G10 Bullet 1 – The fun of combining patterns. If we allow it, God's grace perfects the unique nature we have each been given; my nature - your nature, your gifts - my gifts. "It is here that human effort comes in: not that our effort adds anything to God’s grace, but that it is precisely in our personal transformation, in our nature, that grace happens."
2. And yes, tempered showmanship is a natural gift too - elevated by God's grace just look how well it worked for Pope St. John Paul II!
2. And yes, tempered showmanship is a natural gift too - elevated by God's grace just look how well it worked for Pope St. John Paul II!
3. Right or wrong, at the time, perhaps it was more of a "vain nature" that drove me to want to play on stage with my brother rather than any true technical talent and/or ability (I wouldn’t have lasted 5 minutes with the kind of music teacher appearing in the movie Whiplash); regardless, I fervently desired it in my heart.
4. I would not do it as a guitarist, the instrumental role originally assigned to me by my brother Ken, but as a percussionist and many years later.
5. I could've practiced 24 hours a day and never realized this dream had someone not first given me an opportunity to play. Who would've ever offered such a gift unless they had known me first to be someone looking for such a gift; not only looking, but capable of receiving such a gift?
6. Let your intentions and aspirations be known to others - sharing what it is that motivates you with others and steering clear of those tyrannical personalities types; hitting them instead with your fervent and compassionate prayer requests for their interior conversion.
6. Let your intentions and aspirations be known to others - sharing what it is that motivates you with others and steering clear of those tyrannical personalities types; hitting them instead with your fervent and compassionate prayer requests for their interior conversion.
7. Finally, in the band Divas and Cavaliers, with rehearsal and practice, the confidence I had built over the years bore fruit and I began to creatively vary and combine percussion patterns during live performances.
8. Here in Calypso All Grown Up we too will have fun combining patterns from The Big Calypso and Existence "Calypso Hi Drum part" and Middle Calypso and Middle Earth "Calypso Middle Drum part."
9. Accepting the invitation. Skilled or at minimum, proficient. Don’t get me wrong, some minimum level of rhythm skills were absolutely necessary for gaining acceptance into the band Divas in Cavaliers as a percussionist. I needed not only knowledge of percussion instruments and patterns but the trust of my bandmates that I could perform with variety and temperance during a set of songs throughout the course of a night's performance.
10. For my brother Marc to take the risk and "confess" my conga playing talents to his bandmates, the Divas and Cavaliers, took "flesh and blood" reassurance; he had to have some small degree of confidence that I could hold my own end of the bargain – that I could actually contribute something musically to the overall effort known as the Divas and Cavaliers.
11. Be prepared to "walk your talk."
12. For what you might ask?
The admiration, applause, and regular booking of the establishment and their adoring clientele?
12. For what you might ask?
The admiration, applause, and regular booking of the establishment and their adoring clientele?
Yes. But not only this.
13. Done well, ANY honest work done well, glorifies God, our Creator and Sustainer. Thus a musician's work can be sanctified and offered to our Father in heaven right along with a janitor’s, an engineer’s, a mother’s, or a student’s diligent and honest school work.
14. Now before you start to fret over your own gifts and talents, or maybe you feel you don't have any, allow me to present a contrast to this idea of gifts.
15. When St. Peter "confessed" that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, Jesus declared to him that this revelation "of faith" did not come "from flesh and blood" but from "my father who is in heaven." (CCC 153, Mt. 16:17) It seems, at least from the start, Peter didn't even have to walk his talk.
16. Through faith, an unmerited, sheer gift of God, a supernatural virtue was infused in him: belief. The gift was not dependent upon the qualifications or skills of Peter as a religious figure. A fisherman, not a religious authority, Peter just needed to be receptive to the gift of faith and God would provide all else…and the rest is history.
16. Through faith, an unmerited, sheer gift of God, a supernatural virtue was infused in him: belief. The gift was not dependent upon the qualifications or skills of Peter as a religious figure. A fisherman, not a religious authority, Peter just needed to be receptive to the gift of faith and God would provide all else…and the rest is history.
17. I don’t know about you but for me, attaining eternal salvation, the glory of heaven - what no eye has seen and no ear heard, the loving and pure adoration of the communion of angels and saints, Mary, Jesus, God the Father and the Holy Spirit - sounds far better than the admiration, applause and regular booking of some 6th Street honky-tonk even with it’s adoring, almost always inebriated, clientele!
18. Oh how many of us so blindly seek such shallow glory this day and age! What season is American Idol in now? How many musically talented spin-offs continue to pepper the air-waves these days? Wait…that’s right….no talent required anymore…just agree to have a film crew document your life, the more bazaar the better, and you’re on reality TV!
18. Oh how many of us so blindly seek such shallow glory this day and age! What season is American Idol in now? How many musically talented spin-offs continue to pepper the air-waves these days? Wait…that’s right….no talent required anymore…just agree to have a film crew document your life, the more bazaar the better, and you’re on reality TV!
19. Talent or no talent, the far better path leads to heaven.
20. Like Peter, we need to be receptive to this supernatural gift - this gift called FAITH.
21. How? Be receptive to our Father in heaven through your own prayers.
22. ‘Form’ yourself to overcome the ways of the world; slowly but surely begin to replace that undisciplined part of your life driven by your feelings, with new habits of regular listening and reading of good spiritual topics concerning the ways to the Kingdom of God.
23. Yes, there are both 'sound' and 'soft' spiritual topics that one needs to be able to discern - your local parish is an indispensable help here.
24. Stick with the good. To truly recognize the good, one's will needs to be clear, free from the fog of sinful habits.
25. A basic understanding (i.e. knowledge) of how things ought to work for the common good, God’s will, will develop over time but nothing happens until you first accept His invitation.
26. Haven’t you waited long enough?
20. Like Peter, we need to be receptive to this supernatural gift - this gift called FAITH.
21. How? Be receptive to our Father in heaven through your own prayers.
22. ‘Form’ yourself to overcome the ways of the world; slowly but surely begin to replace that undisciplined part of your life driven by your feelings, with new habits of regular listening and reading of good spiritual topics concerning the ways to the Kingdom of God.
23. Yes, there are both 'sound' and 'soft' spiritual topics that one needs to be able to discern - your local parish is an indispensable help here.
24. Stick with the good. To truly recognize the good, one's will needs to be clear, free from the fog of sinful habits.
25. A basic understanding (i.e. knowledge) of how things ought to work for the common good, God’s will, will develop over time but nothing happens until you first accept His invitation.
26. Haven’t you waited long enough?
27. Are you ready to "accept the invitation" this divine invitation to faith?
28. Marc was absolutely certain I was up for the ‘pro percussionist’ challenge. He knew I could contribute to the Divas and Cavaliers because we regularly practiced together. We had gotten good at laying down the grooves, we rehearsed, and we played to contemporary hits. Marc was aware of my personal ambition, investment in percussion education, and my active love and passion for the conga drums. Marc also knew how I had grown up to play live – our performances together with the bands Carrie Dell and the Time Machine, Stones Throw, and my familiarity with the requirements of being on the road (the Titans sound guy): setting up, making sound checks, performance time, breaking down and crowd control.
28. Marc was absolutely certain I was up for the ‘pro percussionist’ challenge. He knew I could contribute to the Divas and Cavaliers because we regularly practiced together. We had gotten good at laying down the grooves, we rehearsed, and we played to contemporary hits. Marc was aware of my personal ambition, investment in percussion education, and my active love and passion for the conga drums. Marc also knew how I had grown up to play live – our performances together with the bands Carrie Dell and the Time Machine, Stones Throw, and my familiarity with the requirements of being on the road (the Titans sound guy): setting up, making sound checks, performance time, breaking down and crowd control.
29. This exchange and communication over the years was key to the invitation.
30. In Marc's eyes these factors virtually guaranteed that I could offer something positive to the band; they were "motives of credibility” leading to unshakeable faith.
31. Faith in one another, faith in ourselves, faith in our new band, the Divas and Cavaliers resulted in the sort of effort that gave us great joy when it was happening.
32. The same joy found in any honest undertaking done exceptionally well.
33. What is true joy but a foretaste of the joy in heaven waiting for us?
"When we contemplate the blessings of faith even now, as if gazing at the reflection in a mirror, it is as if we already possessed the wonderful things which our faith assures us we shall one day enjoy." CCC 163
31. Faith in one another, faith in ourselves, faith in our new band, the Divas and Cavaliers resulted in the sort of effort that gave us great joy when it was happening.
32. The same joy found in any honest undertaking done exceptionally well.
33. What is true joy but a foretaste of the joy in heaven waiting for us?
"When we contemplate the blessings of faith even now, as if gazing at the reflection in a mirror, it is as if we already possessed the wonderful things which our faith assures us we shall one day enjoy." CCC 163
34. Maybe that's good news for you Gary but what about me?
Yes, it’s good news for you as well!
Yes, it’s good news for you as well!
This bears repeating.
35. Regardless your specific talent, you too have an audience right now, cheering you on, especially while doing honest work performed to your best ability. Tapping skins on a conga or changing diapers, your adoring audience is eternal: the myriad of heavenly angels and saints, our Lord and His Mother, our Father, and the Holy Spirit.
36. Do they ever root for you!
35. Regardless your specific talent, you too have an audience right now, cheering you on, especially while doing honest work performed to your best ability. Tapping skins on a conga or changing diapers, your adoring audience is eternal: the myriad of heavenly angels and saints, our Lord and His Mother, our Father, and the Holy Spirit.
36. Do they ever root for you!
37. "It is then we must turn to the witnesses of faith: to Abraham, who "in hope… believed against hope", to the Virgin Mary, who in "her pilgrimage of faith," walked into the "night of faith" in sharing the darkness of her son's suffering and death; and to so many others: "Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith." CCC 165
38. Whether you are at home studying for classes, working a part time job, mothering a child, or working your dream job or not-so-dream job; consecrate your work by making it the best you can offer.
39. Think about this awesome audience and have fun "playing" to them as you co-create according to God's commandments and His covenants with you.
40. Work this important is quite easily done in love.
41. Work like this becomes a prayer - a continuous prayer offered to our Father in heaven.
39. Think about this awesome audience and have fun "playing" to them as you co-create according to God's commandments and His covenants with you.
40. Work this important is quite easily done in love.
41. Work like this becomes a prayer - a continuous prayer offered to our Father in heaven.
42. "Faith is absolutely certain because Jesus guarantees it. Faith is incomplete unless it leads to active love. Faith grows when we listen more and more carefully to God's Word and enter a lively exchange with him in prayer." YOUCAT 21
G10 Bullet 2 - Visualize yourself playing the pattern correctly. How do we use vision, you know, our imagination - to grow in virtue; to grow in skill?
44. One way - a technique called visualization.
Through visualization I first imagine myself playing the pattern correctly; I see myself making the proper hand motions - as I have demonstrated to you in the short movies.
44. One way - a technique called visualization.
Through visualization I first imagine myself playing the pattern correctly; I see myself making the proper hand motions - as I have demonstrated to you in the short movies.
I can give you at least one more example.
45. I'm a guy. I grew up in a culture and time that idolized young pretty women. I wanted to become a rockstar so that I could "play" with my share of pretty women.
46. I had objectified, no, counterfeited the idea of true love with superficial lust, aimlessly driven by the kind of feelings raised in the cultural sexual revolution of the 1980s forward: serial polygamy, fornication, cohabitation, contraception, pornography, prostitution, abortion….
46. I had objectified, no, counterfeited the idea of true love with superficial lust, aimlessly driven by the kind of feelings raised in the cultural sexual revolution of the 1980s forward: serial polygamy, fornication, cohabitation, contraception, pornography, prostitution, abortion….
47. To correct years of untruths, I've had to re-learn to employ the power of visualization and imagination to retrain my brain so to speak.
48. Now, armed with biblical scripture reading and the traditional teachings of the Church, I have my new instruction, my new marching orders.
48. Now, armed with biblical scripture reading and the traditional teachings of the Church, I have my new instruction, my new marching orders.
49. Through visualization, I am practicing seeing all people, no longer as objects for my pleasure, but as good, fellow human beings, full of dignity, worthy of my love, regardless their behavior, regardless of their beauty or lack of beauty, regardless their wealth or lack of wealth, and, most difficult of all for me, regardless of their sex.
G10 Bullet 3 - 5, Learn the Rhythm. Calypso All Grown Up
SPEAK THE RHYTHM: Du te re Du Du re te re te Du te Du Du Du te re...
51. Work both hands: Remember; when working on technique, whatever is true for the right hand is true for the left hand. You will find that if you are right handed, the patterns starting with the right hand will be easier to play than when starting the same pattern with the left hand (and vice versa). Switch hands: If you are right handed, use your left hand now to start playing the pattern. It helps me to go to the practice sheet (see YOU Practice below) and write out L,R,L,R,L,R,L,R below the R,L,R,L,R,L,R,L line so that I can clearly see the strokes my left hand is supposed to be playing at a particular moment (beat) in time. Start slowly and work up your speed as your accuracy improves; this exercise develops dexterity.
G10 Bullet 6 - Topic A4, Chew On It. Man responds to God: Believing. Jesus Christ is a man and I am a man.
53. How am I, a man free of same-sex attraction, supposed to love another man to the degree our Church asks us to love 'the Groom', Jesus Christ, as 'the bride' of Christ?
53. How am I, a man free of same-sex attraction, supposed to love another man to the degree our Church asks us to love 'the Groom', Jesus Christ, as 'the bride' of Christ?
"Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them?" Matt. 9:15
54. Maybe like me you have often thought that it would be easier for a woman to love Jesus Christ in this way than it is for a straight, heterosexual man? Here's what other guys are saying.
55. You and I, the Church, are 'the bride' of Christ.
56. I think my problem lies in the maturity of my thought processes regarding the goods of love.
57. Through regular and ongoing visualization practice, I am learning to see our Lord, Jesus Christ as Another to love.
58. Not just as a man - I admit here that I am trying to work out a problem, no doubt self-imposed, with loving another man to the same degree that I would love another woman. The solution I think lies in the capitalization: to love another or to love Another.
58. Not just as a man - I admit here that I am trying to work out a problem, no doubt self-imposed, with loving another man to the same degree that I would love another woman. The solution I think lies in the capitalization: to love another or to love Another.
59. God in the Trinity, is the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit, the creator of ALL things Whom took on the form of man through Jesus Christ. God most certainly created women and all the wonderful, good things I, a man, love about them.
60. So I can use this visualization to rise above my childish, immature perception and come to perceive the source of this good, the "essence" of Jesus Christ.
61. Using my reasoning and imaginative abilities, I see Jesus Christ as the SOURCE of all the good of creation, goods including both masculinity and femininity!
61. Using my reasoning and imaginative abilities, I see Jesus Christ as the SOURCE of all the good of creation, goods including both masculinity and femininity!
62. Perhaps this is shallow, like I said I'm still working it out, but, at minimum, I can love 'the Bridegroom', Jesus Christ, as a member of 'the bride' of Christ (the Church), because He is the creator of women (women are made in His image), and therefore, the Originator of all those truly good and beautiful qualities of women that I love.
63. "The most fundamental passion is love, aroused by the attraction of the good. Love causes a desire for the absent good and the hope of obtaining it; this movement finds completion in the pleasure and joy of the good possessed." CCC 1765
64. Let me say it again. For me, to blissfully love Christ in eros, I have to visualize the One whom created women and inherently already possesses all the good qualities that define femininity and female complementarity; the very substance that so deeply attracts me to women, in its purest form and nature: one whole heartedly loyal, pure, and free of sin.
65. Can you see how a correct belief in God might work to help someone with same-sex attraction?
66. Does it really matter how young or advanced in age you are if you want to practice such visualization?
66. Does it really matter how young or advanced in age you are if you want to practice such visualization?
G10 Bullet 7 - YOU Practice Lesson G10. If you want measurable results - try to practice both your faith and drumming at least 30 minutes a day.
a.) Playing simple rhythms on a daily basis can be similar in repetition to (but never used in place of) dedicating a half hour or so of visualizing God's great love for you during prayer.
b.) Visualize the degree and type of God's love for you during every prayer.
c.) Visualize the degree of your love for the Trinity: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit during each prayer session.
d.) Visualize and offer your daily, honest work as a much appreciated gift of prayer to God; see the hosts of heaven in a state of appreciation and adoration for your performance.
e.) Join your gifts with Christ's gift of self to the Father during the next Mass you attend.
f.) Practice perfects the one undergoing the repetitious movement; either naturally or supernaturally.
g.) Answered prayers are reminders of God's supernatural order present in our very own lives. The Church teaches the fruitful value of a sound prayer life. My family and I can give personal testimony to the effectiveness of daily prayer. Practice makes perfect!
a.) Playing simple rhythms on a daily basis can be similar in repetition to (but never used in place of) dedicating a half hour or so of visualizing God's great love for you during prayer.
b.) Visualize the degree and type of God's love for you during every prayer.
c.) Visualize the degree of your love for the Trinity: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit during each prayer session.
d.) Visualize and offer your daily, honest work as a much appreciated gift of prayer to God; see the hosts of heaven in a state of appreciation and adoration for your performance.
e.) Join your gifts with Christ's gift of self to the Father during the next Mass you attend.
f.) Practice perfects the one undergoing the repetitious movement; either naturally or supernaturally.
g.) Answered prayers are reminders of God's supernatural order present in our very own lives. The Church teaches the fruitful value of a sound prayer life. My family and I can give personal testimony to the effectiveness of daily prayer. Practice makes perfect!
G10 Bullet 8 - Table Task: Learn. Read John, Chapter 17, verses 1-26.
a.) What kind of love between Jesus and the Father is being described here?
b.) How about between Jesus and the followers whom believe in him (present and FUTURE), “That they may all be one…that they also may be in us….” (John 17: 21).
c.) I’m well aware that words from the human language alone may not adequately describe the ‘pure bliss’ of such an unqualified love but try anyway: what kind of love (in the followers whom believe in him) is being described here?
d.) Try to describe the exact form of love that you believe you should have for our Lord: as his brother or sister, as His 'bride.'
e.) Which of the following types of love best describes what you feel? storge, philia, eros, or agape.
f.) For the married: the love I have for my wife is the closest "feeling” I can use to visualize what Christ must feel for me, a member of his Church, his 'bride,' his Mystical Body. A good marriage involves a relationship of learning - ongoing and lifelong, a permanent relationship of giving to one another.
g.) God’s love for me and you, suffice to say, can be defined as a love of the purest kind. Even if it's not reciprocated by me, still, God's love for me is so pure that no human creature could ever come close to providing it. Which explains why those many years of idolizing women as the supreme 'good' in my life were so unsatisfying and so full of heart-aches.
a.) What kind of love between Jesus and the Father is being described here?
b.) How about between Jesus and the followers whom believe in him (present and FUTURE), “That they may all be one…that they also may be in us….” (John 17: 21).
c.) I’m well aware that words from the human language alone may not adequately describe the ‘pure bliss’ of such an unqualified love but try anyway: what kind of love (in the followers whom believe in him) is being described here?
d.) Try to describe the exact form of love that you believe you should have for our Lord: as his brother or sister, as His 'bride.'
e.) Which of the following types of love best describes what you feel? storge, philia, eros, or agape.
f.) For the married: the love I have for my wife is the closest "feeling” I can use to visualize what Christ must feel for me, a member of his Church, his 'bride,' his Mystical Body. A good marriage involves a relationship of learning - ongoing and lifelong, a permanent relationship of giving to one another.
g.) God’s love for me and you, suffice to say, can be defined as a love of the purest kind. Even if it's not reciprocated by me, still, God's love for me is so pure that no human creature could ever come close to providing it. Which explains why those many years of idolizing women as the supreme 'good' in my life were so unsatisfying and so full of heart-aches.
G10 Bullet 10 – Counting (1) handout: study it.
Gray Level Syllabus
"Time For The Table" The Way and Means"
Gray Level Syllabus
"Time For The Table" The Way and Means"
