What Am I Doing Here?

One day, when I was in a pensive mood, I began to ponder the question "why am I here in this place at this time".
The question had been asked a few times in earlier years but with few or no answers. Now, on this day, I had the time and desire to figure out an answer that I could live with. And so I began with looking around in my belief system if the answer could be found there, in what I call the dim recesses of my brain.
Thus it appeared to me that the answer to the question could be found in the type of work I was engaged in before retirement, and that work was centered on music. Now you may think I am leading in to a killing tirade against present day pop and rock music but, surprise, surprise, I am not going that route.
My involvement with music (after getting a degree) was with choral music in a definitely old timey conservative setting. That period ended after twelve years when I changed to a church whose pastor told me one afternoon we needed to have a mini staff meeting and met me in a restaurant where he promptly ordered a beer. After all those years in a church where alcohol was worse than sin, here my pastor and I sit, talking church business, while enjoying a nice beverage in moderation, meaning one glass each.
There came a 27 year stint at the local College as head of the music department and now I am retired and liking it, and thinking the question of why am I here needs an answer.
I think I have found an answer. Working in churches was sharing the world of Christian choral music with the same congregation year after year, suddenly I found myself in the world of ALL music, sharing my enthusiasm for good music with groups of students who were no longer static but changed three times a year, two semesters and one summer session. This college is a state institution so I could not major on Christian principles and dogmas but much music had been composed by writers who were known for their Christian beliefs like Johann Sebastian Bach which showed in their works.
So I think the answer to why am I here comes because of my personal and church backgrounds that gave me a total overview of the great, wonderful world of music that over the span of 27 years was shared with some 27,000 students, a total number that makes me feel humbled because it shows the number of people I exposed to what my God in Christ wanted me to tell them.

Let's worry about worrying.

There is a worrywart in my family, one person who takes great pleasure in worrying about this, that, and the other. That person has certain days for worrying about certain things and that would be fine if the worries were about things that really matter. But they do not. They are the little things like at 6 o'clock in the morning when it is cool outside let us worry about whether this jacket would be warm enough to make the short trek to the curb to get the morning papers, or would it be better to wear a sweater, and if so, should it be the gray sweater with the picture of the dove or would the blue sweater be more like it.
Today is a great day. The sun is shining, temperature for the pm. will be in the low seventies if we can believe the weatherman who had said that two days ago it would be 80 and on that day it barely made it to 72. OK we all make mistakes once in a while. No need to worry today. Nor ever.
Even in the long ago there was the saying for unnecessary worrying not to be afraid that the man would fall out of the moon. Worrying takes too much energy that could be better spent on thinking positively which is what I would like for most of the political ads on the tube to do.
And for those worriers who would like to quit worrying but seem to be unable to achieve that blessed state of mind let me refer you to any of the four gospels in the New Testament that feature examples galore of leaving the worries behind and live a life of joy in making a contribution to the wonderful world that God created, a world that stands in dire need of getting back on solid ground.

Panthers and such

Once upon a time the big city next to the small city in which I live wanted to host her own football team. A big push in the media got enough of the do-re-mi together to fund the construction of a nearly perfect stadium and a team of players was assembled according to the rules. The team got a name, the Panthers. They played a fine first season and we were happy.
The following seasons came and went and as they went so went the fortunes of the Panthers. We began to lose more and then more games so that I joined a growing number of tv football watchers that said it is painful to see those high-priced dudes fumble and tumble, an excercise they can perform easily for much less money in any local excercise club.

As of this writing they lost all five opening games of the 2010/11 season and I am sad for them, for us, and for our reputation. All I can do is wishing them for the rest of the season to straighten up and fly right, to show us what a multi-million dollar salary per individual will truly purchase and deliver on the playing field so it becomes again fun to watch the games.