The joy of the music recital (no, seriously!)

Yesterday, I had the occasion to attend a "Coffeehouse Concert" at the music conservatory where one of my sons is learning to play the drums. This is a highly elegant name for what is, in effect, a mini-recital in the middle of the season.

Signing up for this coffeehouse has been very good for my son... his desire for playing the drums, and subsequent practice habits, had flagged somewhat of late, and the goal of getting prepared for the gig has spurred him back into it with a gusto.

But it's still a recital. And those things carry some bad juju in the parenting world... the jokes abound about the suffering and misery of the recital (except, of course, for when your own little darling is up...)

And yes, I concede that some of the performances have all the surface appeal of listening to Wolverine walking through a chalkboard store.   And it is patently obvious that a certain percentage of the young folks seem to be participating solely because someone is forcing them to...

But then.   But then, there are those.  Those young people whose faces radiate their feelings as they play their favorite instruments.  Effused with a true love of music, they brave their performance anxiety in order to learn the crucial element of being able to ply this craft in front of an audience.  It is easy to pick out the ones who are still taking these lessons because they love music and they love to make music.

And I realized yesterday that there are few things as powerful as watching a young boy or girl, a young man or woman, play a musical instrument with joy and happiness, realizing that you are seeing the next link in a chain of musical legacy that stretches back over the centuries of human existence.  Whether it's drums played to the Clash, acoustical guitar covers of The Police, or piano versions of Greensleeves and Ode to Joy, music is a gift from God, and it is truly a blessing to see young people who are infected with a love of it, and a love of the very difficult craft of playing it and carrying on that tremendous tradition.

So, the next time you have to "suffer" through a recital, listen for those nuggets.... revel in those young men and women who are so obviously reveling in their music.   And count yourself lucky to be part of the great symphony/oratorio/opera/gig that is Life.

A truly Super Sunday...

One of my most beloved friends lives in Arlington with his wife (also a long-time friend) and their three lovely daughters.  This man, along with his brother, have one of the best relationships with their parents that I have ever seen, especially with their father.  Although I am sure there were some teenage growing pains, since that family is comprised of human beings, these men have a tight-knit bond with their Dad and their lovely Mom.  I have told the patriarch of this family (who I leave unnamed out of respect for their privacy... this isn't their blog) that one of my life goals is to have a relationship with my sons like he has with these two fine, God-fearing men.   As far as I'm concerned, Mr. X is a benchmark for a father.

So.... how in the world does that apply to a Super Sunday?

Yesterday morning, I had the immense privilege of baptizing my youngest two sons.  Our church allows someone undergoing this solemn ordinance to choose who shall dunk them, and I served in that role for Logan and Ryan.   It was a very special start to this Sunday, and from what I have gathered from my friends in the audience, I wasn't the only one deeply moved by it.

And yet, the event itself is not the connection to Mr. X.  That occurred several days prior, when Allison needed to tell the minister who would be performing the baptisms.  She asked my boys, and they declared, without hesitation, that they wished to be baptized by their Dad.  That simple action warmed my heart almost more than the actual event, and is what made me think of Mr. X and his sons.

There is a lot of time to be played yet... I'm still in the first quarter of this Fatherhood Football Game, and there is still much work to do in order to emulate the baseline of Mr. X.  That said, this little vignette from our family life this week made me feel that I'm on the right track.  I am blessed to have close, wonderful relationships with all four of my sons, and I would not trade that for any currency, of any form, in all the world.   I love my sons.

Mr. X:  thank you for the great example.

The Armchair Economist, Purple Car Syndrome, and the new LEI that isn't quite so Nobel

Lately, as I've been driving around the metroplex, I've begun to notice that there are a lot of businesses that have malfunctioning signs, where some of the letters or a portion of the sign is not lit.  Not a big deal, except that many of them are not getting fixed on a timely basis.  For example, the Spring Creek BBQ on Preston Road in Frisco has been "reek BBQ" for awhile.  

I love "Spring Creek BBQ".... not quite so sure about "reek BBQ"....

After noticing that one months ago, I've begun to notice what seems like a LOT of this.  Now, this might be what I call "Purple Car Syndrome":  once you notice a purple car, you tend to start noticing all the purple cars, which makes you think there is a trend toward purple cars.  Observational data-gathering while just driving around is not necessarily empirical nor impartial.   But the number and/or percentage of malfunctioning signs isn't what intrigues me... it's that they are not getting fixed.  And that I can confirm from memory as I keep seeing the same ones over and over.

If I were a business owner, I would think this is something one would want to fix fairly soon.  Your name is your brand, and it's out there in glorious neon for all to see.   And that leads to my new LEI (Leading Economic Indicator).. alert the media and those folks in D.C. take note here....

(Full disclosure:  I have **no** chops as an economist.  Despite all the things I have learned in life, the interests I have, and the subjects I've studied, I've never put any cycles into economics.  Which is pretty funny since that field is often tied closely to mathematics.  Most people don't realize there is no Nobel prize in math... so if a mathematician ever hopes to get a Nobel, it will be in economics.  As for me?  The sum total of my knowledge in economics comes from the bartering systems of various role-playing video games I enjoy.   "I got meat.  You want wheat?")

And so, the new LEI that isn't quite so Nobel:   I can't help but wonder if... the preponderance of half-lit signs I'm seeing isn't indicative of what ails our economy at the present moment.   Things aren't horrible, but they aren't great either.. and maybe the business owners are having to really watch the coin.   In situations such as that, it might just be the case they don't feel they can put some funds in the "fix the sign" bucket.   Sort of like us, our house and the fence.  I would love to completely replace our fence for aesthetic's sake, but given the size of our yard and the cost of doing so, it's something that must be saved for and designated for the future.

But... I'm not trying to attract folks to my house with my fence.   These businesses depend on their signage to catch the consumer's eye, and right now many of them are doing so for the wrong, yet often hilarious, reasons.  And the armchair economist in me can't help but wonder if that's not significant.

P versus NP on the way to FBC

Our place of worship, Frisco Bible Church, is about an 11-minute drive from our home; on this morning all three of my boys were riding with me in my vehicle, and I had one of the most eclectic 10 minute conversations I could have possibly imagined.

It started innocuously enough:  Matthew piped up and mentioned how much he is into puzzles right now, and he mentioned that he has figured out most of mathematics is like a puzzle to solve.  Which it is. (My degree was in mathematics, which has served us well as we homeschool our boys).   I then told them about one of my favorite stories from math, about how Gauss developed the formula for summing a sequence of consecutive positive integers.

If you don't know the story, Gauss was, like most geniuses, not doing very well in primary school, and was assigned by the master to add up all the numbers from 1 to 100 as a form of punishment.  (It is the mathematical equivalent of writing lines, and it should take a good while to complete when done manually).  The young Gauss, however, solved it as a puzzle and returned with the correct answer in a matter of minutes.  And his formula is still used today... 

After that little foray into math history, the conversation then turned to the great unsolved conjecture from computational theory, P versus NP.  Yes, it really did.  Just a few days before, I had been watching an episode of "Numb3rs" with my boys, and the mathematician in the series, Charlie, had retreated to his garage during a time of emotional duress and worked on the PvNP problem as a way of holding his emotions at bay.

And so now, Matthew wanted to know what it was all about.  Talk about opening a can of worms:  I only have a B.S. in Math, and I'm not Charlie Epps... or Gauss.

So, with only my basic understanding of what the PvNP problem even entails, I endeavored to explain it to my sons. (In a nutshell, the idea is to prove that if a computer can be used to verify a solution to problem, then the computer ought to be able to be programmed to find a solution as well;  if this thing is ever proven {you can win $1,000,000 if you do}, it will have a huge impact on the computer sciences).

Obviously, this wasn't making sense to them (did it make sense to you?), so I struggled to find an analogy that would help them understand the difficulty often faced when creating algorithms that can be used in computer programming to solve problems.  Even the simplest things that humans can do without much effort or thought (such as sorting items) require an algorithm and multiple lines of code... all to teach the computer how to do these things, so the computer can do them very, very fast.

Then I remembered an old motivational demonstration I had heard about, designed to teach people about improving their communication techniques:  making a PB&J sandwich.  I told them I had a loaf of bread, a jar of peanut butter and a jar of jelly, and a knife.  I asked them to tell me how to make a PB&J sandwich.  (Most people will immediately start with 'put the peanut butter on the bread', so you put the jar of PB on top of the loaf of bread.... you get the idea).  The creation of the 'algorithm' is the outlining of the very specific steps to get the 'computer' to properly assemble the sandwich.

Since, in this instance, my audience is made up of pre-teen and teenage boys, moments of hilarity ensued and filled out the remainder of our drive.  "I'm spreading the jelly all over the plastic bag of the bread loaf!"

It was a very packed and interesting 10 minutes.

So......

 

What's the point of this otherwise-incredibly-nerdy-post-that-will-bewilder-most-folks?

Far too often, when my sons try to engage me in conversation, I do not give it the effort I really should.  You know what I mean, the 'uh huh' syndrome... or the 'I haven't got time to get into that right now', or 'Dad would like a few minutes of no questions'.   Guilty on all counts, plenty of times.  Especially since I tend toward the curmudgeonly, a card-carrying G.O.B.

This morning, for some reason, I didn't.  And it was a wonderful time... and will be a lasting, precious memory for me.

Every now and then, really listen to your kid's questions, no matter what your mood or the situation.  Whether it's unsolvable math problems, sports, the dating habits of their favorite musician, or the intricacies of Spongebob.   They asked, so it's something that interests them.  Discuss it with them and they will feel special.

And you might find out that you do too.....

Quiet... in a world that has forgotten how...

Some months ago, I had the delightful opportunity to read Susan Cain's book, "Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking".  This book, although quite appealing to me because of its discussion of introverts, is also on my favorite list simply because of its title.    I sometimes find myself longing for "Quiet"... in a world that has forgotten the meaning of the word.

We have made a noisy world.  In the daily course of life, we are inundated with noise, surrounded by it, immersed in it.  I would even posit that we are oppressed by it.

When you visit the store, there are flat screens that detect your presence and fire up commercials to talk to you as you walk by... at the gas pumps outside, there are commercials and upsells being pushed in a loud, obnoxious voice from the 'entertainment station' hanging off the gas pump.  The drive through lanes at the bank are feeding video Soma through the screens that are also used by your teller.

And don't get me started on the assault by music.  Large speakers in fast food drive through lanes blast music at your driver side window, the water parks are blaring music at such a volume that it is almost impossible to read a book in a beach chair, which is a time-honored summer tradition.

TV shows, movies, video games... they are all launched at us with a secondary armament payload of wearying noise.

I do realize that I'm in the minority here.   Most people want to be entertained, and that often, in their book, includes audio and video.  And here am I, one of a shrinking breed that will often read the news item on the web without *ever* clicking the video feed at the top of the article.  I don't need to watch the video... I just read the story.

As a general rule, we have forgotten the power of quiet.  The healing, therapeutic  touch of contemplation and just thinking, sans noise.  For those of Christian faith, to do so is a command.  Be still.  For others, it is simply just a really, really good idea to try every now and then.

But for the sake of intellectual honesty, I realize it won't change... the world is not going to get quieter just because I want it to... and thus this post is reduced, in essence, to curmudgeonly complaint.  In other words, even I am guilty, at the moment, of generating useless noise... signifying nothing.

 

The Power of the Same

Recently, in our household, we have lost a potholder. It is one of a pair of them, blue.. and I have no idea where it might be....

So, before you start wondering if blogging has reach new levels of the inane, let me get to the point.  My son Logan, whilst making corn dogs, was bemoaning the fact that this potholder was missing;  sensing that there was something deeper than his normal level of 'life hysteria' behind this, I asked him why he seemed so concerned about it.

His reply?  "Dad, we've had those 2 potholders as long as I can remember, maybe my whole life."  It struck me that Logan, like his Dad, finds comfort in some things remaining as touchstones in our lives.  In a world of constant change, these touchstones are the threads that run throughout the tapestry, that give us links to past, present and future.

When I was growing up, for various reasons my family moved around quite a bit.  By the time I was in college, I had calculated I had known 21 different residences in 20 years.  I had no 'hometown', per se.   I once tried to sit down and think if there was something that had never changed in my life, some detail that was an unfailing constant.

And there was-- my grandparents' address in Colorado City, TX.  Granted, they did not live there for their whole adult lives... but in my living memory, their little yellow home was the one thing that was always there.  And I found enormous comfort in that fact.  I loved spending time with them and at their home, and even as an adult, I found it to be a place of refuge and rest.. something about the pace of life in their little town provided me with a much needed respite from the hurly-burly of my normal existence.  I often would come in right after arriving in town, recline on the couch while everyone enjoyed the first round of conversations, and be asleep in minutes.

But it was more than just the small town pace... it was also the comfort of being in that one place.  I remember when I once shared this with my Grandmother... it made her so proud that her home was such a place for me.

And that is what my son Logan was astute enough to realize.  That a mere potholder, quite banal in most circumstances, was a form of lifelong constancy for him... and he mourned the loss of that touchstone.

What are the threads of the tapestry of your life that run from one border to the ongoing edge of the loom?  What things or places or people in your life are proof to you of God's Providence and constant presence and concern over our lives?

What, to you, provides the Power of the Same?

Empathy and a penalty flag

Now that the NFL and its officials have finally inked their deal, I find myself to have mixed feelings for the replacement officials who stepped in and tried to do a very difficult job.

I have, over the past 25 years, been a part-time official in multiple sports.  I have the most experience doing baseball games, ranging from coach pitch games to early high-school age.   I've been doing it a long time, and in all honesty, am pretty good at it.

But I would have absolutely NO business strapping on my gear and getting behind the plate at a Major League ballpark.  None whatsoever.  I just don't have the experience, the raw time under my belt, adjudging pitches at those speeds and with the movement that professional pitchers can apply to the ball.   I could do better out in the field, but even then I know I need more time and experience, and more knowledge on some aspects of the game.  I wouldn't want to be responsible for calling balks on a major league pitcher!


The game is just too fast, and the skills of the players makes the 'margin of judgement' on each and every play much tighter.  An official has to be at the top of their game... this is why umpires spend years in the minor leagues before advancing to The Show.  The players deserve this level of professionalism.  Yes, the fans deserve it as well, but the first responsibility of an official is to the game and the people who play it.

Thus, the replacement refs were in a nigh-impossible situation.  Many of them may be very good officials, but they had never plied their trade at such an advanced level, and it showed.   (Many of these officials "jumped" multiple levels when they took these jobs, because some of the best collegiate officials were unavailable because their conference bosses are NFL referees that were locked out.)

So, that then begs the question:  why did they agree to do it?   And thus we hit the source of my mixed feelings.

This isn't a discourse on the "scabs" vs. "union" worker debate.   That's not my focus today.  I can honestly say, that, if the same choice were to be offered to me, I would have turned them down.  I know I"m not qualified to officiate at that level, and I would do the game an injustice by attempting to do so.   And they had to know it could not possibly last- eventually the NFL would get their Dumb Hat off, reach into the spare change jar and make a deal to get the top-line officiating back.

Maybe they hoped that this would be their big break... that the time spent on this grandest of all American sports stages would highlight their skills, and perhaps open advancement possibilities for them.  Maybe they just wanted the money.  Obviously, I can't speak for their collective or individual thought processes when the NFL came calling.  But one hopes they knew they were wading off into the jungle without a machete.

Every week, I felt a heart-breaking empathy with them as fellow officials.  Officiating is hard enough as it is... it is not something that just anyone can do.   In a profession where one's goal should be to get it right and stay out of the spotlight- these guys were under a nationwide microscope for 2 months.  And they were doing it without the requisite experience and skills needed to do the job.  So I felt for them....

...and every week I wondered... "why did you put yourself in this situation"?