When I was in the hospital my counselor -- let's call her Claire -- turned out to be from a local church of my particular brand. In fact, she was on the worship team at this church, and had been to a workshop at the college where I was teaching. The point is, she knew who I was, which turned out not to be as awkward as you might think. I was there because I needed help; she was professionally obligated to help me. And she did. I deeply regret the circumstances that put me there, but I don't regret for one minute getting the help I needed, and I saw no point in being cagey about it. I was a mess; she's a psychologist. Do the math.
On the other hand, my regular therapist ended up being somebody else, who didn't know me from Adam, and that was okay, too. (And having a therapist carries a kind of tortured-artist cache, too, don't you think? It works for Anne Lamott, though I'm not seeing him anymore, so I can't tell those nifty "I was telling my therapist" stories that Lamott gets away with. Unless I make them up; I'm not above that.)
On the other hand, my regular therapist ended up being somebody else, who didn't know me from Adam, and that was okay, too. (And having a therapist carries a kind of tortured-artist cache, too, don't you think? It works for Anne Lamott, though I'm not seeing him anymore, so I can't tell those nifty "I was telling my therapist" stories that Lamott gets away with. Unless I make them up; I'm not above that.)
Claire's church was looking for a part-time music minister at the time, which she mentioned to me, feeling that maybe something part-time would keep me in the game, so to speak, but also give me some needed distance. She assured me that her committment to Christian charity meant that she would not hold my dirty laundry against me in any way, and that her committment to professional integrity meant that no one else would have the opportunity. I didn't bite on this; among other reasons, I just wasn't ready for it. I needed to spend the summer being pissy, and didn't have the energy to put on a proper game face for that sort of thing. Too much, too soon, too not-what-I-wanted-to-do.
A lot of the music came back, slowly. I started playing a little more at church, pretty much on my own terms. I stuck mostly to playing drums, which allowed me to put some symbolic distance between me and everyone else, by way of the kit, and also between me and the lyrical content, by way of not really being expected to sing anything. As I've said before, beating the hell out of something is not a bad way to spend a Sunday morning.
And then I was hired to produce a project for a local singer. This was humbling, to be honest, because it's a Christian rock sort of thing and if I were really writing the script of my own life I'd pick something, well, cooler. I do get to work with some fantastic musicians and a very vibey old-school studio, which is fun, but at the end of the day it's still a kind of Christian rock thing, the sort of thing that I'd never listen to if I hadn't produced it. And sometimes that doesn't seem quite right. It's like being asked to play keyboards on the Air Supply reunion tour; you take it, because it's a gig, but you're not sure what to tell your friends.
One bonus is that I was able to successfully plug some of my own work, and this too is somewhat humbling; I'd like to write different stuff. I'd like to write stuff that might get played on NPR's "World Cafe". I'd like to write dark, brooding stuff like Tom Waits or the three-minute-Hemingway vignettes of Ellery's Tasha Golden, or the tasty, tasty pop grooves of Maroon 5. I don't. I write worship songs. (And I don't even listen to Tom Waits. I just know that he's supposed to be dark and brooding, and some of you, even if you don't listen, either, know at least that much, so the reference works.)
I go along, minding my own business, mired in my doubts and happily basking in my skepticism, and I get a line in my head like "join with the stars and light the sky" and I don't know where this comes from; I just know it's almost a fresh metaphor, with a vaguely biblical allusion, and before long I've written a worship song, like a crack addict who has his next hit going before he even has time to think about it. And then I'm debuting it at our church, because I can, and people like it. And no, there's nothing wrong with that; in fact, it's not even some narcissistic grand facade, as far as I can tell -- it's just me, it's what I do, and if I contribute nothing else to the world I can give a handful of churchgoers a 3-minute pop song about God. Is that so bad?
This very thing happened recently, all part of the Second Coming of music in my life, and I confess to being a bit flummoxed about it. Well, sort of. I feel like I should be flummoxed about it. My inner image consultant wants to be flummoxed about it. But part of me knows this is just life as I know it. I'm about as close as you can get to an atheist without writing a tetchy book about how God is a bastard. And I write worship songs. I also, probably to bridge the gap, am writing a sardonic Bible commentary for about five people. This is me. It sounds paradoxical, but really it's just my life, and I'm not actually as interesting as that might make me sound. Or maybe I really am that interesting, except that it's not the sort of interesting I go for when I try to do it on purpose.
I've even considered going back into music ministry because -- well, because I'm good at it. I have skills. I have experience. I have education. I'd just as soon be playing if I'm in church and I'd just as soon get paid if I'm playing. I'm also kind of addicted to artistic control. This works because most of the time my musical instincts are right. I'm not bragging; it just is. There is almost always more than one way to get from point A to point B, musically, and some are better than others, and I just happen to have a knack for drawing from the "better" pile most of the time. It's like being good at fixing things, which I'm not, or an athlete, which I'm not. I didn't do anything to deserve it, and I don't really even practice. Sometimes it's embarassing, actually.
But I'm not the sort of person who says things like "God is calling me back into ministry" and then sends resumes to 40 churches. I'm not likely to utter sentences that begin with "God is calling me" at all, and I try to stay away from hypotheticals. What would I do if...? Most of the time, I don't know. I can hazard a guess as to what I might do in a given situation, but unless I'm in that actual situation (which of course is no longer hypothetical), all bets are off. I can tell you how I hope I'd react, but there are no guarantees. It's a kind of quantum view of life that recognizes multiple probability streams that don't collapse into a singular reality until the point of observation. (If that didn't make any sense to you, try reading Brian Greene's The Elegant Universe.)
If there is a God, or Something Like God, and this Something is calling me to anything, it has to take concrete form in some way -- a phone call, or an email, or a random conversation that takes an unexpected turn. Basically, I don't like foisting myself upon the universe; maybe it's arrogant, or maybe it's fear of rejection, but I prefer to let it come to me.
If there is a God, or Something Like God, and this Something is calling me to anything, it has to take concrete form in some way -- a phone call, or an email, or a random conversation that takes an unexpected turn. Basically, I don't like foisting myself upon the universe; maybe it's arrogant, or maybe it's fear of rejection, but I prefer to let it come to me.
So, when I got home the other day and saw a message from the minister at Claire's church, I knew what it was about, and so do you. It turns out that the part-time guy they hired was a talented musician and an amiable personality but he quickly realized his limitations and decided to get more education. In Texas. They need someone who pick up where he left off and maintain or improve the level of musicality he brought to the table. And I'm that someone, especially since you can't exactly through a drumstick in mid-Michigan and expect to hit a competant music minister.
I'm pretty sure this will happen because I have nothing riding on it. I don't need fifteen more minutes of relative (and utterly inconsequential) fame. Where once I was hung up on being noticed musically, now I find the idea sort of lame and silly. I like to be appreciated for my work, but I know what I'm good at and what I'm not. I know who I am. So do they, and they know I'm a graduate student who can be bought. It's not final, but nobody is pretending the remaining steps are anything more than formalities.
It's weird because this church gave me the heebie jeebies at one point, an almost palpable revulsion, and now it's just sort of inert. It's not that I'm thrilled. It's not that I'm having cathartic Damascus Road moments of coming home or anything like that. I wouldn't trust those moments anyway, and I don't think I need them. But neither am I fretting over what some might consider hypocrisy. No, I don't exactly believe what these people believe, in the way they believe it. I also don't think what I believe is all that important, in the grand scheme of things. I'm kind of attached to my own thinking, but I don't pretend it has to be anybody else's.
I seem called -- or doomed -- to this particular orbit, like some bizzare sense of destiny that doesn't care if I believe in it or not. And any more this seems less something to stew about or attach meaning to than an interesting arftifact of an otherwise mundane life. I believe in choices, and responsibility, and all that. But there's a sense in which I feel like I'm along for the ride. Fortunately, the ride seems an interesting one, and if that's all part and parcel of being a bit of narcissist, well, I am a bit of a narcissicist. I may not want to revel in that, but I don't see the point in trying to deny it. It's part of me, like all the other bits, good and bad, that I am learning to accept, if slowly. Besides, it's not like I'd want to be anyone else.
Who knows what kind of crap you people have to put up with.
