Author: marettej

It’s a place of peace. The water still and unrippled. The hours I have sat on this dock and thought, prayed and read. One can only imagine what lies beneath the beautiful blue water. I can’t walk on water like Jesus, I must sit on the dock. I can see the fish swimming under the water and watch a very large bass. She is waiting to lay her eggs. She seems undaunted by the world that is above the water. The other fish just enjoy their circumstances, not aware of the danger of my hook and worm although I only catch and release. I wonder, on the dock, who have walked on the wood that I am walking upon. I see the scars on the wood, the worn spots and the chips. Life does that to us. Whether we are wood, or human, we bear the marks of the world that is around us and happening to us. The dock keeps me from getting wet. Some days getting wet is preferred. The dock keeps me within a boundary. We need boundaries in life. We need things that keep us where we need to be. I don’t need to be in the water: I need to be on the dock. When I am content to be where I need to be, I can enjoy and be blessed by the beauty around me. When I put myself outside the boundaries I will get wet, be uncomfortable and I miss seeing the things that give me joy, peace and pleasure. But I must be content to sit on the dock and not worry about what I am missing under the dock in the water. There is beauty in both places, but I need to appreciate where I am and where God has placed me. Sitting on the dock of the bay: what a beautiful place to be.

It was one of those pictures that just happens. My sister in law saw the photo and snapped it. 80 plus years separate the two. Yet, music bonds them. He was playing as if he was in the band. Why? Because that’s what he has always known music. Grandpa has always been music come alive. What is he passing on to the generation next? Music, and yet not just music.

Psalm 145 reminds us that one generation shall praise your works to another. That’s prophetic. We have to be the ones to carry it on. We pass on recipes and traditions and music lessons but God is asking that we do a bit more. Tell the next generation about all God has done in our lives and in our world. It’s not hard: it’s spring. New bulbs are peaking out of the ground, the grass is greening up slightly and the trees are budding. But then again we need to share the works of God that don’t always come bursting forth out of God’s creation . Tell about Gods works in the kindness we show, the love we give, the choices we make that honor Him and the goodness we show to each other. Gods works are the lessons we learned and the poor choices we made but learned from about forgiveness and God loving us not to mention the answers to prayers and the moments of God speaking to us in the night. Grab, maybe not literally, someone from a different generation and invest in their lives so they see you praising the works of God. Sit and talk, play music, put puzzles together or play games and during that time let Gods works ooze out in your conversation.

youtu.be/Pq53p7g5Jvo

https://youtu.be/UoUpI_O7Ky8

I don’t mind progress; if progress is actually an effort to move forward. I don’t mind the past. I love history. I don’t mind being stuck in a rut, although if it’s a muddy rut I would prefer to get out sooner than a dry rut. It’s being caught in the middle that bothers me. I grew up a child of the 60’s. I grew up in a church that sang. We used the piano, if we had a piano player, and we used the hymnbook. Sunday nights we sang out of the Stamps and Baxter book. By my words, “we sang”, I meant we sang. All four verses, all the parts and we sang for half an hour. I learned to sing alto by sitting with my Grandma and Maribel Hunt. I learned to sing tenor when Grandma’s voice changed. I played the piano, I turned pages and I loved that part of church. I’m not sure why, maybe because music was a part of my heart. School music and choir did not move me although I could listen to Jim Reeves, Eddy Arnold and Marty Robbins for hours lying on the carpet by the old phonograph. We didn’t have TV; I listened to music. My first live concert was going to see Andre’ Crouch in Hartford. Music was a way God spoke.

Things have changed. Music doesn’t take over the hearts of people at church as much anymore because we have diluted it’s presence. The clock is ticking and the approach to modern singing in church doesn’t give us room for music to minister. We used to have preludes, postludes, special music, live music, real musicians and lots of harmony. It’s all canned now. Not many live musicians and special music adorn the stage. There are now click tracks, and drone sounding music that is produced electronically. It all sounds the same. It’s slower, it’s moodier and doesn’t give the chance to get up and dance, clap and harmony is out of the question if you don’t naturally hear it. There is no music to learn, watch the notes, see the harmonious structure and join in as you read through the staffs. The songbooks have been replaced by words projected on the screen with video’s behind them and lights and fog machines. And for many of us, we feel caught between the chords. We were on a G and now everything is diminished. When we change to the diminished chord, it’s suddenly augmented. Music ministry in the church is four songs Sunday morning. We have lost the creativity, the choirs, the quartets and the chorus. There are no other options during the week to be with others creating music and letting it creatively move within the heart.

I am not against progression but it seems that we have gone backwards. I listened to the prelude music the other day and it wasn’t even a song: just a bunch of droned chords and sounded like elevator music. I couldn’t recognize the song, couldn’t relate to it lyrics that had meaning to me and it was all electronically produced. There was no instrument I could name or identify in a line up of the orchestra.

I am not against progression, but let’s progress. I haven’t forgotten the time when the praise songs came about. “Pass it on” was all we heard. Then it was the 7/11 songs. We sang seven words eleven times and then repeated that. Lord I lift your name on high and Shout to the Lord seemed “edgy” and now we would give anything to have a bit of that edgy to get us back on a chord we recognize.

Sunday night Cowboy church wound up. It was a bit obvious that people wanted to get out and play and the stage was packed with musicians; acoustic instruments. Harmony, pickin and grinnin’, old familiar, new “old” western songs but what I noticed was the chord structures were where we all felt comfortable. We were on a chord we knew. We could play along. We could sing along and we let the music take over our hearts and emotions.

I am not against progression but most of the time I feel caught between the chords.