Now I’m all for accomplishment, but there’s a fundamental problem with measuring your self-worth by how much you accomplish, and that is:

How much you DO is not entirely up to YOU!

• The potentially Olympic Athlete lands wrong and permanently blows out her knee.
• The persistent but not particularly brilliant researcher accidentally discovers the Cure for Cancer.

In both examples, the personal Virtue brought to bear is a very important factor—but it’s not the only one.

So, given that you’d like to live a contented Life, as you passionately pursue your pursuits, would you rather your sense of personal well-being be dependent on factors BEYOND YOUR CONTROL, or factors  WITHIN YOUR CONTROL?

Consider these two approaches:

1. At the end of the day (or week, or year, or lifetime), my self-worth depends on how many <somethings> I accomplish.
2. In this moment I am fully expressing my capabilities…and in this moment I am fully expressing my capabilities…and in this moment I am fully expressing my capabilities.

Approach 1. is terribly dependent on “everything going my way”, which it almost never does.

But approach 2…. ah, that’s something wonderfully different.

TODAY, for me, is a great example. Currently we’re struggling with some Health Challenges here at Zeitler Manor, which includes going to the doctor (again), waiting and waiting to find out that “we need to run more tests, come back in a week” and there isn’t a whole lot they can do for the current misery. If I measure my contentment and self-worth by how many tasks I can check-off on my “personal achievement” do-do-list, then Doctor Day (again!) is a frustrating waste of time.

Instead, if I measure myself by: “In this moment I am effectively realizing my values (and serenity and compassion are at the top of that list)… and in THIS moment I am effectively expressing my values… and in THIS moment I am effectively expressing my values…”  well, then, that’s an entirely different story!

In every moment, I am essentially expressing my list of personal priorities and values, and acting accordingly. That happens almost by definition: I am always being Me.

After all, truly, how much is given to us Mere Mortals beyond This Moment…and This Moment…and This Moment? In our (Western) conception of Time, there is a Past (over which we no longer have any control) and a Future (over which we have limited control at best!). But the present—Right Now!—ah! This is Your Moment!! Choose you this moment whom you will serve! (Adapted from Joshua 24:15 with a <grin!> )

Consider this: We don’t experience Time ‘a year at a time’, or ‘a week at a time’, or even ‘a day at a time’. Years, weeks and days may supposedly make sense in reference to clocks. But my own personal experience of Time has virtually NOTHING TO DO with the ‘clock’ model of Time—to me personally, really, all I have is THIS MOMENT. And THIS MOMENT. And THIS MOMENT.

And in each moment I am constantly MAKING A CHOICE—What kind of HUMAN am I BEING?

WHOM DO I CHOOSE TO BE—in this moment? And in THIS moment? And in THIS moment?

This is not to say that I don’t have goals, etc. I’m just saying that switching my focus from “I have to accomplish <fill in the blank> or else I’m a <fill in a bad thing>” to “I’m effectively using THIS moment, and I’m effectively using THIS moment…” … THAT change of focus has transformed my life.

To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.
—William Blake

]]> http://www.williamzeitler.com/blog/2008/10/27/human-doing-vs-human-being/feed/ http://www.williamzeitler.com/blog/2008/10/18/new-cd-gothic-christmas/ http://www.williamzeitler.com/blog/2008/10/18/new-cd-gothic-christmas/#comments Sat, 18 Oct 2008 14:54:35 +0000 admin http://www.williamzeitler.com/blog/?p=106 I just returned from a long trip to Transylvania <wink!> where I helped a f(r)iend make a recording: Count Bachula (666-?), the not so great great great…great uncle of the famous composer J.S.Bach—on the Transylvania side. Count Bachula and his music have recently been unearthed. The Count wanted to record some of his Vampire Holiday Favorites such as:

Count Bachula at Castle Bachula's Mighty Pipe Organ

• “We Wish You a Scary Christmas”
• “Silent Fright”,
• “Rudolf, the Red-nosed Werewolf”
• “The Thirteen Nights of Christmas”.

Count Bachula recorded these on the mighty pipe organ at Castle Bachula, accompanied by the Transylvania Vampire Choir (directed by Dr. Van Helsing), Quasimodo on bells, and a dread host of others.

All the songs sound vaguely familiar to me, but the Count swears his songs are millenia old.

By the way, the suggestion that Count Bachula and I must be related because we look so similar is, of course, completely ridiculous!

Gothic Christmas

More information, including pictures of Castle Bachula, “Vampires in the News”, sound samples of all the tracks on his CD and more can be found at the Count’s website:

http://www.CountBachula.com

Information about Count Bachula’s new CD, Gothic Christmas, can be found here, or click the CD cover at left—if you dare!.

Warmly (while I’m still warm!),

william zeitler

If we want to play the Blame Game for the current economic mess, we ALL get some. The American electorate chose the government (President, Congress, etc.) over the last many decades that failed to enact the necessary regulations (according to some) and failed to enforce the regulations already in place that would have prevented this mess (according to others). But we elected ‘em—We The People. As for appointees (justices, fed chairmen, etc.)—we elected the folks who appointed them.

As for blaming Wall Street per se: these are Publicly Traded Companies: their stocks are owned by investors—investors who can vote in the stockholders meetings, and who can vote confidence by buying more shares and disagreement by selling their shares. Those investors include individuals trying to grow their personal 401Ks, to Pension Funds trying to grow money for the Teachers and Firefighters they represent. Is it really possible to draw a line between Main Street and Wall Street at all?

But it goes much farther than that. WE wanted the ARM mortgages so we could move into a house we couldn’t afford. WE were the mortgage brokers that winked at the fraudulent mortgage applications. WE loved the mortgage backed instruments that promised high yields with “virtually no risk!” (hmm). We all were perfectly happy with the state of affairs a couple years ago—we basically indulged in a Debt Binge (me too!), and now it’s the Morning After.

The bottom line: we the home-owners and we the stock-holders were perfectly happy with “Wall Street Greed” while house prices and stock prices were going up. No Moral Outrage then! All of a sudden, now that the “Wall Street Greed-Mongers” aren’t delivering the goods, NOW we’re indignant!

I’m just really bothered by “THEY’RE the bad guys and WE’RE the innocent victims”. To be sure, some hands are dirtier than others, but aren’t ALL of our hands sullied?

So now we’re clamoring for More Regulation—what else can we do? It will probably help in the short term. But in the long term, the problem with More Regulation is that there are always Loopholes. Given time, the geniuses on Wall Street will come up with yet another way of “creating wealth out of nothing” that is completely legal within the regulatory structure. It’s what We The People seem to want them to do—what we keep PAYING them to do—over and over and over.

I keep coming back to the Wisdom of Jesus. He didn’t march for change in the Roman Government. He didn’t organize Civil Disobedience against Herod. Instead, He spent His life campaigning for the Kingdom of God—and His vision of how we human beings relate to each other in that Kingdom—one constituent at a time. Then, as now, the real battle isn’t in Washington D.C., or on Wall Street—it’s in our individual Human Hearts. Until the Human Heart changes—one at a time—all the laws and all the re-re-regulation in the world are at best a stop-gap.

william zeitler

October 15, 2008

The Drama on Wall Street

President Ronald Reagan was fond of saying that the ten most frightening words in the English language are “I’m from the government and I’m here to help you.” However, these words sound really strange in the light of Wall Street’s panicked plea for the government to come to its rescue and to the rescue of the economy that is about to sink, perhaps has already sunk, under the pressure of the enormous greed and gross mismanagement that has occurred primarily in the housing market. This request for government help came at the initiative of free market Republican George W. Bush, working through his Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson, the former head of Goldman Sachs, which has until recently been the crown jewel in the diadem of American capitalism. The proposed plan, disastrously called a “bailout,” has the effect of nationalizing the American financial establishment in general and the American banking industry in particular. This was an almost unheard of, not yet even imagined, event in American history.

There was no time for critics to raise the question of how the economy got into this chaotic mess. The crisis was too immediate. Some things, however, were obvious. The Republicans, as the party of business, have always resented and resisted any federal regulation of business, and especially the banking industry, as “needless governmental intervention designed to strangle the entrepreneurial spirit.” On the other side of the aisle, the Democrats, as the party of the working people, have always mistrusted big business and its unwillingness to be regulated as tactics designed “to make the rich richer and to squeeze the common man or woman in a selfish pursuit of wealth.” That is the unspoken but real polarity that provides the tension in our political system. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle.

Human nature being what it is, business must have regulation lest self interest overwhelm morality. Excessive regulation, however, will strangle the goose that lays the golden egg. The regulatory functions are therefore generally loosened during Republication administrations and are generally tightened in Democratic regimes. That alone probably speaks to the necessity of having no party remain in power too long.

The present crisis seems to have had its origin in Newt Gingrich’s “Contract with America” in 1994. By nationalizing the off-year congressional elections for the first time in American history with a platform of promises on which all Republican candidates ran, the Gingrich revolution swept into power and began to implement its program. Removing regulatory controls on American business was an item on its agenda. Later in 1999 Senator Phil Gramm of Texas, a former economics professor, achieved the deregulation of banks that allowed subprime mortgages with no down payments. The Democrats pushed to make capital available to the poor. The banking industry discovered that they could sell their high risk loans to other even less regulated entities around the world. So it was that the virus of greed entered the world’s economy. This plan worked for years as the housing market skyrocketed and housing inflation became the quickest path for Americans to increase their own net worth. Markets do not, however, always go up. “Irrational exuberance” finally runs its course, economies do shrink and the moment of truth inevitably arrives. The housing bubble finally exploded and its debris began to spread over all financial markets. Wall Street now refers to it as “toxic waste.”

Many factors assisted in the popping of this housing bubble. First, by deliberate government action, the dollar was allowed to decline. This lowered the price of exports and raised the price of imports, which helped America’s trade deficit. Most people did not notice unless they traveled abroad. There were, however, other unanticipated results. The price of oil was pegged to the American dollar, so as it declined the cost of a barrel of oil skyrocketed until $4 a gallon for gasoline became the norm. This increase in the cost of energy for all Americans squeezed other family expenditures and began a tightening of the belt syndrome. Credit also began to be reined in, and with it the housing market slipped more. Suddenly people recognized that the value of their homes had declined to the place that their monthly mortgage payments did nothing to increase their financial stake. Their equity disappeared. They could no longer sell their home for the price that they owed on their mortgage. So people stopped paying on their loans, and when the mortgage went into default they simply walked away.

Then the fact that the banks had sold these mortgages to other financial entities around the world came into play. Someone in India or China actually held a piece of your mortgage and they began to demand that their debt be made good. A ripple effect set in. More unsold houses were placed on the market. Prices plummeted further. Those who had regularly drawn equity from their homes to support a standard of living beyond their means discovered that not only was the cash cow gone, but the lending institutions wanted more capital. When it was not forthcoming, foreclosure set in. In time so much repossessed housing got to the market that prices sank even more and mortgages carried on the books of financial institutions as assets became liabilities. Bank profits declined and a crisis unfurled. First, Countrywide Finance, America’s largest mortgage business, went under and Bank of America picked up the pieces at fire sale prices. Next Bear Stearns went into bankruptcy and was absorbed by J. P. Morgan-Chase in a deal orchestrated by the federal government. Next Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, government subsidized mortgage lenders both had to be taken over by the government. Then Lehman Brothers, an investment banking business, was allowed to collapse, with its various pieces being cannibalized by others. AIG, the world’s largest insurance company was bailed out by government intervention and we witnessed the Secretary of the Treasury firing the CEO of a major company. In rapid succession Merrill Lynch was bought by Bank of America, Washington Mutual failed and its assets were taken over by J.P. Morgan Chase, the stock in Wachovia Bank dropped so low that Citibank swooped in, in buzzard-like fashion, to scoop up any remaining value, only to be muscled out by Wells Fargo, and finally Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs announced that they would become full service banks and allow themselves to be governed by banking regulations. That was the last straw, and so Wall Street overcame its opposition to government regulations and literally begged the government to bail them out with a $700 billion infusion of taxpayer capital. This was not the railroad industry or the telephone company that was being “nationalized,” this was the very heart of American capitalism being nationalized at its own request! Karl Marx could never have predicted so stunning a conclusion.

The free market wing of the Republican Party turned down the bailout proposal on the first vote. In response, the Dow sank 777 points in one day. The free market mentality blinked. A few cosmetic, but insignificant, things were added to the defeated bill to give the free market champions cover and it finally passed. Wall Street cheered the fact that the financial future of this nation had been saved by a government takeover! Other shoes then began to drop as new revelations showed levels of greed and market manipulation beyond anyone’s imagination. Capitalism had been deeply wounded, but the culprit was not some left wing conspiracy, it was the greed of the capitalists themselves. After a drop in the Dow of 40% the bottom has not yet been found. Some results, however, are clear, among them are the following:

1. The party is over, at least for a while, for Wall Street greed. CEO contracts that allowed them to drive their companies into bankruptcy while escaping with golden parachutes and enormous year end bonuses will be a thing of the past. Year end bonuses and golden parachutes will in the future be harder to get and will be subjected to increased tax rates.
2. Regulation of banking and financial institutions is now back in vogue, driven by public demand, and it will be tighter than usual.
3. This crisis will probably elect Barack Obama president. Senator McCain has looked particularly inept during the crisis. Announcing that the economy was fundamentally strong just days before the financial collapse, he looked like Herbert Hoover. Trying to cover that mistake he claimed that what he meant was that the “American workers are fundamentally sound.” Even when this mantra got repeated by surrogates like Governor Mitt Romney and Mayor Rudy Giuliani, this spin stretched credibility beyond the breaking point. Then Senator McCain “suspended” his campaign to fly into Washington to “rescue” the plan that was then actually voted down by two thirds of the members of his own party. Later attempts to spin that were about as believable as his “soundness of the American workers” idea. All Senator Obama had to do was to appear competent and he became a winner by comparison. He managed that quite well.

The potential collapse of Wall Street was suddenly high drama on Main Street. It was also scary economics. It proved, if ever there was much doubt, that the real issue in politics is not ideology, but power. People will do anything and promise anything to be elected. As disillusioning as it is, Republicans are now the party of big deficits, big government spending projects, no balanced budget in sight for at least half a century and now business bailouts by the federal government. If one lives long enough, one sees everything.

William McKinley, where are you now that we need you?

–John Shelby Spong

Like us, the Founding Fathers were a complex mix of Virtue and Vice, of high morals in some ways and moral failings in others—all at the same time. To the extent the Founding Fathers sowed Virtue (such as the idea of “all men are created equal”), we generations later are still reaping the benefits, yet to the extent that they sowed Vice (for example, their acceptance of slavery), we generations later are still reaping the painful consequences (we’ve made progress, but racial prejudice is STILL a serious challenge).

Consider Franklin. As a young man he decided he wanted to improve himself. In his  autobiography¹ he describes how he made a list of Virtues to work on:

1. Temperance. Eat not to Dulness, drink not to Elevation.
2. Silence. Speak not but what may benefit others or your self. Avoid trifling Conversation.
3. Order. Let all your Things have their Places. Let each Part of your Business have its Time.
4. Resolution. Resolve to perform what you ought. Perform without fail what you resolve.
5. Frugality. Make no Expence but to do good to others or yourself: i.e. Waste nothing.
6. Industry. Lose no Time.—Be always employ’d in something useful.—Cut off all unnecessary Actions.
7. Sincerity. Use no hurtful Deceit. Think innocently and justly; and, if you speak; speak accordingly.
8. Justice. Wrong none, by doing Injuries or omitting the Benefits that are your Duty.
9. Moderation. Avoid Extreams. Forbear resenting Injuries so much as you think they deserve.
10. Cleanliness. Tolerate no Uncleanness in Body, Cloaths or Habitation.
11. Tranquility. Be not disturbed at Trifles, or at Accidents common or unavoidable.
12. Chastity. Rarely use Venery but for Health or Offspring; Never to Dulness, Weakness, or the Injury of your own or another’s Peace or Reputation.
13. Humility. Imitate Jesus and Socrates.

Franklin especially focused on one Virtue for a week in turn, and tracked his failures/progress on all the Virtues in a chart (each row is a Virtue, each column is a day of the week, each dot records a ‘lapse’):

Franklin later said about the effort:

Tho’ I never arrived at the perfection I had been so ambitious of obtaining, but fell far short of it, yet I was, by the endeavour, a better and a happier man than I otherwise should have been if I had not attempted it.

Now Franklin was no prude, or saint, but I think it’s safe to say that the effort he invested in his ‘Virtues’ played no small part in his rise from the 13th son of a poor soap and candle maker (with a formal education only through the 2nd grade!) to successful businessman and author—to successful inventor—to successful statesman of worldwide and everlasting renown.

Franklin has quite a few aphorisms about debt; here’s a sampling:

He that goes a borrowing goes a sorrowing.

When you run in debt; you give to another power over your liberty.

The second vice is lying, the first is running in debt.

Lying rides upon debt’s back.

Disdain the chain, preserve your freedom; and maintain your independency: be industrious and free; be frugal and free.

Rather go to bed supperless than rise in debt.

And what was Franklin’s own practice surrounding debt? When he was starting his printing business as a young man, Franklin borrowed the money to get started. But he worked like a maniac to pay it off as quickly as he could.

It’s also worth pointing that civilization as we know it isn’t possible without credit/debt. If you’re employed, essentially you’re extending your employer ‘credit’ by working for the month, and being paid at the end of the month. (Or whatever your pay period.) It just wouldn’t be practical for your employer to write a check for every employee every day.

Similarly, companies frequently have ‘accounts’ with their suppliers—they get supplies as needed day to day and then settle up accounts at the end of the month. (Or whatever the mutually agreed terms might be.) It would simply be impractical for a large company with many of projects and supply requirements to write a check for each and every purchase with each of its suppliers day in and day out.

That’s short-term credit. Like any practical businessperson, Franklin extended short-term credit to his customers, and had accounts with his own suppliers.

But all of these are examples of using credit when the cost (in both time and money) is far less than doing without. In these examples it just makes good dollars-and-cents sense to use an appropriate amount of credit/debt.

So what’s an appropriate level of debt? Opinions vary, of course. Choosing a couple at random:

“As a good rule of thumb, a debt-to-capital ratio below 40% is generally considered low; a ratio of 40%-60% starts to become a concern; and a ratio greater than 60% is definitely cause for concern” (”The Straight Dope on Debt“, The Motley Fool)

“As a general rule, your consumer loan payments, not counting your mortgage, shouldn’t exceed 10% to 15% of your monthly take-home pay. Add in your mortgage payments and your property taxes, homeowners insurance premiums, and private mortgage insurance payments, and your total debt level generally shouldn’t exceed 36% of your monthly gross income.” (”Debt Level Calculator“, CUNA Mutual Group)

(I’m not interested in quibbling exact numbers—there’s a range of opinions and these two examples use different rulers, but they are still “in the herd” and give a sense of what is sensible.)

And how are we as a country doing? Consider this chart. It shows the ratio of debt to deposits for the banking systems of various countries around the world. As you can see, the U.S. is almost ‘off the chart’—our current debt-to-capital ratio is over 300% !!!

(Click for source article in Fortune Magazine, Sept. 2008)

And to whom have the banks been over-lending all this money? Or, more to the point, how does our total U.S. debt break down, in terms of government vs. business vs. consumer debt? Here’s how the U.S. Federal Reserve breaks it down (‘Domestic non-financial debt’ as of the end of 2007):

Just for personal/household debt alone, that works out to $43,000 for every man, woman and child in the U.S. (PLUS business and government debt.)

Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the biggest debtor of them all? It’s not the Feds, it’s not Wall Street—it’s We The People! To be sure SOME of that personal debt is sensible—student loans, unavoidable debt from medical bills, and so forth. But I’m thinking that a lot of that debt hasn’t been so sensible—that there’s an awful lot of MacMansions, SUVs, flat screen TVs and Salad Shooters in that $13.8 billion dollars.

As a people, we’ve become Raving Addicts to Debt. And like addicts with a serious problem, it’s affecting our ‘job’ (our ability to compete in the global economy), it’s affecting our relationships (to other countries and our foreign affairs in general), and it’s affecting our health (our own U.S. economy).

To be sure the Credit Industry hasn’t helped—they’d be like the Debt Drug Dealer. “The first credit card is FREE, little girl! Hee hee hee!” Or… “This adjustable mortgage won’t hurt you one little bit!! Hee hee hee!” But the Credit Industry hasn’t been forcibly sticking that Needle of Debt into our arms—WE’VE been doing it to ourselves. And on top of that we keep electing politicians who promise to keep sticking the Needle of Debt into Uncle Sam’s arms. (Addicts love company.)

And, in typical addict behavior, our first instinct is to blame our own problems on someone else. “It’s the Republi-crats fault!” (Wait, we elected them!) “It’s the Credit Industry’s fault!” (Wait, we signed up for those credit cards and mortgages of our own free will.) “It’s too good to be true!!”—it was.

I realize there are individual exceptions—I’m talking about US in general. And that includes ME. What a lot of folks are going through right now—I’ve been there. I was a computer programmer in the 90’s—remember how they said “It’s the new Internet economy that will only go up up up and never come down!” (Just like “real estate will go up up up and never come down!”—sound familiar?) I at least knew better than that—when all my colleagues were joining startups with crazy business plans, I knew that the Internet Bubble had to pop. (See Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds². I was living in Seattle at the time, and the largest industry there besides software was Boeing, so I got myself employed there to weather the storm I knew was coming. And the Internet Bubble did indeed pop—and I was safely employed at what my former colleagues called “Boring Boeing” (maybe not so ‘boring’ anymore). But who could have foreseen 9/11? Certainly not me—and the whole aviation industry augured right into the ground. Boeing was laying off employees as fast as they could to stay solvent, and that eventually included me. At that point the Software Industry was still in the toilet. I went 18 months with ONE INTERVIEW. Looked for work up and down the West Coast—nada. Couldn’t pay the mortgage or sell the house—it finally foreclosed. Maxed out the credit cards just putting food on the table. Couldn’t find work. I tried everything I could think of—and was just stumped. I finally had to declare bankruptcy. After the final court hearing, when it was all over, I went out to my truck and wept.

We The People have been like the drunk who has fallen down, and Bernanke and Paulson and the rest are doing what they can to get us back up onto our wobbly feet—trying to sober us up enough to stagger on a little farther. And that’s fine—it needs to be done, and they’re the experts. But dare I suggest—might we want to STOP? Stop being Raving Addicts to Debt? And just maybe try ‘Credit Sobriety’?

And what’s really great is that instead of waiting for the Fed or anyone else to ‘rescue me’ (another addict behavior), I can start right now—right this minute—down the road to Virtue Recovery. ‘Virtue for Life’ isn’t about ‘virtue for your whole life’, it’s about “Have a Life—through virtue!”

My argument is that Virtue is the best long term strategy for Living. “Credit-Sobriety”—or any other Virtue—isn’t about “depriving yourself” of something good, it’s about having a sustainable happy life (another form of sustainability!) Did Franklin’s commitment to his 13 Virtues make his life better or worse? More successful or less? And here we are, centuries later, still reaping the benefits of Franklin’s genius—virtuously applied.

Consider trying Franklin’s list of Virtues. Or there are marvelous lists of Virtues in all the major Religions, and countless other places. Choose a list that resonates for you. Redouble your efforts to put it into practice. You’ll make your own life, the lives of your fellow human beings, and ultimately the whole World just a little better place to live. What’s the downside to THAT?

1. Franklin, B, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, pp.64ff
2. Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds is considered a classic in the history of economics. Reading about the ‘Tulip Bubble’ of yesteryear is eerily similar to the “Derivatives Bubble” on the six-o’clock news. Heartily recommended!

For example, Spong’s discussion of Matt 1:23 quoting Is.7:14 “behold a virgin shall conceive”:

>Matthew clearly misused this text, whether by design or by mistake we will never know. First, he did not quote Isaiah accurately. [bold mine]

Oops! The author of Matthew wasn’t quoting the Hebrew Scriptures, he is in fact quoting the Septuagint WORD FOR WORD. (That’s quoting Isaiah pretty darn accurately.)

The Septuagint is a translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek done about 300 BCE, in common use and generally well regarded in the 1st century. (Tradition holds that it was translated by seventy scholars, so ‘Septuagint’ is frequently abbreviated as ‘LXX’ in the literature). Many (but not all) quotes from the Hebrew Scriptures in the Greek New Testament are from the Septuagint. It is not at all clear from the historical data that every Jew—or even every devout Jew—in Palestine necessarily knew Hebrew. In Biblical Studies, the Septuagint is an essential document for anyone relating the Greek New Testament to the Hebrew Scriptures. And they’re easy to come by: I got mine on amazon.com! (check it out)

So if you want to ‘blame’ someone, it really would have to be the Septuagint translators. Are they ‘blameworthy’? Holladay ‘A Concise Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the O.T.‘ (check it out) is a current standard, it is informed by the Dead Sea scrolls and the Ugaritic discoveries of the 20th century that have so dramatically expanded our understanding of ancient Hebrew. It gives the meaning of the Hebrew word here עלם (”-aLMaH” using Israeli transliteration, pronounced roughly “all-MAH”) as: “girl (of marriageable age), young woman (until the birth of first child).” Hmm. Is ‘virgin’ such a big leap?

The Septuagint translators (300 years before Christ or Matthew, and thus with no ‘virgin birth’ doctrine to defend or deny) translated this Hebrew word “-aLMaH” (’young woman’) with the Greek word παρθενος (PARTHENOS) which also means ‘young woman’ and/or ‘virgin’ specifically. In three heavyweight Greek Lexicons we have for PARTHENOS:

“a young woman of marriageable age, w. or without focus on virginity…” (BDAG, check it out)

“a person who has not as yet married (and possibly implying virginity)—‘unmarried person’…” (Louw-Nida, 34:77, check it out)

“1. maiden, girl, … virgin, … 2. of unmarried women who are not virgins …” (Liddell-Scott, check it out)

My point is that there is STILL ambiguity here—according to scholars to have devoted their lives full-time to these questions. Perhaps ‘maiden’ is a better English gloss (’translation’) for PARTHENOS since ‘maiden’ denotes ‘young girl’ but also has the connotation of ‘virginity’. In any event, PARTHENOS was a reasonable choice on the part of the Septuagint translators.

So one might say that technically a girl would be a “PARTHENOS” until she was married, and an “-aLMaH” until her first child was born. In the culture of that day, that gap would have been as short as could be managed. How could the Septuagint translators possibly foresee that FOUR HUNDRED YEARS LATER the subtle difference between “-aLMaH” and “PARTHENOS” would turn out to be a Big Thing?

Add to this the cultural context for the author of Matthew that—of course important people like Caesar and Alexander the Great (and the Christ) were ‘virgin born’—and it’s easier to see how he might have been predisposed to see ‘virginity’ in PARTHENOS.

The author of Matthew apparently used what was an authoritative translation available to him, and reading this passage through his own Cultural Lens, read ‘virgin’ as the intent of PARTHENOS (after all, “secondary” meanings are sometimes what the author of a text really intends!), which would have been entirely natural given his cultural context.

All of this is a far cry from “Matthew clearly misused this text, whether by design or by mistake we will never know. First, he did not quote Isaiah accurately.” More like: given his cultural context and the Septuagint before him, perhaps his was not so unreasonable a reading.

Pressing on…

>The facts are that neither Paul, who wrote between 51–64, nor Mark, written in the early 70s, had ever heard of this virgin birth tradition.

How can we know for “a “fact” what Paul or Mark “had ever heard of“? Heck, I don’t even know what my own wife has ‘ever heard of‘, much less some stranger 2000 years ago! The argument that “nothing has survived in which Paul mentions Jesus’ virgin birth, therefore we know for ‘a fact’ that Paul never even heard of the concept”—hmm, call me skeptical about that logic! (Actually, this seems to me to be an example of the “argument from silence” fallacy.)

>the Christian Church has known of this mistake since the middle years of the second century, when Trypho the Jew pointed it out to Justin Martyr

Once again, remember their historical context! Communication and travel weren’t easy. And just because Trypho the Jew discussed something with Justin Martyr hardly means that “The Christian Church” everywhere and for all the ages knew about it. And Justin Martyr’s “books” would have been hand-copied and distributed on donkey back—hardly a situation guaranteeing universal distribution throughout Christendom. Justyn Martyr (100–165) was Just Another Church Father—not the Pope or über-Church-person at all! In fact, a far larger debate about the Septuagint was going on between Jews and Christians by this point:

“The Christians justifiably maintained that this rendering [PARTHENOS in Matt 1:23] originated from the old Jewish translators themselves, whereas the Jews with equal justification rejected it as being inaccurate. The points at issue were, however, in part, a mere matter of Christian additions, introduced into the LXX [the Septuagint] merely by the naive lack of discrimination shown by the early Christians, as was, for instance, the case with regard to Ps. XCV:10, in which hO KURIOS EBASILEUSEN ['the Lord reigns'] was supplemented by APO XULOU ['from the cross']. These words “From the Cross” were regarded by Justin Martyr as so evidently belonging to the original text of the Bible, that he was able, in all sincerity, to accuse the Jews of having maliciously expunged them.” (Septuaginta, Rahlfs, I:xxiii ff.)

WE have the benefit of thousands of ancient manuscripts and papyri nicely collated by august boards of scholars now armed with computers, beautifully published en masse and distributed around the world economically. NOW we have the data to sort out textual questions. And what was available to Justin Martyr? Wouldn’t he be comparing a hand-copied Septuagint, a hand-copied Matthew and a hand-copied Hebrew Bible? Is it so unreasonable that Justin Martyr might doubt Trypho the Jew with so little to go on?

I’m not concerned about nit-picking details (except when it seems to me someone is trying to use ’so-called facts’ to belittle someone else); mostly I am concerned about the TONE OF DISCOURSE. Whatever the origins of the Virgin Birth narrative, it is also true that Matthew preserves numerous sayings of Jesus that are not found in the other Gospels—like THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT! We owe the author of Matthew a tremendous debt of gratitude!

So the author of Matthew read Isaiah 7:14 through his own Cultural Lens. And we don’t?!?

Why are ad hominem attacks necessary at all? Why dismiss the author of Matthew with the innuendo that he was careless or deliberately misleading? Why ‘demonize’ him at all? Or Justin Martyr? Or anyone else?

Isn’t this precisely one of the practices we abhor in Extreme Right Christianity?

Instead, isn’t it better to understand the author of Matthew in his cultural context? (Like we too aren’t constrained by our own?) Or at least keep in mind that we’ll never know all that informed his choices? Isn’t it better to understand how WE might have made the same choices had we been in his sandals? Doesn’t that make it easier to have compassion and respect for him? (And for ALL our ‘neighbors’?) To RESPECTFULLY disagree with him with some SYMPATHY for his views? (And with ALL our ‘neighbors’?) And to be grateful for the Great Gift which he bequeathed to us—warts and all? (And to honor and be grateful for ALL the blessings which our ‘neighbors’ bring to our lives?)

Isn’t this what “Progressive Christianity” is supposed to be about?

“I desired compassion and not religious observances.” (Matthew 9:13, quoting Jesus, quoting Hosea.)

william zeitler

Bernard Baruch, a Jewish American from Camden, South Carolina, was well known in the first half of the 20th century as the unofficial advisor to Presidents. He played key roles in the think tanks of Presidents Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman. As the son of a surgeon who served on the staff of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, dealing with power seemed to come naturally to him. David Gergen, a native of Durham, North Carolina, played a similar role in American history in the last half of the 20th century as an advisor to Presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan, George H. W. Bush and Clinton. Baruch and Gergen are representatives of that rare ability to ride a long political tide and to provide objective analysis in the midst of partisan conflict and thus to guide the ship of state through choppy waters.

The biblical figure we call “I Isaiah” played a similar role in the ancient world. His writings are found in Isaiah, chapters 1-39. His life spanned the reigns of four monarchs who ruled in Jerusalem. Kings Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, according to Old Testament scholar William F. Albright, ruled between 783-687 BCE, a total of 96 years. Isaiah was center stage for more than 50 of them, a tribute to his longevity. He emerged into public view, he says, “In the year that King Uzziah died” and he lived through one of the most difficult periods of Jewish history.

The great power abroad in those days was Assyria. This warlike nation had succeeded in conquering or reducing to vassalage status most of the nations in the Middle East. It was the Assyrians who in 721 BCE destroyed the Northern Kingdom of the Jews, known as Israel, and deported its people from their land for resettlement in the Assyrian Empire, from whence they never returned. They became known as the ten lost tribes of Israel and, despite the mythology that developed over the years with people claiming to be descendants of these “Lost Tribes,” the fact is that these Jews simply disappeared into the DNA of the Middle East. It was the same fate that had befallen the Canaanites, the Amorites, the Amalekites and the Edomites before them.

The Prophet Isaiah may himself have been a member of the royal family, all of whom were descendants of King David. He certainly shared their life style, educational background, values and perspectives. Perhaps it was this “blood relative” connection that provided the doorway through which he walked into his prophetic and perhaps priestly career in the upper echelons of political power in Jerusalem.

A number of passages in Isaiah have entered the consciousness of the western world sufficiently to be familiar to many people. Among them is his oracle about whether or not God was moved by ritualistic activity and sacrifices. In chapter 1, Isaiah writes:

So here’s the set of pieces I wrote: Four Prayers. They were inspired by a verse in the Bible about how “the Holy Spirit intercedes for us with groans too deep for words.” I always thought that was an interesting idea–maybe we’re not bright enough to know what to pray for (speaking for myself); maybe words are inadequate for prayers. . .

Along similar lines there’s an interesting little book called The Cloud of Unknowing, by an anonymous 14th century Christian mystic. The most interesting idea to me in this book was the ‘one word prayer’. His idea (and I’m paraphrasing) is that when you’re in a crowded theater and fire breaks out, you don’t yell “Attention everyone! Uncontrolled combustion seems to have initiated in this entertainment establishment…”. No, instead you yell “FIRE!” Or if you’re really in trouble you don’t yell “Please come to my assistance”, instead you yell “HELP!” Along similar lines the author argues that some of the most powerful prayers (with groans too deep for words?) are the shortest. “Help!” or “Thank you!” or…

So these Four Prayers have NO WORDS. They are all on vowels (like ‘ooo’ and ‘ah’).

As you can see, these kinds of musings get the Muse all excited and my composing fingers itchy, and here’s the result.

One of Walt Disney’s “inventions” in the early days of animation was the ’story board’ — where they do mockups of how the film will look before they actually make the film. I make my own mockups, especially when there are other musicians involved, because rehearsal time is incredibly precious and I want to make sure (as best I can) that there are no problems before any rehearsals.

So these are the mockups. The armonica is real, the voice is a synthesizer (it’s a mockup, right?) Maybe someday I’ll be able to do a proper recording!

1. Confession (3:46) mp3 20-sec sample score
2. Adoration (3:31) mp3 20-sec sample score
3. Supplication (3:26) mp3 20-sec sample score
4. Communion (3:18) mp3 20-sec sample score

I’ve done seven CDs to date, all of them featuring the glass armonica. And I plan to do many more featuring that instrument (like the next one!). But every instrument has its own unique voice, and I’ve had some piano music in me that just insisted on getting written. I presented some of these tracks in previous blogs, they are here on CD for the first time, as well as some brand-new tracks available for the first time.

Buckminister Fuller (1895-1983), author, inventor and visionary, pointed out that right now, today, we have the technology to feed every person on this planet. What is stopping us is not technology, but the lack of collective will to make it happen. We have the Collective Mind to know how to do it, now we need a change of Collective Heart. And this same observation can be made about every Big Problem we are currently facing.

I’m not advocating any particular Path forward. I’m just suggesting that we all, individually, and collectively (and me too!) accept a lot of grief as ‘the norm’–that we needn’t. Maybe the first step is just to imagine what it might be like to be grief-free. What would a world with no tears feel like? Maybe that’s a start…

This is easily the most personal and ‘honest’ album I’ve done to date. (I still have so much to learn on how to do these!) I am honored to share this music with you.

You can order A World With No Tears here

Here are the tracks with MP3s:

Athanasius Kircher

Glasses from Kircher’s Phonurgia Nova (1673)

Kircher believed that all the religions of the world (including Catholicism, and religions from the Far East–about which he was very keen to learn) shared a common origin–much like the Biblical idea that our common origin can be traced back to Adam & Eve. What an ecumenical vision! And this–while war was raging between Catholics vs. Protestants throughout Europe in Kircher’s own day. Indeed, in his autobiography Kircher recounts how, as a young man, he was captured and almost lynched by Protestants–he was on the horse with the noose around his neck when they changed their minds and set him free.

Kircher’s Seventy-two Names of God
from his Oedipus Aegyptiacus (1655)
CLICK IMAGE FOR HI-RES

In his book Oedipus Aegyptiacus (1655) we find a chart of the ‘72 Names of God’. Each name is assigned to a different country or region of the world; for example he has ‘GOTT’ for Germany. Many of these “countries” are recognizable (’Syria’). Others not so much (’Zaflaneles’), and don’t appear in any of my Latin lexicons (including my Oxford Latin Dictionary, Glare and my Medieval Latin Dictionary, Niermeyer)–perhaps these regions have simply passed out of memory.

I’ve had the idea of writing a piece based on Kircher’s Seventy-Two Names for many years, and when I Cantori di Carmel approached me about composing a piece for chorus and glass armonica for them, Dr. Sal Ferrantelli (the director) was very excited about the idea.

Dr. Ferrantelli & William Zeitler playing the glass armonica “four-hands”

And so this piece came to be. It was performed at the Carmel Mission Basilica in Carmel, CA on December 8 & 9, 2007. My thanks to Dr. Ferrantelli and to the chorus members and orchestra for the superb performance they gave!

My own imagination about this piece is that each nation of the world has its own name for God–each name is precious to its own people. Hence the piece as a whole has a passionate–and deliberately non-intellectual–cast to it. And it leans heavily towards homophony (vs. polyphony) to really emphasize that these 72 Names belong together in a Great Celestial Song. After the opening glass armonica solo, the chorus opens the piece with a text from the Latin Vulgate (the Latin translation of the Bible used in the Catholic Church since the 5th century (!) until the present day)–to introduce the 72 names which will follow:

Laudabo nomen Dei cum canticum
Praise the name of God with a song
(Ps.69:30, or Ps.68:31 in the Vulgate)

Then follow the 72 names, each sung exactly once (we must be fair about this–no favoritism!):

1. YHVH 2. ALHA 3. ELVH 4. ALLA 5. ThONT 6. ABGD 7. ATAT 8. MOTI 9. AGZI 10. SURI 11. DEUS 12. ThEOS 13. BOOG 14. DIOS 15. IDIO 16. DIEU 17. GOTT 18. BOOG

19. BOGI 20. TIOS 21. BUEG 22. GOOD 23. DIEH 24. ESAR 25. ORSY 26. AGDI 27. ThEOS 28. ADAD 29. ZIMI 30. TURA 31. TELI 32. ANOT 33. AGAD 34. ANEB 35. ANUP 36. ALLA

37. ABDA 38. AGLA 39. GOOT 40. GOED 41. GUDI 42. BIUB 43. SOLU 44. BOSA 45. HOBA 46. PIUR 47. HANA 48. ZACA 49. MORA 50. POLA 51. PILA 52. ABAG 53. OBRA 54. BORA

55. ALAI 56. ILLI 57. POPA 58. PARA 59. ELLA 60. GENA 61. SIIA 62. SUNA 63. MIRI 64. ALLI 65. TARA 66. PORA 67. BOGO 68. DEOS 69. DEeOS 70. ARIS 71. ZEUT 72. KALO

The piece repeats the opening Latin text, closes with an ‘amen’, and the glass armonica has the last word.

• Here’s the complete MP3 of The Seventy-Two Names of God (7:59)
• Here’s the first 20 seconds
• Here’s the piano-vocal score to The Seventy-Two Names of God.

Jack: Congratulations! Let’s hear this new piece. What’s it called?

William: Shadows at Twilight.

• Here’s the complete MP3 of Shadows At Twilight (8:28)
• Here’s the first 20 seconds
• Here’s the score to Shadows At Twilight for you pianists.

Jack: I like it! The title is a little curious, however: are there shadows at twilight? <wink!>

William: Nice. Don’t I get some artistic license or something?

Jack: Not from me! Interesting that it’s over 8 minutes long–on the longish side as music pieces go.

William: Yes. I know that’s a bit of an issue for folks downloading mp3s of it–which is why I also have the 20 second samples. But that’s only an issue once–the one time they download it–after that they can play it as many times as they want without that delay. Meanwhile, sometimes a ’short story’ won’t do–sometimes you really need a ‘novel’. Some moods just take more time to create.

Jack: Reminds me of how Beatles era songs had to be less than 3 minutes long to be played on the radio. That’s all the time the radio stations allowed for music between commercials. If a song was longer than that, it wouldn’t get radio play!

William: I didn’t know that! And of course there’s a similar issue for TV, where the heroine only has 40 minutes to save the world–60 minutes minus 20 minutes for commercials! Meanwhile, I think many of the best things in Life just need the time they need–a good meal, love making, sunsets–but when commercial media is involved, time is money!

Jack: And understandably so. TV studios, for example, and the whole infrastructure for distributing TV is pretty darn expensive. Same goes for movies.

William: That whole concept of taking the time–making the time for something is an issue I constantly struggle with.

Jack: Don’t we all!! In many ways a true measure of a person’s priorities is how they spend their time–and money, which is pretty darn closely related. Of course that can be complex. All kinds of folks make providing for their family the top priority, so off they go to work every day. Then their secondary priorities kick in with their discretionary time and money. We’re all a complex mix of primary and secondary priorities.

William: Sure. But at the same time, if someone says “I want to be a novelist” but never spends any time writing, they’re kidding themselves.

Jack: That’s true. I’m reminded of the famous Woody Allen saying: “80% of success is showing up.” Showing up for practice, showing up to your word-processor if you’re a writer, showing up for your kids’ school plays if you’re a parent…

William: So the challenge for me is to be conscious of my choices about how I invest my time. To do reality checks of looking at how I am actually spending my time and cross-checking that with what I’ve been telling myself my priorities are.

Jack: Like Mr. Socrates said: “The unexamined life is not worth living!”

William: This all ties in with a book that I’ve been meaning to tell you about: The War of Art, by Stephen Pressfield. The premise of his book is that success in Your Art–which in his book includes any Great Task for you: starting a business, writing that novel, learning yoga, losing weight–that the great challenge is ’showing up’:

“There’s a secret that real writers know that wannabe writers don’t, and the secret is this: It’s not the writing part that’s hard. What’s hard is sitting down to write.”

Think about Tiger Woods. Do you think a day goes by when he doesn’t get out his clubs and practice his swing–in the hotel lobby on rainy days, if necessary? Does Jack LaLane miss a day doing his calisthenics? Does the devoted monk skip his daily prayers, even when he’s not in the mood?

Pressfield calls that “turning pro”–professional:

The word amateur comes from the Latin root meaning “to love”. The conventional interpretation is that the amateur pursues his calling out of love, while the pro does it for money. Not the way I see it. In my view, the amateur does not love the game enough. If he did, he would not pursue it as a sideline, distinct from his “real” vocation.

Pressfield point out that we already have ‘turned pro’ about a lot of things in our lives: our jobs, our relationships–we commit to ’showing up’ every day to make them work. Or we get fired–by our bosses and our amours! So it’s really a concept that’s already familiar to all of us.

Many times I’ve thought of myself as not being very disciplined, and yet my life is full of all sorts of self-disciplines: I never have any internal debate about stopping at red lights, or brushing my teeth every day, or paying my bills–there is a long, long list of things where I just do what I need to do without any muss or fuss. Well, maybe I fuss a little about paying the bills <grin!>, but it never seriously occurs to me to skip doing that altogether.

Then, the trick is realizing that you can take that Discipline skill, that you really already have in abundance, and consciously apply it to new areas of your life when you are so moved.

Along those lines I’ve been trying an experiment lately. Now mind you, I’ve composed about 200 titles so far in my composing career, so I like to think I’ve been investing the time. But it’s been pretty haphazard–I might compose all day one day, then not at all for a couple days, like that. So lately I’ve been trying the ‘Pressfield Plan’–’showing up’ every day to the music paper. Not all of the music that results from that is good, of course–that’s what recycle bins are for! But there really is something different about making that commitment to just ’show up’–every stinkin’ day. Some crazy days that may mean getting up early. But there’s something amazing about showing–proving–your devotion to Your Muse by giving her attention every single day. Just like you need to give your boss and your amour attention every day. And your boss, your amour, and The Muse–they all respond in kind.

This doesn’t mean you can never take a day off. Rather, it’s the difference between ’showing up’ being the rule with the occasional–and conscious–exception, as opposed to what you were doing before where ’showing up’ was the exception–it was haphazard, and not the rule.

The big surprise has been that just ’showing up’ has been the hardest part–that the first note is by far the hardest to compose. The next note and the note after that come far more easily.’

Jack: I look forward to hearing how this works out for you.

William: Hey, Jack, good to see you again!

Jack: Always a pleasure, my friend!

William: The news about the economy lately is sure amazing. It’s an astonishing and sad thing to behold… <!–[endif]–>

Jack: Yes, there’s a lot of misery out there. How are you doing?

William: I’m doing fine. But I’ve been where a lot of those folks are right now. <!–[endif]–>

Jack: Really? Do tell…

William: Well, in the 1990’s I got sucked into the computer-tech craze. I was a ‘contract programmer’—basically a ‘temp’ doing 6-9 month contracts for various companies in the Seattle area. There was amazing money to be made doing that. By the end of the 90’s, however, I knew the whole tech-bubble would crash—far too many start-ups with absolutely no idea how they would actually make money someday. In Seattle there were only a few big firms that weren’t software companies—Boeing was one of them, so I got myself a contract there to ‘weather the storm’. And the tech-world did indeed crash in 2000—but I was OK at Boeing. Then one Tuesday morning, 9/11/2001, all of us there at Boeing watched those planes fly into the Twin Towers. I was watching this, standing next to the folks who had personally designed and built those planes. It utterly defied comprehension. <!–[endif]–>

(Pause)

Jack: As I recall, the whole air-travel industry pretty much augured into the ground after that. <!–[endif]–>

William: It sure did. So Boeing had to lay off all its contractors and lots of their full-time employees. They kept me around longer than most, but eventually it was my turn to go.

Jack: And you couldn’t find another job? <!–[endif]–>

William: No. And I had a good resumé. Just a year prior I could hit ‘send’ on my resumé and my phone would start ringing within an hour. At this point, however, the software field was truly on life support, and there were just no positions. “We wish we had something for you, but we just don’t.”

Jack: So what happened? <!–[endif]–>

William: I tried everything I could think of, but it wasn’t enough. I ultimately lost my house and went bankrupt. Music, which had been part-time income all along, was now my sole source, so the judge let me keep my glass armonica, other music equipment, my 10-year-old truck and basic personal stuff. After the final bankruptcy hearing I went out to my truck and wept. I was just stumped, and beaten.

Jack: That is tough, my friend. <!–[endif]–>

William: Yes… those were dark days…

(Pause) <!–[endif]–>

Jack: So, what did you do next?

William: Well, the ‘good’ part about being reduced to zero is that you have complete freedom on how you rebuild your life. I decided that if I was going to be broke, I’d rather be broke doing something I really believed in instead of doing something just ‘for the money’—especially when the money was gone! Computers had been easy money, and I had succumbed to that siren song—and crashed on the rocks—just like Homer warned us. Mind you, I’ve known folks who really love programming itself—they eat and breathe it. But I wasn’t one of them. <!–[endif]–>

Jack: Apparently you settled on music.

William: Yes. <!–[endif]–>

Jack: So you say you’re doing music because “you believe in it”.

William: Yes!

Jack: And not because “it’s fun” or for “fame and fortune”? <!–[endif]–>

William: Well, I won’t deny that when you’re doing what is fundamentally your path, it is also fun—just as my colleagues who really love computer programming were constantly lost in an amazing zen state when they were coding difficult algorithms.

Jack: And what about “fame and fortune”? (Grin!) <!–[endif]–>

William: (Laughs.) I don’t know about that! The thing is, however, that although few musicians are wealthy, it’s still eminently possible to make a reasonable living at it—as long as you approach your craft like a professional.

Jack: You still haven’t explained “you believe in it…” <!–[endif]–>

William: Right. Well, my 2001 crash-and-burn wasn’t my first trip to the ‘dark side of life’—as a teenager my youngest brother committed suicide and my whole family imploded after that. People would try to tell us things like “it must have been God’s will” or “you just need to get over it” or all sorts of horrible things. The fact is, I don’t think there are any words that can help when you’re in the midst of an agony like that. All that helped me was music. I found myself powerfully attracted to the music of composers who had gone through their own agony—Beethoven is a good example, especially the music he wrote after he went deaf—and their music was able to reach out across the centuries and say something to me like: “I really know what you’re feeling, but you’ll get through this.” Not that they consciously thought that when they wrote their music. But that was the end result.

Jack: And now you want to do the same?

William: Yes, I suppose so. One of the results of trips to ‘the dark side of Life’ is that you become sensitized to it, and all of a sudden you can see that the world is full of ‘walking wounded’. I don’t know or care if my story is ‘harder’ or ‘easier’ than someone else’s—it’s certainly not a contest! But music helped me feel better, it helped me survive, and to remember the feeling of Hope. When you’re in the middle of hell, it can be hard to even remember what Hope feels like. Telling someone who’s there that they’ll be OK is pretty useless—a hug communicates so much more, and a ‘musical hug’ communicates more still. <!–[endif]–>

Jack: Looks like you brought some music…

William: I just finished a new piano piece: “A Leaf in the Wind”. Just a ‘meditation’ on how I’m probably more like a leaf in the wind than I really care to admit to myself—carried along by forces much greater than I. Thought you might like to hear it! <!–[endif]–>

Jack: Bring it on!!

• Here’s the complete MP3 of A Leaf in the Wind (5:12)
• Here’s the first 20 seconds
• Here’s the score to A Leaf in the Wind for you pianists.

As always, MP3s are on the ‘honor system’—if my music does something for you, do a little monetary something for me and