Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Wonderings

I miss playing music tremendously. I miss the feeling I get when I nail a run on the bass. (and I miss the B string rumbling open through a big house system.) I miss playing hammond at my old church; rockin cool and sometimes dorky synth leads from my keytar; searching for the best whirly and rhodes patches; even holding down simple pads; I miss playing jazz on the trumpet, and even the symphonic stuff, and the stuff for church at Christmas, that, despite being overwhelming and challenging, still managed to pull it off every year. I miss learning new chord voicings on acoustic; anything to break the norm. I even miss practicing scales on those instruments (and I sorta miss the Hanon exercises, too). Sometimes I forget. But then I see people playing, and I remember just how good to feels to participate. I remember leading worship in high school, when it felt more like being led than anything else, because I'd get so lost in what I was singing and playing that everything else around me dissipated and the only presence I felt was God. Sometimes I still have those experiences while driving and listening to Jesus Culture or Hillsong or Amante Lacey or Tye Tribbett, where I fall into worship so wholly that I have to pull over. But I still miss playing; more than I know how to express.

I was thinking tonight: what if I had come to Belmont four years ago after all? I was so close - would have studied music business and trumpet... Could I have stuck with it? Or would I still have drifted to photography, and then video? It's so weird how the smallest details all add up to a drastically different path in life. I might have left Belmont after a year or two and stayed in Columbus, whereas, ironically, school at Cedarville, in the middle of miles of cornfields, OH, is somehow what got me back to Tennessee. See...

Leading worship at heritage -> worship degree at CU -> then joined gospel choir playing organ/synth -> three week Europe tour -> cheap dslr on eBay for photos to remember the trip -> falling in love with photography -> upgrading to a better dslr that coincidentally shot video -> getting very quickly involved with video -> getting a job because of video...
Meanwhile, I had gotten an admin assistant position because of the worship major at another church, dropped the worship major for audio production halfway thru freshman year. Spent sophomore year touring around the country running FOH sound, then went back to working at that church junior year to help fill the gap from my friend Mike who had moved to a new church. But because of Mike and a seemingly random occurence, I got connected via twitter with my current boss and job.

It's unreal to think of all these odd, little details, how one thing led to another, and though I never saw it coming, here I am. It's the most incredible job I could ever think of, and a year ago, I would never have even thought there was a job like this. Three months in and I still can't get over God's providence. He led the way when I was clueless about the path I was on, just stumbling along because it seemed like the right thing to do. There were even a few scary leaps, like turning down another year of touring; but I had peace through it. It just blows my mind. I know if I spent years planning and scheming, I couldn't have come up with anything half as awesome as God designed and brought me to. And there's still so much further that I don't know where He'll take me, but I'm not afraid of the unknown. My only fear is that I'll try to take control and miss something awesome.