Christmas and the spirit of giving

Last night, my choir had its second of two performances. It went swimmingly. It was wonderful. The choir surprised me with a bunch of flowers. It's a really lovely arrangement, full of lilies and roses.

I went to pack up my things from the kids' play room, and what did I find there but a kid, playing. She was all, "look at me!" and jumping on a beanbag chair. We chatted a little while about how cool it is to jump on a beanbag chair. I went to move my flowers, and she was immediately next to me with two questions. Why do you have flowers? and Can I have one?

I knew in that moment that I was within my rights to say "no," and gently say an age-appropriate thing about respecting other peoples' stuff, but... there was another thought in my mind. What am I gonna do with these flowers? Put them in a vase in my house. And they'll be pretty for awhile, and then they'll wither up. And they'll die, and I'll put them in the compost.

So I gave her a rose. Because, what the heck. I had like four, and she only wanted one. I carefully extracted a rose and checked it for thorns, and off she went to show everyone.

This story is just a small and happy reminder that love is a flower that becomes even more beautiful when shared. I was given a bouquet, which was happy for me; I gave away a rose, which spread the joy two ways. The rest of the night, she walked around with that rose and didn't let it go even once. She walked out the door still holding it.


Choir flowers :) on Twitpic

Merry Christmas, and I hope that a blessing comes your way by way of blessing someone else. It is a great thing. :)

choir choir choir choir GO

Space heaters are AWESOME. I love that it's more than 60 degrees in here!

That way, I can stay comfy while I'm up arranging these songs for VCF choir. Wait... that's not what it's called. VCF Christmas Choir? The Barn Singers? (I suggested the Hayloft Singers at one point, because we sing at the Barn, and instead of a choir loft, a barn would have a hayloft... I am guessing that it was too witty and that is why I never received a response.)

Whatever it is, our first meeting is tomorrow. Kind of a late start. There are only 7 Mondays until Christmas. We are going to move at lightning speeds. Sing at the speed of light. And then be like, bam, Christmas.

It's my third year running it. I think this is my last year. I make no bones about it. I've led community choirs since 2005. And I like it. But the thing that makes them live is having them around all year.

I ask myself, why don't I just get it together, why don't I just get my act together and run it all year? And when I ask this, I find I can make excuses by the bucketload. I got a hundred up my sleeve. I think there are always plenty of excuses lying around if you ever need them. But the fact of the matter is: if you want to do something, you're gonna do it. To be honest, I just haven't wanted it to the point where it topped my priorities list. I can admit that without being a bad person.

(I think.)

For me, there has never been a lack of ideas for projects to get involved with. They simply cannot all happen. There are not enough hours in the week. I do find that I need to remind myself of this, otherwise this groundless guilt starts to set in and make everything sour. I think it's great to work hard to achieve goals, but we need to listen to our own hearts, and God's heart for us (yes, both, God does care about our wants as well as our needs) What not to listen to: the voices saying little annoying catch-phrase-y things, like Do More, Achieve, Get Involved. Being rested and healthy and spiritually well is success in and of itself, and that takes time, too. Contrary to popular belief, well-being is NOT the natural result of trying to cram more "productivity" into your day.

Still, though. Choir is awesome. There is so so SO much more to worship than Sunday morning, and it's easy for me to see the connections between choral singing and the kingdom of God. Corporate sound. One sound from many bodies. Oneness, proclaiming the message of Jesus. Learning to submit your voice into that sound. Learning to take the lead, gently but firmly, when necessary, within your part to guide others through the right pitches. We don't all sing the same voice part. But bass, alto, soprano, tenor, baritone, whatever: they all listen to one another, tune to each other, sing their own unique part in a unified message.

Yep.

FAWM post #6: Halfway done

-- SONGS --

I just uploaded my seventh song of FAWM 2011, "Small Town Places." Click this link for lyrics 'n all.



Still got lots of ideas, plus a weekend full of collaboration coming up. I hope to overshoot the 14-song mark, let the drive that is FAWM just carry me past it so I can write more songs! We'll see.

-- PUBLICITY --

Carla Lucas wrote a great article about FAWM. (And a lot of it is about me, for some reason.) You can view it at the Chester County Press website!

Also, keep your eye on the News Journal/Delaware Online...

-- OTHER --

I quit the choir I was in. I feel badly. I was so excited and then I just crapped out on everyone... I kept looking at the rehearsal schedule and thinking, "well, I'll just reschedule this, and that, and the other thing I normally do..." 'till it got to be too many things and I realized I was overbooked again.

I'm doing a lot of performing this weekend. Hopefully I'll even get to sleep a little, too. Life is a little crazy between work, FAWM, housesitting on and off, plus other random stuff that pops up as a normal matter of course. It's a mad dash to the end of February.

Christmas shenanigans

Last week kept me on my toes. It was Christmas week, which is a pretty musically busy time. Somehow, I not only got through it -- I aced it with flying colors, and have videos to prove it.

Here's one of the videos of my choir performing at our Adoration service.



We had two performances. They did really, really well. I had so many people tell me how it touched them, how beautiful it was. It's just another way for God to show how beautiful His love is, to give us music and art that touches us in ways we cannot explain.

When I showed up to warm up the choir, I was approached by my pastor -- "do you play bass?" I really have no actual experience playing the bass, but... it's just a jumbo guitar without the top two strings. So I ended up playing a few carols along with the worship team. Honestly, I do enjoy having a little odd challenge thrown my way. Something that takes me out of my comfort zone. You don't get very far by staying within that particular zone.


Annnnnnd here's the video of my arrangement of 23 carols mushed into 4 minutes.



I threw this together on a Thursday, Shane's show was Saturday, and I recorded this the following Wednesday. I would have done it a little differently with more time, but it was a fun little project, anyway. And it turns out, my camera takes half-decent videos, which might lead to more videos in the future...

Choir director? Who, me?

I love my choir. It's great to bring people together to sing. But choir directorship is not something I ever would have imagined for myself.

From what I can recall, I hated my voice when I was a kid. The way it sounded was just really repulsive to me. I knew that I could carry a tune, but I believed that the quality of my voice was so terrible that I should do everyone a favor and just shut up.

So when I got to college, I wanted a music degree. Fine, they said. You'll have to join a large ensemble. And guess what? There's no large ensemble for classical guitar, so... you'll be in Women's Glee, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from noon to one.

Apparently, nobody had informed them of the horror that was my vocal quality. So I just bit my tongue, accepted my fate, and figured on lip syncing my way through four years of college.

Turns out you sing a lot, if you're a music student. Even outside of Women's Glee, there were ear training classes where you had to sing different musical intervals, eventually building up to sight-singing in solfege. (You know... Do, Re, Mi...)

Here's what I discovered:

1. Choir directors can be really nice, encouraging people (who sometimes devote Wednesdays to the color purple)
   
2. People did not wince from what I envisioned was my harsh, grating tone
   
3. You will be very popular in a choir if you have a good ear
   
4. Singing is a fun, unifying experience that is just plain good for the soul
   

It made me a little mad that I had been cheated out of such a great thing for so long. It made me mad that some people try to make singing something so lofty and inaccessible, try to tell others they can't sing when they clearly can. We're not all going to be on Broadway, but we can carry a tune and we don't sound half bad doing it, thankyouverymuch.

Enter my six years of directing small community choirs. Starting with my dorm and lately including the church choir. It's always been a mix -- some seasoned choir veterans, some people wanting to try for the first time. I've never auditioned anyone. I depend completely upon the goodwill and kindness of my singers to forgive each others' mistakes and help each other to create a beautiful performance.

So I'm really excited that we're coming up on a performance again for Christmas this year. They sound great, but their hearts are even better.