Holiday Music

Holidays generally bring a lot of work for classical musicians. Three out of 3.0000001 of the gigs are cringeful. For me that once-in-a-while sincere service, or fun party or whatever, makes me just a wee bit hopeful every time I agree to play again. The gigs I hate most? Poorly done Christian services, because who likes to see their own beliefs represented by jackholes... From the choir leader who told us where to "tear up, if you like", to the pastor trying to bargain with an already dirt cheap high school quartet for his lavish private party, there's nothing like those involved with religion to make a girl nauseated.

That really is the problem with doing whatever it is you actually like for a living. My own mother won't do her art for money now because she doesn't want to have to do any one project, and she wants her freedom. Who wants to fake enjoyment of creating something just because you have to, because you've got an agreement? I secretly (how secret can it be? Hi mom!) think she'd be way too busy if people could buy her time & art with money. And let's cut right to the real issue here, shall we; just exactly who would we get to babysit?

Money and kids, man, they do change the way you do things. Don't get me wrong, I love both, not even in that order. (They are like matter and anti-matter, though, now that I think about it.) Decisions just take on more weight when they're involved because options are no longer equal and there's no denying time is shrinkingly finite.

This morning friends and I were talking about meditation, about taking time to think about our faith, pray, study daily. We chatted up the differences between the Christian sense of the word and the yoga-eastern-zen view, though there are some similarities. I had always thought of it as tethering or constraining my mind, in order to ultimately broaden it. Today we talked about engaging creativity, emotion, even imagination in meditation of Scripture. This appeals to me, where my preconception of meditation as a slack-jawed time spent trying not to count the seconds did not.

Toby has at least one more tooth poking through today, which may explain yesterday. He's back to himself today. I think I'll sell everything I own and give the money to charity as supplication to God Almighty that his good mood will stick. It would be worth it to me, just to get some time to myself to meditate, and play some Christmas carols.