Reflections 1/26 - 2/13

LMS Solo & Ensemble Festival 1/26

It was a very good experience learning about how these festivals are organized and done. Every student in band, grades 6-8 were required to participate (about 275 students), though many of them did not wish to and some did not show up. In general, I was impressed with how well it was organized and with the level of preparation that some students exhibited. There was an extremely high level of director control over the festival which caused a lot of stress on our part. It was decided that each student pay $7 to participate, that we know which solo each person is playing, if they have conflicts that day, that we provide their copies and accompaniment parts, as well as organize accompaniment rehearsals (for those who didn't play with a CD), and payment. We also catered in the food for the high school volunteers and judges and set everything up. This was no easy task and there was constant difficulty trying to get students to cooperate - especially the ones who didn't want to play in the first place. In general, I thought there was too much director responsibility and not enough student ownership.

LHS Symphonic Band

This class is going better. I gave them a scale test two weeks ago on a Wednesday and Friday. I did this because I wanted to hear them play individually, assign parts and chairs, and to know their scales because that is a normal part of our daily routine. They were to prepare six major scales (Bb Eb Ab F C G) in all-region audition format and I picked two for them to play individually in front of Mr. H, the head high school director, and I. They were to pick a comfortable tempo that promoted accuracy. It went badly. These were scales that they apparently should have known since 8th grade, but many of them didn't. A couple of students cried during their test and it made both of us feel uneasy. We didn't grade too low, and only a couple of students received Cs. The following Monday, I led a discussion about the importance of performing solo, learning how to deal with performance anxiety, practice techniques, and the importance of scales. This discussion lasted 25 minutes and I think it made a difference. Students argued that they should never have to perform alone and that is why they signed up for band. I did my best to give them real life examples of why they would need these skills but some weren't convinced.

I think the biggest thing that I am learning from this class is that students will always take the path of least resistance. My job as a teacher is to be the resistance. I'm finding that difficult when I am alone in a room full of people who don't believe as I do, and I realize that it takes a great deal of confidence in what I believe is right to convince them to see it my way. After all, they do not know what I know and have little ground on which to argue with me. It feels different and slightly uncomfortable to insist on what I think is right without anyone telling me to do it. I must grow up and consistently be the adult in the room.

Otherwise, I feel good about the daily routine that I have in place: Breathing (in 4 out 4, in 2 out 6, in 1 out 8); Foundations for Band (Williams & King), F long tone #1a & 1b, warm-up set 1 (options 3, 4, 5); Bb major chord articulation exercise (H); major scales (Bb Eb Ab F C G) with different rhythms; and tuning - concert A and Bb. We then have announcements in the middle of rehearsal so they are paying attention and ready to listen. There is usually 25 minutes left over for repertoire after the daily routine. I am working on getting them a march to play and will introduce two other pieces in the next couple of weeks for teaching purposes.

My rehearsal technique is generally going in the right direction. I am learning how to isolate textures and make changes, but I don't isolate things enough to understand exactly what is going wrong. Sometimes, I forget to put the isolated part back in the context of the music so that I can clearly hear the change or improvement made. I am reluctant to go back when the band does not play consistently because I do not enjoy going back for people who make mental errors because their focus is bad. This is something that I absolutely need to do, though, because otherwise I am communicating that it is ok to make mental errors and not pay attention. It is not ok. If I don't insist on this, no one will.

Lastly, I could improve the way I speak to the ensemble. I too often give directions in the form of a question: "Trumpets, could you start at 8?" instead of "Trumpets, start at 8" or "Are you playing F#?" instead of "You played F-natural. It should be F#." I also need to work on questioning them more instead of telling them. This will help them to think critically about their playing instead of relying on me to fix their errors.

Beginning Trumpet Class

This is my best-behaved, most focused class. I gave them their first test two Thursdays ago on their C and Bb scales from page 40 & 41 of Essential Elements. I am not confident that some of them understand how to practice these, though I went over it many times during class. We started pass-offs which involve each student playing through 20 different tunes from Essential Elements that they must play nearly perfectly to get credit. If they pass all 20 by the end of the semester, they get to go to Sandy Lake to perform and play in the park on May 6th. We will spend most Fridays taking time to do this, since F.M. is doing that with her beginning classes.

My issues here are three-fold: (1) I do not isolate groups or individuals enough to tell if they are understanding and playing correctly, (2) I struggle to insist that they both focus and do it right the first time, and (3) I am not patient enough to go at a slow enough tempo where everyone can play it without error.

Beginning Clarinet Class

I have the same issues teaching this class as with the trumpet class. There are a couple of special cases which I am not sure how to deal with. One student in the class has some kind of spur or wrist problem and can not hold the clarinet. Another person has no working reeds and insists that her mother does not have money to buy one. She has a major attitude problem and is probably failing many of her classes. The school has provided her with at least four reeds and she has not paid for them, but F.M. will not give her any more. These two students are friends and become very disruptive. I am struggling to give them enough to do and they often become bored and disruptive. It seems that the other teachers don't know what to do with them either. They have a deal with the directors that if they mind their own business and be quiet, they don't get in trouble. They will get by with Cs.

Anyway, I am never sure what to do with students who do not bring their instruments or books to class. I usually instruct them to follow along, fingering and singing, and let them know that their participation grade is lower as a result.

Miscellaneous

I am starting to get over the culture shock of being a teacher and being in this environment. It is tempting to get settled into a routine and stop striving to learn and try new things. I need to get more in the habit of asking for feedback from my cooperating teachers, because they almost never offer it. They tend to be very busy and overwhelmed with their jobs and I let that get in the way of getting feedback. Most of the time, I can not tell if I am doing well or badly. I tend to record the audio of many of my teaching sessions and that has been one of the only ways knowing how to improve. This is the most frustrating part about student teaching at the moment. Thanks for reading.

Reflections 1/03 - 1/25

I am in a busy season of my life again. I'm student teaching and I barely have enough time to write my required weekly reflections on it to send to my supervising professor. I think I'll start posting them here so you have at least some idea of what's going on with me. I've changed or abbreviated some names to protect the innocent.

LHS Symphonic Band

At Lake High School, the two bands meet four days per week: 3 days have 45 minute rehearsals and one day has an 1 1/2 hour rehearsal. The honor band (top group) meets 1st period and the symphonic band meets second period. I was placed in charge of this group on day 2 (Jan. 4), even though their semester would end in 2 weeks and some of the instrumentation would change. When I was placed in charge, I had no advance notice from W.H., the head director. I warmed them up and we sight read some chorales.

Since then, I have been responsible for going through the library and selecting repertoire for them, leading the rehearsals, doing the grading, organizing auditions, scale tests, and copying parts. The plan originally was for the honor band to compete at UIL and in Corpus Christi (spring band trip) and for the members of the 2nd band to simply come along, but the parents complained, so now the Symphonic Band will compete in Corpus Christi with me as their sole conductor. I feel really privilaged to get this opportunity as a student teacher.

There are a number of challenges with this group, though. First, the instrumentation is extremely unbalanced: there are 13 flutes, 12 saxophones, 1 clarinet, and 1 horn, 1 tuba and no bassoon players. Other sections have enough players, though most of these students are not on private lessons. I was told that this group was unmotivated, that they don't really care, and that I would need to keep them busy in order to avoid major behavior problems. I was told that they sounded worse than both middle school bands and that is why they would never go to contest. W mentioned that their other teachers have very low expectations of them and that many of them do nothing in class every day. It is my opinion that both directors have given up on these kids. They do not trust them with anything, it seems. This was a pretty intimidating situation to walk into.

In general, I feel prepared to lead rehearsals and did a fairly good job of planning. The first 1 1/2 hour class (3rd day total), I only had 45 minutes of rehearsal planned, but this past week I was able to fill the entire time. I selected two grade 2 pieces for them so far and we've been rehearsing them the last two weeks. I hope for them to have at least six pieces by the middle of February, though we will only compete with three. I've added a warm-up routine that includes 1 minute of breathing exercises, 3-4 minutes of exercises from Foundations for Band (Williams & King), as well as six major scales. All of the bands here are dependent on using the loud speaker metronome for almost everything, though I would like to get away from doing that as much. I find that using the metronome relieves my responsibilities quite a bit and I could see it as a way of being lazy in the future both on my part and the part of the students.

Otherwise, I have felt a bit nervous on the podium until this Friday, when I was able to relax a bit more and even smile. I often trip over myself when talking and it would help if I talked a bit more slowly and took time to think about my comments before speaking them.

LMS Beginning Trumpet & Beginning Clarinet class

By the second week, I was in charge of these classes at Lake Middle School. Trumpets meet 6th period (1:30) and Clarinets meet right after during 7th (2:19). They have just finished their Solo & Ensemble contest and will be working to finish the Essential Elements book this semester.

They have a history of being very fidgety and talkative, and asking too many irrelevant questions. I laid down my behavior policy and I think that it is going to really help them. It involves several rules, put in positive terms (do's instead of don'ts) and a list of things that will happen when they break rules. I don't think this was clear last semester and there were no direct consequences for bad behavior. This seems necessary for a class of 20-25 beginning 6th graders. Things have been better since, though some students simply do not want to be there, so they often distract others purposely by making odd noises on their instruments or by talking.

I have already given the Trumpet and Clarinet semester exams two Thursdays ago, which was difficult since I had not been with them for the Fall semester. They each had to play their solo in front of the class with the CD accompaniment and were graded based on a weighted rubric, using a sort of "tick system." F.M. (head middle school director) wanted me to grade easy, and most of them got As and some got Bs. This test was also to determine their chair order. I am definitely not comfortable with tests in front of the class or chair positions in beginner classes. These can create a very negative stigma that students may carry with them throughout their musical experience, should they continue after this year. Maybe it might help them practice, but I am not sure.

Sectionals

I have already lead four middle school sectionals and three high school sectionals. These have all been very positive experiences, and in general I felt more comfortable leading high school sectionals. This is where I feel most relaxed as a teacher. I am amazed at how easy it is to teach students who want to be in these sectionals versus the ones who do not. "He who has ears to hear, let him hear" seems an appropriate reference here.

Observation: HS Honor Band, HS Jazz Band, MS Honor Band, Beginning flute

The three ensembles mentioned above are some of the best bands at their level that I've heard. They are well-balanced and are full of dedicated, self-motivated students. The MS Honor Band is playing 10 major scales 2-3 octaves at the beginning of each rehearsal and playing some grade 4 music for UIL this semester, and already sounding good on it. I feel that I have a lot to learn from F.M. and T.F. this semester. I'm excited.

I will try to include my experience at the Lake Middle School Solo & Ensemble Festival for next week's reflection. Thanks for reading.

Simma' down, now!

Today I am blogging because I got to my first class just in time to remember that it was canceled because my professor is out of town. I have some time on my hands now. . . about 80 minutes.

It feels weird to not be rushing everywhere. I hope things are going to get a little less rushed and tense in my life soon. I gave notice to quit my job at Office Depot finally. It was a tough decision, but I had to be honest with myself and redefine my concept of what it means to be an adult. I know, I'm constantly in a philosophical crisis, right?

I'm starting my transition into professional life thinking about what it should look like to be a responsible adult, as if there were any. I got lots of messages growing up that said being an adult meant never having time, doing things because you have to, not because you want to, and working all of the time. I was taught that being successful meant making sacrifices, particularly luxuries. It seemed like the bottom line (money) was what would matter when I finally grew up. Isn't that what all of this education is for? To make more money? To amass wealth so I can pursue power, influence, happiness, life, liberty and the American Way?

I guess that is the downside to a secular education. No, I quit my job so I could have more time with Dawn and friends, schoolwork, and God. It is extremely hard to go through recovery when I'm busy all of the time. Depending on God just to make it through the day is different than asking him to heal all of my hurts, hang-ups and bad habits. It is also easier for me to have scheduled busyness all of the time than for me to try and manage my own free time. I'm afraid that I will waste it and then look lazy. Anyone else feel this way?

Nah, more and more I'm learning that being an adult means being honest, knowing my limits, having boundaries, being just as weak and screwed up as everybody else and needing a savior. I will never pull myself up by the bootstraps or be a self-made man. I will never achieve the American Dream and the pursuit of happiness is a futile one compared to the sufficiency of Christ.

It is hard having to debunk so many of the worldly messages I got growing up. Your thoughts?

when in doubt, post a video

I am quite busy with school, work, and my inventory for Celebrate Recovery, which has left me with little time for blogging. What's my solution? Post someone else's stuff!

This time, feel free to enjoy ABC's 20/20 on school choice. They make a very compelling argument for a voucher system which would allow parents to choose which school, public or private, they would like to enroll their student in using a voucher for their child issued by the government. I'm learning about this out of a chapter in the textbook, Critical Issues in Education: Dialogues and Dialectics by Jack Nelson.

The first video is the shorter (9:40) version of the 20/20 episode. The latter (40:45) it worth a watch, and doesn't include any commercials!





I hope to blog my opinions in more depth sometime later. What do you think about it?

Literacy in music class?

I don't have time to write this morning because I have an assignment due today by midnight for my Content Area Reading online course. I thought it might be fun to post my prereading activity, for your enjoyment (or not). Please feel free to comment. My question to you is this: do any of these activities sound like they could actually be applied in the classroom?

PREREADING ACTIVITY

Before you read, write down 3 to 5 ways you can activate and assess the degree and accuracy of your students' prior knowledge on a topic specific to your discipline. Email the topic and the suggestions to your instructor.

1. As an introduction to a general music course: Consider this quote displayed on the wall of a prominent German opera house:

Bach gave us God's word.
Mozart gave us God's laughter.
Beethoven gave us God's fire.
God gave us music so that we might pray without words.

Give examples from what you already know about these composers for how these descriptions are accurate and why.

Example: Bach and God's word:

Low level of appreciation might be that Bach used text in his music that was taken from the bible.

Medium level of appreciation might be that Bach composed church masses, oratorios, and sacred cantatas.

High appreciation level would substantiate specifics such as how Bach wrote 300 cantatas containing Biblical text (in the vernacular) while in Leipzig, Germany, three masses, and two passion-oratorios which were similar to Italian opera, but with sacred text as the subject instead of secular.

2. In a concert band rehearsal after sight-reading a programmatic piece: This piece of music is programmatic, meaning that it was composed to illustrate, in musical terms, a specific storyline. Before I read the story to you, write down some ideas you have for what this story is about. Be specific; include measure numbers to correspond with your events.

Low level of appreciation for the piece might include a general description of the character of the piece and the mood with an event or two.

Medium level of appreciation for the piece could include more specific characters and situations, linking them to each section in the music, perhaps drawing a connection to real-life experiences or other literature of the time.

High level of appreciation for the piece would demonstrate a summary of the actual storyline for which the piece was composed and any other literary devices, the piece's general form, and some background knowledge of the composer.

3. Again in a concert band rehearsal, when learning a piece by Dimitri Shostakovich: Write down everything you already know about this composer. If you have no prior knowledge, feel free to speculate based on they way this piece sounds to you.

Low level of appreciation might include knowledge that Shostakovich was a twentieth-century, Russian composer.

Medium level of appreciation for Shostakovich might be that he wrote operas, symphonies (11), band repertoire, that he was born in 1906 and died in 1975, and that the general character of his pieces ranges from very cold and dark to funny and sarcastic.

High level of appreciation would be able to name several of his works and know a lot of biographical information such as his experience under Stalin and the Soviet regime in Russia and how it stifled Shostakovich's artistry because they forced him to write patriotic pieces under the threat of death.

Things I'm learning

I'd like to write about things I'm learning lately so that won't forget. I have been writing everything down in my journal and for once, I can remember why what someone said made me feel good.

For example, I went to The Refuge's The Walking Wounded seminar on Saturday morning. It involved having a conversation with 30-40 people and sharing good but mostly bad experiences in ministry together. They asked the questions, why am I here? is there someone to blame? how did I get here? when will I feel better? can I ever go back? where is God? and where do I go from here? There were several ideas which sparked my interest:

1. There is a confusion in many modern Evangelical churches of Community & Strategy. Churches get themselves into trouble because they often follow a corporate business model and end up valuing things like success, efficiency, productivity, growth, power, influence, control, money, titles, and on and on. They make goals which are to be achieved by people who they've either hired or who have volunteered. If these people work toward the goal, then they are valuable, but if they don't, they are a liability; dead-weight.

Karen (pseudonym) gave the example of her experience in senior leadership. The church didn't want community with Karen, they wanted a care pastor. They poured into her and cared about her as long as she fulfilled her role as a woman and as a care pastor. When she didn't fit into those roles they way they wanted, they ended what they called "community" with her. She was asked to leave, and quickly. This is clearly strategy, not community. Community is inefficient, unproductive, powerless (power is diffused), more communist than capitalist, a place where success can't easily be measured, where people are together because they want one thing, or similar things. This leads me to the next point I learned at The Walking Wounded, which includes two different models of community: Bounded Set and Center Set. I need to go to work, however, so I will have to write more about what I'm learning later. Thanks for reading!

"Praise and Worship"

I've been very distracted during worship at The Village. I'm not sure if its me or them. It's probably me. Let me take you through what I'm thinking when standing there:

OK, first song. I can't get over how young the worship pastor looks. I know he's 28, but he could pass for 19. Interesting: he had the female vocalist sing this verse. It is in the same octave but for some reason it sounds higher. Funny how most of the men drop out when a woman leads. I bet it's because of of the timbre difference. That is probably why Castrotti were used in Italian opera so much in the late 17th century... Wow, this is way out of my singing range. Its too low if I take it down an octave, so let's try harmony. OK, that's not cool - the female vocalist is singing my tenor part, but up an octave. Now what should I sing? Clearly the text was never meant for this rhythm and chord setting. I have a degree in music, and I'm finding it hard to follow this guy. Looking around, there are several people who aren't singing and haven't sung the whole time, including the people behind me. I wonder why? Is it because they haven't been exposed to music growing up? Do they not know the words?

Maybe they don't like singing, so this part of the service is totally superfluous to them. Maybe they find that to be a very difficult venue to experience God. I mean, it isn't exactly a meditative environment. I can't help but wonder: what must it be like for someone who has never sung much in his life and never been to church to attend one of these services for the first time? Or even for the twentieth? It probably feels alien to them.

Plus, I am often singing words my heart does not necessarily agree with. I end up making a lot of lofty claims and promises about my desires for God that may just be a pack of lies. I guess my point is that sometimes it is hard to be honest with God in worship. I wish we would sing songs that had simple but pleasing melodies that were in a decent range with easy rhythms that weren't too syncopated. I wish we could sing songs with words that were not so extreme but simply spoke out of a heart that wants to experience God's love and peace and forgiveness. As I remember back on the most popular choruses in contemporary Christian worship, they were the most simple ones. They maybe had three to five words and were easy to harmonize.

Sometimes I wish that I could switch off my four semesters of aural skills training and my two semesters of theoretical part-writing and harmonization training. I wish I could stop evaluating musical performances and compositions and get to experience God more. I've felt the closest to God in the past through musical experiences I've had, so its tough when that is no longer happening.

Crusade

Warning - very long post. Even though this is labeled "rant," your comments are welcome if you don't know me personally. Kerry: this may bring back traumatic memories. Mom: feel free to use this in your book, though a more complete version is pending.

This morning I'm remembering my experiences in college ministry. Rewind to fall, 2005. I'm a junior in college. I'd led a community group for a year now and my group had grown to about 12 people. I was an RA in the engineering dorms, so even though I was a music major, my group consisted of mainly engineering students. Talk about an unnatural community. We got along for the most part, but when ever we were not talking about Jesus, they talked about math, science, car engines, computers, classes--they left me out most of their conversations.

My commitments as a leader were to attend the ministry's main event on Thursday nights, hang out with my community group (not bible study--we were better than just a bible study) on Friday nights, lead community group on Monday afternoons, go to leadership meetings on Monday nights, go to Impact (larger group bible study) on Tuesday nights, disciple three guys in my group for one hour each during the week ("raise them up as leaders"), and meet with my staff-discipler for an hour. This ended up being 12-15 hours per week of time commitments. I didn't have much time to practice clarinet.

There were several doctrines that this ministry developed and tested while I was there, both overt and covert. Some I expect they've had since my parents were in it when they were in college. All doctrines stemmed out their desire to take The Great Commission very seriously. OK, here we go:

The doctrine of spiritual multiplication. If we as a ministry were going to reach the whole campus with the Gospel, then we can't we wasting our time adding to our numbers. We must multiply our numbers. Here's how it works. I grew up in the church and recently learned how to share my faith using the 4 Spiritual Laws booklet. I share this with you and two others who accept Christ into their hearts. I begin discipling you three with our five follow-ups which include basic principles of the faith. I then train you on how to use the 4 Spiritual Laws to share your faith. You go out and convert three people whom you disciple and teach how to share their faith. Now, disciples don't necessarily have to be new believers. In fact, they could have known Jesus far longer than me and even served in leadership before coming to college. I still must go through the five follow-ups with them, just to make sure they get it right. No funny business.

Target-area doctrine. This ministry's strategy was to target living areas for evangelism. The pressure was on the area community groups to target the communities in which they lived. This meant that we would do outreaches including giving things away in exchange for people's contact information (so we could follow up later and share our faith with them), do servant evangelism by taking out people's trash, giving out more stuff or throwing parties, go prayer-walking, or just talk to people around campus in "guided conversations" that eventually led to us sharing the Gospel using the 4 Spiritual Laws. Not a single one of these outreaches grew our group in size or depth.

The Great Commission necessitates all to be leaders. If you share your faith, you are "leading" someone to Christ. In a movement like the campus ministry that I was in, no "dead weight" could be afforded. As a leader, I was to put most of my energy into people who would replace me. The big problem is that none of them felt called by God to be leaders. Many of them were introverts and most of them were extremely busy with school. Engineers have a ridiculous amount of work to do for their classes. I would estimate that they have almost twice as much work to do than average students. Sorry about all the "quotes."

The FAT doctrine. This ministry believed that, in order to be qualified for leadership, you had to be FAT: Faithful, Available, and Teachable. I met their standards, but these engineers weren't that available, and they required a lot of explanation in order to buy into biblical principles. They were analytical thinkers. The ministry's staff member who supervised and discipled me determined that none of the members in my group were FAT. Therefore, we must work all the harder on community outreach to get people involved who were FAT. My whole group was "dead weight" to the movement.

The Chart of Influence. In order to show how much and how far God was reaching (or to bolster their own confidence and success-complexes), the ministry's staff members all had to chart their influence. My discipler showed me his chart the day after my junior solo clarinet recital. It had the people who had discipled him on the left, him in the left/center, the people he was discipling on the right/center, and the people we were discipling on the far right. I remember seeing the other four people he was discipling with three people connected to each of them, and three little arrows pointing from my name to blank spaces. No one from my group had time to meet with me very often, so I couldn't help him out. It was then that he determined that none of my group members were FAT.

The conference doctrine. I remember the director of this ministry telling us in a leadership meeting that, "given the choice between attending Denver Christmas Conference or attending a whole semester's worth of bible study, I would choose DCC." In other words, conferences were extremely important to him. As a leader, I was to spend much of my time trying to convince my group members to attend the next conference. We even spent part of our leadership meetings trying to strategize on how we could get people to go. We were supposed to tell our group members not to think, "why should I go to Denver Christmas Conference," but "why shouldn't I go?" We always were to say, "it'll change your life." If that didn't work, then were were suppose to ask our group members every time we met, even if they'd already said no. If that didn't work, then we prayed profusely for them by name to go to this conference. I'm pretty sure the region's campus directors competed for how many people they could get to attend from their respective campuses.

A progression to full-time ministry. This ministry often stressed the importance of their own activities over all others, even those which were school-related. Rationalization: "What are you going to remember 10 years from now: some grade you got on a paper your freshmen year in college, or all of the friends you made and things you got to see God do?" Because how could anything satisfy more than God? So get involved.

Using names I substituted for the real ones, here is the progression:You start college and come to a main event meeting in this ministry. You hear about Weekend-Long Fall Retreat (WLFR). You go to Weekend-Long Fall Retreat and have a great time, meet new friends, and hear at least ten times about Week-Long Winter Conference (WLWC). You and your friends get into a bible study and hear about Week-Long Winter Conference all semester and about how much fun it will be and how much God will change your life, so you go. Week-Long Winter Conference is like a huge college party for God with two rock concerts per day, a dance, games, outreach, and a whole day about Summer-Long Evangelism Project (SLEP). You raise support all spring to go on SLEP, and you find that Summer-Long Evangelism Project is like your normal spiritual walk, but on steroids and in a totally sheltered environment. All summer long, you hear about taking the Gospel back to your campus, and committing a year of your life to go on Post-College Year-Long Over Seas Mission (PCYLOSM). Since you spent all of your time being involved in this campus ministry during college, you probably didn't do as well in academics or lost your original goal for college that all of your parent's money went towards. So you go on PCYLOSM. Here, in post-Soviet Paganistan, you have a great experience starting a campus ministry which will be a partner to your campus, so others from your campus can go on Summer-Long Evangelism Project there. If you are successful, then it is often suggested that you become Full-Time Staff Member (FTSM) for your ministry, so you can begin to pressure freshmen to go on Weekend-Long Fall Retreat.

As you can probably tell, it didn't end well with me and this ministry. Maybe I'll write that story another time.

new direction

I want to let you know that this blog may become much more personal and messy than in the past. I need a place to get my honest/raw thoughts down on paper, and I can't seem to do it when no one else will know about it or will care. Here are a couple of ground rules from here on if you are a reader:

1. Any post with the label of "rant" is taken out of the regular context of my life and was written without a whole lot of premeditation. Don't take it as representative of the way I am all of the time, because these posts will probably be fairly negative and unbalanced.

2. Please only comment on the really personal posts if you know me well. If this blog turns out not to be safe, I simply won't post.

3. Please keep in mind that you can not change me, but only God can. Therefore, feel free to encourage me or give your opinion or other comments, but your prayer is also appreciated.

I'll try to keep the blog as balanced as possible so you don't think that I am a complete mess. However, in a lot of ways I am a complete mess. Thank God for His mercy.

I love you guys. Thanks for reading.

Update

I have about 55 minutes before symphonic band rehearsal, so I thought now would be a good time to write. I'm sitting in the computer lab at the college of music. It is an extremely nice lab with very good computers, both PCs and Macs. Each computer station (total of about 50) has some really nice stereo headphones and an electronic piano for any music student with an ID to use.

To the left is part of my most recent homework assignment. Each measure is a list of notes which may be played using the fingering (valve or slide position) noted at the bottom. It is for brass methods: a class where I learn how to play (and teach) trumpet, horn, trombone, euphonium, and tuba at the rate of two instruments per semester. I have to learn virtually all of the instruments as a music education major. This semester I am working on horn, snare drum and cello. I hope to learn tuba, xylophone, and double bass this semester as well.

I am working on a really fun Spanish piece for clarinet called Hommage a M. de Falla by Bela Kovacs (pronounced koh-vahch) as well as the Clarinet Quintet by Mozart for Clarinet in A and string quartet. I'm not sure if I'll try to find a quartet to play with me or not, but it could be fun. I hope to give a solo recital in the fall. It is interesting that I love clarinet now more than ever now that it is not my primary focus; now that it doesn't really matter compared to my work in the field of music education.

Otherwise, Dawn and I are doing well. We celebrated 6 months of marriage a couple of weeks ago by eating dinner at Bennigan's and going to a Dallas Symphony concert. The traffic was terrible and it took us one hour to drive four miles, but Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2 was amazing. The hall was a bit hot and the seats were tight so I suppose I prefer the Fort Worth Symphony to the Dallas Symphony.

We are having more fun together and are getting to spend more and more time with our new friends. I got to drive out with two other men from homegroup this weekend to go boar hunting. We didn't really see any boars but I did get to shoot a rifle. I enjoyed the great exercise and the camper we stayed in was really comfortable. Our wives had a sleep over and had a lot of fun as well.

Usually I try to be more philosophical or try to tell just one story instead of many. I don't plan to get in the habit of writing about everyday life like this, so this is an exception. I am sometimes annoyed by people who do that exclusively. What kind of blog writing are you most drawn to?

Video games

In reference to last night's post, the reason I was so amazed at Microsoft's achievement is that I used to be quite addicted to video games. Or more specifically, computer games. I started playing computer games at a young age on my dad's computer. I started out with a turned-based StarTrek game, followed by Tetris, Wings of Fury, and Commander Keen. Somewhere in there I played Sonic the Hedgehog on a Sega Game Gear, but the game that I was most addicted to for a long time was SimCity 2000. Then it was SimTower, SimFarm, SimCity 3000, etc. etc. There were many more games I played for hours and hours per day.

In 2005, I spent the entire summer working 14 hours per week for the residence halls at college and playing computer games for nearly the rest of it. I played Freelancer and EVE Online 5-9 hours per day. These games were science fiction based, MMORPG space simulators. MMORPG stands for Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game. I played online with thousands of other players from all over the world, where I could chat with them and create my own complex reality inside the game.

None of it amounted to anything but some entertainment that helped pass the time. I remember sitting in that chair for hours being completely numbed and absorbed in the gaming experience. When I finally quit out of a game, my mind was totally numb and all desire had left me. I didn't feel like talking to others, eating, or using the bathroom, and much less like practicing my clarinet, cleaning my room, or doing anything constructive.

I kicked my addiction when Dawn and I got engaged in April 2006 . I am still tempted to fall back into that lifestyle, but there are too many things that matter to me more than games, especially Dawn. As amazing, interesting, and complex of a reality that computer games can offer, they will never be as real or fulfilling as the one God created for me. It was much harder to pursue that reality when computer games had created a conflicting one.

My advice to addicted gainers? Get out. Go cold turkey. Try to fill the void with something constructive and creative. Try to pick up on relationships that have gone out of contact. Start a blog, take up a cheap hobby, read, do something that will not numb your mind. Are some types of games better than others? Yes. Really simple, winnable single-player games and multiplayer games that depend on lots of player chatting are better than drawn-out, single player games. Even though contact with other players is good, the relationship established by this is still extremely superficial. They can not satisfy as well as real-life relationships can.

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

Small town living

I've been thinking lately that I would love to try living in a small town some day. By small town, I mean a town with only one or two commercial centers, grocery stores, high schools, a hand full of churches, and only one of any particular restaurant or store.

I suppose I want to live in a small town because I am tired of going to the same stores or restaurants every week and never seeing a familiar face. I'm tried of sitting behind a long line of cars on a congested street that is slowly being widened, though years too late. I'm tired of having to drive like I'm in a hurry, just because every one else is. I feel that I have to compete with them so I don't get taken advantage of.

I'm mostly tired of the lack of community and the depersonalization of our culture. I want to live in an area where community happens naturally and where I can't ignore the people I see every day, and they can't ignore me. I don't want to have friends at work who are different from friends at school who are different from friends at church who are different from friends by my home, with none of these people knowing one another.

Maybe I just miss the familiarity of Colorado and the people I know there. The metroplex still feels huge, even after five months.

On blogging

Well, I'm back, with the goal of writing 7 days in a row, Monday through Sunday. My classes don't start until next Monday and I'm only taking 9 credit hours. Only two of those classes will require much effort outside of class. Because of this, I hope to get comfortable with writing regularly.

Blogging has been very difficult for me to keep up, and I have three theories of why this might be:

1. I think that instead of having a lack of topics to discuss, I really have an excess. My problem is that I think too fast about too many things at a time, so I have trouble focusing and making priorities in my mind. When I start on one topic, one-hundred others come to mind.

2. I have a slight perfectionist complex when it comes to writing. I don't want to write anything unless it can stand alone and be infallible. Most of the writing I learned to do in school was rhetorical, so I suppose this makes sense. I often feel I have to make a logical argument for why you should believe me, as though you wouldn't simply value my personal experience and not judge it.

3. I am a verbal processor. If there are experiences in my life or things that I am thinking, I prefer to discuss it with someone I'm close to. If it is important enough, I would just call you up and talk to you about it. You'll respond instantly that way and I usually can make more sense of the situation with your feedback. Since I expect only people who know me in person to read this blog, why should I waste time writing?

Now here are some observations in response:

1. Having too many things to write about is a good thing. I'll start writing them down and saving them for later. All I needed before was time, and I expect to have that this semester for the first time in a long time. Priorities don't matter - I'll talk about anything I want, any time I want. It won't matter to you, the reader, you just care that I write. I mean, c'mon. Its my blog.

2. It is not going to be perfect. You won't always be impressed with my writing, but your standards are pretty low at this point. You're thinking, "Something is better than nothing," right? I can talk about the reality that I live in and I don't have to back up all of my theories. You're not here to judge me.

3. Writing my thoughts down is much better for you because you can read them on your own time, at your own pace. I can still process my thoughts by getting them outside, and you might even leave comments other than, "We miss you!" "Thanks for writing!" "Very interesting post!" and "Good for you, Justin!"

Finally, it is important to try to live in my heart again, now that I have some free time. Thanks for reading. Wish me luck this week, and I'll see you tomorrow.

My resume of failure

Lately I've been feeling like a no-good failure. I am trying to market myself to graduate schools which requires a resume. My list of acheivements is very short. My test scores are terrible, my awards and special honors are close to none, my ensemble chair placement is very low for my class and experience level, my GPA is average at best, and my work ethic is terrible. I am not very productive or efficient. I have trouble completing very basic tasks which are essential to my future. The good teachers out there work hard to cater to a variety of learning styles such as visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. My learning style doesn't easily mesh with any of these styles. In short, the world considers me mediocre, if not a failure.

My mother wrote on this subject recently:

Then I think how easily we misunderstand what's required of us. How we bounce between shame and bravado. How we just don't get it that our only option is to fall on the mercy. That only the mercy can save us. That only the mercy has power.

I'd like to say we don't get to disqualify ourselves because of failure. We're called to serve: Feed my sheep. Hail Frodo of the Nine Fingers. Four precious children to raise.

Shame has no place in mercy.

And we don't get to qualify ourselves because of competence. It's only the mercy.

Failure + mercy = power. Power released through humility. Redemption empowered by grace. Treasure in earthen vessels. Strength made perfect in weakness. The depth of the riches of the glory of Christ...

Dawn thinks it's a blessing that my strengths are not quantifiable, and I've had to take some time to consider why she said that. My strengths can't really be measured with awards, tests, special honors, ensemble chair placements, or the way I learn. The members of the panel who are to decide my admittance to their school will never comment, "Look at the listening skills on that guy!" just as a typical college guy won't say, "Did you see the brains on that girl?!" They frankly don't care. The world demands tangible proof of my worth.

Since I can't usually prove my worth outside of the Bible, I end up being pulled towards humility. And not by choice. Dawn probably considers this a blessing because worldly success is actually a curse. It causes us to seek pleasure, wealth, affluence, fame, happiness, and everything else which doesn't last or satisfy. Worldly success also gives us the illusion that we belong in the world, and that we certainly don't need God: someone who is also not easily quantified.

Praise God that when He opens up personal assistant positions, my resume of failure is exactally what He is looking for.

About the title

A good friend and mentor of mine recommended that I read Prayer: Finding the Heart's True Home by Richard Foster. Here's a quote from the introductory chapter: "Coming Home."

Loving is the syntax of prayer. To be effective pray-ers, we need to be effective lovers. In "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," Samuel Coleridge declares, "He prayeth well, who loveth well." Coleridge, of course, got this idea from the Bible, for its pages breathe the language of divine love. Real prayer comes not from gritting our teeth but from falling in love. This is why the great literature on prayer is frankly and wonderfully erotic. "The Trinity," writes Juliana of Norwich, "is our everlasting lover." "O my love!" exclaims Richard Rolle. "O my Honey! O my Harp! O my psalter and canticle all the day! When will you heal my grief? O root of my heart, when will you come to me?" "Jesus, Lover of my soul," pleads Charles Wesley. "Let me to thy bosom fly."

"O root of my heart." This is the first time I have heard God called the "root of my heart." I absolutely love this metaphor. I mean, look at what roots do for trees. First of all, there is no tree without a root. The roots must come first. Roots give a tree life by soaking up the water and nutrients in the ground. Often, the roots of a tree are quite larger than the tree itself. When the roots run out of room to grow, the tree does not remain healthy. Roots also keep a tree grounded in the face of extreme conditions. They make it very difficult to dig up the tree even when a great amount of effort is spent.

The parallels between the root of a tree and the root of a heart are obvious. God is my creator, my sustainer, the one who keeps me grounded in Him and His Word (John 1), and is my greatest, most important feature. He is at the bottom of my inner, most vital part: my heart. Even if the tree on which I bear fruit is withered or cut down, my root will still exist.

Lord, thank you for being the root of my heart. Help me to love you, to focus on you and to draw strength from both your Living Water and your nutritious Word. Amen.

Format and theme

Welcome to my new blog, root of my heart. I have read various online blogs for a few years now and have discovered that there are many options as to the material I could put in a weblog:

1. The Junkyard. This type is entirely personal. I would simply talk about my daily or weekly activities and any other random thoughts. In some ways, this would be an outlet for all of the junk my brain can't deal with on the inside. Some of it would be stream of consciousness babbling, but most would be negative and almost always centered on me.
2. The Academic Journal. This is the opposite of The Junkyard. Here, I would probably do research and write essays on various aspects of life. I would make philosophical arguments here based purely on logic and evidence and challenge my friends to a duel of rhetoric. This kind could be fun, however entirely impersonal.
   
3. The Themed-Blog. This kind of journal contains some personal and some academic prowess, but the topics would be centered around a theme or idea.

My weblog is of this third kind. A few weeks ago God convinced me to start this blog when I had the time and attention span. Thank God, now I have both.

Recently, I've discovered that I tend to live in two basic states. Either I live in my heart or out of it.

When I live in my heart, I feel alive in Christ and my heart is soft. In this state I care about and experience God, the world, relationships, growth, love, deep thought, and the Fruits of the Spirit. I am moved to live in my heart by my parents, my close friends, musical worship times, and significant absences of degrading sin to which I am addicted.

When I live out of my heart, I tend to be fairly numb and the colors of my reality fade to shades of black. In this state, my heart is hard and does not experience or care for the above mentioned items. The things which draw me out of my heart tend to be computer games, an unbalanced schedule (too busy or too idle), distraction, laziness, selfishness, and various addictive sins of the flesh. Playing computer games and indulging sins of the flesh are active choices that I make to avoid living in my heart. I will definitely get to that later, I promise.

I intend to keep with my theme of living in my heart in every post on this journal, if possible. When I get these thoughts and words outside of me, they affect me. They hold me accountable. This is due to the mixture of a personal and academic format. On one hand, I will read my Bible and other books about the heart and be inspired to write about their philosophies, but on the other hand I will share some of my struggles and apply these philosophies to my personal experience. I hope to avoid becoming an "emotional exhibitionist," meaning someone with a compulsive desire to expose deep feelings indiscriminately (thanks Mom). This might be hard for me.

This weblog is not just for God and I - it's also for you. I hope that my posts aren't too long or wordy for you to be encouraged by my thoughts and my story. I would love to hear your ideas, experiences, encouragement, or constuctive criticism. I am a verbal processor, so this would be especially meaningful to me.

If I am living in my heart, you will see regular postings here. I have not often been living in my heart recently and I have a problem with discipline. Pray that I will get the time and wholeness necessary to write. Again, welcome.