Old files reveal new relationship treasures
View from a Pew
By Sue Robbins
Any god who asks me to leave my brain at the door isn’t going to win my heart.
Our church building is like many downtown churches built at the turn of the 20th Century: large, majestic, stained glass everywhere with mazes of classrooms, storage cubbies and back-altar spaces. Nature abhors a vacuum; and over the course of decades, the large, cavernous, in-between spaces in a church can suck in a lot of clutter. It’s just so much easier (and safer) not to decide to deal with out-of-date files and equipment but, rather, squirrel them all away where nobody goes until…well, later.
As part of our Lenten Discipline this year, a group of us girded up our loins and decided that “later” had come! We committed to cleaning out the spaces behind the altar in preparation for an adult Sunday school class we hope to offer later this year. This past Saturday, we took on the music room. {jathumbnail off}
Imagine two huge, wall-sized credenzas full-to-the-brim-so-the-doors-hardly-shut with sixty years of books and sheet music. As the ghosts of past choir directors fussed and fluttered about us, we donned latex gloves, shook out lawn-sized garbage bags, plugged in the piano keyboard, and started to work. We suspected – although we weren’t sure – that amongst the many “He Hath Borne My Sin” dirges we’d find musical treasure in the ancient files.
And, happily, we did! But this is church work, and in church work the most valuable “treasure” is always the journey and the people. And so it was in that sunny “upper room,” with all the windows open on a perfect dry season Saturday, we were laughing together at folders of music with scribbles on the front: “Last sung Jun ‘68. This music is NOT usable” (And 43 years later, it’s still here…?) and listening in awe to the one among us gifted with a performance-level soprano voice: “Hey, I know this one! It goes like this…” Oh, my.
Life and God are most often found in the “between” spaces, those cluttered pass-throughs on the way to something else. What starts as a project with a goal becomes relationships and renewed commitment and a deeper appreciation of gifts and talents. It’s church!
The Balboa Union Church is located across from the HSBC Bank in Balboa and holds Protestant worship services every Sunday at 10 a.m.
