The Tide rolled out, and the rolled back again

A good friend of mine has Bipolar disorder. It all cropped up last year when, after a few years of uneployment under Bush, he got a job which turned out to be higher stress than anything he had experienced in his life. He sank into a deep depression, then the stress pushed him over the edge. He basicly lost his mind.

Some thing in him just snapped. From the way he described it, it was like his brain was chewing itself apart and he could do nothing to stop it.

He spend a few weeks in a hospital, trying to get it back together again and then the deemed he was well enough to go home, and figured out with the help of his therapist that he should not go back to the same job as he had. It was too many hours, too much stress. His employer gave him two months to find a different job in the same company, or out the door he went.

He is unemployed.

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My point for telling you about him is that this is one such person in perhaps many who are affected by employment beyond just a job and a paycheck. I've heard about others who experience what I call re-entry stress.

I say on the top of my blog that I am unemployed. I have been for some time now, a couple of years. I am afraid about the reentry stress, and I dont think I am alone.

The government issues statistics for unemployment, and that number drops sometimes. I more often think it is people like me for whom unemployment ran out. We dropped off, and the number of people who collect unemployment goes down.

But there is no way to measure the stresses of unemployment or being remployed.

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Unemployment stress is the continual worry and strain of how will bills be payed, when will some money come in.

Re-employment stress is wondering if this will last and will you be unemployed again soon. Are you doing a good job? Are you doing what they expected of you and is this working out?

Some bosses are very good at telling you what is going on, others just don't.

If you are employing someone who has been out of work a while, please take this into account and handle them with great care. For inside is a person who will be a great employee, just help them work it out.

Massed Choir

Every year, 7 Unitarian Universalist Church choral groups gather for "Choralfest. "

First each group performs 2-3 pieces of music. It's a "Choral Greatest Hits" of sorts, with each group showing off some type of unique piece of music that portrays a style that they tend toward, or a diversity of them. One year our group did a piece in Latin and a Spiritual.

It really is a showcase of the diversity of UU's and their gathering places.

Then at the end there are usually two pieces with all of the performers singing together. This is very fun.

First off, after singing with the same people week in and week out, it is challenging to hear new voices near you and the difference in tone and ability. I know the voices of everyone in my section at my church. Who to listen more carefully to as they know part better than I do, and whom to tune out as they are not equally talented, but make an effort. When new voices are around, there is a new challenge to find a good voice and blend your voice with it.

Secondly, there is a great difference when you have more than 20 basses singing, versus when you have much fewer. When you feel the rumble of all the voices combined, it easy to understand why someone would want to ride a motorcycle. There is great power going on there, or at least it feels like it.

And, like most of Choral singing, there is a sense of accomplishment when everyone has worked together to create something beautiful, striking and moving. And singing in a group of 200 plus is really a group effort.

I would not be telling you the whole truth if I didn't say that there are some people for whom singing is not a great talent. I was impressed however that they made an effort to be there, to sing as best as they could. I do not claim to have perfect pitch, but I have a good grasp of it. There was for example, one man not far from me who would 'sing down the ocvate' meaning, he same the same note exactly as everyone one else, just lower. Harmony that was not meant to be. But, I found that if I turned toward him, he moved up and joined the rest of the group and sang right in pitch and on the correct octave.

I'm learning more and more that music teaches us a lot about life.

• Strive for perfection in your performance. But, should you falter, don't stop and curse it. The music keeps playing, you had best keep up.
• The effort is really everything. When you are done singing, folks with applaud. Not just because of what you sang, but that you sang at all. After all, they are sitting watching, not singing.
• If you are going to make a mistake while learning something, make it nice an loud so it can be heard and corrected. Learn then from that mistake and try not to do it again.
• Others around you will lean on you for notes, just as you lean on them.
• Sometimes, someone will 'get' a piece of music or a phrase faster than others. There is no way you can hide that you understood it and you can't keep your knowledge from others. And why would you anyway?
• enunciate. Speak clearly and you will be understood.
• Singing is done more with the soul than the lungs.
• If you are playing a piece of music, let your fingers just do what they do, and get out of the way.

If we were all busy making music, we would not have time for war.