My little sister is turning 21 today. For twenty-one years we’ve been the best of friends. For twenty-one years we’ve squabbled and competed, shared almost everything and loved each other as only siblings can.
As time continues to roll forward, and we continue to age I pray that God will bless her richly, that her desires will conform to His and that she will always hear and obey the His words.
I love you Emily. May your future surpass your past, in faith, hope and love.
I am a terrible singer. The way I usually describe my attempts at making music with my vocal chords is to say the sound is like someone driving a truckload of nails through a chalkboard factory. As a result, for a long time I felt a need to exercise restraint when “singing” in church.
Perhaps a year ago, I had an encounter that changed things a great deal for me. This experience has changed the way I approach worship and I remember it almost every Sunday but to the best of my memory* I’ve never told anyone about it.
On one of my first Sundays at Mars Hill, a friend and I came a little early and found a seat a few rows back from the front. I was a little nervous and a feeling a little self conscious (as if anyone at the Ballard Campus notices anyone else). When the songs started, I did my then-usual “singing” as quietly as was possible without merely mouthing words. I hoped that I wouldn’t miss the timing, come in at the wrong time and thereby possibly be heard by someone.
I looked around to see if anyone was noticing me (Yes, I really am that self-centered, even during worship.) and saw a very emo looking guy a few seats away. He was wearing super skinny jeans that squeezed his legs like sausage skins, a baggy plaid shirt and a shaggy mane of hair. He didn’t look like the typical church kid but he was singing at the top of his lungs.
It took me a few minutes to process. The first thing I noticed is that his singing was extraordinarily terrible. Not one note was on tune and he had the lungs to produce some real volume. A few seconds later I realized that he really didn’t seem to care what anyone else thought of him. Then I noticed how encouraged I was by this. Here was I guy who was really seemed to love God, passionately and was unafraid to show it. How encouraging.
As my brain continued to process, I also noted the lack of anyone (other than me) staring or laughing at him. The music at Mars Hill was so loud that even with his megaphone voice, his off-key warbling didn’t really carry and even in the small area where it was audible, no one seemed to notice or care.
Finally, I realized if he could sing loudly and nobody seemed to mind (Except for me and I was encouraged by his passion) than I could sing out too.
So I started to really sing and it has been a remarkably freeing change. I definitely feel like I am better able to worship when I can ignore any urge to control my volume and maintain my dignity and focus on what and why I am singing.
*The best of my memory is not that good. Just because I don’t recall telling anyone does not mean that I may not have told everyone I know multiple times. As people who know me in meatspace know, I’m prone to repeat myself repetitively.
Tonight, I hosted my ninth play reading of the year. We performed You Never Can Tell by George Bernard Shaw.
The production went off well. Unlike some previous readings we had enough readers to cover all the major parts and all of the participants were able to maintain sufficient interest to keep the play moving.
I feel that I can make the claim that a good time was had by all.
Thank you to everyone who participated.
The beginnings of fall classes are rushing to meet me and I am not looking forward to the busyness they will bring. The actual content of the classes should be interesting. I am always curious and I generally like to learn about even the most mundane subjects but it will be pleasing to have all my free reading time gobbled up by studying and silly make-work projects.
I was looking over the master Excel sheet that I use to track my reading and I discovered a couple interesting facts:
I’m joking about the sexism but it is interesting.
The disparity in author sex is probably a product of the genres I prefer to read. Off the top of my head, I can’t think of any female authors of military history. Furthermore, I tend to read a lot of books written before 1950, a time when females were generally less represented among published authors.
