Calypso All Grown Up

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!  

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.

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?  

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. 

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! 

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?

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.  

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

34. Maybe that's good news for you Gary but what about me? 

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!  

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.

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. 

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….

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. 

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

Author’s Note [04/18/2026]: All but 3 of the original 12 Time for the Table movies have been lost. I will do my best to restore the surviving movies soon. Though I poured lots of time and love into all 12 movies, the production quality was humble and the number of views over the years was meager. Consequently, I will not be recreating the lost movies. My apologies.

 

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?  

"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? What are 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.

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!  

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?

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!

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.

G10 Bullet 9 – Basic Notation (1) and (2) handouts: study them.

G10 Bullet 10 – Counting (1) handout: study it.

Gray Level Syllabus

"Time For The Table" The Way and Means"

What's Going On

G9 Bullet 1 – Continue to count out loud. Some things are elementary after all: two follows one – three follows two – and so on. We can know this with certainty. 

2. If you get your counting down, just 4/4 counting for now, playing a hand drum pattern within just about any song becomes quite predictable...at this particular point of the song this particular beat of the drum pattern needs to be played. 

3. Sweet and simple; routine IS good. 

4. Work on your counting. Only then will you be ready to start breaking down your favorite songs by verse, bridge, and chorus - learning how to count in and out of each of these components, learning how to substitute different hand drum patterns for different parts of the song; but not too many.

5. Think "too many spices spoil the dish,"adding 'just enough' variety and interest into the performance through slight variations in your pattern selections. 

6. Nobody is going to get very far with an erratic song that jumps all over the place with multiple time signatures either. Okay, maybe one or two, uh worldwide - in the name of taking some kind of abstract, artistic license; you know kind of like an Andy Warhol approach to song writing; refusing to follow any kind of rules.  Should you be trying to pull this off without first telling anyone, I think your crowd's interior sense of timing, those that have come to hear you play, would go bananas, becoming dazed and confused and, if you're lucky, they'd all just sit down and not launch a rotten tomato attack on you and your bandmates.

7. What's going on? There seems to be a universal truth buried here regarding what 'makes' danceable music. 

8. What is it about a four over four piece that puts people on their feet? 

9. We don't really need to have all the answers; why certain time signatures create a dance response while others don't- we can simply believe that it's something within our created nature and then go with it, have confidence in it. 

10. We just need faith that it's going to happen over and over again and then simply work to play our parts well. 

11. Some things we CAN just trust.

G9 Bullet 2 – 4, Learn the Rhythm - Quiet Storm: What's Going On

Author’s Note [04/18/2026]: All but 3 of the original 12 Time for the Table movies have been lost. I will do my best to restore the surviving movies soon. Though I poured lots of time and love into all 12 movies, the production quality was humble and the number of views over the years was meager. Consequently, I will not be recreating the lost movies. My apologies.

 

SPEAK THE RHYTHM: Du n Du n Pat e re Du n Du n Du Pat e te re...

13. 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.

G9 Bullet 5 - Topic A4, Sound Check. Man responds to God: Believing. Would you believe something you knew wasn't true? 

15. All the things you could possibly be reading on the Internet at this very moment, here you are reading mine. Why trust any of it? 

16. Maybe it's because you've scanned through some of my work. "Seems honest enough." you might think.  In this collection of postings, I've tried to share some things with you about my life and perhaps, through this testimony alone, you've come to trust me in some small way. 

17. Indeed I BELIEVE what I write is reliable and trustworthy. 

18. Or perhaps it's because, in all their simplicity, you see the truth and beauty in the tabletop rhythms that I've posted on YouTube. 

19. Either way, you've come to know something about me, even though, for now, you just have to take my word for it.  

20. The point being: In no other way could you have learned these things about me had I not revealed them to you through this blog.  

21. Based on this 'virtual' experience and this 'virtual' relationship with me you've come to really know something about me - maybe you've come to have faith in me as a kind of teacher of sorts - even though we've never met. 

22. Isn't this like believing in something you know might not be true? 

23. Not hardly - otherwise who could we REALLY trust. 

24. Your reason, intellect, and faith CAN guide you to the truth. 

25. So why do some people think having religious faith means having to believe in things you know aren't true? 

26. Many are convinced, I'm afraid, that truth is only found in things that can be seen or sensed with their very own eyes - this 'alleged truth,' if it didn't happen in one's own lifetime… forget about it!  

27. But through our Christian faith we CAN know and we CAN trust in God as he tells us about himself and as he tells us about ourselves in the Scriptures. "Because this kind of believing is based on reasonable trust, it's not 'blind faith,' and it's certainly not believing something we know isn't true." (YOUCAT Study Guide, pg. 9)

G9 Bullet 6– YOU Practice Lesson G9: Rhythm sheet (2) and (3 cut-time). 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 work or study to the Lord as a form of prayer. 

b.) Work or study well done is pleasing to our Lord.  We have been given the highly noble gift of co-creating with the Lord.  Work carefully and professionally showing kindness and mercy to your coworkers and/or classmates. Study rather deliberately focusing your concentration on the schoolwork at hand. 

c.) "Study. Study in earnest. If you are to be salt and light, you need knowledge, capability. Or do you imagine that an idol and lazy life will entitle you to receive infused knowledge?" (St. Josemaria Escriva, The Way, No. 340) 

d.) If you're a truck driver, pray for other professional drivers as you go along your route. Pray for the many and varied people that you meet along your truck stops.  If you're an engineer take extra time in your calculations; double check your math, and those details in your drawings, small details that no one will notice, do them well too.  

e.) Practice perfects the one undergoing the repetitious movement; either naturally or supernaturally. 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!

G9 Bullet 7 – Table Task: Think and Pray. Think about one area of your Catholic faith that you find challenging. Pray about it. Do a Google search on your question. You'll be surprised at how many others have asked the very same question.  Ask a priest, deacon, nun, or religious education teacher for their opinion. In prayer ask our Lord for the gift of understanding, knowledge, and wisdom; for the promised gifts of the Holy Spirit.  Have patience. Don't forget about your YOUCAT.  The book is presented in question and answer format. All of the answers provided have additional references cited; follow these!

G9 Bullet 8 – Basic Notation (1) and (2) handouts: study them.

G9 Bullet 9 – Counting (1) and (2) handouts: study them.

Gray Level Syllabus

"Time For The Table" The Way and Means"

Hitting Brick Walls

In a few months, I will sit for an eight hour test and, if successful, I will receive the credential of "Professional Engineer" or "PE" for short. Between now and then of course I must study; rigorously study. Many of the things I like to do I will have to cut back in order to fulfill my need to study.

I graduated from college 15 years ago, age 35. I remember working hard all through junior  college – doing quite well in fact, far better than I had ever achieved academically during high school....even getting on the Dean's list.  I just remember feeling really old… having decided to go back at age 30 you know. But then I got to the University of Texas - the school of Engineering- and there I remember feeling like I had hit a brick wall. 

This hard reality, I wasn't as smart as I might have appeared to be or thought myself to be, began to sink in. Here I was - this average guy - swimming with thousands of young geniuses. 

What had I gotten myself into? 

While others went to football games and parties I studied, and studied some more and still studied and ultimately, did much worse on my exams than those whom went to the football games and parties. Certainly my spiritual reversion had taken root here as many prayers were said over the ensuing months and years. 

UT Austin graduation, 1999

By the grace of God I graduated a civil engineer. By the grace of God I'd been given the gift of understanding.  In the whole scheme of things I am but a fool; in the whole scheme of things I really knew and know nothing at all. 

Precisely this understanding, for the first time in my life, (finally), has led to real knowledge. 

The whole truth lies outside of myself and my limited perceptions; the truth unaffected of course by them - truth always being truth.  

What are the reasons for my joy? 

Understanding leading to knowledge leading to a will aligned to the will of my Father in heaven, to OUR Father in heaven.

Without faith there is no understanding.  With faith an entire oasis of knowledge opens up before us.

An unlimited source of knowledge is found outside of oneself in the Gospels, Church traditions and documents (Magisterium), nature, art, music, prayer & spiritual books, in the liberal arts like philosophy and theology, through journalists, scriptural scholars & exegetes, converts, TV personalities, radio personalities, doctors, religious authors, Church Fathers, Popes, priests, nuns, deacons, the Saints, etc.… a body of knowledge, today more than ever before, so readily accessible to everyone.

The sheer breadth of material to study for the PE exam is indeed quite intimidating, certainly another humbling, brick wall manifestation in my own life. Yet, by making my way through it I've come to understand and appreciate the relative "smallness" of our own Catholic Catechism. I never thought I'd feel that way about the Catechism with its nearly 3000 paragraphs of sacred wisdom.

I CAN get my hands and brain around the Catechism, at minimum becoming proficient in using the citation and subject indexes in the back just as I CAN pass this PE examination - I pray, on the first attempt; God willing and for the glory and honor of God of course.

If I don't post for a while at least you'll understand why now.  Until next time...may I ask for your prayers?

"You pray, you mortify yourself, you labor at a thousand apostolic activities… But you don't study. You are useless, then, unless you change your ways. Study – any professional development – is a serious obligation for us." #334, The Way, St. Josemaria Escriva

Better late than never!

Like Living Stones

Coming home last night from a prayer meeting I got to thinking about the topic at hand: mental prayer. 

The leader had encouraged us to first find a casual, contemplative mood, a peaceful meditative disposition and once there to simply let our Lord know “Here I am Lord; let’s talk” or “Here I am; I have no idea what we can talk about but I’m here Lord; I’m listening.” 

Not to be too serious….

I had about 30 minutes left on my journey home and so I decided to put what I learned into practice. I lowered the radio and began to pray. I used the power of imagination to recall God’s omnipresence and I went as far as concluding if Jesus is my friend and truly loves me then why wouldn’t he be in spirit with me at that very moment. I pictured Jesus sitting next to me in the passenger seat. 

Then I asked, rather casually, as a friend to another friend “Lord, out of all the Churches in the world, which one is your absolute favorite?” 

A civil engineer, not a denominational theologian, I was thinking more along the lines of physical beauty – brick, mortar, and architectural style; I was picturing the magnificent cathedrals in Europe…. “Lord….which one is your absolute favorite?” Then I became silent and listened – knowing full well the answer may not come right away and when it came it would be more than likely through something I would read or hear about over the next several days.

What happened next absolutely floored me, gave me chills, put a great big smile on my face, and gave my wife chills when I shared with her what I’m about to testify to you.

Remember I had lowered the radio volume?

As I was listening, waiting for our Lord to speak, the barely audible radio signal caught my attention. I turned it up. “A few days ago the second oldest person in the world celebrated her 115^th birthday!” the radio host announced. "Asked for her secret she replied 'It’s all in the good Lord’s hand’s … there’s nothing I can do about it'."

It suddenly dawned on me what had been written in 1 Peter 2:5 : “...you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”

Within moments from asking I had my answer; the Lord had answered my prayer!

Our Lord’s favorite church is not the physical brick and mortar structures I was thinking of when I asked – but each one of us, his “living stones” and especially Mrs. Jeralean Talley, the oldest living American, the second oldest person in the world, a devout Christian all of her life, a person who isn’t afraid to proclaim to everyone the source of her joy, one whom lives by the motto “Treat others the way you want to be treated” (the Golden Rule -Matthew 7:12).

Wow! Rest assured I will be encouraging everyone, as I am doing this very moment, to allow more time for mental prayer in their own lives. See for yourself how mental prayer can work in your life. You will develop and unshakeable faith in the process.

“...you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” 1 Peter 2:5

                                          

    

Drum and Bass

G8 Bullet 1 – Getting to the next level; practice. To finally understand something, especially after some degree of effort, is truly one of life's most certain joys. 

2. Who can deny the lofty elation one experiences when that wonderful "ah-ha" moment occurs? You've figured something out or you've mastered something complex after a long and difficult struggle. Often it occurs after a torturous low point, a seemingly endless frustration.... nothing seems to be happening anymore, no progress is being made. Then suddenly, out of nowhere, an epiphany! The solution is in your hands. 

3. The point must be made, we don't get these if we do nothing. 

4. Momentum must be maintained. Effort must be expended. Practice must be worked in and if we are being faithful, we say our prayers too. 

5. From the revelation of personal experience, if God and his Church are not part of the equation, I will fail to do my best.  

6. But God works in many ways, often allowing us to be "successful" (in a worldly kind of way) even when we are completely distant from him. 

7. Growing up, my brothers and I made a conscious decision that we were going to be a band and really nothing else mattered from that point on, at least for a while. We didn't try to excel in sports or academics or religious studies or any other number of things successful teenagers do. Those just weren't our goals. 

8. Personally, I missed out on getting to the next level because I stopped practicing for a while, I dropped out. How often does this happen with our faith life? It did mine. 

9. Outside of church I made no progress; going further all on my own; without knowing it, becoming morally and spiritually bankrupt. 

10. Piously practicing religion would have been boring compared to the worldly attractions I was chasing at the time. I got big headed and prideful. I believed if anything were to happen it would be solely because of my own efforts. 

11. One thing for certain, outside of church and its influence, I didn't put forth any effort to learn more about God or to start reading spiritual books.

12. Instead, I started practicing the electric guitar once more but soon moved to percussion instruments. I was driven again to excel, driven by imagination and vision; visions driven by my brothers' successes and the sensualities felt in my heart for worldly success and fame. I was practicing to get to the next level alright. Meanwhile my brothers excelled in getting booked at more places to play as a band. Consequently, they did things with music that others only dream about. 

13. Ultimately, it was because of their success that I was able to eventually get into the music scene later and do things I had only previous dreamed about before.  

14. Ultimately, it was because of the unmerited grace of God (the love of God), the prayers of others, and the protective acts of my guardian angels that I was able to eventually recognize the call to my true vocation and find the narrow path leading to eternal salvation, Jesus Christ.

15. Do you see how we need practice, prayer, and one another in getting to the next level? 

16. Shoot for at least 3–4 solid, 30 minute sessions per week; rhythm practice along with prayer time. Always opt for multiple days over one day-long practice or prayer session.  

17. Once you've got the pattern down, pick a favorite song of yours (make sure that it's a 4/4 song) and play your pattern with it. Don't pick a super fast song. 

18. "In the Church it is through living Tradition that the Holy Spirit teaches the children of God how to pray.  In fact prayer cannot be reduced to spontaneous outpouring of an interior impulse; rather it implies contemplation, study and a grasp of the spiritual realities one experiences." Compendium: Catechism of the Catholic Church #557

G8 Bullet 2 – Fill in the empty beats with touch, but don't touch too much! Remember the touch serves mostly as a timekeeper between louder strokes helping your hands to flow and adding a subtle fullness to a rhythm. Alternate hands. Even on a tabletop, always concentrate on getting the best possible tones. You never know when you might get to transition to a real drum. No cotton hands. Leave some breathing room in your playing too. If you need to touch stroke to keep you on beat and in time, fine. With practice, there will come a day when you no longer rely on the touch stroke for timekeeping. If you get a chance to play with others or along with recorded music, don't fight to be heard. Don't even worry about hearing yourself. Concentrate on the feel of what you're playing and focus on the sound of the group you're playing along with. If your hands start to hurt, stop playing until they stop hurting. Before you start playing again, take time to analyze the problem. If you continue to play on an injured hand, you may do permanent damage. It's like making a daily examination of conscience before our Lord. Self analysis allows us to replace our counterproductive habits, our vice, with virtue - the habit that will make us kinder, merciful, and more compassionate to others. In our Lesson G8 pattern remember to play the touch significantly softer than the bass and slap tones.

G8 Bullet 3 – Drum set adaptation for the tabletop. In the cut-time/backbeat handout below, the slap tones fall on the backbeats – defined as every second pulse in a pattern with two or four pulses.  In cut-time, every second pulse falls on beat two of each measure. In 4/4, the backbeats fall on two and four. The backbeat is the backbone of most dance music, from rock, Christian pop, funk and hip-hop. On a drum set, the backbeat is usually played on a snare drum using a technique called a rimshot (produces a loud crack). On a tabletop, the closest thing to a rimshot is a slap – so we use the slap for our backbeats. The pattern in Drum and Bass is simple but tasteful and it can be played with nearly everything. It may even sound like a popular drum set pattern. In this adaptation for the tabletop, the bass stroke mimics the bass drum on a kit, the slap stroke mimics the snare drum, and the touch strokes mimic the hi-hat. Another drum set technique used in this pattern is called the fill - "a rhythmic bridge between repetitions of a pattern or sections of a song." It happens between the end the part of the second measure, moving from slaps to open tones and then back to the bass on one.  "Drum set players do the same thing by moving from the snare to a tom to the bass drum." (Pattern 1-9 adapted for tabletop - source quotes courtesy Hip Grooves for Hand Drummers: How to play funk, rock and world – beat patterns on any drum, by Alan Dworsky and Betsy Sansby) 

G8 Bullet 4 – Cut time/backbeat handout. Understanding "time" isn't always straightforward.  If there's one understanding of time that propelled me personally to the next level in playing of percussion instruments, it was not the theory of cut-time. The good news is that in preparing for this lesson - the theory of cut time has become even more "explicit" to me. 

OK, here goes. 

22. The difference is in the "pulse" underlying the rhythms. In our practice boxes, the "pulse" is always shown in the topmost row; its the greyed out box with a numeral in it. In 4/4 there is a pulse of 4 beats. In 2/2 there is a pulse of two beats. The time signatures 4/4 and 2/2 are mathematically the same. Both fractions, when reduced, equal one, which means that any measure with either of these time signatures would contain one whole note.

23. Basically, If I can play the same pattern in half the time it normally takes, I must be playing it in "cut time." Right? We'll sort of. piano.about.com writes: one uses cut time "to speed up tempo: when switching from common time (4/4), cut time means you'll be playing twice as fast. In this manner, cut time can be referred to as "halftime," or "playing in 2."   

24. This handout will help (a bit).  Watching the Drum and Bass movie with the YOU practice sheets in front of you will help a lot.

25. If there's one understanding about "time" that propelled me to the next level in my understanding of God it was found in the book by C.S. Lewis called Mere Christianity. 

26. "A man put it to me by saying 'I can believe in God all right, but what I cannot swallow is the idea of Him attending to several hundred million human beings who are all addressing Him at the same moment.'" 

27. What Lewis wrote next has had a profound effect on how I think about God. 

28. "Our life comes to us moment by moment. One moment disappears before the next comes along: and there is room for very little in each. That is what time is like. And of course you and I tend to take it for granted that this time series – this arrangement of past, present and future – is not simply the way life comes to us but the way all things really exist. We tend to assume that the whole universe and God Himself are always moving on from past to future just as we do. But many learned men do not agree with that. It was the theologians who first started the idea that some things are not in time at all: later the philosophers took it over: and now some of the scientists are doing the same. Almost certainly God is not in time. His life does not consist of moments following one another. If 1 million people are praying to him at 10:30 tonight, He need not listen to them all in that one little snippet which we call 10:30. Ten-thirty – and every other moment from the beginning of the world – is always the Present for Him. If you like to put it that way, He has all eternity in which to listen to the split-second of prayer put up by a pilot as his plane crashes in flames." 

29. Ah-ha!  Wow! An epiphany perhaps, something to turn over and over again, to ponder in the shower, to contemplate before the Blessed Sacrament, to gradually understand, to help make one's understanding of God more explicit. 

30. God created time. Our Lord has no beginning and no end and exists outside of time (time itself 'a thing' created by God) as He has for all of eternity. If God has no beginning and no end, when I die, He can be there alone with me as if I am the only creature of his creation. 

31. If God has no beginning and no end, when his son Jesus Christ died on the cross, He died for my sins and my sins alone. 

32. If God has no beginning and no end, when I sin, i.e. "to miss the mark," it is me alone that offends my Lord and my God. 

33. If God has no beginning and no end, then all of these apply equally to each and every person created in the image of God! That is you, my tiny band of students and followers, and the millions and millions of all the rest who could care less. 

34. This is how big our God is. This is what he shows us about himself when he sends his Son to us. Whether we are found in the state of caring or not "God shows us in Jesus Christ the full depth of his merciful love." (YOUCAT #9)

35. Some things just naturally take "time" for us to gradually grasp - don't forget about putting forth a little daily practice and effort either; my not so well-kept secret of success.

36. "Yes even if Revelation is already complete, [there's nothing more to be said] it has not been made completely explicit; it remains for Christian faith gradually to grasp its full significance over the course of the centuries."  Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) # 66. 

G8 Bullets 5 – 7, Learn the Rhythm - Drum set groove: Drum and Bass

 Author’s Note [04/18/2026]: All but 3 of the original 12 Time for the Table movies have been lost. I will do my best to restore the surviving movies soon. Though I poured lots of time and love into all 12 movies, the production quality was humble and the number of views over the years was meager. Consequently, I will not be recreating the lost movies. My apologies.

 

SPEAK THE RHYTHM: Ge te re te Pa te re te Ge te re te Pa Pa Du Du....

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.

G8 Bullet 8 – Topic A3, Tradition and Word. God approaches us men: The "Big Reveal."

1.) From John 1:18 complete the sentence. No one has ever seen God; ______________, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known. 

2.) Read Hebrews, 1:1-2 and CCC #65. List two ways that God has spoken to us.

3.). Which apostle was Jesus speaking to when he said "He who has seen me has seen the Father" (John 14:9)

4.) According to 1 Timothy 6:14, how long should a disciple of Christ expect to "fight the good fight of the faith" (1 Timothy 6:12)?

5.) Read the following Bible verses and then complete the sentence at the end using just one word: Ezekiel 33:11, Luke 15:11-32, Matthew 15:24, Matthew 9:12, and Matthew 26:28. From the preceding 5 passages of Sacred Scripture, we can know that God is _________.

G8 Bullet 9 – YOU Practice: Rhythm sheet (2) and (3 cut-time). 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) a prayer recitation for family and friend, living and deceased. Try to pray slowly and deliberately for these loved ones and friends. 

b.) Did you know that a typical weekday Mass lasts right at 30 minutes? What an ideal spiritual setting to bring prayers for family and friends! 

c.) No local church in your area offering daily Mass? Watch online then! Most on-line daily masses are less than 30 minutes. Ask yourself: "If that's Jesus really present in the Eucharist shouldn't I really want to see Him as filmed during Mass?" 

d.) Practice perfects the one undergoing the repetitious movement; either naturally or supernaturally. 

e.) 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!

G8 Bullet 10 – Table Task: Decide. God has a plan for everyone's life. Even if there were times in your life when you didn't believe this - God did. Nothing is forced on anyone. You are free to choose - at all times. Ask God to reveal his plan for you. To choose it is to decide. Decisions entail actions; actions are practiced over and over until they become habits and then virtues. If we're prayerful - if we are in a state of grace, our advantages become realities when, more often than not, we are able to use sound reason over fickle feelings and emotions alone. Before bed, decide to conclude each day with an examination of your conscience, asking if you are doing whatever God wants you to do.

G7 Bullet 11 – Basic Notation (1) and (2) handouts: study them.

G7 Bullet 12 – Counting (1) and (2) handouts: study them.

Gray Level Syllabus

"Time For The Table" The Way and Means