Be Vibrant

On Sunday, I was the only singer in the band for the evening church service.

Everybody calm down. It was fine. There were only like five or six pitchy moments, which averages out to once per song and the keyboard, violin, and guitar players were all fantastic and covered all manner of musical sins. It is easy to sing well when buoyed by the musical talents of others. Plus, I don't know if y'all know this, but Scots sing with verve. It helped that all the songs we played were ones the congregation was familiar with, but still. I'm a Methodist and I've only heard this level of musical enthusiasm from the congregation a couple of times in my life before moving to Scotland. Sing lustily, and with good courage indeed.

While I actively failed to blow anyone away in rehearsal for the summer volunteer band, I sang through each song on Sunday with the smiles and thoughtfulness with which I am accustomed to sing. Years of choir singing kicked in. The Spirit moved. Sometimes the Spirit dived for a sunken pitch and brought it up to where it should be, but mostly, the Spirit settled into that place in my gut where conviction lives. After what feels like years of offering God an eye roll instead of my heart, it was a great comfort to be led to the Lord in sincerity. This I did not expect when I showed up to rehearsal with flute in hand and was asked instead if I'd be singing. I sang and I engaged and I listened and I learned.

This year has taught me to firmly believe that you should not judge a person until you've served with them.

There is life in the church that stretches far beyond Sunday morning. The life that I love, that I value so much in the joyful hearts that I'm drawn to, that peeks through in the hour we spend in church on Sunday, but it finds its stride in the fellowship shared over tea and coffee, in the hours of service spent preparing for and cleaning up after worship, in the bustle of a church office during the week, in gatherings of groups in the evenings, in rehearsals, in service out in the world. This year I have been chained down by questions of doctrine, sectioning off my heart to leave it to fret and flutter over my personal worries alone, while the living, breathing Body of Christ functioned without me. I have to own that. Humbly, painfully, I have to own that.

Church, own this with me.

Own that our life can be overly inwardly-focused and that we have not served the world as we should. Own the questions in our hearts that have kept us from the life that we should have. Own our place as peacemakers, as healers, as those who should act justly, love mercy, and humbly walk with God. In this time of uncertainty and unrest, let us hear the cries of the truly oppressed, let us listen with compassion to the voices we have not really heard before, and let us act. Let us act. Let us feed the hungry and care for the poor and give shelter to the homeless, to the refugee. When the world has used up our strength and we have loved until we are certain that the light in our heart has gone out, let us turn back to God who will surely fill us back up again.

Serve with me.

That's a big ask and I hear it. I know it. I know that treating every human you meet, every human you hear about, every facet of creation that you can imagine as beloved by God and worthy of your attention and service is more than we can handle on our own. Thank God we're never asked to do it alone.

The sermon on Sunday was on John 9, when Jesus heals a blind man and the blind man is called before the Pharisees. Among other things, the passage does a beautiful job of highlighting spiritual blindness.

What have we been blind to?

What are we still blinded by?

What can we do to change this?

Engage. Listen. Learn.

Work for peace and joy.

I don't receive well and I know it. I don't take kindly to gifts given or succor offered. I function best when I act as a reservoir- I'm fed by an outside source but others can take from me and redistribute me and pull from me to bring life to other places. I live in the burble of energy leaving me. Everyone is different, I know, and I understand that we're all gifted in different ways, but for those of us who can, let's bustle. Let's live. Let's be vibrant for those who cannot or so those who can only take will not win the day.

We are so needed.