WordPress obviously doesn’t think I should be able to just post text without making things difficult. Like today. Okay, “yesterday” morning.
I’m putting this here as a reminder that sometimes I need a good kick to remember that, and why, I do not belong.
So we’re doing renovation of the audiovisual systems at church this summer. It’s a big project, a needed project. And the powers that be decided to have combined services in alternating venues, one week the Worship Center and the other the sanctuary, through July. It’s the first week in July, and we had services in the Worship Center.
It didn’t go well, for me at least.
You see, there is no worship guide printed for the contemporary services that take place in the Worship Center. At least in the sanctuary, we have something written down. In words. Black (or some other color) on white. As in something you can have light reflect off of, and read from. With no worship guide, one becomes dependent on words on screens. And so comes problem #1: The screens display the words in white text on a dark background. This renders them illegible. If they were dark text on a light background, they would be readily and easily legible. Light text on a dark background? A series of blobs because every. single. letter. has a huge halo around it, rendering it unable to be discerned.
Years ago when they switched from the old display system to the new one, they went with light text on a dark background. I brought up my concerns then and was readily dismissed. You see, apparently they think people prefer this. I tried to tell them many people, especially older people, would have a problem with this arrangement, and I begged to no avail to have them go back to dark text on a light background. Of course my pleas went unheard, and it usually isn’t an issue unless they don’t have the words to the songs on a piece of paper I can read.
Problem #2 stems from the fact that they don’t tell the choir ahead of time what songs are in the service unless we have 1) a rehearsal the prior Wednesday at which 2) we have available the next Sunday’s worship guide. Zero for zero since we’re only having rehearsals on the second and fourth Wednesdays in June and July. The only music we had print for was the packet of three prayer songs we are introducing in July and August, the first of which we debuted today. This meant flying blind in both senses: I was not told until the morning of what songs we were singing, and I had no way to get the words to them in a form I could read. It’s not enough to just tell me five minutes beforehand what songs we’re singing because I don’t have the entire repertoire of modern music memorized and at my fingertips. Being “able to sing” a particular song is useless if you don’t remember the words.
So… I spent most of the music part of the service in the old choir loft, carefully watching the orchestra director when he sometimes mouthed the words for my cues as to what was being sung. I probably looked like a lunatic. I certainly felt like one. As for the one song we had music for? The loft was dark while the “stage” area was lit “normally” as it would be for the worship band, with the worship band and orchestra having plenty of light and the choir loft… not so much. I had my music tilted in an effort to get enough light on it to read the new song.
After kind of making it through the music, I assumed the choir would leave the loft. Wrong – they all sat down. Yeah, I know it was crowded on the floor because of the combined services, but nobody said anything about staying in the loft, and I needed to get back to the choir room to be with my husband and son. So I left out the other side door and rode the elevator up to the second floor, went behind the balcony (at least they don’t hold Sunday school classes back there anymore now that they are set up as classrooms for the school) and to the choir room. We listened on the old system, where they have a dial to adjust Worship Center volume in the choir room.
Then came after. One of the things I do is organize the music breakfast. Today we had donuts – I think it may have been Krispy Kreme but I don’t remember for sure. They were plain glazed, three dozen. Somebody brought a casserole that categorized as sweet, the people who brought the donuts also brought a tray of pigs-in-a-blanket, and later someone else brought bagels and a quiche. I got everything mostly opened so they could be completely opened quickly at the end of the sermon to optimize throughput of people eating before second service. After the prayer, I got a bagel half with some cream cheese and a piece of the quiche. Then things went bad fast.
Did I mention that I had closed the blinds in the choir room to keep that nasty sunlight out so I could safely be in there? Well, I did. And it was fine until people came in. Two orchestra members immediately went to the windows, and over my protests, opened the blinds wide, claiming they were “cold” and that somehow justified streaming sunlight into what was previously a safe place. I retreated immediately, trying not to drop anything in my pain. I took my half-eaten bagel out to the hall and finished it, and one of the two who was opening the blinds followed me out into the hall, demanding that I give her a medical diagnosis to justify my asking them to keep the blinds closed. By then I was shaking, having been humiliated enough in the service and now after the service as well. I tried to tell her that I shouldn’t have to come up with some formal diagnosis I will never have to try to keep from the pain and danger involved with sunlight exposure, especially indoors where sunlight isn’t supposed to be. She turned and stalked off. I finished the bagel half, ducked back in long enough to throw away my plate and grab my jacket and bag, then went in search of my son. When he got out of the men’s room, we went home.
Further proof that the world would be better off with me not in it.
I should be dead.
I wish I were dead.
If I hadn’t promised I wouldn’t kill myself, I’d be trying.
But if someone else tried to kill me, I would not resist dying. I would welcome it.
But I’m not a person. I’m a thing. I don’t get to have desires.