A Study Guide for The Band Director's Lessons About Life Volume 1

Your Transformation Awaits!

This is a study guide to accompany The Band Director’s Lessons About Life: Volume 1 – 50 Parables on Life’s Performance Cycle, by Donald Lee. You can use it for individual or group study. This study guide turns the simple parables into a year-long course in spiritual development. You will spend a week on each of the fifty parables, either on your own or together with your study group. You will go deeper into the meaning of each parable: love, forgiveness, gratitude, being yourself, belief, joy, etc. You will set spiritual goals—and achieve them. But not completely, because a spiritual goal is an ideal. Ideals evolve as you evolve. That’s what this course is all about—your spiritual evolution.

As with the book of parables, music is the metaphor for spiritual life. The journey of becoming a musician is a metaphor for our spiritual journey. Yet we never truly “become.” We are forever “becoming.” You get to decide what you will work on “becoming”—your spiritual goal/ideal. Will it be clarinet, trumpet, French horn, flute? Of course, you can learn them all eventually—become a master of all the spiritual virtues. You can become a saint!

The parables, and this study guide, attempt to avoid theology. It doesn’t matter what religion you follow. Instead of theology, you will find principles. These principles align best with mystic Christianity, with A Course in Miracles, and with most other modern revelatory writings. But they also align with the spiritual principles in virtually every major religion. You will decide how to apply the principles in your own life. You will decide what spiritual goals or ideals you most want to develop. After all, it is your spiritual journey you are on.

This is not just a book to read—you can do that with the book of parables. This book leads you through a process of transformation. You will find it inspirational, spiritually enlightening, challenging, a journey in personal growth as well as spiritual growth. You will use prayer, meditation, discussion, self-reflection, as well as instruction. This is a book for men, for women, and for teens; in short, a spiritual self-help book for everyone. It recognizes the whole “you”—body, mind, & spirit. But the real “you” is spirit; the body an mind are temporary. The real “you” is an eternal being of light and love. That’s what you are here to share and manifest. That’s what this course will help you develop.

You loved the parables. You laughed, pondered—maybe even cried. Now it’s time to go deeper. There is another level of meaning and transformation—if you are ready for it.

The lesson for each parable includes:

·         A teaching about the lesson

·         A short reflection to stimulate your thinking

·         Discussion questions to ponder and for group discussion

·         A private meditation

Before you begin there are explanations of:

·         The ego

·         Prayer

·         Meditation

·         Spiritual goals

·         Listening to God

If you do this course, you will transform yourself. As always, the choice is yours. Be careful if you pick up this book. It just might change your life!