I hate hurting people. God often uses our mistakes to teach us things - but I hate it when I hurt people in my mistakes. Happened last week, and it should not have. I'm glad for God's grace, redeeming the situation, but I wish it had not happened, wish I had chosen better. I wish I could make it better for the friend I hurt - but though apology has been made and forgiveness granted, all is not well. Now I struggle to press on, praying for the friend and the situation, but trying not to be consumed by the mistake I made.
---
Winter in Oklahoma is significantly more uncomfortable than winter in Colorado, even though it's actually warmer. The cold weather here cuts through the skin much more quickly, evaporating heat much more readily because of the increased moisture in the air. I like Colorado winters better - more snow, and less humidity. I miss the mornings, especially: waking up and walking outside to see Pikes Peak covered in snow, some majestic giant with gently sloping shoulders: lit brilliantly ere ever the light should touch the place from which I gaze. I miss Colorado skies.
---
Somehow I manage to be simultaneously incredibly busy and have long stretches where I have nothing I can do. As now: there is a great deal of schoolwork ahead of me this week, but there is little if anything I can do to work on it as of yet - thus I am blogging instead. Strange, indeed.
---
I'm working on a setting of Psalm 67 for choir, harp, harpsichord, and two guitars, now, and enjoying it thus far. I rather like the setting of Psalm 142 I just finished, for tenor voice, flute, clarinet, french horn, cello, harp, and percussion. It's fun, and fairly well constructed. I am looking forward to hearing it performed. This new piece is going to take a little while to write - hopefully around a month - and then I hope to find a venue for its performance sometime this semester as well. The contrast between the texts of the pieces makes for very different characters of composition, as does the difference in instrumentation.
---
I love creating. Whether it be music, or these words on this virtual page, the act of bringing into existence something that has never before been is a remarkable thing. I am awed that God allows us to reflect His character thus: to, like Him, imagine and then make our dreams into realities. That's incredible (in the original sense of the word: not to be believed) when you really think about it. God made us in His image, and that includes the ability to create. We cannot, of course, create from nothing, as He can - but we can take the elements He has given us and from them shape the ordinary into the extraordinary.
---
I sometimes wonder if we have not lost, here in America - indeed the West in general - a sense of craft. We mass manufacture everything. Yet there is something about that which is made by hand, crafted with care, created with love, that is unique. I believe that singular quality is because it is a reflection, far more than mass production, of the character of God. He did not, in making you or I, or even the far more "generic" stars, set up a blueprint and a factory and then simply supervise its operation to make sure it did not run amok or cease to operate: rather, He lovingly and carefully crafted each distant pinprick of light with care, and lavished even more upon every being. And craft is something rare indeed - and when lost, how great the loss! Oh, that Stradivarius had passed on his secrets: we might still have the glory of the instruments he made coming new into the world. So it is with every skill: one cannot truly duplicate it with machinery. Creation - true creation - requires life breathed into it.
---
Beauty is not something capable of being formulated and understood completely: it is a mystery.
---
Sometimes I want to dance under the stars, a reckless and passionate dance: exulting in the glory of this marvelous and splendid creation, lungs heaving and heart pounding, arms thrown into the air and feet twirling: rhythm and motion in time with the song of the heavens - the song that only poets hear, because only poets listen.
---
To sleep, perchance to dream: or to wake, perchance to dream? When we dreamed asleep, we waking forgot: but when we dreamed awake, we dared - perhaps - to more than dream: to whirl in the waltz of wonder at all our God has done.
---
Let the peoples praise you, oh God;
Let all the peoples praise you!
(Psalm 67:5)
---
As the wind, so my mind tonight: restless, unpredictable, dancing playfully the one moment and silent and still the next. As the wind...
- Chris
---
Winter in Oklahoma is significantly more uncomfortable than winter in Colorado, even though it's actually warmer. The cold weather here cuts through the skin much more quickly, evaporating heat much more readily because of the increased moisture in the air. I like Colorado winters better - more snow, and less humidity. I miss the mornings, especially: waking up and walking outside to see Pikes Peak covered in snow, some majestic giant with gently sloping shoulders: lit brilliantly ere ever the light should touch the place from which I gaze. I miss Colorado skies.
---
Somehow I manage to be simultaneously incredibly busy and have long stretches where I have nothing I can do. As now: there is a great deal of schoolwork ahead of me this week, but there is little if anything I can do to work on it as of yet - thus I am blogging instead. Strange, indeed.
---
I'm working on a setting of Psalm 67 for choir, harp, harpsichord, and two guitars, now, and enjoying it thus far. I rather like the setting of Psalm 142 I just finished, for tenor voice, flute, clarinet, french horn, cello, harp, and percussion. It's fun, and fairly well constructed. I am looking forward to hearing it performed. This new piece is going to take a little while to write - hopefully around a month - and then I hope to find a venue for its performance sometime this semester as well. The contrast between the texts of the pieces makes for very different characters of composition, as does the difference in instrumentation.
---
I love creating. Whether it be music, or these words on this virtual page, the act of bringing into existence something that has never before been is a remarkable thing. I am awed that God allows us to reflect His character thus: to, like Him, imagine and then make our dreams into realities. That's incredible (in the original sense of the word: not to be believed) when you really think about it. God made us in His image, and that includes the ability to create. We cannot, of course, create from nothing, as He can - but we can take the elements He has given us and from them shape the ordinary into the extraordinary.
---
I sometimes wonder if we have not lost, here in America - indeed the West in general - a sense of craft. We mass manufacture everything. Yet there is something about that which is made by hand, crafted with care, created with love, that is unique. I believe that singular quality is because it is a reflection, far more than mass production, of the character of God. He did not, in making you or I, or even the far more "generic" stars, set up a blueprint and a factory and then simply supervise its operation to make sure it did not run amok or cease to operate: rather, He lovingly and carefully crafted each distant pinprick of light with care, and lavished even more upon every being. And craft is something rare indeed - and when lost, how great the loss! Oh, that Stradivarius had passed on his secrets: we might still have the glory of the instruments he made coming new into the world. So it is with every skill: one cannot truly duplicate it with machinery. Creation - true creation - requires life breathed into it.
---
Beauty is not something capable of being formulated and understood completely: it is a mystery.
---
Sometimes I want to dance under the stars, a reckless and passionate dance: exulting in the glory of this marvelous and splendid creation, lungs heaving and heart pounding, arms thrown into the air and feet twirling: rhythm and motion in time with the song of the heavens - the song that only poets hear, because only poets listen.
---
To sleep, perchance to dream: or to wake, perchance to dream? When we dreamed asleep, we waking forgot: but when we dreamed awake, we dared - perhaps - to more than dream: to whirl in the waltz of wonder at all our God has done.
---
Let the peoples praise you, oh God;
Let all the peoples praise you!
(Psalm 67:5)
---
As the wind, so my mind tonight: restless, unpredictable, dancing playfully the one moment and silent and still the next. As the wind...
- Chris
"I hate hurting people."
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry. Unfortunately, I understand. It seems that no matter how "pure" we become, we reveal our depravity at the expense of another. Hard to swallow. Good for you for doing what you can.
***
Yes, the damp, humid weather is harder. I've been to Colorado Springs several times in my life, and I can see the beauty you describe ... makes me want to be there, too. It is an amazing view to wake and sleep to.
***
"I am looking forward to hearing it performed." Is it something you can record and post so we can listen?!!!
***
Gosh, creating in our home is like breathing. I hate the mass manufacturing of everything. I much prefer something made with passion and care and love.
***
"To sleep, perchance to dream: or to wake, perchance to dream? When we dreamed asleep, we waking forgot: but when we dreamed awake, we dared - perhaps - to more than dream: to whirl in the waltz of wonder at all our God has done."
Poetry ... write it out in poetry form and watch it take flight :)
***
Yes, let the peoples, all the peoples, praise Him!