Beautiful Tritones

A couple of years ago, I decided to start a blog. As to why, I’m not exactly sure. I think it had something to do with the fact that I had too much stuff floating around in my head and it needed some way to get out. Thus, Beautiful Tritones was born.

Now, it’s over.

To be honest, it’s been over for a while now. I haven’t updated since September, and before that my updates were sporadic at best. I never really found a lot of inspiration to update Beautiful Tritones. That’s not to say that I didn’t have anything to say - I just was never sure this was the right forum for it.

Plus there was the whole “time to write a serious blog” issue.

At any rate, Beautiful Tritones served a purpose, and I’m glad for it. To those of you who ever read it, I thank you. Hopefully my words were meaningful in some fashion. I hope one day to return to the realm of serious blogging, but it won’t be here. Stay tuned.

Now then,

I’m not finished with tumblr. Just because I didn’t blog didn’t mean I didn’t visit here often. I love reading random and silly things on tumblr (plus stuff related to Doctor Who - lots of cool fandom on this site). To that end, I’ve created a “blog of silliness.”

whatasillymanami.tumblr.com

I’m sure I’ll post there more than I did in BT. You’ll get to see more of my random humorous tastes come out, so if you feel up to it, head on over. No pressure or anything though. It’s not as important.

One more thing - God has definitely stuck with me throughout the entirety of this blog, and I hope that the words that I wrote were pleasing to Him and glorified His name above all else. I am where I am today because of Him, and I wouldn’t want it any other way.

SDG

A lot of things can happen in 10 years.

Amidst the plethora of blogs and stories and remembrances that I’m sure are gong to be posted today, I’m not expecting to say anything earth-shattering in this post. Two years ago I posted a small reflection about 9/11, and I still stand by everything I wrote back then. So in this post, while I’m going to look back at the past a little bit, I’m mainly looking ahead towards the future.

So anyway…

A lot of things can happen in 10 years. 10 years ago, I was 10 years old. 10 years ago, Wikipedia was just starting. 10 years ago, the first Harry Potter movie came out. 10 years ago, the iPod was brand new. A lot of things can happen in 10 years.

10 years ago I had no idea that I was going to end up studying to go into full time church work. I had no idea that I was going to move to California and all the things that would happen to me there. I had no idea - I was just along for the ride.

So what’s going to happen in the next 10 years?

Think about it. Flying cars? Maybe. Computers embedded into our hands? It could happen. A reboot of the Harry Potter series? In 4D?

How about you? How are the next 10 years going to change for you?

That’s a lot of question marks, but that’s what the future is. We don’t know what the future holds, but we do know that the story is still being written, and we can read (or sing) whatever comes our way. 1 Corinthians 13:12 says, “For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.” [NKJV] 10 years ago and today, we don’t know exactly why the events of 9/11/01 happened, or the full impact of that day in the lives of people around the world. God promises however that we will know everything we need to at the last day.

I think my favorite part of that verse is the last part: “…just as I also am known.” Right now our lives can be question marks - whether it’s about the past, the present, or the future. When it comes to God, though, it’s a definite exclamation - God sees how this all works out, and He knows every fiber of our being!

I know that when I’m 30, things are going to be different. This day is always going to stand out in my memory, but each day is a new day, and each day brings us closer to that day when we shall know even as we are now known. Every song has its minor chords, the times when life doesn’t make sense, when we don’t understand what’s happening. But I want to look ahead to the future, to see where God is taking us all next, resolving into His brilliance and glory!

I should be sleeping right now, but I’m not.

My alarm is going to go off in four and a half hours, waking me up in order to leave for the airport for a veeeeeery early flight to New Orleans, LA. I’m going there for almost a week to serve - there is still tons of work that needs to be done down there in order to clean up after Hurricane Katrina despite the fact that it’s been 6 years. Four and a half hours - I really should be asleep.

But I’m not.

I think way too much, I suppose. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to go on this trip in the first place, to be completely honest with you. It’s not something that I’m prone to doing, traveling across the country to be in a very hot and humid place so I can perform tons of manual labor. It’s just not my idea of a very fun time. And yet I’m going.

Some might begin to doubt my sanity, and some might simply continue to doubt my already wavering state of mind. But really, something is pulling me towards this trip. I don’t know whether it was the love of travel, the love of the city of New Orleans (see last year), the prodding of my dear friend and youth leader, the fact that I didn’t want to be in the house all summer, a calling from God - I have no idea.

But I’m going.

I’m looking forward to it, sure - I’m positive it’ll be a great trip. But I was thinking about the fact that this is really something that I haven’t ever done. This is outside of my comfort zone. And for those of you who know me, you know that my comfort zone is pretty big.

Maybe that’s what pulled me on this trip - something new, exciting, and somewhat scary.

Maybe I’m insane and completely out of my mind.

But I’m going.

I really should get to bed.

Not doin so hot on the “every Friday bit….” June was crazy, so I missed the last two weeks. My bad. But thank you to those of you who got on my case! Didn’t really help me stay up to date, but I was convicted.

Anyway, I was sick last weekend - came down with strep throat. Not sure exactly how, although my guess is that I picked it up from one of my campers. It was awful. Don’t know how many of you have ever had strep throat, but this was my first time, and I absolutely hated it. My throat swelled up like crazy, and it hurt to talk, sing, and eat, which are basically my favorite things to do. [I didn’t even try to play the trombone…]

I also didn’t get to go to work for a couple of days, which drove me CRAZY. I love my job - it’s been a real blessing to me this summer, and although I get pretty tired being a camp counselor, it’s also incredibly uplifting. But that’s the funny bit - but I suppose I’m getting slightly ahead of myself.

Like I said, while it’s AWESOME being a camp counselor, it’s also pretty draining. After 3 full weeks of the job, I was pretty tired. So I was quite looking forward to the extended weekend with the Independence Day holiday, because I found myself wishing for a bit of a break.

God took me a little too seriously, because instead of a 3 day weekend I got a 5 day weekend - with strep throat! Well, okay, I don’t know if God purposefully gave me strep throat so I’d have a longer break from work, but I’ve found that if there’s something you really need, you’ll get it, and often in ways you won’t expect.

Here’s another example - once during youth group, our youth leader challenged us to pray for God to help us in an area of our lives that we felt was keeping us from following Him more closely. I thought, “Ah, what the heck” and prayed that God would help me to stop trying to take control all the time, since that’s what I like to do pretty often.

At any rate, I didn’t think much about it until about a week or so later, when I was attending a leadership training conference. It came to be lunch time, but the clinicians didn’t let us go right away. Instead, they split our very large group in half - one half was blindfolded, and the other half had to help the blindfolded half. Guess which group I was in.

You wouldn’t think it would be that hard to eat lunch without the use of your eyes, but you’d be wrong. First of all I had to walk all the way across the unfamiliar campus to the cafeteria, then navigate carefully between the food and the seating areas, then figure out exactly what I was eating and how much was going towards my mouth. It also didn’t help that the person assisting me was about two feet shorter than I was and not very talkative.

Needless to say it was a most interesting meal. Complete lack of control - not exactly how I expected God to answer my prayer, but that’s how it happened. [I also like to envision him sitting up there laughing His head off at me the whole time.]

There are plenty of examples of this kind of thing - a lot of people I know don’t like to pray for patience, because instead of God giving them more patience, He tests it further than ever before. Now, this doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t try to pray for stuff like this, because it’s necessary (and believe it or not, I am a little more well rested after this strep throat incident, and I’m getting better at the control thing). God knows our needs and He knows exactly how to fulfill them - we just need to be prepared, because it won’t be how we think they should be fulfilled. But hey - He knows what He’s doing, and He always will.

They really do have an app for everything!

I’m going to keep this short, especially since this is draining my battery. But I really wanted to say that God is awesome.

You know how last summer everything didn’t go as planned? Well, all of that stuff is totally happening THIS summer. The difference is that this time, it’s not because I’m determined to make it happen, but rather because I’m trusting that God has the right plan and that He’s guiding me in all that I do. He’s provided me with a job, friends, family, love, and awesomeness every day of my life. That’s worth celebrating!!!

It almost never fails - whenever there’s something I either plan for a devotion, say in a prayer, or apparently write in a blog post, that very thing becomes a major theme in my life. It’s almost as though God says, “Alrighty, let’s see if you can take what you talk/write about and actually do it.” My last two Friday posts were about Music and Community, and this past week, those two things came together for me in a powerful way.

I’ve got a great summer job - I’m working at a local Salvation Army center as a counselor for their extensive Summer Day Camp program. It’s a great job - I get to play outside, sing songs, make arts and crafts, lead Bible studies, and I’m getting paid for it! The camps start next week, but this past week we’ve had training and team building, which has been really great.

On Monday, together as a staff we did a High Ropes course - climbing and walking across ropes and logs suspended very high up in the air. Now here’s something about me - I don’t like heights very much at all. If phobias are hereditary I got it from my mother, but whatever the case, I wasn’t really looking forward to the high ropes course.

Now, we’ve got like 50 people on staff, so we divided into 4 groups and went to 4 different sections of the course. The section that my group went to was called the Catwalk - basically a single log suspended between two telephone poles, that we had to walk across without anything to hold on to. I was freaking out, but I wanted to at least try, so I started up the pole.

I made it up to where the log was - granted, it took me a while, but I made it. So there I was, standing at the one end of the log, trying very hard not to look down, but frozen. My legs were shaking and I really didn’t feel like taking another step.

Now, I had been one of the last people to start, so at this point, the other three groups were finished, and practically the entire staff was watching me at this point. Granted, all of them were shouting words of encouragement, but it wasn’t doing me much good - I was still not budging from my safe haven, clutching the pole for my life.

Then suddenly, one of the coordinators starts singing “Lean on Me.” [Feel free to start listening to it at this point for an auditory aid - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPoTGyWT0Cg] Pretty soon, a couple of others had joined in - and I started to feel like I could actually make it across. “Keep singing!” I shouted to them, and within a few seconds the entire staff is singing along. I don’t know what it was, but I felt inspired, and I made it across. Later on, veterans of this camp came up and told me that it had been one of the coolest things they’d seen in their whole time there.

It’s great to have such a wonderful community of cool people supporting me - I know it’s going to be an awesome summer working with them. Combine that with the power of music? I felt unstoppable. I feel like this is another reason I like Wind Symphony and Choir so much. God gave us these gifts to make life awesome, and let me be the first to say that He definitely knows what He’s doing.

This morning was inspiring.

This morning in church we celebrated the 48 years of ministry of Don, one of our staff members, and his up and coming retirement from the professional ministry. The morning was filled with testimonies about the impact he has had in the lives of so many people and wonderful celebrations of the saving work that God has done through him. And while it was celebrating him, it was celebrating ultimately God’s work using him as an instrument.

I was inspired.

I’m 3 years away from beginning a professional ministry career, give or take. Today I saw what one looks like towards the end. But I realized that it’s not about how many years you spend in the mission field, or how many people you tell the Good News to, or how many people show up at your retirement celebration thanking you for the impact that you had in their lives. While these are all nice things, it’s not the overall focus.

It’s all about Jesus. It always has been and always will be about Jesus, and the journey that he takes you on in this world. Whether it’s as a professional minister, a CEO, a tax preparer, a garbage collector, a whatever - God is taking you on a journey through life and faith. Jesus takes everything in this life and uses it to shape you as His child, all the while leading you towards everlasting life in the Kingdom of God.

Don is not “finished” yet. Sure, he might be retiring - that just means he’s done with his earthly job. Don will still be serving his Heavenly Father and the calling He’s issued until he is called home. And as for me, I can’t wait to see where my journey takes me next - it’s going to be a wild ride.

Ha! Thought I had forgotten, didn’t ya? Nope - just very busy today. I know it’s not Friday anymore in some of your timezones, but it still is in mine, so it counts.

This week I was very struck by the importance of community and building real, connecting relationships with other people. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again - relationships are some of the most important things in our lives, if not the most important. We were created as relational beings, first with our God and our Creator, and second with our fellow human beings, His Creation. Relationships drive our existence.

I saw a powerful example of relationships and a community coming together in support of one another. On Thursday evening I attended choir rehearsal, just like any other normal Thursday evening while I’m at home. At that rehearsal, we were blown away with some shocking news - a family member of some of our choir folk had been rushed to the hospital earlier that day, possibly with kidney failure. Many parts of his body were shutting down, and the doctors had no idea really what was wrong with him.

This news was especially shocking to my family because we are very close to him and his family - he was classmates with my brother, and my mom worked for the parents for a short time, and they were all friends of ours. We knew that we wanted to do whatever we could to help that family out. What struck me was the love and support of the whole choir, even people who aren’t very close to them. Our prayers were fervent, and many people expressed their concern and their willingness to pray for his recovery.

That wasn’t the only cool bit. When I got home later that evening, it still was very present on my mind, so I posted a Facebook status about it and asked for prayers. Very very soon I had received several texts and Facebook messages from friends of mine all over the country, telling me that they were indeed praying for him and for me as well. It was incredible to see this community of believers uniting for a common goal, despite the fact that many of them don’t even know who he is or the whole story.

What Jesus did for us on the cross not only redeemed us and won us eternal salvation, but it also allowed for us to come together and be a community. Whether it’s 2 or 3 people in a Bible Study in someone’s home or 25,000 in an athletic stadium praising God with shouts and song, Jesus is there with us, connecting us to one another and building us up in our relationships.

My friend’s condition is still very uncertain, and so I’m going to keep praying. The really awesome thing is, I know that my brothers and sisters in Christ are also going to keep praying, and together we are going to press on in this life, kept strong by the blood of Jesus Christ.

Music is a really wonderful thing. This blog is called “Beautiful Tritones” for a couple of reasons, one of them being that I just really love tritones and pretty much anything that has to do with music (with the exception of Picardy Thirds - hate those). Over the past few days I’ve once again seen how music affects me and is awesome.

Example A: Saturday, May 21st. My birthday, as it turns out. I was trying to figure out exactly what I wanted to do on my birthday, and I had decided upon seeing the latest Pirates of the Caribbean movie. However, a couple of days prior to the event, I received an e-mail update from the San Diego Symphony, notifying me of a special one-night only concert on the 21st, in which, among other things, they were to be performing Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite, which is awesome. So I ended up going to that.

Let me tell you, that was a lot more fun than going to a movie. The caliber of the San Diego Symphony is supreme, and all four of their pieces were wonderful. I also got to see some old friends, and it was overall a great night. Symphony > Pirates. Every time.

It also reminded me of my college and the awesome opportunity I have to go see really awesome music ALL THE TIME. It’s such a blessing - we have a great music program and some really talented people that go there, and it’s all so very uplifting.

Example 2: The last couple of nights I have had a really hard time falling asleep. My brain runs wild thinking about different things, and I can’t get myself to calm down at all. I toss and turn, and it takes me hours to even get close to falling asleep.

However, once I turn on some peaceful music, falling asleep becomes very easy. The music helps me to stop thinking about everything and to relax. More often than not, once I turn on music, it takes about one or two songs and I’m out.

It makes me think of the story of Saul and David in 1 Samuel 16. “Now the Spirit of the LORD had departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the LORD tormented him. Whenever the spirit from God came on Saul, David would take up his lyre and play. Then relief would come to Saul; he would feel better, and the evil spirit would leave him.” [1 Samuel 16:14,23 NIV] God gave David the gift of music, and David used this gift to minister to Saul and to help him in his torment. Now, I’m not necessarily being tormented by an evil spirit, but tormented by my own brain, sure. Music helps me calm down and feel at peace. It’s wonderful.

I love the way Martin Luther said it; “I have no pleasure in any man who despises music. It is no invention of ours: it is a gift of God. I place it next to theology. Satan hates music: he knows how it drives the evil spirit out of us.”

Thank you Lord for the gift of music.

What? Ryan’s posting in his blog? It must be the end of the world!!

….Sorry, too soon?

This here’s a short little post with two purposes.

A) I know, I know, I sound like a broken record, but I’m sorry for not posting so much. I’ve had a lot on my plate, I haven’t had time, blah blah blah…. Well, I want to take more definite measures to improve on that. So here’s what I’m going to do over the summer, and we’ll see if it sticks. I’m going to force myself to post WEEKLY – every Friday, whether I’ve come up with something meaningful to say or not. Hold me to that! Seriously. Hopefully this will set a habit so I’ll continue it even when I’m going insane during school. My main posts will be on Fridays, but I may also do short little Reflection posts like this one based on what’s happening in the world. That’s the plan.

2) Obviously we’re all still here…Jesus didn’t come back and the Rapture did not happen on Saturday, despite the billboards and the media hype. Yet there’s one important thing to think about, in the midst of all the snarky jokes and the puns and the making fun (and you know I love the puns as much as anyone) – we have to remember that there are actually people who legitimately believed that the world was ending on May 21st. This has caused rifts in relationships and has left people with a lot of unanswered questions. What these people need is not to be made fun of or laughed at for what they believed, but rather they need to be shown love – perhaps now more than ever.

Paul tells us in Galatians, “If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.” (Galatians 5:25-26) These people are our brothers and sisters, all of us created by God, and so we need to care for them and build them up and let them know that they have a God who loves them and who cares for them, even when they misinterpret His will. (I’m not claiming to be very good at this, btw, but it’s something that I feel that we need to try to do, and it’s something I’m going to be working on.)