Noli Me Tangere

Ruminations on Worship, Vol. 3

There are two things that happen to me when I go through times of great stress: 1) I jiggle my leg incessantly and 2) my guts complain about every little thing.

I won't comment further on the latter (you're welcome), but regarding the former, my classmates must think I'm a coffee addict with a micro-bladder. I have been unable to relax since spring break, and in the process I've also proven myself to be an accomplished whiner. I'm not sure exactly the source of my discontent, but most of it centers around dissatisfaction with my work for the church. I didn't mind the poor pay and limited resources as long as I had the time and felt appreciated. But give me a little conflict and clamp down on my schedule and the whole endeavor becomes a chore. As we all know, long-term frustration leads to burnout and so I'm beginning to think and work through these dynamics. Sometime between now and summer, we'll probably have a conversation about how to remedy some of these things, but here's what I'm thinking:

Having such limited time and resources means I can't do as good a job as I'd like to. Pragmatically speaking, things need to be dialed back but frankly, I have too much pride to do that. Partly, I don't want to let people down, but perhaps moreso, I don't want to be known as the one who did.

Being so pressed for time also reduces my life—of which worship prep is a part—to an endless series of frantic deadlines (the lone exception being from 2-4pm on Sundays). This is okay by itself, but in this kind of rat race, my work for the church becomes something I do, rather than something I own, am, or experience. I realize this sounds vague or esoteric, but for better or worse we carry around a certain assumption of authenticity, that our worship is organically conjured up from a real place, someplace deeper than where we grow, say, TPS reports. People expect that authentic connection, I want that authentic connection, and I think that connection is vital. But lately I don't have it, and this mostly makes me angry. I'm not sure at who.

Lately I've been impatient and feel like "volunteer work" is a waste of time at this stage of my life. Shouldn't I be compensated? Shouldn't I buy a house? Shouldn't I be getting on with my life by now?

Julia Goolia: Yeah, but you don't wanna be just another Yuppie idiot.

Robbie Hart: Why? What's wrong with that ? Don't wanna live in my sister's basement anymore. I wanna get a big house, have some security. Can't do that doing favors for people all the time, getting paid in meatballs.

Maybe I don't live with my sister. But sometimes Kathy pays me in meatballs. And Marijane gives me leftovers when we meet at her house.

All this bitching aside, I can still say with honesty that I love the substance of my work. There are few things I love more than providing a soundtrack for the expression of the faith of my friends, and I still believe on some level that I was created for this. But I may shoot my roommates if I don’t get an office soon.

The last few days, the storm has receded and I have some breathing room. (Funny, that. I think with the buildup to Easter, most things that will get done are done weeks, not days, before.) But I'm still jiggling my leg, this time in tingling anticipation of the Easter service, because I expect it to be a leg-shaking affair.

The big dates on the church calendar are like babies to me. The birthing process is messy and painful, but it’s worth it, both for the anticipation and exhilaration of the end result. The gestation period goes like this:

2-6 months out – worry. put off any decisions or action. worry. repeat.
50 days out – get an idea, a unifying spiritual or artistic theme which greases the whole creative process. the service then comes together in the next 48 hours.
2 weeks out – pull hair out.
7 days out – shop for a new easter dress.

This year, we’re raiding the shapenote songbook. I picked up American Angels by the Anonymous 4 and found several stunning old hymns that really work for Easter. In our enlightened times, we tend to gloss over death and live like it doesn’t happen, but there’s a great tradition of stark, gothic death hymns in traditional Appalachian music. One gets the impression these writers were more adept--probably by necessity--at wrestling with death in their writing. I also like these songs because I can connect them with what I know historically of my ancestors, or at least the ancestors of people from these parts. There’s a spookiness in those historical connections that really lends itself to facing mortality. After all, the writers are dead now.

And they weren’t afraid to celebrate, either. Those that bury their own will have a perspective on resurrection that I simply do not. But it’s nice to tap into that when I need to be reminded of death’s impermanence.

So, it's a few days out, and I’m ready to shake a leg. About 11:30 on Sunday, after hearing how Christ healed a crippled woman, and after celebrating his death, Bill will start that freight-train bluegrass shuffle, and Matt will launch into that crazy banjo solo on I’ll Fly Away, and I won’t be bitching anymore. I’ll be alive and jiggling, and thinking about Home.

Posted by aokie at March 24, 2005 04:35 PM