God is not in human perfection.
written by Julie R. Neidlinger 9 comments link this postIn my journal, after thinking about some earlier writing I'd done on music and worship, I scribbled out "God is not in human perfection!" Then I left a blank space, a kind of visual pause, and added a few thoughts about how, instead, God is working at perfecting us for a future time and place that we seem to forget in our efforts of making the perfect happen by our hand right now.
Yesterday, I saw this lived out in a small way.
Sunday was the 15th annual Special Delivery Christmas concert in Cando, North Dakota. Special Delivery is a local singing group made up of my friends Chuck Damschen, Cathy Anfinson, and Naomi Damschen. Gabie, Naomi's sister, also sings or plays an instrument with them sometimes. The violin group I'm a part of, the Silver Strings, played about 40 minutes of Christmas music before the concert started. We'd done this before, though that memory is mostly marred by the horror of being forced to wear a Santa hat at the insistence of our group's leader.
This year our group had seven violinists, the most I ever remember. Three were fairly new to the violin and so, as is the usual, I found myself shoved in the back with the piano music score and told to "make up some harmony" while the rest of the group had written-out first and second violin parts.
Grousing about in the base clef, squinting to see the smaller notes, I started to take notice of the small hilarities that so often strike my funny bone at the worst moments. This time, it started during the song "In the Bleak Midwinter", a song that doesn't call for smirks from the back row violinist.
I blame the ceiling fans!
The fans had not been turned on during our one rehearsal, but they were roaring on Sunday afternoon. Pages on the music books were turning Mid-song, much less Midwinter, and that left our little orchestra full of members trying to play and grapple with books simultaneously.
Oddly, in my location, I had no breeze. I just had a great view of everyone. I had a great view of our leader who, after her book flipped two songs ahead, leaned into her sister to read off of her music, flustering and bumping. The memory of a past outdoor performance in which her book went flying off the stand in a strong gust, causing her to step hard into my music stand's zone and all but body slam me out of the way, made me snicker a bit. Her modus operandi is amusing in this, and other, ways.
The woman sitting next to me had a music stand that did not want to keep an angle, and so, as it slowly moved vertical no matter what she'd try, her book would tip forward. At one point, sans book, she pulled her violin away from her shoulder and started humming the song we were playing. I began to envision all of us, one by one, as the music flew off the stands or flipped pages, resorting to humming out our parts. And I chuckled. While trying to still play.
Our group is splendid. We have the Tongue Chewer, the One Beat Too Fast player, the I Can't Play This Part Let Me Play The Melody Instead player...really, the group is a classic example of people just getting together and sawing away at their instruments the best they can.
The Special Delivery concert that followed our music was beautiful, though I suspect if you asked them they would say it felt like a disaster. During an instrumental duet with Gabie on the violin and Chuck on the guitar, the bridge on the violin snapped and went flying, bringing the guitar music to a screeching halt.
"Holy cow. The bridge broke," Gabie said. The audience gasped. While Chuck made jokes onstage about burning bridges and second fiddles -- he, the king of one-liners and dry humor and dead-air-killers -- I went to the side of the stage where I still had my violin sitting in the case and handed it it to her. Soon the music resumed, beautifully. It's hard, as a musician performing in front of people, to recoup your focus and edge after something like that, but she did a beautiful job on a violin she had not played before.
A few songs later, as my friend Cathy was singing, Chuck, who seemed to have forgotten the chords to the song, blurted out into the mic "Have I ever played this song for you before?"
Cathy looked at him, mouth open, mid-word, in some kind of aghast something.
At this point, I realized what we had here was a down-home concert. I had a sense that maybe Cathy was a bit mortified, but it was just starting to feel like we were all in a smaller room than a large auditorium, and that instead of a performance, we were having something more intimate.
Chuck figured out the chords, started the song over, and Cathy began to sing again, only to forget the lyrics. "Maybe it would have helped if I'd forgotten the chords, too" Chuck joked, as the audience laughed. "Let's just do the song anyway," he said.
And they did. And many more.
During intermission, Naomi and I were talking about these little mistakes and mess-ups that turn our best intentions for professionalism into a shambles and the frustrations we feel when things don't go as planned. It just seemed to further prove to me that, in moments like these when I can still feel something stronger and more beautiful in spite of all these things that mar our hoped-for and practiced-for perfection in performance, God is not in our human perfection but is instead made strong in our weakest and most imperfect moments.
In the end, the concert was lovely, smirking violinists, dropping books, flying bridges, fumbled chords, forgotten lyrics, and all. The Christmas story of hope and birth and re-birth was beautifully written across every squealing violin and microphone. We had nothing to do with it.
Labels: christmas, friends, humor, music, my life
Copyright (c) Julie R. Neidlinger 12/10/2007 10:29:00 PM
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9 Comments:
Hooray for 2 Corinthians 12:9-10!! Most gladly therefore will I rather GLORY in mine infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Amen. Dave
By 
, at
11/12/07 07:06
Well written, my friend. What a way to start my day.
By 
girlfriday, at
11/12/07 08:40
The good old Santa Hats.
By Karen, at
11/12/07 10:34
I can't help but think that the early typo, where you wrote grousing about it "base" clef is Freudian in some way.
Or perhaps it was intentional. A subtle and witty theological reference to Paul's statement about knowing how to be abased.
Long live "amateurs"! The word needs to be raised to an exalted status. Seriously.
By , at
11/12/07 18:46
I hate those phonetic typos. Those shame me the most.
But I'll leave it.
Because I like the implication, too.
(Plus, I'm lazy.)
By Julie R. Neidlinger, at
11/12/07 22:16
Thanks for the encouraging words Julie-But sometime-I would like the experience of singing a concert-from start to finish-without messing up!!!
Catherine
By , at
11/12/07 22:46
I know, Cathy.
Sometimes I wish the Strings would show up and perform without some background farce always happening.
It'll never be so.
Sigh.
(But you sounded fabulous, and looked great up there. You did.)
By Julie R. Neidlinger, at
11/12/07 22:51
I like your take on the concert - in spite of the fact that it was somewhat of a painful performance. I really like that His work was accomplished in spite of our human efforts/struggles.
Chuck
By , at
16/12/07 15:23
Thank you, Julie. You have such a gift for painting pictures/scenes with words! We were not able to be there, but I now feel as though I lived it. Perfect.
By E R Damschen, at
18/12/07 08:49
