On Gratitude

Filipinos demand that their children perform mano po when they meet a respected elder. The child bows, takes the adult’s hand and holds it, palm down, against his forehead.

Humility and deference to adults is expected from a Filipino kid. My late wife, Myrna, was raised in Manila in this tradition. This training (correctly applied) produces admirable results. Immigrant Filipino kids are usually well behaved and respectful, and seldom get in trouble with the law. Filipino immigrants in America are remarkably successful in maintaining family cohesion, educating their children in practical skills, and continuing religious tradition.

Most Filipinos also demand religious indoctrination and observance from their kids. Overwhelmingly, they are Catholic.

Expressing gratitude is part of my religious practice. Every morning, in my prayers, I thank God for another day, and I thank my mother and father for doing the best they could in raising me. And I ask for their forgiveness for my ingratitude.

This was not always my outlook. I rebelled bitterly against my father when I was young. When I thought of him, I was filled with resentment about the things he did not, or could not, do for me. My attention was entirely fixed on my complaints against him. I had no pity on him for his limitations, and no comprehension of his struggle in this Vale of Tears.

Myrna taught me her concept of “reciprocal obligation” between parent and child, a moral imperative throughout much of Asia. Wealthy Western societies no longer expect children to be respectful of adults as a matter of course, or to provide for their parents in old age. The Western child owes nothing to his or her parents.

After Myrna’s death, I struggled for years to stop bitching at God for taking her, to change course and thank Him for giving her to me for 16 years. I had to return to the Church for spiritual guidance. I couldn’t do it on my own. Ingratitude was killing me.

I’m trying now to be grateful in all things. It’s not easy. 

Grandpa Era is Over

Happened so quickly. I knew it was coming. Thought I might get a grace period of a year or two, but no…

My days of custodial care for my grandkids are over. They grew up. They are so busy with school, extra-curricular events and friend visits that I’m no longer needed. Mom and Dad no longer need me to cover the morning departure and evening return from school. 

It’s like a death. I keep trying to argue myself out of accepting this, but there’s nothing to else to do. The kids will only continue to grow farther away from me.

Expecting gratitude or recognition for my 10 year stint of caring for my grandkids is a waste of time and energy. Not going to happen. Nothing to do but to construct a new social life that isn’t focused on the kids.

I’ve been grieving the end of this era. I had to spend some time doing that.

Great ten year run with the grandkids. We had a good time together.

Now what?

The obvious answer is that it’s time to fully focus on my remaining music ambitions. What are they? I’m happy with my church gigs. So long as my parishes exist and I’m capable of driving to services, I’ll continue to do that. I’ll happily continue my gig with The Mendelssohn Club. 

My challenge now is recording and performing in the popular arena. I’ve written about 40 songs, and I want to get them all in the can and out there where a few people can listen to them. I’d like to find a popular venue where I can get paid and perform at least once a week.

Building a new social life will take some time. I’ve got to fill up the time I used to spend with my grandkids on something else. Life will probably surprise me.

The Methodist Schism and Me

The United Methodist Church legislative General Conference recently voted to allow for gay pastors and gay marriage.

The Methodist congregation I serve as a pianist/organist is very traditional and conservative. I’m Catholic. This has never been a problem in my job. I don’t have theological or political discussions in church or during the after service coffee klatch. 

So, my opinion about this change is irrelevant. I do wonder how the change will affect my continued employment and the survival of the Methodist Church. About a third of Methodist congregations have already left the UMC over this schism, many to join a new denomination that rejects the gay agenda, the Global Methodist Church.

I’m not involved in my congregation’s discussions on this issue, so I don’t know whether my client is considering leaving the UMC for the Global faction.

In his sermon on Sunday, my pastor declined to discuss the issues that generated the schism, and instead called for peaceful resolution. He’s already stating his pronouns in the bulletin, an indication of his leanings. So far, nobody’s asked me for my pronouns.

The UMC was already facing a catastrophic decline in Sabbath attendance, and consequent closings of parishes. The Catholic Church is facing the same dilemma. 

I stopped involving myself in person or online in gay issues discussions. While I do have opinions, they are not particularly important to me. I’m a sinner. While I do generally aspire to the Catholic ideal of sacramental marriage, I haven’t done a very good job of living up to that ideal. Who am I, a mere sinner, to scold others?

I’ll continue to play on the Sabbath for my Methodist client, and I’ll keep my mouth shut about their theology and politics. I feel fortunate that my gig has lasted for 5 years. How long my client parish will survive is unknown.

My Yearly Cycle

From Advent through Easter, I’m incredibly busy with church gigs and Mendelssohn Club rehearsals and concerts. After Easter, I’m on full summer vacation, until Labor Day. 

My life is ruled by the Liturgical Cycle.

My only responsibilities during vacation are appearing for my church Sabbath gigs. I’ve been through the repertoire for these gigs many, many times. The hymns are all transcribed into my composition program (MuseScore) and posted into my 12.9” iPad. Occasionally, a congregation member will suggest a new and useful hymn, but that’s becoming a rarity. 

Summer vacation runs for 18 weeks. 

This summer, I plan to start building a commercial and performing outlet for my popular music originals and cover songs. How? Where?

I’m thinking of subscribing to Grok, Elon Musk’s and X’s AI chat bot, for advice on how to create and develop commercial and performing outlets. In other words, business advice on how to effectively reach an audience. I think that an audience for my music and performing exists. Not a huge audience, but one sufficient to fill venues ranging from 100 to 500 seats in major cities and college and resort towns.

Grok is 8 bucks a month. 7 if you pay for an entire year in advance. Grok does not yet, store user sessions in memory. ChatGPT just announced that it will. Seems likely to me that Grok will soon follow suit.

What would be my first question to ask Grok? To be continued…

A Stolen Kiss

An 85 year old church lady in one of my congregations has quite a crush on me. In my first few weeks working for this church, she invited me out to breakfast and, effectively, propositioned me.

“You’re not too old to still have some fun,” she told me. “But, not with me. I’m too old.”

She sat there and waited for me to disagree, but I didn’t.

I shouldn’t have accepted the invitation to breakfast, but I hadn’t thought that 85 year old women might still be horny. Lesson learned. I weaseled my way out of the invitation without any damage, and I thought that was the end of it.

Eve (I’ll call her) has been texting me almost daily for a couple of years. At church, she demands a full body hug during the group meet and greet part of the service.

Last Sunday, Eve arrived early for services and, as usual, marched right up to the piano bench to greet me.

“Give me a hug,” she begged.

I haven’t considered this an unusual request, or one difficult to comply with, so I hugged her.

Eve started to try to kiss me, and much to my surprise landed a wet smooch right on my lips! I hadn’t expected that.

The taste and odor she left behind was unbearable. Dense makeup covering over an odor of intense bodily decay. I’m old, too, so I’m aware that the bodily disintegration of an old person is difficult to tolerate.

The residual taste and odor were so awful that I got up after I played for the opening hymn, and pretended to go to the bathroom to relieve myself. I washed my face and hands and rinsed out my mouth, and I was able to continue to play for the service.

Things have gotten out of hand. Churches are incredibly sensitive to allegations of sexual abuse or unwanted sexual advances by their employees. I cannot afford even the hint of romantic involvement with a church lady in one of my congregations. The churches are terrified of being bankrupted by lawsuits.

I’ll have to be on guard with Eve. That’s the last time she gets close enough to French kiss me. I can’t really complain to the church board or the pastor. That will only rebound against me.

The constant texting is something I probably can’t stop, but I can try to cool it off.

Dealing with the romantic aspirations of the church ladies is the most difficult part of my church musician job. The attention and compliments are appreciated, but if I don’t keep my distance I’ll be out of a job.

My Musical Seasons

My musician life now runs through a three part annual cycle. 

Starting after Labor Day, the Mendelssohn Club begins rehearsals for the Christmas Concert, and my church work focuses on the progression from Advent to Christmas. 

After New Years, the Club starts rehearsals for the Spring Concert, and my church work moves from Lent through Easter.

After the Spring Concert at the end of April, I begin my summer vacation of about 18 weeks, during which I focus on popular music.

This cycle is likely to continue to repeat for the rest of my career.

Finding outlets for my popular music is the weak part of my game. Three more weeks to the end of the spring Mendelssohn Club season and it will be time to try to develop venues and opportunities for popular music.

I don’t know what to do here. I readily admit to being stumped.

Sometimes, action is the only response to being stumped. Once choral rehearsals are over, I’ll head out there to play on whatever stage is available and see what happens.

Everything New is Old Again

I’ve reached that strange juncture attained every five years or so. Except for my 2023 Ford Maverick truck, everything I own is worn out and needs replacing.

Replaced everything when I moved in with my daughter, son-in-law and grandkids eight years ago. I had some money left over from the sale of my house in Woodstock to pay for the update.

Now, my clothing is fading out and thin. My furniture isn’t exactly right for my needs. My musical instruments all need renovation or repair. This time around, I don’t have a slush fund of cash available.

Church clothing is especially frayed and grayed. I think I have 5 dress shirts, so that means each one is washed and dried 10 times a year. At $40-50 per, replacing those is a serious investment. Members of my Methodist congregation often suggest that I don’t need to wear a jacket and tie to services. My answer:

“I’m really doing it for myself. I need to get cleaned up and dressed to go somewhere a couple of times a week.

My Martin D-28 guitar has already been completely renovated, and my Gibson J-200 is in the shop. Those guitars are 50 and 20 years old, respectively. The pedal board on my organ needs repair. That’s an hour trip in each direction to the technician’s shop.

Bed sheets are completely washed out. I bought four sets when I moved, which means each set has been washed 12 or more times a year. Not much fabric left. $60 to $80 per set.

So, should I go on being ragged and threadbare? I’ve already replaced my sweats. That’s what I wear 95% of the time.

Many of my fellow congregations, both Methodist and Catholic, seem to have decided to let it all go. They attend services in threadbare, worn out clothing. I can understand. We’re all approaching the nursing home stage when clothing and appearance will cease being very important.

I think this is the last time round for me. I’ll buy a little bit each month. For at least the next 5 years, I’ll try to keep up appearances, if only for myself.

How to Battle the Gender Psychosis?

My grandkids are approaching adolescence. We live in an area that is full of the temptations of the psychosis of sexual identity politics, the bizarre notion that there is something other than male and female, that humans can change their sex at will.

How to protect my grandkids? The power of the state and the schools supports this psychotic ideology. Feminism, gay worship and trans madness is the state religion, Federal and NY State. Ridicule and punishment of traditional Christian and Jewish observance is part of that religion.

I’m a sinner. In my adolescence, I was seduced into the hippie rebellion, a precursor of this diabolical ideology. Do I regret that? Yes. Did I eventually pull my head out of my ass? Yes.

Back in the day, kids weren’t engaging in sexual mutilation and taking sex change drugs to rebel. No, we were enjoying hetero orgies, pot and psychedelics. I think this was better, or at least slightly more sane, but I might be rationalizing. At the least, I’m glad that the hippie rebellion did not include sexual mutilation.

My grandkids are nearing puberty in an area, the Northeast, where gay worship and trans propaganda are overwhelming in the schools, media, and even in many of the churches. In fact, the church where my men’s choral group rehearses and performs is the epicenter of this propaganda. This group has been in existence for 100 years, so its residence in the church began when it was still an orthodox Protestant denomination.

I’ve tried to give my grandkids all my love and focus for the past 10 years. That’s about all I could do for them. I helped to finance the home where they live with me and their mom and dad. They would not allow me to give the kids a Christian indoctrination, so I came up short there.

My grandkids will go through teenage rebellion. I have no doubt about that. One of the most important responses, in my opinion, for a grandfather is to not respond angrily or with ridicule to that rebellion. A child will dig in when confronted with anger or ridicule, and only burrow deeper into the disparaged behavior.

I’m hoping that this wicked state religion goes out of fashion soon. But that seems unlikely to happen. I suspect that my tolerance will be tested to the limit.

The Joy of Toilet Paper

Methodist services feature a Joys and Concerns period for the congregation. At the end of the sermon today, the pastor asked if anybody had joys to express and I raised my hand. This is what I had to say.

I got up this morning to find that I’d run out of toilet paper. So, I got dressed and braved the 15º weather to drive to Stewart’s (the local convenience shop) to buy a roll of toilet paper.

As I drove home, I thought about my mother and father growing up in farmhouses in Illinois. No electricity, no running water, no indoor plumbing, no central heating and no commercial toilet paper.

When my sisters and I complained about something we regarded as a hardship, Mom or Dad would tell us:

“You don’t know how lucky you are. You should try getting up in the middle of the night during an Illinois winter, walking through howling wind in minus 10º weather to go to the bathroom in an outhouse. And you tried to clean yourself up with a corncob or a sheet of paper ripped out of a Sears catalog.”

My “joy,” I told the congregation was having electricity, running water, indoor plumbing, central heating and store bought toilet paper. Don’t ever take these wonderful things for granted.

Thank God for these wonders of modern life. 

What is the Purpose of Confession?

After decades of wandering in the desert, I returned to observing the rituals of Catholicism. At first, I only attended Mass, then I decided to brave Confession. Some years later, I still don’t entirely understand the purpose of that ritual,

The Church has renamed the sacrament as “reconciliation.” I’m not sure why or when this change occurred. We confess to reconcile ourselves with God.

When I was young and taking Catechism lessons, the nuns scripted Confession for their students. We learned the form by heart: “Bless me Father, for I have sinned. My last Confession was X time ago.”

The nuns gave us a scorecard for our sins. Venal sins, or lesser sins, were categorized for us. Mortal sins amount, in reality, to breaking one of the Ten Commandments. Both nuns and my priests were quite specific about what constituted a sin. We were given a check off list, so we had no doubt what we needed to confess.

We were especially cautioned against taking Communion when we were in a state of mortal sin. This was, in itself, another mortal sin.

When I was a boy, the priest helped me out in the confessional. He suggested sins to me, and asked if I had committed them, when he was dissatisfied when my recitation.

“Did you touch yourself?” Was a common question.

Confession is the last piece of the puzzle in my return to ritual Catholic observance. I don’t know quite what I should do. I follow the old form, and go through the list of sins I’ve been taught to consider, but that doesn’t seem like enough.

That’s because the sin that really dogs me is betrayal of my father. Here, I often think of the Parable of the Talents. My father invested everything he had in my development, and well… I blew it. Big time. I blew it by ceasing being observant and quitting playing sports.

God gave me incredible gifts, that is talents… musical, athletic and intellectual. All I had to do to fully realize those talents was to remain disciplined and to follow the direction of my father. Instead, I collapsed into indiscipline and carousing, leaving me to wander in the desert for decades.

In doing so I abandoned my father to his fate, which ultimately was dementia. I was not there for him as he was for me. I did not continue my career in baseball for him, so that he could attend the games and bask in the success of his son. I did not understand or acknowledge my reciprocal obligation to care for him, to give him purpose.

At my last Confession, I expressed my grief over this to the priest and he understood. That was a relief.

But, I am still struggling to understand this part of my practice.