Midlife Meditation

For those of you who saw the title, but not the content, of an essay I posted, then deleted, yesterday: I'm looking for a new job. I'm not going to air the details of what happened here. Rather, my goal is to articulate the importance of something I've never done well, but need to start doing much better in the future: advocating for the way I teach music. From the responses I've seen to that short-lived post yesterday, I'm not in the only one with this problem. Throughout North America, and very likely around the world, music teachers are being marked down by their administrators because they teach in ways that, while engaging, effective, and transformational, are so radically different from what those administrators are looking for that they find themselves under fire, marked down in evaluations, and potentially unemployed. I'm speaking, of course, of Orff. Teaching the Orff way means engaging students in making music from the moment the lesson begins. Chi...

It may be a stock photo, but this really is what engagement looks like in a general music class. Let's be clear about one thing: I can keep children engaged without teaching them anything about music. When I do, they look and sound exactly the way they're supposed to--in their home room. I do it by telling them stories. Sometimes I use puppets. Sometimes it's enough just to read them a picture book. When I'm doing these things, I'm using skills I mastered in my years as a pastor, tapping into narrative preaching techniques that held the attention of multi-generational and multi-ethnic congregations in Illinois, England, and Oregon. Preaching was challenging at first, but the more I practiced it, the easier it became, until I found myself able to reel off a sermon on the spot with little or no preparation. It was improv without a scene partner--except when I did it for African-American congregations, whose responses are very much a part of the sermon--and it w...

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia attending a Red Mass in 2012. Antonin Scalia died a week ago, and the repercussions of his passing have only just begun to play out. Our historically unproductive Senate announced immediately that it but hold true to form on the appointment of any nominee President Obama might put forward: it would refuse to act, preferring instead to leave the seat vacant for over a year, in hopes that the next President will be Republican, and appoint another hardshell conservative. The President, on the other hand, stated plainly that he will put forward a highly qualified nominee, and he expects the Senate to fulfill its Constitutional duty of advising and casting a vote on that nominee. Meanwhile, across America there has been a full spectrum of reactions, from sheer delight on the left to cries of conspiracy and even accusations of murder on the right. In the press, legal scholars have weighed in on Scalia's significance from a host of perspecti...

I've been using gender-neutral restrooms all my life. Mostly it's been a matter of necessity: growing up as part of a large family in houses that rarely had more than one bathroom, we took turns using said bathroom. Come to think of it, that's been true of every home I've ever been in, no matter whose house it was: the bathrooms are for everyone, regardless of gender. There are times, of course, when it's clear that a bathroom is primarily used by family members of a particular gender (this one's got one bottle of shampoo and a can of shaving cream on the counter, that one is equipped with a full line of skin and hair care products), but even so, there's no question but that the toilet works and is available for anyone who needs it, no matter how that person is plumbed. It must also be noted that these bathrooms were all "one hole" facilities, with just a single toilet making it unlikely there would ever be two adults in the room at the same t...

Carolina Panthers quarterback Cam Newton after a fourth quarter fumble during Super Bowl 50. It was an ugly game. Most of the scoring came courtesy of the defense. Quarterbacks of both teams were sacked repeatedly, and both suffered humiliating fumbles that led to turnovers. The winning Broncos may simply have been the luckier team--or perhaps better at exploiting Carolina's errors, and at recovering from their own. So this was not a passing game. Despite that, the quarterbacks were still at the center of the pageantry, the hoopla, and ultimately, both the credit and the blame. Peyton Manning, at 39 well past his prime, was overjoyed to claim his second championship ring. Cam Newton, a 26-year-old whose best days have not yet come, was so shattered at losing that he was caught on camera with his head in his hands, weeping uncontrollably. I'm not a big football fan, though it always grabs me when I glimpse it at the sports bar where Amy and I shoot pool. There is ...

Yeah. He had me at "hello." How odd to find myself, at 54, falling for a skittish ball of fur. I am not, by and large, a fan of other people's pets. It's not that I'm hostile to animals--I've been known to give an occasional stroke to a cat or dog, and I did care for and love both cats and dogs when I was a child--but for the most part, I'm much more interested in what the children of the house are doing. That suits me well for my profession, as I spend my work hours stimulating the musical creativity of 5-11 year olds and delighting in seeing what they come up with. I think this is, in large part, due to a deep sense of responsibility I feel for the well-being of any creature in my care. There was a time, toward the end of my first marriage, when I acceded to pressure to buy a puppy, a lively black Lab/golden retriever mix. My reluctance to do so came out of my sense that our dual career household just didn't have the spare time availab...

Sure, they look like they're having fun, but just wait. This is gonna get ugly. Pity the poor politician. To succeed in politics, one must convince a majority of voters that one will enact policies congruous with those voters' wishes. One must further convince a subset of these voters that one sincerely believes in the principles behind these policies. Simultaneously, one must refrain from engaging publicly in behaviors or making comments, even in error, that these voters will find offensive. Finally, one must appear genuinely warm and friendly to one's voters, while appearing fierce and defiant, perhaps even rude, to interests they oppose. And don't even get me started on donors. It's a rare politician whose mind can be spoken to any hot microphone, and stay in the game for long. It remains to be seen how long Donald Trump can pull it off: with his billions, he's immune from donor decay, but it's extremely doubtful he can attract a real plurality, le...