I had a few thoughts I wanted to share with all of you with as much honesty and transparency as I can muster.
First, we're headed back this coming Thursday, March 3rd, to start rehearsing again. We'll also be resuming our weekly Sunday program Music & the Spoken Word and will be preparing for our Church's General Conference to commence the first week of April. While I always enjoy the opportunity to sing, returning to sing with the Tabernacle Choir has been quite an arduous decision for me.
It's been no secret that all of the Covid protocols we've had to follow in order to start singing again have taken their toll on me emotionally. Many of those protocols are ones that I haven't personally agreed with and there have been some that have put me into a bubbling lava pool of cognitive dissonance. As much as I've tried to focus on the music itself and sharing my testimony through song, my mind has had a hard time finding that focus--let alone maintaining it. I've really really tried. But it just hasn't worked very well.
When the Choir presidency announced a few weeks ago that we'd have to receive the Covid booster shot to come back and start singing again, I was really upset. For two main reasons. One, when my wife got her booster shot several months ago, it caused several side-effects that were very concerning. Heart palpitations, panic attacks, internal vibrations, and depression, to name the main ones. Doctors we saw didn't have any explanations and worse, didn't know how to best treat any of the symptoms she was experiencing. Fortunately her health has improved as of late and she's done a really great job of learning how to manage the symptoms that persist. But as you can probably imagine, after seeing all of this and going through these trials with my wife, I of myself was not anxious to get the booster in the least! Second, I truly felt in my heart of hearts that I did not NEED the booster. And for a Church that strongly believes in agency, I felt a bit like I was being held hostage, with coercion being the game I did not want to play.
After some long wrestles with God, after talking in-depth with my wife, after spending a few hours walking around the temple, after weighing pros and cons, and after trying my best to clear my mind and heart and "hear HIM", I came to the conclusion that I should proceed with getting the booster--that God still wanted me in the Choir for some reason and He'd offer the help I needed.
So, I followed that conclusion with its accompanying assurances and tried not to look back.
Some days I do better at that than others.
At any rate, I'm going to try and ignore the feelings I get from the excessive testing, wearing the (IMO) unnecessary masks, and following the counsel to distance, and again work hard to just focus on the music itself. If somebody out there needs to hear my testimony of Christ through music, then I want to be there for that person. And perhaps if I try and envision that person out there, somewhere, who will resonate uniquely with my personality, my strengths, my weaknesses, my beliefs, my challenges, my fears--everything that makes me, me, then maybe I can be more successful in blocking out the disappointment, the confusion, and the dissonance.
Hopefully.
That all said, and switching topics, the other Choir news as of late came by way of some new initiatives the Choir presidency announced--and which I'm sure you've all read about. While I'm conceptually grateful for what changes these initiatives will bring (particularly the global/diversity focus), I don't have much more to say on them because no real details have been announced. In other words, for now we'll continue doing what we've always done and as the months go by, actual changes in what we do or how we do it, will be implemented (with commentary on them provided by yours truly).
Sigh.
OK. I think that's all I have for you today. Take good care of yourselves and take good care of each other. And until next time, God be with you.
