Sunday, June 27, 2010
Hymnal
Friday, June 25, 2010
I'm wacky, I know
I did something last night that I have never done before. I ironed the pages of a hymnal!
Let me explain. No, I’m not completely losing it, I had a purpose. :) The hymnal for the piano here at church is one of those 3-ring deals. I use the word “deal” loosely because sometimes they are more trouble than they are worth! That was getting to be the case with this one. All of the pages were bent and many have holes that are ripped out. It’s a bit disheartening to open the hymnal, trying to play for congregational singing, and have half the pages fall into your lap.
So I decided to try to fix some of them. Many had the corners folded over on the side that the holes for the rings are. This was making the book thicker than it should be, which in turn was making it hard to shut. If the book wasn’t shut carefully, things would get even worse. So I reasoned, if I can flatten out those corners, maybe the whole thing will lay flat again.
So I brought the book home and tried it out. I set the iron on the lowest setting and turned the steam off. I took out the first page and put a cloth over it to see how it would work. I did a couple pages that way, but found that the cloth wasn’t really letting the heat get through, and therefore wasn’t really doing much. So I licked my finger and felt the iron. I decided it was cool enough to just iron directly on the page. So that is what I did. I got over half the book done! It is kind of a slow process, but I think it is working. I’m excited to get them all done and see how it looks!
Some of the pages are in such bad disrepair that I am going to have to pick up some reinforcers for the holes. I don’t like to do that, because it makes the book thicker than it should be and can be even more trouble than its worth, but some are so bad that I will have to.
Hopefully I will finish ironing the pages tonight, and pick up the reinforcers tomorrow. I will let you know how it turns out!
Friday, June 11, 2010
Teaching Theory
Here is a rhythm "game" that I downloaded from musicmattersblog.com. All I had to do was print out the sheets and cut them into fourths, and I had four each of all the notes and rests. I printed an extra page of the quarter notes, since those get used up quickly. For this activity I had Justin and Stephanie work together, and Rachel and Carrie work together. I would clap a two- or three-measure rhythm for them, and it was their job to arrange it into the correct measures with the right notes, rests, and bar lines in the correct places. Here is an example:
I had harder ones for Justin and Stephanie than I did for Rachel and Carrie. It was interesting because sometimes one would think it was one way and the other would think it was completely different. I would let them arrange it both ways and then tell them which was right.
I downloaded these grand staffs from Susan Paradis' Piano Teacher Resources (susanparadis.wordpress.com). One is just plain and I gave this one to Justin with dimes to use on it. The other one is Peppermint Candy-themed, so I one of those to Stephanie and Rachel with candies to use on them. She also has one that is candy-corn-themed, but I did not have any candy corn for them to use, so we will save that one for this fall. I read off triads and their inversions for Justin and Stephanie to arrange on each of their staves, and intervals for Rachel to arrange. This was thought-provoking for each of them! Stephanie and Justin seemed to have the most trouble with 2nd inversions, so we will be reviewing those again shortly! I enjoyed using these staves as an alternative to just having them fill out a worksheet or something... made it more interesting for them, I think!
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Graduation!
Sunday, June 6, 2010
I ordered this purity ring a couple of weeks ago. Isn’t it pretty? A close friend of mine also got one, hers has a ruby instead of an amethyst. We looked online at some different ones, but we both liked this one the best. The picture does not do it justice at all!
After I got the ring, I got thinking about the meaning of purity. We know the obvious meaning of purity and of a purity ring...saving yourself for your life’s mate. A ring is the token of this purity. But what else? There must be more to it than that.
I looked up the meaning of purity in the dictionary, (like any good Bible College Graduate :) and got two results. One was freedom from immorality, especially of a sexual nature. The other was freedom from adulteration or contamination. This meaning kind of intrigued me. Our world today is so plagued with sin and wickedness, how could anyone be free and pure from contamination? It seems impossible, and it probably is impossible to not be influenced and tempted by the world. But just because we are influenced by the world doesn’t mean we have to be contaminated. Contamination happens when something poisonous is added to make the substance impure. (Another dictionary definition for you!) If we allow things from the world to poison us, to enter into us, we become impure.
So what are these things of the world that can contaminate us? Certainly we know the obvious things, drinking, drugs, etc. But what about other seemingly harmless things the world has to offer? Here’s a couple of things that come to my mind:
Speech. So often I feel like I use words that aren’t wrong, but may be just “lazy” words. The Bible tells us that we should do all to the glory of God, so shouldn’t that include speech that is “excellent?” Also so many times at school I was convicted about how often I talked about other people. Its not gossip if its public news, right? But was it necessary to talk about them, probably not.
Manners. A friend of mine recently blogged all about the bad manners in our society today, and I totally agree with her, so I won’t re-state it here! It does seem today like manners and any sense of etiquette have gone out the window. (BTW, etiquette is defined as “the customary code of polite behavior in society.” Certainly does not sound like our society!!) I could say a lot about that, but I will just say that it is a challenge to me as I see so many bad manners to make sure mine could not be included in that category!
Ministry focus...or lack thereof. Now I know that not everyone is called to full-time ministry, and thats not really what I mean. More just a willingness to live a life pleasing to God instead of centering our lives around money and a job and on and on the list could go with what society offers us. It is so easy to get busy with life and leave God out of our busy schedules and daily activities!
These are just a few of the ways I thought of that I am tempted to get contaminated by the world. A few years ago I was reading a book by Dr. Jim Berg, and this thought really struck me: why is it that we as Christians take what the world has to offer and clean it up enough for it to be suitable for a Christian? Why can’t we as “little-christ” have a higher standard and ambition than that? Obviously we have to use the same resources as the world, that is a little different, but in those areas where we can become contaminated, what the world has to offer seems so shallow to try to “dress up” for the Christian life.
Well, I will end my rambling thoughts, but this idea of purity in every area of my life certainly has made me evaluate several areas of my life and prayerfully make some changes! I hope that this purity ring will not only represent physical purity but also a purity of a life that is pleasing to God in every way.