One Wooden Conga

Playing percussion live meant sometimes being invited out somewhere and for the economy of fitting a multi-piece band onto limited space, being asked to bring just one conga to the performance, instead of my customary, four drum set-up. 

One conga drum, simply to keep time or to spice up the trap drum set with well placed conga tones, delivered with a bit of creativity, indeed, will suffice. 

But what beauty and depth is brought to the performance with the addition of three more conga drums, each tuned up or down from the one primary, wood drum, the conga. A stage set-up with four, individually tuned conga drums, shakers, tambourines, and bells played in some order, sometimes more, sometimes less, never overbearing, works to magnify the intensity of "spice" a percussionist adds to an ensemble or rock group.

Everything can be gained by praying and worshiping Jesus Christ alone, though God Himself is a Trinity, a great spiraling and swirling love affair between a Father, a Son, and a Holy Spirit.  We learn to pray to God through his Son, Jesus Christ. 

 

For Catholic believers, there's also an extra dimension if you will; beauty, efficacy, and consolation in thinking about all the other characters and creation of the great story of our salvation, especially Mary, the mother of God, all the angels, and those human beings throughout history behind the growth of Christianity, many even dying for the Christian faith, the saints.

The more I study and adore the life of Jesus Christ the man, God having become human flesh, the more apt I become in trying to imitate the 24/7 of his sacred humanity.   Inevitably this means recognizing as a fact Jesus Christ, from the very first day of his life on earth, interacted with and loved ALL of his creation, but beyond measure, loved especially human kind in ALL of its dimensions.  Jesus prayed to the Father every chance he had but he also interacted with ALL of creation to teach, pray, and make known the Kingdom of God.

The Bible account of Jesus' birth illustrates this grandly.  Mother Mary, Saint Joseph and the Holy family have a Son, Jesus Christ born in a manger with a donkey, a cow, and a host of visitors from poor shepherds to rich and generous Kings.  In our own families we have a mother, a father, brothers, and sisters.  ALL there to love and to ask things.  A family might even bring in a dog to love or a cat to love.  Oh, don't forget about one's uncles, aunts, cousins and best friends; you can love and ask them things too.  Ask what?  How do I look today?  Can I borrow some money?  Will you cook me something?  How does this sound?  Can we visit?  Will you pray for me?  Just like Jesus did, the One all Christians are called to imitate.

And there's more.  We learn about (and try to imitate) the great love for and obedience Jesus showed his mother and his friends growing up into adulthood.  We witness the help his apostles gave him, we witness the intercessory pleas he responded to from people representing other people who couldn't quite reach him.  We see his love and concern for family members of the deceased. 

I'm telling you, Jesus, in all of his sacred humanity, just wouldn't be satisfied with one wooden conga! 

Fast forward.  Creation, His and ours, speaks of diversity too. We have incredible choices of foods, wines, paintings, music, careers, automobiles, and homes to enjoy.  Many different houses of worship too: the Lutherans on the corner, the Methodists down the road, the Baptists across town, the Catholics downtown, etc., ALL having a fervent devotion to Jesus Christ.  And many more, ALL worshiping a transcendental God.  And still more, All believing in multiple gods, and another group, All believing in no god what-so-ever.

There's not just one bird, one cat; but scores and scores of bird species and house-cats, bobcats, cheetahs, leopards, lions, tigers, jaguars, etc. 

Creation shouts loudly regarding depth and diversity and God calls it ALL good.

I feel the tide of finger pointing and cries of "relativist" beginning to descend upon me and so I will remind the reader once again our primary Christian goal, the caveat: the imitation of Christ.

I believe we all benefit when we can contemplate ALL of Christ, using our God given imagination, imploring the Holy Spirit, the traditions of our fathers, the Bible, church teaching, etc.  Coming to know ALL dimensions of Jesus Christ's sacred humanity rather than merely confining one's perspective to something sterile and wooden, perhaps defined by a view narrowly drawn from a strictly literal interpretation of the Bible.  It's like playing one wooden conga instead of four melodic conga drums, beautifully tuned, played proportionately and at proper volume levels.  Sure, it can be done, even to some benefit and profit, when space constraints exist, but there's a cost in beauty and depth.

Diversity magnifies the Lord, Mother Mary tells us:  My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior. (Luke 1:44)

 "The virtue of humility, so evident in Our Lady's life, is truth, (cf St. Teresa of Avila, Sixth Mansion, ch 106) the true recognition of what we are and are worth in the eyes of God and of our fellow men.  It is also an emptying of ourselves to allow God to work in us with his grace. It is the rejection of appearances and of superficiality; it is the expression of the depth of the human spirit; it is a condition for its greatness (John Paul II, Angelus, 4 March 1979).  ….[W]e come before God as debtors who do not know how to discharge our debts, (cf Matt 18:23-35) and for this reason we go to Mary as the Mediatrix of all graces, to the Mother of mercy and tenderness to whom no one has had recourse in vain."  (In Conversation with God, Volume One, Advent and Christmastide, Francis Fernandez)

God isn't myopic. We discover great diversity in this, the whole entire economy of salvation that God has revealed to us: in tradition, in scripture, and in nature.  "The written law kills, but the Spirit gives life" says St. Paul in his letter to the Corinthians (2 Corinthians 3:6).  "The letter kills." repeats St. Ambrose "it is the Spirit which gives life" a spiritual a reflection of reality, of what is observed all around us. 

Yes, one can play with just one wooden conga but the voices, the melodic possibilities off all four played together is much more pleasing and robust.  I'll make the extra work to show up with all four drums any day.  Real life is much more interesting, full of depth, meaning, and unfathomable diversity, accordingly, this is the way God created it. 

Following the real life of Jesus Christ, shouldn't our faith and prayer life be equally deep and robust?

Many Hands Many Rhythms

Writing pop music percussion parts from the kitchen table may not seem like much but I learned a long time ago it's in the attention to the little things and the love that one puts into something that really does make it all count in the end.

I had studied a "Nashville Songwriting" handbook to learn that every song has got some pattern to it, for example: intro, verse, verse, chorus, solo, verse, chorus, tag.   Armed with this I could creatively orchestrate my own percussion contributions so as to play one rhythm for the verse and another rhythm for the chorus, perhaps substituting a shaker for the drum during the chorus, perhaps hitting a bell somewhere else, etc.

I would even take the time to document all of my parts for each song on sheet music that I would later display on stage with me on a music stand, sometimes to the amazement of my band mates - percussion parts are simple and repetitive who needs sheet music?

The band was called Divas and Cavaliers and there my brother Marc and I were again, just another cover band for hire, among hundreds of others.  Playing somewhere in Spicewood, Texas one summer evening during 2009, there came to the floor a young lady along with her aged companion, a  physically handicapped man, could have been a father daughter combination, to dance, perhaps for the last time, to one such song, a song where I had worked out all of the parts in advance.  Small parts, seemingly insignificant parts, but at that moment, parts contributing to a something far greater than what I could have ever imagined, a divine dance, the goodness of God made manifest.

"God desires man to flourish, to become who he is meant to be by sharing in the divine life" writes Bishop Robert Barron in his study book on Catholicism (http://www.wordonfire.org/).  "Yet this requires humility and a receptive spirit on the part of man." 

Finally, after years of practice, late night excursions, multitudes of shows and gigs I had experienced something meaningful, the million dollar payoff; a moment of depth, the epiphany that made the whole pursuit worthwhile.

Here's my contribution Lord Jesus, perhaps meager, a little effort, but just like the two fish that you turned into 5000 meals, I'm confident that my small efforts will be magnified into something meaningful and for your greater glory.

Our work, our efforts, it's not for God - God doesn't need it, nothing can be added to God; God does not exist in parts and pieces, God is everywhere all at once - omnipresent, THE source of all goodness and love.

It's really for you and me, each an orchestrator of our own life before God, tasked to make our own music with beats that will reciprocate our love back to God because God so loved us first. 

My brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ I pray that in your life too, the beat goes on.

D&C on the outdoor stage at Angel's Ice House, Spicewood, TX, Summer 2009