the diatonic dittymunch

The Diatonic Dittymunch
plucked music from the air,
He swallowed scores of symphonies
and still had space to spare.
Sonatas and cantatas
slithered sweetly down his throat;
He made ballads into salads
and consumed them note by note.

He ate marches and mazurkas,
he ate rhapsodies and reels,
Minuets and tarantellas
were the staples of his meals.
But the Diatonic Dittymunch
outdid himself one day:
He ate a three-act opera --
and LOUDLY passed away.

-- Jack Prelutsky

American Excess: Imagine Thanksgiving Without It

Seriously powerful article from NPR:  "We have built a world based on mindless consumption, premised on fantasies of endless abundance, all of which have been subsidized by vulnerable people around the world..."

Copy and paste the link below into your browser to view the full article:

http://www.npr.org/2010/11/12/131265342/american-excess-imagine-thanksgiving-without-it

cleaving

Tonight I have very few words.  Well, I'm starting out that way at least...  I'm lost in thought... thoughts about how I really feel about my current situation.  I think I've been repressing things for a while now in the hopes that I can speak positively to myself and stave off negativity...

Can I just say that at this time in my life I feel like nobody is there to take care of me?  I recently nannied for a friend from Mizzou who now has a 5-month-old.  She's married and is doing what she loves professionally and is completely happy, supported both emotionally and financially by a husband who loves her dearly.  And Halley too... Halley is desperately in love with a guy who supports her emotionally and wants to marry her before next October (sooner if they can get away with it, I think).  So I've been thinking about all this recently and my overriding thought is this:  "Hmm, must be nice."  To feel so loved and supported by another person, that is...

This is not to diminish the role my family plays.  But in the process of becoming an adult, there's a certain amount of "leaving" that takes place.  And if there's nobody to "cleave" to, it all of sudden feels very disorienting.  I realize this is the normal process for young Americans.  But there's something inside me that screams out at the injustice of suddenly feeling lost and on my own.  And maybe this is just me tonight, mourning a number of different things... hard things that have happened in my personal life recently, particularly in my family and with different males.  The process seems to be circular in nature:  wrong guy, family crap, wrong guy, family crap... which probably sounds really whiny and petty to you, dear Reader.  But whenever I feel the need to defend my feelings, I always go back to what Beth Moore says:  if you felt it, then it means something.  Tonight I feel the lament quite deeply.  End defense.  This is my story, not yours.

This is not about the desire to be married in the next 6-8 months, or even a year from now.  This is about the feelings of displacement and disillusionment that come with being on your own.  Right now I feel like I'm cleaving to... no one.  Except the Lord, that is.  And there are days when even that is questionable.

And maybe, just maybe, if nothing happens outside of God's will, then maybe I'm right where he wants me:  sad and angry about so many different things... so aware of my need for him, ...depending on him not only for my emotional well-being but for my very survival in this world right now...

This summer I read a book called "The Talent Code" by Daniel Coyle, which, by the way, is a fantastic book.  In it, Coyle talks about how human skill is cultivated... the brain mechanism by which it is derived, if you will.  He discusses world-class expertise and how it is developed in human beings.  In one part he mentions that many world-class experts, particularly the ones who are most famous (aka who became the best of the best... the ones you've heard of, whose names are household idioms) had a common motivational fire under their butt, driving them towards their success:  the loss of a parent at a young age.

I do not claim to be a world-class expert or even someone who is on my way to becoming a world-class expert.  I just claim to be a girl who's recently had the experience of understanding exactly what it feels like to all of a sudden feel like nobody's there to take care of you anymore... that you've gotta make it on your own somehow in this world.  And maybe I need to just give that the weight it deserves... I think I keep dismissing it in my mind as something that's not important and something I need to just get over and move on from.  But what I really need more than anything is to be healed from my past hurts... maybe sometimes in order to do that though, you have to recognize where you're at and work backward?

In one of my most recent counseling sessions, I spoke with Lynn about how I feel like I have no one to work through my problems with anymore, aside from her and occasionally Halley.  And of course that's obviously the entire point of where I'm at:  God isn't going to just let my faith disappear in the pleasures of what I think I want... not when he himself is enough.  He gives us what we actually want and need when it is good for us.  It's all of a sudden a deeper trust I'm learning... I have a God who has promised to be my counselor.  And not just in a feel-good about myself, fit-my-specific problems and worldview kind of way, but in a "for reasons that you don't understand, beloved, I want you at the throne daily with not just your requests for providence and wisdom and deeper understanding of scripture, but bringing me your mourning and laments and hurts -- past, present, and future -- that scream out for healing now" kind of way.

The book of Romans assures me on multiple occasions that I'm united with Christ by his death and resurrection... He is the one I can cleave to wholeheartedly.

grace

Good morning, Reader.  Today is a day off.  So much has happened recently... allow me to elaborate:

We have to move.  Our landlord basically decided he wanted to live in our apartment to "manage the building better," which might be true but, after being fed this excuse for a few weeks, we later found out from our neighbor downstairs that he's had his eye on our specific apartment for a while and now that he's getting a divorce and our lease is expiring, the time has come for us to get the boot.  Can I just say that we JUST moved in here??  We JUST GOT HERE!  We JUST moved the piano in here!  And now we have to move it all out again by the end of the month.  So, so frustrating, particularly because the process of finding a new place and packing up has suddenly become THE thing that is sucking up all my time and money.  Ugh, I try not to be too frustrated about the whole issue but you know, when you're the one directly affected by someone else's selfish decisions, it's hard not to be a little burned up inside.

We did find a place in Webster Groves... I know, right?  We're moving from Tower Grove to Webster Groves.  From Grove to Groves lol.  And it hopefully will be for the best in the long run because our apartment here is already freezing and it's only November.  Our bills this winter would be insane if we actually wanted to stay warm.  Supposedly the apartment in Webster has really low utilities because it's a loft situated over a downstairs business, which will be great when there's six inches of snow outside and the Ameren bill comes.  And moving to Webster will shave off about 10 mins of my commute out to Lutheran three days a week, which will be fantastic.  So there are a lot of positives... it just sucks right now.

In the midst of all this, God is so good.  I now have 10 students with another 2 potentials on the way and my Wednesday student is going to bump up to hour-lessons next month.  Because when you start going over with your students on a regular basis, then they either need to bump up their time so you can be adequately compensated... or you just need to be firm about cutting things off when their time is up each week.  I actually need to have this conversation with at least two of my other families who I've been going over with in lessons consistently now since the beginning of the semester.  And I have Halley to thank for helping me be a brave and shrewd businesswoman:  she's the one who told me to stop treating it like such a delicate situation, man up, and tell people what I want.  Because if you act like it's a delicate situation, then people feel they have the right to walk all over you.  But if you just own it and speak up and mean what you say, then even if your kids' parents say they want to keep the same lesson length, then at least you know you need to change something.

And the church I've been going to recently has been so good for my heart.  It's been really difficult the last two months for me to be consistent on Sunday mornings, given that I still go see my counselor in Columbia once a month on a Sunday morning and am required to play for the Lutheran HS concert choir once a month at the different Lutheran churches around the St. Charles area.  So that's two Sunday mornings a month gone.  But the last month or so I've been going to what basically amounts to a church within a church at Central Presbyterian.  They call themselves Trio and they meet on Sunday evenings in the basement of Central.  The music is great (more of a relaxed jazz combo style of revamped Presbyterian hymns), they incorporate liturgical elements into the service, the teaching is fantastic, and I can wear jeans without feeling like I've violated some unwritten dress code.  It is quite possibly one of the best and most wonderful things that has happened to me since coming to St. Louis.  I feel like I've found a miniature version of the Crossing, which is huge because it was something I was really worried about when leaving Columbia (cue flashback thought to July: "What am I gonna do??  I'm never going to find a church remotely like this again...").

For instance, one thing I've really struggled with lately is anger... anger toward my parents over stuff in the past, as well as stuff in the present... anger with this guy that things didn't work out with recently... just a lot of anger in general (cue flashback conversation with Halley: "... at this point Hal, I'm just trying to figure out who I'm not angry with").  And one Sunday evening a couple of weeks ago I went to Trio struggling with all of this and of course, they were going to have communion at the end of the service and I sat there remembering a sermon I'd heard weeks before at a different church about taking the Lord's Supper in an unworthy manner... like if you have anger in your heart towards a fellow believer... or in my case, fellow believers.  And then the pastor started talking about the Lord's Supper and how it's symbolic of Christ offering himself to us.  And then I realized that this was the first time in my life I'd ever taken communion with the awareness that I would be taking it in what I felt to be an unworthy manner... but that somehow it was ok because that was the entire point of the cross in the first place:  that we bring all our struggles to him... all of our anxieties (and in this case my anger) to him and groan something within to the effect of "I know that I'm struggling with this but I've heard that you, God, are a God who offers yourself and your presence to us anyway and so I'm going to choose to take you at your word."  It's a powerful realization right before you're about to take communion.  And although this sounds cliche, when you've been hit afresh with grace recently in a meaningful way, you realize again that what's even more beautiful is that he offers this to us daily, if we would only come to him and his word, being real with both ourselves and him... putting away all pretense and take from him what he freely gives, which is himself.  What a savior.

puzzles

I'm a huge fan of puzzles.  And I'm not talking your average 12-piece Dora the Explorer ages 2 and up puzzles.  I personally prefer something more in the range of 250-500 pieces.  Because anything less is too easy and anything more is just ridiculous.  I had half a mind this morning to drive out to my parents house to pick up one of theirs, since they seem to have a plethora of random puzzles given to them by a client several Christmases ago.  But then I realized that driving 50 miles to pick up a puzzle seemed a bit extreme...

The reason for all of this though, is because this morning during my quiet time, I suddenly saw my life as a puzzle.  There have been so many pieces that have come along throughout the years that I have thought something to the metaphorical effect of, "Ooooh!  I know exactly where that one goes!!" and then have subsequently tried to jam that piece (whether it be a person, a situation, or a line of thought) into the spot I have ready for it, thinking the entire time, "If I can just put this piece here, everything will make so much more sense and then I'll be set and ready to go on, my life in perfect order... my puzzle figured out."

There are a couple of problems with this line of thinking, the first being that the puzzle will never be figured out... it's all an illusion.  The enemy wants us to think that at some point in this life, our puzzles will be completely figured out and then we'll not only be filled with the knowledge of completed puzzles, but we'll also be completely happy and fulfilled because our puzzles will be in perfect order, sitting on the kitchen table for all to admire... which just isn't true at all... this is the same thinking that made Adam and Eve stumble in the Garden, longing to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge, of good and evil.  And the Bible clearly says that no one can understand the mind of the Lord:  His ways are higher than ours.  Nevertheless our hearts long for the day when all understanding will be revealed, a longing that is completely understandable and expected, given that we were created this way... longing for Eden, longing for understanding, longing for fulfillment, for a perfect relationship with... someone, namely the Father.  We only catch glimpses of them here on this earth... even as Christians with the presence of God given to us at all times through the Holy Spirit, we weep our way into eternity because we live in a fallen world.  Alas, these things are lost and will not come into their fullness again until we walk with Him in eternity.

The second problem with the thoughts that often pervade the Land of the Puzzle Worldview is that there are so many times when we just want to cram pieces together that aren't supposed to go together at all.  Rather than taking our pieces to the Lord and asking him if this is where that one goes or inviting him to help us figure out where to put the odd-shaped one, we say, "I know this is where this piece goes, God, and I sure hope you feel the same way because like it or not, I'm going to make this thing fit together... because this is the way I want it."  Can I just say from experience that jammed puzzle pieces never work out the way you want them to or think they should?  Never.  It's just another illusion.  You think that you ultimately know what can make you happy and how to achieve it, and to some extent that is true... like when you just absolutely know that the only thing to satisfy that PMS craving is ice cream.  God has certainly given us a brain to figure out things in our everyday lives.

But as far as the big questions in life, there's really only one thing that fills the longing in our hearts and that's a relationship with him.  If your walk with Him is truly a priority and you are seeking to live not superficially off the wisdom of others but deeply by the wisdom that comes through His word and the Holy Spirit in your heart, then the question of "How can I make these pieces fit together the way I want them to go?" suddenly disappears.  You start asking questions like, "Hmm... God, is this the way you want these to go?  Does this piece actually go over here rather than right here?"  Interestingly enough, your desires are recalibrated, not more than they should be or less than they should be, but put in their right perspective.  And then there's the element of surprise... the ride is only wild if you're not the one steering, which is definitely a hard thought to face in the midst of pain.  But if we trust in a God who claims to be goodness itself, we can trust that the pain isn't just given out arbitrarily or because we've done something wrong, but because He loves and cares for us and desires our ultimate good.  And as someone who's been through life surgery time and time again, I can honestly tell you from experience, Reader:  We have a very gracious surgeon.

twinklings

Fall has come to St. Louis, Reader.  There's a nip in the air and the leaves are starting to change colors... it's one of my favorite times of year:  the time when trail sandal season meets puffy vest season and the two overlap... cold enough to wear a puffy vest but still warm enough to wear sandals.  And tonight I have the unequivocal gratitude of a roommate with a tummy full of baked oatmeal.  Perfect.  I just love the change of seasons, especially fall.  If I could paste the findings of a leaf-hunt around the edges of my blog, I would.

The state of affairs these days in my corner of the universe are, in a word, bittersweet.  So many wonderful things have happened here recently.  For one thing, the acquisition of more students... I have almost a full studio once again.  God is so good... when it rains, it pours:  what was just a month ago maybe 5 or 6 students has now grown to 9 with the potential for 2 or 3 more.  And accompanying for LHS is fantastic... the director there is an absolute gem.  I thoroughly enjoy being pushed and sharpened by her musicianship and have marveled time and again at her ability to extend grace on a continual basis... so refreshing!  I like to think that I (hopefully) deal with my own students in the same manner... or will someday at least.  And the break from school?  Some days I just can't see myself going back for at least a few more years.  It never ceases to amaze me how much I didn't realize I needed the sabbatical.  Six years... and on the seventh she rested, right?

And maybe it's because my friend Edwina's birthday was yesterday, but tonight I miss her dearly.  I think about how she sits underneath the same sky roughly 2000 miles to the west of me, struggling with calculus-based microeconomics and grading undergraduate essays.  I think about the email she sent telling me how this is the first adult birthday she's experienced... the kind that goes by without a lot of hoopla.  I try and think about what I could send her and wish that I could catch falling stars and put hugs and tears and memories in envelopes and that they would arrive intact with the full weight of all their original meaning.  I think about five years' worth of conversations and just living life together... saying goodbye is so hard.  Dr. Budds always half-jokingly, half-seriously said that, "Life is a series of adjustments."  Truer words were indeed never spoken...

And I think about my family and all that we're going through together.  It is not a fun time for us these days... I won't say much other than the fact that we need your prayers.  Seems like each member is struggling with some form of growing pains in their own way, thus making it ever more difficult to relate to each other in a loving manner.  The more I read in James, the more I'm convinced of my own incompetency and folly in relationships... "Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry..."

And in the back of my mind, I hear those words again... slow to become angry.  A passage from yesterday's sermon emerges:

"The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, 'The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness...'"

... such a hard thing to live out.  And its so overwhelming when you're trying and failing to live it out amidst difficult relationships in your life... and then you realize this has been shown to you daily by a God who's loved you since... well, the beginning of time.

Overhead the stars twinkle.  I think about Edwina.  I think about my family.  The music I'm working on swirls around in my head, mulling over itself again and again:  slow, mournful, and unresolved, just like my thoughts...

gypsies

It's shortly after noon on a beautiful Thursday.  I'm still in my pajamas sitting out on the balcony of my Tower Grove apartment and the bells from the local churches have just rung.  I have nothing planned for the day until 4:30 this afternoon when I have to teach piano to the adorable little girls I have on Thursdays.  The day feels very European... late morning with a lazy agenda, pasta for lunch, mid-day church bells ringing, blogging from the balcony.  The only thing that would make this more perfect would be a great cup of coffee sitting next to me.  Alas, I've been flooding my system with water and juices due to the sinus infection I've been battling recently.  I would otherwise be painting my mom's office in Old Monroe today but by the time I got back to the apartment last night, I could barely walk let alone drag myself to Schnucks to pick up some meds.  So we both decided I should probably take the day to rest.  This is what the change of seasons does to me and I hate it every time.  Thank God I always manage to get rid of the ailment somehow before needing to see a doctor... unfortunately entrepreneurs don't always have the luxury of affordable health care.

Things have finally started to settle recently... and by settle I mean that all of the part-time work I lined up for this fall is finally gelling into some semblance of a routine.  Or as much of a routine as a Bohemian lifestyle will allow :)  And even though there's not a lot leftover, most of the bills are getting paid and I'm able to eat so that's what's important.  And more importantly, I'm resting.  I never realized I'd need the break from school as much as I do.

There have been a lot of things I've been thinking about lately... family stuff that's come up (or rather resurfaced) that I'm having to work through -- stuff from my past that affects the present as well as my future.  It's a lot to take in and process but God is really, a very gracious surgeon.  If this had all come up while I was in school or back when I was depressed, I really think it would have been too much.  Most of it has to do with the relationship between myself and my dad and how that affects the way I relate to men in general... pretty delicate and complicated stuff so I won't go into details but I'm hopeful that one day my expectations for male-female relationships will be realistic and I'll be able to be more than just friends with another man.  It's just another layer of finding myself and getting rid of the disillusionment in my heart that would be really difficult to do if I were in a relationship now.  My counselor Lynn says it best:  "Katie, you need to look for someone who isn't a savior, but who understands where you've been and can be an aid to you in the healing process."  She is such a wise, wise woman.  Maybe someday I'll let myself dream again about finding the right person rather than just dismissing the desire... there are a lot of things I feel like have been flaking off of me recently, such as the unrequited need to go to graduate school immediately, as well as perhaps the feeling that I'm perfectly fine on my own.  Indeed, God is a gracious surgeon...

And I'm still looking for a church here in St. Louis.  Can I just say that church-shopping is hard?  It's hard.  And it's all been complicated by the fact that I've been out of town the past few Sundays in a row.  Feels very gypsy-ish to me.  There's actually a lot of me that feels very gypsy-ish right now.  My mom and others have said that it's just the age I'm in -- the twenties generally feel very unsettled.  I have nothing to compare this to and no experience of my own so I'll just have to take their word for it.  I also think it's sort of a cultural thing:  more and more people my age are waiting longer and longer to settle down.  Some form of risk-aversion investment... seems to be sort of the hip and trendy thing to be largely unattached to any place, person, or thing.  But it comes with a price.  Limbo is great until you're tired of being in the air.  And is it weird that I'm unsure of whether I'm even tired of the limbo or not?  I don't think I've ever felt so wishy-washy in all my life as I do these days... just generally unsure of everything.  And some might say that it's really cheesy, but when nothing in your life seems to really make sense and you feel pretty directionless overall, I can only say this:  that I am so thankful to have a source of truth and authority which continues to stand firm amidst my own fickle and doubting heart... maybe this is actually what adulthood is about.

"Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.  If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.  But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.  Those who doubt should not think they will receive anything from the Lord; they are double-minded and unstable in all they do."  James 1:4-8