The Stake Choir

Before I get to the point of this blog I want to send out some wise counsel to all of you out there in cyber space. Don't get sick, and don't fall on your left knee in a parking lot. This might seem random to you but last night I was getting sick and I spent a night sweating my brains out despite the fact that I was freezing. It was certainly an experience to be remembered. Then this morning (still sick) I was awoken to my sister telling me that I needed to go to the gas station and give my Dad a jump. I went in my pajama pants that are beginning to not be pajama pants anymore and then the car would not be jumped. Little did we know the alternator and the battery are fine and the problem was the starter...go figure. So we decided to push the extremely heavy car into a parking stall, so that a tow truck could come get it. It is important to understand that I was not being my wisest self. I was wearing my brown dress shoes and I found as I pushed the car, they have zero traction on wet asphalt. I went down pretty hard on my left knee and found that my entire knee cap had begun to swell and it was completely black and blue. I tell you this not for your pity or for you to send your good vibes my way but to let you know that it is neither wise nor seemly to fall on your left knee in a parking lot.

Now to the main point. I have the opportunity to spend an hour to an hour and a half every week singing in Stake Choir. It is our Christmas Choir and I choose to do it every year, though at this point in the practices I don't know why. After being in Madrigals or any of "T"-Mamma's choirs it is somewhat of a let down to sing anywhere else. The quality of singing is not near as high, the speed at which the choir learns is drastically slower and the songs seem somewhat less than poetic. Though there is something to be said for a stake choir. I believe D&C 25:12 said it best. You can have the worst singers, singing trite and plain songs about Christ, but if there heart is in the right place, if they are thinking about our Lord and Savior they somehow find a new voice in that final performance.

The funny thing is that it shouldn't work. It is a classic argument. Do you let everyone sing? Even those that are tone deaf? Why cant we just get 8 very talented people and let them sing all of the songs? I am convinced that his approach would work. If you took the best 8 singers (1 for every part) and spent only 30 min a week learning the music you would have a better sound than if you simply allowed the masses to join and practice 3 hours a week.

You might ask why I am saying all of this; well the truth is more than anything to appreciate the opportunities to sing with the Saints. The reason we don't use the 8 voice system in the church is because quality doesn't matter. You might have a better sound with fewer more trained voices but the spirit would not be the same. There is something to be said of any large choir, but even more to be said of a group of saints gathering to sing praises to there God despite there weaknesses.

So that being said I guess all of the bad experiences that I have had with Stake Choir don't really matter. The voices that will never blend, those men who don't know how to use there falsetto, and the strange older gent who threw up in our performance last year not a foot from me. The smell wasn't that bad. I guess the point is just that things are not always meant to be perfect, just for the greater good. It is an opportunity to help those that don't know how to sing, learn to do it.

It reminds me of Ultimate. Those juniors at T-Ville could exclude those that aren't the best (like me) and just play games with the "elite" but for some reason they have decided not to exclude others from the joy but to share this wonderful thing with everyone. It is kind of like missionary work. It is something that has brought you joy, it is the good news so you want to share it with everyone you care about, and maybe those you don't so you can learn to care about them.

I think I have a bad habit of rambling, but the truth is that I kinda like it. This is me, the unedited, unabridged and uncensored edition. These are my thoughts and this is what I wanted to say. I might not be a good writer, some may think that I am frankly a bad and discursive writer but the important thing is that I got it all down. I was able to share my opinion and I didn't hold anything back, that to me is a victory in its own right.

Now that I have said that I have nothing more to express on this blog but thanks to all of you would make it worth while by reading it, even if you don't agree or don't like what I have written.