Being listened to

It may be hard for you to believe that God is calling you personally and is waiting for you to love him. Your life matters to him. In calling you, God does not dictate what you have to do. His call is first and foremost a personal encounter. Let Christ welcome you, and you will discover what road to take. God calls you to freedom. He does not turn you into someone who is passive. By his Holy Spirit God dwells within you, yet does not take your place. On the contrary, God awakens unsuspected energies. ... Accept that in you there are unfulfilled longings and even unresolved questions. Entrust yourself in transparency of heart. In the Church there are men and women able to listen to you. Being listened to over time in this way will enable you to discern how to give yourself fully. Brother Alois Taizé (original here)

Listening is a major part of my ministry and discernment part of my gifting. There is something immensely holy, sitting or standing and listening to another. INFJ's constitute a very low proportion of the population something like 0.5 % of males and 1% of females yet this is the group from which counsellors, psychotherapists and spiritual directors are drawn. Of course not all INFJ are good listeners, just they have the potential. But I am surprised how many INFJs and ENFJs there are in my world to whom I listen. Perhaps they are gifts for the moment.

When I listen what do I listen for? Listening is an active passivity because there is a level of discernment. Listening for the activity of God; looking for a movement of the spirit of God; trying to intuit a deep unfulfilled longing coming to the surface; and discerning whether it is God awakening unsuspected energies.

The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom's voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete. He must become greater; I must become less. John 3:29-30

Serendipity

Here's my new family. I found these nice little pots Japanese style in Dollarama and I transplanted all my jade plant cuttings. They're all a little floppy at the moment (hence the bamboo sticks) and I'm worried that they won't survive the re-pot.

I often find things come together when I least expect it. If you're an atheist then it's all chance, agnostic then probably something to do with probabilities, psychologist then synchronicity and well Christian then it's providence.

I look at them as a moment of grace, I'd been thinking and looking and then to find the suitable containers and looking a bit like an asian teacup and saucer. Hmmmh? What do you think?

With the squash plant a neighbour left on my porch growing in the front flowerbed , and my collection of plants, oh that life could be this simple and utopian... Or maybe it's just a frame of mind?

Musicianship - insights from Nodame Cantabile

This is the cover of my very first book of cello exercises by Feuillard. I think I must have been 12 years old when I was working from it.

The last few weeks I've been around a chapel service each day (played 5 of those days) and also in services around a variety of places.

Euge started me thinking about these questions. What exactly is musicianship? and How does it play into public corporate worship?

I think the Japanese drama Nodame Cantabile has had much to help me refine my thinking. See my earlier posts (here) or use the Label Cloud on the right. Chiaki, the archetypical technician, has the skills and technique and the rigor to pursue the composer's intent mostly at all costs. Nodame, the freespirited interpreter, who plays how she feels and plays too freely so that she re-composes while playing from what she remembers hearing. Schubert sounds like Chopin! BUT Nodame has phenomenal technique! She can make a piano sing and still be messy.

There are two levels to musicianship in my mind, however neither are technical because you have to have physical technique before you can play competently. Musicianship is firstly studied craftsmanship - we need to understand in someway the musical context and construction of the piece or pieces we're working with. The harmonic construction and options available if improvising or changing chord structures. A "G" chord is not "G" chord on a guitar there are many different versions and inversions. We need read the dynamics and relative dynamics asked for in the getting louder and getting softer. This is Chiaki.

Musicianship also needs a soul or spirit. Metronome, drum machine or musical boxes are all mechanical in feeling, even with swing. Composers did not and do not mark everything performers need to know. There is breathing and phrasing. There is slowing down and speeding up. There are grace notes, for guitarists hammer-on and pull-offs. I read Bradley Lehman assert that "The reproduction and manipulation of other people's work is not expertise. It's consumerism." Certainly its not musicianship. In the days when I conducted a choir I talked a lot about milking a melody. Musicianship is to be able to take a melodic line and squeeze every ounce of emotional value from it and still stay in time! The chanteuse, the cantabile voice does that. This is Nodame!

Musicianship in public corporate worship goes a step further because it involves accompanying and conducting a congregation. There need to be musical cues to support singers, telling them when to come in and keep them in tune. Musicians have to support and give confidence to those singing. Often if one verse of a song goes badly the congregation loses confidence and sings halfheartedly. Carlin keeps reminding me of the importance of transcendence in worship and this brings in the relationship between texture/dynamics and the content and meanings of words. Sad, fearful, or repentant words tend to be quieter but more intense, happier, praiseful or confessional words louder and perhaps in major keys with very few thirds.