Sunday morning thoughts

There are a few things I don't talk about in mixed company, mainly politics and religion. I don't think I really have to explain why. I just smile politely or pretend like I'm somewhere else when they come up because I don't want the headache. Today, I'm going to talk about church a little bit.

For the second Sunday in a row, I'm not at church. Last week, the kids and I were just tired. They didn't even wake up until 9 and 930. Granted, we could still have made it to the service, but I didn't feel like dealing with four kids on my own, so we stayed home. Today, I have a migraine that is slowly ebbing after drugs and a shower, though I'm not feeling fantastic. I get migraines (or at least really awful headaches, I'm not sure I can actually call them migraines) quite often but usually at the end of the day. This one struck late last night and lingered into the morning. Normally I'd try to rest but my migraine meds have caffeine in them and today, that has kicked in so I'm wired and wide awake, but my migraine is still lingering. So that's fun.

Plus, I'm disappointed and a little "over" church right now.

I'm disappointed in my church, specifically. There have been decisions made over the past couple of years that I don't agree with, and that really really disappointed me. I do understand why they were made, and that in a couple of instances there wasn't really any other choice to make, but that doesn't mean that I agree with them.

Our church is older. I don't know what the average age is, but it's probably in the 50's. It's smaller because we have so many older members and not very many younger members. It honestly seems like us and one other family are the main ones growing the church, and that's mainly because our two families have had a combined 8 children in the last 9 years. There aren't many families with young children, though every Sunday I'm surprised by the number of kids who go to the front for the Children's sermon and who come thundering down the stairs at the end from children's church.

I honestly think a big reason our church doesn't have more young families is because there is basically no programming for us. We have great groups for the older crowd, the children's programs are good, though not as good as they used to be, and there are things parents could go to occasionally, but the main issue is childcare. Our church rarely has that as an option for anything taking place outside of Sunday morning.

I have four kids. They would definitely take away any enjoyment of adult activities not only for me and Austin, but for other adults present, if we were to try to go to some of the activities in the evenings or mornings. So we don't.

Don't get me wrong, we show up to a LOT of stuff. We show up to congregational meetings, lunches, activities, special services, etc. We bring our brood of kids and deal with the stress of keeping them under control and from bothering other people.

That's not to say our kids are wild and out of control, because they're not. But they are kids. They get restless. They may not like the food served at the meals, so we have to eat quickly and get them home to eat something they'll actually eat.

Because our church is mainly an older population, I like to say we have a lot of grandparents. Most of them are grandparents to their own, but because their families don't live close, my kids and the other kids in the church benefit from the love they have to give. The women in our church volunteer at the MDO and rock the babies. I've heard there's one lady who loves to just sit and rock Rebekah, which I love. They smile and coo and make faces at my kids. My kids just take it in stride because this is normal for them.

A couple of weeks ago at a brunch welcoming our interim minister, one grandma used her walker to create a space next to Rebekah's high chair where there really wasn't one with a sweet smile on her face the whole time. The person who had been sitting closer to Rebekah just scooted over and made space. The grandma just beamed at me and said so many times during the brunch how much she loved sitting next to this messy, happy, baby. She didn't use those words, but when I warned her that Rebekah might reach out with her messy hands and touch her sleeves or her pretty jacket, she brushed it off. She didn't mind at all. Later, when I was standing nearby talking to Austin, she asked if I needed a seat and offered me her walker (she was not about to give up the prized seat next to the baby).

I love the people of our church. They work hard to support each other and the community. They show up for each other when needed. They love each other and on each other's families. They celebrate new babies and marriages and grieve losses. They cry when a member moves away. And I love that about them.

The thing is, our leadership is getting burned out. It's the same small group of (mostly older) people leading everything. The same people lead Sunday School, head up committees, take charge of donation drives, show up to our community outreach programs, take care of our children, and more. Austin was willing to be praise leader as a volunteer position, but they insisted it be a paid position. So we donate the majority of that back to the church. I got voluntold as the president of the women's group, Circle with Faith (or Christian Women's Fellowship) for the year, a position I wasn't, and still aren't, thrilled with, but I recognize that no one else wanted it and the people who have done it for years, among other leadership positions, are getting tired. They need a break. So I've managed to delegate out some of the tasks and look at myself as more of a manager than anything else.

I admire these same people for continually stepping up and showing up. It's hard to be one of the few people making sure things are working and moving forward when no one else is volunteering and in fact is telling you what you're doing wrong and that you should do it better, but don't ask them to do anything.

I don't have any answers as to how to "fix" things. Our church is slowly moving towards closing it's doors (this is known around the church so I'm not spilling any beans by writing about it now) and that's sad, but the church is not just the building, it's also the people. These amazing people will be fine wherever they end up. Those who lead will continue to do so and those who follow will continue to follow. Maybe if our church has to downsize or disband all together the leaders will get a break and the followers will be inspired to do more.

Personally, and I know I'm not the only one, I feel like our church needs to downsize. There are thriving, young churches in our area that could greatly benefit from having our beautiful space. Mom and I talked about how it's like her giving us her house: an older population is occupying a huge beautiful space that they don't need and can't fill while a younger population is crowded into a small space that they're making work, but it would be such a blessing to have the bigger space. Everyone who has heard about the house has said how amazing that is and how smart and logical it is. And yet when it comes to the church, we're clinging to it like a life raft in the middle of an ocean.

And I get it, I do. Many people in our church grew up there, raised their children there, were married there and watched their children get married there. It's a lovely space and we're all sentimental about it. But sometimes, it's time to move on and let the younger generation have a turn.

I wasn't raised in this church. I was raised in another church that disbanded and I have sentimental feelings about that building, but I'm glad that it's being utilized by a new congregation. When the church disbanded, the last service had maybe 30 people there, people who had been there almost since the beginning of the church 20 years earlier. I don't know how many people are there now, but surely it's more than that. I still drive past occasionally and look at the building, wondering what the inside looks like. Maybe one of these days I'll go and see.

As you can probably see, I have a lot of mixed feelings about our church. I don't have any easy answers and I wish I did. I wish I could flip a switch and young families would suddenly start flocking to our church so that it would grow and thrive the way it used to. I wish there was a way to have so many members that we had to have multiple full services and not enough space for our children on the steps of the sanctuary during the children's sermon. I've asked people who've visited and not returned why and their answers were things that we can't change, which is both reassuring and very frustrating.

Maybe I'm just feeling down about church because of the situation the church is in right now. Maybe it's the season. Winter always makes me feel a little down. Maybe I'm just tired in general. I don't know. I don know that whatever happens, it'll be ok. If we attend this church until we die or if we attend this church until this summer, it'll be ok.

Musical Influences

Austin's been doing the 10 albums in 10 days thing and like a schmo, he nominated me today. It's like he doesn't even know me. 

I had a different relationship with music than most of my peers. Growing up, I didn't buy albums because I didn't have any money, so I listened to the radio. In college, I still didn't have money to spend on music, so it was the radio in the car and downloaded stuff in my room (anyone my age who doesn't fess up to illegally downloading music in college is LYING. We all did it). The few cds I had, I got as gifts or I won on the radio, so weren't necessarily my taste. I also joined the Columbia Music Club then never bought another cd. Because again, I had no money. 

The first cd I ever got was Bob Carlyle's Butterfly Kisses. It...well, I know some people still have fond feelings about that song. I did at the time. But after listening to the only cd I had on loop for, I don't know, months, I developed a hatred for it. It's sentimental and saccharine and if my daughters want it at their weddings, I'll roll my eyes before and then blubber my way through it. 

The cds I started buying for myself were mostly soundtracks, because movies are more my jam. I really liked the soundtracks to 10 Things I Hate About You and She's the Man, among others. I listened to classical music to get inspiration for piano pieces I wanted to listen to and also because it was nice to have soothing background music while reading. 

When driving around with friends, though, we wanted something punky. So we listened to Offspring and...Sum 41? All American Rejects? I don't even know. Bowling for Soup was another band I dug, along with Weird Al. 

Side note, it's super fun to drive around with the windows down and blasting something like the 1812 Overture. 

I really liked Oldies (music from the 50-70s) in high school and college. Since the oldies apparently includes up to the early 90's, I still like it. I got a cd of Steve Miller Band in 2001 on a friend's recommendation and thought that was pretty good. I got Taylor Swift's first cd a month or so after it came out and really thought that kid was going places. LOVED Kelly Clarkson's Since You Been Gone album. It came out at the right time in my life. 

Dad introduced me to Natalie Cole. He usually listened to classical, but he had her album Unforgettable, and our favorite track was the duet with her dad on the title song. It was almost our wedding dance song. We went with his favorite song, The Way You Look Tonight, sung by Tony Bennett. 

Caleb, hearing that I really liked All American Rejects and bands like them, made me a mix cd that is probably one of my favorite cds to date. I think I still have it somewhere. It had a lot of the punky type music that I enjoy blasting, but you can hear the lyrics enough that you can learn them and sing along. It had bands like AAR, Good Charlotte, Bowling for Soup, and more. Again, I don't even know the names of the songs. Several years after he gave it to me, I took the time to google the song lyrics to get the names of the songs themselves and the bands. 

Austin and I bonded over OAR while he was in Denmark. 52-50 is about a man who can't wait to get home to his girl. It felt fitting. We actually liked Nickleback and chose Far Away for our wedding dance song. Lyrics like "Who was I to make you wait" and "I've been far away for far too long" felt like a pretty good description of our relationship. 

Johnny Cash was apparently always a favorite of mine. Apparently as a toddler, I'd dance to Johnny's tapes or on the radio. One of my favorite memories of my wedding is when my immediate family, the Original 7, were posing for photos on the lawn and Ring of Fire started playing and we all sang along. You can see it in some of the pictures. Waiting on the Far Side Banks of the River Jordan is so heartbreaking and his version of Hurt is amazing. And of course who doesn't love A Boy Named Sue or One Piece at a Time or Folsom Prison Blues?

One of the last pieces of music I learned as a kid taking piano lessons was the first movement of The Moonlight Sonata. That song is super hard. I have a tendency to want to speed up as I'm playing and that song is all about plodding along at the same speed. It was fun to use the damper pedal, though. In college, I "learned" it again to play for the semester recital. I'm a snob about keyboards vs pianos, so I rarely practiced the two semesters I took lessons in college, but I did manage to play MS perfectly from start to finish. Once. Luckily, my teacher was there, so I had a witness to that amazing feat. 

These days, I listen to audio books more than music, but when I do listen to music, it's usually the Hamilton soundtrack (it's been in the cd player in my car for about a year and a half now) or the radio. Lin-Manuel Miranda is so incredibly talented. I don't sing along well because I don't think my mouth can move that fast, but I make an attempt. 

I do have Amazon music on my phone and I'll occasionally play something from there, but if I'm listening to music, I want something I can sing along to, so Broadway soundtracks and music from high school and college are usually the order of the day. 

Looking back, I probably could do the whole 10 albums in 10 days, but I'm lazy and I know I won't follow through. So here's my ten all at once.