|
Post by Cornflake on Apr 22, 2012 21:06:21 GMT -5
There's more than one. Why do so many involve teachers?
It was my junior year of college. Professor Kerby and I were talking after class. He was known as a practicing Christian, which made him very unusual on our college's faculty. Perhaps unique. He asked me what I was studying. Eastern culture and religions, I replied. That's fine, he said, but what about your own tradition. Christianity?
I can't accept it, I said. I don't believe in life after death, the virgin birth or all the miracle stories.
I don't believe all that, either, he said. The parting of the Red Sea? There was a big storm. The Hebrews wrote about it in their usual manner.
The virgin birth? He recounted the version I have since heard from many clergy. Matthew wanted to show that Jesus fulfilled Isaiah's prophecies. Unfortunately, he wasn't very good at translating Hebrew and translated a word that could mean either "virgin" or "young girl" in the jazzier way.
Life after death? Jesus never speaks unambiguously of any afterlife, he said. He speaks of eternal life. Life outside of time. That's a very different thing.
The conversation went on. He had been an atheist, then an Episcopalian, and finally a Roman Catholic. Given where I wound up, I think he went a step too far, but opinions vary. That conversation started a journey of years that led me to being a Christian, however heterodox my views, and it's the most important thing in my life.
|
|
|
Post by Village Idiot on Apr 22, 2012 21:47:54 GMT -5
Thanks for that post, Cornflake. One thing we used to discuss heavily when I had a confirmation class (junior high kids) was a dileneation between Didactic and Religious laws when it came to Genesis, Numbers and Deuteronomy. How many laws in those books had nothing to do with religion, but were enacted because a new culture was coming to fruition. Here was a group of people enslaved for many generations and were suddenly asked to form a society. They needed non-religious laws to keep their society together. Do this, or this (violent) thing will happen. In context of the time period, many of those laws seem to make sense. And thus come the seemingly silly laws that don't apply to us now.
I'm babbling, but someone defining themselves as heterodox has me typing at my keyboard. I appreciate your post, Cornflake.
|
|
|
Post by Cornflake on Apr 22, 2012 21:49:05 GMT -5
If it meant something to you, Todd, I'm glad.
|
|
|
Post by Village Idiot on Apr 22, 2012 21:54:04 GMT -5
It did.
|
|
Tamarack
Administrator
Ancient Citizen
Posts: 9,390
|
Post by Tamarack on Apr 23, 2012 7:04:18 GMT -5
Some very thoughtful and personal responses here. I arrived at similarly heterodox spiritual views from a different direction, that of a good church kid who got slightly cynical during college when surrounded by other good church kids who thought they had all the answers.
|
|
|
Post by AlanC on Apr 23, 2012 8:02:48 GMT -5
Did someone mentioned being surrounded by church people who think they have all the answers? South Mississippi is the locus of all certainty. I had an old fashioned tent revival in a field across the hwy from my office all last week. When I would work past 6 PM, I would hear the Hell Fire and Damnation yelling.
|
|
|
Post by aquaduct on Apr 23, 2012 11:59:28 GMT -5
Great thread even if I'm late to the party.
Never had a military or a 60's connection. I was 10 or 11 when Nixon resigned. Did my duty when I turned 18 and registered. They never came looking for me and I'm OK with that although I would have gone if asked.
My moments pretty much chart musically.
When I was 12 I got braces and had to give up saxophone. My little brother had a guitar that he never took to so I inherited it. Took lessons from Marie Dedinsky who was a friend of the family and probably in high school at that point. Learned to strum "Blowin' In The Wind" and other folky stuff.
Marie and her younger brother Ed were in a local "Up With People" spin off. They convinced me to join when I was 14. Sang and danced for a few months and then co-opted an invitation to join the band. Picked up a no-name Les Paul copy and a Peavey amp and played electric with an older kid named Art Wojtowitch who taught me power chords and the major scale.
A little while later Art left the group and Eric Gustafson who was my age joined. Eric would eventually go on to be a professional musician and he was really good. But he had stage fright at 15 years old. At one show he froze when it came time for his lead. I improvised something and became the lead player.
Went to junior college after high school to pursue an engineering degree. Started playing in the jazz band. Played Carnegie Hall with that school band. Just before my last semester there, the jazz instructor died (he was something like 92). They brought in a guy named Gary who was a professional session bass player and instructor at Wayne State to teach the band for a semester. Gary told me I should take lessons but that I was too good for him to teach. So he hooked me up with Bob Troy who was the hottest session player in Detroit at the time and was the guy that forced Gary to take up bass in order to continue working. Spent a couple years studying with Bob and he'd do these really cool things like take me with him to sessions and gigs like the pit orchestra for Cats at the Birmingham theater.
About that time (the end of junior college) I was working as a respiratory therapist in a local hospital (I'd started as a coop in high school and had been grandfathered into a fulltime position. Walked onto an elevator one day and immediately fell in love with a cute little thing wheeling a patient up to the floors. I stalked her for probably 6 months trying to find out who she was. Eventually asked her out and married her 4 years later. Turns out she's a hell of a singer.
Bob eventually got me hooked up with a recording studio who hired me as a gofer assistant recording engineer. Worked with a great guy named John Jaszcz who is now a sucessful engineer in Nashville. Got to work with Earl Klugh, Mitch Rider, Bob James, some guys that were in Don Was' band, etc. and also got hooked up doing wiring and technician work with studios around there like United Sound and the Winan's personal studio. Also got to work with my girlfriend who would occasionally come in and sing for commercials.
After transfering to a real University to work on my degree I grew tired of the bullshit of trying to work out a program and I told my Dad at lunch one day that I wanted to quit and just do the music thing. Dad said he didn't really care what I eventually did with my life but that I should really just finish the damn degree. Doesn't matter what the major's in, just finish. I went back and looked through the cataalog and settled on an English Literature major with math and physics minors as the shortest path to graduation. Took 8 lit classes, a physics class, a math class, and a golf class that final year and graduated. Best damn advice I've ever gotten.
After graduating and surviving a year with the studio of 60-70 hour weeks with $7000 total earnings, I realized I was not born with enough ambition and focus to make music a career. I really just wanted to get married. So I quit and we married. She continued to work as a singer for a few years but eventually she quit and raised kids. Didn't play much for maybe close to 20 years while we raised a family.
A couple years ago my wife's cousins came to visit us in VA and they took us out to some wineries. While there we saw some folks playing music and thought, hell, we can do that and make enough money to pay for our wine with some left over. So we put together our current duo. Eventually Christal started writing songs and the rest is history.
Now we've got 2 great kids (one of which graduates from JMU in 2 weeks) that we enjoy immensly and we get to drive around the country playing music together.
Funny how these things sort of come together in the end.
|
|
|
Post by Russell Letson on Apr 23, 2012 13:57:28 GMT -5
Finally, evidence that golf is good for something more than filling up the Sunday afternoon TV schedule.
|
|
|
Post by aquaduct on Apr 23, 2012 14:26:39 GMT -5
Finally, evidence that golf is good for something more than filling up the Sunday afternoon TV schedule. Talk about frustrating. Got to the end of the whole school thing- 7 years of my life- and they say you've got to have a phys ed credit to graduate. So I sign up for the spring class and dutifully ride the hour out to Ypsilanti to hit golf balls for 45 minutes and then ride back. 3 times a week for 8 weeks. Mind you, the class never sets foot on an actual course. My Dad was a huge golf fan so after I finished my class he bought me a set of clubs. Took them to the driving range maybe a dozen times in the 20 years we were still in Michigan. Never got on a course. Dragged the clubs to Virginia with me. Went to the driving range maybe 3 times with them. Finally after about 2 years in VA I took my clubs to a course to play with some friends. They all thought my gear was hilarious. Fortuneately hilarity was the purpose of golfing that day. Everybody sucked and we were drinking. Finally with the last move I ditched the clubs after almost 30 years of dragging them around. Maybe 2 dozen times on the driving range and one stoned spin around an actual course. But I'm sure I coulda been a contender.
|
|
|
Post by TKennedy on Apr 23, 2012 14:29:54 GMT -5
Life changing moments usually involve great tragedies and people that believe in you. Sometimes they are interrelated, sometimes not. I've had both.
|
|
|
Post by drlj on Apr 23, 2012 14:57:13 GMT -5
To be perfectly honest, the event that changed me more than anything was 3 years ago when Barb underwent 6 & 1/2 hours of heart surgery and the months of her recovery afterward. I figured out that things are not important, that life is short and that every day is precious. I quit worrying about the small stuff and set my sights on enjoying life with her. Nothing else matters. Life is damned good.
|
|
|
Post by Supertramp78 on Apr 23, 2012 16:29:20 GMT -5
Lots of things come to mind. Jeff is right about those little things that just happen and years later you figure out (or you don't figure out) what a difference those things made. But the biggies are a little more easy to spot.
Second grade music teacher by the name of Mrs. Martin. It was 1968 and she was trying to get a room full of 8 year old kids interested in music. So she went to a record store and purchased "Switched On Bach". Most of the kids laughed when they heard the blips and blurps and goofy sounds on the record. For me, I heard two and three part inventions and the Brandenberg for the first time in my life. This started a love of classical music and eventually all music in my life that I still have.
Around the same time I started watching the Galloping Gourmet with Graham Kerr on TV. His cooking show was fun and informative but more than anything else it was sexy. His audience was full og young good looking women that lusted over him like he was a rock star. He was handsome and witty and COULD COOK. And the women ate it (and him) up. Being a complete failure at sports, I decided that if cooking would make girls happy, I would learn. So I did. To this day I'm the primary chef at home and I still love it (as does Kelly).
Our local library had two sections, an adult section and a kids room. I tried to check out a book on military history from the adult section when I was 9 and the librarian told me I couldn't because I was a kid. My mom came over and asked what it would take for me to be able to check out any book I wanted? "You have to give us permission." "Consider it given." They stamped "Adult Use Also" on my card and that was that. Books have been a major part of my life forever and I'm glad it was for my mom too.
Falling way too much in love with a girl in high school. I thought it would last forever. I was wrong. I was serious about the relationship. She, as it turned out, wasn't. I was torn up pretty bad but what I learned was that some things are worth waiting for. My expectations for what was right and wrong in a relationship went way up and as such I never dated anyone until I met Kelly.
Not wanting to take another composition or lit class in college, I took a film class instead. In that class I met Kelly - a little more than 33 years ago. Nothing changed my life more than that.
There are lots of other things. The birth of my son, the death of my best friend, being unemployed against my will, stuff like that.
|
|
|
Post by Doug on Apr 23, 2012 16:43:14 GMT -5
I like that. In my family you could read what ever you wanted at any age and we continued it in our generation and our daughter has continued it in hers. I remember my grandmother (fathers side) asking my mother if she wasn't scared I wouldn't read dirty books. My mother said either I wouldn't understand it or if I did understand it it wouldn't hurt me. I read Fanny Hill in the 5th grade (because I could) and again in the 9th when I understood it. I always read, I started on Nancy Drew about 5 my grandmothers (mothers side) neighbor 2 yrs older than me taught me. By the summer of the 2nd grade I had read all the Nancy Drews and Hardy Boys and waited to spend my $1.07 on new ones as they came out. Those were hard backs for $1.07.
|
|