Have you ever talked to a teenager, only to realize they aren't compliantly nodding in agreement to your words, they're bobbing along to the beat of the music throbbing through their ear buds?

With today's technology, we can create our own personal musical score, like a movie soundtrack for our lives. We plug in our iPods (or as my friend and fellow writer Gina Welborn says, our "faux-pods") and inject song and sound into our heads. Never before have we had such easy access to music of every genre and era. I can just as easily download Pink as a selection of Gregorian chants. I don't have to BE a musician or FIND a musician to listen to music. No longer are we subject to the whims of a radio DJ or {shudder} caller requests, or the back side of an album, or the hidden tracks on a cassette tape.

I've been tempted to plug myself in to my MP3 player at the grocery just to escape whatever piped-in satellite radio station the store is playing. AndI've been known to insert my pink ear buds to disappear into my own private realm while the usual chaos involved in a house of teenagers and dogs churns around me. But when I do, it's with the realization that I must choose my own playlist, my own background score. These days, it's all up to me. And sometimes, that's just too much responsibility!

Movie makers use sound to heighten the emotional tension of a scene. There are the dark, minor keys for scary situations. Can any of us ever forget the "screak, screak, screak" sound in the Psycho shower? Or the swelling chords that accompany the drama of Gone With the Wind? I used to panic during Scooby-Doo cartoons when the monster music came on because I knew the big chase scene was coming. Movie soundtracks had (and have) the ability to transport us right back into the magic of a darkened theater, to embue us with the desired traits of our favorite characters.

Music can reflect who we are.
Or it can affect who we are.

Music can be a tool or a weapon we use to help or harm ourselves. King David of Israel played the lyre (a sort of mix between a harp and a guitar) and wrong hundreds of songs (psalms) during the course of his lifetime. What he wrote ministered to him, encouraged him when times were tough, and still provide comfort and encouragement and inspiration to millions of people today. When Saul was tormented by an evil spirit, he called for David to play for him. When David played, the evil spirit would leave Saul alone.

Don't like the way things are going? Maybe it's time to "change your tune," literally. A version of that saying, "sing a new song," according to The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer, "dates from about 1300, and it has been theorized that it alludes to itinerant minstrels who changed the words of their songs to please their current audience." Guess what, in today's world, YOU are the current audience AND the minstrel!

Take a minute today and consider how you could use music to inspire, encourage, or even change some area of your life. For example, if you've got a negative attitude about life in general, you might start out with Ella Fitzgerald's "Accentuate the Positive." If you're having a hard time in your marriage, don't sit around and listen to mopey country tunes about infidelity and divorce all day... put on some of that music you listened to when you first fell in love with each other. Feeling sluggish and depressed? Check what's playing in the background. It might be time to check out a different composer!

What would you put on YOUR life's soundtrack? Or at least on your current playlist?

 

Success, Gladwell explains, has less to do with intelligence and ambition than we assume, and more to do with opportunity and legacy. Using statistical examples about everything from preadolescent hockey players in Canada to the generational family feuds in western Kentucky, Gladwell offers proof that the factors that determine our success -- whether we become an outlier or not -- are not merely subject to the whims of a fanciful God, bestowing random blessings as He sees fit.An outlier is defined as "something that is situated away from or classed differently from a main or related body, a statistical observation that is markedly different in value from the others of the sample."The example Gladwell uses that stands out in my mind is about math. I hate math. I hate numbers. I despise formulas. From the fourth grade lesson on fractions that I failed (my first "F"), through the required college algebra course, I convinced myself I just wasn't good at math.But Berkeley math professor Alan Schoenfeld would disagree. According to Schoenfeld, being good at math has more to do with attitude than ability. "You master mathematics if you are willing to try.""Success is a function of persistence and doggedness and the willingness to work hard for twenty-two minutes to make sense of something that most people would give up on after thirty seconds."Part of success is based on natural circumstances. But another part of it is based on hard work and the willingness to do whatever is necessary to achieve the desired goal.I don't really like that. That means that instead of being some elusive, intangible thing, success is within my grasp, if I'm willing to do what it takes to obtain it. As a writer, what does that mean to me? It means that in order to be a success as a writer I'm first going to have to write. A lot. I'm going to have to submit my work and deal with rejection. A lot. And I'm going to have to keep writing when I don't feel "the muse" and when I'd rather be doing something else. Something easier. Something with tangible, built-in rewards.Niki Turner, Inkwell Inspirations, Sep 2009

You should read the whole article.

The first thing my Westie does every morning is stretch. Like a runner gearing up for a triathlon, Archie stretches to get ready for his busy day of bird patrol, dog fight refereeing, cat guarding, professional napping, and begging for snacks. In fact, all animals seem to spend a considerable amount of time stretching. Much more than most people.

We tend to ignore flexibility both in physical fitness and in daily life. Face it, unless you can stick your foot behind your head, flexibility doesn't garner the attention big biceps or six-pack abs do. Its not obvious in your day-to-day activities the way a show of strength is. But without it, we will suffer injury.

Life (unless you're in a vegetative state) places demands on us that require stretching. If we don't stretch, we snap. Or at least cause scarring. I've got stretch marks that made my midwife say "ew." My skin just wasn't willing to stretch enough to accommodate pregnancy. While you may be one of the fortunate ones whose postpartum stomach doesn't look like a melted nylon tent, you've probably got some invisible stretch marks. I know I do.

I've got places in my emotions that have been broken by disappointment and heartbreak. Painful scars from the loss of friends and loved ones, from watching my children untie the apron strings right before my eyes. I have mental injuries (yeah, like brain damage!) where I've stopped stretching my mind to learn new information. (I now understand why my parents looked at me helplessly when the clock on the VCR blinked instead of displaying the time. I do not want to program my cell phone. I just want to be able to use it.)  I've got a few spiritual scars, too, where God has rearranged some things in my life without consulting me first, like where I live, and the size of our church.

Our natural response to unpleasant or unfamiliar situations is to tighten up, which invariably causes pain and injury. We hold our breath, tense our muscles. Jesus, however, was flexible without being flaky or flippant. He flexed with every situation he encountered, without "cracking up." The religious Pharisees, in contrast, were shaken by every tiny thing that didn't correspond to their rigid formula for living. They couldn't stretch to fit God into their framework. That's sad. And familiar. The winds of change begin to blow in our homes, or our churches, or our nation, and we purse our lips and scrunch up our shoulders and dig in our heels, making ourselves and everyone around us miserable.



I can hear the voices now... "So, we should just throw aside everything we know and accept whatever is going on?" No. You should have a firm foundation, solid ground on which your life is based. But everything above that foundation - everything you can see - is subject to change, and needs to be flexible.

Earthquake-proof buildings are designed to flex with the tremors of the earth. Palm trees withstand hurricanes because their trunks bend while their roots remain stable and fixed. It's such a time of discomfort in our nation. Economic earthquakes and political hurricanes are just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. And everywhere you go, you run into people who are tensed up for a fight, ready to do battle with enemies seen and unseen, some polarized in their positions to the point of blindness.



For myself, I'm working on flexibility. I'm stretching my understanding of God and who He is both to me and to the world. I'm stretching my faith to accept the depths of His love and mercy and His judgment. I'm yielding those non-essential aspects (and really, most things are non-essential) toward God's truth. I'm extending myself to people I disagree with when my natural inclination is to withdraw from them. If there is indeed a battle ahead, and there will be, then I want to be loose, relaxed and flexible. I can only do that if I'm willing to stretch every day, in the little things, even when it hurts.

In this house full of boys I feel like part of a freak show sometimes. Even our dogs are males. I'm seriously outnumbered! But I've never actually been to a real freak show, unless the White River Museum with its two-headed calf counts. I have been tempted, I'll admit, to stop at that place in Kansas that boasts of having the world's largest prairie dog. Not that I really care about giant prairie dogs, I'm just looking for an excuse to get off the highway.

Freak shows, or side shows, were wildly popular in Europe and America from the late 1700s all the way into the 1940s.
Traveling caravans like P.T. Barnum's and the Ringling Bros., spotlighted the bizarre physical abnormalities or exceptional abilities of humans and animals hired to "perform" for the show. People collected and traded freak show cards like baseball cards. I remember thinking the "Garbage Pail Kids" trading cards in the '80s and '90s were twisted! (They're making a comeback, by the way!) How would you like to have your kid come home with a "Titana the Fat Girl" card, or an "Eliza Jenkins the Skeleton Woman" card?  "Hey Johnny, I'll trade you my Jo Jo the Dog-Faced Boy for your Grace the Mule-Faced Woman!" What's wrong with this picture?


Oddly enough, Germany banned freak show exhibits in 1939 because they were "exploitive." In the same year the Nazis invaded Poland and began the Second World War. Apparently, tossing Jews in the gas chamber was okay, but pointing fingers at the deformed people wasn't nice. Talk about a bad case of situation ethics!

Some freak show performers became famous, like Tom Thumb, who appeared before Queen Victoria three times. He was only eleven years old when he signed on with P.T. Barnum. Oh yeah, no exploitation there.
Bearded ladies, probably the victims of a simple hormone disorder, were frequent attractions, along with albinos, giants, midgets and dwarfs, hermaphrodites, multiple amputees, conjoined twins and individuals with varied birth defects... like Howard the Lobster Boy. Folks with "self-made anomalies" were popular, too, like the tattooed husband and wife team, the fireeaters, the sword swallowers, and the "human pincushions."

So this afternoon I sit down to check my e-mail and come upon a headline about the Duggar family. It seems Mrs. Duggar has announced her 19th pregnancy. Feelings about the Duggars run strong, judging from the emotional comments left on the news article. And that got me to thinking... (which is always dangerous). I turned on the television and scanned the ridiculous number of available channels. Almost every other program was a "reality show."

We have shows about the day to day lives of  "little people." How they drive, how they reach the top shelves in their kitchens, and so on. We have Miami Ink, an entire program dedicated to tattoos, tattoo artists, and the people they tattoo. "De plane, de plane, boss!" Sorry, wrong Tattoo. I have no business posting a blog at this hour of the night.

We've got American Idol, America's Got Talent, and Survivorman highlighting the special--and not so special--abilities of everyday folks. For everyone out there who grew up on Knight Rider and Baywatch, is it NOT embarrassing to watch David Hasselhoff demonstrate his mid-life crisis--complete with chest hair and gold chains? And what in the heck was Sharon Osbourne thinking when she married Ozzy? Sharon is a reasonably attractive woman. Ozzy is, well, Ozzy. And who is that British guy with the bad attitude, anyway? Oh, right, which British guy? Both of them. Are British guys just grouchy? And if that isn't enough, Discovery and TLC offer options about morbid obesity, women who didn't know they were pregnant until they gave birth (yeah, right), and mysterious, incurable diseases. Yippee.

And then there are the parenting and marriage shows (not counting the Duggars). There's Jon and Kate plus 8. Whoops, make that Jon, Kate, their significant others, and eight kids. There are the nanny shows, which prompt my children to say, "That kid needs a spanking!" And there's Wife Swap. Which used to be a very naughty term, but apparently just means taking a feeding-on-demand mom and trading her with a feed-on-schedule mom to see if the moms fall apart before the dads and kids do.

We've gone back to the freak show, ladies and gentlemen. 

Hey, can I get some Duggar family trading cards?