Now that I live in Denver- far away from nearly everyone on that side of the family- it makes get-togethers like the one we had this weekend truly precious. While this weekend’s festivities were centered around celebrating my grandpa Bohannan, the 35-or-so of us can’t truly celebrate him without celebrating each other; celebrating what it means to be part of the four generations under that roof that my Grandpa has proudly and lovingly overseen in good times and in bad. And the Bohannan side of my family can’t celebrate so much as a new pair of socks without what they call “The Bohannan Curse” making its presence felt.

I could write four or five blog posts on all of the great times we had this weekend- from the Sugar Cookie Showdown to the family church service on Sunday morning to the impromtu musical performances by a handful of us musically inclined folks and everything in between- but I want to tell you about The Curse. You see, my mom’s family has this reputation for being overly emotional and crying a river at the drop of a hat for almost no reason. For grandkids like myself who are really only half Bohannan, we all had a 50-50 shot of coming into this life with overactive tear ducts. If you were to look around the room during the good-bye sob-fest headed by our Bohannan parents and grandparents, I’d say that those 50-50 odds held true. Some of us grandkids never cry at these gatherings. Others of us cry occasionally. And then there are some of us who look like we’re on pace to outcry any full-blooded Bohannan before we collect our first Social Security check.

As I’ve gotten older, The Curse has gone from being a mystery to me to being a burden to being just a simple fact of my own life that for better or worse I’ve had to learn to accept. (As you could maybe guess by now, The Curse is strong in this one, and no matter how hard I try I can’t suppress it.) But this weekend, I think for the first time, as a 30-year old man, I was thankful for The Curse; thankful not so much for the tears themselves as I was for what they represent in my life. Thankful that I am connected by blood to an immediate and extended family that causes my heart to fill up with so much pride, joy, happiness and love that my heart has to convert the overflow of emotions to tears so my heart doesn’t just burst inside my body. Thankful to overhear and be a part of tear-filled goodbye hugs and precious verbal exchanges between aunts and nephews. Nieces and uncles. Sisters and brothers. Cousins and cousins, grandparents and grandchildren, parents and children. Thankful to know that as the oldest grandchild reminded us all this weekend, even though we may go long periods of time without seeing each other these days, there is no love lost between any of us. Ever.

I wish the teenage version of myself could have known what I know now. The Curse isn’t actually a curse at all; it’s merely my soul’s response to some of my greatest blessings. And if crying like a baby is the only price I have to pay for experiencing the profound levels of love that I’ve been fortunate enough to experience though my family during my time on this earth, then I should consider myself blessed beyond measure. From this day forward, I have no other choice but to fall to my knees and thank my God for each and every “cursed” tear that falls down my face, for the feelings and experiences that cause them to fall, and for the genetic knitting that was done in my mother’s womb that doesn’t allow me to hold them back.

“In a season that has been so improbable, the IMPOSSIBLE has happened!!”

-Vin Scully, LA Dodgers broadcaster after Kirk Gibson’s walk-off home run in Game one of the 1988 World Series against the Oakland Athletics

–

It was about seven weeks ago that a guy named Tim Tebow replaced Kyle Orton as starting the quarterback of the embarrassingly bad,  1-4 Denver Broncos. What has unfolded on the football field since then has been, in the literal sense, unbelievable. In the seven weeks since Tebow took over, the Broncos defense has become utterly and completely dominant, the running attack has evolved into one of the best in the NFL, and the Broncos have won six of seven games. Today, the one-time “Suck for Luck”-eligible Broncos are legitimately  in the playoff hunt. Improbable? Yes. Impossible? Apparently not. Certainly it’s not all Tebow’s doing, certainly he’s not out there playing defense or special teams, and certainly there’s been some luck involved. But what no one can deny is that this win-loss turnaround began almost immediately once Tebow replaced Orton.

Now: what in the world can classical music learn from this Tebow business? Quite a lot if you ask me, but today I want to focus on what I think are the three most important things that classical music should learn from the Tim Tebow Era thus far:

3. Risk-taking is risky, but when risks pan out, the payoff is huge. In a country full of people who are too scared to take big risks, Denver’s high-profile, tradition rich football organization took a HUGE risk by starting a quarterback who lacked the one skill that traditionally defines a quarterback’s greatness: the ability to pass the ball accurately. In some ways, Denver has gotten tremendously lucky here because even though they started Tebow, no one expected these kinds of results. How many classical music organizations are taking risks that big in hopes of finding successes that they aren’t currently having? Some of them are sinking quickly and completely backed into a losing corner as the Broncos were, but still stubbornly refuse to do something different. It’s your funeral if you don’t change, folks.

2. You can’t care too much about what other people think about your unorthodox choices. I cannot say enough about how impressed I am by Broncos head coach John Fox and his staff. Their willingness to go back to the drawing board to build a new offense around Tebow’s skill set and to implement it in the NFL has been awesome to watch. The option-based offense is viewed by many as amateurish and not really professional football material, so Fox has to have tremendous courage to put his reputation on the line like this. Fox has embraced what is good about Tebow, shown tremendous patience with what is lacking in his game, and at the risk of embarassing himself, he’s letting Tebow learn “on the fly” the skills that he- in theory- should already have.

When I was in college, many of my music professors often lamented how ill-prepared most of us kids were for the undergraduate music degree experience. And when some people get jobs right out of college, their employers are often frustrated by how ill-prepared their new employees are for “life in the real world.” No doubt, this is how many football people and football fans felt about Tim Tebow starting in the NFL because the technical skills he learned in college about football don’t really translate to the NFL very well (kind of like someone getting a degree in musical theater and trying to become an opera singer or vice versa). I can see how that can be frustrating for university level classical music teachers to have to do more teaching than they are accustomed to with new students, but my musical friends, welcome to the 21st century. Kids like me who didn’t grow up in classical music but still wanted to major in music have such a wide range of musical tastes, interests and styles floating around in their heads that they are late bloomers when it comes to learning what it takes to have the proper technical skills necessary for performing classical music. It is what it is, and I think that’s what we see with Tebow. Until he reached a level of football where the players playing against him were so good that he could no longer succeed without eliminating his bad habits, he saw no need to change. Now: as teachers of classical music or as classical music organizations, when we come across one of these talented but (for lack of a better word) ignorant people, we have two choices: a. Tell them to come back when they actually know what they are doing, or b. see through the skills they lack to the aspects of who they are personally and musically, and if those are special, commit to developing those other skills in that musician on the fly so that they can reach their full potential not only as musicians but as community servants. If you’re too busy lamenting the lack of ready-made conductors or musicians coming out of college, don’t be surprised when those  people with the greatest talent or the biggest heart fly under your radar only to find success once they’re far, far away from you.

1. It’s ok to be inspirational, and it’s ok to allow yourself to be inspired. Full disclosure: I’m what you might call a “Tim Tebow Hopeful”- I want desperately for things to work out for him because he’s different (and, quite frankly, because he’s a devout Christian), but I  am also realistic about his lack of certain football skills and I accept the fact that even with his early success, things still might not work out for him in the NFL. And I absolutely grow weary of people who talk about Tebow’s “will to win” as if other people on the field just want to lose. But you  simply can’t deny that the Broncos players have bought into Tebow and his inspirational ways. Last week, John Fox let Tebow speak to the team on the Saturday before the game against the Chargers. I don’t know what he said, but according to the team, he rocked their worlds. In classical music, we are so concerned about being professional and perfect that we sometimes forget to allow ourselves room to be inspired. In the minds of some Musical Pharisees, it’s almost looked at as child’s play to be inspired by a conductor, a teacher or another artist. NFL athletes have the luxury of realtive youth on their side, so even though they are professional athletes, they’re not so old that they’ve unlearned how to be inspired in heart and mind. But classical musicians? Too many are old. That’s right, I said it. Old and tired. Old and skeptical. But worst of all, old in heart. Too many act as if they don’t even want to be inspired. Well if you don’t want to be inspired, if you are above inspiration or aren’t humble enough or hopeful enough to allow someone else to inspire you, then maybe you shouldn’t be surprised at the fact that a world full of people who are hurting and in need of some kind of inspiration don’t seem to give a rip about what you do. Maybe the fact that most of America would rather look to a football player for inspiration and hope than a classical musician should be cause for you to take a long look in the mirror.  It’s good to be inspired. If you’re in music and you don’t want to be inspired, then put your instrument down and find another job. Your community, your colleagues, and your soul deserve better.

Go Broncos. Go Tebow. Go inspiration, unconventional ways, instincts and intangibles. Go skills that evolve and improve with the right direction, and go classical music following the Denver Broncos’ lead and being better for it. Inspire people not only with musical excellence but with human greatness off the stage. Until next time, you stay classy…Planet Earth.

In the classical music world, I’ve heard more than one person talk about how they don’t give free lessons to anyone because “that’s my source of income” or because “I should be compensated for my time.” Certainly no one expects anyone to work 24/7 for free, but the generosity of my friends has prompted me to ask myself what I think is an important question for musicians to consider: how often to I actually give someone the gift of my musical ability, and do it 100% for free; no bartering, no strings attached, just helping someone who needs or wants my help?

For me, the answer is clear: almost never.

Sure. These guys love playing with their tools and doing stuff that they don’t get to do all that often anymore, and it might be tempting to use that as a reason for justifying my non-compensation of their work. But I happen to be fortunate enough to also have a job where work and fun often overlap. In fact, they’re often one and the same. So when I’m “off the clock,” does giving my musical abilities to friends/family/community for free or a drastically discounted rate suddenly become less fun than it is when I’m getting paid for it? More work-like? Even though I’m giving it to people that are supposedly good friends or unquestionably in some kind of musical/financial/emotional need? Surely not.

I think that society and music school subconsciously (and sometimes not-so-subconsciously) teach us that certain kinds of work have greater value and importance than others. This is a lie, and we would do well to put it out of our heads forever. My friends have already saved me thousands of dollars in just one week; the equivalent of a year or more worth of free voice or guitar lessons. Is there anyone that I would give free lessons to for a year? Two years? Just out of the goodness of my heart? Any musical activity a friend was doing that I’d volunteer to help with for free that would take 20 or 30 hours of “my” free time? I guess I’ve never thought about it before. I’ve certainly never done it before. But here’s the answer: if I’m not willing to do that for a close friend or someone(s) that I know are musically/financially/emotionally in need of what I could offer them, then I sure as heck shouldn’t be accepting the generosity of my friends who are helping us with our house.

If you accept the generosity of friends, family, even strangers who have skills in areas that you simply don’t have, be sure to give back whatever you have to give whenever you can give it. Musically or otherwise.

–

(What’s a horcrux, you say? Click here.)

We all grow up with music. Sure all of us are exposed more to one kind of music than to others, and sure all of us develop different tastes and preferences, but we all grow up with music. Yet like religion and like politics, so much of what we’ve learned to love and believe about music has been taught to us informally by friends, family, media, etc. We spend our lives subconsciously absorbing hidden rules and attitudes towards certain kinds of music and the people who make it that stick with us for years. Some of us go our whole lives without really questioning those attitudes. And eventually, those seeds that were planted in our heads as kids, teenagers, and college students “blossom” into creativity-dampening, life-stealing and humility-busting musical horcruxes.

Just like Voldemort in the Harry Potter saga (he’s dead now, so I can say his name), we take parts of our musical selves- parts of who we could have and should have been as musicians or music lovers- and we hide them.  We hide them to keep things simple. We hide them so we can attempt to live musically forever in the hearts and minds of our listeners. We hide them in hopes of fitting in. But worst of all is the fact that we, like Voldemort, think that by creating these musical horcruxes we are somehow making ourselves “more better-er,” as my old high school English teacher used to say. More musical. More cultured. More proper. More hood.

It’s all a lie.

If you’re like me, your views on what makes music good, appropriate, controversial, unique, etc. are full of inconsistencies and double standards (aka horcruxes). It’s not because you’re a lousy human; it’s simply because you’re human. And if you’re like me, you don’t want to have those horcruxes anymore. So you set about the business of finding and killing them. But on that quest, with each horcrux you uncover you will find yourself at a crossroads: a “musical gut-check” if you will, not unlike the one Ron and Hermione are confronted with in the clip above. At those crossroads, you must either:

1.  kill the horcrux in question and walk away in newness of musical life, or
2. treat your horcrux like Smeagol/Gollum treated The Precious. Justify your arrogant and ignorant horcrux for reasons that you know deep down aren’t fair or right, and carry on with life as usual.

The good news is that while finding your horcruxes is an embarrassing exercise in realizing how shallow and petty you are, killing them is liberating. Like Smeagol in that clip above, I’ve spent the past two months telling my musical horcruxes to go away and never come back, and as counter-intuitive as that can sometimes be, I am absolutely better for it.

Are you a classical musician who wonders why you’re not part of the broader musical conversation locally? Here’s the harsh reality: most of the time you’re not part of the conversation because you take yourself out of it. No one is entitled to a spot in any musical conversation. If you want into The Conversation, you have to become humble enough and passionate enough to join the musical conversations that are already taking place between people who aren’t like you.

Does the thought of that make you nervous? Do you think that sounds stupid? I’d bet a large sum of money there’s a horcrux lodged somewhere in your heart preventing you from accepting what I just said. That horcrux needs to die, but only you can kill it.

Want to break that musical glass ceiling between classical music/musicians and the rest of the musical world? Trust me when I say that it’s within your power to do so. Swallow your misguided pride, grow some cajones and kill your horcruxes. Tell them to go away and never come back. Re-learn how to be yourself and become the musician and person you were always supposed to be.

See you at the crossroads.

–

You know, making your way in the world today takes everything you’ve got. Taking a break from all your worries sure would help a lot. Wouldn’t you like to get away?

It’s true. Sometimes we want to go where everybody knows our name and they’re always glad we came, right? We want to be where we can see our troubles are all the same as other people’s, and that there are people out there who are like us, right? Right. And as musicians and artists- especially classical musicians- that’s precisely our problem.

It’s ok, as the Cheers theme song says, to sometimes want to go where everybody knows your name. But if you always want to go where everybody knows your name and aren’t ever willing to go where everybody loathes your name, or where no one knows your name, I don’t know how you could possibly expect positive change in your community- musical or otherwise- to take place.

Last Sunday, as someone who is trying to learn how to appreciate and support local hip-hop artists in Denver (DJs, emcees, producers, etc.), among other things, this classically trained children’s choir conductor went to a hip-hop event in Denver at a park by myself. I shouldn’t feel like that’s newsworthy, but unfortunately I did. It was an all-day event put on by Denver’s Hip Hop Congress for the second year in a row, and after accidentally oversleeping during a rare Sunday nap I managed to catch the final two hours or so of the event. I knew no one there when I showed up, but I knew that a couple of the people I followed on Twitter would be there. I hoped to meet them and talk to them about music, and I did just that. These local emcees could not have been much nicer to me than they were.

It was an awesome event. A community of incredibly diverse, happy and peaceful people having a great time. Beautiful. Local rappers and poets were grillin’ up food for everyone (everything was free) and there were a couple of b-boy battles, cyphers, and a few short sets performed by some of the local emcees in attendance. I’m sure some have at some point, but I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a classical music organization in The States throw a party on that scale for people who loved their music (especially one that wasn’t an attempt to raise money).

It was also refreshing to go to a music-related event that was all young people in attendance- most of them appearing to be younger than me, and I just turned 30. My wife and I sing with the Colorado Symphony Chorus, and when we walk out on stage to take our seats for a performance of Beethoven 9 or Mahler 2 or whatever, all you see is a sea of gray hair in the audience. Sure there are some young people there and some middle-aged folks there, but they are swallowed up in the big picture by the 55 and above crowd. I think I saw one man with gray hair checking out the b-boy battle at the hip-hop event. Other than that, it was folks in their 20s and 30s, plus their kids.

Don’t get me wrong; music is for the old as much as it’s for the young, but I couldn’t help but wonder for the 24,876th time: if both groups of people love music, what is it that keeps the old folks away from a hip-hop and the young folks away from a classical music? Seems like an elementary question, but I’m discovering that the answer is more complex than you or I could possibly imagine, and that it’s a little bit different for every person.

But at the same time, as I stood there shooting the breeze with some of Denver’s prominent local rappers and poets- something I never thought I’d do in a million years- it became embarrassingly clear that in the midst of all the complex reasons that people live and breathe one kind of art but ignore another, there is this narrow road on a higher plane that calls to us all. This narrow road can and already is “making straight in the desert a highway” that I believe is leading us to a more inclusive community of artists from all genres and mediums here in Denver. It’s the road less traveled. It’s the path of The Listener.

It’s tempting as an artist (at least for me, anyway) to think that outside of the small circle of people who truly appreciate “my” art is this big bad world of haters and eye-rollers who fear and loathe me, what I do and what I stand for. But if you can muster the courage to cross that imaginary line in the sand (emphasis on imaginary) and choose to listen rather than fear, avoid or insult, you’ll find as I have that your fears were a colossal waste of time and energy. There’s no place on earth where everybody loathes your name. Sure there might be some individuals who loathe you, and they may at times make up the majority of the people in a given room, but those individuals will loathe you whether you’re in the same room as them or not. Not much you can do about that. With a little time and a little effort, a local hip-hop fan that you had coffee with a few months back will see you in a club, give you a big hug and say, “Hey I saw that song you did with those kids down in Mexico. That was dope.” Or the people who were perfect strangers to you at the beginning of the night in the club will invite you to an after party and offer you a chance to smoke a bowl with them before they go inside (which you can choose to accept, or as I did, politely decline.) Or the young lady who just spent the weekend “celebrating” the five-year anniversary of her brother’s murder with a weekend of  booze and music that connects her to a happier past decides that she’s ready to go to  A.A and grab a Diet Coke with you- a fellow music lover- as she embarks on her courageous journey towards sobriety. Suddenly, these places where people supposedly loathed or didn’t know your name become the place where everybody knows your name. The places where even they can’t believe that they’re glad you came. The places where even though our troubles and lifestyles are not the same, music paves the way for understanding, open-heartedness, and when we need it, help.

Oh, the places we’ll go if we would just put down our agendas for two freaking seconds…and listen.

–

But the truth is that not very many people listened. In retrospect, I think what I was asking from people was more time than they were willing to dedicate to something they didn’t already care about. Fewer people than I had anticipated were willing to read my blog posts, and the ones who did read them as far as I could tell were either heavily invested in me as a person or people who already loved classical music anyway. I had started this journey dreaming of taking my message to the world and watching a Musical Spring change music forever,  but I was left preaching to the choir (and a small one at that). I stopped including musical excerpts in my posts because people obviously weren’t listening to them, so I started trying to write in a way that I hoped would challenge people’s thinking about their views towards certain kinds of music. That never really caught on, either.

At one point in the year, I started gaining a little traction on Twitter among classical music’s social media savvy folks, but it didn’t last long. They would retweet my more music-related blog posts to friends which was flattering at first. But as time went on I think that I started to realize that in some cases (not all, but some) those retweets were strategically doled out not necessarily because they liked what I had to say but because they wanted something from me. (That being said, I am thankful for some of the incredibly kind and gracious classical musicians I have met on Twitter that I would never know existed otherwise; people like Erica Sipes, Emily Wright, and Andrei Strizek to name a few.)

As my readership dwindled in recent months, it bothered me to see how few people cared about what I was saying. I know I’m not the greatest writer, but I felt like I was actually getting better and more creative as time went on. I don’t know if that’s true, but what I do know is that writing this blog has been really good for me. It’s been time consuming at times, but it’s really helped me to clarify my positions on certain things that I believe trouble the classical music world, and what I think my role is and should be in creating change. I thought it was to call out Musical Pharisees and put them in their place. I thought it was to bring a more human, “normal” feel to the classical music world. I thought it was to make classical music more accessible and be the guy that finally bridged the gap so new people could begin enjoying classical music.

You might find this weird since I’ve told you that my blog has been so unpopular, but I still believe I’m capable of those things. But what I’ve learned through my dabbling and experimenting with social media is that my dreams will not be accomplished in the ways I thought they would. A Musical Spring of the masses is no longer what I dream about, nor should it be what I dream about. Now I dream about community. About fellowship. About artists from all genres and backgrounds in Denver and everywhere else having mutual admiration for each other, a genuine respect for each other and a willingness to support each other however they can WITHOUT EXCEPTION. Now I dream about deconstructing everything I’ve ever learned about how I view music, art and artists in hopes of rebuilding a framework for experiencing them that is inclusive, just, fair and loving. My dream no longer strives to put the cart before the horse. Before Spring can be sprung among the masses, I must first allow it to Spring in me.

I love you my wonderful Authentic Cadence choristers. I really do. But I’m done preaching to the choir. It might feel good sometimes, but it doesn’t do either of us any favors. I’m taking my message out of the blogosphere and into the streets and the clubs. Not by blog, pamphlet, megaphone or iPod mind you, but by learning to be the best supporter of local artists and their fans that my city has ever seen.  I cannot ask for something that I am not willing to give myself. And neither should you.

This next year at An Authentic Cadence will be dedicated to telling the most important stories and reflections I have from my attempts to do that, but I’ll be cutting that blogging back by about 75%. If you know me, you know that the force and experience of who I am and what I stand for in real life doesn’t fully translate to a blog post or a tweet. Maybe that combined with my poor grammar is why the blogging never really took off. From now on, I’ll blog once a month (as close to the first of the month as possible), with a couple of “And 1″ posts thrown in here or there.  If you don’t want to miss anything from this next year, you should subscribe to the posts.

I almost didn’t write this post because I didn’t figure many people would read it. I was just going to tweet something like, “Cutting back my blogging to one post a month. I hope you’ll check it out.” But then I remembered: I should write this one for “my choir.” Thank you for truly taking an interest in my thoughts. It means so, so much to me. See you again in early August, and then not again until September. Until then Planet Earth…well…you know what to do.

I wrote this song last week in Mexico while serving with some people from my church at a children’s home in northern Mexico called “Casa de la Esperanza,” or “House of Hope” in English. These kids are so dear, and their unusual sense of joy and hope in the midst of their hard-knock lives is what inspired this song. If your heart is touched in any way by this song, please consider taking one of the following action steps as a response:

1. Visit Casa’s website (www.ahouseofhope.com) and find out how you might get involved in helping these kids

2. Retweet this blog post & video/share this blog post with all of your friends on Facebook to spread awareness about Casa, these beautiful kids and the incredible work that Gil Sanchez, his wife Becky and their staff do for the kids at Casa, and/or

3. If you like this song and would like to have a copy of it, email me at themusicalapologist@gmail.com, tell me you’re sending a donation to Casa along with a note that says that this song is what inspired you to donate (don’t tell me how much you’re sending- that’s your business, not mine), and I’ll email you back an Mp3 file of the song.

Thanks again for listening. Here’s “A House of Hope,” written and performed by Travis Branam (me), and featuring the Arvada Church of Christ Casa team along with the precious laughter and singing of Casa de la Esperanza’s kids.

Lyrics:

Sometimes, this world can make you mad

It can make you cry or make you sad

But there’s a reason to be glad we never should forget

Our God in heaven loves us so

And he loves us more than we can know

He’s given us a place to go so that we can see, you and me, that

We have a house of hope from up above

Full of light and love, yes we have family eternally

And we share a joy that earth cannot explain

So through the sunshine and the rain, this house will be our home

Hope can come from anything

From a shiny toy or a diamond ring

Hope can come from songs we sing, or wishing on a star

But our hope is built on nothing less

Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness

Worldly things mean so much less when we realize heaven’s prize that

We have a house of hope from up above

Full of light and love, yes we have family eternally

And we share a joy that earth cannot explain

So through the sunshine and the rain, this house will be our home

It’s a hard-knock life for us sometimes

People make mistakes, and hopeful hearts will break

It’s a hard-knock life for us sometimes

But there’s victory in our faith, and that victory will overcome the world

Un Dios (one God)

Una casa (one house)

Una esperanza (one hope)

Un hogar (one home)

They say a hope deferred will make you ill

And I guarantee at times it will

But all our longings he’ll fulfill the moment he returns

And on that bright and glorious day

All mistakes and heartbreak pass away

But love and faith and hope will stay And until that day, we will say that

We have a house of hope from up above

Full of light and love, yes we have family eternally

And we share a joy that earth cannot explain

So through the sunshine and the rain, this house will be our home

(I shot this video of the South Cape Children’s Choir when we were in Mossel Bay, South Africa. The name of this song is “Hope for Resolution” by Paul Caldwell and Sean Ivory. Click and listen while you read.)

We, the people of South Africa,

Recognise the injustices of our past;

Honour those who suffered for justice and freedom in our land;

Respect those who have worked to build and develop our country; and

Believe that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, united in our diversity.

-Preamble, South African Constitution

Our Colorado Children’s Chorale performance tour to South Africa this past spring was one that I will never forget. The music, the people, the food, the land, the history and the country itself are all things that I hope to learn more about before I pass from this life. I’ve already shared with you some of my reflections from the experience (links at the bottom of this post if you missed ‘em), but I haven’t talked yet about what may have been the most important thing I took away from my time in South Africa: the power of reconciliation.

When you learn about South Africa’s more recent history, their constitution and their democratic ideals, as an American you notice one thing very quickly: it all sounds very familiar. It sounds a lot like the ideals that we hold so dear here in The States, but with one glaring difference: in South Africa, they recognize the injustices of the past. In fact, as you can see above, it’s the first order of business. In America, all too often I think we’d rather sweep our injustices under the rug instead of confront them and deal with them the way that deep down we know we should.

But look at South Africa:

We therefore, through our freely elected representatives, adopt this Constitution as the supreme law of the Republic so as to 

• Heal the divisions of the past and establish a society based on democratic values, social justice and fundamental human rights;
• Lay the foundations for a democratic and open society in which government is based on the will of the people and every citizen is equally protected by law;
• Improve the quality of life of all citizens and free the potential of each person; and
• Build a united and democratic South Africa able to take its rightful place as a sovereign state in the family of nations.  

-Preamble, South African Constitution

Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s first president in the so-called “New South Africa” spent a huge chunk of his life in prison for no good reason under Apartheid’s rule. Yet when Mandela was finally released from prison and Apartheid was abolished, his message was still one of peace and non-violence. After being done dirty for nearly 30 years, vengeance was not on his agenda. Had he sought to avenge the misdeeds of the past on behalf of his people, South Africa would be a very different (and probably exponentially more violent) place than it is today. Instead, he chose to heal the land and its people through forgiveness and reconciliation. And on a musical note, instead of banning the old Afrikaaner version of the South African National Anthem (like the Apartheid regime had done to the Zulu version when it came into power), Mandela and company chose musical reconciliation and incorporated the Afrikaaner anthem into the New South African version that began with the banned Zulu hymn, and finished it off with an English section in an effort to be inclusive even of those that had wronged the black South Africans for so many generations. Beautiful.

When I was in the Apartheid Museum in Cape Town with the kids I was responsible for chaperoning (aka my “staff group”), one of my kids was offended when she learned that F.W. de Clerk, after all of the terrible things he said/did/endorsed/looked the other way on during the Apartheid regime, de Clerk still received a Nobel Peace Prize right along side the real hero of the New South Africa, Nelson Mandela. But while she had a hard time justifying it, she ultimately got the picture.

‘Cause here’s the thing about healing divisions and forgiveness: it means both sides make amends no matter how horrendous the sin might be. Reconciliation doesn’t just mean inviting the Grinch over for Christmas dinner; it means letting him carve the roast beast if and when he shows up. And during our time in South Africa, as I tried to juxtapose these noble ideals of reconciliation against breaking news that “we” had found and killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan after hunting him down for nearly 10 years for what he and his minions did to us, I felt sick to my stomach. We got our guy, but we sure took the low road to get him. Reconciliation was never our goal; getting even was. Instead of recognizing the injustices of the past and finding ways to heal them like the South Africans were trying to do, we opened up new wounds in our own hearts and in the Middle East while the old wounds remained inflamed and infected. So much for Al-Qaeda cutting the roast beast at my Christmas dinner any time soon, or me cutting the roast beast in Pakistan after Ramadan. For now, I’ll have to settle for being happy and thankful if the Jihadists are unable and/or unwilling to volley the hate back to our side of the court again. Reconciliation postponed indefinitely.

Reconciliation is not something that comes naturally to very many of us. It’s something we have to learn how to do; something we have to be willing to commit to, even when it hurts us. Easier said than done, I know. But as our tour of South Africa wound down and we learned more about their history and more about Mandela, I was reminded of how often history is on the side of those who choose to make peace. In the moment, we think the radical peacemakers are lunatics because they often end up suffering a great deal for what they believe, but the reality is that the Martin Luther King Jrs, the Mandelas, the Gandhis, and yes the Jesuses of the world are the ones who leave the biggest impression on us. They are the ones who make the biggest impact for good, and they do it with actions that speak far louder than words or guns ever could.

In my opinion, as we reflect on our country’s independence this weekend and all that we love about America, we would do well to spend a few minutes reflecting on South Africa’s independence as well. Be thankful for the peacemakers; past and present, American and not. In this life, there are Grinches all around us. Heck, sometimes we’re the Grinch. But I think what Mandela and South Africa have shown us in word and in deed is that in order to form “a more perfect union,” we must resist the temptation to keep our Grinches at 39-and-a-half-foot-pole’s distance from us. We must invite them to dinner. We must let them cut the roast beast, grill the burgers and light the fireworks. We must reconcile. We must heal.

Happy 4th of July, America. Stay classy and safe this weekend, Planet Earth. God bless ya.

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If you would like to read my other two reflections on our Colorado Children’s Chorale performance tour, click here for part 1 and here for part 2. If you want to see pictures and more videos from our performance tour, visit the Colorado Children’s Chorale’s blog at www.choraleconnection.wordpress.com.  I shot and put together all the videos.

In case you don’t know the story behind the opera Carmen by French composer George Bizet, here’s a brief synopsis for you via hip-hop/R&B songs:

Carmen to Don Jose: “My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard.”

Don Jose to Carmen: “You make me wanna leave the one I’m with and start a new relationship wichuuuuu…”

Escamillo to his fans: “I got hos in different area codes.” (Can’t think of a hip-hop song about bullfighting…)

Carmen about Escamillo: “Killing me softly with his song.” *

Don Jose to Carmen: “I’m in luuuuv with a stripperrrrrr….”

Carmen to Don Jose: “Can’t touch this.”

Don Jose to Carmen: YOU AIN’T NOTHIN’ BUT A HOOCHIE MAAAAMA! (HOODRAT HOODRAT HOOCHIE MAAAMA!)”

*Don Jose stabs Carmen*

Fin.

*I know that “Killing Me Softly” was not originally done by the Fugees. No need to email or comment about that.)

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This summer, some of our Colorado Children’s Chorale kiddos are playing kids on the street of Seville, Spain for Central City Opera’s production of George Bizet’s opera Carmen. (Never heard of it? Perhaps you’d recognize this music? Or maybe this? If so, then you know a little about Carmen.) I know some of the famous music from the opera like the Habanera that even most non-classical music lovers would recognize (I also sang Escamillo’s big aria for my senior recital), but before Tuesday night I’d never heard or seen the whole opera before. But once I saw it (and thoroughly enjoyed it, I might add), a flurry of thoughts entered my mind about cultural double standards in the arts and how easy it is to be a musical lemming if we aren’t careful.

In case you didn’t know, the opera Carmen is about a prostitute. Carmen’s first big solo/aria in the opera is basically a melodic, operatic version of Kelis’ “Milkshake” from a few years back. The opera has great music, is incredibly sexy, and in a lot of ways is absolutely hip-hop in its culture (so hip-hop in fact that some huge R&B and hip-hop names like Beyonce and Mos Def turned the bones of the Carmen story into a “hip-hopera” a few years ago.) And yet, I guarantee that there are folks in the opera-going audience for Carmen who routinely bypass the hip-hop station on their radio dials not because of the beats and the rapping, but because of all the songs about sex and violence.

But wait. If the culture present inside the Carmen story is so hip-hop, then where are all of the hip-hop heads in the audience? While many hip-hop heads are content to spend much of their days listening to music that is so often extremely rich in sexual and violent talk (though of course not always), it’s fair to say that in general, they’re less interested hearing about those things through the medium of opera.

So why do we have these double standards? Short answer: I don’t know. Long theories: as far as I can see, there are at least three explanations for why we are all guilty at times of doing this, whether we prefer classical, hip-hop, or any other musical genre above any other one.

1. Language barriers. Even with supertitles translating Carmen from French to English for us, that doesn’t mean most folks want to sit through three hours reading a translation of what we’re hearing. I understand and sympathize with this complaint. I just hope that no composer in the history of the world who speaks a language other than English has ever had anything important or meaningful to say that I should know about…

2. We sometimes value the musical content over lyrical/story content. This explains why American classical music buffs don’t mind reading translations of operas that aren’t performed in English/watching the crappy opera fight scenes/chalking up the occasionally choppy storytelling to “opera being opera.” It also explains why some pop music fans are willing to let some of those horrendous pop music lyrics anywhere near their ears or their heart. Sometimes, we just want the music. Sometimes we care less about what the musical present under the tree actually is; we just want it to be wrapped exactly the way we like. But while some of us say that this is how we listen to music all the time, if that were really true, why you don’t hear about many hip-hop heads smokin’ weed to Lecrae and Canon’s “Blow Your High?” ‘Cause in spite of what we say sometimes, even when the beat is bumpin’ and the MC’s flow is blowing our minds (did you hear Canon’s verse? Click that link back there. Amazing stuff.) lyrical content does matter to us. Or why won’t opera fans listen to a CD of nursery rhymes set to beautiful classical music sung by a famous opera singer? Because they want richer lyrical content. So #2 is true to a point, but not when you truly test its limits.

3. Even though both sides are presenting very similar lyrical and story content, we feel that the genre of music we love and all of the intangible forces that it brings with it is musically or even morally superior to others. As a Christian I personally feel that there is this moral line in music that secular hip-hop constantly straddles and steps over, and it makes me feel uncomfortable to listen to too much of it. Example: the Milkshake song. That song disgusted me when it came out. But what’s weird is that even though some rock songs (The Police’s “Roxanne,” for example) or the Habanera from Carmen at the top of this page center around subject matter that is very similar to “Milkshake,” those two songs don’t make me feel uncomfortable and dirty. In this example I clearly have a concern about the raunchy sexual content, but I have two different reactions to raunchy sexual content based on how it’s presented musically. Why? Maybe because deep down, I subconsciously think that rock and opera are better than/superior to hip-hop, so I allow them to have moral and musical freedoms that I don’t extend to hip-hop. Clearly a musical double standard I’m not proud of (and am trying to fix), but perhaps if you’re honest with yourself, I’d bet that you can relate to my dilemma in some way.

At the end of the day, I think that we all value similar kinds of stories and ideals across all cultures and musical genres, but we are painfully, even embarrassingly superficial about how we choose to allow those stories and ideals to be presented to us. We have so many choices when it comes to entertainment and are so accustomed to being catered to how we like things being presented to us that we choose presentation over content way more often than we should. We’ve got to learn to be better listeners than that. ’Cause let’s face it: Carmen’s milkshake has all of the ingredients you’d need to bring the boys to the yard. So if you like that sort of thing, you should have no reason to let language/musical genre/the age or color of the majority of people in the theater hinder you from taking in some entertainment you’d definitely enjoy based on lyrical/story content. All art forms got hoodrats. Some tease with milkshakes; others with castanets. All could teach you; but they’d have to charge.