The Great Music Chase

"Dad, I think our band isn't as good as last year, but our director said that we actually sound better this year. Oh, and I heard that the sixth graders coming up next year aren't very good...."

My son lamented on the state of his middle school band shortly prior to their performance at the school gymnasium last year. He noted that several of the best musicians from the previous year all moved on to high school, and that the current crop didn't seem to be of the same caliber. If you heard my son long enough, you would think that the band was in a state of steady decline over the past few years.

Fortunately, this young trombonist's assessment was considerably off the mark. As I listened to the concert, I had to agree with the director that the band actually sounded quite good compared to the year before, and that some of the instrument sections and overall tone balance might be even better than the previous year's edition. Also, for the record, I just listened to a performance from the newest version of the band, sans my son (who is now in high school) but with the addition of my daughter (and all "the sixth graders coming up next year"). No worries. They sounded fine.

It turned out that the reason my son perceived the band to be deteriorating over time was that he was unknowingly judging it by progressively higher standards with each succeeding year. When he first started playing with the middle school's band as a seventh grade trombonist, he was immersed with young musicians whose skill levels were considerably higher than what he experienced the previous year, and indeed, the band sounded better than any of the advanced bands while he was in elementary school. His musical skills improved noticeably during the course of the year, so that by the following year, he was one of the better musicians in the group. As an improved musician, my son became more critical not only of his own performance, but also those of his fellow band members and the band itself. As he improved, he also got better at recognizing mistakes and weaknesses that weren't seen before.

Christians should also have similar shifting perceptions of themselves during their earthly journey. We did not measure ourselves by the standard of God's righteousness before we believed in Jesus, and we might even think that we were pretty good by the world's standards. We thought that God, if He existed, would be happy with us because we did not kill anyone, did not rob banks, only cheated on our taxes or examinations occasionally (and didn't get caught), and didn't use swear words in front of our bosses or teachers. However, we view our thoughts and actions in a much more critical light as believers when God reveals to us our true nature, and as we become increasingly conformed to Christ's likeness over the years. We become more and more aware of sins in our lives that were previously considered menial and insignificant, and our hearts become increasingly tortured by them as we confess and deal with them before our God. No matter how good or righteous we may seem, in the end we are painfully aware that God does not grade on a curve. No one is going to get a passing grade unless Christ's blood covers our sins.

The LORD looks down from heaven on all mankind
to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God.
All have turned away, all have become corrupt;
there is no one who does good, not even one.
Psalm 14:2-3

...for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God...
Romans 3:23

May we daily come before our Lord with gratitude, not because we are better than others, but because He calls us His children despite our evil hearts, minds and actions, which we become painfully aware, and which thankfully are paid by Jesus on the cross.

Failed Scrubdown

What does the price of unleaded gasoline have to do with how often I take showers?  A lot, actually.  When the price at the pump went north of $4 a gallon, riding my bicycle 15 miles each way to work twice a week suddenly seemed to be a viable commuting option.  In addition to saving more than a gallon of gasoline each week and reducing toxic emissions, I also get an automatic four extra hours of exercise that I can count toward my preparation for eventually doing a triathlon.  On the down side, the riding also generates a lot more dirty laundry, and the warmer afternoon ride usually means that I desperate need an extra shower after I return home.

I took a long, refreshing shower following one of these sweaty rides home, and went through the usual shower routine of shampoo, rinse, soap on arms, soap on face, soap on the front, soap on my shoulders, soap on back, soap on my lower extremities, rinse, and shave.  I had done the routine over ten thousand times, so I was pretty sure that I got everything covered.  I emerged from the shower feeling and smelling clean.  However, as I was getting dressed, I was dismayed to notice an unsightly, hand-sized gray stain on my right leg.  The stain appeared to be caused by my leg brushing against some dirty chain grease on the side of the bike.  It had a sticky consistency, and apparently did not come off even after I mindlessly put soap on it and rinsed in the shower.  How could I have missed such a large spot?  I guess I wasn't paying attention.

The shower routine reminded me of an exercise that we sometimes performed during corporate prayer meetings and church retreats.  The prayer leader would start us with a time of confessing our sins by examining each part of the body, and asking the Holy Spirit to reveal to us whether we had sinned with our minds and thoughts (head), looked at something that we shouldn't have (eyes), listened to stuff that we ought not (ears), spoken words that were inappropriate and hurtful (mouth), etc., until we systematically covered all our body parts and confessed about sins of walking to places that we should have avoided (feet).  As we started to seriously examine ourselves, the activity always seemed to take a long time, as we started to discover stains and blemishes in our daily walk that otherwise would remain hidden and be hindrances to us.  It was much more than just another soap and rinse routine.

Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion
blot out my transgressions.
Wash away all my iniquity
and cleanse me from my sin.  (Psalm 51:1-2)


Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean;
wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
Let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones you have crushed rejoice.
Hide your face from my sins
and blot out all my iniquity.  (Psalm 51:7-9)


Next time, I'll shower with an extra bathroom light on, and scrub with intention.

A Week Without My Left Thumb

I was out in the front yard last week with a shiny baton, reliving my days as the assistant drum major of my high school marching band more than 26 years ago.  My daughter wanted to try out for drum major for her middle school band, so I had the privilege of showing her some basic spinning moves using an old baton that she borrowed from school.  Figure-eight spins.  Prop spins.  Rifle tosses.  Roundhouse spins.  As I gained confidence in the stuff that I used to do back in the days when teenage girls considered leg warmers fashionable, I drummed up the courage to try some of the more challenging moves.  I spun the baton and tossed it in the air, hoping to catch it after a couple of rotations.  It would have been an impressive catch, except that my left thumb somehow got in the way, and after the baton fell awkwardly on the lawn, I noticed a little swelling and discoloration at the point of impact.  My left thumb was pretty sore, but I wasn't too worried.  After all, it didn't appear to be broken, and since I'm right-handed, I figured that it should have only caused me minor inconvenience for a few days.

Unfortunately, the disability caused by a bruised left thumb was seriously underestimated.  The swelling lasted for more than a week, during which my left thumb looked like a plump cocktail wiener.  I learned the hard way that a working thumb on the non-dominant hand is essential for twisting open bottles, playing musical instruments, wringing towels, and grabbing the left handle bar on the bike.  Being a pediatric gastroenterologist, I also discovered that it was very difficult to put on examination gloves, and nearly impossible to perform a colonoscopy without full use of my left thumb.  For the first time in several years, I took out my disability insurance documents, wondering how much I'd be paid if my career is doomed by a permanently whacked out thumb.  Fortunately, the swelling has decreased considerably by the time that I am typing this, and full recovery should only be a few more days away, provided that I don't try to catch spinning metal rods that are falling from the sky.

Living with a disabled left thumb reminds me that while some parts of my body receive greater visibility and attention, there is no such thing as an unimportant part.  In the same way, each person  in the community of believers is a vital member of the body of Christ.  God made each of us indispensable to one another,

...so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other.  If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.  (1 Corinthians 12:25-26)


Wise words to live by, should I ever feel like an unimportant appendage in the body of Christ, whether it be a left thumb or a little toe.

Worldly Music at the World-Famous Bluebird Cafe

Dim lights.  A beautiful fried catfish sandwich, fries and a pickle.  Tiny tables.  Mingling with another vacationing family who came from Michigan.  Musicians tuning their guitars.  This was the highlight of our recent family vacation to Nashville, as we settled down for live performances at the world-famous Bluebird Cafe.  The list of performers who had entertained at the Bluebird is a virtual Who's Who of country music, including notables such as Garth Brooks, Faith Hill, Brooks & Dunn, and Taylor Swift, and on this particular evening, we were literally within elbow's length from four talented songwriters, each with a guitar in hand and ready to perform samples of recent works.  There was palpable anxiety among a couple of the younger musicians as they made their final preparations.

The evening's performances was started by a young woman who sang a bit nervously, but after some generous applause and songs by the other writers, the nerves quickly dissipated, and the room was filled with lyrics about falling in love, falling out of love, falling into hard times, falling on the floor (after getting drunk or stoned, and not knowing how he ended up there), breaking up, being heartbroken, anger, guilt and sorrow.  One writer did sing about the joys of life; however, his fiancée and future in-laws were in attendance, so it was understandable that he wouldn't sing about extramarital affairs, depression and losing his job.  The songs were beautiful, but they weren't necessarily uplifting.  I left the cafe feeling slightly uncomfortable, not certain whether it was from the catfish or a mild melancholic funk.

We were back at our church near Los Angeles the following Sunday, and gladly joined the congregation in songs of praise and worship.  Although none of the worship team members will likely become famous musicians, they did a fantastic job leading us with songs about God's greatness, God's goodness, God's faithfulness, and God's love for us.  The songs were uplifting to our souls, even as the words from our lips exalted the Almighty.  If we found ourselves on the floor, it was because we prostrated ourselves before the Lord in worship, and not because we staggered from too much whiskey.  If we sang of sorrows, those words were followed by those of healing, forgiveness, and renewed strength.  We sang praise according to instructions from Psalms,

Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever. (Psalm 106:1)


Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever. (Psalm 107:1)


Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever. (Psalm 118:1)


Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever. (Psalm 118:29)


Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever. (Psalm 136:1)


May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart
be pleasing in your sight,
LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.
(Psalm 19:14)

Vintage Guitars and Zoo Animals

We recently took a week-long spring family vacation in Nashville, Tennessee.  Why Nashville?  Beats me how we actually ended up with the decision to go there, but my kids like music, and my son Christopher was crazy about blues guitar and B.B. King, so we ran with it.  In any case, getting my son exposed to live performances at the Music City couldn't be that bad, considering that a couple of years ago he was mostly listening to stuff like Weezer, Linkin Park and Nirvana.  At his current rate of evolution in musical taste, I was hoping that he will become a Brahms and Mozart devotee in a few years.

We knew that great times lay ahead the moment we arrived at the rental car counter at Nashville International Airport.  The midsize sedan that we requested was not available, and we were offered instead a brand new Ford Crown Victoria for no extra charge.  Sweet.  The only other time that I drove a car that big was when I chauffeured a friend for his wedding.  For the next several days, we rolled in style to the Hard Rock Cafe, the Bluebird Cafe, B.B. King's Blues Club, the Grand Ole Opry, and the Country Music Hall of Fame.  We also attended Sunday service at the Nashville Cowboy Church.  While we all enjoyed the experience, none had a better time than my son, who listened and observed the performances critically, and grinned ear to ear during displays of excellence on stage.  He also was busy with the camera, taking dozens of snapshots of vintage guitars that were in display cases throughout the city.  Between excited shouts beckoning me to check out another guitar that was of immense historical interest, he would wax poetic about the instrument's background, the musician/band's place in music history, distinguishing features between the sounds of Gibson, Fender, Taylor and Martin guitars and why certain musicians prefer certain brands, the differences between a Stratocaster and a Telecaster, etc.  The rest of the family saw pretty guitars in showcases.  My son witnessed instead the panorama of American folk music history unfolding before his eyes.  He was totally into it.

We also spent an afternoon strolling through the Nashville Zoo.  The layout of the grounds was quite beautiful, and we enjoyed watching the animals.  Some of the memorable sights included the meerkats, the flamingos, and a snake in the midst of devouring a mouse. The hundreds of animals on display were mostly vaguely familiar creatures that we either saw in other zoos, on television or in books.  We had a fun time, but didn't really see or learn anything new.  It was a nice way to spend a few hours and burn off some calories.

I am presently engaged in a different kind of strolling, intending to have my eyes walk through the entire Bible in one year.  Although I have already read the Bible from cover to cover many times during my Christian journey, God continues to reveal to me precious gems from seemingly familiar verses, and these treasures continue to be uncovered even in parts of Scripture that I have read hundreds of times.  Nevertheless, the joy that I experience from reading God's word pale in comparison to the writer of Psalm 119, whose praise of God's law took 176 verses, and includes such uninhibited exclamations as:

How I long for your precepts!
In your righteousness preserve my life.  (Psalm 119:40)


O, how I love your law!
I meditate on it all day long.  (Psalm 119:97)


How sweet are your words to my taste,
sweeter than honey to my mouth!  (Psalm 119:103)

May our journey through God's word be much more than just a casual stroll through the zoo.  May we be totally into it, and may our eyes light up like my son's when he gazed at B.B. King's autographed "Lucille".  We have photos.

Sand Castles

My family has been to many beaches.  We left our footprints in the sand in Santa Monica, Oxnard, Ventura, Santa Barbara, Malibu, Huntington Beach, Pismo Beach, Waikiki, Kailua Beach (my favorite one in Hawaii!), and Cancun, just to name a few.  My kids built sand castles in most of them.  They would invariably find a spot on the beach that was well below the tide line and within a couple of feet of the lapping waves, start digging trenches and pile mounds of sand as a fortress against the invading waters.  By the time the fortress reached about a foot in height, a large wave would come up and wash up a good chunk of their work, and the kids would shriek in delight, dig harder and put up more reinforcements against upcoming surges of seawater.  This would last for about an hour, and by the time we were ready to leave the beach, the sand castle was nowhere to be found, reclaimed by the sea.

The beach is like God's dry erase board or Etch-a-Sketch.  No matter what's on it, it eventually gets wiped clean.

I stood in front of the television at a local McDonald's restaurant one morning in March 2011, with my Egg McMuffin in hand and my eyes transfixed on images of the devastating tsunami that ravaged the Japanese coast near Sendai.  Colossal man-made structures were literally tossed around in the water like bathtub toys, and entire villages literally disappeared once the water receded.  Tens of thousands of lives were lost or forever changed in an instant.

They were wiped clean, like sand castles below the tide line.

We recently took a family vacation in Nashville, Tennessee, and spent many days enjoying barbeque, eating deep-fried foods, and listening to wonderful live music.  We also spent some time visiting a replica of the Greek Parthenon, which is now a museum.  The replica was quite a beautiful and imposing structure, and demonstrated how it might have looked like in the Acropolis two thousand years ago.  In comparison, the actual Parthenon in Greece has only relatively skeletal remains, and it will continue to erode over time.  How will it look like in, say, two thousand more years?

It is good to turn our eyes toward things eternal, for all of our striving on earth will eventually be wiped clean.

"All people are like grass,
and all their glory is like the flowers of the field;
the grass withers and the flowers fall,
but the glory of the Lord endures forever."
(1 Peter 1:24-25)

Keeping Fish Alive

One of the downsides of maintaining a fish tank is that fishes tend to die easily...at least they do in my family.  Having a cat around the house doesn't help.  My daughter recently "won" two small goldfish from a local carnival, whom she affectionately named Fred and Felipe.  Their initial home out of the plastic bags was a small clear acrylic container that held less than a quart of water, and they seemed quite vigorous during the initial moments under our care.  Unfortunately, it didn't take long before our cat, Pepper, took notice of them, and on the following afternoon, Fred and Felipe had near-death experiences as the cat picked up the container by the handle with his teeth and spilled the fish onto the floor.  Their lives were temporarily spared when my son happened to notice them flopping in the puddle and managed to scoop them back into the nearly dry container.  The poor fish spent the remainder of their lives in our spare bathroom with the door closed to keep the cat out.

The feline incident was followed by a couple of relatively uneventful days, during which I was charged with feeding the fish, changing the water and keeping the cat out while my daughter was away for the weekend on a music retreat.  Fred and Felipe didn't seem too happy, but I was glad that they survived my watch.  Then things got interesting.  A family friend had a bunch of guppies, and offered us several of them for our icthyologic collection.  The bathroom now had a larger bowl, with Fred and Felipe sharing water with Guppy One, Guppy Two, Guppy Three, Guppy Four, Guppy Five and Guppy Six.

Fred and Felipe both died the next day, and it had nothing to do with the cat this time.  A couple of the guppies joined the same fate within a day or so, and only two survived by the end of a week.  At least we were getting pretty good at keeping the bathroom door closed.

It turns out that keeping fish alive is a lot more complicated than simply putting them in water, giving them food, and keeping them safe from four-pawed predators.  Their livelihood can be severely compromised if the water is too warm or too cold, if there is too much or too little food, if they don't like each other, if some can be eaten by others, or if the water has too much chlorine, too little oxygen, toxins like ammonia and chloramine, or germs that cause fish diseases like ich.  Fish wouldn't have a chance if their owners don't know what they are doing.

Thankfully, our "owner" is the God of all creation who spoke the the universe into existence, who knows our every need to not only survive, but thrive.  Like goldfish and guppies, we are finicky creatures, and need clean air with just the right amount of oxygen, clean water, a narrow range of atmospheric pressure and temperature, food, shelter, sanitation, community, and protection.  Unlike poor Fred, Felipe and the guppies, we don't have to worry that God will "forget" to take care of us or make mistakes.

"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear.  Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?  Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.  Are you not much more valuable than they?  Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?"  (Matthew 6:25-27)

"So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?'  For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.  But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.  Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.  Each day has enough trouble of its own."  (Matthew 6:31-34)

May our hearts be overflowing with thanksgiving for God's attention to our needs, without which we will immediately cease to exist.