;)
How Can I Keep From Singing
Since 2002 Terry and I have led an adult choir retreat at the Lake Huron Retreat Center on the weekend following Labor Day. This year Terry had to stay home and I went to the retreat alone. I was tempted to cancel. Ann Emerson, the director of the center, gave me an opportunity to bow out. I certainly went with a feeling of sadness that Terry and I were not sharing this experience this year. Several of the people attending expressed surprise that I was there.
I found it difficult to work up the excitement I usually feel for this event. I arrived early. I set up the rehearsal room and laid out the music for people to pick up as they came in. I did all of this as though on auto-pilot. Sometimes these days that is all I can muster. It was not that I wanted to be sad. I knew that Terry was home feeling pretty good for the moment, and I knew that she wanted me to be at this event. It was just that things have been so overwhelming lately that it is difficult to break through the spiritual fog.
Then the singing began. "O let all who thirst, let them come to the water. And let all who have nothing, let them come to the Lord.... Bring the ones who are laden, bring them all to the Lord" How I wish in this space I could have you hear the music that goes with those words. I was reminded of a promise that I had offered to others but which I could not access for myself.
We turned to another anthem. "Father hear the prayer we offer: not for ease our prayer shall be, but for strength that we may ever live our lives courageously. Be our strength in times of weakness, in our wanderings, be our guide; through each danger and endeavor, be always by our side." Now the sound of this pick up choir made up of people from around the state who simply love to sing filled the emptiness of my heart and my spirit began to lift.
We picked up the tempo. "O Lord, there's a hungerin' in my soul. Fill it up, Lord and make me whole." Each word of text, each note of music poured into the spiritual emptiness that had become me.
My sadness lifted. I began to bounce has I conducted the rehearsal. We made jokes and we made music. Once again I was reminded of what I had preached to others that in this moment of trouble I had forgotten applied to me as well. God's default position is joy and love, peace and hope. The troubles of this or any other particular moment are not God's final word. Happiness may not be possible all the time, but joy is.
Another song text comes to mind. "No storm can shake my inmost calm while to that rock I'm clinging. If love is Lord of heaven and earth, how can I keep from singing?"
Dave Gladstone