(no subject)
I was going to write up some of this over the weekend, but was too whipped to do anything other than go home & crash.
Youth 2000 was this past weekend, and it was a blast. As part of the music ministry for the event, I got to go to a worthwhile retreat and not have to worry about being part of "the crowd" (whatever that is). I've never been to a retreat like this as an attendee, only a musician, but I've enjoyed it.
If I were really clever, I'd start at the beginning.
Sometime in '98 or so, I got my first bass. It was a Mexican Fender J-Bass (to those who care) and I had my share of fun with it. I play some guitar, and thought it would be nice to be able to fill in on bass for no good reason. In the fall, a friend asked me to run sound for a concert his church group was doing, and I did so -- I have enough experience with sound equipment it was an easy job. We went to dinner afterwards, and the leader of the group (who knew I also sing) asked me if I wanted to join up, since their bass player had no sense of either time or rhythm (I exaggerate - he's not horrible, just usually off enough to cause trouble). I said "but I've only been playing a few months!" and and got the job anyway. I should add that at the time I was not a regular church attendee, had been raised in the Episcopal church, and this group was at a Catholic church. I think that the group leader saw more in me than I did at the time! Little experience...can't sing and play at the same time yet...don't know anything about Catholic faith...you get the idea.
And yes, this is relevant to the story about last weekend.
So I joined the Contemporary Ensemble in time for Christmas '98, and have been there ever since.
The next fall ('99), with me just starting to get the hang of what it means to be the bass player, we got the call that some group was coming into town to do a youth retreat, and it was going to happen at our church, and could we do the music? Obviously, we did the music (or there would be no story here). The neat thing about this event was that it was a Eucharistic retreat, and more specifically it was an educational retreat as well -- so as a non-Catholic I got to experience firsthand the whole explanation of "What it is all about" and I realized that maybe there was more to this religion thing than I thought.
By the way, we recorded that event and made a CD. If you are lucky enough to have gotten one, please burn it, shred it, explode it with a dremel, or otherwise render it useless. Please. It is amazingly atrocious, blindingly barfalicious, canonically comical, dramatically dreadful, everlastingly ex-pleasant...you get the idea, I'm sure.
Anyway, that was the beginning of my faith journey. It's relevant because we have continued to do the retreats - Fall 1999, Spring 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, and now 2005. We get better every year, the speakers change too slowly (we had the same talks two years in a row with a bunch of overlap the year before and after), and now there's talk of another one this fall that's not our event (not my parish, that is) but they have heard about us enough that they want to bring us in to do the music! We officially have a reputation for being the best music for this event in the region. BTW, the event is one that happens somewhere almost every weekend -- the organizers travel the country doing it.
I converted and was confirmed into the Catholic Church in 2002, at least partly due to my experiences at these events. There was more than just this event -- maybe I should add that to my list of things to write about. I don't count myself among the rabidly religious, I just have learned what I beleive is important to my faith, and found people and a church I agree with.
And in a roundabout way, now I'm back to this past weekend. I'm not sure how to describe it - I could start off with "well, setup was supposed to be done by 3:00 so we could do a sound check and finish before the kids start to arrive" and continue on with the schedule, or I could say "we played on and off from sometime Friday afternoon/evening until about 1:00 Sunday afternoon, with just barely enough time in between to get some sleep" or maybe "which one did I play in the wrong key?" but none of those are really effective at getting the point across. Of course, I don't really know what to describe anyway, so maybe that's why I can't do a good job explaining it.
To summarize, I learned more about various aspects of Catholicism; I got to play good music with some of my best friends; I was part of turning an event into a really good experience for several hundred kids; I went to confession; I realized how far I have to go as a musician to be even "reasonably good"; and I had a good time.
And I'm tired. I should go to bed.
And yes, we have done "Youth 2000" events in 1999, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005...but not 2000. Just our luck, I suppose.
Youth 2000 was this past weekend, and it was a blast. As part of the music ministry for the event, I got to go to a worthwhile retreat and not have to worry about being part of "the crowd" (whatever that is). I've never been to a retreat like this as an attendee, only a musician, but I've enjoyed it.
If I were really clever, I'd start at the beginning.
Sometime in '98 or so, I got my first bass. It was a Mexican Fender J-Bass (to those who care) and I had my share of fun with it. I play some guitar, and thought it would be nice to be able to fill in on bass for no good reason. In the fall, a friend asked me to run sound for a concert his church group was doing, and I did so -- I have enough experience with sound equipment it was an easy job. We went to dinner afterwards, and the leader of the group (who knew I also sing) asked me if I wanted to join up, since their bass player had no sense of either time or rhythm (I exaggerate - he's not horrible, just usually off enough to cause trouble). I said "but I've only been playing a few months!" and and got the job anyway. I should add that at the time I was not a regular church attendee, had been raised in the Episcopal church, and this group was at a Catholic church. I think that the group leader saw more in me than I did at the time! Little experience...can't sing and play at the same time yet...don't know anything about Catholic faith...you get the idea.
And yes, this is relevant to the story about last weekend.
So I joined the Contemporary Ensemble in time for Christmas '98, and have been there ever since.
The next fall ('99), with me just starting to get the hang of what it means to be the bass player, we got the call that some group was coming into town to do a youth retreat, and it was going to happen at our church, and could we do the music? Obviously, we did the music (or there would be no story here). The neat thing about this event was that it was a Eucharistic retreat, and more specifically it was an educational retreat as well -- so as a non-Catholic I got to experience firsthand the whole explanation of "What it is all about" and I realized that maybe there was more to this religion thing than I thought.
By the way, we recorded that event and made a CD. If you are lucky enough to have gotten one, please burn it, shred it, explode it with a dremel, or otherwise render it useless. Please. It is amazingly atrocious, blindingly barfalicious, canonically comical, dramatically dreadful, everlastingly ex-pleasant...you get the idea, I'm sure.
Anyway, that was the beginning of my faith journey. It's relevant because we have continued to do the retreats - Fall 1999, Spring 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, and now 2005. We get better every year, the speakers change too slowly (we had the same talks two years in a row with a bunch of overlap the year before and after), and now there's talk of another one this fall that's not our event (not my parish, that is) but they have heard about us enough that they want to bring us in to do the music! We officially have a reputation for being the best music for this event in the region. BTW, the event is one that happens somewhere almost every weekend -- the organizers travel the country doing it.
I converted and was confirmed into the Catholic Church in 2002, at least partly due to my experiences at these events. There was more than just this event -- maybe I should add that to my list of things to write about. I don't count myself among the rabidly religious, I just have learned what I beleive is important to my faith, and found people and a church I agree with.
And in a roundabout way, now I'm back to this past weekend. I'm not sure how to describe it - I could start off with "well, setup was supposed to be done by 3:00 so we could do a sound check and finish before the kids start to arrive" and continue on with the schedule, or I could say "we played on and off from sometime Friday afternoon/evening until about 1:00 Sunday afternoon, with just barely enough time in between to get some sleep" or maybe "which one did I play in the wrong key?" but none of those are really effective at getting the point across. Of course, I don't really know what to describe anyway, so maybe that's why I can't do a good job explaining it.
To summarize, I learned more about various aspects of Catholicism; I got to play good music with some of my best friends; I was part of turning an event into a really good experience for several hundred kids; I went to confession; I realized how far I have to go as a musician to be even "reasonably good"; and I had a good time.
And I'm tired. I should go to bed.
And yes, we have done "Youth 2000" events in 1999, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005...but not 2000. Just our luck, I suppose.