Show last night at the Basement with Old Bear and Kyiv was actually pretty solid, despite some minor mishaps and my own stumblings and intonation issues whenever I can't hear what's going on, which is semi-often when there's no time to do a sound check (that's just a cheap excuse--I'd have those problems on almost any gig involving a sound system, sigh). But a couple proud moments, too--I particularly liked a solo that I took on the last song of the night. Good music that I can enjoy with good friends whom I care about. I think it's the kind of gig that I'm looking for. I'm still figuring out where and how the music all fits into my life. Art. Beauty. Not sucking. But after a busy month and a half of rehearsals and gigs and recording, I've got a couple quieter weeks, I think, before things pick back up again in the second half of the month.
Went to a few of the plenary sessions of the Christian Community Health Fellowship annual conference here in Nashville last weekend, courtesy of the clinic I volunteer at. I am not a medical professional, of course, but since the central theme was the Kingdom of God, a lot of what the speakers were sharing was a broad call toward a focus on God's Kingdom and what we as followers of Christ are called to be/do in bringing that to bear in whatever spheres we find ourselves in. So it was good, I appreciated a lot of it, resonated with various things I've been thinking about as I've become steadily invested in my church community, its vision and my family there and our sense of place in East Nashville.
The weekend before that (Memorial Day weekend) I was a groomsman in a special little wedding here in town. A lot of folks poured out a lot of effort and energy and giftings to make it a really lovely celebration. All I had to do was show up in my tux. The next day I moved in with a friend of mine, so I'm finally a bit more settled, at least for the semi-indefinite future. Then spent the next day helping out a friend of mine from church who runs something called The Bridge (a program of the local YMCA), joining up with a bunch of folks for some cleaning and organizing and setting up for their summer enrichment program at a local middle school. Seems like it's pretty amazing and intense. They just started up this week.
What next? I might help out this weekend on a work project with some church friends for the Barefoot Republic summer camp. Or I might just have a quiet day. The push/pull of wanting to be busy and co-laboring with friends, but trying to take seriously my need for a bit of rest, too. We'll see, it's a game-time decision.
And yeah, I guess all those paragraphs are about things and programs and events and labors where you can see the Kingdom of God breaking through and transforming our life and culture and relationships, etc.
And it's June. Whaddya know.
