Friday, January 21, 2011

Comfort between granddaughters.

Camp has been a big part of my whole life. Thanks to my mom, I started going off to camp every summer before my long-term memory developed. As can be expected, I have a lot memories that have accumulated over the years. I'm happy to report that most of them are good ones and tonight I started thinking about one of those good ones from this past summer.

As many people who teach and/or work with kids will probably tell you, the kids aren't the only ones who get something out of the relationship. I learn every time I go to camp, even though I haven't been a camper for several years, and I can only hope to bless the kids as much as they bless me. There was one particularly special moment with a camper that was brought to my mind tonight.

At Camp Formosa, our goal is to tell everyone who comes through there about Jesus. Part of the way we structure everything is to have a service every night where we sing together, listen to a speaker, and make sure everyone has a chance to pray together. Some of those kids have really weighty stuff going on in their lives, so there's a lot to pray about. As you might imagine, there are also a lot of tears shed. Sometimes, more than having someone pray with them, the kids just want someone to give them a hug and let them cry into their shoulder. That was the case one night during the second week this past June.

I was standing on one side of the room near the front, singing "Amazing Grace" with everyone in the room, when Kourtney almost ran into me, sobbing. She grabbed onto me and I grabbed onto her, then let her stand there for a minute and cry. I leaned my head down to her ear and asked her if she could tell me why she was crying. She said "Amazing Grace" was her grandpa's favorite song and he had died recently. I understood how that felt, and I told her so. My grandpa died when I was rather young, and it was hard for me to deal with at first. So I held her a little tighter and stroked her head, softly singing. I'm a bit...more than a bit...of a sympathy crier, so I can't deny that a few tears had started rolling down my face, but between the two of us, Kourtney was the only one really crying.

But then the song changed. I heard the beginnings of "Oh, How I Love Jesus." That was my grandpa's favorite song. The emotion of the moment overtook me. As well as a bit of residual sadness that he's not still around, although that sadness doesn't plague me like it did initially. I really started crying then. After a moment, upon calming down a bit, I told Kourtney between my gulping that this was my grandpa's favorite song, the one I had just told her about. A small, sympathetic smile crossed her face, and she started hugging me. Crier that I am, the beauty of the moment started a fresh wave of sobbing and gulping. Kourtney and I stood there, granddaughters, holding each other.

After a few minutes, and after we had both regained most of our composure, Kourtney raised her head. I said, "Thank you for coming over here, Kourtney." She nodded with a smile and went back to her seat.

With anyone this would have been a special exchange, but I appreciate having this moment to share with Kourtney. If I remember correctly, she was 9 years old when I met her and she's now a teenager. I've been watching her grow, and as with all the kids that come through there, I've hoped she's been able to tell that I love her. Maybe this was evidence that she does. It's these moments that are so rewarding, and give me the energy to continue for years to come.

I can hardly wait to go back again.

Sunday, January 2, 2011

I'm soon to obtain a bachelor's degree in English, you would think I'd be able to come up with more clever titles for these things.

Not so long ago, my thoughts about education were not far from Ebeneezer Scrooge's repeated refrain of "Bah, humbug!" I was going to school because I felt like I needed to, but I was done. As soon as I received my degree, that is. I was tired. I was burnt out. I tried my hardest and I still enjoyed learning, but so many of the attitudes that I found in formal education were such that I found to be exhausting and distasteful: a great deal of arrogance; and pride; expectations for persons to fit in a certain mold and no room for any deviation. Not to mention a continual pursuit of meaninglessness that was wearing me thin. I was determined to finish what I started, but when asked if I would go any further (like so many people seem to expect "brainiacs" to do), I said "no." My bachelors degree is where I would stop.

But my tune has changed in recent times. I've started singing "maybe." I'm not as tired as I was. School has become more refreshing that it was for a while. I've also discovered a new passion for what I study that I didn't have before, or if I did have it, it was buried and underdeveloped. And all of the meaningless that is still out there? It doesn't bog me down like it did not so long ago. I feel empowered to face it in a way that I haven't before.

Graduate school now seems like a possibility. If I go, where will it be? I don't know. Wherever it is I go, what exactly will I study? I don't know that either. This is a brand new consideration for me. But with graduation now so close in my future I'm starting to think, "Hmm, what am I going to do next?" If I do decide to spend further hours of my life in utilitarian rooms with men and women of much learning, making frequent trips to the library, burying myself in sweet-smelling books, I'm fairly certain that it won't be immediately. 2012 at the earliest. So I'm still going to have to figure out what I'm doing between now and then. But that's for another time and blog.

One more thing to briefly consider: Aside from jaded feelings, I again think that I can also blame my go-against-the-grain instincts for making me feel disinclined to continue my formal education. Learning, substantial academic-type learning, is so often considered to be something that only takes place in a classroom setting. But I firmly believe that's not true! Life is a classroom. You don't have to pay tuition and spend three hours a week listening to a man with a PhD to learn something. You can still learn and be "smart" without any level of college degree. How cool would it be (to my mind) to be the super-smart, wealth-of-knowledge guy (aside from the fact that I'm not a guy, nor do I desire to be one...I just tend to default to that particular male pronoun...a product of a far too gender-unequal society?...a feminist's nightmare?...perhaps), quite capable of holding their own in a room of university department heads without having any special letters or titles in front of my name. I'm pretty sure that would rock.

Saturday, January 1, 2011

Spring 2011

It's January 1st, 2011. I'm ready to go back to school! Who's with me?

I have less than two weeks to wait now. Spring 2011 at MTSU will begin soon. It's hard to believe that I have one more semester left before I graduate. But that's for another post. Once again, I'm looking forward to my classes for this semester, my last as an undergraduate.

Here's the full list of my classes.

Concert Chorale - As I have been every semester, I will once again be in Concert Chorale. I've been happy I've been able to work it into my schedule this whole time. It wouldn't be school without it.

Introduction to Music - Yes, I know I'm a senior - almost like a fifth-year senior - and freshman/sophmores are supposed to take Intro to Music. I blame switching my major and not deciding that I wanted to take Intro to Music as an elective for my minor until I had figured out all of my major classes first and not deciding to take any minor classes until I was well underway with my major classes. So it got pushed to the last semester. At least I'm hoping it's easy and I'll have another guaranteed A aside from choir in my last semester.

And wait...it gets better....

Theater Appreciation - Yep. Another freshman class. In evaluating what I had left this year, I realized that I needed one more gen ed. I thought about taking it last semester, but it wasn't really working with my schedule. I knew I could take it my last semester, so that's what I'm going to do. Like Intro to Music, I'm hoping this is rather simple, so I'll have at least two classes that I don't have to worry about, and another guaranteed A. A great GPA would be wonderful to see in my last semester.

19th Century American Literature - A "real" class. I'm looking forward to this one. I've always loved this period of history, and I tend to gravitate to literature written during this time. So even though I have to buy another couple of anthologies to add to my expanding collection, I'm excited!

English Literature: Restoration to 18th Century - I have to buy yet another anthology, but this time one specifically of poetry. Aside from poetry, it looks like we're going to be reading things that I've wanted to read for a while, specifically "Robinson Crusoe" and "The Beggar's Opera." Along with a couple of other things that look to be delightful as well. I also like this period in history. In general, I'm pretty much a fan of anything pre-20th Century. I don't hate the 20th Century, but I suppose that since I was born in it, albeit rather late in it, most things coming out of that time just aren't old enough. I'm a fan of old things.

Milton - John Milton that is. Be still my heart. To fill this certain requirement for my major, I was hoping to take a class on Chaucer. Oh how I love Chaucer. But they weren't offering it this semester when I went to register, so I started looking for what else I could take. I thought I was going to have to take Shakespeare. There's nothing wrong with Shakespeare, but everybody takes Shakespeare and part of me was hoping to avoid it. My anti-conformist instincts, I guess. Education majors HAVE to take Shakespeare, and since I'm not going into education, I determined I wasn't going to take Shakespeare, simply because I didn't have to. So I was elated when I saw that I could take a class on Milton and they were indeed offering it this semester. I'm looking forward to this one most. This is the first time I'm going to have a repeat professor in the English department. He's a super smart Milton expert. Like, for real. He's written a book on Milton, and naturally it's a part of our curriculum this semester. I really like him. I had him for Brit Lit 1 a couple of years ago, and in that class we read a bit of Milton, which was where I got a taste for him. And since I know this professor knows his stuff, and is going to be really invested in teaching this class, I couldn't resist taking it. I assume we're going to read Paradise Lost, and that suits me. I've been wanting to read it for a while, and now I have an excuse! Oh, and for all you Shakespeare lovers, I'm not hating on Shakespeare. I will read more of his great works at a later date. I'm eager to read more of his great works. I just really didn't want to take a class devoted to him and only him. I'm sure I would have enjoyed it, but that's beside the point.


I'm almost chomping at the bit to get started on all of this wondrous material. This semester promises to be a good one. Half of my schedule is fascinating, challenging, upper division work, and the other half will be spent with a bunch of freshman learning a lot of things I already know (particularly in Intro to Music). It should be interesting, as I have found most things in my life to be.

What Music Means to Me: a reminiscence.

In Fall 2010 at MTSU I successfully made it through my fourth semester of music theory and I breathed a sigh of relief. It was a long road that I began way back when I was 18 years old and a freshman in Fall 2006. As a music major, I started theory I in my first semester like most music majors do, followed it with theory II the next semester, then my education stopped altogether for a year. When I returned to school, my major had changed, and I was trying to get back in the swing of things, so I started focusing on gen eds while I figured out what exactly it was that I wanted to do. Once I finally felt that I was on track and settled in everything that I wanted to do, one of those things being that I wanted to finish out the four semesters of music theory, I was a junior, and it had been almost three years since the last time I had been immersed in the world of theory. But I enrolled in theory III in the spring of 2010, then completed the four semester run in the first semester of my senior year. What should have been started and completed in two years of my life took approximately four.

During our last meeting together, on the day we had our written final in theory IV, Dr. Linton reminded us of one of our first assignments in theory I. For most people who had him for theory I, that was approximately two years before, but my memory had to reach much further back, to a time that seems almost like another life. The assignment he referenced was an essay he told us to write titled "What Music Means to Me." That was the prompt, and we were to take it and fill approximately a page expounding upon it. He surprised us all when he said he had a couple of those essays to hand back. Mine was one of those couple.

As I took it from his hand and into mine, it was like a blast from the past. My 22-year-old, senior-in-college self was looking at my 18-year-old, freshman-in-college self, and it was surprising. First of all, I wasn't expecting Dr. Linton to do this, to give us these essays. Honestly, I had all but forgotten about it. My mind was focused on taking a cumulative final that spanned back to material I had learned four years ago. It had been so long, I was surprised he still had it in his possession. But I suppose if I was a professor, I would keep things like that as well. I don't hold on to much, but something like that, especially if I intended to return it to its author one day, would be something that would be hard to part with.

As I was about to take a test that would take me two hours, I didn't have time to read it just then, so I put it away and pulled it out to read when I got home. This essay was one of the first substantial pieces I wrote in my college career. The first class I stepped foot into as a freshman was music theory, and this was one of the first bits of homework I was assigned. If memory serves, I think the only other essay I wrote before this was an in-class one on my first day of my first English class. When I started college, I was extremely nervous. I had not been in a formal classroom since I was 12 years old, and as hard as I worked while I was home schooled, and as much as I felt that my six years of "alternative" education had been a benefit to me, I still had doubts about whether I would be able to succeed in college. I knew that I would work hard, but I feared that I would be at some sort of disadvantage, and I would have to work twice as hard as everyone else just to be able to survive. So the depth of meaning that was contained in this essay being one of the first of my college career was that much greater. For me, this was the moment of truth. Could I write something that would be sufficient for university standards?

It turned out I could. This particular essay wasn't explicit confirmation of that. Dr. Linton didn't make any marks on the page, so I don't know what he thought about it, and obviously he didn't return it to me anytime close to the time I turned it in, but other essays from that first semester were encouraging. I soon found out that I was nervous about almost nothing. A lot of freshman can't write, and teachers know this. Thus they attempt to teach. And unfortunately, there are some people who graduate with writing skills that aren't remarkably better than when they started, but I will not be one of them. My area of study dictates that writing be my life, so it was improve or perish. I have yet to perish, and I know that I have improved in the four years since I began.

Since I know that my writing has improved, I was almost afraid to read this essay when I got home. Would it be too painful? I braced myself for the much cringing in which I anticipated to find myself engaged and started making my way through my reflections from long ago. To my great surprise and pleasure, I didn't cringe as much as I thought I would. Maybe I wasn't as bad of a writer as I thought I was. It's certainly not like it would be if I were writing it today, but it's not painful.

I present it to you here, exactly as I wrote it at the age of 18.

What Music Means to Me


Music and the definition of what it constitutes is debated among people globally. I think that music is whatever a person chooses it to be. A simple definition of what music is to me personally is a unique and rhythmic use of sound and silence that is used for self-expression or as a means to communicate with others.

I thoroughly believe that the self-expression aspect of music is important because people who express themselves, I believe, are healthier and happier overall. I am not a very self-expressive person on my own, so music definitely provides a much needed outlet for me to express myself and the emotions and feeling I have deep within me; positive and sometimes negative. I mostly use music for positive expression, but sometimes negative things seem to overwhelm me and music can be my outlet.

Music can also lift a persons spirits. There are times when I feel bad and I can listen to a song and it will immediately make me happier or more joyful. There are a precious few other things in this world that have that affect on me. Often times, music can be downright fun. I think the term "playing an instrument" is absolutely correct, because I have a blast creating music. That definitely is one reason why music can change my mood as dramatically as it does.

Beyond that, I believe that what music is at its core is passion or an expression of passion. Music inspires passion within me and allows me to express that passion. One passion I have other than music is God and my faith. Music allows me to express that in a way that nothing else can. There are times when I am so thankful for everything that God has done for me that I can't help but sing. Other times I have questions or I'm confused and music is a way in which I can communicate that to God. Without music I don't think God would hear nearly as much from me, because that is the way in which I communicate most with Him.

I also like to sing to express a third passion I have which is people, mainly those I know well and love deeply. There are times when I want to them to know something or I need to express how I feel about them or how they make me feel, and I can use music to do that.

As I hope you have grasped in all I have said, bottom line to me music is most importantly passion. I have heard people try to create music without passion, and it doesn't work. They can be trained in all the technicalities and be able to play triplets as fast as lightning, but without passion it's nothing. As long as a person has passion, then all the music that person creates will be beautiful, even if that person is the only one who thinks so.



In reading this, the evolution of my writing skills was not only striking, but also was my own progression in life. I have changed remarkably in recent years. But in many ways, I am the same person that wrote these words about passion and expression. I still believe everything that I said. The things that make up the core of who I am are the same. But I feel like I understand them better. I understand myself better. Music's place in my life has become more defined. It's more special to me than it has been before, but only as I've come to understand how it fits in my life as a new creation in Christ. It's funny how everything that I've always valued has become so much more vibrant, more treasured, more special, more important, more valuable, more real in light of Jesus becoming the central focus of my life. Like David Crowder says, he does "make everything glorious."