I don't think I’m going to sleep any time soon

And it’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s just extremely difficult to settle down after something like tonight. Tonight was the first concert in the 2005 Bach Week Festival in Evanston (first ’burb north of Chicago). I sing in the festival chorus; we have three concerts to go (Sunday evening, and then next weekend Friday and Sunday evenings). The chorus is really hitting its stride in its fourth (?) year of existence. The instrumentalists and vocal soloists have always been fabulous, being among the top musicians in Chicago. I do know from various people over the years that an orchestra gig can be just a job, just like any number of other things the rest of us do for a living, but these musicians are here in this festival because they love it. On tonight’s concert, we sang the Bach Cantata 190: Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied (“Sing to the Lord a new song”) as the last piece of a splendid program. From the first notes of the first chorus, it felt good. It’s been a long time since anything felt so good. Bach was my first musical love—in high school, I just couldn’t get enough (via keyboard—I seriously avoided singing then). But as my voice is now finally getting the hang of navigating some of those incredible runs, I can really enjoy the feel. I can even almost sing credibly in German, having mostly banished the weird Scandinavian accent. The harmonic progressions I’ve loved for most of my life. They’re so logical. You get to scratch the itch at just the right time. The best part: following the concert, we did a photo shoot, and as the goal of the shoot was to catch us “in action,” we performed the opening chorus again. It’s a challenging chorus, and I think it contains the musical meat of that cantata. And it’s just plain glorious. The atmosphere was electric, and if anybody resented having to do it again, they wouldn’t have dared to say so, because the enjoyment of doing it again just because we could was proudly displayed everywhere. The photographer finished just before the end, but Richard (the director) kept right on going. One of the trumpeters remarked that even if Richard had stopped us when the shoot was over, we would have kept right on going. Many voices agreed. When you’re in that groove and you know it, and you know your fellow travelers know it, there’s nothing else on this earth that can top it.

Rejoicing and Whining

Yep, I can do both at once. Mainly because I’m ba-a-a-a-ack. My dead computer was not resurrected. I bought a new one, which arrived today. A bigger, better, faster one. Hence the rejoicing. Mistakes I made with the last computer (not whining, yet, though): 1) I opted for middle-of-the-road in what was available two years and one month ago, and learned just how fast obsolescence can set in. So, long before The Crash, I was hating how long some things took, and was plotting upgrading memory, processor, etc. 2) Because of my middle-of-the-road approach (to save money, of course), I had a less than satisfactory back-up procedure. Which means I was anything but diligent. The only thing I backed up religiously was my Quicken data (financial clarity and ease are essential for me). Oh, does the back-up lapse of everything else hurt now. 3) Knowing what I know now, I would have handled differently the initial problem that led to The Crash, and possibly could have squeaked by with some sort of save. So (still with the rejoicing), I’ve taken steps to avoid repeating mistakes. Let me make some new ones! As it so happens, my computer at work was replaced two weeks ago, without the trauma of crash and subsequent loss. I really like the new one, so when I realized I had to get a new home computer, I ordered my work computer’s twin. Hey, my buddies in the computer department did good spade-and-shovel work in writing the specs, so I simply “leveraged” their know-how. (Uh-oh—if I suddenly use the word “metrics” you’ll know I’ve been sucked into the latest business jargon—yuck!) The upshot is that my beautiful new beast at home has almost as much memory as God. Which may last me, oh, three years if I’m lucky. Now for the whining. Having just gone through installing a lot of software on my work computer, I was anything but thrilled at having to do it at home. I load my software at work because it’s specialized and I make sure all the parameters fit the work I do (graphic design, layout, print and online publishing). Adobe Indesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, Acrobat Professional, Quark Express. Besides Microsoft Office XP and Project. And then there are the specs for the high-end print vendors, so it’s not mindless magic-button-pushing. I’m never a big fan of upgrades, etc., at work, because they inevitably require trouble-shooting (no software ever works perfectly out of the box, despite all the hype). So I do the trouble-shooting and tweaking, and I do it well, but my brain does rebel at times. When it isn’t leaking. Leak-tweaking. Or tweak-leaking. I don’t want to come home and do it here too, but as I have yet to acquire my own personal IT department (I am my own IT department), there’s no escaping it. And needless to say, I’d acquire a housekeeper/cook and/or a personal secretary first. Well, I’m partly done with the software installation here—I also have the Adobe software at home, as well as Finale and the afore-mentioned Quicken to do yet. Whine, whine, whine. I guess it’s just that I want to use the tools, not create/adapt/modify them. But I do love them when they work. And the withdrawal I went through last weekend was quite amazing. I can’t recall the last time I went even 24 hours without touching a computer. Some people have house blessings. Could I have a computer blessing?

Inadvertent hiatus

My home computer's hard drive bit the dust last Friday, so I'm out of commission until I can remedy the situation. (Drat and curses!)

Expectations, imagination and teaching

I’m tremendously interested in how people learn. Everything I run across about the brain, I read. But knowing something about the brain’s potential is only a starting point. The more I read, study, and work with people, the more I believe that the most important ingredients are expectations and imagination. Maybe in that order, maybe not. I like what Carl Sagan had to say (though he was specifically concerned with science, I see the application across many disciplines):

Why should it be hard for scientists to get science across?… Knowing and explaining, they say, are not the same thing. What’s the secret? There’s only one, I think: Don’t talk to the general audience as you would to your scientific colleagues. There are terms that convey your meaning instantly and accurately to fellow experts. You may parse these phrases every day in your professional work. But they do no more than mystify an audience of nonspecialists. Use the simplest possible language. Above all, remember how it was before you yourself grasped whatever it is you’re explaining. Remember the misunderstandings that you almost fell into, and note them explicitly. Keep firmly in mind that there was a time when you didn’t understand any of this either. Recapitulate the first steps that led you from ignorance to knowledge.

The Demon-Haunted World, Ballantine Books, p. 333. He also quotes John Passmore, who describes science as often being presented

as a matter of learning principles and applying them by routine procedures. It is learned from textbooks, not by reading the works of great scientists or even the day-to-day contributions to the scientific literature… The beginning scientist, unlike the beginning humanist, does not have an immediate contact with genius. Indeed… school courses can attract quite the wrong sort of person into science—unimaginative boys and girls who like routine.

The Demon-Haunted World, p. 335. J.K. Rowling must have had this kind of learning firmly in mind when she created the character of Professor Binns in the Harry Potter series. Binns teaches History of Magic at Hogwarts, and is described as having gotten up from his chair one day, leaving his body behind, never noticing that he’d died. Granted, he teaches history, which can be trickier to teach than most subjects (I tended to fall asleep while studying music history), but he routinely puts all his students to sleep, without registering that fact, as he drones on. Over the past several decades, a number of often conflicting theories have been put forth explaining a) what’s wrong with education and b) how to fix it. I’ve witnessed pendulum shifts, but while spikes of improvement do occur, the overall trend isn’t reassuring. I look at the teachers I know who’ve succeeded (and by success I mean even their poor to “average” students learn and grow) and I see first that they have expectations (which can require great imagination when considering some people’s potential). But I think imagination also plays a part in enabling the teacher to know where the target is, and that textbooks and tests are only guides in aiming for the target, not the target themselves.

Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see. Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860)

I suspect Schopenhauer didn't have teachers in mind here, but it's going to take genius teachers to raise up successive generations of effective teachers (and I can't even begin to get into the infrastucture and budget concerns here...).

Can unity be maintained despite the presence of seemingly unyielding disagreement?

I’m reposting my commentary, which first appeared under the handle of Julesrud here (it’s the post that got me into my own blog--for good or for ill). Though it concerns the ordination and marriage of gays and lesbians in the Episcopal Church, I believe that one could substitute any of the issues facing the Roman Catholic Church as the conclave to select a new Pope begins tomorrow. Dissidents see an opportunity for moving the Church in directions that John Paul II, however beloved, firmly quashed. (The chance of publicly airing dirty laundry was also greatly minimized by him--no such luck for the Anglican Communion.) --------------- My commentary is too long to post as a response (hence the kind invitation of Sister Dash for me to guest-post), though it is my contribution to the discussion going on (regarding the unity of the church throughout the issue of the ordination of gays and lesbians) in Sister Dash’s and Brother Dwight’s respective blogs. I’ve been trying to figure out for days why the discussion at large is so frustrating to me. It often feels that the various sides find it difficult to get beyond gainsaying (“Is so!” “Is not!”) to a real discussion. And I don’t mean the discussions going on in Dash’s and Dwight’s blogs--I believe that there is genuine honesty, listening, and charity for the participants there. I mean instead The Discussion in our world, whether in synods, blogs, letters to the editor, private conversations. I’m trying to come at this from a different angle, because The Discussion more or less feels stuck. Or, perhaps more accurately, I feel stuck. What seems amazingly clear to me seems devastatingly sinful to a large number of my brothers and sisters, regardless of the faith to which they adhere. I suppose I seem willfully disobedient to them. I know that it’s possible, or probably likely, that all of my processing on this topic is guided by a desire to discover and share information that supports my position. I know it can lead to intellectual dishonesty to start with a thesis that I’m trying to prove, because it’s quite convenient to ignore anything that doesn’t support my viewpoint. I’m leading with my heart, here. Not only that, I find that each piece of this I write reveals new concerns to me--holes left unfilled, so that I know my position is anything but finished. (A very dangerous position for a perfectionist to place herself in!--I so love to construct airtight arguments, and will have to confess that much of this is a leap of faith.) Not to mention only loosely organized. So I must acknowledge that I believe marriage is, or should be, a covenant between two people, not governed by regard for gender or sexual identity. And I believe that other people’s opinion of that covenant is irrelevant; approval from any human outside a relationship isn’t what validates the existence of a relationship. At the same time, though, we are to be married in the context of community (at least according to the Church), so that our brothers and sisters may uphold us in our commitment--we don’t have to “go it alone,”--indeed, we are expected not to. Same as for any of the Sacraments. I guess that’s the sticking point: one can’t uphold a couple in their marriage if one doesn’t believe that that couple may be married. Anybody who’s been married knows how difficult it is, even when you are upheld--how much more difficult when no one approves, or even vigorously fights against it. I also must acknowledge that until my early 20s, I believed that homosexuality was a sin, a horrible depravity, as I had been raised to believe. How that changed is a topic for another time. The parallel for a paradigm shift (sorry about that phrase--I know it needs to be retired, but I haven’t got a better one) was introduced to me by Father David Cobb in a sermon I read online somewhere. Around the time of the ECUSA’s [Episcoapl Church-USA] general convention last summer (which included the Convention’s consent to the consecration of Father Eugene Robinson as bishop), Fr. Cobb likened this dispute to that of the early church over converting Gentiles, both in its intensity and the potential for a bitter split. Yet the early church emerged from its dispute unified, joyfully welcoming Gentiles into the church (Acts 10 and 11). My ever-evolving path still stops at this point: how does a community interact, especially when faced with difficulties and issues? Considering the requirement of obedience to church authority, especially when there’s honest dissent, I wonder how to challenge church authority without doing damage to church unity (if indeed, I as a dissenting individual hold so much power as to be able to damage an institution). Some authorities are so fragile as to claim any challenge (valid or not) is an attack on church unity. And rarely can a community rise above the maturity level of its leaders. I ponder the nature of the early church--what was it that allowed them to hear and accept Peter’s vision? Acts 10 and 11 seldom get a whole lot of airplay, and I don’t really know why. 10:27-29: “[Peter] went in and found that many had assembled; and he said to them, ‘You yourselves know that it is unlawful for a Jew to associate with or to visit a Gentile; but God has shown me that I should not call anyone profane or unclean. So when I was sent for, I came without objection…’” and Peter then preached the Good News to the assembly at Cornelius’ house. Later, in verse 44: “While Peter was still speaking, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard the word. The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles, for they heard them speaking in tongues and extolling God. Then Peter said, ‘Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?’ So he ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.” [NRSV] Interesting that Peter acted first--there was no consensus, as he most definitely acted unilaterally--and then in Chapter 11, responding to criticism from the “circumcised believers,” he explains what caused his change of heart: his vision. The community’s response? “And they praised God, saying, ‘Then God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life.’” What one was born as, in this case, a Gentile, was no longer an obstacle. DNA, accident of birth--irrelevant in the eyes of God. From “Listening Hearts”:

The prophet is not an easy person for the community to accept. It can be a trial for a community to hear the prophet’s voice and acknowledge that it comes from God, since the very task of the prophet is to challenge the status quo. A hundred years before the Civil War, John Woolman felt called to be an abolitionist among the Quakers, but he also felt that he should not undertake this without the blessing of his Meeting. As a result, Woolman wrestled with his faith community over this issue for two years; many members of the community owned slaves. While many did not agree with the abolitionist position, they came to believe that Woolman did have a call and promised to support him and his family while he responded to it. During the two years Woolman stayed and presented his call, the community’s members were deeply affected. Because of Woolman’s faithfulness to his call and willingness to work out that call in the community, the Quakers eventually came to oppose slavery. We can never achieve wholeness simply by ourselves but only together with others. Consequently, as we involve the community in discerning call, God enlivens and strengthens both us and the community.

[Farnham, Gill, McLean, Ward; Morehouse Publishing 1991] I’m attempting to contrast the examples of the early church and the Quakers with today’s disputes--I suspect there are differences, but what, exactly, are they? I was rather young when the ELCA [Evangelical Lutheran Church in America] opted to ordain women, so I can hardly address whether they did it better than the ECUSA (Dwight’s blog, 12/21/04, paragraph 14). Nor do I think that the ECUSA’s consecration of Eugene Robinson is as horribly disrespectful to the other members of the Anglican Communion as some think (in comparison with other church conflicts it’s not--for instance, right now I’m reading about the Borgias, Estes, and Pope Alexander VII in a biography of Lucretia Borgia). I know only enough Anglican Church history to make me dangerous. The Elizabethan Settlement is what really established the Anglican Church, not so much Henry VIII. The goal was to stop Catholics and Protestants from killing each other following the death of Mary Tudor. Shaped in compromise, the Anglican Communion has long followed its Via Media (“middle way”), though it has of late seemed more like “don’t ask, don’t tell.” The most rapid growth of the Anglican Communion has occurred on the African continent and in Asia, while the ECUSA and the Anglican Church in Great Britain are experiencing great shrinkage. What “saved” the early Anglican Church is what may now lead to the seemingly inevitable rupture: No one was required to resolve any differences of belief, so long as they all used the Book of Common Prayer and gathered together in the pews. The Anglican Communion has barely acknowledged the existence of the very real, significant differences in doctrine, history, and culture among its member bodies. The potential for rift has existed for a long time, but it commanded little attention or energy so long as no provoking acts were committed. Even among those who have recognized the sleeping dangers, the learning curve is quite daunting. Are actions taken by the ECUSA (i.e., consecration in the face of expressed opposition) any more reprehensible than the refusal of the anti-gay ordination majority of the Communion to consider the idea without immediately labeling it “sinful”? Prolonged discussion seemed to be mere foot-dragging, of the sort where you keep someone talking, hoping, and maybe they won’t notice that no action is being taken. Talks can be a mechanism for avoidance of decision or action, a passive-aggressive reaction. Note that Woolman’s Quaker community required only two years to begin to change its heart. The ECUSA has been talking about the issue of the ministry of homosexuals in the church for far longer--and other members of the Anglican Communion have been iterating the “gay is sinful” position for at least the same amount of time. How can a community honestly enter into discernment when one or more parties claims veto power? (Can’t even touch the Roman Catholic Church on this one…) I haven’t seen a whole lot of evidence of openness to prophets on the part of the anti-gay majority--if it’s there, it certainly is cloaked. Just as it was for equal rights--civil rights for second class citizens in this country have taken a long, tortuous path--every possible delay, every possible obstacle. If the ECUSA’s handling of the ordination of women, adoption of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer, and the consecration of Eugene Robinson as a bishop seems overbearing, unilateral, and sinful to many, is it a surprise that a blow-up had to occur in order for the issue to ripen in a way that could not be ignored any more? Why hasn’t the model of the early church been mirrored in our time, resulting in the fruit of the Spirit? The biggest enemy of church unity is not that of dissent, but of complacency. I don’t mean the usual implication of lowered standards leading to descent down the slippery slope. I mean “self-satisfaction accompanied by unawareness of actual dangers or deficiencies” [Merriam-Webster]--allowing calcification of one’s beliefs. It leaves no room for prophets. Yep, that’ll threaten unity more than any overt act.

Questions on the Slippery Slope of Suffering

This isn’t fully baked, but I’m putting it out there, anyway. Too many questions, and not enough conclusions. Anybody who requires certitude, look elsewhere. The Pope’s death, coming two days after Terri Schiavo’s, has provoked comparisons between their ends. A man with enormous power who doesn’t shun suffering is linked with a woman whose name none of us would ever have known but for the battle around her powerless suffering. John Kass provides one comparison. I do have to wonder what the Pope would have decided, had the last few weeks of his life been stretched out for 15 years. He got off easy. And when his organs started failing, I notice they didn’t hook him up to life support. So somebody drew a line, somewhere—his condition was terminal. Terri’s condition wasn’t terminal, given the medical advances we enjoy. That’s quite a mire. “Playing God” is how people describe Michael Schiavo’s efforts to allow Terri to die. Funny, but they don’t apply the term to the efforts to resuscitate Terri following her initial collapse; not so many years ago she would have died—period—and a feeding tube would have been irrelevant. The “terminal” stage of her condition 15 years ago was only a matter of minutes. Wouldn’t it have been God’s will that she died then? Wasn’t it thwarting God’s will to bring her back? And even if she had miraculously revived without intervention of medical technology, she still wouldn’t have been able to eat. Again, a medical intervention kept her alive. Not playing God?

We rightly fear mistakes where life is concerned. Grey areas are scary, but a coward avoids them. If a mistake was made, wasn’t it made 15 years ago? Wasn’t removal of the feeding tube the correction of that mistake? Is medical intervention only a one-way street? Is it okay to play God so long as the result is extended life? Does God always choose to extend life? The Church has elevated those who suffer for Christ’s sake, holding them up as examples for all. And it was commonplace in the Dark Ages for the pious to deliberately inflict suffering on themselves in order to identify more strongly with the pain and suffering of Jesus. Any who would refuse to endure suffering, inflicted by and/or for God, were deemed less worthy, and sometimes were exhorted to put up with it anyway. Dennis Byrne is advocating that we change our laws so that it would be nearly impossible for a future Michael Schiavo to honor a promise he made to his wife, who might or might not have been the person her parents believed her to be.

I'm sure others can think of other legal reforms that can be made to protect people in guardianship, such as Schiavo, against mistaken, self-serving, misinformed or malevolent family decisions to kill them. To say that the state has no role in protecting those in guardianship is to suggest that the state has no role in preventing child abuse or homicide.

(Of course, I’m pretty sure that “mistaken, self-serving, misinformed or malevolent” remarks about guardians who make an unpopular choice won’t be outlawed.) It seems these judgments were made, most likely based on the Schindlers having gotten their story out there first and loudest. People often make up their minds on such one-sided “evidence,” never once considering that they maybe haven’t heard all the facts, which the courts did. First impressions are notoriously difficult to change (though I did change mine). So ending another’s misery is dismissed as thwarting God’s will, as being closed to the blessings one may find in suffering. Does the quality of the suffering depend on how one ended up in it? Another question. Why should we care about Darfur, for instance? Those people are blessed, man! They’re suffering more than Terri and the Pope combined. They must really be rejoicing. A man beating the life out of his woman and her kids? They’re blessed, too. That’s a scary limb to go out on. I know that ending the suffering in Darfur doesn’t depend on killing the victims, as it may in the case of terminal or life-threatened humans. Yet, somewhere, someone draws a line. Can that line depend on one group’s religious beliefs?