I have just returned from the
last trip of the summer and now I'm looking forward to the 2015-2016 academic
year. For the first time, I am blogging from my cottage in our music village.
For those who might not know,
this “music village” is the temporary home of Southeastern’s department of
music. We expect to be camping out here for the next twelve months while new
facilities are being built. Our little neighborhood consists of 18 cottages
that house practice rooms, offices, and storage plus three music-specific
modular units – a music office and computer music lab, a percussion studio, and
a keyboard lab.
Back to the summer’s trips -
they were excellent and involved a Christian summer music festival exploring
the significance of diversity in Christian theology, a trip to New York with
Kathy’s girls choir, and a great church music conference in New Orleans
followed by a wedding deep in Cajun country. These journeys reminded me of the great
big world that’s out there. They also challenged, inspired, energized, and
focused me in new ways. That said, I believe the transformation that needs to
happen within me will occur over the course of many days and weeks of hard work
here in Cottage 16.
At the end of the school
year, we moved from our old buildings (which no longer exist) to temporary
structures in the field on the north end of campus. The process
required that we look at every single item that had come to find a comfy, if
crowded, home in the old facilities, and determine which things should be carried into
the field with us. A number of things were left behind as they no longer served
a purpose or were proving to be unnecessary weights as we moved forward. Now
that we are in the village, there is more sorting to do.
Just as the physical move provided
an occasion for this great house cleaning, I think our move into the village
also provides an opportunity for each of us to undertake a more important
spiritual inventory.
There are many good things we
need to take into the village with us, but it is also an ideal time to consider
what things we would like to leave behind. We might even find some treasures in
this field that will enrich our lives together when we move into our new home next year.
I encourage everyone who will
be spending time in the village to invite the Spirit to shine light on the
things that might be good to leave behind. A list of several that have occurred to me might help with other folks' self-evaluations.
Lack of discipline in worship
or prayer
Unwillingness to be shaped by
the Spirit
The tendency to feed
anxieties
Expectations built on old
relationships
Attitudes that contribute to cliquishness and sarcasm
To some extent, the daily life
of our department has been drawn out into the light of day because our village
is now in this field. Most of our nearest neighbors have never lived this close
to our community before. The logistics of the move and the rearrangement of
where we are on campus have resulted in lots of folks meeting and interacting who
had only heard of each other before.
I am hoping that more good
things can come from this dynamic in the year ahead.
I am imagining the worshipful
sounds of hard work emanating from our village and lifting up those around us. I
am dreaming that the activity of our neighborhood will convey not so much a
sense of talents or giftedness but qualities of sweetness and listening. I am praying that we will become aware of the presence of God as we move through our narrow streets.
