How a Local Church Taught Me to Love Music Again

I'll never forget the first time I played a guitar. I was hanging out in the school band hall when my buddy, Jake, found a long, rectangular box in one of the practice rooms and found a guitar inside. He started playing and I immediately begged him to teach me. We started hanging out in that practice room every day, making music and rocking out. The ability to create moods and ideas with these instruments was our journey and we never looked back.

I knew that I wanted to make music for the rest of my life. My band director had helped me to become a darned good trumpet player, and by the time I was in high school I found myself pouring over music theory books and learning to play every instrument I could get my hands on. (Yes, there are some people who will read a theory book like it's Harry Potter.)

Reality came crashing into my life when I learned that there aren't many ways to make a living at music. The artists who are successful are the ones who can afford to market themselves, and if you don't look like a model you quickly learn that no one cares about your art. (The picture I've attached should easily demonstrate why I'm not a household name.)

The people who run the music labels are not concerned with making quality music, preferring to give pre-written songs to good-looking people that they parade around like in front of cameras. It's worse for the ladies; the entertainment industry is entirely dependent on its ability to exploit young girls, and few women become celebrities without taking off their clothes.

I also noticed that no one liked music the way I did. The crowds wanted celebrities and dance parties, not six strings and the truth. It dawned on me that computer work was my future, not music, and that it didn't matter if I was any good, because no one wanted to hear what I had to offer. To put it bluntly, no one cares about music. (Don't believe me? Ask someone who their favorite guitar player is. Most people can't think of one.)

Then I found a small church that needed an electric guitar player and wanted to know if I could help. It was exactly what I needed. I spent weeks designing and building a new pedal board and proudly played my semi-hollow body Epiphone with the church band. I added blues solos to songs that obviously needed them, and my groovy, psychedelic effects transformed boring songs into deep meditations. I was playing my overdriven guitar as loudly as I could, and the congregation loved it.

I had to move on, but my next church (where I'm currently serving) had even more challenges for me. Musicians love challenges. I have sat at the piano and found new melodies for old songs, and I've brought my mandolin on stage to bring an upbeat, old-style feel to familiar music. These days, I'm usually playing the bass, an instrument that can change the course of a service with a single note, and looking down a that instrument I am easily reminded of how I felt when I first picked up a guitar.

In our most recent Christmas season, we worked hard to create dark, somber music that brought out the intense feelings of longing so we could remember our need for redemption. Shaping songs like this is exactly why I fell in love with music, and church is the only place where I've ever been asked to do it.

I'm not a celebrity, and I don't make any money with my songs, but I do have a regular music gig that's incredibly fulfilling. Every week I play to a captive audience as we explore music, together, in a way that leads us to a better understanding of God. I no longer consider myself a frustrated musician, because I found what I was looking for on a small, local stage.

(For the curious, my friend Jake - the one who taught me to play - has an interesting story you may want to read.)

Celebrate Presidents Day - Debunking Myths about George Washington

Today is a special federal holiday - Washington's Birthday!  Or, as most of us know it (thanks to endless silhouette crafts in elementary school), Presidents Day!

Myths about George Washington abound in our culture.  Some of these are merely anecdotal, but some actually represent a serious problem for our society's understanding of Washington and his legacy.  Here are six of these myths, and some quick correctives to them.

Myth #1: It's Presidents Day!
Although many Americans celebrate Presidents Day on the third Monday in February, no such federal holiday actually exists.  Instead, the day is officially called Washington's Birthday.  The day has slowly morphed over the decades into its present moniker in order to account for the many traditions in various states and regions which celebrate other presidents, including Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and John F. Kennedy.  Rather than supplant the great George Washington, most places simply chose to rename the holiday generally to account for all of their favorite presidents

Myth #2: George Washington had Wooden Teeth
George Washington never had wooden teeth.  He did have a lot of false teeth.  But like all false teeth of his day, they were made of other, more durable materials, including ivory, animal bones, and even human teeth.  These were never terribly comfortable, but they were better than wood.

Myth #3: George Washington Smoked Marijuana
George Washington did not grow or smoke marijuana.  He did grow hemp on his plantation, but this hemp produced no narcotic effects.  Besides, it is clear from his books that he grew hemp to sell for very focused industrial purposes, including the production of paper, fuel, and rope.  Sorry to all of you Colorado pot-smokers: Washington is not your pal.  (Washington did, however, own a very productive distillery, which produced a highly-sought-after whiskey.  You can read about that, and about the recent reproduction of that whiskey from his handwritten recipe here.)

Myth #4: George Washington Chopped Down a Cherry Tree, and could not Tell a Lie
The old myth goes something like this: as a boy, George Washington chopped down a cherry tree.  When confronted with his sin by his father Augustine, Washington promptly confessed, saying something like "I cannot tell a lie."  Well, the truth is that this story never happened.  Instead, it was concocted by a man named Mason Locke Weems, otherwise known as Parson Weems.  In 1800, Weems published a book entitled The Life and Memorable Actions of George Washington.  This book was sold as a biography of Washington, but in truth, it was a book of fables, meant to use the great Father of the United States as an example of moral behavior (and to make alot of money).  He later wrote other moralistic books such as The Drunkard's Glass and God's Revenge Against Dueling.

Myth #5: George Washington said "So Help me God" in his Presidential Oath
Every president must affirm a specific oath, as required by Article Two, Section One, Clause Eight of the Constitution.  It ends with, "I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."  It ends there.  Do you feel like something is missing?  If you do, that is because since the early-19th century, presidents have been adding the phrase "So Help me God" to the end of the oath.  The addition of this phrase has always been attributed to - you guessed it - George Washington.  The problem is that there is no evidence that Washington ever said this.  The only sources for this spurious flourish at the end of the oath come from people who wrote later in the 1800s, who had specific religious agendas, and who were not present for Washington's original inauguration.  Hardly trustworthy sources.

Myth #6: George Washington Had a Vision and Prayed at Valley Forge

You have probably seen an image like this one before: Washington on his knees, in the snow, slightly illuminated by light from above, praying.  There are several versions of the same story: General Washington, in the middle of the American Revolution, in deep trouble at Valley Forge in the Winter of 1777-1778, had a religious vision, and retreated to the woods to fall on his knees in prayer.  Guess where this story first showed up - our old friend, Parson Weems.  Weems published an article in The Federalist in 1804 claiming that this happened, but provided no sources, no witnesses, and no explanation.  Now, Washington was certainly a religious man, who belonged to an Episcopal Church most of his life.  He regularly called on "Providence" to aid him, or thanked "Providence" for aid.  He may have even prayed while at Valley Forge.  Americans, including Christians, can thus look to him as an example of dedication, prayerfulness, and possibly even piety.  But if we do so, we should do so based on facts, not on caricatures.  And these paintings of Washington at Valley Forge are just that - caricatures.

Next time someone tries to spread one of these myths, you'll be ready.  Such myths may be fun, interesting, or even helpful to a religious cause, but they're myths nonetheless, and should not be perpetuated by anyone who wants to know or spread the truth.

For great reading on Washington, myths about him, and his times, I recommend:

Edward Lengel, Inventing George Washington: America's Founder, in Myth and Memory
David Hackett Fischer, Washington's Crossing
Ron Chernow, Washington: A Life
John Fea, Was America Founded as a Christian Nation? A Historical Introduction

(reposted, from Presidents Day 2013)

Roses are red. Violets are blue. Facebook has thrown up. I think I might too.

I should say upfront, I'm not typically a Valentine's Day hater. More power to the anti-Vday folks who get together every February 14 to... I don't know what exactly, but that's just not my thing.

However.

Facebook is a bit of a pressure cooker---things get intensified because everyone is posting about the same thing nonstop. When this happens, whether it be because of the latest Evangelical controversy or some political scandal, the World Wide Web gets a little claustrophobic for me, and I have to leave.

Sadly, this is how I feel about Facebook on Valentine's Day.

Again, I'm not a romance hater. I'm a fan of love. I especially enjoy reading about my friends' happiness in love, even when I'm flying solo, which I admit might be a bit unusual, but I feel particularly strongly about the importance of public, or at least communal, expressions of love and affection and appreciation for your awesome SO. Society needs good love stories; we need examples of healthy relationships and how to navigate them in both public and private (communal and personal) spaces.

Most of the time---because I have super great friends who are some of the best people on the planet---I get a healthy dose of My-Husband/wife/boyfriend/girlfriend/fiance-Is-The-Best! posts. These sorts of posts pop up on anniversaries and birthdays and completely out of the blue because, again, I have stellar friends who have equally stellar SOs.

This is a good thing. But it's also nice and spread out. On Valentine's Day, it's like it's everyone's anniversary on the same day. My feed is flooded with Vday posts, even from the pages I follow, so that everyone from that girl I knew in high school to NPR is posting about romance. All. Day. Sometimes all weekend.

In addition to just being obnoxious (to a good number of the attached as well as the unattached) because it's ubiquitous, Valentine's Day is already a day in which people can feel especially lonely, where the loneliness they already feel from time to time is magnified and intensified. Now add social media to the mix and that intensity is compounded even further.

So, I'm going to make a request that I normally wouldn't make. Please think twice before gushing to the World Wide Web about the sweet, romantic things your super-rad SO did for you on Valentine's Day. Maybe save it for birthdays and anniversaries and miscellaneous moments of love.

And don't forget your single friends. Let them know you love them too. Send a card or a text or an Amazon gift card. And maybe not just on Valentine's Day and birthdays, but just because.

Feminism: The Other F-Word

I’m a Christian. And I’m a feminist. For lots of folks, those two identifiers seem incompatible, antithetical, an oxymoron.

Are those things supposed to go together?

A few years ago, I gave a presentation at an academic conference at my alma mater, a Christian university. As a part of my lecture, I used a research-based creative piece I wrote that engages with Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene by recasting its only female knight while striving to stay true to Spenser's original art as much as possible. My rewrite was feminist. The room was mostly occupied by people who know me well, friends and former professors, so I found myself throwing out the F-word rather casually and without caveat throughout my presentation.

Somewhere along the way, I noticed a few of the folks in the room looking concerned, possibly even a little upset, and it dawned on me that I needed to stop and make a caveat or two: I just realized I've been casually throwing around the F-word [insert shocked faces here], you know, feminism… the other F-word, and that’s because most of you know me well enough to know the kind of feminism I mean. But that’s a bit unfair to the rest of you in here because of the bad rap feminism gets in Christian circles. 

We don't use words like that around here, young lady!

I went on to explain myself: I like men [insert comic relief]. I don't think men are evil or the source of all the world’s problems. I don't think all men are raving, sexist morons. Quite the opposite. I get just as upset about commercials and sitcoms and throw-away comments from women that make men out to be helpless idiots and blundering cavemen as I do with ideology that makes women out to be, for example, either perfect angels or whorish devils with no room for messy, muddling humanity, as is the case with our text today. I’m an egalitarian, which sometimes requires feminist efforts to raise women up from the dehumanizing social scripts proliferated by men and women alike, and sometimes requires masculinist efforts to do the same for men.

I hope that was helpful in assuaging the furrowed brows in the room. I couldn’t quite tell. I had a time limit and had to move on. If I’d had all day, I would have challenged them not to shy away from feminist scholarship just because there are some toxic versions of feminism out there. In fact, good feminism must exist, if for no other reason, because bad feminism needs to be answered. [Golly that’s good! Oh right, that’s because I didn’t come up with it; CS Lewis did (read “philosophy” where I wrote “feminism”).]

You can read more about Mr Clive Staples in Aaron's lovely piece, Surprised by Failure.

I think it’s important that as Christians we develop habits of thinking that are nuanced, particularly in regard to those ideas that stir up our most vehement reactions, the ideas we like the least and the ones we feel most threatened by. I think this is happening more and more; nuance is often one of the good results of Postmodernism. (What!!? Isn’t “good Postmodernism” incompatible, antithetical, and an oxymoron? Case in point. But that’s another post for another day, and one that can probably be done better by some of my fellow TTC writers. Cough-cough, hint-hint…)

Feminism in it’s extreme forms is ugly and certainly incompatible with Christianity because it dehumanizes men (and women). Any sort of approach that seeks to, for example, oppress the oppressors is the product of our fallen nature (even if it’s understandable); it is the epitome of hypocrisy to say: It’s wrong to oppress us, so we’re gonna oppress you as punishment. However, I would encourage those who, for example, believe the Bible speaks conclusively about gender roles (and therefore consider feminism antithetical to Christianity) to consider the ways in which their feminist, or egalitarian, brothers and sisters are challenging that position. A helpful article in this vein called, “Gender Difference: Lose the Boxes,” appears on Sandra Ghland’s blog Aspire 2 Thinking that Transforms. Do I think this essay or a hundred like it are going to change anyone’s position? Not necessarily. But I’m less concerned with that than I am with the need for us as Christ-followers to discipline ourselves to think outside our boxes, whatever they may be, so that, among other things, we can be unified in our differences through Christ rather than divided by them, a division that thrills our Enemy and those most hostile to our faith. [I could just as easily make the same exhortation to egalitarians, but this is a feminist post after all. ;) ]

For a good starter on thinking through a middle way between extreme feminism and complete rejection of feminist efforts, I recommend Dorothy L. Sayers’s Are Women Human? It’s a little book comprised of two short, very readable (and rather witty) essays: one critiques Feminism, the other, the Church.

Let’s work together to de-vilify feminism. There really should be only one F-word… Foucault! [insert winking emoticon here]