Over the past seven years I have regularly moved from one apartment to another, and finally from an apartment to a house. But my job has been a constant. Yesterday was my last day at Trinity and when I head off to New York next Wednesday, everything changes! Yikes!

In a final meeting with my spiritual director this morning, we talked about this transition; not necessarily how to manage it, but how to approach it with expectancy, with the hope that God can and will bring new perspective through this time. As we talked, I had an instinctive sense that I need to journal and blog more regularly in the next three weeks. Not only do I need some sort of regular spiritual discipline but this blog has been a great way to think out loud and to give my sometimes chaotic thoughts a sort of structure. So, I invite you into to walk through this transition with me and also welcome your feedback and prayers as I travel.

Packing over the last week was a strange experience. The amount of work-related stuff that I own (books, scores, and other material objects) has more than doubled since I arrived here after graduate school. And as I put it into boxes, sometimes lingering over an object or a piece that brought back a lovely memory, I realized that the sort of work we do in the church is very hard to describe and often misunderstood, especially in comparison to the business world. I have been a manager in some sense, with responsibility for the quality and the culture of the music program. I have been a service provider in some sense. But to me those words seem to cheapen the spiritual aspects of this work. They do not adequately describe the deep web of relationships that have connected me to this particular congregation and to this larger entity called the Church.

Serving as a church musician has not ultimately been about maintaining or attracting “customers” through a particular musical style, or even about greater efficiency, productivity or growth as good as those things might be. But in my particular case it has been about creating a sacred space for worship to happen (a time that Marva Dawn defiantly calls a “royal waste of time” – so much for productivity!). It has meant facilitating conversations with and between people who often have very different preferences and needs but who love the same God. It has been a call to nurture, challenge and care for a congregation through sensitive musical choices. It has asked me to fully welcome the musical gifts of all God’s children, regardless of skill, age or experience.

These things cannot happen without connection. It means careful listening, discernment, and taking others’ thoughts, ideas, critique, joys, hurts and needs seriously. And these relationships run very deep. Yesterday was not just a day to wrap up all the details and turn in the keys so that I can simply walk into a new congregation and start from scratch. But in some way beautiful way I bring all of these relationships with me as I go. I cannot (and at this point don’t want to) easily untangle myself from the beautiful and deep threads that have connected me to Trinity over the past seven years.