The Heart Overflowing

Each heart secretly waits and yearns
For something or someone for which to burn
To be alive, to beat, to feel, to love
To find peaceful rest at the set of the sun
Yet the heart is so fragile; it tends to be weak
It opens a bit then closes in the very next beat
The heart struggles to trust and to open its door
For fear that the world will dash its hopes & dreams to the floor

It seems that as it finally starts to open up
Something happens that causes hurt and distrust
How can we lose the doubt, the hurt, the fear
And believe that someone will desire to have us near
Near enough to know the intricacies of that heart
Near enough to draw it out and consider it set apart

So our hearts lie waiting...waiting
For someone to grab it and persist in making
It into something alive and beautiful
To realize its precious, lovable, not dull
But who will undertake an act so long & hard
For everyone's hearts are injured by life so far
Is there anyone who knows its worth the work
Who will tenderly push aside any residue of dirt

Then God gently steps in with a cure
He fills us with His love so good and pure
We become cleansed, renewed, and freed of tears
His love gives us the patience to open up with no fear
He whispers in our ear that He knows all our desires
That He loves us forever and will help us acquire
Someone who will love us with a heart similar to His
Someone's who's a mirror of God's love, which is never amiss

So the heart can stop waiting- it's filled with love
It's become alive with God's unfailing touch
We get renewed so we can take on this life
Which can cause so much hurt, bitterness, and strife
When we fail to love well, as we so often do
Its our own broken hearts not letting true love shine through
We can only realize that all we need is God's love;
He holds our heart in His palm as we slowly learn to trust.

It doesn't matter who your great great grandpa is

I went to a very bad concert last night, in all my short life I've never had an experience quite like it. For chapel credit, we could go to this concert. The guy is the great great (great?) grandson of one of the founders of Biola, R.A. Torrey. Yes, and he's also the founder of the infamous and slightly ridiculed Torrey program. So Thomas Torrey (yes that was the grandson's name) was singing at this concert. He gets up on stage and mumbles something into the mic, which I doubt anyone could understand. Partly because he talked too fast and partly because his mic volume was turned down way too low. Then he starts to sing, and again we couldn't understand a word. It just sounded like random moaning. The poor guy looked in pain, and slightly scared. He kept his eyes squeezed shut tight the whole time with his face frozen in a sort of grimace. He could have been worshipping, but how could anyone tell if it was a worship song? He had a paper with the lyrics taped on his microphone stand and he didn't move from one spot the entire time. He hopped from song to song without any sort of intro or break between song, which didn't really matter because they all sounded surprisingly similar. His guitar playing was off from his base player's rhythm and the drummer was a bit behind, I'm thinking it might have something to do with the bad sound job. It was entertaining... but not in the way it was meant to be I'm guessing. All this to say that:
A) it's probably best to hear the guy before you ask him to come sing in front of hundreds of people. B) good sound people are invaluable. C) stage presence is essential. D) It's a good idea to learn your own lyrics E) it's not always the best when all the songs sound the same. F) Just because you have a famous great great great great great granddaddy doesn't mean you've got the famous genes.

Vision

10 doctrines in 10 hours... all in one fun filled weekend called the Torrey Theology Conference. Not the best way to spend your Saturday, in my opinion. But then again, I think God has a sense of humor. He takes those things I don't want to do, rubs my attitude in my face and says, "here callie, learn something." So I walked in with a yawn and slumped down in a chair. The first speaker walked up and put a hymn up on the screen, asked us to stand and we started singing. I went through all the verses in a sort of daze and sat down. A hush fell over the room and we all waited expectantly for the first boring theology lecture. "Why do we sing that?" he asked quietly. As people started answering with things about focus and worship, I started to think about it. Why did I sing that hymn? What did the words really mean? I mean, the song is ancient and oddly phrased, how can I get anything from it? The answer to that didn't come and I became oddly discomforted. I started to listen to what the speaker was saying. He was talking about our need to have theology in the church. Throughout the years, theology has become something only for pastors-to-be, or wanna-be-doctorate students. I went back to thinking about the hymn. It was written hundreds of years ago, sometime in the 3rd century. It was penned in a time when all the doctrines of the church were still up in the air. The church fathers were still having counsels trying to solidify exactly what they believed. Ideas about Christ as both man and God and the concepts of the Trinity were absolutely fascinating to them. They spent their entire lives searching the scriptures for insights into the being of God. When most of these hymns were written, they were written full of rich theology. In an age where the newcoming "emergent church" says all that matters is if you "love Jesus", we have come far from knowing how to do just that. Without knowing who He is, or learning His heart, how can we love Him? And God is a consistent God, He is the same now as he was when the church fathers were writing down our concrete church doctrines. I just don't delve deep enough into knowing Him. . . I know I definitely don't take the time to pick apart the Bible and its ideas like they did. I tend to leave that for the pastors. But, I realized while sitting in that conference that though you can obviously know God and draw close to Him without going all theological, it plays a bigger role than I used to think. Maybe hymns aren't so bad either.
So from now on I plan to take a look at some of the hymns I sing. They say a lot more than you'd think, if you look past the old language and the plodding tunes. Theology conferences, or any other study of God and His doctrines, isn't that bad either I've discovered. I learned a ton that weekend. It's more complex than it was in sunday school, but that's the beauty of the Bible! It's simple enough for children, yet it never becomes unnecessary or completely figured out.

Oh and the hymn that caused this long train of thought was "Be Thou My Vision":

"Be Thou my vision Oh Lord of My heart. Naught be all else to me save that Thou art. Thou my best thought, by day or by night. Waking or sleeping Thy presence my light. Be Thou my Wisdom and Thou my true Word. I ever with Thee and thou with me Lord. Thou my great Father and I thy true son. Thou in me dwelling and I with Thee one. Be Thou my battle-shield, sword for my fight, be Thou my dignity, Thou my delight. Thou my soul's shelter, Thou my high tower. Raise Thou me heavenward, O Power of my power. Riches I heed not, nor man's empty praise, Thou mine inheritance, now and always: Thou and Thou only, first in my heart, High King of heaven, my treasure Thou art. High King of heaven, my victory won, may I reach heaven's joys, O bright heavens Son! Heart of my own heart, whatever befall, still be my vision, O ruler of all."

Ode to Choir

Women's chorus is a most interesting environment. We are led by one Mrs. Ramsey a tiny woman of about 45. Interestingly enough, she is not the typical choir conductor. Most musical people are a bit on the Mrs. Robinson side: creative, artsy, scatterbrained, outgoing, and slightly psycho. In contrast, Mrs. Ramsey is a perfectionist concerned with every little detail. She's paranoid about getting sick. Any girl that comes in coughing she forces them to sit on the far side of the room. One day she had a bit of a cold and she wouldn't talk the whole choir period in order to preserve her voice. We had an entertaining time trying to understand all the funny hand motions. I would have talked! Not talking for hours on end sounds like some sort of cruel and unusual punishment. I can go about 3 1/2 minutes tops without blurting something. But she's very dedicated. In fact her husband was in ICU for a heart attack on Sunday morning when we performed for a church. . . and she came! Wow.
Oh and another huge WOW for Mr. Wills, our accompanist, who is arguably one of the best pianists in the world. Ok well at least the best one I've ever seen. Doesn't Mr. Wills sound like someone from a kids show on PBS? like Mr. Rogers the sequel or something. Maybe you have to see him to understand what I mean. Anyways. He can sight-read anything put in front of him, but he ad libs all sorts of cool parts to our songs. One piece was written for four hands and ya, he does it all himself. Oh! He can play any song perfectly at the spur of the moment. I'm serious! Just say "Aladdin" or "Phantom" or "The Entertainer" and away he goes. His jazz music is incredible. There's a mini ode for Mr. Wills.
As for the girls, with whom I spend 4 whole hours a week, they are an...interesting group. At an extra rehearsal on one beautiful Saturday afternoon, all us girls were eating lunch. We happened to be chatting about movies that made us cry. A Walk to Remember. The Notebook. When suddenly...wait pause.
First, I have to tell you about Carrie. Carrie is the dear girl who sits next to me in choir. She scooters into class every day and never fails to make me smile. She is small (she looks only about 9th grade) and one of those extremely eccentric-spacy-but oddly cute girls. She takes copious notes all over her music. If Mrs. Ramsey says a certain note is "G", she writes "G" on the note. She has no idea what a G is, but if Mrs. Ramsey said it, it must be true. She has marks covering every inch of white on the music. She also loves to make up her own parts, so I hear many Carrie solos throughout the class. Ok play.
So us girls were getting worked up about how sad the Lion King is. Really though, when Mufasshah dies, it's heart breaking. We were rehashing the moving scene when suddenly Carrie clued into the conversation. She suddenly spouts out, "I cried when my boyfriend broke up with me." Um...awkward silence. Not expecting that. She had such an adorable, sad, spacy look on her face that one of the girls finally smiled and said, "Well...ya...that happens." I had to laugh (later of course).
Oh here's another spacy choir moment. We were sitting in class and Mrs. Ramsey couldn't find the measure she wanted because her eyes were too bad. "That's what happens when you get to an old age like me" she comments. "65!" a girl from the front row, Emily, called out.A hush fell over the room. A horrified look crossed Mrs. Ramsey's face. "I'm not 65," she said slowly. Emily looked confused and then corrected herself, "No, no. You're looking for measure 65 right here. I found it." A huge collective sigh of relief, as all the other choir girls let out their held breath. Everyone really thought Emily was aging Mrs. Ramsey by 20 years. Not always a smart idea.
Well that is my lovable choir. They love to sing "shark attack" over and over. They love to talk about hot guy composers as if they were movie stars. I can't help but love them:) So here is my ode to my choir.

Pet Peeves

I couldn't sleep last night. I just was laying awake let my mind spin round in circles. A list started forming of all the things in life I hate. I feel like I need to vent about this somewhere, so here you go. I hate the feeling of long toe nails...ew gross...especially on my legs. I hate when someone litters in a pretty place (ya paige that means you!) I hate it when someone with a horrible voice sings really loud because they think they're really good (sorry american idol, but the first weeks of your show are awful!). I hate it when there's hair stuck in a hair brush (considering it's a hair brush I should probably let it go, but still it bothers me). I hate it when people put cold hands on my warm body, sucking all the heat like cold hands of death! I hate when the same commercials play a bunch of times in a row when watching a show. I just hate commercials (but who doesn't!). I hate it when there's patchy wireless internet. I hate it when you think someone's smiling at you, so you smile back but then realize they're looking past you (but of course that never happens to me). I hate it when I get in the shower and there's no hot water. Or when someone's borrowed my shampoo and I'm just stuck there and don't want to get back out in the cold to hunt down to kill the sister that stole my shampoo. I hate it when I lose one earring. I hate breakups--seeing one or being in one-- it all sucks (duh!). I hate the smell of palmolive dish soap. I don't really love all that many chick flicks ( I did not go so far as to say hate though, but they do bug me sometimes.) I hate it when girls and guys are so categorized and relationships are so stereotpyicalized (not a word I know) that good healthy examples of relationships are hard to find. I hate drying dishes but I'll wash any day. I hate it that TV shows make a mockery of marriage (as funny as Everybody Loves Raymond is, I am not one of the everybody that loves Ray). Screamo music is not really music. I hate dirty bathrooms (but honestly how can anyone like dirty anything?). I hate choir dresses, it's like wearing a tent. I hate it when my phone goes dead in the middle of a conversation. I hate it when someone leaves the milk out and it gets hot, ew. Skipping CD's and DVD's. I hate it when your watching a movie or reading a book and the main character does something totally socially awkward and you want to just yell "stop!" or" don't say that!" or "he's right behind you!". But of course they never stop and your opinion of the protagonist goes way way down. I hate dirty rugs. But then again I don't like vacuuming (it's so very noisy)...there's a bit of a conundrum.
So if you couldn't tell I was up a long time. And I sound a bit like a debbie downer! I do promise there's way more ups in life than downs, especially with the right perspective. But I fell asleep (lucky for you) before I got to the things that aren't pet peeves. What's the opposite of a pet peeve anyways???