The Church and the Pyramids

The following is an excerpt of an email sent from Art to Will on 10 October 2012.

Financing is an interesting problem.

There aren't many ways around it, though.  At the risk of sounding pitiful, I basically have NO disposable income at all, with no prospects of having any in the near future.

Of all the possible routes to take, I'm most comfortable sitting down with my uncle, who has been a big fan and who paid to get my sheet music made.  I wouldn't borrow from anyone but family, so personal liability would not enter into the equation.  I do plan to talk to him about the logistics of paying (or not paying) collaborators and band members.  Whom, how much, at what point in the process, etc...

Part of what I'm struggling with right now is staying centered.

I do feel that the Holy Spirit has been at work in all this.  There are moments, however, when I feel confronted by an endless array of possibilities and I don't know what to do first.   Being short of time and money has been a blessing in a way because I know that, whatever I choose to do, I've got to make it "count."  I've got to choose the most practical course of action and make as much headway as possible before the hurricane comes back.  For me, that means getting these songs ready for launch under any circumstances.  While I still feel drawn to the Thoreauvian idea of building one's castles in the air, I find the approach of building from the ground up sounder.

It's like the women who brought enough oil to meet the bridegroom: focus on the fundamentals and the transcendent will eventually arrive.  As I said, I like Death as the best advisor in matters of importance.

Of course, this project may not truly be important in the wider scheme of things, but Death can rank order things even within a limited context.  So my question is: What if I were to die, say, at the end of this year?  What would be the best steps to take in terms of bringing the project to fulfillment?  I keep falling back on getting the mock-ups complete.  If I got the mock-ups complete, along with the sheet music, and made this available to people who are committed to the music, they could do the rest.  Now, hopefully I survive beyond this year, but if I don't, what I've built is something that can weather anything the world can throw at it.  Take your potential move coming up--this step would allow us to begin the recording process miles apart or prepare for your return.

But the bottom line is the old cliché about putting one step in front of the other.  What I would add to that cliché is that the step should be the best, most productive step available.  And, generally speaking, that it needn't be a leap or a lunge.

At some point, there will need to be some intervention from above.  I mean that in terms of God's grace, but it could also manifest as powerful benefactors, knowledgeable guides, and/or talented collaborators.  The correct disposition strikes me as being akin to what mystics have remarked about the spiritual life: you need to humbly slog it out with the rudiments and then God eventually comes down and infuses your pitiful efforts with divine grace.

Novices tend to grasp at the transcendent experiences when the only way to keep them is to keep one's eyes to the ground.  I've had enough things happen to know that God does seem to have some plan for this project, even if it is merely to move us all closer toward renunciation. I used to stress about how it would come about, when I saw other people winning the Hopwood or having a book published or whatnot.  But those successes were either part of the Pyramids or part of the Church.  If they were pyramids, they achieved nothing.

As I get older, I want less and less to spend time building pyramids.

So, we're about to enter into the year and, at least for me, it will mean a big slowdown with this project.  The financing is not likely a step that I will address much this year, although I will keep my eyes and ears open.  As with your moving, I want to prepare you for my disappearance into another busy school year.  It's not that I'm an especially intense teacher, it's just that I'm a moderately intense teacher with a wife and 6 kids!

I hope to emerge on the other side a few steps closer to total mobilization.  I'm honored and humbled at the amount of interest you take in the project.  If you did nothing but work on drum parts for the songs as I send them along (Garageband files, from now on), that would be huge.  If you can figure out how to lay down those parts on Garageband and send them back, that would be amazing.  Perhaps you want to devote yourself to something else, like the wikipedia story...whatever you do, I'm totally psyched.

Veni Sancte Spiritus!