9-1-10 Dashboard Confessional II

For all those who were concerned about my "history of present illness", as we in the biz say, I thank you all for your "thoughts and prayers." I am still struggling a bit but will see an ENT Friday and hope to find some new gambit to make these minor league plagues (more agues than plagues- don't worry it's not contagious!) less disabling. But as the 3 Hebrew kids would say, "But if not............"

On another but related theme, as long as I am speaking of dis-ease, please allow me to be a bit transparent, even though I risk offense. I was very impressed yesterday by the article by Dr. Oliver Sacks in the most recent TNY about his own malady, which probably accounts in part for his intense interest as a neurologist and as a great writer, for unusual brain-based syndromes, in his case something called prosopagnosia, the inability to recognize faces, sometimes even very familiar ones. But please note that he was not willing to share this information until recently, when he became personally sure that it was a congenital syndrome and not subject to alteration by mere will power. I greatly urge the reader to access this article!

My problem, and the problem most people will readily confess to, is an inability to remember names and/or connect them to faces, esp. when it is appropriate and important to recall them, i.e. in the grocery aisle!

There should be a name for this, eh, Dennis, my research bud?

Greater illnesses than these are those of a spiritual nature, because they do not affect just a few people but all of us, in varying proportions. For my purposes today I speak of the related malaisii of jealousy, resentment, and the base problem of pride. Some of my readers may be able to relate, and some perhaps not.

Most of you know that I have struggled with the roll (drums, please) of music in my life, in particular in my spiritual life, since for the last 30 years, I have been part of many worship teams at several churches. The problem has been two-fold: while drumming I am concentrating on technique not God; secondly, that immediately means that I "do my own thing," i.e. showboating; hopefully everyone knows what that means; but if not, by it I mean cramming in every trick and lick and riff that occurs to me at that moment, and not really being even a team player--which should be a warning sign for every musician who has trouble submitting to the team and its leader. The third problem is that I have been increasingly aware of the problem, but literally unable to do anything about it, as if when I played the worst in me would rush to the fore and take over automatically;while there have been a few breakthroughs lately, due to an excellent and kind worship leader, Gary Marini, for the most part the adage, "simplify, simplify,simplify" has been in my mind but not in my heart or will.

There's no way to shorten this, sorry, but I will tell you that I semi-voluntarily resigned as chief drummer to allow some younger men to take over; thirty years should be enoough, right? In the secul/art world they won't accapt you if you are over 30 and that's when I just got started! The level of acceptance, personally and musically, in the churches I have been privileged to serve, has been high indeed! Especially when one considers that I have been playing musically "in the flesh" for almost all of those decades, and as a Pharisee to boot;as previously described here. Talk about tolerance! "There it is then."

But the other part of my resignation sans "resignation" was the fact that, because of my defaulting on relationships and being unsubsumable and frankly incorrigible as a music person, the sad fact is that I exhausted the deep well of tolerance at long last, and was rejected from the team. Ever since, I have had problems entering in to worship without jealousy and resentment in my heart. On the other hand, since I wasn't really worshipping on stage either, jealousy merely replaced pride and a kind of addiction to drumming, so I was no further along by resigning; in fact the true motives of my heart were now duly dragged into the light, though I was loathe to admit it even to myself, much less to anyone else. And I didn't have the luxury of blaming my brain or heredity as Oliver Sacks has; 'tis really a matter of "habits of the heart"; bad ones, that is!!

But what has happened to the good is that, through a men's group on Tuesday mornings, I ended up forming a real friendship with Gary--who is impossible not to like-- by going out to breakfast afterwards and talking not just about music but about everything, so to speak. I recall when Gary first arrived as music leader and a new Christian, I proposed we go to lunch; but my plan was to "tell him how it is" with worship teams. To share, so to speak, my 30 years of experience, interpreted through my negativity. Thank YOU LORD he did not take me up on that! I was the one that needed to learn from him as the leader of a secular band, Selby Street, for many years.

I finally got to the point recently wherein I began to wholistically accept the fact that my function on the worship team was to be a friend and a support to Gary, who is doing a job as leader which is much,much, much harder than it looks! This did not clear up my feelings on the matter, however! I was still convinced that ageism, my "race card", was the main problem, not me or my rotten attitude!

But I did finally get around to asking God to do what I was unable to do, that is, to break my mental chains of addiction every bit as bad as Marley's chains of material addictions (the ghost; I don't know about Bob) , in the last analysis made acutely painful due to my own injured pride and unjustifiable addiction to my Sunday morning "fix" i.e. addiction to being on stage and to the sound of the drums itself. My prayer was to get through just one worship service without resentment, just to focus on Him, not on anything or anyone else--which after all is the whole point of doing it at all!!!

God did it! but not without some irony--we don't usually do old songs, since that style is unfamiliar to most younger musicians and is also, frankly, harder than it looks! No excuse-- but-- at the very point when I felt totally surrendered with joy restored, the team began to play, "Victory in Jesus" For the first time I actually felt the victory!

The irony of this is that, years ago, this was my "signature song" in which I would really "cut loose" as it is a great song to do in the shuffle style to which I would add jazz stylings. This song was a particular point of pride to me, as I had it down pat to the very last and least beats.

So what happened? This is not yet known to Gary, but the very next Tues/yest, he was asking me to play in Sept; not as a replacement for the regular younger drummer in absentia, but just spontaneously with no urging from me. Coincidence? I think, not so!! God knows our hearts, and He certainly knows when and if, "I surrender all!!!"