shut up

A couple of weeks ago, I did an interview with AXS about competition within the context of being a jazz player.  Believe it or not, as gregarious an individual as I am, I really don’t like doing interviews- I always think I have to say something really deep and meaningful- I mean, why else would they want to interview ME?  I’m nobody.  But, I’m already starting to digress……

SQUIRREL!

The interview went well, and it seems like what I had to say on the matter had an effect on one friend of mine who is a very well thought of bassist who lives in Nashville- he read the article and then did a gig later that same day that started going badly because some of the players were rusty.  Instead of getting “cranky”, he decided to try what I had said would be a better alternative, and lo and behold the gig was saved and everyone had a good time- including my friend.  From my POV, that is extremely cool.  I made a little bit of a difference in someone’s life, and others benefitted from it.  Couldn’t ask for anything better in my book.

Which leads me to writing this blog entry.

When I was much younger, I had this penchant for wanting to always make a “statement” whenever I played.  More often than not, this meant that I was always pushing the boundaries of whatever I was doing.  Weird rhythms, lots of “blue notes” and tension and my idea of what constituted groove – regardless of what was going on – were the hallmark of my playing.  I had no shortage of work, and I attributed it to my sheer and unadulterated brilliance of what I was bringing to the table. 

On one occasion shortly after getting to college, I did 4 recording sessions in one day, and one of them (the second one of that day) was to cover 4-6 old Motown/R&B tunes for a singer, and a girl that I was seeing at the time was the drummer on that one gig.  I did my thing, left, and promptly forgot about it upon arriving at the next session.  And, I mean I really forgot about it- didn’t remember what the tunes were or what I played within hours, and after 1 day the whole experience was wiped from my memory.

About a week later, while at dinner, my girlfriend brought up that she had received a new cassette that she wanted me to hear.  She put it on and asked me what I thought.  The first thing that came out of my mouth was “that rhythm section is TIGHT!”.  She looked at me funny and asked, “You really think so? Listen carefully and then tell me what you think.”  She rewound the tape and started it over again, and the tune was “Papa Was A Rolling Stone”- and that’s when – you guessed it – I released it was her and I on the recording.  And, when I listened critically to everything, I was shocked. 

I was terrible.  I mean- truly awful.

My sense of time was non-existent.  My note choices, while interesting, were wholly incorrect, and the “interesting” quality of what I was doing was doing nothing more than removing direction to what mattered- the vocals and all the other instruments.  All I could concentrate on was what I was doing, no matter how hard I tried to listen to anyone else.

Before I could say anything, she stopped the tape and took it out and produced another tape.  She put that in and hit play, and it was the same song, but it wasn’t me on bass.  It was MUCH better- cleaner execution and it sounded right.  That’s when she said it- “Marc.  That’s me on bass.”

I was dumbstruck.  I had never seen her play bass- she had never done it in front of me.  I didn’t know she knew how- and she confessed that she didn’t.  She learned that tune just so she could fix the part, and had gone back to the studio at the artist’s request to salvage what I had done- or, not done more accurately.

Honestly, this hurt far more than you can imagine- it wasn’t my pride that was hurt so much (it was, but…) so much as it was that I hadn’t done my job, promptly forgot about it and someone with one week of learning had a better result.  (maybe that is pride?)  I didn’t say anything.  I just stared at the floor- I wonder how many times something like this was happening and I never knew?

“I wasn’t sure how to tell you.  I seriously considered not telling you, but that would be a really shitty thing to do.  Are you mad?”, she asked.

“No.  I’m not mad.  But I don’t think I can show my face in there again.” I said.  I couldn’t even tell her how great a job she had done, because I was so self-absorbed.

“I told them you showed me how to play the line.  They like you, but, well….. I’m not sure you really ever listen to what’s going on around you.  You really need to learn how to suit the tune.” She said.

SUIT.  THE.  TUNE.  That hit me like a ton of bricks.

Up until that time, I was really taken by players who had a ton of chops.  I listened to things like Frank Zappa, Weather Report, Yes, Kansas, Genesis, King Crimson and Return To Forever almost exclusively.  Anything that didn’t have a ton of changes or just stayed in 4/4 just bored the heck out of me.  I was constantly dissecting tunes and players by how difficult passages were- a lot of musicians do this – but what I realized in an instant was that I actually wasn’t internalizing anything.  I was in to “shock and awe” and really not a whole lot more.  Even the things I said I “loved” held no real meaning for me- the intricacy would register for a minute, the rest deflected off and back into space.  I knew the somatic of what constituted “groove” and I could do it (and did on lots of occasions) but it never really resonated.  And I really wanted it to, and had absolutely no idea how to do that.

As musicians, all of us at one time or another are taken with “shock and awe” at some level.  It’s really inevitable, and it’s not a bad thing, necessarily.  Sometimes it takes the form of HAVING to be able to play a million miles an hour, and sometimes it takes the form of HAVING to have someone’s tone or gear.  Or both.  Or that and more.  Again- there’s nothing wrong with that kind of a goal, but it’s completely another thing to inflict that at a musical level on others- or worse- to laud your speed and/or gear and/or prowess over others.  That desire to laud those things over others is the hallmark of the competitive spirit that I was being interviewed for, but that’s not what this blog entry is about- I want to get more granular than that.

What I’m getting at is that – now, get this- chops mean nothing. (if you’re not a musician, “chops” refer to ability on an instrument)  It has taken me years to understand this (and I still struggle with it), and if you’re having trouble understanding or internalizing this, I’d like to help and offer a tangible way to look at this:

It doesn’t matter what instrument you play or hit- or if you sing.  Regardless of style, all music is a collaborative effort.  As such, your very first job – even before fingerboard memorization or scale studies or breathing for support when singing – is to be supportive.  Let that sink in for a minute.  Being supportive means to have the actual mindset of “I am not the most important thing here” or “I am not the star”.  That has to be forefront in your mind, and it needs to be the guiding force in doing what you do.  I am not talking about modesty here- I am talking about literally trying to make everyone else around you sound better before you try to sound better yourself.  To do this properly really requires a paradigm shift in your thinking.  It requires you to physically and critically listen to everything around you before you start adding your own voice to the din.  That might even mean that you don’t play at all. 

It also means that you have to play with other people.  You HAVE TO.  These days, the internet is rife with people playing along with tracks while confronted with a GoPro- kids, that ain’t making music.  That’s just televised wanking.  As a bass player, we are confronted with a myriad of players who show off ridiculous slap chops (almost always in the key of E major) – and it’s jarring to watch if you don’t have those.  The next time you see that, ask yourself when playing like that is appropriate?  I’ll give you a hint- it isn’t and never is.  And don’t be fooled into thinking that if you have those kinds of chops you can elect not to use them- that is a fool’s errand.  Don’t think that way, and don’t think less of yourself because you can’t do it.  I’ve actually gotten to the point where I never watch these wankfests. 

Music is, without a doubt, one of God’s most alluring and deep creations, as it has the ability to speak to others in a way most of us cannot.  It touches the heart and soul as that “international language” we’ve all heard about because it can make us hear, feel, see and smell things on all levels.  Notice in that statement that it doesn’t imbue “speaking” those things – and that’s an interesting point.  We do much better at all things in life if we don’t speak, but rather depend on those other senses to tell us what’s what, and the same is true in music.

I don’t want to give the impression that bands and musicians who can exhibit chops are bad- they aren’t.  But, there comes a time in all things artistic that too much is just too much, and there really needs to be balance and growth.  That rarely happens when bands or musicians just stay on a single path – fast or slow – in that they get recognized by that part of the public for a single thing and they elect to just keep repeating it over and over again.

When I heard that recording of myself on that session, I was 19 or 20 years old.  I just turned 52 last week, and I am still learning how to listen more and how to speak less.  It’s a journey, and it’s one that is very well worth the constant effort.  I still have bad habits when I play and record, and I spend a lot of time trying to rectify that, but I have to say that I am now in a place where I actually like to hear myself on someone’s record, and that hasn’t always been the case.  I love working with artists on all levels and just about any style of music, and I treat every occasion that I get to play for anyone as an immense honor that I have been bestowed- that artist has asked me to be part of an intensely personal statement that they want to make, and that’s very, very cool of them to do.

So- next time you pick up and instrument or a microphone- ask yourself: What am I going to NOT do this time?  The vibe and depth of the music you make will shock you.

why am i surprised?

It was late December, 1992 -almost 2 years to the day we had lost our son, Stephen.  My wife calls me:

“I’ve got this weird sensation like there’s a butterfly in my stomach.  No pain.  Just weird.”, she says.

“Well, you’re going in for another ultrasound tomorrow- why don’t you call the doc and see what he says?” I answered.

So she does.  The doc’s office says “it’s probably nothing, but why don’t you come in and we’ll check it”, and she calls me back and I say I’ll meet her at St. Joseph’s Hospital in downtown Orange, California.

My wife was about 22 weeks pregnant.  Prior to this, we had lost our son, Stephen, who was born alive but way too premature (at about 22 weeks), and had suffered a subsequent miscarriage (at about 16 weeks) from another pregnancy- I almost lost her on that one due to a horrific hemorrhage that followed.  We were advised to not get pregnant again.  When we did get pregnant again in the summer of ’92, our doctors suggested we abort because it just wasn’t probably going to viable, but we couldn’t do that.  We enlisted a new OB who performed surgery, giving my wife a “cerclage” which is stitches in her uterus to keep premature labor from happening- and, he put her under a rigor of almost constant monitoring.

They begin the exam- my wife is no longer having that sensation, and the nurses are joking with us as they start.  As soon as the nurse gets the ultra-sound scanner on my wife’s belly, the whole tone of the room changes.  The nurse picks up the phone and says something so quietly I can’t hear her.  The OB comes into the room in just a few seconds, and they start looking at the scan.  Then the doctor utters the words we really didn’t want to hear.

“Debi.  You are in active labor, and the stitches have torn.”  And, just like that we start.  They kick the bed she’s laying on up, backwards so her feet are in the air.  They hang an IV of magnesium sulfate and get that going.  I looked at the scan, and it says “4cm”- holy shit.  Here we go.

They admit my wife to St. Joseph’s, but the only bed that is available with this amount of notice is in the Post-Partum ward- we’re about to lose another baby and she gets checked into a room that holds women who have just had a baby.  So cruel.  They’re telling us that it doesn’t look good- there’s a ton of damage to her cervix from the cerclage and now she’s bleeding pretty badly.  Whatever happens, she’s admitted and she’s not leaving the hospital until she delivers- whatever that may mean.

In other words- alive or dead.

I won’t go into all the details that followed, but suffice it to say that since I have a 5-year old son at home and a very busy work schedule, I become very dependent upon friends and family to help me- and, oh baby- did we have a support mechanism!  It functions like a well-oiled machine, and I get lots of time to get to be at the hospital while my wife goes in and out of various stages of labor for the next 2 MONTHS.

Yeah, you read that right.  Moms, take note: my wife was having labor pains for 2 months straight.  Let that sink in for a minute.  And all in “Reverse Trendelenburg” position.  (She was basically standing on her head for 2 months.)

On March 1, 1993, my wife came home, still pregnant.  She’s put on 100% bed rest and has an intra-uterine monitor implanted that connects to a telephone jack and regularly dials our OB’s office to send monitoring strips in.  (That was the weirdest freaking thing you ever saw.)  She’s home for 2 days, and goes into labor again- so off we go to the hospital.  My wife’s OB isn’t there, and the on-call takes one look at my wife’s chart and says, “This is NOT happening on my watch.”, and starts the magnesium sulfate/terbutaline all over again to stop the labor- and it does.  She comes back home the next day.

In the evening of March 9, it happens again.  We call the doctor, and her OB says, “This is getting ridiculous.  You’re about 30 weeks, which is early, but I don’t think we should keep putting you under stress.  Let’s do this.”  Off we go again- we’re going to have a baby!

We get to the hospital around 10PM.  We go into L&D and they are getting ready for a “High Risk Delivery”, which means that the delivery room is right next to an operating room.  The OB is there, and he is the absolute 5-star General of the “Not Screwing Around Crew”.  Monitors go on.  Sarah’s heart is doing well- a little high, but not un-normal.  Debi is prepped for surgery to remove the cerclage. And, that’s when it happens- Sarah’s heart monitor goes flat.  Asystole. 

The whole room stops.  Then it starts beating again after a few seconds.

OB: “If that f****ng happens again, we’re going to the OR.”

As soon as he finishes that statement, it happens again.

I’m immediately pushed out of the room, and a nurse literally throws a gown and mask at me in the hallway- “Put those on right now!”, she barks.  As the door closes, I see the crew start moving my wife to an adjoining operating room.

For those that don’t know, Caesarean’s come in 2 flavors: the “nice” version where a cut about 6 inches is done just below the belly button, resulting in not much scarring.  And, there’s the other kind, which is what they did to my wife: it’s basically a gigantic cut to allow unfettered access to the issue at hand.  One cut that goes through EVERYTHING- quick and decisive.

I enter the OR.  My wife has been given a local (spinal block) and she’s draped just below her chest.  They guide me to the head of the bed.  My wife is crying- she’s scared (I am, too) and she’s being rocked up and down on the table as the OB tries to gain a foothold. 

“I’d really like to know what they’re doing down there”, my wife says.

I look on the other side of the drape, and reply, “No.  You really don’t.”  I saw parts of my wife I never knew were there.

All of the sudden, at 12:10AM on March 10, 1993, Sarah is there.  But something is wrong.  She’s dark blue and non-responsive.  They suction her.  Nothing.  No breath sounds, and a heartbeat that isn’t workable.  They start working on her, and Deb and I cannot hold her or touch her.  Sarah is whisked out of the room while the OB literally removes my wife’s uterus, holds it in mid-air, turns it inside-out, pulls out what’s left of the cerclage from her cervix and very unceremoniously shoves it back inside.  Yes, I saw the whole thing.  Yes, I almost fainted- and remember that I am a former first-responder.  That visual really rocked me.

My wife is moved to the Post-Partum ward, but there will be no baby visits.  The doctors come in and tell us that it doesn’t look good.  Sarah was much earlier along than previously thought (about 28 weeks) and while her vitals are improving, she’s still non-responsive. She won’t wake up, and she won’t eat.  They’re pretty sure she was oxygen deprived too long, and has suffered a potentially profound brain injury.   She is in the NICU and we should prepare for the worst.

After all that.  We’re gonna lose.  Again.

I begin making the phone calls to family and friends at 1AM.

I probably don’t need to tell you what’s going through our minds.  We’ve come so far; we’ve done absolutely everything that can be done.  We’re thinking that our first OB was right- we should have aborted.  Now, we’re going to have – at best – a brain damaged child that is going to need constant care, or – at worst – another funeral.  I’m not angry.  I’m just numb, and I mean REALLY numb.  It’s all clear to me, but I don’t pray or cry out to God- I just can’t.  There’s nothing left to say or implore. 

After the phone calls, I go back into my wife’s room, and she’s asleep (“passed out” is more like it) because of the stress.  I left the hospital and went home around 2AM and stayed up most of the night talking with our then roommate (and drummer in my current band), Gary Zdenek.  It’s weird- I’m partially relieved that this chapter is closed and another is starting, but I’m scared to death about what’s next.  I don’t pray- I don’t want to.  God feels very far from me right now.   I think I got about an hour of “sleep” and got back up to go back to the hospital.

I got to the hospital around 7AM and went to my wife’s room.  She’s not there.  I go back to the nurse’s station and ask where she is.

“Are you Debi Miller’s husband?” she asks with a stern look on her face.

“Yes, I am.”, I reply dumbly.

“Listen.  I don’t know if you know this or not, but you’re married to Rambo.  She woke up this morning and demanded that her PAA (Patient Administered Anesthetic) be removed and she be taken to the NICU.  I got the PAA out, but when I went to get her a wheelchair, she had already gotten up and walked to the elevator and went to the NICU by herself.”, she tells me. (This is a literal quote.)

Remember- my wife had had her abdominal muscles cut during the procedure the night before.  For her to get and walk was next to impossible and almost certainly excruciatingly painful.  And, she has no painkillers with her!

I get down to the NICU- and I cannot believe my eyes.  My wife is breast-feeding my daughter!  She is awake and looking at mom!  The whole NICU is just completely dumbfounded, as she apparently woke up as soon as my wife touched her, and she was hungry.  This shouldn’t be happening, and more than one nurse comes to tell me things like “I have never seen something like this happen before” or “This is a miracle”- and, I have to wholeheartedly agree.

Still, there is a road to hoe.  We should be prepared for a substantially brain-damaged child; she’s going to have developmental issues; she’s going to have physical issues like lung and heart problems – I DON’T CARE!!!  SHE’S ALIVE AND WE’LL JUST DEAL WITH IT!!!!

After 2 weeks in the NICU, we brought Sarah home.  And, here’s the best part of all- she’s fine.  No brain damage.  No developmental issues.  No heart and lung problems- she’s a perfectly normal, healthy girl who is the light of her daddy’s eye.

So, there you have it.  God provided again.  Why should I be surprised by that?

i was wrong

A few years ago, I made the prediction that by 2020 the Presidential Race would be decided by a reality television show.

I was wrong.  It's the 2016 Race that will be decided this way.

Being that I'm pretty much "in the middle", politically, it's always been difficult for me to see how either side of US politics can offer anything that will resonate with me.  Every 4 years I face the conundrum of who to vote for and why- and I have voted in every single Presidential election since 1984 - and for the record, I voted for Walter Mondale. (I had registered as a Republican, too!!)  I voted for Mondale because at the time, I saw Reagan as having flashed out in the previous 4 years, and even though I actually thought that Reagan had turned out to be a good POTUS, I just wanted someone new.  Mondale lost, of course- and Reagan had 4 more years and it turned out ok.

The thing that escapes me is why people put so much emphasis on the candidates stances on various things that really don't matter.  Now, I grew up the kid of a very good US Civics teacher, and even though he and I disagreed on a lot of things politically, I heard what he had to say and he heard me, too.  Discussion of things political were commonplace in my home, and sometimes became pretty impassioned.  My stepmother was (and still is) pretty conservative; my dad is a raging liberal (I call him a 'commie' for fun).  On the other side of my family, my mom and stepdad were ragingly conservative, and discussing politics with them would almost always end in an argument, so I stuck with my dad and stepmom- and my paternal grandparents (who were extremely liberal)  All sides were well represented, but my dad was the one I listened to the most.

I've been fascinated with history as long as I can remember.  If it's a historical document, I've probably read it.  I used to read historical narratives like some people gorge themselves at Thanksgiving, and US Government was part of that history that absolutely fascinated me.  Having someone in my home who could pretty much rattle off the entire US Constitution from memory was just icing on the cake- but he provided a lot more than that.  He provided context, and that context is missing from people's minds today.

The US Government was a very, very different setup from all other forms of government when it was first started.  Our founding fathers had all experienced various types of totalitarian governments- they were, in fact, geographically and financially located in a part of the world due to some of the more tyrannical aspects of those governments- and they were not too keen on repeating the mistakes of the past.  So, they created the idea of "checks and balances" within a governmental body, and it was a truly remarkable thing, too.  If you paid attention in Civics class, you know about this- the 3 branches of government- executive, judicial and legislative branches.  Neither of them is more powerful than the other, and each has their part to play- and, btw, this hasn't changed in 239 years.  There's a chain of command with the President at the top and others who can assume power along the way- blah, blah, blah.   While none of them really have any more power than the others, the President is actually the weakest of the 3 branches because he is an individual and can nothing without the votes or rulings from the other 2.  He balances that weakness with being able to veto things and say "no".  All of the sudden though, we seemed to have forgotten all of this.

So, now we have an actual reality television star running for office.  He has said some pretty crazy things, and people are reacting as though he can actually do the things that he talks about.  It's even gotten to the point where outside agencies are allowing what he says - as an unelected "official" to dictate policy.  People now label him a "fascist" (it's difficult to argue with that assessment) and believe that he will institute all manner of weirdness if he's elected.

BIG emphasis on the "if".

If that guy somehow manages to get elected, he still has to contend with the legislative branch who clearly doesn't share his views (despite what you may be hearing in the media, the GOP is not a fan of his) as well as the Left who have considerable and formidable power in the House and Senate. He'll also have to deal with judicial branch that will overturn things wholesale because it cannot stand on legal merits.  He cannot reduce the other parts of the government either, because to do that would require military involvement and the legislative branch controls their money- so that's a dead end.  (Not to mention that the US Military has no desire, training or tactical way to be a domestic police force.)  The very first time he tries to do something stupid (which would take probably 9 seconds for him to accomplish) it would result in the 3rd and fastest impeachment in US History.  (And, unlike the other impeachments, this one would stick.)

So- as one of my good friends likes to say- when it comes to Donald Trump, "calm your tits."

The upshot of all of this is that the populace of this country, in their haste to forget absolutely everything they learned in school about US Government, is doing nothing more than making this into a bigger and bigger circus than it already is.  Every time this fool opens his mouth, people feel the need to give it attention with the thought of "he's truly dangerous" when in fact, if elected, he will not have the power or clout to do any of the things he's been talking about.  While this goes on, the circus calliope that is US Politics just gets louder and louder and more and more clowns keep jumping out of cars.  The rest of the world laughs at us because of this, folks- not just at the fool politicians, but at the populace, too.  Outsiders to this country know more about the inner workings of our Federal government than we do, it seems- and we look like idiots because we pay attention to it.

It is we- the American people who have done this to ourselves.  In our race to find microwave answers to seriously difficult questions, we have basically paved the way for this kind of rampant stupidity.  We have no one to blame but ourselves- after all, these people are reality television stars, and the people are clammoring for reality television star behavior, so that's what they do.  They give us that.  And we eat it up like a dog eating it's own vomit.

What's really frightening here is that we are, in my (not so) humble opinion, right on the brink of a tremendous war on the Middle East, and most of us don't even realize it.  Right now, the biggest powers in the EU - UK, France and Germany - and Russia - are engaged in actual combat with ISIL/ISIS/Daesh (or whatever they're called this week) and we are committed there as well.  With the attacks on Paris and now on US soil, all it's gonna take is another one of those ass-hats to do something really awful and it's gonna be an all out war.  The last time(s) there was an all-out-war between the West and the Middle East, it didn't go so well- well, let's just say that the objectives were not held for long - and I'm pretty sure that's what's gonna happen again.  Hey- if we can't remember history, we are doomed to repeat it.  (Thank you, George Santyana)

So, I was wrong.  We've got a reality TV show for an election in 2016, not 2020.  And, I just know that we're all gonna play along.  I just wonder who's gonna be on which team- I can see Hilary Clinton on Team Gwen and Bernie Sanders on Team Blake, but I'm not sure where everyone else will fall.  The idea of Donald Trump with Pharrel Williams is pretty damned funny.......

I'm not done making predictions, by the way:

1. Hilary Clinton is going to be our next President.
2. There will be another terrorist attack bigger than San Bernardino by April.  I'm betting it will be something germ/chemical and will happen on the west coast.  Oh, God I hope I'm wrong about this one.
3. We will be at war by summer.

Will I be wrong?  Maybe.  I honestly hope I am (especially #2) but I'm sure that with everyone all caught up in Trump's latest faux pas, no one will see it coming.

Then again- I've been wrong before.

plain and simple

Unless you live under a rock or don't watch/listen to the news, you know what's happened in Paris yesterday.  Every time things like this happen, it seems like it's a chance for some to politicize it.  It doesn't matter how heinous the act or how many lives are lost- some just see it as a chance to put on their soapbox shoes and beat their chest in a vain attempt to be relevant.

Just stop it.  Please.

I'm not saying that you're not entitled to your opinion- you absolutely are, but haven't you noticed that with every single politicization of these things, it amounts to nothing?  Nothing changes at all, and the heinous acts continue and the tumult is again raised, and usually with more ferocity.

Each side - Left and Right - do this, every single time.  If it's a school shooting, the Left cries for more legislation and the right counters with something equally ridiculous.  The devastated families respond out of fear and longing, and we go around and around again.  If it's a terrorist attack, the Right responds with it's someone on the Left's fault and the Left responds with things like "think before we go to war" - and the whole cycle repeats again and again.

The reason we do this is simple- we want to think we have control and/or we want to think that there's something that should have been done to prevent it and that somebody dropped the ball.  The trouble here is that we don't have that control, and in 99.9% of the cases, there was no ball to drop.  The result of these silly and over-emotional responses is that we take our eyes off the problem, searching for something that is not there and never has been there- and try to find some highbrow and pseudo-intellectual way of enforcing the little "control" we have- and while that is going on, the evil-doers of the world plot and scheme and laugh at the paltry attempts.  The people that we have put in power are just as capable of making mistakes as everyone else is, but for some reason that is forgotten and an entirely new set of armchair quarterbacks are born.

So- with the advent of 120+ people dead and scores more wounded and an entire country living in fear, I read from some friends of mine that the President of the United States is somehow to blame for this because he did not stop it- you have simply got to be kidding me.  Is this really the time to finding blame?  Is anyone at all helped or aided by those efforts?  Is someone going to be bleeding less or have their dead loved one returned to them because you say that our POTUS is the one that should be doing something about something in another sovereign country?  Is this politicizing of an absolute tragedy going to help end this kind of thing?

The answer to that is a resounding "no" and quite frankly if you are the kind of person who goes right into the blame game like this, you are an asshole of the highest order.  You should forever shut your mouth.  And, yeah- I mean it just like that.  (This is no metaphor.  Shut the hell up.)  The only people that deserve the blame game are the ones that perpetrated the act.  And, even that should be fleeting at best, as we should all be doing nothing other than helping the survivors.

I propose this: If people spent as much time helping people as they do politicizing these things, we could probably fix it.  If we could avert our attention from ideas and efforts that are nothing more than chest beating and spend even half that time making real efforts- what kind of a world would we be living in?

No- I don't have the answer here, but I fear that the answer that is needed from a human involvement standpoint is one that few (if any) have the stomach for.  We need to fight this kind of thing in a real way- not with hyperbole and homile, but with actions and personal responsibility and above all, critical thought.  For me, my trust comes in the form of looking to God, but I know that doesn't work for everyone, and because it doesn't, it's incumbent upon me to demonstrate that I do care for my fellow humans in a way that they can see it.  God and I will converse (as we do frequently) but, in the meantime, I need to do something that demonstrates my faith in a real way to those that don't share my faith.

On a personal note, I have made more than my share of jokes about the French.  I have been to Paris, and while I think it's one of the most beautiful cities on this earth, I have had many issues with the people there.  Having said that, no matter my feelings on that matter, I am horrified at the events there.  Regardless of my feelings about the Parisians or France's participation (or lack thereof in some cases) in some world events, all that goes by the wayside in a big way when things like this happen.  Their blood is as red as mine, and the only real differences between me and the average Parisian are language and geographic location.  Everyone in France is someone's brother, sister, child, father or mother just as everyone here is.  I weep for them as I would for anyone in this situation.

In the meantime, if you feel compelled to politicize this act first, remember- you are an asshole.

Plain and simple.

poison

I truly believe, in my heart of hearts, that this image encapsulates everything that is wrong with the church today.

Yes.  I said everything.

It's not because it's a trite saying - it is that - but it's because it speaks to a level of supposed enablement that isn't real.  It's also not Biblical.  Currently, in the church's vain attempt at being more "seeker friendly", this topic becomes something of a battle-cry for the downtrodden, and pushes people into ever darker places and states of mind.  Basically, what's really being said here - without actually saying it - is that in the trials and travails that have befallen you, you have somehow averted your eyes from God, and it is not only within your power to correct these things, but - now, get this - your troubles are really all in your head.  They aren't really real.  If you would, for one second, pull your head out of your overly spiritual and way-too-self-introspective ass, you would realize that God is only giving you these things to make you stronger.  If you just flipped a magic switch and truly understood, you wouldn't even have these supposed problems.

There is a word for this sentiment: BULLSHIT.  It's this sentiment right here that is the very base of the argument of "why does God allow evil in the world if He is so good?"  That is also a false argument, but we'll get to that in a moment.

Now, before someone gets on their high-hog and starts calling me Reformed or Calvinist, let's just stop with that garbage for a minute.  Let's go from some common sense, and leave people like Gilly Haan and Jack Calvin out of this for a second.

First, we need to understand that, as humans, we are wholly incapable of understanding everything there is to know about God.  We just can't, because the depths of that cannot be described.  Despite our best intentions, we have and will continue to fail in that regard.  We should accept this altruistically.  I am not saying that one shouldn't try to understand these things, but I am saying that the more you find out, the more ready you must be to be corrected on your "epiphanal moments".

Next is the statement that somehow implies God "gives" us things.  Now, I can't go a whole lot further without exposing my Calvinist innards, but I have to ask- who says God "gives" us these things?  I have a difficult time believing that God does that.  I believe that things happen and all the things that happen are somehow "ordained" and within some kind of plan (thank you, Jack Calvin) - but honestly, I can't prove that.  I guess I don't really know how that works, but what I am pretty darned sure of is that it doesn't matter.  God has provided the Author and the Finisher of our faith in Jesus Christ, and I am also pretty darned sure that no matter what we "believe" we really need to trust Him.  So, that's what I do.

Ok- but how is this sentiment ruining the church?

The poison that comes out of this sentiment really boils down to the idea that God won't challenge us, and as His children we shouldn't challenge others, either.  That's patently untrue.  More than that, God will absolutely put things in your path that are impossible to work through without him.  That's why the statement should be changed to the one on the right- but I don't think I've ever seen this meme shown anywhere near the number of times the first one shows up.

See, the issue is this- God isn't interested in our fleeting comfort, not even a little bit.  What He is interested in is having relationship with us.  Think about it- the friends all of us value the most are the ones that walk through not just the woods with us, but also walk through the brambles and the thorns.  They are there for us in the good and the bad - especially the bad - and that value is one we all find irreplaceable.  God is EXACTLY like that, and while He is not concerned with your "comfort" at a specific moment, He is very interested in your well-being- but this well-being has an eternal component to it, and that is hard to fathom.

In our day-to-day walk in and out of the church, this poison spreads into the farthest reaches.  It becomes something of a "microwave" sentiment, in that the people who believe this message also belive that if their minds are somehow attuned to some special frequency, God will just turn the world the way they are headed and everything will be easy.  This is what allows ideas like this to happen:

• Our church is great because we are growing in number.
• Our church services could be better if we had better video/audio/larger santuary/more parking.....
• Anyone who wants to do something should be able to do it without challenge- like play on a worship team or run sound.

What's interesting about all of these statements is that there is a small measure of truth in them, but what people fail to realize is that it's too small to be truly foundational and build upon any of it.  Again, it's the "microwave" sentmentality of it that dissipates the real message and the reality that we don't understand God and we can't just boil God down to some formula like that book a few years ago called "The Prayer of Jabez" tried to sell us on.  God isn't a formula and He cannot be boiled down to something trivial.

God will absolutely allow things to happen to you that you cannot handle.  Count on it.  He does that to show you how much you need Him.  And, before you cry "well, God wouldn't test me in such a cruel fashion", I will tell you that you are correct- He won't, because He doesn't have to.  The assurance of that is found in Blood that was shed on the Cross by Jesus Christ.  He will test you, and even if you fail, you've already won because of that assurance.  It is that assurance that we all need to lean on instead of the words of someone who probably had good intentions in saying the words in the first meme- but those words are false.

I realize that this can be a confusing topic to some, and if I come off dogmatic about this, I truly apologize, but it's difficult to watch people go through crazy, crazy things and somehow try to reconcile the God I know with these being the items that He has somehow placed in their path, and then try to throw love into it.  It just doesn't work.

Someday, in the sweet by-and-by, we will all have our questions answered.  Until then........

who are you talking to?

Over the past few weeks, I've had some friends who've gone through a rather tumultuous time with health issues.  I realize that I'm getting to an age (I'm 51 as I write this) where my contemporaries are going to have these kinds of problems, and I'm bound to see more and more of this- as we all will as we get up in years.

What has always interested me during times like this is how helpless we all feel when a friend or a loved one is having troubles like this.  (I'm not immune to this, so please don't take it as though I'm above it.)  We all do our "thing" to protect our hearts and the hearts of the affected; some of it is platitudinal in nature and some of it is real.  I'm not in any place of judgement to say that these things aren't warranted or don't provide solace to whoever hears them or says them, and they do have their place.  99.9% of the humans that inhabit this spinning piece of dirt in space have the desire to quell the hurt and help the hurting, and this is but one method.  That said, a lot us turn to God when this happens, and do it very vocally.  We solicit prayers from the Almighty, and some of us do that even though we don't necessarily believe in Him.  Again- I don't say this judgmentally, because I fervently believe that a person's walk with God is their own business and certainly none of mine.

Before I go on, if you're not a believer, please don't take what I'm saying as though you are lesser than I.  Your beliefs are your beliefs, and I have no desire to comment on them.  I do, however, intend to get a little spiritual here, and if you can permit me to do that without feeling as though you are being put upon, that would be fantastic.  If you are a believer, please don't think I'm trying to espouse a new theology here- this is just my take on this and nothing more.

I'm a pretty introspective guy (or, at least I try to be) and for me, my relationship with God is like air and water- it surrounds me and permeates me.  I make a real effort, every day to try and get myself into His presence.  Even though that is my intent, I will be 100% honest and tell you that I don't do that as much as I'd like.  BUT: when shit hits the fan for people that I care about, LOOK OUT!!!  I'm on my knees (which is no easy feat for me) in front of God, pouring my heart out because I need something.  I take a great deal of solace in knowing that God hears me- but I also find that I have a tremendous, almost crippling feeling of guilt.  Why, you ask?  Because my fervance for His favor is only great when I need something.  Even though I know I should be as fervent in praising Him when things are good, I am not.  I really fall short at that.  And, every time I come before God and pray for these things, I find myself saying something like, "Look.  I know I should talk to you when things are good, but...."- and despite my best efforts, I repeat this.  Time and time again, although I do believe that over the years I've gotten a bit better about it, but I have a long way to go.

Everyone I've ever met that isn't a believer, at some point, voices the question of (paraphrasing here) "well, if God is sovereign and omnipotent, and is in control, then why do you pray?  Do you think you'll be able to change His mind?"

That is a GREAT question.  I'll be honest- I don't have the answer to that.  The Calvinist in me says that my prayers don't change His mind because whatever is in motion has been set in motion by Him.  The non-Calvinist in me hopes I can make a difference.  The human being in me hopes that I can change his mind- but the bottom line is that I don't know the answer.  And, here's a shock- neither does anyone else.  And if they tell you they do, they're either greatly mistaken or outright lying, as this is one of the great mysteries of all time.

And yet, the Bible commands us to pray.  It even says to "pray without ceasing".  So, what's the deal here?

I don't want to hyper-spiritualize this, and I'm not going to make my point by exogesis and pulling random Bible verses out of the air.  Simply put, almost anyone can make anything out of that kind of act.  But I do know that prayer works.  I honestly don't know how or why, but it does.  I've seen it.  I've experienced it.  I've even had it done for me.

Remember the old M*A*S*H episode where Hawkeye meets a soldier suffering battle fatigue who thinks he's Jesus?  He asks him, "Does God answer prayer?" and the reply is "He does, but sometimes the answer is 'no'." - and we all hear that and think it's deep.  It's not.  I truly don't believe that God's answers are ever as simple as "yes" or "no"- there's much more to the equation here.  Further, I don't even think it's the point.  What I think it does is that when people hear that folks are praying for them, it changes the atmosphere, almost mystically.  The person in need somehow seems to notice this from their loved ones, and in many cases they are comforted to the point where their health changes and good things happen.  Sometimes the opposite is true, and it doesn't- but invariably, there is comfort provided to all parties when it's known that others are doing this on their behalf.  Some people refer to this as sending "good thoughts" or "good vibes" - and, even though this might not be the most Christian of viewpoints to say, I actually think they are the same thing.  The only difference is that a Christian will attribute these things to God, while others may attribute it to other things.

Again- I really don't know why this works.  All I know is that it does.

I, myself, have a medical condition that might eventually take away my mobility and the ability to do the things I love, like composing and playing music.  I take no comfort in that fact, and believe me when I tell you that God and I have had some rather passionate discussion over the fairness of this where I am concerned (and He and I continue to do so, and will in the future) and, yeah, when I get to meet the Almighty face to face, He's got some 'splainin' to do, but I am far from the only one that has happened to.  It's even Biblical- check out the Book of Job, or 2 Corinthians 12:7- to me, that's the best reference there is for what I deal with day-to-day.  At first, this really rocked me- but, now I realize that God has used this to show me a heightened sense of compassion for my fellow man, which was something I sorely lacked in my youth.  Could He have done that a different way?  Nope.  I'm too stubborn, and those that know me well will tell you that I don't see subtlety well- it takes a 4-iron across my temple - twice - to get my attention.  This was the only way, and strangely enough, I'm kind of glad He did it this way.

So- I intend to keep praying for people.  Again- I don't know how or why it works.  It just does.

all sides

About 30 years ago, I worked as an ambulance attendant and EMT in Boston, Massachusetts.  A lot of the time, the calls were to move elderly patients from nursing homes to emergency rooms- but, every now and then there would be some excitement.  One wintery day we got a call to roll to a car accident, and it was a bad one.  3 cars involved with a total of 7 patients and we were dispatched with fire units due to an extrication that was needed.  The extrication actually happened just before we arrived and was a 4 year old boy who had major trauma.  When we arrived, he was being pulled from the car, and his parents (who were only mildly injured) were inconsolable.  Since I wasn't driving this time, I was the medic who was first to the victim.  What was weird about this was that when the parents first saw me run to their child, they implored me to pray with them before I attended to their child- and that wasn't gonna happen.

I should stop here and explain.

As an EMT, the very first job is to establish "ABC's" for any patient- Airway, Breathing and Circulation.  Nothing else matters until those are dealt with.  And, yes, I was a Christian at the time, and this was NOT the time to pray.  There are some folks who will absolutely bristle at that last statement, and I understand why they would.  Most of those people haven't been faced with a life/death situation (be thankful) and really don't understand the mindset that is required here- but, trust me when I tell you that this is the right and proper thing to do.  I am there to be an active instrument to render aid at the time it is needed in a real and physical way, and I must let others attend to the other things.

It was immediately apparent that the child had suffered potentially fatal head trauma, so establishing airway was going to be a challenge.  He had a neck laceration that was down to his trachea, so that was going to have to do, and I inserted a tube into it to provide that airway.  His blood pressure was very low, but once the tube was in, it got a bit better.  Circulation didn't seem to be a problem here.  He stabilized very quickly, so we taped the tracheotomy tube and got him loaded into a different ambulance and started transport.  The whole operation took about 4 minutes to do, and the entire time, his parents were crying and praying fervently and out loud.  Being that the boy was obviously more critical than anyone else, he went first and his parents were to go later.  I walked over to the parents, and put my hand on the shoulder of the father and told him, "I will be praying for your boy."  I then attended to the other patients as needed, and we left after about 20 minutes on another call.  I said nothing more to the parents, but I did pray for the boy.

The reason that I am telling you this is to illustrate something that might not be obvious to you.  What I am trying to illustrate is that there is a time to provide aid to people in a more passive form and there are times to provide aid in more active forms.  I am not saying that prayer is "passive" by any means, but I am saying that attending to the boys injuries because I had a certain skill set was more active than prayer was at that moment.  Moreover, the aid that I rendered was no less valid and appropriate than the others being rendered at that same time, but my part to play was different.

In the Bible, Jesus performed both passive and active rendering of aid a number of times- feeding the 5,000; telling the woman at the well to go and sin no more; raising Lazarus; showing the Disciples how to be fishers of men, etc.  There was no single method here, and even though Jesus had the ability to just do whatever He wanted to in the way He wanted to do it, He demonstrated that our dealings with others can be done in any number of ways, and there is no right or wrong, necessarily-

BUT: Aid is to be rendered.  Period.  You don't just stand by and do nothing.

Let's put this into a political perspective for a minute: The Left and the Right have seemingly very different ways of rendering aid from a governmental perspective.  The current mainstream media would have you believe that the Left is the more compassionate and forward thinking and the Right is more about casting everything into class warfare and warmongering.  The counter media would have you believe that the Left is espousing nothing but a "nanny state" where everything is just a wanted hand-out and rights and liberty are being removed day and night and the Right has the corner on common sense and are the only ones capable of restoring order to the "new" chaos.

I, personally, believe that both the above points of view are complete bullshit.  The chaos is not new and the arguments are even older than the "chaos" is.

What I believe is that both viewpoints have valid points and can co-exist nicely, just as my illustration of the EMT story demonstrates.  Further, I don't believe for one, hot second that the Left intends to strip us of liberty and give everything away, and the Right is not interested in warmongering and class warfare.  The reasons that these ideas exist in the first place is because - well - people don't want to think.  It's way easier to just say that anyone who doesn't agree with you is stupid or evil, because to do the opposite of that is to actually acknowledge that no one person can know everything.  Not even you.

Imagine in my above scenario if I had decided that the most important thing was to neither pray with the parents nor attend to my patient- the most important thing was traffic control!!!  Only I know how!!  We need to keep these other cars away so no one else gets hurt!  And, while that is a true statement, the idea that only I could do that is ridiculous.  It is further ridiculous to assume that I was the only EMT on scene to do what needed to be done to establish that airway (there were another 7 EMTs there) but I was first on scene and I knew what to do, so I did it.  I also did not castigate those that were taking care of traffic control, praying with the parents, working with other patients and thought they were less important.   I just focused on the task at hand and did what I was required to do.  It would have been far simpler to have taken up those ideas and render no aid at all and just gone and gotten a beer instead- and I could have sat there and ridiculed all those people for making a big fuss in the first place.  Instead, I got bloody and messy and I didn't think about it.

I've heard recently from people who have said they don't understand how a devout Christian could be a liberal.  I've heard the other side, too- "Jesus would have been a Democrat" - and both of those opinions are garbage at their core.  The people who say this are too tightly wrapped up in a pre-misconception (a new word that I hope will catch on) that anthropomorphizes the very notion of God into some kind of package that squares Him with the status-quo as provided by either the mainstream or counter media.  God would be neither on today's Right or Left or even in the middle (where I consider myself to be) - and we would do well to remember that, because when we try to Liberal-ize or Conservative-ize or Moderate-ize God in this fashion, what we are really trying to say is that our ideas line up with God, and therefore we are more "godly" than the ones who don't believe as we do.  THAT is a very, very dangerous place to go and is probably one of the slipperiest slopes you could even be on.  Nothing could be further from the Truth.

So- the very next time you decide that God is somehow in or cares about American politics (or anyone else's for that matter) think again.  God does not care if it's Trump or Clinton in 2016; He doesn't care about your stances on welfare, abortion or gay marriage.  Yeah- that's right- what He cares about is YOU and how YOU treat others and how you can align your life to what He has intended for you, plain and simple.  The rest of those things mean nothing compared this immutable fact.  If the ideals that you hold to are held in such a way that it forces others away from redemption and a life in Christ, then you are in the WRONG and you should stop immediately- and a lot of times this means to shut your damned pie hole and keep your opinions to yourself.  (It's even ok to not have an opinion on something.)  I don't want to turn this blog into me giving a testimony and evangelizing; I do, however, want to give a possible idea on what it means to critically think through something.

And- here's the epilogue to the story.  The child didn't make it- he died before reaching the hospital due to his injuries, despite my efforts and the efforts of others.  It just broke my heart when I found out- but here's the deal: that doesn't change the fact that I did my job and I wouldn't change a darned thing about what I did or how I did it.  The fact that the boy died had nothing to do with me- it had to do with the accident and the trauma, and those were things out of my control.  What I do know is that the parents told the EMTs who did get to the hospital with other patients that they really appreciated everyone's efforts for their boy, and they took comfort in knowing that everything that could have been done was done.  And, that right there- is the reason to see all sides of the equation.