The Sopranos And The Tenors

"I'm making it up as I go." I said to nephews Caleb and Ben, both staring at me on a Friday afternoon while seated at their individual electric pianos.  

I hope that their 11 and 9 year old selves haven't figured it out yet but, that admission?  It applies to a lot of things in my life at the moment! Lol. 

But the situation I meant for it to apply to - for the purposes of that afternoon and for this blog - was piano lessons.  

About a year ago we were covering introductions and talking about some basic music terminology and I found myself challenged because, as someone who is BARELY a musician, - lol - I've found I am also barely a music educator.  

Poor kids.  Lol.

Anyway, we were talking about melody and harmony and the difference between the two.

We settled on some definitions that I think I'm still, to this day, pretty pleased by.

"Melody - the notes on the page, the ones you sing, the ones that make a song sound familiar."

"Harmony - the notes that usually aren't on the page, the ones you hear in your head that when you sing them make the melody sound more beautiful."  😊

As it turns out, just about anything worth listening to contains a strong melody and a strong harmony that both have to be proficiently played in order to make the maximum amount of impact.

That's something I hope my brother's boys are picking up on in our weekly piano lessons and something that I hope that I continue to possess enough character and integrity to be able to teach them. Because it is vital to so much more than just a flawless performance of "God Is So Good" (which my nephews can play like little Mozarts, by the way... in case you were wondering).  

You have to have a main theme that is capable of taking on occasional tinges of pain and sometimes supporting a dissonant note or two if you're going to craft a quality musical composition.

That's a no brainer.

I think life is meant to be symphonic and so those rules apply to developing our own sense of personal ethics just like they apply to combining chords together into a well played song.  👂

And we've all been doing that these last 18 or so months, haven't we?  

Developing ourselves ethically?  Or at least trying to.

And just like Nick trying to pretend he's qualified to teach children how to play a musical instrument, most of us are finding that as we attempt to craft life philosophies that are everything that they should be that we're all kind of just making it up as we go along.

Should we be on the side of the folks who want to enforce mask and vaccine mandates?

Or the side of those who say that all of this has moved at a pace that we should be uncomfortable with and is setting dangerous precedents where things like government overreach and personal liberty are concerned? 

What would Jesus do if He were living through what we've all been living through?

Would He roll up his sleeve?  

Would He encourage faith based abstinence of any modern medical treatment?  

Would He give us His blessing to lead a charge against those who want to limit our involvement in our communities and local economies until we shutup and do as we are told?  

Would He tell us that His will is for us to be doormats?  Or lab rats?  

That it's all for the greater good because vaccines are supposed to protect the vulnerable among us and protecting the vulnerable was a core tenet of His earthly ministry; widows and orphans and such?  

I don't know about you but I see people who I know love Jesus and who care about what He thinks of how they live their lives doing ALL of those things right now.  

It's not easy to identify what part of the song is the melody and which is the harmony right now, is it?  

If you're anything like me, you hate this.  lol

You hate it because the harmony is supposed to be clearly distinguishable from the melody and vice versa and if we can't even figure out which is which, how are we going to functionally teach our kids what music is even supposed to sound like?  

The truth is we need both in order for the song that God is trying to compose to be able to be played. 

And that's frustrating!

If you've ever been in a choir, lol, you know how awful it can be when the different sections start competing to out sing one another.

It's usually the sopranos who let themselves get carried away first.

They are the easiest to hear and our ear gravitates towards what they're doing by virtue of the fact that the most recognizable refrains of whatever song is being sung are *usually* being sung by them!

Not to mention the soprano section usually has a pretty high number of ladies in its ranks.

Most women in choral groups sing soprano.

And the more of them that there are, the easier it begins to feel like you're being drowned out if you're singing any part other than theirs.

Men in church choirs usually let this go on unchallenged until the final rehearsal of the Easter cantata or Christmas pageant or whatever type of concert the choir is being expected to be in tip top shape for.  Lol

That's when that tenor section develops a collective consciousness and really starts to bellow.

Like a group of humpback whales, they sing from their guts and over power their female counterparts until the communion glasses in the serving trays on the altar begin to create ripples of grape juice within not unlike what we see happen when a T-Rex is approaching during a Jurassic Park movie.  

And the sad thing?

Everyone is convinced that this loud, over powering shouting match is exactly what the people listening in the audience WANT to be hearing... everyone singing their loudest and mixing their voices in such a way that the original cadence of the music is completely lost.

2020 and 2021 have been, for me, like sitting in that concert.

You're all singing on blast and it's self indulgent noise that's giving me a fucking headache.  

Seriously.

Can you all please just shut up?

I'm forgetting how to love you and I was never very good at it to begin with!

I need it to be something audibly palatable again.  In fact, we ALL need that!

I need there to be a healthy skepticism of government and big pharma and Dr. Anthony Fauci... but I also need those skeptics not to let their imaginations run away with them!  I need them to stay rooted in reality and not try to sell me on the idea that there's no way back from all of the wild things we've experienced as a nation these last 18 months and change!

Because with God, there's always a way back.

Sometimes it's a one way ticket in the belly of a fish but by one means or another, He'll do whatever it takes!  Lol.  👂👂

Sticking with the original metaphor, I know that with God there's always a way back because of a musical concept known as resolve.

The song isn't finished until there's resolve.

The simple chord structure that opened whatever piece you're listening to, it finds it's way through a complex mine field of harmony in order to resurface at the song's conclusion.

And when it does?

You appreciate it more than you did than the first time you heard it, don't you?  

Because after it's waded through all the deep waters it had to wade through to attach itself to all the complex harmonies that it encountered, those simple opening chord structures have proved themseleves.

You and I listening to them didn't give them validity.

The listener doesn't advocate for the song's initial chord structure to prevail!

It just does and it gains a validity we find ourselves moved by emotionally all on its own and with the passage of time.

There's no substitute for time when you're letting yourself become emotionally invested in a beautiful song.

And if 2020 and 2021 are compositions that the Almighty eventually intends to turn into something beautiful, that is something that (just like everything else He's ever done!) is going to take TIME!

Ear worms need time to fully form in their cocoons. 😊

So maybe you can stop yelling at me about how selfish I am for not wanting to take a vaccine that hasn't had time to be put through the traditional years worth of tests that every other vaccine gets put through?

And maybe I can stop listening to the talking heads on the conservative news stations that want me to believe you're a socialist.

Maybe we can all just agree to give one another the TIME we need to figure out how all these intricate pieces of music are supposed to go together and make something that when played appropriately will glorify our Father in Heaven.  

Maybe, ironically, the one thing that we most need to make this attempt at a global hymn sound amazing is grace!

And maybe we need an example we can let our souls marinate in that illustrates how sad it is when grace is withheld.

I'll attempt one!

One thing I've come to really grieve as a result of living through the pandemic is the loss of respect for a journalist I personally used to just really love.

One Mr. Anderson Cooper.

I wish that I could sell him on the virtues of remembering what it is to take your time to learn the part you're supposed to be singing. 

See, like me, Anderson spent the majority of his life in the closet and didn't come out until he had a contract with a major cable news network and was a well established television personality.

I remember people giving him flack for taking the time to figure out exactly how and when he should reveal his sexuality to his television audience and I remember thinking that those people should sit down and shut their damn traps!

Anderson often reported live from countries where he, his crew, his informants - any of them could be compromised or even killed if it were known that he was gay.  

It took time for him to figure out how to live authentically in the way that was best for him and for the people he loved.  I remember thinking that if *I* was going to be a person who says that he believes in grace that those were not things I should begrudge or shame him for wanting to consider.

I just wish now that he would grant me the same courtesy.

His newscast has become a bully pulpit in which he and his guests routinely chide people for not taking any of the various available Covid vaccines while out and out calling us "selfish" for our part in the continued loss of life.

It's an astonishing lack of grace being practiced over on CNN these days.  😞

Anderson, my friend.  I would never have told you you were selfish or responsible for the loss of life when you took your time figuring out how you felt about coming out.

Even if I could prove that your hesitancy to own your sexuality resulted in people committing suicide who maybe wouldn't have it they saw you being brave enough to own your orientation a little sooner than what you did.

You had to take your time to figure out how you were going to contribute to a complex symphony.

And Covid is no different, sir.  

So it may attract advertisers and earn you Nielsen ratings when you play clips of people obnoxiously refusing the vaccine on grounds that seem baseless.

Just like it earns Fox those same ratings when they play videos of alleged Ph.D's saying that the vaccine is reprogramming your body's DNA to turn you into part chimpanzee, part eggplant.  lol

The sopranos and the tenors have to stop competing and start realizing they're all supposed to be singing their individual tunes in a way that complements their counterparts.

We are so far apart... and so close to death... that it doesn't seem like we'll ever be able to come together and make beautiful music again.

Like Caleb trying to learn to play the notes from the treble clef while Ben tries to learn to play the notes from the bass clef.  

Or...

...like the two trees my in laws gifted us when we bought our house last year.  😊

Zach, being very in tune with his libra indecisiveness, scoured the internet when his mom and dad told us that they wanted to purchase some trees for us to plant on our new property.  

Ultimately, he decided on two gingko biloba trees.

I'm a plant geek and have been since my summers working in the Lawn & Garden department at various Walmart stores through high school and college.  

I wasn't overly familiar with this variety but I figured, hey, why not?

When they arrived, Zach diligently plotted out where they both would go.

On the west side of our front yard, on one side of the sidewalk that leads to our front door he planted the tree that I began to think of as my tree.

On the east side, he planted the one that I secretly thought of as his tree.

It's going to take a lot of time for those two trees to mature and grow independently of one another before they even come close to having their branches extended out far enough to touch one another.

But when they do?  Damn, that's gonna be beautiful.

And in the meantime, we just have to let them grow at their own rate.  

Never thinking of them as being in competition with one another.

Never thinking that one has to survive and dominate in a way that would overshadow the other.

Just letting each tree respond to its own plot of earth in a way that will permit maturation.  

The pro-maskers and anti-vaxxers need to do this same thing.

Zach & I need to do this same thing.  😊

The Big Guy and I are coming up on five years of marriage on September 3.  👂👂👂

I don't know about all of you but our marriage has hit a few rough spots courtesy of the pandemic.  Lol

We both have individual values that we place on the roles of science, government and our overall sense of personal ethics.  

They don't always jive.

But I think we know we're both in concert together.

I think we both know it's not a competition; that we both need to make allowances for one another to feel the way we feel and be as messy as we need to be as we continue to try to figure out how to be in harmony with one another on the issue of Covid-19... and every other hot button issue that comes along.  

I feel honored and privileged to be in a marriage with someone who gives me that grace.

Anderson Cooper's sorry ass certainly wouldn't ever give me the consideration that Mr. Zach Bieghler does!  LOL!

Even if all my branches grow out exclusively to the west and all of his arc out eastward towards the rising sun, eventually I have full faith that they'll intermingle on the other side of the world even if they fail to take the easiest route to achieving close contact - just reaching out towards one another across the sidewalk in front of our humble, little home.  💗

The melody is always the part that sounds familiar.

It's the part that takes on sharp edges and adapts when it encounters dissonant harmony somewhere in the middle of the song.

That's the musical theory behind my love for my guy and his love for me.  

And it can be the theory behind how we all learn to love one another again if we can just get the competition to come to a close...

...between the sopranos and the tenors.  

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👂 = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6SEbXTRwZQ

👂👂 = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRxLhwUsvVk

👂👂👂 = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eh0egzgsfcU

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The Most Exciting Part (Originally Authored Fall of 2007)

A few weeks ago when I flew home to see my parents I saw something that has been stuck in my mind ever since. 

There at however many thousands of feet in the air we were hovering over the great state of Oklahoma I saw... a PlayBoy.

Now, before all those of you out there who have been praying that I'd be set free from my the chains of my "Divisive Lifestyle" start shouting your hallelujahs let me expound. 

It wasn't the magazine itself that intrigued me. Heck, I didn't even see inside it (nor did I WANT to see inside it!). It was concealed in a backpack sitting on the floor at the feet of it's owner, who was sleeping contently (and drooling a little bit, actually) as his private collection of leisure reading material spilled outta his backpack for all the world to see. 

Only the top of the magazine sporting the infamous bold-cap red letter banner head was visible.

Now, maybe anyone else could have just observed the situation and then cast a judgmental gaze while whispering an accusing "Pervert!" under their breath. 

But I was much too intrigued to play the part of hypocrite.

The reason being was because sticking very prominently out of the top of the magazine was what appeared to be a bookmark!

The entire flight home it drove me absolutely crazy. I kept looking down at it while munching on pretzels and sipping diet coke and thinking... Why would anyone use a bookmark for pornography?!? 

Did the guy have THAT much trouble keeping up with the storyline? 

I imagined him getting off the plane once it landed in Wichita and heading to his hotel... unpacking his suitcase and storing his clothes in the dresser drawers. Perhaps he'd have some dinner with a colleague and then go back to his room to relax. He'd pick up his magazine and say "Now, where was I?" Turning to the bookmarked page he'd exclaim, "Oh, yes, the part where the girl was doing degrading things in the nude! That's right!"

The plane landed, the guy woke up and we both exited. Had it been a layover I really think I would have had to have asked him what the deal was... But my Mom, who I hadn't seen since before Christmas, was waiting for me and I was very anxious to see her... thus, my curiosity went by the wayside.

I actually didn't even think about it again until the other day while doing a little bit of browsing a the local Christian bookstore. 

They had a whole array of bookmarks on display. 

Most of them were those laminated ones the size of playing cards that have names and their meanings printed on them.

I, of course, had to look to see if they had one with the name "Nicholas" on it. 

Used to be I could NEVER find anything with my name on it. But I guess now that there's a whole generation of us "Nicholas"'s in out twenties merchandise with our names on it is more readily available.  

Such was evidenced in the fact that there was about 30 "Nicholas" bookmarks in stock at the Christian Bookstore where I was shopping. 

When last I checked my name meant "Leader of Men". That definition had been the one I'd found while completing a project in Jr. High where we had to look up the meaning of our names and then write an essay on "What God Expects Me To Accomplish" based on what we found.

Lol... sidebar: "What God Expects Me To Accomplish"... yeah, we were CLEARLY firmly founded in the whole "Salvation Not Being By Works" doctrine... lol.

Anyway, I was surprised see that the meaning of my name had been slightly modified since the last time I'd checked. 

The bookmark had my name in large cursive writing. In a smaller font set below it it read "He Who Ushers In Change". 

And as tacky as it was with it's exaggerated fonts and waterfall background I found that that meaning set very well with me, actually. 

Recently while meandering down Austin's infamous 6th Street with some friends on a Saturday night I saw a lady wearing a tee-shirt that read "THIS is Freedom?".

And while I know that it was actually a commentary on the way things are currently going down in Iraq and the populace's distaste for the current leader of THIS country, I found that the sentiment was also appropriate when applied to my own frustrations with the faith. 

Frustrations that have been with me a LONG while. 

Frustrations that I hope will continue to anger me enough that I WILL become one who ushers in change. 

I am far from perfect. But perhaps perfection isn't a prerequisite when aspiring to help people to see things differently. Perhaps duplicity can best be pointed out to others by someone well versed in its routine. Lol.

I can think of no better example than the practice of a local ex-gay ministry that I recently learned of back up in Wichita.

As is the case in most ex-gay ministries, there is one house for women trying to conquer lesbianism and one for men trying to conquer homosexuality.

I learned of Wichita's ex-gay residency program in the year that I spent living back at home. I even visited the church that hosted it a few times and met some program graduates many of whom, even after a year (and several thousand dollars, I might add) spent daily consecrating themselves in the Word and asking God to change their orientation were still gay as blazes.... 

The brave ones would actually admit it.

One of them, a guy I became friends with and who I'll call Samuel, had reconciled his faith and orientation after a year of "treatment". 

The few times that I visited the church with him we would sit together and he'd fill me in on what was going on. Together, we'd marvel at the afore mentioned "duplicity". 

One Sunday the pastor stood up to announce that the Men's Ex-Gay House was going to be spending the upcoming Saturday doing yardwork at the Women's Ex-Gay House. 

Samuel chuckled and chortled under his breath.

"What?" I whispered to him, curious to know what had made him laugh. 

Samuel took an ink pen and wrote on the back of his bulletin, "Tell you at lunch"

Later over Panera he filled me in...

"The yardwork day... they do it every year. It's one of like a million exercises that they say they had us do because 'only when we make serving others in Christ's love the priority it should be will we have less of a desire to selfishly concentrate on deviance'. But then you get there... you start mowing grass and bagging up clippings and working up a sweat and the leaders of both houses have it all coordinated. The counselors running the lesbian house have them all go to the windows to watch the men from the gay house doing all the yardwork. Then the counselors supervising the men go around and tell them that if they're getting too overheated they should take off their shirts. It's not about 'Christian Service' at all. It's about teaching lesbians how to be horny for shirtless gay men."

I want to scream the slogan from that lady's tee-shirt when I hear things like this... "THIS is freedom???"

THIS IS FREEDOM?!?!?

Then I want to dig out the bookmark that I ended up buying that day at the Christian bookstore, hold it up to the sky and ask God "How, when, and where will I be able to live up to the meaning of my name? When will I get my act together enough to truly be able to effectively 'usher in change'?"

The way I remember, "If the Son has set you free you are free indeed." Beating your vices isn't something accomplished via learning new ones... and victory isn't secured just because you learn how to exercise socially accpetable sins in place of sins that aren't (lust for the opposite gender over lust for the same!)!

The verse in I John reads that if we ask "...anything in accordance with His will" that we can have faith that we "...will receive it"!

Thousands have spent hours on their knees before God asking Him to change them... some claim those prayers are answered. Many of them end up faking their victories... getting married... starting families... only to be discovered hooking up with male prostitutes in a gay bar in the wee hours of the morning years later.

But most (thank you, Jesus) MOST finally realize... If God says I can ask Him for anything... and that He'll give it to me if it's His will... and I've asked repeatedly... and He hasn't given it to me... then maybe just maybe it's not His will for me to change.

It's exhilarating to take God at His word. And it's scary because most people get very angry when you do so. 

Because it's in those moments that you start down the path towards actually BEING someone who can usher in change.

The only frustrating thing is the process. 

You start an exciting process... the story builds momentum... the plot's building towards this grand crescendo and then - you have to stop.

Right in the middle.

Right when it's getting good.

Because even visionaries have to take time to do the everyday things like paying bills, maintaining relationships with family, and working towards climbing the corporate ladder.

You realize that just because you're capable of being an agent of change doesn't mean you have permission to stop being a responsible adult.

And that's where the concept of a bookmark comes in quite handy.

Some may use a laminated piece of plastic in order to keep track of which topless blonde bombshell they were last looking at...

But you and I can take it to a whole new level. 

A passion to see things change... to see things come full circle and witness a world be re-born where people are acceptable because and only because Jesus says they are...

Just fold your heart in two and bury that passion in the crease... 😊