Step five is an interesting step because that’s the comfortable stage (and a highly relatable stage) — where we can sometimes forget what it was like on step two, or we probably wouldn’t go back to step one. But we do it anyway because peace produces apathy, and the cycle starts over again. Pastor Jim was speaking specifically about the Hebrews in the book of Judges, but something hit me yesterday morning as I was sitting at the piano during mass.
I consider myself to be a fairly self-aware person — noticing when things are not how they should be, and often pinpointing correctly where something went wrong and why. This has taken a lot of therapy, prayer, and work on my part — not to mention God’s grace, but apparently it is not fool proof (by no fault of God, I must point out). I’m not a very confident pianist, mainly because my skills are inferior to my “equals” at the church, and I don’t dedicate hours of my day to practice like many do. My forte (see what I did there?) is teaching, not playing. But for some reason I got roped into staying at a sub gig that I was begged to take at a nearby Catholic Church (piano players are hard to find, apparently).
Because I was not confident and apparently a super workable person, the music director was gracious, and he did his best to keep me happy by choosing from a group of hymns whenever I played, and he did his best to prep me in advance if we had to change the mass. Once or twice he forgot to tell me the mass was changing, and he just let me play the old mass so he didn’t push me over the edge of the cliff on which I was already playing. I can recall sitting during quiet times in mass literally praying with fingers on the keys, playing the pieces in my head so that I could get extra practice time in while the priest was delivering his message.
Then one day it stopped. Going completely unnoticed, I no longer needed to pray and practice silently during mass. I ran the pieces during the week a few times after I received the list of hymns (usually on a Friday for Sunday mass), but I was so comfortable that being on top of practice and having my head in the game and on the Lord was less important that it had been.
Then our music director resigned.
And my apathy soon produced disobedience. Somebody changed the entire mass (to one I had never played) on a Thursday to be ready by Sunday and then sent me a list of hymns which were unfamiliar. I flipped my lid. At first I refused to play the mass. Then when I received it I realized it wasn’t horrible, but I was still angry as all get out because I had so much new music to learn. Never mind it happened on Thanksgiving weekend when I had almost an entire Saturday off to learn it. I was angry. My plans for the weekend were to decorate for Christmas. But now that had to take a step back to my job as an accompanist to worship leadership. Disobedience.
Sunday morning I sat at the piano, praying and playing in my head - fingers flying across the keys as the priest delivered his message. And it was at this moment that something hit me. I had been ignorant of my apathy. Much like the Hebrews after God had given them the promised land. They still disobeyed because of apathy caused by peace in their lives and in their souls. Something about peace causes us to start to forget how we got there in the first place. How is this possible? I don’t know how or why, but sometimes God allows us to ask questions for a long time before He answers them.
Applying this lesson to my life in other areas, including homeschooling, teaching piano, being a wife, mom and friend - will sharpen me, prune me, and fill me up. That Pastor Jim — always in tuned with what I needed to hear at that particular moment.
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