Litany of Lately Life

"God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." This quote came to my mind not too long ago (in terms of minutes), whereupon I was reflecting on the past months and trying to sort out where to go from there. I've been thinking about the blessings God has bestowed upon me, my friends, and just having an opportunity to live here on campus during the school year.

I played at FCA for the second week in a row tonight, and I must say it was pretty uplifting. During rehearsal I had quite a bit of trouble understanding the beat pattern on one of the songs, but when we led the worship singing part of the meeting, suddenly I got it. And when I got it, I just started having fun with it, and I knew God was playing the keyboard through my very fingers.

I've had a very busy week, in which I've gotten practically no sleep (no more than 5-6 hours, except for Saturday night), and the rest of this week doesn't let up one bit. Tomorrow I have registration for next fall's classes, and I have to scramble to find 7 people to learn a challenging piece I wrote by Monday for the composition concert.

I've been thinking recently about several people I haven't talked to over the past few weeks, trying to find the right time to pop up and ask them about their lives to date. I've been gradually doing just that with several other people I haven't been thinking about very much, and I hope that the cycle will continue.

I found my Sudoku puzzle book again. And by "found" I mean I picked it up from beneath the rubble on my desk and rediscovered an ancient little pleasure in figuring out where the numbers are supposed to go.

I've been distancing myself from Chicago sports without even trying. I know how the Bulls, Cubs and White Sox are all doing, but at the same time it doesn't matter as much to me what/how they do.

And I've been putting off bedtime every night since I've been back from Easter break. But last night I had a reason: Chapel Choir concert (which went extremely well), rehearsal with a dance group that will perform two weekends from now, and then composition, picking out classes, and dawdling around on Facebook. And apparently I have an official fan club there now.

The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

More Good Friday ponderings

Looking back on yesterday, probably the most important day of the Christian calendar, it's amazing how a couple years of being under the influence of St. Olaf-ism (whatever that is) can change how I view the type of church service that I grew up going to. Before the service at St. Paul's started, I found myself praying that I could just let everything go and give it up all to God, a rather standard prayer before any type of worship service. On this day, it would seem the most sense to give up a prayer such as that one, particularly given the profound nature of the Good Friday service, what with the reciting (or incantation) of the Passion Gospel, the singing of the Reproaches, the extended Prayers of the People with all the kneeling and rising, etc.

As a kid, the order of the Good Friday service was never something I could remember. Growing up Episcopalian, I was pretty well immersed in orders of services, since most of them were either Eucharists or Evensongs, with occasional Morning Prayers thrown in for good measure. With Good Friday (especially the way we did them at St. Thomas), there were enough deviations (i.e. what I listed above) that it was usually hard for me to keep track of during the service, let alone remember it all afterwards.

Of course, that was all before I learned I could actually have a relationship with God, as opposed to simply praying and praising just because I had to. Ever since January 2005, I kind of morphed from an Episcopalian to a Lutheran/Methodist/Baptist mix; in other words, a Christian.

I went to a weekday evensong at St. Thomas while I was in New York a few weeks ago. I looked around, hoping to find anyone I recognized. All I discovered was I was the only one not dressed up (I had been running around serving the homeless all day), and that I was surrounded by a bunch of rich people. While at St. Thomas I had lived a sheltered New York life, so I had assumed that everyone that surrounded me was the true New York. Of course I learned a hell of a lot more about the city; more musings can be found in my post from April 1st.

But even the service itself (and at St. Thomas, of all places) just seemed rather bare to me. I was surrounded by people that didn't know me and probably didn't care to, and the service itself was kind of a "plug-n-chug as we go" sort of thing. After a year and a half at FCA, I've been expecting more out of a worship service such as connecting with God Himself, and connecting with my fellow worshippers. When I went to Rejoice Church (which was held in the auditorium of Northfield High School) earlier this month, I learned so much more of God's message (which that day was to forgive others as He had forgiven us), and I got to connect spiritually with several other worshippers as well.

This is not to say or even suggest that last night's service at St. Paul's was bare or unmoving. True, it did feel a little run-through-the-motions (probably a fault of the Episcopal Church as a whole more than anything). But, knowing the people at this particular parish, and knowing their sense of community, I think that they do care, both in their relationship with God, and with each other.

My smile muscles hurt

...and for good reason, too. About four hours ago, I was treated to a half-hour of comedy by my good friend and aspiring comedian/newscast/airline CEO Matthew Norman. The place was packed (we were in the tiny confines of the Lair rather than the spaciousness of the Pause), laughter abounded practically every two seconds, and Matt kept going back and forth between different varieties of humor. Of course, he saved the best for last. He danced to some funky instrumental pop song, dancing as a flight attendant opening and closing overhead compartments, pushing the beverages cart, and collecting trash, among other things that flight attendants do.

I think I want to take that course of "Life" that he outlined in his sketch too. Something about throwing my backpack with all my textbooks in it piqued my interest. Never mind that I'd have to take it from 6-7 AM every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for the rest of my life.

Matt, Pat and I watched the video a couple hours later. I could've sworn, just looking at the video, that I had a ponytail, which I actually didn't (it was on VHS instead of DVD). And the lighting and color on the video was rather poor as well. Pat didn't get to see the event live. He apparently had a meeting and some homework to do, so the video session was the one time he got to watch the whole sketch.

Anyways, I've got softball tomorrow morning at 6:30 A.M. Which means I'll be getting 5 hours of sleep. It doesn't matter anyway, as I would otherwise have to get up at 7, to which I would still get less than 6 hours of solid repose tonight. Mostly because I have to jump in the shower after enduring a 75 degree, sunny day in long pants.

Post-spring break

So I finally found out what the excitement was all about when I went to the morning service at Rejoice! church today. It was definitely one of the most fulfilling services I had been to in a while. And yes it does include evensong at St. Thomas that I went to back on Thursday (ouch).

So I hope I can live out what I learned from the Biblical lesson(s) that was/were preached this morning. I will continue to ponder it while I move my bags from one of the Ytterboe pods back to my dorm room (where the bed, compy and car keys are). And over lunch and music composition that I must do today.

More Shirts (Late edition)

Returning to St. Olaf today gave me the first sense of true quietness and calm that I have experienced for the first time in over a week. I spent the last week (my spring break, even) on a mission trip to New York City, where there was constant noise 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Truly, New York is the city that never sleeps. I was far from a newcomer to the city (several others on my trip were), and yet I discovered so many more things about the city in eight days than I ever did in four years of going to St. Thomas Choir School. Every night, we would hear people yelling in the streets, and every day we would enter subway cars jam packed with people. Not to mention the fact that I saw a guy high on something fall off the subway platform into the tracks, knocking himself unconscious and incurring several deep cuts across his head.

It was a challenge to connect with God this week. I mean, we had a great time sightseeing and going to Broadway shows, and we immersed ourselves deeply into the whole homeless shelter program for four days straight. But somewhere along the lines it seemed the message that it was all for God wasn't there.

But it wasn't all for naught. After all, God made sure he didn't neglect us, even if we seemed to neglect him. After all, the day the man fell into the subway tracks was the day that our group was meant to be on the wrong platform (we were on the outbound platform; inbound was closed temporarily) at the wrong time (we left the central Bronx neighborhood soup kitchen early). Literally minutes after a few brave NY'ers jumped in to drag the guy out, the rest of the crowd dispersed, preferring to continue on with their day as if nothing happened. So it was four of us who stayed to make sure the injured man stayed put while the MTA official ran to get help. And then there were those other events in which all eight of us exchanged stories with "homeless" people, in many cases one of those rare times that such persons had deep human contact.

There are so many more things that I could list from the trip that will stick with me, but given that we got up at 3:30 A.M. this morning to catch a 7 A.M. plane, many of the thoughts are not at hand right now. But perhaps that is a good thing. There are far too many to list.

It was definitely refreshing that we had a group meeting at Newark International Airport early this morning, each of us going around and telling what our favorite memories of the trip were, followed by a group prayer session. Even though we got to know each other, the city, and various other people pretty well, the best part was that we returned to God together before setting sail on our return journey.

So here's to Jake, Cara, Mackenzie, Joe, Sarah, Chandler, and Dan, for making it the fun and crazy week that it was. And for the 1,500 photos that they took. And the 3 shirts that I receieved (2 were T-shirts).

And it was great to actually spend some time with the few remaining adults at St. Thomas: Dreger, Sully, Mr. Eyerly, Ricardo, Dr. Silver (I totally had forgotten about her), and finally meeting GRA's successor at headmaster, Fr. Wallace.

But I think most importantly, as fun as it was, I'm glad to be back in Minnesota to tell all my other friends about the trip. Even though I could still use a break from all the classes that await me on Monday and Tuesday.