So It Begins

In my book, fall isn’t officially over until Thanksgiving. This means that the winter season can not officially begin until the leftovers are finished. Because I might love fall, but I pretty much hate winter.

The only thing I don’t hate about winter is Christmas. It is totally cliché, but I love Christmas. I love lights and garland and Christmas trees. And I especially love early evenings spent reading by a fireplace or watching one more holiday movie. (As always, I suggest: Elf.)

Christmas is one of the few protected holidays in my family. We don’t go anywhere. We make no plans. We simply get up, stay home, and practice being a family. I know that as my brother and I get older, we will eventually have families of our own and may want to start new traditions. But that only serves to make these remaining Christmas Days all the more special.

This year, Christmas falls on a Sunday. Now for you, that might not make you shake in your boots. In fact, you might think that sounds awfully nice, kind of fuzzy and warm, to celebrate Christmas Day on the traditional day of weekly worship. I would wager that you probably didn’t have a small panic attack when you looked at the calendar and in fact, it’s not unlikely you didn’t even know Christmas was on a Sunday until I just wrote it here.

Well not me.

I knew since last Christmas that this year’s Christmas was on a Sunday because I work at a church and Sundays are kind of our thing. I love the church at Christmas time. It feels warm and friendly; Christmas is the time when I’m reminded that the church still has hope, still has a chance to reach people, to help people, to be a good and tolerant place. But it’s also where I have an office during a crazy busy season.

Earlier in November when work was a relatively normal state of busy, I started to wonder if maybe I exaggerate the work load of the weeks leading up to Christmas. I mean, shouldn’t it really be one of the easiest seasons at a church? We basically do the same things as last year and the year before that. Jesus was born, away in a manger, while shepherds harked to herald angels on the very first noel. Joy to the world!

And I have another tradition each Christmas season – believing that this year won’t be so crazy. Each year I enter the season thinking that this is when I’ll get everything right. I won’t work long hours, won’t commit myself in too many places, won’t wait to do Christmas shopping until the week of Christmas. This year will be my year.

Basically that means my tradition is to lie to myself. But please don’t burst my Christmas bubble. I need some denial to get through the season.

So if we see each other, maybe we should just talk about blinking lights and frosted cookies. Maybe you shouldn’t mention that I have two concerts in as many weeks and don’t know the music to either. Or that my brother is moving away and this might be the last regular family Christmas we have. Or that our office is barely managing a schedule change for the New Year and I’m feeling pulled in so many directions I might actually fall apart. Or that I don’t know how I’ll afford any Christmas presents this year.

And when Christmas Sunday finally does arrive, maybe you could let me lean on you just a little bit. Maybe you could remind me that Jesus didn’t enter the world so that we could run faster through the check out lines or become trapped in traditions or exhaust ourselves for the bigger and the better.

Maybe on Christmas Sunday you could remind me that Jesus was about peace and love and rest. And if you feel like reminding me of any of those things a little early, that’d be okay too.

And who knows – maybe this really will be the year.

Do you find yourself overwhelmed during the Christmas season? Or is it a season of rest and renewal? How do you make time for family and traditions during Christmas?

Music.

All the songs quoted here are from Page CXVI, "Hymns - IV". I strongly encourage you to visit their site here to stream these songs live. If you do it now, you can even listen as you read!

\\ The air feels thin \ Hard to breathe \ Fill our lungs Lord, fill our lungs \ On darker days \ We lift our eyes \ We find a trace, we find a trace \\ Bursting through the sky with glory \ A savior comes to save the saints \ Redemptive eyes, we see your mercy \ You made the choice, you took our place \\ I’m coming home \ I’m coming home \ To a place, to a place \ Of love and mercy, truth and glory \ I’m home, I’m home \\ I’ve got a home in glory land \ Outshines the sun \ Outshines the sun \\ ("Song of the Saints", track 4)

This weekend has been a reminder that I’ve been missing something in my life. Music. On one hand, my every day is filled with nothing but the business of music. But just like the business of worship is not worship, the business of music is not music.

On Saturday, at a children’s festival, I saw anew the joy of experiencing music with one’s whole body. An amazing reminder that through music we praise a loving, living God, who revels in our dancing and loud clashing cymbals and full expression of the Creator-placed love within us.

Saturday night I went to support a friend’s band and was filled to overflowing with the peace of music, the way in which music can fill you with a feeling of contentedness. I was in exactly the right place, in need of nothing outside the music. His is an eclectic sound – a melting together of rhythms and melodies that speak into the night.

Music draws us together. It calls to a deep, ancient part of us that seeks connection and understanding. A part of us that acknowledges our lives continue only in relationship with those rhythms – internal, external and eternal.

\\ I will sing to you this song of thanks \ For giving me abundant grace \ You broke the stones around my heart \ In you I’ve been redeemed \\ Amazing grace how sweet the sound \ That saved a wretch like me \ I once was lost but now I am found \ Was blind but now I see \\ ("Amazing Grace", track 1)

In my world, I have a tendency to ask how music can serve others. So much so that it can become the only way I look at music – supply and demand. And in my experience, that is exactly the point at which music ceases to be. Music is never about supply and demand. We don’t sing along with our favorite song because it’s demanded of us. Most any musician would say that if they made music on a supply and demand schedule alone, they’d probably never make music.

But indeed music is my job, or at least a big part of my job. As such I get lots of emails and samples of new music to preview or download. Sometime earlier this year I received a sample of some new tracks by a band called Page CXVI and have become enamored by their collections. (Even as I type, I have my headphones on and find myself pausing every few minutes to close my eyes and rest in the sound.)

Maybe that is the center of what divides music from the business of music – rest.

\\ God is my shepherd \ I won’t be wanting, I won’t be wanting \ He makes me rest in fields of green \ With quiet streams \\ Even though I walk through \ Through the valley of death and dying \ I will not fear, ‘cause you are with me \ You’re always with me \\ Your shepherd staff comforts me \ In all my fears and the presence of enemies \ And surely goodness will follow me \ In the house of God forever \\ ("House of God Forever", track 6)

I have been reading and seeking a deeper meaning of rest. Of sacred, spiritual rest. Only very recently have I been rediscovering the power of music as mediator; its power to bring about this sacred rest.

I’ve been told that when people who self-mutilate are asked why they cut they respond that cutting makes sense of the pain. It gives the pain a center, a tangible location. And don’t we do this in less drastic ways all the time? Lash out at our friends, our children, our parents, our colleagues – ourselves. We find a center for the pain; a point to focus pain that otherwise confuses us and spins away.

\\ Don’t lose your heart \ To doubts and fears \ Take in his word \ And rest in his grace \\ He laid out a path for me \ That I may see \\ I sing because I’m happy \ I sing because I’m free \ For his eye is on the sparrow \ And I know he watches me \ Ah… \\ ("His Eye Is On the Sparrow", track 2)

The storm has begun to feel like a familiar place. In some ways, I suppose that’s just how it is sometimes. Certain times of our lives are stormy times. But there is a difference between the storms that surround us and the storms that are self-inflicted.

I spend hours upon hours in an attempt to control the chaos around me and maybe more to control the chaos within me. But music is my safety net. It offers me peace, a lullaby in the storm. It redeems me.

\\ I’m so glad I’ve learned to trust thee \ Precious Jesus, savior, friend \ And I know that thou art with me \ Wilt be with me ’til the end \\ Jesus, Jesus how I trust him \ How I’ve proved him o’er and o’er \  Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus \ Oh for grace to trust him more \\ Jesus, Jesus \ How I trust you \\ ("Tis So Sweet to Trust In Jesus", track 7)

I truly believe that music can heal us. Music speaks to our spirits, opens our hearts and purges our pain, nurtures our joy. In our creating, appreciating and resting in music we mirror a Great Comforter who creates, appreciates and rests.

In a complex, dissonant, sometimes cruel world, I am seeking just such simplicity. Heart to hand, breath to lips, fingers to dancing.

Tis a gift.

\\ When I feel lost and clouds arise \ I long for a home \ As hope within me dies \\ Jesus is my portion \ He sets me free \\ I sing because I’m happy \ I sing because I’m free \ For his eye is on the sparrow \ And I know he watches me \\ ("His Eye Is On the Sparrow", track 2)

Best Laid Plans

Sometimes it feels like everything around me is about schedules.

At the coffee shop, it's about scheduling shifts over the week: Who needs this day off? Who can only work in the morning? Who can work but is probably going to be hungover?

At the church, it's about scheduling events over the course of a year: When will new members join? Which choir is singing on each Sunday? When is it NOT a three-day weekend, to schedule the children's groups?

If it's not about actual Sunday morning worship, it's all the special events that happen. Soon it becomes less about 'schedules' and more about 'conflicts.' Then you're really in trouble. Don't schedule one choir because the other choir is available. Don't put that special event at the start of deer season. Aren't most kids gone at camp... do you really want that activity scheduled? Or I like this best: let's schedule a meeting to talk about these schedules. (Yeah; I have so much free time to do that.)

I just went through most of last year's files and pulled a year-long music schedule, three or four different choir schedules, my own personal schedule, the proposed school-year schedule, events that conflicted during last year's schedules..... Oy. All to come up with more schedules.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think there's anything wrong with having an organized schedule. In fact, one of my favorite things to do is to sit down with my day-planner and look at an upcoming week. It sits open in front of me and I can fill in little appointments, draw arrows during my coffee shop shifts, write down little to-do notes on the appropriate days. There is a sense of excitement as I take in everything that I hope to accomplish in the coming days. (Also, my brain is so full of senseless information that there is no way I would keep anything straight without my not-so-little black book.)

But.

What about those time-slots with no appointments, no arrows, no shifts? This is where I have my problem. I have become so accustomed to filling my days with 'business' or indeed 'busy-ness' that I feel guilty about unscheduled time.

Unwashed laundry, dirty dishes, and an empty refrigerator is the practical result of my need to fill my days. I'm nit-wit enough to become caught up in the To-dos of each day that my internal pendulum swings too far and I don't do anything that's NOT in my to-dos. I mean really? Should I really have to write down 'wash your dishes'?

And in my faith-life... oh boy. I schedule church. I schedule bible-study. I schedule choir practice. I work at a church, so I even have scheduled meetings in scheduled rooms with scheduled prayer. It's not like it's forced on me, it's just right there. I know it's coming. I'm ready, I'm prepared, I've drawn my arrow and reserved that time.

Now, scheduling time for faith, meditation, fasting, study, etc., I don't think that's bad. In fact, most leaders in my life have pointed out the importance of setting aside time for those things. When we do that, we are making a choice to hold our faith and spiritual life to a high importance. But in my life, it is sometimes the opposite. I can get so caught up in doing my 'job', that all of my scheduled 'faith' time is about just that - a job.

Our yearly 'gathering of the schedules' and the related upcoming meetings will this year serve another purpose for me. As I look forward and begin to plan for the months ahead, I will embrace those 'unscheduled' blocks of time. When I see an hour without an arrow, I will not seek out a new appointment. Instead, I will think of what amazing and spontaneous things might happen when that hour is at hand. Perhaps I will feel like a walk at the nature center, maybe I'll go to this great hill I know and fly a kite, or I could open a book I haven't 'had time' to read.

Life is full of opportunities, I'm learning. It just takes a little planning ... or perhaps a little un-planning.

Introductions are always in style

We'll call this the preface to my blog... some introductions for any interested folks out there.

Like many my age, I have more than one job and I love them both. I am, on one hand, the music coordinator at a good sized church in mid-Michigan. With the other hand, I am a "barista" (fancy for coffee-maker) at an independent shoppe down the street from my church.

I grew up here ... in this city, in my church, and at this coffee shop (where I'm currently beginning this blog-venture). I never considered myself a "hometown" kind of girl, but I suppose that's what I've become. You'll have to take my word for it, but a circular path was not what I set out upon.

Here is where I am though and happy with it for now.