redeemed perspective
Christ has redeemed my life and I'm finally starting to realize that that actually changes my life. It's not just the vague (because of my small understanding) "my soul is redeemed" but my everyday life is redeemed. This day, this hour. The time with this student or this friend. This practice session. This free time. Christ has bought it with his blood, bought it from sin and fruitlessness, redeemed it to purpose and holy beauty. He has redeemed every part that makes up the whole. If you need purpose, if you need hope, if you need a reason to rejoice in what God has given you to do, think about that for a while.
vastness
I love the word "vast." It seems so endless, inexhaustible, unconquerable, strong, incomprehensible even when you're right next to it. Like standing next to the sea on a stormy day, looking out and seeing no end in any direction. That's amazing. It's fearful. It's calming. It's thrilling.
In choir yesterday we sang a song with the word "vast" in it. Scott called attention to it because of the pronunciation, and said something about it being a word we never use. Then it kept coming up in like three other songs, and somebody said something about "it must be a 'vast' day". But it caught my attention. I've listed a few of the lyrics, and I love the perspective the word brings to the character of God
"How vast His grace"
"O, the deep, deep love of Jesus/vast, unmeasured, boundless, free...."
"....'tis an ocean vast of blessing"
"How deep the Father's love for us/how vast beyond all measure...."
My possible favorite we did not sing yesterday, but the concept in these lines has always amazed me. It's from "Creation Hymn" I think by Craig Courtney--
High mountains rising to the sky
Bow down before their Author's eye;
Sea depths now echoing the land's refrain,
their vast expanse too small to hold His name....
He is Lord.
ritual
Morning and evening. Today and tomorrow and the day after, for the next week and the next month, year upon year and century upon century, a lamb shall be sacrificed morning and evening. It shall be for a burnt offering before Me forever.
Why? Why should two lambs a day, fourteen a week, over 700 in a year, be spent on this altar? Why should the daily spilling of innocent blood be carried down through the centuries? What is the meaning? And what, when the meaning clearly has been lost and the God who proclaimed the sacrifice is now decrying its misuse, should be done?
What happens when a people loses sight of the purpose of its ritual? When the depth and the richness and the symbolism has been forgotten, and the marvel has been replaced by only motions? Is the ritual a loss? Should it be ended when its sanctity is gone, when it has become a shadow, indeed a blasphemy? Should it be replaced, or cast away altogether, rather than remain as a farce?
Or does the ritual have significance simply in its continuance? Morning and evening. Morning and evening, a lamb killed. Morning and evening, a sacrifice made. Today, and tomorrow, next week and next month, year after year and century after century until the command is eternally fulfilled, until the everlasting sacrifice has been delivered up forever. Holy to the Lord, regardless of the spiritual state of its offerers?
What is the sanctity of a ritual?
atmospheres
That actually isn't the one I liked, I just thought is was a cool title. I found Lontano more interesting. A different way of thinking, of listening than I'm used to....no tonality, no melody, just sound. Range, color, effect, the palette explored. My ears were awakened. Yet, the most beautiful notes were the unisons, and what caught my ear the most were the four notes of melody and the almost-chord progression that resolved back into sound.
untitled
I actually got some pretty nice Christmas gifts this year. Not that that's highly unusual--although I was rather amazed at the amounts of expensive chocolate my students gave me (my family enjoyed it!)--but it was one of those years when I could tell people weren't just getting gifts to check me off their list, they were actually thinking of
me.
I got one gift about four years ago that was like that. It wasn't at Christmas. It was early March, just after the guy 'd been thinking about for months asked if I would date him. I was in my dorm room when one of the upperclassmen, brought it in. It was from Mike, and it was a single blue rose in a blue vase. I don't know how he got it blue, but he knew I liked it and so he surprised me with it. Not a big thing, but it expressed that he was thinking of me and that I was special. We only dated a few months (still friends) but I still have the rose. It was a gift that stood out.
I received another one of those this year. Last winter was a hard one for me. I was dealing with some weird things, emotionally and spiritually, and the dark of the winter months affected me like I never realized it could. Though most of those battles are well past their turning point now, lack of light still brings back that shadow of internal darkness.
When I moved to Illinois, Katie and I looked at a bunch of apartments and chose a model together, but as far as picking our speciic building, we just had to circle a number on the complex map. And there was only one of our model left, so we didn't have much choice! However: our apartment does not have white walls like the rest of them. i'm not really sure what color they are but it's kind of a neutral with a shade of tan and a touch of yellow. Not enough color to overwhelm the room, but enough that even when outside is dark, inside always looks bright and warm. And, i am not entirely sure how this happens, but my room and the living room get full light almost from sunrise to sundown.
A little thing, okay, and maybe I'm the only one that can understand why it's a big deal. But my house is light! And I am convinced that God gave me that because He loves me.
Alexander, worship, and kazoos
My exciting discoveries over Christmas break are as follows:
1. Alexander technique, and in general the concept that our bodies are designed to wrok well! Except that, in general, most of us--myself included--don't think too hard about how to actually use them. As a result, we have back pains, neck pains, sloppy posture, tight violin shoulders (yes, everything relates back to violin). It's all because we don't realize how to capitalize on the design God put in us so that we can function efficiently AND comfortably. this may sound like everything your parents told you when they tried to teach you good posture but seriously, I am so excited to be learning about this stuff and here's why: in the book I am reading on Alexander technique, I'm learning about my bones and my muscles. where thye exist, what they do. It's called "body mapping." Half our problems comes from having an imprecise or incorrect body map--we have an unclear idea of how our bodies are designed, so we're trying to do things with muscles that aren't there, or we're working too hard because there are joints and support systems that ARE there but we don't realize it. If that doesn't make sense ask me, or do some research but it is well worth looking into! (I have been trying for years to figure out how my singing voice is actually supposed to work and this stuff is finally making sense of it!) Also quite related to Pilates principles, I think. But here's the quote that I completely love, which Barbara Conable (the author of this book,
How to Learn Alexander Technique) calls the "Creation Imperative":
(actually she calls it "rthe Creation Imperative or the Evolution Imperative, take you choice"....I took mine)
"The structure of the whole body can be explained by the necessity to arrive at a violinist."
Think twice about that if you have to. I love it!
2. I am going to shorten this one because the last one is long and because I'll probably come back to it someday, and because words can't quite communicate the life of it anyway. But, I have to say:
God is incredible
He is worthy of all worship
Worshiping Him is not boring, it is beautiful and it truly is a believer's highest pursuit
Can you really imagine, once there was nothingness and it became earth and everything in it.
God was before it. He never started, He just was, always. He came up with all that is.
and He has placed in us His image--so there is that in us which can recognize, understand, and love Him.
i love it when truth comes to life
3. Kazoos are very cool and you can use them to teach singing voice. When I told me roommate that it confirmed in her mind that I am an eccentric music nerd. Hey well, I won't argue :)
good afternoon
It's a wednesday afternoon and I am sitting at my desk in my newly rearranged office (the last arrangement definitely did not allow space for three beginning violinists plus me)--I should be finishing an arrangement for my string ensemble's rehearsal tomorrow, but I don't think it will take me too long, except for about one measure that's really not cooperating. I am in the middle of my fourth week of full-time teaching, and my second week teaching beginners. Can I just say, I love my beginners! I really did not think I was going to like them but I do, and that's good because I have something like 35 of them. And none of their violins stay in tune yet. This makes our beginning orchestra sound like chaos, but I think (thankfully!) the new instruments are slowly beginning to stabilize!....
So here I am, a full time christian school violin teacher. I wish I could sketch in a nutshell what it is like. Just to sketch today would be quite a picture--the 8th grader running up to me in the morning beaming because she'd practiced overtime and enjoyed it; the 2nd grader who never focuses but this week learned a whole song on his own for the reward of a single skittle; the beginners who couldn't stop talking; the little 3rd grade comments on how I rearranged my room and did my hair; the 6th grader who forgot his lesson again but is brainstorming now for ways to remember; hugs and waves from my little kids as I walk through the halls; laughing at the sounds emanating from the office of the trumpet teacher next door; making similarly frightening sounds as my new cello teacher tries to reteach my technique; tuning instruments and fixing instruments; scolding students, praising them, laughing with them, finding new ways to solve their problems; sharing inside jokes and homemade food with my coworkers; setting up and taking down rooms; doing research during one free slot, phone calls during the next, and elementary crafty stuff the next. If you actually read all that I'm amazed; there's plenty more. Every day is different, every student and every coworker is different. I love my job. God is good.
success!
Hah! I finally learned how to put in links. I had to change my template to do it though, hence the new look. What do you think? It's a little pink for me, but I like it as much as any of them. Maybe sometime when I feel like messing with it, I'll figure out how to change the color scheme too. I'm going for multicolored, and none of this laid-back sage and gold and navy stuff. Yeah, someday when I'm bored.
it's true!
Can I just share this, because I’m excited about it—God’s fixing me!
I’m sure He’s been doing it for longer than I’ve been noticing it, but it still almost amazes me. For a long time there, I really couldn’t see it, wondered if He’d really do it. But He is. There’s still plenty of junk to be gotten out, plenty more of Him to be discovered. But He really and truly is opening the eyes of my understanding, renewing my mind into His mind, teaching me to know and love Him, becoming actually sweeter every day. This is for real. He really actually does this work. For some people that might seem like “duh”—of course, God sanctifies all Christians. And I know that is absolutely true. But for so long I couldn’t find it. I felt stuck, surfacey. Honestly, sometimes I still do feel that way—but more truly, I can see: He does real stuff. He’s not just in the pages of Scripture, but He’s living God at work.
And praise Him, He’s fixing me.
