Dear friends,

Thank you for another terrific Wednesday! I look so forward to each and every time that we come together, and I continue to be grateful for the gifts that each of you bring to our choir community. This week we learned a lot of notes, and our brains and voices were certainly challenged as we unpacked a lot of difficult but beautiful repertoire.

I mentioned on Wednesday night, somewhat in jest, that we are allowed to take our music home with us and that we may feel free to spend time with it between Wednesdays and Sundays and Sundays and Wednesdays. I think a lot about the gift you bring to me and to one another and to God each time you enter the choir room and sanctuary at First-Plymouth. There are so many things we could choose to do in this busy world-- and a lot of the choices would be good! You choose to be in the choir, and that is a blessing to everyone involved-- other choir members, directors, congregation, composers, television audience, and Creator. I fervently hope it is a blessing for you as well!

Let's celebrate that, but let's also think more deeply about what could change if we invested even more of ourselves in the choir experience than the schedule of times we are together. I heard my mentor say once, "God never asks for the skinniest calf."

If we use an analogy of a sport: the athlete is required to attend all the "rehearsals" and "performances" for the team, or he or she would sign out for absences-- not unlike choir! In between "rehearsals", though, the wise athlete who seeks to offer his best in his time with the team "rehearses" in the weight room, studies 'scores' in the playbook, looks at videos of past 'performances.' It is possible for the athlete to just do the team stuff, and allow talent to fill in the gaps. But the whole person is more deeply engaged and fulfilled when the personal commitment to individual preparation accompanies a unified commitment to group process. The whole grows even as the individual grows.

Let's get back to reality for a moment, though-- singing in the choir already takes a lot of time away from our families, our jobs, our hobbies, our sabbath. How can we give more? Well, let's challenge each other to experiment in some subtle ways before we assume that we are already offering the 'fattest calf.'

• Let's try spending 20 minutes on Thursday reviewing the trickiest passages we experienced on Wednesday.
  
• If we miss a Wednesday, let's spend an hour throughout the week studying the music that was rehearsed-- if we can't play the piano, we CAN read the text in rhythm, and we CAN figure out important words to emphasize, and we CAN think about how to speak the words more clearly.
  
• If we are struggling to sing one of the high notes or some shadings of the vowels, let's spend 10 minutes a day in our shower or car, experimenting with some of the vocalises we sing in choir.
  
• If we know all the note and rhythms and expression markings cold in every piece we are singing, let's spend 20 minutes reading the texts of the pieces, and pray with them to find the message that the piece brings us personally.
  
• Let's play the Anthems here on the blog as we e-mail or tweet, or check our facebook page, just to immerse ourselves in the beautiful music and poetry we are blessed to sing each week.
  
• Let's find ways to make music a part of our daily life, which makes church a part of our daily life, which makes community part of our daily life, which makes God part of our daily life. My guess is that, before long, the skinny calf will be bulked up, and each of us will feel more fully alive as we invest even more of ourselves in preparing a richer, fuller gift to give to our Giver.

Some practical reminders:

• We will assemble in the choir room on Sunday at 9:30 a.m., robed and ready for another wonderful service. Our repertoire this week is LAMB OF GOD and GREATER LOVE HATH NO MAN. Both of these, as well as most of our other repertoire for the semester, can be streamed here on our blog. Jeremy and I hope you will join us in being grateful to Becky Shane for making this wonderful resource available for us all!

• Jeremy and Scott have warmly welcomed all of us to an open house at their beautiful new home this Sunday, beginning at 3:00 p.m. I am so sorry that I will be enroute to a concert in Nashville and have to miss this gathering. I hope you all have a wonderful time, and I will be thinking of you for sure!
  

• Be sure to find out this week every place your choir buddy has lived. At next Wednesday's rehearsal, we will offer a prize to the choir member (and his or her buddy) who has lived the farthest from Lincoln.

Finally for today, I leave you with a beautiful reflection by one of our choir friends.

"I'm enjoying choir so very much, Tom. Wednesdays are typically my most stressful and tiring day of the work week, and it is sometimes difficult to drag myself to rehearsal. But once I am there, I am always glad for the effort and reinforced in my decision to make the commitment. It's easy to drop the concerns of the day and reverse any lingering grumbly demeanor when we begin each rehearsal with such joyous and buoyant enthusiasm! I see this choir beginning to blossom into something much more than it was before. There has been a palpable and remarkable shift in the energy and aura of the group. The improvements in beauty of tone, confidence, vocal cohesion and more sensitive singing are already obvious to participants and listeners alike. It's satisfying to be a part of that transition, and healing to experience the reality of that possibility."

May we all find a little more of the joy and healing that we share each Wednesday night in each and every day! : )

TT