Laura Meitzner Yoder, Associate Professor in the Sustainability and Environmental Education Department (SEED) at Goshen College

The contributors to Faithful is Successful, Notes to a Driven Pilgrim are very much interested in feedback from and interaction with Emerging Scholars. That’s why they’re sharing their material with a volunteer ESN writer team to review and respond to via an ESN blog series. Andy Walsh kicked off the series with In Response to “The Difficulty Discerning Calling”. In Following Jesus in the “Real World”, Kate Peterson explored material from the first two chapters. Andy and I invite you to join our interaction with Interruptions are not distractions by Laura Meitzner Yoder. Note: In Seeking Environmental Justice in Southeast Asia (The Well), Laura Meitzner Yoder provides an inside look at some of her university teaching and field work. ~ Thomas B. Grosh IV, Editor.

First from Andy Walsh:

Laura Meitzner Yoder’s comments on interruptions reminded me of the NY Times profile of Adam Grant that Mike referenced in an earlier ESN post. There’s certainly a common thread of being open to interruptions and recognizing them as potential vehicles of success, rather than obstacles to it. Now, I suspect that Yoder and Grant might have different notions of what constitutes success, or at least the scope of their definitions may not overlap completely. But the more interesting difference to me is in discernment about the interruptions. Grant is depicted as essentially not exercising any discernment; he is shown to never say ‘no.’ Yoder proposes that “what differentiates God-given interruptions from distractions is whether they contribute to or detract from our overall purpose.” However, there isn’t much elaboration on how to make this distinction. Instead, there seems to be the typical post hoc analysis that frames whatever interruptions are encountered in terms of furthering God’s kingdom.

While I do see the value in choosing to cast one’s story in theocentric language, if we are supposed to discern between interruptions and distractions it would help to have some guidance that can be applied a priori. I, for one, could probably use more guidance of that sort, because I think I am prone to inviting interruptions. Unless I’m engrossed in something that I am really passionate about, I will gravitate towards helping other people with whatever they’re working on than doing my own work. I suppose it’s a paradoxically active form of procrastination. It may also be somewhat ego driven, putting myself in a position to be thought of as a hero for helping other people get their work done, instead of “merely” doing what is expected of me. When I think about it in those terms, I suspect that I need better discernment about interruptions. I don’t want to stop helping altogether, and I am pretty good at problem solving, but I don’t want to be distracted to the point of purposeless either. Yoder’s treatment of the topic helps to highlight the issues for me, but I’m not satisfied that I’ve arrived at solutions yet.

A few of my own reflections:

Laura Meitzner Yoder begins her Faithful is Successful, Notes to a Driven Pilgrim post on Interruptions are not distractions by stating:

No matter where we are in the world or what our professional positions, reflecting on vocation may prompt us to ask, “How does my work today, in this particular context, with these specific people, both express and bring forth the Kingdom of God?”  This question has accompanied me as I have pursued my vocation of university teaching and community-based research on environmental issues in far-flung areas of Southeast Asia.

Mike shared in What Is Ministry?

God cares for and blesses people through our work, not despite or instead of our work. The Fall cursed our work by making it more difficult and less effective, but work itself was a blessing given to us by God. . . .

How true that each day we wrestle with interruptions and brokenness in the practice of the vocation for which we were created. Yoder’s challenging university experiences in Southeast Asia enabled her not only to embrace a ministry of interruptability, but to bless others with this model since she returned to campus life in the United States:

a willingness to look beyond my own content-oriented goals in order to improve the educational outcomes, and personal healing opportunities, among my students.

How do you access the Kingdom value of an interruption in the hallway, in particular when you have other tasks to accomplish?

In largely working from home, periodically I find myself distracted by family while trying to finish a task (e.g., this blog post) and other times by work when trying to be fully present with my family (e.g., realizing that my laptop is only a few steps away and I have an important email to send — ever had a similar temptation, possibly with the smart phone being even closer?). I have found growing in the practices of continual prayer, listening and asking good questions are vital in the home, home office, campus visit, conference, team meeting, etc. Getting to know those present and the larger context enables one to understand how to better serve through one’s gifts, skills, and vocation as part of the Kingdom of God. Some interruptions are best served by one’s own care and investment, but others are better attended to by others with particular skills/gifts (e.g., counseling), challenged with regard to their value (e.g., the nth number short notice request for a task which can be accomplished by the one asking), or just set aside/blocked entirely (e.g., phishing, telemarketing).

With regard to the larger interruptions I have experienced (e.g., the loss of my first child — Elise Faith, cancer followed by seizures/fainting spells, a child with a brain bleed/developmental delays — Eden Linnae, moving family to provide better care for Eden, shifting from largely campus to largely on-line ministry, etc) I find myself resting in the hand of God. My initial thought is that as Andy I am more post hoc than a priori in my Kingdom perspective. . . . But then again, maybe by grace and faith the people of God, the story of God, the Word of God, the prayers of the people of God, the Presence of God, the desire to be a blessing and the healing touch of God, etc., frame how I enter daily life experience more than I realize.

As I have shared at other times, I have learned not to expect what will happen the next minute/day in my own life or those around me. Furthermore I have chosen to build in space to be present with others and defer to others when that is the better solution. Maybe the ministry of interruptability is a good term for the direction I have been heading. with my life in general.

Together, let us with Jesus yearn for the Kingdom of God to come in completeness, the new heavens and the new earth — a new day when our work will not longer be cursed and truly a blessing to all for eternity. To God be the glory!

Yes, much more to write, possibly even a series (e.g., differences in responding to the interplay of communal, natural, personal, technological interruptions in various contexts). In the mean time, we desire to hear your thoughts regarding the ministry of interruptability and how it may play out in your context.

In truth, I never expected to work for a Christian organization. When I finished my BA, I thought I would eventually get a PhD and become an English professor; the grantwriting job at the local orchestra was just a temporary gig to pay the bills. I chose Regent College for graduate school because of its focus on theological education for lay people, and I expected to use my education there as a foundation for a career outside the world of professional ministry. Only after several (very fulfilling!) years with a nonprofit with a non religious mission did I feel God pulling me toward an explicitly Christian organization.

Who Does God’s Work?

Between my time at Regent and my work with IVCF, did I cease to minister? Not at all! In addition to starting a community of 20- and 30-something’s in our local church, my nonprofit work focused on establishing standards for an ethical marketplace, mirroring many of the ideas I learned from Paul Stevens at Regent. Interestingly enough, this company I just joined reflects many of the concepts of sustainable business and stewardship taught by Regent’s Loren Wilkinson.

Along with InterVarsity, my earliest spiritual mentors (through reading) were Eugene Peterson, J.I. Packer, the poets George Herbert, John Donne, Richard Wilbur, and W.H. Auden, and the novelists Graham Greene and Wendell Berry. Through their influence, I’ve never felt a strong divide between the “spiritual” and “secular” realms of life. Ephesians 4 is probably my favorite passage of Scripture, because Paul makes it clear that the purpose of “religious workers” or “full-time Christian ministers” is not to do ministry, but to empower all of God’s people for ministry:

So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service ["ministry," in the King James], so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. (Eph. 4:11-13)

The work of the church isn’t the sole domain of “ministers.” All of God’s people are involved in God’s mission.

What Is God’s work?

Further, God’s mission isn’t limited to the work of the church. Since stepping down from my full-time role with InterVarsity, I’ve actually had several opportunities to use my Regent degree at my church, contributing a few hymns to our Advent and Lenten services and, just this week for Pentecost, being able to read a passage from one of my favorite psalms — Psalm 104 — in Hebrew before the congregation. Several verses of the psalm describe God’s role in blessing and feeding all of creation.

He makes grass grow for the cattle,
and plants for people to cultivate—
bringing forth food from the earth:

wine that gladdens human hearts,
oil to make their faces shine,
and bread that sustains their hearts. (Ps. 104:14-15)

A few years ago, the Faculty Ministry Leadership Team studied this psalm during one of our meetings, and someone pointed out something very odd about the “food from the earth” here. Wine, oil, and bread are all processed foods, requiring considerable time, effort, and expertise from human beings to produce. Even the cultivation of grapes, olives, and grains — the raw materials of wine, oil, and bread — is something that requires human involvement.

God cares for and blesses people through our work, not despite or instead of our work. The Fall cursed our work by making it more difficult and less effective, but work itself was a blessing given to us by God. If you pay attention, the Biblical authors repeatedly use wine, oil, and bread as symbols of God’s provision throughout both the Old and New Testaments. Think of how these three products of human work are held forth as signs of the Messianic age in the Gospels. This is not a accidental combination of imagery.

My resume, with its combination of secular and theological degrees, its alternation between “ministry” and “normal” jobs, may look strange to many people. It may be – and often is – difficult to explain to someone who thinks in straightforward secular vs. spiritual categories. I’m certain that I’ve been knocked out of contention for jobs because of my theological degree and my campus ministry position. Despite that, I’m glad that my resume raises questions, because it reflects the unity of God’s creation and mission that is so often lacking elsewhere in the world.

Next week, some parting thoughts about the future of ESN.

Conducting

Yes, most orchestral and choral conductors begin with undergraduate performance degrees, but know what you’re getting into before you set your sights on a conducting career. Jobs with professional ensembles are extremely few and far between. I have known conductors who studied with legends like Herbert von Karajan and Leonard Bernstein [below: Leonard Bernstein performs Beethoven's Ode to Joy - Finale] whose work consists of conducting amateur orchestras. To conduct professional orchestras full-time, you must be fantastically talented and trained to the hilt. Then you typically have to serve as an assistant conductor in multiple places, wherever jobs are open, often well into your adult life. For instance, one very talented friend of mine in his late 30s was recently dividing his time between assistantships in Pittsburgh, Houston, and Paris, while his wife lived and worked in Philadelphia.  Know what you’re getting into.

Of course, if conducting the orchestra, wind ensemble, or chorus of a college or public school is appealing to you, then that’s a different matter (which we discussed in the last installment on teaching). Another option in the field of conducting might be directing music at a church, for which at least one music degree is advisable.

Music theory and musicology

Music theory and musicology are disciplines that are generally only supported by academia. If you want to be a professional musicologist or theorist, expect to teach at a college, which in these disciplines requires a doctorate (PhD for musicologists, PhD or DMA for theorists).  What that means is this: if you don’t care for the idea of completing a doctorate and teaching full-time at a college, you might not want to take your only undergraduate degree in musicology or music theory.

Composition

A few sustain careers as freelance composers. To do so, the credentials of holding a music degree aren’t as important as the quality of the music you’re writing — no one minds that Schubert [below: Schubert: Symphony n.9 C major "La Grande" Andante allegro ma non troppo (part 1)] didn’t have a doctorate from Juilliard. On the other hand, most successful composers today do hold music degrees and have found the training they received through them to be essential to their artistic and professional success. And as in many of the other fields we have mentioned, the opportunities are few by comparison with the number of talented and trained artists in the market.

But even for an artist who is successfully making a living as a composer, living commission to commission is risky, particularly in difficult economic times when people are less likely to commission new projects. Most composers also teach, in which case not merely the training but the credentials of a composition-focused music degree are essential. Private composition teaching is far less popular than private piano lessons, for instance; thus it might be wise to consider a doctorate for college teaching. Or, if that doesn’t appeal to you, let composition be your hobby and get a degree in another field. Martin Luther wasn’t a professional musician, but he composed texts and tunes that remain in the church to this day.

Other music-related disciplines

Those wanting to pursue music therapy, arts administration, or some other music-related field should be aware that an undergraduate degree in music performance would be only a precursor to the necessary graduate study in the field of choice. For those who decide to go that route, the considerations for entering an undergraduate performance major would be a bit different than for aspiring performers: though you should be instrumentally and musically proficient, it is less important that you be a budding Vladmir Horowitz than that you take advantage of opportunities that will prepare you for the line of work you hope to enter. You also want to make sure you’ve got the gifts and temperament for the field you want to pursue. For instance, prospective music therapists should have an especially compassionate heart, and prospective arts administrators should be natural organizers with a good head for business.

In conclusion…

If in reading over these considerations you feel that one or several of these fields would be an ideal match for you, wonderful — get the music degree, and may God bless it.

But remember that, whatever the world may seem to tell you, you are more than your career. Even if you decide it is wisest not to pursue a music degree, what is to stop you from continuing your musical pursuits and using them to praise the Lord and bring Him glory?

In addition to earlier posts by the Urban Resident, take some time to prayerfully consider/reflect upon Responding to the events of Boston Marathon 2013 (Heather) and Early Last Friday Morning (Boston) (Michael).

I found out about the Newtown shooting while working in a pediatric clinic. In between seeing children with sore throats and rashes and sniffles, I would hover over the computer and read more about other children torn apart by gunfire. I found out about the Boston bombing while working a long shift in the hospital. While examining patients in their rooms, I couldn’t help but sneak peeks at their TV sets as the chaos unfolded. Often, I simply stopped what I was doing and watched the news alongside them in silence. We would shake our heads together in grief and disbelief, and I felt stunned by the juxtaposition that there were those – patients and healthcare staff alike – who could be working so hard to overcome an illness at the same time that others were eviscerating those who were perfectly healthy. It was a deeply disturbing day.

On Mother’s Day, at a parade in New Orleans, three men walked into the crowd and began firing. They shot 19 people, two of which were children, three of whom were critically injured. One of the gunmen is still at large. However, no city was shut down. There has been limited media coverage of the event, perhaps because it was the third holiday this year in which the city saw gunfire into crowds. When I read this news, I posted a link to it on facebook and then promptly forgot about it until sitting down to write this post.

At what point does violence and the corruption of the sacred become something acceptable or even normal? I heard an interview/conversation on the radio between two mothers from Massachusetts: a mom from Newtown and a mom from the inner city:

Gekas said that when you look at her son, Alex, in profile, he looks like 19-year-old Dzokhar Tsarnaev, the young man who was the target of the police search.

Gekas later [said] that when her son came into the kitchen and announced that he was walking to a friend’s house, “I flipped. I told him he was in ‘mommy lockdown’ and he wasn’t going anywhere.”

Gekas’ husband convinced her to let Alex leave the house, but he first gave his son the same warning that black inner-city teenage boys hear about how to behave when confronted by police: Don’t run away, keep your hands visible, don’t reach into your pockets.

“I don’t normally have a fear of police, and I never have thought to instruct my son like this,” Gekas said. “But he has grown six inches in the past year and he’s looking like a young man and he does wear kind of baggy clothes.”

When Gekas told her brother about her fear, he said, “Now you know how it feels to be an African-American mother… That’s what [they] worry about all the time.”

“My immediate reaction, was, ‘No way. They can’t feel this way every day’,” Gekas said. “There’s no way someone could live like this.”

“Welcome to my world,” Tina Chery told Gekas…

Chery is an inner-city mom, and 20 years ago her 15-year-old son was killed when he was caught in the crossfire of a gang shooting as he walked to an afternoon meeting of Teens Against Gang Violence…

While the lockdown in Newton and other Boston suburbs lasted 24 hours, for urban mothers and families in high-crime areas, it’s a stress they deal with every day.

“It’s a chronic impact,” Chery said. “You’re hearing gunshots. You’re hearing the crime, the homicides, the unsolved murders. There’s really not much time to take it in and go through that grieving process.”

I was recently at a conference of pediatricians in Washington, DC to discuss gun violence. We were preparing talking points for future meetings with Congress members, planning to advocate for better firearm safety (something I thought to be a contradiction in terms). However, I felt very uneasy. In the nation’s capital, it seemed like appearances and impressions meant everything. Everyone seemed immac­u­lately dressed and my scuffed shoes and worn belt felt out of place among the polished lob­by­ist briefcases and horn-rimmed hipster eye­wear.

I made some phone calls to friends from the city, people whom I had come to Washington to represent. All of them were ded­i­cated to work and life with kids in the inner city. I asked them to tell their stories, and here they are:

“Yes­ter­day, I heard gunshots outside the office, the after­school camp where the kids were coming.”

“This past week, a student… he came up to me excitedly and said, ‘I just saw a shooting! Down the street! People are running ’ I asked him if anyone was hurt, and he said he didn’t know. Then he went back to playing basketball, as if it was something normal, but I know it’s not… it shouldn’t be some­thing that’s just nor­mal. He’s ten years old.”

“I asked the kids to do a watercolor of things that they were afraid of. I didn’t tell them anything else, but they started to paint pictures of guns, and of blood spurting out… they’re in 1st to 5th grade.”

“How many of them have been affected by guns? I can’t think of someone who hasn’t had someone in the family or a friend get shot.”

“Two years ago, I was walking down the street and got robbed at gunpoint  I still get paranoid when walking down the street, and I grew up here.”

“We had a young mother, 19 years old with two kids. One day she picked them up from daycare and took them home… and found a dead body in the backyard  who had been shot. She hasn’t let her kids play in the street since, and it’s been years.”

“The person who taught me to read got shot. He was just sitting in his car…”

“Guns are just a part of these kids lives.”

“There was a 14 year old who used to come to camp; he went ahead and shot his friend over some fight over a girl. Now he’s in jail…”

“The kids are afraid to walk home from the bus, or the park, or out on the street because of guns.”

“One time I heard gunshots just around the corner… I was having to tell kids to get inside because someone’s been shooting a gun down the street. The older guys were standing outside… they’ve seen this play out hundreds of times.”

These stories came easily from people who were far too comfortable telling them. If there was any silence on the phone, it was because I was at a loss for words.

How modern is the parable of the Good Samaritan? It struck me, there among the hallways and seats of power, that it was less of a parable and more of an anecdote. For how many of us have driven around “those areas” of the city, have bought houses and built churches and gone to university and eaten in restaurants that benefit from urban industry while tactfully avoiding its geographic centers of decay? Really, who are our neighbors? And have we simply moved, physically as well as symbolically, in such a way as to make the answer more convenient and palatable to our consciences?

As I stumbled for appropriate words to say over the phone, my friends helped me close such a casually horrific conversation with this question:

“Can I pray for you?”

I am still struck by this out­pour­ing of grace that seemed so coun­ter­in­tu­itive at first. To them, and to me, true power and life does not come from a gun or a sword or a pen or a suit. It comes from obe­di­ence to a simple series of commands: do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God. If this means we lose our lives that we may find it, then we do so gladly. If it means we speak unpop­u­lar truth to over­whelm­ing power, then our feet should only ask for the direction to go.

I am not writing a proscription for a mass migration by Christians into the inner city (though perhaps we should!) But what I am wondering is how we, as Christian households and academics, can seek to be a humble neighbor and witness to those around us that do live among threats of violence and fear. What Newtown and Aurora and Boston have taught us is that we are all neighbors and ought to act accordingly.

And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” And he said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.”

But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.’ Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” And Jesus said to him, “You go, and do likewise.” – Luke 10

The Augustana Symphony Orchestra, Symphonic Band and Choir perform at Orchestra Hall, home of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, in April 2008.

In the last post, we observed that many musicians, including many of the highest caliber, teach to supplement their performance activities. So if you decide you want to teach (whether as the whole or part of your musical activities), what does that say in terms of our initial question of whether to pursue a degree in music?

For any music teaching job, even if you’re self-employed, it is at least advisable to have a degree in music — but the specific necessities (how many degrees and what kind) depend upon what kind of teaching you’re considering.

Collegiate performance

If you want to teach music performance at the college level, you need the chops and experience of a top-flight performer, as well as music degrees extending through a doctorate (DMA), though I have known people who started teaching at a community college with only a master’s degree.

So if you’re aiming for a collegiate teaching career, do you want to get degrees in music performance or music education? That’s a good question. College-level job descriptions differ one to another, and different schools will be looking for and open to different things in a candidate. So my advice is to follow your interests in forming your own personalized “package” to offer to prospective employers. Generally speaking, music education degrees/concentrations are particularly valuable for those who would want to teach pedagogy (that is, teaching students how to teach their instrument). But bear in mind that many colleges want someone who will teach both performance and pedagogy.

For those with a particular yen for performance, the nice thing about a collegiate position is that it very often comes with the expectation that you will remain active as a performer; so you get to perform on your own terms because your stability is coming from the college job, while at the same time the teaching responsibilities also keep your chops in shape as you remain abreast of your students’ repertoire. Do be advised that the administrative work entailed in a college job can be heavy, so keep that in mind when deciding whether to pursue teaching in higher education (and this, too, varies from school to school).

Music Education

Public school

If you desire to teach in a public school, you will need at least an undergraduate music degree in performance or education, as well as teacher certification. You should enjoy working with kids and be aware that, particularly in string programs, the level can be quite elementary. There are a wide variety of options in public school music teaching: general elementary, general secondary, elementary/secondary/high school strings/band/choir, and each require different skills, especially when it comes to relating to various age groups. This is also the area in which the majority of music majors find themselves. According to one reviewer of the post, those aspiring to such positions should be aware that the market is shrinking rapidly. Public schools are beginning to cut their arts programs in favor of giving more time to “core” subjects, and it is becoming harder and harder to obtain a full time job right out of college. One may have to be content with substitute teaching for a few years before receiving one’s “break.”

Private teaching

For private teaching, it is similarly advisable to have at least an undergraduate music degree in performance or education. If you enjoy working with beginning students, the field is somewhat less competitive (depending on where you live), but it becomes increasingly more competitive as you seek to work with more and more advanced students. Bear in mind that if private teaching is the totality of your income, you will need to take on quite a number of students, which often means that teaching takes precedence over performing. This is agreeable to many; to others it is not.

Summary

In short, anyone who is considering a degree in musical performance should ask, “Am I reasonably on my way to attaining the skill of a concert artist?” Realistically, that generally means being able to handle the most challenging mainstream repertoire for your instrument with reasonable command by the end of high school (it’s a bit of a different story for singers). If that’s not where you find yourself, then I would consider a performance degree only if, on the one hand, you plan to go into pre-collegiate music education (in which case a music education degree might actually be more useful) or, on the other hand, if you plan on pursuing subsequent graduate study in a field like music therapy or arts administration. If that’s not you either, then I would not pursue a performance degree, at least not as your only one — even if you can get into a performance-track degree program somewhere (since, to be painfully frank, if you’re intent on finding a college that will take your money to give you a performance degree, I can pretty much guarantee you’ll find one. That is not — let me repeat, that is not a guarantee of a successful performance career).

To be concluded in Part 4 . . .

Henry Martyn Hall. Photo from HMT Hisory

Listening to the introduction of the 2012 Henry Martyn Lectures, delivered by Dr Vinoth Ramachandra, spurred my curiosity with regard to:

• Who is Henry Martyn?
• What is his relationship to the subcontinent?
• How come there is an active centre and library at Cambridge, which now has a growing focus on the academic study of mission and world Christianity, named after him?
• Why celebrate the bicentenary of his death with events, seminars, services, an exhibition, and this capstone lecture series?

On the Henry Martyn Centre’s website I found a brief biography and a chronology of Henry Martyn’s (1781-1812) life. In addition, a quick on-line search resulted in a number of pieces declaring the passion Martyn had to “burn out for God.” I even came across Ravi Zacharias eloquently sharing and challenging his listeners with the story of this unbecoming Cambridge scholar/genius embracing the call to serve in India — choosing God over the interests of “his love.”

Henry Martyn’s missionary zeal to go where people have not heard the Gospel does not stand in opposition to A Mission to the University. In founding schools, preaching, and translating the New Testament into three languages (Arabic, Persian, and Hindoostani), Martyn did not scorn his scholarly gifts, but harnessed them their maximum as the first Anglican graduate missionary to India. As part of the mission, he engaged in dialogue wherever he traveled:

After an exhausting journey from the coast he reached Shiraz, and was soon plunged into discussion with the disputants of all classes, ‘Sufi, Mahommedan, Jew, and Jewish Mahommedan, even Armenian, all anxious to test their powers of argument with the first English priest who had visited them.’” — Henry Martyn. 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica. Accessed 5/14/2013.

Furthermore, his encounters with the ugly nature of sin, war, and fallen humanity, inflamed his passion for incarnating/advancing the Gospel of peace in the midst of British colonialism (see Henry Martyn: Iraq- lessons in a time of war. Nick Megoran).

Did he not receive the training and the refinement of his skills in the University? Did not Henry Martyn come to Christ as a student at Cambridge? Did not his mentor Rev. Charles Simeon (1759-1836) have a passion for the discipleship of college students and the call of the Gospel to the ends of the earth, but continue to serve one campus through one church for 54 years (i.e., Holy Trinity Church, Cambridge, and Cambridge University)? Do we not find the world coming to us in and then being sent forth from the university — some even to other universities?

When I served at Carnegie Mellon University, the Graduate Christian Fellowship was founded largely by international students who were followers of Christ. Why did they desire such a fellowship? They yearned for a place to gather to encourage one-another as they wrestled with being salt, light, and leaven in all areas of life. They returned time after time to questions of Christ and culture, realizing that the campus (and global higher education in/across disciplines) itself is a unique, dynamic culture. Now they serve in various places, including universities, in a number of countries.

The Emerging Scholars Network has a passion not only for the Henry Martyns of the future to come to faith on campus, but also for each one of them to receive mentoring which engages the whole university context and by doing such enabling such men and women to extend the Kingdom of God wherever they are called to serve in this complex, interconnected era of missions . . . even some in the universities across the globe. Thank-you to Dr Vinoth Ramachandra for introducing me to this gift of resources and continuing dialogue on missions inspired by Henry Martyn and offered through the Henry Martyn Centre. To God be the glory!

To dig learn more about Henry Martyn, the Centre posted these articles of interest at the end of their brief biography.

“Foundations for Mission and the Study of World Christianity: The Legacy of Henry Martyn” Lecture given by Canon Graham Kings, HMC Director at the opening of the Henry Martyn Library at Westminster College, January 1996

“Martyn and Martyrs: Questions for Mission” Lecture given by the Rt Revd Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, Bishop of Rochester at the Centenary of the Henry Martyn Library, October 1998.

“Abdul Masih (1776-1827): An Icon of Indian Indigeneity.” Article by Canon Graham Kings, HMC Director, published in the International Bulletin of Missionary Research, 23/2 (April 1999).

Stay tuned for the developing series: A Mission to the University.

Lincoln Center Out of Doors 2013. Photo posted here.

In the last post, we observed that before you enroll in a music degree/major, you should have a fairly good idea of specifically which field(s) within music you might realistically see yourself thriving in. So let’s dive in—we’ll start with considering a career in performance.

Practical considerations

Let’s be realistic here. Classical music has faced a sad decline in popularity, especially in the States. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not pessimistic about its survival. I think there will always be those who love classical music and enjoy attending concerts. But the audience pool is not huge, and so the jobs are relatively few. Couple that with the consideration that the leading conservatories are churning out reams of fantastically talented, highly accomplished artists every year. The market is saturated on a number of fronts.

You have to want it

I say that not to categorically discourage you from pursuing a career in performance. Rather, what I mean to say is that if you’re thinking of going into performance, you need not only to have considerable talent and experience before enrolling in a degree program, but you should know profoundly that you want to make performance your vocation — or at least you should have been so intentional up until now in developing an exceptionally high level of musical proficiency that, even if the idea of “knowing” kind of scares you at this point, you should at least sense that pursuing conservatory-level musical study is the most reasonable course for you to take.

After all, securing a position in the concert circuit, in a major musical ensemble (e.g. a symphony orchestra), or on the faculty of a college or conservatory is extremely competitive: you will be up against hundreds of world-class colleagues for a single position. However brilliant you are, there will be setbacks, frustrations, and disappointments. Before entering the field, you need to be secure enough in your “calling” to persevere through these difficulties.

The soloist

First of all, let’s be terribly clear that this is really only an option for a very, very, very few pianists, singers, violinists, and cellists. Being world-class is merely a prerequisite, and even that does not guarantee you a spot in the saturated circuit.

As far as the solo career goes, yes, the credentials of a music degree mean little (though only you can assess whether the training you receive would be worth it). But life on the concert circuit is so precarious that, of the extremely few who ever enter it, only a small percentage of those remain. Even victory at multiple international competitions does not guarantee a solo career that will endure on its own. The vast majority of world-class players find themselves joining an ensemble or teaching in some capacity to supplement their performance. And for this, it is highly advisable and often necessary to have a degree or degrees in music.

Jobs in ensembles

When it comes to obtaining a job in a symphony orchestra, opera chorus, or chamber ensemble, your degrees matter less than your audition and your experience. A bachelor’s degree is helpful for so many things these days that it is generally unwise for a serious professional musician not to have one. But when it comes to orchestral or opera auditions, having two master’s degrees and three performance diplomas is probably not doing you much good (in terms of the credentials — though again, only you can determine whether the training you would receive is worth the investment).

Another option, depending on where you live, can be to freelance, taking gigs with various ensembles here and there. Bear in mind that the “gigging” life may be marginally less competitive (though not always!), but it’s also more precarious. While I don’t discourage freelance gigging, if you’re so inclined, I would not advise basing your hopes for stability on a career of such gigs. Also, the gigging life can feel frazzling to some (always jumping from this group to that) and doesn’t necessarily lend itself to the deepest reflection on every concert played. Some people love it, others hate it.

Jazz

I admit, I’m less well versed in this scene, but realize that to sustain yourself as a jazz performer, you’ve got to break into the gig scene of a major city (like New York). Most successful jazz performers I know have taken undergraduate or graduate music degrees to prepare them for that step. But even if you can break into the scene without a degree, bear in mind that unless you see yourself making a living permanently by gigging night after night in music clubs, that degree might come in really handy down the road for more stable jobs like teaching.

All right, then, what about teaching? . . .

Dr Vinoth Ramachandra serves on the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES) Senior Leadership Team as Secretary for Dialogue & Social Engagement.

Do Christ followers have a mission in, to, and alongside the university? Yes. Is the university a global mission worth significant investment of time, resources, and energy? Yes. How do we embrace, engage, and give voice to the university mission?

Recently I listened to the 2012 Henry Martyn Lectures, delivered by Dr Vinoth Ramachandra. Ramachandra‘s overall topic is Mission as Prophetic Engagement. Lecture 1 focuses upon Engaging the University. As you may already know, Ramachandra serves on the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES) Senior Leadership Team as Secretary for Dialogue & Social Engagement. There is much to consider in this excellent lecture, so much so that I’m creating a series with this post as a teaser. Please join me in listening to and dialoguing with Ramachandra‘s call to Engaging the University.

I’ve been trying to bring about this paradigm shift so that we [IFES] think not of ourselves as an evangelistic ministry to students, but we are a mission to the university and the university includes professors, researchers, and administrators . . .. [and] those extended social practices that we call academic disciplines.

How do we engage Christianly with those social practices? How do we have a Christian voice within those [social practices]? So it is much more than giving a courses on apologetics or evangelism, but helping Christian students, PhD students, post-doc students, lecturers, professors to think and live Christianly as a community of Christian scholars. That’s the paradigm shift, it’s slowly beginning in some countries, a lot of resistance in this country [United Kingdom], unfortunately I don’t know why. — Question and Answer in Part 3

I think we help Christian students . . . have a historical perspective on their discipline . . . we also keep talking about what’s going on in the world and how their particular discipline meshes with what is happening globally on the current scene. Not just politics, but the whole global religious scene, the economics system within which we live. How do they locate their particular academic discipline within that bigger canvas? And so we must expose them to some general talks or some books which will just enlarge their general knowledge and let them go from there . . . [by] self-learning.

Most of the things I’m writing and speaking on are not things I learned in the university. But I’ve had to educate myself and I do that because of my passion to communicate Christ . . . to all areas of life. So I think that without that passion it’s very hard to see such people emerging. And we need to be praying that there will be people inspired by the Holy Spirit with that passion to truly communicate Christ in this kind of world in which we live where everything is interconnected. So it’s said that just when everything’s becoming more and more connected, and I’ll speak about this more in my third lecture, that we have this growing fragmentation and people getting narrower and narrower even in theology. . . .

Theology’s too important to be left to theologians. Theology has to be given to the proverbial man or woman in the pew and I think that if you’re listening to the issues that they’re facing in their neighborhoods, their places of work, you will change your theology. It will become practical whatever it is. It can be historical theology, but you’re relating historical theology to the contemporary issues that people are wrestling with from Monday to Friday. So I think that there needs to be a place where in every city where you have academic theologians meeting together with say scientists, with people in political philosophy, in the arts, in the media, just meeting together on a regular basis to talk together. And I think that’s the way theology is done. People meeting, talking, reflecting on their experiences and then consulting Scripture and the Christian tradition to find resources that will equip them and enlarge their vision. Now that needs to be happening more. To me that is the real theological education that I would like to see, whether or not you get people a degree at the end of it. That’s not important. . . .   — Question and Answer in Part 4

Amen! As part of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA’s vision To see students and faculty transformed, campuses renewed, and world changers developed, the Emerging Scholars Network (ESN) is called to identify, encourage, and equip the next generation of Christian scholars who will be a redeeming influence within higher education. We rejoice in your interaction with this call and ask for your continued prayer/recommendations as we explore/take next steps with you as part of the larger community of Christian scholars, crossing the boundaries of time, geography, disciplines, gender, ethnicity, etc. . . . To God be the glory!

Lockdown. The street where the suspect was captured. Photo taken by Heather Ardrey. Originally posted by Heather in Responding to the events of Boston Marathon 2013 (4/21/2013).

However, this does not mean that a body can be divorced from meaning. It has been nearly a month since the Boston marathon bombings, and yet its bitter memory lingers in an unusually unsettling way. In remembering, we want to act in the right way, but how can we tell what that even means?

A desire for justice can easily become a thirst for vengeance. We are tempted to make exemptions to our own laws on civil liberties and justify a demand to judicate Dzokhar Tsarnaev as an enemy combatant. We even foment controversy over the burial plot of the deceased bomber himself, to the point where a local police chief felt compelled to plead with and remind the public, “There is a need to do the right thing… We are not barbarians. We bury the dead.”

And yet on the opposite end of the spectrum, a humanizing approach can seem equally disturbing. We struggle with the question of graciousness or even the audacity of forgiveness. An article on the Huffington Post expressed this hesitation well:

Look on the HuffPost Religion section, and you will see articles by reverends and professors extolling the virtues of forgiveness, even writing letters to Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, telling him that they don’t blame him, he’s just a kid.

Go on Reddit and you’ll see that the most top-voted comments surrounding him are thoughts about how normal he was, and how he must have been manipulated by his brother, and wow, you have to feel bad for him. The comments under these extol those people for having “empathy.” The comments under those attack those who don’t have empathy. And it goes in a circle (I believe they have a term for that on Reddit).

And then it reached a head two nights ago, when Amanda Palmer, some singer, posted a poem for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. She tried to see the situation from his perspective, and wrote such special lines as:

You don’t know why you let that guy go without shooting him dead and stuffing him in some bushes between cambridge and watertown.

You don’t know where your friends went.

You don’t know how to dance but you give it a shot anyway.

Poor Amanda has started a firestorm on the web, but the truth is she’s only getting the heat because her poem was so over the top. This sympathizing with attackers, with murderers, with terrorists, has been sweeping our country for years now.

It seems that after every massacre, every school shooting, every terror attack, a segment of our country begs, cries, for a way to excuse the killers, and the Boston massacre has brought that segment out in spades.

It’s time that we drew a line. It’s time that we said enough.

We possess two reflexes in reacting to horrific sin. One is to isolate it by demonizing and marginalizing the human perpetrators, to remove them from the ordinary and proper ways of life. It is pacifying to our consciences to depict them as such wretched and immoral creatures that there is nothing human left about them. By portraying them as subhuman and alien, we make them disposable and can conveniently believe that the people and circumstances involved were so extraordinary and unusual that there is little statistical probability either could ever occur again.  This is how we tend to think about genocide, child prostitution, drug trafficking, and war. We want to believe that Hitler was simply an incidentally powerful psychopath, that pedophiles are psychiatrically insane, that drug dealers are wolves in human flesh, and that enemy combatants are godless communists or hate-crazed jihadists. However, this ignores the reality that genocide is cyclical, that its participants are ordinary citizens who repeat its cycle somewhere on the globe every few years, that most brothel owners are profiteering women and mothers and family people, that most drug trafficking is done by young teenagers and adults in our local communities, and that the battle lines in war are often changed by a simple manipulation of doublespeak. If we mean to demonize evil, then demons are remarkably commonplace.

Our second reflex is to normalize and embrace the offendant. We reason that their behavior is not only common, but understandable and perhaps even excusable. In the most extreme cases, we even idolize it:

“Jahar” is what Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s friends and Twitter followers call him, and #FreeJahar is the hashtag banner around which thousands of people have rallied on Twitter, Tumblr and Facebook to closely follow Tsarnaev’s case and share what they believe to be evidence of his innocence. I tracked Claire down (through her One Direction fan fiction page) and, over Twitter direct messages, asked her about her Tumblr. “I do believe he is very cute, but that’s not the reason I am personally involved in this movement,” she emailed me back. “I am in this because I don’t believe its right to put a totally innocent person in jail for the rest of his/her life or even death penalty. I don’t care who it is, it just isn’t fair.”

Whenever I read pieces of news on either extreme (the picketing of funerals or the placation of criminals), my first impulse is to become physically nauseous. I want to criticize and ridicule and argue with and reject them as idiotic and unbelievable. But I must realize that I too am guilty of such perversions.

My favorite verse from scripture is Micah 6:8:

He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.

What does this mean? It means reminding myself that righteousness is so sacred that it must be woven into daily action: commonplace deliberation in distinguishing right from wrong on a basis independent of my personal attachments and preferences. It means seeking civil, corporate, and social justice at its highest and greatest virtue, at whatever cost is necessary to achieve integrity. It means speaking truth to power and the diligent pursuit of moral ethic at the expense of personal gain and discomfort. And I will say that our collective discomfort with the trendiness of forgiveness is that it seems like cheap grace: a violation of our God-given desire for the integrity of justice, and consequently an implicit insult and demeaning of the virtue and value of what has been destroyed. This is why we instinctively feel that forgiveness can only be offered by those who have purchased the right by having suffered loss, and that only through such a transaction have we given due credibility to the integrity of our justice. To shortcut this process by failing to appreciate the full gravity of injustice is itself unjust.

But we are equally challenged to have a visceral and enduring affection for mercy. This means that once we have understood the weight of what is wrong, we seek the strength to set it down. According to Miroslav Volf, this does not mean we erase the distinction between victims and aggressors, but that we recognize that each of us is both victim and aggressor. Out of our indignation, anger, and hurt from being offended, we can compassionately recognize and understand the virtue of those we have done violence to. In loving mercy, we can convert our own pain into sorrow and remorse for our offenses towards others, and through that sense we generate the emotional capacity to pursue a systematic and methodologic pursuit of virtue.

The call from scripture is simple but it is not easy. How can we engage in the meticulous and daily pursuit of virtue without exhaustion or cynicism? How can we expect to live such a life without becoming embroiled in the argument over whose rights are right, whose justice will prevail, whose offenses are legitimate and whose are frivolous? After all, we fail daily over innumerable petty disagreements. We are always seeking our own vigilante justice, always indulging in our own self-pity, always eager to assert our own self-righteousness or to deny fault.

We do it through Jesus Christ, the humility of God who walked among us and still dwells in our midst:

You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! Not only is this so, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. – Romans 5

In Christ, there is both the satisfaction of justice and the sweetness of grace. In Christ, there is the personal embodiment and example of otherwise abstract principles. In Christ, we uphold the word and bond of law while turning the other cheek and loving our enemies.

I have no easy answers for how we should approach the Tsarnaev brothers, mainly because the impact of what they have done is removed far enough from me that I feel unqualified to speak of appropriate retribution (and certainly unqualified to offer forgiveness). But what I do know is that it cannot be achieved outside of the person and divinity of Jesus Christ, who bore the full weight of injustice that we may receive immeasurable grace. To him, I submit both my rights and my affection.

Sonata for single violin #1 in G minor BWV 1001, Johann Sebastian Bach, front page of the autograph. Picture from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:BWV1001-cropped.jpg.

In response to the question of vocational formation/next steps offered by Kate Peterson in PhD or No PhD. That is the Question. (ESN Blog. 5/1/2013), Benjamin Shute offers a four part series with insights on Should I Get a Degree in Music? I pray that those considering/pressing on with studies in music will give this attention. Furthermore if you have friends in music who will find the series of benefit, please “share the wealth.” To God be the glory! ~ Thomas B. Grosh IV, Editor.

 —————

When it comes to making a decision of any kind, there is a three-fold pattern we would do well to follow. First and most important is to pray: adore God for His sovereignty and faithfulness and, in that assurance, ask for His guidance in your decision. Second, be open to the possibility of a “burning bush,” an extraordinary sign that God is calling you to do something that might seem counterintuitive by human standards (something like, say, returning to a powerful nation where you’re wanted for murder in order to single-handedly strip that nation of the slave labor on which it thrives…). Be ready to step out in faith if you receive such a call. But third, be aware that “burning bushes,” while I think they do happen, are rare. Don’t go looking under every rock for something you can interpret as a “sign”– that’s a sure-fire way to make a mess! God is powerful enough that if he wants to give you a message, you’ll get it. But in the absence of a “burning bush,” ask God for wisdom to make a choice that will bring glory to Him. So it is from the perspective of pursuing wisdom that I will turn to our question of whether to get a music degree.

This decision is situated against a contrapuntal backdrop. On the one hand, music is a wonderful gift from God, and as such, acquiring skill in music (or the arts or academics in general) has value in and of itself. That is why Christians don’t take a merely utilitarian stance toward education: it has value beyond merely getting me a money-making job; education cultivates the humanity God has given us, which is an inherently good thing.

The counterpoint to this is the practical reality of surviving in the “real world.” If you expect needing to work for a living, then unless you are intent on (and reasonably capable of) getting a career that doesn’t require a college degree, it’s sensible to take a degree that will help you become established in the professional world. Especially if you are looking to take only one degree with one major, I would recommend only taking a music degree/major if you reasonably see yourself thriving professionally as a musician or as a practitioner in a related field where a music degree is seen as especially valuable (e.g. music therapy or arts administration).

But how do you know whether it is realistic to see yourself thriving professionally in music or a closely related field?

Know your options

First, it is important to bear in mind that, though there are a number of occupations you could have within the broader field of music, you may not be equally suited to all of them. What that means is that it’s important to consider each possibility individually to see which, if any, might be desirable and feasible. In my view, it is ill-advised to get a music degree merely because you like music and then simply to assume that your career path will automatically fall into place. Before deciding to pursue a degree in music, you should have a fairly good idea of precisely what area(s) you could reasonably see yourself succeeding in. Let me clarify that you don’t need to have doggedly fastened on one (or several) of these potential occupations before entering especially an undergraduate music program: but you should have a decent idea of whether you could thrive in one or more of them specifically. In the posts that follow, we’ll examine a few of these in more detail to help you decide if any of them might be right for you.