I have the utmost respect for many in career paths that I could not even begin to imagine making them part of the 9-5, Monday-Friday routine. But for some, the work cannot possibly be contained to those 8 hours each day. Teachers must be all-in attentive to their students during the day, but must ensure they grade papers and tend to whatever preparations for the days ahead, especially the ones who want to go beyond the bare minimum curriculum adherence. Then, there are the social workers, who must be in constant contact with such students who may be facing their fair share of struggles on the home front, all the while facing constant criticism at the possibility of even slightly altering that home front in hopes of nourishing the child’s life for the better. No pressure at all with such dedicated-beyond-belief impacters on some of the most vulnerable lives in this world.
Every once in a while, I get sidetracked with the image that pops up on my laptop after pressing the power button. For a while, there would be this option to click on the top-right corner of the screen if you liked that image or not, most likely as a way to continue catering to whatever kind of pictures you prefer seeing as you dive into the technological world. But now, if you affirm the choice, the pre-selected search engine will then pop up with a list of sites to provide more information about that particular place.
The social media algorithms are evidently catching on that I must be spending a little more time and mental effort into reading up on historic buildings and streets or other past points of interest. So, these random black-and-white images keep popping up, because it knows I’ll click “See more” for curiosity’s sake, even if it isn’t quite as mind-numbing and as complete a waste of time as other internet content. I guess there’s this interest of wondering if those walls could talk, the story they would tell: stories of hardship of laughter and pain and joy and fear and thrills and plenty more along the way. All such stories from people whose voices have been seemingly silenced.
In a couple weeks, the wider church will celebrate the rather pivotal ministry of Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frederick Handel, two of the most influential figures of the music we still sing today in the Lutheran church and beyond. So, on the weekend of July 26 and 27, we will sing a few of the hymns that were shaped by the two German artistic geniuses, to be sure, but we will also take time to be mindful of the pianists, organists, choir directors, singers, guitarists, drummers, and other instrumentalists, who found a way to captivate our soul, leading us to hum a tune into the parking lot, on the drive home, and for God only knows how many days after. In their own rather pivotal ministry, they found a way to make the Gospel stick with us beyond an hour for the weekend.
For a few summers, I worked at Lutheran Memorial Camp (now HopeWood Pines) in Fulton, OH, about 40 miles north of Columbus. With a couple of those June-August stints, I served as a camp counselor to mostly middle-school aged youth with a few elementary and high school groups thrown in as well. They would come Sunday afternoons and leave by Friday after lunch. And yet, within those six days, attachments unexplainably develop. Even as an early twenty-something with some selfish tendencies, to be sure, it doesn’t take long to be thoroughly convinced that you would do absolutely anything for the betterment of those youth.
