Once upon a time, I was a good little blogger who actually wrote to you about one adventure before embarking on the next one. In the spirit of those good old days, I am condensing the last two before I go to Seattle next week.
Sore from karate and Sabbath morning's working demands, I took off in my car on the 14th of January, unwinding to the apostle Paul's monotonous voice on my audio Bible. City gave way gradually to mountains, then to desert, where the clear blue sky meets the dusty earth. I had been irate about the regional pastor's retreat I was headed to because I felt like my friends in teaching needed it far more. However, it did me great good to see my colleagues that evening at the Doral Princess Resort in Cathedral City as we roasted our beloved Regional Director, Gerard Kiemeney, on his 60th birthday.
On Sunday, I found myself growing more comfortable with a few of my colleages that I don't see as often--Mitch Williams from Downey, the Paschals, the Fredericos, and others. There were twelve or more of us all crowding up a local Indian restaurant after the morning batch of meetings by Dr. Arlene Taylor. I have waxed poetic about this woman's work in a previous letter, and I've got to say, the review was incredibly helpful and refreshing. Back at the hotel, I swam with some of the families with young children as I watched the sun set, a magnificent purple tapestry.
After the evening meeting, I felt compelled to go to the prayer room Miriam (one of only two other female pastors working in our region) had set up. There were many stations, including a self-portrait in clay, communion, artwork, and various others. It was the clay station that got me the most, though. I found myself spending a long time at it, breaking the clay into tiny, tiny little pieces. So much of the last few months has been about brokenness. Then, slowly, I started to put them together, constantly having to go back and reattach different little pieces, until it was a beautiful mosaic of a flower. God can take my brokenness, I believe, and make me into something more beautiful and whole than I was before, if I let Him.
I returned to the room, a little more at peace than I had been before, and gleefully indulged in girl talk with my room mate--one of the young adults from my church. The next day, I spent a delightful time with my relatives out in Desert Hot Springs. It was so good to see Grandma, so sweet to spend time with my cousins. I played Mario-Kart with them in their room , and they were very gentlemanly about my lack of skills. There was a cheerful, teasing fun to the whole thing and it made me wish I could make it out to the desert to visit them, my aunt and uncle and my grandmother more often.
A mere three days later, I was on the road again. Or rather, in the air--Thursday of that week, my father and I took off for the Ralph Carmichael concert we'd been preparing for since before Christmas. Landing in Oakland felt like coming home, and it was surreal to have to rent a car out of there. We made good enough time, though, that we were able to have lunch with my great grandmother in Yountville before attending to concert business. Even though she would be there for the concert, the meal actually gave us time to talk, which we relished.
Arriving at the Napa Community Church for sound check, I was immediately impressed at the band's setup for the concert. I could tell it was going to be an incredible night. The choir was a motley mix of singers from the Napa church choir, people associated with Pleasant Hill, and singers from Christian Edition. The charts we sang were lively and rhythmically challenging. The real star, though, was the band--we could feel the floor beneath us vibrate from the great sound of the brass.
Between sound check and the concert itself, though, I was glad to greet and give well-wishes to Jim Pederson, for whose birthday the concert was organized. It was a joy to see both him and his family, and as I was greeting his daughter Lisa, I couldn't help but think about how fast time has gone. It seems like just yesterday Lisa was in high school, I was in Junior High, and Jim was the Napa pastor. Now, Lisa is out of school and married, I'm a pastor, and Jim is a conference president. In the fellowship hall where we were all feasting on Jim's scrumptious soup and Debbie's delicious desert, it was also strange to think that I'd been a youth pastor there only a year and a half ago, and so much had changed.
When it came time for the actual concert, it was as though time had been suspended. Did it last two minutes or two hours? The music was so rich, so energetic yet divine, that instead of it having timelessness, it was a music of timefulness. It was full of Ralph's collected life experience, full of the many different instruments lent to that singular purpose, full of the affection of the many attendees who had come to spend a good evening together, full of the Biblical and the film narratives that weave throughout Carmichael's work.
Later in the evening, I would enjoy the company of my mentors--Marvin Wray, Jim Lorenz, Roy Ice. At four the next morning, my father and I would be frantically heading towards the airport to get to work as dawn would cross the Los Angeles sky. Twenty four hours later, I would be holed up in my office, desperately trying to finish writing small group materials on the eve of our church's small group launch. Forty eight hours later, I would be crashing at home after the effort it had all cost.
But for that evening, while the band was playing, none of that mattered. The advice I needed from my mentors did not matter. The airport did not matter. The small groups materials did not matter. My own physical and mental limitations did not matter, because for a rare, beautiful moment of timefulness, all of us in the room were made one through the power of great music.
Two adventure of two days each--or rather, two nights. Two birthdays. One adventure about the hopeful future, and another about the joyous past. May you also be able to celebrate them both.
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