All it takes is a little light.

Remember a couple of blog posts when I was wide awake at fourteen-thirty in the morning, kept up by twirly thoughts about a mysterious situation that no one would discuss with me?

Well, I just got back from having lunch with one of the key figures in the situation and am pleased to report that none of the darkness and weirdness was orchestrated by him, in fact, he seems to have been as perplexed by how the situation was handled as I was.

As far as the situation itself goes, yes, some bad stuff happened.  People did things they should not have done.  Lines were crossed that ought never be crossed and there were multiple failures which served to expose even more failures.  And that is all the detail any of my blog-readers need.

But I will say this:  I am struck by what a wonderful thing it is to hear the story of someone who has failed, who has let down a ton of people and see that person being as real and honest as they have ever been, even more so;  To see no sign of scrambling to fix it, no sign of denial, no making light of it, no sign of simple desperation to return to a position.  It was wonderful instead to see the very real Joy of Christ and faith in his redemption still very much alive in the midst of true repentance.  I don't think you can really repent without getting kind of happy that repentance is an option.

It's a great feeling to know someone who has failed and to think no less of him, to possibly think even more of him.  To think, "I'm glad I know that guy and I'm glad to be his friend," and to honestly believe that I would still gladly go into battle with him, knowing that he fights for the right side.

A large part of why it feels so good to feel this way is that it helps me to believe that people will feel similarly when I fail.

That's sobering.  I will fail.  I don't know how, I don't know when, but it is inevitable.  In some way, I will majorly hurt and offend people I love and care for.  And when I do, I hope I will have people around me who will remind me that people who fail honestly can be loved in an even more precious way than people who succeed.

Sharing Some Faith

Someone who writes a blog I read posted a blogging rule yesterday that says if you want faithful readers you need to be a faithful writer.  At first I was sad, because I'm not a terribly faithful writer.  Then I realized that was stupid because I've never really had a goal of developing a readership.  I don't really know why I do this.  I think it's just a public place for me to rant about anything I want and anyone who wants to read it can.  If that's only 3 people, that's fine.  If that's selfish of me, that's fine too, because believe me, it has only skimmed the surface of my selfishness.

I was thinking the other day about how we as Christians are supposed to share our faith and what a tricky thing that is.  A lot of us hear that and proceed to go out handing people tracts (many of which are then passed around as jokes because they are so ridiculous).  There are also those who proceed to share their faith by making large signs that say things like "Stop being a college student or you will go to hell."  These kind of "witnesses" really ruin it for the rest of us, who would like to just quietly offer a word of hope to someone in need.  Too many times I've seen someone who really needed Jesus bristle at the sound of his name and I know the images racing through their head are of "turn or burn" signs and tear-streamed faces topped with bad hair screaming and demanding their money in exchange for a word of hope.  Their repulsion is justified, based on their experience of people who call themselves by His name.

I often think of someone who's chewing gum and someone else comes along and tries to shove a mint in his mouth.  I mean, we know the mint is better, but wait until they guy's gum goes all gross and rubbery and tasteless and he's about to spit it out anyway...

I realized, though, that's it's almost even more difficult for me to share my faith with others who already identify themselves as Christian.  I have a handful (now that I think of it, a rather large handful) of people who I trust know both Jesus and myself fairly well.  Those people I can be really honest with and talk about the very real and immediate things God is doing in my life.  These people are trustworthy to me because I know they, like I do, rest in the finished work of Christ.  We don't always rest perfectly, but we are always striving toward that rest.  These are the people I truly consider my brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers.

Then there are the distant cousins.

Firstly, understand that I meet a broad spectrum of Christians from numerous communities.  I'm not railing against a particular community.  In fact, there are some of these cousins within every group of believers I encounter.  I doubt any of them will find their way to this blog, anyway, so this is just between you and me, k?

There are some who, when you mention that you were talking to God earlier today, will kind of go wide eyed for a second and then shut down.  They write you off as one of those weirdos who are obsessed with God and who probably do such horrible insane things as speak in tongues and pray out loud.  (I'm terribly guilty of both of these infractions, by the way).

But the ones who get under my skin the most are the ones who, when the conversation turns to the things of God, feel the need to correct and instruct and "out-holy" everyone in the room.  Their quiet time is better than anyone else's because actual angels show up and minister to them and they see an open heaven and stuff.  Their Bible knowledge and ability to quote scripture verbatim is astonishing.  I once had someone say to me, "You know, like it says in First John," and then recite the entire book of First John while I just sat there and waited.  Ok, that might not have happened, but it's not too far from reality.

I've been invited to lunches that turned out to be sessions of psychoanalysis through the lens of one man's interpretation of scripture.  I've said, "I'm doing fine," only to be preached an impromptu sermon on why I should be outrageously joyful at all times, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs over everyone I meet, especially people who ask how I'm doing.  I've casually mentioned to a client that I'm a Christian, only to be grilled by that client about my theology.  It turns out, according to his standards, I am not a Christian at all because I had a dribbly baptism instead of a dunky one and he said he was sad to inform me that I would go to hell if I died right now.  I'm pretty sure the Holy Spirit was rolling his eyes.

I'm also pretty sure that last sentence upset some people because the latest thing is to just say "Holy Spirit," with no "The" because apparently Holy Spirit is his actual name.  "How would you feel if people started calling you The Robbie?" they say.

I'd like it very much, really.

I could go on for pages, but the bottom line is always going to be that I just have to get over it.  That's what the bottom line always is for me.  If I die to myself in this area, then I'll no longer be aware of how annoying people are.  At least I hope so.  I also really, really, really hope that I'm not one of those people who is always fixing and correcting and teaching other people, regardless of their integrity.

Jesus just loved people.  When he taught, he taught because the people wanted him to teach.  They didn't always like what he had to say, but they had always asked to hear it.  I want to be one who doesn't just go around telling everyone everything I know.  How boring.  I want to be one who can say the right one word at the right time and keep it shut the rest of the time.  If Jesus, who is God, only did what he saw the Father doing, why should any of us just carry on with our own assumptions of who God is and what he wants?

Can't sleep. Thoughts a-twirlin'.

For some reason, my thoughts have been twirling a lot today around a situation that sort of exploded a few weeks ago.  It will be easy for me to put it all in a nutshell and to be very vague about it and not name names, because the reality is that I myself know very little about the situation itself.

A community of people that I love, that I felt very much a part of experienced some kind of crisis.  In the midst of said crisis, they circled their wagons and I found myself on the outside of the circle.  The knowledge of the details of the crisis itself was within the circle, so I was in the dark as to what exactly had even transpired.  Vague enough for you?

The pocket of my heart where I kept that community, having once overflowed with nothing but warm fuzzies and supernatural delights was now stuffed with unanswered questions and a strong sense of alienation.

In a strange way, it was an answer to prayer.  I had been seeking God as to whether it might be good for me to move there and join this community full time for a season or two, and I was deeply hoping that his answer would be "Yes."  The way things have unfolded, I don't think I could enjoy so much as having lunch there anymore, let alone living and working there.

I had really hoped that I might at some point be filled in a little.  These are, after all, people I love and care about.  But after a few weeks of silence from the involved parties, I'm losing interest.  And the truth is, I'm not entitled to answered questions.  I don't deserve to know what kind of crisis puts a gag order on a whole community.  And I don't need to understand a community that submits to such a gag order.

Yeah, it burns a little to feel like you belong somewhere and are welcome there and then find out that you are actually considered an outsider.  It burns.  But it's a glorious thing to have your life tidied up a bit.  It's a difficult thing to let a fruit-bearing branch be chopped off, but if it makes the rest of the tree stronger, so be it.

Love is Love

I belong to a weird little internet community that is loosely based on do-it-yourself electronic music production. Very loosely. It's mostly based on veering off-topic.

Anyway, nobody had actually produced any music in quite a while so someone demanded that everyone complete a new song by the end of the year. I thought it might be nice to take a break from my ep/album/whatever and just run off a quickie. The plan was to do something so simplistic that I could finish it up in a few hours. Three days later (sigh) I had this song here.

The cool thing is that I learned a LOT of cool stuff in the process of making it and am now really inspired to get to work on more stuff.

I just thought since I talk a lot about my neurotic music-making processes here that I should post some actual music so everyone will know that while I am mostly talk, I'm not all talk.

Most Amazing String Arrangement Ever

I just wrote it, everyone. Actually it's not all that amazing. It just seems like it to me because it's the first one I ever wrote and it actually seems like it's going to work in the song I'm working on. It's very exciting and fun when things work.

Here's how happy I am that it works:



Logic 9 has a really cool Orchestral template that I hope to exploit very much in the future. I think it'll sound pretty convincing once it's all mixed in with the synth stuff. In other words, it won't sound like The Princess Bride soundtrack's cheesy super fake sampled orchestra.

Anyway, this song just uses strings, but I may try to do some brass stuff on other songs. Who knows? With computer magic these days, the sky's the limit.

I can't remember numbers.

If you tell me the address of someplace, I'll remember the street name, but not what number it is or how many miles away. If I read how much something costs, I can never remember, especially when they put that stupid .99 at the end. JUST SAY $5 AND STOP ALL THIS $4.99 BUSINESS. I also get my millions and billions mixed up and that makes me look stupid sometimes.

I got an email the other day from my bank telling me taxes were due and I had to approve payment by some date. I thought it was December 12, because I saw a 12 on the date thing on my computer. We still haven't had the 12th, yet, in case you were wondering. At any rate, this sent me into a panic because I thought I had 5 days to cough up, uhh, some amount of money I can't remember, but I know there were 4 digits. I just payed all my bills for December so I don't exactly have 4 digits in my business account, and thinking it was the 12th, I thought I had only a couple of days to come up with it.

Did I fail to mention that this is the slowest week I've ever had at work? Someone called last minute to book a color and cut and it doubled my total for the week. That's how slow.

So I teetered on the edge of panicking all day until that client came in and wrote her check. The value of the check wasn't was relieved my panic; it was the date on top of the check. Suddenly, I had ten more days than I thought I had.

Until they resent the email this morning, letting me know I had to approve payment by the 11th. How did I ever think Wednesday was the 12th?

I'm still debating whether or not I should panic about that stupid tax bill. Next week, while not history-making slow, is still pretty slow. [prayer]Please God, all those last minute caller-inners who usually make me insane, please let them call this week.[/prayer]

So that's basically how my week is going.

Ummmm no title.

A few weeks ago, someone suggested that I scale back my album project and turn it into an EP. I said I didn't want to do that, because I had finished a shorter project before (a three-song EP I gave out for Christmas a couple of years ago) and I wanted to branch out and go bigger.

But today, after recording the fourth scratch vocal for this project, I started dreading the prospect of writing and roughly singing seven more sets of lyrics. It's all getting dragged out too long. I listened to some of the other songs today for the first time in a while and I'm totally uninspired by them.

Later, on my way to 7-11 for a thing of Ben and Jerry's Turtle Soup, I had a brilliant idea: Scale back my album project and turn it into an EP! But with five songs. That's bigger than anything I've done, right? It's still moving forward at least.

So I'm going to finish the four new songs I'm working on and rework an old song that I've always thought deserved a little more attention than I gave it the first time around.

I think I've pretty much decided to stop feeling guilty about not working on music more or faster. I mean, it's MY music. I don't have a contract with anybody or anything. I don't know why I work so slowly/neurotically. I just do. I have a friend who can literally produce songs more frequently than BMs. That's his way of going about business. I finish an average of (just guessing here) three songs a year since I started making music.

Anyway, I'm waiting for a new piece of equipment to arrive and then it's make-it-work time for the backing tracks, which is my favorite part, I think.