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| - Be Thou my Vision, O Lord of my heart;
- Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art
- Thou my best Thought, by day or by night,
- Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light.
This past weekend I was flown up to San Jose to play in two concerts celebrating the release of my sister's debut CD, Waking or Sleeping. The hymn, Be Thou My Vision, was a main theme of the CD and of the concerts. To make all aspects of life, day or night, waking or sleeping, to be an act of worship to Him. This concept always baffled me. Conceptually, it made perfect sense, use what God gave you and use it for His glory, and everything's all good. But practically speaking, it's always been a bit more difficult to actually do it.
The world of classical music is an especially tricky one. Whereas if you're playing more mainstream where you're just singing and playing guitar, you have a variety of genres to fall under, from grunge to punk to death metal to positive alternative to whatever. But classical music is what it is, classical. Sure there's different eras of the stuff like Romantic and Baroque, but it's still the same stuffy, elitist demographic of people. And unfortunately, there's little room for one's faith to poke its nose in the business. It's a cruel world where the slightest slip in one's intonation could cost someone a career that they've worked hours upon hours isolated in a practice room working meticulously to perfect every last detail. After the performances, after the recordings, the real end product that most people end up with is just an inflated ego. But as Christian's we're called to profess our faith, to usher in messages of deliverance, and to glorify Him in all that we do. Not exactly such an easy feat when you're working to become an elitist snob.
I've always believed that people should put all that they are into what they love to do. If you have a passion, go for it, and don't half-ass it. Especially if what you love doing ends up being your professional career. So this is where the problem lies. I love music. I'm working to make it my professional career. But up to this point I've found it extremely difficult (to the point of impossible) to invest all that I am, which would include my faith, into my craft. Sounds hypocritical right?
My sisters understand this concept of investing their life and faith into their work wonderfully. I, on the other hand, prefer to compartmentalize my life. My career on one end of the spectrum, and my faith on the other end. Sure, I help out with music for the worship team at my church and my fellowship, but do I incorporate worship into my music? Not so much. How do I offer what I do as an offering to God when all I'm concerned about is myself and how good I sound?
The concerts went very well, despite the last minute aspect of a lot of things. Of course, musically everything could've gone better, but for the first time in a classical setting, I understood what it was to truly make an offering of worship. Maybe it was just the type of music that we played (tangos and hymns and a hint of Josh Groban), or maybe it was the emotional session of prayer beforehand, or just being able to learn first hand from my wonderful jie-jie's examples, but something clicked inside of me. I'm really looking forward to see if I can keep this up. I've gotta at least try, right?
And on a side note, despite it being a birthday gift for our dad, the Josh Groban arrangement was definitely the most draining towards our musical integrity; talk about cheese -_-
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| Technology is such a convenient way to hide your true feelings. Just put up a smiley at the end of a sentence and it can change the meaning completely. You can make Xanga posts like these seem as cryptic and pensive when there might not even be anything negative to spur it on. The possibilities of lying to the world are endless!
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| I've noticed that the days that I'm most disappointed with humanity are the days that I can see God's glory the most. On the same note, when I'm content with humanity is when I'm the least content with God. Ironic, huh?
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| San Jose Canaan Christian Church presents
Connie Sheu,
classical guitar
Saturday, July 12, 7:30pm
1228 Redmond Ave.
San Jose, CA 95120
Join Connie Sheu, classical
guitarist, at a special CD Release
concert with special guests
La Verne Chen and Danny Sheu
Featuring music of Villa-Lobos,
Torroba, Barrios-Mangore, sacred
music and hymns.
Free admission. Connie’s debut
album, Waking or Sleeping, will be
available for purchase!
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