LIFTB 26
All LIFTB comics can be found at www.lifeisforthebirds.com
Posts
Communing with Others
In discussing my recent blog about the harmonious voice of creation, I managed to get distracted from my original intent, despite the fact that I had given considerable thought to what I wanted to post. So I am going to add to my thoughts on music, despite Gretch's desire that I blog about "us" rather than "me". I argue that music is such a part of me that it is a part of us, and therefore I am not acting contrary to the intentions of our joint blog. My original intent in revisiting the subject of musical performance was to discuss why I prefer to perform in ensembles. Even as I type, my father-in-law is trying to convince me to pull out my trumpet and improvise with him. But as I said before, I am not an improvisationalist, and I do not perform music for that reason. So why do I perform music? Or, more importantly, why do I choose to perform music in ensembles? Further, why do I choose to perform music written by others and then performed by an ensemble? The an...
The Harmonious Voice of Creation
I have written on the subject of music before. The great joy of being the blog author is that I can write about it again. If you wish I would write about something then, by all means, send an email and tell me what you'd like me to write about. Or email Gretch and tell her you'd like to see her contribute to the blog in ways other than posting her amazing comic. But, as usual, I digress. In preparing for this blog post (yes, that's right, I actually prepared for this, rather than simply writing off-the-cuff as I so often do), I was searching for quotations about music. I stumbled upon the one used in the post title, by Guiseppe Mazzini, and realised it was the perfect title for my subject. "Music is the harmonious voice of creation, an echo of the invisible world." Of the many wonderful things about music, one of the ones that I cherish the most is the vast multitude of expressions of music. As I am sitting here typing, my wife is in one room listening to music be...
A New Blog!
Gretch and I are part of the Champaign-Urbana freecycle network. It has been really awesome--we can get rid of old stuff that has been taking up space, and we have been able to get things we really wanted, like a four-drawer filing cabinet and lots of moving boxes. (For those who don't know, freecycle is an organisation that encourages people within their communities to give away things that they no longer need/want to those who can use it, thereby reducing the number of items being sent to landfills. In addition to posting items to give away, members can post items that they are searching for.) It has also been really amusing to see the ridiculous things that people ask for. I mentioned this on Twitter (and thereby also on facebook) one day, and my friend Crystal told me about the crazy things she sees come through the Peoria freecycle network. After giving it quite a bit of consideration, I realised that there was only one solution: Blog about it. And so I have, with Gretch's...
Random Sunday Thought
There are lots of stories found in the Scriptures. And many of them are favourites of mine. Probably so many that using the word "favourite" is slightly inappropriate. But I like the idea of being able to have multiple favourites, so I will use it, anyway. Today, thanks in large part to a posting at By Common Consent about a religious work of art , I am thinking about the story of Peter and John outside the temple in Jerusalem, as told in the 3rd chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. A brief recap is that a man who was lame from birth was sitting outside the temple begging and when Peter saw him, his response was thus: Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have I give thee: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk. I love the imagery that my mind associates with this story. I love that Peter then stretched out his hand and lifted the man up. He didn't throw money at the man. He didn't tell him to get up and find a job. He didn't go find a gove...
