Hide and Seek

September 6th, 2010

If you’d like to hear what I’m talking about, buy Purpose: Purpose CD Baby ($4)

Sample Purpose (click)
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I had a very difficult time finishing this piece.  It began as a simple exercise in exploring orchestrational possibilities in jazz chords while applying percussion techniques on the keyboard.  Adding a line for the saxophone simply seemed like the thing to do at the time, and it made it possible for me to have a live instrument for the presentation of my final project for the class for which I wrote the project.  So I wrote the first two minutes of this piece with no intent outside of making pretty sounds.  But I liked the sounds so much that I felt the need to turn them into a coherent musical exposition.  After being stuck on the piece for about six months, I finally decided that the only way I was going to finish it was to make up an ending that worked and polish it until it was good.

I have a very hard time feeling a sense of closure when a piece doesn’t seem to have any meaning outside of itself.  So even when I had all but finished the piece I still couldn’t leave it alone because I didn’t understand what it meant.  And yet I had already named the piece “Hide and Seek” simply because of the way it sounded.  It seemed to be trying to go somewhere profound, but became sad when it couldn’t get there.  Then it returned to searching for that profound place, this time without being concerned about the result.

The sound reminded me of my childhood games of hide and seek when I would be entertained by looking for my friends that had hidden from me.  It was enjoyable not because I found them, but because I found them through a process of searching for them.  But sometimes they would hide so well that I would grow weary of looking for them.  But it would then be all the more exciting when I found them.  But the purpose of the game wasn’t to find but to seek.  So becoming irritated because I couldn’t find my friend was silly since all that should have resulted was enjoying the game longer.

While applying this concept to life itself, and thinking about the music in the context of the Purpose project, I finally realized that this piece is about searching for the purpose of life.  Many people (myself included) become frustrated when attempting to work out the reason God put them on the earth.  While there is the obvious Sunday school answer of “serving, worshipping, knowing, and glorifying God”, very few people are satisfied with that answer and justifiably so. Knowing and glorifying God is an infinitely broad description of our purpose since God is an infinite being.  Saying that really means to do what we were doing all along but for a different reason and maybe throwing in a few religious practices to remind you of that reason.  But as dissatisfying as the answer may be, it’s still the correct one.  However, I’ve taken it a step further with this piece.

The beauty coupled with tension throughout the first fast section recounts the beauty of life in the midst of seeking the reason for our existence and being disillusioned by the answer we find.  This results in a discontentment because without knowing the details of why we were put on this earth we have no idea of what to expect from life.  So as we move into the slow section we wonder in vain why we exist and therefore what we should be doing with our lives.  But in the midst of this anxiety, we find that beauty remains inherent all around us, even throughout our pain.  This brings us to the second fast section in which the sounds that were harsh in the beginning have been reinterpreted and are beautiful.  Nothing has changed but our reason for perceiving.  We’ve realized that we exist for the sake of seeking the answer to the question of our existence.  God put us here to ask questions and seek answers.  Since God is throughout all aspects of creation, this ends up meaning that God put us here in order to seek Him.  We still haven’t moved beyond the broad Sunday school answer, but realization has satisfied me and justified my life and work.

Purpose hides and so we seek it.  But along the way we find beauty and realize that the purpose of life is the process of searching for it.

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Aesthetic Education; Loving God

July 22nd, 2010

So far this series of posts has dealt with matters of intellect, enhancing people’s awareness of the world, and their overall cognitive abilities.  To the academic world these are matters of significant consequence (Although I am quite certain that I have not persuaded anyone).  But now that we’ve defined our terms and unpacked some sensitive concepts it is time to apply them to things of great consequence to the church and her members.

Getting to know God and becoming more like Him should be a Christian’s chief concern in life. Following His commands is a given, and not sinning would be a very simple task provided we grew to love God with all our hearts.  There are two methods that God as given us to grow closer to him: general revelation and special revelation. Special revelation is God’s word given to us through the prophets and any teaching or analysis done that originates from scripture.  The church handles the word of God quite effectively for the most part, and I have taken a lot from the teaching I have received.  But, unfortunately, simply teaching the word only goes so far and the intense division in the church we have today bears witness to this.  The word of God is only part of the picture, and for the church to not teach general revelation as much as it teaches special revelation is to limit the church’s perception of God’s glory and majesty along with the deep knowledge and wisdom that result from studying his creative work both aesthetically and analytically.

To only study the word is like getting to know a person only by talking to them.  When I first met Liz (my fiance) we got to know each other initially through conversation, but as our friendship deepened conversations by themselves only went so far.  We started to experience life together; listening to a stream together, attending to a specific part of the sky, running, going to the symphony, studying pedagogy, and countless other activities enhancing not our factual knowledge of one another, but in a profound sense our aesthetic understanding of one another.  I didn’t ask Liz to marry me because of the factual knowledge about her that I had accumulated; it was because of the things I had learned abut her aesthetic characteristics in between conversations that I fell in love with her.

Do we somehow expect our relationship with God to develop differently?  How is it that He can give us such a clear picture of what kind of relationship he wants with us using marriage and we (mostly) ignore it?  Just as it is impossible to fall in love with another person by talking it is impossible to fall in love with Christ only by studying the Bible.  You have to spend time with him outside factual knowledge and dive into the richness of his creative work.  By enjoying other people’s perceptions of that work, creating representations of your own perception, and perceiving his wonders first hand, you will gain an aesthetic understanding of our Savior beyond words.  This is when and how you will fall in love with Christ.  Feel free to memorize every word of the Bible, but until you learn to actually perceive Him in the world around you, you cannot know Him well enough to love Him.

Now, when it comes to the study of scripture, it’s impossible to even understand the depth and beauty of the Bible until you’ve experience life with God.  Much of he factual knowledge in the Bible is rooted in the aesthetic understanding of the world.  I, for example, was bored to tears trying to read the major prophets until I had composed the Dark Process since that was how I learned to understand a large work rooted in emotion rather than story.  Several symphonies and concertos by various composers also acted as gateways into the major prophets for me.  But this isn’t even the best part; I met with God and glorified his name in the midst of these aesthetic experiences that also enabled me to enjoy His Word.  So it hasn’t been the Bible alone that has caused me to love God, it has been the perception of His creation through the lens of Scripture which I gained through an understanding of creative work..  That said,  I also want to make it clear that the lens of scripture is vital to the accurate perception that draws us to worship.

Aesthetic education teaches the believer to learn about God through general revelation.  It is through God’s gift of his creative work perceived through the lens of His word that we will learn to love Him.  Therefore opportunities for aesthetic education in the church are essential to foster a passionate and unifying adoration of our Savior.

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An Indirect Solution

June 3rd, 2010

One of you says, “I follow Martin Luther”; another, “I follow the Pope”; another, “I follow Baptist doctrine”; still another, “I follow Christ.” Is Christ divided? Was the Pope crucified for you? Were you baptized into the name of the Baptist denomination?

C.S. Lewis describes the Christian denominations as a single house with multiple rooms. If you are part of the house, you are living for the same purpose and with the same life direction (seeking a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and behaving accordingly). However, every Christian gravitates towards people with the same specific doctrinal beliefs. Lutherans are in one room, Evangelicals another, Anglicans another, and Roman Catholics another. There is nothing wrong with this. It’s a big book and we’re going to disagree on how to interpret it. But the problem comes in when these different groups refuse to leave their rooms and associate with other people in their family. This behavior doesn’t encourage people from the outside to come into the house and enjoy a relationship with Jesus Christ themselves (which should be our greatest concern). On the contrary, it discourages them from entering and is actively counterproductive to the work of the gospel. Not to say that we have any power over the effectiveness of the Lords work, but he does want his children to be obedient. I Corinthians 1:10, “I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought.” Then Paul says this again in Philippians 2:1-2, “If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose.”

Unfortunately, all of the various denominations are so set in their different doctrines that they have deprived the body of Christ from necessary diversity. For example, Baptists don’t tend to associate with Pentecostals because Baptists are stiff and reserved while the Pentecostals are hyperactive and emotional. When people of these types don’t worship together, the Baptists become too stiff and the Pentecostals too emotional. Worshiping God must have aspects of both thoughtful meditation (Psalm 119:27) and of joyful noise (Psalm 98); Baptists and Pentecostals need each other in order to not take their natural tenancies too far. Different denominations contain different types of people, and these different types need to each other in order to maintain healthy and well balanced worship. In other words, denominations create extremes.

Getting God’s people to come back into the commons area of God’s house is going to be quite a challenge. In fact I don’t really see how its even possible. But where humans fail, God will succeed. Not only that, but he will succeed while using us to do it. That being said, I don’t quite understand the implications of the idea that I am now going to present to you. I see how it could work, but I know that it is not going to happen the way I think it is. Only God can move in the hearts and minds of his people to having the response necessary in order bring the body of Christ back together again. All I can do is present an idea that God has put on my heart. What God does with it in your hearts is up to him.

To bring all the churches together something must develop that members from all of the various denominations can be a part of. Higher education is already doing this to a large extent. For example, Cornerstone University (where I did my undergraduate studies) has more than 45 denominations represented in its student body. After growing up in a Baptist environment my entire life, this was an incredible opportunity for my ideas to merge with the view points of students from other backgrounds. It resulted in me actually getting into God’s word and discovering truth like I’d never experienced it before. This is the type of growth that could happen should Christians find something comparable to this in their own communities. Unfortunately, higher education can only go so far since it is very expensive and it is completely unreasonable to hope for a Christian university in every geographic context. It is also unreasonable to expect private elementary and high school education to accomplish church unity since this targets a fairly narrow demographic.

Music education is very peculiar. Because of the performance orientation it has, it drives people from very different backgrounds into that same room to enjoy an intellectually rich presentation together. Since the audience is typically connected with one of the people performing, and the people performing are connected to one another, these performances result in social connections that would’ve been impossible any other way. In this way music education has the power to bring random people together in order to strengthen the relational context of a community. But then make everyone in that room a passionate believer in Christ Jesus, and the result isn’t just a well connected community. What results is a well connected church that otherwise did not exist provided that this program does not exist only in a single church. And this finally brings us to the point I wish to make.

Create an inexpensive and Christ oriented music education program in a community that is connected with every church in that community, enroll representatives from every congregation to participate, back it up with prayer, and encourage every congregation to observe the resultant artistic presentation, and you will see entire church bodies uniting starting with the individual layperson and working its way up into the leadership.

If you live in the Lansing area and would like to see this happen, look over the plan in my blog entitled “The Church’s School of Music” and contact me to let me know you want to help make this happen. If you don’t live in the Lansing area but you would like to see this happen in your community, be bold and give it a try.

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Thank you all so much for your support by inviting people to join the Facebook group.  I’ve been pretty overwhelmed by the results so far.  To the newcomers, thank you for joining us and taking a look at what God is doing here.  Feel free to invite your Facebook friends to the group yourself.  You can find instructions on how to do this in the post from last week.

May God continue to work out his plans in completely unpredictable ways.

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An Analogy for Music in Worship

February 19th, 2010

A father lovingly gave his child a small set of toy blocks to play with. The father’s intention was to teach the child how to be creative with the blocks, but more importantly he wanted to strengthen their relationship through the learning process. However, the child didn’t want instruction and averted the father’s attempts to instruct him on how the blocks would be best used. The child spent all of his time with the blocks that he had been given without his father. Since the main purpose of giving the blocks was to build the relationship, this grieved the father. Their relationship did not become distant as a result, but the blocks did not bring them closer together as the father wanted them to.

As the child became very good at building things with the blocks he had been given, the father decided that he was ready to have more blocks that would increase the child’s potential to be creative. But when the father gave the child the new blocks, the child decided that they were too complicated and went back to the blocks he had been given before. By this time, the child had exhausted all possibilities with the old blocks and was beginning to build the same things with them over and over again. He thwarted every attempt the father made to teach the child how to use the new blocks and chose mindless repetition over learning anything new.

God is very creative, and wants us to be as well. But the purpose for our creativity is to strengthen our relationship with him. Listening to and creating music should always be an act of building our relationship, but it often becomes a redundant routine of mindless repetition. Therefore, I believe we should always be challenging ourselves to be more creative each time we listen to or create music, and ask for God’s wisdom and guidance throughout the creative process so that our artistic endeavors will be focused on the purpose of getting to know God better. Thoughtless repetition will not help you worship God or get to know him in new ways.  Progressing in knowledge and depth of insight will give you a fresh perspective on who God is and how we can love and worship Him more deeply.

Anything you do that isn’t strengthening your relationship with God is useless fluff in your life.  Get rid of it.

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Psalm 33:3, “Sing to him a new song; play skillfully, and shout for joy.”

Psalm 40:3, “He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see and fear and put their trust in the LORD.”

Psalm 96:1, “Sing to the LORD a new song; sing to the LORD, all the earth.”

Psalm 98:1, “Sing to the LORD a new song, for he has done marvelous things; his right hand and his holy arm have worked salvation for him.”

Psalm 144:9, “I will sing a new song to you, O God; on the ten-stringed lyre I will make music to you…”

Psalm 149:1, “Praise the LORD. Sing to the LORD a new song, his praise in the assembly of the saints.“

Posted in Faith | 6 Comments »

Trust

February 4th, 2010

I firmly believe that without drastic cultural reformation the classical world is going to all but disappear within my lifetime, becoming a part of history rather than a living and breathing component of society. The few living composers that will be left will be affectionately viewed as a living remnant of this history, much like many other small groups of people whose traditions have been preserved out of some sentimental obligation. So either I will be lucky enough to be part of that remnant (which will be a matter of luck and not skill), I will have to support my family by some other means that has nothing to do with what I have spent my life becoming, or my colleagues and I will have to change the current path of apathy that our culture is stubbornly heading down.

It is very tempting to think that I have to choose one of these paths. However, each choice is dependent upon circumstances which are not yet upon me. To pursue one path over another when it is impossible to obtain the information required to make an informed decision is foolishness. So then, what should my actions consist of during this time of my life? This may seem like a difficult question, but it is really quite simple:

Proverbs 16:9, “In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps.”

Proverbs 20:24, “A man’s steps are directed by the LORD. How then can anyone understand his own way?”

Jeremiah 10:23, “I know, O LORD, that a man’s life is not his own; it is not for man to direct his steps.”

Mathew 6:25-27, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?”

Ecclesiastes 11:10, “So then, banish anxiety from your heart and cast off the troubles of your body, for youth and vigor are meaningless.”

1 Peter 5:7, “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.”

Philippians 4:4-7, “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

We have no control over our earthly destiny. All we can do is live our lives day by day and strive to be like Christ. We have control over our actions, thoughts, and intentions but nothing else. The world is moving around us without our approval, and it will never do what we want it to. So depend on God.

I am attempting to change the world’s attitude towards great art, but I must do this through daily life while trusting God with the end goal. I hope to make a specific difference fully knowing that God has other intentions for my work.  I would encourage others to view their work in the same way.

Keeping in mind my attempts to change the world through daily life while knowing that God’s intentions for my good intentions are greater than my intention for my good intentions, this week I suggest you buy John Mackey’s “Red Line Tango”. John P. Lynch & University of Kansas Wind Ensemble - Red Line Tango: Music for Wind Band I promise that you will not be disappointed with this intense work of genius by this composer in his late 30’s.  It’s only $0.99 and you might be able to find it in your library, so it would be foolish to not listen to it.

Click here to view Mackey’s notes on the work.

Posted in Faith, Thought | 4 Comments »

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