pedo mellon a minno

More concerts...

This is pretty bizzare, but this morning, my sunday morning snooze (one of the rare times I'm allowed to!) was interrupted by a call from a friend- he's got a worship concert coming up in two days, and he urgently needs a flute/tinwhistle/shofar/atmospherics guy! I mean, who ever designates a flute/tinwhistle/shofar/atmospherics as a definable job description? like, "say, pal, could you find me a flute/tinwhistle/shofar/atmospherics guy for this concert?"

But here it is, someone calling me on a sunday morning, telling me he needs such a guy for a concert in two days... bizzare. Anyways, it was kinda neat to be the friendly neighbourhood chapalang-man. Honored, almost. And in another bizzare twist of events, I was supposed to do another worship session thingy at another church for their youth service this week, and the practice would have been this tuesday; that enterprise got cancelled just yesterday! Which left a gaping tuesday night free (which, I thought, would be productively spent writing away at the comp). So incidentally, I get this call to do a concert tuesday and wednesday nights. How providential does that get? Its like playing chess with God. Actually, its more like God playing chess with himself, and i'm the hapless chessboard, in awe of his every move and countermove.

So i'm up for this worship concert thingy amongst a bunch of excellent local musicians (we practiced today... it was like, 5 minutes per song was sufficient... haha). Best of all, humble and gracious people. The worship leaders for the concert is this couple from Israel- messianic jews. With a pretty prolific and established worship and prophetic teaching ministry, Barry and Batya Segal were names i've heard- in fact, i've a few of their CDs... pretty powerful, anointed stuff. (all in hebrew too!!) One happens to be one of my all-time favourite cd. Kinda cool meeting the people behind the things that influence your life.

So here I am, doing funky celtic stuff to israeli music, while the rest are trying not to fall into a jazz groove they are so fond of! I dunno about you, but for me, this is almost pure grace and favor to be put in such a position to share a platform. Its like, mind blowing. On the other hand, it almost seems too, like trying to teach a chinese how to use chopsticks- irrelevant. I wonder how this will affect my life, my outlook regarding gifts, talents, humility, grace, pride, stewardship, authenticity, irresponsibility, providence. Its gonna be another Job-sized test I suppose... what I do with it, how I handle my heart out of this. The good stuff challenges us, even more so than the bad stuff stretch us. Its not everyday I get to do my favourite bits of atmospherics- celtic, jewish, middle eastern, fusion, wrapped up in the grace and priviledge of ministering in worship.

So anyhows, if you do happen to be free this Tuesday or Wednesday (25, 26 may), do drop by Bethesda Cathedral, 7:30pm for the concert. I'm pulling down my pipes and the kazak dombra and iranian nai for that middle eastern feel. Gonna have fun in the Lord, and learn another challenge of humility and reflectorship (if such a word exists), while bringing these peoples and cultures these instruments represent before the Lord in a sacrifice of praise and heart of adoration.

הוֹדוּ לַיהוָה כִּי-טוֹב
כִּי לְעוֹלָם חַסְדּוֹ
Hodu l'Adonai ki-Tov
ki le'Olam Qashdo
Ps 136:1