Mental Musings

What a year we had. We started off with the MusicFlorida Conference and our first trip to Dino Cafe in Downtown Disney. We always enjoy seeing friends in the music ministry and we are looking forward to the trip again in just a few days. Another big event in 2009 was my first ever sabbatical. My church gives each minister a one month sabbatical every three years. I was able to reunite with many seminary friends during my sabbatical as I studied multimedia ministries in four states. We also met some new friends who have been great assets to my ministry. During my sabbatical, I was also able to attend my parent's 50 th Anniversary celebration. It was great to see so many family members in one place. We also spent some time in Tupelo , MS, where we spent several days meeting up with various friends. We were sad that we could not meet with one of our family friends because he had just returned to Grand Cayman the previous week. We ended the sabbatical by visiting Branson , MO, where

I remember a discussion in a graduate class about art. We were asked to come up with a definition of how you can determine whether or not something could be considered art. We discussed various current trends in the various mediums of art: an elephant living in the Nashville Zoo who paints pictures in watercolor; the vulgar works of shock-artists who mock the faith beliefs of others; authors who publish multiple novels a year rather than spend years to fine tune their story; composers who put out commercial jingles; etc. My group came up with the definition that "art is anything which creates an aesthetic response." We agreed that the response did not have to come from anyone other than the artist, because we creative people are often emotional enough for everyone else in the room. As I have been listening to some of my favorite Christmas music, I am reminded of how much emotion can be packed into a piece. While much of the Christmas music we hear throughout this season would

On Tuesday, December 15, the weather predictions were for a possibility of snow with maybe 1-2 inches in our area. By Wednesday they had increased that to a 30% chance and 2-4 inches. By Thursday it had increased to a 60% chance with 3-6 inches. On Friday they increased it to 90% chance with 6-12 inches. Now, here it is on Saturday and we have had more than 20 inches so far with predictions of 25-30 inches before it is done. This photo was taken about seven hours ago and it has snowed steadily since. While this Nor'easter never actually became a blizzard, it could become the second or even third largest amount of snowfall in Maryland. Currently the record for the most snowfall is just over 28 inches.

I arrived in Maryland in 2006. At that time I started preparing for my first Living Christmas Tree at our church (it was the 22nd year for the church). We have finished eight of the eleven performances for our 25th year and I have noticed some major changes. Not in the Tree performances, but in the those attending. Four years ago, the vast majority of those who attended the performances were middle age and older adults. There were very few young families and children. It could have had something to do with our letter sent with the tickets about the program not being appropriate for young children. This year I have noticed many young families and children attending. And most of these are people who have never before seen one of the Living Christmas Tree performances. It is very exciting to see so many young families enjoying a choral performance. Maybe it will encourage some of these children to get involved in the choirs in their own churches.

I was looking through some old photos of our boys back when Christmas was really exciting for them. It made me think of one of my favorite Christmas memories. It was December 1974. I was in fourth grade and my family decided to spend our Christmas vacation in Venezuela. My parents made the decision to visit Venezuela because my sister was taking Spanish at the time and they knew a missionary couple there. They felt it would be a good opportunity for my sister to use her Spanish in a real life situation. This was one of my first memories of a "real" vacation as opposed to camping or just visiting family. Our trip included a stop at my grandmas in South Carolina where we always got to ride her horses bareback and visit with cousins we barely knew. We also made a stop in Florida to visit Disney World. After that we flew to Venezuela. At some point in the flight, the pilot announced that we were flying over the Bermuda Triangle. In Venezuela, we stayed at a hotel with a wonderful

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Sometimes I think the church has done a great disservice to Christians by focusing so much on God as a loving, caring, kind and compassionate God. Why do we not teach people about God's justice and His wrath? Why do we not teach Christians about how God promises punishment against His children for wrong doing? I understand that most people do not want to focus on God's judgment. And if anybody dares to condemn their lifestyle, they throw out the famous Matthew 7:1 verse, "Judge not, lest ye be judged." My favorite scripture shows that Christians are taught that there are some things we are to hate. "Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good." (Romans 12:9, NIV) Yet I have heard Christians tell their children that they should never hate anything. Then they wonder why their children have trouble resisting Satan's temptations. We must teach our children to hate evil and love God. Let me tell you some things that I hate. I hate it when C

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If you have ever needed to get Mechanical or Master Use rights for selling an audio recording, you know just how difficult it is to find some of the companies who administer the copyrights. There are a few major administrators for most Christian music labels, but there are hundreds (if not thousands) of smaller labels that do not use these administrators. Each year we record the songs from our Living Christmas Tree to sell about 300 CDs at the 11 performances. We generally make just enough money to cover the expenses for license fees and equipment costs. Sometimes we use live accompaniment and sometime tracks. License fees are based on various factors: length of song, number of recordings you plan to sell, type of media you plan to sell, where you plan to sell, etc. The average Master Use license which allows you to use the accompaniment track for a song is $60. This year we are using all accompaniment tracks on the 12 songs we recorded. The average cost for a Mechanical license which

Apple's new operating system Snow Leopard 10.6 has been out for almost six months and Microsoft's new operating system Windows 7 has been out for more than a month now. Both companies were working on these new operating systems for many months before that. So, how is it that current products still do not have drivers that work with these operating systems? Our church owns a Microboards GX2 Disc Publisher that we pretty much only use around the last week of November and first few weeks of December making our Living Christmas Tree CDs. Last time I used it I was using a Toshiba laptop with Windows XP. So, I hook it up to my Mac and install the Mac software only to discover it does not work with Mac OS 10.6. It will work with 10.4 or 10.5, but not 10.6. OK, I thought, I have Parallels Desktop so I can run Windows programs and hardware on my Mac, so I will install the Windows version. Nope, it doesn't work with Windows 7, but it will work with XP or Vista (which I do not have).

Got my Mac back today with a bigger, better hard drive. Apple rep told me how to use my Time Machine backup on my external hard drive in order to restore my original files and programs. Only one problem...it didn't work. I finally figured out the problem thanks to a Google search on how to restore my computer using Time Machine. The process requires that you have your Mac OS disk. Simple procedure listed below: Insert your Mac OS install DVD Shut down your Mac Turn on your Mac while holding down the "c" button on keyboard Once DVD loads, select your language preference and click continue DO NOT continue on next screen or you will begin the install process (not restore) Click on the Utilities menu at top of screen and select Time Machine restore option Follow directions to restore to internal hard drive (usually labeled as Macintosh HD) from your Time Machine hard drive (including choosing the restore point you want to use) This is an important point if you have upgraded y