voting and valet

I walk into the church on a work day with a portable file case pulling down one arm and a lunch box in the other hand, a coffee carafe hitched somehow to a loose finger. Opening the door is always a challenge.

Today the door also served as a door to the local polling station. Someone opened it for me, as citizens came and went to vote. Nice valet-like service. Thanks.

what you do during the week

People wonder what a church musician does during the week. I put in two 10-hour days on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Let me spin out some of the tasks:
1. lead singing chapel a Dock Meadows. 2. write agenda for the worship planning committee. 3. meet with pastor about choir and handbells. 4. practice organ music for Sunday. 5. send in to bulletin all elements of service. 6. work out final details with soloist. 7. talk to Beth about funeral service planned for Wed. 8. lead the committee meeting. 9. contact choir members about this fall. 10. order new anthems for this fall. 11. choose organ music for funeral. 12. and play the funeral--right now, which is why this post ends here.

flag me down

Hey, hours in church work are long. Tuesdays and Wednesdays it's wall-to-wall work for me. Thanks to Keystone I charge up my batteries with good ole breakfast country style. They don't make it better than this. Flag me down and I'll stop in. Besides eating alone, I've had two meetings here already. I've met Zion people on my way in and out. And where else can I see the Pennsylvania flag whipping in the breeze?

10 or 15 mph?

The drive to work gives me a nice block of audio book time. I've gotten through Jimmy Carter's Christmas at Plains, and I'm mostly through a book about writing and the creative process.

The drive also helps me see America, at least one tiny slice of Pennsylvania. If I think there are so many ambiquities in church music and worship styles, the sharp turn on Ott Road, not far south after Gravel Pike, makes me chuckle.

Going south, approaching the carriage-narrow, tree-tight ninety degree turn, the sign warns me--15 miles an hour. I wouldn't surpass that by much. Yet on my way to Souderton, the sign on the other approach to the turn gives me a sour warning to not exceed 10 mph. I think that would be right, too.

How can they both be right? Maybe one way was determined by the township guy, the other by the PennDot experts. Maybe because the road is not level at that point. A descent would call for a slower turn.

What's this have to do with music after 4 p.m. after a hard day's work already, and an instrumental rehearsal at 5:30 and choir at 7:00?

It's kind of like hymns look different depending on which direction you're coming to them. Contemporary songs, same thing.