Making Music and Traveling to Tennessee

I just feel like writing some music. There are times in life when things have settled: we public school kids know this as summer. There is no homework to be done, there are no songs to be memorized, and you can pretty much sleep in everyday knowing that the only thing you've really missed is the sunrise. Very soon one begins to get a better idea of the self through some summertime reflection. What would you do if you had no responsibility and a relatively unlimited amount of time? Life can be puzzlingly difficult when you are not on a schedule. This is a big problem with public schools: I never learned time management. It's difficult for me if someone is not telling me where to be at certain times and what to do when I get there. Well, here I sit, blogging away on a Tuesday afternoon just reading a good book and thinking about what I would/should be doing with this time that I have. I want to write some music.

I was offered an elementary music teaching job (grades 1-8!) in Tennessee just a week or two ago. I accepted that job after some prayer and counsel (some counsel to the contrary). After six years of living in North Carolina making my home here, making connections, networking, and so on, I am moving back into my parent's house. It seems kind of silly, yeah? My parents only had to live one year with an empty nest, and now here I am back again in tiny Seymour, Tennessee. I'll be saving money, certainly, and I am hoping by the end of the next school year to have enough money to buy a house. According to Clark Howard, I've got about another year to enjoy this favorable time in the real estate market (at least for us buyers). I'm actually not very sure of what will be happening in a year, but I suppose I should just take it one step at a time right now. And right now, I want to write some music.

I can hardly imagine a more agonizing job than teaching 1st through 8th graders a combination of mediocre choral and general music. Why would I take the job then? I think it's probably the same reason I really enjoy writing women's choral music: not many people can do it well. And so, maybe, with God's blessing and determination, I can take this job and do it well, do it better than people have in the past. I mean, I'll write my own music for my own children's choir. We always put the responsibility on the conductor for the choir, right? I mean, singers, by and large, are pretty much the same wherever you go. Some places have richer histories than others, but God gave us all the ability to make music, and if you have the right leader, He can make it work. Boy, I really want to write some music.

It's amazing to see how God will work and really how much we have to depend on Him. It's also really amazing to see that while I am utterly and hopelessly dependent, He gives me a little shove and says, "Ready, set, go! Live life! Write music!" And how do you respond to that? Okay, I'll go, I'll live, I'll write some music.