The Deacon's Bench - July, 2008

My youngest daughter, Meredith, plays the euphonium in the USAF band. She told me two stories one day that I’d like to share with you this week.

The first occurred when she was taking a lesson from her teacher at the University of North Texas, the euphonium capital of the world. Her instructor interrupted her in the middle of a session and told her, “Meredith – no one wants to hear you play your euphonium.” Her immediate reaction was shock and discouragement -she’d thought she had been performing perfectly. But then he continued “What people want to hear is you telling them ‘I love you’ through your euphonium. There’s no other reason to play, and no other reason to listen.” Her next reaction was to think ‘Wow!’ and feel powerful surges both of challenge and privilege.

It’s like that in our lives, too. We react differently to the nurse or doctor who treats us with care and compassion than we do to the one who treats us like an anonymous inconvenience, even if they perform perfectly. Same with teachers, landscapers, CEO’s, moms, dads – everyone, even deacons. Does everything we do with other people allow God to say to them through us, “I love you?”

The second story is about a time when Meredith was about to perform solo in front of a large number of Very Important People. One of her band-mates came up to her and asked her if she was nervous. She thought about it for a few moments and said, “No, I’m not nervous at all. I’m excited!”

What a difference a word makes! To be nervous is to wallow in self-conscious doubt and fear of failure. To be excited is to relish the opportunity in our path, intent on doing the very best we can right then, utterly unself-conscious. The physical emotion is the same, but how we frame it makes it either toxic or exhilarating; the choice is all ours.

Are we nervous or excited about our relationship with God? Do we wallow sometimes in self-conscious fear, dwelling on our sins, weaknesses and failures? Might we not choose to be excited instead by the recognition that Jesus has definitively liberated us from the very things that are at the root of our fears?

There’s nothing more exhilarating in this life than to permit ourselves to give freedom to that growing awareness within us of wonder at the amazing God who became what we are so that we could become what God is. It leads pretty naturally into the praise, gratitude and respectful familiarity that are the hallmarks of the relationship between God and his friends. Cultivating love like this, we’ll find that in no time at all everything we do with other people allows God to say to them through us, “I love you!”

Deacon Tim’s Fast Recipe #2

1.5 pounds of chopped sirloin
2 cans vegetarian vegetable soup
Instant potatoes (6-8 serving amount)

1. Brown meat; drain fat into trash, not the sink - aaargh, what are you doing!!!!
2. Throw in soup
3. Mix until you don’t feel like doing that any more
4. Make potatoes. Arrange in a ring in anything that will let you do that and then pour the meat/soup mix into the middle of the ring without having it dripping all over the place
5. Brown in broiler (optional – depends on how quickly you want to eat)
6. Serve anonymously in a darkened room under low light