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Shiver and Shake

Posted on December 5, 2004November 18, 2019 by Paul Armstrong

It\’s one of those days where everything is directly made to boil me over. I made 5 batches of roasted coffee – 3 to give to one of the pastors, another to brew and share with the band and another for home. That was fine – perhaps a small business will form from my grassroots effort to infect people with the insatiable desire for home roasted coffee gloriousness. Or something.

At worship rehearsal (or whatever you may want to call it, as we meet in a room with no instruments but a piano and vocals to warm up for the service) our “leader” is completely distraught over her arm because her arm is inactive due to arthritis. I can’t discount that perhaps she does have arthritis, but it was an obvious obstacle to her ability to cast herself aside and focus her heart toward our task to lead and enter into worship. Things felt shaky from the start, and it was an overbearing air of anxiousness – not on most of our parts, but the one person who\’s taken it upon herself to “lead” (or is it belittle) us.

The opening set was handy dandy. Then during communion I got the snap – something that sends me into an immediate rage. I’M THE DRUMMER, DO NOT SNAP AT ME! I would have gladly slowly settled the tempo down, as it is more natural to gradually get everyone to slow down. But instead, she cannot wait and begins to snap. LOUDLY.

Everyone heard, everyone saw, and it made us look foolish. Who was everyone to follow, me or her? I slowed the tempo as I heard the band slow, and tried my best to ignore the disruptive snaps. I\’m still livid. Insulted. Partly at feeling humiliated and belittled, but mostly because someone’s insecurity and fear over their own perception interrupted our focus on worship, letting fear take captive our hearts to listen, respond and go … I’ll get over it. Although I am going to say next practice, that if that happens ever again, I will walk off the stage.

Soon it’s time for an open house with other parents in Abigails class. A good opportunity to see what they are like. I’m awkward around people I don’t know, let alone people I know I have nothing in common with. Shallowness is not a place I swim.

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