Finally done

Last night I used a jigsaw to cut two small notches, pulled the garage door opener up about another inch, reconnected everything, and it worked! So, 9 days, some very cold fingers, and one broken thumb later, we have a functional garage door and can park the vehicles in the garage again.

This opener has three working remotes, which means one for each car and one for the house… no more cold, late-night, barefoot trips outside when we forget to shut the garage door! The only thing still not working is our van, which is supposedly equipped with the HomeStar system, and thus should be able to be programmed to open the garage door from a button on the overhead panel. So far, no luck. But even if I don’t get that figured out, I can live with it. :-) It feels good to finally get that project finished.

Making progress

Yesterday morning  we got a guy out to fix the garage door, so it now goes up and down like it should.  So last night I spent most of the evening trying to get the garage door opener installed.  Close, but no banana.  The rail on this opener is a bit taller than the previous one, and with the limited space between the garage door and the rafters in the garage, it’s just too tight.  So my next step will have to be to use a jigsaw and cut a small (1/2" max) notch in the right spot in a couple of rafters.  Slowly but slowly, it’s coming together.

I fought the door, and the door won

Today was lining up to be a fairly unadventurous Saturday. I had a church basketball game in the morning - we got beat by a team who must’ve shot 85% from the field for the game. They were on. It was scary. Then we took the family to Hy-Vee for a late breakfast, and a few of our friends joined us. Finally, we headed home. My remaining task for the day was to install a new garage door opener. Our old one is probably 30 years old and has been slowly dying for a while now. We found a nice new one on clearance at Lowe’s last week and bought it. So, I was all set.

I got the new opener unpacked and assembled. Then I took down the old one. So far, so good. However, I noticed as I was taking down the old opener that the torsion spring for the garage door, normally attached by two lag bolts to the frame of the garage, had pulled out one bolt and was in the process of pulling out the other one. Here’s an example of a torsion spring:

No problem, I thought. A quick trip to Lowe’s procured two larger lag bolts, and I set about installing them. It was a bit tricky - I had to put some weight on the spring to hold it down into place, but I managed to get the first bolt in. Then I came back up to tighten it, and the whole thing let loose. I didn’t see exactly what happened, but my left hand was bleeding and swelling. So Becky called Janice who was a life saver and came over to stay with the girls, who were napping. Then we went to the urgent care clinic.

One hour and three x-rays later, the doctor decided that I had fractured the last bone in my thumb (the one at the end of my thumb). No stitches were necessary, they just used some pressure bandages on my thumb and index finger to get the bleeding to stop. And I’ll have to wear a splint on my thumb for 4-6 weeks until the bone heals. Here’s what it looks like now:

So, this will put a damper on a few activities. No more basketball for the rest of the season. I will probably be able to play the piano enough to lead worship at church next Sunday as planned, but I wouldn’t hold out much hope for the Bach fugue on the pipe organ for the talent show. It has been a bit of a challenge typing this post, too, but I’m starting to figure out how to type without my index finger and thumb on my left hand.

Mostly I’m thankful that it wasn’t any worse; it sure could’ve been. The Lord was watching over me, even in my poor judgment of what I could manage. I’ll be calling an overhead door company on Monday, and will gladly pay them to fix the torsion spring and finish the opener installation. Some things, I guess, are just better left to the professionals.

I think I pulled something...

So last night I had the chance to do some practice on the pipe organ at Central Park Presbyterian Church in preparation for the talent show coming up a week from Sunday. I showed up at 6:45 and the kind man had already turned on the lights and turned up the heat so I could practice. I pulled out my copy of Tocatta and Fugue in D-Minor and got right to it.

Two hours later was reminded of a time soon after I started taking piano lessons when I swore I never wanted to play the piano again. The song in question was the Suzuki classic Lightly Row, and the challenge was to make the left hand play something different than the right hand was playing. Fortunately, I got through it, and my hands have been happily individually dexterous for years now. Enter the pipe organ, which includes two manuals of keys, plus two octaves of pedals.

For twenty-some years now, I have trained my brain that the left hand follows the notes on the bottom staff. But not on the organ! Early on in the Bach piece, there is a little pattern where the hands play some separated chords, just stepping down: B-flat, A-minor, G-minor, A. The pedal moves in parallel, playing D C B-flat, A. It must’ve taken me 30 minutes of practice to try to play those two lines. My left hand just kept getting lost.  I think I pulled something, somewhere in my brain.

I found I can play the pedals pretty well by themselves; the intervals are pretty easy to figure out, and with a little practice I’ll know where the notes are without having to look. I can play the pedals and the right hand together without too much effort. But the left hand just doesn’t want to cooperate. I’ll try to get over to the church again next week for some more practice and we’ll see how much I can get worked out. Worst case, I’ll creatively omit some of the harder pedal parts for the talent show… I’ll feel bad about doing it, but it’ll be better than not playing it at all.

One other thing took getting used to with that organ: the timing. Since it’s a real pipe organ, driven by real air, there is a perceptible time lag between when you press the key and when you hear the note. When you’re playing long held notes, it’s not that big a deal. But when you’re playing Bach with all the sixteenth-notes, you have to mentally force yourself to make your fingers do the right thing and ignore the timing. It took me a while to get that figured out, but I think it makes sense now.

Odds and Ends Feb 2007

I’m sure I’ve used that title before, but oh well. Seems like this place has been filled up with book reviews lately and not much else. Let’s see, what else should I talk about? The cold? The temperature display on my PC at the moment says it’s -9 degrees F outside. We’re supposed to get a heat wave by the weekend, though - up into the 20’s!

Life has pretty much settled down for now after the craziness of December and early January. One bit of fun is that we’re having our church talent show down at Central Park Presbyterian Church (a facility we’re talking about buying), and they have a nice pipe organ… so I got a request for some organ music. I’ve been working on Bach’s famous Tocatta & Fugue in D Minor for a couple of weeks now and have the keyboard parts learned pretty well… but I’m worried that the pedal parts will be my undoing. I’m headed over to the church tomorrow night to practice on the organ for a while. We’ll see how it goes. If it’s a total flop I’ll just pull out some piano fugues and play ’em on the organ… good enough. But still… a PIPE ORGAN! Too much fun.

Pick Chris's Reading List: Hell's Best Kept Secret

My dad loaned me Hell’s Best Kept Secret by Ray Comfort back at Thanksgiving, and sadly it had set by my night table since then, still waiting to be read. Dad reminded me about it the other day, so I picked it up last night and read through it. It’s a short little book, maybe 150 pages in paperback, but contains a lot of good stuff.

I was not really familiar with Ray Comfort before reading his book. A quick online search shows that he is the main man at Living Waters ministry, and that he’s done a series of TV programs called “The Way of the Master” with Kirk Cameron. His website says that Living Waters “…has been equipping Christians across the world for more than 30 years. We train Christians who want to learn evangelism – by teaching them how to witness the way Jesus did.”

I will admit that a brief browsing of the Living Waters website makes me a bit queasy; products they have for sale include the Intelligent Design vs. Evolution Board Game and novelty Million-Dollar bills that contain a Gospel presentation. I’m not sure I’m to keen on either of those ideas, but then this is supposed to be about the book, right, not about Ray Comfort’s ministry in general.

Mr. Comfort gets right to it in the first chapter. We find out that Hell’s best-kept secret is the message that our sins condemn us to hell unless we trust Christ for salvation. He says that the reason 80 - 90% of “conversions” from altar calls and crusades fail is that people are coming because they are promised something good, that Christianity will make their life better. Then when tribulation comes, people fall away because all of a sudden Christianity isn’t helping them out any more. He gives the illustration of two men on an airplane. If you offer the first one a parachute, telling him it will make his flight more pleasant, the guy will immediately take it off, because it’s heavy and bulky and uncomfortable. If you offer the second one a parachute, telling him to wear it because at any minute he’s gonna have to jump out of the airplane from 20,000 feet, he will thank you profusely and will keep the parachute on regardless of the discomfort, because he has a view of the danger that will come should he not have the parachute.

Comfort quotes profusely (and at times repetitively) from D. L. Moody and Charles Spurgeon, among others, to say that an understanding of our condemnation under the law is a key starting point to understanding the Gospel. In that message I can’t disagree with Comfort - he’s right on. The Good News of salvation through Christ isn’t really good news unless there’s something we need saved from. Where I wrestled with this book wasn’t in the particulars of the message, but was more with my reaction of the entire method he was proposing. The book itself is about 20 years old. I see him writing it to react against what he’d seen at big evangelistic crusades (Billy Graham, maybe?). Then several times in the book he talks about doing streetcorner preaching, or about stopping at a train station and just having the Lord direct him to people who he could sit and talk to. In all those cases, I see them being more prevalent and on-topic 20 years ago than they are today. Let me try to explain.

I think Dr. Tim Keller hit it right on back at the Desiring God 2006 conference when he noted that our world to day is post-Christian. He talked about a historical 20th century progression of evangelism techniques that started with the crusades of Billy Sunday, then later Billy Graham; later it transitioned to the personal evangelism methods found in Evangelism Explosion; then towards the very end of the 20th century and into the 21st we have “seeker services”. Keller postulates that we have three problems in reaching postmoderns: 1) a truth problem - they don’t like our exclusive claim of truth. 2) Guilt problem - it assumes they have a consciousness of guilt. 3) A meaning problem - they don’t believe texts can really get a meaning across.

Number 2 is the one that I think hits it - for many people these days, there is a lot to establish philosophically before we can get to the idea of an absolute standard and guilt before God. Now, I think most of them have an inner understanding of guilt but won’t admit it; they have been convinced that there is no absolute truth, no God to whom they are accountable, and thus their feelings of guilt are a product of some bad thinking on their part. So when we start the discussion, we may not be able to start with “do you understand that you’re guilty before God?”, we may have to start with “what is truth?” and go from there.

I wrote over a year ago that the place that makes sense for me to start the story is with this phrase: “Things aren’t right.” There is a statement we can all pretty much agree on. Yes, some hardcore types may want to argue that there is no “right”, so how can things not be right… but as C. S. Lewis argues in Mere Christianity, you only have to do something bad to that person to get them to start appealing to a universal moral standard. :-) Then we can talk about why things are wrong, and how God has a plan to set them right again.

I have over the past few years started tending towards the Calvinist side of Gospel presentation. Not that I’m going over into full five-point Calvinism; that’s a topic for another post. But it seems to me that we are called to proclaim the Gospel to everyone. Even as believers, we need to be reminded of the Gospel, of the good news that God has provided a way for us to be redeemed and to become a part of His kingdom. Non-believers need to hear it, too; how far back in the story we have to start will largely depend on where they are philosophically. For those who still have a Judeo-Christian mindset, we can probably start with Mr. Comfort’s approach and talk about our guilt before God. For those firmly entrenched in postmodernism, we’ll probably have to back up a few steps. Either way, we have good news to share, and we need to share it.

Pick Chris's Reading List: Velvet Elvis

Finally I complete another entry on my reader-suggested reading list: Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell. Thanks Heather for the recommendation!

I’m having a harder time writing a review for this book than I have for any of the previous ones I’ve read. I’m not too sure what my conclusion is yet. Some general observations are in order, though.

First, I’m not too keen on the general writing style. The book is full of single sentences masquerading as paragraphs. Now, these aren’t long, Pauline run-on sentences; these are short, one line sentences with lots of white space between them. As a consequence, to me the book sounds less like a well-reasoned argument for something and more like a collection of little thoughts that don’t necessarily connect so well. Maybe I’m just too old to get it.

Second, I haven’t seen Rob Bell’s NOOMA videos. I’ve heard they’re pretty good, and they might clue me in on a little more of what he’s thinking. I haven’t heard any other of Bell’s stuff, either, so all I have to base my understanding of him on is this book.

There were a couple things that I disagreed with in there. First of all, towards the beginning of the book he goes through this extended illustration about how doctrines are like the springs on a trampoline - how they serve to propel us and our faith and our actions. Fine, I guess, OK. But then he goes on to argue that, hey, even if you’re missing a spring, that doesn’t mean that the trampoline won’t work. I’m starting to get a little queasy with the illustration at that point. Then he says, hey, so if the virgin birth doesn’t happen to be true, that spring pops off the trampoline, that doesn’t mean it won’t work. And at that point he has gone too far. To my reading, Bell is not denying the virgin birth of Christ; however, he’s clearly leaving the door open. This is a problem, a big problem. I think the virgin birth is one of the essentials of the faith that we simply must hold to. (Side note: Mark Driscoll addressed this pretty directly back in September at the Desiring God 2006 conference.) So Bell loses bigtime points with me on that issue.

Secondly, I have some queasiness with Bell’s discussion about interpreting the Scripture. His basic argument is that Scripture has to be interpreted; that much I agree with. He ridicules people who will say “let me tell you what the Bible says”, saying that they’re just trying to sell you their interpretation. I guess I’m OK with all that. Where I start to get uneasy is when he encourages his readers to continue reinterpreting everything. He seemed to come dangerously close to saying that there isn’t necessarily a “right” interpretation of any Scripture, that we should just use the interpretation that makes sense to us. I don’t think he actually said that, but he seems to be oriented that direction. That bothers me a bit. As Christians we can’t be so postmodern that we refuse to say there’s a “correct” way to view the truth… that just won’t work.

Other than that, I didn’t have any huge problems with Velvet Elvis, but at the same time I didn’t find it that compelling. Sorry, Heather, wish I could give it a better rating, but I just didn’t come away from it very excited. Maybe I’ll have to try it again another time.

You'd think I'd learn...

I stopped at the library yesterday afternoon to pick up a book I had reserved. (Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell, yes, Heather, I’m finally getting around to reading it.) And of course, even with my book backlog, I couldn’t stop with just that one book - I had to pick up two more while I was at it. My book pile next to my bed has gotten large. Very large. From memory, here’s what’s sitting there waiting to be read:

  • This is Your Brain on Music - Daniel Levitin - a fascinating book about how our brains deal with and remember music. I’m about 2/3 done with this one.
  • Submarines: A History - I forget the author. I started this one before I bought the previous title. It’s in progress as well.
  • Traitor - Stephen Coonts - I enjoy Coonts, this appears to be his latest.
  • Velvet Elvis - Rob Bell - Just picked it up. This will be the next one I start.
  • The Ragtime Club? - some random novel I picked up yesterday, deals with Scott Joplin and the ragtime music scene. Looks mildly interesting.
  • Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln - Doris Kearns Goodwin - my mom recommended this one. Should be interesting.
  • The Republic - Plato - picked this one up with a Christmas gift card.
  • The Everlasting Man - G. K. Chesterton - This one is in progress as well - good stuff, but slow going.
  • Beyond All Earthly Powers - David Wells - a freebie for attending the Desiring God 2006 conference.
  • Lectures to my Students - Spurgeon - Bought at the DG2006 conference, read the first few chapters, it’s still sitting there.
  • Looking Unto Jesus - Isaac Ambrose - my dad gave me this one a couple of years ago - I have started on it several times and never finished. Slow going, but good stuff.

There may be a few others, that’s just all I can think of for now.

[Checked tonight when I got home - found I’d missed a couple: What I Saw At The Revolution by Peggy Noonan and Case Closed by Gerald Posner. I guess I’ve got even *more* reading to do. :sigh:

I skipped the State of the Union

I understand from reading the news that President Bush gave the State of the Union address back on Tuesday night. I skipped it. I actually even avoided it - when I turned the TV on, it was in progress. I flipped to ESPN. This is a departure for me. I have long held great interest in State of the Union (let’s just call them SOTU for short) speeches. When I was in high school I used my boom box to record them off the radio onto a cassette so I could listen to them again later. In past years I have sat with rapt attention to the network of my choice and had a thrill of excitement as the Sergeant-at-Arms would walk in and declare, “Mister Speaker, the President of the United States!”. But not this year.

I have become disenchanted with politics these days. Not uninterested, mind you; nor would I say that they are unimportant. But I have become disappointed with all of my political leaders and the very system that they operate in. I am not excited about any of the political topics they are pushing. Gone are the days when I thought they might actually do something about Social Security reform. Gone are the hopes that some serious income tax reform might be in the works. Now we’re supposed to get excited about a higher minimum wage and even more money for education and social programs.

I have long been a supporter of President Bush. The first ballot I ever cast, back as a high-school student in Texas, included a vote for him to be Governor of Texas. I have voted for him twice in presidential elections. He’s made some decisions I’ve been very happy with. (Nominating John Roberts to the Supreme Court is one of my favorites.) But on fiscal and governance issues, he has disappointed me greatly. Gone are Reagan’s conservative ideals of less government, less spending, and lower taxes. Now we just have more programs. Gone are tightly-held ideals of less government regulation and free speech; we just sign McCain-Feingold and let the Supreme Court sort it out. And then there’s the war.

I haven’t written much about the war here. Initially I was in favor of it. I don’t really want to debate that case here now; I thought the president presented a compelling case, and it was good for us to go get rid of Saddam. But the mess we are in now seems more and more troubling. The sad part is that I don’t see a good exit strategy. I’m not convinced that sending more troops will help subdue things and finish off the war. (I’m not saying it won’t, I’m just not convinced that it will.) But cutting and running isn’t a viable option, either. At this point, I’m about out of ideas, other than to pray for wisdom for the leadership and safety for the troops.

I don’t know what it’s going to take to get me excited about political goings-on again. I’d like to see a real conservative candidate from the Republican party for the 2008 election. If there were some real conservative principles championed, rather than just “my programs will be better than their programs”, maybe I’d be more interested. At least the Republicans have a better record on moral issues, though who knows how long that’ll last. The key difficulty here is that in our two-party system, my choice is either to vote for the Republican I’m unexcited about, or the Democrat I am even less excited about. And don’t start on me about third-party candidates - I know a wasted vote when I see one.

So this is probably as close as I’ll come on this blog to a political rant. Feel free to respond and interact. Tell me why I’m wrong (or right), and what suggestions you’d have for me. I am increasingly thankful that God’s priority is with individual hearts, not political influence.

Random Thoughts on... Classical Music, Second Edition

Classical music has had a big influence in my life. My parents are both lovers of classical music. (Probably my dad more than my mom, but I’m not too sure there.) It was pretty much all we had on at home growing up. Lots of ::wikipedia(“Bach”):: and ::wikipedia(“Beethoven”):: all the way through ::wikipedia(“Rimsky_Korsakov”,“Rimsky-Korsakov”):: and ::wikipedia(“Igor_Stravinsky”,“Stravinsky”)::. I started playing the piano at age 7 and thus entered a bunch more classical music. I played lots of Bach, Chopin, Beethoven, Debussy, and Grieg. I really enjoyed it. I was the nerdy kid who at age 12 listened to a NPR program where they compared two new recordings of Rachmaninoff’s Vespers, and enjoyed it. But I digress.

It’s hard to say which composer or era is my favorite. I love the Baroque for Bach (Das Wohltemperierte Klavier) and Handel (The Messiah, Water Music). I dig the classical and romantic periods: the beauty of Mozart, the intensity of Beethoven, the breadth of the piano works of Chopin. I about wore out a tape of Haydn Cello Concertos whilst growing up, and Dennis Brain’s legendary recording of Mozart Horn Concertos is never far from my iPod’s playlist. But then you get to Rachmaninoff. Of all the composers, I adore Rachmaninoff. I fell in love with his second Piano Concerto in my teens, managed to learn enough to hack my way through the easier bits of it, then in college reacquainted myself with Vespers and more of his solo piano works. They’re ridiculously difficult to play, but remain my favorites. And don’t let me forget the French guys like Debussy and Poulenc.

I have to confess that my appreciation for “classical music” written in the later parts of the 20th century wanes quite a bit. I have yet to develop the love for Stravinsky that my father has. Neither am I real fond of Ives, Barber, or Bartok. Aaron Copland is on my “love him” list, though, as is Ralph Vaughan Williams. As for real modern stuff, I’m not really current on it. I’ve heard a bit of Alan Hovhaness that I liked. By the time you get the late 20th century, the orchestral stuff I really enjoy has mostly been written as film scores by guys like John Williams, John Barry, and James Horner.

So, more than you wanted to know about my tastes in classical music, right? Feel free to leave comments below.