Fall or Spring?

Today was a great day simply because it was more like spring than fall. Who would have thought I'd be wearing shorts and a t-shirt in the beginning of November.

We had our first band concert for the year last Saturday. We always seem to get to the rehearsal before and I walk away thinking that the concert will either completely fall apart or be really good. We usually seem to pull it off somehow, and we did again this time. The theme for the concert was world music so we played some really cool foreign pieces.

We had Sunday Night Worship again yesterday. I feel like I'm really starting to find my place as a worship leader. We're doing more and more difficult songs and they seem to be going well. And I really like that SNW doesn't have a whole committee planning it so we get a bit more freedom. One thing I tried to do this past week was something I had been thinking with a book I just finished. The book was called "The Prophetic Imagination" by Walter Brueggemann and part of it talked about the language of grief. Brueggemann tried to point out how the prophets, especially Jeremiah, used the language of grief to get the people of Israel to realize that things are not the way they ought to be. Oftentimes we get into these ruts of contentment where we know that our world is not what God wants for us but we just feel like that's what is. The job of the prophet, then, is to bring people out of that by showing them what it means to grieve. We cannot experience true joy until we have done the hard work of grieving. With this in mind, we started out the service with a hymn based around Psalm 137. Usually I try to pick the first song to be an upbeat one that brings people together around the joy of worship, but this hymn was anything but joyful. When I actually typed out the words for the powerpoint I almost thought that I just couldn't use it because it was too hard and too real. (read the end of Psalm 137 if you don't believe me) But we went ahead and did it anyway and I tried to invite everyone to try to come to the hymn with an understanding of where the writers were coming from: exile in an oppressive foreign land. I think a lot of people appreciated using the song of lament because it helped them focus on the idea that things do not have to be the way they are. God wants so much better for us if we'd only do the hard work of grieving what is and accepting who God is calling us to be.

I realize I only ever seem to talk about SNW, but honestly that is what seems to be really challenging me this year. Maybe I'll talk about some of the cool things we're talking about in Philosophy.

Until then, I've got some scotcheroo's from my mom to snack on.