When God is good...

The title of this post technically assumes something that isn’t true – that God sometimes isn’t good.  We know that God is good all the time.  The Bible says so, His Spirit constantly emphasizes the fact in our souls, and it has been experientially validated repeatedly everywhere you look.  His goodness is just as vital to His character as oxygen is to our existence.  If He wasn’t good, He wouldn’t be God.  However, how many times do we live as though He isn’t good?  Think about it...

But anyway, at my church here in Greenville, we do this neat thing on Wednesday nights where people have an opportunity to share how God has been good to them.  This usually takes the form of testimonies of answered prayer…someone raises a hand, a deacon puts a mic in it, and the person stands up and recounts the story.  Tonight was my first time in a long time being back because I was closing every night at Bellis last semester, which meant that I rarely got to go to prayer meeting, if ever.  So even though I didn’t feel comfortable standing up with a mic and telling people what God has been doing for me this last week, I really wanted to share it because it’s a great way to encourage other people.  And since I’ve always been more comfortable writing out my thoughts than talking them out, I thought I’d share using this medium. 

That being said, last week I started back up at the copy center after being away for Christmas break.  When school isn’t in session, the GAs are supposed to get as close to 40 hours for the week as possible.  Due to various things, I was short…like 3 hours short, by my calculations.  And in the grand scheme of life, it’s not a huge big deal, but I’m a college student, right?  I have bills to pay.  God poked me a little though.  It’s been a rough few months for me, and I’ve unconsciously called His character into question simply by my actions and responses to the curveballs that have been thrown at me lately.  But with each one, He has shown Himself to be good, in spite of me.  I find every time that He is strong in my weakness, and that His goodness is a rock that I can bunker down behind and be secure.  I tried to adopt that mentality again.

Anyway, Saturday rolled around.  I work Saturdays the entire 4 hours Bellis is open, usually getting there early and then finishing late in order to get everything done.  And this week, it was a rainy Saturday, nobody was out, and the place was pretty dead.  We get bulletins from a lot of churches in the area, and I’d already printed them out and done the finishing work necessary, such as folding or whatever.  An hour before closing, one pick-up person jangled my doorbell.  I knew her by sight, and I knew what she was here for.  This particular establishment happens to be a good-sized Presbyterian church downtown, and they usually order 450 bulletins per week.  It’s a big job.  They’d sent it later than usual, but we got it done the day before in good time, thanks to a new machine we got just before break that can do all kinds of cool things, so everything was good.  I heaved the box onto the counter, and the lady looked under the lid, and her eyes got really big and she gasped, “Oh no…” 

My own eyes got really big.  I’m thinking, Uh oh…I’m the Only One Here…absolutely not…can I think about this…phone a friend…do I get a lifeline…

She said, “I sent you the wrong bulletin.  This was last week’s bulletins…I can tell by the announcements without even opening it.”   She looked at me and said in a very small voice, “Is there ANY way…” 

I looked at her, made a decision (I’m an on-the-fly sort of thinker), and said, “It’s a good thing we’re slow today.” 

So I stayed.  I babysat the machine while it did its cool folding and stapling thing, all 450 other bulletins. And because this church has a billable account, I could leave the job in a box outside the door when it was done and go home.  Which I did, although an hour after the Bellis doors had locked.  Lunch closes on Saturdays before I get off, and I was hungry.  Out of curiosity though, I checked my time on the way back to my apartment to see how many hours I’d put in for the week.  I wasn’t expecting to make it even close still.  Have I mentioned that I’m not a math person?  It’s a miracle when I figure my check book right so that it says what the bank says…and if it doesn’t, it’s usually a weird mathematical error on my part.  In this instance, I hadn’t done my timey-wimey math correctly.  I had been off by an hour and a half.  I ended up being 16 minutes short of my goal, which is perfectly acceptable in my estimation because I always purposely overshoot my goals for work hours. 

It wasn’t my plan to stay late.  It wasn’t my plan to miss the date on those bulletins and print them all without catching the mistake.  But God lets us do stuff like that in order to show us that, in spite of ourselves, He is good.  In the face of my ingratitude and complaining, He is faithful to orchestrate my life in such a way that forces me to see my weakness and my pride and then acknowledge His greatness. 

I read an article once where the author was complaining about when people say that even though such-and-such happened, God is “still good” or “still in control”.  The point was that statements like that imply a cessation of His goodness or sovereignty in the minds of those who use the clichés.  I get the author’s drift, and perhaps I’m over-analyzing, but it should go the other way, in a sense.  Intellectually, we know that God is good.  It’s a fact that has been drilled into our fundamental brains ever since we first started lisping “Jesus loves me” in toddler church.  Or whatever.  But we forget because we’re finite humans.  When something happens to jerk us out of our self-sufficient fog, we discover God being good and great and faithful and true and holy all along, right alongside us.  And sometimes it’s a surprise that knocks us to our knees in remorse because of our forgetfulness, or out of shock because we look at how we’ve been living and see responses that haven’t been reflective of the reality of God’s goodness.  God is good…when we forget it.  Why?  Well…because He’s good. 

The Use of "I REALLY REALLY LIKE THIS PIECE"

I splurged and bought new music the other day.  Actually, I was looking for the sheet music to the Pirates of the Caribbean arrangement that the Piano Guys did and discovered that some dude I’d never heard of, named Jarrod Radnich, had tweaked and arranged it and they just played it.  The link let me to Radnich’s website, where I found…gasp!  Christmas music!!!!  ^_^  I’m a sucker for Christmas arrangements.  I can never seem to find enough really good ones, and if I do they are buried in a book of other Christmas songs that aren’t particularly my favorite.  But this book contained a lot of them…nearly half of the selection was made up of songs/carols I loved, such as What Child, We Three Kings, the Bell Carol, The First Noel, and a few others.  Plus that, “for a limited time only”, the CD/MP3s were included with the arrangements, like getting a Christmas book with the CD stuck in the back cover.  It made it a bit more pricey, but…yeah.  Anyway, I ended up getting the book as well as the PotC arrangement, downloaded in PDF format, which I printed off at work after supper. 

Actually, I was trying to make myself go practice when I went to print off the music.  I’m failing quite miserably at meeting the goals I set for myself at the beginning of the summer.  At first, I decided that I would practice 30 minutes every day.  Fail…that’s too constraining, and I found myself playing for an hour and a half at a time when I did go practice, and it wasn’t consistent at all. Then I decided to try a vague five hours a week, which has now turned into 3-5 hours a week.  Still though, it’s hard.  I’ve known and heard and played my pieces now for over a year, some of them longer, and sometimes it feels like heating and reheating leftovers in the microwave over and over.  I’m bored with them…and yet I know that as I learn them better, I will move away from the technical aspects and discover instead the freedom to play them well.  But for now, it’s like boring through granite. I thought I’d spice it up by going to print off new music and playing that, and possibly ending with Amy Beach or Beethoven (actually, not Beethoven…he is missing and I can’t find where I put him when I moved house).  And in doing so, I discovered a practice technique. 

The prospect of new music is always exciting, especially after I’ve heard the song and fallen in love with it.   I started with the God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen arrangement, right hand alone, and played it all the way through.  It fit very nicely to my fingers…rippling and chordal, which is a style I’m fond of.  I played the right hand again, just to get the feel of it and learn what I had absorbed the first time around.  Then I did the left hand all the way through, and tried putting the hands together just to get the feel of the rhythm.  The timing is 4/4, but the grouping of the notes is in six sixteenth notes for both hands and each hand has a different emphasis – the right hand feels like two groups of three per beat and the left hand feels like three groups of two.  It’s different, but moves smoothly once the brain catches on.  Anyway, by the time the hour was up, it was half learned. 

I did the same thing with PotC, only my ear was accustomed to the music already and I started out very slowly with hands together.  Between my ear and sight-reading, I learned a lot, and they worked both ways.  The crazy runs I’d been hearing and trying to figure out turned out to be chromatic octaves in both hands, offset from each other, and it turned out to be simpler than I had anticipated once I saw them on the page.  The rhythm of the arpeggios on the third page stumped me…it had something to do with a chord on beat one and then a run of seven notes against five or something the rest of the  measure.  However, I remembered how it sounded and was able to fit it all in evenly without having to count it in mini-subdivisions. 

So my theory is this: the next time I have a new piece to learn, I’ll go ahead and spend an hour of intense practice on it…right hand for a while, all the way through (providing that it isn’t a ridiculous amount of pages long), and then the left hand.  The going will be slow, but that’s the way it should be in order to get all the notes in the right place the first time.  I think that way, it will help so that the piece doesn’t get old so quickly, because then the freedom to express myself through it will come more quickly.  There are only a handful of pieces that I’ve played over the years that have become a part of me, that have woven themselves into the fabric of my musical being, and each time something like this has occurred first.  I’m wondering, assuming that this is a valid practice strategy, if it is wise to use it every single time…or if I should combine it with other practice strategies…or use it as an opening  get-my-feet-wet time to set notes and finger positions and muscle movements in stone.  I don’t know.  But I do know that there is a certain excitement with a new piece of music and a momentum that goes along with it.  It can result in a burn-out, especially if it's really intense.  But certainly it can be channeled into something profitable.

Capitalism = Greediness...Socialism = Compassion...?

I was talking to a friend about the difference between socialism and communism...or rather, seeming contradictions in the Bible and obscure points of the Law that applied to the culture of and around Israel.  She told me that a friend of hers told her that socialism made more sense in light of Christ's compassion on and His grace extended to people who don't deserve it, and that capitalism seemed to be more selfish because it's all about building up yourself and grabbing all you can for yourself.  In one light, that makes sense.  However, if you add the God-factor to both, everything is set on its head.

Capitalism w/out God = money-grabbing, selfishness, greed, tromping on the small man, etc.
Capitalism w/God = the concept of good stewardship + "to whom much has been given, much has been required"

Socialism w/out God = taking from people who have and giving to people who don't have, regardless of rank, worthiness, ability to do better, etc...
"Socialism" w/God = God giving from His inexhaustible resources and pouring out His grace on everyone, regardless of whether they deserve it or not, all for the sake of His glory...the result being everyone's needs being met and everyone being conformed to the image of His Son...and it working out because God is perfect, and all the problems in the world are warped imitations of His attributes.  Think about it...


Anyway, there are a lot of holes in these definitions because it all is merely one facet of the idea i'm trying to compute.  I was going to post it as a facebook status and then realized that it would be way too long.  

Comments? Suggestions? Snide remarks?

Day #10: Champion!

<or "something at which you've been a champion or the best> 

I have a rather cynical viewpoint on this, merely because i've been on the up-side of average all my life.  I'm a little taller than average, my eyes are slightly greener than average, and i'm a little more physically flexible than the average person.  I have a stronger-than-average curiosity...i know this quite well.  Sometimes it literally makes me stop mid-step, especially if i've seen something or heard something that needs identifying. 

But a lot of times, i will think i'm good at something or that i have been the best, and then i'll go somewhere else or change environments and discover that there are many more people out there with my talent or skill who can do it much better than i can.    Sure, i play the piano and i'm good at that.  So is everyone else around here.  I didn't start piano when i was barely 4 like half of them...i was 6, so they have two years on me.  I draw...i won an award for that once.  I sing, but just because i like to.  All of this stuff i LIKE to do and i am relatively good at.  But something that is individually me, that i can do, is hard to come up with.  So i go back to the little quirky things that i like to do, that i do well.

Such as reading.  I'm a speed reader with the recall of the average person remembering something that happened in their life.  I don't read and memorize everything, but i could give you a pretty good play-by-play synopsis of the book when i'm done.  What i read, i live in my head, and living something happens fairly quickly.  At best, there's no little voice anymore reading the words out loud as my eyes scan each line...i see the story and become a part of it.  For me, seeing a word and comprehending are two acts that happen as one, and so i read as quickly as my eyes can move across a page.  A 250-pg book takes me less than two hours, depending on the writing style.  Reading is definitely something i could brag about...and this seems to be a brag post idea.

Another accomplishment i have, if one can call it an accomplishment, is putting babies to sleep.  I don't know what it is about me...perhaps to an exhausted infant i have a perfectly placid and boring personality. No doubt it's some physicality such as my heart rate or the manner of movement i adopt when i'm holding a baby.  However, kids in general have always liked me.  In high school, i would make up stories for the kids at my church.  Kids need to be taken seriously and engaged at the same time to stretch their imaginations even further and introduce new concepts that help them see their world better.  This process very definitely involves rough housing and make believe, and i've always gotten on well with that, especially the make belive part.  But making a baby go to sleep...who knows.

Now then.  I wrote this because it was on the list.  I didn't have to, i suppose.  Writing is more of a struggle for me now because i don't want to become one of those people who blather on and on and ON about themselves constantly, with no reprieve or change of subject.  Those kinds of people are immensely boring and hard to talk to because they tend to stick to one particular aspect of themselves, and it becomes more and more of an effort to actually draw them out so that you learn something new about them.  However, as humans, we talk about ourselves because that is what we know best and are most concerned about.  It's not necessarily dreadful to talk about yourself...in fact, that's how we get to know people.  But there is always a balance to maintain, which is hard.

I should write a post in which i'm champion and the best of an imaginary thing.  Like a super power or a magical gift or something quite silly.  Parallel universe posts...

Day #9...

...and another post about, if i were to go on vacation, where i would go.

This time, i'll stick to the United States, since i wrote about Australia last time.  As an addendum to that one tho, i'd go to the UK and N. Ireland or to Spain just as readily as Australia.

But America!  Land of the free, home of the brave...i could soapbox on the current flavor of those words as pertains to our wretched society today, but i won't.  The problem with choosing a spot in the US is that there are so many lovely places, depending on what you like.  You could be a kid again and go to Disney World/Land.  You could venture into the realm of adventure and scale a mountain somewhere...which i've done actually.  I climbed this one with a group of crazy people last summer:

:)

If vacation means relaxing for you, don't try this:

It's being considered for the List-of-Things-to-Do-Before-I-Die, and many people insist that it very well may be the LAST thing i do before i die.  But there are two things i want to do as a "vacation" here in the awesomeazing USofA, and one is a road trip...because i can't decide where to go.  I might as well see everything, yes?

Depending on where i live when i start, i'd travel in a sort of squiggly/figure eight pattern.  Like if i lived in SC, i'd go south first through Georgia and Mississippi, then head up through Texas and Okalhoma...i love not-quite-southwest states.  There is so much space and room to breathe.  I'd most likely hit New Orleans on the way.  From there, i'd go up toward Colorado and Utah.  I took time to draw this just for you guys to show an idea of how it would go:

I actually want to get up to Montana and North Dakota too, but my route makes it be out of the way.  I forgot to add Route 66 and the Grand Canyon.  And the route doesn't go through New Orleans, which is one of the yellow-highlighted spots.  But i definitely want to go through a couple of places specifically just to say i've been there.  I've been to nearly all 50 states anyway, so perhaps i'd build a road map based on where i've NOT been.  Or i'd narrow down exactly where i want to go and then connect the dots...sort of like this:

Either way, it would be a nice trip.  I love road trips...going places in general.

My second fun vacation idea isn't really a "vacation" per se, but it's something i want to do.  I want to get permission to backpack or ride on horse back across either a national forest (in Wyoming or someplace) or the west-midwest in general. Just ride, like one would bike across the United States...only on horseback, roughing it all the way.  My family has done "rough-it" weeks where we just take a tent and food and things and hang out for a week at various sites we find.  Where i live, you can actually pull off the side of the road somewhere, anywhere, and camp.  We've done that, and i enjoyed it.  But to go across the country, living off of the game and vegetation...would it be possible anymore?  Or is that too idealistic and naive to attempt...

And of course, there's always Hawaii...i've never been there.  Or Alaska...never been there either.  So many choices, so little time!

Day #8

...day #8 of writing, that is...it's been a while.  Would you believe i forgot what the blog was called?  I had to look in my browser history.  O_O

Anyway, this one is still called a "Vacation Hiatus", and last time i promised i would write about a vacation i would like to take.  Those who know me well have heard me talk about going to Australia quite a bit, and someday i will make it there.  From the time i was small, the idea of a small, isolated continent fascinated me.  So many animals and plants and fish and beasts and landscapes...all of it unique from the rest of the world.  I wanted to see it for myself.  I want to climb Uluru:

I also want to scuba dive the Reef and attend a performance at the Opera House.  I want to hike the interior and see how people live in the stark beauty there.  I want to see penguins.  I want to know how the people think and live and philosophize and view the world. I want to learn the accent.  :P

Someday, i will go to Australia.

Day #7: Vacation Haitus

I'm not sure if this means i don't have to post anything on day 7 or if it means i can post whatever i want about a vacation.  Because day 8 and day 9 are the same thing, i shall post first about a vacation i've actually had that i thought was fun, and then i shall write two posts about two different vacations i would like to take.

My family doesn't really go on vacations a lot, at least to travel.  We like to go camping and will take off to the middle of nowhere and set up and chill there for a week, and it's a lot of fun.  But when we actually Go Somewhere, it's different and a sort of big deal.  The last major vacation we had was when i was in high school, and we took a trip to Maine just for fun.  We were living in Michigan, so we drove through New York and up into Vermont and through there. It rained the entire way through New York, but that wasn't what i remember the most.  It was on the way back, and we'd stopped at a campsite by a lake in Vermont.  Just randomly, there's a law in Vermont that says that you aren't allowed to have any sign rise over the trees because they don't want the visual clutter.  Interesting.  Anyway, camping you have to go to bed shortly after dark unless you want to waste fuel on a light and draw lots of bugs.  So it was after we'd gone to bed that the loons started. I've never heard them before in my life, and i have to admit that it freaked me out at first.  But it was amazing, listening to them.  The laugh was haunting and unhappy, and it struck a chord in me that i didn't know existed, that i didn't really know what to do with.

Either way, that was one vacation, and one memorable part of that vacation.