making a comment in his description of the book he was going to present to me. [Spoiler: about a week or so earlier, he took all the eighth graders out to either Barnes and Noble or Borders, so that we could pick out our own books that he would end up presenting to us at some kind of event. I forget if it was an all-school event, or it if was a private luncheon with our parents there.] He commented that, due to how musical I was, even compared to peers that all were extremely musical in their own rights, he was expecting to present to me a book about J.S. Bach, or Beethoven, or someone of the like. He was telling the story in a jovial manner, of course. The book I ended up with, I believe, was titled: “It Ain’t Over Till The Fat Lady Sings,” and it had absolutely nothing to do with singing or with music. It was a book on last-second, game-winning shots or plays.

I still wrote music, but I found that I preferred to hang out with non-musical types. And that’s pretty much what I did. I really didn’t make close friends with anyone who was super-musical until I myself decided to go into music for a full-time career in my mid-to-late twenties. (One exception: I did have a close friend who double-majored in music and philosophy, but the bulk of our friendship wasn't about music at all, but rather hanging out and talking about life.)

I still like my sports. As you can see, even in this current era of blogging, I will occasionally post sport-themed blog posts. There’s something normalizing about following sports, although I will admit that how I follow has changed. But something else has changed, too: before I realized I needed to change my career again (away from music and to something else), I started to discover a hidden passion for music history, especially as I began researching different composers and songwriters on Wikipedia.

The story of my interest in music history began, rather inadvertently, in college. In a previous post I briefly touched on my experience with my primary composition instructor (who was also my advisor). He gave me some valuable intellectual tools to consider for composing, but the mark his own compositional prowess left on me was simply for me to not ever compose like him. (“Do what he says; don’t do as he does.”) But the other important part of my compositional experience in college is that the major itself wasn’t all that well developed, certainly not in comparison with other majors in the music department. (Of course, I didn’t find any of this out until at least halfway through my time in school!)

The short version was that they didn’t put together enough higher-level classes that directly related to the major, especially for a Bachelor of Music, as opposed to a Bachelor of Arts for the same major. As a result, I ended up taking three upper-level Music History courses, on par with getting a major in Musicology. One of the profs had developed notoriety in regard to the difficulty of her classes, papers, tests, even smaller bibliography projects, in that all students referred to them behind her back using her first name. (Typically, this was a big “no-no” when addressing college professors! I’m sure that’s all changed now.) Naturally, I selected her for all my upper-level Music History courses. For all the challenges that her classes posed, it was thanks to her that I learned how to write a proper paper.

The one class that I took with her that I got into (I forget the title now) focused on the question: “what does this music connote?” We still of course had to learn and memorize the title, composer, date (get it within 5 years), nationality, and style characteristics, and then name it all correctly based on the snippet that was played on quizzes and exams. But that extra question, “what does this music connote?” really opened the door for me to really get interested in learning the music. I believe that was the first time I got higher than a “C” in her classes. (I think I got a “B.”) That was a victory. I had one more class with her after that, and I believe I ended up with a “B” in that course as well. Unfortunately, she has since passed on, but to this day I still remember with gratitude the breakthroughs I was able to have in her courses, and also in a couple key areas of the intellectual area of my life. Later, at my first job after college, one of my bosses commented that I wrote well. That was nice to hear. As a child, writing essays and papers were a tall task for me. Today, I still have an interest in music history, primarily thanks to this one professor I had.

But it took time. In college, my three best friends majored in biology, economics, and Classics (Latin). The woman I had the biggest crush on, also in college, majored in math, and another woman I had just as big a crush on, a few years after college, went on to get her PhD in chemical engineering. I couldn’t tell you why for the life of me I had (virtually) zero interest in connecting with other musicians, whether for friendship, career networking, or romantic possibilities. I think I just wanted to be “normal,” because I knew I wasn’t. Also, I was unable to, even as a young adult, differentiate between “I’m not normal” due to being a creative musician, vs. “I’m not normal” due to all the unresolved pain I was carrying and stuffing and trying like heck to pretend wasn’t there. Thankfully, I can now. But back then, I suspect I stuffed my musical aspirations and curiosities for the same reason. (“Maybe if I wasn’t a musician, my life wouldn’t suck.”) Thankfully, I didn’t go far enough to find out if that was indeed true.

After about three years of different people asking, and after a job I thought I might’ve held on to for a while relocated without me, I finally became willing to teach piano lessons. I resisted it for as long as I did, because I had known for a long time that that didn’t pay the bills. But, with a mentor at my church giving me some tips and pointers, I opened my practice in my late-twenties and taught for six years. Around the same time, I accepted an invitation to gig with two different bands, and I got to learn about performing with other people in a non-choir setting. It also allowed me to learn a whole bunch of music that I had never heard of let alone performed. And then with an invitation to join a pilot program for group music sessions in nursing homes, I was able to expand my repertoire much further. After a few years’ experience, I was able to, for the first time, see how much grew, developed, and changed, across multiple different genres. I already knew about “Classical” – I was schooled in that. But now I was learning about jazz, the Great American songbook, musicals, funk, classic rock, and blues, and how things changed and developed over time. A musical production on the life of Buddy Holly that my aunt took me to once gave me for the first time, understanding for how rock-and-roll came to be, and how, in a lot of ways, rock too had its own “Baroque” era. The sense I got from it was that, in both eras, instruments and ensembles were being explored, experimented, and honed until the perfect balance was found. I was able to absorb a lot in those years that fed further into what interested me regarding music, not just for my own compositional perspective, but also for finding a potential niche.

Of course, it helped that almost all my colleagues were not only musicians, but women my age that were musicians. I learned to become open and interested in a gal that was artistic. Heck, my love writes music, herself! (She’s a lot more modest about her work than I am about it, but she’s got some pretty good stuff in there.)

I’m deliberately using up a few posts here to give backstory to the music part of my life. I’m not sure if I still have a few background pieces yet to share, or if I’ve finally exhausted it. I also still don’t know what I want to do with this blogging space. I don’t really want to show pictures or scans of composition fragments, especially if they’re not copyrighted. I also don’t want to, just like in my mission statement from rebooting the blog, start going down a slippery slope of talking about music to venting about myself. But I would like to share something akin to “liner notes” about different compositions or songs that are either being written, or reworked, or ready for release on my bandcamp page. If nothing else, I’d like to save the musicologists time when it comes to musical analysis from a historical perspective.

While my career still must take a different turn, I still hope to compose at as many different stages of life as possible, and to have a decent output of works that is at least respectable, by the time I hit the end. Maybe someday I’ll even have a concert where they’re all performed. Maybe someday I’ll even write a book about different things related to what interests me in music. Time will tell.

The story of my debut

Growing up Episcopalian, I cut my teeth on Anglican choral music.

[A brief interruption: for those who don’t know about the history of the Episcopal Church, the Anglican Church, and the Church of England, they all have a sort of intertwined history, with the former two being birthed out of the third. Please read more here, here, and here. I bring this up to address any potential confusion over “Anglican” choral music in an “Episcopal” church. Even though the names are different, the origins are the same. That, and it was very common for American Episcopal churches (particularly “high” churches) to perform music written by British composers.]

My choir director noticed early on that I was interested in writing music. While I still had a lot of kinks to work out, he did encourage me to write descants and four-part psalm chants (otherwise called Anglican chant), which I did occasionally. Early on, only an occasional descant got performed (and by “occasional”, it was like maybe once a year or once every couple years). Mozart, I was not. And that’s ok. While my dad has occasionally quipped that he wished that the choir director would not only have been more active in his encouraging my composition, but also that more of my stuff would’ve been performed, I look back and don’t exactly regret it. The stuff I wrote early on was garbage. And by “garbage,” I mean that musical activity I may have written for the soprano part didn’t mesh with musical activity I may have written for the tenor part, neither of which meshed with musical activity I may have written for the pipe organ. And of course, two bars later, the music was likely to be completely different, in a different key, in a different rhythm, in a very different register, at a very different volume. And so on.

Looking back, my early choral compositions didn’t make sense because, as a child, I still hadn’t quite figured out the “big picture” aspect of ensemble writing. And that’s ok. I was learning. I was teaching myself how to compose, simply from grabbing aspects of what I had performed as a choirboy (which grew exponentially by the year), both what I had seen, and what I had heard and sung. It was like a form of ADD, in that for one part, I would recollect something I liked for one measure, and then, once I moved to the next layer of music (usually the next vocal part over), I would have completely forgotten about it, and would instead try to find something else that I remember hearing or seeing that I liked and wanted to imitate.

One of the most helpful early pieces of feedback I received was in fact from my other choir director, in New York, who briefly reviewed another choral composition I had been working on. He first commented how I had done a good job matching the soprano melody with the treble lines in the organ, and then remarked that I needed to do the same with the basses and the organ’s pedal line, which weren’t matched. The reason, he explained, was that the music would otherwise sound very muddy. That was a really cool “lightbulb” moment for me.

In high school, as I accumulated more self-taught experience, both from just having composed more, and also from the blessing of having Finale (my music notation software) play back music I had entered, I began to develop a sense of what sounded good vs what didn’t and got better at writing music that way. I had even more descants and four-part psalm chants performed, with a lot fewer changes made from the original. At home, I also branched out, writing piano pieces, orchestral pieces, as well as occasional interesting-mix smaller ensemble pieces (all of which were on Finale, since I could hear the playback immediately). My output, specifically output of what I was prouder of compared to earlier years, increased a lot.

College was a different story. I went in already knowing that, while I had gained a lot in my decade-plus of largely self-taught composing, there was still a whole lot to learn. I ended up picking the school that gave me the best scholarship package (although there were a number of other enticing factors). In retrospect, while I did learn many valuable things, I also felt like most of what I learned in composition I decided I wasn’t interested in keeping. (My primary composition professor – and advisor – was about as obsessed with 20^th-century “classical music” as anyone out there, and he taught us all as much. As a result, just about all my favorite works were composed outside of class or lessons.)

Since college, my performing experiences have shaped what I’ve written since, which has proven to be invaluable. I’ve concluded that anyone who composes or writes songs is simply just going to write what they like. I agree it is valuable to have “tricks in the bag” to pull out when needed (which was what my one 20^th-century-loving professor explained as he was explaining in class one time, possibly related to why he broke down composition to so many different basic barebones elements). But, following the history of music on another level (and for this post, I’ll keep it very brief), it seems that when one genre of music has exhausted all the development that it possibly could, a new genre with much more “Classical”-sounding melodies and harmonies takes over. In the 1950s, when serialist composers like Arnold Schoenberg, Alan Webern, and John Cage were presently or recently active in what would be considered the “Classical” realm (primarily due to the instruments), it was others like Buddy Holly, Elvis Presley, and Richard Rodgers whose music was preferred. Why? Because their compositions had melody, harmony, rhythm, things that draw people to a piece of music! Because their music sounded good. As such, even now, I try to create music that sounds good, no matter what genre I write in.

Now, as for my compositional debut: considering that as a child, I had several descants and psalm chants performed at church in both elementary and high school, but also considering that it’s not like these were complete pieces, just rather complementary music aspects to either music already written (like a hymn) or a Psalm, which was intoned in speech-rhythm, not really sung as a piece… when would I say that debut was?

It was my eighth-grade graduation. Specifically, it was the final Sunday morning service that the choir did at the end of the school year. (Graduation was on the Saturday right before.) That was the service where the graduating eighth-graders got to pick the music for the entire service. It was quite an honor. That, and it was a cool rare opportunity for all the students in the class (for reference, my class had 9 people, which was about the average size at the time) to work together to assemble a musical set list that would please everyone. My piece, “O Lord our Governor,” which I had composed the summer before, and received some vocal part revoicing assistance by our music theory professor sometime during my final year there, was on the list. It was the first time that I had an actual standalone composition performed, in which I had determined everything musically, including the rhythm of the words and the tempo. It was a very surreal experience.

Four years later, when I was wrapping up my senior year in high school, I wrote another piece for the high school choir, which the chorus director completely supported. And then a piece for piano and cello duet for high school graduation. And then college. I could go on, because there were other sweet musical moments that I could name and pinpoint. But it all started with “O Lord our Governor,” and a choir and organist that believed enough in the piece to perform it.

Yes, I'm a composer.

Even now, I still have resistance to integrating my music-writing and literary-writing worlds. It’s kind of interesting to look back on my history with this blog, including both the parts of the first era (2005-2013) of what I have allowed my readers to see, and what I to this date have not allowed them to see, as well as my second era (2019-present). I much prefer my current era, specifically the content which I’ve allowed myself to post. The more I go along, the more I see how God has been changing the culture of this blog to be more about Him. For that, I am quite grateful. As I’ve mentioned before, when I brought the blog back in 2019 (I had deleted the whole thing off the website in 2013 but saved all the posts on my computer) I often found myself choosing not to reshare a whole bunch of posts because of the topics covered, or the nature in which I was sharing things.

Starting around 2017, I began a project in which I decided to print at least one hard copy of as many musical compositions that I could, and then organized them chronologically into binders. I wanted to prepare for the potential (inevitable?) collapse of the internet and computers everywhere, where, if I couldn’t access all the music that I had notated on Finale (the music notation software I use), I at least would have a hard copy. This project has since developed in other ways (sorry, I’m not revealing all my secrets…), and I now have an organized inventory of pieces I’ve written over the years, including a predeveloped organized system in which to put future compositions. I think about other composers (Beethoven specifically) whose office was an utterly disorganized mess of papers. To this day, I still marvel that his friends and accomplices were able to preserve all the works that they were able to preserve!

I wasn’t always this organized with my compositions in this way. My previous system (which wasn’t bad, per se) consisted of sketches staying in their spiral-rung notebooks, and halfway-done notation projects on Finale sitting in various folders in my computer. It really wasn’t bad at all, but what I realized I didn’t like was that, although they were essentially fully composed, they weren’t necessarily ready for distribution at rehearsal. And the ones that were, were mostly pieces I wrote in my composition classes in college that I didn’t particularly care for.

In 2017, that changed. For a couple of years during that time, I was blessed with a season of opportunities to perform original works at a restaurant that prioritizes original songwriting for their musical acts. I probably did about 10 or so different gigs during that time, some which were solo keyboard gigs, some in which I invited one or two of my bands, and at least one other where I had one other performer onstage to mix things up. There were two gigs, however, that stood out above the rest, as it pertained to the raw experience of having group ensemble compositions performed. One was in August and the other was in December, just right before Christmas. Fun and elation aside, these were two of the gigs (especially the first) that kick-started a necessity to have current compositions finished and formatted and ready for distribution, if necessary.

One other thing that started happening, as the project progressed from the pieces that I was most likely to perform at these gigs, to other compositions that I hope to get performed someday but don’t have a platform, to even other compositions I’d long forgotten about but still had sitting in a folder somewhere: particularly music from the last category, I began writing little stories about several of the pieces, about how they came to be, how (or why) they got the title they did, or even what I was thinking at the time I wrote (or in some cases, improvised) the number. And I believe this is the point of today’s post: I’ve already begun integrating my two writing worlds. As I’ve begun developing the habit of occasionally writing in literary notes to go along with the musical ones, I started doing it occasionally even in my sketchbooks of new pieces, as I’m writing them!

It is off this point that brought me here to this question: what if I started posting some of these things on to the blog?

I do want to remain careful; because music is an integral part of not only who I am but also who God made me to be, the risk remains of turning this blog into a personally invasive diary. It would be good for me to also remember: what again is the main purpose of this space? It keeps developing, and I’m realizing I’d like to maintain the flexibility to let it gradually change over time. That, and like my music-making, I do still believe I must do everything I can to ensure that this blog honors God, yes, even the God of the Bible.

Still, even within those parameters, I’ve secretly marveled at how so many bloggers over the years were able to keep their posts topical but interesting. (And then I’d look at mine and wonder what, if anything I could do to make mine as topical and interesting as theirs, without doing something that’s already been done. There are enough wine, hiking, and family-themed blogs out there already.) The bottom line is, I think God may have given me an idea.

More to come.

Sermons from Good News: God loves those with limited means

Church 12/4/2021

Offertory scripture:

Therefore be imitators of God as dear children. And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma.
Ephesians 5:1-2 - https://www.biblegateway.com/passage?search=Ephesians%205:1-2&version=NKJV

Sermon message: God loves those with limited means
(Christmas series, part 2)

Point #1: the Christmas story says God loves people with limited means

Jesus was born, lived, died, and rose again to pay the price for our sins, because we can’t. We have limited means. We all have limited means. Therefore we all need God’s help.

Now a certain ruler asked Him, saying, “Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” So Jesus said to him, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God. You know the commandments: ‘Do not commit adultery,’ ‘Do not murder,’ ‘Do not steal,’ ‘Do not bear false witness,’ ‘Honor your father and your mother.’ ” And he said, “All these things I have kept from my youth.” So when Jesus heard these things, He said to him, “You still lack one thing. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.” But when he heard this, he became very sorrowful, for he was very rich. And when Jesus saw that he became very sorrowful, He said, “How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God! For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” And those who heard it said, “Who then can be saved?” But He said, “The things which are impossible with men are possible with God.”
Luke 18:18-27 - https://www.biblegateway.com/passage?search=Luke%2018:18-27&version=NKJV

Focus verse from the above passage:

But He said, “The things which are impossible with men are possible with God.”
Luke 18:27 - https://www.biblegateway.com/passage?search=Luke%2018:27&version=NKJV

What is impossible with people is possible with God.

Jesus to a religious leader, Nicodemus:

Jesus answered, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’
John 3:5-7 - https://www.biblegateway.com/passage?search=John%203:5-7&version=NKJV

A human cannot pay his own price for sin. He needs to be born again.

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
John 3:16 - https://www.biblegateway.com/passage?search=John%203:16&version=NKJV

And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.
Philippians 4:19 - https://www.biblegateway.com/passage?search=Philippians%204:19&version=NKJV

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.
John 14:6 - https://www.biblegateway.com/passage?search=John%2014:6&version=NKJV

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God,
Ephesians 2:8 - https://www.biblegateway.com/passage?search=Ephesians%202:8&version=NKJV

Grace is a free gift from God.
God loves people of limited means.

that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.
Romans 10:9 - https://www.biblegateway.com/passage?search=Romans%2010:9&version=NKJV

Point #2: the Bible shows that God loves people with limited means

From Genesis through Revelation, there are examples as such.

Gideon (when God calls him)
David (God chooses him over all his brothers)
The woman who gave a prophet the last of food she had
Peter and John — religious leaders called them ignorant. But they had Jesus.
Mary Magdalene

God loves people with limited means, those in which God is all they have.

And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.
Philippians 4:19 - https://www.biblegateway.com/passage?search=Philippians%204:19&version=NKJV

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
Philippians 4:13 - https://www.biblegateway.com/passage?search=Philippians%204:13&version=NKJV

Point #3: A story within the Christmas story says God loves people with limited means

Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. And behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid. Then the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be the sign to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger.” And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying: “Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace, goodwill toward men!” So it was, when the angels had gone away from them into heaven, that the shepherds said to one another, “Let us now go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has come to pass, which the Lord has made known to us.” And they came with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the Babe lying in a manger. Now when they had seen Him, they made widely known the saying which was told them concerning this Child.
Luke 2:8-17 - https://www.biblegateway.com/passage?search=Luke%202:8-17&version=NKJV

Point #4: God sees everyone

Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. And behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid.
Luke 2:8-9 - https://www.biblegateway.com/passage?search=Luke%202:8-9&version=NKJV

And he commanded them, saying, “Thus you shall act in the fear of the Lord, faithfully and with a loyal heart:
2 Chronicles 19:9 - https://www.biblegateway.com/passage?search=2%20Chronicles%2019:9&version=NKJV

And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.
Philippians 4:19 - https://www.biblegateway.com/passage?search=Philippians%204:19&version=NKJV

Point #5: God wants all to be saved and blessed

Then the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people.
Luke 2:10 - https://www.biblegateway.com/passage?search=Luke%202:10&version=NKJV

who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.
1 Timothy 2:4 - https://www.biblegateway.com/passage?search=1%20Timothy%202:4&version=NKJV

Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Matthew 11:28 - https://www.biblegateway.com/passage?search=Matthew%2011:28&version=NKJV

Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers.
3 John 1:2 - https://www.biblegateway.com/passage?search=3%20John%201:2&version=NKJV

The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.
John 10:10 - https://www.biblegateway.com/passage?search=John%2010:10&version=NKJV

And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.
Philippians 4:19 - https://www.biblegateway.com/passage?search=Philippians%204:19&version=NKJV

Point #6: God wants us to share the good news

Now when they had seen Him, they made widely known the saying which was told them concerning this Child.
Luke 2:17 - https://www.biblegateway.com/passage?search=Luke%202:17&version=NKJV

For the Scripture says, “Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.” For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon Him. For “whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?
Romans 10:11-14 - https://www.biblegateway.com/passage?search=Romans%2010:11-14&version=NKJV

Sermons from Good News: do what you can do

Church 12/1/2021

Sermon thesis: Do what you can do

Point #1: Take time to pray

praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints—
Ephesians 6:18 - https://www.biblegateway.com/passage?search=Ephesians%206:18&version=NKJV

Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
Matthew 26:41 - https://www.biblegateway.com/passage?search=Matthew%2026:41&version=NKJV

Pray even when you feel weak.

Jesus exhorted His disciples to pray before He had gotten arrested so that they would not fall into temptation.

The former account I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach, until the day in which He was taken up, after He through the Holy Spirit had given commandments to the apostles whom He had chosen, to whom He also presented Himself alive after His suffering by many infallible proofs, being seen by them during forty days and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God. And being assembled together with them, He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the Promise of the Father, “which,” He said, “you have heard from Me; for John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.” Therefore, when they had come together, they asked Him, saying, “Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” And He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority. But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” Now when He had spoken these things, while they watched, He was taken up, and a cloud received Him out of their sight. And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as He went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel, who also said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will so come in like manner as you saw Him go into heaven.” Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day’s journey. And when they had entered, they went up into the upper room where they were staying: Peter, James, John, and Andrew; Philip and Thomas; Bartholomew and Matthew; James the son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot; and Judas the son of James. These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication, with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with His brothers.
Acts 1:1-14 - https://www.biblegateway.com/passage?search=Acts%201:1-14&version=NKJV

When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.
Acts 2:1-4 - https://www.biblegateway.com/passage?search=Acts%202:1-4&version=NKJV

Prayer is important. It’s important to do what the Word says.

But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.
James 1:22 - https://www.biblegateway.com/passage?search=James%201:22&version=NKJV

Point #2: Cast your cares upon the Lord

Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
Philippians 4:6-7 - https://www.biblegateway.com/passage?search=Philippians%204:6-7&version=NKJV

Do not be anxious or worried about anything, but in everything [every circumstance and situation] by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, continue to make your [specific] requests known to God. And the peace of God [that peace which reassures the heart, that peace] which transcends all understanding, [that peace which] stands guard over your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus [is yours].
Philippians 4:6-7 - https://www.biblegateway.com/passage?search=Philippians%204:6-7&version=AMP

casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.
1 Peter 5:7 - https://www.biblegateway.com/passage?search=1%20Peter%205:7&version=NKJV

Also this:

Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.
1 Peter 5:8 - https://www.biblegateway.com/passage?search=1%20Peter%205:8&version=NKJV

Point #3: Plant a seed

Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.
Galatians 6:7 - https://www.biblegateway.com/passage?search=Galatians%206:7&version=NKJV

When you plant a seed, you bless others.

“Take heed that you do not do your charitable deeds before men, to be seen by them. Otherwise you have no reward from your Father in heaven. Therefore, when you do a charitable deed, do not sound a trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory from men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. But when you do a charitable deed, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, that your charitable deed may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will Himself reward you openly. “And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward.
Matthew 6:1-5 - https://www.biblegateway.com/passage?search=Matthew%206:1-5&version=NKJV

Pause: should we pray? Yes.
Did Jesus pray? Yes.
Did He encourage His disciples to pray? Yes.
Is prayer important? Yes.

But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.
Matthew 6:6 - https://www.biblegateway.com/passage?search=Matthew%206:6&version=NKJV

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
John 3:16 - https://www.biblegateway.com/passage?search=John%203:16&version=NKJV

For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life. And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith.
Galatians 6:8-10 - https://www.biblegateway.com/passage?search=Galatians%206:8-10&version=NKJV

Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you.”
Luke 6:38 - https://www.biblegateway.com/passage?search=Luke%206:38&version=NKJV

Plant a seed. Do what the Word says. You will be blessed back when you bless others.