Tagged! You're It

I have been tagged as “it” in the world of blog. This seems to be a very interesting game being enjoyed by various bloggers who are expected, when tagged, to publish 8 random facts about themselves on their blog page and then tag 8 more people who in turn become “it”.

Of course one would never even know they have been tagged if they do not keep up with the other person's blog who tags them. And while I sort of keep up with maybe up to 8 other blogs I certainly am not know to that many of them as one who could tag them. I don't know of eight other bloggers who keep up with my blog to know that they were tagged. But then, I suppose that's not my problem anyway. If I list 8 bloggers as tagged even though they never read my blog I have fulfilled the “obligation of the law”, right? Interesting how I can nearly ruin even a game by analyzing it nearly to death.

Well, since I have been tagged by Colin on his site Darkening Glasses, I will not miss this opportunity to highly recommend everyone to put his site on their favorite bookmark list and visit it regularly. I never fail to be inspired by his words of wisdom and insight. He has been one of the surprising blessings in my life I never expected to find when I started out this experiment in blogging months ago. Right now he is running a series of thoughtful comments about the S.O.T.M. – the Sermon on the Mount by Jesus. Don't miss any of it and take time to go back and read some of his previous posts. You will be glad you did.

So, is that a long enough preamble to get you to forget what I am supposed to be doing here?

1. I wear shaded prescription glasses that makes many people suspicious of me because they can't see what my eyes are doing. Contrary to their suspicions, however, the reason I wear them is because my eyes are very sensitive to light and right now I can't afford to buy another pair of clear ones to wear indoors to appease my friends.

2. I wear steel-toed shoes for all the shoes I wear, both work and dress shoes. When I was a teenager and younger I tried to wear other shoes but always ran into the problem of losing them quickly due to holes emerging out the top of the toes long before the rest of the shoe was ready to quit. This is not due to failure to keep my nails trimmed but to the strange shape and design of my big toes that bores holes out the top even when they are trimmed regularly. I used to joke that if they managed to bore a hole through my steel-toed shoes I would put my toes in a museum. M-mmm, maybe after I'm dead and pickled that is.

3. I love participating in quartet music though I have seldom done so. I was part of a quartet around 10 or 15 years ago for a period of about 2 years which I enjoyed very much. I even requested and received handwritten copies of music arrangements from Haven of Rest Quartet which we used for many of their songs. But some of my favorites were from a book one of the members gave me of gospel music written barber-shop style which we thoroughly enjoyed singing together.

4. Along those lines, have you ever heard of the “5^th voice”? I learned about it years ago when I first visited a barber-shop practice session in Chattanooga, TN. During a break in practicing small clusters of men would stand around just striking a chord and intently listening for something. Finally another man explained to me that they were listening for the 5^th, a phenomena where 4 voices blended just right and with the right acoustics will literally create a 5^th voice from the harmonics of the original voices blending together. I never heard them that day but many years later in our own quartet we occasionally heard it. I will never forget one day when we were practicing in the lobby of our church and all the way through a particular song I heard the 5^th voice so loud and distinct that I kept looking around at each of the other 3 guys in amazement trying to figure out if one of them was the one singing that extra high, distinctly clear note. It was so beautiful it sent chills down my spine.

5. OK, like Colin I am getting bogged down trying to come up with more things. Maybe I need to give someone else a call to get me jump-started. I am the 6^th and last child in my family, one of which died 2 days after birth not long before I was born. Since I am not a spring chicken anymore that make the rest of them – well – whatever you want to call it.

6. Back to the music genre again, I spent 2 years about 5-6 years ago singing with a worship team in 2 different churches in Michigan where I lived at the time. One was a large university church and the other was the other fairly large church in town where I attempted to be a worship leader for about a year. I tried to introduce some new ideas in thoughtful programming changes and worship concepts but finally realized that the church simply was not ready for any changes. However, I learned a great deal about worship personally during that time and expanded my thinking a great deal which I will appreciate for years to come. I miss those special times and often wish I could participate again in something similar.

7. About 20 years ago I learned to play the Saxophone with a friend tutoring me who was an excellent player and absolutely loved to play with anyone no matter how bad they sounded. He certainly needed that attitude for a few months to keep coming back as I never learned to read music and sounded more like a bleating goat for awhile than an instrument of music. The first day he came to my house to teach me and play with me he burst out laughing when he saw me playing happily along with the mouthpiece on my instrument upside down.

8. Wow! I actually got to number 8. Well, since music seems to be the easiest thing to talk about (even though I have almost nothing at all to do with it now) I am a keyboard player who loves to play “by ear” and can hardly read music at all except when singing. All of my teacher's since I was 5 years old gave up trying to force me to read notes as I would simply memorize the music and then pretend I was looking at it while playing it for them. However, I wish I had had a teacher who would have picked up on my love for music and my ability to play by ear and tried to develop it much more instead of just staying with the normal teaching methods which did not fit me at all. Oh well, I still enjoy sitting down occasionally at a fine piano and expressing my soul and feelings and even more so if someone who really appreciates it is receiving it from my heart. I love to accompany singers who sing deeply from their heart because then we can feed off each other and really connect in a way that I seldom have the chance to do with others.

Well, there I did it. If you managed to wade through all that and are still reading you might find yourself on the hit list of friends privileged to be “it” and spill your guts share your specialness on your own web page for all the world to see. (I have learned a little bit reading other people's blogs.)

I hereby bequeath the honor of being tagged to the following eloquent writers and bloggers:

• Mountain Laurel at Dusty Angels – check out her book for some very personal and interesting reading.

• Maiden, Bringer of Peace

• Notes from Inside My Head not that I think she may ever see this, but she has a great blog.

• rachman-unprecedented

• meow – Surprise

• formerly a student.... Another blog I like to keep up with but may not notice they are now “it”.

• Seana Waters Welcome I may have to jog her to look at this, but she already has some very interesting info about herself on her web page.

• SUICIDE BICYCLE RIDE OK, so I reaching and I'm sure this guy will never see this tag. But he has an interesting page and I have run out of ideas.

For those who want to continue the game and are tagged here, you are supposed to post 8 fascinating, compelling, startling secrets things about yourself on your own blog and then tag 8 more people to pass it on. Got that? You're it!

By the way, if you are reading this and have an interesting blog that I don't know about, leave me a comment and let me check it out. Or if you are one of my friends that never blogs but just stares at mine once in awhile (I know some of you do), think about starting up your own blog and posting now and then. It's extremely easy to do and actually does connect you with others in surprising ways. If you want any help setting one up I and many others will be eager to assist you. Someone else set mine up completely to coax me into getting started. Let me hear from you.