My children have more musical talent than I. I've tried to nurture their talents. A result of lacking talent myself is that at times I've worried more about technique and counting than I have about making music.
Last spring, the kids once again prepped for a music contest. I worried about their theory test. Could they write the counts correctly underneath the music? We worked on it every single day.
As we sang that same week in church, I worried about the cantor. She counted a dotted whole note as a regular whole note. Curses! Foiled again! How can my nine-year-old know to count 6 beats if we sing it wrong in church?
We sit in the front. After the service was over, I sat between my kids, with the hymn in hand, explaining to them exactly how to count that measure.
They wouldn't miss it at the contest if I could help it. I whispered very quietly, explaining how we sang it and how it should have been sung. Part of me congratulated myself for finding every teachable moment to hammer home how to count.
Slowly, I realized there was someone standing directly in front of our pew. It was the cantor. I'm sure she heard part of my discussion. “I wanted to tell you how well-behaved your kids are in church and how well they participate,” she told me.
“Thank you,” I answered.
Why don't they make church pews with trap doors in the floor so we can slide out when embarrassing moments happen?
Here was a woman who volunteered her time to sing and wanted to reach out to my family. Instead, she had to listen to Miss Discipline Note-Counter, who probably banged nursery rhymes as a toddler, stress the counting of two extra beats.
If Jesus Christ had been sitting in the pew beside me, would He have spent His time worrying about whether that dotted whole note got 6 beats or 4? Or would He have joined a congregation singing a hymn of praise to God Almighty?
When I sat there, with my children, pigheaded in my determination to be right and do things right, what was I teaching them? Were they learning to be humble servants? Or were they learning to worry more about the count of beats than the song? Was I teaching them arrogance instead of love?
Ecclesiastes tells us there is an appointed time for everything.
There is a time to sing.
There is a time to count.
There is a time to sing and count at the same time.
There is also a time to hold one's tongue and say nothing.
I pray for the wisdom to know the difference.
Or as a friend recently told me, “A shut mouth gathers no foot.”
“He that keepeth his mouth keepeth his life: but he that openeth wide his lips shall have destruction” (Prv 13:3).
© Copyright 2005 by Mary Biever. All rights reserved.
Mary Biever is a homeschooling mother of two who publishes encouragement articles and runs Encouragement Workshops For Today's Families.
This article was adapted from one of her columns.
