Live Music to Feed the Soul

Friday night we saw James Taylor and Carole King at the Air Canada Centre. It was my first concert at the ACC and even though we were in the extreme upper edges of the cheap seats, it was an amazing show. The sound quality was perfect and the screens gave an excellent view of everything that was happening on the rotating stage below. James Taylor's voice was extremely rich as he sang simple yet meaning full songs like Fire and Rain, and Shower the People You Love with Love. My personal favourite is definitely, You've Got a Friend, which he's singing in this YouTube video from 2008:



Perhaps the best part of the evening was singing along to some of the songs along with thousands of other people in the stands. It was deeply moving, almost spiritual. That surprised me given the fact that there's nothing religious at all about the lyrics in the songs. Still, I left the concert feeling deeply fulfilled. That's probably why the Church has made music such an integral part of it's worship through the ages. It's also probably part of the reason why massive concerts like this almost always sell out and often very quickly.

Today I'm even more sold on live music than I was before. I'll definitely try to go to another concert at the ACC. Although, I'm probably not ready to go onto ebay and try to grab some Lady Gaga or Justin Bieber tickets just yet.

Inspirational Radio Ads

Yesterday was kind of a crummy day. I got the feeling a lot of people thought I was a jerk, and started to think they might be right. Long stories. Anyway on the drive home I heard three different radio advertisements that bear repeating. I'll have to paraphrase unfortunately.

The first one was on CKWR from a local insurance agent simply said 'feeling stressed and unsure how to act? try reading from Bible daily' and then there was a quote from the book of Proverbs that seemed to be just what I needed.

The next ad came shortly later after I had switched to Q107. It was from the Heart and Stroke Foundation and gave a detailed description of a heart surgery operation. It ended with something like, "what's so exciting about this operation? The patient hasn't been born yet, the operation is taking place inside the baby's mother. Research from the Heart and Stroke Foundation helps save babies before they are born." Awesome I thought, very pro life and very inspirational.

Later in the drive I think I was listening to Classical 96.3, there was a Ronald McDonald House commercial. It went something like this: "Look at your finger, now look at your whole hand. You're whole hand is 40 times stronger than the individual strength of all of your fingers and your thumb added together. Families are the same way. Help Ronald McDonald House keep families with sick children together." Again I thought this is wonderful; when would I hear such a pro-family message on a major radio station? More frequently it seems.

When 'Positive Thinking' Rings Hollow

I've always been skeptical of the 'self help' industry. Sure there's always room for self improvement and there's a lot of good advice out there, but I often find many of the 'positive thinking' gurus slimy, shallow, and hollow. It seems to me that they play on a person's innate insecurity. Now a study from the University of Waterloo suggests that 'positive affirmations' can do more harm than good if you don't believe them:

As the researchers report in Psychological Science, those with high self-esteem who repeated “I’m a lovable person” scored an average of 31 [out of 35] on their mood assessment compared with an average of 25 by those who did not repeat the phrase. Among participants with low self-esteem, those making the statement scored a dismal average of 10 while those that did not managed a brighter average of 17.

Dr Wood suggests that positive self-statements cause negative moods in people with low self-esteem because they conflict with those people’s views of themselves. When positive self-statements strongly conflict with self-perception, she argues, there is not mere resistance but a reinforcing of self-perception. People who view themselves as unlovable find saying that they are so unbelievable that it strengthens their own negative view rather than reversing it. Given that many readers of self-help books that encourage positive self-statements are likely to suffer from low self-esteem, they may be worse than useless.

"Worse than useless." That's a harsh criticism, but it seems to fit the facts.

He's Walking

Back in February I wrote about my grandfather's (I call him Opa) struggle to recover from his stroke and that I would make praying for him a priority. Well I'm pleased to say he's walking, at least we were walking together briefly on Easter Sunday.

It was only the second time I saw him since his stroke and all I heard were mostly negative reports from my family about his ability and that he had zero strength in his legs. As far as I know he wasn't receiving any physiotherapy. However, I kept up praying that he would walk again consistently, most evenings and every time I went to Mass.

His children were scared to let him walk, but when I saw him rocking back and forth in his wheelchair, trying to get up, I convinced them that there would be no danger if one of us picked him up on either side. As soon as he was up, he had reached for his wife's walker and started leading us around the house, there was almost no weight on my hands as we walked around the house. Later when it was time to leave he got up again and walked with us to the car - he even walked down the rather steep stairs at the entrance to the house.

I'm really proud of him. Maybe he just had more strength than we gave him credit for. Maybe the hint of spring gave him more energy. Maybe he wanted to show his entire family what he was capable of. Probably it's a combination, but I'm certain the largest part of his success is God's answer to our prayers and for that I'm very thankful!

Answered Prayer - Driving in Europe

I was recently on vacation for a few days in Portugal where we rented a car for a week, which was risky by itself. On the highway while I was driving 140 KM/h, I spent more time looking in my rear view mirrors than through the windshield, I'm certain cars passed me going over 200. Then there was that taxi ride down the massive hill in Coimbra through narrow one lane streets, but that's another story.

Through a series of events we found ourselves driving into Lisbon looking for our hotel on the night before we were going to catch an early morning flight. We had the street address for our hotel, but no map and no directions. To add insult to injury, I wasn't used to roundabouts at every intersection, and there seemed to be a distinct lack of street signs in the entire country. After we had circled the city once and stopped at a McDonald's for dinner and directions, the staff were very helpful and we thought we were on our way.

About 45 minutes later we realized we were hopelessly lost and we started praying that God would help us find our hotel somehow. We pulled into another McDonald's, this time I asked the girl at the counter if she spoke English, she said "a little" but it was clear no one behind the counter could understand a word I was saying. Then the guy beside me offered to translate, I told him I was trying to find my hotel and I showed him the address. He recognized this address but he said this is very difficult to get to from here. He started to give me directions but then he stopped.

Then, he said, "Why don't I lead you there?" We gladly accepted and we followed him through some crazy intersections and large roundabouts, all the time he was very careful not to lose us. As we drove we said to each other, God's really answered our prayers and sent us an angel to guide us home. After about 20 minutes he turned on his 4 way flashers and we pulled up beside him at an intersection and he told us this was the spot. We thanked him and asked him his name.

He smiled and said, "My name is Gabriel."