Mental Musings

No, I am not getting married or reminiscing about marriage or working with a couple in premarital counseling or anything else to do with marriage. But I have created something new to share something old. Actually, several somethings old to be more specific. On my Blog, I have added some pages with some samples of dramatic sketches, poetry and hymns that I have written over the years. I decided that the hundreds and hundreds of files that I have saved on my computer are just sitting there getting dusty. Well, not actually getting dusty because that would be bad for a computer harddrive. So I decided to share them with everyone. None of these have been previously published, so they are royalty free. I just ask that you make sure credit and copyright information is used whenever you find something useful for your church or ministry.

Just before the east coast earthquake happened yesterday, I heard a loud grinding noise as if two very large and very rusted gears were trying to turn against each other. Then the walls, floors and furniture started to shake. The entire episode was over in less than 20 seconds. It reminded me of other naturally destructive forces where you hear them before you can feel the effect: tornadoes and flash floods, for example. You get a very short time prior to the destructive event where you are warned with a faint sound. If you recognize the sound and take immediate action, you can get to safety. Usually by the time you see the cause of the sound it is too late to do anything about it. It is sad at how many people notice the warning sounds about their eternal destruction, yet do nothing about it. Pray that God opens the ears of those around you to the warning signals before it is too late for them.

It has been five years since I started blogging (August 10, 2006). I wish I could pull an Oprah and tell all of my readers, "You get a car, and you get a car, and you get a car!" But, don't hold your breath waiting for anything like that. Although, I do want you to know that I appreciate all twenty of you who are bold enough to admit you read this blog. Or at least the one person who has been reading it for the past 5 years (my wife), whether she wanted to or not. Blogging is not something that comes natural to me. I only kept a journal one summer in my life. However, I did spend much of my spare time writing throughout my years of middle and high school. It was amazing how much free time I found during classes to write skits, poems, song lyrics, and more. I still enjoy writing and have thousands of such things clogging up my file cabinets and the documents folder on my computer. I believe that the thing I like the most about blogging is that it gives every individu...

I have been blessed to have known some very intelligent people over the years: computer programmers, aeronautical engineers, composers, doctors, lawyers, bio-chemical engineers, authors, electrical engineers, designers, and more. I am not speaking about simply the ability to express extreme knowledge in regards to their own particular idiom, but rather the mental ability to garner knowledge about any field and bring their own unique viewpoint to the table. They could discuss music or mechanics, art or astronomy, Plato or Pluto (Mickey Mouse's best friend). None of the people I have in mind ever came off as know-it-alls. They did not flaunt their intelligence in front of others, but often seemed hungry to learn what people around them knew and thought about the subject of the day. Many who meet them might think of them as intelligent giants, but I saw them as people of great wisdom...for they all were strong believers in Jesus Christ. There are many intelligent people in the w...

“I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 3:14 Since I am a musician, I often think of things in musical terms. And when I hear a musical term, I sometimes relate it to things other than music. That is why when I once saw the phrase “Coda of his life”, meaning the end of someone’s life; I started to think of how an entire piece of music would fit together to symbolize a life. The very basic thing you need for any music is the melody. That would represent your life. Each melody is unique and beautiful in its own way. The melody continues on throughout a piece of music, but sometimes it is changed a little: it could change tempo, the speed of the music; the rhythm of the melody could change; it may go into a minor key, which is often thought of as a sad or lonely sound; it could simply change keys so that it gets higher or lower for awhile, very similar to the peaks and valleys of our own lives; and sometimes o...