“That’s Good, But Let Me Help You Make It Better!”

My good friend Darrell Bledsoe, whose list of incredible accomplishments as a music producer, musician, choral director, songwriter, arranger (and the list could go on) is more than impressive, was my friend before he was the producer of my own four albums of music.

Early on in our really enjoyable journey together, as we were beginning work on the first album, Darrell smiled and said, “Curtis, I’ll have a lot of suggestions along the way in this project, but I’ll always bear in mind that this is your album, and you’ve got the final say. If we disagree, I will fully support your right to be wrong.”

Well, four albums later, we’ve never disagreed on much. If your feelings are easily hurt, you’d better not step into a recording booth expecting to produce anything of much quality. If you have a great producer, he’s a great one for a reason.

So if you’re singing into the studio microphone and the music in your headphones stops for the tenth—or twentieth—time, and the producer’s voice says, “That’s okay, but there’s a better ‘take’ in you. You’re singing about joy here, so let’s hear it with more joy!” Or “Stop! You’re pitchy on that phrase! One more time.” Or “No! You’re singing that on the beat; this is jazz, and right here you need to swing it!” Or “Let’s do this phrase again. More emphasis on this word. Remember the dotted quarter note here. Did you realize you’re not putting the “-ing” on the word in this verse, but you did in the last one? Do it again! But have fun with this, too! Your smile will show in the recording!”

Yeah. Be natural. Smile. And think of all of the above all at the same time.

Recording an album is the hardest, most fun work I’ve ever done. It takes so many folks working together to make the music you want to make—the beautiful kind that you’ll all be proud of. A good producer, one who knows how to get more out of you than you know to get out of yourself, is an incredible blessing. Darrell and I have had so much fun!

It was also fun when Darrell called me and said he was just putting the finishing touches on his autobiography, and he asked if I’d be willing to do the copy editing. Well, of course, I would! And I was grinning when I said, “Darrell, I’ll have a lot of suggestions along the way in this project, but I’ll always bear in mind that this is your book, and you’ve got the final say. If we disagree, I will fully support your right to be wrong.”

Ah, it was fun, too. And fun to work together.

To have someone in your corner who knows about notes and words and all the little tweaks that make good work excellent work is a blessing. But it’s true in all of life, isn’t it? I’ll bet names come up in your mind immediately. Teachers and mentors who cared not just about quality work but who cared enough about you to help you do better, be better, than you ever could have without their molding, shaping, and, yes, insistence: “Let’s do that again. That’s good; you can do better!”

What a wonderful picture George MacDonald paints of our God, our Father, our great Mentor, as MacDonald says, “God is easy to please, but hard to satisfy.”

I love that. God loves us, delights in us, and completely accepts us already. It’s vital that we know that. But we can also know that he loves us too much not to help us be better, more than we ever dreamed that we could be.

God is our Creator, our Father, our Author. And, yes, on so many levels, our Producer.

“Oh, you did well on that! But let’s try it again, and this time . . .

“I’m proud of you, my child. Let’s make some more music together!”

You’re invited to visit my website, and I hope you’ll take a look there at my new “Focus on Faith” Podcast. At the website, just click on “Podcast.” Blessings!

Copyright 2021 by Curtis K. Shelburne. Permission to copy without altering text or for monetary gain is hereby granted subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.

Compound Interest and the Health of Souls

I’ve got a fascinating fact for you, but first, a question. (Stop me if you’ve heard this.)

If someone (with money to burn or semi-truck loads of pennies) were to give you the choice of taking either one million dollars in cash right now, or a penny, one cent, that would be doubled every day for one month (30 days), which would you choose?

Let’s stipulate that no calculators are allowed. Take all the time you want, as long as it’s not more than 30 seconds.

The fact that I’m asking alerts you to a twist in the tale, doesn’t it? Maybe that would be enough to prompt you to opt for the penny.

I hope so. Because I’m told that the “penny option” works out to . . . wait for it . . . $5,368,709!

And that, friends, illustrates the wonder and beauty, if you’re on the receiving end, of compound interest. I’m sure more than a few financial planners have used this rather amazing mathematical truth to encourage their clients. I’m also sure that it’s far better to be on the receiving, rather than the paying, end of compound interest. Credit cards come to mind. Thus the practical financial truth behind this mathematical truth is not hard to grasp.

What I’d like to ponder now is not as easily proven, but I’m betting that it is every bit as true. I do know for sure that my mother thought it was true and acted accordingly.

Rule Number One in Mom’s house was this: “You Do Not Lie.” She put it more positively at times: “You Do Tell the Truth.” But even our Creator went with the former version in one of the Big Ten Commandments: “Thou shalt not bear false witness.” Do not lie.

Why not? Because lying is against the very nature of God who is the embodiment of all that is true. He will not lie. He literally cannot lie or be false to his own nature in any way. And his children cannot become liars without also becoming hurt and hurtful.

So you could count on the fact that my mother would never put up with anything that smelled of falsehood. Her nose told her the truth with incredible accuracy.

In a tight spot because of a transgression? Better just confess it and fall on the mercy of my mother’s court. All of her five children learned at a very early age that honest confession brought much less trouble and far less  severe punishment than trying to worm your way out with a lie. I don’t think I ever tried it more than once. Maybe twice. Punishment was quick and sure.  (As was forgiveness following the pain.) And if that little woman ever dreamed of saying, “Just wait until your father gets home,” I assure you, I don’t remember. Mom handled the situation.

My mother believed in compound interest regarding souls. She loved us fiercely and was not willing for her children to learn to twist their souls with lies and thus grow up to be Liars.

We can do the spiritual math by acknowledging the honest truth that this works with lying, unfaithfulness, bitterness, resentment, hatred, greed, arrogance, etc. If we begin by playing with such and allowing them into our souls, we can end up “compounding” the problem, shriveling our souls and, yes, we become hurt and hurtful.

Ah, but let’s end on a high note. Spiritual compound interest can also make us rich in the only ways that really matter. If we choose to ask for our Father’s help to be loving, merciful, forgiving, honest, faithful, generous, etc., trusting our souls to the Lord of all joy and beauty and real life, you can bet your eternal life that his Spirit working within can “compound” the health of our souls in amazing ways.

We’ll never make a better investment than to trust our souls to the One who wants more genuine spiritual blessing for us than we could ever imagine.

That’s the truth. Count on it.

    You’re invited to visit my website, and I hope you’ll take a look there at my new “Focus on Faith” Podcast. At the website, just click on “Podcast.” Blessings!

Copyright 2021 by Curtis K. Shelburne. Permission to copy without altering text or for monetary gain is hereby granted subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.

The Fraternity of the Furrowed Brow

What does it mean when you lose your smile?

I once heard a “face reader,” a fellow who works with jury consultants, businesses (hiring personnel), and large corporations say that 40% of our facial “terrain” is inherited but 60% is what we’ve unconsciously made of it. He and his colleagues claim to be able to tell a fair amount about personalities and character traits by “reading” faces.

Oh, I know. Part of this sounds a little hokey. But I figure there’s also something really in play with part of it. (I won’t guess as to the percentage of truth versus moonshine.) But before we knock it too much, we should admit that we all “read faces” regularly and often. Consciously or not, we pick up on laugh lines, worry lines, stress lines, vertical “freight train” focus lines, “burnout” lines (whether we use those terms or not), and we make a quick evaluation. If we’re wise, we’ll change what were our initial impressions if more time and info support an alteration, but most of us aren’t such fools that we ignore our first impressions altogether. Yes, it can be judgmental; but it can also be wise discernment. And we all do it—or suffer unpleasant consequences. 

This is interesting stuff. But back to that smile. The lost one.

I believe what the wise man (Proverbs 17:22) tells us: “A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit saps a person’s strength.”

The loss of a smile can be temporary, of course, as our faces and lives are assailed by a particular grief, pain, illness, tragedy, anxiety, or difficult patch in the road.

But sadly, our smiles can also fade more permanently. And the harsh and stark truth we’d better acknowledge is that we have more choice in this than we tend to think. The reality that won’t give any of us a “pass” is that everyone occasionally faces the hardships I mention above, but not everyone loses their smile forever. Ironically, we face a choice as to what we do with our faces. Some of our various troubles and miseries we cannot choose (some we can), but we can choose our attitudes. That is both a hopeful truth and one that, when I’m wallowing in self-pity, I despise. But a truth it is.

It’s true in all of life, but one of the areas lately where I tend to “lose my smile” has to do with politics and world events. I need to unplug regularly and quit scrolling through the varied and often slanted news “reports.” I get focused on the mess as our politicians, for example, hand blood-bought territory back to terrorists for free and foolishly send terrible messages to friends and foes. Or since neither side politically will work with the other and make needed compromises to at least do something constructive about our borders, we do nothing. I’ve never been more disappointed in the majority of our politicians who only have ideas about how to be re-elected. No other real ideas at all as they pander to dimwits on both far ends of the spectrum and seem to consider character, integrity, and wisdom disqualifiers for any hope of winning high office. They hold in disdain their few colleagues who try to show such.

If I spend a good bit of time focusing on what I see as incredibly foolish failures, what do you think happens to my smile? How long until I lose it permanently? And what would that say about who I’m ultimately trusting in my life?

I wrote what follows a good while back poking fun at “progressives,” but it has a much larger application.

Strange to say,

Surpassingly weird in its own unsmiling way . . .

You never saw dark, stark Puritan folks ages ago,

Darker, starker, than “woke” blokes eight minutes ago.

Whaddaya say we nonetheless live life and smile?

And let them all marinate in their own bile,

Those lifelong members (with apologies to general genderocity)

Of that sad fraternity of the furrowed brow.

I hasten to say that the “fraternity of the furrowed brow” has club house chapters for both the left, the right, and even in-between.

I think that anyone can join it. Just focus on what is messed up in this world (it’s much easier to find than a smile) and forget who the King is. God’s people always have a reason for hope. The victory is his—and thus ours. It’s bought. It’s paid for. It’s won. Whatever happens here that is a matter for genuine tears.

If we lose our smiles for long or forever, we’ve lost our focus for far too long. I often need to be reminded of that.

    You’re invited to visit my website, and I hope you’ll take a look there at my new “Focus on Faith” Podcast. At the website, just click on “Podcast.” Blessings!

Copyright 2021 by Curtis K. Shelburne. Permission to copy without altering text or for monetary gain is hereby granted subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.

“Back in the Saddle Again”?

“I’m back in the saddle again!”

Sometime during the COVID-19 pandemic (first edition, 2020), once we got back to in-person worship at our church, I started singing a “special” song each morning as sort of a “call to worship.” Last Sunday, I found the “saddle song” quite tempting (but no).

As I mentioned in my last column, even though we’d taken prudent precautions, my wife and I managed to jump the line and get in right at the first of the COVID-19 (Delta variant) edition.

The first time around, in spring 2020, our church took seven weeks off from worship in person. That was strange, but this time, the recess was odd in its own way. It was precautionary, but it was more than that. My wife was sick. Not wanting her to be miserable alone, I soon jumped into the virus pool myself.

We ended up canceling in-person worship one Sunday, and I did a video. For the next two Sundays, my wife and I stayed home, but the rest of our folks were at worship in person. I had one worship video ready that I’d created “just in case” a thousand years or so ago when the pandemic began in 2020. And I recorded another one upstairs at home in my study/recording studio/all-purpose spare room. Once I tested plague positive and my voice started changing, I decided that I’d better get a video recorded early on while I still felt like it and could. (This was correct.)

By the way, in a multi-staff church, much of this would have been handled differently. But that is not our situation. If you’ve always been part of fairly large churches, forget about understanding this. It’s nice of you to try, but you won’t get it. (The difference between small churches and large churches is not the difference between big apples and little apples, it’s apples and tangerines. Or maybe apples and fried chicken.)

We had such good help in the midst of four days in the hospital for my wife and two or three weeks all a blur for both of us. The last part of July somehow vanished, but I could write paragraphs about the sweet ways folks took care of us with food, shopping, etc.

I discovered my serious limitations as audio-video tech support (via phone). But my friend and ever-faithful a/v volunteer at church, Jack, in conjunction with some other willing and valuable help as needed made it work well.

Yes, I know they worshiped decades ago just fine without technological resources. Yes, it’s still perfectly possible. But the technology is incredibly handy if your preacher needs to preach (and everyone else at church would pay big bucks not to preach) even while he’s at home in bed groaning, moaning, sweating, “chilling,” coughing, aching, and doing his very best to sleep for days at a time. Yep, in that situation, technology helps.

And so, by the way, does Christian unity—a thing not only dear to the heart of Christ but truly his fervent prayer (John 17) and one his followers have too often worked diligently to religiously ignore.

One of the things I love most about my little community—and a huge reason we’ve chosen to stay here for 36 years—is that, by and large, Christ’s people here from different Christian traditions have long loved and respected each other and worked unusually well together.

Our churches here are not so large that we think we can afford to ignore each other. We’re not mega-churches who can mostly pretend, at least in practicality, that we’re the only church in town. And we don’t have fifteen or twenty congregations, same denomination with slightly different flavors barely acknowledging each other, much less the corresponding churches in six or ten other major brands.

I am as comfortable preaching in a number of pulpits in our little town as I am in my own.  An incredible blessing never to be taken for granted.

And so, folks in our little church were not at all surprised when a dear friend and colleague from another tradition led off by preaching at our church on one of those Sundays, and then went and preached in his own pulpit while “video me” finished our service. He and I had agreed long ago to pinch hit for each other if either one of us got sick—and we’ve done that many times before at funerals, etc., when the need arose. This unity stuff not only honors our Lord, it is intensely practical.

Yes, it was good on Sunday to be “back in the saddle.” The virus is a bear. You don’t want it. Having said that, I realize more than ever that, if you catch this thing and your experience doesn’t involve blood clots, ventilators, and funeral directors, well, you have a lot to be thankful for. I hope you’ll do what you can to avoid this thing—not just for yourself but also for others. I pray that this latest edition doesn’t continue to ramp up. One time around was more than enough, and we don’t need to let this thing get ahead of us and morph into a much bigger, “badder,” incredibly resistant variant. I guess we’ll see.

“Back in the saddle”? Well, for me, almost, I think. I managed to get Facebook Live going to live-stream our service on Sunday, but I got the whole thing live-streamed sideways. That was oddly appropriate. I think I have a foot in a stirrup and my hands on the saddle horn. But that’s movement at least toward the saddle.

And I’m thankful.

    You’re invited to visit my website, and I hope you’ll take a look there at my new “Focus on Faith” Podcast. At the website, just click on “Podcast.” Blessings!

Copyright 2021 by Curtis K. Shelburne. Permission to copy without altering text or for monetary gain is hereby granted subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.

A Column Written in COVID-19 Isolation

The past week or two have been, for my wife and me, surreal.

Having done everything we prudently could do not to contract COVID-19, we managed to welcome the little beastie aboard. Delta variant. Nasty guest.

“Prudence,” I think, involves a needle times two (and, if a booster, Needle #3, is offered, yes, please, ASAP!). I’m glad most of my friends are happily inoculated. I love deeply more than a few who have chosen differently. I wish they’d reconsider. I’m happier when my motorcycle buddies are wearing helmets. But arguing won’t help.

For a number of times during this lovely experience, my inspired and inspiring attitude toward most of “normal” life could be summed up in surly tones muttered through an air passage crafted to reach my nose under sweat-dampened bed covers, “Frankly, my dear . . .” (“My dear” here is Scarlett, not my personal “dear.” I refer you to the movie.)

But now I do. Uh, care. And I sincerely tell you, you do not want this.

“Break-through,” as a noun, can mean, “Aha! An answer! A cure! A sudden advance!”

But as an adjective, most usually these days, it refers to “break-through” COVID-19 infections, mostly “delta variant,” that partially defeat the vaccine’s protection and make folks sick.

My wife ended up spending four days in a big hospital after an eternal evening (I hear Charlton Heston’s booming biblical tones, “And there was evening, and there was morning, a second day”) we spent in their vastly over-worked Emergency Dept.  

At the time, they’d had 63 new COVID-19 patients in the hospital in three weeks (as I recall the report). My wife was one of only two who had been vaccinated (I like those odds), and her “break-through” was in a known category; no fun, but not mysterious.

Why I fell, too, is another question. Deceptively young, healthy, robust . . . Yeah, right. (But the real “control” person in the “test” is a vaccinated son who spent a lot of time with us and embodies the incredibly encouraging odds. Just fine.)

I’m grateful to our Father for the folks he’s put around us who have been amazing. I am immensely grateful my wife and I are on the mend.

More than ever, I feel deep sympathy for the many whose pain and grief in this has been so much worse.

Yet again, I discover that the “spiritual Big League” is not my league but that the minors and I are better suited. I trust God’s counsel regarding blessings and growth in suffering. I also know that he loves us, understands us, and is not shocked when in the midst of fever-induced aches, sweats, chills, coughing fits, pressurized heads, and COVID confusion, he might hear an utterance or two proceeding from under my blanket less akin to “Praise the Lord” than to a teeth-clenched “Aw, shucks!” It is God who is at work in us when faith grows even a little, and faith, “the size of a mustard seed” is literally larger than Mount Everest compared to a virus particle.

I thank God that we’ve been able to deal with decisions regarding re-entering “life” and work, when a nudge in the wrong direction could have changed the question in her case: Will you consider going on a ventilator? We thank God for the needles that spared her that, me the hospital, and our loved ones, unnecessary pain.

“You can’t know that,” someone says. I think we can. I’ll betcha the odds our illnesses would’ve gone that way are much better than 50/50. At 50/50, I’d take the odds and not even break a sweat. You’re welcome to bet on your own pestilence.

Quick points: I don’t do biblical curses except on really bad days, but for those who most want to politicize all of this (far left, far right, and loudly condescending toward any sense to be found in the middle), well, I hope it backfires. You hurt people and don’t help. “Wish ya could’ve come to the house last week for cake, coffee, and a good bit of handshaking.” (Kidding.)

But a hopeful note! I read a good article last week by a fellow whose work makes his opinion weighty to me. He didn’t downplay the pain and suffering wrought by this pandemic. But he reckons that the “break-throughs” genuine science is already reaping and will continue to reap, motivated by necessity, will be integral in saving an incredible number of lives and alleviating a lot of suffering in the not-at-all-distant future. I bet he’s right.

Side note: I’ll personally be surprised if at least a very few of the “edgy” treatments being kicked around now don’t become surprisingly mainstream. (I’m steering clear of anything involving lizard droppings and fly wings) But my money is still on my doctor’s counsel: the needle.)

I do hope that optimistic columnist is on target. And why wouldn’t we all?

I do know that I’m tired of this topic and thankful no missing spot at the table brings it up again each morning. I hope the variant is a blip. We’ll see.

I think I can “almost pretty certainly say with somewhat reasonable confidence” that I’ll write a lot less on this topic once I’m out of isolation. In the meantime, I’m feeling better, less surly, more thankful. If you think I’m full of prunes and completely mistaken, I hope you’ll be quite thankful for being less mentally foggy than yours truly. Gratitude all around.

Win. Win.

And whatever approach you take, my sincere prayer is that you and yours stay well.

    You’re invited to visit my website, and I hope you’ll take a look there at my new “Focus on Faith” Podcast. At the website, just click on “Podcast.” Blessings!

Copyright 2021 by Curtis K. Shelburne. Permission to copy without altering text or for monetary gain is hereby granted subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.