How to say goodbye

I have been saying goodbye for 7 days. I’m at the dealer getting my oil changed and I even feel compelled to say goodbye to the nice guys who fix my car every three months.

I’ve said goodbye in a smile, a wave, a hug, a few hugs, a meal, and a two hour conversation. I’ve said goodbye to acquaintances, clients, professors, co-workers, roommates, people I’ve accompanied for 2 years, new friends, and friends I met on my first day of class 2 years ago. And there were some people I didn’t get to say goodbye to.

Social media changes everything. Facebook ensures that at least one thread of connection will remain intact. I didn’t have that 9 years ago when I graduated from college the first time.

Yet, there’s a sad omission of finality with this connection. Not that I ever want to completely cut ties with someone, but waving off the reality of geographical distance because “we’re Facebook friends” somehow diminishes the significance of the relationship and how it will never be the same. It’s almost as if we’re afraid to be vulnerable and say “you mean a lot to me and it’s going to be hard to not be able to see you in person whenever I want.” I’m absolutely guilty of this. There are a lot of people to whom I am indebted the past 2 years, people who have shaped my life. People who have seen me at my best and my worst. Yet again, God has been faithful in surrounding me with a community of friends and colleagues in this season of my life, something I was worried about and prayed about a lot when I first moved to Winchester. I need to honor that.

Curiously, saying all of these goodbyes may be the best preparation I could have for my internship. Every patient I will have will be saying goodbye. My whole ministry will be about helping people say goodbye to their loved ones. Holy cow.

I believe, somehow, God will teach me how to say goodbye. Hospice is goodbye pedagogy. And what a gift that will be, to learn how to say goodbye. I think that could help a lot of people, whether they are actively dying or not.

So, to my loved ones who I’m leaving tomorrow: I don’t care if we’re Facebook friends. You mean a lot to me and I’m going to miss you. Thank you for bringing me into your life.

Two Roads

I’ve been trying to post something every Monday for consistency. I couldn’t think of anything to post this week. So I thought it would be nice to put somebody else’s words on here and let their voice speak today.

I don’t know a lot about poetry. It’s an art form I learned about in grade school, and I suppose we had to write our own poems then, but I don’t remember being particularly interested or good at it. There’s something magical about poetry though – saying so much with so little. I really admire and appreciate those who can paint so well with words. So here’s one of the most famous poems there is. It’s fitting for my life right now, is it fitting for yours?

The Road Not Taken
by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Moving…

I just spent a fabulous weekend in DC, visiting friends, going to museums, and attending a perfect wedding. Here are just a couple pictures from the weekend. This trip though, my final one to DC for a very long time, kind of marked the beginning of the end for this season of my life.

MJ and I eating Potbelly for lunch

The newlyweds!

Transitions are messy. And I am in one. Again.

I thought I’d give y’all a break from my existentialism and theology and give an update on what I’m doing nowadays!

I’m finishing up my 4th semester (technically 5th if you count last summer’s whirlwind of music theory combined with anatomy & physiology) at Shenandoah University in Winchester, VA, in which I am getting a professional studies degree in music therapy.

To be eligible to take the board exam for music therapy you have to get the proper education and complete an internship (these items being the two parts of the professional studies degree). I was fortunate to find and be accepted to an internship near my hometown. It’s with a Hospice organization and I will be there for six months.

(The reason I’m getting a professional studies degree and not another bachelor’s is because all of the music classes I took for my performance degree transfer to the prof. studies degree. So basically, the prof. studies degree is a fast track bachelor’s that fills in the gaps, but the classes are at graduate level [making it affordable {kind of}].)

I am also working on a master’s degree, which is a normal graduate degree – advanced practice, thesis, etc. So while the professional studies degree will allow me to take the exam and become an MT-BC, the graduate degree will give me an MM (Master of Music in Music Therapy).  I’ve only been a part-time student this semester, taking two classes, which are both going towards my master’s degree. I’m about halfway done with the master’s, but will take a break from it in the fall since I’ll be doing my internship. The plan/goal/hope/wish is to finish the internship around Thanksgiving, graduate with my professional studies degree, take (and pass) the board exam, get my credentials, and have a job by January. Then I’ll pick up the master’s classes again part-time.

So, I am moving back to Ohio in about 2 and a half weeks. And of course, just when the transition is starting, I’m finally feeling settled in Winchester. I’ve developed some amazing friendships that are now going to be long distance. Isn’t this always the way it works? It’s a catch-22 though, because you lament having to leave your friends but are grateful you have friends to leave!

The biggest win of course is being closer to my family. I’ll be living at home, and will be much much closer to all of my family. Which of course includes my pride and joy – my nieces and nephews. And this group will be growing soon! So I am very excited about being amidst my family instead of being afar.

If I may, I’d love some prayer. Prayer for a good end of the semester, that everything gets taken care of for my internship to start smoothly (paperwork, medical stuff, etc.), that I can transition back to my hometown after not living there (or Ohio for that matter) for about 8 years, and that I look to God as my constant through all of this.

I’d like to turn this back into a blog about music therapy again, so my plan is to focus on the internship here and give you a glimpse of what it’s like to work in Hospice.

I’ll keep you updated as I go along! I feel kinda weird posting my social media handles, but here they are in case you want to follow more closely…
Twitter: @sarahchil
Instagram: chilgirl21

Thanks for reading! Happy Monday

In Brokenness

A few weeks ago I talked about the different realms of worship I found myself in around Easter. One of them was a Seder meal on campus that was facilitated by a local Rabbi. We learned about all the symbolism in the meal and followed the service from a book called the Haggadah.

In the section from the Haggadah that referenced the tablets that Moses brought down from Mt. Sinai, the Rabbi told us this: Someone once asked him what happened to the original tablets that Moses brought down, the ones he broke when he saw the golden calf. He told them the Jewish tradition holds that the broken tablets were also put in the tabernacle with the ones that were intact. The symbolism of this showed that there is sanctity in brokenness.

Not long after that, the pastor at my church also talked about brokenness. I really like this pastor because he is full of humility and faith in his own brokenness. He has been honest with us about dealing with depression and I really admire him for that. I don’t actually remember what the sermon topic was, but he pointed us to 2 Corinthians 4: 5-6, which says,

For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.

He had a rather large clay pot on stage with him and told us the story of how he brought it back with him from Africa, but it arrived in tiny pieces. He loved it so much that he took glue and put it all back together. It isn’t perfect, you could tell when he held it up to us. “But,” he said, “the holes are where the light shines through.”

I’ve recently gone through a period of brokenness and I without a doubt believe God has been speaking to me through these experiences. It’s a hard juxtaposition to live in against our culture, living in brokenness. I think the irony, though, is none of us are ever living without brokenness. We just hide it, or numb it, or ignore it.

I’ve written before about my preference for melancholy, to be okay stewing in one’s own filth every now and then. It’s humbling and disintegrates pride.

But. It’s hard. It hurts. It sucks.

Thankfully, God knows this. Whenever something happens that shakes me to the core, the first thing I always think is, “God knew this was going to happen.” That’s comforting to me. And whether or not you believe that God causes suffering, you can bet that He can handle any emotion you throw at Him once the sh*t hits the fan. He’s also set up relationship in a way that we can count on each other in brokenness. Bonds are made and strengthened. Hugs are increased. Intention emerges. And in a clever design, God gave us this common denominator so that those of us who are the broken ones can heal and then relate to the next broken person – sometimes before we are even fully healed, which is something that happened to me. Empathy at it’s most potent level, adding a sweetness to help with the sting.

When I was at Bowling Green I attended a small church and I honestly don’t remember much about it. But I do remember a series of sermons where the pastor kept bringing back this giant orange that he had put 4 or 5 arrows through. He talked about the holes that are left over after we’ve been wounded, and how important it is that we fill those holes with the right things so that we can heal.

He also talked about being that light in the darkness. He used an illustration I’ve never forgotten. We all got glow-in-the-dark stars that day in church. He said that we are the stars, but how do you get glow-in-the-dark stars to really shine? You need to expose them to a powerful light source for an extended period of time. Then you will shine all the brighter to others.

In brokenness we cling to Him, that powerful light source. And he heals us and shines through us.

We all put up walls, fill in the holes, hide. Perhaps in brokenness, when we’re a little cracked, others may see the light shine through the darkness.

Morning Hymn

A couple weeks ago I talked about the simplicity of my nephew’s prayer.

This week, I want to share a prayer written in 1673. It comes out of the book, A Manual of Prayers for the Use of the Scholars of Winchester College. This book, written by Thomas Ken, included “Morning Hymn,” “Evening Hymn,” and “Midnight Hymn.” So who’s Thomas Ken? Well, a guy who wrote hymns. But also…he

• was born in 1637 in England
• was put in the Tower of London by James II (he got out eventually)
• was one of the first people to write hymns with words that were not straight from the Bible, which was extremely controversial at the time.

Thomas Ken wrote the Doxology. Actually, what we know as the Doxology was the final refrain of the three hymns I listed above.

I was drawn to the beauty and practicality of Morning Hymn. It’s not as direct as my nephew’s, but it’s still a pretty simple prayer. To our 21st century language and ears it may seem flowery, but it’s actually quite succinct.

Perhaps this prayer will realign your perspective this morning, friend.

(Since the Doxology is the refrain, you can sing these words to the same tune.)

Morning Hymn

Awake, my soul, and with the sun

Thy daily course of duty run,

Shake off dull sloth, and early rise,

To pay thy morning sacrifice.

Direct, control, suggest, this day,

All I design, or do, or say;

That all my powers, with all their might

In Thy sole glory may unite.

The Versatility of Worship

Thank heaven God is creative.

Did you ever wonder what it would be like if He wasn’t? And not only is He creative, but He made us all creative. If this weren’t so, we wouldn’t know color. We wouldn’t know beauty, or a melody, or what an idea was.

One thing I love about God giving us creativity is we have come up with so many different ways to worship Him. And the cool thing is, there’s no wrong way to do it, if you have a genuine heart. He doesn’t care what songs you sing or what you say or what symbols you use, as long as it’s real and you mean it. I’m reminded of the time I took communion on a spring break mission trip. It was impromptu, on the way home, in the van. The elements? A cheez-it and a swig of someone’s bottled fruit juice that we passed around.

Lately, I’ve had the amazing opportunity to worship God in vastly different environments.

Two weeks ago, invited by dear friends, I attended a choir rehearsal at a church where I was absolutely the whitest white person there. I sat in between my friends and sang gospel songs, going over them by rote, with no music, and actually very few words. Unlike other church choir rehearsals I’ve been in, where our noses are in the music and we work on diction and where to breath, this rehearsal was simply about praising God. I can’t describe the feeling of having my voice drowned out by a group of people who not only sounded great, but meant it. I was almost overwhelmed to tears with the sense of God’s presence in this community. And this was a choir rehearsal. It was so what I needed at the time. I had one word for my friend when she asked me what I thought: cathartic. They didn’t even care that I could’t attend the performance we were rehearsing for. It was an incredible experience.

Five days later, on the Wednesday before Easter, I attended a Seder at school. A local Rabbi led the meal and about 25 faculty and students attended. The Seder (Hebrew for “order”) is the Jewish feast that marks the beginning of Passover. There is very specific food and drink that is presented, some as symbols, and some to eat. Participants read from a text called the Haggadah. In it is the story of the Passover and the exodus from Egypt, along with prayers and songs. It was really humbling and insightful to be a part of this service. I love the tradition of Jewish culture, how old everything is. I really value the history, and it definitely puts Christianity in a more tangible and savory context. But that’s a whole other post…

On Good Friday, I attended a Tenebrae Service at the church I normally go to. (Tenebrae is Latin for shadow.) It was very dark, somber, quiet. I’m fortunate to know the man who led the service. His story alone is incredible and to be able to participate in this experience with him leading was quite impactful. He spoke slowly and his voice was fluid and resonant. He wasn’t afraid of silence. The music was stripped of its complexity, just acoustic guitar and voice. These are my favorite types of services because this is how I operate inside. Dark, somber, quiet. Processing. This service enabled people to simply process Jesus’ death. Good for the soul.

Yesterday for Easter, a friend invited me to her church for the sunrise service, free breakfast (amen) and the regular church service. I was (to steal a term from a dear friend) on the “strugglebus” emotionally and physically, so I didn’t mind getting lost in the extra mile of spectacle that an Easter service is. I hadn’t been to a service like this in a long time. A usual house band complete with piano, keyboard, AND organ (it was amusing to see an organist with an in-ear monitor), singers strewn across the front and a choir in the back, complete with the season’s best outfits, some even with hats. The pastor had that old school authoritative presence and in his sermon I realized he sounded just like Tommy Lee Jones. The atmosphere really was great and while I wasn’t feeling all “Praaaaaaise Jeezuz” I appreciated all those who were.

God is creative. And he knows that even some of the most creative people don’t feel creative sometimes, that’s why there is liturgy. Sometimes the uncreative get a burst of whimsy and need unorganization – that’s what repeating choruses are for. Sometimes we just need to be still. Sometimes we just need to be loud. Sometimes we don’t know what we need, and that’s okay too.

As long as it’s genuine, God is pleased.

Your Life’s Work

Have you ever felt bad for an actor or actress who is most frequently asked questions about a role they did, like, 30 years ago, even if they are still working and have had other roles? I have. I do often actually. I understand the “reverence” for roles that are now classic in pop culture, but it has to be annoying to those actors.

I admit, if I ever met Kevin Bacon I would go on and on about Footloose. So I’m a total hypocrite.

Here’s the question though. Is the goal in life to keep trying to achieve your “greatest work”? Would you be content with, say, achieving your life’s work at age 42, but you’d live to be 93? Would it be wrong to be content with that? Would it be right? Would it be healthier? What if you knew that your greatest accomplishment was going to happen in the next 5 years? Would you keep on truckin’ even though you would know it’s all “downhill from here”?

In 2010, at the Vancouver Olympics, Stephen Harper (Prime Minister of Canada) gave a speech during the opening ceremonies. In the speech he said that hosting these Olympic games and preparing for them was his life’s greatest work. He spoke as if he knew he would never get to do anything to surpass this and he was very proud of the accomplishment. I remember being absolutely struck by those words. Just to grasp the idea that someone put so much hard work into something so globally significant, they knew it was going to be the biggest achievement of their life.

It’s all relative of course. How do you measure achievement? This idea reminds me of a couple of blog posts by Richard Beck from a few weeks ago. (He is becoming one of my favorite writers btw.) The posts are about “being enough.” You can read them here and here.

This whole “life’s work” thought came to me when I was reading a story out of 2 Kings. I’m nearly finished with 1 and 2 Kings as part of my Bible reading plan. As you know, these books – don’t lie – are booooring. And full of strange, sometimes creepy stories. The kind that make you wince or go “blech” or “whaaaaaat”.

Anyway. The passage was 2 Kings 15 and it was the story of Jotham of Judah. It’s not a very long account, as he was not king very long, just 16 years. For some reason he died pretty young, 41 years old. The account put him in the “good in God’s eyes” column but also in the “but he still let the people worship other gods” column. And then there’s a simple sentence: “The construction of the High Gate to The Temple of God was his work” (MSG). If Jotham had lived longer than 41, would he have been satisfied with just being known for building a gate? I don’t know. At first, it’s a seemingly insignificant accomplishment, constructing a gate. But to Jotham, it was his life’s work. To me, that’s God saying you don’t need your life’s work to be some global humanitarian effort. Just work hard and with love where you are, with what you’ve got. 

And I thought, “Wow. If an account of my life were reduced to two paragraphs, who would it say my work was?” Really, I guess that’s your obituary. But it makes you wonder, what do you want to be known for? Do you get to choose? I think you do.

But the bigger question, again, is would you be satisfied if you’ve already achieved your life’s work? Would you be satisfied with being known for only one thing? Is our ambition-driven culture making us strive for something that isn’t feasible or even healthy? Is that why we’re all stressed out all the time? Do we keep on (and on and on and on), striving as if we’re running in the opposite direction of our own mortality? 

I don’t have any answers to these questions. But I have a feeling people ask them a lot. I have no moral of the story or clever last line either. Other than, where do you see yourself in terms of your life’s work?