Lenten Devotional by Rick Seaholm
March 10, 2017
“Be still, and know that I am God.” (Psalm 46:10)
When I was a young man, I was quite active in my local church, and a budding professional musician. There are many stories such as mine.
The church musician calls the sanctuary “home”. The church musician frequently finds himself alone in the sanctuary with his thoughts, his pencil, and, sometimes as necessary, complete silence. The church musician has keys and alarm codes to the church sanctuary from a tender age. A trustworthy freelance church musician, in fact, may possess a specialized ring with keys from multiple area churches, a resume in three-dimensions.
The church musician often enters the sanctuary after the rest of the world has gone to bed, long after the stained glass (which gloriously makes itself known in swathes across pew tops on Sunday mornings) has also retired for the evening. The church musician walks several paces led by cell phone illumination or, the true badge of honor, from memory, toward the circuit breaker box, fully aware that his spiritual predecessors still breathe in this space, perhaps resting, unseen, in a favorite pew from years before. This doesn’t bother the church musician. The church musician honors, and takes comfort in, their presence as he prepares to serenade them. The spirits, in turn, evaluate his progression on a series of difficult passages played meticulously, slowly, then swifter, until they are ready to be blended with their adjoining measures after the stained glass has awoken the following morning, when overhead lights and cell phone screens are no longer necessary.
The church musician pauses for reflection and sustenance. Peanut butter sandwich and soda can in hand, the church musician breaks a Sunday morning rule, pacing the sanctuary, reading brass plates below statuary, dedications on pew backs. The church musician rests on the floor in the center aisle. Rules of decorum don’t necessarily apply at midnight. The church musician retrieves a crisply folded bulletin from a basket at the front entrance and scans the hymn numbers. 593 again? Still, the church musician wipes his hands on his pants and plays through each hymn, double-time. As the steeple bells offer a programmed postlude of their own, the church musician closes his briefcase, offers a gesture of peace to the worshiping spirits, closes the circuits, activates the alarm, and retires for the “evening”. The church musician will return with the sun in just a few hours.
For the church musician, sanctuary means sanctuary.
God, this Lent help us to understand each other more fully, by seeing your sanctuary through new eyes. Amen