This morning I went to the preliminary meeting of a group that's putting on a musical revue in October for which I have been asked to be the accompanist. The group is an outgrowth of St. Andrews in the Foothills United Methodist Church.
When you take my varied religious background and modify it with the strict Adventist take-no-prisoners approach to religion to which I was exposed as a child, the result is someone who views all religion with a touch of cynicism.
The pastor/leader/minister/what-have-you of this church is a delightful gentleman named David Wilkinson. Robert Encila, who leads this theatre troupe, asked David to open the meeting this morning. In his prayer or thoughts or comments, David summoned the spirits of art and music and the spirit of the Christ and the creativity that is within all of us, stating "we are the creators." I was somewhat taken aback by his 'prayer.' That statement, "we are the creators," really struck me as a new way of looking at the world and spirituality and religion and Christianity and all those other "ity"s.
I guess I need to learn the lesson I tried to teach my sons as they were growing up, "there is more than one way to live your life."
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Some very nice compliments were paid to me this morning as we discussed the upcoming program. Robert said it was imperative that we worked on music that we all knew because of the limited rehearsal time and the performances in mid- to late-October. Todd Luethjohann distributed a CD containing most of the songs we'll be performing, and Robert noted that the keys and arrangements of the songs weren't necessarily the arrangements we'd be using or the keys they'd be performed in. He said that this was why he was so excited to have me involved in this production: he knew that I could play anything in any key and not tie them to set arrangements.
I'm also very excited to be working with the singer Lissa Staples, with whom I worked earlier this year in Christian Youth Theater. Lissa and I hit it off the moment we met and have similar approaches to music.
Maybe the preparation for this revue will take my mind off my depression about life as it currently exists for me in Tucson.
2 comments:
If I am not mistaken, my Veronica and magan Lindley had class with Robert at Green Fields in the early 90's.
Yes, one and the same. I think he was still at GF the first year Ellie was there, but left the year after.
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