Music In the Pastor's Study: A Theological Conundrum

Ever since my high school days, when I would thrown on a pair of headphones as I scrawled away on my Algebra, I have enjoyed listening to music as I work. This habit continued through all of my schooling...I would often place a handful of CDs and my headphones in my bag on my way up the library to type seminary papers. I find that it helps me think to have something in the background. If the deadline is approaching, it is nice to have some more mellow, relaxing music in the background (nothing better than "Kind of Blue" to convince you that 20 pages can, in fact, happen in the next 12 hours)...if motivation is a problem, a more upbeat selection often helps (My last Hebrew paper was made possible by an energy infusion via Led Zeppelin III). I still enjoy listening to music when I am at home writing my sermons...those old habits continuing on today. I like God...I like writing...I like my job...and I like music.

But a question has presented itself recently, one that I have visited before at the other churches I have worked at: What can you listen to at church? What is considered appropriate?

I currently have a small CD player here in the office, and I keep four CDs here at work permanently. They are: "The best of Pavarotti," "Tchaikovsky: Greatest Hits," "Copland: Greatest Hits," and "Debussy: Compositions For Piano." In other words, four classical CDs that I enjoy very much and help soothe/inspire as I write. They aren't the greatest in the world, grant you, but I like them. There is only one catch.

I've been listening to them for eight months straight now.

Sure, I've brought in other classical CDs from our collection at home, but these are "The Rotation." The administrative assistant likes them...I like them...and (above all else) they haven't raised any congregational eyebrows. I keep looking at Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Charles Mingus, and Duke Ellington...and I can't help thinking in the back of my head: "Boy...Miles Davis did a whole whole whole whole whole whole whole lot of drugs. Wonder if I should take him to church."

Why don't I do this with other CDs? Surely somebody in the orchestra playing "Fanfare for the Common Man" had some problems...plus, have your read any biographies on composers? And it's not like Miles' CDs are titled "Drugs are Great!!" and "The Church is Dead!" It's flowing, beautiful, instrumental jazz. Spectacular stuff. But I still haven't brought it.

And this doesn't even crack my CDs that have lyrics. There are several CDs that I would listen to (and have listened to) in front of parishioners...but I still don't bring them to work. I brought the new Bruce Hornsby/Ricky Skaggs bluegrass album to work the other week...I kept muting it when I answered the phone because I thought it sounded too upbeat and raucous for church work. It's not like there's language or even a whiff of a suggestive theme on the album...I just feel like this place is a serious place, you know, where GOD'S WORK gets done. Don't want anybody thinking I'm having a party here. Is there something wrong with me? I've considered bringing Ray Charles, Van Morrison, Neil Young, Frank Sinatra, Aretha Franklin, and the like into church...but always stopped short. Would people really get all that mad if they heard "Georgia On My Mind" playing when they came in the office?

Maybe it's precedence. Every pastor I have ever worked with who has listened to music in his/her office (that I know about) has listened to one of two things: Gospel music/hymns or Public Radio. I like both of these things...I really do...but I guess I just find myself wanting something else when I work.

And so...these are the things that crawl into my mind and don't leave. I have things to do, plan, and write...but instead I am trying to analyze my inability to bring jazz or vocal music to the church office and what that tells me about my theology of the pastoral office. I have come to the following conclusion: I have a hard time imagining all the pastoral expectations that I have clogged in my brain (those short films: "Pastor prays for 6 hours straight" and "Pastor debates taking a nap, curses sloth, gets back to work") played to a soundtrack of "The Boss Brass: Live in Digital" or Tom Petty's "Highway Companion"...it just doesn't work.

I'm guess that I'm still trying to figure out exactly what it means to be a pastor...how much I have to listen to those expectations and how much I need to back off from them before expectations overshadow the reality of who I am. It is, in a way, like the times I feel guilty when somebody finds out that I'm a pastor when I'm walking around town without two-day stubble and an old ball cap on a Saturday. I want to be the pastor...but I want to be Scott, too.

I guess I'm still trying to figure out what I need to embrace and change in order to be both.

Reality Baseball is For Suckers

A completely unsurprising news story come across my computer this morning. Mark Prior, the one-time savior of my beloved Chicago Cubs is out for the year. Again.

This is no surprise to anybody who follows the Cubs (or baseball). Ever since the magical/utterly soul crushing 2003 playoffs, Prior has been MLB's version of Mr. Glass, sneezing and breaking his collarbone every couple of months. The promise of young Mr. Prior has "forced" the Cubs to repeatedly pay him too much. And now that he is damaged goods, his price tag (along with that 5-star attitude) make him impossible to move.

This is, of course, verse two of the same song. He joins another savior-turned-overpaid-one-armed-man Kerry Wood. Cubs fans had been playing the, "If we get them both healthy, we'll be spectacular" game for about three years as we bemoan the absence of milk from the Cubs training table and the ongoing legacy of Dusty "Pitch 'Em 'Till They Break" Baker. There was always that glimmer of hope...maybe they'd get better.

Well, that's over now. There were still a couple of us naively hanging on. It's over. There is nothing left but to watch the injury/recovery cycle like a replay of a train wreck. Nothing to do but embrace the fact that they are impossible to trade and weigh down the payroll and roster like cement shoes. The Cubs are 8-13 and looking completely inept in a division where the Brewers are in first. Yeah, you heard me. The Brewers.

Combine this morning's same old same old with the Royals (7-14, last place) and the Rockies (9-13, last place) and..well...this has been a hard Spring to be a baseball fan.

In the real world, that is.

This has been a spectacular Spring for the last bastion of the Cubs fan, the magical world of pretend. My fantasy baseball team currently resides in first and the (previously mentioned) "Virtual Cubs" have 53 wins and it isn't even July in "Bizzaro World" yet. Mark Prior was traded to the Mariners for Ichiro (suckers!). Kerry Wood was packaged with Michael Barrett and Jacque Jones and promptly exchanged for Bartolo Colon and Francisco Rodriguez of the Angels (chumps!). Ted Lilly's got a 1.57 ERA, leads the league in strikeouts, and is the current favorite for the Cy Young. Alfonso Soriano has 98 RBI in late June.

And so it has been one lights-out Spring in the land of denial. PS2 has been my techno-fiddle as the baseball world burns around me...and left me wondering what other ways I could supplement reality.

I searched the Best Buy website this morning. Unfortunately my searches for "Church Administrator 2007: Attack of the Budget!!!" and "Extreme Yard Care: Dandelion Avenger" came up empty. A guy can hope, though. A guy can hope.

Tragic Ownership

One more brief post on Virginia Tech. My friend and fellow blogger rightly (I think) indicated that one of the developing goals of media is to "involve the participants in the events and the reporting"...to include us in what is happening. I think this explains my (and, from what I understand, most of the nation's) television vigil after September 11. This was a shared experience...although I do think, as I indicated yesterday, that it reached kind of a morbid fascination level for me. I don't want to call it an "excitement"...but there was something about watching "history unfold" (something I was reminded of repeatedly by the broadcasters) that kept me glued. I have a problem with this.

Maybe if they stopped running commercials, I'd have an easier time. Maybe if they stopped repeating over and over and over how monumentally terrible all of this is as if we didn't know already. It seems like re-hashing to me (insert comment about the irony of me re-hashing the situation here). Repeating, over and over and over again, the terrible stories and the tragic images.

The worst example of this: local news. In their desperate attempt to connect the story to "the Metro area," they have combed the phone books looking for relatives and friends to get their tales of woe and hurt. They have presented stories about how easy it would be for somebody to go on a rampage at CU and CSU. And they have (most unnerving of all) gone to visit the victims and eyewitnesses of the Columbine shooting to get their feelings and to "see if it has brought up any bad memories." Then they go back to the news desk, the head anchor shakes his/her head and says something to the effect of: "We will never forget that terrible day." You're right...because you won't let us.

So I guess I've put a finger on why I feel dirty watching the news right now. The news currently presents two things: blame and re-hash. And that's because it is exactly what we want. We want to see the footage, we want to "be there," we want to get that visceral rush of experiencing something monumental. We want to be impacted. But (and here's the rub), we really don't want it to compel us to change. We want to stay in front of the TV...and, if it gives us somebody or something to blame, all the better. We don't want to consider how we can work to prevent something like this from happening in our community...we don't want to reach out to others. We want to see something historic and how it impacts us.

And, unfortunately, I think that's the chief end of the media and our chief end when we watch it...to impact and be impacted. Unless it is done away from the TV, there isn't any real healing, there isn't any grieving, there isn't any semblance of moving on and learning from tragedy. It's all about the "experience." About something unforgettable that we all "own" a part of...even if that something is a deep and terrible wound that we refuse to let heal.

The Center of Attention

Word of the terrible Virginia Tech shooting sifted down to me through various sources throughout the day yesterday. I watched a little bit of the national news last night...enough to know what happened and feel enough sorrow to know that I couldn't watch any more. We have recently switched to basic cable, and I returned home from work wanting to "check-in" on CNN. I can honestly say that it was about the only time I have ever missed a 24-hour news network.

I turned on the Today show this morning in the middle of a monologue by Meredith Veira. She talked about how she had felt a little strange and guilty (at first) about broadcasting from the campus of Virginia Tech this morning. She had gotten over it, she revealed, when they had arrived to discover hordes of students, family, and local residents there to greet them expressing gratitude for their arrival...saying that it felt better knowing that the nation cared, that NBC cared enough to transport the whole crew down, that "this story was going to be heard." Press row has, evidently, become a place where some have come to heal. This news crew, this press row, Meredith explained, showed that the country is with these people in spirit, in thoughts and prayers. Then they cut to a Swiffer commercial.

I've been thinking (as I think we all have) about the "Why" of this. It has led me to look at how I reacted to receiving the news yesterday. I felt a desire to pray, yes...but what I really, really wanted to do was watch the news. Why? Are we at the point where we need Chris Matthews and Wolf Blitzer to walk us through the valley of the shadow of death? I remembered September 11th...how I spent nearly three straight days watching the TV...watching the pictures, the grief, until I had to go an a TV fast before getting so depressed that I couldn't move...and then, eventually, coming out of my stupor long enough to pray to God to help me understand.

I remembered a discussion we has in my Postmodern/Modern Literature class in 2000. We were talking about Postmodern "shock literature," and it led to a discussion of Columbine. My professor talked about the drawbacks of the fall of modernity and the rise of postmodernity (a process he was strongly in favor of). He talked about the terribly reality that seemed to play out in Columbine: When a person focused on self-development and self-realization comes to the conclusion that there is no way out, they will do desperate and terrible things to regain control and/or recognition. In other words, the goal of a truly self-motivated person is to "be somebody." To get affirmation, esteem, respect, and love. In the context of modern media (particularly in America), this gets translated into notoriety, recognition and (if at all possible) fame. We want our 15 minutes, to be a household name, to be the center of attention. He argued that when somebody completely focused on self realizes that there is no hope for legacy or fame, the most desperate and disconnected of them will settle on infamy. They will show everybody who said they would never amount to anything. They will show that ex-girlfriend. They will go down in history. They will "be somebody."

How do we get to this point? How do we become so self-centered that we resort to these acts of desperation? And, most importantly, where is the church in all of this?

I'm not the guy who blames everything on the media. And I'm not going to sit here and write about all the things people do these days to get on TV. What I am going to write about is that I find it disturbing that I sought comfort in cable news yesterday. That I find it unnerving that people see video cameras and media coverage, there basically to make a buck, as a sign of hope and care. I am overwhelmed and humbled by the realization that my thoughts went immediately to how I would be changed, my desire to be "impacted" by the news...with prayer left as an afterthought.

I am shaken by the basic realization that there are individuals out there so broken, so desperate, so disconnected from community and true purpose, that they will do terrible things to be the center of attention.

But most disturbing of all is the terrible feeling I get that there are plenty of us, from networks to morbid onlookers, who are more than willing to give them exactly what they wanted.

My Internal Life: A Short Play

Setting: Home at three in the afternoon April 11, 2007

Our main character "Scott" has just arrived at home after a day at work. Because he went in to work at 8:00, he has arrived home at 3:30 with a chunk of free time. Scott is accompanied by PastorScott, who is dressed in slacks and a collared shirt. They walk in the door to find LethargicScott, dressed in an old tattered shirt and pajama pants, sitting on the couch with a bag of tortilla chips in his lap.

LethargicScott: Hey! You're finally home! Let's watch last night's American Idol!!!
Scott: Yeah, nice try...you're gonna have to work harder than that.
PastorScott: Hey...I have an idea for Sunday's sermon...
LethargicScott: Back off!!! You had him for Easter!! He's mine now! James Bond is calling, my friend!
Scott: Now you're talking. (To PastorScott) Catch you later.

HomeOwnerScott enters from the back door wearing a tattered Cubs hat.

HomeOwnerScott: What a day! Let's mow the yard!
Scott: I notice you're still walking with a limp...
ALL: Frickin' snow.
LethargicScott: Which reminds me...why would you want to mow today? It's beautiful outside, and it's supposed to snow 9 inches tomorrow!! Seize the day!
Scott: By doing what?
LethargicScott: Watching a movie here on the couch! We could open the window!

PostmodernScott enters wearing something that isn't terribly functional, but is extremely comfortable.

PostmodernScott: You need to follow your joy. What would make you happy right now?
Scott: Well...I'd sure like to get that yard mowed...I don't feel like doing it, but afterward...
PostmodernScott: No, no, no...silly boy. Not later. Not after (gasp) effort. NOW. What feels good...now?
Scott: Where did you come from, anyway?
PostmodernScott: You're a human being between the ages of 15 and 35 who has had access to media his entire life. I'm automatically installed. Don't make me call SarcasmScott.
HomeOwnerScott: I hate to bring up the yard again...
LethargicScott: Shut it!!! Man...where's RenterScott? That guy was the best.

Enter StayInShapeScott wearing shirts, shoes, and a ballcap from the mid-90s.

StayInShapeScott: Hey...you haven't been on the treadmill in a couple of weeks...
All Others: Not you again.
LethargicScott: Didn't we kill you about 10 years back? Remember...it was self-preservation. You tried to take us running, and you darn near killed us all...
PostmodernScott: Not fun.
Scott: Yeah, Tim called 911 because he thought I had accidentally drunk some Drain-o...
PastorScott: Yeah...we killed you. Right then and there. Swore you off for life.
StayInShapeScott: Julie knows CPR.
All others: Dangit.

LethargicScott: Well, I do know one thing. We haven't watched "Casino Royale" in nearly two weeks now.
Scott: He does have a point...
HomeOwnerScott: Come on...if you don't mow today, it's going to be taller than the house.
LethargicScott: As long as it's less than 9 inches, you're golden.
HomeOwnerScott: It looks terrible.
PastorScott: I dropped my keys in it the other day, and it took me five hours to find them...
HomeOwnerScott: Come on, it's a nice day!
PostmodernScott: Outside of you feeling good, nature is really one of the only things that I am strongly in favor of...so I'm in.
StayInShapeScott: I guess it would qualify as some sort of exercise...sort of.
PastorScott: And hey...I could think about the long-term vision of the church while I...
All others: SHUT UP!!!!
HomeOwnerScott: You like mowing. Mowing's in your blood, man. Your father passed it on to you...it is part of you. Mowing is your destiny...
LethargicScott: Sounds like Darth Vader...
Scott: OK. It's settled...I'll mow the yard and try not to think about church while I do it.
PastorScott: I'll be back.

Everyone leaves except for LethargicScott...Scott starts to leave, then sticks his head back through the door.

Scott: PlayStation later?
LethargicScott: Cubs all the way, baby!!!

END

Ranking: Major League Baseball Teams

I can't put into words how much I love this time of year. Opening day and the first week of the season when my beloved Chicago Cubs are always still in contention. What I realized once again this past Monday is that while I am a fan of most sports, and an avid fan of College Football in particular...baseball holds a special place for me. Where do I stand on the other teams you might ask? Well, I started to rank them all...but there's a big, squishy, middle where it all kinds of blends together. If the Diamondback play the Indians...well, frankly, I don't really care who wins. And, honestly, I can't think of much of anybody who would.

And so I decided to present the rankings of my five favorite and my five least favorite baseball teams (thus covering both the heinously evil and the pure and righteous) for your perusal and for my own clarification. These rankings are always subject to change...for example, a sudden injury/proof the obvious removing Barry Bonds from the Giants would elevate them into the top 5. But...as of today, right now...here are my big 10. Let's start with the nasties:

1) The New York Yankees. The great baseball Satan. Buy whoever they need to win championships and then consistently keep themselves rich and and top by railroad attempts at revenue sharing to make the league more competitive. Roster includes primadonna/crybaby/man-who-makes-more-money-than-God Alex Rodriguez and a handful of other players (Carl Pavano, Jason Giambi) who turned their backs on home teams to get more money. I can't imagine cheering for them...it would be like cheering for the ebola virus.

2) The Boston Red Sox. Quickly catching (in some ways surpassing) the Yankees in all the ways listed above. After winning the whole thing a few years back and breaking their curse, baseball fans have been subjected to endless waves of propaganda about how earth-shattering the Red Sox winning it all was to the point of nausea. They won because they now do everything the Yankees do. Cheering for them would be like cheering for poverty.

3) The Chicago White Sox. The year the Sox won it all, I was in Chicago during the playoffs. I wore my Cubs hat. I kept getting comments, including a guy at a sandwich shop after taking my order: "That'll be $6.95...and you need to root for a real team." Wait a second...you want money now, from me? Anyway...you get the point. They have a racist, short-fused, if-you-don't-play-well-I'll-scream-at-you-until-you-do manager who constantly makes fun of or berates his own players to the press. And, above all else, their ballpark (appropriately called "The Cell") looks and feels like something built in East Germany...and is about as inviting. I visited there once wearing a Royals hat and jersey (asking for it...I'll admit)...I walked by a ten-year old boy who looked at me and dropped the F-word. And, no, I don't mean "friendly." Yeah. Nice.

4a) The Houston Astros. I know, as a Cubs fan I'm supposed to dislike the Cards more. But this is just over whelming math: Division rival+Texas+Roger Clemens+Stealing Carlos Beltran from the Royals+Texas+Texas+TEXAS=Team I really don't like very much. At all.

4b) The St. Louis Cardinals. Consistently better than the Cubs because they do a better job of maintaining their farm system and are smarter with their contracts. But do we really need to hear the "best fans in baseball" speech again? How hard is it to cheer for a consistent winner? Give me Devil Ray fans any day. I've thought LaRussa was overrated ever since the A's lost to the Reds in 1990...and the whole organization pretending Big Mac didn't do 'roids is getting laughable. And, reason number one they are this low...Card fans genuinely, passionately hate Cub fans. It really scares me sometimes. Hey, we never hurt anybody. Just show us your rings...we'll shut up. So, out of fear, they're this high.

5) The San Francisco Giants. I used to love them. My aunt is from SF, my wife used to live there...and I used to like watching Will Clark, Kevin Mitchell and the gang. I've been to and love their park. One big...sorry, huge problem. Barry Bonds. Julie bought me a Giants hat back in the day...I'm waiting for the day Bonds retires so that I can wear it out in public again. It sits, in mint condition, in my closet...waiting for that day. Hopefully my head won't grow as much as Barry's has over the next few years...oh, wait, it won't. Because I'm not pumping my body full of horse steriods and killing the whole sport of baseball.

Honorable Mention) The Cincinnati Reds. Ongoing nemesis of the Cubs and former home of Gamblin' Petey Rose and Racial Slurrin' Margey Schott. Their new ballpark looks like the unholy spawn of a dilapidated steamboat and a bauxite mine.

And now to take a deep breath and think happy thoughts. The good ones:

1) The Chicago Cubs. What's not to love about a perennial loser that, by its very existence, celebrates the glories of afternoon baseball because they were too cheap to get lights for so long?The older-than-dirt-stadium. The older-than-dirt curse. Half-drunk announcers. Andre Dawson. Ernie Banks. Rod Beck. Ryno. That strange cocktail of total depravity and hope. Comedy, tragedy, and possibility all rolled into one...this, friends, is the great comic opera of our time. It's like a 100 year episode of "Days of our Lives." Call me sado-masochistic, but they are my guys.

2) The Kansas City Royals. The team of my father and the team of my childhood. I still get goosebumps every time I go to Kaufmann Stadium...it was the first place I watched a ballgame. I went through a Royals renaissance when I lived in KC and had many, many good times at the ballpark with friends. When it come down to the baseball aspects of it...well, I cheer for them for the exact same reasons I cheer against the Yankees. Small market, baby...I root for David, not Goliath.

3) The Colorado Rockies. I don't know what we would have done if we had moved to St. Louis. It is great to be in Colorado...they have a good small market team and one whale of a cool ballpark. Throw in the fact that you always get your money's worth (usually at least a run per dollar) at the park...and bingo! Nothing better than cheering for the home team.

4) The Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Why? Well, frankly, because if seminary taught me one thing it is that we must look out for the last, the lost, and the least. These guys are all three. These poor guys play in a barely-converted barn of a stadium, play in the division with the most disposable income, and were given the worst name/ugliest uniforms in sports albatross from their inception. Is this a pity vote? You bet it is...somebody's got to cheer for them. Let's put it this way, if baseball would have existed in Biblical Israel, I think Jesus would have worn a Rays hat. They need him the most.

5) Tough call here...I'm going to have to go with Milwaukee Brewers simply because I have never, ever, ever, ever, ever been to a ballyard as crazy as Miller Park. I swear they have a three drink minimum. On each one of the five to seven times I have visited, I have returned with one whale of a story to tell. I really can't think of any other place with that kind of batting average this side of Heartwell, Nebraska. Add in the sausage race and the venomously guarded secret stadium sauce and, well, there you have it. The happiest/most disturbing place on earth. Go Brewers (or, as the locals call them after a few...the Brrruuuhhhhs.)

There you have it...my allegiances as they stand at the moment. Of course, of these teams listed above, well, you know who's going to make the playoffs this year. Most projections have every single one of the teams under the "dislike" heading making it. Yeah. But there's still hope...and that, my friends, is what Spring is all about.