pastor prayers

Just under a year ago, I started taking drum lessons.  Congas.  Not because I know anything about drumming, or because I have a particular knack for rhythm.  You can ask my teacher — he would find the kindest way possible to say it, but I don’t.  In fact I was attracted to learning drums because I’ve always loved them and they have seemed like something very unlike me.  I wanted a pursuit that would take me somewhere totally different than my usual word-centered world and teach me a new language.  (It was also no small thing that this was also a positive outlet for the urge to strike things with my hands.)

I strain to get my hands in the right place on the drum at the right time.  I squint and my brain does backbends to figure out where my part fits into the layered fabric of a song.  And I know that it shouldn’t be this hard, that I probably look tragically constipated as I try to play and that is definitely not a look anyone wants in the rhythm section of their salsa band.

I was snapping out the clave rhythm along with my songs as I walked to church this morning, and had a moment of realizing that I was doing it without counting, to a fast song that has been my nemesis.  It was an exultant moment.  So I thought surely when I sat down at the drums this afternoon, ready to play along with the song, it would all come together in a new way and I would have mastered this one at last.  Wrong.  I’m not used to being such a very slow study.  I’m so deep in the land of my own unknowing that I’m sure this is a place I have been led by God, both comically and pointedly.

Beating heart of creation, loving, laughing presence, thank you for guiding me into the land of these layered tones.  Of violins and timbales and bass and cowbell and saxophone and trumpet.  Teach me patience with my hands, with my mind, and with my ears as we learn this new way of being.  Open my heart to the many ways I may take your lessons into the rest of my world — to move with the moment, to offer the constancy of presence, to trust my gut.  Steady rhythm of creation, let me have faith in your movement through me and confidence that it will not fail.  Let me offer it to others, especially when words will not do.  Embrace us all with your texture, your transcendent joy, your unbridled passion.  Poco a poco, llene mi corazon.