Retrospecticus: 2014

From The Simpsons Season 7 Episode 25, "Summer of 4 Ft. 2"

2014 proved to be a very interesting year in my life, much like it was for many of you I'm sure.  One thing that I have come to realize about myself is that I am not very good at planning for the future or setting goals (I really never have been).  For example, starting back in January of this year I had set a goal for myself to read one book a month for the year.  That lasted until March...

For this reason, I am glad that I work in a field that looks backward and analyzes the things that have already happened and try to glean the useful bits that can be applicable to us today.  So in this vein I will attempt to do the same thing with my life this past year.

For the most part when people ask me, "What's new?", my response tends to be the same: "Nothing much."  I've discovered that when you have a steady job and no children, there really isn't much to report as far as changes are concerned.  My weeks seem pretty repetitive, but not in a bad way, more in just a settled routine kind of way.  Of course this is all on the outside of life.  In the inner workings of my brain there have been a plethora of thoughts and "changes" that have occurred this past year, but it would be incorrect in Southern Evangelical Christian culture to respond with, "Well, I've been teetering on the brink of atheistic nihilism this week, but other than that, everything's great!"  So for those of you that are interested in the dark recesses of my inner-life, here is my personal analysis of my 2014 and the object lessons that I have learned.


1. I have very wonderful friends and I am certainly not worthy of their companionship.  These people come from very different walks of life, but they all have exemplified for me so many positive aspects of living a good life and showing kindness to others.  Why they continue to associate with me, I do not understand, but I am eternally grateful that they do.  

"Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art... It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival."   - CS Lewis


2. My Millennial sense of entitlement is a total lie, and I'm not as special or gifted or talented as I've been led to believe.  This was made very apparent when I attended the Society for American Music conference in Lancaster, PA back at the beginning of March (and my Facebook rant on my wall is proof positive of said sense of entitlement).  Folks in the older generation have gotten to where they are from years of hard work and determination and not just because they are gifted and have a degree from an expensive private university.  And whatever expertise I think I have pales in comparison to many others.  If we want to succeed in this same way, whether through academia, the private sector, or personal entrepreneurial-ship or craftsmanship, we need to be willing to slug through the dredges of the bottom and continue to work in excellence until our work speaks for itself.  Either that, or become a survivalist and go off the grid completely (one of my life goals) or just work for the government and turn your brain off for good (Count it!)  And in those times where I feel like the "work" I do is insignificant, over-looked, or unappreciated, I have to kill that entitlement mindset and humble myself, knowing full-well that we will always reap what we sow.  In the meantime, I will be thankful for a good job and a good boss.  The former is hard to come by and the latter is becoming a thing of legend.  To have both, like I do, is a miracle.

“Lord, when I feel that what I'm doing is insignificant and unimportant, help me to remember that everything I do is significant and important in your eyes, because you love me and you put me here, and no one else can do what I am doing in exactly the way I do it.”  - Brennan Manning


3. There is nothing wrong with self-improvement or trying to make yourself a better person, just don't get upset when you fail.  We tried an experiment with a multi-level marketing company between June of 2013 and August of this past year and failed pretty miserably at it.  But I do not look back on it with disgust, mostly because I learned a lot of things along the way that I've found applicable to my other ventures, so here are some bullet points from this lesson:

• There are 3 types of belief: personal, pervasive, and permanent
• When it comes to dealing with self-doubt, log and dispute all irrational or untrue thoughts
• There is no such thing as perfection, just perfect effort
• Always take action when you feel fear.
• Every obstacle is an opportunity to be an overcomer
• Know thyself, and know your "why" - especially when someone tries to persuade you that a 10 hour car ride through the night for a weekend conference will be worth it in the end (for me this was 50/50 and the hits were good hits, but the misses far-outweighed the hits).  
• Only God is capable of raising the dead, so if God is not in something that you think will be death, there is no hope of a resurrection.

“Every great improvement has come after repeated failures. Virtually nothing comes out right the first time. Failures, repeated failures, are finger posts on the road to achievement. One fails forward toward success. ” - Charles F. Kettering
    

4. I attend an amazing church.  Reflecting back on my 7+ year attendance at The Village Chapel here 
in Nashville, I am overcome with thankfulness and gratitude towards the Pastoral staff, the leadership,
the volunteers and parishioners, and I thank God constantly that He led me there in a time of great need.  
No church is perfect, of course.  Even the church that I am so thankful for has its foibles and shortcomings, but the beauty of this church is evident in its daily portrayal of God's grace bestowed on all of us miserable sinners.  I am challenged to live in faith, abide in that amazing grace, and be a beacon of light and love to a dark and loveless world.  I am thankful for the men and women who share in my struggles and allow me to share in theirs, and I am reinvigorated by God's mercies which are new every morning.  I know that there a lot of people all across the world that have lost a lot of hope for humanity in recent years.  Might I encourage you to give Christianity a first or second or third look?  It provides the same diagnosis for humanity as secular humanism, but unlike this naturalist worldview, it also prescribes the cure.  And the best news is that this cure has been readily available for almost 2000 years, and the hospitals and pharmacies that dispense said cure are accepting new patients every Sunday (at the very least).

"If you live today, you breath in nihilism ... it's the gas you breathe. If I hadn't had the Church to fight it with or to tell me the necessity of fighting it, I would be the stinkingest logical positivist you ever saw right now."  - Flannery O'Connor


5. I am a very selfish person.  I liken myself to Gollum from the Lord of the Rings.  Though I do not
aspire to have many earthly possessions and dedicate my life's work to the allocation of stuff, the things
that I do own I hold with clenched fists.  My home, my creature comforts, the things I worked hard to 
purchase over the years are "my precious", and the thought of losing said things to fire or theft sometimes
keep me up at night.  This, of course, is a ridiculous mindset to have.  As victims of tornadoes or floods 
are normally told when trying to be consoled, "This is why you have insurance." or "It's just stuff.  The 
important things that matter are that you and your loved ones are alive."  Herein lies the weakness of a 
creature of comfort.  For someone such as myself I consider my comfortable and familiar "way of life"
as being more important than "actual life".  It was for people like me that Jesus would say, "Go and sell
all of your possessions and give them to the poor and come follow me.  Let me show you what is truly 
important in life.  Watch for yourself and see what it actually means to live."  These are hard truths to 
accept while you cling to your "precious" while sitting in your warm home far-removed from the ills of 
society.  Somewhere in his story, Smeagol had a life and an identity that was defined by his words and deeds.
All of this he gave up for the one ring.  When we dwell in our caves clinging to our creature comforts, and 
scheming ways in which to ensure the safety and protection of our things at the expense of murdering our
selflessness and empathy, we become more beast than human with each passing day.  As I type these words,
I pray that my grasp on "my precious" lessens so much to the point that if I were to lose it all I could respond 
like Job with, "Blessed be the name of the Lord."   

“If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.”  - The Hobbit


6.  I have been afraid for a long time to share my music with the world again.  After the self-letdown of the release of my 2006 album, enduring the rigors and financial burden of a formal education, and my release upon graduation into the abysmal desert that was the music industry in 2008 (or the job market in general at that time), I had lost all hope for a future as an artist.  I stopped writing music.  Of course I did small projects here and there as were available for extra income or as favors for friends, but none of these projects shared in the same creative process as new personal compositions.  Fortunately for me, my brain would never truly let me quit.  For the past 7 years I have been jotting down ideas, creating themes, or singing melodies to myself, even composing full productions in my mind.   And for the past 2 years, these scraps of musical ideas have been concentrated into one unified story.  But even as the work itself is coming to fruition, that is only half the battle as a musician or songwriter.  The other half of the battle lies with the outside world, and it is this half that has me terrified.  What has been amazing to me this entire time is that for the past 7 years that I have been in self-selected hiatus, God has put me in places of performance.  I have performed in recording sessions, shows, professional symphonies and worship services.  I have placed myself before audiences of family, friends, students, strangers, and the paying public without dread and with full confidence.  But the caveat for all of these performances has been that none of this had been original to myself.  It is in the work of others that I can hide in plain sight, because my own worth is not dictated in the public's opinion of the performance.  When you perform your own music, it is here that you are naked and vulnerable.  It is here where your thoughts and emotions are presented for the world to scrutinize, criticize or praise.  And this is just one side of an ugly coin.  The other side contains the logistical nightmares of recording costs, venues, gigs, players, PR, merchandise, branding, payments and the like.  This side of the ugly coin is what often keeps many musicians out of the profession, or even trying to get into said profession.  But Christian creatives have a unique facet to their work, for it is through this work that they can share the Gospel and encourage others to do the same.  If you were created with a gift in the arts, what use is that gift if it is not shared with others who may not have that gift and/or may be looking for that one particular song, painting, novel, etc. to draw inspiration from or be inspired or comforted by that only exists within you?  Perhaps all of the experiences, trials, accomplishments, tribulations and life lessons learned in the shadows of secrecy combined with the people and places provided by Providence have been tempering you and your creative work for weeks, months, years and are all leading up to this very moment?  Perhaps "you have been raised up for such a time as this?"  So what do you do?  Do you stay in your cave and continue to hide while the gift you've been given acts more like a curse since it gnaws away at your mind for lack of use?  Do you make a feeble half-hearted attempt only to test the waters while flying the banner of "run away and live to fight another day?"  Or do you trust in God and face the fear of failure, knowing full-well that the work you do for God is never in vain?  As my pastor often likes to reiterate, when one has a healthy fear of the Lord, he/she need not have an unhealthy fear of anything else.      

"What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?"  - Vincent Van Gogh


7. I have a wonderful wife.  And I am not just saying this to win brownie points or awes from any readers.  I am saying this as a reminder to myself of a fact.  She is wonderful.  In the nearly 12 years that we have been a couple (7 married), she has done amazing things, and often with little or no help from me (sometimes interference from me).  But most importantly, she has never failed to love me.  She has never wavered in her commitment to me.  She has remained true to her vows.  She has proven to me and to the rest of the world that she can be trusted, that she can keep her word, that she lives her life in truth and love, and that she is fully committed to one man, regardless of how foolish or undeserving of her he may be.  Though she may be wonderful she is certainly not perfect, but had she been perfect she would have never maintained company with someone as obviously imperfect as me.  The beauty of our matrimony lies in the overcoming of each other's faults through mutual effort by each other, mutual submission to each other, and total obedience to God.  And though I may fail to uphold my end of the bargain from time to time, she has learned forgiveness and demonstrates mercy.  She imitates Christ, which is the ultimate calling of all Christians.  I do not sing her praises nearly enough to do her legacy any justice.  She knows who she is and to Whom she belongs.  And though neither of us can foresee the future to come, we shall both boldly meet each new day with the assurance of each other's devotion, and will peacefully rest each night in the comfort of each other's love.    

"It is hard to find a good wife, because she is worth more than rubies.  Give her the reward she has earned; she should be praised in public for what she has done."  - Proverbs 31:10, 31 (NCV)



There are many other lessons that I learned this past year, but like most presentations that I give this has rattled on long enough.  I have presented it in public form so that my own words can be used against me as for those times in 2015 when I begin to forget.  Confession is good for the soul, yes, but accountability (even in the smallest forms) keeps us on the wagon.  If you are like me and have trouble with resolutions or making plans without much follow-through, maybe this year you become reflexive and learn from the past, apply those lessons to the present, and maintain them through the future with someone else's help.  Rinse and repeat, and I would expect that each new year will seem less intimidating than the year being left behind.  That, and it might keep you from joining a gym.

I Wonder: A Reflection for Christmas

Last night at church we read the account of the infancy narrative of Christ's incarnation from Luke chapter 2.  For anyone unfamiliar with this particular passage, this account includes the multitude of angels in the sky appearing to shepherds as they were watching their sheep that particular night.  Often this passage has brought about much scrutiny over the actual feast day of the nativity being December 25th, but that matter is so trivial that it doesn't merit any mention here.  If you really want to know how December 25th came to be Christmas, read this book.  But to think like an historian for a moment, put yourselves in the place of these First Century shepherds and wonder.

If everything in the written record of that night is literally true, these men had experienced something that would change them forever.  More than likely these men were Jews, and as Jewish males, they would have been expected to be educated in the Law even if they were never taught to read or write.  In fact, most folks could not read or write back then which made this society a society of stories and the spoken word (what we would call the oral tradition).  So imagine that as you grew up, each time you went to temple you would hear these stories about Yahweh, the patriarchs, the prophets, and the promise of Messiah.  Every Sabbath you would be told the same stories again and again, seemingly without any physical conformation that these stories are true.  There had been no prophet in Israel for about 400 years at that point.  Perhaps these stories melded more into legend than history for one of these shepherds.  You have grown up in poverty and by adulthood there you remain.  You take a job as a shepherd just to stay alive.  You are forced to follow a flock of some of the dumbest creatures in existence, to maintain your own existence.  Your people and your culture are oppressed by a foreign power.  Where is this Yahweh that my forebears always talked about.  Obviously He has either forsaken us, or was never real to begin with.

Years pass.

And then one night, something miraculous happens.  Half-asleep you stir because you hear the sheep bleating.  You turn over and see a bright light in the sky.  As you rub the sleep from your eyes you squint and see a figure.  A bright, glorious figure.  "Perhaps I am dreaming?" you think to yourself, but then your coworkers wake up and stare at the same figure in the sky.  And then it speaks to you!  "Do not be afraid," the figure says.  Words loud and clear as a bell.  "I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.  For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.  And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger."

You stare at the figure for a moment, taking in every word that you have just heard.  Your heart and mind race in tandem.  All of those stories that you heard as a child.  The history that mixed with myth in your imagination.  All of this begins to melt away into a cold reality that what you are seeing is more real than every moment of your entire past.  And then to obliterate any final shreds of doubt, the sky opens up, and the solitary figure is joined by a multitude, and a choir of thousands of these figures begins to sing, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased."

"Yahweh." you whisper.  "The stories were true!  The Messiah is here in this time, and in this town."  You and your friends run with full abandon to the place where the angel proclaimed they would find the Messiah.  You race through the Podunk town of Bethlehem scouring every stable around until you come across a couple and their newborn son.  The smell of the stable floods your nostrils.  The sounds of the animals, the baby cooing, the mother breathing, your own heartbeat are recording in the database of your mind.  And then you walk up to the manger and see exactly what you were told what you would see.  The Messiah.  The mother tells you his name is Jesus, "God is Salvation."  You fall to your knees before the infant and weep.  All of the doubts, the hurt, the abuse, the self-deprecation, the lies and the abandonment have died.  In a flurry of emotion you touch the infants hand and kiss it.  You look to the mother and hug her.  You utter a prayer of thanksgiving to Yahweh.  Your friends do likewise.  For in this very moment, the myth has become true.  The stories that gave you hope as a child have been verified.  You have seen, smelt, heard and touched the Savior of the World.  And you will never be the same.  It's no wonder that the writer of this account closes this scene with, "And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them."  Would you not do the same?

We take for granted in our current century the luxuries of writing, video, archives, and photography when it comes to history, and often this clouds our minds and shapes our judgments when dealing with the past.  But human beings are human beings and will continue to be human beings.  We all have the same physical and emotional needs.  We all struggle with the rigors of eking out an existence in this cold, cruel world.  We all desire to be fully known and fully loved, and unconditionally.  Just like those shepherds of old, perhaps you've heard this story time and time again, but as the years have gone by you have let them mix with myth and legend.  You haven't witnessed God prove His existence, and the very question of His existence is no longer worth trifling with.  But if we are to consider for a moment that this story is true and happened in space-time history, if we are to open our minds and wonder what the ramifications of this event mean for us today, perhaps those same doubts, hurt, abuse, self-deprecation, lies, and abandonment that those shepherds may have felt begin to melt away in your own mind, and you begin to reassess those old stories and wonder...

"There's only one reason to believe in Christianity: because it is true."  - Francis Schaeffer  

History Lesson

Then and Now: A Historical Juxtaposition

“What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; 
    there is nothing new under the sun.” Eccl. 1:9

Part of my job at the plantation is to do research and write articles for newsletters from time to time. Much to the editor's chagrin, I often send them 5 pages in the place of 4 sentences and am forced to essentially synthesize a novel into a tweet.  Thankfully I am not hindered on the blogospheres so I can share my unabridged work with my readers (all 2 of you :)   You may want to consume some strong coffee before reading this one though.

Another four years has passed and once again the United States is back in election mode.    For the next 3 months we will watch as two men vie for the highest office in the land, and the voting citizens will exercise their “inalienable” right to choose who they feel best represents them for the executive branch.  Since the entire country has been amped up for the occasion, it’s no wonder that this quadrennial ritual has been dubbed “the longest folk festival in the world.”  But unlike most folk festivals, the presidential race doesn’t necessarily bring the citizenry together in a unified show of patriotism and freedom.  In fact, it seems that the more recent presidential races have brought out the worst in all of us.  Specifically, the 2012 presidential campaign is being touted by many news organizations and political pundits as being the “nastiest” in history.  Well, recent history, I suppose.  If we think back to Obama v. McCain just four years ago, we’d likely remember the slanders and “misspeakings” of the maverick GOP VP nominee Sarah Palin, especially in the likes of saying Obama was guilty of “palling around with terrorists who would target their own country.”  How about the jabs the Obama campaign made by aligning McCain with Charles Keating or saying that McCain was “erratic” and “out of touch.”  How about the Swiftboat veterans from 2004 or the entire Bush v. Gore campaign of 2000?  These are just a few examples of modern campaigning, and of course the American voting population is often disgusted and annoyed by the time Election Day comes around.  Historian Clinton Rossiter posited back in the mid-90s, “Our manner of choosing the President…has converted the election into a process of decision-making far more centralized, direct, protracted, hot-blooded and popular…than the framers could have imagined in their most restless nightmares.”  So are our modern presidential races just getting nastier and more out-of-line every four years?  Perhaps taking a look back to the 19^th Century will shed some light on our current situation.

Obviously George Washington did not go from town to town throughout the 13 colonies kissing babies and making promises for reform, tax cuts and smaller government.  In fact Washington did not even campaign for the job.  He was chosen by the Continental Congress and he reluctantly accepted the position (he commented on the way to his first inauguration that he felt like “a culprit who is going to the place of his execution.”).  4 years later, things were still going well so he remained in the job until he chose to retire from political life.  This of course set the standard of two 4-year terms as the maximum that a president should hold office (save FDR, of course).  So once Washington left office, the job for president was ripe for the taking, which began the aforementioned quadrennial ritual.   Two founding fathers were nominated for the job from within the Continental Congress.  Thomas Jefferson and John Adams played active roles in the framing of our nation and its separation from the tyranny of King George and Great Britain.  They were both men of intellect, high moral character, and even thought highly of each other (remember what they both said on their death beds!)  So it would seem logical that these two men, though in competition with each other, would run respectful, morally righteous campaigns.  Nope.  The 1796 election was noted as having “widespread use of invective accusations, name-calling, and outright lies.”  In 1800 when the two men ran again, the electoral publications for that year reached “new heights in quantity and invective, disseminated hostile messages.”  An Anti-Jefferson pamphlet from 1800 mentions” that if Jefferson is elected, and the Jacobins get into authority…those morals which protect our lives from the knife of the assassin… [will] be trampled upon and exploded.”  By 1828, the 1800 election would seem like a croquet match.  John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson made matters more personal.  Jackson was “denounced for wanting to be emperor and for murder, dueling, and adultery.”  Rachel Jackson was even targeted for “bigamy, adultery, and promiscuity.”  Large broadside publications were distributed in 1828 known as “coffin handbills” which displayed images of more than 20 coffins with the names of men and stories of their demise linked to General Jackson, and accusing him of their wrongful execution.  To counter these ugly attacks, the Jackson campaign accused Adams of being a “monarchist, an effete snob, and procurer of American girls for the Russian czar when Adams was minister to St. Petersburg.”  This presidential race would also introduce the political cartoon depicting Jackson and the Democrats as jackasses (literally and figuratively) which eventually would cement the donkey as the icon for the Democratic Party (kudos to Thomas Nast).  The anti-Jackson sentiment even distributed a fake biography of fictional character Maj. Jack Downing, that posed him as an “intimate Jackson friend and advisor,” all in attempt to ruin Jackson’s character.  All of this seems pretty vile, especially when you compare it to the Bain Capital attacks or failed stimulus ads that we see on television today.  The irony of history, though, is that all of these attacks against Jackson, which we would classify today as being morally reprehensible, “apparently had few harmful effects on his popularity.”

Once the flood-gates for attacks and “mud-slinging” had been opened, the political sphere buzzed with scandal and outrageous claims even into modern day.  We all can recall through history class the illegitimate child of the Grover Cleveland campaign in 1884, the scandals of the Warren G. Harding administration, Watergate, and more recently, Monica Lewinsky.  There’s really been no shortage of fodder for campaign attack advertisements and mud-slinging in all of our modern campaigns, especially in the hyper-partisan political climate that we are experiencing in Congress today.  But just as “there is nothing new under the sun” with negative campaigning, the same is true for political partisanship.

It’s quite obvious that people from different walks of life or regions would have varying political opinions of how things ought to be done concerning the government.  Of course this fact of life encompassed the Constitutional Convention, with the gentlemen taking a partisan stance over the charter’s ratification, i.e. the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists.  Whether the lines are drawn over difference of opinion or political power struggle, even as soon as Washington’s first term had said lines were already blurred.  Alexander Hamilton and the Federalists butted heads with Jefferson and his Republicans over national vs. state sovereignty, which side to choose with in the French Revolution, and who should constitute the electorate.  Over time these divisions would shift into other divisive issues, would jump from one party to the other, and would be revered or discarded as the times dictated.  The so-called “Era of Good Feeling” from 1816 to 1824 gave a slight reprieve to hyper-partisan campaigns, but this time period was just the calm before the storm of the 1824 campaign.  Partisanship, of course took a different form during the Civil War and Reconstruction, and once the issue of North vs. South had vanished, partisan politics returned to their usual sides with taxation, the size and power of government, social issues etc.  Only in national crises like WW2 or 9/11 does partisanship take the back seat to the common good, and once those issues have been resolved so too does partisanship make a comeback.

The rise and fall of activism within each party would come and go as well.  We all marvel at the impact that the tea party had on the mid-term elections of 2010 and how it has impacted individual states, but the tea partiers are just an echo of the Jacksonians of the 1820s and the Whigs and No-Nothings of the 1840s and 50s.  Jackson’s supporters rallied behind their jilted candidate over what he called the “corrupt bargain” that lost him the election.  For the next four years, Jackson and his supporters did everything in their power to oppose the Adams administration and actively campaigned against him even in non-election years.  This faction also fought for the increase in the electorate as a whole, and by 1828 all states in the except one chose electors by popular vote (which of course made Jackson happy considering he had won the popular vote in 1824).  For the next 30 years, America would experience a dramatic evolution in partisan politics and activism the likes of which had never been experienced on American soil.   Political parties began to seek out “disenfranchised” voters in efforts to expand the popular vote and to bring them aboard the band wagon.  Campaigns began to organize rallies, marches, and sometimes protests in order to fire up their supporters.  This type of political strategy was dubbed “hurrah” campaigning by historian David Potter, and of course was the predecessor of “grass-roots” movements and the Tea Party of today.  Of course the Jacksonians played on Jackson’s war accomplishments and propped him up as being someone more like the people he represented; “a simple, brave and pious frontiersman” who wanted nothing more than to take back the country from the control of the rich elite that included the “effete and corrupt” John Quincy Adams (apparently Jackson was the 99% of his day).  Of course in order to pull off a campaign of this magnitude, Jackson required a highly organized political body that followed a structure on local, state, and national levels.  His supporters also realized the importance of the press, of which possibly half a million dollars in raised campaign funds was allotted for.  Countless rallies and celebrations were formed all around the country in support of “Old Hickory” and by the time the election had ended, the efforts of the Jacksonians had paid off.  Jackson won 56 percent of the popular vote and had 178 electoral votes to Adams’ 83.  The presidential campaign would never be the same since. 

Although this new style of “hurrah” campaigning was deemed “distasteful, debauched and demagogic” by the Washington establishment, it would be proven to be a winning formula.  Ironically, the opposition to the Jacksonian Democrats would prove this point in the 1840 election.  The Whigs developed in 1840 and ran the Log Cabin campaign of William Henry Harrison to cries of “Tippecanoe and Tyler too!”  What started as an attack on the character of William Henry Harrison was reversed into one of most iconic political images in history.  Using the same technique of the Jacksonians, the Whigs rallied behind the war hero and everyman that was William Henry Harrison who was born in a log cabin and preferred hard cider to elitist White House champagne. With party sentiment at an all-time high, the 1840 election was like no other presidential election in history.  “It was the first presidential campaign in which two competitive nationally organized political parties battled one another at nearly every level.  Both the Democratic and Whig parties were established and evenly matched in many states and even in local areas.”  The sheer bombastic enthusiasm and size of the Whigs shocked the Democrats who could not understand how these people had them “outmaneuvered.”  Subsequently, voter turnout had risen from 57.8 percent of adult white males in 1836 to 80.2 percent in 1840.  Historians have since come down on the Whig campaign as being “all form and no substance” which of course is often a criticism of the modern Tea Party.   They have also accused the Whigs as having ulterior motives: the ruse was established so that the Whigs could capture “the government away from the people to enhance manufacturing, banking, and commercial interests.”  Whether the Tea Party has ulterior motives has yet to be seen, but compared to the fanfare of the Whigs of 1840, the tea partiers seem like attendees at a chess match.  After Harrison’s defeat of Van Buren in 1840, the standard for presidential campaigning had been solidified.  The political ideologies, however, would shift from the national level to individual states and their specific stance on slavery, which of course would lead America and its presidents into the Civil War and beyond.

            The quadrennial ritual is still running strong in 2012.  The electorate takes part in this ritual in different levels of activism, organization and participation.  The methods of campaigning, like most of everything today, has become highly digital, and very few tangible items are created for the purpose of campaigning (save for bumper stickers).  Our modern politicians have focused on the television advertisement as the crux of their strategy since the majority of Americans own or have access to a television.  It’s a lot easier, today, for a politician to reach a larger audience of people through one T.V. commercial than for his party to mail letters or hold/sponsor large rallies and parades (though they still will have the occasional town hall meeting).  With voter turn-out staying steady at around 60%, it would take a lot of effort (and money) for either party to ignite a base to the zeal of the Whigs of 1840, so it makes sense that the parties would choose to focus on television or internet advertising (all of which can be done in air conditioned buildings far removed from the voting public).  Really the only thing that has changed is the people’s ideas on rhetoric and political correctness in the public sphere.  There’s a civility that exists now that was highly regarded during the “Era of Good Feeling.”  You can’t necessarily call your opponent a liar without facing return accusations of slander (even if said opponent actually lied about something and you have proved it!)  Basically each candidate molds himself to specific ideologies of his party and lives and acts within the confines of what is popularly accepted within their party.  This really is the only difference in our political landscape today than the politics of years gone by (and that’s mostly a cultural phenomenon brought about by post-modernism - but that’s a subject for an entirely different article).  So even though the avenues of modern presidential campaigns have shifted, the premise is still the same, and since the premise is still the same, the same tactics will be used again and again.  Super PACs are yesterday’s partisan newspapers, the Tea Party is the new Whigs, and mud-slinging will always exist.  Let’s just take pride in our modern civility, and try not to think about how much money is being raised for TV commercials that could be used to strengthen the economy or pay down the national debt.  And the next time you see an attack ad for either candidate, just be glad that neither of them is accusing the other of pimping for Putin.             
 

All quotations come from CNN.com’s coverage of the 2008 presidential campaign and from

Melder, Keith. Hail to the Candidate: Presidential Campaigns from Banners to Broadcasts. Washington D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992. Print.

Surface Deep

"The unexamined life is not worth living." - Socrates

   My biggest complication in this life is me.  If you read my facebook profile you'll notice that the "about me" section begins with "I'm one of those tortured composer-types." and ends with the Prayer of St. Francis.  Seems like quite a big contradiction doesn't it?  This is a perfect example of how I am.  I tend to be dominated by the current emotion/feeling that I am encountering and I experience it in full force, but at some point I have moved beyond it to something else.  I'm sure there are a number of mental diagnoses and labels that you could give me for my overall "moodiness," but there's something beneath the surface of my existential life that confronts my emotions, and each moment it's something different.

   On the surface, my days are pretty unchanging, almost monotonously familiar.  I do the same thing with little resistance from outside factors or forces, come home and "decompress" and then go to bed.  It would seem that such a daily routine would cause little change in how I react to these situations, but that something beneath the surface is constantly agitated and then sends me into a different direction.

   For those of you who haven't spoken with me in a while, I have been dealing with random health problems for over a year.  I've had multiple doctors visits which included blood tests, x-rays, prescriptions and scans, which have lessened my symptoms, but nothing has "cured" me.  I had spent almost $2000 because of my horrible health insurance trying to get "better" and every time the test results came back, the results were always normal.  More than likely all of this happened because of stress from my horrible job at the auction company, so I was anxious to see the results of the stress-freedom that was to come with my current job, but I've been "stress-free" for 4 months now and nothing has changed.  My health is an agitation.

   Another agitation is music.  I have been doing music for about 10 years now and each year since I graduated from school I have been doing it more and more professionally.  I have song ideas and  ambitions that take me all over the place, musically, emotionally, spiritually.  I am the choir director at my church and get to share my knowledge and ability with others.  Music is a constant companion and motivator to "live life" in many ways.  It also can help me cope with stress, and other negative life impacts, encourage me, or drive me deeper into a current emotion.  It is a volatile agitation.

   Another agitation is fear.  I'm afraid that my health is going to get worse.  I'm afraid that if I try to spread my music again that it will fail miserably.  I'm afraid to take action for fear of the consequences.  This agitation , of course, can compliment of counteract with my other agitations.  Very rarely does it actually benefit anyone (example: afraid to do something wrong because of the consequences of getting caught.  This really doesn't fit me, but it's an example of fear having a good result).

   Another agitation is reason.  I will have days where I don't feel well and reason will kick in and remind me that I did something to myself which is why I don't feel good today.  It will  tell me that one idea or argument isn't worth accepting because of x, y, or z and that another one is better.  It also prevents irrational delusions that I am dying of an unknown disease, that my wife is going to leave me, and that the world is going to be destroyed by a giant ball of space debris, formed over 200 years by Mormon cosmonauts who worked with the Illuminati and are enacting a New World Order.  At the same time it prevents me from taking necessary risks that need to be taken in order to get my music out there.   At least it's better than fear.

   The last agitation is faith.  Since I was 5, I have chosen to believe in a God who exists, interacts with His creation constantly, and loves us so much that He sent His Son to die for us to give us salvation and eternal life.  I have no physical or scientific proof for these beliefs outside of The Bible.  I do have past experiences where God has intervened in my life to draw upon.  I also know people who have been radically changed by this same faith.  But depending on the other agitations, usually this one gets the last seat at the table.  My health usually gets first dibs.

  Reason can be your best friend or your worst enemy, depending on how you treat her.  If I can put all of my agitations on the same level, I can try to prioritize them properly and therefore maintain a more consistent reaction to life and all of its ups and downs.  This blog is basically an attempt to do that, hence why it isn't very well put together or thought out.  Perhaps you can skip reading this one since it's mostly for my own sake anyway.  And of course built in with each agitation is a score of minor agitations that have weight and impact, but I have left them out of this post so it doesn't go on forever.

Anywho, I am not saying that one should live a life entirely based on reason.  Heavens no!  This would squelch any type of wonder, mystery or awe that exists so we can have those feelings and experiences.  Also, reason can be used to directly oppose faith in a completely existential context, so it must be treated properly.  Because at the end of the day (or at the end of time) what will you have to hold on to?  What is there that actually lasts?

   The Bible says that faith, hope and love will last.  Not health.  Not music. Not fear.  And not even reason.  So out of all of my agitations, only one of them has an everlasting impact.  Perhaps this is the perspective that I've been needing.  Let's just hope that I can hold onto it firmly when all of the other agitations gang up on it.

I've called this post surface deep because this is how we often live.  We do not tend to delve into ourselves to root out the things we keep hidden because they affect us.  We all have our agitations, each with their own virtues and vices, but we often just try to prod along and live on the surface, accepting each emotion and reaction as they come.  But is this really living?  Perhaps I am just trying to justify my mood swings, but in all honesty I am better when confronting the struggle than when I choose to ignore it (except for those instances when faith doesn't come out on top).  

The point I'm trying to make is that you need to examine your agitations until faith comes out on top and gives you a new surface, one that is deeper and longer lasting than all of the others.  Then live on this surface for as long as you can.  I've been told this also is helpful in preventing mood swings.  I'm still trying to get there myself.

The Trouble with Beauty

beau·ty

   [byoo-tee]  Show IPA

noun, plural -ties.

1.

the quality present in a thing or person that gives intense pleasure or deep satisfaction to the mind, whether arising from sensory manifestations (as shape, color, sound, etc.), a meaningful design or pattern, or something else (as a personality in which high spiritual qualities are manifest).

com·mod·i·ty

   [kuh-mod-i-tee]  Show IPA

noun, plural -ties.

1.

an article of trade or commerce, especially a product as distinguished from a service.

2.

something of use, advantage, or value.

     Obviously these are two very separate things, but my problem , and probably the rest of the Western world's problem, is that we often can't distinguish the two.  Mostly because any "thing" that contains the quality of beauty is instantly something that can be exploited for personal gain regardless of what that "thing" is.   Our culture is incessant on finding what is beautiful, keeping it "set apart" from the average, maintaining its appearance of being unobtainable and keeping the image propped up in worship for as long as it is marketable.  All-the-while, someone is making money behind the scenes, orchestrating the minute details to keep the cash cow from croaking.  


     I'm sure all of you can come up with many examples of this scenario.  This idea has permeated into every avenue of life, secular or sacred.  We've taken from a created world, objects of God's creation (everything from nature to people, places, objects, art, music, talent, ideas) and have marketed it as our own creation, whether publicly or secretly.  


    Why is this?  Shouldn't something that contains "personality in which high spiritual qualities are manifest" not be exploited, but appreciated as having values worthy of appreciation?  Of course this is the image/idea of modern Western civilization of beauty, but only as a marketing strategy.  This of course, threatens the very essence of beauty.  It has transformed the definition.  No longer is the idea of beauty intrinsic, as if it were created that way and should be maintained.  On the contrary, something that contains beauty should be "shared with the world" in order to turn a profit, not because the world is incapable of recognizing that beauty.


    I had the privilege of talking with Joan Tower a few years back.  She is a well-known American composer of classical music and her works have been performed alongside many masters of classical music, all men and long dead.  I asked her what she did to "make it" in the music industry, albeit the classical music industry.  Her response was unexpected, "I just went home and  wrote the best music I possibly could.  Good music will be found and appreciated by the world for what it is.  Marketing is for people without talent."


    So here lies the cross-roads when it comes to beauty.  The entrepreneur shall ask in his/her mind, "Here is something that the whole world will appreciate.  Therefore I must be the first one to control its exposure before someone else can cash in on the opportunity." 


    At the same time, we have used the same marketing strategy to convince people that "things" have beauty and in reality they have nothing of the sort.  Think about all of the people that we give celebrity status, how they are portrayed in TV shows or movies and compare it to their actual personalities or contributions to society.  Think about the plethora of uninspired art, both visual and performing, in which the exercise of creativity has been transformed into a formula which can be reused again and again.  Think about how many times the media tries to convince you that a spade isn't a spade, but is actually the one thing that everyone who is anyone must have.


    There was a story told long ago about a boy who wanted a goldfish from a pet store.  Every time he would pass by the pet store, the goldfish would be on display in the store window in an elaborate aquarium, surrounded by craggy rocks, sunken pirate ships and exotic plants.  The boy would watch the fish continuously swim from side to side in what he perceived as an elegant dance miles below the ocean's surface.  As his mother jerked his arm to keep them on schedule with their daily errands, he would beg and plead with her to buy him the goldfish.  His mother told him that she didn't have the money for it and that if he wanted the goldfish that badly that he should find a way to earn enough money to purchase it for himself.  Later that week the boy began collecting cans and bottles from every trash can in town in order to turn his labors into recycled cash.  After 2 weeks of rummaging through filth and grime, scavenging every corner of the town just to find another 1 cent can or bottle, the boy had earned enough money to purchase the goldfish.  As soon as he realized this, he persuaded his mother to take him to the pet shop in order to purchase the object of his affection that he so tirelessly had worked to obtain.  The moment finally came when the boy handed over his hard-earned money to the clerk in exchange for the golden image that constantly danced to boy's delight.  But the boy's heart immediately grew troubled when the clerk handed him a plastic bag containing a tiny orange fish that simply floated in the same small space with a blank expression.  The boy began to cry.  His mother was baffled at her son's reaction to the thing that he regarded as so wonderful.  "Son, what is the matter?" she asked flabbergasted.  "Mommy, this isn't what I wanted." the boy replied.  "I wanted the dancing fish that lived beneath the ocean with the pirate ship and plants."  "Son," his mother responded, "this is that very same fish that you saw in the window.  It's just in its purest form.  There is nothing else to enhance its desirability.  It is simply a goldfish."   


    The trouble with beauty is that it has been so distorted by the company that it has been forced to keep that it is no longer recognized as what it is or once was.  It is now commodity; something that can be marketed and exploited for personal gain.  This broken world still contains objects of beauty because God created this world and called it "good".  In a true response to this creation, we must approach everything with a sense of awe and wonder, methodically differentiating true beauty from imitation.  And then once that beauty is discovered, to appreciate it in its purest form; one that seems to transcend this material world and containing a spark of the Divine.  Only then can we see the world, and its inhabitants the way the God saw it when He pronounced it "good".