Category Archives: General

Why every person should learn a musical instrument

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Back when I was thinking about making a career out of teaching music, I often wondered if it was a valuable career choice. That is, did it fill a meaningful need in society. Being the scientific realist that I was, I found this hard to justify, especially as I have always been opposed to government grants supporting the arts.

Now, I realize music’s value is intrinsic not extrinsic. I don’t believe people need to learn a musical instrument so they can play in a symphony to earn money, or fulfill functions at a wedding, though these are both noble ways to use your gifts.

I am still opposed to government grants for music or arts institutions, as I am to almost all government aid, seeing I am a libertarian. However, I believe every person misses out in fully developing themselves and experiencing life if they don’t learn a musical instrument at least to some degree.

Music is the ultimate connection between the right brain and the left brain, between art and science, between reason and emotion. Music allows us to express ourselves when words are inadequate. Music can cross over language and cultural barriers. 

In medieval times there were considered to be seven liberal arts and sciences broken up into two groups. One concerned language and the other mathematics. The first group contained grammar, logic, and rhetoric. This was called the trivium. The second group contained arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy. From one of my music history professors, I learned that although music was eventually placed in the second group, called the Quadrivium, initially it was sometimes placed in the language group and sometimes in the mathematics group. It really is the ultimate connection between the two.

In addition, let me say that the musical instrument you learn could be your voice. I currently have the privilege of taking voice lessons and developing the strength of my voice. There are not many things as liberating as releasing the sound of your voice in all its power. This is what we did frequently and effortlessly when we were babies. One of the voice majors I knew in college said that the whole goal of developing your voice is to relearn what you could do instinctively as a child.

I hope this post inspires you to include some music involvement in your life and in the lives of your children.

Challenge Bridge

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Challenge Bridge is a variation of a historic card game. The point of the game is not to win the hand or score the most tricks, but rather to do the best you can with the cards you have been dealt. You compare your score on a hand with experts who played the same hand.

Living the conscious life is a lot like Challenge Bridge. We are not trying to be the best or the greatest; we are simply trying to do the absolute best we can with the cards we’ve been dealt.

Therefore, there is no reason to be upset if we cannot lift as much weight as someone else, or don’t know as much, or can’t speak as well. Our goal, as conscious individuals is not to be better than someone else, but rather to reach our full potential. This may look very different from someone’s else’s potential.

So perhaps you were dealt some raunchy cards. Maybe you have a genetic health problem, or grew up in a bad environment, or have become disabled in some respect.

Instead of becoming bitter at the Almighty, the world, your parents, or yourself, accept the cards you have been dealt and play them well. Who knows, you may surpass your wildest expectations. For unlike Challenge Bridge, the cards you are dealt in life do have the possibility of changing.

Perhaps you are overweight. Instead of making excuses for it or just being depressed about it, just start doing the best you can to combat the problem. This may be as simple as cutting out one desert a week or exercising for 5 minutes a day. Then just keep loving yourself and developing yourself. Where you end up is not all that important; the journey is what matters.

However, be prepared to astonish yourself. When you start living consciously, amazing things happen!

Scriptural Command Paradigm – Part 2

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My first post on how I make sense of all the various commands, instructions, and principles in Scripture focused firstly on following the commands of Christ to the disciples and multitudes interpreted in the light of the Torah. This was discovered through 3 key realizations.

First, our hope of salvation is built upon Y’shua (Jesus) the Christ and His resurrection, so it makes sense to me that we should focus on His commands first as the framework for living our lives.

Second, in Matthew 28:19-20 the Christ told His disciples to teach all nations all the things He had commanded them. We are the result of their evangelistic efforts.

Third, in Matthew 5:17 Y’shua (Jesus) said that He came to fulfill the law. This is a challenging verse to exegete, but I think most would agree that during His life the Christ had to obey and teach according to the Torah; otherwise, He would not have fulfilled it.

However, as we start to follow the Christ’s commands, how should we apply them in our lives and are they all on the same importance level?

Here is where the second aspect of my Scriptural command paradigm comes into play:

  1. Try to do something with every command. Don’t try to follow exactly what the command is saying or worry about whether you are doing it correctly. For example, suppose you read the command in Matthew 28:19 to “Go and teach all nations…”. Instead of worrying about where you should go, what you should be teaching, and how much time you should spend doing this, just think of one way to do something with this command. You could start a Bible Study at your school or church, go to the mall occasionally and pass out gospel tracts, or pray for a lost person every week.
  2. Pick 1-3 commands to really focus on, study, and try to follow every aspect of them. Let’s say you choose to focus on honoring your parents. Then, study all the commands and instructions in the Bible relating to that topic. Make that very high on your list of priorities. Have a conversation with them to get feedback on how best to do that. Include them as a major part of your prayers. Keep thinking about other ways you could honor them. Be willing to alter some of your lifestyle choices to keep this command. Try to always speak positively about them and look for the good character qualities they exemplify.
  3. Change your focus when you feel it is time for a new one. Don’t choose one commandment and then just camp on it. Keep shuffling your attention between different commandments based on what you feel would be the most meaningful for your life at this point or what you feel the spirit is possibly prompting you to do.
  4. Keep recycling through the other commands that are not part of your focus. Change the way you apply them periodically. Don’t always think about the command in the exact same way.

With this paradigm, you can expect your lifestyle choices to be different from other Christians around you. This is not because they are better or worse than you, but simply because you each have a different focus at this time.

Utilizing this paradigm can allow a tremendous amount of understanding and communication between Christians without them compromising convictions or beliefs. Without adopting this paradigm, you are forced to judge someone who lives differently than you do as ‘not following Scripture correctly.’ Or, you feel convicted when you are around this person, because you are not doing all that they are with a particular concept.

Now, you can enjoy interacting with people who believe and practice their faith differently than you and try understanding those differences without judging them or feeling convicted.

Motivation

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Where do you find the motivation or willpower to do something difficult?

For me, a large part of this comes from believing in my paradigm for this appointed time. As part of this, I have made it a habit of daily asking for the Holy Spirit’s filling, per Luke 11:13 and Ephesians 5:18.

However, there are times that despite my best attempts, I just seem muddled in distraction, depression, or the blahs. This doesn’t happen often, but when it does, I have an acronym I try to follow: NEW OP.

  1. Nap. Set an alarm for 1 to 2 minutes later and just let your mind and body take a brief rest. This can do wonders.
  2. Exercise. Nothing fancy here. Just something to get your blood flowing and your body more limber. Perhaps a minute of laying on a foam roller followed by a minute of planking would be good.
  3. Water. Drink some water. This always helps. Also consider bathing your hands, face, and perhaps your feet if this is not inconvenient.
  4. Organize. Take a moment and clean your surroundings a little. Also, sort through your thoughts by writing them down. Again, just a minute or so of this.
  5. Pray. Connect with a power outside of yourself. Realize the worth of who you are and what you are doing because of the creator that you worship.

All in all, the whole process should take under ten minutes. Ten minutes is still a sizeable block of time, which is why I don’t do this often. But when I need to, this is an incredible method for getting me back on track.

The  acronym also stands for ‘New Opportunity’ (NEW OP), and this is exactly what it provides for you when you need it.

3 Questions to Ask in Discovering Your Calling

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I recently heard something I thought was quite profound but also simple. It was about how to discover your true calling in life.

We have all heard the mantra of ‘do what you love.’ Most realize that this alone is inadequate in charting our way through life.

There is also the availability of work people look at when making career decisions. However, if this is all we care about, that is pretty shallow.

Others advocate following your skills, reasoning that the work will be there if you are competent and that you tend to grow to enjoy what you excel in.

An interview I watched a while back suggested to do all three. Ask yourself these questions:

  1. What do I love?
  2. What am I good at?
  3. What does the world need?

The intersection of the answers to these three questions is where your calling lies.

So, if you are just starting out in life, I hope you give these questions some serious thought. If you already have a career, perhaps ask yourself if it includes all of these components. Remember, it is never too late to follow your calling.

Believe in yourself. Live in the present. Enjoy life.

Defining Music

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According to the World English Dictionary, music is an art form consisting of sequences of sounds in time, especially tones of definite pitch organized melodically, rhythmically, and according to tone color.

I define music more broadly. Music is skillfully produced sounds that communicate.

There are three main components in my definition of music: skill, sound, and communication.

The most obvious of these is sound. Music is a unique art-form in that one does not need eyes to appreciate its beauty.

The question arises though, what types of sound constitute ‘music’? This is where skill and communication come in. Both of these terms are somewhat subjective. This is why what is music to one person may just be noise to another.

Some sounds we know are not produced skillfully, such as the creaking of a door, or the crinkling of paper. Some sounds we instinctively associate with a high level of skill, such as a classical symphony, or an opera solo. However, there is a lot of gray area in between.

One important aspect of skill is intentionality. Thus, sound that is not produced with intention cannot be music. It is impossible to accidentally produce music.

Communication is difficult to define, since all sounds communicate something. Also, I am not interested in lyrics. However, music has the unique ability to directly communicate emotion: anger, sadness, joy, laughter, angst, etc.

So, we can begin to classify something as being music or not. For example, John Cage’s 4’33”, which is just 4 minutes and 33 seconds of silence, is not music, since no sound is produced. When a toddler bangs randomly on a piano, that is not music because no skill is involved. It is also doubtful if this communicates anything, except perhaps aggravation.

My definition of music would also make some of the academic music being written today invalid as being called music, since it is written without any purpose of communicating anything, and though the notes are intentionally chosen and the piece is skillfully performed, no emotion is ever felt by the listener. I would also put a lot of 12-tone music in this category.

Distraction

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One of the greatest enemies to conscious living is distraction.

Distraction can arise from worrying about what others think, out-of-bounds curiosity, and too many responsibilities. However, distraction does not help our situation in the slightest.

Distraction is usually characterized by a cloudy state of mind. It is not that our minds are thinking clearly about something we don’t want them to, but rather that are thoughts are just foggy. Also, it is usually hard to put a reason on why we are distracted, especially since we are not thinking very rationally.

So, how do you minimize distraction? Well, first off, realize that the simpler your life is, the less distraction will be an issue. So, think of scaling down your life. Dispense with responsibilities that are not important. Get rid of some of the clutter in your life. Take time to meditate.

However, sometimes we get distracted for no explicable reason. Consider doing the following when this is the case:

  1. Breathe. The power of breath is simply amazing. Allow fresh oxygen into your lungs as you inhale deeply and let your stress and distraction melt away as you exhale slowly.
  2. Ask yourself why you are distracted. You do this to find out if there is a “good” reason for the distraction. If nothing is forthcoming, then your distraction is purposeless, and you should move to step four.
  3. Write down the reason you are distracted. Perhaps you scored poorly on a test, a relationship went south, or your back hurts. Don’t brood over the distraction. Just write it down so you can deal with it proactively at the appropriate time.
  4. Follow your paradigm, even if you feel dead doing it. This takes faith in yourself. The desire to brood is very strong, but it will only produce more distraction or depression. Just do it! Realize that the more you do this, the easier it will be to get out of depression and distraction when they happen again.
  5. Consciously put your mind into your current activity. It is not enough just to physically start following your paradigm. You have to purposely focus your mind on your current activity. If it is studying, understand the subject completely, look things up online you don’t understand, memorize the concepts. If it is exercising, think about the muscles you are using, your breathing, your posture.

Avoiding and escaping distraction are not easy to do. But they are incredibly rewarding.

This skill will enable you to pursue your dreams and not be stuck in the rut of triviality. Triviality that is dispensable.

 

Christianity Rationalized Part 2

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Some further clarification on some of the provocative statements I made in the last post are in order. First off, I want to experience ultimate personal fulfillment. I believe the best way of doing that is attaining, and thus living for, total health and consciousness forever. I realize I am mortal and will die. Therefore, I need a hope outside of myself to pursue eternity. The hope I have now is found in Yehoshua (Jesus) the Christ, His resurrection, and His promise of eternal life to those who believe in Him.

The question now though is, should I only seek to do what is expressly His will in my life? Now this would be a simpler question if His will for me personally was spelled out in black and white for every activity in my life. However, this is not the case. Many Christians agree that the Bible is the only written revelation from the Almighty. According to World Christian Encyclopedia, there are over 30,000 denominations of Christianity. This number is staggering! If this is any indication, it shows that the Bible can be interpreted in many different ways on many different topics and beliefs.

Here are some common answers people give to correct this problem:

  1. The Holy Spirit leads us to do His will. Unless you are prepared to say that all the other denominations of Christianity except your own are not “really” Christian or are not seeking to follow the Spirit, this solution has some problems.
  2. We should at least have the desire to follow His will in everything. This one I can sympathize with more, because this is the position I held for several years. However, this introduces all sorts of possible misplaced convictions. For example, take the command of Paul in I Corinthians to “glorify Elohim (God) in your body.” Because I had the desire to follow His will in everything, I used this verse as my motivation to do major internal cleanses and detoxing, radically change my diet, and disassociate myself from polluting environments. I also did a 40-day fast on top of that. Now, none of these things are bad, but are they necessary? I think you could Biblically argue that they are, if you really want to follow all of Scripture (I am being a little sarcastic here, though not much). And this is just one command of the hundreds (perhaps thousands) in Scripture.

Now the question could be asked, would I have the desire to follow the Father’s will in everything if it was clear and I believed doing so would procure for me the greatest level of health and consciousness in eternity. And the answer would be yes! However, although I do currently believe following His will would result in the greatest level of health and consciousness in eternity, His will is not clear to me at all.

So, my current paradigm is to keep a 50-50 split of personal and Scriptural (or spiritual) motivations. Thus, roughly half of the things I do in life are motivated by a desire to follow the Father’s will, and the other half are motivated by personal desires. Keep in mind that there is overlap between these two sectors and the more there is the better I like it. However, the root motivations remain different.

So, for example, one of the things I am focusing on in my life right now is redeeming the time. The base motivation for this is Scriptural. I also like doing this for personal reasons. However, the principal motivating factor remains rooted in Scripture.

On the other hand, I am putting a decent amount of effort into writing this blog and this is motivated by personal desires. Could it be used to honor my savior? Sure, but that would still not be the principal reason I am doing it at this time.

This post is becoming lengthy, so I will end here. These thoughts will definitely be continued in future posts.

 

Christianity Rationalized

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How does my purpose of living for total health and consciousness square with Christianity? Let me be clear about this. I am not, on a fundamental level, living to serve the Creator or the Messiah. And, if you are honest with yourself, I believe you will realize that you aren’t either. I have yet to find a person who is not living for personal fulfillment. In my case, I believe this will come through living for total health and consciousness forever, and I am seeking to do this now by living in appointed times by faith. I would bet that your picture of ultimate fulfillment also includes health and consciousness, though you may define these slightly differently than I do.

So, you may be thinking I am a heretic. But stop a moment and ask yourself a question: why do you follow the religion that you do? Is it not your hope of attaining ultimate personal fulfillment and does this fulfillment not include a higher order of health and consciousness than what you currently enjoy?

With all that being said, I am a passionate follower of Y’shua (Jesus) the Christ. I have radically altered my life many times as a result of trying to love my Messiah with all my heart. I study the Bible every day, witness in prayer or in person every week, have an active prayer life, give thanks regularly, and meditate on Scripture throughout the day. When I read a passage of Scripture, I seek to do something personal and practical with it in my life.

I don’t say any of this to impress anybody, only to establish that I am a dedicated Christian and not some liberal critic trying to tear down Christianity. However, the reason I believe and act as I do is not for many of the reasons others do. Some of these include:

  1. Following inherited traditions. While following family or community traditions can keep the peace and allow for better relationships with close kin, this is not a compelling enough reason for me to pattern my life after these traditions.
  2. Believing fundamentalist rhetoric. There were many things I grew up hearing and never thought to challenge. These included the existence of a divine being who created the universe, the inerrancy of Scripture, the young earth hypothesis, and the resurrection of Y’shua (Jesus). Though I still believe in some of these, I definitely can understand that there are valid reasons to believe otherwise.
  3. Presupposing certain truths or doctrines. I don’t just assume the Bible is true and relevant for my life; I start with reason and logic to form my understanding of the Bible’s veracity and relevance. I don’t assume something is correct just because I want it to be or because that is the way I am currently living.
  4. Living solely for the Father’s glory. The important word here is solely. I am living to glorify the Father, but this is not my only motivation in life, at least at this time. In addition, the reason I am living with this purpose is to achieve a greater purpose: personal fulfillment.

While saying all this, I am cognizant that professing the Christ entails me to surrender my own will and follow His even if this causes some pain and hardship in the present. As the apostle Paul said in II Corinthians 4:17, “For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.”

However, does this mean that every action I take and every thought I think must be directly linked to what He wants for me? This would include the clothing I wear, the food I eat, the places I frequent, the conversations I have, the books I read, the jobs I work, the exercise I do, etc. etc. etc. Be very careful how you answer this. If you say yes, be prepared to be consistent and live out what you believe.

Are you willing to totally lose the ability to think for yourself? Are you willing to give up your own will entirely? Is it your desire to turn into a glorified robot controlled by someone else? In the next post, I will share why this is not my desire, at least at this time.

However, if this is your conviction, then consider the following questions. Is it His desire to turn you into a glorified robot? Couldn’t he have just created man that way in the beginning and forgotten all the fuss of dying for us?

The Almighty purposely gave the pinnacle of His creation free will, undoubtedly knowing we would stray from worshiping Him. I believe one of His goals was to create conscious followers and not robots. So, whether from a personal perspective or a divine perspective, I encourage you to embrace your free will and consciousness. These are the Father’s most precious gifts to you.

What motivation then should drive our thinking and behavior as conscious Christians? In the next post I will give my tentative solution to this question.

Age is Relative

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Do not let your age be a deterrent to you living consciously.

When I was younger, I used to tell myself, “I will do that when I am older.” The problem is, when is ‘older’? 15? 20? 25? 30? Now, I sometimes think, “I wish I had done that when I was younger.” Well, the past is frozen and cannot change.

However, the present is wide open with opportunity to those who are courageous enough to take it. You are never too old or too young to start living consciously. Age is relative. I have seen 60-somethings knocking at death’s door and I have also seen 90-somethings full of energy and activity in life. A big factor in this distinction is consciousness.

So, I want to define consciousness and then give you some reasons to live this way. Consciousness, in a nutshell, is being aware of your existence, thoughts, and sensations. It is living based upon reason and rationality rather than on impulse or tradition. Please see my post on health and consciousness for a fuller explanation.

Here are some reasons I urge you to adopt a more conscious lifestyle:

  1. You will feel more mentally fulfilled. Some people make every excuse to be lazy, distracted, and fearful of growth and change, but all they are doing is hurting themselves. Living consciously will bring you a lot more fulfillment than sloth and triviality.
  2. You will be able to make a difference in others. Perhaps you are one that is motivated more by what you can bring others than the direct results you can give yourself. Living consciously will allow you to maximize your time and resources to help others, rather than just wishing them well.
  3. You will have better health and focus. The desire to live consciously is what motivates me to exercise instead of watching videos, eat healthy snacks rather than junk food, and blog rather than incessantly check email.

I have purposely left this concept of living consciously open to interpretation. This is because I don’t think you need it to be spelled out. You know the areas of your life that are less than the best. Don’t settle for that. Don’t say you are too old to change. Don’t say you are too young to accomplish something big. Just live in the moment, consciously choosing your destiny rather than getting pulled wherever it drags you.

Whether it is working on a relationship, launching a blog, starting an exercise routine, or moving to a new career, don’t let age be a factor in choosing to live consciously. Realize that the present is all you have. Enjoy life.