My Bishop, our lay church pastor, arrived at my door. I was just 15 years old and not yet in high school. My mother invited him into our living room and he started the conversation by thanking me for the years I'd spent accompanying in the children's meetings. He told me that using my talent in service to our church community was very important. There were blessings attached.
I wondered where he was headed. My mother was beaming because it made her so happy to hear that I was needed. Then she said very seriously, "She does need to practice more."
He explained that he had an idea that might encourage more of the "p" word. Would I please take on playing the organ in Sacrament Meeting, our worship service? What?
No one seemed to understand that the organ was not just a different kind of piano!
The sound died away immediately and that required legato fingering which I didn't have to do when I used the sustain pedal on the piano. There was also an entire keyboard for the feet. I felt a fear rise up but I pushed that down and replaced it with satisfaction that I was needed.
I said yes.
Ah, the optimism of youth. I was rudely pulled from this positive mindset when the first Sunday I forced the congregation to endure one mistake after another. The organ is not as forgiving as the piano. A mistake on the piano could be slurred together with the sustain pedal but the organ just announced blatantly that I was on the wrong key. WRONG KEY!!!
We endured and persevered together, those kind saints and I, and the tiny flash of light I had during many hours of being alone at the church, practicing, was that God loves the child who willingly serves. I have been serving at the organ for decades.
I did not really learn to play properly until I went off to college and there had some "real" organ lessons.
My teacher had a pipe organ in her house. I wondered sometimes what her neighbors thought. She was eclectic and demanding. She drilled the stop names into our heads. The 16 foot gambe was a string sound that came through a 16 foot pipe, the 8 foot flute was sonorous and smooth, the 2 foot piccolo was piercing and these together, with others, created a symphony of sound.
So, what were the lifelong blessings?
*I learned to collaborate with the congregation and invite the spirit of God into our meetings
*I learned to follow the conductor
*I learned the words to most of the hymns
*I learned to trust that my feet below on the keyboard would follow the path
*I was early to the meetings
Did I sense the day that I received the call that this instrument would provide weekly worship for me all my life?
I had a flash, just a flash of insight.
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My 7-year old is currently learning to play the piano - weekly lessons and daily practice (the latter enforced by me, lol). I hope she sticks with it and grows to play in church too. I don't play any instruments but I do sing and like you, each week as I learn the songs and harmonies, it provides daily worship for me and brings me into God's presence. Even when I don't feel like it, music/singing is something God has used and still using to draw me near. Thank you for this post :)
ReplyDeleteCompletely forgot to enter my details 🙈 - above comment from Wemi (www.reflectionsinthemess.com)
ReplyDeleteMy daughter had a similar experience as a teenager but a sweet older sister in the ward met with her and taught her the basics. She later had the wonderful experience of playing the organ at Christmas in St. Peter’s cathedral when she lived back east whilst her husband was in med school
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