The Crowing Rooster

As I stated yesterday, I decided to spend Yom Kippur at home so I can dig into myself and learn what I needed to do to move forward. So, what did I learn from my Yom Kippur day of introspection? To sum it all up in one sentence: I'm a bad person.

So many times I had the chance to be like Paul but wound up acting like Peter. I think I finally heard the rooster crow yesterday, and it was crowing all day, reminding me of all the ways that I denied Christ.

Let's start with the basic form of denial: identity. If anything, I love to call myself a Messianic Jew because I feel that I have gained something precious. I feel like I have received a new inheritance, rather than lost something. However, when people ask me what religion I am, I just say "Jewish". That doesn't say much about me. If anything, it shrouds Christ behind a curtain and people think that I am just a "go to synagogue Saturday, not eating pork kind of guy (although I will admit that I still do like my shellfish)". They don't get to hear the joy that I have from being saved. In fact, what they perceive is that I am one of "them": someone who they imagined would never accept Christ. That's not true.

Another way I have denied Christ was when I was asked at work what kind of music I listened to on my BlackBerry. The first things that blurted out of my mouth were all of my "guitar heroes". Where the heck were the "Jesus freaks" when I was talking? They remained hidden in my BlackBerry. They were the ones that I should have mentioned first. They are the ones I will more than likely listen to in the car. Heck, why should I mention Yngwie Malmsteen when I only like his instrumentals. His lyrics are all dark and demonic and don't really make me want to scream and sing them, like Kutless, Seventh Day Slumber, and Decyfer Down make me want to do: scream out the joy that Christ gives me and, for lack of a better term, shouting at the devil telling him to BEGONE! I should have mentioned them, along with Jeremy Camp and Skillet. Those are often my first choice. Then should come the Andy James, Steve Vai and Paul Gilbert stuff. Why should I be afraid of telling people of the music I listen to. Other people are listening to that death metal crap with all the screamos. They should be embarrassed... not me.

I think this whole act of denial has been punishing myself on the inside. I haven't been very musical, and I haven't shown very many signs of motivation. I felt like this was the clog in my system.

I have many more, but I think the point has been carried across. There is a shining ray of hope that did occur within the 10 days of awe:

Earlier this week, I did finally stand up for Christ in the face of opposition. Not that I was ever really wanting to hide Christ, but when I was finally asked by Joelle's brother-in-law (who is a classic Pharisee in my books), I stood up in the name of Christ. I got the usual garbage from him, about turning my back and betraying Judaism. I knew how to shut that up: I told him to show me any piece in the Torah that explicitly states Christ is not the Son of God and that I have done betrayed my faith, because I knew that I had so many pieces of scripture that points otherwise. I remembered the feeling that I got out of it: total gain. Total freedom... I mean talk about the Truth setting me free. It's like that nasty clog in the drainpipe just got released. I also got total realization that I did not do this in the past. This is what really led me up to yesterday. It opened my eyes up and I needed to look into this.

Now that I have woken up and heard the rooster, I know what I need to do. I need to put Christ first. When someone asks what I believe, I need to put the term Messianic in front of Jew. It might prompt them to ask, to which I can tell them of my love for Christ. That is who I am. When someone asks me what I listen to, I should talk about all of the bands I am first to listen to in the car: the Christian ones. When they ask who they are, I can tell them. If they get turned off by it, that's their loss. Saying anything else for my own gain would be considered loss. I should not express any fear of who's watching me when I pray in the car when I get to work. It just might inspire them to do the same. This is how I believe that treasures in Heaven are built. I need to set my sights more on those treasures in Heaven.

After all, it has been stated that where your treasure is, so is your heart...

Introspection without Distractions

Today is Yom Kippur. If anything, I was brought up learning only two things about Yom Kippur: fasting and going to synagogue to pray. The fasting part is relatively simple to grasp: don't eat. It was often the prayers that I found rather difficult to fathom. Here we are supposed to be praying for forgiveness; we're supposed to be looking into our own selves; introspection, if you will. We're supposed to see what we've done, and what we haven't done. We should be seeing how we can improve; how we can turn away from the awfulness that we became in the past year, and for lack of a better term, turn towards aweful-ness.... the aweful-ness that is our God.

How can I though? I find the prayers in the synagogue distracting. I find that they get in the way of me trying to establish my connection with my God and my Saviour that I find I can't pray them. They feel like chatter to me. Perhaps, they were okay when I was trying to find my voice, but now it feels like I have a voice and it needs to reach out. The chatter in the prayerbooks seem to get in my way. I know that I have done many things wrong and I need to confess them. I also know that God can see all of the wrongful things I have done that I don't know about. The problem is that I feel like I can no longer confess them by just reading them out of a book. Like I said, it feels like chatter, and not prayer. I feel more real just praying two simple words than I do paragraphs of stuff that I didn't come up with.

Playing guitar was nice in the synagogue, but there was a part that seemed to come alive when I could just hear my own voice between me and God. Something in the silence was drawing me closer than I ever had been. Almost like I felt a calling.

If anything, I've sort of chosen to stay at home, free from the distractions. I'm finding that I can better deal with what is inside of me rather than trying to read it out of me. I feel like I am using my own voice for prayer than someone else's. I need to speak what is in my heart, rather than what is in the pages of a book. This week I experienced both a lot of joy and a lot of pain in it and that is the stuff that I cannot get from a prayer book. I can't just read out my pain through printed words. And, I cannot express joy that wasn't mine. I need to look at what got me to where I am and where I am going. If I am going to introspect myself, then I need to do it myself. No prayer book can tell me where I am going and what I am doing. Only my heart can do that. Only one book can tell me where I need to go, and that is the Bible and if we read more of that in the synagogue, then it may have been different. Instead, we focus on the same two passages every year, which I really don't get in relation to my own life. There are plenty of other passages that I can relate to today. I want to read them.

God knows who I am and He knows where I will be and He knows where He wants me to be. As this new year comes to a start, I want to take today to get to know me and where I am and where I am going. As well, I want to get to know God and where He wants me to go. And, I want to do this distraction free. If there is a passage to be read, let it be one that God has placed before me. If there is a song to be sung, let it be one that God has placed upon my heart.

The God I STILL Know...

By now, I'm sure that it is not news that Research In Motion, the company I work at, is in the process of laying off 2,000 people. If anyone following my blog posts read how God was leading me over to RIM, and how he stepped in and made things happen in ways that I never could have imagined (you'll find it at The God I Know), the situation would almost make one wonder if God just dropped me off at RIM and drove off to leave me on my own to fend for myself.

Well, guess what... God is not only here, but God has went before me. He has, and still is, preparing me for whatever is to come. How do I know this? Well, how else could one explain being assigned to read Isaiah 55 the day before the press release?

Verses 8-9 read:
8 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD. 9 “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

God has bigger plans. He is in control and I gotta leave it all up to Him. Basically, what He said to me through scripture was, "I know what you will be going through next week, and I want you to know that I am still here and I am in charge. You had the faith for Me to lead you to RIM, so you should have no less faith that I will lead you through this and will walk with you"

Does it mean that I will still be working at RIM? Only God knows!
Does it mean that I may be laid off? Only God knows!

Am I afraid? I'd be lying if I said no. Am I going to worry about it? Not this time... God has shown me that He's here. God is leading the way. I refuse to let worry consume me, like I did 20 years ago when I worked for Apple and found myself in the same situation. All worry did was make me sick to my stomach and couldn't function at work for the week that it was happening. When it was all over, I was still at Apple, but I was functionally useless.

So, what I am going to do tomorrow, when I go to work?

I'm going to go to my desk and give it one of the best days I have. I am going to write code with no less passion than when I first started. After all, I still love what I do, and I love where I do it, and nothing in the past few weeks has diminished this. Even more so, I am going to be encouraging and supportive to my fellow team mates. I will do what I must to keep our team functional and productive, because we have a fantastic team. If our team gets affected, I will do what I can to help our team heal quickly so that we can move forward even greater than before. And, most of all, I will praise God for walking with me through this and allowing me to work in what I still believe is one of the best places to work. I will praise God for being with me every step of the way. Even if I can't talk about it at work, I can still demonstrate it. And, as always, I will be grateful to God.

And if the unfortunate does happen and I get laid off, I will still set an example, even if I will be sad. I will be sure to thank them for giving me the opportunity, however short it may have been. Most of all, I will still praise God and know that He is still going before me, just like He did last Sunday, and have faith that He has a larger plan than I could ever imagine. Most of all, I will be grateful to God because this is still the furthest I have ever gone within RIM than ever before, and that is a huge accomplishment!

Musical borders on the Internet... STILL!!

I'm developing a real disdain for the music industry these days. To put it this way, I have been looking for two albums in Canada. However, they are not available without paying really questionable amounts to get them into Canada. However, if I just happen to live in the USA, I can download them off the iTunes store, Amazon, and even the online christian stores.

Isn't this supposed to be the age of the Internet? Perhaps, there was a business model of whether or not it was feasible to ship physical product around the world. However, in this case, we are talking about an inventory that does not deplete, costs very little to store and absolutely nothing to mass produce. So, why the heck am I restricted from getting these albums in Canada? It makes no business sense? And then the music industry complains of a download problem. If there is a problem, the music industry created it! They've attached borders to the Internet and prevented the willing customers from purchasing items from their favorite artists. And all in the name of what? There can't be money involved, because I am not even allowed to spend it.

It leads me to serious dilemmas here. I could download it from a torrent, but that would be a total wrong move. Gotta love that one: stealing Christian music to praise our king of kings and lord of lords. I could pay the outrageous prices as an "import" which is stupid because I live 90 minutes away from the border. I am not going to move down to the USA for the sake of two albums. I don't even know how questionable it is to get a friend in the USA to buy and download them them for me and I reimburse them for it. I suppose it's better than stealing it an I am still paying for it.

If anyone in the music industry is reading this, which I really doubt they are, break down the borders and let the rest of the world experience the joy of music. There are no more fences in the industry. There's a new inventory model... it's called no inventory. Embrace it and allow us to purchase what we want where we want. I'm sure it will solve a bunch of these problems that you've created. And, your artists will build a more global fanbase. Isn't that what they would like in the first place?

-- Posted from iCandy that doesn't bear fruit!

Lose this life...

For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.
Matthew 16:25
King James Version (KJV)

I can take a line out of Michael Tait's song, "Lose this life", and relate to it right now (actually, I can relate to the entire song): Like a raging sea, fear want to swallow me...

I can try to swim in a sea of uncertainty right now and buy into the fear of things happening. Or, I can trust God and find peace in knowing that regardless of what happens in life. Rather than fight the waters, I can let the waters take me to where God will be waiting for me.

Nothing is certain in life, and nothing in this life has any guarantees. I've had good times and and I have bad times. The past while, I will admit, have been good times. It's no secret that God brought me to these
good times and has done so in many ways. I couldn't have gone half this far on my own and it's no question that God has been gracious and merciful and brought us through both the storms into prosperous moments. There's no question that times are changing and along with those
changing times, situations change.

However, does God change? Not at all. God has been the same loving, gracious and merciful God in all of our good times as well as in our bad. God was there in some of the worst storms I had every faced, and yet through it all, I never stopped believing. If times change, and I'm sure they will, I am going to hold on, not to whatever things my hands can reach out to, but to God as God will ultimately pull me through. It's more than an worldly generosity, which is not only finite, but very short lived.

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that things are going to change. In fact, that's where the uncertainty is. I don't have answers and I have no idea as to what tomorrow will bring. Do I stop and worry about it? For once, I don't want to. If anything, I want to be the best person that I can be. If anything, I always seem to pray in the morning God will shine His light through me. If anything, it's pretty easy to be a lighthouse on a clear and starry night. I think that God is about to give me a situation that answers the prayers I have been asking for. There may be water crashing up on the rocks and there may be foggy outcomes... this is where a lighthouse is needed. In this uncertainty, God may very well shine His light through me for everyone to see.

So, I have a choice: I can either live in the uncertainty of this world and try fight the waters OR I can simply give it all over and trust God in that He has something better planned.

Rhythmic Digititis... AKA MIDI Doesn't Kill Music - People Do!

I subscribe to a periodic e-mail from an up and coming project studio engineer, and normally there's some great stuff. However, there was this one email from him telling how he would never use MIDI drums again because they have that real drummer feeling.

My response to this is that the next person who says something like this to me, I will string them up by their treble clefs until 8th notes start dropping out. The problem is not MIDI. The problem is the person programming the MIDI notes. Recorded MIDI, in and of itself, is nothing more than a snapshot of your performance on it. A sequencing program is to MIDI what a tape recorder is to audio. One of the main differences is that MIDI is just a bunch of numbers and you can associate any sound with it. The other main difference is that you can enter MIDI notes in one at a time, or compose a score and have the computer play it.

So, with all of this freedom with MIDI, what's the problem?

The problem is that people who often program MIDI notes into a computer are only doing half a job: they're supplying the note. They're forgetting the feel of the note. The feel can be in the form of an accent, flam, a grace note, or even a ghost note or roll. It's these little things that people often forget, and then go on and on about how their drums don't feel like a drummer or their piano parts sound like they're being playing by a Borg. Building a piece of music is often like painting a picture. Leonardo Da Vinci would probably have never rushed the Mona Lisa. Sure, he may have been probably able to paint quickly, but that is because he knew his art to a point of what kind of stroke goes where. Same thing for music. People rush through the drums and stuff because they want to record the guitar, which they often spend a lot more care recording. They can pick out the notes or phrases that bother them. Why don't they take this type of care with MIDI? The main reason is that they are unfamiliar with that part of their art and don't take the time to get to know it. They believe that because it's a computer, it's automatically supposed to know what to do.

I've been playing with MIDI for almost 30 years. Prior to that, I was trying to figure out ways to make programmed drum machines sound more realistic, due to the fact that I would probably be relegated to working with them for the rest of my natural born life. Having discovered programs like Apple Logic and FXPansion's BFD2 helped open a lot of new doors for me. However, it didn't replace the fact that human feel was necessary if it were to sound like human drummers.

So how does one combat rhythmic digititis?

It's rather easy. Listen to drummers. Listen to pianists. Listen to brass and wind players. Use your ears to pick up those little nuances. If you're going to program those types of nuances, make sure that you have sample programs and romplers that will support those nuances. Recently, I've been playing with Garritan Jazz & Big Band 3 and discovered how to create trumpet kisses on it. In the right spot, it can play with your mind and emotions and all of a sudden you'll be thinking "that's a trumpet". I have also been analyzing MIDI grooves from various drummers who played them on MIDI drums. Through that, I've learned to program my rhythms a few ticks ahead or behind the beat. I've also learned to play them with my fingers on my padKontrol. I've watched videos of Neil Peart and how he subtly puts in ghost notes. And once you are done recording your instruments, revisit the drums and see how they fit. Don't be afraid to change things once you have pieced them together. You wouldn't think twice about changing the guitar.

And if you're going to say that you're not a drummer, I'll tell you to then either find recorded grooves from a drummer, such as Platinum Samples Steve Ferrone or Bobby Jarzombek MIDI grooves. You don't need to invent your own rhythms for most songs. Maybe certain fills for certain parts can be programmed in, but the rest can be handled by an experienced drummer, even if he is virtual.

There are plenty of ways to make it real in a digital world... stop making excuses as to why it's not.

The "magic" words

Psalm 121:1-2
I lift up my eyes to the mountains---where does my help come from? [2] My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.

These seem to be my words of the week. I remember reading a post on facebook from Casting Crowns of this miraculously fixed to a tree after a hurricane, giving new meaning to their song, "Praise You In The Storm". I also remember a Hebrew version of this psalm that we sing on Yom Kippur.

Funny enough, I found myself turning to these verses out of instinct, last night going through my own storm. I had an overwhelming two days as there was a problem with my son's medication and Joelle is not around to fix it. I was starting to panic a bit because one cannot play with these types of medications. Honestly, I felt powerless and helpless.

I also knew that God doesn't disappoint and always comes through in some way or another when one has "faith as small as a mustard seed".

I believe God was waiting for me to display my faith in Him. He wanted me to take that one tiny step. That's when both the psalm and that song started coming out of my lips. It was at that moment only did everything come together. Not only was the problem straightened out, but they got delivered right to our door. I think that God wanted me to display my faith because he knew that the eyes of my heart would be open so I could see Him at work. One might say that He was waiting for me to say the magic words. Perhaps, I should say them more often when I find myself in these situations.