Getting to Know You

I haven't changed jobs very much.  Oak Grove is only my third full-time position.  I was at Embry Hills for three years and Decatur First for thirteen.  This week I've been thinking some about getting to know Oak Grove.

It takes a long time to really get to know a place.  General guidance is that you learn the most during your "year of firsts."  By a year in, you'll have experienced everything the church typically does at least one time.  That was true for me at Decatur First.  By a year in I had a good handle on a lot of things about how the church operated.  I mostly knew where to go for what and what all the expectations were for the programming I would oversee.  And so, a year in, I knew enough to begin adding my own fingerprints (see previous post) to the ministry.  I knew where the bathrooms were, and I knew that the first floor wasn't, in all cases, the ground floor (though it was in some cases).  I could start new programs, and if something wasn't going well I could troubleshoot from a position of knowledge rather than ignorance.

In addition to learning about the nuts and bolts of the church, I got to know a lot of people that first year.  But with so many, it was like drinking from a fire hose.  I was lucky to catch a couple of names here or there.  What I mean is I got to know a little about a lot of people.

Actual picture of me trying to learn all the people.

The good news is that while the fire hose was wide open on Sunday when I was trying to get to know people, during the week I could really apply myself to figuring out the church and the ministry.  I could have long talks with the directors of the other work areas and the pastors.  I could study the budget and thumb through the catalogs of music previously sung at the church.

It looked something like this except I was
a lot heavier than that guy is.

My transition to Oak Grove went...nothing like that.  As I type this, the sum total of normal traditional services I have attended at Oak Grove stands at...1.  I attended once a full year before I started my work.  I've been able to do precious little of the information gathering and getting to know the institution or the general population of the church.  And with gatherings limited in number, I've been able to get to know a relatively small number of people.

But I've been able to get to know them relatively well...and much more quickly.  This Sunday there are about 25 youth participating in a virtual youth choir and about 30 adults participating in virtual chancel choir.  I know each of them reasonably well...far better than I knew the Chancel Choir a couple of months into my time at Decatur First.

One thing in particular I know VERY well is their voices.  Individually.  Honestly I didn't know the individual voices at Decatur First super well even at the time I left.  I knew some of them very well, sure, but since we sang as a choir for the most part, there were a lot of singing voices I wouldn't be able to identify.  I think I can pretty much identify my entire chancel choir by their singing voice right now.

WARNING: Music dorkery ahead. If you don't want to dork out about music, skip to the green arrow!

That's led me to a point of personal growth I did not expect.

Once I have all the videos on my computer, the first step of making the virtual choir is to phase all the voices together (line them up so they are singing at the same time).  The second step is to separate them into parts and adjust the voices so they sound like a choir rather than a bunch of individuals.  The way I do this is to guess where everyone needs to be based on history then pull down any voices I hear popping out.  Then I go to each voice, pull it way up, and then fade it down until I don't hear it.

From time to time I still don't wind up with the right sound.  I think that's because pulling the voices down like that sometimes leaves you with the lowest common denominator, which isn't what choral sound wants to be.  When this happens, I find myself asking what is missing from the sound.  Is it too thin?  Too muffled?  Does it need more core?  More fundamental?  More ring?

That's where the deeper knowledge of the voices comes in really handy.  You may have heard voices categorized into flutes and reeds, like organ pipes.  While that's a significant oversimplification, it is helpful.  If the sound is too shrill I can add a little more of the flute-y voices to compensate.  If the sound is muddled I can add a little more of the reedy voices to compensate.

What's most interesting to me about this is that if I only add more of one voice (a reed, for example), I will hear that person stick out.  But if I add all the reeds together, it changes the sound without sacrificing the unification of the sound, which is very cool.

So while I still don't like virtual choirs, since a big (BIG) part of my job right now is putting them together, I may as well learn something, and what I'm learning is something of the miracle that is diverse voices forming a unified sound in an up-close an personal way I've never been able to experience before.

If you skipped here, welcome back!  If you've stuck with me through the dorkery, I hope you enjoyed the ride.

Here's the thing.  As the new director of music ministry at OGUMC I have a lot to learn both about the institution and the people, and the pandemic is forcing me to learn those things in a completely different way from how I did it last time I did it.

But the REAL point here is that getting to know you is important to me--just as important as getting to know the building and the budgets and how to turn the exterior lights on.  It's hard for me to reach out to everyone, so I hope you'll reach out to me.  We can talk on zoom or on the phone or at a distance on the porch.  I may have been at this for almost 6 months now, but I still feel brand new.

An Invitation

It seems like it was years ago, but it was only months.  I was still at Decatur First.  It had become clear that the youth choir would not be able to go on its annual music mission trip in June.  The choir, not one to be easily defeated, set about figuring out how to go on the trip virtually.  In the end I was surprised at how effective it was, both in terms of the mission aspect and in terms of  drawing the choir closer together.  These are, after all, the primary purposes of the trip.  When we set about creating a virtual trip, we started with a single question: what is essential?  I am convinced that answering that question thoroughly and honestly was the key to a successful experience, and it was a lesson I carried with me when I changed jobs.

In retrospect we had already been asking that question of just about everything we were offering in ministry, beginning with our worship services.  What is essential?  What are the sine qua non of worship or mission or, well...church?  And how can we overcome the obstacles of the pandemic to continue offering them?

As it became clear that the pandemic would not be over by Christmas, I set about answering the question again.  Of all the things we have been doing, all the concerts and services and decoration...what is essential?  What can we not do without?

I started just now writing a list of all the things we are losing this Christmas Season, but I deleted it.  It's a bummer that we've lost so much, but none of those things were really essential, I don't guess.  We'll be able to sing Once in Royal David's City next year, right?

But there is one thing I don't want to let go of.

For many years now, as the Christmas Eve services have come to an end, we have taken the light of Christ from the Christ candle and shared it.  I've watched it creep across the congregation, person after person sharing freely and without reservation.  After all, sharing the light with another person doesn't mean losing it yourself!  And then, as the lights in the sanctuary go completely out, I see so many faces illuminated by the warm glow of candles singing together.  Just for a moment, basking in the light of Christ, we come the closest we can on this earth to experiencing the peace we pray for.  Everything else melts away.

The pandemic is going to make this harder, but the pandemic will not take this away.

Tuesday night I recorded Jack and Randy playing Silent Night on their guitars.  Last night I recorded myself singing it by candlelight.  I'd like for you to join me.  Yes, you.  You reading this.  No, I don't care if you think you can't sing.  Everyone can sing Silent Night!  Here's what you do:

1. Go to virtual.oakgrovemusic.org

2. Go to the first youtube video on the page.  It's a guide video.

3. Set up one device to play back through headphones and set another to record (I playback on the computer and record with my cell phone).

4. Light a candle...or several...and grab your family.  Get everyone together and sing.  Let the person with the headphones lead!  And...if the headphones don't work out, that's ok.  Just sing with the video.

5. Go to uploads.oakgrovemusic.org and follow the directions there to upload your video.

Then, on Christmas Eve at the end of the traditional service, the familiar flame will flicker with the soft glow we have come to love.  We will sing together to celebrate what is essential: the light and love of Christ.

Fingerprints

Back in the, uh, dark ages, before DNA evidence was a thing, fingerprints were a common piece of evidence tying a person to a crime.  That's because they are unique to each person and were commonly left behind when the perpetrator was long-gone.  Moreover, while it is of course possible for a person to commit a crime and not leave fingerprints behind by using gloves or wiping the scene down, it is considerably more difficult to create fake fingerprints on a scene, thereby potentially wrongly convicting someone of a crime.  Let me make a disclaimer here.  I'm not an expert in fingerprinting, so everything I just said may be wrong.  Feel free to call me out for incorrect information in the comments. I can take it.

I think it's a rite of passage for children to make a set of handprints in preschool that include this little poem:

Sometimes you get discouraged,

because I am so small

And leave my little fingerprints

On furniture and walls.

But everyday I'm growing

And soon will be so tall

That all these little fingerprints

Will be difficult to recall.

So here's a little handprint

That you can put away

Not my child's actual handprint.

...or some version of that.  It's very cute.  And yes, I'm fairly certain we have the requisite handprints for both of our children in a keepsake box that they will one day open and wonder why we kept them.  Or maybe by that time they will have children and will understand completely.

And it's true that kids' handprints get all over.  One of my friends, Mark, once wrote that for all the years between birth and about 7 or 8 years old it seemed like there was a sticky film coating everything in the house.  It covers roughly the same years you always have a bottle of pink medicine in the fridge because your child just started it, just finished it, or needs a refill of it.  Sometimes when I look at picture of my children when they were younger I remember how cute and sweet they were.  When I think about the pink medicine (or worse, the white medicine that followed if the pink medicine didn't work), I feel like maybe we were lucky to get through it in one piece.  My children have left literal sticky fingerprints all over us, our house, our vehicles, and presumably every other place they've ever been, is what I'm saying.  And I don't think we are alone.  Kids all over are like:

Ready for a new day!

But there are other sorts of fingerprints.  More subtle and more durable by far.  They last long after last bottle of pink medicine has been thrown away and sticky fingers are wiped off before accessing the refrigerator (full disclosure: this doesn't always happen even now).  These are fingerprints on the heart and soul.  They're left by smiles and joy and tears and anger.  And they aren't limited to children.

We bear the fingerprints of every relationship. Each person we encounter leaves us somehow marked--for better or worse (actually most of the time better and worse if we really think about it).  In the classic nature vs. nurture debate, all these fingerprints are on the nurture side even if they don't always feel especially nurturing.

Of course some people leave more fingerprints on us than others.  Those who are closest to us leave well more than fingerprints.  They can shape everything about us from how we look to how we speak to how we exist in the world!  How many times have I said something to my children and realized it may as well have been my parents talking?  The truth is it probably was my parents talking.

And that's when it gets really scary.  Fingerprints are a two-way street.  Just as surely as people leave their prints on us, so we leave our prints on those we meet every day.  Every. Person.  Fingerprints of happiness, perhaps, or anger...or maybe for more than we'd like to admit, fingerprints of indifference (maybe the most painful of all fingerprints, I think).

The profound power of our fingerprints is frightening, yes.  And yet in their power is opportunity as well.  Just as easily as we can mark others with our indifference, so can we also mark them with our care.  As easily as we mark them with malice, so can we mark them with benevolence and kindness and release.

Maybe not just as easily, I don't guess.  Sometimes it runs counter to human nature to uplift those around us.  Or is it counter to human nurture?  Maybe we would do well to look ourselves over and consider carefully the fingerprints on us.  Who left them?  How have they influenced us?  Which fingerprints will we carefully--or even painfully--wipe away from who we are?  Is that even possible?  Fingerprints don't wash easily, but washing away the right fingerprints can be the most important act of self-care we will ever undertake.

A close second may be paying attention to those around us to see what kind of fingerprints we are leaving on others.  For me that is a mixed bag.  I can see the ways I have acted harshly or reacted in ways I'm not proud of.  I can see the ways I've ignored too many people, especially during a pandemic when checking in is so important.  But I can also see, now and then, fingerprints I'm proud of.  In fact, it was one such set of prints that led me to write this post.

In the end, these fingerprints on the heart and soul, just like those Holmes and Watson might find, are evidence.  The ones left on us are evidence of where we have been, and the ones we leave on others are evidence of the kind of people we are.  And, for better or worse, the fingerprints do not lie.

We're Gonna Kick That Football

A few days ago my son managed to do something I've never seen before.

He kicked his football from the other side of the yard, and it was caught by...a tree.  It looks close in that picture, but it's actually about 25 feet off the ground.

No problem!  Just use the other football to knock it down, right?

I had never seen a tree catch a kick before.  But now I've seen a tree catch a kick and intercept a pass.  I guess the beer truck can come for me now, because I've officially seen it all.

This dogwood in our front yard is now a bizarre fusion of two important recurring themes from the Peanuts comics.  It's the football-eating tree (an apocalpytic combination of the kite-eating tree and Lucy's pretending to hold the football for Charlie Brown, pulling it back at the last minute and watching Charlie Brown wind up flat on his back).

I wish I had video of the third ball.  Having caught two footballs in the tree, he changed tactics and used a soccer ball.  Standing directly under the two footballs, he threw up the soccer ball.  It hit the limb, and all three balls showered down on him.

It occurs to me that in peanuts Lucy and the kite-eating tree have something in common.  Both of them are crushers of the dreams of Charlie Brown.  Every time, he sets about kicking the football or flying his kite, Charlie Brown summons an eternally optimistic hope...and every time his hope is dashed.  He believes the very best.  He's going to kick that football.  He's going to get that kite in the air.  Bless his heart, it just never works out.

They almost took Charlie Brown away this year.  "They," of course, refers to the incarnate evil that is the antithesis of all things good.

I'm not sure why this bothered me so much.  After all, I have all the Charlie Brown movies on DVD at home, so it doesn't really matter to me if they air on broadcast television.  But word that Apple had bought them and was going to keep them off the airwaves had me in a bad place.  It just seemed...wrong.  How could we do Thanksgiving without the Peanuts special or...horrors...Christmas?!  OH THE HUMANITY!!!

Maybe it's just because I'm an old fogey.  We've always had Peanuts on TV this time of year, and taking it away is taking away a ritual I'm comfortable with.  It's nostalgia.  Maybe it's because I have an intense dislike of all things Apple and just can't square their ownership of the rights to a franchise I like so much.  Maybe it's because I'm somewhat drawn to Charlie Brown's melancholy--or how somehow at the end of each show somehow things turn around and despite his best effort to mess everything up, things turn out ok for the blockhead.

Or maybe it's because somewhere deep in my gut I feel like we need Peanuts.  Not for the feel-better ending, and not because it gives us someone to feel bad for to take our minds off our own struggles for a minute.  I feel like we need a little reminder that just like Charlie Brown, there is a wellspring of hope inside all of us.

I don't think there's one person who can honestly say everything has always gone their way.  But there are many who can say things didn't go their way...and in response they chose--they CHOSE--to believe in the best of people.  They trusted Lucy with the football once again.  They took off with the kite full of hope that this time--this time--they're gonna kick that football.

This is the triumph of the human spirit, or maybe the triumph of the indwelling Spirit. Unlike Charlie Brown, sometimes we are able to actually kick that ball or get our kite in the air.  And sometimes we wind up flat on our back with our kite stuck in a tree.  (Or, apparently, sometimes we mix up our metaphors and wind up with our football in a tree?).  But we can overcome, and we do, and we will.  We're gonna kick that football.

PS. Cooler heads prevailed, and PBS will indeed run the Peanuts specials. Whew.

It May Be Time to Check In

I've been enjoying the pictures of the sanctuary Joseph is putting on Facebook.  They're beautiful photos of natural morning light when he walks in before he turns the lights on.  (https://www.facebook.com/Joseph.D.McBrayer/posts/10109043496337711)  It really is lovely.  I'm not nearly as good at photography as Joseph is, but the other day I tried to take my own picture in the afternoon.

It took me a while to get even this not very good picture of the sanctuary.  Here's why:

It's because we actually have a lot of stuff in there right now to film parts of our services.  I've got stuff from filming musicians.  Joseph has stuff from filming the speaking parts.  There are some microphones and other equipment hanging out following our upgrades to the AV system.

I'd say this is unique to the pandemic, but I don't think it is.  I can't speak to how Oak Grove was prior to the pandemic, but I know where I came from we did a good job of hiding messes from public view in closets, offices, and even behind the rail in the sanctuary.

Much has already been written about how this phenomenon has manifested in social media.  What you see someone post on Facebook isn't necessarily so much an indication of their perfect life as it is (maybe) an indication of a perfect moment.  Even then...you don't know what's lurking just out of the frame.

Most of the time I see this framed as a reason not to feel too bad about yourself--not to compare yourself to the version of your friends you see online because it's not possible to keep up with this distorted view of their reality.  There's wisdom in that!  A lot of us could probably stand to cut ourselves a little more slack.  But in this very strange time, I'm even more worried about isolation and disconnection.

I had a friend who was not well at all.  A mutual friend asked me if I knew how she was doing, and my answer was, "Well, I saw her posting in her normal way on Facebook, so she must be doing ok."  She was not doing ok...losing her battle with cancer only a week or two later.  I assumed, based on what I was seeing online, that she was fine.  I assumed wrong.

So it's now more important than ever to reach out.  Pick up the phone (did you know you can actually use it to talk to people?)!  Be the hands and feet of Jesus, because so often we are the vehicles by which he makes good on his promise to be with us always.  You can send a text or an email, but remember digital media invites people to hide their messes away and present only the best view of themselves...you might not get the whole picture.

Success in a Time of Pandemic

Measuring success is hard.

In part that's because good metrics are elusive. Consider education. Most educators will tell you that standardized testing isn't an effective way to measure the progress of students. The ACT and SAT, once near the top of the list for admission and financial aid consideration for colleges, are moving down the list, with some colleges disregarding the exams entirely. I'm certainly not an authority on why this is, but I can confirm from my own experience that the ability to fill in the correct bubbles on an exam administered over a period of multiple hours or days may struggle to gauge accurately an individuals mastery over content. It is more a measure of how well an individual takes tests and problem-solves. As an example, I have a horrible memory for facts, but I'm quite good at reasoning. I test much better than my knowledge base really supports. But I know people who are just the opposite. Very knowledgeable and highly competent but less good at taking tests.  Maybe that's why a big part of any test-preparation service will focus on "test-taking strategies," which are more tricks to helping you perform better on a test than they are infusing you with the required knowledge.

Why, oh why is part of my mind filled with strategies to do better on a standardized test?  I could use that brain space for something more productive like memorizing lyrics to funk tunes from the 1970's.

Something is inherently lost in translation when you convert from the qualitative world to the quantitative. In 1964, Justice Potter Stewart attempted to describe his threshold test for obscenity in Jacobellis v. Ohio.  He said, "I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description ["hard-core pornography"], and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that." Still, William Goldberg argued that "In effect, 'I know it when I see it' can still be paraphrased and unpacked as: "I know it when I see it, and someone else will know it when they see it, but what they see and what they know may or may not be what I see and what I know."

We'll let the courts sort out the legalities and take instead the broader point: much of our world (including much of what we would very much like to measure) is subjective and simply defies numerical description. This has profound implication for, well, everything, but at the moment I'm thinking about the church and in particular church music. Riddle me this: in the context of church music, what does success look like?

That's not an easy question to answer even in normal times. Does it look like a choir perfectly in tune on Sunday morning? Does it look like a bell choir that can ring 16th notes evenly and gracefully (and even crescendo while slowing them down)? Can you measure success by the number of rear ends planted in the pews at concerts or the number of dollars they leave in the basket on the way out the door? The budget approved by the finance committee? The pay of the director? The number of staff people?

Some people might say yes. But I would argue those are all merely symptoms of something deeper and more important. Pretend for a moment you could go to a church lagging by all those metrics, snap your fingers, and instantly change them. 

Would the ministry be more successful after your finger snap? I'd argue no. Because in my mind (what I see and what I know) is that music ministry should be about community and connection and relationships. Don't get me wrong, I want my bell choir to play even 16th notes, and when I'm standing in front of them I will jump up and down and whine if they aren't! But successfully navigating measure 65 isn't a sign that we've achieved what we set out to achieve.  If it is, we didn't set our sights high enough.

Good thing, too, because back in March the world got turned on its head. The profound effects of the pandemic pervade all facets of daily life, but for the moment I just want to consider my corner of the store. If I measure success by butts in seats or donations or flawless performance, I began failing miserably on March 15, 2020 and I have yet to recover. Right now we have two options: we can gather together outside in smallish groups and sing the best we can in the open air (and the cold, and the dark), or we can record ourselves in our own homes with phones and sync all those videos together to try to make a choir.

I'd like to think we're actually getting pretty good at this, which is a testament to the determination of the singers more than anything else. Still, I think everyone would agree that in absolute musical terms each of these solutions leaves something to be desired. They pale in comparison to the music ministry each person pictured here signed up for.

But if our measure of success is instead community and connection and relationships...we are far from failing. We are forming lasting memories with each other. Struggling together and succeeding together.  We continue to answer the call to enliven services of worship by offering our voices in song even in these difficult circumstances.

This reminds me of a movie, We Are Marshall.  It begins with a tragic plane crash that killed 37 members of the Marshall Thundering Herd football time as well as five coaches, two trainers, and the athletic director. It's based on a true story. In fact one of my singers several years back was attending Marshall when it happened.

In the movie, the university president is inclined to suspend the football program, but is instead persuaded to reconsider. He hired Jack Lengyel, played by Matthew McConaughey who, with the help of one of the surviving coaches, sets about running a football team made of only 18 returning players and walk-ons from other sports.

They lost the first game, and the surviving coach wonders if this is really a way to honor the memory of those who were lost--or if it is instead destroying their legacy.  But in one of my favorite scenes in the movie, Lengyel makes the case that, at least right then, it isn't about winning.  It isn't even about how they play the game.  It just matters that they play.  It matters that they keep the program alive for the sake of the town and the school.

Start at about 45 second in...

I've never liked singing outside, and I've never been into virtual choirs. I never in a million years would have dreamed I'd be making 2-3 virtual choir pieces a week in addition to recording small groups to round out the worship experience.  A few months ago I had never edited a single video.  Now stitch together something like 75 videos every week. We have not given up. We will overcome all obstacles to answer our call to lead in worship.  And just as important, we will overcome all obstacles to be there for each other--to hold each other up just as we did before the pandemic and just as we will after it.

You can't measure it, I don't guess. You can't put a number on it or mark it with a number 2 pencil.  But I know it when I see it. I see it on each masked face on the grand lawn, and I see it on each face in a little square in the virtual choir. This absolutely is what success looks like in a time of pandemic.

This, Our Joyful Hymn of Praise

The first time I sang John Rutter's "For the Beauty of the Earth" was in about 4th grade.  We sang it at a choir camp I went to many years when I was in school.  I googled it, and the camp is still going on (and it actually started two years before I was born!).  Same camp director too, one of my heroes (literally...he once saved my life!).

I love this arrangement.  It's simple, and a lot of choral geeks turn their noses up at it.  The harmonic language isn't complex, nor is the rhythm.  The notes are easy to find (although to make them move lightly can be a challenge!).  I have some colleagues who would say there just isn't "a lot of beef there," and they are right.  But that's part of the charm for me.  The idea of lifting a hymn of praise to God in thanksgiving for all we have been given shouldn't be hard or severe.  It should roll of our tongues easily, as if we are making it up as we go along.

Others don't like the piece because it's overplayed.  That may be true.  But I love it so much I could listen to it every day...and twice on Sunday.  It's not just the lilt in the accompaniment.  It's the way the warmth of the piece builds from beginning to end along with the text.  What begins as a fairly simple and somewhat detached verse about the earth and the skies and the love around us moves through the joy of human love (brother, sister, parent, child) to the profound gift of God's Self to us and "Graces human and divine."

It's curious, too, that this piece, clearly a song of thanksgiving to God, does not include the word "thanks" even once.  The text by FS Pierpoint simply provides a list of things for which we are thankful and then says, "Lord of all, to thee we raise this our joyful hymn of praise."  That refrain is a little tweak of the original text, actually.  The original text is "Lord of all, to thee we raise this our hymn of grateful praise." That change, to me, is magic.  Because thanksgiving, at it's heart, should be a joyful act.  Too often we are driven to thanksgiving by a sense of obligation.  But the best thanksgiving really is a bubbling over of joy that can't be contained.

...

Two days ago I was at the store looking for some Halloween candy.  The Halloween seasonal aisle had been relocated to the front of the store in the discount bins, and Christmas merchandise had taken its place.  I know the appropriate time to decorate for Christmas is hotly debated, and especially in 2020 perhaps a little early holiday cheer could be helpful for us all.  But what if--what if we took a moment to give Thanksgiving its due? Not just as a holiday (though it's probably my favorite holiday)...as a way of life.

I worry that we have collectively forgotten what it means to be thankful at the deepest levels of our hearts, and it's evident in our gliding gracefully from the indulgence of Halloween to the saccharin of Christmas (moving from one sweet thing to the next, if you will).  We've forgotten the joy of thanksgiving, which I guess was inevitable when the holiday became more about food than anything else.

...

In my mind, thanksgiving is the last and most important step in healing.  Being thankful means that you have reconciled, but it means more than that.  It means you have begun to see the tapestry of life from enough distance that you can appreciate how the threads compliment each other and work together to weave a compelling story. I know I have healed when I look back on an experience or a relationship and see past the hurt and suffering to the ways it has brought me to who I am--and I begin to consider the ways I am better for it.

This conception of being thankful is something I return to from time to time.  I keep rediscovering it like a Journey album from high school.  Or like a piece of music, learned long ago and sung many times throughout the years in different churches with different friends along the way.  For those friends, for those experiences, for this journey...

...Lord of all, to thee we raise this our joyful hymn of praise.

A New Choir Room...A New Hope

Last night as I was walking back to my car, I saw a sliver moon over the church in front of a purple-gray sky.  It wasn't just the sky.  The world itself looked purple to me.  I had to take a picture.  My grandmother would have said, "If you had painted it that way, they'd say it looked fake."

Honestly when I first saw it I was on the other side of the church, but the moon was over a couple of light fixtures, so I walked around to this side for a more artistic photo.  The picture doesn't do it justice, mostly because you can't see how crisp the moon was or how purple the air was.

As I was looking again at this picture today, I realized something.  This is my new choir room.

Just a few months ago, as the pandemic reached its summer peak, I changed jobs.  I left my church home of 13 years and began my work at Oak Grove.  I had no idea what was coming when I accepted the position.  It was only after I accepted the job that the pandemic took hold and the horrors that lay ahead started coming into focus.  It soon became clear that we would not be singing together for a long time.

I don't like virtual choirs at all, but it was all we could do, so a month into my new position we started singing together digitally.  You've likely seen one of these choirs floating around the internet.

I'm not particularly good at it, but I can get all the faces on there, and I can get their audio lined up so it sounds like a choir.  And every now and then, just to poke a little fun, I stick a picture of Waldo in there too.  About all I can say for this is...it's something.  I am amazed at the way all the voices come together to make a choir.  Each individual video is shot in isolation: one person with some headphones and a camera.  And then, as if by magic, they flow together.

Alas, it still isn't singing together.

But the human spirit bolstered by the divine Spirit will not be quenched!  People much smarter than I am have worked tirelessly to learn about corona virus and Covid-19.  Finally, about a month ago, a glimmer of hope.  If you're outside, and you wear a mask, and you stay distant, and your group isn't too big...you can sing.

You can sing!

And so, starting in October, I invited children, youth, and adults to come to the grand lawn and sing together.

It wasn't about preparing for a worship service or a concert.  It wasn't about making music for anyone in the world except ourselves.  It was standing...at a safe distance...but close enough that our voices can mingle and create the magic we have missed for so many months.  Not computer magic manipulating electrons and ones and zeros so it sounds like we are singing together.  Actually singing together.

It's still not safe to sing inside, and we don't know when it will be.  So for now, this is our choir room.  The acoustics aren't great, and the HVAC feels non-existent sometimes.  But this is our choir room...and we could do a lot worse.

This new choir room has brought with it a new hope.  Hope that through all the tumult and the strife we can still hear the music ringing.  Hope that the music can still find an echo in our souls.  Given such a glorious choir room as this, how can we keep from singing?