Oh dear, I am neglecting this blog. I've been busy posting to my other blog about all the Japan-related excitement. To make a long story short, Keith and I have moved to Sapporo, Japan, and we are here until March.
Over the past several years, while I was otherwise occupied with classes at Regent College, my instruments sat around getting dusty as I dealt with the pain, shame, etc. of rather severe artistic block. While I pulled myself together enough to get through my arts thesis, I am still struggling to get back on a regular practicing schedule. In the past, I have procrastinated terribly, not practicing at all until an upcoming concert or recital made it necessary.
So... last week I decided to start practicing Bach for one hour a day, every week day. Saturdays will be my rest-from-cello days, and Sundays I will be playing a lot in church. This isn't going to be just any old practice session. I pray when I play Bach.
I hope that by doing this, I will be able to overcome my slump so that I am better able to serve the Japanese church. I can't just slack off any more. Japanese people love Bach. If I keep this up, I will always have something ready to play when I am asked.
If you want, you can join me by playing, singing, listening, etc. to Bach every day. I would also be happy if you would like to pray for me and hold me accountable. Updates will follow in subsequent weeks. Leave me a comment or something. :)
(If you want to know more about what we are doing in Japan, do please check out my other blog.)
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Saturday, May 9, 2009
By way of introduction...
Greetings. I decided to start this blog as a means of sharing my thoughts on worship, with the hope that said thoughts will be helpful to the global church. I have just spent the past 3 1/2 years of my life studying such subjects as theology, exegesis, Hebrew, and worship, all culminating in a huge project with the title, "Praise the Lord with Stringed Instruments: Instrumental Music as Participation and Contemplation." Most of my initial posts will come from my work on this project, but as I move out of that particular stage of my life, I will also write about other things as well.
So, I'll start by introducing myself. Here is a bit of the background that led me to the work I've been doing. I call it "A Brief History of My Cello and the Church."
*********************************
When I was a kid, I used to play at church. My mother would select an “appropriate” piece for church (although I couldn’t figure out her logic in these decisions), and I would play, usually during the offering, but sometimes they made a new category for me: “special music.” Afterwards, old ladies would come talk to me, telling me how wonderful my playing was (although often it was not). Really, all this felt awkward. My classical cello pieces felt strangely out of place in our contemporary church service. Was I playing so that the church could congratulate itself for including children in the life of the church? Did my playing mean anything beyond that?
During college in Colorado, I attended a Baptist church, where I played cello in the band for our raucous, student-populated worship services. In this setting, I learned to hate hymns; they were for old people who had lost touch with the modern world. (Luckily, I was re-educated when I went to grad school.) I enjoyed worshiping God with great musicians as I learned to play in a new context: our church’s music was radically different from the kind of music I studied at school. I learned to worship with my cello; it became my voice before God, when I had no words. I also learned the value of corporate silence before God. Still, when I played the pieces which truly spoke to my heart, those at my church listened half-heartedly. None of them attended my recitals.
In graduate school, I learned to love hymns and the scriptures and to hate church. I found no church which welcomed me to worship God with my cello. There were too many people in Boston and no place for me. I quit going to church altogether, but I worshiped God in every concert I played. The Bach cello suites became my voice before God.
After getting married, I began attending church in North Dakota with my husband. The leader welcomed us to worship “as the Spirit led.” I told him that the Spirit was leading me to bring my viola da gamba and play it from the back row. He told me I couldn’t do that. I learned, unfortunately through bad example, the importance of communal awareness in worship. Outside the church service, the members were extremely aware of the needs of others in the church community. Ironically, when we came together to worship God we lost sight of this. As soon as the service started, we each began to do our own thing, while the band played in the background. In one memorable service, the worship leader explained to us that God had told him to make things simple: “just me and my guitar.” He invited us to sit and watch him sing songs he had written.
Here in Vancouver, I rediscovered the Psalms. I discovered the Genevan Psalms for the first time; suddenly Calvin didn’t seem like such a killjoy after all. I also discovered the root of my discomfort with bringing the music of my heart into church. Cello suites, sonatas, string quartets, and piano trios—none of them have words.
Naturally, we Protestants love The Word, but we also love words. They are valuable as perhaps the clearest means of communicating truth. Thus, we fill our church services, the only time of Christian education most people have in a given week, with words. Since we Protestants also love clarity, bringing non-verbal forms of worship into the church has always been problematic.
Words, however, can be busy and noisy. They crowd the airwaves and our brainwaves. Being an introvert, when I get home from church or school, having been surrounded with spoken words for hours, I want nothing more than to sit in a dark, quiet corner and stare at the wall. I crave time to spend in silence, waiting to hear a still, small voice.
Thus, in preparing my project, I sought an opportunity to fast from words for a while. I planned and led four experimental worship services which integrated silence and instrumental music into congregational worship. I hope that in this small way, I was able to serve my word-saturated community.
NB: I have said some things here which as fairly critical of the churches which nurtured me along the way. Each of them did, in fact, nurture me, and each had its own strengths and weaknesses. I seek here to make sense of where I came from in order to uphold the global Body of Christ, including the churches I have attended over the years. I also want to encourage others such as myself who have struggled to find their places in the church and the world.
So, I'll start by introducing myself. Here is a bit of the background that led me to the work I've been doing. I call it "A Brief History of My Cello and the Church."
*********************************
When I was a kid, I used to play at church. My mother would select an “appropriate” piece for church (although I couldn’t figure out her logic in these decisions), and I would play, usually during the offering, but sometimes they made a new category for me: “special music.” Afterwards, old ladies would come talk to me, telling me how wonderful my playing was (although often it was not). Really, all this felt awkward. My classical cello pieces felt strangely out of place in our contemporary church service. Was I playing so that the church could congratulate itself for including children in the life of the church? Did my playing mean anything beyond that?
During college in Colorado, I attended a Baptist church, where I played cello in the band for our raucous, student-populated worship services. In this setting, I learned to hate hymns; they were for old people who had lost touch with the modern world. (Luckily, I was re-educated when I went to grad school.) I enjoyed worshiping God with great musicians as I learned to play in a new context: our church’s music was radically different from the kind of music I studied at school. I learned to worship with my cello; it became my voice before God, when I had no words. I also learned the value of corporate silence before God. Still, when I played the pieces which truly spoke to my heart, those at my church listened half-heartedly. None of them attended my recitals.
In graduate school, I learned to love hymns and the scriptures and to hate church. I found no church which welcomed me to worship God with my cello. There were too many people in Boston and no place for me. I quit going to church altogether, but I worshiped God in every concert I played. The Bach cello suites became my voice before God.
After getting married, I began attending church in North Dakota with my husband. The leader welcomed us to worship “as the Spirit led.” I told him that the Spirit was leading me to bring my viola da gamba and play it from the back row. He told me I couldn’t do that. I learned, unfortunately through bad example, the importance of communal awareness in worship. Outside the church service, the members were extremely aware of the needs of others in the church community. Ironically, when we came together to worship God we lost sight of this. As soon as the service started, we each began to do our own thing, while the band played in the background. In one memorable service, the worship leader explained to us that God had told him to make things simple: “just me and my guitar.” He invited us to sit and watch him sing songs he had written.
Here in Vancouver, I rediscovered the Psalms. I discovered the Genevan Psalms for the first time; suddenly Calvin didn’t seem like such a killjoy after all. I also discovered the root of my discomfort with bringing the music of my heart into church. Cello suites, sonatas, string quartets, and piano trios—none of them have words.
Naturally, we Protestants love The Word, but we also love words. They are valuable as perhaps the clearest means of communicating truth. Thus, we fill our church services, the only time of Christian education most people have in a given week, with words. Since we Protestants also love clarity, bringing non-verbal forms of worship into the church has always been problematic.
Words, however, can be busy and noisy. They crowd the airwaves and our brainwaves. Being an introvert, when I get home from church or school, having been surrounded with spoken words for hours, I want nothing more than to sit in a dark, quiet corner and stare at the wall. I crave time to spend in silence, waiting to hear a still, small voice.
Thus, in preparing my project, I sought an opportunity to fast from words for a while. I planned and led four experimental worship services which integrated silence and instrumental music into congregational worship. I hope that in this small way, I was able to serve my word-saturated community.
NB: I have said some things here which as fairly critical of the churches which nurtured me along the way. Each of them did, in fact, nurture me, and each had its own strengths and weaknesses. I seek here to make sense of where I came from in order to uphold the global Body of Christ, including the churches I have attended over the years. I also want to encourage others such as myself who have struggled to find their places in the church and the world.
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