Vivofit

My Garmin Vivofit and calorie counting helped me lose 15 pounds. 15 to go.

Explanation of the Terrorism Video

Americans think that terrorism started in this country on September 11th, it didn't.  It has existed for certain classes and groups of people since we first came to this hemisphere.

The first act of terrorism began with Christopher Columbus who sought to find a faster route from Spain to China.  Instead he landed on the shore of Hispaniola.  Today we call that island the Dominican Republic and Haiti.  Do they still teach in school that he landed on Plymouth Rock?  Your tax dollars at work.

The indigenous people of Hispaniola were the Arawaks whom Columbus and his men raped, murdered and took as slaves.  In his ship's log he thanked and praised God for the gift of human chattel.  He filled his ship's hulls with several hundred Arawak men and took them back to Spain as slaves.  Most did not survive.  Who knew you had to feed them?  He then lied to the Queen, telling her that there was so much gold there (there was none) that he needed dozens more ships. 

When he returned, the Arawaks poisoned their children and committed mass suicide so as not to be raped, murdered and taken as slaves by Columbus and his Christian men.  Hundreds of thousands of native Arawaks died at the hands of Christopher.  Happy Columbus Day.

When more Europeans began to colonize the entire east coast of the country, they encountered other Native American Nations such as the Iroquois, Mohawk, Algonquin, Seneca and many more.  After the white man launched political campaigns to take Native American land, displace the natives and murder them (because they fought back), we pushed westward because it was our God ordained destiny.  Today, the remnants of those aborigine nations live on reservations and we're trying to take those lands, too.  We are starting by creating insidious laws which they must abide by.

When the Puritans came to North America to escape religious persecution, what did they do?  They persecuted other people because of their religion.  They also created witch hunts.  These were successful campaigns because the general population was told that witches abducted, raped, murdered and ate small children.  This was the same tactic Adolph Hitler used to turn his followers against the Jews.  Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf, "The state must declare the child to be the most precious treasure of the people. As long as the government is perceived as working for the benefit of the children, the people will happily endure almost any curtailment of liberty and almost any deprivation."   Most of our fairy tales and nursery rhymes were created around the myth of children being abducted such as Little Red Riding-hood, Hansel and Gretel, the Pied Piper, Snow White, etcetera.

Then there was the enslavement of the Africans.  After their emancipation, Lincoln's second phase was to repatriate all the blacks back to Africa or to off shore islands.  He first needed to set them free because he couldn't repatriate them if they were property.  He freed them but before he could sign the repatriation act to remove the newly freed from the country, he was assasinated and the African-Americans stayed.  African-Americans should celebrate Lincoln not because he set them free, but that he was assasinated before he could eradicate them.  If outright hate and prejudice wasn't bad enough, our entertainment, music and movie industry further perpetuated stereotypes and inequality.

After prohibition failed, many poor people turned to marijuana since they couldn't afford the illegal hooch.  Marijuana was found to be an excellent source of pain relief and even a cure for alcoholism.  Harry Anslinger made it his mission to eradicate marijuana by spreading lies about its efficacy.  Although the lies were disproved by the La Guardia Report, Anslinger used racism to convince society that marijuana was the devil's drug.  He said that when white girls smoke muggles, it results in them seeking sexual relations with black men and the result would be pregnancy and syphilis.  Marijuana causes sane people to go mad and commit murder.  All the lies must be true because Anslinger had the financial support of pharmaceutical companies, the lumber and paper industry, the tobacco industry, the brewery's and the Hearst empire which published Anslingers tales of rabid, foaming at the mouth hysteria in all their papers. 

Despite none of the lies about this miracle herb being true, the fear and confusion about it continues to exist today.  Many prescription drugs come with horrible side effects including difficulty breathing, heart problems, lung problems, liver problems, blood disorders, thoughts of suicide and even death.  Many prescription drugs are also addictive and it is easy to overdose on them.  In case you overdose on Tylenol, Advil, Sudafed, Motrin, Codein or Aspirin, contact Poison Control immediately.  In case you overdose on marijuana, contact Domino's Pizza.  Unlike alcoholics, I've never seen a person who was high on marijuana beat his wife and children.  The only benefit from the marijuana scare Anslinger created is that it filled our jails and prisons which also employ hundreds of thousands of people in every state.

The hatred for homosexuality fueled by religion has been devastating to our country.  Homosexuality and masturbation were considered sinful because those acts did not produce offspring at a time when the Christian population needed to outnumber the Muslim population (Crusades).  Also, people died in their forties so it was imperative that we marry off our 13 year old children as soon as they hit puberty so they could pump out as many children as possible.  Population is no longer an issue so these "sins" are no longer threats to society, but we forgot why we made them sins.   We are still in conflict today  with the Muslim religion though.  Thanks Pope Urban II and the Holy Roman Catholic Church.  You made genocide holy and gave us wars to last for centuries.

I used to volunteer answering both a suicide hotline and the 211 line.  Far too many gay teenagers would call the suicide hotline not because of their sexuality but because of society's response to them.  I mean, even God hates them.   Now when our new Pope tried to get the message out that even homosexuals are welcome in the church, the Synod said no, they are not welcome.  How ironic, the Catholic church is a magnet to gay artists, musicians, sculptors, writers and clergy.  I guess the Vatican should purge its churches and museums of the works of Da Vinci and Michelangelo because they were gay. 

While answering the 211 line, I would get calls from women and kids who were being physically abused, homeless people without a place to go, hungry families without enough food, people without insurance and who couldn't afford medical care, people with insurance but were now addicted to prescription drugs and they often feel that suicide is their only escape.

I then went on to volunteer at a homeless shelter where I discovered that many of the men there have arrest records.  The reason they can't get jobs is that little box ubiquitous to all applications.  Once they check yes on that box, HR disqualifies them as a candidate.  Now, that is illegal in this country and if you were to ask an HR person if they acted out of prejudice  they would say - prove it.  Many will go so far as to drag an undesirable candidate through the process just to give the outward appearance that they don't discriminate.  Ultimately, that applicant won't be qualified or may fail the Meyers-Briggs test or some such excuse.

Now, I love the church but, before you go to church on Sunday, consider the words of St. Vincent de Paul.  He wrote: "If a needy person requires medicine or other help during your prayer time, do whatever has to be done with peace of mind. Offer that deed to God as your prayer. Do not become upset or feel guilty because you use your prayer time to serve the poor. God is not neglected if you leave him for real service. You should prefer the service of the poor to making your prayer. For, it is not enough to love God, if, your neighbor does not also love God."

Fold your hands in a praying position. These are the hands you use to touch the ones you love, hold the things you treasure, perform the constant countless motions of your living. For now, these hands do nothing, they are not useful held this way, kept by each other from all movement of living and serving. Pressed to each other, there is no space for holding anything or anyone. For the moment these hands are empty and still.  Jon Stewart once said, "Prayer is the least thing you can do for someone while still getting to grandstand like you are actually doing something."

So, vote this November.  Not to vote is to vote.  Then call the politicians and tell them why you did or did not vote for them.  GET OFF YOUR BUTT AND DO IT.  Then get out into your community and help people.  After you do that, go to church and pray over it.  If your social convictions don't align with your church institution's teachings or acts of terrorism, find another church and let them know why you are leaving.  Not to act is to act.  Keep in mind, no agnostic ever burned anyone at the stake or tortured a pagan, a heretic, or an unbeliever.   Has your church?  Government?  Have they made amends? 

Homosexuality in the Roman Catholic Church

It's all over the news today; The Vatican recently released a draft of their new document, RELATIO POST DISCEPTATIONEM and it has stirred up quite a firestorm among those on the conservative side of the church and, I think it is rather amusing.

One paragraph within the document states that homosexuals have gifts and qualities to offer to the Christian community. Are we capable of welcoming these people, guaranteeing to them a fraternal space in our communities? Often they wish to encounter a church that offers them a welcoming home. Are our communities capable of providing that, accepting and valuing their sexual orientation, without compromising Catholic doctrine on the family and matrimony?

What is amusing about the backlash against that statement is that homosexuals have been at the forefront of the church since its beginning.  Many of our great artists, painters, composers, musicians, architects, sculptors, writers and clergy were - and even today - are gay.  Start by taking a look at Leonardo da Vinci and his legacy to the Roman Catholic Church.  The church has had no problem accepting and embracing the work of gay people for centuries, including today's current crop of gay liturgical participants, as long as they deny their identity and don't come out.  

There is a national music group of over 10,000 members whose past president is gay, everyone knew, nobody cared.  However, when he married his lover of over thirty years, her was terminated from his position. 

The church teaches that everyone deserves respect, dignity and love and that is not inherent upon anything.  Not on their occupation, race, sexuality, economic situation, looks, education or past.  Everyone is a child of God and made in God's image.  Every sinner has a future and every saint has a past.   However, the church still has a difficult time being forgiving and accepting while protesting too much.

The church is quick to state that homosexuality is not a sin, homosexual acts are, and I'd like to point out that heterosexuality is not a sin, although heterosexual acts outside a marriage are.  Most heterosexual people have committed the same sin as homosexuals.  While both acts may be wrong in the eyes of the church institution, we should always love and respect the person and treat the person with dignity.  Gay or straight.  Sinner or saint.

What is surprising is that most churches have no problem with the homosexuals within their worshiping community and are already welcoming to them.  The people simply don't care or are accepting.  Among the silent majority, they are more surprised by the hateful vocal minority than the fact that homosexuals have been the driving force behind the church for centuries.

This document is calling the church to be more dynamic, merciful and welcoming but, the church already is and has been for the past two thousand years.  The haters are constantly telling God's people what is wrong instead of affirming everything genuine, beautiful and good in God's human project.

Clergy, organists, choir directors, choirs, soloists, liturgists, painters, sculptors, architects, composers, theologians, writers, poets and the people in the pews; gay people are already out there where the church is a magnet for those who wish to express their faith through their art, skill and passion.  For the haters who wish to eradicate the homosexual from the church, they would deny the church the source of its most richest heritage and treasure.  The church, its music, its art, its architecture, its teachings and the beautiful tapestry it is today is because of the many people in the past who self identified publicly or privately as homosexual. 

The church needs to remember why it hates homosexuality.  Fear, rabid foaming at the mouth and hysteria about homosexuality started in the days when people died at the old age of thirty or forty.  In order to build the population for protection, to ensure a work force to feed and shelter its population, and to promote the lineage, girls got married at the age of 13 or so.  Men who engaged in masturbation (the sin of Onan) or homosexual tendencies did not produce offspring so the church declared that those activities which spilled the seed was a sin.  I beleive that the Church Of Latter Day Saints promote families of at least seven children to this day for the same reason - to build a population.  And of course, this was also the foundation for the practice of bigamy.   More wives meant more children and a larger denomination.

When there was a war between Christians and Muslims (the Crusades - which we still feel the aftershocks today), in order to beat the Muslims, Christians needed to outnumber them so the more Christians there were, the bigger army they could build.  More Christians meant bigger armies, bigger churches, more workers and the need for larger territories which meant that in order to seize more territory - war.   Over the centuries we forgot why we hated the idea of not producing children and out of ignorance, the hatred for homosexuality still exists today.  

Looking back, we can see how arrogant, wrong and misguided our hate used to be for groups such as blacks, women, Asians, Irish, Jews and for many Christians, the gays.  While looking back, one has to wonder what was wrong with us.  I suspect in a hundred years or so, people will look back on this issue and wonder the same.  The Roman Catholic church should pay heed lest people look back and wonder, "Catholicism, what was wrong with us?"

I know a lot of people who don't go to church.  Not because they don't beleive in God, but because they don't beleive in the church.  Many of those same people won't shop at Walmart because of its human rights violations.  Those same people won't go to church because of its human rights violations.  You have to wonder which is the more enlightened sect.

“I have observed that the world has suffered far less from ignorance than from pretensions to knowledge. It is not skeptics or explorers but fanatics and ideologues who menace decency and progress. No agnostic ever burned anyone at the stake or tortured a pagan, a heretic, or an unbeliever."
- Daniel J. Boorstin .

Plotterkill Preserve

The Psalms

A clergy person once told me (actually several have) that they never plan their homilies around the Lectionary prescribed Psalm.  One even stated to me that the Psalms were irrelevant. The Psalms were the songs of David, Jesus prayed the psalms, they are the prayerbook of the bible and can be a great source of inspiration, healing, care and calm.  They also help us to understand our biblical roots, history, culture, poetry, stories, prayers, concerns and ultimately, ourselves.  The psalms offer opportunities for adoration, contrition, thanksgiving and supplication.  They cover a wide range of human desire and emotion while they are also a treasure of philosophy, spirituality and life lessons.

For anyone who doesn't know how to pray, can't find the time to pray, meditate or contemplate, the Psalms are a great tool for you.  You don't have to study the whole Psalm but only use a portion of it.  For example, take a single line which you can use as a mantra and repeat to yourself several times during the day.  Pick one, any one.  Here are a few examples how you can pray with the psalms. 

Let's say you are 18 years old and are leaving home to go off to college.  This is the first time you are going to be on your own or away from home and you are nervous about this new adventure.  You can turn to Psalm 27, for instance, and repeat the phrase; "The Lord is my Light and my salvation, of whom shall I be afraid."

Maybe you have to go to the hospital for a test or a procedure in the morning.  When you wake up, you can repeat this line from Psalm 63; "As morning breaks, I look to You, I look to You Lord to be my strength this day."

What if you are a walker and are enjoying a long stroll on a beach, you might repeat a phrase from Psalm 69, "Let the heavens and the earth praise God's name, the sea and all it's living creatures."

For the person who is struggling with addiction, guilt, hate, anger or wants to change something in their life, maybe repeating Psalm 51 can help them get through their challenge, "Create in me a clean heart, O God and renew a right spirit within me."

I know of a congregation who lost their church building to a fire and a Psalm which offered some of them great comfort in the rebuilding process was Psalm 42:  "Why should I mourn and toil within when it is mine to hope in God."

If a friend is struggling with a difficult decision, you can quote them a line from Psalm 34, "Call upon the Lord, you'll want for nothing if you ask."

Try it.  Physicist Erwin Schroedinger once said "When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change."  You don't need any special books or instructions to do it.  Just open to the book of Psalms and start reading until you find a sentence which resonates with you.  Write it down on a piece of paper or text it to yourself and refer to it several times during the day.  I guarantee after a few weeks of doing this, one of these mantras or incantations will come back to you in a time when you need it and it will be good. 

When I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task, until I went into the sanctuary of God. -Psalm 73.

How To Warm Up A Choir

I am not a fan of "warm ups."  Any athlete or pianist will tell you that isolating a single part of the body to "warm it up" is not effective.  The whole body must be warmed.  A pianist who plays in a warm room will play much better than one who attempts to "warm up" his hands by blowing on them in a cold room or playing an hour of scales.  Warming up is a whole body experience.

Vocal exercises are excellent tools if used for educational or instructional purposes but "warming up" comes from a different place.  A choir director who runs meaningless scales is just wasting everyone's time, especially if there is no educational purpose behind them.

Warming up the voice and the vocal apparatus is much the same as warming up the whole body but with a few additional parameters.  First, many choir rehearsals are held in the evening and the singers have already been walking, talking, breathing, eating and drinking during day.  Most likely, their voice is ready to sing.  However, there are usually a few components missing.

Imagine that a child is about to run out into the street and a car is racing toward him.   In an effort to save his life you would yell "STOP!" or "NOOOO!" or "Billy!"  Did you need to warm up to do that?  The force, confidence and conviction for that vocalization came from your brain because you knew little Billy was about to get smooshed.  It also came from your heart (the emotional one) because you knew little Billy was about to get smooshed.  Your diaphragm naturally rose to the occasion and your soft palate also raised in sympathetic response to the brain and heart in order to convey the message as fully, open and forcibly as possible.

What if your dog were to pee on your new $1,000 carpet?  If you are an owner who believes in negative reinforcement, you might yell "NO!" or "BAD DOG."  Did you need to warm up first?  No, because it came from your brain that the dog was about to soil your new carpet, it came from your angry heart because your dog was about to soil your new carpet and as a result, your diaphragm and soft palate unequivocally made your angry intention known to your pooch. 

A friend has a new born baby and it is sleeping in her arms.  With your best stage whisper you comment on how it is the most beautiful baby you've every seen and you ask to hold him.  You can whisper loudly because your brain knows the baby is sleeping and your heart doesn't want to wake him so your diaphragm and soft palate do what it takes to convey your message with delicacy in hushed, dulcet tones.

You go to a birthday party and everyone sings "Happy Birthday." The whole gathering of well wishers erupt into a rousing and full throated rendition - including two or three part harmony.  Did anyone need to warm up first?  No, because the brain and heart automatically engaged the diaphragm and soft palate with earthy bon ami.

Whether you cough intentionally to get someone's attention, sigh on "arrrgh," in frustration, groan at a bad joke, say "awww" at a cute kitten, jump out at someone and yell "BOO," "Ho-ho-ho" like Santa, or bark like a dog; your diaphragm and soft palate will naturally and fully engaged without warm up because the vocalization comes first from the brain and emotional heart.

All these body parts and mechanisms are already in place and will work on command if we beleive what we are doing, singing or saying.  The first job of any choir director is not to engage the choir in meaningless warmups but to give our text meaning and purpose which should be the primary task of any director. 

I'm not saying that our church choirs don't beleive but, if they need to warm up, something else is missing.  Why can't we automatically sing songs of adoration to God the way we would vocalize the first time we see a loved one who we haven't seen in ten years as they get off an airplane?  Why can't we sing in contrition they way we would if we broke our mother's prized antique vase and bellowed "I'm am SO sorry.  I WILL replace it."  Why can't we sing songs of thanksgiving to God the way we would profusely thank someone who just returned our lost wallet with all the  attendant money intact?  Why can't we sing songs of supplication to God they way someone would beg for a significant other not to leave them?  If the answer is that we need to warm up first, something else is missing. 

Why do so many choir directors have to trick their choirs into engaging their soft palates and diaphragms through the use of warm ups?  The answers can be many and varied.  Maybe we don't beleive in God.  Maybe we don't know how to beleive in God.  Maybe we are afraid to express our belief in public.  Maybe we don't have the conviction to beleive in God.  Maybe we have directors who don't beleive in God.  Maybe we have directors who beleive in music.  Maybe we have directors who are only regurgitating what they've been taught.  Maybe we have directors who just haven't figured it out yet.  Maybe we have directors more concerned with the notes rather than the words.  Maybe we don't know or believe that our music has purpose, meaning and power.  Comprehension does not imply belief and without belief we can't fully activate our bodies.

The solution then, isn't to do warm ups.  It is to network our emotions with our bodies and that takes effort not related to music but - is wholly related to music.  At a job interview once, a member of the search committee, who made sure I knew she was a Juilliard graduate and a soloist in the church, asked me if I did warmups and I spouted to her an abbreviated version of this blog and then I told her that I do lead sung prayer before every rehearsal and she asked, "What does any of this have to do with directing a choir?"  My reply was more advanced than a mere Juilliard grad could understand; I'm not a choir director.  I am a pastoral musician who trains the choir to be music ministers and, that music should not be their ministry but a vehicle to ministry.  Directing a choir has a great deal to do with reversing foreground and background.

First and foremost though is to support what the text and music itself is saying, not to necessarily inflict our own views and emotions on it.  The last thing we need to do is sing and play as if our feelings were being injected into the music.  That happens a lot in church choirs.

Ultimately, the universe has given us everything we need to vocally do what we need to do.  The only thing that stands in our way is ourselves.  I know many music directors will disagree with me and that is okay.  Just remember that no agnostic ever burned anyone at the stake or tortured a pagan, a heretic, or an unbeliever.  If you disagree that fervently, chalk it up to differences of opinion. 

If you'll excuse me, I need to go warm up gravity because I am going jogging and I want to make sure every time I take a step, my foot will return to the ground.

The Dix Range

This autumnal grand-daddy of all hikes led us to the serene and beckoning  summits of Macomb, South Dix, East Dix, back to South Dix, then to Hough and Pough, over the Beckhorn, to Dix, back to the Beckhorn, then straight down the SW ridge of Dix and Beckhorn.  We camped at Slide Brook then ascended via the land slide of Macomb Mountain with its beautiful view of Elk Lake.  Each mountain has its own beckoning gleam of silver track slides.  Bear Grylls would be proud.