Sound Lounge

Journeyed with a creative Jazz genius from Boston tonight down at the Sound Lounge (Seymour Centre). Amazing guy, Aaron Goldberg was his name. Played with clarity and precision, but a deft subtlety and range of emotions that took you places and gave you permission to break from the expectations that normally run your day. He could've been on his own or playing to a crowd of thousands and it wouldn't have mattered. He was in a world he had created of his own music, sharing it only with 2 of his friends and any ear that would listen.

It got me thinking about preaching. It's a difficult thing to find permission to step outside of the box from up front, so things can become mundanely average. It's actually pretty rare that the bible is average, predictable or stuck in one emotion for an entire section. There's an amazing range of experiences that take you on a journey, if only we will follow.

And yet ironically, while staying on a restricted path, we still miss the finer subtelties that colour and move those that would hear. Mediocre and static, rather than outrageous and dynamic, fighting to live up to the expectations of a few only to ignore the cravings of the many for a coloured, engaging journey into God's mind.

That's my danger anyway. I've heard many for whom this is not their struggle...

I also got to thinking about the power of words. He would play incredibly, but his comments in between were so empty and uncreative, I wondered if there was much substance to his music after all, or if it was uninterpreted emotions on their own. There was certainly no praise of God on his lips, made with his beautiful music. There was no score to record his melody, and no direction of it towards the source of life. Will it be lost to the walls of an intimate musical leisure hall, or will it be explained and directed to the only appropriate recipient of such a gift?

I want to enjoy the subtleties of expression and emotion, and have permission to dabble in the extremes. I want to give my gifts, however limited, for the praise of the one who gave them, and is worthy of receiving them. I want to preach faithfully to the Word of God.

JT