Volume, Vol. 2

Spouse & I are still trying to find a church that won't cause our ears to bleed.

I googled churches in my city. Friends Christian Fellowship was on the list. They didn't have a Web site.

So, a little research. There are four general flavors of Friends (aka Quaker) churches. Think of a 2x2 matrix: Liberal (similar to Unitarian Universalists) vs Conservative ("Christ-centered"), and unstructured vs structured.

Unstructured... Hmmm... If you're sitting silently waiting for God to speak to you and/or prod you to speak, then you probably don't have a rock band blasting you at 120 decibels.

Unstructured conservative would probably be perfect for us. And there are lots of these. In places like Pennsylvania.

The church here in town had no Web site. Odds were, though, since CA is a ways away from Pennsylvania, this wouldn't be an unstructured conservative service. But, if they're too small to have a Web site, maybe they're too small to have a rock band. Or, at least too small to afford big amplifiers.

So, we went.

This was an Evangelical Friends church. Going back to that 2x2 matrix, that would be conservative & structured.

Well, I was wrong about them being too small for a rock band. They were small, alright. I counted about 30 adults. But, they had the rock band.

The good news is, they do have a sound level meter. And, they claim to try to keep it at or under 90.

In fact, decibels ranged from 85 to 99, and that was with the drummer missing.

This may be as good as its going to get for us.

Meanwhile, Spouse & I are certainly not alone in our concern for aural safety at church. Others, including Nephew 1.0 and our friend Grant report that their churches are too loud. And,the Neph isn't an old fogey like us. Nor is it some weird California phenomenon. The nephew's church is in Wisconsin.

Maybe I really should consider going back for an M.Div. and starting my own church. The problem is, almost any seminary is going to require attendance at chapel services. Where they'll probably have rock bands.

He must increase, but I must decrease

Is there a verse that causes you to stop in your tracks, every time you see it? John 3:30 is that verse for me.

He must increase, but I must decrease.

An amazing declaration.

And, if you look at the context, John T. Baptist isn't saying this in some Eeyeore-ian tone of voice. No, he's happy. Like the best man at a wedding is happy.

With questions of who gets to sit on the right hand of Jesus' throne and who gets to sit on the left, one gets the impression that the disciples weren't saying, "He must increase, but I must decrease."

Their attitude was more like, "A rising tide lifts all boats." Yay! Go Jesus! More fame, honor, and glory for you means more for me, since I'm on your team!

I think most modern Americans can relate a little more to the disciples point of view than they can to John B.'s.

But, there he is, in the third chapter, quietly among his own disciples, saying, "He must increase, but I must decrease."

And, just in case his disciples don't quite get it, John B. adds, "He who comes from above is above all, he who is of the earth is from the earth...."

In other words, "Guys, He's God. I'm not."

It seems people today really want to be their own god.

Well, they've always wanted that. But nowadays they're a lot more open about it.

A former coworker was into Etherian Mysticism. She'd left an article by the reigning mystic on her desk. It said something that pretty much boiled down to "You are God."

Yeah, lots of people seem to like that nowadays... being their own god.

But there he was, John T. Baptist, happy to say, "He must increase, but I must decrease."

I think I would like to have known him.

Legacies

Maybe it's different for people with children -- they have built-in legacies. But, I'm noticing a trend among some of my childless peers. With statistically more days behind than ahead, they're starting to think about what they will leave behind.

It's something Spouse 1.0 has been thinking about for years, though he hasn't used the actual word "legacy." He wants to leave something behind of lasting importance. Some written work.... some change in how people think about technical documentation.... something.

Childless friends who have done a fair amount of short-term mission work and overseas teaching did use the word "legacy" when describing how they want to leave behind lasting changes in people's relationship to God.

Other childless friends have dedicated their entire working lives to leaving behind Bibles translated into three languages, literacy, and changes in how Bible translation is done.

Notoriously passionate coworker "X" hasn't explicitly said anything about legacies, but another coworker explained: This project is her legacy.

Oh.

Wow. No wonder she gets a bit worked up about it. This isn't just a task the corporate gods are paying her to do. It's... well, her immortality.

That's what legacies are, when it comes down to it. Your chance for some part of you to live on when you're no longer alive. Immortality -- at least of an earthly sort.

In 2007, when I was interviewing for department transfer, one interviewer asked me to describe a portrait that I would leave as a legacy to my descendents. I didn't bother telling him there weren't any descendents. It was irrelevant.

This was harder than the "What do you expect to be doing in ___ years" question.

Oddly, I've never expected any part of me to live on when I'm gone. Certainly, I like my work and try to do my best. I like helping improvements happen. But, I don't believe that any change I could usher in would ever be of lasting significance.

Maybe my legacy-indifference is because I'm not yet 50. When you're 40-something, you double that, and you're still under 100. Living into one's 80's and 90's is not unusual nowadays. But, 100 still is a rare age. So, at 50, you really do have to start accepting your mortality. And, from there, seeking your earthly immortality.

Screaming

My voice coach is always trying to get me to yell, scream, get loud. He says that's the only way my system will learn to produce certain notes.

I have full faith in him. In my head, I know he's right. But, wow, do I ever hate screaming.

I hate doing it most likely because I hate receiving it. I truly hate being in the presence of screaming. And, I really, really hate it when raised voices in my world can be heard by my neighbors.

The only thing worse than making a scene in public is making a heard in public.

I was on the receiving end of screaming recently. Fairly publicly.

(No, it wasn't David.)

Once the reverberations in my skull subsided, I was able to wonder: What must it be like to be inside that person's skin? I can only try to imagine.... Her world can't a be a very pleasant place.

If it were, she wouldn't be screaming.

Reelin' in Saint Anne

At this point is sounds more like St. Anne's Dirge than St. Anne's Reel, but it feels just plain good to be learning a new tune again. And, it's going relatively well.

Banjo Bob and Fiddlin' Susan have been wanting to add this one to our Thursday lunch menu. But, distracted as I've been by household and health, I've been holding out.

Funny how, when confronted by a bunch of notes running wantonly around on a page, learning even the simplest and most beloved tune can feel like a chore. But, finally, I'm starting to approach learning new tunes as one would properly approach a coding a project.

No decent software developer is going to sit down at the computer the moment she gets the project overview and start banging out code. (Lots of indecent ones do, but that's another story.)

Both with code and with old-time fiddle tunes, it helps to think in an object-oriented way. Fiddle tunes are very object oriented. When you understand what the tune's objects are, learning it gets a lot easier.

For example, the 2nd and 3rd phrases of the B part is usually the same object as the 1st phrase. The 2nd phrase takes n-1 as its input parameter, where n = the starting note of the 1st phrase. Easy!

Years ago, my dulcimer instructor told me to look for "repetition." But, of course, she didn't use words like "object" or "module" or "input parameter." So, somehow, I've made tune-learning a lot harder than it needed to be.

Just like those silly developers who start banging out code without planning their projects.

Surviving Another Mother's Day

The google logo has changed, and it is therefore now officially Mother's Day -- at least on the east coast and in the Midwest.

My mother's dead. She's been dead for nearly 30 years.

We have nieces who are mothers. Some of these nieces weren't even born when my mom died. She died when she was four years younger than my current age.

I am now four years older than my mother.

Spouse 1.0 always takes Mother's Day harder than I do. His mom's only been dead 22 years. Plus, he didn't live his entire childhood with the expectation that she'd die. He didn't have as much of a chance to get used to the idea.

So, he'll want to stay home. Stay in bed. Avoid any and all media that would try to get him to buy pink carnations, sentimental necklaces, and/or lacy lingerie for the assorted mothers in his life.

I won't want to stay home. Hunkering down and trying to avoid the day only makes it bigger, more important, more obvious.

So, tomorrow we'll get up, shower, dress, and go about our normal Sunday business as best we can.

At Starbucks, the nice young man will smile and say, "Happy Mother's Day." I'll just smile back and say, "Happy Mother's Day to you, too." He'll look a little startled (they always do), and then he'll pour my venti decaf, take my money, and wish the next customer a Happy Mother's Day.

I can handle that.

At church the pastor will have all the mothers stand. He'll tell them how wonderful they are for being mothers. He might preach a sermon on how to be a great and godly mother.

I can even handle that.

After church, we'll go to lunch at the usual place. A perky young lady will be at the door handing out pink carnations. She'll say, "Happy Mother's Day." I'll smile, shake my head, and say, "I'm not a mother." If I'm lucky, this year's designated flower-pusher won't insist. I really won't want to destroy her cheery mom-friendly mood by growling, "I'm not a mom. I don't have a mom. And I really don't want to be forced to take a damned pink carnation to remind me of the fact that my mom's been dead for thirty years."

The insistently delivered pink carnation: That, I don't handle so well.

I used to think that Mother's Day wasn't so hard on the motherless people who have children. Then I discovered that my sister-in-law (who is a mother and has both a daughter and a daughter-in-law who are mothers) loathes the day.

Tonight, I don't look forward to tomorrow. But when tomorrow actually arrives, I'll be fine. I'll get up, have my breakfast & my coffee. Read the newspaper. Maybe even start working on St. Anne's Reel. We'll go to Starbucks, church, lunch. We'll go to the Byron Berline concert.

But, just for the next 24.5 hours, I think I'll avoid google and its pink carnation logo.

Pastor Pleads Guilty to Abuse

You've seen that headline over a thousand times. Somewhere around the 1,742nd time you see it, you just get a small pain in your gut, murmer "how awful," and go on to the next news story.

Then, on the 1,743rd time, the pedophile is someone you knew. Your age. A peer. Someone the church you grew up in hired after you'd left for college. Someone you saw when you came home for holidays.

A young man who helped your church acquire a magnificent pipe organ. A gifted musician. Someone who played the hymns at your mom's funeral.

Someone you ate dinner with at Clyde & Alice's house.

A good actor. No doubt about it. A great actor. An actor who spearheaded your church's effort to stage "A Christmas Carol" as a gift to the community. And, what a staging it was, too! He transformed your sweet but ordinary fellow paritioners into such convincing actors.

Someone your good friend had a bad feeling about. Ah, but he was such a good actor. Nobody listened to her. How could she be so suspicious of this wonderful young man?

A man who eventually left your church under something of a cloud. Someone who never should have been allowed to work with kids again.

The 1,743rd time you see the headline, you weep.

http://www.modbee.com/local/story/693302.html