Saw these clouds from my parking lot just outside my front door.
Autumn leaves
An old oil tanker parked down the street from us the last several months
I love this yellow house and its yard of organic fruit trees, its old laundry line, its little greenhouse and its free-standing garage. I wish it were for sale, and I could afford it!
My favorite city park!
All my elf hats!
Anne and I went on our last trip to Issaquah for my 6-week postpartum appointment. I am sad that an era is over - new baby is getting big, beautiful location isn't a regularly required destination, no exciting reasons to stop in and chat with the midwives...
Hanging out at the hospital. And outgrowing his cute newborn clothes. Sad mama!
Hospital parking lot in the autumn
Anne and I went to a cupcake place near the hospital I'd had my eyes on.
It was highly pink.
My mom set up this art wall for Anne...
We went hiking at Cougar Mountain with my brother, and failed to find the former Nike missile base hiding there, but we saw this beautiful buck in the dusk...
...I think not.
Anne and I have a new tradition that after I pick her up from class on Wednesday mornings, she picks out a book at the church library. A few weeks ago she walked over to one of the shelves of books for adults and picked out one for me, too. I checked it out but didn't pay much attention to the topic. I decided to read it when I got home. It gave clear explanations of some of the history and beliefs of a certain group of people, and I found it quite interesting. I do like learning about others' beliefs.
Perhaps unrelatedly (or perhaps not!) I've been thinking about the word "evangelism" lately and wondering what it means to various people. I almost started asking for personal stories from my readers who have been evangelized by others, and my readers who have, themselves, intentionally evangelized their views. The word evangelism is used rather widely these days to mean sharing any deeply held beliefs in the hopes of converting others to those beliefs, but it is originally a Greek New Testament word referring to the Good News. I like good news, myself, and especially the Good News. I'd briefly whispered a few prayers recently asking God to use me to spread his Good News.
Even in Christian circles, the Good News gets defined in various ways. And there are many different Bible texts about the Good News, so it seems that there is more than one good definition. I'll throw a few thoughts I've heard out there:
God is not the capricious and cruel monster his enemies have made him out to be
Jesus gave up his place in heaven and showed us his love by dying in our place
God gives us grace since we can never earn our way out of sin
God freely gives us life after death which we receive when we trust Jesus
Repent of your sins, believe in Jesus, and you'll be saved
God is in the process of fixing all the broken, hurtful and sad things in the world
A few days after our library visit I was out for a walk with Lazarus when I happened to run into a couple of people who struck up a conversation with me. They were "coincidentally" part of the aforementioned group I'd been reading about. They were acting at that moment as missionaries for the group, and I enjoyed learning a few new things about their beliefs during our conversation. (We end up having a lot of missionaries for different groups in our neighborhood, and you never know who might be knocking on your door.) As part of the dialogue I shared my differing perspective in a few areas. I had the chance to share some Good News with them, and they asked me if I would pray for them! Gladly, I did so. I left that meeting amazed on two fronts - that I was given the personal courage to explicitly disagree with someone, and that I was given an opportunity to share God's Good News.
***
... A few days later I mentioned to a Bible study friend that I was coming up on the first anniversary of a miscarriage, and I hoped that God would use my grief to benefit myself and others. I didn't/don't have an explicit idea of what exactly I hoped God might do. Truly I don't want to feel like that little life and all the pain of its loss makes no difference in the world.
The next morning I was out for a run when shortly before I returned home, I randomly thought of a certain woman I'm acquainted with who lives in another state. I was specifically remembering how over two years ago she'd told me that she and her husband had been trying for quite some time to have another child. And I was thinking how it was unfair and frustrating and sad that they'd not had any success. Just after I returned home I saw a message that she'd just given birth to a sleeping daughter at 20 weeks, and my heart broke for her. I sent her a message sharing that I'd just been thinking of her and how sorry I was for her to have lost this long-awaited precious baby. And she told me in reply how much messages like mine were helping her to deal with her grief. I don't know how much difference this little coincidence is really making in her life, but I know that this was not my doing. God orchestrated it, even though it was a little thing.
***
I read this past week in John 4 about how Jesus healed an official's son. The man came and asked Jesus to return home with him to heal the boy. Jesus, rather that returning with him, gave the word that the son would be healed and sent the father home. The father went, without having yet seen any evidence . After the man returned home the next day, he learned that God had healed the boy at the very hour the father had conversed with Jesus. It was a reminder to me that sometimes when I pray, God is setting the answers into motion though I can't see. I will only experience God's answer when I begin to act in trust and "go."
John 15:7-8 also came to my mind; it's a short passage Jared and I memorized many years ago.
"If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. This is to my Father's glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples."
Yes, ask whatever you wish and it will be given to you! But it's only when we remain in Jesus and his words remain in us that we'll ask for something which is part of his will and plan for the world, which he most desires to do. And when the answer brings glory to the Father and bears fruit for his Kingdom. Answered prayer of this sort doesn't make the asker powerful - it means that without our even realizing, if we are willing to cooperate, God leads us to ask for that which he wanted to do.
***
On a completely unrelated note, I learned some great things while working with one of my students this week. She is preparing the Glazunov Meditation for our Russian music studio recital coming up. We had been working at the previous lesson on adding depth to her tone and incorporating a more singing vibrato. After she played through the piece for me this week, I asked her if she had any questions. She said she wasn't getting the kind of tone she wanted on the higher notes, and the vibrato wasn't working there either. I was glad she noticed those things, because those were the two things I most wanted to address in her performance as well.
With regard to the tone, we talked about pulling the bow in toward the bridge to accommodate the shorter string length. Pulling into the bridge is something I've heard from probably every teacher in my life, but the best exposition which I've long remembered was something I overheard in a lesson my sister was taking in Houston with her teacher Andrzej Grabiec. He discussed how a bow contact point of 1/10 of the string length from the bridge makes for the clearest sound, and as you crawl the fingers up the string the 1/10 point necessarily shifts.
I also talked with my student about dropping and releasing her bow arm further to sink more weight into the E string. It's something I mention or work on in subtle ways at almost every lesson I teach.
Then we talked about playing "through" the E string at an angle toward the ground in back of the violin. I don't remember mentioning that to a student before. I heard Ronda Cole talk about this concept at an overview course I took in Florida many years ago, and it suddenly popped to mind for this student. After I said it, I realized it's a handy tool to have in my toolbox!
Then I taught something I've never taught before - the left thumb scroll-lift. I certainly do it sometimes in my own playing. I first learned the maneuver by watching other people performing; I don't think I've ever had a teacher show it to me. I specifically remember Matilda Kaul use the maneuver several times in the Chausson Poeme when she was a concerto competition winner in graduate school at CIM. Bob Lipsett students are famous for the maneuver. At that moment in my student's lesson I had the sense that if she did this maneuver when she reached the high notes, it would open up her sound. And when she tried it, it did! Just then it occurred to me that part of the beauty of the maneuver was how it would add string pressure to the bow hairs, allowing the violin to "play the bow," another concept I learned from Ronda Cole in the Florida course. Coupled with the thumb lift, we discussed a knee softening (allowing a subtle pelvis tilt) which takes some pressure off the back keeping the body free, also gleaned from the Florida course. Now I want to think about this maneuver a bit more and teach it intentionally.
Then about the vibrato. I noticed that the heel of my student's hand was resting on the violin's shoulder, locking her out from free motion in 7th+ position. I'd never thought of the hand-lock issue in shoulder zone of the violin, and I've never addressed it with a student. Of course, I release my palm when I'm playing there and have a nice vibrato in that zone, but I'd never actually articulated the idea to myself or anyone else. Now I can add that to my teaching arsenal.
It's great to have motived students who ask good questions and spur me to discover connections between things I've learned over the years but not articulated before! I thanked this student several times for teaching me some new things in her lesson. Now I hope those discoveries can help other students!
Here's the Glazunov Meditation performed by Nathan Milstein. I'd never heard it before I started selecting music for my students' performances, but a violin teacher in a Facebook group I'm part of recommended it to me. I fell in love with it! Enjoy!
I've started working on a little threads project for my blog, because I wanted a better way to find old posts than strictly guessing at their chronology. So if you get to the bottom of reading a post you like, there's now a little tiny bit in the box which says "labels". You can click on one of the labels and find all the other posts with the same label (at least as far as I've gotten on the project.) If you are into doing such things and have any feedback, I'd be curious to hear it. Thanks!
On our way to Bible study on Wednesday, we saw advertised that the new piglets were at the Carpinito farm, so we went back today, Sunday, with Jared. I think we have a new October tradition, which I'm so glad for, since otherwise my October tradition was going to be crying over the baby we lost last October. That will happen, too, but this one is more fun.
New chicks have hatched!
All eight piglets at once
Hay pile playground
Old John Deere - the girl loves a good tractor
Playing in the hay bale maze
Pumping water in the rubber ducky derby was hugely popular this time.
Ropin' cows
...and the mountain decided to make her appearance toward the end of our visit.
Sunday the four of us went to the Seattle Aquarium with Emily and Chad. It was pretty awesome.
My favorite things were:
The giant octopus
The tanks of tide pool animals you can touch - worms, anemones, sea cucumbers, urchins...
Watching the feeding and training of the harbor seals
Anne's favorite was:
Pushing the buttons which played recordings of orca sounds
I didn't ask Jared what his favorite was, but I know he really enjoyed it. He always likes museum-y type things and anything involving nature.
Lazarus slept the whole time.
I didn't get the most amazing photos, because at a certain point I quit trying and just used my eyes to enjoy what I could see.
Walking through the ring of moon jellies
Indoor tide pools
The fascinating giant octopus. I could have watched it for hours!
