Funerals

As a musician, I get the opportunity to share in some of the most joyful and some of the saddest days in people's lives. Today I played for the funeral of a 5 year old little girl. It was an interesting experience as we tried to honor and respect the religious and cultural differences of those in attendance, and there were some major differences.



The viewing/visitation was held just prior to the funeral in another room at the church. I had been asked to play some quiet music on the piano there until just before the funeral. To be honest, I think that some people were uncomfortable with me there, but I know others felt comforted by the music. Sometimes it was just me and the little girl alone in the room. The piano was right by the casket, so I was witness to the sorrow and mourning of many individuals. As a stranger, I couldn't do much to comfort them, but through music, I created a place of peace for them to say goodbye.



There were two beautiful things that I really l loved. First, as I got to the chapel, those already seated were having a pre-funeral funeral, with singing and speaking. I didn't understand the language, but I felt the love. Second, no one that spoke at the funeral stood alone. (Even the Bishop had a translator at his side.) The others had one or more friends or family members that came and stood with them, holding a hand, touching a shoulder, giving love and support. There certainly aren't any rules about not having extra people there, but we generally think of the pulpit as a "one-at-a-time" place and the speaker somehow becomes isolated and set apart from the congregation. I loved seeing one woman who had had a particularly difficult time during the viewing, come up to stand with the mother as she spoke. I don't know their relationship, but I could see the love.



Sitting in this funeral made me think once again about what I want my funeral to be like. Long ago, my father told us that he wanted to be buried in a pine box, and he wanted "Ghost Riders in the Sky" and "Happy Trails" for the music. I'm not sure if he ever got Mom to commit to that. She believes that funerals are for the living. (She does have her own funeral program planned, however. But, I might need to get the updated version since I know that at least 1 person she wants to participate is much older than she is.)



Anyway, I'm not planning on dying anytime soon, but here are the things I would like to have.

1. No organ prelude music. I want congregational a cappella singing before the funeral. Mormons might not know what to do, but I'm sure they'll pick up
on it. Some awesome call and response stuff would be great too. And don't just sing the slow funeral songs.

2. I want a brass quintet to play "Amazing Grace".

3. Musical numbers or hymns should include, "Though Deepening Trials","Lead, Kindly Light", "How Firm a Foundation" and the Richard Walters arrangement of "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing". OK, yes, the first two are slow, depressing funeral songs, but I like them. I'd also like Nancy Pratt to sing "Guide Me to Thee" She knows which arrangement.

4. Lots of music, a few people sharing memories, minimal sermonizing.

5. I would love some Dixie land jazz as postlude, but that might be pushing things a bit.

6. Mormons don't do wakes, but our family does the next best thing. After the funeral and burial, the family gathers for a meal and lots of visitng. I want that. And it's totally OK if they don't even talk about me. I miss the huge gatherings we used to have for Grandma Finlayson's birthday. Since her death, we don't get together as much. For my funeral, I want everyone that can make it to be there and share memories of their childhood, their families, and the things that make us who we are.



Funerals are a time to mourn, a time to celebrate a life, a time to re-assess our own goals and desires. This little girl brought joy to the lives of all who knew her. I'd better start living my life so that they can say that about me, because in the end, nothing else really matters.



-- Posted from my iPhone

Happy Birthday Mom!

Today is my mom's birthday. And of course, although it's been on the To-Do list for a week, I didn't get the card sent. Actually, if I ever got a card of any kind sent to my parents before the date of the event, they wouldn't know how to deal with it. Mom would think I had been replaced by a pod person from the planet Mars. It would cause all sorts of trouble, I'm sure. But since I can't get my act together enough to send cards, I try to call and/or send an e-card. Or like today, I blog and send a link.

Mom is the normal one in the family...kind of. There is the issue of her Warner sense of humor. It's totally warped, and none of us with Warner blood can escape it. But really, who would want to. It makes life a lot more fun.

My mom loves words. Her love of words and her sense of humor mean that I always have someone to share awful (or wonderful) puns with. However, she is also the grammar queen and although newer rule books allow it, she would correct that last sentence saying, "Never use a preposition to end a sentence with." We used to watch the local news out of a small town in Idaho and she would have to jump up and get her dictionary to check and see if the newscaster had pronounced a word correctly or used it correctly. (Usually Mom was right and the people on the TV were wrong.) It was lots of fun, really, and educational for all of us too. One year, my dad gave her an unabridged dictionary as a gift. She was totally excited about it. How nerdy is that! I love it, love her, and love that monster dictionary. (Can you put me down for that in the will?)

Speaking of strange gifts, one year my mom's friends and my dad's co-workers gave Dad a really bad time about the gift he gave Mom. She came to his defense saying that the chain saw was exactly what she wanted. And it was true. Yes, she likes pretty stuff (see my Hyacinths post), but she's very practical. They needed a chain saw, she needed a gift, money was short...it was the perfectly logical choice.

Mom knows how to make the best of whatever she has to deal with. She thinks that we were traumatized by some of the events in our childhoods, but some of those hard times are my favorite memories. One year we ran out of heating oil before the end of the winter and didn't have money for more. We closed off the rest of the house and basically lived in the living room, kitchen, and bathroom, heating that space with space heaters and whatever heat the oven generated while in use. It may not be one of her favorite memories, but to me, it was an adventure.

My mom could also make tasty food from whatever cheap ingredients she had. I haven't made these in years, since I now have serious issues with what goes into hot dogs, but I loved these dishes as a kid.
Recipe #1: Roll hot dogs in mustard and then in corn flake crumbs. Bake in the oven.
Recipe #2: Slice hot dogs length-wise and fry them in BBQ sauce. Stir in cooked macaroni and more sauce.

(Just in case you are wondering, she can make real food too.)

My mom does have a couple of weird food things. She can buy a chocolate bar or ice cream and eat a little at a time through the week. How is this even possible??

My mom is probably the person most responsible for me becoming a musician. She is a singer, pianist, and music teacher and I grew up surrounded by music. In fact, because I heard it so much, I was singing in Italian before I knew the ABC song. She also made my music lessons a priority. I know that there were times that the money could have been used for other very important things, but she found a way to pay for my lessons.

My mom set a wonderful example of the importance of life-long learning. She is super intelligent and curious. How many people do you know that read Einstein for fun? We joke that my dad knows more useless trivia than anyone else we know, but I'm betting that Mom could give him a run for his money. And truly, no knowledge is useless. It just gets filed away until you encounter a situation where you need it. From my mom, I learned a love of history, especially British history. Mom and I had a plan to take a trip to England for the year that she turned 50 and I turned 30. (Maybe we started with 40-20. I can't remember.) Anyway, neither one of us has been able to afford it so we haven't been there yet, but someday we are going together. The joke now is that it will be when we are 100 and 80 and I'll be pushing her wheelchair.

I have been incredibly blessed to have 2 very open-minded, compassionate parents. My mom is a seeker of truth and know that truth comes to many people. She shares what she believes and listens and learns from the beliefs of others. When I bought my tickets to the Dalai Lama events in MN last spring, I sent her an email because I knew she was one of the few people that would understand how excited I was. She once commented that she wished Pope John Paul II was still alive because she would like to hang a trio of pictures of him, the Dalai Lama, and Thomas S. Monson and call it her wall of heroes. I told her she should do it anyway. These men radiate love and that's the kind of people that are her heroes.

Because my mom is only twenty years older than me and I was always very mature (that means nerdy, responsible, couldn't understand dumb kid stuff)some people thought we were sisters. Mom says sometimes she was the mom and sometimes I was the mom (yes, I did have some bossiness issues). We took care of each other, we worried about each other, we went to shows and concerts together. We've been known to start singing the same tune at the same time, in the same key and the same place in the song. Neither one of us can draw to save our lives, but when we are a team for Pictionary, we beat my artist dad and brothers. We can recognize each other's sad attempts at art. I can't remember who said it first, but it has been noted that sometimes we share a brain. And if I'm going to share a brain, I can't think of anyone better to share it with than my wonderful friend, my mom.

Happy Birthday, Mom! Start saving those pennies for England.

Learning NOT to Multi-task

My name is Jeannine, and I am a multi-tasker.

I'm on Week 1 Day 2 of my 10 week "Making Healthier Choices" plan. Right now, I'm not eliminating all the "bad" stuff and forcing myself to do "good" stuff, I'm just making little changes.

So, today after a LONG day of teaching, I let myself stop and get pizza on the way home. "Wait a minute!" you say. "How is that a healthier choice?" Here is where the healthier part comes in. I tend to do other things while I eat. I can accomplish a lot while I'm eating a meal. To be honest, I can't remember the last time (before tonight) that I ate a meal without doing several other things. The big problem with that is that then I tend to overeat...a lot. My healthy choice today was to eat my pizza, but just eat my pizza. I couldn't do anything else.

It was hard. I mean really, really hard. I even had to take a break to read the mail. Yeah, I know that technically that means that I didn't eat the whole meal without doing anything else, but the important part is that I didn't eat while I was doing something else.

In our culture, multi-tasking is praised and seen as a skill to develop if you want to really go places in the world. In many ways, multi-tasking has allowed me to achieve things that I wouldn't have been able to do otherwise. But...I think that there is something to be said for being completely focused on one thing, being fully present, and slowing down.

There is a time and place for multi-tasking, but I think I spend too much of my life there. I've found recently that I'm even starting to multi-task my Tai Chi. "Check your breath. Check your alignment. Keep your heel down. Feel that weight shift." Yes, I do need to tweak all those things, but I also need to sometimes just do the form. Move it, feel it, observe it, be present. Then surprisingly, several of those other issues that I was trying to fix all at the same time kind of fix themselves.

My dinner experiment was tough, but I think I'm going to keep doing it for at least one meal a day. Be present, enjoy the food, and stop when I've had enough.


-- Posted from my iPhone

Where the Music Comes From

I have a student working on Lee Hoiby's "Where the Music Comes From" and we had a wonderful discussion yesterday about what we think the words meant to the composer and what they mean to each of us.

This is a pretty good recording, although she doesn't sing it quite the way I would. (Each singer brings their own life experiences to the music, which of course, would make her performance different from mine).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lacnk2cwElU&feature=youtube_gdata_player

You can read the text here:
http://stephanieadrian.wordpress.com/2011/04/01/lee-hoiby-where-the-music-comes-from/

A while back, I wrote a post about some of my theme songs, songs that have given me courage and strength over the last 20 years. Those songs include "Hold On" from Secret Garden, "Defying Gravity" from Wicked, and "I Am What I Am" from La Cage aux Folles. I think "Where the Music Comes From" is my current theme song. (Glenda will be so proud that I've finally got an Art Song as a theme song. And you should remember that I recently posted about 3 of the most beautiful pieces ever written and 2 were Art Songs and the other was an opera aria.)

Just that list provides insight to where I've been in my journey. "Hold On" was a reminder from a dear friend that even when it seemed like the world and my health were conspiring against me, I could ride out the storm and still succeed. "Defying Gravity" was when I finally quit letting the world (and my health) get to me and I decided to push the boundaries and do what was right for me. "I Am What I Am" was about accepting and loving myself and giving up worrying about what the rest of the world thinks.

"Where the Music Comes From" is the essence who I am, who I've always been, the person that was trapped under all that other garbage. It is peace, but it's also a hunger, a desire to connect with the beauty all around, to the oneness of all that is. I want to grow. I want to feel. I want to love.


-- Posted from my iPhone

Tonglen practice

For years, I have been using deep breathing with visualizations for meditaion, relaxation, and pain relief. The general idea is that with each inhalation, you bring in health, peace, joy, relaxation etc. I often use the imagery of light and energy flowing into whatever part of my body is experiencing pain or tension. With the exhalation, you then release the pain, tension, negative emotions, etc. It is actually quite powerful and effective and recommended not just by spiritual guides and practioners of alternative medicine, but allopathic doctors and psychologists as well.

A few months back, I attended two events featuring the His Holiness the Dalai Lama and a Tibetan medical conference, where I was introduced to the concept of Tonglen practice. I must admit, that I only know the very basics of this, and I'm just beginning to understand it's immense power, but already it is having a huge affect in my life. You can read a little more about it here:
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonglen

At first, this seemed very strange to me. Tonglen practice was completely opposite of the strategies I had used previously. Inhale the bad stuff and exhale the good stuff? How would that make me feel better? Plus, my mind is still far too accustomed to Western thinking and duality. If something is the opposite of another thing that we have identified as right and good, then then new thing must be wrong and bad. I love the Chinese concept of yin and yang. Both are necessary for wholeness, and each contains a seed of the other. I can choose to inhale light and exhale pain, or I can inhale suffering and exhale compassion, depending on the situation and my goals. What I've found is that I love Tonglen meditation, and in some ways it is even more powerful than the more "traditional" breathing imagery. I inhale suffering, but the process of converting it to compassion to be exhaled purifies it. I grow stronger, and strangely, more peaceful as well, by taking on the suffering of others.

I started out with little things and small changes. Because of my ADD and fibromyalgia, it is difficult for me to sit through church and stay focused. We are encouraged to come not just with an attitude of seeking spiritual nourishment, but with an attitude of "How can I serve those around me?" Because I don't stay for Sunday School or the social gatherings that happen once a month after church, I don't have a lot of opportunities to reach out to others while at church. The service I attend does not involve much participation of the congregation or interaction with other members. But, I can focus on the pain and suffering of those around me and inhale that and exhale compassion. If nothing else, my love for them grows, and I am more focused during the meeting.

Recent health challenges of family and friends have given me more opportunties for Tonglen practice. I send messages of encouragement, but I can't always be there to help them through the rough times. I like to think that breathing in their suffering and breathing out compassion for them helps their healing. But even if it doesn't, it increases my love for them, and I believe that love is incredibly powerful and has no boundaries of time or space.

Yesterday as I waited at a stop light, I had another opportunity to apply my new Tonglen practice skills. The light was red, and there were several people waiting to make right turns, which is legal at this intersection if there is no oncoming traffic. Someone a car or two back evidently determined that the first car had missed some good opportunities to go, and therefore, honked their horn to show their disapproval. This totally annoys me, even when I'm not the one being honked at. If you are not to first person in line, you really don't have a clear view of the oncoming traffic. Plus, you have no idea how long it will take that first car to get moving and up to speed. Only that driver knows. So, of course, I became frustrated and upset at the honker and immediately felt the physical responses to that negative emotion. My heart began to beat faster. My muscles tensed. The flight or fight response kicked in and I was ready for a fight. I try to avoid road rage and usually think things like, "Let it go," or "Think positive thoughts," but this time I decided to do a little Tonglen practice instead. As I focused on the suffering of the annoying horn honker, I realized that there may be other reasons beyond rudeness and impatience for his or her behavior. Perhaps there was a family emergency that the person was in a hurry to deal with. Maybe they were late to an appointment due to other complications beyond their control. Maybe they had just had a crappy day and were taking it out on someone else. These thoughts did not justify their behavior, but they did help me to move away from being so judgemental. I still felt protective of the person in the car that they honked at, but I no longer felt the anger or frustration at the offending party, just a renewed commitment to be more understanding of situations when I don't know all the details (which is pretty much all the time). It also was the deepest, slowest inhalation I had done all day, and I'd been teaching voice lessons all day, so that says a lot. That's the thing about inhaling suffering, it is never hard to find, or in short supply. (If you are not aware of the suffering in the world, read this post:
http://www.feministmormonhousewives.org/?p=5879 and learn a little.) Although love and light and peace are also never in short supply, sometimes it's harder to let enough in for a good deep breath of it.

I'm still a baby when it comes to Tonglen practice and I have much to learn, but what I know and what I've experienced so far have changed me and my responses to the world. Ultimately, Tonglen practice is not just about changing how we think or feel about others, although that us extremely important. What is most important is that compassion drives us to action, to say or do things to help lessen the suffering of ourselves and others.

-- Posted from my iPhone