It was a fifth Sunday this week.  An event that happens 4 times a year.  My church used to have a dinner every time the day rolled around. Nowadays, we get together to sing on the fifth Sundays.  Songs by Request, we call it.

The Lovely Lady plays the piano.  I usually get roped into leading the singing.  Folks in the audience yell out hymn numbers (yes, we pull out the old hymnbooks for the event) and we sing a couple of verses from each request.

Arriving early on Sunday evening, we noticed a microphone on a regular stand near the center of the stage.  Knowing that a boom stand would work better to get the microphone close to me, I went looking and found one in the back of the equipment room.

It wasn’t until the end of the first song that I noticed the problem.  It might have been the reason the stand was stowed where it had been in the little room off the stage.

As we sang, the weight of the microphone pushed the end of the boom down toward the music stand that held my hymnbook.  I pulled it back into position, tightening the adjustment knob to hold it there.

We sang another song.  By the end of a couple more verses, the mic was right back where it had been. You understand, don’t you, that a mic has to be close to one’s mouth to be effective at all?

Repeating the process, we soldiered on. But, after another two verses, it was clear the boom stand wasn’t up to the job.  Begging the pardon of the waiting audience, I went in search of the original stand.  They of course had been entertained by the extracurricular activities, so there was a fair amount of laughter from their seats in the interim.

Amid the laughter, I heard a voice from someone suggesting I prop up the end of the boom with the regular stand.  I thought about that for about two seconds and rejected the idea, instead trading out one stand for the other.

I’ve mentioned before that I like things to be orderly, haven’t I?  I sort my potato chips into stacks of broken and whole—my M&Ms by color.  Don’t tell the Lovely Lady, but I even like my blue jeans hung up by the degree of fading (when they’re not sorted by waist size, that is).

It would be messy to have a regular mic stand sitting under the business end of a boom stand propping it up.  I wouldn’t like the optics.

So, I set the microphone atop the regular stand and disposed of the boom behind me, forgetting that the mic wouldn’t be close to my mouth unless I leaned in next to it.  Even with it sitting beside my hymnal, instead of behind it, I’d have to adjust my stance to get the sensitivity necessary for clear sound to reach the audience.

For the rest of the hour, I repeated hymn numbers over and over as folks would say, “What number again?”  When I asked the fellow with whom I had arranged beforehand to pray a closing prayer, another man nearby touched his chest and mouthed, “Who, me?” because he couldn’t hear me clearly.

Because I wanted to keep things neat, folks were inconvenienced.  Perhaps, even embarrassed.

But, there was no mess on the stage!

I know, if you ask any of the good folks who attended, none would remember either the mess or lack thereof.  They probably weren’t even annoyed much by the need for me to repeat myself.  I may be the only one having any second thoughts about my choices that night.

But, I want to remember. 

I want to remember that life is messy.  Our interactions with strangers can be awkward.  Our exchanges with family members are often without tact and require apologies afterward.  We don’t always fit together without fidgeting and rubbing off some rough corners.

I want to remember that sometimes you leave the errant green bean, that somehow escaped from someone’s plate and onto the floor, to be cleaned up later.  The joyous cacophony around the dinner table won’t be flawed at all because of a little mess underneath it.

I want to remember that sometimes the notes don’t come out perfectly and my voice cracks when I sing the high ones.  And, once in a while, the Lovely Lady plays a natural when it should have been a flat.  And, we don’t stop and correct it, because the music is beautiful despite the mess.

Beautiful and messy. 

And, that’s all of life, isn’t it?  A glorious mess. 

Still.  I think I’ll check out the mic stand before the next hymn night.  It never hurts to plan ahead.

“Life is a journey that must be traveled, no matter how bad the roads and accommodations.” (Oliver Goldsmith, Irish novelist/poet)

“Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.  Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling.”  (1 Peter 4:8-9, NIV)

© Paul Phillips. He’s Taken Leave. 2024. All Rights Reserved.