Standing on Friday
Today, SMC church met outside on the lawn beside Talge. It was a refreshing service; SMC is a wonderful church during the times when the smelly politics of church leadership aren't fouling things up.
During the singing time at the beginning of the service, we did an old camp song I'd never heard before. At least, I think it was an old camp song. And ultimately, it doesn't matter, because the story's the same either way. But still. It was probably an old camp song. And actually, we sang several old camp songs (or at least, several things I thought were old camp songs) that I'd never heard before, but here, I'm referring to a spec.... nevermind. On with the story.
I don't remember the exact words to the song we sang today, but it was one of those songs where you sing one verse for each day of the week, and the idea is that when you get to a day of the week on which you were particularly blessed, you stand up. Just a cool way to acknowledge God in your life, I guess.
We sang through Sunday to Thurday. I sat on the sidewalk, watching a ginormous bug bumbling around in the grass. And singing. (Me, not the bug. He was too busy bumbling. Or maybe he had a froggy, pubescent voice, and he felt too sensitive about it to be comfortable singing in public. I dunno. In any case, he wasn't singing.)
When we got to Friday, I stood.
::
Friday afternoon, Ben asked me to play bass for Adoration this weekend. Of course I agreed, so shortly before 6:00, I stopped by my room, packed up my bass, stand, cables, and 60lb bass amp, and headed for the back stairwell of the new wing.
There are very few things about my university that I materially dislike, but the dorm's stairwells are definitely on that short list. The new wing's back stairwell in particular is a real annoyance; you have to have a keycard to enter or exit the stairwell on the outdoors level, and you have to have a keycard to exit the stairwell on every other level. (If you read that carefully and I wrote it right, you'll notice that yes, it is possible to get locked on the stairs if you leave your keycard in your room. The only way to get out is to either wait for someone to find you, or try to make enough racket that someone will come to let you out.) To make matters worse, the stairwell's outdoor exit is locked at 8pm nightly; supposedly, it's necessary to keep drugs from entering the dorm. Whatever.
So this particular day, I was headed down the stairwell carrying around 80lbs of musical equipment. My room is on the top floor, so I had three flights of stairs to go down before arriving at the bottom, where I would have to drop everything, fish my keycard out of my pocket, unlock the door, pick everything back up, and hope that the door hadn't locked itself by the time I pushed it open with my bass amp.
When I was halfway down the stairs, I met a young man who was on his way up. I'd never spoken to him before; in fact, I don't remember ever having seen him before, but he saw the load that I was carrying, turned around, went back down a flight and a half of stairs, unlocked the door, and held it open for me.
In the grand scheme of things, his kindness was perhaps inconsequential, but it made a lasting impression on me. I still don't know his name, but I saw Jesus in that guy.
And that's why I stood on Friday.
::
Amy stood on Thursday. I wonder why.
During the singing time at the beginning of the service, we did an old camp song I'd never heard before. At least, I think it was an old camp song. And ultimately, it doesn't matter, because the story's the same either way. But still. It was probably an old camp song. And actually, we sang several old camp songs (or at least, several things I thought were old camp songs) that I'd never heard before, but here, I'm referring to a spec.... nevermind. On with the story.
I don't remember the exact words to the song we sang today, but it was one of those songs where you sing one verse for each day of the week, and the idea is that when you get to a day of the week on which you were particularly blessed, you stand up. Just a cool way to acknowledge God in your life, I guess.
We sang through Sunday to Thurday. I sat on the sidewalk, watching a ginormous bug bumbling around in the grass. And singing. (Me, not the bug. He was too busy bumbling. Or maybe he had a froggy, pubescent voice, and he felt too sensitive about it to be comfortable singing in public. I dunno. In any case, he wasn't singing.)
When we got to Friday, I stood.
::
Friday afternoon, Ben asked me to play bass for Adoration this weekend. Of course I agreed, so shortly before 6:00, I stopped by my room, packed up my bass, stand, cables, and 60lb bass amp, and headed for the back stairwell of the new wing.
There are very few things about my university that I materially dislike, but the dorm's stairwells are definitely on that short list. The new wing's back stairwell in particular is a real annoyance; you have to have a keycard to enter or exit the stairwell on the outdoors level, and you have to have a keycard to exit the stairwell on every other level. (If you read that carefully and I wrote it right, you'll notice that yes, it is possible to get locked on the stairs if you leave your keycard in your room. The only way to get out is to either wait for someone to find you, or try to make enough racket that someone will come to let you out.) To make matters worse, the stairwell's outdoor exit is locked at 8pm nightly; supposedly, it's necessary to keep drugs from entering the dorm. Whatever.
So this particular day, I was headed down the stairwell carrying around 80lbs of musical equipment. My room is on the top floor, so I had three flights of stairs to go down before arriving at the bottom, where I would have to drop everything, fish my keycard out of my pocket, unlock the door, pick everything back up, and hope that the door hadn't locked itself by the time I pushed it open with my bass amp.
When I was halfway down the stairs, I met a young man who was on his way up. I'd never spoken to him before; in fact, I don't remember ever having seen him before, but he saw the load that I was carrying, turned around, went back down a flight and a half of stairs, unlocked the door, and held it open for me.
In the grand scheme of things, his kindness was perhaps inconsequential, but it made a lasting impression on me. I still don't know his name, but I saw Jesus in that guy.
And that's why I stood on Friday.
::
Amy stood on Thursday. I wonder why.
posted by Life on Wry at 11:25 AM
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