Living The LIfe

I recently read this article on relevantmagazine.com:

Something odd happened yesterday when I went to the supermarket. I was standing in the snack food aisle trying to decide between corn chips or pretzels when a slightly built, balding man approached me. He was about my height and dressed in clothes that had faded from hours of being hung out in the sun. He approached and said, “Sorry to bother you, Ma’am.” My thoughts of snacks were interrupted by the absurdity of someone calling me, “Ma’am” since I’m only 27 and lean more towards an athletic build then a stooped-over old lady.

Now that he had my attention, I noticed he had odd little blue patches at the very corner of the bags of his eyes, and his skin was stretched so thinly over his face I could make out the pattern of veins that brought very little color to his complexion.

“My wife and daughter were killed in a car accident two weeks ago,” I heard as I realized he was still speaking to me, “and I spent all my money on their funeral but now I need to buy diapers for my grandchild, could you please help me?”

My mouth opened and the words came out: “Sure, go choose them, I’ll meet you back here.”

Even as I was saying it, I was processing the cost of what I was saying. I don’t have children, but I have friends that do, and I know that diapers cost a lot more than a can of cola or a bottle of beer. I’m not made of money so I did a few quick calculations and worked out I could either buy the diapers or the luxury items I had been planning to purchase. So quietly, while he was in the other aisle, I dumped my purchases and walked with the man, whose name turned out to Michael, toward the checkout. While in the queue I asked him if he would like to buy himself a chocolate or something for himself. I expected him to gratefully pick up a chocolate and add it to the diapers I clutched in my hand. Instead he said, “I don’t know if you can afford it, but what I really need is baby formula.”

While we were walking out, I was having an internal battle with myself about whether or not I should ask if I could pray for him. You see, the day before I had read in the Bible of the time when Peter and John had met a beggar who had asked them for money. They said they didn’t have any but would he mind if they prayed for him and then they asked that God would heal him and the man who had been crippled for forty years stood up and walked. It struck me when I was reading Acts 3 how quick I am to either pass by beggars saying I have nothing offer or on philanthropic days I offer money that does very little good. I’d challenged myself to try and offer active, life-changing prayer to people I met who were in desperate situations rather than just paying them to keep silent and leave me alone. It struck me that Peter and John didn’t only offer prayer but the dignity of recognizing the beggar as a person with value before God.

Michael and I stepped out into the sunlight, and I realized the moment had come for me to follow Peter and John’s example and resemble a little of Jesus incarnated. I still hesitated though because my prayer probably wouldn’t result in a miracle; after all, Michael could walk and it seemed a little stupid and hollow to pray for a man in the middle of mall, a man who I had only just met. But God got the better of me and as we were about to part I said, “Would you mind if I prayed for you quick before we go?”

He said he’d really like that. I laid my hand on his shoulder and I closed my eyes. I’m not sure why I closed my eyes because I’m normally a wide-eyed pray-er but perhaps the absurdity and solemnity of the moment demanded it. We stood there with the security guard looking on and I prayed that God would continue to provide for his needs, that his heart would know healing and that in these hard times he’s experiencing that he know God to be very near. The prayer was uttered in a minute, and I will probably never know whether that prayer changed his life, or whether God intervened in his life in a powerful way.

Sometimes I choose not to do things because I don’t know what the outcome will be. Even worse, I sometimes choose not to do things because I think the other person will think I’m strange or I’m just scared I’ll fumble and looks like a klutz. Something odd happened yesterday when I went to the supermarket, I wasn’t any of things to this man who approached me, I wasn’t strange, or fumbling or klutzy, rather for a few minutes I was a person who was doing life a lot like Jesus would. As Michael and I went our separate ways I prayed that I learn to do life the way Jesus would not just for a few minutes but for every minute of my life.

Wendy Harbottle is a TV Producer for Africa’s only 24-hour Christian music channel (www.onegospel.co.za) and writes about love, life and the Holy Spirit in her free time at www.undonebook.blogspot.com.

Music for Polk Movie Coming From a Converted Garage

by Gary White of The Ledger

LAKELAND | There is a memorable scene from the movie "Amadeus" in which Emperor Joseph II, after hearing Mozart's opera "The Marriage of Figaro," tells the composer the piece contains "too many notes."

Unlike the movie Mozart, the Davidson brothers don't take umbrage at such suggestions. Simplicity is their guiding principle as they create music for the low-budget detective thriller, shot in Polk County in April and May.

The Ledger has been following the film project with occasional reports since the filmmakers began seeking investors in 2007.

"This is not a movie like 'Star Wars,' where there's a grand orchestral theme that runs the length of the film," Adam Davidson said.

Instead, the Davidson brothers are putting together a small-scale, ambient score attuned to the conflicted state of the movie's protagonist, Emory Lane (played by Judd Nelson), a police detective pulled between his gravely ill wife and an urgent case. The music will lean toward keyboards and restrained guitar playing, with touches of violin and percussion.

Adam Davidson, 35, director of arts and worship at Lakeland's Trinity Presbyterian Church, provided music for O'Brien's short films "Blackwater Elegy" and "Wait." His chamber-music score for "Wait" won a silver medal for excellence the Park City Film Music Festival in Utah in 2007.

Adam Davidson read an early draft of O'Brien's script and has been close to the project all along. He also watched the shooting of several scenes and appears as an extra in one.

"Endure" has a budget of about $1.2 million, and Adam Davidson said all the money for the music went into recording equipment for his home studio, a converted garage. The Davidsons and the musicians they enlist will only be paid in the unlikely event the movie generates a soundtrack. O'Brien and his production partners, Rob Tritton and Jim Carleton, are still seeking a distribution deal.

Though the Davidsons want to create an uncluttered score, the process itself is complicated by geography - Adam lives in Lakeland and Dennis in Los Angeles. Dennis, 29, spent two months in Lakeland brainstorming ideas with Adam, and the pair now swap music files on a shared computer server.

The Davidsons began developing ideas well before they received the director's cut of "Endure" in mid-August. Adam said they aim to have the score complete by mid-October. He said Trinity Presbyterian is allowing him to devote one day a week to the project.

Sitting in his dimly lit studio , Adam Davidson played the opening 12 minutes of the movie, complete with music, on a large, flat-screen computer monitor.

The first sound heard is a countrified version of the hymn "The Old Rugged Cross" playing on a TV set. Adam Davidson arranged the tune, which is sung by Lakeland's Barbara Hart, an investor in the movie.

A short establishing scene yields to the opening credits and the main theme, which arose from an improvisation between Adam on piano and Dennis on lap steel guitar. For the finished version, Adam added accents on glockenspiel, a percussion instrument like a xylophone but with metal bars.

It is a somber piece, set mostly in the key of F minor, without a dominant melody. The title theme establishes musical ideas that will recur throughout the film.

"It was a good sense of accomplishment to get that musical piece finished and get our feet under us," Adam Davidson said.

Adam Davidson said the brothers want to craft two other distinct motifs, one for the scenes between Emory Lane and his ailing wife (Joey Lauren Adams) and another for a sinister character played by Tom Arnold.

Adam said the brothers' influences include Philip Glass, a minimalist composer known for rhythmic patterns that repeat with subtle variations, and Brian Eno, a pioneer of ambient music. Another model Adam cites is James Newton Howard's understated score for the 2007 film "Michael Clayton."

Adam Davidson said the average movie contains 30 to 60 minutes of music. He expects the "Endure" score to be on the low end of that spectrum. O'Brien describes the Davidsons' music as "integral but not pervasive."

Big-studio movies often include well-known pop songs. The "Endure" filmmakers don't have the budget to pay hefty licensing fees, so any music emanating from a TV or radio will likely be either an Adam Davidson composition or his arrangement of a song in the public domain.

For example, Adam wrote a country song to play on radios in successive early scenes. He has invited Rachel Plating of the Lakeland-based band Pemberley to sing it.

Adam Davidson said he talks to O'Brien regularly and plans to meet with the director at regular intervals to review the music. He said established film composers normally complete a score without consulting the director.

"I don't have confidence in my abilities enough to work that way," Adam said.

O'Brien, though, has plenty of confidence in Adam Davidson.

"What Adam is creating is essentially a story in its own right, and it really does help bring out a depth that we wouldn't get with just the picture and dialog alone," O'Brien said. "Sometimes it's surprising what results in our collaboration. I may come in with something in my mind, but when he's done working it's an altogether different feel and many times it's better."

[ Gary White can be reached at gary.white@theledger.com or at 863-802-7518. ]