Tuesday, August 26, 2014
Church Growth
There are about six organist positions open in my area. Each of the churches are desirous for their music program to be revitalized but don't know how to do it. Some of them are dividing up the positions because either they can't find one person who can do it all or, they don't know how to find that person or they're stuck in the past.
A good music program does not exist in a vacuum. Many calcified churches try to build a program where one can't be supported because if the base congregation is not necessarily healthy and vibrant, then the music program will not be able to grow. The health of a church is like those giant sand piles the DOT stockpiles for the winter. The height and strength of the whole is only as great as the base. In order to build a bigger and stronger pile, you must enlarge and stabilize the base, then you can add to the mass. The base of any church program is the life of the whole parish. A local well endowed church thought they could grow a vibrant music program by hiring the best music director and then hire professional singers to sing in the choir. They do have great music on Sunday but, the choir often outnumbers the congregation. The people of that church usually leave talking about the music and not the Gospel.
It is good that a parish have many diverse programs but, those programs will only promote growth if they are sinuously networked within the whole parish and community crossing lines of age, diversity, income, education, gender and taste. In order for growth to occur, there must also be a cross-pollination of everything, everyone and all their ideas. If one component is missing, a church will only grow so far, as large as its base, then it will settle, ceasing to grow.
Any time that a church finds that it has nice services, can care for its own members, pay its bills and has a favorable place in the community and is saving money, it runs the risk of losing momentum and can be lulled into a peaceful slumber of religious passivity. A symptom of this is any program within the church who may find they are not growing, doing the same thing each year or their membership is not excited about what it is doing and not growing.
The story of Joshua is a perfect example where the Israelites conquered enough land and stopped fighting. They became passive and failed to occupy the whole Promised Land and soon neighboring armies overran the country. In Joshua 13, God said to Joshua that there was much more land to be possessed but the Israelites settled down short of fulfilling their destiny. It takes more power to break inertia than it takes to continue momentum so, instead of daring imagination and challenging its leadership to break inert habits, the church often continues on a path of cautious stagnation or finds itself resting on its laurels. Although not immediately deadly, this is a symptom whose problem must be discovered.
Diversification and comprehensive programming is a sign of a healthy parish. God's solution to Joshua's failure was to diversify the tribe so that a broader base of lay leaders could be established. This divided the task among the common people. Church leaders need to diversify in the same way however strong and creative leadership is still needed and a good leader must first be a commander rather than a controller. When a church divides its assembly and each group does their own thing without cross-pollination, they run the strong risk of stunted growth. Everyone loves babies and may wish that their child could stay cute and small forever but, if a mom senses that her child is not growing, she would panic and rush him to the doctor. We should panic when our churches are not growing for that is a symptom of a greater problem.
Leadership from only the top will stifle growth and extinguish life no matter how good the leadership is at what they do. The reason church leadership is unwilling to open the door to unbridled creativity may be that they are afraid to do something new, don't wish to include other people or do not wish to upset their own power balance or be challenged. It is in giving that we receive and it is in delegation and cross-pollination that we grow.
Ask anyone in the peripheral community if they've heard of your church and they will most likely give you the physical location rather than the deeds and service to the community from the church membership, another symptom. I once offered weekly organ recitals for a whole year and someone asked me which church I belonged to and when I told them, they said, "Is that the church with the weekly organ recitals with the buses parked out front every Tuesday?" They identified the church by an activity or service to the community rather than the address. Nursing homes, parole shelters, homeless people, business owners, retirees, pastors from other churches and their choir members and choir directors were among those in attendance. Churches should not be museums but movements. They should not be part of the community but circuitously networked within the whole community. If the church is merely an address or a building, they are not a growing body, they are a location and most likely a social club for the existing elite membership.
The whole congregation should be on the offensive, not just a few committees and leaders. If a visitor came to your church, would they be greeted by several people or just a few? I lost a choir member to one such church. While visiting this church on a Sunday morning to witness an adult friend's baptism, she was greeted in the parking lot, she was greeted at the door, she was greeted at the pew and she was greeted at the coffee hour. She was impressed that the choir was a family choir and didn't consist of just adults or just kids. She was impressed at the variety of music, how personal the homily was and how it pertained to people in the pews and events in the community and was not just some philosophical or academic rambling by a learned cleric (*I* think this can only happen if a pastor gets out and meets his people during the week. After all, Jesus didn't keep office hours).
A church needs to make a list of priorities, what they want to change in the church and community, where their talents can be put to use, and then they need to train and commission the people of the congregation to go out and do it. The church needs to live in the future. As long as the task is undone, there is something to do and room for growth.
For a church or a program to grow, all boredom must be eliminated. There must be a sense of expectancy, excitement and challenge. If a choir, for instance, performs the same anthems year after year, the same hymn arrangements or sings at the same annual programs, they will become stale and stale is not attractive to new members for there is no challenge. There are new ways to do old programs and every group within a church must be heated to the boiling point for, energy begets energy. This is where a good leader comes into play, not just a person with a good resumé or a proven record of status quo.
Ultimately, the problem with most churches is they are too far removed from original apostolic Christianity. The true apostle is willing to put their pot over the flame and see what happens. The word apostle comes from the roots apó which means "from" and stéllo, which means "I send." A church choir, regardless how well they may sing on Sunday morning, if they are not "sent out," to do something the other six days of the week, they run the risk of growing complacent or worse - worshipers of music. A church may hire the a music director with the best resumé or the most skilled director but if that person doesn't know how to inspire people to "go out," nothing will return. Most likely, the people they attract will be there for the wrong reasons. A CEO friend of mine told me once that when business is good, that is when you save. When business is poor, that is when you spend and pull out all the stops (partially because your competition won't be).
Many programs, especially music programs, which are more concerned with performance values than with true service can do more to hide Christ from the church than any irreverent action. A failed event can be forgiven and learned from, but a long term quality program of inertia can cause atrophy which will insidiously trickle down over time because it is only a symptom of a greater problem. A problem most churches will only replace with the same problem when hiring new people.
When the Israelites marched around Jericho blowing their horns, the battle was already won because they gave off an image of winning. Success and growth always comes from those who are unorthodox and are dreamers who dare to break with tradition and trust in God's unique ways of cross pollination and comprehensiveness. The question should not be "How can we make our church grow?" but, "What is holding us back from growing?"
When the Israelites came upon the city of Kadesh. They sent spies into the city who then reported back that the city could not be taken because there were giants living there. So, the Israelites did not have the courage to take Kadesh. A generation later, the Israelites forgot about the giants and took the city with no difficulty because the giants turned out be peaceful farmers and were easily defeated. A church that recoils at challenges or fails to hire the right people will retreat into the wilderness of comfort, safety and ultimately stagnation. They will then wander aimlessly until or unless they are replaced by another generation of people who don't know what they can't do or, hires someone who possess the vision to do something different.
The task of the church is to worship God and teach doctrine, not be a performance venue or social club. If someone in the back of the church yells out "Praise the Lord!" and everyone turns around to see who said it, your church has failed. In many of our churches, applause has become the norm because it is safe from people turning around to see who is doing it. It is sad when we are more comfortable clapping our hands rather than shouting "AMEN."
So once again, how does a church become creative to the point of producing growth and boiling over? They need to take two or more unconnected ideas and put them together to create something new. They need to create an atmosphere of creative combustion. This comes from marshaling people who have unique, different, daring and creative insights and giving them permission to dream. I've witnessed many organist search committees who commission their most academic musicians in the choir to conduct the search for a new music director. The problem is those people look for other academic musicians who will promote what they like or are like them rather than find someone with vision. A cantor friend is on one such committee and finding someone who will promote the current cantor ministry is more important to her than finding someone with vision.
Many people are capable of genius but are never allowed to explore their creativity. Instead, churches operate through groups and committees where great ideas are often stifled, shot down, altered and dumbed down by crowd consciousness or fear. Everyone is limited to their own experience and vision, especially groups. This is because we don't know what we don't know. When coupled with other creative and daring thinkers, a group can do unimaginable tasks. Many of our greatest achievements in medicine and science were the result of accidents or in the search for something else. We must embrace those mistakes and cross pollinate them with other mistakes to create something new which may work wonders.
A great example of this is Frank Abagnale, the world's most notorious check forger and imposter. He was able to assume the identity of a doctor, lawyer and airline pilot. Today, after serving time, he is a highly sought after consultant and is regularly hired by the Federal Government. His life inspired the movie "Catch Me If You Can."
When the disciples were fishing all day and were not catching anything, Jesus said, "Cast your nets on the other side." That is the problem with the church, they are stuck doing the same thing and are either afraid to change and risk growth or they lack creativity and daring to try new things. This is often because of uninspired and non-creative leadership which we replace with uninspired, non-creative leadership.
How and why we do what we do makes a difference, too. If a church musician stands before their congregations and thinks, "You are here, let me sing to you." rather than, "You are here, how may I minister to you?" prepare for a slow downward spiral. In thinking about the theater model, the choir are not the performers, the clergy are not the prompters and the congregation is not the audience. In reality, the choir and clergy are the prompters, the congregation are the actors and God is the audience. It may behoove us to redefine our roles.
Sunday, August 24, 2014
Saving Money
“I am the happiest man alive. I have that in me that can convert
poverty to riches, adversity to prosperity, and I am more invulnerable
than Achilles; Fortune hath not one place to hit me.”
― Thomas Browne.
When I volunteered answering the phone for 211, if there was someone that I couldn't provide referrals to or, they exhausted their service options in their particular community, I would brainstorm with them trying to find ways they could save money. If they could save money from one area of their budget and expenses, they could then divert funds to other more important areas of their budget. Many people are not willing to give anything up, however. Some people, for instance, would rather spend $70 or $150 per week on cigarettes rather than pay their heating bill. That's another problem altogether. Here are some tips to save money:
In the winter, turn your thermostat down. If you are home during the day, 60 - 65 degrees can be very comfortable, especially if you wear two or three layers and there are no children, elderly or sick people in your house. If you absolutely need or want to be warmer, so be it. But, turn the thermostat down when you are gone for the day or when you sleep at night. I turn my thermostat down to 55 when I go to bed because I like sleeping in a cool room. I have several layers of blankets on top of me and I often wake up sweating and I find myself peeling off a layer or two. I know someone who keeps his heat set at 75 degrees day and night, whether he is home or not. He is always complaining about his heating bill. At night, it is often too warm for him to sleep so he has a fan pointed at his bed to keep him cool. Who does he blame for his high utility bills? The utility company and the economy. Instead of heating wisely, he puts in for overtime at work.
Make sure your windows are not ciphering heat to the outside. If you can't afford to replace your windows, get some window plastic from any hardware store and seal them yourself. If there are rooms you don't use during the day or even rarely, such as a spare bedroom, turn off the heat or close the vents and doors to those rooms. I keep my bedroom door closed during the day and open it at night when I go to bed. There is no need to heat a room if you are not using it. There are grants to assist homeowners to winterize their homes if they qualify. Call 211 to find out about them or if they exist in your community.
Based upon your income and expenses, you may qualify for HEAP. This is a government subsidized program to assist people in paying their heating bill in the winter. The amount they may offer you varies from county and/or state. Qualification depends on a multiple of factors. I'm sure a brief internet search for HEAP and your state will provide all the details you need.
Buying clothing, shoes, accessories, some electronics and other merchandise from Ebay and China can save you a lot of money. Many of those vendors don't charge for shipping or tax and, their prices tend to be lower than what you will find in your local US store to begin with. Many venders from China sell on Ebay or Aliexpress. Just make sure the vender you buy from has a good rating and has a strong history of sales and satisfied customers. My brand name laptop is priced at $800 in my local electronics superstore, I acquired it for $300 online. You can find many brand name products online for less money but keep in mind if it is too good to be true, it just might be. Be a wise consumer and do your research.
Don't eat out. It is less expensive and healthier for you to buy and cook your own food. Also, shop at some of the discount markets and buy store brands. There is a discount market near me which has great produce. Their milk is priced at $2.37 a gallon while at the brand store it is $3.99 a gallon. This little market is actually an overstock store for a major supermarket so you are getting the same quality at less the price.
Would you be willing to pay $16 for a two liter bottle of soda? Of course not. But when you pay $2 for a glass of soda or a bottle or water at a restaurant, that is what you are paying. Don't buy drinks at restaurants. If you shop around for sales, you can get brand name soda for as little as eighty eight cents for two liters. Ninety nine cents most of the time. Would you pay $50 for a salad? Of course not, but, you can buy six heads of Romaine lettuce for under $2.50 and make about 15 or 20 salads out of it. Don't eat out or at fast food joints, either. It is not cost effective.
The same principle goes for coffee. For under ten bucks you can buy a can of coffee and make your own before you leave for work. A few pounds can yield about 250 cups. That will cost you over $500 at your local drive through coffee house. Would you pay $500 for a can of coffee grounds?
Cancel your garbage pick up. If you bag your trash on a daily basis, crush the cans and shred the paper, well packed trash takes up very little space and you can deposit small portions of it in garbage cans found everywhere such as gas stations, markets, work, school, etcetera. Burning is not allowed in most jurisdictions but safely lighting up your daily paper waste each day is not like igniting a raging fire once a week. I have a smoker and use my paper waste to start my fires. I also go for walks and collect small chunks of wood for smoking, saving on the cost for propane.
Another key factor here is to minimize the trash you bring into the house. Cancel junk mail and catalogs you don't use. Don't bring paper waste into the house in the first place. Another option is to talk to your neighbor. If they pay for trash pick up, maybe you can make a deal to share the service and split the bill?
Free internet is everywhere. If you need to be connected 24 hours per day, can you wirelessly connect with a neighbor and split the bill?
What about "cutting the cable" and eliminate cable TV? Do you need all those channels? Do you find yourself watching the major networks which are actually free to begin with? Why would you pay for something that is free? If you have a newer TV (since 2008), you don't need a converter box and can probably pick up the major stations with just an antenna and then you can eliminate your cable bill. Many of your favorite shows are available for free online the next day anyway and you can watch them at your leisure.
Ultimately you would be better off if you didn't have television at all. Calculate how many hours you spend per day or week watching TV. Now imagine what you could accomplish with that time if it were spent pursuing a hobby, exercising, with your children, with friends, sitting on the stoop with neighbors, reading or cleaning the house. Buddha once said that in order to find enlightenment, one must chop wood and carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood and carry water. You won't find much enlightenment watching TV.
When closing accounts to your cable or trash pick-up, make sure you have your very first bill. There are many companies who when you open an account, will charge you in advance for the first month. Say for instance that I open a cable account on January 1. They will charge me for the first month and around the middle or end of the month I will get a bill for February. At the end of February I will get a bill for March. After several years of service, one may forget that they are paying in advance of receiving the service. Unless your bill states the pay period, as most do, you may forget about your advancement and the company may trick you into paying for the current month when you close the account. Let's say halfway through the month of April you decide to cancel your account and forgot that your March payment WAS for April but the company may say that since fifteen days have elapsed into the month, you owe them for the fifteen days of service. Knowing the day you opened the account and that you paid in advance might save you from overpaying and giving the company additional money. The company can get around this by changing your due date at some point, "for administrative purposes." This tactic can complicate your argument should you challenge them on it. That is why you should at least keep the first bill and any bills relating to changes in your account due dates and pay periods.
If times are really tough, there are a couple of free cell phones offered by the government. Assurance Wireless is one. You don't get many minutes, about 300 per month but, the phone is completely free. If you qualify for HEAP and several other government offerings, you would qualify for this. It is perfect to help get you through the tough times or eliminate an unnecessary bill. If you have internet access, Google offers a free "voice over internet phone (VOIP). All you need is a Gmail account and then sign up for the free phone. You'll get your own number and it is completely free. It is not the same as a cell phone but you will save a lot of money each month, money you could spend on heat or food. It is best to not allow yourself to lapse into a downward spiral of debt in the first place. I was raised - If you don't have the cash, you can't have it.
If you are truly poor, you have probably been in contact with the Department of Social Services and already know what you qualify for regarding health care but keep in mind that many hospitals offer charity care programs. Call your local hospital and ask if they provide that service. Hospitals are businesses and they are discovering that it is less expensive for them to prevent illness than it is for an uninsured person to come in when the illness becomes chronic or worse and the uninsured person can't pay the hospital for expensive treatments and service.
Finally, call 211 and ask them for assistance in finding organizations who may help you with paying your specific bills. 211 ONLY makes referrals and many of the organizations they refer you to may be tapped out already, but, it doesn't hurt to ask.
Something else to keep in mind when calling 211, be patient as some of the call specialists may have to ask you personal questions which you may be embarrassed to answer or don't think are relevant, but, they are. For instance, say you need assistance paying for your dog's vet bill. You may be ashamed, insulted or think it irrelevant to be asked if you or anyone in your household has HIV but there are organizations who will pay your vet bill but only if you are afflicted with that particular disease. The same thing is true for military veterans, or if one is living in your household. Other stipulations may include income, age, gender, sexual orientation or race. You may not think that is relevant but to the organization offering the free service, they do. Some organizations will only assist you with your utility bills if you have children or elderly people in your household. Others, only if you don't. Be patient, answer the questions and let the database do the work of filtering out the services you may qualify for. You don't want 211 to refer you to a company only to find out that they won't help you because you didn't answer the questions up front.
Ultimately, if you can't pay your bills and getting more work is not an option, you have to cut back someplace - unlike schools and town governments which don't cut back - they just raise your taxes. If you don't go to town or school board meetings and speak up about their wasteful spending and budget management, don't blame them if your taxes go up. Not to act is to act.
Speaking of which, if you are having financial difficulty, write your elected officials. Of course they won't do anything for you but, they need to know the difficulty their constituents may be having. If you have a Catholic education and don't know how to contact your elected officials, go to this website: whoismyrepresentative.com - then type in your zip code to find out who you may or may not have voted for. Then contact them and let them know how they are doing and how you are doing. If your elected official doesn't know you are having a problem, then there is no problem, right? We don't truly live in a democracy if the silent majorly remains silent. Then the people who do speak up get to make the rules you then live by.
If I had my druthers, I'd make it so that nobody earned more than $30,000 per year, we all had a stay at home parent and for the working parent, more time was spent with family than at work. Our lives are backward. Instead of spending the best part of our day with our employers and our most exhausted time with those whom we love, we should reverse that. We could all learn from having less. Buddhist philosophy suggests that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, it is gratefulness which makes us happy. It is hard to be grateful when you have everything and in order to obtain everything, you have to give up everything.
― Thomas Browne.
When I volunteered answering the phone for 211, if there was someone that I couldn't provide referrals to or, they exhausted their service options in their particular community, I would brainstorm with them trying to find ways they could save money. If they could save money from one area of their budget and expenses, they could then divert funds to other more important areas of their budget. Many people are not willing to give anything up, however. Some people, for instance, would rather spend $70 or $150 per week on cigarettes rather than pay their heating bill. That's another problem altogether. Here are some tips to save money:
In the winter, turn your thermostat down. If you are home during the day, 60 - 65 degrees can be very comfortable, especially if you wear two or three layers and there are no children, elderly or sick people in your house. If you absolutely need or want to be warmer, so be it. But, turn the thermostat down when you are gone for the day or when you sleep at night. I turn my thermostat down to 55 when I go to bed because I like sleeping in a cool room. I have several layers of blankets on top of me and I often wake up sweating and I find myself peeling off a layer or two. I know someone who keeps his heat set at 75 degrees day and night, whether he is home or not. He is always complaining about his heating bill. At night, it is often too warm for him to sleep so he has a fan pointed at his bed to keep him cool. Who does he blame for his high utility bills? The utility company and the economy. Instead of heating wisely, he puts in for overtime at work.
Make sure your windows are not ciphering heat to the outside. If you can't afford to replace your windows, get some window plastic from any hardware store and seal them yourself. If there are rooms you don't use during the day or even rarely, such as a spare bedroom, turn off the heat or close the vents and doors to those rooms. I keep my bedroom door closed during the day and open it at night when I go to bed. There is no need to heat a room if you are not using it. There are grants to assist homeowners to winterize their homes if they qualify. Call 211 to find out about them or if they exist in your community.
Based upon your income and expenses, you may qualify for HEAP. This is a government subsidized program to assist people in paying their heating bill in the winter. The amount they may offer you varies from county and/or state. Qualification depends on a multiple of factors. I'm sure a brief internet search for HEAP and your state will provide all the details you need.
Buying clothing, shoes, accessories, some electronics and other merchandise from Ebay and China can save you a lot of money. Many of those vendors don't charge for shipping or tax and, their prices tend to be lower than what you will find in your local US store to begin with. Many venders from China sell on Ebay or Aliexpress. Just make sure the vender you buy from has a good rating and has a strong history of sales and satisfied customers. My brand name laptop is priced at $800 in my local electronics superstore, I acquired it for $300 online. You can find many brand name products online for less money but keep in mind if it is too good to be true, it just might be. Be a wise consumer and do your research.
Don't eat out. It is less expensive and healthier for you to buy and cook your own food. Also, shop at some of the discount markets and buy store brands. There is a discount market near me which has great produce. Their milk is priced at $2.37 a gallon while at the brand store it is $3.99 a gallon. This little market is actually an overstock store for a major supermarket so you are getting the same quality at less the price.
Would you be willing to pay $16 for a two liter bottle of soda? Of course not. But when you pay $2 for a glass of soda or a bottle or water at a restaurant, that is what you are paying. Don't buy drinks at restaurants. If you shop around for sales, you can get brand name soda for as little as eighty eight cents for two liters. Ninety nine cents most of the time. Would you pay $50 for a salad? Of course not, but, you can buy six heads of Romaine lettuce for under $2.50 and make about 15 or 20 salads out of it. Don't eat out or at fast food joints, either. It is not cost effective.
The same principle goes for coffee. For under ten bucks you can buy a can of coffee and make your own before you leave for work. A few pounds can yield about 250 cups. That will cost you over $500 at your local drive through coffee house. Would you pay $500 for a can of coffee grounds?
Cancel your garbage pick up. If you bag your trash on a daily basis, crush the cans and shred the paper, well packed trash takes up very little space and you can deposit small portions of it in garbage cans found everywhere such as gas stations, markets, work, school, etcetera. Burning is not allowed in most jurisdictions but safely lighting up your daily paper waste each day is not like igniting a raging fire once a week. I have a smoker and use my paper waste to start my fires. I also go for walks and collect small chunks of wood for smoking, saving on the cost for propane.
Another key factor here is to minimize the trash you bring into the house. Cancel junk mail and catalogs you don't use. Don't bring paper waste into the house in the first place. Another option is to talk to your neighbor. If they pay for trash pick up, maybe you can make a deal to share the service and split the bill?
Free internet is everywhere. If you need to be connected 24 hours per day, can you wirelessly connect with a neighbor and split the bill?
What about "cutting the cable" and eliminate cable TV? Do you need all those channels? Do you find yourself watching the major networks which are actually free to begin with? Why would you pay for something that is free? If you have a newer TV (since 2008), you don't need a converter box and can probably pick up the major stations with just an antenna and then you can eliminate your cable bill. Many of your favorite shows are available for free online the next day anyway and you can watch them at your leisure.
Ultimately you would be better off if you didn't have television at all. Calculate how many hours you spend per day or week watching TV. Now imagine what you could accomplish with that time if it were spent pursuing a hobby, exercising, with your children, with friends, sitting on the stoop with neighbors, reading or cleaning the house. Buddha once said that in order to find enlightenment, one must chop wood and carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood and carry water. You won't find much enlightenment watching TV.
When closing accounts to your cable or trash pick-up, make sure you have your very first bill. There are many companies who when you open an account, will charge you in advance for the first month. Say for instance that I open a cable account on January 1. They will charge me for the first month and around the middle or end of the month I will get a bill for February. At the end of February I will get a bill for March. After several years of service, one may forget that they are paying in advance of receiving the service. Unless your bill states the pay period, as most do, you may forget about your advancement and the company may trick you into paying for the current month when you close the account. Let's say halfway through the month of April you decide to cancel your account and forgot that your March payment WAS for April but the company may say that since fifteen days have elapsed into the month, you owe them for the fifteen days of service. Knowing the day you opened the account and that you paid in advance might save you from overpaying and giving the company additional money. The company can get around this by changing your due date at some point, "for administrative purposes." This tactic can complicate your argument should you challenge them on it. That is why you should at least keep the first bill and any bills relating to changes in your account due dates and pay periods.
If times are really tough, there are a couple of free cell phones offered by the government. Assurance Wireless is one. You don't get many minutes, about 300 per month but, the phone is completely free. If you qualify for HEAP and several other government offerings, you would qualify for this. It is perfect to help get you through the tough times or eliminate an unnecessary bill. If you have internet access, Google offers a free "voice over internet phone (VOIP). All you need is a Gmail account and then sign up for the free phone. You'll get your own number and it is completely free. It is not the same as a cell phone but you will save a lot of money each month, money you could spend on heat or food. It is best to not allow yourself to lapse into a downward spiral of debt in the first place. I was raised - If you don't have the cash, you can't have it.
If you are truly poor, you have probably been in contact with the Department of Social Services and already know what you qualify for regarding health care but keep in mind that many hospitals offer charity care programs. Call your local hospital and ask if they provide that service. Hospitals are businesses and they are discovering that it is less expensive for them to prevent illness than it is for an uninsured person to come in when the illness becomes chronic or worse and the uninsured person can't pay the hospital for expensive treatments and service.
Finally, call 211 and ask them for assistance in finding organizations who may help you with paying your specific bills. 211 ONLY makes referrals and many of the organizations they refer you to may be tapped out already, but, it doesn't hurt to ask.
Something else to keep in mind when calling 211, be patient as some of the call specialists may have to ask you personal questions which you may be embarrassed to answer or don't think are relevant, but, they are. For instance, say you need assistance paying for your dog's vet bill. You may be ashamed, insulted or think it irrelevant to be asked if you or anyone in your household has HIV but there are organizations who will pay your vet bill but only if you are afflicted with that particular disease. The same thing is true for military veterans, or if one is living in your household. Other stipulations may include income, age, gender, sexual orientation or race. You may not think that is relevant but to the organization offering the free service, they do. Some organizations will only assist you with your utility bills if you have children or elderly people in your household. Others, only if you don't. Be patient, answer the questions and let the database do the work of filtering out the services you may qualify for. You don't want 211 to refer you to a company only to find out that they won't help you because you didn't answer the questions up front.
Ultimately, if you can't pay your bills and getting more work is not an option, you have to cut back someplace - unlike schools and town governments which don't cut back - they just raise your taxes. If you don't go to town or school board meetings and speak up about their wasteful spending and budget management, don't blame them if your taxes go up. Not to act is to act.
Speaking of which, if you are having financial difficulty, write your elected officials. Of course they won't do anything for you but, they need to know the difficulty their constituents may be having. If you have a Catholic education and don't know how to contact your elected officials, go to this website: whoismyrepresentative.com - then type in your zip code to find out who you may or may not have voted for. Then contact them and let them know how they are doing and how you are doing. If your elected official doesn't know you are having a problem, then there is no problem, right? We don't truly live in a democracy if the silent majorly remains silent. Then the people who do speak up get to make the rules you then live by.
If I had my druthers, I'd make it so that nobody earned more than $30,000 per year, we all had a stay at home parent and for the working parent, more time was spent with family than at work. Our lives are backward. Instead of spending the best part of our day with our employers and our most exhausted time with those whom we love, we should reverse that. We could all learn from having less. Buddhist philosophy suggests that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, it is gratefulness which makes us happy. It is hard to be grateful when you have everything and in order to obtain everything, you have to give up everything.
Tuesday, August 19, 2014
Nursery Rhymes for Organ
I recently finished a collection of Nursery Rhymes arranged for the organ. To hear the complete collection, they are compiled here.
http://youtu.be/h572RzNMPX4
To purchase the sheet music, go here:
http://www.musicaneo.com/sheetmusic/sm-206860_nursery_rhymes_for_organ.html
The selections are as follows:
B.I.N.G.O.
Ten Little Indians
This Old Man
Did You Ever See A Lassie
London Bridge is Falling Down
Mary Had a Little Lamb
Itsy Bitsy Spider
Old MacDonald
Pop Goes The Weasel
Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
Wednesday, August 13, 2014
Thoughts on: If They Gunned Me Down
The moral worth of the society is not measured by the life in a palace but by the life in the streets. To know the all powerful God, one must know the powerless.
For those without Twitter, the hashtag #IfTheyGunnedMeDown is spreading around the world. Users are posting divergent images of themselves and asking which image the media would use in the event that they were killed. The media always uses the worst picture they can find of someone to make them out to be a bad person not a picture of all the good they may have done in their life.
So, I ask these questions;
Is someone defined by the worse thing they've ever done?
Does a good person change because we know more about them?
Does everyone deserve a second chance?
Can you climb a smooth mountain?
Are our struggles the foundation of our identity?
Does oppression breed the power to oppose it?
There are always people who wish to deny us our humanity but if we tell our stories, will there be someone who wishes to restore it?
Is it fair to abandon someone who has spent a life doing good but they make one mistake?
Van Gogh was a patient in a mental hospital. Temporal Lobe Epilepsy allowed St. Paul to hear the voice of God. Hemmingway, Sylvia Plath, Billie Holiday, Charles Dickens, Herman Melville, Lord Byron, Oscar Wilde, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Edgar Allan Poe, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Emily Elizabeth Dickinson, Dylan Marlais Thomas, just a few of the great minds who suffered from madness. Should they have been medicated into mediocrity?"
A woman was raped as a teen and became pregnant because of it. It changed her career path and affected every relationship she ever had since. At the age of fifty, someone asked her if she hates her rapist. She said she did once but now she pities him for, she now has a beautiful daughter and two beautiful grandchildren and he doesn't know them.
All the images in this video show people who may not have made good choices in their youth, but, look at the choices they made as they matured. Desmond Tutu once said that we may be surprised at the people we find in heaven. God has a soft spot for sinners. His standards are quite low. In a world gone mad with mistrust and alienation, the church (like never before) must present faith as a dynamic and relevant force for change.
Isaiah 58:9 if you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk and if you spend yourself in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed then your light will arise in the darkness and your night will become like the noon day.
In the Babemba tribe of South Africa, when a person acts irresponsibly or unjustly, he is placed in the center of the village, alone and unfettered. All work ceases, and every man, woman, and child in the village gathers in a large circle around the accused individual. Then each person in the tribe speaks to the accused, one at a time, each recalling the good things the person in the center of the circle has done in his lifetime. Every incident, every experience that can be recalled with any detail and accuracy, is recounted. All his positive attributes, good deeds, strengths, and kindnesses are recited carefully and at length. This tribal ceremony often lasts for several days. At the end, the tribal circle is broken, a joyous celebration takes place, and the person is welcomed back into the tribe.
Tuesday, August 12, 2014
Have You Been Thinking About Suicide Today?
The whole world is in pain over the completed suicide of Robin
Williams. Robin was very sick and despite reaching out for help
countless times, he wasn't able to find the help he needed. I'd like to
talk about suicide and some thoughts about it.
Have you ever been dumped by someone and found solace in a torchy break-up song? Breaking up with someone can hurt so much that you think no one else could possibly understand how you feel. But break-up songs understand, they feel your pain, they say exactly what you are thinking and feeling, they don't say the wrong things and they comfort you because they resonate with you.
In Dusty Springfield's song "You Don't Have To Say You Love Me" she desperately sings;
Don't you see that now you've gone
And I'm left here on my own
And that I have to follow you
And beg you to come home
You don't have to say you love me
Just be close at hand
You don't have to stay forever
I will understand
Phil Collins sings in "Take A Look At Me Now;"
So take a look at me now, oh there's just an empty space
And there's nothing left here to remind me,
just the memory of your face
Ooh take a look at me now, well there's just an empty space
And you coming back to me is against all odds and that's what I've got to face
I wish I could just make you turn around,
turn around and see me cry
There's so much I need to say to you,
so many reasons why
You're the only one who really knew me at all
Who hasn't felt those feelings over a love lost? If we have, how many of us have found a comfort in those songs and listened to them over and over simply because they explored our feelings?
Henri Nouwen once said, "The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing... not healing, not curing... that is a friend who cares."
When someone is thinking about suicide, chances are they want to talk about it, about their feelings, about their pain. They just don't know how to start the conversation and most certainly, many of us don't know how to, either. It is very easy to say the wrong thing and many people do.
Every fifteen minutes, someone in this country completes suicide. Many have given warning signals and have even reached out for help but all too often the people they reached out to may not have been listening. It's not their fault, they just don't know how to listen or are uncomfortable with the topic.
We should never be afraid to talk about suicide because the person thinking about it isn't and we need to engage them and encourage them to talk. Getting them to talk means listening to them. Re-read the Henri Nouwen quote. That is how you listen, by not talking.
For example, if someone is depressed because they lost their job, here are some things NOT to say: You'll find another one; I lost a job once; You're better off not working for them; I know someone who is hiring; I'm sorry; Get over it; I know exactly how you feel; it's only a job; You'll be able to collect unemployment now; How dare they, you should write them a nasty letter; What did you do wrong?
Instead, with careful listening, like a good torch song, you should steer them into their pain where they can explore that pain. You can achieve this by asking questions. These questions will get them to talk about their pain and like a good torch song, help them to understand their own feelings and heal.
So someone tells us that they lost their job. You can ask, "How have you been dealing with that?" An open ended question such as that will get them to talk further about how they are feeling. Again talking about their issue is for them, not you. They may pause and the silence may be uncomfortable for many of us but resist the urge to fill the uncomfortable silence. Re-read Henri Nouwen's quote. In that silence, they may be thinking and feeling and working through how they are feeling and your discomfort and urge to fill in the silence could destroy all that. Be patient and silent and present.
If they are not responding, here are some other questions you may ask:
What is most difficult about losing your job?
Tell me what happened.
Tell me more about that.
What is it you want from your job?
How do you feel about what happened?
Do you feel comfortable talking to me about this?
Have you told anyone about how you are feeling?
What do you think you can do?
What may stand in your way?
These kinds of questions establish rapport and define the problem. Your job is to guide them or steer them into the pain. If you can't find a question to ask, there are statements you can make which may spur their thoughts and conversation:
Say more about what happened.
It sounds like you are going through a difficult time.
I can see why you feel that way.
Take your time, I'm here to listen and support you.
After exploring feelings, don't be afraid to ask the suicide question. If they are not thinking about suicide, there is no harm done. If they are, chances are they will be willing to talk about it. This is very important because if they are willing to talk about it, it is because they are ambivalent and your talk, honesty and presence can actually save their life.
Go ahead and ask questions like:
Have you been thinking about suicide?
Do you have a plan?
Do you know how you would do it?
Do you have the means to act on your plan?
Do you have a time set for doing this?
If they answer "yes" to any of those questions, help is critical. If you can get them to give you or lock away the means (drugs, gun, knife, rope) that is what is called a protective factor. The point is to get them through the moment. If you can get them to live another day, tomorrow they may feel different.
While answering a local suicide hotline, I discerned that the caller was safe for the night because she locked her gun in a box and put it in the basement. I made her promise to call me tomorrow to let me know how she was doing. She did. She told me the only reason she didn't go back down into the basement to retrieve her gun and kill herself was because she promised to call me back the next day and she wanted to keep that promise. At the very least, I got her through the moment and to live another day. While speaking with her the next day she made a comment to her cat which jumped on her lap. I asked her what would happen to her cat if she were not around anymore and she paused for a moment and said, "I don't know. I could never leave my cat alone." The cat was another protective factor. A very powerful one. She had a reason to live.
Before leaving someone, we need to make sure they will be safe. We can achieve this by exploring their protective factors and distracting activities. Getting someone to prepare a meal, go shopping, take their dog for a walk, cuddle with their cat, take a shower, take a nap, draw, write, watch TV or exercise, we are giving them a plan which can be enough to get them through the day.
"The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing... not healing, not curing... that is a friend who cares."
-Henri Nouwen.
Have you ever been dumped by someone and found solace in a torchy break-up song? Breaking up with someone can hurt so much that you think no one else could possibly understand how you feel. But break-up songs understand, they feel your pain, they say exactly what you are thinking and feeling, they don't say the wrong things and they comfort you because they resonate with you.
In Dusty Springfield's song "You Don't Have To Say You Love Me" she desperately sings;
Don't you see that now you've gone
And I'm left here on my own
And that I have to follow you
And beg you to come home
You don't have to say you love me
Just be close at hand
You don't have to stay forever
I will understand
Phil Collins sings in "Take A Look At Me Now;"
So take a look at me now, oh there's just an empty space
And there's nothing left here to remind me,
just the memory of your face
Ooh take a look at me now, well there's just an empty space
And you coming back to me is against all odds and that's what I've got to face
I wish I could just make you turn around,
turn around and see me cry
There's so much I need to say to you,
so many reasons why
You're the only one who really knew me at all
Who hasn't felt those feelings over a love lost? If we have, how many of us have found a comfort in those songs and listened to them over and over simply because they explored our feelings?
Henri Nouwen once said, "The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing... not healing, not curing... that is a friend who cares."
When someone is thinking about suicide, chances are they want to talk about it, about their feelings, about their pain. They just don't know how to start the conversation and most certainly, many of us don't know how to, either. It is very easy to say the wrong thing and many people do.
Every fifteen minutes, someone in this country completes suicide. Many have given warning signals and have even reached out for help but all too often the people they reached out to may not have been listening. It's not their fault, they just don't know how to listen or are uncomfortable with the topic.
We should never be afraid to talk about suicide because the person thinking about it isn't and we need to engage them and encourage them to talk. Getting them to talk means listening to them. Re-read the Henri Nouwen quote. That is how you listen, by not talking.
For example, if someone is depressed because they lost their job, here are some things NOT to say: You'll find another one; I lost a job once; You're better off not working for them; I know someone who is hiring; I'm sorry; Get over it; I know exactly how you feel; it's only a job; You'll be able to collect unemployment now; How dare they, you should write them a nasty letter; What did you do wrong?
Instead, with careful listening, like a good torch song, you should steer them into their pain where they can explore that pain. You can achieve this by asking questions. These questions will get them to talk about their pain and like a good torch song, help them to understand their own feelings and heal.
So someone tells us that they lost their job. You can ask, "How have you been dealing with that?" An open ended question such as that will get them to talk further about how they are feeling. Again talking about their issue is for them, not you. They may pause and the silence may be uncomfortable for many of us but resist the urge to fill the uncomfortable silence. Re-read Henri Nouwen's quote. In that silence, they may be thinking and feeling and working through how they are feeling and your discomfort and urge to fill in the silence could destroy all that. Be patient and silent and present.
If they are not responding, here are some other questions you may ask:
What is most difficult about losing your job?
Tell me what happened.
Tell me more about that.
What is it you want from your job?
How do you feel about what happened?
Do you feel comfortable talking to me about this?
Have you told anyone about how you are feeling?
What do you think you can do?
What may stand in your way?
These kinds of questions establish rapport and define the problem. Your job is to guide them or steer them into the pain. If you can't find a question to ask, there are statements you can make which may spur their thoughts and conversation:
Say more about what happened.
It sounds like you are going through a difficult time.
I can see why you feel that way.
Take your time, I'm here to listen and support you.
After exploring feelings, don't be afraid to ask the suicide question. If they are not thinking about suicide, there is no harm done. If they are, chances are they will be willing to talk about it. This is very important because if they are willing to talk about it, it is because they are ambivalent and your talk, honesty and presence can actually save their life.
Go ahead and ask questions like:
Have you been thinking about suicide?
Do you have a plan?
Do you know how you would do it?
Do you have the means to act on your plan?
Do you have a time set for doing this?
If they answer "yes" to any of those questions, help is critical. If you can get them to give you or lock away the means (drugs, gun, knife, rope) that is what is called a protective factor. The point is to get them through the moment. If you can get them to live another day, tomorrow they may feel different.
While answering a local suicide hotline, I discerned that the caller was safe for the night because she locked her gun in a box and put it in the basement. I made her promise to call me tomorrow to let me know how she was doing. She did. She told me the only reason she didn't go back down into the basement to retrieve her gun and kill herself was because she promised to call me back the next day and she wanted to keep that promise. At the very least, I got her through the moment and to live another day. While speaking with her the next day she made a comment to her cat which jumped on her lap. I asked her what would happen to her cat if she were not around anymore and she paused for a moment and said, "I don't know. I could never leave my cat alone." The cat was another protective factor. A very powerful one. She had a reason to live.
Before leaving someone, we need to make sure they will be safe. We can achieve this by exploring their protective factors and distracting activities. Getting someone to prepare a meal, go shopping, take their dog for a walk, cuddle with their cat, take a shower, take a nap, draw, write, watch TV or exercise, we are giving them a plan which can be enough to get them through the day.
"The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing... not healing, not curing... that is a friend who cares."
-Henri Nouwen.
Monday, August 11, 2014
Facebook Stalking
Senator Chuck Schumer is at it again. Whenever something happens in the
world somehow Mr. Schumer will find a way to propose a law about it.
For instance, last month when a Malaysia Airline was shot down over the
Ukraine, Schumer suggested that we equip our commercial airlines with
anti-missile defenses so that an event like that doesn't happen here.
Remember when Avonte Oquendo, the boy with autism whose remains were
found after he disappeared at age 14 from his school in October?
Senator Schumer proposed “Avonte’s Law,” which would place electronic
tracking devices to be worn by children with autism. My sister raised
an autistic child and never lost her once. That was just good
parenting. My own mom had a lucrative career building bombs while
working at the arsenal. When she had her first child she quit to become
a stay at home mom. We may not have had two cars and steak for dinner
every night but no new legislation was required for my mom to raise four
kids.
This weeks Schumerian target are those ubiquitous wristband fitness devices. There are dozens of them on the market and Senator Schumer has targeted Fitbit. He claims that these wrist pedometers are a "privacy nightmare" and that they collect personal information on your health, sleep, and location - information which should be just that – personal. Without doing his research, Schumer opined that Fitbit will sell your personal information. Fitbit responded with; "Fitbit does not sell user data. Our privacy policy prevents us from doing this. We are committed to our users' privacy and welcome the opportunity to work with Senator Schumer on this important issue." Alas, it is too late for Fitbit. Just google "privacy nightmare." I wonder why Schumer didn't target other giants of the industry such as Nike or Garmin.
Most users of these fitness devices eagerly and willingly register these tools and freely upload their information for the world to see. Personally, I would register the device under a fake name for I don't want the world to see how lazy I am. Actually, I am not lazy but as a piano player, I spend much of my time sitting lifelessly at either the piano or computer. I also spend an enormous amount of time practicing away from the piano either on my sofa or in a deck chair by the pool. You may think that I'm napping but in reality I am working very studiously at composing, memorization and improvising.
If Mr. Schumer is truly concerned about our privacy, especially the personal information many of us freely post about ourselves, maybe he should look into Facebook.
When I was a kid I had a neighbor who was always looking out her window watching us kids play. I would look over to her house to see the curtains rustle as she hid from view. In college, every kid in the dorm practiced the art of voyeurism. A friend of mine admitted that she was always watching the man next door and it bothered her conscience when she was caught lustily watching him.
If we knew someone was stalking us and gathering information on us, it would certainly creep us out. Our personal information is none of their business. So how come we are accepting of people using Facebook to cyberstalk us? The answer is simple; we do it to other people ourselves.
Facebook serves as a covert method of investigation and discovering a wealth of information about people we don't actually know. Every time we meet someone new, one of the first things we will do is look them up on Facebook in order to learn everything about them and even "friend" them to get more. We want to know who their parents and siblings are, what they have been up to lately, where they live, where they vacation, who their friends are, where they work, how old they are, who they are they dating, status updates, photo uploads, photo tags, photo comments, wall posts, friend additions, group memberships, attended events, mutual friends, where they may have commented and what they "like." Facebook doesn't have the physical elements of being stalked in the real world, such as being followed or watched but the ulterior motive is just the same and just as real.
Online stalking may also consist of people communicating with you in ways that unsettle you (whether purposefully intended or unknowingly), especially with respect to suggesting or implying that they're watching and noting your every comment and update. Peter Baterip was accused of stalking an ex girlfriend and contacting her on Facebook using a fake identity over the course of 18 months. There have been numerous stories of teens (and adults posing as teens) who bully and harass people to the point of the victims even completing suicide in some cases. Many employers take to Facebook to gather information about their employees. One local man was fired from his job when he called in sick but later posted a selfie of himself at a baseball game on Facebook. His boss was one of his "friends." There was a Roman Catholic priest in TX who was accused of Facebook stalking. There was nothing wrong with that except all his stalkees were teenage boys in his parish. Without committing a crime, he was removed from active ministry.
Facebook stalking, like regular stalking, allows the stalker to secretly gather information about the person they are interested in. Facebook stalking is less likely to have an illegal component and is generally accepted by it's voyeuristic victims. The argument being, that if you didn't want others to know about your life, you wouldn't post it all over the internet. But, the real reason is that - we all do it and don't feel we are being voyeuristic about it. That's actually called denial. Maybe we are not willing to look into the abyss because we are afraid what will be staring back at us. I don't know, does the shoe fit?
Have you ever searched Facebook for someone you dated like fifteen years ago? Have you ever searched Facebook for high school friends to see who aged better, or who has the better job, who went bald, who got fat or who married whom? Stalking has become a perfectly normal activity. So you searched an ex-lover or new acquaintance on Facebook, who cares? If a neighbor watches you out his window or takes a photo of you, why is that different or worse?
Does Schumer know about Facebook stalking? Sure he does but no one will ever do anything about it because we all do it, so that makes it okay. After it was discovered that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was the Boston Bomber, his Facebook page received millions of hits within hours before it was taken down. But, not before people took snapshots of his pages and downloaded all the data. Nothing creepy about that. Do you want to see his pages? Sure you do. Just go to Google Images and search "Dzhokhar Tsarnaev facebook page." Want to see who his friends are? Sure you do. Want to see him shirtless? Sure you do. Nothing creepy here because, *you* are doing it and not some creepy person or organization you don't know, such as Fitbit. Unlike Fitbit, I wonder if Facebook sells your personal information . . . ? Does Schumer know about this?
PS, if you are lonely or bored, turn off Facebook and go outside to meet real people. A high-five is much healthier than a poke. A real friend is much more healthier than a "friend."
This weeks Schumerian target are those ubiquitous wristband fitness devices. There are dozens of them on the market and Senator Schumer has targeted Fitbit. He claims that these wrist pedometers are a "privacy nightmare" and that they collect personal information on your health, sleep, and location - information which should be just that – personal. Without doing his research, Schumer opined that Fitbit will sell your personal information. Fitbit responded with; "Fitbit does not sell user data. Our privacy policy prevents us from doing this. We are committed to our users' privacy and welcome the opportunity to work with Senator Schumer on this important issue." Alas, it is too late for Fitbit. Just google "privacy nightmare." I wonder why Schumer didn't target other giants of the industry such as Nike or Garmin.
Most users of these fitness devices eagerly and willingly register these tools and freely upload their information for the world to see. Personally, I would register the device under a fake name for I don't want the world to see how lazy I am. Actually, I am not lazy but as a piano player, I spend much of my time sitting lifelessly at either the piano or computer. I also spend an enormous amount of time practicing away from the piano either on my sofa or in a deck chair by the pool. You may think that I'm napping but in reality I am working very studiously at composing, memorization and improvising.
If Mr. Schumer is truly concerned about our privacy, especially the personal information many of us freely post about ourselves, maybe he should look into Facebook.
When I was a kid I had a neighbor who was always looking out her window watching us kids play. I would look over to her house to see the curtains rustle as she hid from view. In college, every kid in the dorm practiced the art of voyeurism. A friend of mine admitted that she was always watching the man next door and it bothered her conscience when she was caught lustily watching him.
If we knew someone was stalking us and gathering information on us, it would certainly creep us out. Our personal information is none of their business. So how come we are accepting of people using Facebook to cyberstalk us? The answer is simple; we do it to other people ourselves.
Facebook serves as a covert method of investigation and discovering a wealth of information about people we don't actually know. Every time we meet someone new, one of the first things we will do is look them up on Facebook in order to learn everything about them and even "friend" them to get more. We want to know who their parents and siblings are, what they have been up to lately, where they live, where they vacation, who their friends are, where they work, how old they are, who they are they dating, status updates, photo uploads, photo tags, photo comments, wall posts, friend additions, group memberships, attended events, mutual friends, where they may have commented and what they "like." Facebook doesn't have the physical elements of being stalked in the real world, such as being followed or watched but the ulterior motive is just the same and just as real.
Online stalking may also consist of people communicating with you in ways that unsettle you (whether purposefully intended or unknowingly), especially with respect to suggesting or implying that they're watching and noting your every comment and update. Peter Baterip was accused of stalking an ex girlfriend and contacting her on Facebook using a fake identity over the course of 18 months. There have been numerous stories of teens (and adults posing as teens) who bully and harass people to the point of the victims even completing suicide in some cases. Many employers take to Facebook to gather information about their employees. One local man was fired from his job when he called in sick but later posted a selfie of himself at a baseball game on Facebook. His boss was one of his "friends." There was a Roman Catholic priest in TX who was accused of Facebook stalking. There was nothing wrong with that except all his stalkees were teenage boys in his parish. Without committing a crime, he was removed from active ministry.
Facebook stalking, like regular stalking, allows the stalker to secretly gather information about the person they are interested in. Facebook stalking is less likely to have an illegal component and is generally accepted by it's voyeuristic victims. The argument being, that if you didn't want others to know about your life, you wouldn't post it all over the internet. But, the real reason is that - we all do it and don't feel we are being voyeuristic about it. That's actually called denial. Maybe we are not willing to look into the abyss because we are afraid what will be staring back at us. I don't know, does the shoe fit?
Have you ever searched Facebook for someone you dated like fifteen years ago? Have you ever searched Facebook for high school friends to see who aged better, or who has the better job, who went bald, who got fat or who married whom? Stalking has become a perfectly normal activity. So you searched an ex-lover or new acquaintance on Facebook, who cares? If a neighbor watches you out his window or takes a photo of you, why is that different or worse?
Does Schumer know about Facebook stalking? Sure he does but no one will ever do anything about it because we all do it, so that makes it okay. After it was discovered that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was the Boston Bomber, his Facebook page received millions of hits within hours before it was taken down. But, not before people took snapshots of his pages and downloaded all the data. Nothing creepy about that. Do you want to see his pages? Sure you do. Just go to Google Images and search "Dzhokhar Tsarnaev facebook page." Want to see who his friends are? Sure you do. Want to see him shirtless? Sure you do. Nothing creepy here because, *you* are doing it and not some creepy person or organization you don't know, such as Fitbit. Unlike Fitbit, I wonder if Facebook sells your personal information . . . ? Does Schumer know about this?
PS, if you are lonely or bored, turn off Facebook and go outside to meet real people. A high-five is much healthier than a poke. A real friend is much more healthier than a "friend."
Saturday, August 9, 2014
Embrace Failure
It is impossible to argue with someone who knows more than you do. During the intermission of a show where I was the pianist, a young man came up to me saying that he came to the show just to watch me play. He went on to disclose that he knew I had healed myself of tendonitis, an affliction which he was currently suffering from and he wanted to see me play for himself and talk to me about how I healed. The conductor was listening in and immediately chimed in with his opinion on the matter. He began by saying that he had a doctorate in piano pedagogy and trained with some names of people whom I never heard of. He opined that our injured inquirer needed to work through his pain, build endurance and do strengthening exercises to overcome his malady. He couldn't be more wrong and since the injured pianist was giving him ear, I quietly slipped away.
The truth is that it doesn't take very much strength nor endurance to play the piano. The fallacy here is that a lot of pianist feel that the keys are heavy and they need more muscle to dig into the keys. Everything we need we are born with and our everyday movement is enough to equip us with all the muscle we actually need. To play properly it is more a matter of what not to do. For instance, it doesn't require strength to depress a key, only a small amount of arm weight. When a pianist feels they need to play harder to get the keys down, that is actually a symptom of a dual muscular pull - they are using two diverse muscles to make the hand or fingers to go in two directions at the same time which makes them feel weak. The muscles are fighting one another to move the bones. A dual muscular pull will cause tension, pain and fatigue which is not an issue of endurance or strength but, poor technique and lack of knowledge.
Go to a piano and press down a key, notice that it doesn't take very much strength to make the key go down, nor a lot of weight. Notice also that after you reach the point of sound, when the note plays, the key rests on the key bed. A mistake a lot of pianists make is to play into that key bed. No matter how hard they play, once the key reaches that key bed, no amount of pressure is going to make more sound nor make playing easier. The sound has already been made. Go ahead and play a note, then press into the key bed as hard as you can. You will probably feel fatigue and pain. The solution to the fatigue and pain you are now feeling is to allow only enough weight to play the key to it's point of sound, then no more. Many educated pianists will say that it is impossible to play to the point of sound but that is because they can't do it. In that case, they are correct. It can't be done, by them.
Every motion requires an equal and opposite motion. As you sit at a keyboard, rest your hands on the keys. If your arms are totally relaxed, your hands should fall off the keys and dangle to your side. The body wasn't designed to sit in that static position but it can overcome it by forward shifting, shaping and playing with rounded motions which are all equal and opposite to playing down. Many pianists attack the instrument with brute force because they don't know what effortless playing feels like, so instead they force themselves to feel effortless with strength and endurance. What they are really doing is training the body to accept fatigue and as my doctorate friend said, build strength and endurance to fight through it. Fighting tension with tension is a no win situation. If you play using natural arm weight, you won't be using muscles to the point of fatigue by pressing into the key bed in the first place.
Let's look at body building. Many people who go to gyms and work out on machines which are only isolating certain muscles. Stand barefoot on one leg (if you can) and look down at your ankle. You should see dozens of tendons and muscles come into play in an effort to maintain balance. Chances are that you've never isolated and trained each of those individual muscles but, your everyday normal motion is enough exercise and maintain those muscles. Normal and beneficial activity incorporates many muscles at once. To exercise your ankles or legs on a machine, the machine will exercise one specific muscle and both legs at the same time because that is how these machines are designed. Exercising each body part separately but whole would be better.
If someone were to bench press with a single bar with weights on both sides, both arms will assist in the balance and pressing of the bar. If that person were to use two separate dumbbells, each arm will have to engage all the ancillary muscles to adjust and maintain balance, just like your ankle did. Going to gyms and working on those machines can be a waste of time. It would be better to work with free weights. Free weights are also more demanding of the core so it is like exercising more body parts at one time. You can't get that whole body workout on a machine designed to isolate a muscle.
Strength and endurance have little functional value in playing the piano just as weight lifting doesn't in our everyday lives. If I can bench 350 pounds but work at a desk five days a week, all that training is of no value to real life. The performance demands in our every day life consists mainly of manipulating our own body around desks and computers and pushing pencils. When is the last time you exerted yourself while writing a memo or reading a report?
Okay, working out makes you look good. That's another issue best discussed with your mental health provider.
Working out makes you feel good. Actually, getting adequate sleep, eating a proper diet and drinking plenty of water makes you feel good. I've worked out before and to be honest, I did not feel good the next day.
There are two kinds of pain; there is the kind with lactic acid build up where swelling occurs when muscles tissue is torn and the body rushes oxygenated blood to the site in order to repair it (good) and pain from strain and stress on bone, ligaments and tendons (bad). Pressing into a key bed strains the bone, ligaments and tendons.
Ligaments hold our bones together. If you bend a bone or hyper-extend a joint beyond what is normal, you can tear or stretch a ligament. This is bad since they don't grow back. This happens often to football players, basketball players and skiers because their foot and knee alignment don't line up. One goes one way, the other goes another and the ligament in between bears the brunt of the misaligned torque. A third degree tear of a ligament can only be repaired with surgery. A first and second degree tear can either be tolerated or it may "scar down" but you will lose flexibility. For a professional athlete it might be better to have a third degree tear so that a surgeon can graft a new one in its place. That happened to me and my repaired knee is now stronger than my good knee.
Tendons move our bones around. When you stress a joint to the point of stretching or tearing a tendon, this too is bad since they can take years to heal. Tendons do not have strong blood supplies going to them so they scar before they heal. A pianist with scarred tendons will feel sharp pain as they move. That is the scar tissue tearing. The good news is that this can easily be healed with massage therapy and proper technique. Proper movement promotes healing.
If you tear muscle, muscle tissue can heal overnight or in a few days as muscles have an ample supply of oxygenated blood flowing to them.
People think the more they work out the more endurance they are building. Actually that isn't true. They are actually improving their economy of motion. Movement doesn't become easier because of endurance, the body is just becoming more efficient at that particular movement. Your body is requiring less strength and oxygen than you did prior.
Have you ever watched "Dancing With The Stars" and witness professional athletes and body builders who have no endurance? They not only come off the dance floor exhausted but all that muscle robs them of flexibility and true endurance as the muscle mass is starved for oxygenated blood. The body has to move all that weight and the large muscles get in the way of joint flexibility. I've even witnessed long distance runners get winded riding a bike. Why is that? They trained and isolated specific muscles rather than full body training. The muscles used to run are different than those used to ride a bike. That is why ballet dancers can do most everything with ease. Some astute football coaches even encourage their players to take ballet. People who have trained in a certain way generally have equal and opposite weaknesses equivalent to their strengths. Pianists are no expectation. Train for strength and you will be weak. Train to the laws of physics and you will play effortless - which is not the same as "strong."
Sharp pain and fatigue are not good symptoms to have. They indicate that you are doing something wrong. Any time you feel those two symptoms you should stop and not continue until you figure out what is wrong with the movement. Otherwise permanent damage may occur. If your car is giving you problems, continuing to drive won't make the problem go away, the problem will only get worse and become more expensive to repair. Remember the old adage that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Live it or pay later.
What about people who exercise for weight management? The simple truth is, in order to lose weight (or burn fat - which is not the same thing since exercising to build muscle can put on weight in numbers even if you lose fat. A mirror is a better judge than the scale), you need to burn off more calories than you consume. If you eat more calories than you burn off, no matter how much you exercise, you won't lose anything.
The good news is that muscle by its mere existence burns fat without you having to do anything. One pound of fat can fuel the body for up to 10 hours of continuous activity. But most people can't and shouldn't go 10 hours without eating. Beside the amount you eat, what you eat is very important. Complex carbs, protein, vegetables and lots of water will build muscle and burn calories. Sugar and simple carbs that turn to sugar will not burn fat. You're burning the sugar and storing the leftover as fat.
I'm not a doctor but I have been injured. I've also been lucky to know people without PhD's who taught me to heal myself. Some of them didn't even have high school diplomas and they could do what no doctor could. Because of them, getting injured was the best thing to ever happen to me. If you are lucky, you'll never get injured but, getting injured might save you from technical and professional mediocrity if you have the capacity to heal. Consider Gandhi, failing the bar exam saved him from a life of professional oblivion. Failing isn't so bad, it is what you do with it that makes all the difference.
Sunday, August 3, 2014
Gaga Over The Church
While answering the phones for a suicide hotline, not a day would go by
that I didn't receive one to six calls from suicidal teens, many of them
citing sexual orientation as the source of their pain, confusion and
suffering.
Homosexuality is no longer an issue in mainstream society. Other than the church, most people are accepting and blind to the issue. It is even accepted among teens themselves. On a recent trip to Provincetown, MA, a town known to be a haven for homosexual people, half the tourists were breeders and many of them brought their small children with them. Homosexuality wasn't even something that needed to be tolerated, it just was. Indeed, within this small town, the lion lays down with the lamb and the child plays at the den of the cobra. I just wasn't sure who the lions or lambs were. It didn't matter. Persecuted and persecutors, no more.
Some of my gay teen callers are sometimes threatened and bullied in school and it is usually because they are in the closet and the bullies are trying to elicit a response from them. For the kid who is openly gay, a bully can't hold anything over them and tends to leave them alone. The kid who is out also tends to have support from other kids who can see the value in them and appreciate their honesty. It has been my lifetime observation that in five or ten years, homophobic bullies eventually come out of the closet themselves as their bullying was really the exploration of their own sexuality and boundaries. They are more to be pitied than censured.
Predominately, having found acceptance by their peers, my gay callers are more alienated by their parents or by the teachings of the church than peers. Since the Westboro Church has taught us that God hates, and He hates gays most of all, it is no wonder that a teen struggling with his identity can feel alone, abandoned, forgotten, hated and ostracized. If even God hates you, who could be for you?
Back in biblical days, the life expectancy of an adult was thirty or forty years of age and further complicating matters, most children died before their tenth birth-date due to disease or illness. If there was a famine, food was given to adults before being given to a child because the chance of a child making it to adulthood was slim and feeding them was considered to be a waste of resources.
Anyone who partook in homosexual practices or committed "the sin of Onan" (masturbation), was participating in an act which wasted seed. Those activities did not produce offspring and in those days, for the good of the tribe or community, it was important for procreation to take precedent over self pleasure. It was also common practice for thirteen year old girls to be sold into marriage as soon as they hit puberty, in an effort for them to produce as many children as possible before they died at the ripe old age of thirty. A perfect example of this practice is Joseph who was about forty and Mary who was thirteen.
The church and society have long forgotten why homosexuality and masturbation was frowned upon but they still hold blindly on to those archaic prejudices today. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, nearly 5000 teens commit suicide each year and approximately 2 million U.S. teens attempt suicide.
Enter Lady Gaga (Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta). She is a marketing genius for using gimmicks, controversy and over the top behavior and costumes to build an estimated net worth of $190 million. What she does with those millions of dollars speaks volumes. Being the product of a Catholic school education, she knows the pain and anguish of being different, even in a Roman Catholic school setting - where she herself was bullied and teased. Because of the pain the church has inflicted upon her in her youth, the church has become a target in her her music and marketing genius.
Together with her mom, Lady Gaga created a foundation called "Born This Way" which is a non-profit organization founded in 2011. It has the support of Harvard University, the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the California Endowment. In September of 2012 Gaga was awarded the LennonOno Grant For Peace from Yoko Ono for her work with the foundation actively campaigning on pro-tolerance and peace issues.
The foundation aims to create a "braver, kinder world" for youth, to create safe-spaces, promote the learning of life skills, and provide opportunities to improve their local communities. Some priorities of the organization are teen suicide, bullying, homosexuality and school violence.
It appears that Lady Gaga has done much to save the lives of many teenagers struggling with sexual identity while the institutional church appears to be unconcerned for the loss of many. The score is Gaga: one; the institutional church: zero.
Lady Gaga teaches us the very valuable lesson that even the most ardent Puritan can learn, that acceptance does not make "wrong" right, it only makes what was "wrong," precious. Another lesson Gaga teaches us is that oppression breeds the power to oppose it and oppose it she has. She has used the church's own intolerance to challenge it to grow. Don't hate her when she blasts the church. Instead, ask why she is blasting the church. Maybe it is time for the church to fix something.
Ultimately, who cares what a hater thinks. I often try to get my callers to discover that the wrong person they'll never mean anything. To the right person, they'll mean everything. Thank you Lady Gaga for making my job answering the suicide hotline much easier. To any church of intolerance, I'll pray for you.
There are many churches who are gay accepting and they proudly wave the rainbow flag but, the gay community doesn't want their own church. They just want to be part of everyday society. We don't see signs at restaurants advertising "Blacks welcome here" or, "Woman may use front entrance." Why do we need flags and signs advertising acceptance? It should just be. Isn't "Come, all are welcome," enough?
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (NSPL)
Call 24/7
1-800-273-8255
"To understand blue, first you have to understand yellow and orange. In other words, in order to really understand anything you have to understand its opposite."
-Vincent Van Gogh
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quXq65p7YD4
Homosexuality is no longer an issue in mainstream society. Other than the church, most people are accepting and blind to the issue. It is even accepted among teens themselves. On a recent trip to Provincetown, MA, a town known to be a haven for homosexual people, half the tourists were breeders and many of them brought their small children with them. Homosexuality wasn't even something that needed to be tolerated, it just was. Indeed, within this small town, the lion lays down with the lamb and the child plays at the den of the cobra. I just wasn't sure who the lions or lambs were. It didn't matter. Persecuted and persecutors, no more.
Some of my gay teen callers are sometimes threatened and bullied in school and it is usually because they are in the closet and the bullies are trying to elicit a response from them. For the kid who is openly gay, a bully can't hold anything over them and tends to leave them alone. The kid who is out also tends to have support from other kids who can see the value in them and appreciate their honesty. It has been my lifetime observation that in five or ten years, homophobic bullies eventually come out of the closet themselves as their bullying was really the exploration of their own sexuality and boundaries. They are more to be pitied than censured.
Predominately, having found acceptance by their peers, my gay callers are more alienated by their parents or by the teachings of the church than peers. Since the Westboro Church has taught us that God hates, and He hates gays most of all, it is no wonder that a teen struggling with his identity can feel alone, abandoned, forgotten, hated and ostracized. If even God hates you, who could be for you?
Back in biblical days, the life expectancy of an adult was thirty or forty years of age and further complicating matters, most children died before their tenth birth-date due to disease or illness. If there was a famine, food was given to adults before being given to a child because the chance of a child making it to adulthood was slim and feeding them was considered to be a waste of resources.
Anyone who partook in homosexual practices or committed "the sin of Onan" (masturbation), was participating in an act which wasted seed. Those activities did not produce offspring and in those days, for the good of the tribe or community, it was important for procreation to take precedent over self pleasure. It was also common practice for thirteen year old girls to be sold into marriage as soon as they hit puberty, in an effort for them to produce as many children as possible before they died at the ripe old age of thirty. A perfect example of this practice is Joseph who was about forty and Mary who was thirteen.
The church and society have long forgotten why homosexuality and masturbation was frowned upon but they still hold blindly on to those archaic prejudices today. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, nearly 5000 teens commit suicide each year and approximately 2 million U.S. teens attempt suicide.
Enter Lady Gaga (Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta). She is a marketing genius for using gimmicks, controversy and over the top behavior and costumes to build an estimated net worth of $190 million. What she does with those millions of dollars speaks volumes. Being the product of a Catholic school education, she knows the pain and anguish of being different, even in a Roman Catholic school setting - where she herself was bullied and teased. Because of the pain the church has inflicted upon her in her youth, the church has become a target in her her music and marketing genius.
Together with her mom, Lady Gaga created a foundation called "Born This Way" which is a non-profit organization founded in 2011. It has the support of Harvard University, the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the California Endowment. In September of 2012 Gaga was awarded the LennonOno Grant For Peace from Yoko Ono for her work with the foundation actively campaigning on pro-tolerance and peace issues.
The foundation aims to create a "braver, kinder world" for youth, to create safe-spaces, promote the learning of life skills, and provide opportunities to improve their local communities. Some priorities of the organization are teen suicide, bullying, homosexuality and school violence.
It appears that Lady Gaga has done much to save the lives of many teenagers struggling with sexual identity while the institutional church appears to be unconcerned for the loss of many. The score is Gaga: one; the institutional church: zero.
Lady Gaga teaches us the very valuable lesson that even the most ardent Puritan can learn, that acceptance does not make "wrong" right, it only makes what was "wrong," precious. Another lesson Gaga teaches us is that oppression breeds the power to oppose it and oppose it she has. She has used the church's own intolerance to challenge it to grow. Don't hate her when she blasts the church. Instead, ask why she is blasting the church. Maybe it is time for the church to fix something.
Ultimately, who cares what a hater thinks. I often try to get my callers to discover that the wrong person they'll never mean anything. To the right person, they'll mean everything. Thank you Lady Gaga for making my job answering the suicide hotline much easier. To any church of intolerance, I'll pray for you.
There are many churches who are gay accepting and they proudly wave the rainbow flag but, the gay community doesn't want their own church. They just want to be part of everyday society. We don't see signs at restaurants advertising "Blacks welcome here" or, "Woman may use front entrance." Why do we need flags and signs advertising acceptance? It should just be. Isn't "Come, all are welcome," enough?
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (NSPL)
Call 24/7
1-800-273-8255
"To understand blue, first you have to understand yellow and orange. In other words, in order to really understand anything you have to understand its opposite."
-Vincent Van Gogh
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quXq65p7YD4
Friday, August 1, 2014
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