Coming up for air, having spent the morning in a fever of hymnal details. This after spending about 2.5 hours of Sunday on the same. The clock is ticking, and my distraction/procrastination nearly ruined someone else's commitment and due diligence. Yikes!
A few weeks ago someone called me with advice about working on a hymnal. My reply was simple: "Don't do it! Don't even think about it! If you can accomplish your purposes any other way, do that instead!"
The project is a constant reminder of Ecclesiastes ... Unless God is in the process, all activity is a striving after the wind. Is he in fact in this hymnal process? Oh, I ardently hope so! What I don't want is to wake up after - what is it, 6 years of work? - and find this has been "just my project" all along.
The work of the past two days should, in theory, be the end of the flurry of texts to be paired with music (already engraved). It resulted in some hymns being pulled from the collection, some being added, and others being edited or otherwise altered. I will have one more morning of "clean up" work and decisions. Then I stand ready for immediate replies to the music editor as he processes this work. He is the world's most patient person, but I'm afraid I nearly succeeded in pushing him over the edge.
This all comes to a head as we enter a new era of pastoral leadership at College Church. Which does not worry me in any particular way, it just means I also need to re-visit the commitments and decisions (selection principles, editorial decisions, etc.) again before we move to the next stage.
So, while I am pretty sure this whole thing has not been a striving after the wind ... I do strive to catch a good wind and bring this thing to harbor.
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