Plumbing the Depths of the Spirit- One Song at a Time...

During the summer months, while my wife and daughter are frolicking down at the shore and I am home working, I have a lot of evenings to myself. One of my passions is playing jazz (and blues and folk and classical and rock) guitar.

When I first started piano lessons as a boy, I would love to "play by ear"- and developed quite a knack for it some would say. The scales, velocity exercises, classical studies and cadences drove me crazy, though. I was, and still am 'decent' at it, but not great. I continued lessons into college (where I was a vocal-choral major). But I stopped taking lessons, because, in part I had lost passion for the instrument.

Well now, I have been playing and studying the guitar for almost ten years and LOVE IT. It takes a lot of hard work to begin to journey toward mastery of the instrument and the expression of musical art through that instrument. I still have a long way to go on that journey, but I feel good about where I am with it right now.Lately (for the past few months) in addition to velocity exercises, chord inversions and progressions, I have been working on a great jazz tune called "Lament" by jazz trombone great J.J. Johnson.

A seemingly simple melody with a very straight forward chord progression. Yet, I am finding there are so many nuances of expression within those notes if one really truly "plumbs the depths" of each musical nook and cranny that the melody evokes. This is the essence of jazz- focused, collaborative, synergistic creative expression through music.

Contrary to what some may think too- despite that jazz is a freer, more creative medium that incorporates improvisation, it takes excellent mastery of the instrument, knowledge of the genre, and fluency with the lingua franca, or common language of jazz. The great jazz masters- like Charlie Parker, Duke Ellington, Miles Davis or Wes Montgomery, commanded such a mastery of the instrument and the art, that their performances and improvisations sound so effortless to the untrained ear.

This sense of "effortless," flowing musical expression, at its best, speaks to the deepest parts of the human Spirit.This does not happen by the artist just sitting down without having ever practiced or prepared and just starting to play. No- all the jazz greats first had to "pay their dues" in the woodshed practicing and practicing. Practice can seem tedious without a greater vision or sense of purpose in it. However, when the time is put in, and effort consistently made- the fruit of this labor can be amazing and almost ethereal.

After practicing "Lament" literally for several months on end- carefully learning all the chords, every last note in the melody, then playing the chords in all the possible inversions, and finally putting chords and melody together at the same time with embellishments and improvisations weaved in to fit with the chords- there was recently a moment of epiphany of sorts.

After practicing very methodically, note by note, chord by chord- playing the challenging spots over, and over, and over again until it went from labored stumbling to a smooth, beautiful effortless flow- I finally had an "a ha!" moment where I realized why I had been working so hard for all this time, and why my teacher had patiently guided and encouraged me through all that work and practice.I played (or 'comped') the chords into the digital "looper" I have in my basement hooked to an amp, then pressed the loop switch, and began my workout- I was finally ready to "plumb the depths" of this song- having put in the time, struggled through the practice leading up to this point. After a time or two through warming up, I began to feel a pull from my inner Spirit, guiding my fingers to the notes and chords that best expressed how this tremendously moving melody was speaking to my heart.

I started with a basic statement of the melody as written over the chords- then I built on it, and built on it. I played, and I played, and I played- polishing the spots I had struggled with, and seeking to explore new creative musical territory as I went. The music was drawing my deeper and deeper- and at the same time God was speaking and ministering to my heart through this music- perhaps something like David must have felt when he played his harp and sung the Psalms he had written.

When I finally concluded the session, my fingers ached a little bit and I had gained a new callous or two, but it felt good- I had completed (or God had completed in me) a labor of love! This brought me the greatest peace I had felt in a long time, and was cathartic for me in many ways. Playing and studying the guitar is one of the ways that I meditate and plumb the depths of my inner Spirit.

I borrowed the metaphor "plumbing the depths" from the vocation of river pilots, who are knowledgeable experts at navigating a particular stretch of a river or waterway. They explore, learn about, study and get to know that stretch of river better than almost anyone around. They know where the channels and shoals are; they know where the sandbars and hidden rocks lie; they know the idiosynchrasies of the currents and weather conditions, and most of all- they know the best way to pilot a ship through that stretch safely and efficiently.

In many ways, God's Holy Spirit guides us in a similar way on our journey- a river pilot or jazz guitar master- has an amazing, genius-like skill in one particular, focused area. God's Spirit, though is always with us, always goes before us and knows the way.

Peace on the journey,

John

What I am reading this week...

A History of Religious Ideas, by Mircea Eliade

Process Theology: An Introductory Exposition by John Cobb, jr. & David Ray Griffin

Einstein: His Life & Universe, by Walter Isaacson

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, by Dee Brown

Finding the 'Thin Places'

Both Barbara Brown Taylor, and Marcus Borg write about finding the "thin places" on one's spiritual journey. These are places along one's spiritual path where God's Spirit feels especially near. For some it is a moment or experience of transcendence, or a time when God reveals a vision of the future, or confirms a calling. At other times, these thin places can be moments of communion with God's wondrous creation.

In my personal journey, I have experienced these thin places most powerfully in my walks in nature. Eugene Peterson, in Living the Message, writes about how he and his wife take what he calls "Emmaus Walks"- walks in nature where they can restfully meditate on God's great love.

The photo shown above is from the Wissahickon Creek- which runs through Montgomery County, PA into Fairmount Park in Philadelphia. When I lived with my wife and daughter in Philadelphia, we were just a few minutes walk from this beautiful creek. I would go there often on long walks to be out in nature, get a little exercise, and meditate on God's presence in my life. For me, this was often a thin place.




In his wonderfully insightful book The Heart of Christianity, Borg writes of the ancient Celtic Christian concept of "thin places":

'Thin places' has its home in a particular way of thinking about God. Deeply rooted in the Bible and the Christian tradition, this way of thinking sees God, 'the More,' as the encompassing Spirit in which everything is. God is not somewhere else, but 'right here.'
. . .
A thin place is anywhere our hearts are opened. To use sacramental language, a thin place is a sacrament of the sacred, a mediator of the sacred, a means whereby the sacred becomes present to us. A thin place is a means of grace.

Worship can become a thin place, but so can a walk in a beautiful space in God's creation. It can be anywhere that we open our hearts to God and commune with the Holy Spirit.

Barbara Brown Taylor shares a bit about her struggle to find these places of spiritual renewal early in her ministry in her book Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faith:

Sixty hour weeks were normal, hovering close to eighty during the holidays. Since my job involved visiting parishioners in hospitals and nursing homes on top of a heavy administrative load, the to-do list was never done. More often, I simply abandoned it when I felt my mind begin to coast like a car out of gas. Walking outside of whatever building I had been in, I was often surprised by how warm the night was or how cold. I was so immersed in indoor human dramas that I regularly lost track of the seasons.

After years of driving herself unrelentingly with long weeks, little rest, and even less time with her husband, she found herself feeling spiritually depleted and seeking a thin place. She and her husband discerned that God was leading them to make a move from the busy urban church in Atlanta. They went to north Georgia, and when they arrived, found a beautiful piece of land at the confluence of two large streams with the Chatahoochee River overlooking breathtaking mountains. They had found a place of rest, and reflection. They ended up buying a tract of land and building a home there.

In John's Gospel, there was another woman feeling depleted and empty- seeking living water:

Jesus answered, 'Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but hoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.' The woman said to him, 'Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.'

Where are the thin places in your life today? Do they seem few and far between? For so many of us they do all too often. Seek God's peace and you will be found.

Peace to you in and in-between the thin places,

John

Has sports reached a new low?

Today, Barry Bonds tied (he broke it a few days after I originally wrote this). Hank Aaron's career home run record of 755. Apparently, the reaction from the capacity crowd at San Diego was a cacaphonous mixture of boos and cheers. There were also hundreds, if not more than a thousand fans who held up white pieces of paper with a huge asterisk printed on it.

Here is one sporswriter's take on this whole circus.

Bonds, of course, is still under investigation for lying about using performance enhancing drugs. His trainer Greg Anderson went to jail for refusing to testify and for obstructing justice, if I remember correctly. This whole sordid, disgraceful story was unpacked in the book Game of Shadows, written by two San Francisco sportswriters who thoroughly investigated Bonds' ties to the dubious San Francisco training supplement lab known as BALCO.

I am not sure what is more disturbing- that Bonds may well have done steroids and hormones then lied about it and been enabled by trainers, OR that owners, managers, and top league officials, including MLB commissioner Bud Selig seem to have all but turned a blind eye to the steroid and performance-enhancing drug problem.

In the first 12 years of Bonds' career, he had never hit more than 40 home runs. Then, all of a sudden, the year after Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa battled for the home run record, under suspicious circumstances (fast forward to McGuire's huge 'no comment' in his testimony before the congressional committee investigating performance-enhancing drugs). THEN, the following year, Bonds bulks up by more than 25 lbs, sets a new home run record, followed the next year by swatting a mammoth 73 homers! A few of them which may still be orbiting the earth...

Also, his stolen base total went down significantly while his power numbers skyrocketed- presumably from the significant weight and muscle mass he put on all of a sudden....

So, here we are about 6-8 years later, and Bonds just tied Hank Aaron- one of the most prolific and highly respected men to ever play the game. What does the league commissioner have to say about what under presumably honest circumstances would have been a momentous achievement?? Here is his quote:

"Everybody has to make their own judgments."

Hmm... not exactly a ringing endorsement.

Wait, wait, surely one of his own teammates would be able to put a more positive spin on this:

"My impression?" teammate Dave
Roberts said. "From the outside, I had a certain opinion. Now that I'm
closer to it, I think he's getting a raw deal, plain and simple. … He's taken
shots from everybody. After a while, you clam up. People take him as a bad guy
because of it.
"He's never tested positive. The people that know him best –
teammates or guys who play against him – those are the people I listen to. And I
love having him as a teammate. I don't know how he's dealt with it his whole
career. Some of it might be warranted, but it goes both ways."

"Some of it might be warranted, but it goes both ways." Basically he seems to be saying- look I am still on this guy's team, so I can't say much, but I wouldn't be surprised if I found out he did it (Even though he has not officially tested positive since MLB officially instituted steroids testing- about a decade after they instituted a policy against it).

And what is with this mickey mouse "investigation" (if you want to call it that) put on by George Mitchell. Does he really think he is going to get anywhere by trying to compel people to talk about this taboo issue voluntarily?? The only people that seem to be talking about steroids are washed-up mediocre players who juiced themselves, like Jose Canseco, who has all but become a pariah in the pro sports world for naming names.

It all stinks if you ask me.

I have to ask, though- What is the greater moral of this whole disgraceful saga??

Is it that somehow Bonds will be or has been proved to be a bad role model for kids?? That is not the real issue- sports figure bad boys have been around since it all began. Even Babe Ruth drank like a fish and apparently had several different venereal diseases that he acquired from his many affairs.

The number of players involved in shady business deals or illicit off-field/off-court escapades are a dime a dozen...

No- the clincher for me, is that this goes straight to the root of not only damaging that player's reputation, but it exposes the whole sport as a fraud for tolerating (probably knowingly) such grossly unethical- if not illegal and unfair practices.

Then again, what does that say about "us"- the American public, who fill the stadiums, buy the millions in team merchandise, and watch the games and support the advertisers??

Are we not all enabling this by allowing ourselves to become passive voyeurs with a lust for more and more sensational feats??

I am a pretty devoted baseball fan. I have followed the Philadelphia Phillies since my grandfather took me to see my first game when I was six years old.

At some point, I think enough of the fan base needs to send a strong, firm message to MLB owners and the commissioner that ENOUGH IS ENOUGH- CLEAN UP YOUR ACT!

Unfortunately, it appears the only way this will ever be accomplished is if enough people vote with their feet and spend their time and money elsewhere.

After all, there is a lot more to life than watching pro sports. Here's to living life more fully instead of putting bad role models up on phony pedestals then watching them fall...

Put your faith in the TRUE ROCK, Jesus Christ, and you will never fail.

Peace in the Lord,

John