Trinity or Grace??

I've been attending Trinity Episcopal Church for the past year. Within the first month, I was firmly ensconced in the choir. I have since switched to a different choir, joined the hand bells, and started a wind ensemble.

To me, music is a very important part of worship, so whenever I'm actively involved in a church, most of my time and energy goes into the music program.

Since Dennis died in August, I've had trouble getting out of the bed in the mornings (and afternoons and evenings). That makes it hard to get to church in time for rehearsals at 7:30 on Sunday mornings.

And now with winter moving in, my knees have made it even more difficult to go anywhere (on time or otherwise).

So the church music director (I'll call him Kevin) has not been happy with my attendance record lately. But ya' know what? I'm a volunteer. How mad can he be at me? Quite angry, actually.

I also don't have many friends at Trinity. There are a handful of people who aree nice to me, but they're acquaintances, not friends. And hardly anyone there knew Dennis. And if you didn't know Dennis, you can't really know me.

So I'm pretty much done with Trinity's music program, which means I'm pretty much done with Trinity.

Since Dennis died, I've come to realize how many friends I have at Grace United Methodist Church, where Dennis and I attended when we first moved to town.

So I think I'm going to go back to Grace.

I just don't know how to tell Stuart and Vinnie, the priests at Trinity who helped me through my father's death as well as Dennis's death and funeral. They're both wonderful people and I'll miss them.

OK, I need to get to the store. It's Thanksgiving Day and I'm having the big turkey dinner with some friends from Grace. I need to go buy some ingredients to make my cranberry relish.

I also need to buy cat food. The poor beasties are very hungry.

I wish you all a very pleasant Thanksgiving. Enjoy it while it lasts because tomorrow I'm going to cancel Christmas!!!

There's Good News and Bad News

The good news (depending on your point of view, I guess) is that I haven't fallen off the face of the earth. I just kind of forgot that I had this blog.

The bad news is that life really sucks right now.

On August 22nd, the one-and-only perfect husband passed away, and things have just kind of gone downhill from there.

I got a (non-paying) orchestra gig. I missed the first several rehearsals of the season because I was too much of an emotional wreck to do anything. So now we're coming up on the first concert this coming Saturday. Originally I was supposed to play 2 pieces in the concert: a Rosssini Overture and a Dvorak Symphony. I was playing piccolo in the Rossini piece and my piccolo playing just isn't up to par, so they had to find somebody else to play that piece. I'm totally fine with that. I'd rather have someone else play than mess it up myself.

The Wind Ensemble that I started at Trinity last spring was a flute & clarinet duet for several months. Then late in the summer we acquired two more clarinetists. One plays bass clarinet. The flute just doesn't work well with so many clarinets, so now I'm playing bass flute.

Trinity's choirs are going on a concert tour of England next April. I won't be going with them for a few reasons. 1) My college choir toured the British Isles. It was fun, but I don't want to do it again. 2) I want to go to the National Flute Association's annual convention in August in NYC and the International Horn Society' annual symposium in June. I'll be lucky to hve the money for those two trips. There's no way I can do England, too. 3) I'm planning to spend next summer in my house in New Hampshire and I'll probably be going North in April.

My sister-in-law has turned into a total bitch. We never really got along, but Dennis worked hard to be a good buffer for us. Now without his help, I'm trying, but she's not and I'm totally fed up with her crap. Just one example of what I'm referring to, she told my daughter to geta power of attorney so she can have me committed. Cool, huh?

OK, whining isn't making me feel any better.

I'm out of books to read, so I guess I'll hop on over to Amazon and order some more.

Maybe I'll post another entry next time I run out of books.

My Father

I haven't posted in a while. As you can see, I failed to follow through on my lenten journal.

A lot has happened recently. Most notably, my father passed away on April 30th.

I went to Minneapolis to help my siblings sort through all of his "stuff". I acquired several items: 3 alphorns, a french horn, a hunting horn, a digeridoo, and a shofar; his car, a Subaru Outback LL Bean edition; lots of good wine; a couple of nice beer steins and two Dark and Stormy mugs (along with a bottle of Gosling's Black Seal Rum and a case of ginger beer for making the dark and stormies). I also got a couple of his guns, a few knives, and lots of magic tricks. I got all of his LPs (he'd been selling them off over the last few years, so there aren't nearly as many as I'd hoped for). I also got autographed pictures of Andy Williams, Henry Mancini, and Johnny Mathis, whom my dad knew and performed with, as well as a great picture of Dad with Mitch Miller.

I don't think I've quite come to terms with the fact that he's really gone. I think of him every day. I've also done a lot of thinking about what the Bible calls "eternal life". What is that, anyway? I'm not sure my father was a Christian. I think he believed that there is a God, but I don't know that he had any kind of personal relationship with God. My only concept of the hereafter comes from my years in Sunday School, where they taught that there's heaven (everybody sitting on clouds, playing harps) and hell (big huge fire that never stops). I can't picture my fathere (or anyone else I've known who has died) in either of those places. So what becomes of our souls after we leave this earth? Any thoughts?

My siblings put together some picture boards for the funeral. They were very nice, showing various aspects of Dad's life, as well as lots of his friends and family.

The music was phenomenal. Dad had a horn quartet. The three remaining members, along with the #1 sub decided to play. Word spread and soon there were 10 horn players, two of whom were also alphorn players that had played with Dad. So there was an alphorn duet and a "double" horn qurtet. The intonation and balance/blend would have made Dad proud. I hope that he was able to hear the music someohow. In addition to the horn music, I sang. I did The Lord's Prayer. It went well enough. On reviewing the video, I have lots of critiques of my performance that I won't burden you with. But I sang to God for Dad, and that's the best I could do under the circumstances.

The most wonderful thing about the funeral was that my mother, who divorced my father more than 40 years ago. But she was there for her children. I find that to be an incredible sacrifice. I only hope that I can be so strong and loving when the opportunity to make a sacrifice for my children arises.

My older sister, Terry, is the executor of the estate and is doing an excellent job of keeping things organized and moving. I would find it very difficult to have that job, but it seems to be helping her cope, so I guess Dad picked the right child for the job. My brother, Paul, has been helping Terry a lot. Paul lives about 3 miles from Dad's house. Terry lives about 3 hours away.

My daughter, Jeanie, went ot the funeral with me. It was nice to have her there for support. Of course, now she's really on Dennis and I to get our wills done and get a listing of all our assets so that when she's called on to take care of our estate(s) it will be realatively painless. She's right, of course. She's been asking us to do this for years, but now she's got some leverage. So we've done our wills. The hard part, listing all of our investments and bank accounts, has yet to be done.

In the past several years I've been to several funerals for members of Dennis's family, but this is the first one for my family. It was really hard. There were a lot of people there who shared wonderful memories of Dad. I'm glad that he touched so many people's lives in such positive ways.

I miss him. I wish I could have seen him one more time, knowing it would be the last time. I never got to say "goodbye." So this is it:

Bye, Dad. I love you!

Mid-Atlantic Flute Fair

It's been quite a weekend. As usual, I spent 95% of my time at the registration table.

I was very unprepared for this year's fair - even less prepared than last year. I had no badges printed, no registration forms printed, no instruction sheet for the volunteers. But we muddled through.

Being the perfectionist I am, I've gotten annoyed with several people - some on general principle and some personally.

In my lack of prepartion for the past 2 months I never sent out the mailing labels to the two vendors who paid for them. Someone else did it, so it wasn't a total disaster. But one of the vendors is a spoiled brat and he sent me a less than polite email asking for his labels at one point. When I arrived at the hotel to check on Friday night he was in line in front of me. He confirmed that I was who he thought I was and then asked, "Why?" Just that one word in a very snotty tone of voice. I got in his face and said, "because I was having some personal problems that kept me from taking care of a lot of things." He didn't even have the decency to be embarrassed about his rudeness.

But I got checked in, popped into my room to drop things off and headed to the annual board meeting. I did make one stop enroute to the meeting to buy a bottle of wine to go with dinner (no, I didn't drink the whole thing myself - I shared). After the meeting I went back to the bar for more wine.

Up Saturday morning at 6:00 in order to start setting up the registration table at 7. I had way more volunteers than I needed at 8:00, which was really nice. It was a very long morning, and when lunch finally arrived I was very famished. The afternoon went a little more quickly.

I went to dinner with Shirley, Barb, Kim, and Jim. After dinner I went back to my room and crashed. I got a really good night's sleep.

The Sunday morning breakfast was good and Bonita Boyd was very entertaining.

Then it was back to the registration table. It's been a very slow day today, thankfully. I managed to get someone to relieve me for an hour so I could go cruise the exhibit hall and get some chow.

It's 2:30 now and I'm going to shut down registration at 3:30, so I'm just about done.

We've been selling raffle tickets this weekend. One of the vendors donated a headjoint for us to raffle off in exchange for his exhibitor fees. We've sold over 500 tickets. As a member of the FSW board of directors, I'm not allowed to purchase any raffle tickets, or I'd be in for many dollars.

I guess I ought to do some database work and get some of these registrations entered.

Thanks for stopping by!

Lenten Journal - Day 4

I said that I was not going to post any of the text of the book I’m using for the guide to this journal. I’m going to have to make an exception to that. Today’s journal entry is in direct response to the “Journal Reflections” section of today’s text, so I’ll be posting that section, interspersed with my responses.

“Reflect on the work you do. Is it satisfying and meaningful? Is it work that reflects your values? Is it work that reflects your faith? Explain.”

I am a musician. I perform and teach. It is usually satisfying and meaningful, but, as with any job, it has its more mundane days. The work does reflect my values because I teach music as a part of a whole life. I teach my students how to use their musical gifts to do good things. I am very honest in my teaching. I am also loving and forgiving with my students. My teaching often reflects my faith. I frequently work on sacred music with my students and I work with them to understand what the music is saying to them and how they might best express that to their audience.

Most of my performances are for church worship services or weddings. I endeavor to make my music be a positive addition to the worship or sacrament. I don’t think I could do this without the strong faith I have. Likewise, because my faith is so important to me, I don’t think that I could give a mediocre performance in the context of worship.

My musical talents are a gift from God. Yes, I have put a lot of time and effort into improving my skills, but without His gift I wouldn’t have the basis to build upon. The New Testament mentions spiritual gifts in Eph. 4:11, Rom. 12:3-7, and 1 Cor. 12:1-12, 28. There appear to be nine gifts: Word of Wisdom, Word of Knowledge, Faith, Gifts of Healings, Working of Miracles, Prophecy, Discerning of Spirits, Different Kinds of Tongues, and Interpretation of Tongues. Although music is not listed as a spiritual gift, I believe it is one. It can be used to accompany many of the specifically listed gifts.

God calls us to return to him one tenth (10%) of all that he has given us. Therefore I always endeavor to provide my musical services to Him through singing and playing in my own church’s worship services, as well as other churches that would like to have me perform but do not have the budget. This tithing of my talents is a demonstration of how my work reflects my faith.

“In what ways does prayer support you in your work? In what ways does prayer help to shape your work and the way you do it?”

Prayer allows me to be more attuned to how God can use my in my work. It also helps me to let go of all the worries of the secular world and focus on worshiping when I perform.

“Besides the work you do for income, what other kinds of meaningful work do you do at home or in the community? How does prayer relate to that work?”

Other than my music, there’s not a lot that I do on a regular basis. My involvement as a member of the board of directors of the Flute Society of Washington provides me with occasional spurts of work. Sometimes these periods can be a real struggle to maintain a positive attitude. That’s where prayer comes in. God reminds me why I am doing this work and then I can be more enthusiastic about what I’m doing, thereby being more focused and thorough in the actual work.

Back when I had a day job as a computer security engineer for the federal government, my work was not satisfying in any way. In fact, I dreaded going to bed at night because that meant that the next thing that would happen would be that I would wake up and have to go to work again. I am very happy to be rid of that stress in my life. But my giving up my day job was not only a blessing to me, but a burden to my husband who now has to work many more years than planned before we can retire. I went from a $99,000 salary to an annual income of $15,000, with a net loss for the last three years. But that’s burden we have both agreed to carry. (Thanks, Dennis!)

Lenten Journal - Day 3

I must confess that mornings are not my favorite time of day. Sometimes I wake up somewhere between 4:30 and 6:30, but always go back to sleep. Then I wake up somewhere between 7:30 and 9:00. At that point I usually pick up my book and read for a while. That’s when the cats realize I’m awake and come up for morning snuggles. Sometimes the warmth and softness of their little bodies puts me back to sleep. When I finally get out of bed, I leisurely meander to the computer to check email and play the daily SET puzzle. Then I wander downstairs and find food. There ends the remotest semblance of routine. Sometimes I go back upstairs and get back on the internet. Sometimes I go back to bed and read some more. And sometimes I flop down in front of the boob tube. But whatever I do, it’s almost never productive.

I can’t remember the last time I started my day with prayer. I know I used to do it (although not every day) frequently, and I’m quite certain I quit doing it so I could get an extra few minutes sleep before I had to head out for that awful commute that preceded the day job. But since I quit the day job, I haven’t resumed my morning prayers. And Bonhoefer describes me to a T in today’s reading:

The wasted time we are ashamed of, the temptations we succumb to, the weakness and discouragement in our work, the disorder and lack of discipline in our thinking and in our dealings with other people – all these very frequently have their cause in our neglect of morning prayer.

I’m going to give it a try. For the next 10 days I will start my morning with prayer (probably while I enjoy the company of my feline family) and see if my days do become more productive as today’s readings suggest.

Today’s journal entry has been short, but that’s because the message was so clear and my response so obvious. No rambling thoughts here today.

Lenten Journal - Day 2

Whew!!!

First of all, a comment on yesterday’s journal entry. I’ve just today begun to read “The Dream of God” by Verna Dozier. In the first chapter she talks about how “God calls a people to be the new thing in the word – the people of God. The new dispensation, the ‘people of the Way,’ as the first Christians were called, has missed its high calling even as did the first dispensation, the people of the Torah.

This made me think back to yesterday’s journal entry where I talked about “following” Jesus. In the books, On page 15, Dozier says:

“Faith implies risk. I will cast my life on this possibility that God is for me. I do not have to have any proof except my commitment. I do not have to claim complete understanding – that is idolatry. The faith view of reality is frightening in its openness, and so institutions are always trying to control reality with dictums and laws and creeds.”

Dozier also talks about the difference between “following” and “worshiping” Jesus. As you may have ascertained from reading yesterday’s journal entry, I definitely belong to the worshiping group. I’m not much of a follower in my secular life, and I guess that has bled over into my spiritual life, unfortunately.

So on to today’s journal entry….

As a child in Sunday school, I learned that Philippians 4:6 meant that by not worrying about what I needed, but by praying for others, would my needs be fulfilled. This ties directly to the question about “why meditation on scripture, prayer, and intercession” are so important to the life of faith.. I think that by taking our minds off our own individual wants (and needs?) and focusing on God’s desires for us and the needs of others, we allow God to work in our lives without our interference.

As for “what obstacles might stand in the way of taking time alone daily for meditation on scripture, prayer, and intercession,” I must point to selfishness, greed, and priorities that do not match the desires of God.? “How might they be overcome?” Good question. By being less self-absorbed, more concerned with the whole of God’s creation than my little corner, and trusting that God will reward my concerns for the greater good for His creating by meeting my petty needs and desires.

To be totally honest with myself, I must admit that I have always read the scriptures as though they were meant for ”the church” as a body of people rather than for me, an individual. I’ll definitely have to give some though to the possibility of the scriptures as personal admonitions.

Today’s Psalm refers to God’s words as sweeter than honey to my mouth! Personally I have always found God’s words to be more scary than sweet. Having done an unpleasant 7+ years in the US Army, I’m not at all interested in taking up the proverbial sword and following the marching orders of the hymn, “On ward, Christian Soldiers.”

OK, so are my experiences of prayer and mediations satisfying to me? Do I give enough time to these activities? Quite simply, “No,” and “No.”

How could I find more time in my daily life for mediation, prayer, and intercession? That’s an easy answer, but not an easy fix. Less sleep, less TV, less reading, less eating; more scriptural reading, more prayer and meditation, and more time spent understanding the needs of others.

Today’s prayer encourages me to “draw closer to God’s word and let it be for me food for the journey.” That sounds like a good plan. As those who know me will attest, food is a driving force in my life. If I can focus more on spiritual food than physical, perhaps I can improve on both my spiritual and physical health.