Performing vs Serving

One of the first service projects I was ever involved with was St. Vincent's Soup Kitchen. We served lunch on Sundays to 150-200 homeless people in the downtown core. The food was often of better quality than what we could get in the academy cafe--and that isn't meant as a knock against the cafe. Still, I couldn't help but notice as I worked the slop buckets just how much food ended up back in the trash. It didn't grade well. You get what you pay for, I suppose--in this case, one dollar. Not sure what the dollar was for, considering all the food was donated: lighting, perhaps?

The first time I performed a solo in church was Grade 10. I played "Be Thou my Vision" on the flute. I was so nervous my knees were shaking violently and my body was very tensed up--quite the case of stage fright. But I hit all the right notes, and the shaking added a certain vibrato, a richness to the tone. From fear is born beauty? At potluck that sabbath, all the members commented on how well I played the flute--they had previously been unaware of that ability. It was a good performance.

Later, when I was a student missionary in Majuro, I ended up as one of the church pianists, playing every other week. It was often a challenge because we wouldn't find out what hymns we were playing until the man at the pulpit announced it while asking the church to rise. Sometimes, I'd mess around with the hymn, altering chords or creating accompaniments to change it up a little so they wouldn't have to hear the stale old hymn again. They're beautiful songs, but not three times in two days. The variations didn't always work out. They were actually kind of hit and miss. But they were certainly different.

After church, once every two weeks, we'd have an SM potluck. I brought Mom's secret fruit salad because it was a hit every time. It was a bit on the expensive side, but that was a small price to pay to grade well. Approval is priceless. Why else do students cross any boundary to cheat on a test?

I've held to my principles and failed on tests before. It's hard to look a teacher in the eye after you've failed. The feeling lasts until the next time you pass. There are some teachers I still have trouble looking in the eye.

What's the difference between performing and serving?

There was a time, a service day freshman year, when a bunch of us pulled weeds at the fire station. We tried to get them all, but if you've ever tried to clear a dry and dead Morning Glory from a chain link fence, you'll know perfection is a little out of reach. We took frequent breaks as the firefighters gave us the grand tour, other volunteers brought lemonade, and photographers took pictures--after all, the college president was with us.

If we were being paid, I think our performance would have graded poorly, and would have reflected badly on the company. But wouldn't we both have done the same job?

Is your life a performance or a service?

Random Driving

It was sabbath. I was driving my sister around in my Dad's car (which actually isn't his car in the real world). We were driving back and forth between a strip mall and a "no exit" road that led to a wooded area, in what was likely a large city park.

As it neared dark, I attempted to stop the car, but after it stopped, it then continued to roll back, even with my foot completely on the brake. It ran into a shopping cart, which cut right up the middle of the trunk, leaving a gash about halfway up. I then turned the car on, shifted into drive, and drove away, but then braking again, it stopped, then started rolling up an incline until it lightly hit a minivan, but the owners reached out of the window to stop our car and push us away.

The momentum from the push carried us out of the parking lot, and back on that country road. I hit the brakes, but again the car wouldn't stop, this time accelerating up a hill. It went right over a staircase railing set into concrete that was the beginning of a trail, and rolled up the hill until it hit something. I saw it crunch the back, and sitting in the back, peering out the left side of the rear window, I felt the crunch--or I thought I did--under the back of my seat, which my chest was pressed against.

We then drove forward, back over the railing, crunching the front badly, and down the stairs, and back to the mall. It was now darkish and the lot was empty. We rolled past an Orange Julius/Manchu Wok/something else in one outlet. I peered inside to see if the Manchu Wok had Chinese food, particularly fried rice, but all they had on the menu was Japanese noodles. Then I woke up.

A Eulogy

He died. He lived a tortured life, but at least he died with dignity. Screw it. NO ONE DIES WITH DIGNITY!!!

There. That's better.

Every time you avert your eyes when someone passes, you kill them. Every time you allow someone to sit by themselves at a meal, alone in a room full of friendship and love, you kill them. Every rejection, every day isolated from a world that is so near yet so far saps the life force out of a person, until all that is left is a walking corpse, a body which breathes, yes, and has blood coursing through its veins; but as dead as your great-grandparents buried in that cemetery on the top of the hill.

He didn't die last week. He died years ago. Last week was a mere reconciliation of soul and body.

Bodies need food, water, and sleep to survive. Souls need trust. Souls need acceptance. Souls need to be loved. It matters not whether a soul deserves these things, just as it matters not whether a body deserves food or water--these are basic needs of life.

A person dies, regardless of age, when their friends pass away to a different world, and they are left behind, misunderstood.

All people love. All people are good--that is, they start off that way. But just as starving people will steal bread a starving soul will steal love and turn defensive as all the survival instincts turn on.

So when it comes your turn to speak lovingly of this man, know that he didn't have to die. When you throw roses on the casket, and shovel dirt over the top, burying him out of sight and out of mind, know that you buried him years ago.

You killed him. And all the handwashing in the world will never change that fact.

Love one another. And don't let your ignorance be fatal again.

Life Lessons, Vol. I

Never cook spaghetti without first checking to see if you have any tomato sauce.

A List for a Day

-Do a Calculus assignment.

-Consider buying new batteries for your calculator, which no longer turns on.

-Read the first half of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Take notes while doing so.

-Consider doing back-reading for Western Thought, particularly Wordsworth's Preface to Lyrical Poems and Rousseau's First Discourse, also taking notes.

-Read a chapter from three different religion textbooks.

-Check facebook, myspace, and email every half an hour, hoping someone messaged you/played their turn on Scrabulous/Scramble/Word Twist.

-Vacuum the house.

-Cook dinner.

-Eat dinner.

-Wash dishes.

-Plant flowers in the front and back yards.

-Practice Oboe.

-Practice Flute, Clarinet, and Alto Sax.

-Splice a video together and write background music for Composition class.

-Consider doing the next composition assignment, but probably postpone to tomorrow.

-Rehearse for the Prism Concert.

-Perform in the Prism Concert.

-Try to maintain some form of a social life at the Prism Concert by happily greeting friends before and after.

-Listen to an Oboe piece while following along with the score.

-Consider doing your laundry, but probably postpone to tomorrow.

-Write your weekly column about hockey.

-Set your fantasy baseball lineups for tomorrow.

-Make Cinnamon Roll dough and refrigerate to bake early tomorrow morning.

-Go to sleep early enough that you can get up early enough to bake the aforementioned Cinnamon Rolls.